I met Delfina on the last day of her first trip to India. I liked her.
She was lively and friendly, and she was completely at home in the subway coffee shop where we met.
“I will come back to India, I don't know when, but I will; it's so energetic...” She was loud and almost non-stop. Her brown eyes and wildly gesturing hands wouldn't stop while she paused for the right words.
Words didn't matter, not any more. She could have talked in Spanish, or Portuguese, or whatever they speak in her homeland Argentina. I couldn't have missed the unbound excitement of a traveller.
In two months, this young journalist from the other side of the planet travelled across Kerala, Karnataka, Mumbai, Nepal, Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, by train, bus and on foot.
She found Nepal calm and peaceful. But she liked India more for all its noise, chaos and life. “You know what I mean?” I do, I do.
“They sleep on the street, have no drinking water, they don't even wear chappals, but everybody has a mobile phone.”
I can't explain, I resigned.
Delfina smiled and flew home that night.
