Impressions of India by a Type-A Personality
Incredible India - colors, activity, motion
India. More than any other place that we have been, and I expect, more than any other place that we will go, India can’t really be described, only experienced. Perhaps that is why I am having so much trouble, now, articulating what India was like. Removed our Indian travels, I feel like I’m being melodramatic when I try to put into words the feelings and emotions I felt while we were there. But I know what I felt, particularly in those early days.
Craziness in Delhi
Right off the bat, India was intense, setting off a roller coaster of emotions that never subsided, only lessened as we grew more used to our crazy surroundings and as we traveled south, where India tends to be calmer. In India, I felt shock. I felt crowded. I felt alive, but very aware of my own mortality. I felt amazement. I felt sadness. I felt frustration. I felt disgust. I felt awe. Above all else, I didn’t feel bored. There’s too many layers to India’s chaos to feel bored.
Peeling Back the Layers
For starters, finding clean places to eat and drink, especially on a budget, wasn’t always easy. This was a problem more so in the north than in the south. Most of the cheapie rooms were rather dingy, and most of the time mid-range wouldn’t get you more than the addition of toilet paper. Needless to say, we put our sleep-sacks and travel towels to good use that month. Sometimes, for lack of a better alternative, we’d eat in crowded guidebook recommended restaurants that we’d probably report straight to the health department at home. We wouldn’t even want to touch the grimy menus, let alone eat the food. We ate and slept with swarms of ants in close proximity. Yet the ants were the least of our problems. As long as they wouldn’t actually be on our food – like they were one time when I was eating a candy bar and ants started crawling up my arm – or on us or our stuff – like they were another time when the infestation in our bathroom found their way into our bags – they were just something else I had to force myself to ignore. The cockroaches we’d see scurrying down the street, or most horrifyingly in the bathroom of a boat we rented in Kerala, I refused to get used to.
We’ve seen litter and garbage in other countries, but not like India. We started showering at night to rid ourselves of the day’s grime. In Delhi, in particular, the air was so thick with smog and pollution that it felt as if we were breathing whole particles, and in fact we were. I’d blow my nose and the tissue would be black, much like when Sean’s would be when he was demolishing 110-year-old smooty plaster in our old house. Only all I did was walk down a street. I bought a scarf whose most useful function was covering my nose and mouth as we zipped through exhaust clouds in rickshaws. My eyes were so irritated that I couldn’t wear my contacts for a week.
Sean makes friends with a cow eating garbage in Agra
Venturing Outside
Being outside for any appreciable length of time wore your nerves down. Walking down the road is like navigating an obstacle course. One has to avoid things like protruding slabs of concrete, if a sidewalk exists at all; puddles of standing water; piles of trash; fires; dog shit; cow shit; people walking; people sleeping; people urinating; sidewalk vendors; down wires; piles of rubble; emancipated cows; and mangy, stray dogs. Horns are a constant sound in an overcrowded nation with little patience. Indian drivers use them as a you-better-get-the-hell-out-of-my-way-because-here-I-come warning and it seems they are continually coming. I got so fed up with the sound of horns that it drove me to seriously consider offering more to a rickshaw driver if he could manage to transport us from point A to B without use of his horn.
Delhi's official government tourism office.
Every time we got in a taxi or rickshaw (basically a glorified go-cart) I feared for our lives. It is almost as if everything is operating on imaginary rails. I had no other way to explain how there are not more accidents in India, or how the chaos just functions the way that it does. We’ve seen countries where the lanes are just suggestions before, but India takes it to a whole new level. Rickshaws, taxis, cars, trucks, buses, cows, and pedestrians, all jockeying for a spot in the road at the same time, all sliding past each other with inches to spare.
Agra
Varanasi
First rickshaw ride in Delhi
1.3 Billion People
People often say India is “teeming with humanity.” I’m not sure what that means, but if it means that there are a lot of people everywhere, then it is a proper description. Not only are there a lot of people everywhere, there are a lot of people living their lives in public. Eating in public. Sleeping in public. Bathing in public. Laundering in public. Urinating in public. Hell, even dying in public. All of which is a bit overwhelming to people, like us, from countries where privacy is a zealously guarded right, where people live much of their lives behind closed doors.
Bathing in Kerala's backwaters
Getting a shave on Calcutta's streets
Personal space simply doesn’t exist in India. The country is filled to capacity and then some. People overflow out of trains, subways, buses, cars, rickshaws, motorbikes. Signs admonishing people to stand in a queue are ignored. To protect your territory while you wait, pushing and shoving is required. Just when you thought you’d made it to a counter, still people cut in from the side. One day I got so fed up, I heard myself saying, Excuse me, sir, but I was next in line. I don’t know why. I knew it was futile. We have to adapt to their customs and norms. They don’t have to adapt to ours.
Not only do you not have any actual personal space in public, you also don’t have any mental personal space. Between the honking, the traffic, and the crowds, there’s not a lot of room to think. There’s always people, so many people. And a lot of them want something from you. There has been begging in every single country we have visited, but nothing like India. A man with his legs permanently disfigured into a cross-legged position, crawling around on his hands, thumping on your table for your attention. A woman with a child, both with tears streaming down their faces, tapping the window of your cab, pleading with you, over and over, to spare her some change. Then there’s the touts and the scammers, with schemes so elaborate that I couldn’t always even figure out exactly how they were trying to get us to part with our money. We actually found the touts to be more aggressive in Morocco, but damned if they are not persistent in India. Rickshaw drivers would follow us down the block, long after we said no. Conversations that started off so innocently – where are you from? – usually led to no good. Even those people who weren’t trying to take advantage of us often gave us misinformation, not because they were trying to mislead us, but because they don’t want to admit they don’t know.
