Mother India, as She is known.

It’s 6:11pm and the sound of prayer bells is sweeping in through my windows, from across the waters of the Ganges. The scent of firesmoke drifts in from a cooking fire made by the workers across the way, and voices are echoing off the hills. It’s gotten a bit chill, so I’m wrapped up the blanket/shawl that I’ve bought to replace my thinner one.

All in all, it’s a beautiful time to be in India.

One of the things that I’m trying to uncover is what I think of India, or even what I think of the city that I’ve been laid up in for the past two weeks, Rishikesh. Before you come to India you hear many things- that India is amazing, a country of sights, sounds and textures; that India is inexplicable, that you have to experience it; that India is a rollercoaster of emotional episodes, from deep deep love to horror and pain; that India will bring you closer to your real self than you ever were before; that India is a land defined by her people, who are defined by nothing. So many things, from friends, travelogues, books, from everywhere. So many people have said, in different ways, that India will tear away all that you thought was true and replace it with an idea that is closer to who you really are, and how you really perceive the world.

But what the hell does that mean?

I’ve been pretty wary, after all of these 'sunshine and light' style comments, about deciding on anything that has been presented to me in India. I judge things pretty slowly anyway- and I think a lot of those statements have been made by people moving to India directly from a privileged, first world country- even the poorest of the poor in the states have many things that those in India can only dream of. When you move from your bubble into something so utterly and inconceivably different, it's only natural that you're going to rexamine your values and the very way you look at and interact with the world. Coming from China, and having been to some of her smallest villages, I think that I was spared this initial shock at the visceral nature of life in the thirld world. Yes, Indians live out their daily lives in full view of everyone else, yes their culture is in your face and unabashed, yes a lot of it is below standards considered safe or hygenic in the states, but for all intents and purposes, it is in many other places as well- southern China, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam…

Why then of all of these south asian countries is India singled out as this megalith of spiritual awakening and self realization? I still don’t know. It cannot be that the traveler to India is a different traveler all together- most travelers I have met here have also run the usual southeast asian gambit (Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia…). It might be that they are seeking different things, but I’ve met both the spiritual seeker who has gone only to Thailand and the average site seeing tourist come to India. What is it about this country that breeds this reaction, and breeds it so heavily across the board?

Anyone have any idea? I’m still considering the issue.

love&light
Jess