It's in my Heart

this is an excerpt from a blog that I am reading these days...

this pretty much sums up how I feel about India as well by the way. Only I am from California, born and raised....but I do notice that most people in general don't care to hear about my experiences in India. They will come out with a comment like; "Oh, I don't know how you can even go there, I couldn't, it would just be so sad" or another one like; "Why did you take shoes to India? Isn't it like a hopeless situation over there"? (that one really made me mad) my comment back to that person, whom by the way is a very wealthy business man who could do so much if he even cared..."Well, you know, it was a small gesture on my part, but I figure that even a little bit of help is better than no help at all"...or women who just shiver in their seats and say to me; "Why wouldn't you want to go to Europe instead"? EUROPE???? No, that's OK...I'll take India any day over Europe, not that I have anything against Europe, don't get me wrong...its a beautiful place I am sure. Its just that if I get the chance to leave the USA the only place I care to go is India.

All I can say is, "If its in your heart, it's in your heart, and India in in my Heart for life"!

Shanti~

I think living in New York must have prepared me for India because everyone that told me that India is such a shocking and mystifying and different place than the rest of the world did not describe my reaction to India very accurately. Why did they have such a different experience of India than I am having? Why is India not so foreign after all? Maybe it's all the expectations of it being so different--How can a place live up to such expectations? Maybe it's the fact that India is modernizing at a ridiculously rapid rate and it's not the same that it once was? Maybe I'm blind? The fact is that everything that people said about India prior to my trip is true--it's all been confirmed. This country is poor and quite dirty (and I'm not one to care so much about levels of dirty). There are cows everywhere. More importantly, there are people everywhere. There's no space for privacy. There are people asking for money and/or wanting to offer you some kind of service. There are people constantly asking "where you from? what's your good name?" There are people staring. And some laugh after they stare (I haven't quite figured out if they are laughing at me). There is no grid system as there is in New York. You have markets, not grocery stores. There's all kinds of transportation, including auto and bike rickshaws. And so on and so on. But everything that people shared with me has not been true in the sense as they described it, at least as I experience it. It hasn't been shocking or confronting. I wonder whether I am not allowing India to sink in. Everyone seemed to describe India as something that confronts the senses. While I am learning and growing, I don't feel confronted. How were all these people looking at India that had their eyes looking at something so different than what I see? Maybe they were looking at India as if it were a museum, as my sister who I was travelling with and who felt similarly, said as we discussed this topic. Maybe this is true of some people, but to be fair to them, it seemed that they had an authentic experience--that they were confronted/changed somehow by being in India. How much of how we see the world is actually the world we see and how much of it is our own lens? Generally, my answer to this question is that it's ALL lens. It's all in how we see the world. I realize now that people weren't describing how different India is to the rest of the world. They were describing their reactions to India--and how they changed by being here. Clearly, India is a hot spot to feel confronted, to seek (inward and outward), to see the spiritual in the everyday, and so much more. But ultimately, it's the seeker's journey and India is just the path. In the end, I figured something out about why I have not been shocked by the culture and the people. India is one big country filled with Zaidie Joes. For those of you who did not have the opportunity to meet my zaidie (grandfather), he was as outgoing as outgoing can be. He would walk up to random strangers in the mall, who were in mid-sentence in the middle of a conversation, and pull out his wallet and show them pictures of his grandchildren. Then he would offer them candies. And then he would ask them their names--and invariably he would know their parents or their cousin or would know them (and he would remind them where they met). He worked, as many Indians do, in the fruit business. No, he didn't have a bike attached to a table that he carted around the city, as many Indian fruit-sellers have. But he had a store and he was a proud store owner. And that's what so many Indians do. They have their small stores where they not only serve people, but create community with, as their loyal customers keep coming back over and over again. That's exactly what my zaidie did. And that's who my zaidie was. So I figured out why I don't feel shocked by this culture and the people. It's because I have come home to my zaidie. Plus, New York is my new home and boy, is it a hell of a lot more shocking than India!