The colors of the wind

In 2011, I spent two months in India. I had not one but two encounters that changed my life.

I met Rima one hot afternoon in Kochi, so we went for a refreshing mango lasse. Rima's initial questions were the typical: "Are you traveling ALONE?! Why aren't you married?" I told her "the story of my life" – a personal crisis that resembled to Eat Pray Love, I am afraid. She said: "I went through the same". Rima had had a boyfriend and her parents were expecting to hear wedding bells soon, but one day she realized she was not in love. But what is love in a traditional society such as Rima's? A type of madness, perhaps... So her dad locked her up, until one night she ran away. Her parents thought she had been kidnapped, because they couldn't accept Rima’s right to choose. Now she's a shame to the family. I felt such impotence! However, there was one thing I could do: let her know that I admired her. No matter how far we were born and raised, we were two women struggling to be authentic, free. Rima was right: in our purest essence, we were the same.

My second story is about two young boys from Mysore. I never knew their names, but surely they haven't forgotten mine. One of them violently tried to kiss me, I started screaming and a police officer caught them. Soon I became the town's "sensation"; TV cameras turned up to cover the "assault”. The boys were terrified. So I understood: they had meant no harm. They just had a wrong concept of the Western woman - probably taken from Hollywood movies in which the protagonist sleeps with a man she just met...

That day I promised myself that I would become an ambassador of my country and culture. I still wanted to discover India, and I wanted India to discover me, too. Media can dangerously shape the image we have of others, but I also learnt how easy it is to communicate and bond with those “others” if we speak with authenticity and listen respectfully to their stories… especially while drinking delicious mango lasse!