make preferable
40, 41, and 40 again... The air temperature forecast doesn't promise anything good to me, the one who is usually horrified by the very idea of heat. I google “weather in India” several times a day, hoping that the meteorologists were wrong and have changed the temperature forecast for June 22-28. But meteorologists are uncompromising, so I am left with self-persuasion that 40 degrees can be survived and tolerated for a week, if I don’t want to miss this unique opportunity to visit India.
At the airport in New Delhi, I'm getting a bit panicked. The huge crowd of people joins the fear of heat that I have "cherished" for weeks and I am kind of lost, until the moment when I see a young man in a suit and tie waving at us from the other end of the endless line for passport control, from behind the booths…
Ravi is my first acquaintance with India. Inside the official outfit there is a warm, fun and intelligent young man, with a sense of humor and taste in movies that I totally share, and, as it turned out later, with an amazing ability to react quickly and solve problems easily.
Accompanied by Ravi, my Armenian collegue Emanuel and I quickly leave the airport and... Hello heat, I was so afraid of you! At five o'clock in the morning, when it should be the coolest time of the day, it seems that your breath will be cut off somewhere. The moist, warm air nevertheless finds its way through my airways, I take a deep breath, realize that I am alive, and that's it, all fears pass. We get into the car waiting for us, in which it is heavenly cool (praise the inventor of air conditioning!), and here I am starting my journey to India from scratch. Ahead is the cultural and civilizational shock, the merciless destruction of stereotypes, the Indian mind-boggling pair dance of history and future, and my "spiciest" trip ever...
“Namaste, ma'am”
Deep respect for a guest in India begins with the greeting. There is a kind of wise humility and tolerance in this "namaste" expressed with a gesture of joining palms and a smile of willingness to be helpful, some kind of contagious positive charge, and you don't even notice how soon you go from "hello" to "namaste" and to a smile.
We stay in a five-star hotel in New Delhi (the Ministry of External Affairs of India, at the invitation of which journalists from Eurasian countries are on a familiarization visit to India, has done everything to organize the visit at the highest possible level). At first I think that such friendliness is probably due to the number of stars of the hotel, but later I understand that it's just a way of living for them, a dharma that these people do automatically, perhaps out of a genetically transmitted belief in karma.
And it doesn't really matter how many of the family members have fit themselves on a small moped in this crazy traffic humming with infinite tuk-tuks and mopeds, it doesn't matter if it is a mother of many children living on modest means, or a respectable lady in astonishing expensive saree getting out of a luxury car parked in front of our hotel. All the inhabitants of this country of contrasts are somehow united by their striving for nirvana, some kind of internal comfort, in which they seem to try to accommodate you, a tourist who is in a state of culture shock and making a desperate effort to discover India in a week.
Spicy heat
Is this spicy? This is the most frequent question I ask in India. At lunch and dinner, your head spins from the variety of the contents of the pots. My palate, accustomed to the distinct flavors of Armenian cuisine formed in a mountainous climate, is certainly unfamiliar with the palette of spices of Indian cuisine fermented in cultural diversity. I mostly like them, unfortunately, I try very few of those dishes, because they are all, to put it mildly, spicy.
“This is not spicy, ma'am, you can try it” the employee smiles kindly. “Not spicy” in India is the one, the first bite of which does not make you run to put out the fire in your mouth, it is simply "quite spicy" by Armenian standards. And when the spiciness unites against you with 40 degree heat and a warm wave of moisture penetrating deep into the country from the Indian Ocean, you just realize that one billion and 400 million people live in those weather conditions, and all the same, they smile kindly at you. All you have to do is think that you are focusing too much on unimportant things, relax and give in to the wave of aspiration for the nirvana of 1 billion 400 million people.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar
The program is tight. The organizers have done their best to make the 7-day trip as useful as possible for the guests. They have organized high-level meetings for us, and the key one is with Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs. The unique opportunity to ask questions to the chief diplomat of the country strengthening its positions of the leader of the Global South, increasing its share and influence in the world economy year by year, and offering security and communication alternatives for Armenia, flatters the journalist's ego of mine. “Yes, Armenia can absolutely become a transit country on the way from India to Europe and Russia”, the minister answers my question.
Taj Mahal
Cultural familiarization with Bharat multiplies the intensity of impressions. Visits to museums, to Humayun's tomb, which is the first dynastic tomb of the Great Mughal dynasty that ruled in India for three centuries (16th-19th), and, of course, to Taj Mahal, the pearl of Mughal architecture, the white-glowing beauty born from the agony of Shah Jahan's lost love. Standing in the shade of the trees, I listen to our guide and imagine how hundreds of elephants carried the translucent white marble from Rajasthan to Agra. I don't even think about the heat anymore, although it feels incredibly hot under the Agra sun, I mechanically drink the water, wipe my forehead, which is endlessly moist from the sauna effect, and in my mind teleport myself to the 17th century. “Taj Mahal is a fusion of Persian, Indian and Islamic architectural elements”, the guide is telling enthusiastically. I usually don't like to take photos when travelling, but Taj Mahal is irresistible.
Peaceful development
Is Hyderabad a big city, what is the population? I ask one of our Indian guides on the way. “About ten million, according to the latest data” he answers. “Three times as many as the entire population of Armenia” I smile. Our next destination is Hyderabad. My memory associates Hyderabad with the City of Pearls, as it has once flourished as a global center for trade of natural pearls and rare diamonds. Even now, every second shop in the city has a proud signboard: "Pearls of Hyderabad". I decide to find time in the margins of the busy schedule and give myself a lovely set of pearls. Already in Hyderabad, another title is added to "City of Pearls" - "City of Technologies".
Hyderabad is a melting pot of Indian contrasts. Next to centuries-old forts, Hindu and Muslim temples, skyscrapers with modern architecture rise in the city's many IT parks, on the facades of which are the logos of all the world's technological giants that I know. Next to them, start-ups are growing rapidly, for which the necessary ecosystem is formed and fed by the government, providing a favorable environment for talented young people and huge investments from all over the world. From pharmaceuticals to space industry, hundreds of innovative companies operating in the city today make Hyderabad a technology center of not only national, but also global importance.
There are other reasons for Hyderabad's appeal to global investors. There are more than 200 engineering colleges here, which train high-level specialists in the field. Most of the residents speak English. In general, I had the impression that everyone in India speaks English, and most of them speak English well. At least I haven't had any communication problems, neither in professional conversations, nor while looking for Hyderabadi pearls for myself.
I will be back
We are on our way to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport by a road with well-kept green on both sides. I'm already starting to put my impressions together. I will tell them for a long time after I return to Armenia. Right now I'm trying to fit it into one sentence. An interrogative sentence is obtained: how is it possible to develop so quickly on the one hand, and preserve the traditions of thousands of years so carefully on the other? It's good that it turned out with a question mark. A week is too little time to uncover the mystery of India. India is added to the list of countries to which I will be back.
Narine Hovhannisyan
