India Reflection

India is a place that is full of so much life, figuratively and literally. Being the second most populated nation in the world while housing wonders like the Taj Mahal is no small feat.

Honestly, I had such a mix of emotions during my experience in the country that I still don’t quite know how I feel about it. The first day of visiting a news academy and TV station ended with dining at a 4 star restaurant with a buffet of food longer than any I have ever seen before. The contrast of that day and my time in New Delhi is a large one.

Delhi is set to surpass Tokyo as the largest city in the world by 2028, highlighting the rapid growth and impending (if not current)overpopulation of the area.

When I looked at the weather for the week the night before we arrived, I expected the typical ones. Sunny, cloudy, rainy, humid. Delhi said none of those and instead the only description was ‘smoke’. That was the most accurate depiction of the weather; it was incredibly hot and the air thick with smog. If someone did not understand the detrimental effects of pollution before, they would after being in the area.

It was so exhausting, traveling throughout the area between New Delhi and Agra themselves, but mixing in the complete over stimulation of the cities and environments hit all of us harder than we expected. If I thought Ghana was a culture shock, India was something else entirely.

None of this is to say that it was not still one of the best, most jam-packed weeks of my life, because it was. Traveling with so many people that I am close with made all the difference, and we had so much fun despite the stress and unexpectedness of the experiences we had.

Seeing the Taj Mahal was seriously one of the coolest things. Like I said in the last post, I really did not expect to see it on this trip, because of how expensive the field programs were it just did not fit with what I was able to do. My friends and I found a way to do it for less than $200(for the basics of the flight and Airbnb) instead of $1500-$2000 that Semester At Sea was offering.

As amazing as that entire journey was, I was also caught very off guard when we arrived. There were so many people and very little infrastructure around the area. I had known to expect that in the larger cities,and obviously the Taj is a huge attraction that people travel to from all over the world, but as we paid and went through the lines it felt like we were literally cattle being herded through these tiny gates. I am not someone who gets claustrophobic or honestly that overwhelmed by uncomfortable situations,but that period felt almost suffocatingly long. People were relentlessly pushing from all sides and it was not until we got through the first building’s open arch and into the iconic area that we had traveled to see that things finally calmed down.

I think that the mix of so many people and a culture wherein it is more common to be used to that sort of population density just breeds a different style of interaction between people. Nobody was ever specifically rude, but nobody seemed happy or overly welcoming, either. It was so common for people to seem disconnected with each other, not because of the distractions of media or the adversity of certain prejudices, but simply because that was how interactions appeared to take place.

I am also very aware that a lot of other people from my voyage had very different experiences of India, specifically those who did more rural, localized things. Maybe had I spent more time in the southern state of Kerala (where Kochi is located) and less time in such a busy, crowded sector of the country, I would have been able to experience more personal connections with people I saw. I understand that when there are so many people, so close together, with so much hustle and bustle, it is hard to take the time to slowdown and connect on a level that is anything more than surface.

It’s so interesting to think about that and realize that our perceptions of a place might be somewhat correct, but they can never be 100%accurate, because there is never just one single truth to something. Places and situations are always changing, and not even the people directly in the middle of them go through experiencing them in the same way.

I was exhausted the whole time I was in India, and that did not make the shock of things any easier, but I also am positive that I made the absolute most of my time and did everything I could possibly do to take in the places I went.

By the morning we were going back to the airport to Kochi,someone mentioned how done they were and how they were so ready to be back in a less crazy area. That immediately made me feel so much better about the way I was going about things. None of us had complained at all during the trip and I genuinely had no idea my friends were feeling the same way that I was. By all keeping it to ourselves, we were all able to work through our opinions and ideas, but we also all had a positive experience because there wasn’t that sort of negative energy going around. Had we been tired, overwhelmed, and in bad moods that would have spread so quickly, and I truly think that our time would have been a lot less enjoyable.

 Sometimes reflecting on things afterward and being flexible in the moment is important in not tarnishing how we see things. I’ve heard it said before that if you wake up and make it a point to physically smile, you will be more mindful about your happiness throughout the day. It is the same sort of concept when it comes to going through new adventures gracefully and without a negative attitude. Fake it ‘til you make it, as my mom likes to say.

I am so grateful that I was able to go to India. It taught me that the world is full of such different ways of life and that there is good in everything, it just has to be found. Every crowded place is made up with individuals living their own lives and fulfilling their personal goals, and that is really important to be mindful of.