India Part 1: On Being a Good Guest
As some of you may know, this past February I had a really wonderful opportunity to visit India for two weeks. These posts are a collection of my reflections on the trip, but it is by no means a complete description. Two weeks barely scratches the surface in understanding a country with a complex, multifaceted history, and Indian culture is often subject to both outside judgement and exoticism. My goal here is to do neither of those things, but still present the good and the bad as I experienced them. So, here we go:
How it started
The root of this trip was Boyd Wilson, a retired professor of Indian philosophy and religion from Hope College in Michigan. Each spring, Boyd taught a religion seminar of no more than 14 students that was essentially a prep course for going to India. The students in this seminar then spent the month of May traveling through various parts of the country, starting and ending in Delhi. Now that he is retired, Boyd has begun organizing shortened two-week alumni trips that just stay in the north of India - this was one of those trips.
Emma, one of my good friends in Fulbright, was one of Boyd's students but never had the opportunity to go to India when she was at Hope. She opened up the invitation to our Fulbright cohort, and that's how one other ETA (Jonathan) and I ended up tagging along. In total, there were eight of us not including Boyd, and the age span ran from Emma and I who were the youngest, to adults in their early 40s. And somehow, Boyd still had more energy than all of us combined.
Our trip, like the original seminar, started and ended in Delhi. We traveled to Jaipur, Kolkata (Calcutta), Varanasi (Benares), and spent a couple hours in Agra at the Taj Mahal before returning back to Delhi to finish off. As a sort of religious education trip, we spent a lot of time visiting temples and learning about the multitude of faiths in India, especially the roles that each have had in Indian society. It's clear that Boyd continues to organize these trips because of his genuine enthusiasm and desire to share India with others, and one of the aims was to make the experience as immersive as possible. Boyd's energy was infectious, and I am beyond grateful that my first experience in India was with his guidance.
Points of controversy: clothes, religious spaces, and photography
As part of the trip, we all bought Indian clothes the first day we arrived and wore them throughout the two weeks. At first, I was a little hesitant about this - what is the cultural significance of a westerner choosing to wear traditional clothing? Before I left for India, I contacted a friend living in Delhi to ask his opinion, and his response was basically this: most Indians in India are enthusiastic about sharing their culture with others, and especially in rural areas, it can signify respect more than anything else. I decided to go for it, and he was definitely right - many people we encountered were happy to see us in traditional clothing, and it felt like we were extending a gesture of interest. (On a side note, the clothes also looked really good on everyone.) Nevertheless, it's not a black and white decision, and I'm sure there are a lot of different opinions on how we chose to present ourselves in India. Will I wear my Punjabi dress back in the U.S.? In the diaspora where Indian immigrants have faced pressure to assimilate to white culture, probably not, unless I'm in a specific context that calls for it. In the U.S., I don't really think it's my place to pick and choose what I like from another culture when I don't face the same social judgement for representing my own heritage. But then again, there could be some Indian Americans who would love to see a white person in traditional Indian clothing. It's not always a clear right or wrong.
As I mentioned before, we also visited a lot of religious sites, many of which were temples. Hindu (and Sikh, etc) spaces are completely open to the public and some of the more famous ones double as tourist sites, so we weren't always the only foreigners around. There were definitely some temples that were more for locals, and in these situations I sometimes felt out of place. In one temple in Delhi, there was a line of people waiting to enter a small room, and I followed a few members of our group into the line. In the center of the room was a small idol and a pool of water, with barely enough space around the edges for people to stand. I was shuffled in as others around me knelt down and prayed or payed their respects. I stood still. The wall was right behind me, and I couldn't back away. Do I kneel and pretend to pay tribute to an idol I don't fully understand? If I just copy the people around me and go through the motions when I'm obviously not Hindu, am I trivializing this space? Or if I do nothing, would others around me see that as disrespectful? I realized that I was literally standing in the way of people who wanted to get in and actually have a personal moment with this idol. I panicked and slipped out.
