Insights from India- Part I A New Chapter

I’ve arrived safely in New Delhi after only a bit of hassle. I arrived 4 hours later than scheduled because I missed my connecting flight in Mumbai after the plane waited for two men to finish their duty-free liquor shopping spree. But now I am here, in my friend’s house. I’m very glad to be staying in a home after more than a month spent in hotels. There is so much more warmth in a home (and I mean besides the searing August heat). I have not been alone since I arrived, and I love it. Everyone is referred to not by name, but by relation- auntie, mother, brother, uncle, little sister, big sister- everyone is greeted and treated as family. We sit down to meals together, tasty vegetarian food that has been cooked with great affection. If the only thing I came to India for was great conversation, then it has already been worth the journey. I sit and talk with my friend or her mother for hours on end, drinking sweet chai and eating "biscuits" (aka cookies- another leftover from the "Britishers"). In speaking with others, especially with those who have different beliefs, customs, and worldviews, we are able to learn the most about ourselves. In giving explanations to “What do you like about India?” (I’ve been here two days?) “Why do people do/act like ____ in America?” “What’s so good about traveling the way you are doing?”, I find words coming out that I have never thought about, concepts I’ve never entertained in my mind let alone spoken aloud. It seems I am being put to the test right away; I was not even able to rest before being pushed to think about how and why I live my life the way I do. This is something I rarely wonder about, my everyday behaviors. I actually had to ask how to do things like bathe and use the toilet (buckets of water are the only things involved in both), and my friend explained very kindly.

I attended a puja the morning after my arrival- my friend's grandparents were moving back into their newly renovated house and thus a ceremony was required and a priest was brought to their home. Flames roared in a pan in the middle of the room. Flowers were passed in a plate and seeds were thrown into the fire as everyone chanted “swaha”, thanking the gods for the blessings they had bestowed upon the family. In the afternoon I walked around with my friend. We went to a market where I bought clothes (much needed). Then we went to an emporium of finely crafted marble boxes, lacquered furniture, and woven materials- beautiful things that were being sold at a fraction of the price that would be asked in the countries they would be imported to. We arrived at a lawn and took off our shoes and walked through the grass towards the Presidential Palace, a truly massive structure. Much of the city is very green, which is not what I expected. When we got back, the downstairs neighbors, a 90-year-old woman and her son who my friend and her mom consider family, had invited me to dinner and tracked down special bread and sweets for me from the market, something which normally wouldn’t be included in the meal.

This weekend my friend’s mother and I will most likely be going to a hill station called Nainital in the state of Uttarankhand. She has a school near there and needs to meet up with some lawyers about the property it is on. Then we will go to stay in an ashram which is owned by her friend from Switzerland. She says she is very keen on showing me the different spiritual traditions of India. She’s mentioned that so many foreigners come to India on spiritual journeys (evidence of which is screen-printed onto many t-shirts in the market). I wonder how any journey could not be at least in part spiritual. Going on an unplanned voyage is very freeing- I recognize that it is good to have goals and to plan for the future, but to attempt to make plans so concrete to the extent to which you expect everything will go according to exactly how you envisioned it will at some point prove disastrous, and leave you feeling hurt and lost, because the control you convinced yourself you had never really existed. Again I am reminded of the extreme privilege I have to be able to take this time for myself and reflect on my role in the world. How lucky I am that my only mission for now is just to BE.