Amazing, Mind Blowing Sights

One thing India has in abundance is amazing things you can probably experience nowhere else on earth.

I have seen so many such amazing things I can not mention but just a few that stick out.

For one I was driving along the very winding roads in the Western Ghats of Kerala and I round a tight bend and I am faced with the enormous bottom of an elephant standing in the back of a tiny truck (smaller than the elephant) straining under the weight. After taking a second to process the sight, I quick took the next opportunity to pass the elephant to avoid any possibility of mishap.

Another was I was coming down from the Nilgiris (highest mountains south of the Himalaya, near the southern tip of the continent) and had hit the plains which is two large tiger preserves, and as I am moving along this little one lane road out of the forest comes a herd of elephants (these wild) one of which deposits about 75 lbs of dung and 5 gallons of urine on the road and crosses to the other side

Another, I was driving along at top speed (60 mph) on one of the very new, very fancy super highways and I see in the lane ahead of me what looks to be a pile of rags nearly the same color as the asphalt.

Now its not unusual to find a wide range of materials on roads such as rocks, bricks, flattened dogs, rags etc etc.

As I get closer I see some movement. I realize it’s a human, or actually half a human body, nothing below the waist, on a board with casters, pushing himself with his hands down the super highway. So here you have a black lump of rags maybe 16 inches high, the same color as the road itself, pushing himself down the super highway. On realizing what I was seeing my brain just shut down, I could still see and all that, so information was still coming in, but nothing was coming out, total silence, or I guess what is literally meant by stupefaction. It took me maybe 5 minutes to come out to some functional state after being submerged in that pure stupefaction.

Then the intellect started churning trying to find something to grab on to as to how this person could have thought it was a good idea to be the same color as the road, only 18” tall and be pushing himself down the super highway on his hands.

Now I don’t begrudge the fellow use of public rights of way, but this super highway had paved shoulders finer than most roads that he could have used, and yet he felt he had to use the middle of the road. To this day I have not been able to have any comprehension of the thought processes of that fellow.

Was he hoping to be run over to be finished with the reduced body he was having to function out of?

Was he stating his claim that he had as much right to the use of that super highway as anyone else?