Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
a mile away from the international epicenter of love. I guess in India “I will hug you” actu-
ally means “I will kick you in the face until you beg for mercy.”
So that's what I did. On my knees. And then I tried to run away. Finally, I found a trans-
lator from the crowd who told the master that I didn't actually know karate. Finally, he
understood. I was looking for a teacher. He thought he had found a sparring partner.
After I spent the better part of ten minutes prostrate on the ground, the karate teacher
finally offered me a hand of friendship. Rajat had not only stopped trying to beat me up,
but also asked if I needed a place to stay for the night. It seemed I had earned his kindness
through my lack of karate skills. I was just grateful I didn't have to go through that every
time I asked someone for help.
We walked Kindness One back to his small two-room house in a shanty town not far
from the Taj. There, I was able to keep an eye on the leaking situation. Rajat told me to
calm down and that in the morning he would send me to one of his friends who would fix
the leak. Of course, this was coming from a man who had kicked me in the face only hours
before. As I lay down on the mat Rajat had offered me, I thought again of Lina. I don't
know why I find relationships to be so much harder when I'm in them. From here, in India,
Lina and our home sounded like the best place on earth. And yet, I had learned over the
years that, once I settled back home, I always felt the need to go again. I wondered whether
it was like being in school. I liked the idea of it, but the reality always made me feel like
the walls were closing in on me.
When I woke up in the morning, Agra looked different in the dawn's light—kinder,
gentler. Rajat sent me to a local mechanic who patched up the leak for free. I started up
Kindness One and was ready again to hit the open roads of India.
Or shall I say the
broken
roads of India? How do I put this tactfully? How about this?
The Indian roads are a complete death trap. Hell waits for you at every corner. Cars drive
right at you. Cows pop out of nowhere. Children play in the middle of the road. There are
no rules. Precious little asphalt. No trustworthy stoplights or speed limits. There is nothing
but absolute, astonishing fear. If you ever have the chance to drive in India. Don't. Just.
Don't. You have been warned.
I had decided to ride to Lucknow, which is a big town in the center of India, and from the
sound of it, a great place to get some luck, now. My bike, however, had other plans. While
on the road to fortune, Kindness One started spluttering and then stopped in the middle of a
highway. The truck drivers weren't happy. The cows weren't happy. Kindness One wasn't
happy. And I won't even tell you how I was feeling. But it had been during moments like
