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world is always more foreboding from a distance, but I also knew that time and place had
as much to do with my safety as anything else. Tragically, five days after I left Patna, a
bomb exploded killing five people.
India will always feel flat in words, because it isn't contained by language. It is written
in color. It is drawn by sound. India breaks through all of the senses because India is filled
with people. So many people.
I arrived in Patna in the middle of a religious festival, which meant people were swarm-
ing its streets, dashing and cheering between honking cars. Beet-red saris and bright-green
silk clapped through the air like thunder as an assemblage of heavily armed Indian soldiers
(“for protection of people,” I was told) played bass to the dancers' treble.
For a moment I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't, in fact, in the middle of a
Bollywood set, and not the town I had been so clearly forewarned about.
Kindness One and I were swept up in the sea of people until we were spit out onto
a quieter street, where I tried to find some help— tried being the key term. I think one
man's response summed it up best: “You're coming from America and say you have no
money! How can that be possible? You're asking for food and all these things. There is
much money you should have!”
The hard part was I did have money. Just not money on me . I had to keep reminding
myself that I was giving back on this journey, otherwise my conscience would have got
the better of me. I had long learned that sometimes having a dream means you have to be
selfish—you have to do things that aren't always going to fit your ideals or your conscience
or what other people think should be the vision of your life. Having a dream means taking
a risk; it means going to dangerous places—whether that be a city called Patna or places
within our own hearts. Coming to India with no money wasn't an easy task. In fact, it was
a heartbreaking one. But I also knew it was the only way for me to the meet the rickshaw
driver or the riverboat captain. It was the only way for me to meet India.
I walked back through the festival as the music moved through me, calming my anxiety
and igniting my hope that help might still be on its way.
Then it happened. Again. My bike stopped working on a crowded street. You might be
getting used to this, but I wasn't.
Anyway, you probably think you know what's coming. Screaming Indians. Lots of
honking. But as I pulled my hulking yellow beast through the mass of sweaty bodies and
scooters and, yes, more cows, starting my walk of shame to yet another mechanic's shop,
I noticed that no one was yelling at me. Nobody. In fact, they were smiling, many of them
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