Rules and such

In addition to the sights and sounds and tastes and smells and heat, these travels are also very much contemplative. So many passing observations, thoughts. How, for instance, cows, pigs, goats dogs and people cohabitate, often times the animals in superior conditions. How in turn this gives cows (and yaks and water buffalo) in particular, a sense of entitlement- evident in their ownership over the streets.

Another thing that's gob smacked us is rules. But what if there aren't any rules? In incredible India, as their marketing slogan goes, there don't appear to be any. Sure, rules govern chaos and give a foundation for justice from a western point of view, but have we gone overboard?
* Dogs on leashes, licensed no less vs strays too many.
* Jay walking vs cutting into the flow when you can.
* Driving down a four lane hwy obeying speed limits vs a four lane road with vehicles travelling in all directions. Speed limits?!

To see billboards: "Human trafficking is a crime and a serious offence" - the fact that this message needs saying simply slaps a western mind silly.

On a more elementary level, there's no respect for pachu mama - the young boy who took a piece of gum and tossed the pckg, the picnicking family who did the same with their garbage - seemingly tied to the caste system- garbage being a lowly cast responsibility vs our north american fines for littering.
* "No loitering" vs nothing else to do.
* Need drugs? No Rx needed here. Just walk into the nearest chemist stall and get whatever you want for mere rupees.
* The way crowds line up for temple vs empty pews.

Conversely, rules here seem to crop up in the strangest bureaucratic ways. The toll booths monitored and controlled by 3 or 4 people for each car. The sexist values. The religious protocol.

Then there are observations like...
* The incompetent traffic cop who did more to snarl traffic at a construction site than alleviate it.
*Wading thru human faeces because the infrastructure doesn't exist.
* Few women seen in the driver's seat of a vehicle.
* Their lives - men, women and children - spent outdoors, in community (ironing, cooking, bathing, peeing and pooing, grieving). The thought of rural women, menstruating without any running water. No privacy.
* And the dirt. How does one tell a tidy housekeeper from one not so clean?

Yes, this entry is verbal diarrhoea (sp) - that's because Deborah, Margo and me are room mates in a Thai monastery in Rajgir and they're helping to write this brain dump, if you will. The leaking shower facet in our bathroom sounds like a rainforest in the background. Gonna be an interesting white noise to fall to sleep to. Oh to hear those gonging bells in Sarnath. Wonder if we'll hear chanting monks in the morning?
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