India, From the Outside

30 Jul

If only my enthusiasm for other things was as boundless as my enthusiasm for writing about India…

Well, I’ve taken it somewhere else! The good folks at Desicritics have been asking me to write there for a pretty long time. Two years on, I finally got around to it. Thankful, of course, for any further platform to ramble endlessly about India.

From my inaugural post, India From the Outside In –

As an outsider, India has been the most welcoming of countries. Being an outsider also afforded me some luxuries my upper middle class Mumbai or Kolkata-born NRI (female) friends could never dream of. I’ve gone, in the name of work and mostly adventure, crawling through coal mines in Meghalaya, hanging off Mumbai locals, driving autorickshaws to Pondicherry, running about in the rain in Cherrapunjee, trekking about the vicinity of Darjeeling, wandering about Bhubaneswar and Bihar alone, wading knee-deep in water in Sudder Street, smoking with Shivaites in Orissa, hanging out on film sets in Chennai, and been caught amidst the crush of chariot juggernauts of the Puri Rath Yatra.

I ramble at length about what it means to be Indian, and why I feel desi… ‘live’ from Bombay. Read it!

possibly related

Meghalaya, Abode in the Clouds /India Redux /Calcutta Calling /You Could Forgive the Monsoon /Stillness is Overrated /
  • OK so this is a late comment, but i tend to be quite late most of the time since i am indian and a malayalee too.

    Right now i'm working in singapore, and from what ive experienced i would agree with your description of the SG chinese perception of india being big country of scary hairy dark colored people (some with turbans) speaking to each other in indian. Most of my chinese colleagues are surprised when i tell them that i do not speak "indian" (tamil) and i speak in english to these "indians" and so on and so forth.

    However, this (lack of) understanding of another culture is very common and exists on the other side too. Few indians know that there is no language called "chinese". In india (at least in the south) we are hardly aware of the existence south east asia, the differences of culture between thai, vietnam, myanmar etc. In bangalore where i worked for a few years, all people with mongoloid features are categorised as "chinkis" and nobody really cares to know more than that. Anyone would be hardpressed to name the seven sister states northeast india.

    Apart from the information from a few stories by maughm and orwell, I knew nothing south east asia as well till i came to singapore. And even when i came to singapore, for about the first six months me and my indian friends hardly tried out any food from the chinese/korean/thai hawker stalls, had no idea what was happening when the chinese were celebrating their various festivals etc. We were quite happy sticking to the reasonably familiar Indian muslim stalls and the occasional visit to little india. Then the recession struck, leaving me friendless in SG but with an opportunity to explore the mini mysterious south east asia around me and to question my conditioned sense of identity as an "indian"...
  • Rohan
    You are now a "featured Desicritic."

    Nice.
  • CelineQ8
    A non-resident Indian, I make more trips to India than any other place and it is India that I look forward to travelling the most, though my love for travel has taken me through more than a dozen and half countries (in fact, I just got back from Egypt and am now planning another trip to India next month.) Brief notes of my trips to other countries goes under the label “personal” and like you, I do not “shut up” when it comes to India and hence my blog with details only on India.

    I can feel your love for India flowing through and through with this delightful post. It is heartwarming to read what you have to say. Great post. Looking forward to reading more from you.
  • "...smoking with Shivaites in Orissa..."

    Lol. that's something your home country and my present place of residence would kill you for, eh? Jai hind.
  • jai hind, indeed. bharat mata ki jai :)
  • eh, note the notable absence of "up" after "smoking"! :D
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