I’m sitting in an oasis of tranquillity and peace – Hyderabad airport waiting for an internal flight to Bangalore. Bangalore is across and down a little I think - I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it's not up. The air-conditioned airport is new - glass, marble and steel. Piped Indian muzak plays in between flight announcements and breakfast pizza is available.
I have been to India a couple of times before, mainly Bangalore, and inevitably spend most of the time in air conditioned offices and hotels. It’s very difficult to get an idea of what India is like from inside either, so the only impression I get of the variety and apparent confusion that seems to be India is from inside a safe and secure bubble - the air conditioned car that drives me to and from the office/airport. It ain't a lot - but it's something.
If you haven’t been to India it’s hard to imagine that a thirty-minute car ride could cram your head full with images of a world, and glimpses of lives, that are so far away from what is usual - at least usual for me.
You see so much and at the same time so little.
The short drive becomes a glimpse of tiny bites of stories as you pass by, stories that might lead nowhere or take you somewhere you may or may not want to go. What is that old woman with the knife going to do with that small goat? Why is that that tiny child crying and pointing at that dog, and what is it carrying in it’s mouth - a doll? Why is that tall man in the red shirt hammering on that door? That girl talking to the young man - is she laughing or crying? And why is he holding a red Dahlia flower?
Short stories seem to be all around you as you pass by in your car - you might be entering them as they start, stumble in at the middle, or intrude as they come to a close - but at whatever point you pick up story all you get to read is a single sentence and it leaves you wondering what the paragraph says, and how the story will finish.
Sometimes as we drive along I wonder what would happen if I were to become a part of one of these stories? What if I were to take that side street on the left by that grimy scooter repair booth and follow that woman walking away from the main highway towards the temple in the distance - the one with all of the white smoke around it? Where might I end up if I were to follow those men pushing that rusty bike? Is one of them carrying a machete?
Sentences are all around me waiting for the next sentence to continue the story. Should I jump out of the car and become the next few words? How might my life change if I grab my guts and get out of the car and insert myself in one of the stories being played outside of the bubble? I look and wonder and know that today I’ll make do with what I can glimpse of India from inside the car - the limited view that the bubble allows me.
Everywhere is buildings - buildings that look long abandoned but could simply be waiting to be finished and buildings that could be waiting to be finished but could be long abandoned. All of them, no matter what state they are in, look to be covered in graffiti, every available inch of concrete seems covered in words. Look closer - it isn't vandal generated graffiti after all, it’s advertising. Everyone seems to be advertising something – their shop, their chickens, mangoes, themselves – words spring up and teem all around you and you have little choice but to read them. There are stories written on walls, on boards, on roofs, everywhere. Large red words surround you, shouting at you to look at them, read them - and when you do read them, they are in English - on closer inspection you can see that they are all painted by hand, with paint, not mass produced and printed. Even the Coca-Cola logo is hand-painted! How many sign writers live here?
The crumbling buildings seem to fall towards you as you drive past them, there’s no order in them – they just crop up. It’s impossible to tell where one store starts and a house finishes, they are piled high on top of each other, three or four high, like a pile of children’s building blocks waiting to tumble over, and everywhere is dust and rubble.
Motorcycles and put-puts (three wheeled open taxis fuelled by gas canisters under the driver’s seat – little more than a bomb on wheels) flash in front, behind, honking, hooting, aiming at the gap and going for it, squeezing through, one, two, three, whole families of passengers on a single scooter. Car drivers weave to avoid them, blasting their horns to signal that they are there. Road signs and the right side of the road are ignored as the scooters mount the broken, potholed pavements to get through the traffic. If there is a highway code here nobody seems to have read it. Intricately painted lorries covered with streamers and flags thunder alongside, loads overhanging their sides by several feet - you stain your neck to see how high the load is as it wobbles past.
All sorts of people are everywhere, walking, standing, waving, hiding, in groups, alone, squatting, laughing, crying, peeing by the side of the road, talking, gesticulating - their variety is infinite.
And the dust and Rubble is everywhere and everywhere is a building site and everywhere is activity.
Packs of dogs appear out of side alleys, shanties of tin shacks and tents - where small children play in the dirt - sit next to pink concrete apartment buildings or light blue villas with names like ‘Splendide’ and ‘Dream Valley’’. The apartments look fine but seem to have been built on bombsites and swamps. There are thousands of empty oil drums around and it smells warm. Jacaranda trees flame with flower, women carry metal urns on poles slung over bony shoulders, old turbaned weather-brown skinned men walk barefoot kicking stones in the dusty road, star-painted cows graze in the landscaped gardens of cool grey glass office blocks, flocks of goats mess in side alleys, old women sit by the road selling fruit, or pastries, or spiced meat cooked on open braziers, groups of children play noisily with cans and sticks in starched green school uniforms or sit quietly alone in rags on the dusty kerb staring into who-knows-where.
So much colour and noise. Sensory overload. After a while your eyes hurt with seeing, so you close them and wonder again what would happen if you were to get out of the car and take a walk – would you ever find your way back? Would you even want to?
I made it to the airport without opening the bubble and stepping out into the landscape. I’m safe in this glass and steel lounge and outside India is still waiting for me to become a story.
Maybe another time I will - and let it eat me.
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