A journey to India

 

Good evening!

I wanted to share with you my experience of living in India.I lived there when I was eight years old until I was twelve years old. Plus, since I was in lockdown, I wanted to feel somewhere else. 

I think I will do two articles. This one will be a small part of a journey to India. I will try to describe it as much as possible. I will still put some pictures for you to have an idea on how things that I depicts looks like. The other part will be focused on poverty and the inequalities there.  

For the first part I would like you to try your best to imagine what I’m describing, I want this article to be as a journey. So, let’s begin. Imagine yourself seating in a seat of a flight to Chennai. You’re going from Paris and you have one stop. You have ten hours at least of flight and the stop can be long too. Plus, don’t forget that you did the trip to Paris from Marseilles. Therefore, you’re tired. You are trying to cover yourself with the tiny blanket furnish on each seat to avoid the air conditioning. Your eyes are slowly closing. A few hours later, you wake-up and your back hurts because you haven’t found the best position in your seat. You have to go out to take your next flight. You are in the airport of New Delhi.                             

 

You have many duty free around you and half of the indications are written in Hindi. The atmosphere is now hotter than in your flight. The white lights are hurting your eyes because you’re hardly awake. You see a small coffee shop, exactly what you needed. You see a beverage that everyone takes: the tchai. Curious, you ask one too. You remark the taste of the milk mixed with black tea, cinnamon, cardamom, clove, and vanilla. All these flavours put as one is new to you and the warmth of this drink reconfort you. After a while, your next flight is announced so you search your gate. You finally board in your plane, it’s smaller than the other one. You find your seat and settle down. 

After three hours, you’re in Chennai. As usual, you get out of the plane, you go and find your suitcase. Around you, there are typical Indian decorations and pictures of landscapes that you may see during your journey. Finally, when you go out, the atmosphere is humid and it’s so hot that you suddenly feel the change on your skin that used to freeze under the air conditioning. There are plenty of taximen with signs with names on them. You search for yours and you find it. The driver introduces himself and takes you to his car and puts your luggage in the boot. You notice that the one driving seats at the right. Then, you sit in the front seat too. It’s usually the only seat where there is a seatbelt.

You are going to Puducherry. On the road, you speak with the driver, and you look through the window. The sun is slowly fading away and is turning orange. There are many palm trees on each side of the road. It’s so different from France. Everything to you seems interesting and to be looked at. You are now arriving in Puducherry, where there are many people riding motorcycles. It’s the night and you don’t see many things apart from the headlights of the people in front of you. The driver drops you in a guest house. The building is a typical Indian house. There is a light shaft. It’s not as modern as in Europe or in the United States. There are huge pillars, and the floor is made of marble. The furniture is made of wood.    

The host welcomes you and indicates your room. You switch on the fan, and you have a good night. 

The morning you think you woke up at 8 am but it’s actually 12:30 pm. You didn’t calculate the jet lag. You go downstairs to get some breakfast. There are idlis. They are soft, light, and fluffy. They are served with Sambar and coconut chutney. 

You decide to go outside and it’s so hot, so you decide to put on your sunglasses. You start to walk, around you there are houses all stuck together. There are some with bright colours. There are few people walking, the others are riding a bicycle or a scooter. Men mostly are wearing jeans and a striped shirt and almost every woman is wearing a colourful sari. 

 You are in the Tamil neighbourhood so there are many local houses with Tamil architecture. There is also a big temple that you see on the side of the street. Then you are crossing the canal, so you are directing yourself in the white town. It’s very colourful there too but there are more white or grey houses there, such as the Ashram building. A famous institution to do meditation and other things. There are huge trees on the side of the road and some bougainvillea are coming out of some houses, covering the wall with its beautiful flowers. Sometimes there are dogs resting on the side of some streets. 

There are many restaurants, all of them are very colourful and there are many people there. You then decide to eat in a famous one named “Surguru”. You order a thali. There is a bowl of rice, chapati and so many gravies. 

  

Then you decide to go on the “Promenade”, a long and large road with a wide sidewalk next to the sea. You feel a soft breeze on your face. At your right there is a big statue of Gandhi and there are kids playing around it. You hear their laughter. 

 

You continue to walk, and you arrive in front of an ice cream shop call G.M.T. there you take the tiramisu flavour (trust me it’s incredible). After, you decide to take a rickshaw to go to Tanto Beach. You have heard about this restaurant with private access to the beach and a swimming pool outdoors. It’s famous because there they only use salt to clean the water and it’s very efficient and less polluting. You cross the city in the rickshaw, you don’t miss a single detail: you look at the people, the buildings passing by, the dogs playing, the kids running and the cows crossing the road. All these elements create a colourful fresco on each side of the streets. You arrive, you get off the rickshaw and you pay the man. You head to the restaurant, there are many people sitting and talking but you, you want to go to the beach. The sand is burning your feet, so you decide to accelerate. 

You then arrive and see the sea that extends to the horizon. You unfold your bath towel; you remove your clothes to be in your swimsuit and you run. The wind blow in your hair, you smile. You smile again. You touch the water, it’s so warm. You start to swim and let your body move in the rhythm. You close your eyes for a few minutes. You are exactly where you need to be.   

 

 I hope you liked it :) Also, I'm sorry if the layout is not perfect, I really struggled to put all these pictures.

Bye ^^

Maïa