Smash!

The great thing about travel is that you get to see everything for the first time. It is all new. No wonder babies cry so much.

In the U.S. I have to look closely for the small things. Everything is painted in such large brush strokes. You have to look behind, between, around them to see the details. The traffic moves so quickly that it is only when it comes to a halt that you can see the woman in the car next to you singing her heart out. The mountains are so big that it is only when you look at your feet that you see the wildflowers.

In India, things are not so large. There are just more of them. Small things, all jumbled together, one on top of the other. Like kaleidoscopes smooshed together. Women in saris of every color imaginable, autos zigging and zagging among shiny new Maruti Suzuki’s and motorbikes, horns blaring, dogs skirting along the non-existent sidewalks. Shops and food stalls and parked bikes. Trash and rubble and people in various piles. Layers upon layers of little things. And within them, something beautiful. I just don’t know how to look for it.