Globetrotting: India, Part II

If I could sum up India in two words, they would be something like chaos and curry. Or traffic and trees. Or perhaps even rickshaws and rain. I hope you get the idea.

I’ll begin by saying that I have nothing against India. The people were pleasant, the food was divine (could live on that garlic naan), and I didn’t have a single bad experience there. But it seems to be a society that just barely functions. Delhi has over 14.5 million people. I feel like I saw at least half of them out on the streets on any given day – walking, waiting for the bus, sleeping, working, riding bikes etc.

So how did my expectations compare with reality?

Business class air travel: Far exceeded my expectations. Two words: sky bed. That means that I got to lie flat. Totally flat. With a proper pillow and blanket too. And I got my five-course meal served on real dishes, my free wine, my individually created ice cream sundae, and more movies than I knew what to do with. Continental BusinessFirst gets an A+ in my book! This makes all of the traveling bearable.

Indian food: Again, far exceeded my expectations. We did not have a bad meal over there. Even our Western-style breakfasts at the hotel were delicious. One thing is for sure, they know how to cook in India. I had everything from butter chicken, to lamb curry, to tandoori chicken and prawns, to paneer tikka (marinated cheese cubes), daal (lentils w/cream), saag (spinach w/cream), plenty of garlic naan – and the list goes on. We ate such large and late lunches that I only ate dinner one night the whole time I was there. That was probably for the best. I would be the size of a house if I had eaten three meals a day.

Monsoon season: It was well and truly monsoon season. Apparently it has not rained this much in India in over 20 years. It was miserably soggy and steamy. It really put a damper on my mood for a large chunk of the week. When the sun finally came out, it was amazing how the city just sprung to life! And I was happy as a pea in a pod. Too bad it was the day that we were leaving….

Poverty: While the poverty was bad, it was not nearly as bad as I expected. I’m not sugar coating the situation, but from what I now hear, the poverty is much worse in Mumbai. I saw plenty of poor people, and people who were living out of tents. But they weren’t the type of people that you looked at and just cringed. They were happy. They were living their lives the best they knew how and adapting to their situation. People who lived near the river had to relocate due to all of the water, and they were living in tents along the side of the road. These tents housed their pots & pans, cots, clothes, all personal belongings, and their goats and kids. They are waiting for the water to recede so that they can move back home. They self-sustain because that’s the only option that they have.

God moments: I must say that I can’t remember a specific moment during my trip that just stuck out as a God moment with respect to India. And that disappoints me a little. But I also know that He was with me on that trip, teaching me things and making me realize things that I hadn’t realized before. And part of that was because I powered my way through the book Redeeming Love in just a few short days. So I guess I did have God moments, they just didn’t have to do with India. You know what? I’ll take it.

A rich culture: So I didn’t get to see the Taj Mahal. I’ll live. And the first day that we went out sightseeing, it was gloomy and wet. Not the best opportunity to see a city and experience its culture. But as the week progressed, I grew to love those people more and more. Their hospitality and their genuine kindness were so appreciated. We had a driver the entire time that we were there, and we became pretty close with him. I know his name and his age, his wife’s name, the names and ages of his three kids, where he grew up, what pets he has, what he does on his days off, etc. We were so lucky to have him and we legitimately bonded with him. We took him to lunch with us and learned so much from him. And the staff at the hotel, and the staff at the company that we were visiting – they were all so helpful and friendly. We had the same waiter at breakfast every morning. He knew our orders after the first day, and our names, and sat us at the same table each morning. He gave us some free food to send us off on our last day since we were leaving. So that’s what I left with thinking about their culture. Not monuments and tourist attractions, but the people and their ability to make me feel welcome and share a little of themselves with me.

Color: the color that sticks out the most to be is green. Delhi was a lot lusher than I expected. Sure there was a lot of pavement and dirt, but it was amongst trees, trees, and more trees. All the more for the resident howler monkeys to play in! We did take a drive through Old Delhi one day, through a local market, and it was a lot of what I pictured India to be like. We didn’t get out of the car, but I could tell the difference between the tourist market and the local market. Lots of color and fabric everywhere.

Bikes and cows: In India, cows are Gods. At least to the Hindu people. They are worshipped and taken care of. I think I would want to be a cow if I lived over there. Not that I want to be a God, but it would be nice to be secure knowing that I would live to see the next day. I saw cows tied up to things in the middle of the road and standing next to the tent homes that people were living in. And then there were the bikes. Normal bikes, pedi cab bikes with flatbeds attached, scooters, motorcycles, you name it, they had it. And the poor people have been riding around for over two months in monsoon season. They don’t sweat it, they just put on their ponchos and go. Or they get soaking wet. It’s their life. Many of them don’t have a choice. And I quickly realized that it was normal for an entire family of four to be on one bicycle: dad pedaling, mom sitting side saddle in the back, and two kids squashed in between. Can you imagine what would happen if someone did that in America?

So would I voluntarily go back to India anytime soon? Probably not. But I have nothing against India. As I mentioned before, they seem like a society that barely functions. And I often wondered when I was over there how exactly they do manage to operate day-to-day. I don’t understand it, and I probably never will.

Often times while I’m traveling overseas, I look back at America and wonder where we went wrong. I wonder why we have to be so critical of each other, why we have this sense of entitlement over so many things that we are NOT entitled to, and how religion and the church has become such a point of contention. But on this trip, my perspective changed a little. In India they worship cows. COWS. In India, they may be laid back and carefree, but that’s because it probably does them no good to stand up and fight. Maybe because nobody will listen. And in India, it seems that they have very little sense of entitlement, except for what they have worked for and own fair and square.

So, I will take my experience in India and tuck it away in the special globetrotting section of my brain, and look back at it on occasion as a point where I realized that America may not be all that bad after all. And neither is India.