1). Whom I spent my summer with
Pallavi normally used the first hour in the morning to catch up in LinkedIn and emails as recruiting is approaching. She also likes to updates me about her life before we dive into works. Listening to her was the “morning brew” email for me. One day after she finished talking about her stories she said: Yea… I just want to share these with you, I don’t know why, I normally only share these things with my mom. I smiled and thought that was pretty sweet.
When I was in Delhi, I had the chance to observe the dynamics between her and auntie, and that made me understand her a lot better. I started to understand why she likes home so much, why she loves to and insistS on doing everything collaboratively and why she needs to run her LinkedIn email with me for no particular reason.
Pallavi and auntie can just sit on the sofa, or on the bed, and just look at each other and talk for hours. You will hear them laugh a lot during those talks. The scene would be so loving and perfect that I felt like any other thing or person would be a disruption to the scene. Therefore, I do not really join their talks.
I love watching them talk but do not want to pressure them to engage me in their conversation. So I would sit behind my laptop or in my room. Whenever I look at them, I felt like secretly tasting a little bit of their pie of happiness without them noticing it.
Auntie told me that when Pallavi was younger, she was so attached to her that she can hardly go to work. Even now if she Pallavi as an excuse to leave work earlier, it still works because everyone knows that auntie has a needy child haha.
I told Auntie that Pallavi is very lucky to have her as a mother. Auntie said yes, but she does not have a father. I did not say it, but I thought to myself: sometimes just because a kid shares a home with a man who is related to the kid by blood, does not mean that the kid has a father either.
My favorite event was that auntie started calling me “beta” (kid/daughter in Hindi) instead of “Linda” after 3, 4 days. Auntie also told me that: happiness can only come after a person becomes a true giver. I completely believed her words because auntie is really a true giver and everyone can see and feel her happiness inside out. However, as a selfish person since young, I told her I do not know how to become a true giver, but I will keep it in mind for sure. Auntie said it will take time.
Pallavi and I worked as teammates in Suzlon for two months. She and auntie also sheltered me for more than a week when I was in Delhi. I loved her more after I learned about her “imperfect” side. I never really liked people who are just nice. I always joked with her that we are two evilest bitches at Ivey. It was a great summer with her.
2). The Untouchables
“Are you familiar with the caste system?”
I said:”yes, kinda of”
“Do you know what is the untouchables?”
“Yup”
“Yea, I am the untouchables.”
We met in the modern art gallery in Delhi, which I would recommend everyone to go visit when they are in Delhi. After that, we only hang out once. It was a very short acquaintance that I cannot even remember his name.
He studied philosophy and astronomy at the Penn State University and his favorite stream of philosophy was existentialism. His parents are both pretty educated because study, high marks and the university was really the only way out for the untouchables back to his parents’ time. I asked if this status gave him any troubles. He said not much for him since he studied at home school until he was in high school. Then he studied aboard for university.
He told me he had this idea of writing a novel. The novel will be about the caste system and the notion of time. In the world of that novel, people who are in the highest caste can spend 1 hour as 2 hours, the conversion of the usable amount of time to the actual amount of time decrease as the caste move down. For the untouchables, 1 hour might only equal to 40 minutes. He wants to show how messed up that world will be. He wants people to see how messed up the caste system was.
This reminds me of when I was in Varanasi, I asked my tour guide a question: who are the people that clean the streets? I was asking if each household needs to clean the street in front of them (Canadians each shovel their own snow concept) or the government hires people to clean them. However, my tour guide answered, “oh, it is the untouchable who is at the bottom of the caste clean them.”
After he heard that, he leaned forward, lowered his voice and replied: “yea, I hate Hinduism.”
3). Let me gift you a city’s sunset and history
Honestly, I did not like Udaipur. I lived in Chunda Palace for 3 nights and I dined in the Oberoi (6th place of the top 10 hotels in the world) since it was right next door. It was the first time I understood why royal families like to do a getaway during summer, for example, Beijing has a summer palace.
It was so nice to just lay on the bed, feeling the heat waves of the summer and the fan above you rotating in a rhythm, listening to the cicada on the tree and thinking nothing. I also love reading in the palace, having the dessert and tea beside me while it was pouring rain outside with the smell of the green grass.
Starting the fourth day (after I recovered from my illness, I got very sick as soon as I landed Udaipur even though I was so healthy for the 2 months in Pune), I moved back to a hostel which is in the old city. There is a river in the city; the pretty hotels and the old city each on one side of the river, facing right opposite to each other.
the heaven, the Earth and the travellers
The opposite site was overwhelming to me. Streets filled with garbage and animal poop. I need to look out for animals, poop on the ground, cars, and tuk-tuks coming behind me, sketchy men who were trying to talk to me and the direction of where I am going all at the same time.
