The world is dirty and beautiful. What I learned on the streets of Delhi.

Three years have passed since I returned to Japan.
Having returned from that long journey, I had become buried in the daily grind before I knew it, so I decided to set out on a journey once again. The next place I chose was India.

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The streets of Delhi were filled with heat and commotion.
Car horns blared incessantly, the voices of people mingled together, and the scent of various spices hung heavily in the air. And, mixed in with all of that, the cow dung scattered everywhere on the road gave off a pungent odor that stung the nose.

When I first walked the streets of Delhi, I couldn't help but grimace. No matter how I tried to avoid it, there was cow dung wherever I walked. I walked as if dancing, trying not to step on it, trying not to look at it.
Suddenly, I realized something. No one seemed to care about this dung. Children played beside it, and street stalls operated right next to it. In this city, cow dung is a part of daily life.

As I got used to it, I began to take an interest in the cow dung. There was dry dung, wet dung, and it came in various sizes and shapes. Dung that wasn't there in the morning would increase by several piles by the evening. And at night, people would gather the dung, shape it into flat forms, and slap it onto the walls. It was like an art project, baked solid by the sun's rays.

One day, I approached a man who was sticking cow dung to a wall and asked him through gestures. He then taught me that it becomes fuel.
I see, in this city, the blessings of life are used up to the very end. I learned that dung is not something dirty, but a precious resource that supports people's lives.

Until then, to me, cow dung had been nothing more than filth.
But coming to this city changed that perspective. This dung stays close to people's lives and quietly supports their existence. It taught me that if you change your perspective, what you thought was dirty can actually become something very beautiful.

Three years since returning home.
Life in Japan was clean, orderly, and lacked for nothing. However, perhaps I felt a sense of emptiness in that perfect daily life. It might have been because I lacked that raw energy of "life"—something imperfect, yet powerfully alive, like cow dung.

I walk the streets of Delhi.
The sound of horns, the voices of people, the scent of spices. And the raw smell of cow dung. All of these things reminded me of the sensation of "being alive."
I will start walking again.

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—Ah, once again, a soliloquy in a strange land.