The circle closing

The time has come for me to say farewell to India.

The time has come for me stop moving, to stow my battered, travel-worn rucksack in the back of a wardrobe someplace, replace my sandals with sneakers, my fishermans pants with jeans, my money belt with a wallet and quit my ramblin' ways... for a time at least.

This morning I returned to Bombay having finally completed a circuit of this beautiful and terrible country of contrasts, contradictions and undeniable magic. I'm now sat in the same internet cafe I sheltered in four months ago, culture-shocked and intimidated, on the day that I arrived in India. Earlier I ate breakfast in the same restaurant I sat in all those months ago, biding my time waiting for my train to Goa, but this time without the moral support of a double-hard Israeli - or anyone else for that matter.

I'm back in Bombay, alone but unafraid, because I now know India - a little at least. I have managed to connect with it in a way that I didn't think would be possible when I arrived. I can feel it in my heart and my head, I can hear the slow, lazy beat of its pulse. I know what India is capable of, I know what it can do to you, I know it's cruelty and it's kindness, it's energy and it's madness, I know it's lies and it's desperation.

As I was wandering the market stall-lined, tourist-packed streets of Colaba earlier, a little depressed by the fact that there's so many amazing things to buy here but I don't have the will to buy them, I was approached by a young man who wanted to polish my sandals. Initially I ignored him as right at that moment I was busy trying to extricate myself from a cigarette vendor who had grabbed my wrist and wouldn't let go after I had laughed at his attempt to overcharge me for a carton of cigarettes. In one ear I had, "How many you buy? I give you good price!" and in the other "Sandal shine, two rupees, two rupees!"

I detached myself from the guy who had hold of my wrist and hurried off down the street. The shoe shine boy was at my heels, telling me that he had no business that day, that he was hungry, that his sister and mother lived on the streets. I sighed and stopped, let the boy shine my sandals. I can't ignore that kind of appeal, although I don't necessarily believe it because I hear it every day from Indians who know they can make fast money from naive tourists. The There are millions of people on the streets of India who are desperate and will tell you anything if they think you will give them money. Are they bad people because they are poor and hungry and compelled to lie to those who are wealthy beyond their wildest dreams?

Looking up at me as he furiously polished one of my sandals, the boy told me his sad story, how he couldn't make any money out of shining shoes because he didn't have a box to put his bits and pieces in. He told me that if I were to give him 250 rupees so that he could buy such a box then it would change his life and that of his sister and mother. I was not unaffected by his appeal. Tthe thought that I might be able to make a difference to this poor soul did attract me, as it would anyone with a heart. However, I knew that there was an excellent chance that he was lying. I knew that he could make a lot more money selling this kind of tale to sympathetic tourists likes me than he would shining shoes. I ended up giving him 20 rupees which was ten times what he had asked for and was more money for my own conscience than for anything else. What's 20 rupees to me? For that matter, what's 250 rupees?

Guide books tell us not to give money to beggars because it encourages them. So what are we supposed to do? Ignore them? Pretend they don't exist? Surely at the very least we should ackowledge their humanity. The Lonely Planet may have some excellent socio-political reasons why it advises tourists not to give money to beggars but at street level it's total bullshit. Many children are forced by their parents to beg rather than go to school. Sometimes they are even mutilated in order to increase their value as beggars. It's abhorrent and it shouldn't happen but it does - all the time. If I refuse to give to these children it isn't going to stop these terrible things from happening. However, if I do give it may mean that they will eat something that night, it may mean that they won't get beaten again. It's pathetic but it's all I can do, it's all I can hope.

Dealing with this aspect of India is impossible and it's painful. This country can be so cruel that you have to become cruel yourself sometimes to survive it.

I really hadn't planned to talk about this. Over the months I've been increasingly concerned that my blogs have been a little bit negative. I've spent sleepless nights worrying that my readers might be thinking to themselves, what's he doing in India if he dislikes it so much?! Well, this most recent rant on the tragedy of poverty in India is not likely to convince you otherwise if that's the opinion you've formed.

It's too late now for me to get back to the subject I had originally planned to discuss - the wonderful symmetry in my travels over the last twenty months and the fact that they have now come to an end. Well, no matter - I will have time to share these things with you (perhaps face-to-face!) when I return to England tomorrow. The travelling may be done but the blogging is far from over - there are still many stories to recount from my Indian adventures... all the most important stories in fact.

Of course, the most significant story cannot yet be written because it hasn't happened yet. Returning home will be the biggest adventure of all.

Mumbai, 13th April 2006