India
My lust for India began over 3 years ago. It was all thanks
to a book I read, Shantaram (based on a true story), in which an escaped
Australian prisoner flees to India and begins a new life there for himself. He
gives a very detailed account of Indian culture and reading the book
instilled a deep desire to one day spend some time in India. In fact, before
interviewing for my job in Indonesia I interviewed with a school in Mumbai and
I told the principal if the job offer comes my way then I will accept, no hesitation.
I have been told that even for the experienced traveller
India can be overwhelming. Every new country I explored, each new culture I was
exposed to, and each of the infinite number of times I’ve stepped outside my
comfort zone in the past few years all served as my personal preparation to
make the most out of my future visit to India.
What I was most interested in about India, as is the case
for most countries I travel to, are the people. I would not be visiting the Taj
Mahal. I would not be bringing along a Lonely Planet book. And I would not be
asking backpackers I know who have visited India for tips and recommendations. The
best way I know of to immerse in a new culture is to live in the country. Short
of that, the best way I could think of is to stay with a local in that country.
Fortunately a good friend and colleague of mine, Mr. Pitchai, was very happy
(huge understatement) to host me in his home country of India over the
Christmas holiday break. After calling his family, and announcing the arrival
of a foreigner to his town, Mr. Pitchai sat me down with pen and paper to take
notes of what I should bring, how to get to his house, and what we’ll get up to
on our visit to India. Finally, after 3 years I was ready to immerse and
answer some of the questions that I had always been so curious about; India is
densely packed with almost 1.25 billion people, statistically 1/3 of the world's 1.2 billion poorest people live in India, yet Indians have a reputation for
being such polite, pleasant and happy people; how do they do it?
Mr. Pitchai and I boarded the plane from Bandung to Kuala
Lumpur. In KL we enjoyed some delicious Indian food but took a little too much
time, ran into a huge line at the checkin counter and unfortunately missed our
flight. However we were not to be deterred, and AirAsia was very reasonable
allowing us to book the next flight available (early the following morning) and only paying the difference in
the flight. So we went back to the Indian restaurant, drank tea and chatted and
showed up 4 hours early for our new flight. Turns out I mistakenly assumed that
Canadian’s being allowed a “visa on arrival” in India meant I could just
arrive, and get a visa, upon arrival. Actually I needed to apply online for
permission for a visa on arrival, before I could board a flight to India. I asked the lady at the check in desk if this
was something that would take more than a couple hours, and she said more like
a couple of days. And with that I missed my 2nd attempt at my flight
to India, with Mr. Pitchai carrying on without me. However where there is a will
there is a way (which really should be changed to where there is wifi there is
a way) and after kicking back for a few days in Kuala Lumpur (another new city
for me) I finally boarded the plane to India (a big thank you to AirAsia for
AGAIN allowing me to change flights for only a small fee, even though it was entirely my fault both times).
The Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
A massive statue of a Hindu Deity
I landed in the airport of Tiruchirapalli (furthermore
referred to as… I just won’t refer to it any more) which is in South India. I was the only foreigner on my flight. In fact I later read in the
newspaper that only 730 foreigners have ever used the e-tourist visa to arrive
at this airport. Looking at the photo of me waiting in line to receive my
previously approved visa on arrival I believe 730 seems like a generous estimate.
It actually took about 30 minutes as the foreign passport section at this airport isn't staffed full time (understandably)
Zooming in on the 4th paragraph I made the paper!
Stepping out of the doors of the airport, and embarking on
my journey to Mr. Pitchai’s city I quickly understood why india is overwhelming
to even very experienced travellers. India attempts to overwhelm all of your
senses simultaneously. The smells are more pungent than anywhere else. The
delicious smell of food being cooked nearby, of plants and flowers all around,
of cows that do as they please and freely roam, and many unidentifiable scents
all competing to occupy your nostrils. Your eyes are overwhelmed with
buildings, people, nature, the highly colourful clothing, the quick moving
traffic, kids playing cricket, and the smiles and head wiggles from everyone
you make eye contact with. But what is most overwhelming is the noise. Horns
blaring, music blasting, people yelling, talking, bartering, begging, praying.
