A New Ending

So, our last day in India has arrived.

We've been here for a month, and we've seen a lot. To properly get around India I think you'd need at least three months, as I'm not sure if you've seen it on a map, but it's actually quite big. So big in fact, that out of that month we've spent a week on trains joining up the dots on My First Map of India.

We've saved cats in Kochi, munched leaves in Munnar and seen the maelstrom* of Mumbai. Twice. Japes in Jaipur, duped in Jaisalmer and now near-dead in New Delhi. It would not be an exaggeration to say we are tired. Fucking knackered was how I've been putting it.

Oh yeah - we found out where all the Mountain Dew has gone

*Fuck off, yeah? I can use whatever words I want. It's my blogging fuck.
It's not just the heat and lack of sleep, India - especially for me I think, Helen's a robot - has been pretty emotionally draining.

A man 'walked' up to me yesterday standing on the top of his feet (if you can imagine that). This was the straw that broke Bobby's back. I actually said out loud: 'I cannot wait to get out of this fucking country.' 

The sheer desperation of people that you see every ten yards down every street is, to my eyes, only matched by the pomposity of the people who literally step over them.

And I have become one of those people. And I hate myself for it.

So, for my own selfish reasons, I am actually looking forward to getting on the plane to Singapore tomorrow morning. 

I will be sad to leave a country that it so rich in history and culture, but I certainly won't miss one that is so poor to its poorest people. It pains me to think that I can just leave, when this will continue to for these people. And from what we've learned, it's only getting worse.

It also pains me to say that I cannot see a way that India will be able to do much for them. It's estimated that the country will have a larger population than China in just over a dozen years time. This is not good news.

Helen and I met a girl on the train on the way to Delhi who argued that the kids on the street, and the deserted farmers that struggle to subsist, and all of the lower classes of Indian people are - and I fucking quote - 'better off than us in the UK'.

She argued that they have a 'fighting spirit' that we lack because we don't have to struggle to live every day, which 'enriches their existence' and - when the time 'inevitably comes that global warming claims a large stake of the world' - they will survive and we won't, because we 'won't know how to.'

I'd been sitting there for about twenty minutes listening and watching Helen bite her tongue with this girl, but sit I could no more. 

'Listen you fucking stupid stuck-up little post-hippy cuntb*g - you're wrong - 'they' are categorically not 'better off than us'. Now fuck off back to Cirencester.'

I may have just said the middle bit about her being wrong, but I think my tone implied the rest.

So, with a sense of slight relief, we close the first chapter of shit stories around the world.

In conclusion, I suppose you can look at it like this:

I am like a ten year old discovering his cock - scared of becoming exactly what he set out not to be. And, riddled with inner angst about what I really should be doing with my time on this planet, I'm doing what traditionally the Finnegan's and Fox's have always done - ignoring it.

My inner angst - not my cock.

P.S. On a slightly lighter note - we saw this road sign flashing on a roundabout in Mumbai:

ALWAYS GO ON GREEN AND STOP ON RED

UNLESS YOU'RE EATING WATERMELON