My day turned out to be better after I met Aakanksha, a local girl. She told me Udaipur was actually a beautiful city. I sat on the back of her bike and she took me around the city. She told me Udaipur was very small and therefore when she got bored, she would pretend that she was a traveler and had some fun in the old city. I asked: they cannot tell? She said: well, if I put on heavy makeup, somehow I can get by saying that I am from Korea.
I laughed really hard at the back of her bike as we watched the sun went down. Udaipur started to look more alive in my eyes.
She said a day ago, her dad was crying because he thought she was too fat. That broke her heart; that will break anyone’s heart. She has been struggling with body image issue for years. Nonetheless, she is a plus size fashion blogger with 26.4K followers on Instagram.
Why should I care how she looks like when she gifted a stranger Udaipur’s sunset and history? Why should anyone care about anyone else’s appearance in the first place?
One of my favorite Chinese singers once sang: each ant has eyes and noises, which one looks pretty to you?
4). A Young Lady
“Do you mind me asking how long have you been in this business?”
“Older than your age I think. How old are you? 22? 23?”
“23.”
“Yea, I have been doing this for 28 years, 5 years older than you are.”
I was running, finding and talking to different medicine exporters while I was in Delhi. He was one of the exporters that I talked to. I felt a little embarrassed after this conversation. Therefore, I was surprised when I saw his text and complimented me that I had lots of confidence in me.
While I looked at the text, what I really thinking was: I guess it was because he did not know that I was almost taken by a strange man on the street a day before while I was looking for the store of one of the exporters. I was so scared.
However, not only age, I realized that gender was another thing that stood out when I was talking business in India. When I walked on the streets of the medicine wholesale market in Chandni Chowk, there was literally no women, only men. Therefore, as a foreigner woman walking in the market alone, it was too easy to get attention.
Mom asked me if I was afraid at that time, I said: no, not really, except I need to avoid making eye contacts and look as scary as I can so that I do not get into troubles.
5). Just like the fingers of one hand
To be honest, I would not suggest anyone do a solo trip to India, especially for girls. However, it does not mean that India is filled with sketchy people. Just like a palm, each finger has a different length, you have good people and bad people, but because this is so much based on luck, it was not a good idea to risk it like that.
I took a train from Delhi to Agra and back to Delhi. I was super tired because I did not get much rest due to all the travels. I did plan to nap on the train but when I got on the train, I did not even dare to close my eyes even though I bought the most expensive class. It was not like anything happened but it was the vibes.
I need to deal all the time with strange men on the streets trying to talk to me in different languages, need to deal with tour guides’ inappropriate jokes, and need to deal with adult men peeping into the bushes beside the sidewalk and I just need to walk pass by them pretend I saw nothing. Therefore, I grew to have a habit that whenever I go pass by a temple and saw an India God anywhere, I will stop for 3 seconds and pray to the God that please make sure I will have a safe rest of the trip… I thought Indian Gods should work the best for India issues…
I still consider myself to be very lucky. For example, on the train, there was this older man from the military who sat right opposite me. He got off the train the next morning around 7 a.m. while I need to get off that night at around midnight. He could have gone to bed but he stayed up and talked to me.
He listened to my experiences in India with a very open mind and he even sent the younger guy, who stayed above my bed to accompany me down the train. However, he does not know that the younger guy was the source of my insecurity. My feeling was right, the younger guys asked to add me on facebook and he bugged me to a point that I just deleted and blocked him. When I think back, I couldn’t imagine what the trip would be like without the older man….
Another example was I missed my flight to Jodhpur and there was another guy, Mekush, who also missed the same flight. He seemed like he was on a business trip, so I figured he must have a way to get there today. Therefore, I asked how he plans to get there. After I learned that he was actually going to another city but just transit in Jodhpur, I left while he was still talking to the flight attendances and I planned to stay another night in Mumbai.
After 10 minutes, he ran to me and told me that I should fly to Udaipur because it would be much easier to go from Udaipur to Jodhpur on the ground. He told me that he also planned to fly to Udaipur and go from there. He said he can arrange the transport for me if needed. Our two would need to go into different cars but he said it would a reliable driver and he would guarantee my safety.
I accepted his offer and it turned out that I did not go to Jodhpur eventually because we would get to Udaipur pretty late and he worried about my safety (it might take up to 4 hours to drive to Jodhpur). He helped me to book the ticket to Udaipur, he taught me a lot about the fashion industry, he helped me to find a hotel in Udaipur and negotiated a cheaper price for me and he helped me to cancel my hotel in Jodhpur. He treated me like his daughter and invited me to visit his family next time I come to Mumbai.
I never understood how come people can be so nice to a stranger but I have met so many of them being THIS nice to me in India. Frankly, I have never received this much kindness from any other country I have ever been to.
