On the road to Kasauli .... tea and bfast

After a few minor “near misses” we pull over for a cup of tea. There are side road tea shops all over India. There are even some that you can drive through. They are not like the places where you pull up to a window and order. Rather you pull over on the side of the road and there is a man with a stand selling tea. These tea sellers are mostly from south India in Kerala. They sell tea in so many places in India and around the world that there is no place that someone has gone that there is not a tea seller from Kerala there first. It is said that Neil Armstrong could not have been the first man on the moon because there must have been Indian man from Kerala there first to sell him tea. 

In this story, we pull off the road at a petro station and go into a breakfast / tea shop and have our tea. The Indians call it chai. It is nearly always about 3-4 ounces, in a small paper cup, very sweet and milky. There are exceptions but most Indians have their tea this way. We enjoy a cup of tea and head out to Kasauli. We get stuck in little traffic in one of the tri-cities called Chandigarh. What this really means is that we come into some traffic lights where we actually have to stop and wait instead of just slow down and keep going at an intersection. Chandigarh has nice roads with modern traffic lights that give you the exact seconds you have to wait. It is the right of all motor bikes, auto rickshaws and bicycles to get in front of cars and busses so they can get out ahead of you. They are smaller and can maneuver their way to the front. From what I can tell, this may be their only right on Indian highways. Bigger and faster vehicles take most of the rest of the rights. Our schedule included a trip to a Pastor's house for breakfast and then to his church to hear him preach and then on to Kasauli. Because of the traffic or traffic lights we are late so we stop for breakfast on the way and then go right to church. We stop at a government restaurant. I ask my host what that means. My host explains government restaurants have standards that they follow… usually. I ask if that means it is better. Yes,….well maybe. I ask if it is better than a private restaurant. Yes it ... could be. I do not ask any more questions. I enjoy two sunny side up eggs (actually they are over easy which is really what I wanted but could not explain it) and some paratha (flat Indian bread) with curd (like yogurt). The breakfast is delicious and I am a fan of government restaurants. We get into the car and head to the church. On our way to the church, I notice some dark ominous clouds off in the distance on the horizon. As we get closer, what I thought were clouds form into peaks of mountains. We are nearing Kasauli. 

On the Road to Kasauli ... the Near Miss...

In 2004 I made my first trip to India. I flew from Singapore to Chennai. I overnighted at a decent hotel. I enjoyed an Indian meal of Tandoori Chicken and naan. This is an unusual order because Tandoori is a north Indian food and I was in South India. It was the only thing I knew on the menu to order. Until this trip, the best tandoori I ever had was not in India but in Malaysia. My family and I had a short vacation in the Cameroon highlands. It was there that North Indian cooks had tandoori ovens right on the street. Delicious!

 Anyway, I sleep great that night 

and got up the next day to head to another city. I was a bit worried when I got in the auto rickshaw to head to the airport. Maybe it was intuition or maybe I was just worried about my next flight. You can decide. About half way there, it happened. We were moving along at a decent pace and following a petrol truck. There was traffic all around us but hey this is India right? The driver was getting cut off by someone else and got distracted. The petrol truck stopped. At this point, you need to imagine a slow motion film. Imagine the driver slowly turning his head and seeing the situation. Pan the camera to the passenger and see the horror, fear, helplessness, hopelessness, a sickening grasp of life ending written all over his face. Imagine the driver slamming the breaks and the passenger seeing there is no way to avoid impact with a truck full of diesel. Eternity in heaven is upon us. Now comes the hard part for me to explain. We are still in slow motion here but it doesn't really help. Somehow at the last possible second the driver turns the wheel hard. It is just enough that he doesn't hit vehicles passing on the passenger’s side. There is a bug on the bumper of the petrol truck that has been squished to death but it is the only thing that dies in this story. Amazingly, it all goes down as a near miss. There is no contact with the truck at all. The passenger looks at the driver with awe, respect, and wonder. The passenger wonders if this man is a Hindu god worthy of worship. If you are an Indian native, you may say that it is impossible to think of a rickshaw driver as a god and not want to read any further. Please, bear with me. The driver has a look of boredom. He looks relaxed, calm, uninterested, and unconcerned. He doesn't even care! I can’t say for sure now but in my mind he yawned. The passenger still in wonder decides this man cannot be a god and this “near miss” must be a cultural norm. 

I speak to you in third person because it helps me tell just the facts without excessive drama and emotion. I am reminded of this on my trip to Kasauli because I am riding and experiencing them at a high frequency. Even within a short time of this writing we came around a hair pin turn with a bus in our lane coming the other way. The "near miss" is a regular occurrence in India. Of course my contextual cultural norm of "nearness" is not the same as others I am sure.  Next time we will get back to the road to Kasauli. I promise.

On the Road to Kasauli ... the start

On the Road to Kasauli ...the start

I awake at 5:30 and I am grateful for a full night's rest. I am surprised because I do not hear any drums this morning. For the last six days, drums and singing are part of the morning schedule. For most of the days, I am awake already so they did not disturb my sleep. After I rise, I make some instant coffee and hurriedly take in my Bible reading. I read 2nd Timothy 4. Paul knows he will soon leave the earth and it makes me sad. I sense Paul is sad. He is not sad because he is leaving this world but because there are so many unfinished things yet to be done. I can relate.

