Well, India is over but there’s so much to tell…

Our last few days in Delhi were… Eventful. We seriously have something ridiculous from every day.

I’m really tired of being white. Even in the big cities, we’re basically celebrities here. Everyone wants a picture with us. Some will just “discreetly” but not actually discreetly, take our picture as we walk past. But most people will ask. “excuse me madam, may I capture your photo?” “sir, photo please?” “my daughter/wife/friend would like a picture with you”. At first I didn’t mind. But it gets old fast. We’re not any better cuz were white. We’re not smarter or cooler, and we certainly don’t have life figured out any more than you do… So in our last days, we were beginning to feel the burden of whiteness. So we dodged to shady corner where we could breathe for a minute without being bombarded. Even places like the Taj Mahal, where you’d think PLENTY of white folk go, we were still becoming the main event. Oy.

So anyway. That got old. But let me give you a quick excerpt of the events of the last days: Visited some obvious tourist places: Red Fort, Taj Mahal. Walked through some super old fort ruins from 1100s AD. Got caught in a crazy flooding rainstorm with a completely lost taxi driver. Rode a train without a reservation seat which means you literally were stepping on people to get in and around. Got hassled by a CREEP one night who I proceeded to slap (would have punched his face in retrospect). Met a guy who invited us to “breakfast” at his house at 3pm and kept insisting we were his best friends ever. Oh ya, one of our trains was 6 hours late and while we were waiting some RANDOM old lady came up, said something in Hindi, rubbed her hand down my face, and then bent down and rubbed her hand on my feet. My guess was that it’s some Hindu blessing, but she walked by again and did it over like 3 times. The last time, she grabbed my arms and was trying to pull me with her across the railroad tracks. Soooooo weird.

But anyway, my favorite thing was the Sikh temple. A Sikh is a kind of religion here… It’s the guys that wear turbans and sometimes have long curly mustaches.

All I knew about them was that they are required to be armed at all times and wear their turban head covering.

So one day we were walking down the street to the metro station. Weve sort of become pros at ignoring the shouts and claims and vending of peddlers and auto drivers. But somehow, in the crowd, as we passed this magnificent temple looking building, this one guy caught our attention. “Sikh temple,” he said, “come come, Sikh temple free”. I was naturally skeptical. I literally had started ignoring everyone on the street and avoiding eye contact with all. But Tim considered it, and I’m glad he did. He didn’t think the guy was a scam, so we followed him. He brought us to an information room where we had to leave our shoes and a guy covered our heads with a bandAna sort of thing. Then he basically started giving us a tour of this temple in which the people inside we’re coming and going and sitting to hear the holy songs or bowing at the place where the 9th guru was beheaded. So we followed as he explained. Then he asked us to sit for s minute and hear the holy songs. No problem. Except that there are old (and young) men with knives EVERYWHERE. Not like pocket knives, but like spears and ancient looking war weapons. I knew they were harmless but for a moment my mind considered that perhaps they were going to make some kind of sacrifice of the naive whiteys. The guy seemed nice enough, but Not gonna lie, I sort of watched our backs the whole time.

Anyway, after a few songs, he took us across the way to another building… A HUGE kitchen with GIANT pots. We watched the people cooking chapatti and sweets. He explained that it’s basically charity. Thousands people eat for free there everyday regardless of religion. It was cool.

We were then invited to have a meal. It was quite tasty. We sat in a row in mats while a kid and old man came back and forth with second servings for those who needed it.

It was a cool experience. Seemed like they had given the cooking/serving jobs to people who need them. And if you’ve seen India, you’ll know that poverty and perhaps malnourishment is so widespread that even after 2 weeks, it feels almost normal. It’s a strange numbing of the soul. Not in the sense that you don’t care, but in the sense that it becomes unstriking.

Anyway, it’s always encouraging to see someone somewhere doing something to help.

After eating, we finished our tour. I was honestly expecting the guy to expect a tip or “donation” at the end, but instead he just proselytized and gave us a “all about Sikhism” packet – which was actually a little cool since I don’t know anything about it.

Anyway I would keep writing, but I’m
About to catch my flight to Kenya! …,