If you know me, you know I tend to make up stories or theories about things I see to explain what's going on. Here I am no different, but before I can finish one story, I am making up another, and another, and another....there is that much to see. I didn't have my camera on this particular day, but read on and imagine how many stories I started on this bus ride.
Today I took the shuttle to and from the elementary school to volunteer with a grade 5 exhibition project. As we left to return to the high school about 15 minutes away, the school security guards gestured for us to pull over and wait in the parking lot. I didn't understand the explanation given to the driver, so I wondered why. With a story forming in my head to explain everything, I suddenly heard why. A long string of firecrackers started popping and smoking in the middle of the street, stopping traffic in both directions. I could see the smoke curling into a crowd, but wasn't sure what was up. After the parade and festival by our house the other night, I expected it to be another festival. Pulling into traffic, music grew louder, and the woman next to me said, "It looks like a wedding!"
We hadn't inched forward very far when a man in an orange striped kurta, the self-designated traffic controller for the wedding party, waved our shuttle to the parking lane to make room for a city bus going in the opposite direction. Only one lane was clear, so we moved over to let him go by. No sooner had we given a sliver of space when a black and yellow blur of a rickshaw slipped around us and came face-to-face with the bus. He darted to safety in front of our shuttle as the bus lumbered forward, blocking our view but letting the music filter through.
Almost to the wedding party, I could see children dressed in bright colors on the edges of the little crowd. Several women in cream saris with glittering gold embellishments were dancing in the street, one pausing with her arm on another to take off her silver-bottomed pumps which glinted as she pulled them from her feet. She piled her shoes up with the others near the sidewalk, grabbed her mother's hands, and the two of them swung around, leaning dangerously apart, but clinging together as they laughed and twirled to the music. Another man in a long cream-colored kurta caught my eye, and I strained for a look at the bride and groom who were said to be nestled in a car festooned with flowers to the rear of the dancers.
And then we were past it all, and the street became a normal Indian street once again. I wondered if they would continue down the street, pausing every so often to celebrate the wedding with more firecrackers, more music, and more shoeless twirling. The music faded and we soon passed a woman in a beautiful red sari, leading her small son by the hand. Did they know that there was a wedding party up ahead?
When we turned at the end of the street, we bumped down to pavement rough with construction. Holding the arm of a confused man, a security guard with a face full of care patiently helped him cross the street. My heart swelled as I caught the tender moment. Our driver skillfully dodged the sewers that were raised well above the stripped height of the road surface, and I was momentarily mesmerized by hundreds of oddly angled spirals of rebar jutting from the ground. Peeking through to the deep trench beyond, I could see workers busily remodeling the road just inches from brick homes that teetered at the far edge of the trench. Ahead, like time travelers, we could see a section of completed road that showed what it would all look like in the future.
Coming around a corner, the road smoothed out, and small children ran ahead of us in the street. They chased after a man on a bicycle, all giggles and playful shrieks as they reached out for his bike. A quick beep from our driver, and the children parted to opposite sides of the street, one climbing the high curb to the sidewalk, while the other flattened his body against a large, blue truck parked on the road. I gazed at the girl on the edge of the sidewalk, one leg tippy-toed on the ground and the other thrown with the rest of her body over the top edge of the concrete. We locked eyes for the briefest moment, then my view filled with the bicycle, which had slowed and was hugging the sidewalk, waiting for us to pass so the game of chase could carry on.
We reached a major road with stop and go traffic full of cars, buses, trucks, taxis, and rickshaws with motorcycles weaving through the lot. People walked alongside the traffic, one woman with a basket of bundled grasses balanced neatly on her head. Her red and purple sari was a cheerful spot in the dusty street. Looking into the alleys and along the street, crumbly homes in want of a coat of paint were dressed up with brightly colored laundry that had been hung out to dry. Store fronts replaced the homes, and before long the traffic flowed over the bridge while the river sat idly below. The shuttle lurched over a speed bump, and deposited us back at the high school, so many moments richer than before.
Today I took the shuttle to and from the elementary school to volunteer with a grade 5 exhibition project. As we left to return to the high school about 15 minutes away, the school security guards gestured for us to pull over and wait in the parking lot. I didn't understand the explanation given to the driver, so I wondered why. With a story forming in my head to explain everything, I suddenly heard why. A long string of firecrackers started popping and smoking in the middle of the street, stopping traffic in both directions. I could see the smoke curling into a crowd, but wasn't sure what was up. After the parade and festival by our house the other night, I expected it to be another festival. Pulling into traffic, music grew louder, and the woman next to me said, "It looks like a wedding!"
We hadn't inched forward very far when a man in an orange striped kurta, the self-designated traffic controller for the wedding party, waved our shuttle to the parking lane to make room for a city bus going in the opposite direction. Only one lane was clear, so we moved over to let him go by. No sooner had we given a sliver of space when a black and yellow blur of a rickshaw slipped around us and came face-to-face with the bus. He darted to safety in front of our shuttle as the bus lumbered forward, blocking our view but letting the music filter through.
Almost to the wedding party, I could see children dressed in bright colors on the edges of the little crowd. Several women in cream saris with glittering gold embellishments were dancing in the street, one pausing with her arm on another to take off her silver-bottomed pumps which glinted as she pulled them from her feet. She piled her shoes up with the others near the sidewalk, grabbed her mother's hands, and the two of them swung around, leaning dangerously apart, but clinging together as they laughed and twirled to the music. Another man in a long cream-colored kurta caught my eye, and I strained for a look at the bride and groom who were said to be nestled in a car festooned with flowers to the rear of the dancers.
And then we were past it all, and the street became a normal Indian street once again. I wondered if they would continue down the street, pausing every so often to celebrate the wedding with more firecrackers, more music, and more shoeless twirling. The music faded and we soon passed a woman in a beautiful red sari, leading her small son by the hand. Did they know that there was a wedding party up ahead?
When we turned at the end of the street, we bumped down to pavement rough with construction. Holding the arm of a confused man, a security guard with a face full of care patiently helped him cross the street. My heart swelled as I caught the tender moment. Our driver skillfully dodged the sewers that were raised well above the stripped height of the road surface, and I was momentarily mesmerized by hundreds of oddly angled spirals of rebar jutting from the ground. Peeking through to the deep trench beyond, I could see workers busily remodeling the road just inches from brick homes that teetered at the far edge of the trench. Ahead, like time travelers, we could see a section of completed road that showed what it would all look like in the future.
Coming around a corner, the road smoothed out, and small children ran ahead of us in the street. They chased after a man on a bicycle, all giggles and playful shrieks as they reached out for his bike. A quick beep from our driver, and the children parted to opposite sides of the street, one climbing the high curb to the sidewalk, while the other flattened his body against a large, blue truck parked on the road. I gazed at the girl on the edge of the sidewalk, one leg tippy-toed on the ground and the other thrown with the rest of her body over the top edge of the concrete. We locked eyes for the briefest moment, then my view filled with the bicycle, which had slowed and was hugging the sidewalk, waiting for us to pass so the game of chase could carry on.
We reached a major road with stop and go traffic full of cars, buses, trucks, taxis, and rickshaws with motorcycles weaving through the lot. People walked alongside the traffic, one woman with a basket of bundled grasses balanced neatly on her head. Her red and purple sari was a cheerful spot in the dusty street. Looking into the alleys and along the street, crumbly homes in want of a coat of paint were dressed up with brightly colored laundry that had been hung out to dry. Store fronts replaced the homes, and before long the traffic flowed over the bridge while the river sat idly below. The shuttle lurched over a speed bump, and deposited us back at the high school, so many moments richer than before.
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