Sensational

So, I have been inspired to write this blog for a number of reasons.

I believe I have done a rather good job of describing to you the sights of India and providing some of them in pictures. What I realize I have failed in giving you is all of the other sensory experiences which are India.

Let it be said that India is a full time sensory assault. And, when I say assault, I mean ASSAULT.

Lets begin with the smells: The broad overview is that India is a melting pot of development, affluence, poverty and agrarianism. The sheer number of animals (large and small) running freely about India is actually quite endearing (at least for me). For instance, there is a herd (6-8) of water buffalo which wonder about Chilkalguda (the area where my office is located). Outside my office there are also several goats and one family in particular which is a Mom with two twin kids. They are really cute! There are also goats tied up to each random tree and every once in a while you one goes missing (or you find it hanging at the local butcher shop). Lets not forget the somewhat rarer dairy (Holstein) cow as well as the cats, dogs, chickens and sheep. These animals typically act as scavengers and feast on the local piles of garbage or whatever else might serve as food. Such a pretty picture...right.

Well...now imagine what this might smell like.

They are EATING PILES OF GARBAGE. They are openly defecating and roaming around the city at will. Goats smell! They smell badly. Cows are large and produce a great deal of.....you know what. Chickens are dirty and Indian poverty chickens are even dirtier.

India smells...and most of the time it smells badly. My ride to work is a hero's journey ranging from gasping on the fumes of carbon monoxide & dioxide to choking on the stench of open human and animal defecation. Sometimes the smell of goat is so strong you can feel it resting on your tongue - you may as well have licked it.

This is all mixed with local venders who fry food from dawn to dusk. And lets not forget the butcher shops where meat hangs out in the open all day in 80 degree heat.

And then there is the random stench of burning trash, burning land and burning coal or wood.

Heat augments smell. I am sorry India, but you smell!

There is the random reprieve of incense. I have come to believe that incense was created for the sole purpose of masking the intense smells of India! And sometimes it works but even this seems overpowering. There are days I am walking up the stairs to my apartment and am nearly bowled over by the wafting of incense fumigating the apartment building.

India doesn't do smells in moderation. You are either choking on shit or choking on sandalwood.

Now that I have given you the abbreviated rundown of the smells lets move onto sounds.

India is loud and cacophonous. Horns are sounding all day and all night: seriously. India is a place where honking is not only welcome but encouraged. The traffic is so bad and so erratic and the drivers so bold that honking is basically saying: "I am here, I will try not to hit you if you try not to hit me." Somehow it works...with the random love tap in between. There is no standardization of horns. For instance, my rickshaw driver (who has become increasingly wayward) has a blow horn on his rickshaw. Basically, he squeezes it with his right hand while he drives with his left. The buses have the worst horns by far. Horns which make me cover my ears and shudder as they pass me in my little rickshaw. Sounds which make your ears bleed. India is full of loud, intimidating, constant, brash and brutish sounds.

The call to prayer is the incense of India's world of sound. Each day (5 times daily) the world of India is quieted and then uplifted by the (Muslim) call to prayer. I can't really describe this sound but it is a loud, hollow horn which sounds distant and spiritual. I like it very much.

Indian's are also people of song and music. You will often hear sellers singing the song of their sales and an eerie, hollow voice.

So, all in all the sights and sounds of India are like the rest of it: incongruous, unforgiving and unforgettable.

Hope this helps to complete the picture.