Goodbye to Delhi

I am not a woman who panics. Truly. I function relatively low-key in most any situation. I suck it up, hold it in or don’t bother reacting at all. So that on this occasion I was a nervous shaking hyperventilating (or maybe that was the running) mess – was something of a novelty. Like trying on an expensive pair of shoes I had no intention of buying (and didn’t even like all that much).

“It’s okay, no worries, it’s okay! Would you like some chai?”

And there. The bucket of cold water over my head. The magic word.
Chai.

The world could be exploding around you. Hell may be coming to earth, but there is (apparently) always time to sit-
and have some chai.
And so I sat.
and had some chai.

And while I sipped my cares away the gentleman who ran Gurnam tours made a phone call or two, did lots of talking to people in a language I have no way of understanding, but perhaps, someday, would like to. He scribbled a little note, pulled out some cash, handed it to his comrade and shooed me to a rather nice vehicle (where the cushions still happened to be intact).

I had no idea what was going on. I asked, but failed to obtain an adequate response and yet I was being taken by strange men in a rather secure vehicle to some unknown location.

There are some points where you just hope for the best. I suppose it’s called optimism. Let’s pretend anyway.

And in the end I was dropped off on the roadside, left with some motley crue of Australians, a rather muscular Japanese man wearing a face mask, and an older local couple. It was some comfort that I wasn’t alone. We were all apparently waiting for a bus to take us away, but no idea as to where this bus was or when it would arrive. And leading us was a skinny man in cowboy boots (who also happened to receive the money and note from my previous guardian). I spent an hour sitting on the sidewalk staring at these boots wondering what they were made of. Alligator? Snake? Some sort of reptile, surely. The stupidest things occupy your mind sometimes.
A bus did appear eventually, but cowboy boot boy informed us there were no seats to be had and another stop was in order.
An Australian piped up, “And where would that stop be exactly.”
And that hand swirl-wave and boot boy ran off, “come! Come!”
Off we went through the metro (where I was shoved into the armpit of muscular mask-wearing Japanese man – who really did have some appealing definition I must say- and the female half of the older local couple held onto my shirt so that we would not lose one another though I was rather tempted to hold on to her thick braid (think rapunzel – in squat chubby Indian form) and then a caravan of rickshaws through northern Delhi (which led to a fascinating conversation with cowboy boot boy where I was finally able to ask as to the origin of his boots.

“Those boots look very nice, what animal are they?”
“yes! They are long sexy boots!”
“well – yes theyre lovely, but what animal are they made out of?”
“They sexy boots no?”
“They are rather long.”
And his shit-eating grin.
Right then.

We finally landed at another spot off the side of the street. Where we waited and waited and I acquired two boiled eggs for dinner (I was still being cautious – I can’t help it if I love my bowels, alright?) and waited some more.
And fended off mosquitos (shawls are beautiful beautiful multi-purpose items, never leave home without it).

We did eventually get on a bus. Sometime near 8 that evening. And began the long trek north to Dharashala. The long, bumpy trek.
When you were a kid – did you ever purposefully ride in the back of the schoolbus just to fly up in the air whenever the driver hit a speedbump?
Its like that.
only. for 12 hours.
And I discovered the child in me that loved those old schools buses wen t much of the way of the child that loved those nauseating spinning things at the carnival and that motrin was (much like the shawl) a beautiful beautiful thing .