 

I get ready and we meet at the car in front of the school. Aaron, my friend and colleague, says he has a pain in his neck and decides to stay back and rest. The rest of us make ready to leave. We pack, pray and argue over who will ride in the back. When we turn right out of the complex there is a dirt pile in the road. Everyone who drives on the road will have to move to a single lane an inevitably drive over some of the dirt. If it isn’t moved, it will be flattened and spread out until there is a small hill in the road. It perplexes me. We are not out of town long before we see a car overturned on the right. It looks like the accident just happened. We did not see any major injuries but it does prompt me to send text to Ginger and tell her what I am doing today….just in case. Further down the road we come across a train and have to wait so I think about counting the cars but a beggar comes to my window. She has a girl with her who is about six year old. The child's hair is short and partially dyed blond. I want to give her something but those in the car with me tell me I shouldn't. She persists and I struggle. My heart wants to give her something but my head says no. The driver gives her a hard look and shakes his head. She leaves. I still struggle. The train is through and we drive on.

 

We pass many carts drawn by horses or bulls carrying loads of local fare. On all my trips to India one thing never changes. Well to be honest many things never change. There are whole families on motor bikes, perfectly clean restaurants that look dirty, women in bright colored clothing, aromatic spices, spicy hot food, super sweet sweets and the beat and trill of Hindi music. There is the Indian head role, the eyes that laugh, the mehndi tattoos, the long beautiful dark hair of women and bindi beauty marks on their forehead. There are mangy dogs, cows roaming freely, bicycles loaded down with goods, colorful dump trucks and road side tea shops with bags of chips hanging on poles.  There are the monsoons, the summer heat and humidity and the winter dry browns. There is the ever honking, beeping, blaring, tweeting and even a short four note scale of the Indian vehicular horn. These things never change and most of them are enjoyable or at least tolerable. There is one thing that I am not able to tolerate.

Maybe it is just a self-preservation thing or an inability on my part to rest in my eternal security. Whatever it is I sigh in relief when I no longer experience it. On this trip and on my last trip to India I experience this phenomenon much more frequently. To be fair, many westerners and all native Indians get over this and happily enjoy their lives in this great country. This is my problem. I recognize this. We all have those things that increase our faith or are our thorn in the flesh. This one is mine. I believe the last trip my heart began to go out of sync from this cultural norm (I have PAC's). This trip my heart has been scared back into sync. No electrical shock needed! At this point, you may say I am being dramatic. Maybe but not too much.The best way to explain this thrilling, exciting, heart quickening occurrence is with a story. Since I have already taken longer than I should, we will have that story next blog.

On the Train to Ludiana

My mind absorbs the images of people, animals, and geography as it passes by my window. With only a few seconds to understand what I am seeing, I imagine the rest. Men standing on the tracks discussing cricket, football and politics. Women walking home in bright colored sarees wondering what they will cook for dinner. A stork stands tall gazing into water immersed fields looking out over his kingdom.

Rows of plants drinking the fertile Indian water that unlike me will not make them sick. Trains pass each other in opposite directions making a worsshh sound. The air between them is crushed by the speed of the passing and has nowhere to go. We travel on to where a road intersects the train tracks. Here, lines of people wait in bikes, cars, auto rickshaws and on their feet. They wonder if the train will come to an end soon. A child counts the cars. A woman carries a jug on her head thinking how her children will go to school. A man rides a bike loaded down with goods. He wonders when he can buy his uncles motor bike.

 

Then there are the roads. The endless roads that have borne the weight of Indian humanity, provided direction and given free passage to its travelers. They take men and women, soldiers and sailors, saints and sinners home to those they are bound together with their hearts. A family rides on a motor scooter on their way to buy groceries and enjoy a meal from a street vendor. I pass a garbage dump filled with Indian waste. Beside it grows a lush green field of corn and I wonder.

As the day becomes night I can see very little so I think about her. Her savory spices. Her pungent smells. Her reflective eyes. Her diverse beauty. Her abundant children. Her suffocating heat. Her delightful fruit. Her welcomed monsoons. Her distinctive music. Her stomach turning filth. Her copious gods. Her heart wrenching disasters. Her constant poverty. Her massive wealth.  She is a mystery… a contrast. At times I am disgusted and made sick. At other times, I am in awe of her. She teases and intrigues me.  She is home to a sixth of earth's humanity… so many souls, so many languages, such richness and depth of culture. When she sees me she wonders who I am and why would I come to her? She grabs my heart and asks “what kind of lover are you?” 

I have questions for her. Does she know who she is? Does she know she is great, brilliant, beautiful and strong? Does she know she is rich in her poverty, ancient in her youth, fertile in her filth? Does her greed feed the endless, unsatisfying, sucking black hole in the heart? Has she thought about the depth of her iniquity and what it cost her only true lover?  Does she know she is wanted, needed and loved? Do those who love her know her? Would they willingly suffer for her? Would they sacrifice their best for her? Would they die for her? I know someone who would, who does, who has. He asks her to come to Him… but will she go?