India
Delhi is a hard place to visit. It is as difficult for me to be here now as it ever was.

My intention is not to belie the beauty, colour or brilliance of the city, and indeed it can be beautiful. There is an inner calm to be found beyond the honking cars and overflowing smoky streets, if you know where to look for it. There are temples, gardens, hidden monuments tucked away in dreamy and oblivious luxury beyond the crazed commotion that is the perpetual curse of the central districts. But wherever I go, as I look around me, I am reminded of a nation that is wounded, and a capital that bears the deepest and most disturbing of its many scars.

Before you hear of the magical India of my childhood, the India I love, I must make this tribute to the men, women and children of this land who are so sadly lacking in the good fortune that accompanied my entry into this world. There are so many who have not been blessed with the capacity to scale walls or procure secret fortunes in order to make their escape. There are so many who will never transcend the slums and grimy streets into which they are compelled to enter and leave this world in one miserable and uninterrupted cycle. In their shimmering eyes their suffering is tangible, and in their thoughts their confusion is profound. Despite knowing no better than the misery that they have always endured, by some cruel and persistent instinct, they long for a better life for themselves and for their children.

One can dwell upon numbers and calculations, but there are times when the reality of a situation must be seen to be believed. Standing amidst the squalor of one shanty town, amongst the stench of compounded refuse and the rumbling of empty bellies, is a thousand times a greater blow to my peace of mind than the actual knowledge that over a thousand shanty towns house some three million souls in Delhi alone.

What I see is a ruptured society; a culture that has been pulled apart by political power brokers for so many years that that the perpetrators and saviours of this nation have been wholly and haphazardly confused. Crumbling infrastructure, a lack of accountability in government, corruption, poverty and an outdated, oppressive class system are the burdens that the citizen must bear, while despair and utter demoralization have left them powerless to bring about change.

This has been the cycle for so long and this will go on despite the onward push of development and economic growth. It will be the cycle until national pride is made accessible to the common man and woman, regardless of their ethnic origins. It will be the cycle until respect and value are once more bestowed upon the individual. It will be the cycle until the people of India are given the education, resources and dignity required to revolutionise their way of life.

It is so easy for us Englishmen to write beautiful passages about India and to think wondrous thoughts. It is so easy for us to pass off the misery that is evident in the streets and the marketplaces as little more than a facade for the splendour that lies beneath. But this is a terrible fraud, and one made at the expense of the people who live out the reality of this tormented nation. It is crucial that we observe the darkness where there is light, and the ugliness where there is beauty, because only then can we truly understand the soul of any place or the depth of any person. This country and its people deserve at least that much.

This is my introduction to my adventures in India. I hope that you will join me as the journey continues.

David.