A Study in Contrasts

Constructed over a period of two decades in the 17th Century by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a tribute to his undying love for his second wife, the so-white-it-looks-like-a-fake-in-pictures Taj Mahal rises on the banks of the Yamuna River in Agra, whose population is almost uniformly destitute, whose streets overflow with paper waste and feces, and whose overall aesthetic can most accurately be described as tore the fuck up.

Up the Yamuna in New Delhi, landmarks such as the Indian Parliament Building, India Gate, and the Red Fort align to form an axis of sorts for the city, outward from which a myriad of pristine boulevards radiate. Just minutes away by car, beggars and hustlers—many of whom are very young children—carpet the streets and sidewalks like the very dust they walk upon, six or more vehicles often occupying roads made for three. Less than half an hour from the glass, chrome, electronic, automatic Indira Gandhi International Airport stand both the old and New Delhi Railway Stations, whose tracks are covered, inches deep, in mold from decades of excrement allowed to drip down from trains, which as of 2009 have yet to be fitted with plumbing or even trash cans.

Now I’m not an expert in infrastructure planning, and let’s face it: often times, I can’t even take my own trash out. That said, I find it very hard to believe that the Indian Government can’t improve some of the most basic elements of its societal functionality. At the moment, I find the majority of urban India to be too overwhelming to withstand for more than a few minutes at a time.

The Gandhi Museum is a notable exception.

Walking into the South entrance of the white-walled house where “Bapu” (as he was called “round these parts) lived out his final stretch of life—up to and including the very last steps he took January 30, 1948, which are, to this day, marked on a path—was an experience that was otherworldly, no doubt. But to bear witness to his life and legacy, to the clarity of truth that sired this nation 60 years ago and then to see how little has changed for a vast majority of Indians during that time is sobering. Hope springs eternal reading Gandhi’s words, however—“I have nothing new to teach the world,” he is quoted as having said. “Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills”.

Likewise, while my trip has, overall, left me feeling far more consumed that refreshed, I find that the filth, the splendor, the dead men on the highways, the ornamentation, the stench, and the faith of India coalesce and somehow, at the end of each day, there is a synchronicity and a certainty about the journey I am on that trumps all my doubt.

Perhaps it is such a paradox that buzzes under this drowsy giant six decades on?