Yet when you look closer there is some harmony to the chaos, and everyone
doesn’t seem the least bit confused (except for you of course). A taxi driver approached me, and broke
down my tough façade I put on for bartering with a single smile and head wiggle
(the head wiggle characteristic of most SAARC countries (South Asian Association
for Regional Cooperation – Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan,
Afghanistan and Maldives) is the quickest way to convince someone you are a
friend not foe) and so I hopped in his taxi to head to the public bus stand.
The taxi driver was playing some pretty awesome Tamil music, which I’ve shared
the youtube links below to give you a sense of the popular music in South India
right now. Throughout my week in India I have come to suspect that these are the
only two songs Indians listen to.
Alone at the bus terminal I had one final mission before Mr.
Pitchai would meet me. I had to find the bus to his city of Periyakulam
(seriously who names these cities? I think Bombay and Delhi are the touristy
places simply because they’re the only cities which travel agents can
pronounce). In my best Indian accent I took my best attempt at pronouncing
Periyakulam to strangers and not surprisingly got only blank stares. My second strategy was
to write down the name of the city and show it to anyone walking in the
direction of a bus. This proved much more effective. The public buses in India
are actually quite comfortable, they certainly fit as many people as they can
on the bus, and the way you pay the fare is one man will walk up and down the
bus asking where you’re going and then collect the appropriate fare. The 4-hour
journey to Periyakulam was 92 rupees ($1.50). When I got off that bus I was
greeted by my Indian family for a week.
My Indian family
My good friend and colleague Kanapathi pilli Pitchai (since
Indians often put their father’s name in front of their name, or sometimes even
their grandfather’s and great grandfather’s name as well) shouted at me and
hopped on my bus before it even came to a stop in Periyakulam. The most patient
and mild-mannered man on the planet and his family were my hosts for the next
week. His sons were at the bus stand to complete my welcome committee. His
son’s names are Aakash and Aarutran. In every class in every school in the world
they would be first and second alphabetically. I have a sneaking suspicion that
Mr. Pitchai got a copy of a book of Indian baby names and chose literally the
first and second name.
Aakash is the best dressed 13-year-old boy I have ever met,
is a quiet and thoughtful boy who bested me a few times in the many games of
chess we played, he knows every cricket stat, all the Tamil pop songs, and
helped to be my translator with all the neighbourhood children. Aarutran is a
9-year-old boy who spends much of his time pretending he is a cheetah or
another of his favourite animals, knows all the cheat codes to grand theft
auto, and when playing chess just yells checkmate most of the time. When we arrived at the Pitchai
residence I was greeted by Mr. Pitchai’s wife Vani priya. Vani priya is a
teacher at a university, and the best cook ever when it comes to Indian food.
We played a game every mealtime where she would continue to pile more rice or
roti on my plate until finally I’d say ‘last one” to which she would respond
“ok, ok, ok, ok" with a head wiggle, then top up my plate at least 3 to 4 more
times. I lost (or won?) the game every mealtime. To give an example of how
awesome this family is when they dropped me at the airport on the last day they
said they will feel like a family member is missing, and they waited outside
the airport in the car for an hour and a half until they heard that I got
through customs ok, of which they then passed the phone around so that everyone
could wish me safe travels. Absolutely remarkable hosts, and I am so happy to
know I have a family in India.
Left to right: Aakash, Vani priya, Pitchai, Aarutran, and I am the comically large one
My goal was to immerse in Indian culture as much as
possible. Their goal was to make my stay as comfortable as possible so they
would often try to facilitate my western ways. It took about three mornings of
my polite declines until they finally stopped offering to boil water so I could
have hot water for my bath, it took about 5 meals before they stopped trying to
convince me I’d be better off eating with a spoon as opposed to with my hands as
is customary in India, and each meal got progressively less spicy as they
assumed I wouldn’t be able to handle spicy food. It was a fun process to find a
nice equilibrium, and an incredibly educational experience for me, and likely
an incredibly entertaining experience for them.
