Mornings

My first few days here have started fairly early.

I wake up at 6 a.m. because India wakes up at 6 a.m. Every morning the city comes alive like a thousand babies being born. Noise and chaos of every sort saturating the air. Engines rev and horns blast. Voices call out in multiple dialects and trains shake the windows. Despite being on the fourth floor it sounds like all of Bangalore is right outside.

And yet, strangely, it’s not annoying. It's exciting in a ‘I can't wait to get down there and join the cacophony’ sort of way. It’s a constant reminder that every second you stay in bed you’re missing something worth seeing. 

And the mornings here offer so much to see.

On a nearby roof top a man wearing only a towel surveys his surroundings, standing amidst his family’s shirts and saris as they dance on a clothesline. The wind is cool. Steam lifts itself out of his cup of chai. 

In the backyard of a neighboring building an old woman sits on the floor fanning flames beneath a giant, covered pot, smoke pouring out and up towards me. Chickens loiter around her and single rooster cries out to no one in particular. 

Waiting to cross the road, I see a woman pass by on a Honda moped, her 11 year old daughter in front with her small hands stretched out towards the handlebars. The mother secretly helps keep control, smiling proudly as the young girl learns to navigate the dangerous and uncaring white-water traffic.

 

Children run up behind me and Ada, repeating a single word in Hindi, putting their right hand to their mouth. The same motion every time. They’re asking for money for food, but the reality is more grim. The gangs who own these children put them into the streets to bring in an extra income. Instead we give them Oreos or gum drops, like a tragic twist on Halloween.

A tragic twist on a childhood

Ada’s friend takes us into town. I ask her if she’s scared to drive in India. “No,” she says calmly while simultaneously avoiding a head-on collision with an auto rickshaw whose driver has cut into our lane to avoid a pothole in his. “If you learn to drive in Bangalore, you can drive anywhere.”

A crowd gathers around an impromptu fruit market where a man prepares a pile of coconuts for sale, hacking off their outer shell with a massive, curved blade. The sound of the steel slamming against wood barely makes it into our car before we speed out of reach. 

I could go on and on like this. It’s incredible.