Global Crossroads Study Abroad Blog

As I lie here in bed tonight, so ends one of the most memorable days of my entire life to date. My first day in India. I haven’t the slightest clue how everything I’ve seen and felt and experienced so far could possibly have fit into a mere twenty four hours…

I flew into Gandhi International Airport in Delhi yesterday evening. I was immediately greeted with a big fat wall of humidity. Luckily, being from South Carolina, I felt right at home and couldn’t help but smile at how I had to fly half way around the world just to find the same unfortunate weather I had left behind. I then shuffled my way through customs (unbelievably easy, I didn’t even have to say a word to the guy stamping my passport and the whole procedure took about 3 minutes) and headed over to the baggage conveyor belt and found the most wonderfully cliché looking Indian man I have ever seen (dressed all in white, with a great big mustache and smile on his face) holding up a little sign that said “MSID welcomes MARY BRICKLE”.  I practically shrieked with excitement and promptly proceeded to shake his outstretched hand, only to notice his slightly alarmed and confused expression as I realized he was actually trying to take my bag for me. Fearing I had committed some horrible crime by making enthusiastic human contact, I apologized profusely and walked a few feet behind him the rest of the way out of the airport. We made our way to the parking garage and after another small look of alarm on the face of my Indian friend as I tried to get into the driver’s side door, we were off on my first car ride in India!

I think I died just a tiny bit in the first fifteen minutes or so. I have never, ever, experienced anything like driving in India. In a certain pirate movie I love and cherish, one of the characters refers to official pirate code as “more like guidelines than actual rules anyway”. This also conveniently describes Indian traffic laws. Yes, there are lane lines painted on the road. No, you do not have to follow them at all. This includes having three or four cars driving casually side by side on a road which was clearly meant for two. Not once did my driver use a blinker.  Instead it’s more like a race to see which car can fit into the tiny little opening in between two the giant trucks first! The more horn you use the better. As one of my guidebooks said, it would probably be more efficient if the horn were just attached to the accelerator. Not to mention we were sharing the road with every possible type of vehicle you could imagine – taxis, trucks, fancy cars, 1950′s cars, buses, tractors, bicycles, tiny little three wheeled auto rickshaws, people, horse-carts, dogs, etc.  Everyone is pretty much going at whatever speed is most convenient for them so it’s pretty much stop and go traffic combined with brief intervals of flying willy nilly down the road. And yet, to be perfectly honest, for that entire car ride, with the soft sounds of Indian radio playing in the background and the little bobble head Ganesh stuck on the dashboard, not once did I actually feel like I was in any serious danger. I could tell this guy really knew what he was doing, even if I personally could have sworn we were going to crash at least 15 times. We finally made it to the hotel though and after checking in and getting a bottle of water, I made my way upstairs to the room I was sharing with one other MSIDer, Samantha, and promptly went to sleep.

When I woke up this morning there was a lizard in our toilet bowl.

The next few hours consisted of meeting the other 6 girls besides Samantha and myself who are here for  the Hindi pre-session and Rekha (we call her Rekha-Ji, an honorary term of respect) and Rishni-Ji, two of the MSID faculty. Rehka-Ji is a wonderful woman who is in charge of homestay coordination and some of the teaching in MSID. She told us to think of her as a good friend and that we could talk to her about anything. Rishni-Ji is one of the Hindi teachers (today I learned how to say “Hello, my name is Mary”) and really a fantastic and charismatic human being as well. Around noon we all got into a tourist van and started out on the 6 hour drive to Jaipur. Though I hardly thought it possible, daytime driving is even more chaotic. Delhi is a truly beautiful city though with tons of trees and fascinating architecture. I really hope I can make it back to actually do some exploring one day. We did drive by the President’s palace and a famous World War II monument though which were both just breathtaking. After making our way through the city we hopped onto Indian National Highway Number 8. When we stopped at one of first tolls, there were men walking around selling coconut slices and army guards with great big guns making sure that traffic kept moving along nicely. About half an hour into the drive, we stopped for lunch at McDonalds… Oh the irony. The first time I’ve eaten McDonalds in maybe 2 years and it happens to be in India. My McVeggie Burger wasn’t half bad and it was kind of funny to see the Indian version of a McDonalds menu. There weren’t any beef or pork items and most things were vegetarian. While we were eating the power went out in the restaurant, giving me my first glimpse of the shoddy electricity here. We left shortly thereafter and continued on our way towards Jaipur.

