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Published: April 10th 2007
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India was the one country that I had the most preconceived notions before visiting. I thought I would feel unsafe and targeted the entire time. I thought I would be so crowded by people in the streets I would not be able to move. I thought my clothes would end up so dusty and reek of the smells of the city so much that I would have to throw them away afterwards. I thought the food and water were going to be so contaminated that I got a prescription to help with “Delhi Belly” before I even boarded the ship. None of these fears and ideas I had about what India was going to be like proved to be true. My time in India had some of my most craziest moments on Semester at Sea yet, and brought me a new sense of awakening and cultural awareness that I have never previously known.
India made its presence known on the ship before we even got to port. The outdoor decks were closed for eating because of the threat of diseases carried by the flies and mosquitoes. The humidity of the city could be felt from mile out to sea
and fogged up my camera lens. We also got a taste of how bureaucratic this country is that morning, which makes the DMV seem reasonable. We had to meet individually with custom officials twice, and received the two identification forms we would have to keep on us every time we got off the ship and display to three sets of government officers. In my first moments out of the ship I realized I would be saying “no thank you” an awful lot the next several days when we were immediately hounded by rickshaw drivers offering us to take us to wherever we might want to go. Rickshaws, for those unfamiliar, are three wheeled taxis with no doors that are able to go surprisingly fast. If I thought the driving in other countries was a little precarious, transportation in India is positively crazy. The streets have marked lanes but do not mean anything. Instead, cars just weave in and out of each other the whole time, making honking a necessity that is always present. The funny thing about rickshaw drivers is that stores pay them if they bring in customers, so a simple trip to the plaza could take an hour
and a lot of pleading and bargaining if you get trapped with these detours. Fortunately, almost all the drivers spoke English, but that doesn’t mean they were always listening or that there was never miscommunication. I had my most eventful ride on the first day when my driver pulled over on an alley street on the way to our intended destination. Out of the corner of my eye I saw cobra being charmed out of a little pot on the sidewalk next to me, and the own comes to rickshaw with a burlap sack in his hands with something in it. Little did I know that this contained a mongoose until he opens it to show me, and then offers to let us watch a mongoose-cobra battle on the street for a nominal fee. To keep it short, all that you need to know is that these are fights to the death…in which the cobra almost always loses.
Chennai was aware of our presence as well before we arrived, and our ‘Student Ship’ made the primetime news and several papers. We got a laugh from seeing the numerous “MV Explorer discount” signs on the widows of numerous stores. Shopping in India is definitely a completely different experience than I am accustomed to…and this is coming from someone to has been to her share of garage sales and flea markets in her time. Even in the mall there are stores in which the prices are negotiable and owners stand by the doorway to harass passer-bys to give a quick look around their shop. Bargaining is an art form in India, in which both the buyer and seller are playing a fragile game over the worth of an item.
There is so much more to do in India besides shopping, and this was the first port I felt experienced enough by now to plan independent travel trips. Some friends and I hired a private A/C car to take us around to the groups of temple and monuments an hour outside Chennai for an entire day for about $12 each. I still went on several events through the SAS field office, with hit or miss results. The trip to the Bollywood studio was educational in that I got to see some of the post production aspects of the industry, but I was disappointed that we not allowed on set while they filmed or able to be extras in a movie like we had been scheduled to. I was really impressed with my trip to a rural village and how welcoming all the locals were by allowing us into their homes to observe their lifestyles. The people of this village were pretty cut off from the modernization that has infiltrated the rest of the Chennai, and still keep a lot of the older traditions and customs. We also got a glimpse at how hard making a living off of agriculture is and were able to try our hand at farming by cutting rice stalks, picking up peanut roots, and climbing for coconuts. Just a view hours in the sun with these activities left us all pretty exhausted and sweaty so I could only imagine the energy it must take to keep it up 6-7 days a week. It was also a treat to ride around in a bullock cart as an alternative to the rickshaws, which are wagon carts that are pulled around by huge beasts that look like bulls but have their horns painted and adorned with tassels. The highlight of this trip was, as usual, the amazing food they served us for lunch. I have discovered that I am in love with Indian food and that vegetarian food can still taste quite good. I wish I got the name or recipe of it, but there was a dish that seemed like cauliflower in some teriyaki-flavored sauce, that everyone went back for seconds on. Unlike what some mistakenly assume, not all Indian food is spicy or taste like curry. They have an assortment of different breads, such as naan, that I could live off of. The food is also generally served on banana leaves and it’s appropriate to eat with your hands, as long as you only use your right. The left is used for dirtier matters. I tried all different types of cuisine in this country, from street food to a pizza hut in the mall (which surprisingly has a pretty cultural menu, and is a step above any pizza joint in the US), and I never got sick with ‘Delhi Belhi,’ which I feel is a minor accomplishment.
The most meaningful trip I went on was to the Missionaries of Charity orphanage, which was founded by Mother Theresa. The orphans ranged from infants to teenagers, and all of them had some handicap or disability, which is why most of them were left there as newborns. The children were so eager to talk to us and play with us that they immediately began tugging at us and asking us to sit down on the floor with them. Most of them were so severely disabled, that they could not walk or communicate very well, but that did not prevent us from enjoying their company and making a connection deeper than any words could have expressed. Seeing the conditions of their orphanage and feeding them the corn meal mush they eat everyday was very challenging to me, but it made me even more amazed at the level of patience the nuns that run the orphanage displayed that day. Its easy to feel like a celebrity in India since anywhere we went kids would someone literally chase us down to get near us and get a high five or even just a smile. Seeing their faces light up just from our acknowledgement can not be captured in any of the dozens of pictures we took with them. The children of Chennai and the happiness that seemed to overwhelm them, that didn’t even come from any material goods, is one of the memories of this country that will stick with me. I only hope I left an impression on them as much as they impacted me. I left India with a sense of unfinished business and I hope that this will be the motivation I need to explore the northern half of the country on my own someday and continue my Indian experience.
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