Rythm of the city

Daily life in India continues to prove itself nearly opposite to life in North America. For instance, Here, it is considered taboo for a woman to show her legs, and frowned upon for her to wear tighter clothing. At home, the fashion currently seems to be the more leg the better, and the tighter the better. It is not good for a man and a woman to hold hands or show any sort of affection in public here, but you will see everywhere you look young men holding hands or cuddling at bus stops. DOn't get the wrong impression though, homosexuality is ilegal. It's just that as boys they hold hands to make sure they don't lose each other in the crowds or crossing the street, and it's just their way of showing that they are really close friends from boyhood. It's not weird at all. If you are from here. It still weirds me out, that's definately something that'll take a while to get used to. Women show no affection for anyone. They are rather pushy acctually. At home, you would be shocked and quite disterbed and dicusted if you saw a man across the street from your shop taking a leak in the street, but here it's just normal. It's almost become a game: see how many urinating men you can see in one car trip. Yikes. Oh, and if your rickshaw driver has to go, he will pull over and sighn to you that he needs to relieve himself by raising his pinky finger in the air. Apperently the universal sign for "I need to pee, I'll just be a minute". Another one is if you were to smell something akin to raw sewage at home, you would assume that there was a major breakage in the sewer line and that someone would be fixing it within the hour, or that it's really just freshly spread manure on a local farmer's feild. Here, it is the holy and sacred Yamuna river that constantly smells like 500 tanker trucks full of crap just let go of their cargo right beside the road. Oh wait, there are no trucks, the crap just flows into the river anyway. Ocationally it's so strong I have to take a deap breath through the thickest cloth near me,and hold it for as long as phisically possible just so I don't vomit. It's rough. I think driving past that nasty stinky cow farm on my way to work will be a piece of cake when I come back. Then there is the children who come and tap on your windows at stoplights or traffic jams. They are trying to sell you magasines or little plastic flowers mostly. They are increadibly dirty with the kind of eyes that could melt the hardest of hearts. The sad thing is though that it is advised not to give to them or buy things off them because they wont see any of the money, and it won't help they're situation in the slightest. So if we ever have leftovers from going out to dinner, or have cookies or buiscuts in the car, we give them these. At least it'll put something in their little tummys. At home you have to watch out for doggy doo in the parks sometimes, and really, now that doesn't seem quite so bad. A cow took a crap right outside the bakery's frontdoor the other day. Ick. Oh, and you know how on most highways and such in Canada they have those signs that say "$2000 fine for littering"? Well here, there are no trashcans, they are one in a million, and if you have trash, you throw it anywhere you darn well please. It's positively discusting, and still to me seems quite outrageous. No one else (that isn't white) bats an eye. The westerners all still refuse to adopt this kind of lifestyle, even if they've been here for 15 years. Thank goodness. But the ironic part, is that you will see signs that proudly state, "keep our city green and clean!" Keep it? It isn't in the first place! How can you keep something clean that's is filthy beyond all recognition?

All these things continue to confound me, and I think they still will even after we've been here for three months. They are so extremely opposite that I don't think they'll ever become normal to me.