It’s
actually the morning of the 30th, and I’m sitting on the patio of my
hotel sipping a Kingfisher and wondering how to best to sum up India, or at
least Rajasthan, the state where I’ve spent most of my time. Several phrases come to mind. Fascinating mixture of the ancient and
modern. The great unwashed. Thatched-hut agriculture meets bustling
urbanity. Crowded and dirty. International-jet access to exotic
biota. Heedless environmental
destruction.
Of
course you can’t encapsulate India or Rajasthan in one phrase, but the best summary
I can think of—at least when comparing this place to my home in the United
States—is raw. That’s both a good thing and a bad one.
Raw is the incredible
biodiversity of Kheolado Ghana National Park, where I went walking yesterday
and running this morning—it has received recognition from UNESCO and other
international organizations, and I can’t think of anything like it back home in
Georgia. Raw is the give-and-take bargaining over bananas, samosas, and chai
on the street, a local market exciting in its efficiency. Raw is
new Tata trucks beeping their horns as they swerve over the centerline to pass
camel-drawn wagons. Raw is exciting.
But
raw is also the sordid water, soap swirling
alongside sewage, running down the dirt paths that connect the homes of my
students. Raw is the garbage that clutters the vacant lots and railways,
deposited by masses for whom a wastebasket is a foreign concept. Raw
is a water buffalo, kept so that its milk can be drunk and its feces used for
cooking fires, tethered so close to the ground that it cannot stand and raise
its head at the same time. Raw is
brutal.
I
don’t know why I travel for answers; observation and objectivity always create
more questions than resolutions. In
about a day, Anne and I will travel from Atlanta to Savannah to celebrate the
new year with friends. We will spend a
couple hundred dollars on travel, lodging, food, and drink. In this raw country, that money would go
far. If Anne and I stayed home and sent
that money to Nutan, she could buy benches for the classroom, books for the
shelves, lunches for the children, and then some. (I have already left some money for these
things, but more could be better.) Is it
ethical for me to travel to Savannah to drink high-priced beer on River Street?
This
raw world is full of uncomfortable questions.
After the cacophonous city, I was looking in Kheolado Ghana National Park for some nature-based
tranquility. I found it off the trail in this spot.
sunset in Kheolado Ghana National Park
I went for a run in the morning fog of Kheolado Ghana and ran right through this tribe of Macaque monkeys.
Waterfowl in Kheolado Ghana National Park. The fog was beginning to lift.
Street food. I told the vendor I wanted it spicy, pointed to my chest, and said "Rajasthani man!" It was hot, but very good.
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