a Whole New World

Simply shocking... I will work for the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism in the following few years. They sent a fancy jeep for me to the airport. Now we are on way back to the Institute, through the city. City... For a long time I was keep thinking that we are passing through some kind of ghetto or slum - but now, this is the city... Dust, trash everywhere; people are by the road sitting around fires on dust; chaos everywhere: in the traffic, among the buildings; shops in such huts which look dirty and like to be abandoned for ages. I have the very strong impression that the whole city was left behind by people hundreds of years ago and they just came back yesterday and started to occupy it again and rebuild from the ruins to match to human condition. This poverty is simply unthinkable for us in the west - at least it was for me.

We stops by a bodega to take a chai (Indian tea with milk). A few people are sitting/standing around. They are smiling from heart and the whites of their teeth brilliantly radiates out from their dark skin (except those who chew bethel; they teeth are strongly reddish). I smile back from my heart, too, and spontaneously realize that even in this dusty, chaotic environment all depth and richness of human emotions, ups-and-downs, understanding and experiences exists. Then a sudden flash strikes through me: I and actually we (generally us middle class people in Europe) have everything what we could or should have to live a happy and balanced life. And in this very moment some deep strain releases; I had to travel thousands of miles to understand that it does not matter where I am. Wherever I am I do have everything I'd need - within me...