24 X 1 = 48

For days before coming to India, I would visit weather.com and see what the temperature was in Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore etc. It said, "31 Celsius, feeling like 33", or "29 Celsius, feeling like 31"... Now that I am in India and I have spent a few days in big cities like Hyderabad and Chennai, I can say that a day here has "24 hours, feeling like 48"... It's not that the time passes slowly, torturing slowly, nothing like that. It's that, as a westerner, everything you see around, draws your attention, sometimes your admiration, many times your disgust, but either way, it does catch your attention, the amount of images you see, smells that penetrate your nose, situations you experience, is such, that by the end of the day you feel that it's been two days instead of one, which, at the same time, can be a blessing and a curse...
Yesterday afternoon I was strolling at Marina Beach, the one the Chennaiites claim to be the longest in the world (which is wrong, but... no big deal), the atmosphere was really captivating, if you ask me, with countless people strolling, couples sitting on the sun, sellers trying to push their things, and of course the occasional local who would come and start off a conversation seeing a westerner walk alone. The typical questions, where are you from, what's your name, how do you like Chennai, which other places have you been to, you are travelling alone???!!!, do you have family, what do you like here?... The last one I answered without giving it much thought... I said, "I like that no matter where I turn my head to, I see something that doesn't leave me indifferent", and seeing that he didn't understand this indifferent, I said "everywhere I look I see something new and interesting to me". I think that even if I had taken five minutes before answering his question, I would have said the same. This is what I like the most up to now in these few places I've been to. I love/hate how intense things are here... One moment you are talking to a super friendly local who is shaking your hand with a bright smile on his face, next moment a guy with no legs appears in front of you, crawling on the sand (yesterday, at Marina Beach) using his hands, with his chest stuck on the sand, next moment you are asked to be taken a photograph, next moment you need to bargain with a rickshaw driver to take you from A to B, next moment you smell some food which tempts you to eat it even if you are not particularly hungry, and the moment you exit this place where you tasted something yummy, your nose is flooded with the urine smell coming from a few meters' distance... Everything is too much here, all the good things and all the bad things, and this, at times is wonderful/disgusting, but it never leaves you indifferent, it obliges you to be a big sponge 24 hours a day, absorbing everything you see, and that's something that makes me feel great about my choice to come to India...
One fun thing to notice during the day, is seeing things being verified, things i had read about before coming. I had read that Indians avoid answering you straight if you pose a yes or no question, and they know the answer is no. For some reason, they just avoid saying no. I asked the receptionist at Hyderabad if anyone from Gulf Air had called, and he said "if anyone calls I will pass the call to your room, or I will take a note". I asked someone on the train if it is safe in the night, and he answered, "maybe you should ask this to the attendant of the wagon". The answer was no, but he didn't want to tell me no. He told me though, that no one goes on the train without a lock of his one, to secure his stuff in the night. I had read about women using those funny brooms (same material with the... witches' brooms) to kick the dust away, as if sending the dust a couple of meters away will make it disappear... I had read that people piss, just like that, on the sidewalks, which causes many places to stink of urine... I had read that people don't mind burping even while talking to you. I had read that you are asked for photographs and autographs. I had read... the list goes on and on... All these are true. Talking about the last one, as Sarah Macdonald writes in her "Holy Cow", in India you are famous just for being white... She also writes (I bought her book yesterday and spent a good part of the night laughing every now and then with her hilarious writing style) that in India, solitude is an egoistic pursuit, or something like that, meaning that you can never be alone... I've only been to cities up to now, I don't know how things are outside big cities, but it's true that even in the so called quieter corners of Hyderabad and Chennai, you are anything but alone, which, as almost everything in life I think, can be both a blessing and a curse...
Getting back to my first Indian train experience, I have to admit that as a Balkan European I felt a little embarrassed seeing how the 3A class of Indian trains is (air condition, 6/8 bunks "compartments" class). The last two years the Thessaloniki-Ljubljana train line was my second home, and I assure you that this train I took the night before yesterday, is A+, comparing it to the one from my home city to Slovenia...
Too much talk and no photos, I know, I forgot to take with me the cable to connect the camera to the PC... Next time...
Really nice to see you people check my blog, thanks again for your words of support :-), and... what else?... Talk to you from Mysore, the day after tomorrow.