Journey to Jalgaon

The Jain family, who are our hosts for the wedding of Athang Jain to his bride Ambika, arranged for our flight from Mumbai to Aurangabad.  They booked us in first class seats where we were given damp towels for our hands and served lime juice.  There was a meal, but we weren’t hungry and just had hot tea.  Bill slept most of the flight, but I had a window seat and enjoyed the views….albeit through very hazy conditions.

When we arrived we were met by drivers from the Jain company who transported us on about a 4 hour car ride to the Jain compound in Jalgaon.  Now about the ride….

If you haven’t driven in a vehicle in India, you can’t imagine!  The road is a mass of vehicles….autos, trucks, 3-wheeled open vehicles which seem to be taxis, motorcycles…lots and lots of motorcycles, a scattering of bicycles and an occasional oxcart.  A few pedestrians who are apparently suicidal attempt to cross this raging stream of traffic.  There are few signal lights or lines on the road, but no one pays them much attention anyway.  Everyone is darting about, crossing into on-coming traffic and constantly sounding the horn to say, they are passing or squeezing through or just think they haven’t honked recently enough.  I witnessed our driver honk and squeeze around an ambulance with its red light flashing.  Seriously!?  It was dark and we were, of course, driving on the left rather than the right side of the road, and it was all pretty exciting/terrifying even though we were in the back seat.  I had my hand over my mouth some of the time to avoid my gasps being audible to the driver….who as far as I could tell spoke no English, but was expert honker.

About the motorcycles….some had only one passenger, but many had entire families clinging to them.  A small child would be sitting in front of the driver, while a woman and another child hung on to the back of the motorcycle.  The woman would be wearing a sari or a burka with fabric flying in the breeze, and I wondered if it ever happens that a loose end of the fabric gets caught in something and pitches the woman off into the street.  If anyone had on a helmet, it would be only the driver….I never saw a woman or child with a helmet.  Did see three buildings that claimed to be hospitals and trauma centers, and I expect they are needed.

I distracted myself by watching the sights…oh, such sights.  We passed thousands of roadside shops in tiny booths with open fronts.  There were barber shops, street foods, fruits and vegetables, furniture, cell phones, drinks, eggs, carcasses of animals hanging by their legs, and “stuff” about which I was clueless.  Bill saw one of these tiny places that purported to be an “exclusive Dell dealer.”  I saw one that had a sign “Tailor” with a man bending over a sewing machine inside.  People were milling around everywhere….even in the pitch black of night.  Along the way, I also saw hundreds of dwellings which must be homes….but such poverty as we do not see in the US.  Most of the homes had openings for doors and windows, but appeared to have nothing in the openings.  Families were visible outlined in dim lighting.  Many of these structures are covered with shredded blue tarps which serve as the roof.  I saw one corrugated metal roof held down with large rocks.  People gather around outdoor fires.  We did not just see occasional pockets of this….it was everywhere along the route for the entire 4 hour ride.  I had expected to see poverty, but not on this scale.

We made one stop along the way to allow us to use a rest room….very primitive, but maintained by a gracious young man who offered us napkins to use as toilet paper and hand towels, and who made sure I knew how to turn on the water to wash my hands.

We did not arrive at the Jain compound until about 10 at night….what a contrast to the sights along the way….more about that later.  It is just too much to relate in one sitting.