Farewell to India

So the trip to India has just come to an end. Flying from Delhi to Singapore, on our way to Manila, there is just enough time to try to get a sense of what will remain before diving into another culture.

Incredible India as it is everywhere advertised is not for the faint-hearted. Our last day in Delhi helped us to understand the gap between the countryside and the capital. Delhi was supposed to be incredibly tough and dirty. We must have come a long way during the last two months..Strolling in old Delhi, I could only think: waooo pavements, sewers, no cows, people busy doing their own business, no hassle...Of course the electrical equipments hanging in the streets make you pray for your life each time you look up. But I was impressed by the modernity of the metro, by Connaught place which looks like Europe (well, maybe South Europe) and by the standard of our hotel that was not supposed to be that high. Suburbs are different and there are people living in extreme poverty but the capital left me a positive and dynamic impression, despite the fog and the cold.

So eventually what remains is a puzzle.

Some pieces are colorful like Rajasthani clothes, spicy like the food,striking blue like the sky, slow like a camel and cow together, dirty like the absence of sewers, kind, smily and invading like the people, impressive and beautiful like the forts, open like Shiva, Allah and Christ united  terribly corrupted like the politicians and the police. Nowhere else in the world the absence of Western civilization is so present. No chance for Mc Donalds or Hollywood movies.

17% of the world population is Indian, and that excludes all the ones living abroad. Who knows: maybe in 50 years, we will be learning Hindi and watching Bollywood movies:-).

Let's hope in the meantime more schools and hospitals will be built. Let's hope I won't have to ask to two policemen (wihtout uniform) who were trying to bribe us in the train: but who are you?. Let's dream the Dalits (Untouchables) will be all free from the caste system. Let's picture clean and pollution-free streets and it could well become an incredible subcontinent indeed.