but first.
i've returned to chennai, 31-train-hours-later, my mind readjusted (maybe..?), my stomach likely housing some new friends (yikes!). went up north to travel around delhi-agra-rajasthan for a couple weeks with my cousin and one of her friends. ended up not really seeing as much as i'd been anticipated, was just pretty frustrated with the reality of how intense traveling is here and especially the prospects of traveling alone as a girl up north. i mean, we still saw some beautiful stuff, but i definitely suffer from guide-book-optimism here (leafing through the guide book getting excited by all the beautiful pictures of places and somehow always managing to forget the lesson i learned my first week in india, that pictures are a totally innacurate representation of what actually being here is like). i think a lot of it is just the built-up stress... dealing with transportation (waitlists for trains, sketchy buses/bus stations, etc), having to fight for everything all the time here (it's the only way to get anything here), getting sick, not necessarily feeling safe (being alone). having to put up walls all the time (otherwise having to deal with being hassled/followed... situations that feel safe can 5 seconds later feel incredibly sketch). reading indian newspapers and hearing stories from other people makes it hard to approach situations without negative expectations. i struggle to find an intermediate between being closed all the time, which cuts out the good as well as the bad, and being too open, which seems naieve and potentially dangerous...? there's maybe a fundamental element of trust that i'm not sure i can count on here sometimes, and this is really scary for me. (don't get me wrong, my feelings are colored by a small handful of bad experiences, but these are sometimes hard to escape from.) For me most of the negative experiences stem from interactions with men here (which is much worse up north than down south). never in any other place i've ever been have i felt such an uncontrollable desire to encourage and support women and women's rights. anyway, i should probably move on, this tangent could take a while...
i realized that the places i was enjoying the most were the ones off the tourist track, places where i felt like i could still make connections with people through feelings of mutual curiousity, where people were amused with my photography, kids would say hi just to say hi, want to have their picture taken just for the fun of it. i realized that this curiosity is the most important and wonderful part of traveling for me. without it traveling feels hollow. india sometimes makes this hard. the incredible economic disparities between parts of society here make it feel totally legitimate that people might come to see foreigners as only a source of income, as something to be manipulated for the purpose of making money. it's completely understandable, but the reality of the situation just makes me pretty sad. it's definitely still possible to have good connections, but they're just less common.
kids in bundi:
but i had one of these wonderful experiences on my train ride back to chennai, where i met a group of social workers from different villages in maharashtra. when they found out that i studied physics and especially astrophysics and cosmology, they had lots of questions. we talked about global warming and black holes and the big bang. in exchange they taught me some marathi (a language related to hindi which is spoken in maharashtra... not sure if i mentioned it before but india has 18 official languages..! swaganam means welcome and choomchoo means spoon). it was such a refreshing interaction (plus helped remind me that i can make connections with people through physics, that studying the universe is pretty awesome (a reminder i need right now as i have grad school application deadlines rapidly approaching...)).
the outer gate to jama masjid, delhi, the largest mosque in india (holds up to 25,000 people). had an awesome cultural moment here: after waiting for prayers to finish with a couple of other foreigners, when we entered, the guys at the gate demanded that we all pay a 200Rs camera fee just to enter. i didn't have much time and i didn't really feel comfortable taking pictures in such a holy place so soon around prayer time, but they refused to let me enter without paying the fee even though i said i was not going to take pictures. in preparation for entering, i'd already covered my head with a scarf i'd brought, meanwhile the guys were draping a ridiculous orange dress over the other foreigner woman since she'd come wearing a skirt. i wasn't super happy with the double standard of the camera fee, so i turned to leave and was putting on my shoes when one of the guys came out and asked me if i promised to not take pictures, to which i agreed 'absolutely,' and they let me enter. i realized once inside the reason for the double standard. there were a large number of foreigners, nearly all of the women wearing the huge drapey dresses since they'd come wearing shorts and tank tops, etc. none of the women covering their heads, all posing and taking pictures of each other. i was pretty taken aback by the cultural insensitivity, and even happier at having been able to make a connection with the guy at the gate.
the dargah in ajmer: the tomb of a sufi saint khwaja muin-ud-din chishti (entering through metal detectors)
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