This attitude I had and the lack of excitement I felt, after the longest train journey I’ve ever taken, I reckon was the reason for me to be attracting all the things that made my trip from the train station to the airport, all the more challenging.
I shall just vent some of my frustration: This city is nearly impossible to get around! There are hardly no English signs and there’s little English spoken too! Considering to get a bus, meant I was expected to run and jump, just to be sure I’d get on (with my backpack on my back and rucksack on my front!) Help is well-intended but not always dependable, which meant I was sent everywhere except where I was actually needing to go. The sleazy men were everywhere, my back was sore, beggars were still forcing me to part with my money and taxi-drivers were ripping me off. I spoke not so nice words under my breath, nearly with every interaction.. Which I hate to admit.
But now that I’ve gotten the complaining out of the way, I must say I did get the right help, at every moment when I was reaching breaking point. That was actually only due to my direct and harsh manner in stating my query every so clearly. I then had my first and probably last argument with the taxi driver, on my way to the airport. I actually couldn’t believe what I was saying, and how stern I was! I shocked myself, and put him in his place too! Even he was shocked! Wouw.. It felt strange to react in such a way, on my very last leg of the journey; I was going to the airport, I was leaving India, and I wasn’t knowing when I’d be amongst this amazing chaos again (that I usually love so much), and I was arguing just because I was being ripped off!
Was this a sign that I really did need to leave India? Or was I attracting the vibes that I was sending out? It made me wonder. I didn’t want my last hours in India to be such a drama.
But would these be my last impressions.. A taxi driver who was angry with me, a toilet-lady who wouldn’t accept my 5 rupee note because it had a tear in it and the airport employee who wasn’t going to let me sit in the waiting room all night, not until he heard, through the determination in my voice, that I would otherwise hang around outside. I was pretty much saying: “I don’t really care, do I look bothered to you? And you can stuff your rules wherever you like, but don‘t annoy me with them!” Wouw man.. What had India suddenly done to me? I was becoming this infuriated person all of a sudden. I was so determined not to let anybody walk all over me, to point of being just as rude to them as they were being to me (very childish niamh!). I was strict and stern and it hit me out of nowhere.
Was it me just getting caught up in the harsh mentality here in this city? Or was it me already placing myself in a different country, where things happen more easily and with a natural friendliness, which made me see the way in which this India works and therefore caused frustration to arise? Was I less adaptable all of a sudden? But having said this, in my frustration and sternness, I still met 3 people who randomly spoke with me and offered me a contact of some sort, for when I come back! How crazy is this country?! Things constantly happen; up and down, all the time. And now I’m in the airport, I feel to have left India, but I’m still attracting new people. I can’t keep up with it all.
So the boldness of today, will never be as overpowering as the kindness I experienced from those people who did approach me and who did make the effort to help. Such sweet people there are, in every corner, and those are far more valuable impressions that will last a whole lot longer!
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