In some situations, it felt much more appropriate to engage in temple activities, whether it was watching the lord Krishna being put to rest for the evening or walking in a clockwise circle around the space. In these activities, we were part of a larger crowd - there was a collective excitement and energy that we could easily contribute to. It was also clear to me that visiting various religious sites and experiencing them firsthand really is an effective way to learn, and each place was completely different. A lot of the temples and churches were beautiful too, and it was interesting to see how religious spots can vary from a small idol tucked in a sidewalk corner to huge pilgrimage sites. However, there's a fine line to walk between being a responsible visitor and getting in the way.
Traveling with Boyd meant that we had access to a lot of places that most tourists don't get to see. Boyd has been going to India for about 30 years, and along the way he has made some really good friends who generously opened up their lives to us. One friend in particular, named Pawan, seems to share Boyd's enthusiasm for showing India to us, and he invited the group to visit his home village of Achrol just outside of Jaipur. This was definitely a highlight - we had a window into part of India that doesn't really get tourists, and we spent an afternoon in Pawan's home, chatting and eating homemade samosas.
As intrigued as all of us were to be in Achrol, it seemed like the people we encountered were equally surprised to see our group. While I was really grateful to be there, I also felt hyper aware of our presence as visitors, foreigners, and white people who are rarely seen in this area, and wherever we walked, people came out of their homes to look at us. In Achrol (and other parts of India) we also got to observe a lot of artisan work including bangle making and rug weaving, which were fascinating processes. On trips abroad I usually love taking photos, and I did take many in India. But when we were watching people go about their everyday work, I stopped. Perhaps it's not as big of deal as I make it out to be, but something about photographing people who were not expecting us felt really invasive, as if we were making a spectacle out of their routine lives. If I were a better photographer, I probably would have sat down and had a conversation with each person, then asked permission to take their photo. Maybe that would have been the best thing. But instead, I usually put my camera away.
Over the course of this trip, I often wondered if my cautiousness was preventing me from totally diving into the experience of being in India, and maybe I would forge better connections with people if I just stopped worrying about the implications of everything. The discourse that I'm used to stems from my communities back home, and in my experiences abroad it's clear that a lot of people around the world don't conceptualize cultural identity the same way that I do. I don't know if they care as much. But I also realized that regardless, I care. And I'm probably not the only one who does.
How it started
The root of this trip was Boyd Wilson, a retired professor of Indian philosophy and religion from Hope College in Michigan. Each spring, Boyd taught a religion seminar of no more than 14 students that was essentially a prep course for going to India. The students in this seminar then spent the month of May traveling through various parts of the country, starting and ending in Delhi. Now that he is retired, Boyd has begun organizing shortened two-week alumni trips that just stay in the north of India - this was one of those trips.
Emma, one of my good friends in Fulbright, was one of Boyd's students but never had the opportunity to go to India when she was at Hope. She opened up the invitation to our Fulbright cohort, and that's how one other ETA (Jonathan) and I ended up tagging along. In total, there were eight of us not including Boyd, and the age span ran from Emma and I who were the youngest, to adults in their early 40s. And somehow, Boyd still had more energy than all of us combined.
Our trip, like the original seminar, started and ended in Delhi. We traveled to Jaipur, Kolkata (Calcutta), Varanasi (Benares), and spent a couple hours in Agra at the Taj Mahal before returning back to Delhi to finish off. As a sort of religious education trip, we spent a lot of time visiting temples and learning about the multitude of faiths in India, especially the roles that each have had in Indian society. It's clear that Boyd continues to organize these trips because of his genuine enthusiasm and desire to share India with others, and one of the aims was to make the experience as immersive as possible. Boyd's energy was infectious, and I am beyond grateful that my first experience in India was with his guidance.