As we got further away from the urban sprawl of the city, the landscape changed dramatically. Small little shanty towns and clusters of crumbling buildings started popping up along the side of the road, usually coming up to within a foot of the asphalt. In these little pockets of urbanization there would be a great mix of people, dogs, cows, camels, and goats milling about and often making their way right into the middle of the highway. In some places there was extensive poverty, the likes of which I had never seen in person before. We would then see long stretches of open fields and tropical looking landscapes, sometimes with a small woman dressed in a bright red sari bending over to tend to the flock of goats surrounding her, or perhaps a man with no shirt on sitting cross legged in the middle of some great stone ruins. The next five hours were totally surreal. As I kept drifting in and out of sleep while looking out the window of our van, it was easy to suddenly wake up and, having forgotten where I was, be shocked to see a cow sitting down in the middle of a highway while the cars diverted around it or a camel being calmly led past a tiny little fruit stand with a monkey sitting on the wall behind it, or a cluster of women in a vivid rainbow of color carrying giant water containers on their heads…

Around five we stopped for daily tea time (which is probably going to be one of my favorite Indian customs) at a small roadside café. Hands down it was the most delicious chai I have ever tasted. Much sweeter and spicier than the typical American chai but not the hot kind of spicy, just the tasty, aromatic kind. Around seven we finally reached the outskirts of Jaipur. There’s a huge, ancient fort which was built by the Moghuls sitting atop a giant hill that greets you as you first enter the city. It was simply stunning, especially in the dusky red light of the setting sun. I will definitely be returning to explore later. The city center of Jaipur was complete sensory overload. An absolutely unfathomable number of incredibly colorful people were to be seen, doing their shopping at open market bazaars or relaxing next to a fountain in the middle of a small green space or hailing one of the hundreds of green and yellow three wheeled auto-rickshaws. I’ll never forget the image I had for a few moments as we were driving behind a totally jam-packed rickshaw with at least seven adults inside and three children in school uniforms sitting in the trunk smiling hugely and waving enthusiastically at the foreigners in the big tourist van. I can hardly describe the extent of everything I saw even as we were just driving through downtown for the fifteen or twenty minutes this evening. As I experience the city in smaller chunks hopefully I’ll be able to give more nuanced descriptions.

We finally made it to our various homestays, stopping one house at a time to let off the two girls who were staying there. Emily and I were second to last, getting off in front of a lovely home with a big garden in front. We were greeted by Rama-Ji, an older woman, who has been retired from her job as English professor at the local university for 13 years now. She has three children. One son lives half his life in Canada, with his wife and children, and the other half in India, to take care of his mother and work. He is a neurosurgeon that also works with artificial intelligence software in hospitals. He’s currently in India for the next few weeks. She has another son who lives in Singapore with his wife and son in 9th grade, who is actually here in the house now visiting India and his grandmother for a few months. Her daughter lives nearby also teaching English and comes to visit every day. Rama-Ji speaks perfect English, though her accent is a little hard to understand at times. But it is clear the she is genuinely pleased to have Emily and I visiting her home and that she is eager to teach us about Indian culture. Emily and I each have a small room upstairs. It is a simple setup with just a desk, chair, bed, and window, complete with a window ac unit which is incredibly loud and is going to take some getting used to. Also, the beds here in India are rock hard with very little cushioning. Rehka-Ji said this is better for your back though and that she actually can’t stand American beds because they are too soft so she sleeps on the floor when visiting the states haha. We had a wonderful dinner with Rama-Ji, her son from Canada and her grandson from Singapore. Rama-Ji made Emily and I an adorable little cake with welcome written on it. Dinner was really superb and thankfully not too spicy! Most of the conversation actually went on between Rama-Ji’s son and Emily and myself. He was definitely the most talkative of the bunch and quite entertaining, challenging Emily and I to think of any disease he couldn’t tell us the scientific name and symptoms for, and promising to teach us Hindi swear words later, despite a reproachful look from his mother. There’s also a male servant in the house who helped Rama-Ji cook and serve the food. Apparently another woman will come to clean in the morning.  It turns out today is also an Indian holiday called Tddg, during which Rama-Ji said that Rajasthani women would wear special sari’s and that a special dessert was usually served, which she promptly brought out for us to sample. It looked but tasted nothing like funnel cake but was more of a cookie consistency and baked into a bunt cake… it was quite delicious, very sweet! After a bit more post-dinner chatting, Emily and I were yawing excessively so Rama-Ji gave us each a bottle of water for the night and sent us upstairs to unpack and crawl into bed.

And so it is now nearly midnight and like I said, the end of my first day in India. I am positively giddy with anticipation of the upcoming weeks and months, everything is pointing towards this truly being the grand adventure I was hoping for. I know this post was probably entirely too long and hopefully as I get more used to everyday life here I won’t feel the need to go into as much detail about the little things but it’s like a have a little movie playing in my head now of everything I’ve seen and heard and felt today and I wanted to make sure and capture as much as I could before I went to sleep. Anyways, I have class at ten tomorrow morning and am utterly exhausted so I’m off to sleep now!

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