After nearly two months of prepping, talking and imagining, I am finally here. Coming in fast on the British Airways 777, I could see a subtle haze of heat over the entire landscape that seemed randomly splotched with desert sand, brittle greenery and squatty concrete buildings. The thirty minutes that followed were unremarkable with a standard landing, standard de-boarding, standard customs, and standard baggage claim. Let the record show though, that I purposely used the standard toilet in customs, as I knew it would be the last one I would see in many months.
However, shortly after getting my bag and making an arrow shot for the currency exchange, evidence that I was in a foreign land became quite apparent when the power in the building went completely out for 10 minutes, and no one thought anything of it. “Well, other people in Delhi need power too!” said an old man standing in the dark on my left. The power did eventually come back on though, I got my rupees, and I made another arrow shot towards the exit as I was determined to not break pace towards my destination - Bagar.
Upon exiting the airport, I shortly found my driver holding “Benjamin Haynes” in large letters, and after a single point and nod in his direction we were off to his little white car. During our walk though, I found it extremely amusing that as we came up to an older and slower man on the sidewalk that was in our way, instead of walking around him the driver simply tapped the old man on the shoulder and directed him to move out of our way, which he did without protest - more evidence that I was not in Kansas anymore.
After loading the car with my cumbersome backpack, I sat in the blanketed backseat of his car. “Air conditioning?” he asked me. I had learned earlier that it was an extra 2-cents a kilometer, and decided to splurge. “Sure” I said - we were off.
Now, for the past eight hours I had been going over 600 mph at 30,000 feet, but this car ride was by far the most awe-inspiring form of transportation I had ever taken. I had heard for years from my friend Akhil that India driving was like non-other, to which I would promptly scoff. However, the next 5 hours of my life consisted of total automotive chaos. Whereas in the States I am used to rules, caution and safety on the road, Indian highways and roads do not have these luxuries. In India, traffic was a relentless, split-second balancing act of give and take between all drivers on the road. I watched in white-knuckle awe as cars ceaselessly darted in and out at high speed with inches to spare. Motorcycles often had three people on board, one of which was commonly an infant. People clinged to the back and tops of moving vans. Cows and goats dotted the road’s shoulder. But after all of the chaos and close calls, my driver delivered me unscathed to the front door of the Grassroots Development Laboratory hostel - my home for the next six months.
