December 10 - Delhi, India

We’re in Delhi for 9 days, waiting to catch our flight to Singapore, which connects to our flight to Los Angeles, which will connect to our flight back to San Antonio. The days and nights feel interminably long.

If we could blink ourselves to the tropics and beaches of South India, we would. Blink away the $700 airfare or the 50+ hour train ride. There is nowhere in India we want to go that we can afford financially or physically, so we are waiting in Delhi for our flight. Waiting in purgatory.

Our guesthouse room has no windows, no natural light. Fluorescent white bulbs highlight our pallor. When the lights are turned off or the electricity goes out, our room is pitch black and we know it’s morning only because Willa’s internal clock wakes her and, in turn, us.

Our guesthouse is like a college student lounge with activity around the clock. There is always someone yelling at someone, someone murmuring intimately with someone, someone talking, an alarm going off, a cell phone ringing a ring or a song and we hear it all echoing through the concrete building walls like a gymnasium.

Smoke from the hundreds of cigarettes smoked in the downstairs restaurant wafts up the stairs and fills every cranny of air that isn’t already taken by incense and diesel fumes. We cough at night, in our sleep, and our snot is black. We no longer crack a smile when the other says, “Has Willa been smoking again?”

We all three play with Willa’s plastic animal figures and draw spirals and flowers, animals and cubes with her crayons. I catch myself trying to teach Willa how to write her name. She’s not even two-years old yet and still sometimes likes the taste of colored wax.

We are irritable and have been around each other with no breaks for too long. Johnny and I argue over everything about nothing. I am not being a good mother to Willa or a good wife to Johnny and I feel sorry for myself.

Willa is restless and crying to go outside, having long ago grown bored with our dodge ball game with the blow-up Fanta ball. We must brave the noise and pollution and crowds outside and get this child to a park where she can run around before she forgets how to. It’s bad enough that we are not encouraging her efforts to toilet train herself, but there have been just too many unsavory squat toilets and long bus and train rides in our lives for this to be a realistic endeavor at this point.

We step out of the guesthouse and into the fray of Delhi. The cacophony of motorcycles, touts, beggars, horns, dogs fighting, men yelling, horns and more horns envelops us. Added to the aural melee is the scratchy music played at top volume from the loudspeakers hung on telephone poles.

Touts are relentless - pushing incense, henna, bindis, jewelry, bags, saris, shoes, CDs, hippie clothes and designer knock offs, restaurants, auto rickshaw rides, cycle rickshaw rides, guided tours, postcards and maps, jewelry and pashminas - viewing tourists as dollar signs, cows to be milked.

Indian and Israeli tourists ignore them completely, or brush them off with a flick of the wrist, as though they are mosquitoes.

Non-Indian tourists’ are mocked for their seemingly excessive use of “Please,” “Thank you,” and, finally, the passive-aggressive, “No, thank you!”, accompanied by tight, insincere smiles.

Women in burkas hold my attention and I envy their anonymity. Their screens that keep people and pollution out and their private selves in.

We sidestep people, trash and food, giant cows larger than horses, puddles of mud and urine, piles of poo - dog, cow and human, and try to keep elbows in from the passing motorcycles, cars and auto-rickshaws. I’m not quick enough and a motorcycle runs up on my heel. When I turn around, the driver looks at me blankly before turning and driving off.

Beggars, children holding babies, mothers holding babies, old and handicapped tug on sleeves and arms. “Hallo, pleeeazzze! Madam, Madam, pleeeazzze!” Pitifully holding out empty cupped palms, gesturing to their mouths for food, pleading for money.

There is a man whose legs are both broken and grotesquely bent. And another with an open sore so deep I could fit my fist into it. I give both of them money and hope they will spend it on alcohol or drugs to escape.

The streets are filthy and a street sweeper sweeps black water and trash onto my feet and those of others I’m fighting for space with on the side of the road. Willa is coughing from the pollution and anonymous hands grab at her feet and hands and cheeks. A car goes by and blares its horn for so long that I feel it blast my soul. It’s all I can do not to cry.

We give up on our ‘walk’ and hop into an auto-rickshaw. We are going to the India Gate war memorial, where there is a large playground, and the ride takes us from roundabout to roundabout, out of the congested city and to the wide, tree-lined streets of the suburbs. There are no crowds here, but it is still impossible to see more than three city blocks ahead through the haze of pollution.

At the park, Willa climbs the ladders and slides down the slides, sits on the seesaw, runs around, and studies the mongooses (mongeese?) and chipmunks with long tails. We muster as much enthusiasm as we can, but we’re tired and the park guard wags his baton at us every time Johnny or I sit on a swing or the other end of the seesaw. The equipment is for children only. No exceptions.

