Rajasthan – When the Colours Stay

Between Farewell, Memory and Road Dust

Prologue – When the Colours Stay

Last day – late check-out at the hotel.
The hours already carry that soft note of parting, this strange in-between
when you are still here – and yet already half on the way.

The Taj Mahal still lies in the view from our balcony, a white dream carved in stone,
a quiet farewell, a last shimmer of magic that refuses to fade.

Sometimes all it takes is the beat of a wing to understand how close beauty can be – even when it glimmers from afar.

Between Farewell and Fellow Travelers

Binny picks us up at four.

Our last drive together back to Delhi.

Traffic is surprisingly smooth today.

We lean back, watch the landscape drift by and think about Binny – and about all the guides who led us through places and times.

Many voices carried this journey. Some loud, some gentle. Some full of knowledge, others full of warmth. And each one opened a part of India for us – in the way only people can.

So I want to give them a space here: a small place of honour. A light that stays.

Slowly, dusk settles over the road, as if someone were gently dimming the light.
Soon afterwards we glide into complete darkness. Some vehicles drive with headlights, many without – a mystery to us, for India a chapter from everyday pragmatism.

Shortly before Delhi, the night swallows everything – until suddenly blue lights flash like an electric bolt at the roadside. A police car has stopped another car; the scene looks like something from a dark stage play.

“You see,” says Binny, rubbing thumb and forefinger together, “now it’s time to make some money.”

A universal sign – and on this night it feels almost like a bitter little wink from reality.

India’s roads tell their own stories – of overflowing tuk-tuks, motorcycles balancing families and a tractor proudly pulling a mountain of cauliflower through the chaos.

Delhi – The Grand Finale

Delhi has more than twenty million inhabitants. This evening I have the feeling that they are all out – just to give us one last, incomparable performance.

A firework of traffic unfolds around us: four lanes turn into eight, horns weave into a single tapestry of sound. And yet – no shouting, no rage, no threats. Only this typical Indian, almost cheerful way of slipping and sliding through the chaos. Every single day.

“You know,” says Binny, “in some countries they drive on the right, in others on the left – in India they drive everywhere.”

A sentence that explains and surrenders at the same time.

I sit with a scarf over my mouth and nose, the air heavy with smoke and exhaust fumes.
Behind us an ambulance, stuck in the traffic; blue light and siren remain pure decoration.

“Emergency lane?” we ask in disbelief. “How? Where?” Binny replies.

Everyone for themselves – or for anyone who has patience. Reinhold has both only in limited supply.
We need almost an hour for a single kilometre. And yet we reach Gandhi Airport – unscathed and on time.

Farewell to Binny. A hug, a laugh, a quiet regret.
Adieu, daredevil driver. Companion. Reader of people.

When night falls in Delhi, motorbikes and cars dance to the rhythm of the lights – an organised chaos that only this city masters with such ease.

Last Checkpoint

Breathe? “Don’t even think about it,” says Reinhold. How right he is.

The last hurdle of our journey is airport security – a little universe of chaos in itself.

Two screening gates for “Male”, one for “Female”.
And as everywhere in the world, the men simply walk through while the women wait patiently in line.
Each of us also has to enter a small cubicle with a curtain – why, no one knows.

I ask a young woman in front of me: “Do we have to undress in there?”
She laughs, shakes her head, rolls her eyes. “No idea,” she says – and steps in as if into an oracle that offers no answers.

Curtain open, curtain closed. One last act before we leave India.

Afterglow

We have seen a lot of the world – but India is different.

India is not a destination. India is an assault on all the senses: a whirl of colour, chaos and kindness that writes itself deep into memory.

Never before have we met so many people who happily, laughingly let themselves be photographed.
Never before have we avoided so many wrong-way drivers, travelled by train in such comfort, and never before have I photographed so many cows as in these weeks.

Perhaps, I think, in my next life I would like to come back as a cow in India. To move through life with that majestic calm – knowing that no one rushes you, that the world simply lets you be.

A beautiful thought, isn’t it?

Some countries you visit – and leave again without anything remaining. India is different. It stays.
With its noise and its smile, its confusion and its dignity.

“In other countries I may go as a tourist,
but to India I come as a pilgrim.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.

And perhaps, I think, I too – without noticing it – was a pilgrim for a moment.

One last thought matters to me:
gratitude.

For all those who made this journey possible – for Mr Rathmann from Taj Reisen Hamburg, and for Mr Simrit in India, who worked in the background to ensure that every stage fitted together as if by itself, and for all those who guided us safely through kingdoms, deserts and wonders.

And for all the people who, along the way, gave us a smile, a story, a fleeting moment – precious as a drop of light in the Indian bustle.

India was vast.
But perhaps it was they who made it unforgettable.