Passage from India

I've been back home in Canada now for several weeks, but have had serious trouble writing down my reflections of my time in India. I think that it's just because my 7 weeks there were so intense that my thoughts just kept on getting jumbled up together. It is difficult to explain the mixture of relief and sadness that I felt when I got on the airplanes that took me home. On the one hand, it's great to be back in Toronto, where everything is so clean and beautiful, and where people urinate in washrooms instead of on the middle of the street.

That being said, I miss a lot about India and now regard many of the things that are so common in Western culture as absurd. To give an example: I flew with Qatar Airways from Mumbai to London, from where I was to wait till the next day to catch my flight back home with British Airways. Instead of getting a hotel room, I slept in the airport (for what is I think is the 8th or 9th time that I've done that so far on my trip) and needed to take a shuttle train from one Heathrow terminal, where my Qatar flight arrived, into another, where my British Airways flight would be departing. The train ride was only about 3 minutes, but in that time, there was a safety video playing on one of the televisions of the carriage. The train was so posh, with carpets, upholstered seats, and it even had that "new" smell, Therefore, I was just shocked that they were showing a safety video. I'm coming from India, where one's safety on the trains really is questionable! I've been on ones that are so jam-packed that people jumped up and rode on the roof! (Riding on the roof of moving trains--sounds like a bad Jackie Chan movie. Oh, sorry for the redundancy, when I say Jackie Chan movie, I guess bad is already implied.) And yet in England, where the trains are brand-spanking new they're overly concerned about safety? It just seemed ridiculous to me.

And that's not it. I've been feeling rather apathetic (not to be confused with my brother Fred, who's just pathetic) regarding current events in Canada. The Liberal government has been involved in some massive scandals and might be overthrown...and yet, I don't give a hoot. I started to laugh when I was watching the news the other day because they had "breaking news" of "massive importance": it was a study of different types of vacuum cleaners. Treating things like that as important when there are literally life and death issues out there that are being ignored....well, to be honest, it sucks.

In some respects, I really miss India. I miss the vibrant colours of woman's saris, and the rich smells of samosas being fried on the train platforms. I even miss the neverending cacophony of taxis and aurorickshaws and cars and motorcycles and bikes and cows and people as they compete for space on the congested streets. Once I got past my initial shock of all the poverty and the skeeze and filth, I was able to really appreciate India for the amazing country that it is. That all being said, it is lovely being back in Canada with my family, my friends, and my washroom.