I'll open with a quote from one of my favorite people, and in my opinion one of the most intelligent women of today: “India is such an intriguing mix of tatty glamour and raw sewage that you don’t know whether to A. buy a bejewelled turban and join that naked baby pulling a camel by a rope or B. somehow figure out a way to bomb it.” – Kristen Refermat, as excerpted from her journal
Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid. We walked off the boat without a plan, somehow got a last minute flight to Delhi, and at dawn the next day rode the winds to the Indian capital. Jade, Alexis, and I stepped out into the smog, completely clueless, and then blindly followed one ‘Dolce and Dabbana’-sporting Indian gentleman after another until we finally found ourselves in the home office of Shabir, who gave us chai and turned on the air conditioner in our honor. He hooked us up with his friend Dinesh who we would come to know and love as our driver and friend on the best road trip of our lives: 4 days bumping along through Northern India in a heavily tassled tan sedan, jamming to the same Bollywood tape and probing into Dinesh’s personal life. Lanky and fabulous, his favorite color is red. Blue-loving Gulshan (a future friend) would go on to say that red was ‘for the ladies’ but Dinesh doesn’t care. He loves it. And another great thing about him is that whenever we’d get out of the car to do anything, we would return to find he had subtly altered his outfit. Loafers became sandals. Sudden appearance of belt. Blue dress shirt gets untucked/unbuttoned for a more casual look.
Highlights from the Road: We befriended two old Indian hoteliers who took us on a midnight tour of Agra in their red SUV and tried to sneak us into the Taj Mahal to see it under the full moon. Rescheduled for sunrise when this backfired. One night we slept at the palace of an old Maharaja. We spent most evenings cross-legged on cushions eating curry and naan on rooftops lit by the stars as the day's dust settled. Men played exotic instruments, women twirled with bells on their ankles.
We rode elephants where cars couldn't pass and we blazed trails through the miles of winding bazaars, bleeding rupees. Somewhere in the alleys of Jaipur we found the quilt maker who exports his quilts to Urban Outfitters and he asked me if I was Hilary Duff. In my dreams, I said. Gulshan's best friend was opening a restaurant... he let us in the night before the grand opening and prepared almost the whole menu for us for free, begging us to bless the restaurant and bring them good fortune. They dubbed us the Three Goddesses of Rose Palace and took our picture and hung it on the wall. My favorite times were spent half-asleep in Dinesh's backseat, watching the mass of humanity/absurdity flick past me in a technicolor whirl. My favorite thing: on a deserted road with nothing for miles in either direction we passed a dusty 12 piece marching band, fully decked out in royal blue and gold with feathers in their hats... just sitting on the ground looking bored. One minute later we narrowly escaped a head on collision with a camel-drawn hay cart. It even freaked Dinesh out: "My heart beat quick quick. No hurry, no worry, no chicken curry." C'est la vie.
