India- Unfinished Business

The title for this entry could also be "Colossal India" or "India, I owe you" but upon returning to this blog 6 years after the completion of this trip I have to give myself credit for assigning the title that currently sits at the top when I did. I knew then that this would be a difficult entry and knew very well that the longer it took me to type it, it wouldn't get any easier. So without further delay here it goes India…I owe you. Call me narrow minded. Call me an entitled child of the Western World. Call me ill-traveled. Even still, I have come a long way from the person I knew in college. Had it not been for a Rugby Club trip to Ireland I may have never been exposed to the attraction (or rather addiction) of foreign travel. For a somewhat sheltered American boy such as myself, Ireland proved to be a great travel gateway drug. They may drive on the opposite side of the road than in the U.S. but the people look like me (except with much larger and redder noses), they speak my language and culturally they're very similar. But so it goes, like any addict of pleasure and adventure, I began to lust a quicker high, an elongated high and an experience unlike anything I've ever before felt. For me, it was a slow set of uncomfortable switchbacks towards India, slowly building confidence in unfamiliar settings and learning to let go of some of the luxuries I took for granted as a Westerner. Costa Rica (now lil' America) was next on the international exposure list and upon returning I unwillingly became the friend people looked to for international travel advice. So I traveled with a friend to New Zealand to get an amazing trip in and somewhat introduce this friend to international travel via an obvious "travel gateway" drug destination. It was there that we learned of the frequently travel circuit in Oceania which put SE Asia on my list. Prior to venturing out that way, I was the ring-leader for a group of friends to Peru (great trip, as they all are). A trip to Tanzania with another adventurous friend and some trips to Europe in between. Then it became time to throw the hat in the ring for an around-the-world trip because I needed to detach myself from home longer and force myself to experience other cultures...The same way a tight rope walker may use less caution the more and more practice they have under their belt, an exploratory traveler will begin to envision themselves in more exotic cultures, politically hot zones, more misunderstood regions...you get what I'm saying, or maybe not. I guess, simply put, like a heroin addict. Once is just not enough and you build that tolerance always pushing the limits. The more foreign, the more opposite, the more backwards, the more the type of place that draws the response of, "why would you want to go there?" And sometimes, once you get to these destinations, as mentally and physically prepared one may think they are, the experience can be such a shock to everything you’ve already known or anticipated that your experience becomes very intense. Enter, India. Going to these foreign countries one cannot help but have preconceived notions, opinions or expectations of what they will experience. Whether it be facts obtained by any research or advice given by a burnt out traveler at the local library, there ARE ideas in your head of what lies ahead. It would be nice to go in with a clean slate. Sometimes throwing yourself into the most remote section of earth is a good way to really shock your mind but even still, the world is shrinking at a rapid pace and an abundance of information is so accessible out there for just about every where as the chances are, someone has already done what you're about to embark on. With that being said, my now wife and I made the conscious decision to spend 1 month in India. After researching and gathering travel stories from friends we obviously had our own expectations beginning to brew. I am not going to pretend that I know the history of India, as rich and diverse as it is, so I won't preface my self prescribed therapy with a long red carpet of impressive details that may help to explain what I experienced and why. It only makes sense to lay-out my experiences in somewhat of a blunt, unintelligible manner since my comprehension of each item at the time was entirely discombobulated, leading to reoccurring bouts of internal conflict. India is AMAZING for this reason. It challenged me on so many levels and is ultimately a great classroom for digging deep into who you are and what you actually think. head bob https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj56IPJOqWE So, I have come to make my peace with you, o gracious India. Please, hear me out...I may claim that I can be pretty rugged by telling camping stories, sharing slideshows of my trekking expeditions, and boasting that I can go weeks without showering...but no trip has ever worn me out, mentally, as much as our trip to India. Physically, it is no problem, but honestly I've never had a foreign country wear me down so fast and so often as India. In a nutshell it was an emotional roller coaster. I am pretty sure that I did it to myself by having high expectations. Not high expectations in the