Points of controversy: clothes, religious spaces, and photography
As part of the trip, we all bought Indian clothes the first day we arrived and wore them throughout the two weeks. At first, I was a little hesitant about this - what is the cultural significance of a westerner choosing to wear traditional clothing? Before I left for India, I contacted a friend living in Delhi to ask his opinion, and his response was basically this: most Indians in India are enthusiastic about sharing their culture with others, and especially in rural areas, it can signify respect more than anything else. I decided to go for it, and he was definitely right - many people we encountered were happy to see us in traditional clothing, and it felt like we were extending a gesture of interest. (On a side note, the clothes also looked really good on everyone.) Nevertheless, it's not a black and white decision, and I'm sure there are a lot of different opinions on how we chose to present ourselves in India. Will I wear my Punjabi dress back in the U.S.? In the diaspora where Indian immigrants have faced pressure to assimilate to white culture, probably not, unless I'm in a specific context that calls for it. In the U.S., I don't really think it's my place to pick and choose what I like from another culture when I don't face the same social judgement for representing my own heritage. But then again, there could be some Indian Americans who would love to see a white person in traditional Indian clothing. It's not always a clear right or wrong.
As I mentioned before, we also visited a lot of religious sites, many of which were temples. Hindu (and Sikh, etc) spaces are completely open to the public and some of the more famous ones double as tourist sites, so we weren't always the only foreigners around. There were definitely some temples that were more for locals, and in these situations I sometimes felt out of place. In one temple in Delhi, there was a line of people waiting to enter a small room, and I followed a few members of our group into the line. In the center of the room was a small idol and a pool of water, with barely enough space around the edges for people to stand. I was shuffled in as others around me knelt down and prayed or payed their respects. I stood still. The wall was right behind me, and I couldn't back away. Do I kneel and pretend to pay tribute to an idol I don't fully understand? If I just copy the people around me and go through the motions when I'm obviously not Hindu, am I trivializing this space? Or if I do nothing, would others around me see that as disrespectful? I realized that I was literally standing in the way of people who wanted to get in and actually have a personal moment with this idol. I panicked and slipped out.
In some situations, it felt much more appropriate to engage in temple activities, whether it was watching the lord Krishna being put to rest for the evening or walking in a clockwise circle around the space. In these activities, we were part of a larger crowd - there was a collective excitement and energy that we could easily contribute to. It was also clear to me that visiting various religious sites and experiencing them firsthand really is an effective way to learn, and each place was completely different. A lot of the temples and churches were beautiful too, and it was interesting to see how religious spots can vary from a small idol tucked in a sidewalk corner to huge pilgrimage sites. However, there's a fine line to walk between being a responsible visitor and getting in the way.
Traveling with Boyd meant that we had access to a lot of places that most tourists don't get to see. Boyd has been going to India for about 30 years, and along the way he has made some really good friends who generously opened up their lives to us. One friend in particular, named Pawan, seems to share Boyd's enthusiasm for showing India to us, and he invited the group to visit his home village of Achrol just outside of Jaipur. This was definitely a highlight - we had a window into part of India that doesn't really get tourists, and we spent an afternoon in Pawan's home, chatting and eating homemade samosas.
As intrigued as all of us were to be in Achrol, it seemed like the people we encountered were equally surprised to see our group. While I was really grateful to be there, I also felt hyper aware of our presence as visitors, foreigners, and white people who are rarely seen in this area, and wherever we walked, people came out of their homes to look at us. In Achrol (and other parts of India) we also got to observe a lot of artisan work including bangle making and rug weaving, which were fascinating processes. On trips abroad I usually love taking photos, and I did take many in India. But when we were watching people go about their everyday work, I stopped. Perhaps it's not as big of deal as I make it out to be, but something about photographing people who were not expecting us felt really invasive, as if we were making a spectacle out of their routine lives. If I were a better photographer, I probably would have sat down and had a conversation with each person, then asked permission to take their photo. Maybe that would have been the best thing. But instead, I usually put my camera away.
Over the course of this trip, I often wondered if my cautiousness was preventing me from totally diving into the experience of being in India, and maybe I would forge better connections with people if I just stopped worrying about the implications of everything. The discourse that I'm used to stems from my communities back home, and in my experiences abroad it's clear that a lot of people around the world don't conceptualize cultural identity the same way that I do. I don't know if they care as much. But I also realized that regardless, I care. And I'm probably not the only one who does.
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| Galta holy bath site, near Jaipur |
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| Gurudwara Bangla Sahib (Sikh Gurudwara), New Delhi |
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