The First Crazy Step
INDIA | Thursday, 15 May 2014 | Views [94] | Scholarship Entry
The first time I boarded the train to Jammu, it left me with a palpable sense of excitement. But there was also a deep sense of fear. Not because I was visiting the disputed and disturbed territory of Jammu & Kashmir, but because I was going to leave behind the prospect of a well paying job, and a Masters in New York to pursue a project that would lead me where, I knew not. I remember the cold November morning, I was sitting in a decrepit small bus (the best way to go about Jammu, I was to find out soon) and watching the sun rise in the gaps between rows of unorganized housing of the city.
My first day there and I had walked for over five kilometers, exploring the various suburbs and the bazaars. The lifestyle was like any other city, except with a strong presence of the Indian military forces.
Ever since then, I have never been back home. I traveled in the villages along the India-Pakistan border. The family that hosted me lived in a lovely house in the middle of fields that were ready for harvest. I learned the ways of village life; we used to wake up with the sun and go to the fields to disembowel since the village has no sanitary facilities, and then, a bath under the water from the canal in the open. I used to hear from my mother that the food served with love tastes the best. I tasted the best food in those eight days in the village. The villagers welcomed me with open arms, and I developed life-long friendships.
After a month I flew across the length of India and reached Madurai in Tamil Nadu. It was a culture shock. Life is so different in South India. Every morning, the women folk dress up the ground with intricate and colorful patterns. To accommodate the humidity, the men wear lungi- long wrap-around-skirts of cotton and the women ornament their hair with garlands of flowers. Art adds a touch of magic to every aspect of living here. The food is tangy and a characteristic ingredient of the cuisine is coconut. A variety of bananas are grown here, and the people are ferociously proud of their variety of the fruit. I loved how the people have still kept alive their culture of eating in banana leaves. Eating over fine utensils is so passé! Every part of the tree is used and the large dense banana farms are a sight one doesn’t come across often.
One thing that I find endearing across the length and breadth of India is its unity in diversity. I am confident that this first step will be a harbinger to a lifetime of travels.
Tags: 2014 Travel Writing Scholarship - Euro Roadtrip
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