Well we are writing this blog a good three weeks after we have
been in India, so the senses have been dulled a bit, and none too
soon. Rather than writing a funny list of the things we have learned
in India, we wanted to give a sense of what it meant to us. To start
with, it is probably first best to have the caveat...it is impossible
to describe the place. Rather, this is a compilation of our
impressions and the effect it had on us. From the moment we stepped
out of the airport in Jaipur, at 4:30 in the morning, we were
surrounded by people. Some people waiting to greet passengers from our
flight, others hoping to give a ride to any unlucky enough to be alone,
and the majority a mostly silent morass of people who have no place
else to go. There were fires burning in various places, comprised of
refuse of colorful paper and who knows what else. Everyone seemed to
be wrapped in a blanket colored brown or grey, draped casually over
their heads. There was no age that wasn't represented. There were kids
whose age could have been 7 or 13. There was a uniformity to the way
the people looked though...tired and dirty. We were initially
approached by rickshaw drivers, but for the most part, at least that
morning, we were simply observed as we observed.
People say you either love India or you hate it. For us it wasn't
that simple. We didn't love it, it is too much to love. There are too
many sad sights, too much poverty, too many children with no clothes,
too much dust, too many starving animals, too many mothers pulling on
your sleeve as they hold a wailing infant. To many kids gathered
around us asking for a sweet or a pen or a rupee. It is not a place we
could love. Similarly we didn't hate it....for the same reasons we
just described, but also because the nicest people en masse we have met
were in India. People that would welcome you to their home, people
that get so uptight if you try to pay with a bill that has a slight
tear, despite the fact that the bills were so worn at times as to be
almost transparent. They would rather you not pay at all than have a
bill with a tear in it. They get offended if you don't eat all
the food they provide, they are worried that you don't like it. The
same people that were in a seeming rush to get everywhere....there is
nowhere we went that you didn't hear the ceaseless honking of horns on
the rickshaws, yet as a train pulled into a town, you saw sooo many
people doing nothing. Men sitting back on their heels in a posture
that seems to defy gravity and joints, , some smoking cigarettes, some
just observing, many drinking Chai, an intoxicating drink that we grew
addicted to. The women worked that is certain, sweeping steps,
cooking, always on the move, never sitting still. If we came to a
festival in a street, we would see men milling about, holding hands,
walking slowly, but we didn't see any groupings of women. You would
see men more likely to hold and play with a child than you see in the
US. Walking into a shop was a commitment. These people turn out the
shop lights to save energy but as you walk in, the lights are flicked
on, and their wares are displayed. Thirty pashminas are unfurled and
dance around you before being thrown to the floor as another is reached
for. Walking out of a store feels like an insult, the sad eyes of the
merchant follows you. Soon we tried to avoid going in any stores. The
electricity goes out often enough that candles became a mainstay at
meals. The spicy food so amazing that it didn't seem to matter what
you ordered so long as you ordered Indian food, it was going to be
delicious. Cookies that sold at 5 rupees were delicious treats to go
along with our 50 cent mountain dews. And always everywhere...dirt.
Hotel rooms were assessed for less dirt, food places were assessed for
more cleanliness, but even with all the dirt and all the trash that was
everywhere, it wasn't a disgusting sort of dirt. It was more an
inevitable dirt that exists because there are soo many people, sooo
many animals. As you laid down in a bed at night, knowing that the
sheet under you probably hadn't been cleaned in the last month, you
didn't feel disgusting, you just felt as though it was too be
expected. If you needed a shower, a bucket would be brought with
steaming water, and you would mix it with cold water and you would
remove whatever dirt you could reach and you would start over. It was
just different.
At the same time, some days, as the sun came through the open
windowless windows, we would just look at one another and dread
stepping foot outside. We didn't want to have to tell the 400 rickshaw
drivers where we were going, we didn't want to have to bargain for a
better fair. We didn't want to worry about stopping to buy some
crackers, because as soon as we did fifteen children would gather. We
didn't want to see the dogs that limped around and nosed at the trash.
We didn't want to see the children dressed in gray as they carried
their burlap sacks to pick up the trash. We didn't want to be asked
where we are from, and we didn't want to hear people say America is a
good country. We wanted to sink into oblivion. We wanted to order
food into our room, we wanted to turn on our TV and pretend that we
were in the US. We wanted to ignore the fact that life isn't fair and
that for many life will never be fair, and that we have been graced by
having been born into a country where our life would not be like the
majority of people from this country. We didn't want to hear one more
Bollywood song, or see one more commercial which was incongruous with
the life we were seeing each day. We didn't want to see that, but at
the same time, our step lightened and we smiled as we saw a holy man
who slept beside the road emerge from his sleeping bag and sit blinking
sleepily beside his puppy and our hearts lightened as we saw him feed
it a saucer of chai. We laughed as annoying school children engaged us
in a conversation and it became apparent that they thought "Your name"
meant "my name" or "his name" or "her name", and we saw the same 12
year old girls struggling with their english, rolling their eyes at the
same antics of 12 year old boys.
Overall, when we meet travelers-- the kind of people that can work as mall kiosk salesmen for two years so that they can go travel the world for one year and then repeat, they are likely to say something like "you just have to go to India, it is so amazing." Well, we think it is amazing, but not in the same way Andrew would describe a good plate of curry. It is amazing in the way that it leaves you struck with such a mix of emotions you simply cannot make it clear how you feel. We think it is a place people should go, especially Americans, but not because the Taj Mahal is such an architectural feat (no, we didn't get around to seeing it, anyway). Because it changes you at least a little, and even though it may feel like a scar, it's a good change, and it allows a new perspective on life that may be hard to come by elsewhere.
