Journey to India

We are currently in Santiniketan, West Bengal, hanging out till 11:30
at the Hotel Emblic, complete with grungy walls and doors, waiting for
our taxi driver, who we have hired for five hours at a cost of $14 to
take us around to see all the sights here. It's a quiet place compared
to Calcutta. No constant blaring horns. The occasional bleating of a
cow, and the constant chirping and/or cooing of birds in the trees.
This morning I saw a brilliant yellow bird in the tree outside the
balcony of our hotel room. It sat and looked at me, then flew to my
window grill, for ten seconds looked at me, and then flew off.

Life is dusty, and slow here. I like it. You can smell the clean air
and it is refreshing. I like long quiet moments in India. It's the
India I remember from my childhood in Kanpur. Quiet, and slow, in the
hot afternoons, sleeping on a mat on the stone floor, and having all
the time in the world. I miss those days. I think they exist still in
pockets here and there, but they are hard to access when traveling,
when the mobile phone calls you with sms or the netbook beckons you to
check your email, filling in the potentially quiet moments with
static, noise, pulling you away from stillness.