Work for India

In India, you know, everything is different from here. There, no one would have thought to say “the thin sickle of the month”: its pale, doughy roll hangs belly down in the middle of the black sky. The crows and pigeons there are lean, like the Indians themselves, almost twice as thin as ours and look like noble birds. Cows' udders are almost invisible there, but dogs' nipples hang almost to the ground. And the cows themselves are small, but the goats are huge, with proud necks like giraffes. People there are noisy, talk loudly and emotionally - but you won’t hear rude or harsh words from them. They are always welcoming and friendly. Even our harmless “fool” is a terrible insult to them. "Hello, ma'am!" - schoolchildren, and even beggars, who usually put on a pitiful appearance, shout joyfully as they lean out of the bus, sometimes suddenly throwing themselves at your feet with the same joyful cry, dashing forward with a metal bowl with coins: “Hello, ma’am!”

With a group of acquaintances, we traveled around India for about three weeks, but I will not now talk about the majestic palaces, about the ascetic power of the Red Fort - the residence of the Great Mughals in the very center of Delhi, about the giant Hindu temples in the south of the country, reminiscent of gray layered fly agarics, about the marvelous the beauty of houses with delicate stone carvings, because, to be honest, all this is lost in the rapid flow of life that captures you as soon as you find yourself at the Delhi airport. “Hotel, ma'am? I’ll take you to a nice hotel, not far from here.” - “Taxi, ma’am? Just five hundred rupees and you are in the center of Delhi.” - “Luggage, ma’am?” And a hand is already reaching for my backpack. And so it is everywhere. As soon as you stop for a second in any Indian city, you are immediately surrounded by a crowd of people ready to provide a variety of services. India is poor, and they take advantage of every opportunity to make money.

Huge masses of people constantly move in space: cars drive along the street almost right next to each other, and motorcyclists, motorcyclists and pedicabs try to pass between them, maneuvering. Old, rattling buses rush by with a terrible roar, slowing down in any place if suddenly someone decides to get out or get in, or rather, jump out or jump on. The conductors heart-rendingly shout out stops (they also exist), jumping out at almost every one and loudly drumming on the walls of the bus before climbing back in - either a signal to the driver to start, or a burst of irrepressible energy. Along the same street, without observing any row, cyclists ride and crowds of people walk (sidewalks are a rarity in India), cows wander melancholy somewhere, sometimes a cart with wheels creaks into a bus as tall as it is pulled by dejected oxen. Once, on one of the central highways of Delhi, I even saw an elephant and a baby elephant slowly moving away towards the outskirts.

Needless to say, driving on Indian streets is a serious challenge. There are no traffic lights at many of even the busiest intersections, and when the rickshaw carrying you fearlessly crashes into oncoming traffic, it seems that everything is over. But the stream mysteriously parts and smoothly flows around you on both sides, the actions of the rickshaw driver do not cause any surprise or indignation - everyone drives this way, instantly adapting to their neighbor and not expecting anyone to follow the rules. Amazingly, during our three weeks in the country we saw only one accident, and that was on a deserted rural road. Perhaps, in addition to some special sensitivity, a little speed saves?

There is no crowding at the stations. Holders of tickets for general carriages live here for days until they finally manage to squeeze into the train. The vast majority of passengers are men with a blanket under their arms and a small bag: they are going somewhere in search of work. But there are also completely different ones: entire families, or rather, even clans, with mountains of luggage in galvanized chests - these, apparently, are moving to a new place of residence, perhaps having found a better use for their strengths.

Many live on the street. When we return to our hotel in Delhi in the evenings, people are sleeping on the roadsides for the night. Someone who has cardboard and a blanket is lucky; as a rule, they are already sleeping with their heads covered. Some people have nothing: lying down two by two and leaving a small space in the middle, they make a tiny fire that can only warm their navels. Cycle rickshaw pullers often sleep on the seats of their strollers, bent over with a hook and their legs hanging out from under the pashmina (a large scarf that can serve as anything, if necessary). In the morning, a hairdresser is already waiting for them at the nearest fence, laying out scissors, razors and combs right there on the asphalt. Shave, cut your hair, do a facial massage - please. And I must admit, the neatly cropped backs of Indians’ heads attract attention.

