On the Road ... in India

Greetings,
We recently enjoyed a trip to Delhi, India, during the Muslim Eid holiday. One of my most vivid memories will always be the sights along the road as we went from Jaipur to Agra and back to Delhi. I wrote the following while in the car during our journey:

The competent driver hired by Trinetra Tours drives us from Jaipur to Agra and then back to Delhi, smoothly maneuvering the Toyota around cows blithely sauntering across the bustling road. Pigs wander and root through all manner of garbage with piglets following some distance behind. Water buffalo stand across a lane of the road, thoroughly unmoved by the human chaos. Camels, with heads proudly held high, regally saunter along the dusty streets, apparently unaware of the attached cart piled high with goods and perhaps a brightly-scarved woman or a lean man with legs folded neatly underneath himself. All manner and types of dogs run, play, eat, and sleep on or along the road, assuming that all other species will pass right by, until they don't.

On the new highway, which offers two lanes in either direction and a median in the middle, I see motorcycles laden with towering boxes of goods of all kinds or with an entire family of 4-5 people. I observe bicycles progressing slowly. On one occasion when we were stuck in interminable traffic heading back towards Delhi, Hayden looked out the window and said, "Mom, that guy on the bike is going faster than we are." I worry about fast, crazy buses and slow-moving trucks with burlap bulging in all directions looking nearly to burst and spew lentils, perhaps, all over the drivers and riders surrounding. In the median breaks, drivers enter the highway from another road, never looking back once, and pedestrians stop to talk to friends on bikes, one or the other partially in the road. I notice crouching women along the median in the road, painting white along the median curb. We come to one sign which mostly blocks the highway, forcing all drivers to slow and slalom around the two-part sign with a u-turn arrow indicating an advertisement for some restaurant or shop the driver may just have missed. We come to an unmanned police check-point with a large painted word, STOP, and a speed bump. I look ahead and see a safari jeep coming our way, on our side of the road, in our lane, towards us! I see an old man carefully crossing the road with his rickety bicycle. I look up ahead again, and now there is a brightly painted and decorated truck heading directly towards us. Our driver easily moves to other lane. Honking his horn all the time. No sweat.

Along the side of the road, with the dogs, cows, pigs, and water buffaloes, I notice many goatherders working their goats along

the road, miraculously keeping them all together. I wonder why I never see goat on any menus? Cows abound, as do pigs, and yet most Indians, I understand, are vegetarians. Hinduism prohibits the killing or eating of cows; Muslims are not permitted to eat pig. And yet, here these animals abound. Is it religion? Or culture? Or is it because people see these animals searching through all manner of rubbish and choose other options?

We are so grateful for the amazing skills of our driver and the sights that we see enroute. More to come ...

Thanks for reading, Jennifer