Several buses pull up and uniform-clad children spill out, shrieking and laughing, taking over the playground with their bodies and their energy. Seizing the moment, a little boy and girl in worn, dirty clothes, bare feet, dirty hair and dirty faces, slip through the park gates. (The park guard has also chased out several urchins. No ragamuffins. No grown ups.)

The girl runs over and scoops Willa up in her arms with a “Whee!” Willa has finally recovered from her stomach bug and I’m hesitant about this, but she is so happy in this girl’s cheerful presence, so grateful for the company of someone besides her parents that I relent.

The girl and the boy take turns picking Willa up, swinging her on the swings, helping her through the monkey bars. They work their way through every single piece of playground equipment, shooing away the schoolchildren when they don’t vacate a ride quickly enough or play too roughly too close. They are protective of Willa, fussing over her and encouraging her. Willa chortles and readily lets herself be carried around by these children who are barely twice her size.

We finally say our goodbyes over an hour later and they hug and kiss Willa, asking us to please bring her back.

We are walking away when I hear little feet running behind us.

“Hallo! Hallo, pleeeazze!”

We turn around and the little boy runs up and hands us a metallic green yo-yo. We are speechless. He gestures with his hands, up and down, to show us how to play with it. Johnny tells him that we know how. And thank you. Thank you very much.

The boy turns and runs back to his sister. He twists around once and gives us a thumbs up and a brilliant smile. His face is full of light and largesse of spirit. My eyes prick with tears and I turn away.

November 23 - The Train to Varanasi, India

The train from Siliguri to Varanasi travels west across central India. It’s a beautiful route, crossing wide rivers with equally wide dark sand beaches, fields of crops and tilled soil, undeveloped plains and small towns with whitewashed mud houses and home-made tile roofs. Clusters of women in bright saris of marigold yellow, turquoise blue, hot pink and emerald green blur by. Cows and water buffaloes sift through piles of smoking trash for food.

Pakorrrraaa! Chai-iiiii! Men selling fried, spiced potato fritters, roasted peanuts, fresh bean sprouts coated in sliced green chilis, lime juice and masala, and pouring mini cups of chai from large kettles walk up and down the aisle. Beggars board at every stop, singing for money, sweeping the floor for money, or simply tugging on sleeves and staring you down for money.

The windows are open and the wind blows through the train. We talk with a young Nepali woman traveling with her mother and uncle to visit more family in Jaipur. Willa loves the train and she climbs on and off the berth in our compartment, watching the country rush by through the bars of the window, waving and calling out, “Bye!,” to the children, cows, and water buffalo we pass. She naps for a solid two hours, lulled by the rocking of the train car.

We had braced ourselves for the train ride, but it’s a pleasure.

Night falls and brings surprisingly cold air. We shiver and contort our bodies horizontally on our narrow berths and try to sleep, starting every time a passing train screams by. A large family boards the train at about 2AM, talking and bickering with each other in loud voices, arranging and rearranging luggage, as they settle into the berths directly above us.

In the morning, men and women line up to use the sink at the end of the car, each holding their toiletries of a bar of soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, and tongue scraper. Morning ablutions are lengthy and vigorous. The toilet I couldn’t will myself to use last night for the stink and liquid on the floor now empties out women immaculate in unwrinkled saris, beautiful make-up and thick, black hair neatly pulled back.

All of the filth in this country seems to be relegated to the public, common areas. People’s houses and yards are swept daily, potted plants lining the roofs and balconies. Motorcycles and cars are kept shiny. Bodies and faces scrubbed forcefully in public sinks and in the rivers.

Back in our berth, the Nepali family generously buys chai for everyone and shares with us the food they’ve brought in a metal tiffin carrier. The noisy family that boarded late shares potato chips and we share Marie biscuits and oranges.

(Johnny has identified our most American trait as ‘the last-minute purchase panic’ that takes over just before boarding buses and trains. We buy snacks and supplies that we don’t normally eat or use as though we’ll never see land again. Despite the fact that there is no public transportation in Asia that travels more than 20 kilometers without stopping for food, restroom, new passengers, tire change, talk on cell phone, checkpoint, or because we’ve gone too long without a stop.)

Willa and the noisy family’s two children play together, climbing on and off the berth, laughing themselves silly spinning and slapping the wall of the train.

Now 21 hours into our 17-hour train ride, we have consumed an inordinate amount of deep-fried snacks and cups of chai. Willa is beyond manic, whining into my chest with intermittent unintelligible yells. Johnny is staring out the window without seeing. I’m mentally walking through the produce section of Whole Foods, back in Austin, filling my cart with clean, crisp lettuce, plump, ripe tomatoes beaded with water and other fresh vegetables.

We have still not arrived in Varanasi, what is to be the first of many stops on our travels through India. Worse, we are still in the same region. We have not even progressed beyond the state of West Bengal.