Initial impressions of India
Street graffiti and Urinal, Delhi India! As my Hindi progresses slowly, my amazement at this incredible country grows, experiences setbacks, is misunderstood, gets engaged in conversation and taught to understand. Imagine every empty building site that you have ever broken into, or each abandoned warehouse that you silently stole through, enjoying the feeling of wondering at massive empty spaces, populated only by stains, broken piles of bricks, seemingly inexplicable holes dug in the centre of a floor, jutting outcrops of bent and twisted steel, precarious balconies, and twisting creeping greenery clinging to a manga tangle of electrical wiring. Now fill that space with a rushing wind of aggressive scents like the acrid smell of men's urine, the pungent aroma of hot spices, the smoking steel on porcelain of overworked brakepads, clouds of black polluted smoke rising from the fire made from cow shit and plastic waste, the raw sniff of melting steel from naked welding, the r...