Memoirs of a Worker

Sights, Splendors, and Smells

I hope this one does not gross you out and you won't want to come back in the following weeks. These experiences are of real events that I witnessed. Next weeks posting will be on the lighter side.

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Working in India was an eye opening experience where I ended up counting my blessing at the end of each day. I don’t really remember what I worked on at the New Delhi embassy. I do know that I put in long hours and worked hard and all my work was down in some dingy part of the main embassy building.

While I was stationed in India, there was a local Indian contractor who worked at a different location on the embassy compound constructing a large office/storage building out of concrete. On the days they poured concrete, the contractor always had around one hundred women show up. I thought that was strange, and so one day I took some time off from my work and visited his job site.

Five men in addition to the superintendent made up the crew, plus the one hundred women. When the concrete truck showed up two men and all the women lined up at the truck. The concrete came down the chute and poured onto what looked like a lightweight dish that was about sixteen inches in diameter and maybe six-inches deep in the center. When the dish container was filled with concrete (about 70-80 pounds), the two men would lift the dish and place it on the head of a woman who would then walk to the concrete forms where two other men would lift the dish off of the ladies’ heads and dump the concrete into the forms. The fifth man had a large electric stinger and would drop it in the forms to vibrate and consolidate the concrete. When they got going, it was a continual line of women walking to the forms with concrete on their heads, and a continual line of women walking back to load up again.

The day I witnessed this, the women had to walk up some ladders so they could get to the second and third story forms! They all worked extremely hard. If anyone slowed down, the superintendent would get in that person’s face and yell and bark out orders to speed up the process.

A few times I had to go into Old Delhi to pick up supplies. In Old Delhi the roads became progressively narrower the closer you got to the city center. I would start out in a car, then downsize to a motorized rickshaw, then to a horse drawn cart, and, last but not least, to a human-pulled rickshaw, just so we could maneuver through the constricted, winding, wall-to-wall people-filled roads.

Everything I needed was available to buy, but it was an all-day experience to go shopping. If I needed some grabber screws, I went to the grabber screw store. If I needed a screw driver I had to go to the screw driver store, etc. The stores or shops I visited sold only one type of item each. I was told that by doing business this way it kept a lot more people employed.

Lots of cows roamed the city, so you had to be careful where you stepped. One day as I got out of a store that sold nails, I noticed a cow standing not far away, chewing its cud. The cow did what cows do and raised its tail, arched its back, and peed. In an instant, a woman ran up behind the cow, cupped her hands, and filled them with the cow pee! Then she put her hands to her face and “washed!” I was shocked! I stared. The woman looked up and gave me a big, toothy grin and then “washed” again! The local man that was with me said that what she was doing was considered holy.

India is probably the most religiously diverse country in the world. Because of the many different beliefs and customs, Indians worship hundreds of gods, possibly even thousands. Some, I admit, are pretty scary; some are loving and kind; some punish, some help in time of need; some are gods of planting; some others gods of harvest; and most . . . I didn’t have a clue what kind of gods they were.

Some of the devotees were strange to me. I encountered a couple of “holy men” during my time in India. Basically, a holy man gives up everything-and I mean everything-to dedicate himself to the cause of being holy. Holy men didn’t work; they very rarely bathed; they didn’t shave or wash their hair; they ate whatever they could find, including garbage; they gave up all earthly possessions; and they wore no clothes! That’s right, they walked around completely naked!

I saw a holy man sitting on the side of a building with one of his arms stuck straight in the air above his head. The local guy that was with me, told me that that particular holy man had had his arm extended like that for so long, that he had lost all feeling in it, and that his arm could no longer bend. He thought the holy mans’ arm was dead from being extended like it was and I’m sure he was right.

A person would be amiss if he visited India and did not take the time to see the Taj Mahal in Agra. Two of the people I worked with went with me on that trip. (The third man on the crew, Ed, opted to stay at the hotel in New Delhi and work out in the gym. His reasoning was interesting, “You can go anywhere in the world and see an old building. I like the new stuff.”)

There is a reason the Taj Mahal is listed as one of the “Seven Wonders of The World.” It is fantastic! The white marble buildings and compound walls glisten in the sun. The grounds are immaculate, and the mausoleum is stunning! Inside, the walls of the mausoleum are inlaid with semiprecious stones in lacy flower designs, and there are also verses of the Quran inlaid in the walls. It truly is one of the greatest buildings ever. The Taj Mahal was completed in 1653, so it’s well over 350 years old and still looks fresh and inviting. It was an honor for me, to have the experience of being there.

I’ve covered some of the sights and the splendor - now to the smells that filled the air in some areas! I’ll warn you now that what I’m about to describe is not an everyday occurrence in Idaho where I live, or most likely not where you live either. Things may have changed in India, and I hope they have, but what I am about to describe are the things that I personally witnessed.

When I worked in India, most people who died were not buried but were burned. If a person was poor and didn’t have enough money to burn their dead, they cast the body into the river. One of the tributaries of the Ganges River flows through Delhi. I have witnessed hundreds of dead, bloated bodies in that river. One day I saw so many bodies piled up on a sand bar, that it reminded me of log jams during the spring runoff in the Yellowstone River in Eastern Montana. The smells were nauseating, but the vultures weren’t bothered and stayed busy. It’s also the river where they took their culinary water from.

When we left the Taj Mahal and started back to New Delhi, we spied a site that made us just stop flat in our tracks and stare. Not far off the public walkway, in a pile of garbage, was a dead man that was being eaten by about a dozen vultures. People walked along the path laughing and talking, women walked past the site carrying shopping bags, and kids were kicking a soccer ball back and forth. It was like seeing a man, being eaten, was a common occurrence to them.

From out of nowhere a ragged, boney dog crept through the pack of large vultures. When the great birds saw they were about to be interrupted from their meal, they nipped at the dog, and flapped their wings at him when he tried to strike back. The dog was persistent though, and grabbed the dead man by the arm and then took off with his prize before the vultures could get to him.

The dog ran down the pathway holding the arm in his mouth and the hand was more or less waving at all those he passed! I’m sure it bothered some of the local people, but it didn’t seem to bother those that were passing by at the time; they just kept on with their business as if nothing out of the ordinary had taken place. The three of us on the other hand were sort of in a state of shock. I didn’t know what else to do, so I finally broke the ice and said, “Now there’s something you don’t see in Idaho Falls every day.”

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This was a tough one to write. I have heard things have changed and are changing for the better in India and I sincerely hope so. Thanks for reading and please click the on the star and share with family and friends, if you dare.