A World Away

When a person travels to the other side of the world, to a foreign country he/she has never been to, with a culture where the only thing that is really known is that it is completely different: it changes a person. Sometimes it comes in the form of culture shock, which with me, took on a form of wonder and excitement in the unknown. Can't get a fair price on a rickshaw? Online banking not working? Almost get run over on the way to dinner? Dinner make you sick? You get the point. I addressed these inconveniences almost with a perspective of tolerance, attempting to suck in the culture and ignore the bumps along the road. It worked well for me at first, and I found that it was easy to tuck away impatience and suck it up. When it is 110F and you don't speak a word of the language (Hindi) of course your rickshaw driver is going to charge you extra. You just ate and spent more on a meal than his family does in a week and are staying in a nice air conditioned hotel.

Truth be told, I kind of lost my head in Jodhpur, letting my culture shock take a new turn. Hindus are actually some of the most backward people you will ever meet. In general. It's not to say Christians like myself aren't backwards as well. How do people part of a religion that claims to love everyone, like Christianity, turn its nose up at the poor? And aren't there Christians who represent their religion more accurately? That said, this isn't an attack on any individual Hindu, or Hinduism as a religion, but in general, the mentality of Hindus will wear a Westerner out.

I've already gone over the cow thing. Cows are holy, yet I've seen people feed them and immediately beat them away with a stick. They are left to eat garbage, which is everywhere, which pollutes our living earth. And all living things are to be respected in Hinduism, which is why they have such a massive vegetarian population (probably more than 75%). Yet, Brittany and I went to a lovely park yesterday where they offered camel rides. We were going to do it, but as it turned out the camels were led by a rope that was tied to a nose piercing. It looked painful. We skipped the camel ride.

So, there's the cow thing, the ill-treatment of the environment which greatly affects the cows, and the general disregard for nature. Furthermore, almost everyone here is motivated by money, so a simple rickshaw ride is a matter of dodging places he might get commission. You might say "Take us to Cafe Coffee Day" and on the way he'll try and talk you into hiring him for the day, switching to his hotel, or stopping by shopping venues of his choice. And being nice doesn't work. Usually a straight "nay" (Hindi for "no") does little. Sometimes it gets to the point that you have to say "take us to where we asked, or we're getting out of the auto right here and not paying you". Money talks.

This bears down on a person, not just physically. After a day of trying not to lie, but trying to find every possible reason not to do what everyone wants you to do, we come back to the hotel spent. After a while in Jodhpur I was so sick of hearing "Hello where are you going?", "Hello come into my shop", "Hello what are you looking for?" that I started being rude. It's enough the constant beeping of horns interrupts conversation without the unnecessary shop-owners and rickshaw drivers bothering us, and it gets the point where I simply reply "That's rude" or "If we're interested we'll let you know". It never ends. Now that we're in Udaipur the calamity of the touts has calmed down. But every time we walk by an auto the driver they approach us asking if we need a ride. I know it's the off season and they need the money, but they might have noticed, since we've been here over a week that we don't take rickshaws and that we walk almost everywhere.

But after culture shock comes the wonder. I know it doesn't sound deep to you, but I often find myself wondering at what I've been doing. While the rich are vacationing in Europe, I'm on a rooftop in a desert state in India looking at the sun set on the 500 year old marble buildings. Don't get me wrong, the Louvre is awesome, I'm sure, but I'm in India. Before I came to India I had never ridden on a rickshaw (with the bike), never seen someone pray or bow to a god I didn't believe in, much less a temple of a pagan god, I've never seen people inlay marble, elephants and camels outside of a zoo, wild monkeys, wild cows, brain as a menu item, street food, and well it's all so much to remember.

But I'm in India! I'm somewhere between a tourist and a backpacker, and I feel like that's the place to be. I don't feel the need to cover every foot of every temple, fort, and palace and I also don't feel the need to go around yapping about bhang lassi and how hardcore I am for being here. No, I'm just here and it is a wonder to me. Sure there's something hardcore about being in India, but that's not what India is about. India is about the backwards Hinduism, the vivid clothing, cattle that are all-to-literally "free-range", crazy driving, cheap palace-like hotels, dirty shops, and spicy food.

So many tourists come here, and they go to this or that temple, this or that guru, this or that spiritual exercise trying to find themselves, but they miss the point. It doesn't take bowing before Vishnu to get any sort of self-improvement. In the West we thrive on love and luxury, putting them hand and hand, but here the camel is a symbol of love and the saying goes "If you can love a camel you can love anyone". Look at my blog posts, I teach love. Read Donald Miller, he teaches love. Try and love a corrupt Bollywood producer.

I came to India and I brought my religion with me. For one thing, I figured I'd be on a lot of boring trains, so all those theology books I never read because I had something more entertaining to do, I brought with me. I mean, Narnia and Donald Miller don't classify as direct theology; but the point is, when you're put in the pressure cooker what will you do? Will look for answers in things you don't even believe in? Or will you draw closer to what you do believe in? I'm not saying books solve my problems. Believe me, I'd love the $600 the government owes me to land in my bank account, in fact, I'd actually love to be able to check my bank account (Suntrust online banking is currently down). You know what? I don't think those obstacles are coincidence and I don't believe that reading John Piper will solve that.

But I do believe that fixing the money situation won't fix me as the Enemy would have me believe. I know, not all of my readers are Christians, and even some of the ones who are might be skeptical that my thoughts on spiritual warfare in this country are fantasies. And anyone can believe what they want. I know I'm deviating and bouncing about a bit, and if I had the time this would read more linear, but I guess what I'm trying to say is this:

I'm in India. I've seen one of the wonders of the world, I've seen the sun set on that wonder, and I've seen all kinds of crazy stuff that people who don't go to India will never experience. After a brief time of rolling with the punches, I came to a place where I was bitter that love goes so unrewarded, and now I'm in a place where I have friends and these experiences are breath-taking. I also see where Westerners come here to solve their problems through Eastern Spirituality. I see how the Enemy is at work here. I'm getting a taste of the pressure cooker and I'm learning that India is an exercise in my spirituality, not because of anything in particular India has to offer, but because its very nature frustrates you and astounds you with beauty all at once. I'm seeing how pain can cause growth if you turn to the right places.

It's impossible to most of this into words. You walk on the bridge of Udaipur, you look across the lake and see the palaces and buildings and you can't help but think to yourself "holy @%$&;", and even the expletive does little to conjure the gravity of the matter. How beautiful and different India is. Would I recommend this for everyone? No. Some people are meant for the pressure cooker in other ways. I know in the movie Jarhead (it sucked, don't bother) they are in the Gulf War and they call it "the suck", and I think it's kind of another word for pressure cooker, only we're in India buying beautiful clothes, cheap leather goods (camel leather), and having chai with friends.

Oh bother, I'm sure this is full of missed words, misspelled words, typos, and terrible grammar I have no time to fix. Maybe I'll put it into better words later. I took my first sitar lesson today. It was great fun, but hard work. Sitars cost between $150-250 depending on quality and if the government puts the $600 in before I leave I hope to come home with one. A few more pictures to come soon. Cheers.