As my 8-year-old son showed me on his globe last night, Chitrakoot, India is almost exactly halfway around the world from New York.

The trip can take 34 hours of non-stop travel. The final 5 hours we spent on a half-paved, half-dirt single-lane road that weaves its way through small villages and towns that time forgot.

Our horn is almost worn out as it never stops honking as we dodge cows, monkeys and dogs. Speeding, oncoming trucks and buses are so overloaded they’re tipping over.

The road is narrow so every time we swerve to avoid a head-on collision, our tires leave the road. We all hold our breath and close our eyes. India leads the world in roadside deaths with more than 336 deaths a day. I ask our driver who looks like he is 16 years old, “You sir are an excellent driver, you always swerve at just the right time, but what if the other driver doesn’t swerve in time?”

Our driver said, “Do not worry sir, in India, all the bad drivers are already dead.”

Our car feels like a time capsule taking us back a thousand years.
People are dressed like they were in the bible. They’re using oxen to pull carts. They’re cutting wheat by hand using scythes (invented 500 b.c.)