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Thoughts on returning to India: Being there and returning here (an excerpt from my M.Ed. thesis on Yoga, 2005).
My first memory of India, but more in particular the people was as a child. On a crowded bus with my mother, a middle-aged Indian woman offered her lap to me as a temporary seat. Feeling shy at her gesture, I recall my mother reassuring me it was okay and thanking the woman. The Indian lady was really happy about this and went out of her way to make me feel comfortable. She was just so friendly that it felt like she knew me. Sitting on her lap I had this incredible feeling of warmth and comfort as if I knew her too. It was such a strange feeling of familiarity that it made a lasting impression; one that I would remember 30 years later.
Today I have travelled annually to India for the past 12 years. I sometimes think about this experience because I felt such motherly love from the Indian woman on the bus. It is probably no coincidence that India is referred to as Mother India; a land that heals, embraces, comforts and protects. Most Indian women, if I can make this gross generalization, are extremely generous, kind-hearted and giving. Travelling to India often elicits the same deep, mixed emotions that one has for their own mother. India is a a mixed bag of divine pleasure and complete misery. The poverty, pollution and congestion are only a few of its challenges. Yet, India has this way of creeping under your skin and nudging you to return for better and for worse.
As a yoga teacher, it might be easy for me to justify my repeated trips for the sole purpose of studying yoga; without this my first trip would never have been taken. In India, I have the time, will and energy to study Yoga, Meditation and Sanskrit. However, over the years my annual visits have gradually become inspired for the sake of India herself.
When I think of India there are many images that come to my mind. India has so many contrasting faces that show up at the same time. It is a brew of stark realities of life mixed with those of calm and serene reflection. In my mind, snap shots flash in and out of a little girl begging with her free arm while holding an emaciated baby in the other, a row of mattresses stacked along the railway tracks, a man shampooing his hair in the market, a kid peeing in the street and a dead body positioned in a chair during a funeral. If I could make a home-movie of India it would protray women doing rangoli on the front steps of their home, a local man blowing a kiss to a cow and Indian men sitting with a chai staring blankly into the setting sun. My personal experiences have mirrored these extremes with cold showers at 4 a.m., squat toilets, traffic jams, walking 6 kilometers to my yoga class and sharing a room with mosquitoes, lizards and ants. The other side, however, has been staying in posh hotels, riding a camel, going on a safari, wandering around ancient temples and forts, and eating with my hands. (Something you can only get away with in India.)
During my early travels in India, I was surprised to understand that Indian people were interested in how a foreigner feels about their country. I was equally maddened by being asked for the hundredth time, “Madam – what country you?” “Madam – your good name?” And when I was about to answer I would be asked, “How do you feel about India? Is it good?” Given all that India is my response of “I like India” seemed pretty skimpy. How do you express the way the Himalayan Mountains hug you? How do you convey the energy of the Ganges? How do you explain the way you are comforted by the smell of incense? I like India sums it up pretty well.
When in India I am confronted with the misconceptions that Indians often possess of North American women; i.e., free and looking for sex. When I am back home in Canada I am faced with an equally proportional number of misconceptions that move in another direction. Westerners tend to assume everywhere in India is hot. No one fathoms that it snows and that there are safe areas to walk around in. But it is not just Westerners but fellow travellers are under their own delusions. An American woman once told me she felt the beggars looked content. This is a bold statement, which assumes too much.
If I were to think about some of the more difficult aspects of being in India, I would say it has to do with the way that pretending to ignore the poverty becomes a part of coping. The poverty is constantly in your face; a fact you cannot escape. Every return trip to India sometimes makes it harder to handle what I refer to as the facts of India. The four unsettling facts:
Fact 1: It is standard practice to give money to a beggar and then find a gang of beggars swarming you.
Fact 2: Little children with pathetic clothes and dirty faces grab your pants or shirt sleeve and protest, “No mama, no papa, please."
Fact 3: It is easy to get pissed off despite having a full stomach, nice clean clothes and a return ticket out of India.
Fact 4: The locals frown at you for giving large amounts of money to beggars. “Give 1 or 2 rupees. That is enough!"
Returning home reaffirms these sad and bitter truths. Some of my yoga students have reminded me, and probably more themselves, that these are the reasons why they would never visit India. From time to time, I also have my own doubts and find myself wondering, "And W-H-Y did you want to go there?" Call me crazy but there is something much deeper about India. It's like the woman on the bus. She asks you to take a seat. She won't take no as an answer.
When I think about all the reasons why I return to India I actually start to think about what I am not looking forward to. For example, I am not excited about the guy who keeps bugging me to name my country. I also don't like the feeling of being the only woman around, which is often the case while riding my scooter. (In India female fetuses are often aborted.) When it comes right down to it returning to India has to do with being immersed in a culture that screams life, chaos and urgency. Aren't those good reasons?
India is a culture where a shopkeeper performs a puja (special worship or prayer) before serving the first customer, vendors kiss the money they receive and people greet you with their hands in prayer position. Undoubtedly, there is a sense of the divine floating around even in some of the worst conditions. When you become a part of these scenes you cannot help but reflect on what it means to be in India. You also cannot help but become more aware of your own conditioning. In short, what it means to be a Westerner.
It's probably funny to write about what it means to be a 'Westerner' but certainly there is a Western mind-set. Living abroad sort of puts that statement in your face in that you are not the majority but suddenly the minority. I first became aware of being a 'Westerner' while I was living and working in South Korea. It was something I had never really even considered. Before Koreans started telling me I was from the West, I never had any reason to think about it. What's interesting is how being from the West does shape your mind and attitudes.
As I prepare for my next trip, I mull over how this whole thing got started. It's strange to understand how India has become a part of me, but how I will never be a part of her. It is equally strange when I think of the ‘me’ who knew nothing about yoga or India. If someone had ever looked into a crystal ball and told me, “You will go to India and return many times" I probably would have laughed. My mother wishes I'd get finished with this "India stuff". So if there is anyone to blame maybe it was by sitting on the Indian's woman's lap. Maybe my love and yearning for India started with that tender exchange. You never know.
All Copyrights Reserved, 2009. The Yoga Way, Toronto, Canada.
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