The Allure of India

How does one get to know a place?

What expectations and assumptions come with getting to know a foreign land?

            Today our group attended the Jaipur Literature Festival at the Diggi House, near the Central Park here in Jaipur.  Our main intention was to see Amartya Sen speak.  We had studied his thoughts on development in his book Development as Freedom as part of our education unit, and everyone was very excited to have some of our study ‘come to life.’  Although none of us were particularly able to understand what he was saying (due in part to his thick Bengali accent and due in part as well I’m sure to the airiness of the content), we all enjoyed the rich atmosphere that the festival had to offer.  For some, it was the first time they had been to a festival as such, where people gathered to exchange thoughts and conversation about issues they had written about, issues that affect us all as part of humanity. 

            While sitting in the Front Lawns stage vaguely listening to Sen speak, my eyes wandered around the seating area.  There were a few white faces scattered amidst a sea of brown skin and colorful cloth.  The stage, the seating area covering, draped in huge cloths of orange and yellow, and the very modern, hi-tech audio/visual components gave the festival a very professional feeling.  Apart from the particular look of the people, this could have been anywhere in the world.  I have often felt that on this trip.  Especially perhaps in the past two countries, China and India, where the setting has not been particularly foreign to me – rural farmland and urban city – I suppose it has been harder for me to acknowledge my reality of being in a foreign land.

            Yesterday I went to a nice tea shop and restaurant, Tapri, on a rooftop deck overlooking the eastern section of Jaipur’s Central Park.  If you hit it at just the right time, you can score a little table at the edge of the roof with a nice view of a burning sun as it fades into the haze of the city’s horizon behind a huge, lazily flowing Indian flag.  On our tuk tuk ride home, I commented to my colleague how I felt like I hadn’t really gotten to know India.  She rebutted, saying the tea shop was a part of India.  For sure, it is a part I suppose.  But there, where the dress is fashionable, where women seem to have more liberty and freedom then most other places, and where the high prices prohibit the majority of Indians from coming, I guess I felt that I was more at home than I should be in another country.  And apart from haggling with a tuk tuk driver at the main road and experiencing the craziness of Indian streets from the comfort of my tuk tuk, it just didn’t feel like I was getting to know anything different from my past reality in the United States.

            This trip has been hard for me in that way.  It is very easy to travel to and through these countries barely scratching the surface.  From the minute we step off the plane, we are escorted to a hotel or some other compound, where we mingle with ourselves or other travelers, as well as the in-country staff, who are professionally trained to speak English and already have quite a bit of intercultural experience.  We visit amazing world heritage sites, dine at fancy restaurants, are escorted here and there by private buses, and can potentially stay in that bubble throughout the trip’s entirety.  Here in India, I have not yet once visited the work sites, and have only once, very briefly, visited one of the students houses.  I could potentially stay within the confines of the IDEX ELC House, receiving my breakfast, lunch and dinner here, meeting with the students every afternoon, and complete my six week assignment here without ever having gotten to know India.

           

            So, sitting there at the festival, it suddenly dawned on me that I am in India.  The realization had more weight than the simple statement of my spatial orientation.  It carried with it the implication and guilt that I should be taking more advantage of this opportunity.  Maybe this sudden acknowledgment came because of my recent frustrations with the students’ lack of taking advantage of their opportunity here.  Maybe the acknowledgment came because of the relationship that I have been able to build with the three camp staff at the IDEX house, and my realization that I will not be able to see them in a week.  Maybe my acknowledgment came because I have stopped fighting Jaipur. 

            It was definitely a rough and rocky start to our relationship.  Coming from the jungles of Ecuador, the mountains of Peru, the rural villages of China and the openness of Cambodia, Jaipur’s congested streets, trash heaps, noise pollution and urban sprawl clawed at my skin.  Events that led to six of our students leaving four days after our arrival stretched the limits of my emotional resilience, already susceptible due to an uneasy transition to urban life.  A Christmas travel, followed by a much needed beach vacation, stopped any relationship building in its tracks. 

            Now, I find myself at the brink of my last weekend here in Jaipur, and the vague realization that there is something extremely likable about this place is beginning to emerge from within the depths of my being. 

            I suddenly cannot get enough of the honking horns.  Whereas before I used to cringe at the sudden unexpected blast of rude frequency on my ear drum, I now laugh at the painted print on the back of trucks that asks other drivers to “Honk Please.”           

            Whereas before I was somewhat scared at the seemingly chaotic way in which people drove, maneuvering motorbike, tuk tuk and car into every crease of open space in order to continue going, going, going, I now begin to anticipate what moves my driver might make. 

            Whereas before I withdrew from the housekeeper and cooks because it was simply more people with whom I could not communicate, I now see how hard they work, every single day of the week, how they clean the places I exist in, how they cook with love and concern themselves with my well-being; I see the tiredness in their eyes as they sit on the sofa at the end of a long day watching Hindi soap operas, and although I do not understand the TV, nor do I understand their chatter to each other during commercials, I lay with them on the sofas and I feel more love smashed in between these recent strangers-turned-family than I do with many that I share a language with.

           

            One of our first days in Jaipur we received a cultural orientation.  The speaker, Anusha, made a comment about the chaos of India.  She said that although it may seem chaotic to us foreigners, there was a thread underlying all of Indian society that tied it all together, that kept everyone at peace with each other and society carrying on, day after day.   Perhaps it was this chaos that was so abrasive to me during my first few weeks here.  Perhaps it was an apparent sea of disorder which I, born and raised in the law and order of the United States, and despite my many wanderings into the wild and into foreign lands, could not make sense of.  Perhaps it is the underlying thread that Anusha spoke of on one of those first days in Jaipur that I am now beginning to have the vaguest sense of. 

            I suppose it is in this thread, in the underpinnings of this culture, in the web of customs and traditions born thousands of years ago that tie these 1.2 billion people together; I suppose it is in this thread that I begin to see the enticing beauty of India, can finally say that I am beginning to get to know her, and can suddenly and unexpectedly say that I’ll be sad to say goodbye.