Perfect Metaphor for India

Have you seen the new War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise? I realize I'm a little late in commentary, but Indian TV is a little behind the times. Last night, alone in my hotel room, I was laughing out loud; let me give you a few images.

Tom Cruise drives his stolen minivan and two kids through a crowd of yelling, screaming people, who attack his car, breaking windows, climbing frantically into the car. I couldn't help but laugh, because it was that exact image I saw not two weeks ago. A man broke open the emergency window of the Jhansi-Delhi Exp train, and luggage, women with babies, men smoking beadies, began flying through the open window (which perhaps measures two feet by two feet in area.) The overflow was stunning; soon enough the entire train was blanketed with people, crying mothers with their crying babies, men piled eight and nine deep on the benches. The frantic, insane boarding the train was life or death, it was imperative all thirty of their relatives and all sixty of their children and one hundred pieces of luggage got on that train right then. Life or death.

The second image that made me burst out laughing was when Tom Cruise and the mob of people surrounding him were stopped for a passing train; which wizzed by, on fire, smoking, at 100 mph. I couldn't help but remember all the times I sat, waiting for trains, and saw basically the same image ... minus the fire.

All of Tom Cruise's panic-stricken glances at the sky, his frantic searching for a place to stay, eventually finding a moldy basement maintained by Tim Robbins. Considering the vast array of hotel owners and lovely hotels I've stayed in during this trip, even the couch Tom Cruise's daughter is laid on to sleep seemed somehow familiar. The dripping water, the muttering proprietor, the axe ...

Finally, Spielberg's characteristic moments of absolute beauty amidst the world-wide destruction were also reminiscent of India. Cruise, escaped with his daughter, runs from the tripod behemoth robots through a misty forest, as a rain of clothing falls like snow. Moments like these, when India slows down amidst the clamor and chaos and reveals something truly beautiful, albeit horrifying. A vulture circling overhead as I stroll through a scrub-forest in a desert, the sun glancing off slum villages' corrogated tin rooves, garbage circling around bathers underneath a massive industrial bridge, glinting black spots in a flickering ocean of reflected light ...