Incredible India!

Nate here.

Incredible India! This is the slogan India’s department of tourism has adopted in an attempt to attract more western visitors to a country that is overflowing with culture and teeming with the nicest, most humble, warmest people (about a billion worth) anyone would be blessed to meet in a given lifetime. Incredible India! is a very appropriate slogan, but the way I see it, these other countries should be begging India to let them visit, creating their own ads, competing for the privilege to experience the cornucopia of humanism that is the transcendental India.

I’m not going to describe exactly what we did in India, because some of it is more of the same tourist crap everyone else is doing, while the rest of our adventures concentrated on the most important facet of India, the amazing human aspect. India is impossible to experience from a bus, simply visiting points of interest, viewing the country through a camera lens. That’s because photos can’t delineate everything else that comes with India. Sure, some of the photos may be beautiful. A particular temple may be the most colorful structure you have ever seen, or the image of a street packed shoulder to shoulder with people all the way to the horizon may be awe inspiring. But what you see is just a fragment of the whole picture.

India is a place where each and every one of your senses is bombarded in a way no western citizen will ever experience within the boundaries of their own home state or country. And although at times you may wish certain senses weren’t working, later you realize how much you would have missed had those faculties been inoperative.

The very first sense that kicks into gear before you even set foot on the land of India is without a doubt smell. I once heard someone crudely describe the smell of India as if, “the whole country farted at the same time.” This is not even close to being true. The most prominent smell is actually diesel, or gas. The smog in India is the largest contributor to the aroma that hits your sinuses even a mile off coast. But that’s something we aren’t exactly strangers with in the states. The smell of the streets are the real prizes of India. Most of the smells are food, some that everyone would know, while the rest of the foods only a native Indian would call familiar. And don’t judge the taste of food from the smell. That’s why taste is also such a unique sense in India. A smell only gives a hodgepodge of everything in that dish, but tasting it activates each individual section of the tongue, bringing out the spicy, the tangy, and even the sweet in a way smell could never do. The other smells are people related, but again, it’s foolish for anyone, including western civilization, to assume they don’t have the same human smells. As the saying goes, everyone’s shit stinks.

Sight is the next most prominent sense when visiting India, and seeing is believing. Not only are the people, architecture, and landscapes of India some of the most unique in the world, but the colors are unbelievable! I think a lot of people picture India as being bland, but I saw colors while visiting Chennai I didn’t know existed. This country embraces colors in every way imaginable. A street full of houses looks like a rainbow, clothes and fabrics are rich in design and demand to be noticed, and even the cows walking around have painted horns, creating a movement of color everywhere you look. India is the contrary to bland. After being to India, everything else looks bland to me now and I realize we may have to spice up our everyday colors from now on.

Sound dominates India, with the constant chatter of a billion people, and the constant hum of what seems like double that in automobiles. But there is music, as well as the sound of clothes being washed in every pool of water you can find, people bathing in the same water, and again, cows, all combining to create the perfect sound track for India, a background noise that, if separated, may become repetitive, but together is harmonious.

Finally, there's touch. This is the sense that stays with you long after you’ve left India. You truly do carry a piece of India around with you no matter where you are if you still own the clothes or shoes you wore in that country, or bought a souvenir from there, or just didn’t shower after visiting India that day. It’s a hot place. There’s sweat involved, there’s dirt, there’s smog that coats the skin, and there’s moisture. It’s hard to feel completely…clean isn’t the word…rather washed of India. You take India with you on your clothes and skin when you leave, and it’s a great reminder of where you were and what you experienced.

Aside from the temples, we tried not to be tourists in India. We walked around Chennai, took tuk-tuks when needed, and interacted with the people. Our trip wouldn’t have been what it was had we not been fortunate enough to meet the people we did. Everyone we met was truly inspirational, from the poorest spectrum of India to the richest (really, the only two classes in India).

Another, more appropriate quote I heard about India before visiting was, “You don’t happen to India, India happens to you.” A truer statement has not been said on this voyage, and I am privileged to say I’ve been to India, and it’s the country I can’t wait to visit again and again, more than anywhere else I’ve been thus far.

Peace.