My Morning Commute

I have been working in a jewelry store here in Jaipur for the past few weeks. Unfortunately, or fortunately, my hotel is across town. In the morning it's maybe a 20-minute ride. In the evening it can take up to one hour when traffic is at its worst. I ride through the old town of Jaipur, also known as the Pink City since the walls are painted a terra cotta color(not sure where the "Pink" came from.)

My driver, Ali, picks me up in his tuk tuk (motorized auto rickshaw). I slip into the pink vinyl seat with big hearts stitched on the back rest. It seats two, comfortably, three squeezed tight and seven or eight if you're Indian. Ali wears a cap, presumably because he's bald, and black eyeliner because it wards off the evil eye. He speaks good English and knows the city well. He overcharges me about 20 rupees.

We share the road with every conceivable mode of transport including camel carts, elephants, horse drawn tongas, donkeys, bicycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws, cars, and motorbikes. A menagerie of animals including the above mentioned, vie for space. Dogs, pigs and piglets, speckled goats, monkeys and of course cows weave in and out of traffic or simply stand there in the case of the cows. One evening we were stopped in traffic. I was eye to eye with a cow's anus. He/she was standing on the median. I'll spare you the details of what happened next. Damn this jam.

Some of the other things I've seen:

õ      Eunuchs beating drums, dancing, singing, and generally making a ruckus in front of businesses. They go away only after they're paid.

õ      Carts of street food, including some electric yellow noodles that looked radioactive.

õ      Women dressed in brightly colored saris embellished with sparkles. Every morning I see women cobblers (rare) squatting with the tools of their trade. They are so beautiful polishing and repairing shoes in their pink, red, turquoise, and green saris that look like evening gowns and prom dresses gone wild. Their wrists are heavy with bangles.

õ      Piggies and piglets dining on the remains of the previous day, immensely enjoying their discarded fruit peels, old vegetables, plastic biscuit wrappers, and garden variety garbage.

õ      A dirty cream colored donkey painted with orange spots and orange stripes, presumably for identification.

This morning, I saw a completely naked old man standing on the roadside. Ali didn't even blink an evil eye. I doubt anyone else did either.