Retracing Our Steps

We are now in the process of retracing our steps through Jodhpur and Delhi, en route to our final two destinations: Goa and Mumbai (Bombay)! We had a relaxed, uneventful train ride back to our old digs in Jodhpur last evening...
Hmm. Let me pause a moment and reflect on what we now consider 'uneventful'. En route back to our digs, 'uneventful' includes the following:
a) Jodhpur hotel boys do not show up at train to pick us up, causing a fight between rickshaw boys out front as to who should get our business;
b) colorful bargaining of rickshaw from 300 down to 100 rupees, and a hard line demand from yours truly that we ARE NOT going to their hotel, we ARE NOT stopping at a carpet shop, we refuse to be taken ANYWHERE but our destination;
c) winning rickshaw driver takes us to some other hotel anyway, and insists that yes this IS our hotel (dude, we can read...)
d) rickshaw boy feigns miscomprehension but ultimately takes us towards our real hotel;
e) two cows picking garbage from a dumpster at a street corner (as you may expect to see a street person doing at home), and what's this up ahead? Traffic has come to a halt.... it's a wedding party! The groom is on horseback, with around 200 people in tow, huge lanterns lighting up the darkness of the street, all are singing, dancing and joyful...
f) and finally, we arrive at our little oasis, where we get a sense of being back at home, with the hotel staff greeting us with hands clapsed, calling "Namaste!", with big smiles on their faces, like old friends! This particular hotel was quite special, in that it is an old manor from the 1920s, which used to house racing horses and greyhounds back in the 50s. The place still retains a very colonial attitude and atmosphere; the staff wait expectantly at the corner of the patio to attend to our every need.. and for only $30 a night! Can't beat it.
As we near the penultimate destination on our journey, I find myself entering the reflective mode that rounds out any good trip. I have seen many places, but I have to say that India has presented a raw, wild, unadulterated experience of the human condition that I doubt will ever be surpassed. There is a moment in Varanasi that keeps coming back to me (this is the city where Hindu people bring their loved ones to die, on the Ganges river). Just after Deb and I had watched the open corpse burnings in sheer awe and wonder, we were making our way through the narrow, twisted cobblestone streets, when we heard chanting from around the corner somewhere, which quickly gained in intensity. Suddenly Deb cries "Body!" and we both plastered our backs against the wall to avoid colliding with the dead woman, wrapped in a pink shroud, being carried on a makeshift stretcher, high on the shoulders of her loved ones, as they came flying around the corner, deeply engrossed in their chanting and the mission at hand, which was to carry their mother to the burning wood awaiting her. There is so much in this moment: the heightened emotions of the family settle in the air like the shroud around their loved ones; the smells of incense, chai, urine, livestock, and garbage permeate our nostrils; the Hindu paintings and colorful hotel signs painted on the wall collide with the dirty grey, brown, and white clothes of the men; and the hypnotic chanting overtakes us completely. Throw a healthy burst of adrenaline into all of this, and it becomes a moment that I will never forget: This is India.