Suburbia to Mega-Urbia.
A structured way of life, if you are into that kind of thing, then India is not your cup of tea. But if you are looking to find what else is there to understand in the world, besides your own way of life, take a trip to the heartland of yoga. My India. Our India, and soon to be your India. Believe it or not you give this country five days and it will live in you like child birth. The good the bad the forever.
I recently took a trip to Delhi for some quick personal commitments. And since I went there with a mind of writer, I figure, let me observe and decode the difference between life in suburbia of Jersey and a life in a city three times the size of big apple. The similarities were surprising, but the differences were soul stirring.
The chaos of urban Asian city is an exercise in permutations and combinations working out to perfection.
Let me just paint a picture of traffic.
If you get to hit the fourth gear for two min, of your thirty min commute time, you had a beautiful morning. I commuted for from central Delhi to northwest of the city, sixty-five minutes in full day time traffic, ten minutes in no traffic. Distance covered, eleven miles. And that’s daily.
But it’s a beautiful case of managing expectations. No one in that traffic was in any kind of hurry, they all knew what to expect from those mornings.
It’s never the case in suburbia. If I ever get stuck on Garden state parkway or turnpike, the anxiousness is overwhelming sometimes. The traffic is a constant, in life of a mega-urbia or for that matter anyone living in the five boroughs.
My destination for those commutes in Delhi was a secluded area in the middle of city that was known for its peace and quiet, known to locals as embassy area. The consistency of chaos is such, that silence is considered ominous. Although it’s always welcomed but it’s always treated with suspicion
Imagine taking a right turn on Broadway and suddenly being in the middle of Nebraska.
The contrast of an ominous silence,was much appreciated by the locals. Although places like these make Indians a little conscious of there surroundings. Indians are more comfortable in chaos then in serenity. It’s probably true for every urban resident.
In my experience of living in suburbia of New Jersey, I enjoy day trips to NYC but after few hours, I crave the structure of my sub urban life. Sadly but truthfully, I want my separation from the society to be well defined by boundaries of personal space.
The idea of coexisting is always more profound in high density cities. A shove in an overcrowded city train doesn’t even register, but a brush is suburban mall is an invasion of space followed by staring contest.
The uniqueness of Indian experience lies in the emotions of your surroundings and how it connects to you. Somehow, they all connect with in you. Traffic again is a great example.
You are surrounded by controlled chaos, but when you actually look inside the car that is trying to desperately snail forward, the person inside the car is pretty content, and may be moving to sound of his/her favorite music. The girl riding here little scooter next to you may be sitting in traffic for the last twenty minutes on her way to work, but her eyes will tell you that she is “content”. This is for me is the essence of India, and that’s how it teaches a non-Indian mind (which I have become now) on how to find peace within the chaos of your individual life.No matter what I am going through, I should have faith in the process and it will yield the result. Life is tough but it rewards well.
All this from one week of assault to my senses. I don’t know if it shook me or woke me.
But I am content .
