To India with love, and trepidation

Every other year, I get off the highway to take a slower, scenic road.

Last month, I embarked on a 7,000-mile journey to India, the country of my birth, to Delhi and Kolkata, and then to the hills with a group of old friends from academia and journalism, to talk politics and current affairs, share jokes and memories, and ruminate on the future.

For five days and four nights, we stayed in a renovated British-era stone bungalow in the hills of Gethiya, in the state of Uttarkhand, to soak in the moment. We listened to the birdcalls that filled our days. We marveled at the sound of pelting rain, watched the glistening leaves, and smelled the wet earth.

We savored the scrumptious home-cooked food and fruit — the biryani, chicken curry, guavas, cucumbers, aloo parathas and yogurt — we ate at the bungalow, and at roadside stalls and eateries on our eight-hour bus ride from Delhi to the hills and back.

One of us, a talented photographer, got closeups of tiny birds that captured their vibrant plumage. And I managed to fill my sketchbook with drawings of the bungalow, the flowers and trees and portraits of my friends.

It was a slow road that let us observe and reflect, but as on previous visits, I found myself running into some heavy traffic too — the rapid changes transforming Delhi and Kolkata into an unrecognizable maze of streets and flyovers that are beginning to resemble parking lots stretching into the morning smog.

In fact, very little of those cities I knew in the early 1990s survives. Delhi still has a Nehru Place shopping center, but flyovers have risen on all sides. Chittaranjan Park, once a south Delhi enclave of single-story homes, is now a forest of tall buildings with nowhere to park. Kolkata, which was a walker’s paradise, now has barely any room for pedestrians.

All but gone are the roadside cobblers and barbers, whom COVID drove away. Gone too are the ubiquitous paanwallas, who sold folded paan leaves, an excellent digestive to chew after a meal. Some ascribe it to a change in habits, saying few chew paans anymore.

In the hills of northern India, overdevelopment is devouring the flora and fauna, and draining the power and water supply. Hillsides have subsided and homes have collapsed. Our host, a young entrepreneur who owns the bungalow, said the government ought to put a stop to land purchases, which surged during the pandemic, because they are straining the hillside infrastructure and destroying the environment.

But then, India has always been a land of contradictions.

Along with the overdevelopment, and futuristic payTMs at every roadside stall — which allow you to pay for anything, even a bottle of water or a glass of sugarcane juice, with plastic — there’s an adherence to traditional values.

I visited two young cousins and their families who live together in Barrackpore, on the outskirts of Kolkata, and found them all tending to my octogenarian uncle, who remains paralyzed after a stroke. The kids comfort him, while studying hard for their exams.

At the homes I stayed, in Kolkata and Delhi, women helps gladly cooked sumptuous meals, and were overjoyed by my words of appreciation and embarrassed by my tips.

Forget Google Maps. Everywhere you go, people are always ready to show you the way, with a smile.

Each morning in Delhi and Kolkata, I woke up to a medley of sounds from my childhood — a riot of birdcalls and produce vendors yelling they had fresh potatoes and tomatoes and fruits for sale. At night, neighborhood watchmen rattled their sticks to assure residents they were at work, and everyone was safe.

Meeting my friends had a special significance this year because I had skipped the last three get-togethers to avoid the risk of a COVID infection. Being able to all speak at once, and joke and laugh heartily beat Zooming hands down.

We argued about whether Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from parliament could be a rallying cry for the opposition and propel him to political respectability. We talked about how a U.S. firm’s financial report was taking the bottom out of a business magnate’s shares. And what the future holds in store for India and the U.S., which both face general elections next year.

We also talked about our woes and joys, and in the process, learned a little more about one another, and ourselves.

Yes, that was the scenic route I meant to take, a slow path to introspection and renewal — with a little help from my friends. And it was spectacular, every mile.