Perhaps this is where the India of our collective imagination and an unimaginable India meet. A mix of African bush, Jurassic granite, banana palms and terraced rice paddies create a fabric of precarious cultivation and timeless ecology. There is a river which draws an uncertain line through all of this, and that is where the elephant gets its bath alongside families doing their ablutions and laundry every morning at sunrise.
without exception, India is a country illuminated by raw flourescent light. every room in any structure has a 3 foot tube, usually mounted about 7 feet up, horizontal, with the rusty ballast clinging to the peeling paint and the glass naked to the world. this is the staple whcih lends all indoor experiences their characteristic hard shadows and flickering outlines. sometimes, in the nicer hotels, a bare compact flourescent will jut from the wall or hang from the cieling by a threadlike wire. these are slightly less oppressive in the way that they imitate your archetypal multidirectional incandescent bulb, but without cover or shade their effect is still that of an interrogation room or a seldom used basement. i suppose that the efficicency and cost of flourescent light makes it a necessity cum standard… perhaps it is also a celebration of a not-so-new resource: electricity which has now snaked its way through most of even the smaller towns.
This will be an especially painful post to write, but hopefully in someway therapeutic. I have experienced a loss. A loss of the instrument by which I have been recording and preserving this trip, and hopefully keeping friends at home abreast with people we have met and the sights we have seen. Yes, I speak of my Canon 5-D with its trusty all purpose 24mm-105mm lens; a present given to me for my graduation and the tool with which I earn my living.
After a long day of bus riding we reached Amadebad and pulled into a familiar haze. Cities in India, it seems, can be identified well before the actual outline of buldings appear or street signs and store names reveal themselves - you need only scan the horizon for a stain of dirty air against the sky. A constant layer of diesel fumes and smoke creates a pretty unbearable environment in many cities. Delhi was bad, even Jaipur had its own uncomfortable biosphere, Amadebad - the largest city in the province of Gujarat - has its own brrand of dense air pollution.
I’m not sure what causes the intense smog here - perhaps it’s coal burning power plants on the edge of the city, maybe it’s the piles of plastic trash burning in the street, certainly the endless stream of scooters and motorcycles, coughing buses and spewing rickshaws are to blame… probably some combination of it, and more that goes unseen. It makes LA look pristine: instead of turning the sky a hypercolor pallete of glowing streaks, the sunsets here strain to break through the oppressive air. Walking or driving around, your eyes sting with the fumes and your head spins with foreign gases. Some people cover their faces with handkerchiefs, but for the most part people don’t seem too bothered. I imagine their general disregard for the aesthetic/health/safety of their city extends to the air as well.