An Observation of India

Right now I am doing charity work in New Delhi, India because the stray populations have become a nuisance to the people living here, which adversely affects the health of the dogs, which further annoys the citizens.
Before I delve into what I have done with the animals so far, a description of this city. “Chaotic” is the one and only word that can be used to describe this place. The roads are the most prominent example of this chaos, with cars, trucks, auto-rickshaws, motorbikes, bicycles, and people moving every which way, each person feeling entitled to the space on the road. The road lines, including the ones separating your side from oncoming traffic, appear to be for decorative purposes only. Seatbelts cannot be found in any car, but the Indian people wouldn’t wear them anyway. They’re just for white tourists like me, who you can see clutching their seats as their drivers cut people off with barely an inch to spare.
The whole city seems to be either in a state of disrepair or a state of having never been completed. This goes for anything you see, from buildings to cars to people. The city itself was clearly never planned out in an organized way, another nod to the chaotic nature of the place. Streets go in unfathomable directions and connect to roads that would make even the most hardened traveler’s head spin. Trash and litter are the vegetation of choice, and there is no such thing as a recycling program. When cars inevitably collide with a median or a sign, the time it takes to fix something like that would make American bureaucracy seem like an F1 racer.
India is not without its charms, though. There is a rich cultural heritage here unlike any other in the world. There is a great respect for older people, a respect long ago lost in many European cultures. The stereotype one hears about in movies where Indian families want their children to maintain chastity and marry other Indians is still very true. Ideas of luck and superstition are present, with almost every car having some kind of Hindu god posing on the desktop, and dogs going in for medical care are covered in an orange paint that is supposed to bring good luck.
Overall I am greatly enjoying my time in this country. Even though I have to close my eyes and pretend I am somewhere pleasant while I endure car rides through Delhi, I am enjoying learning about this other culture. India is the exotic place I have read about in history books about trading and ships and tiger hunting, and now I am actually here. And how could I not want to be here, after all, this is where Christopher Columbus meant to come.