My place is down this alley! Yes, he is zipping his pants.
I flew into New Delhi from Hong Kong really late in the evening, but had already arranged for the guesthouse’s driver to pick me up due to the hour and so I waited. He arrived very late and looked severely disappointed once he saw me. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was a young woman and not a man, if it was because I was an American, or if it was because, like him, I was dark skinned. Whatever the case, he walked twenty paces ahead of me as I nearly ran to keep up with him and off we went in his beat up little car whose engine took three minutes to turn over.
We made it to the guesthouse, which was located in Paharganj, a backpacker’s district that looks worse than anything I’ve ever seen in the States. In shock that I was actually staying there, I stumbled out of the car certain that this wasn’t the right place and that I was about to be robbed. Maybe I was moving too slow for the driver’s comfort, because he reached back, grabbed my bags and while asking me for a tip (which isn’t customary in India, but tourists typically don’t know that), he proceeded without me down an alley that smelled like curry, cigarettes, and really strong urine due to the open urinal at its entrance.Not wanting to be left on the street by myself and without my bags, I followed. As we made our way through the back alley towards my home for the next few days, the driver stepped forward like a soccer player and kicked a sleeping dog that was in our path.
NOTE: After I left India, I read reviews of Paharganj and many writers suggested that first time visitors to India should not stay there, but spend a little extra money and stay in Connaught Place. I could not agree more with this statement. The locals actually refer to Paharganj as the backpacker’s ghetto. It is physically shocking to see and can turn you off of India; especially if you come from a developed country. The experience is similar to coming to the United States for the first time and being dropped off in Marcy Projects in New York. You may get used to it, but It will take a while.
Typically when I arrive in a new country at night, things tend to look worse than they actually are, so I try to keep a positive attitude, wait until the morning and not let it get me down.I explained this theory to an older couple during breakfast at the guesthouse the next morning. “Well Dear,” said the wife in a grandmotherly tone, “I’m afraid that India will look just as bad, if not worse, in the daylight.” Great! I spent the entire day in my room! I didn’t even go eat lunch or dinner. I emailed my husband telling him that I had made a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here. I’ve been traveling for almost four months through ten countries and I have never seen anything like this in a major city! I can’t believe this.
The Red Fort in New Delhi
To admit this revelation to my husband was actually a humbling experience. Before I left New York, I had been nagging him about a book I read called Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure by Sarah Macdonald. It’s about the life and experience of the author who moved to India to live with her ex-pat boyfriend. The novel is funny, but there’s a part in the book where an older, Indian, gentlemen Sarah is talking to says that the problem with Americans is that we are always looking at the person above us (financially, educationally, etc.) and we look at them saying, “I wish I had that! I wish I was that!” So, we are never happy because we are always seeking and working harder to obtain more. This gentleman told Sarah that in his culture, they look at the person below them and they say “Thank God I’m not in that position! Thank you God for everything I have.” Therefore, they are always happy and thankful for what they have and are ultimately content in life.
At least one wife is always going to be sick of your crap!
Now, I realize that his viewpoint isn’t reflective of ALL Indian’s views, but I spent days arguing with Chad about the nobility of simply being happy with what you have; never stressing to have or to reach for more. This is the right way to move through life! His response: “Nah babe, I just don’t see it. Where’s the motivation to improve?” Writing him off as confused, I let the argument die; but, now that I was actually in India looking at contentment in the face… I wasn’t quite sure of my position. Was this right or was this wrong?
The Taj Mahal - a love story! "Chad, will you build something like this in my memory?"
Dancing to the song in his head! Love it!!
After a highly stressful prayer session, I eventually made it out of the guesthouse. I visited Ghandi’s home and memorial museum. I walked around the Red Fort and saw a lot of what New Delhi has to offer. I even managed to make it all the way to Agra, where I saw the Taj Mahal in all of its grandeur. Agra is just as challenging as Pararganj with its plethora of rickshaw drivers speeding down the streets, dodging camels, dogs, and cows, and always attempting to up sale you on a tour or rip you off. Despite the surroundings outside of the Taj, I found myself walking around the Taj at peace and people watching for hours. Happy, smiling, families eagerly enjoying one another while running shoe less across the grounds of one of India’s gems. Maybe, this is right?
I stretched a bit further and made it to Goa in the southern part of India. There I spent my days walking the streets with bulls, monkeys, goats and stray dogs and I learned to make the best chicken curry I’ve ever tasted from the owner of a local restaurant. Thanks Guarav!
