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| News From India - Part III | | Date Created: Feb 01, 2005, 09:17 AM |
I've added some new pictures here.
The experience of life in Calcutta is surreal. I'm now sitting in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency hotel. The Hyatt is fully Western, a little island of luxury and opulence in a sea of poverty and filth. Well, the section of town we're in (Salt Lake) is not the poorest, but by US standards it's quite destitute. Outside a steady stream of people, bicycles, motorcycles, and above all cabs race through the street. Outside it's noisy, smoky, and dirty. Inside you're in another universe.
Yesterday we left the village of Mualkoi at about 9 AM. We said goodbye to everyone and climbed into Lian's Scorpion (an Indian-made SUV) with him, Clara, and their "driver" James. Yes, their driver is named James. They purchased what they call their "jeep" about 3 months ago. I'm not sure how they managed without it. They use it every day for all sorts of errands. I believe they had a little scooter before they got the car. James's full-time job is to drive and take care of the car. Lian sent him to another city for 6 months to get schooled in auto maintenance. Whenever Lian has to travel any distance outside of town he takes James with him. And when one experiences the roads in Manipur it's not difficult to understand why one needs a mechanic with you when you travel. Most of the roads are narrow, rocky, and peppered with potholes. And there aren't any "service stations" that I could see. Just a few places to get gas.
Back to our trip to Imphal. After leaving the village we stopped in Churachandpur to pick up another traveler. Lian has been helping a destitute Hindu family in town. They own a small street-front shop. Not too long ago, their home burned to the ground. The other challenge for them is they are one of only a few Hindu families in town. Ninety percent of the town is "Christian." Hindu families have a tough time in such an environment. Lian, of course, wants to show them love and mercy as a representative pastor in the area. Anyway, we picked up their twenty-year old daughter who also had a flight from Imphal to Calcutta that day. So we all crammed into the "jeep" with our baggage and headed north to Imphal.
Again, words cannot describe the trip from Churachandpur to Imphal. You have to experience it. The two-lane road, when it can be called a road, passes through a patchwork of villages and rice fields. There's no centerline. You carve out your space as best you can, mostly with your horn. The way is usually filled with people, goats, dogs, cats, cows, bicycles, tricycle carts, motorcycles, scooters, gasoline powered lorries (cabs), cars, and buses.
Buses own the road. They speed back and forth from CCR and Imphal packed with people. Did I say packed? I mean like a sardine can. Not only are people stuffed inside, but they will also sit on top and hang off the sides and back of the bus. Seat belts? you ask. Ha. If one of these buses had to stop unexpectedly, I can picture everyone pealing off the top and sides to end up on the pavement in front of the bus. It has to happen sometime. Pity the passengers when it does.
The roads are often lined with piles of rocks on one side of the other. These rock piles usually take up a great deal of the road, forcing on-coming traffic to whiz past one another with only centimeters to spare. When I was about to ask about the purpose of the rocks, we passed piles with people hammering the rocks. The rock piles consist of stones about the size of cantaloupes and basketballs. The men, women, and children were breaking the rocks by hand so that they could be used to resurface the road. Imagine 60 miles of road or more paved with rocks broken with people with small hammers. |
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