My Addiction, My Stimulant, and My Creative Inspiration
Crowds, risk, and streets filled with odours and colour, India is a full sensory experience like nowhere else I have seen.
The thing I loved best about New Delhi was the anonymity it gave me. I was nobody and nothing, and didn’t stand out in the crowd one bit, except for my European skin tone. Other than that, I disappeared into the most crowded streets I had ever seen in my life.
By nature, I am most at home and at ease in the countryside. It’s where I grew up — mostly — in the gentle and unassuming lands of north Oxfordshire, on the edge of the Cotswolds, with its beautifully spaced villages and thatched cottages.
A short time spent living in London during my university years, was enough British-city-dwelling for me, and I then escaped to the South West, to a hill overlooking the sea in Cornwall. Two-point-five years spent here, only moving slightly closer into real England again, and eventually settling to raise a family in Devon, on the southern edge of Dartmoor National Park.
I can honestly say, I would never have wanted to raise my children anywhere else. For my own adrenalin-rich, creative fuel, the crazier, freer combination of built-up wonderment and dramatic nature, the better.
Which is what brought me to India….
Travel and adventure were ingrained in my DNA
I first travelled to India when I was 18 and fresh out of school. I was ready to experience something different from my green yet bland homeland. As a small child, I had lived in several developing countries in Africa, and I longed for the heat, dust, and smells of tropical — or sub-tropical — lands again. India did not disappoint in the slightest; each village, town, and city emitting its own particular flavour.
Aside from my initial introduction to Indian cities, having first landed in the fabulously diverse city of Mumbai, I barely spent any time in large, sprawling cities until reaching New Delhi, three months into the trip.
I was travelling through India with my boyfriend, Matt, and we were meeting my friend, Lisa, in New Delhi. She had arrived before us, found a hotel, and arranged a room for us. It was in a street frequented by backpackers, and lined with cheap hotels. The one she found for us was the cheapest of the lot.
Dark and lacking in windows, it was one of the few hotels in the street with many more passing Indian visitors than Western visitors, most Western visitors preferring to spend a little bit more to ensure a marginally more luxurious stay. And, far from being a hardship, this was the kind of travelling we got a real high off. Overhead fans creaking their way through the night, strong possibilities of bed bugs, and the only lights that seeped into our rooms being from the strip lighting in the courtyards, that remained on 24/7. Contrary to assumption, I slept exceedingly well in such environments, because my body had absolutely no way of knowing if it was day or night in this environment.
Taking In Delhi In All Its Glory Is An Experience I Will Never Forget
Bustling is an understatement when describing the streets of Pahar Ganj, as this particular area is called. Every step is made trying to worm your way around pedestrians, cycle rickshaws, tuk-tuks, taxis, cows, tour guides, and shop owners touting for business.
Our first mission in New Delhi was to book our flights back to the UK, and for that, we needed to head to Connaught Place — a part of the city that was built during the colonial era and was still the chosen haunt for those who aspired to live as the British had done during those times. Rather than taking a tuk-tuk to get there, Lisa decided to take us on a 25-minute walk there, dodging buses pelting towards us with their horns blasting, so that we could stop en route at the very English-style bakery to sample cakes like we hadn’t eaten in months.
We were like kids in a candy store (but actually kids in a cake store), and these cakes didn’t disappoint. Well, not completely — there was a slight resemblance to sweetened cardboard, but, since it was our first time eating chocolate cake in months, we weren’t about to complain.
Connaught Place was as majestic to me as it sounded. It is made up of three circles — the Inner Circle, the Middle Circle, and the Outer Circle — around Central Park, a circular grassy park that hides an underground market beneath it. Here young men await wealthy visitors to offer hair-cutting, shoe-cleaning, and ear-cleaning, all while you sit on a bench taking in your surroundings.
The Inner Circle is where the most prestigious businesses are situated, including the travel agents that we were in search of. The wealth there stands in stark contrast to everything surrounding it. The women in the travel agent wore pristine silk saris and spoke with their fellow colleagues in English. When Indians speak among themselves in English, you know you are among the upper classes, too concerned with external appearances to speak in their native tongues. Typical eateries in the Inner Circle included restaurants serving English-style tea in bone china teacups with tiny white bread sandwiches, and a Wimpy.
Heading out to the Middle Circle, we found ourselves able to get into a bustling South Indian Coffee House where we could buy cups of chai for seven rupees or fourteen pence (still expensive for India, but cheap compared with the Inner Circle) and Masala Dosas (pancakes made from rice and lentil flour, stuffed with spiced potatoes and served with sambar — a spicy vegetable soup-like curry — and fiery-hot coconut chutney) for ten rupees. This was far more our preferred choice of food.
Every step we took in New Delhi felt like an adventure for our senses, with vast amounts to take in. Inspired and invigorated on every level, every single person I met, from posh Indian to street-wandering commission tout, inspired my creative outlets on every level. Sitting in roof-top restaurants in Pahar Ganj, meeting colourful characters on their travels through India, and watching the circus in the streets from a particularly good vantage point, I had a world of stories and visuals at my fingertips.
And that was just Delhi.
Faith, The Undercurrent Of Life In India
Over the years I have ventured back to India several times, soaking up different scenes and people, from beaches in the south to steep Himalayan valleys. I have sat in restaurants overlooking the Ganges in Rishikesh, sipping on tulsi tea, and marvelling at the faith of the Hindu people, making the pilgrimage to the banks of the holy river to perform rituals and pray for their loved ones.
Faith is the keyword here, and probably the one thing that has held me in my addiction to the wonderment of this land. Travelling in India feels like taking life into your own hands, considering how badly they drive, how badly constructed most of the buildings are, and the levels of danger from both petty, and serious crime. But the essence of most of the people in India is beautiful, loving, and kind, with a lightness of heart that most people in the West cannot understand. And I put all of this down to their faith.
Their faith is cultivated and expressed through their devotion to their chosen deities, or gods, but far from it being a religious obsession, it is more of a necessary life skill. In India, you literally have no choice but to exist with faith or get the hell out. Many Westerners end up leaving after their nerves have been frayed too many times. But those that survive the nerve-fraying have discovered the key to not only surviving, but thriving, in the crazy hustle and bustle of the place: Faith, and joy of the present moment…because, ultimately, that’s all there is that you can rely on.
One Day I Will Return For A Self-Designed Creative Retreat
Since having children I have returned with the eldest two in tow — a story or five for another time — but decided that such travels had a short expiry date, for a number of reasons. Yet, I plan to return one day, when I am free enough of child-focused duties, and the Corona days have allowed for freer travel again. And this time will be purely for me; to indulge my creative inspiration and sense of adventure…. which will hopefully remain as strong.
In the meantime, I have my memories and many journals that I filled over the years from my adventures. These can take all of my senses straight back to that restaurant by the Ganges with such intensity that, for a moment, the English drizzle outside my window becomes the Himalayan rains, filling the river as it flows down to the plains.
That, for now, is good enough for me.
