India, two words: "sensory overload." From setting foot outside the airport to having been here a few days, it never ceases to shock me in one way or another. The strange part is that I had mentally prepared myself for this onslaught of mesmerizing and gut-wrenching sights, putrid and beautiful smells, and a myriad of changing sounds and tastes. However, the power and constancy by which each one hits you simultaneously with all the others is quite overpowering. I feel like Mowgli from The Jungle Books, thrown out of my own jungle and placed in a new one.

If one could visit Delhi without experiencing the culture and people, then that person would see an enormous amount of similarities between this capitol city and our own. There are wide, tree lined boulevards; a very clean and modern subway; large, beautiful parks; wonderful monuments; modern shopping malls; grand hotels; and even an enormous mall (as in Washington D.C.) that leads from the India Gate (similar to the Arc de Triumph in Paris) passing museums and government buildings up to the Parliament House and then on to the President's House. However, these features are merely a skeleton around which the "real" Delhi lives.

The "real" Delhi seems like being packed on an airplane for a life-long flight where everybody on the plane is crowded into the aisle and needing to go to the bathroom. Also, there is no "actual" line; pushing and cutting in the line is ok and expected; and the air-conditioning would instead be a heater pumping exhaust fumes. Now, the bathroom would inevitably get stopped up, and some people would not even try to make it there, which would help provide the common putrid smell. But there would also be people working their way through the line telling you that they will carry you, sell you a trinket, or proclaim that you will magically be switched to a new plane all for a small fee, while fishing around in your pockets at the same time. Not stopping there, every siren, buzzer and flashing light would be going off and hopefully the oxygen masks will have fallen, so you can breathe. Finally, the pilot occasionally comes on the intercom saying that a sacred cow has wandered into the bathroom and completely destroyed it, which sends the plane into mass chaos, but they then shortly resume their task as if nothing had ever happened knowing that the cow was not injured.

India, chaotic and crowded as it seems here, I love it! All the children come up to talk saying "Halloooo…which country you from?" The blight is masked by the women wearing brightly colored silk saries and the canary yellow and forest green motor rickshaws. In places, the smell is also masked by the spicy aromas of different curries, chapattis, and a variety of fried vegetable dishes; and the energy that the place is consumed with is mesmerizing. However, the food is mainly vegetarian, and there is absolutely no red meat (we even checked McDonald's menu!) because of the protected sacred cows roaming the streets eating garbage along with the dogs. I guess my parents will finally get their wish, and I will actually learn to eat vegetables…it will be quite the challenge!

This really is a foreign jungle to me. However, the experience alone of Delhi making New York seem like a quiet national park makes this place worth visiting, but to also experience its culture rooted in its religions and food make it incredible. From Delhi, we are moving along to the city that Mark Twain claimed was "older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together," Varanasi. Till next time, cheers.