Often the homeless are villagers who came to the city to work. In Benares, we got into a conversation with a rickshaw puller (in India, almost everyone who studied at school speaks English quite well - the second state language - however, rickshaw pullers are often uneducated and may not even speak Hindi - the main state language - if they, say , from the southern provinces), he turned out to be a landless peasant farm laborer. In the village his daily earnings are 30 rupees (about 70 cents), in the city it’s not the same every day, but if he’s lucky, it’s 10 times more. He pays 20 rupees for renting a stroller, 10 for a place in a shelter, eats for 50 rupees - saves the rest so that in 2-3 months, at the beginning of sowing, he can return to the village with a decent amount, which, together with the “field money”, will allow the family to survive until his next foray into the city. Well, if you are very lucky in the city, you can even send your child to school. Primary education in India is free, but one requires money, then another - in general, 50 rupees a month is spent, and without much luck you cannot find it. “I specialize in foreigners,” the rickshaw driver told us confidentially. And he didn’t lie: out of the five days that we spent in Benares, he picked us up on the main street three times and, after a short trade, took us to the right place.

The hotel cook in Benares also turned out to be a villager. In the village, in the care of his brother, he left his wife and son; he himself sees his family only twice a year, regularly sending them money. His monthly salary is 3,000 rupees, housing - a mattress in the back room - and food at the expense of the establishment. The salary, as he himself admitted, is small, a good cook can earn more, but he likes the place - quiet, next to the temple, where he goes in his free time to talk with the brahman. It’s funny that the cook himself turned out to be from an impoverished Brahman family: Brahman cooks (representatives of the highest caste) are in great demand in restaurants, since you can only eat food that is prepared by a representative of a caste no lower than yours.

However, it is unlikely that this rule is strictly observed: food in India is prepared and sold at every turn, and the vast majority of people eat it. Before my eyes, in Bhubaneswar, a Brahman (they can be distinguished by a special robe and bandage) bought tea on the street, not interested in the origin of its manufacturer (although, of course, Bhubaneswar is a small city, one of those where everything is known about the neighbors). The smell of spicy Indian food overtakes you at every step. By evening, the city is enveloped in a dull yellow haze, a thick mixture of gasoline, diesel (auto-rickshaws are driven by it), kerosene, gas and smoke from burning coals - they cook with all this - mixed with dust and sand, it irritates the nasopharynx so much that very soon the sore throat and cough no longer leave you even for a second (you cough for at least a week even after returning home). But still you are drawn into this fragrant gloom, where everything lives and moves, where street conversations do not stop until the last cup of tea is drunk (they hardly drink alcohol in India) - well, then you can go to the side, but sometimes from the next room For a long time, quite decent singing can be heard - sometimes Indian-like, cheerful and cheerful, sometimes just real bel canto.

It is surprising that, given the mobilizing energy of the general flow of life, every Indian himself is not at all in a hurry and is even often lazy and relaxed (crazy bus conductors are a special case). The movements of a man smashing a concrete pipe with a sledgehammer resemble slow motion; it seems that at such speed (or rather, lack thereof) it is simply impossible to hit with a sledgehammer - the swing is still back and forth, but gravity must pull it down! Helper boys in a cafe peel onions with the thoughtful slowness of chess players. Women on the train can sit cross-legged for hours, barely moving, despite the fact that the Indian train is a place where you are not given a moment's peace.

