Indian Feast

I’m sipping papaya juice at a Nepalese restaurant while watching a cricket match on TV.

The muzak version of Yesterday that’s playing is being drowned out by the road noise of hulking diesel trucks painted circus colors. Motorbikes weave around them, blaring their horns to announce their presence.

The occasional tuk-tuk chugs by, spewing noxious fumes.

India is a feast for all the senses.

Sometimes the feast is kingly, other times it’s a shit sandwich, but mostly it’s a morass of both.

The duality of life is exemplified in infinite ways: from the untouchables to the highest caste; from the crystalline waters of the northern Ganges to the murky, squalid currents of the river south; from the mango lassi, nectar of heaven, to the “bang” lassi, laced with hallucinogens and sometimes slipped to foreign prey.

Let India lull you like the snake-charmer she is, but sleep with one eye open, just in case.