Dear India,
I don't know what is real.
I’ve hesitated sharing my story with you because I felt like I’d be just another Western backpacker who espouses some kind of spiritual awakening after visiting.
Having said this after spending a month with you I have begun to question my reality.
Every moment senses were engaged and interactions that my day-to-day lacks - for better or for worse.
There are no pithy anecdotes of the haves and have-nots here. In my first few days, other tourists invited me to go “check out the slums” and I couldn’t stomach the thought of poverty being made into an attraction.
It seems almost insulting to be writing when my time with you was so short, my experiences limited and knowing that I possess many ignorances and biases. The diversity and nature of encounters had in that short time have left a huge mark on my psyche.
Honestly, the whole thing seems like a fevered dream at times.
Let me tell you how that dream goes.
Supposedly, you step off a plane in the city of New Delhi.
You soon realise you might have stepped through a portal into another dimension.
From the moment you wake up that next morning and go outside it all begins.
You a purchase a masala chai, a sweet spicy tea, from the vendor right outside the hostel.
You are in Laxmi Nagar - a student suburb in New Delhi. Everywhere you go here, masala chai is never more than an arm’s reach away.
It’s only 10 rupees, that’s 0.12 USD.
You stand and drink chai with the doorman, you’ve bought him one too. You finish and go to place the empty paper cup in your trouser pocket - you’ll find a bin later.
The doorman insists you drop the cup on the ground, with the rest of the rubbish. You can’t bring yourself to do it. He and the others at the chai stand laugh at you.
Each morning you are in Dehli you line up with the students for breakfast.
This morning the breakfast is Poha, a yellow rice with vegetables and roasted peanuts. You chat to the students. They want to know where you come from and what your impressions of India are so far. A family of rats makes breakfast out of the bits that drop around you as you eat.
You are one of many eating their breakfast before a day of school or work. In Dehli, the concept of personal space seems alien, and you don’t feel that in a negative way. There is something deeply human in this routine and being surrounded by all these people.
You walk through the city with other travellers guided by a local. You visit a Gurudwara, a Sikh temple and observe the prayers. You then go and eat from the community kitchen that feeds up to 40,000 residents of Dehli a day, free of charge.
In the spice market, you sample rose soda, jalebi and many types of chai. A small girl tries to pickpocket you. You scare her when you touch her hand because you saw her getting close. It bothers you for the rest of the day.
In a quiet street off the neighbouring wedding markets, you are taken to a shop selling Kashmiri shawls. The tailor proudly shows you his work and explains the difference between machine and hand-embroidered textiles. You finish your wandering late at night in the shadow of the Jama Masji one of the largest mosques in India.
All religions seem to blend in Delhi.
When you take an auto (tuk tuk) to the other sights of the city you will find yourself waiting in traffic often.
While waiting, women and children come to beg. You can’t possibly give money to all the people begging you will come across in this dream.
You see such a range of different living conditions the mind boggles.
The appearance of cows amongst the traffic will always make you smile.
The sights and smells of Dehli are infinite. You will never forget being bombarded by them.
Your demeanour has to change when you go to get on the train to Agra. In the few days you have already been here you have been pushed to your social limits. Your polite disposition doesn’t get you to the front of queues in India.
Actually, it gets you nowhere.
After 10 minutes of pushing through the crush, you finally get your backpack onto the x-ray conveyor at the train station. A lady who is quite a bit shorter than you pushes your bag right off the conveyor onto to the ground to make space for hers and then shoves you back.
You have quite enough at this point and pick your bag off the ground and wedge it in front of her bag - you feel pushing it onto the ground is a step too far - and step back in front of her. In both instances she doesn’t show any particular emotion- this is a norm it seems.
After a long day and a four-hour train journey, you arrive in Agra by yourself in the dark. You leave the station to catch an auto via the Uber app.
The app crashes.
Ten or more auto drivers crowd around you, all arguing that you come with them and that Uber doesn’t exist in Agra.
You storm off and they give up.
There is a mix-up and your Uber driver finds you while you are negotiating with a local for passage to the hostel. They begin to fight and start yelling at each other. You eventually split them up and go with the Uber driver because it’s really late and the app tracks you - you are on your own after all.
You apologise and give the other driver some of the fare. The other guy follows you for a while - no doubt cursing you both. You get to the hostel and check-in. You wake up before dawn and go to the roof of the hostel and see the Taj appearing through the haze.
Agra is different. In Dehli no one really seems to care about you but as soon as you appear on the street in Agra everyone is trying to sell you a magnet. This includes small charming children with an excellent command of several languages. You want some postcards but they’re trying to charge you 500 rupees each (6.00 USD), you end up with one for 80 rupees because at least that’s what you’d pay at home.
The Taj Mahal seems an impossible feat of symmetry and is one of the most beautiful buildings you will ever lay eyes on. You find the complex of the Red Fort stunning in its own way, with its sprawling grounds and hidden alcoves.
You notice lots of monkeys and dogs in Agra but only see one or two cats. It makes you think that they cannot compete with dogs or monkeys. The monkeys in particular are nasty and crafty. You watch someone at your hostel have their breakfast stolen from under their nose, the monkey had no fear of the guy.
You can’t wait to get back to Dehli. Leaving the hostel to be surrounded by hawkers is too much.