Before you have time to sit down, tea vendors immediately appear, shouting “Tea-tea-tea”, walking along the carriage in an almost continuous line (our “tea” is a Hindi word). “Samosa-samosa-samosa,” the sellers of pies with potatoes rumble in well-chosen voices, stepping on their heels. And so on ad infinitum, until the waiter comes from the train kitchen and asks in a quiet voice whether you will order anything for lunch or dinner. The food will be brought to you in your compartment, because there is no restaurant.

In the intervals between traders (and a wave of them covers you at each new station), cripples and beggars walk or crawl along the carriage, nimble children with brooms cheerfully sweep away the garbage that has accumulated under their feet in different directions, in order to then collect tribute from passengers “for cleaning”, and For a snack, an almost obligatory show awaits you: a couple of transvestites will sing and dance, attracting attention with deafening clapping of their hands and demanding no less than ten rupees for their efforts. Transvestites - men dressed as women who earn money through prostitution and begging - are a special caste in India that fills its ranks by stealing or buying boys from poor large families. And a strange thing: Indians, who are not always ready to give a measly rupee even to beggar children, almost always give the required ten to transvestites. What “works” here - either their unusual beauty (and they are really good and always elegantly dressed in some kind of semi-European manner), or their ability to engage in conversation, or their fear of these outcasts (in some ways they resemble our gypsies) , - it’s unclear.

In some Indian cities, life has largely retained medieval features (the most striking example is Benares, the sacred city on the banks of the Ganges, where every Hindu dreams of dying), but, according to analysts, India is catching up with advanced China in terms of economic growth. Traces of this growth can only be seen in unprecedented trading activity. In fact, the whole country is one big bazaar. Where they don’t sell food, they sell something else: clothes, furniture, car parts, and gold and diamonds are right there nearby. Even the poorest people, living along the roadsides in hastily erected huts or tents, sell some mysterious pieces of iron. Overall, domestic demand is definitely growing.

Another thing that is beyond doubt is the desire to escape from depressing poverty: people are looking for any kind of income. The state is trying to help them: countless hordes are working on the construction of some bridge or road. Gravel, for example, is carried in baskets, and there is a foreman for each porter. So far, obviously, the Indian government does not see any other way to provide jobs for the billion-dollar population, how to make technology as cost-effective as possible. “Work for India,” reads a poster placed near a digging ditch.

The results of this work, in the traveler's opinion, are very modest. Finding yourself in the center of Delhi or Calcutta, you cannot help but think that the houses have not been renovated since the British left India. (The center is now a refuge for the poor; wealthy people are building cottages in new areas or suburbs.) But we must give the Indians their due: the university campuses are maintained in quite good condition, usually shining with fresh paint, with an abundance of greenery, sports fields and even walking on the grass peacocks. But government buildings are not much different from “housing stock” - the priorities are obvious.

The population density in the country is such that, having traveled about three thousand kilometers from north to south, we did not see a single piece of free land - villages, fields, villages, fields. (Perhaps there is one a little further from the railway - after all, somewhere there is a jungle and mountains.) An indispensable altar in the middle of one of the fields or a tiny temple, ridiculously similar to a theater model. As a rule, Hindu (82% of the population adheres to Hinduism), occasionally a mosque (16% are Muslim, and more often they live in cities). The fields are cut finely, each with the necessary sides - to retain water. However, “chopped” is the wrong word. It seems that they are naturally outlined by the landscape itself: there is a hillock - and the field will smoothly go around it, with one edge stretching out into a semicircle. Another field is attached to it, which obediently obeys the whims of its own piece of land. As a result, the landscape resembles a blanket of patches of the most whimsical shape, but fitted to each other practically without a single gap. (The field arrangement system is somewhat similar to the manner of street traffic.) Probably, this also expresses the spirit of admiration for the forces of nature inherent in Hinduism, forcing every living creature to listen to the “rhythm of being” and not to lose heart even in the most seemingly hopeless situations. circumstances. Perhaps the feeling of the same “rhythm of being” gives the unhurried life of individual Indians that general elastic energy that captures you as soon as you set foot on Indian soil.