Visiting relatives
The news of a foreigner visiting Periyakulam travelled
quickly. The days were quickly filled up with visits to Mr. Pitchai’s
relatives. I quickly recognized the pattern; we all sit together and drink tea,
the first question is always if I am married, and the second question is always
how many sisters do I have? I haven’t found the link between those two questions
but they seem to be of particular interest.
Often when your host offers their visitor food they aren't actually eating with you. I got the impression saying "no thank you" was not an option so you have to careful plan the intervals between relative visits.
Most houses have a rooftop terrace. Its awesome that the have palm trees right there!
One of Mr. Pitchai’s relatives is a principal at a school
and invited us to go there for a day. When I am on school break my first choice
isn’t necessarily to go to a different school but I was quite interested to
learn more about education in India. Education is something taken very, very
seriously in India. The parental involvement and push is very high, and the
typical Indian student’s work ethic is very impressive. India does have a huge
proportion of the population with very little education and overall a very low literacy rate countrywide, but those who are
educated are very educated typically not stopping at a bachelor degree but
continuing to earn a doctorate. Education in India is very high quality and
relatively cheap but because of the massive population an education does not
always lead to a job, or at least not a job matching your immense qualifications.
One of the administration staff at the school had 4 degrees, including biology.
Many of the teachers had doctorate degrees and as high as 25 years of teaching
experience. One engineering student I met later quoted a line from a famous
Indian movie “I am educated but poor”, which is very true for many people in
the country who have received a very good education but due to there being over
a billion people in the country there just aren’t enough jobs available so many
people work jobs that they are very overqualified for.
At the school I was able to learn something new myself. I
learned how to play cricket. Aakash, Aarutran and a couple of the teachers
taught me about India’s favourite activity. I would have learned the game much
quicker but we had to stop to have tea.
Wearing our official cricket hats which blew off the second you started to run
Everywhere in India is a potential place to play cricket, including narrow alleys between houses
Another relative we visited (I think in India relative just
means someone who will make tea when you go to their house) lived
in a nearby city called Madurai. This is where I spent my first Christmas away
from home, and where we visited the Meenakshi amman temple. This was my first
temple vist in India and my introduction to how a “line” works in India. A “line” in
India is more of a cluster, not at all unlike a group of penguins pushing towards the centre of the group while trying to
keep warm at the height of winter in a National Geographic documentary. Despite
being the tallest and largest person I saw in my entire time in South India, I
was almost knocked over by the pushing and shoving to get to the entrance of the
temple. Furthermore no one was wearing shoes because you must go barefoot when
in temples so you end up with some sore toes after being stepped on several
times.
The temple had four of these structures, one at each of the four entrances
The mango farm
Many of Mr. Pitchai’s neighbours were incredibly curious of
their being a foreigner in town. I started to get the sense that people in
Periyakulam had only seen white people on TV.
One day a group of his neighbours
showed up and wanted to take me with them to their mango farm. Always up for an
adventure I joined them. Aakash joined me as my translator and Vani priya
warned me that there could be snakes and to be very careful. There are actually
also cheetahs, tigers and lions living in the mountains nearby and I was very
hopeful to see one (at a safe distance).
There were 8 of us going; myself and Aakash, one of the
owners of the mango farm, another who is teaching in the Maldives, and four
university students studying engineering. As the mango farm was 10km away we
were going to take motorcycles there. I saw that we had 8 people and 3 bikes
and thought, “we have too many people”. They saw that we had 8 people and 3 bikes
and thought, “we have too many bikes”. So off we went, me feeling under biked
and them feeling under peopled, and made it to the mango farm. It actually isn’t
mango season right now, and I wasn’t able to see any jungle cats, but I did get
some pretty spectacular pictures of the beautiful scenery.
This region of India has done a great job leaving lots of beautiful nature intact
My Indian crew
Indian Food
Two weeks ago if you asked me what my favourite food is it'd be a tied between Indian and Japanese, with Thai food close behind and mom's famous breaded pork chops in the conversation as well. After that week in India its no longer a close race. It's only right that I visit Japan to give authentic Japanese food a chance to defend its co-champion title, but I've gotta say Indian food is my favourite.
