May 2011 (Originally published in The Cooperstown Crier)
I’m back from India! And the most important of the ten things I learned there was to live on the edge. As clichéd as it sounds, live life to the fullest. Take the crazy path. It definitely will be worth it in the end. I chose to go to India, instead of France or Germany or Denmark. I set off for the other side of the world knowing that what was in store for me would not be easy. I thought I was ready for it.
So when I stepped off the plane into the heat and the smells and the dirt and I realized I was, in fact, not ready for it, it was too late. The reckless, flirting-with-death driving, the destitution everywhere, the ancient and modern thrown in together, all were part of a new world that I had to find the courage to live in. It was not easy at first. I was slow to accept, slow to change, slow to adapt. Like any other rational person raised in one of the richest nations in the world, it was hard for me, both physically and psychologically, to leave the smooth, clean streets, the sidewalks, the fast internet, the privacy, and simply drop into the world of piles of dust, trash, and cow patties, ineffective communication, and 1.5 billion people.
The people. All those strangers whose principal aim in life it seemed was to try to get me to gain weight are now my family. The people that I met and talked to and hated and loved and knew as well as I knew my family back home made India come alive. They are what I remember, when I think of that part of the world. There were so many people. I saw so many that I pitied, but could do nothing for, because of their untouchable status. I met a lot of people whom I couldn’t respect because of their actions, or lack of action, but had to pretend to respect anyway. And I came to know a very few people who truly touched my heart. They were my most caring host parents, and my best friends, and they were the reason I survived in such a hostile environment. They gave me the perspective necessary to live in a world so much at odds with itself, and stay sane.
I will never regret taking my mom’s advice, and putting India as my first choice on my Rotary application. I will never regret going there and experiencing the insufferable Indian Summer, or the Monsoons, or the culture shock, or the weight gain. If I have any regrets at all, they will be only that I didn’t do more to immerse myself there, that I didn’t learn as much as I could have, or get a little more out into the exotic vastness of it all.
I chose India, I went, and I lived, as I have never lived before. My experiences gave me wisdom, and a sense of what exquisite joy it is to live in this world. I found some hard, raw truths in India, but I realized that without the awareness, and occasionally pain, that comes with the truth, life rarely has meaning. I came home with a sense of what it is to be part of the complex community which is the human race. There is a lot more to be learned in the world, and more than ever, I am ready to step outside my doorstep, and embrace it with open arms.