Just the way it is

I am beginning to understand I will never understand India. And every time I think I have it sorted there will be another hole in the footpath, another tiki tour in an auto and another stinking hot day.

I realised this as I was walking to the internet/cell phone top up store for the second time in two days. It's a boring story in which I needed to top up my pre paid internet - a seemingly minor event that turned into an annoyance. But as I was walking back from there today, after yesterday's attempt didn't seem to work (there's 500 rupees I will never see again), I realised I will never understand this place. I still don't know if my top up is going to work, or whether, like today, it will crap out half way through a skype conversation. But that's half the fun isn't it?

I am full of questions, and very few answers.

Why, for instance, does everyone ask me for my "good" name?

Why does no one even attempt to use the footpaths?

And why does someone need to sit in the lift to push the up and down button, all day long?

I spent my first two weeks here trying to make sense of the place. But I have come to realise that the trick to surviving this ten week adventure is to try not to understand.

Just accept there is a man in the lift that will take me to my floor, the footpaths seem to be redundant and, as far as I can tell, my "good" name is Hana (or at least that is what I have been telling everyone). Why? I do not know, it's just the way it is.

India is just the way it is. Call it what you will, annoyances, quirks, or just plain living, but for whatever reason it is just the way it is.