Indians have got it figured out when it comes to food. What have they done so well??
1) Indians use banana leaves as plates and eat with their right hand. Why? Indians will tell you it tastes better this way, but the biggest benefit in my opinion is that they have helped to mitigate the worst part of eating, which is doing dishes.
2) There is a game in Asia that goes roughly as follows. The only rule - you will eat rice ever meal. The challenge - how will you make the rice taste like something? With a colourful array of curries, chutneys and other colourful delicious sauces Indians have won this game.
3) In Hindu culture cows are sacred and so Hindus do not eat beef. In fact most Indians are vegetarians. I've never even considered being a vegetarian but was unintentionally a vegetarian during my entire time in India, and didn't even notice. I guess if you have 1.25 billion vegetarians in one country someone will come up with some awesome recipes.
4) Being twice the size as most Indonesians I often order two entrees. I continually must endure the judgemental looks and playful teasing. In India when you are a guest in someone's home it brings them great joy to ensure that you have eaten as much as you could possibly fathom.... and then some.
5) After every meal we drank tea. Indian milk tea is to die for.
6) After every meal it was appropriate to take a rest. Being a nap enthusiast I was extremely approving of this practice.
Culturally the mother does all of the cooking. She then serves her husband, adding to his plate or filling his cup as needed, until he is finished and then the children and mother will eat together. This practice was very loosely followed and usually just a matter of who was ready to eat first but it is always interesting to learn about cultural practices different from what we've been accustomed to all of our lives. They were equally interested to learn about Canadian culture always asking "who does most of the cooking?" "the cleaning?" "Do the public buses work like this in Canada?" "Do family's offer dowry during their arranged marriages?" or "Are you also the tallest person in Canada?".
The rice balls are called idly, great for soaking up the delicous flavours of the surrounding chutney and sombal
These fluffy things are called puri
I more or less become competent eating with my hands. Rice was a particular challenge though with roughly 10% of the rice in each scoop falling back onto the plate. The one time I had to bail and use a spoon was when we had a liquid desert. His family can pick up liquid with their fingers and scoop it into their mouth. Using all of my physics knowledge I couldn't even begin to theorize how I would pick up a liquid with my fingers.
A typical meal starts out roughly like this, where the sauces are toped up as you go, as well as the rice/wheat based main
Indian tea is "pulled" by pouring it back and forth between cup and dish
I can't sit on the floor because of my much too long and far too inflexible legs. One time I sat on the floor with my legs kicked off to the side to play cards with my students and they said I look like a merman
I was tempted to grab the buckets of chutney, sombal, sambar and curry and make a run for it
This is dosa, a staple of South India. It is essentially a massive crepe
Masala dosa (dosa filled with potato). There is also paneer dosa (doa filled with cheese)
Other common breads include roti, paratha, chipati but people around me started to think I was a bit strange for taking photos of a meal that they've eaten every day for their entire life.
Time in India
Time in Asia is generally very flexible and India is no different. My mom use to set all our clocks 2-5 minutes ahead in order to encourage punctuality. This happens in India as well, but the clock in Mr. Pitchai's house is literally a full hour ahead. If you give yourself an additional hour to mobilize for the agreed upon time you just might make it.
Shopping in India
Shopping in India is hilarious. We called an “auto” to take us
to there (also called a tuk tuk, bajay, or rickshaw depending on which country
you are taking one in). An auto is basically a three-wheeled miniature car
specialized in cutting people off, making lots of noise via engine and horn,
destroying the ozone, and is often the cheapest way to get around. The auto
would look small if I was driving it alone. But since we are in India we
squeezed in the driver, mom and dad, two kids, and the giant foreigner. Then we
drove 20 km. In Canada if you ask how far it is from one place to the next
you’ll get an answer in minutes or hours. In India it would be futile to try to
predict how long it would take to get through the traffic at a particular time
so you’ll get an answer in km.
Seeing fewer than 5 people in one of these is pretty rare sight.
