The Metal Albatross

The theme of this blog is the itch of wanderlust and that mental journeying that follows from the scratching of it. I was specifically anticipating my summer in Calcutta, India and the need for a travelogue (i.e., witness to history, internet troubadouring, or some similar Homer-esque forum).

Well thanks be, I arrived in Delhi last night. This thing can now cease its cyber sputtering and blossom into a full bodied and faithfully updated blog. ...Barring the caprice of functioning internet in India, of course.

It always surprises me how you can drive away from your well-ordered world of quiet, green-lawned suburbs, predictable stripmalls, and unbroken black asphalt highways, get into a bulbous metal cage and 14 hours later...pop out in a completely different world. It is the most astonishing thing.

My flight was unextraordinary. The highlight for me is always looking out into the captivating giant, ravaged cotton balled sky. The warm glow of the sun and the muted blues of the atmosphere produce the effect of driving through pleasure gardens of ancient Roman gods and goddess, and Care Bears. My face was glued to the window contemplating the passing scenery of cotton statuary in their sublime and grotesquely twisted forms. Glued until the faint presence of the lavatory behind me intruded upon my sensibilities and turbulence induced nausea prompted me to opt for the Buddhist mode of air travel - namely attempting to renounce all ties to my physical being. Nirvana remained elusive, but I did succeed in self-inducing a fairly consistent, comatose state for the rest of the journey.

And then there I was, passing customs and spewed out into the glory of Mother India. That first sense of humidity pressing in on you heavy and wooly, and people. People everywhere, personal space inexorably halved, and then quartered.

Oh yes. 1 billion people - check.

And then weaving in and out of cars and cows, and tuk tuks and trucks through dark streets. Horns tooting insistently in a squalling urban chorus. Dirty, barefoot kids sprinting around vehicles paused in traffic - hawking their garlands of flowers, grannies in their saris squatting next to roadside stalls with bare dangling bulbs lighting cartons of fruit, the puddles of light pooling into the street and sliding past car windows and over laps.

And then, with some relief I admit, into the quiet tree lined embassy district. Whisked to expat heaven in the guise of my blessed friends' gated house and hot showers, replete with Tibetan housekeeper. A good place to ease away the graininess of jetlag, walled away for a moment from the mad cap whirl of India. That gyrating chaos that will either enter your blood and begin your passionate love affair with the country...or slowly choke you to death. I sensed that strongly my first trip here. ...I'm still unsure exactly where I fall.

Passionate love affairs are always good.

Sidenote: the albatross of the North Atlantic became extinct a long time ago under rather obscure circumstances. That aside, the North Atlantic is the route we flew - over Canada, Europe and Afghanistan and into the subcontinent.