Roadscapes

On the way out of the city...

Temporary and permanent structures for commercial use.

All the shops in Bhopal open around noon and close late.

!dea, my cell phone service provider.
This is what a typical shop front looks like.

Lots of trucks.

The road width barely allows two of these to pass simultaneously.

Sometimes, we would have to drive off the road to allow them through.

Waiting at the railway crossing.

This is essentially the landscape typology just outside of the city.

Green, with fertile soils for agriculture, and mountains beyond.

Bhopal, Mahdya Pradesh, India

I'm here. Finally. But my conscious mind is still asleep. I faintly see a figure in the distance as I step off the plane. Raj, my host (in a nutshell) is there waiting for me. The airport is significantly smaller than that of Delhi. Within minutes of entering the building from the runways, I see my backpack pass into my periferal view on one of two luggage belts at one end of the building. Lifted by relief but spinning with fatigue at the same time, I throw myself into the car that Raj had hired for the commute back to his flat. As we drive out of the parking lot, I struggle to keep my eyes open, while Raj enthusiastically welcomes me to the city.

First impressions ...

- Constant honking of various tones and pitch

- Reckless lane-changing, thus the wreckless honking

- Drivers signaling with their arms sticking out their vehicle windows/openings while performing lane-changes

- Cars, scooters, bikers, rickshaws and pedestrians moving harmoniously, but at extremely different speeds, along this "airport artery"

- My seatbelt didn't work

- Slums right up against the road edges(semi-permanent structures, children and men selling/loitering/washing out front, vibrant curtains with women peering from behind, men with fruit stands/trolleys)

- Many landscaped traffic circles with golden statues of government figures standing in the center

- Cattle

- Dust

- Abadonned buildings

- Huge estates bordered by vegitation

- More honks

...

There are no images due to utter exhaustion and enthrallment.

In Between

It's now 9:23 am, January 9, almost 24 hours since I waved my family goodbye through the security gates at Newark International Airport. The nervous excitement I felt at the beginning of the journey has been dulled completely by the dense fog of fatigue swirling in my mind. I look down at my feet and am surprised to find that they, on the other hand, have acquired a life of their own. They are shaking with utter unawareness and desperate impatience as I approach my final destination. The last leg of my trip is a domestic flight from Delhi to Bhopal. Adding to my impatience, the plane is making an extra stop in Indore, the commercial capital of the Mahdya Pradesh province, before arriving in Bhopal. Stopped on the runway of the Indore airport, I close my eyes while we wait for some passengers to exit, and some new ones to board. I will arrive in Bhopal in just 20 minutes.

Toronto > Newark > Delhi > Indore > Bhopal

I reached India at night through a thicket of dark fog.

I was told this climate was usual for the time of year and can often interfere with flight schedules. Miraculously, our pilot gracefully landed the overbooked flight from Newark with absolutely no visibility. It wasn't until I felt the thud of the ground that I was finally able to make out some silhouettes.

The saffron-tinted fog laid a veil of mystique and curiosity over the seemingly endless field of runway lights, twinkling in the infinit haze, haunting me with uncertainty.