When we got to the store there were floors of fabric of
every imaginable colour and pattern, beautiful saris and sarongs characteristic
of the clothes worn by Indian women. I have to say that India is one of the
most well dressed countries I’ve been to.
A sample of the colourful clothing
Even the nighties for sleeping in are brightly coloured
I was mostly shopping for
souvenirs but thought I’d buy a few dress shirts since they were good quality
and the price was right (I bought 3 dress shirts for around $40). Despite the
many clothing racks I was seated at a counter where a man kept pulling out
boxes from behind him and taking shirts out to show me. Quickly the counter
started to fill with shirts in open boxes. Mr. Pitchai informed me that this
will continue until he has shown me around 50 shirts. That’s a lot of shirts to
put back in boxes, and I was left wondering what the purpose of the clothing
racks was. I tried on a few shirts and after finding my size I was ready to try
on a few more. I was abruptly stopped and was told “Mr. Trevor, you must drink
your tea first”. Mid trying on clothes was a perfect time for a tea, and when
you are having a tea all other activities can wait.
Tiruchirapalli (furthermore referred to as Trichy)
I promised not to mention this unpronounceable city again
but it is where the international airport is and also where Mr. Pitchai
completed his university studies. On my last day in India we decided to take the afternoon to tour a famous temple in Trichy called Rock Fort. Periyakulam
was a relatively quiet city and very livable. Driving around Trichy on the
other hand was maybe the most hectic city I’ve ever been to. The street lanes
are so narrow and clogged with pedestrians, autos, cars, cows and dogs that the
roads always amount to a single lane that has to serve both directions. Our
driver skillfully maneuvered through the chaos, sometimes actually having to
reverse when we would meet another car. At one point we got stuck behind an
elephant. No, literally an elephant.
No one else flinched but I wasn’t sure if I could believe my
eyes that there was an elephant walking on the streets in the city. An
elephant!!! Imagine looking out your window right now and seeing an elephant
walking past. It is very important to me that someone shares my astonishment
since no one in India would.
It turns out the elephant was going to the same place we
were. What a coincidence. The elephant actually worked at the temple, and was
quite superb at its job I must say. Kids would put a coin in the elephant’s
trunk and the elephant would give them a blessing by touching the top of their
head with its trunk. After watching about 30 children do this I was wondering
what happens to all the coins that go in the elephant’s trunk. I prepared to
duck for cover incase the elephant sneezed. Finally the elephant reached its
trunk back to its master and snotted all the coins into his hand, being sure to
add lots of snot. Then the man shook his hand and elephant snot splashed
everywhere and I took a moment to appreciate how fortunate I am to be a teacher
instead of an elephant snot coin collector.
The Rock Fort temple is named so because it is made entirely
out of rock. We climbed the several hundred steps that must have been built at
a time when man’s legs were 5 feet long. I can confidently say I am in the 99.9th
percentile for height of all the people who have ever been to that temple and I
was lunging to reach each step. The top features a tiny temple for prayer, and
a nice view of Trichy. You can see about 5 or 6 surrounding towns as well.
I think if I were Hindu I would stick to visiting a temple with fewer steps
From here I took perhaps my favourite photo in India because
it shows how colourful this country is. Colourful food, colourful attire, and
even the rooftops of all the houses are colourful. Colourful is the word that I
would use to describe India, and it elicits a lot of joy when I think about it
this way. Besides the literal interpretation of how colourful the country looks
I believe the people have such colourful personalities, and the more people you
meet in India the more your view of the country becomes painted into something
beautiful. As I sit in the airport waiting for my departure gate to open I can
already feel the strength of India pulling me back, and the biggest reason for
that is the people that live here, all 1.25 billion of them.
And as is custom when you’ve had enough to eat you fold the
banana leaf to symbolize you are finished. One of the Indians I met taught me
that to fold it downwards symbolizes you are accepting of the meal and
hospitality, folding it upwards means otherwise. And so India, I fold my banana
leaf downwards to symbolize how fulfilled and thankful I am for the incredible
experience.
