Windmills, like alien craft at night, hovering over the hillsides, white technology not expected in the Indian hinterlands, especially in so great a number. For a moment, I am an american tourist gliding through the dutch countryside in a luxury coach, in another world, another time, the world through the window glistening. Then, the old bus slams a ditch, a pothole te size of a VW, and I am lifted into the air, no seatbelts on this bus to restrain, a second of weightlessness, before gravity grips and pulls me down to earthly reality.
We pull into a tiny roadside restaurant, and the men all disembark. Its wild in this land-most of the people that you see, especially at night, are men. I have read stories about infanticide of female babies, as parents of women have to pay large dowries when their daughters are wed, which creates a hige burden on entire clans, a prohibitive burden. I wonder how this factors into what I see as I get off the bus into the cool, crisp, black Indian night.
The chef behind the single burner kerosene stove, with a single old deformed skillet at his disposal, proceeds to cook 20 different dishes for 15 different men in 17 minutes before my eyes, and I stand, in a trancelike state, in awe of his skills, mouth open, half asleep, as he churns out omeletts, chapatis, basmati rice, curries, and chai tea, hands and arms blurred in the flurry of activity. The man is a powerplant, and his energy draws me in. With a smile and a nod, I am noticed, and he continues on.
Stray trucks, brightly decorated, like gaudy spaceships thunder by sporadically in the stillness of the night.
The horn is blown, and we scramble back into the old worn government bus, leaving this small moment and place, continuing on with a hard jorney northward.
