When we first arrived in India the culture shock I experienced felt beyond intense, though I figured I would get used to it eventually since we would be living here for an entire year. While it is true that I have assimilated somewhat into Indian society, by way of clothing, certain foods, and having a cultural understanding of the society, there are still parts of me that at times can become extremely uncomfortable with life here and what it entails. Being a foreigner here, it is hard to comprehend a life that is vastly different from anything I have ever experienced in the past 27 years of my life. It feels as though all of the sudden a whole new world and a whole new way of living has opened itself up to me, and while part of me eagerly dives straight in to experience everything possible about this new way of life, there is a part of me that holds on tight to what I know, what makes me comfortable. So many of the things that I was taught growing up in America have no application in a land as far away as India. Many of the things that I do and see here on a daily basis, would have no place in the framework of my life in America. Dealing with these differences and the complexities it entails is enough to lead me to question my existence, my values, my life. How will I make sense of all of this when I am forced to bring the two realities together in order to live my life as who I will be when this experience is over? I honestly feel lost in all the confusion.
India feels like a land full of contradictions and juxtapositions. Driving down the street one becomes bombarded by images of the old and new; the filthy rich and the devastatingly poor; the technologically advanced and the archaic; the beauty and the ugliness of the environment. The contradictions overwhelm the senses to the point of disillusion, never knowing what could possibly turn up next. Development has grabbed a hold of India and in doing so has created great disparities in the lives of Indian people. It is common for a mansion to have a shack right next to it, for a new structurally modern building to be placed across the street from a wooden cart with a tarp that sells tea, for an SUV to drive along side an ox pulling a cart. All of these contradicting images that I see on a daily basis, sometimes register as completely normal to me, but at other times register as more foreign to me than anything I can possibly understand.
Many things that have become a part of my daily life in India would have no frame of reference for me in America. Here it is common for men to pull their cars over or stop walking and just pee on a wall in public. When I am walking down the filthy street raw sewage may leak from the ground beneath me, while a rat or cockroach runs around the cracked, barely staying together sidewalk. Each day driving by the butcher shop or shack, the carcasses of dead animals hang outside waiting to be sold to the people passing by. Driving around you see rivers clogged with garbage and cows wandering the streets feeding on whatever grass patches or garbage piles they come across. There are disgusting, filthy, street dogs running around eating garbage and scratching patches of their mangy fur and skin. Sometimes the poverty and struggles of most people here feels like it is beyond anything I can comprehend, yet other times I feel like I understand it completely. It is odd watching factory workers being picked up for work by the cargo truck in which they ride standing up as if they are the cargo. Feeling constantly bombarded by people since personal space is non-existent here, and privacy does not seem to be a word in the vocabulary. Dealing with constantly being stared at, always feeling like I am on display because of my difference. Everything that happens here, seems to happen with a rush of chaos and confusion, nothing ever seems to go smoothly or easily. People are very laid-back and time is not the driving factor behind life; if someone says they will be there in 10 minutes, it could mean anything from 10 minutes to 10 hours. Flexibility is a key characteristic to posses in Indian society. For most people their family comes first, and "I" is replaced by "we" most of the time.
Describing life here is often hard to do because half of the time it feels surreal and bizarre, while the other half of the time it feels completely normal to me. I never know what to expect, it feels like anything could happen. Constantly encountering new things, constantly learning about difference, my mind is constantly processing. Yet somehow, in some way, everything that I have and will learn here, must come together with what I already know. Just as India appears to be filled with contradictions, so to is my life here compared with my life in America. It is hard to say how all of this will come together and how my mind will make sense of so many new and contradictory ideas and ways of life. I know that eventually it will all work out, but the process of getting there is filled with uncertainty and awe each time I learn something so foreign that it takes me a while to find a place for it on my radar. All of this can be hard at times, however, I know that ultimately it will have all been worth it, the experience will be one in a million, and it will help me grow in ways I never imagined possible.
