Second Time Across

"India is freedom. Everything is free." It was said by a rickshaw driver in response to a remark about animals in the streets. On India's roads, cars, trucks, bicycles, pushcarts, rickshaws, cows and dogs all fight for space. Trucks brush past animals with an inch to spare. Vehicle size and horn duration dictate right-of-way. Within reason, you're free to do just about anything. Push it too far and you'll just have to pay off the policeman that catches you. Traveling in India tests you. For all the beauty and intrigue, there can be a chaotic lack of civility. There are so many people, and they get so close to you, wanting to talk to you, sell you something, take their picture. The air is filled with the clamor of blaring horns and frantic Hindi yelling. Garbage is strewn across streets, alleys and empty plots of land. The ubiquity and persistence of the very poor makes you question not only your approach to it but your thoughts on humanity. Someo

Took the overnight open-air sleeper from Mumbai to Udaipur -- it was $9, and it was nuts. I've never been startled awake so often by such pungent odors or blaring horns. However, barreling through the Indian countryside and pulling into over-crowded train stations in what appeared to be near-desolate towns was pretty incredible. Udaipur, in south Rajasthan, is a beautiful, idyllic (but touristy) city. The buildings are white and the people are colorful. Blue lakes and green hills surround the city. It feels like pure India, stuck in an age before the boom -- as such, a number of movies (and parts of Octopussy and The Darjeeling Limited) have been filmed here. It's also a very sleepy city, especially after Mumbai. The people are all content with a slower pace and proud of "the most beautiful city in India." Spent some time with some of the younger professional set -- the owner of the only Honda motorcycle dealership, the chef/owner of a popular new vegan re

Mumbai is fascinating. It's a city of extreme opposites, it's the antithesis of itself. Rich and poor, new and old, state-of-the-art and antiquated, clean and dirty, calm and chaotic -- for most in Mumbai, life seems to exist mainly at the poles. It is at once enchanting, spellbinding, majestic, appalling, frustrating, and heartbreaking. Demographically, India is a very young country, and the youth possess a particular energy and vitality. In my four days in Mumbai I met Bollywood actors and actresses, software engineers, doctors, real estate developers, musicians, bankers -- they all shared a remarkable faith in oneself, in the future, and in India. On the downside, there's the poverty. There have been improvements in access to education and a decline in the poverty rate, but urban blight is quickly apparent and severe. Also, the infrastucture lags badly behind the rate of economic growth. Public transport, though universal, far-reaching and efficient, is ol