Eve Kraicer<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
From the sky, India looks like a quilt. The lights from the houses and roads create intertwining patches and threads of illumination, and each pool of light is connected to
\nother patches that line the horizon in any direction. From the sky, India looks
\nbusy, India looks bright, India looks large, India looks exactly like what I
\nthought it would be. The drive from the airport to the hotel alone solidified
\nmy idea of the country. Beggars banged on the windows of the van, the ever-present
\nhonking from all directions was only masked by other screeches and slams, bangs
\nand clashes. No rickshaw, motorcycle, bus, truck or jeep seemed fazed by the
\nmundane concepts of \u201clanes\u201d or \u201csignals\u201d let alone \u201cone-way\u201d or \u201croad signs\u201d.
\nStalls selling souvenirs, crisps, water bottles, chickens, bananas, paintings,
\nsaris and any other necessity lined every inch of sidewalk, while colorful
\npedestrians fought with vehicles for road space, which seemed to be limited
\nenough without people in the mix. We only spent one day in Delhi, and at that
\npoint I had had enough. My body, my senses, my mind were exhausted and
\noverwhelmed. India, it seemed, was exactly what I had pictured: busy, bright
\nand large. \u00a0But twelve hours later, after
\ndriving by van, bus and car up winding mountain trails to Simayal, Uttarakhand,
\nI stood on the lawn of a handsome brick building, enveloped by the smell of
\nalmond blossoms, the sights of terraced foothills and the sounds of wild
\nmonkeys and birds. I spent the next two weeks in some kind of arborous utopia;
\neating chapati and subji on potato sacks in clay kitchens, hiking to temples
\nwith views of snow-capped Himalayas and teaching multiplication and the
\n\u201chokey-pokey\u201d to primary school kids dressed in knitted woolen toques
\nand navy blue uniforms. I fetched water from wells, peeled
\npotatoes with my fingers, rode elephants through tiger reserves, dug out landslides
\nblocking a springs and found some kind of home, some kind of family in a rural
\nvillage in the mountains halfway around the world. And although I learned some
\nHindi, tried some folk dancing and eventually got my bearings in the town, I
\ncannot explain who Indians are, how Indians dance, or what India looks like.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When I looked at Delhi through the oval
\nwindow in the airplane, I thought I was looking at India. I thought that
\nalthough there was diversity, it was diversity within my static, generalized
\nimage, an image that left no room for anything outside my first impression of
\nthe country. And once this image was unwoven and re-sewn again and again, it
\nbecame smaller, as I found a whole country can\u2019t be captured by anything close
\nto a single picture, especially not a country like India.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So I guess in a sense, I know less
\nabout India now then I did sitting on that plane. Because when I sat there, I
\nthought I knew at least something about everywhere in the country, and now I
\nrealize I know nothing about any place in India I\u2019ve yet to see. I can make
\nassumptions, (one can always make assumptions) but likely they\u2019re wrong, and I
\nwould rather learn the truth. Because there isn\u2019t enough time, there aren\u2019t
\nenough trains and boats and planes to take me everywhere I haven\u2019t been in
\nIndia, let alone in the world. But there enough rickshaws, buses, footpaths and
\nelephants who have carried me to some pretty wonderful places, and hopefully
\nwill take me to many more, and maybe someday I\u2019ll collect and connect enough
\nsmall, detailed patches to sew together some sort of mismatched Indian quilt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eve Kraicer From the sky, India looks like a quilt. The lights from the houses and roads create intertwining patches and threads of illumination, and each pool of light is connected to other patches that line the horizon in … Continue reading