I think I've just started something. I've just visited India. What a beautiful place, both the people and the country. It's one of those places that you can just look at and find something interesting, something odd, and something fascinating.
Places like India have a depth about them, underneath the surface there is meaning. At one time we were “lucky” enough to find ourselves surrounded by the typical tourists, wearing what they thought to be India, and eating McDonalds. It did get me thinking. They were part of a package tour, most probably seeing a whole lot more of India than I got to. But that's where their experience ended. All they got to do was see India. I got to experience India. I met people, talked to people, had chai with some of the friendliest people in the world. With places like India, were you can see a lot of chaos and dirt, I think it takes depth to experience places, you're interested in more than the face value of the usual pretty places. On the surface, India is full on, but if you give it a chance and delve a little deeper, it will change your life. There's buried treasure all over India, there are trunks of perspective, trunks of love and reality. India, given the chance will change your life.I don't think I've ever been so profoundly effected by a place as I was in India. It wasn't the normal 'third world' shock that did it, I grew up in one of the 'thirdest' countries in Africa. India made me feel. I can't explain what it did, but I do know that it made me feel. A bit like listening to a song. The lyrics may be abstract, but you feel something. That's what India is, it's a song. And it's a song that I just really really like, love even.
India has a unique rhythm, it's got it's own signature beat. It's fascinating how things happen there. They way thing are arrived at is bizarre and at the same time beautifully logical, and other times beautifully illogical. You know that feeling when you really like someone and they do something ridiculously illogical, some call it quirky; and you just can't wait to see them do it again. That's India, and you just sort of get caught up in it and enjoy the difference. Western thinking has yes and no, Indian thinking has so much more. There are two prices, the first one, and the real one. Which is like everything else, there are two answers to everything, two ways of going about anything. Which is quirky and interesting, and it'll keep you hanging around, and going back.
India will also break your heart. To pieces. If you're not effected by human's living they way they are, you need to reconnect with your human side. It's emotional. It's full on. Seeing a situation where someone is stripped of dignity, and the basic essence of being human, where that they stop functioning like somebody, and function like something, effects you. Full stop. Something twists inside you. It's overwhelming, especially when you see the sheer magnitude of humanity that are living as something. India is incredible but it has a dark side it's only too eager to keep form you. You can't help but think that only something so far above human effort is needed to reintroduce humans to their humanity.
And yet it's such a colourful vibrant place, that really is incredible India
©2010 Sean Tuckey
