Incredible India

It's 12:30am in Singapore but only 10pm in India, I can't sleep. Still operating on Indian time aye. Tomorrow begins my five-day course for graduate students, I should really sleep, but I thought blogging is as good a way to wait for slumber as tossing and turning and thinking of blogging. Much more productive this way.

India. Such an attack on the senses - a deliciously bizarre smorgasbord of sights, sounds, smells and tastes- here I recall Yuen saying, India is anything but mediocre. So it was. (Not mediocre, I mean.) But one can't just blog that India is "not mediocre" and just leave it as it is. It is too broad, and it would be doing India injustice. I wanted to describe India my way. I decided that if I were to use one word to describe India, it would be "extravagant".

India is extravagantly colourful, extravagantly loud, extravagantly spicy, extravagantly interesting. Sometimes over the top, sometimes crazy, but always exciting. For better or worse, and entirely up to the individual to judge. I like it. I like how the traffic functions perfectly with no rules, only a lot of horn-beeping, I like how all the sides to a thali (a.k.a. banana leaf rice) have diversely different tastes but all blend in together with no problem, I like the sight of gossiping women huddled in a whirl of beautiful sari colours. The random bulls straying along the sidewalk, the sudden smell of sweet jasmine amidst the smell of gasoline, the pedestrian crossings that lead to dead ends. The 330 million gods, each governing a different jurisdiction, each formidable with an interesting story behind.

Sure, I almost got my facial features wiped off by an autorickshaw that brushed by me by a hair. I am peppered with bug bites, all over my limbs and pretty much everywhere that shows, and I have rashes from the heat in Tamil Nadu. I haven't slept well in three days, caused by said afflictions, and I've caused my parents eight apprehensive nights because I was conned by a so-called international sim card, which did not work, causing a semi-communication breakdown. But it was all worth it.

Already the memories are fading. I really want to chronicle everything, from the instance we touched down in the impressive airport of Bangalore with a drunk Chinese backpacker, to the minute that we arrived at Singapore and got struck by Singapore's acute blandness in comparison. I don't want to give spoilers of travel posts in India that may come, but I have also to be realistic that there is too little time, and the posts may not actually materialize. I still need to sleep, eat, excrete, perform my scholarly duties, and continue to plan for my next big trip. The States. Next next Tuesday.

So here's to say that India was a wonderful experience if I don't get to blog more about it - although we only had eight days, like a local we spoke to said - "it is just not enough. You can see nothing. Nothing." But I'd like to think that we scraped the tip of the iceberg. Figuratively speaking, of course, as the heat rashes on my neck would testify.

1:30am. Back to waiting for slumber, tossing and turning, but thinking less about blogging ;)