The Urban Cowboys of New Delhi – men who lasso the cows of the city and take them to volunteer vets to get all the plastic removed from their insides. Unfortunately they fill up again as soon as they are let out on to the streets and begin eating the plastic waste again. Surprisingly these cows are privately owned!
some women suffer ‘dowry burnings’ when they become promised to a man but the man’s family may demand a larger dowry and then ‘accidentally’ burn their fiancee which either kills them, leaving the man to find a better bride or it shames the woman in to leaving out of shame, either way freeing the man.
As Sarah lies in hospital grappling with double Pneumonia a cleaner stands before her bed: “Are you going to die today?” – “No” – “Why not?” – “I’m not that sick.” – “Ah, madam, but you could and you must be ready”. (Not the best bedside manner)
Whilst in hospital Johnathon sleeps on the sofa next to Sarah, as it is not uncommon for women to be raped in hospital.
“This country would be a lot easier with a strap-on penis”
“India is beyond statement, for anything you say, the opposite is also true. It’s rich, it’s poor, spiritual and material, cruel and kind, angry but peaceful, ugly and beautiful, and smart but stupid. It’s all the extremes. India defies understanding…”
“And i’ll be telling you why you white people are not happy. We Indian people, we look at the people more poor, more low, more hard than us and we be thanking God we are not them. So we are happy. But you white peoples, you are looking at all the peoples above you all of the times and you are thinking, why aren’t I them? Why am I not having that moneys and things? And so you are unhappy all of the time.”
When the July rains of the monsoon take time to arrive and the cities fill with heated dust the people expect and the police accept casualties due to the ‘usual summer-induced mass hysteria’
Every 12 years the Kumbh Mela festival is celebrated and can be literally translated as ‘The Big Pot Festival’
“According to the Buddhist scriptures, Hell is located on the other side of the Earth on a spot directly opposite Bodhgaya – the town in India where the Buddha became enlightened. According to the modern maps, that corresponds to America.”
“Skin whiteness is an obsession in Mumbai as much as anywhere else in this brown-skinned land. An ancient Indian proverb says ‘if the skin is white it is love at first sight’. “
Being groped by strangers in crowds is disregarded as ‘Eve-teasing’ by the police
“Apparently the only way to tell if a woman is a sex-worker is to look in her eyes; like a western woman, she will stare back.”
