Trash, Saris, and Monsoon Rains

So basic clarification -- this should've been written around Aug. 25, but life moves quickly in Mother Land India.

Before our drive from Mumbai to Pune, I had never realized how enormous slums are. They go on for miles on the side of the highway. Miles and miles of falling down huts, alleys with no street signs, looming piles of trash, stray dogs and stray children. You think it is going to end, think there is no possible way there could be more people, more poverty, more desperation, but it continues. And then you look out past the weaving lanes and alleys of all the tin "roofs" you can see, and you realize that there is so much more still that you cannot see. So much that can only be seen as a faint blur. Maybe that is why there is no international aid, no Indian uproar -- the gross depth of the poverty is incomprehensible to the blind, human eye.

The only way for me to process (/pretend to process) is through lists, so indulge me:

• People defecating on sidewalks
• Women in beautiful saris trudging through squalor
• Cows meandering
• People just waiting around
• Saried (sp?) women casually riding on the backs of speeding, death-defying two-wheelers
• Pure green rainforest and cascading waterfalls
• Massive puddles of monsoon rain like cups of milky chai (had to throw that one in)
• Horn OK Please

Trash EVERYWHERE -- literally I do not even know how to explain to another Westerner just how much trash there was. But just try and imagine not having trash cans anywhere in New York City for years. No where to throw out your Starbucks cup, newspaper, to go box, etc. So instead, you just toss it down on top of the huge piles of trash that are already there and continue walking. But the piles of trash never stop. Walking in the most beautiful of landscapes, lush trees canvasing the hills, make sure not to look down towards your feet. Creeping into your vision will be the unmistakeable logo of another factory derived concoction.