Spirituality Wrought with Corruption

Chapter 2:
Spirituality Wrought With Corruption
 Part of "Shit and Sugar all in One Breath"
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Being in India felt like I was the middle of a battle field or watching an old film where the characters played parts from ancient times. Natives squatted with bent knees and mixed foods with antiquated tools in short crawl spaces. Hindi and other local languages rolled off of their tongues.  I felt more like an outsider than I ever had before despite having traveled through more than 20 countries.

Locals rode by on bikes with adjoining carts interspersed with wandering cows, auto rickshaws, automobiles all heading in dense traffic together. Flies circled beggar’s rotting wounds.  Some revealed stumps for hands, arms, or legs. They waved their scarred partial limbs at me as I passed by. Soiled mothers and children with paper thin sarees pulled on my sleeve chanting, “Mommy…Milk… Baby? Milk…Baby?” There was no lack of food here but unsanitary conditions making food inedible. 

When on the train, I passed gloomy faces of adults and children scattered on the streets wrapped in blankets sleeping anywhere there was space. Locals watched me intensely, the pale foreigner wearing different dress. I gazed back thinking they would turn away, but it was not rude to stare. Soon enough, 100 white eyes were looking at me. The mere presence of their stares drained me. Christians, Sikhs, Jain, Hindus, Buddhists surrounding me were all on a spiritual path, yet corruption ran deep.