sense that we would be escorted around like celebrities but more in the sense that we could communicate sensibly, travel comfortably, and understand (the culture) easily. There is NO easy in India and for good reasons going back thousands of years. It was probably the most humbling experience I have ever had. There were so many constrictive aspects of the Indian/Hindi culture that made me feel like I could not breathe that as soon as we set foot on our flight to Kathmandu I felt like I could let out one large exhale (which is not the case, since Kathmandu is actually very similar to India). As soon as you begin to love it you get a reason to hate it, and vice versa. I am not immune to poverty and disease and the unfortunate but there are extremes in India like no other I have witnessed before. Some that…that if I tried really hard, would not allow me to sleep at night. One example was a man I saw sitting on a random street corner in a small town on the way to Rishikesh in what looked like a bunker made out of rubber car tires. I am not making fun of the situation but merely trying to find a way to describe him but he was like the “Oscar the Grouch” of tires but from in a dark mystical way. He himself was as black as the tires he sat upon, or was it in…or…there was no way of telling where the tires stopped and he began. And I just remember the contorting jaw and strained hands grasping at the air as if he were mentally disabled to an extreme degree. After the initial visual shock expired and I progressed towards making sense of the man’s situation with possible scenarios my heart went out to the man. But soon he was gone as the tuk tuk moved on. Religion and tradition help to make any culture unique but the aspect of public bathing and exploitation of natural river systems while knowing there is still widespread disease being spread confuses the heck out of me. Yes, sanitation infrastructure is often overlooked at home. I mean, how do I get fresh flowing water out of my wall and where does all the trash go? But it’s the 20th century, people shouldn’t be dying of the plague! People in India do not die of the plague, but the infrastructure can be improved. Why hasn’t it? I won’t pretend to answer that question as I’m sure it’s complicated but back to the bathing. When you do finally come to a river crossing during a ceremony all the accusations of “why, and how could one live like this” are dashed by the awe of inspiration and admiration for a culture that values some of the most simplistic resources we have access to as humans. There is certainly an innocence to India that is repeated over and over again. I forget where we were, I think it was outside of New Delhi but we visited a Hindi theme park and upon exiting their version of the Disneyland ride, A Small World, there were pictures of animals on the wall with the caption, “Don’t eat us.” Makes you think. How can 1 billion people think this way and how, when there are starving people everywhere, are there cattle roaming the streets as if they are made of gold? That innocence also included male companionship and affection. I have seldom considered the American culture as a male-dominated one with a lot of machismo as in school it was always the Latin American and Asian cultures that scored high on that scale but yes, the U.S. is definitely high up there too and holding hands with your best male friend on the beach would attract quite a bit of attention. In India, boys, men are physical affectionate with each other. The grown men often play as little boys. I mean, why not right? These are friends that can be as close as family so why not be comfortable with them. Again, it was something new for me to see and made me question why I thought it was weird. After the initial curiosity wears off it becomes the norm and I learn to appreciate it and respect it. Now, luckily we didn’t have any conversations with any resident Indians who knew of some of the emerging rape and spousal abuse epidemic so I cannot speak to that. That’s obviously unacceptable and at the same time, completely conflicts with the “innocent India” I witnessed. I have many faults and one of those is trying to make sense of everything. If you don’t try to then you try to reason by categorizing things into black or white, which can help your sanity at times but we all should know that NOTHING IS BLACK OR WHITE. And India is certainly not that; it is black, white, red, marigold, indigo, saris, henna, cow dung, flies, grime, head bobs, pride and nirvana…and it’s ALIVE. My wife nailed it when she described it as an “emotional roller coaster”. It is a great metaphor and one that holds true for life in general. India is Life, Life is India. Living is pushing yourself out of your comfort zone from time to time or whatever is necessary. Life keeps happening and if it doesn’t go your way, you have to be flexible and log those experiences in your default mode network and move on to the next. Life is crazy, India is crazy, you and I are crazy. Crazy to where sanity is essentially unnecessary. Get on with your bad self Prince! (never intended to end this blog with a Prince reference…buuuuut, he was a master). Thank you India and I hope to see you again!