how to use a toilet

Back in Delhi. Today I'm packing and learning how to make the world's best butter chicken from my cousin's chef. Tomorrow night I head off to Uttar Pradesh for my 5 week NOLS course in the Himalayas.

For my fight back to Delhi, I arrived in Bangalore Airport three hours early and the IndiGo check in counter wasn't even open yet.

Bangalore Intl Airport is on par with Munich Intl Airport in the sleek and grandiose departments. 200 foot tall support beams curve and twirl towards the sky to support a bulbous glass and steel ceiling. The elevator near the checkout counter is made of glass, exposing the high tech, silver-hued, tangled mechanical innards that propel the human delivery box up and down. Bangalore has money and an army of eager and over-educated computer programmers who bring home the bacon and crush any doubt that India is rising. I know this because I've been to the Airport.

One thing that Bangalore Intl Airport has that Munich doesn't, however, is villagers. Villagers who don't trust plexiglas human delivery boxes or stairs that climb for you. As I, headphones in and foot popping, waited for the IndiGo counter to open, I noticed two of such aforementioned villagers. One was a elderly man in a Yellow turban and white linen lungi. The other, I assume, was his wife, bright blue sari and white tribal arm bands to boot. They were staring at the escalator, too horrified to step on it and proceed to security. They exchanged a few words, something short, like, "You first," and then continued to stand there, gawking, for another 5 minutes.

An airport worker approached them. After a short conversation, he walked them 20 feet to the elevator and seemed to explain just how it worked. They considered this mode of transportation for a good 10 minutes. The airport worker enlisted the help of a friend to demonstrate just how this glass box worked. After another 5 minutes, the four of them walked away, presumably to a set of stairs in the back.

After checking in I decided to use the bathroom. I was nice, undeserving of the "India toilet frown" but still smelled vaguely like, well, an Indian toilet. After I locked myself in my stall, I discovered why. I began to do my buisness and then herd a hissing sound coming from the stall to the right. I assumed someone was using the bidet hose, but no. A woman, as confused by the toilet as the elderly couple had been with the escalator, had given up and decided to take a piss on the floor. Now, excuse me for being Ms. Ethnocentrism, but how hard is it to use a toilet? Are they really that difficult to figure out?

The stream of piss started making it towards my feet. I panicked, and ran out of the stall as soon as the proper hygienic protocols would let me. When the woman exited the stall, I saw that she was a young bride, probably on her way to make a new life with her husband somewhere where toilets didn't exist. I showed her how to use the sink.

On the shared taxi ride from Jayanagar to the Airport, I had some light conversation with the buisness man next to me. He said that India was like a drunk man crossing the street, it teeters and totters, goes backwards and almost gets you killed a few times before arriving at the other side, unscathed. No one understands how this is done, but it happens everyday in India.

This made total sense to me. Yes, sometimes it takes three days to get medicine for some nuns who are coughing up blood. Yes, you almost get killed every time you step onto the street. Yes, Hindus and Muslims aren't getting along like they should. And yes, you can't seem to comprehend the amount of people that can get squeezed into the bus/temple/garden/street/country. But somehow, magically, it all works out in the end. The transvestites dance, the children beg, the rickshaw drivers hustle, the cricketers play, the elite spend, the actors dance, the market teems.

I love it all, and I don't want to leave.