Ahhh.... Goa.....
I also had a very unique experience at an Ayurvedic Spa Resort in Goa. While there I spent three days butt naked getting massaged, bathed, scrubbed, and beaten for three hours a day by two men. I actually paid for this! Even though I left looking like Don King when they dripped two gallons of oil on my head during the Dhara (Shiro Dhara) and even though I felt like that soldier in Platoon that was beaten with a bar of soap wedged into a tube sock when they pounded me with a round bolus of herbs wrapped in a cotton cloth during the Kizhi, I still loved every minute. The only awkward moment was the post shower everyday… “Uh… thanks, but I can wash my own pocket book.”
I'm feeling the shirt, man! Can I get a smile?.
During my trip, I realized that in order to enjoy India, I had to throw away the rose colored glasses that being an American affords one and see this country for what it is and not what I thought it should be.
Then Let me explain…
My first day walking around the Main Bazaar in New Delhi, I met two young ladies who were selling beautiful, vintage Indian quilts. I bought a few and ended up talking to the youngest girl who asked why I had come to India. “This was my dream!” I told her. She replied that going to New York has always been her dream as well. “However, it is not possible for my dream to ever happen,” she continued very nonchalant as if she hadn’t just dropped a bomb.To give up on your dreams with such ease at the age of seventeen is wrong! I was hurt and outraged for her and her statement proved just one more reason why India was starting to become a “horrible country” in my mind.
What is this animal?!
From the kicked dog, to being spat at by a beggar after being denying her money, to slipping in cow crap and having it end up under my toe nails, there were a thousand different situations similar to this that could have continued to build my case against India. “Everything is wrong with this place!” Yet, after that conversation with the girl in the market, I remembered another conversation with my friends from London who I met at Mount Bromo. They had visited the U.S during the previous year and commented that they had never felt so embolden. “Your music, your commercials, even the advertisements on the streets are all so empowering. We left feeling like we could do anything and then we got back to our country,” they said laughing.
The Neighborhood Boys! Smile?
Hearing about my own country through the viewpoint of another gave me so much clarity into my own mental state. They were right! I live in a country that tells ordinary people that they can do anything. Can be anything. Can go anywhere with hard work, perseverance, and a dream. Even the pages of my passport are stamped with messages that support this theory. “Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people – Harry Emerson Fosdick.” No wonder I was having such a difficult time accepting India as is; I was looking at it and measuring it against an American standard that praises the extraordinary and reminds us that we are Dreamers and “Do-ers”. While I looking at India as a checklist of what it could be, Indians were living their lives amidst what it was. Dreamers vs. Realists.
In the end, I think that India has taught me a very important lesson: No matter how “open” you think you are, you have to understand how your own mind set colors your perception of the world, in order to see and accept that someone else’s isn’t right or wrong, just different.
Smile? Indians take very serious pictures!
Title: Tuk Tuk Chic
If my kids do this to me, then I'm having corrective surgery!
Stairs, escalators, and elevators are for wussies!
Hi Baby! Please smile...
Parliament
Going to the chapel and we're...
The last steps of Ghandi as as he made his way to pray right before he was assasinated
I live in a country that tells ordinary people that they can do anything. Can be anything. Can go anywhere with hard work, perseverance, and a dream.
Yes, I've had non-Americans or 1st generation Americans tell me something similar. It's a great cultural aspect of the United States, although it usually undermines the race, class, and economic infrastructure in place, and makes one think the five Ws don't matter at all. It's a bit of an illusion. Eternal optimism is a metaphorical drug, methinks.
I was very interested in reading your take on India. I've never been, and the perspectives I've read are very polarizing - you either love it or hate it.
Yours is the first one I've read that was more circumspect - taking the good and bad. Thanks for sharing!
Davita, I think this is the best story ever. It made me really think about the wants vs. needs that cause us to not be content in our various states. We tend to always be unsatisfied, Thanks for the reminder. MOM
Daphne, I once read a quote that said, "A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread." Now, the realist in me knows that that man needs bread to sustain life, but the dreamer in me understands that illusions make us WANT to live. So, I agree that eternal optimism is absolutely an illusion, but the fact that we [Americans] buy into, regardless of the five W's, makes it so much apart of our reality. Our illusions, our hopes, our dreams are the fire in our bellies and like any other addict we need them desperately!