You make a poor choice and book an auto to the train station nearly an hour out of Agra. You don’t know the route goes through a very busy highway. It is the only time you find yourself feeling terror in India. A truck towing two semi-trailers turns into your side of the highway and gets so close to T-boning you that you could have touched the maker badge on its front grill.
You want to kiss the ground when you arrive at the train station but there is rubbish everywhere and the strong smell of urine so you think better of your idea.
After a few days you catch a flight to Bhopal - a small city about 800 kilometers (400 miles) south of Dehli. This is your goal destination. The reason for your trip is to attend a friend’s wedding.
Before you go to the accommodation you are shown around town, a beautiful city of lakes.
At one stage you drive behind a woman holding her child on the back of a motorcycle, no helmets and nothing securing her to the vehicle or the driver.
You realise you are no longer taken aback by these kinds of sights.
With two new friends you paddle out onto Bhojtal , a huge artificial lake created by a King in the 11th century.
Everyone is staring, because there isn’t usually foreign tourists here.
Your friends try to light up but one of the boating staff members paddles over to tell them to stop. They say the cigarette is for you and the staff member seems to accept this and paddles away.
You don’t smoke cigarettes.
By the lake, you stop at one of the stalls that sells chai and curried maggi noodles. You enjoy the chai while looking over many young couples on dates.
The following day the wedding begins and if the dream is not fevered enough for you - it becomes chaotic.
No Instagram filter will ever replicate the colours you see over the next three to four days of ceremonies.
During the Haidi ceremony, you experience a new spectrum of yellow and orange. You end up covered in turmeric, they warn you not to use soap with it or it will turn your skin bright red.
You can’t eat the wedding food because the oil they add seems to disagree with you. Your friend explains to you the medications she uses for weddings. One tablet for gas, one for diarrhea, and one for vomiting. It does make you feel better that even locals feel ill from all the food. You only eat rice and bread for three days.
You receive ornate henna and are dressed by the groom’s sister.
The colours continue to dazzle, it makes western weddings seem so dreary in comparison.
Drums and music play day and night.
Three hundred guests want to speak to you and take photos with you, followed by an offering of food you can’t eat.
To be fair you’ve been stopped constantly throughout your trip to have photos with total strangers.
You are a bit introverted so you end up hiding in the accommodation. Despite this you feel so privileged to be a guest and having this experience.
There are many pooja, or ceremonies. To your surprise almost no one attends all of these except for the couple and their immediate family members. Most of the guests spend their time socialising outside.
You’ve never danced so much in your life. You’ve never lived so much in your life.
The final ceremony ends with vows under the pole star, early in the morning on the fourth day.
With the wedding ending you say goodbye to Bhopal and your friends and head to Jaipur.
Bhopal seems so distant now. You are surrounded by busloads of other tourists admiring the pink city.
What a beautiful city it is.
In the morning you watch as the locals feed the pigeons, goats and cows in a square near the markets. Monkeys steal the cow’s food. Later in the day you find yourself following a Polish girl to a temple in the mountains. It is full of monkeys who eye you up and down with suspicion and rummage through the rubbish.
People swim in the sacred waters at this temple.
Along the way you receive a blessing from a small monkey temple, of course at the expectation of a generous donation.
You both intended to hike back to Jaipur but underestimated the distance, and she has a train to catch soon. You pay two local men to drive you on their motorbikes to the city.
You are scared they don’t have helmets and you’ve never been a passenger on a motorbike before. The two men seem to get great amusement out of this and joke about the two backpackers they now have as passengers. Everyone laughs at you as you pass them on the motorcycle. They can see how nervous you are.
You say goodbye to your temporary Polish travelling companion.
When you return to the hostel you find a traveller who you had spent time with in Dehli. The next day you both try to get to one of the lesser-known forts scattered across the hillsides looking over Jaipur.
Many drivers refuse.
One eventually does not refuse but asks for a higher price than you were expecting. Your companion who has been in India for many weeks longer has grown tired of the negotiating. He thinks they’re trying to scam you and aggressively argues the driver down. You think the driver is being fair but keep out of it.
The drive to the fort is an hour on poor roads and the driver has to wait for you as you explore the fort. The views over the city are magnificent and hazy.
Once you are driven back to the hostel, you slip the driver extra money without letting your companion know. It’s only the equivalent to 5.00 USD more and is not as much to you as it is to the driver.
That afternoon while sitting in the roof top bar of the hostel you hear an unenthused Muslim groaning the call to prayer, interrupted occasionally by a bad cough and what sounds like him taking a drag of a cigarette.
You have less than 48 hours left in this dream.
You are overwhelmed at this point- you desire nothing more than to go back through the portal.
You return to the hostel in Dehli. One more chai masala. One more breakfast with the students. One more chat with the doorman who chuckles because you won’t litter.
You fall asleep that last night to the hum of one of the most populated places on Earth.
You vow to come back - you’ve barely scratched the surface of this place.
You step back through the portal.
Was it real?
I wonder.
Or is it that India is the most real?
Maybe you can tell me next time I see you?
Yours Truly,
Foreigner
Feedback is appreciated, and crucial to understanding what pieces bring you, the reader, the most value. Or if you have your own experiences to share, leave a comment.
I live here, and to be fair, even I feel surprised at times when I travel across the country.
I have quickly glance through your writing here, but bookmarking it for more leisurely read.