60 Seconds in India

60 Seconds in India

Look around you. For a single minute notice all that happens in just 60 seconds. It’s a wild, alive world, isn’t it?

In 60 seconds I spin 360 degrees in India, and this is what I see…

A white-bearded sweet old man with a genuine heart
An elephant walking down a highway
19 people crammed into a single rickshaw
An old man pushing his pedal bike uphill
An entire family that thinks a white person is a zoo animal
4 religions living in harmony
Hundreds of shops selling things for which there is no purpose
More colors than you can find in the color wheel
12 people piled into a storefront buying shoes
Cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, rickshaws, pedal bikes and pedestrians all sharing the same tiny bit of road
People moving effortlessly around each other like bubbles in a beer glass
6 people on a pedal-bike driven by a man in his 60s
A dog with a third eye
A dog with no eyes at all
A cripple crossing traffic on all fours
2 cows blocking the road, uninterested in the idea of moving
Women with infants begging
A 12 year old kid that owns a shop
Hundreds of chapattis being flipped
Lassi bowls being washed on the ground
Half a dozen kids ecstatic about the half-suitcase they found to play with
A handful of kids you thought were too young to be interested in you because you’re white
Someone’s whites hanging out to dry
A few ox that are far too intimidating to ask to move
Kids preoccupied in a street game of cricket
Painted signs covering every vertical opportunity
Locals selling fake things claiming they are real
An untouchable
A grown man taking a poop
Someone begging for your business
A donkey
A horse
A camel
Yes, a camel
Dads with little kids piled on the front of their motorbike
Shopowners sweeping
Monkeys monkeying
Monkeys tapping into the clean water supply
Postcards that look like they were printed in the 80s
Piles and piles of garbage
Pigs enjoying the garbage
A man taking a nap on his bike
A skilled rickshaw driver maneuvering through the crazy streets
A grinning man that just made his first “lucky” sale of the day
Every other person drinking chai
A cow scratching the inside of his ear with the handlebars of a motorbike
An already overfull bus with a conductor hanging out the side shouting loudly inviting more
A goat stealing her share of the fresh fruit that was going to be your breakfast
Probably still will be
A few men peeing
Women going nowhere special wearing the most elaborate, sparkling, colorful sari you have ever seen
Young boys holding hands
Shopowners standing around watching the world go by, just like me
Newspapers floating through the air
Tattered kites in the distance
A fresh litter of puppies excitedly trying to hunt down mom
Endless amounts of used plastic bottles littering the streets
Cow poop. Cow poop. Cow poop.
Human poop. Human poop. Human poop. No way. More human poop.
The gaze of someone whose life you will never come close to understanding.

The gaze of someone who reminds you, this is real life.

Not just 60 seconds.

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