Do I want some more coffee? Tea? Chocolates? If I miss my silverware, it will be replaced by flight attendants who live in Paris suburbs. The drones, beneath the jet flight path, are operated by pilots from joyless complexes in Pensacola or Tampa.
Technology has either knocked down the barriers protecting Americans from barbarism or brought us closer. At the hotel in New Delhi, a security cordon uses mirrors to examine under the taxi and our bags are screened. No more Mumbais.
Baghdad, Tehran, Kabul, Quandahar and Karachi; these places touch us because our economic and political lives are organized around their conflicts.
On the flight, I watch an American movie about a fictional campaign for president-- where betrayal and immorality are cloaked by affectations of conflict between liberal and conservative values-- the dissonance of George Clooney acting against type is unbroken by the sound of passengers stirring, cabin attendents setting the light meal before landing, the duty free cart.
I am an hour from New Delhi at 35,000 feet, heading to a nation of extremes from a nation of different extremes. On the hotel TV there is no news of the Koch brothers pledging to invest $60 million to defeat President Obama. Cricket and badminton are the order of the day and night, Bollywood videos. No Superbowl commercials.
This morning I visited a Sikh temple that serves free15,000 meals a day, 365 days a year, to any citizen who is hungry, irrespective of religion. All funded by member donations and staffed by volunteers. No food stamps. No sugary cookies and soft drinks in the aisles of supermarkets, where diet is priced to make people fat.
This morning, to Agra.
3 comments:
It must be nice to be as rich as you.
To Anon above, what an idiot. I did India on a $1000 budget for 2 weeks. Flight, hotels, food, transport included. You see I value travel and not clothes, cars, a pimp house or expensive meals. It's quite simple to travel if you put your mind to it.
Gimlet: Golden Triangle is a madhouse. If you can Benares/Varanassi is really a sight and complete shocker. As Mark Twain says "Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together."
Enjoy your trip. It took me a few days to get accustomed to India but after that it was amazing. In fact I'm going back again this year, this time to the south. And this time not during the summer. jejeje
Hello guys, Im new to this forum .. how are you guys doing? :)
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