Now I'm just one.

I took a five hour stroll through the smog gnarled complex of bazaars that is the city of Ahmedabad and I came back smelling like I been huffing gasoline through a rubber tube.

Stepping outside in this place is the equivalent to inhaling seven packs of cigarettes in the span of twenty minutes...

Everyone wants to shake my hand...that or they feel compelled to yell out their car windows just barely avoiding running over the woman in the yellow sari--it was worth it I'm sure...

Several people grab at me just to say hi. If I wasn't so controlled...repressed might be a better word...I might lash out...Logic prevails...I do my best to surrender to the moment at every moment...Trying to regurgitate aggression without splattering the fly covered beggars selling Santa Claus hats on the bridge overlooking the river bubbling with trash and human waste...

Dark skinned children with matted clumpy hair, torn apart clothing--some with no clothing--trail in my footsteps pushing at each other fearfully desiring to get my attention while I dodge the dog shit and sift through the shade of the banyan trees looking out at the world of the slums. Empty hope and promises from a billboard advertising the chance to study in America or Canada laughs in the faces of these kids. I keep walking.

Opportunity is never present.

Corner shops stuffed with filthy covered mechanical gears of every sort. "Hello Sir, which country you from! Ah aMMMEERRrrrriicccaAAAAA...OBAMA he very good man?!" he yells at me flashing a set of crooked, yellow stained teeth oozing with the blood-red juice from betel nut tobacco. He splats some spit off to the side and gently holds onto my hand for an uncomfortably long period of time when I was merely expecting a brief shake.

At breakfast an older man sits down with me when there are multiple tables open. He says nothing to me. He orders chai. It comes in a cup on a plate. He takes the cup, pours it into the plate, and drinks from the plate, placing it down he walks away. This is a common practice here.

Let my hair down--walk with a purpose--split the traffic, retrace my steps, playing frogger, no need not to rush. Looking for that release of tension. It'll never come.

"I laugh cause' theres nothing to say..."

As if a temple full of rats and the industrial social waste of Ahmedabad wasn't enough I'm headed to Mumbai: the source of over the top Bollywood films, slums of epic proportion, the definition of economic disparity, a lack of physical space, the frequent target of terrorist attacks and the home to general social anarchy.

Welcome home.