Mekush said to me many times that: Linda you have been blessed. I wish you stay blessed… I wrote to him and said that: you and other people who have helped me are the exact reasons why I am blessed.
6). Govind Thakker
I put on my jacket and ready to leave. He looked at me and said: are you visiting in Pune? This lead to another 3 hours sitting in the Cafe. My ass was hurting pretty badly by the wooden chair that day but I was very glad that he started the conversation.
I remember I was running back to the hotel that day so excitedly, telling Lauren and Christina about Govind. We were all very excited and got so much to share that day!
Govind connected with me in many ways, passion for art, passion for sustainability, passion for doing something for society, some life stories, family issues and etc. He also disconnected with me in many ways, for example, our stage of lives, or, honestly, our lives, in general, are disconnected, our circle, our background and the stage of lives should not be in each other’s radar in anyways.
Nonetheless, I liked him. I did not realize that I really liked him until I left Pune. I came to this realization because he was the only one that texted me and I was willing to text to when I was doing my solo trip after Pune.
I like he asked me how my days went; it was nice to have someone to care about your life. I like he decorates his room with lights and plants, and it was almost like a surprise when he turns on the lights in the dark. I like he collects a bunch of random shit in his room like a kid would. I liked the fact that he told me he liked my handwriting because I was secretly scared he would laugh at my handwriting and told me he liked those postcards just to be polite.
I liked a lot of things about him but I am not sure when will be next time that we see each other again.
7). Travelers
I was in my room unpacking my stuff. The card that Connie wrote to me before we left Cambodia came into my sights. Suddenly, I felt like I have left home for a very long time because the Cambodia trip seemed like a long time ago to me now.
Her first sentence on the card was: "our time together has been limited but extremely memorable.” and her last sentence was: "I will be rooting for you wherever I am and no matter where you are!” I smiled and I felt like missing them very much.
Connie and Xiaojun are my best friend from Ivey and it was their attitude that really touched me. I moved around a lot in the past years. Since young, I had many times need to face a place with 0 friend and many times need to leave the friends that I just made. As time goes, I actually prefer to keep distant with people. It makes everything easier. And besides, since people come and go, how does it matter to have one more friend or one less friend during this period. You will move on anyway.
However, that was not Connie and Xiaojun’s attitude. Their attitude was: we have one day, then we make the best out of that day! And we all made efforts to keep each other in each other’s life.
This picture is their favorite picture of ours. I did not understand what so good about this picture before, but now when I look at it, I love it too. It is almost like, we know the future is uncertain, we know we might not see each other in a long time, but so what, we have today and we are not scared.
8). Ending
I really consider my journey of India is shaped by the people I met. Therefore, I wrote the blog this way to cherish these memories. Through these stories, I also hope I presented the image of India piece by piece to you. The caste system, the hospitality culture in India, the inequality, the society and etc.
I already wrote my two previous blogs of India in a traditional way (unfortunately all in Chinese). The purpose of the previous two blogs was for people in China to understand a bit more about India and eliminate some basic misunderstanding and biases that Chinese people have toward Indians, for example, Indians do not use toilet paper.
For this blog, it is for myself to remember the things that I want to remember. And I also found it a little too ambitious and pointless to describe India in a general sense since it is seriously so diverse, and we already have lots of documentaries.
One thing that I want to add was my general feeling toward India. I actually can see myself living in Mumbai, which is quite weird because I can never imagine myself living in any city after I lived and traveled to many cities. I have always felt like a traveler and never felt belong to a place.
However, Mumbai has this unique blend of Western and Eastern culture which made me feel very comfortable. I can speak English and no one will think I am weird, while I also do not need to explain to my friends why do I need to take of my parents, pay them when I start making money. Mumbai is liberal and artsy while it still has the right amount of community feeling. People are nice to you and help you out without stalking on your single move. People welcomes you and asks you to stay.
I told Connie on the phone the other day that the world is big, very very big and each society has its own standard of beauty, of lifestyles, of happiness… We should really choose the one that gives us advantages to live, that fit us, not the one that we felt like an outsider or the ones that need us to work really hard just to prove that it is okay to be ourselves.
I have the same philosophy for friends, for people that I chose to keep in life. I would rather keep people who genuinely think I am smart and pretty than someone who I need to make an effort to change their opinions about me.
I was telling Connie that according to the pretty definition in Western and Asian society, there is no way that I would be considered as pretty, but in …. Connie stopped me before I finished my sentence and said: what do you mean? have you looked around? of course, you are pretty. I laughed and said: admit it, you only say this because you are my friend. She stopped for a second and said: whatever u think, I think you are pretty. I smiled on this side of the phone.
India has really surprised me in many different ways. I have a strong feeling that I will go back. Let’s see where the future will lead.
– August 3rd, 2018
@ Quantum Café, Vancouver
How can you end a blog about India without a picutre of the Taj?