Diu

Gujaratis wear their pride on their sleeves. True, they seem to be a step ahead of their Indian brethren, and the places I’ve visited in Gujarat have been quite pleasant. On the home stretch of my India circuit, I decided to post up in Diu for a few days and relax. This former Portuguese colony could pass for a quaint Mediterranean fishing village, with its colonial architecture, whitewashed homes, and winding urban alleyways. The locals subsist on fishing and drunk Indian tourists. Centrally governed from Delhi, Diu is exempt from Gujarat’s alcohol prohibition; by 10:00am, the Gujaratis are oiled up and wandering the streets with contagious enthusiasm.



The other side of town revolves around fish. Drying lines draped with gaping mouths, silos stuffed high, nylon nets hand-knitted and repaired, buckets of kerosene, outboard mechanics, net folding, lights and Styrofoam cubes, chai and card games in the shade, bucking bulls and cow sex on the beach, and a low-tide archive of the day’s excrements.



My single gripe with India is its shocking filth. Like Kerala, Gujarat’s tourist areas are suspiciously clean, but village life retains the charm of disorderly defecation. That India has a space program and nuclear weapons but has yet to address human waste disposal is pathetic. The Indians need to clean up their streets. Improving sanitation would impair not one of India’s myriad traditional cultures, but would improve the lives and health of everyone.