By the India Gate in Delhi, complete with gawkers
The worst way that India got into your head was the staring. It didn’t happen everywhere – the non-touristy areas were usually worse – but when it happened, there was no ignoring it. When metros rolled up in Delhi, stuffed to the gills with men, except for the last car, which was slightly less stuffed with women, everyone’s eyes turned to us. When we’d walk down the street in certain areas, we’d pass a group of men, and I’d feel their eyes bore down on me, and if I dared turn around when they had passed, I would see at least one of them, looking over his shoulder. When I’d use our computer in an airport, or on a ferry, a little boy would stand right next to me, watching every word that I typed. When we and a newfound Irish friend waited for a train in a small-town railway station, every single person in the station watched our every move, even going so far as to completely turn around and hang over the back of their seats to get a better view. Meanwhile, a pig strolled through the station, and no one – except us of course – gave the pig so much as a glance.
Down the Rabbit Hole
And that’s India for you – there’s madness all around, but no one notices but you. Not Indians, not even most of the other travelers around. This is what starts to play head games with you. I had trouble picturing any of our Indian friends, who seemed so mild-mannered and calm, here in the middle of the chaos. Sean kept reminding me that for the Indians at least, this was their norm. This is where they grew up, so nothing is out of the ordinary.
That’s what I could never get past. We met a really nice guy on the train from Delhi to Agra, one of the few middle-class Indians with whom we had an opportunity to interact. He was going home for Diwali. It was our first Indian train ride. He told us he lived in the United States for a while, but returned to India. We asked him why. He replied, its boring in the United States! During the train ride, he pulled out his laptop, with his countrywide 3G data plan. He showed us the website of the company he worked for, a sort of Indian Yelp, which reviewed restaurants in the big cities. As he sat, talking about good Italian places in Mumbai, I was only half-listening. I kept staring out the window, at the garbage, at the men urinating on the tracks, at the shacks lining the tracks, at the scrawny women working in the fields, at the people jumping on the trains as they rumbled by. To him, it was as if none of these things existed.
India made me feel like Alice, like I tumbled down a big, long rabbit hole. The only thing that was out of the ordinary in India was me. Everyone and everything else fit together, its own functional dysfunction. I’d be the first to admit that I’m too uptight for India. India made me anxious. The only thing you can expect is the unexpected, and you always need to stay on your toes. I’d feel exhilarated one moment, only to come crashing down the next.
I can see why India harbors people of so many faiths. It takes devout spirituality, belief in higher powers, suspension of disbelief. India is no place for realists or cynics. The gems are definitely there, but you have to dig for them.
All of this makes it sound like I hated India. While I may have said that a time or two while we were there, I didn’t really mean it. While I was there, I let frustration overwhelm me. Removed from India’s chaos, I can appreciate the time I spent there, the good and bad. We saw hauntingly beautiful things, met kind people, ate fantastic food, and learned a lot about this country, which is only going to increase in prevalence on the world scene in the years to come. More than anything else, I can’t recall another time in my life when I was filled so full with constant fascination.
Excellent description! India was super hard for us too. Reading your description brings tears to my eyes as much as thinking about my own time there does…for all the same reasons. I love the reference to Alice down the rabbit hole – that is a great metaphor! The staring, for me, was overwhelming too – curious, constant, fascination – I felt as though I were a monkey dropped in the middle of a N.American shopping mall at the height of xmas shopping season – everyone stopping to watch and see, incessantly staring so as to not miss a thing. India is hard! Thank you.
Very well written, Amy ~ once again you make the reader feel we’re right there in the rabbit hole with you. Good job! 😉
Seems like India fits the song & title of your blog the best so far ~ ‘…surrounded by the sound…’
Gillian, I was thinking about how you said you get emotional about India when I was writing this. Every time I think about our time in India, I get emotional too, and while we were there, my emotions swung up and down constantly. It is an intense place.
You’ve put into words my exact feelings of our time in India. You are completely right- it’s a place you cannot really describe, only experience. Look forward to reading more of your time in India. Christina
WOW! I’m quite proud of you though Amy. Matt kept saying, “I don’t know how Amy is going to survive so long in India”, but you did….. and you did it with grace.
I think, by the pictures just on the main part of the blog, I’ve seen enough to understand your post. Maybe not to the fullest extent, but definitely understand.
I hope to have some time soon to look through the pictures…. always one of my favorite things to do! I’m REALLY behind though 🙁
Thanks, Christina. Lots of India posts to come…
Beautifully written, Amy. We are so lucky to have you share your experiences with us and not have to leave the comfort of our homes.
Wow, definitely the best post I have read so far regarding your trips! Good job! The more dramatic the experience the better the writing. Not sure if I should take or avoid future business trips to India. Some of the chaos resembles the gypsy neighborhoods in Europe.
Thanks, everyone, for your kind words about this post! Anton, you definitely should go if you ever had the opportunity, especially because you could explore India but retreat to your fancy digs paid for by the man. Part of the problem is that the budget accommodations, and a lot of the mid-range accommodations, are not a soothing oasis.
This is amazingly written, Amy. Fascinating descriptions. So glad you were able to handle it and look back on it well. It just sounds like so much craziness and chaos…what an interesting post.