Everything is Better in Agra

Things have turned a lot peachier since we managed to escape Varanasi. Not that that was easy. On a previous escapade around town our unfortunate auto rickshaw driver lost his front tire and we cycle rickshawed our way back home, not without paying him a bundle because he looked quite gaunt and scrawny and promising him he could take us to the train station the next day. Needless to say the latter was not a gesture from my personal bleeding heart, but we travel in a democracy and newly acquired husband does have the added gravitas of two crutches (that are too short for him).

On the fateful night of our departure out guy did show up on time but without a working rickshaw. Apparently him or better yet, his boss/pimp saw it fit to have us hang out in the mayhem of evening traffic (when everyone hauls everything they own back home on every imaginable vehicle in the midst of ear-splitting honking) shining our flashlights into his toy bike motor. Protests and shouting matches ensued when we made our exit. But oh, just in time, his brother did manage to show up in a working auto rickshaw. Not until we are 20 minutes down the road do we notice the unfortunate fact that this particular vehicle has no lights. Our 2 hour drive resembled an advertising run on how to become road kill as we were dodging trucks, cows, bikes, pedestrians and more rickshaws, some of which also had no lights, slowly but yet too fast bumping our way along the pitch black country road.

The train station was dire. People even tried to steal newly acquired husband’s crutches and I managed to get in a fight over luggage space complete with throwing a bunch of teenagers their one hundred bags straight out of my seat and into their laps. It appears Varanasi unleashed a beast in me and I forgot all the chill I may have acquired over the month and change and the fact that actually all that goes wrong really just makes for a better story and adds hilarity to mundane things. Hanging over us was also the knowledge that unless the leg situation of the husband improves we may be send home early, only where home is, that is not entirely clear. Hauling bags on crutches and a peg leg is no future!

But now we are in Agra, sipping mango lassis on a rooftop overlooking the Taj Mahal, Germany made it to the European Cup final and even the parasites seem to have died off and life is a happy beach again. I pretty much forgot for a few days that I am on vacation and that I am happy. And most imprtantly that I am NOT doing spreadsheets right now. Now, we figure worst leg case scenario we can still sit on Thai beaches, pouring Pina Coladas over the effected area, throwing mango chunks to the monkey and frying our brains, so the future is bright.

The major insight of the past few days is that whereas living and traveling in South America some years back really turned me on to economic development and sustainability and all that wonderful stuff that I made into my career, this makes me want to be a fashion photographer. It pains me to see the pretty saris be laid out to dry in the dirt and cow dung, I want to take pictures of the pretty bejeweled girls and boys who wear the glitter and the colors and have the pretty faces (maybe in front of their scenic, ragged home town well and always with lots of happy cows) and I just wish all the non-bejeweled ragged ones would already be happy and taken care of. Call me impatient but I feel like working in economic development for what, three years, should have done the trick and there should be no more sad poor people out there.