At times it strikes me as a somewhat troublesome predicament, loving India. Specifically, being an India-loving Westerner. I cringe at the cliched implications of such a status at the same time as I rebel against it, wanting people to know that the stereotype doesn’t apply to me. Wanting, in my insecurity about unspoken condescension, very specific people, i.e. Indians who write critically about India, to know what it is I love and why. And to know that it’s not all about Me. But why this inquiet need to justify?
Perhaps, a) because there is so much not to love, to be appalled and enraged by, and b) because, inevitably, much of my response to India does stem from how it makes me feel.
It’s much easier to succinctly articulate the aspects of India that I dislike and many of which I abhor because, while each contains multiple layers of context-based difference and subtlety, the broad categories are so looming, so visible, so obvious. The poverty, the depravation, the suffering and the disturbing ignorance and neglect of those who suffer by the majority of the upwardly mobile classes; the social strictures; the corruption; the violence against, the rape of, women; the state-sponsored minority-targeting violence; the environmental disrespect and degredation; the racism; the overwhelming conservatism and sexual repression that lends a wildness to the eyes and the hands of drunken men; the denial and willful ignorance that inhibits acknowledgement and discussion of so much of the above.
And yet. These flaws, these wailing tragedies, are so easy to denounce, so unavoidably repellant. But they will never keep me away. Because they are not all.
They’re not the head-spinning, exhausting, exhilarating, inescapable, inspiring, incessant explosion of life and humanity in all its glorious, heart-swelling-heart-breaking light and noise. They are not the hospitality, the invitations to homes that follow a two-minute chat. They are not the shy smiles, the giggles, the instant sometimes transient sometimes enduring friendships. They are not the acceptance of hard work in order to achieve ambitions, or the sharing of homespun philosophies to that effect from young men and women who don’t expect life to hand them anything on a plate. They are not at worst silent resignation, at best laughter in the face of trivial daily adversity. They are not the chai-wallahs and mithai shops on every corner. They are not the unceasing life of the trains. They are not the chaos and the extraordinary sense of liberation engendered in a traveller from the West who is suddenly expected to push, to dispense with please and thank you, to let her backpack block the aisle, to share her seat with two other people but also to stand up for herself when necessary. They are not Thomas in the canteen at Varkala station insisting we share his biryani. They are not the wondrous reaction when the white girl speaks Hindi. They are not the tapping into a joyous part of myself that can perhaps only be accessed in the midst of an environment so apart from home. They are not a hundred thousand different landscapes, each with its own language, its own people, its own food, religion, music, colour. Each with its own way of being Indian, existing alongside all the other ways.
There are huge, ugly, catastrophic problems. And for many they define daily life. Surely I do those people a disservice if I don’t acknowledge that my personal experience of India is largely, luxuriously, free of such anguish and injustice. And these are many of the same people who always want to know how does the foreigner like their India? And I sometimes wish I could give a more nuanced answer, that I could discuss my feelings with them, but then wonder if that’s purely an intellectual defense mechanism against giving such a simple response to such an unsuspectingly complex question. But that doesn’t imply that my simple answer is false, because it’s not. So I tell them that I love their India, and I tell myself that it is a love in spite of – but not entailing acceptance of – its flaws, and for so much more besides.