*** BTW I looked up the author of that quote and it's Georges Bernanos (??) ***
I do believe that everywhere you go, there are cultural differences that you might never be able to understand but are definitely not wrong. But India, more than anywhere I've traveled to, pushed me towards thinking about universal human rights and how they absolutely do exist. The reality of India is that women (poor ones especially) are often oppressed and a the poor are often ignored and live in incredibly bad situations. To me, there's a reality of what is that you have to accept and work with, but I think that should always be done with keeping up with what needs to be done to improve the quality of life. When I remember the little children I saw in Jaipur under the train tracks who were missing clothing, covered with soot, and scrounging for food, I think that they would appreciate the dreamers as opposed to the realists. I know it's uncomfortable and infuriating to confront the reality of the injustice and work that needs to be done in the third world that is not the fault of those countries. It's the legacy of colonialism. But confronting reality is the only way that people can begin to improve the lives of people who are literally living in shit. Gandhi was a dreamer and look what he was able to accomplish!
I like these types of conversations as well! Just to clarify myself - I'm not against dreaming, I'm a dreamer. I just think that there is a balance between pessimism and optimism - the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle: being aware of the circumstances in which you were born, and how that impacts the variety and scope of opportunities for a better life, especially if unprivileged (which can mean different things to different people), and dedication in pursuit of a life beyond what your circumstances may dictate.
NOTE: After I left India, I read reviews of Paharganj and many writers suggested that first time visitors to India should not stay there, but spend a little extra money and stay in Connaught Place. I could not agree more with this statement. The locals actually refer to Paharganj as the backpacker’s ghetto. It is physically shocking to see and can turn you off of India; especially if you come from a developed country. The experience is similar to coming to the United States for the first time and being dropped off in Marcy Projects in New York. You may get used to it, but It will take a while.
I live in a country that tells ordinary people that they can do anything. Can be anything. Can go anywhere with hard work, perseverance, and a dream.
ReplyDeleteYes, I've had non-Americans or 1st generation Americans tell me something similar. It's a great cultural aspect of the United States, although it usually undermines the race, class, and economic infrastructure in place, and makes one think the five Ws don't matter at all. It's a bit of an illusion. Eternal optimism is a metaphorical drug, methinks.
I was very interested in reading your take on India. I've never been, and the perspectives I've read are very polarizing - you either love it or hate it.
Yours is the first one I've read that was more circumspect - taking the good and bad. Thanks for sharing!
Davita, I think this is the best story ever. It made me really think about the wants vs. needs that cause us to not be content in our various states. We tend to always be unsatisfied, Thanks for the reminder. MOM
ReplyDelete*** I love conversations like this ***
ReplyDeleteDaphne, I once read a quote that said, "A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread." Now, the realist in me knows that that man needs bread to sustain life, but the dreamer in me understands that illusions make us WANT to live. So, I agree that eternal optimism is absolutely an illusion, but the fact that we [Americans] buy into, regardless of the five W's, makes it so much apart of our reality. Our illusions, our hopes, our dreams are the fire in our bellies and like any other addict we need them desperately!
*** BTW I looked up the author of that quote and it's Georges Bernanos (??) ***
I do believe that everywhere you go, there are cultural differences that you might never be able to understand but are definitely not wrong. But India, more than anywhere I've traveled to, pushed me towards thinking about universal human rights and how they absolutely do exist. The reality of India is that women (poor ones especially) are often oppressed and a the poor are often ignored and live in incredibly bad situations. To me, there's a reality of what is that you have to accept and work with, but I think that should always be done with keeping up with what needs to be done to improve the quality of life. When I remember the little children I saw in Jaipur under the train tracks who were missing clothing, covered with soot, and scrounging for food, I think that they would appreciate the dreamers as opposed to the realists. I know it's uncomfortable and infuriating to confront the reality of the injustice and work that needs to be done in the third world that is not the fault of those countries. It's the legacy of colonialism. But confronting reality is the only way that people can begin to improve the lives of people who are literally living in shit. Gandhi was a dreamer and look what he was able to accomplish!
ReplyDeleteI like these types of conversations as well! Just to clarify myself - I'm not against dreaming, I'm a dreamer. I just think that there is a balance between pessimism and optimism - the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle: being aware of the circumstances in which you were born, and how that impacts the variety and scope of opportunities for a better life, especially if unprivileged (which can mean different things to different people), and dedication in pursuit of a life beyond what your circumstances may dictate.
ReplyDelete