I survived India and all I got was..

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There will be a far more complete and journalistically suitable story upcoming (I'm in the process of writing it!) but for now I wanted to share a few thoughts on my recent passage to India..

I am sitting at a small noodle shop near People's Square off of Nanjing Road in Shanghai where, I'm surrounded by the technicolor stereotype of modern Shanghai: glittering neon, hordes of pre-Lunar New Years crowds, chaos, Shanghainese spiced with a Mandarin reduction sauce. A light rain drifts unenthusiastically from the night sky, unevenly covering the sidewalks, streets, as if a giant child kicked over a pail of water.It's peace on earth compared to India.India: that far-away land of Hindu gods, temples, more temples, rickshaws, touts, scam artists, tourist "information" centers (government-approved of course,) dirt, dust, camels, cows, elephants and monkeys. It's all at once beautiful, heartbreaking, annoying, frustrating, fascinating, deceiving.Starting in the nefarious and notorious Pahar Ganj neighborhood of Delhi, it was as if I landed in the middle of a movie in which the hero is unceremoniously beheaded by evildoers and the contents of his pack is distributed among Kashmiri gangs and resold in a decrepit kiosk outside the railway station.After a few days of exploring Pahar Ganj while researching a story I'm writing for a magazine, I then hired a driver and headed south to Agra, then to Fatepur Sikri and then on to Jaipur. In upcoming blogs, I'll provide detailed accounts. For now, let's just say that it feels good to be back in the relative Zen-tranquility of downtown Shanghai during the Lunar New Year holiday week!I'm currently editing the video footage, writing stories and sorting photos.. so stay tuned. For now, click here for some photo of my highlights of Delhi in general and Pahar Ganj specifically.If you click on a photo, then click the "I" icon at the bottom of the page, you can read the description of each shot.That's all for now -- I'm off to the bathroom. Thanks to some ill-advised street food the night before I left for the Delhi airport, my digestive system is currently having a dispute with the rest of me and, I'm afraid that I'm losing the battle.. ;)-Brian Dear