Sights and Sounds in India

I try to take my camera everywhere I go in India. But no matter what you do, you just can't catch every great shot you see as you whizz by in a car.
And there are times when it just isn't appropriate to point a camera at someone just so you can show the folks back home, like the Leper who stood at the car window holding up his hands with no fingers. Or the garbage pickers who walk the city streets doing "recycling". They are women mostly and you can spot them among all the people by the kind of bag they carry. They may be my age for all I know.
Sometimes I don't want to keep a memory of what I see, like the skinny dogs that wander the streets eating from the garage piles or the puppy with flies eating at his ears. Who plays with them? In a world where there isn't enough to eat, there is no word for "pet". There are animals for work and for food, not for companionship and fun.
Other times, I'd love to yell "stop the car" so I can catch the picture of the cow "parked" among the long row of motorcyles lined up on the street in front of the shops. There was this cow, headed in, standing there parked, just waiting for someone to come out and kick start it. Or the alabaster traditional statue of Ghandi in the town square wearing the pair of real wire rimmed glasses that someone had placed on his face. Were they going for realism or did they just have a sense of humor?
India is more than a series of pictures, of course. It's a world of sounds, too. Like the sound of parrots scolding each other in the early mornings, or the chant of the Mullah five times a day calling the faithful to prayer. Or the 5:30 a.m. song and morning prayer blasting from the Cathedral loudspeakers. There's the white noise of traffic with its incessant honking of horns and the universal sound of kids playing in the schoolyards outside. For some reason kids always have to yell at the person standing next to them. Playing must not count unless you yell because they all do it. When I first got here, I heard all the sounds everyday. Now I have to stop to listen or I can't hear them anymore. Maybe it's time to come home when everything seems normal.