Remember how I said I think I could live in India one day?
I must now retract that statement. With my entire heart, soul and mind, I know. I know I could never live in India.
India was all well and good last summer when I was essentially under house arrest. It was boring, but seemed manageable.
However, when you actually try to accomplish something in India (anything, no matter how small) you realize just how difficult it is.
In the U.S., there are certain rules and protocol, some on the books and some unspoken, for everything you do. And they make sense. Or perhaps it's just a matter of growing up with them, but regardless, the way things work here make sense to me and I can work with it. No matter how frustrating it may sometimes be (I'm talking to you, Federal Government).
There very well may be set rules for getting things done in India...but to me it seems that the rule is to be as rude and chaotic as possible.
India has always had its challenges for me.
Ok, ok. Everything about it has always been a challenge for me. I admit it.
But I think this time it may have been made worse by arriving straight from Sri Lanka.
As I said in my last post, Sri Lanka is like a more polite, more beautiful version of India. So to go directly from there to the real India, with its horrible roads, dusty terrain, and pushy leering people, was a shock to the system. Going from the U.S. to India I'm prepared for it to be drastically different. Going from somewhere with a lot of similarities to India, though, I feel like I expected it to be more of the same.
It is most definitely not.
We left Colombo and flew directly to Cochin, in the state of Kerala.
I was excited about Kerala. I'd heard, repeatedly, that it is the greenest, most beautiful state in all of India. It's known as "God's Own Country." Hubby couldn't stop talking about the backwaters and houseboats. Neither of us could wait.
Unfortunately, we had let my father-in-law plan this portion of the trip. All we got to see was Thekkady Wildlife Sanctuary. While pretty, it is winter in India. And what looks like lush greenery in photos was actually more...dead. And there was no wildlife to speak of. We saw a few otters at a distance. And there were birds, as there were everywhere we went. And monkeys, also everywhere we went. Though we did get to witness a monkey robbing a cop car, so that was fun.
We were in the wildlife sanctuary for all of two hours. It took about six hours of driving, each way. Three hours of which were on the curviest road I have ever seen in my life. My head was spinning for two days after that drive. We did get to spend the night in a pretty fun hotel. Very cabin-like with lofts.
Overall, the best part of the trip to Kerala (by far) was meeting my mother-in-law's sister Neeru.
Ok, I did meet her at our Big Fat Indian Wedding, but I also "met" 700 other people, so forgive me for not remembering every single person. Or any of them, really.
Neeru's is a fascinating story. Her marriage was arranged when she was 4 years old. She married at the age of 14 and moved nearly 2,000 miles away from her family.
She taught herself to sew and started her own business as a tailor. Later, she opened a store selling kitchen wares with her husband. Her husband died some years ago and she has continued to run the store on her own. I'm not sure exactly how old she is, easily in her 80s, but she's old enough for it to be very impressive that she runs her own business every day.
She is tough as nails.
Over lunch she told the story of how she was attacked in her own home. She lives in an apartment but still owns the family home right next door. A man who does odd jobs in the neighborhood learned her daily schedule. He teamed up with another man to rob her house while she was out. Unfortunately for her, she came home early and caught them.
She started to scream until one of the men covered her mouth, dragged her down to the floor and began to strangle her with his hands. She fought him until she felt herself begin to pass out. So she stopped struggling and managed to communicate that she would let them take what they wanted. They cleared the house of everything of value.
As soon as they left she alerted the neighbors, who alerted the police. She knew one man and got a good look at the other as he attacked her, so the police caught them within two hours. The police returned a few of the items, but as the robbers had no time to sell off that much stuff, she knew the cops had taken a cut. (Police corruption is a huge issue in India.)
It turned out that the neighborhood man had previously been in jail with the man he teamed up with. And that man had already murdered 18 women. Neeru easily could have been killed.
As I listened to this story with my stomach in knots and my heart in my throat, I asked her when this happened. "Oh about a month and a half ago," she said.
Here this woman was describing a situation that easily could have taken her life, where the only thing that saved her was a presence of mind that many many people would not have been able to have, at an age where you would almost expect the person to die of a heart attack if not at the hands of their attacker.
And she was completely calm. Cool as a cucumber. No anger, no anxiety at the memory, nothing. She'd made peace with what happened and moved on. In a matter of weeks.
She is my hero.
I must now retract that statement. With my entire heart, soul and mind, I know. I know I could never live in India.
India was all well and good last summer when I was essentially under house arrest. It was boring, but seemed manageable.
However, when you actually try to accomplish something in India (anything, no matter how small) you realize just how difficult it is.
In the U.S., there are certain rules and protocol, some on the books and some unspoken, for everything you do. And they make sense. Or perhaps it's just a matter of growing up with them, but regardless, the way things work here make sense to me and I can work with it. No matter how frustrating it may sometimes be (I'm talking to you, Federal Government).
There very well may be set rules for getting things done in India...but to me it seems that the rule is to be as rude and chaotic as possible.
India has always had its challenges for me.
Ok, ok. Everything about it has always been a challenge for me. I admit it.
But I think this time it may have been made worse by arriving straight from Sri Lanka.
As I said in my last post, Sri Lanka is like a more polite, more beautiful version of India. So to go directly from there to the real India, with its horrible roads, dusty terrain, and pushy leering people, was a shock to the system. Going from the U.S. to India I'm prepared for it to be drastically different. Going from somewhere with a lot of similarities to India, though, I feel like I expected it to be more of the same.
It is most definitely not.
We left Colombo and flew directly to Cochin, in the state of Kerala.
I was excited about Kerala. I'd heard, repeatedly, that it is the greenest, most beautiful state in all of India. It's known as "God's Own Country." Hubby couldn't stop talking about the backwaters and houseboats. Neither of us could wait.
Unfortunately, we had let my father-in-law plan this portion of the trip. All we got to see was Thekkady Wildlife Sanctuary. While pretty, it is winter in India. And what looks like lush greenery in photos was actually more...dead. And there was no wildlife to speak of. We saw a few otters at a distance. And there were birds, as there were everywhere we went. And monkeys, also everywhere we went. Though we did get to witness a monkey robbing a cop car, so that was fun.
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| Yes, that is the best view of the otters we could get |
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| Monkeys stealing oranges from the cop car |
Overall, the best part of the trip to Kerala (by far) was meeting my mother-in-law's sister Neeru.
Ok, I did meet her at our Big Fat Indian Wedding, but I also "met" 700 other people, so forgive me for not remembering every single person. Or any of them, really.
Neeru's is a fascinating story. Her marriage was arranged when she was 4 years old. She married at the age of 14 and moved nearly 2,000 miles away from her family.
She taught herself to sew and started her own business as a tailor. Later, she opened a store selling kitchen wares with her husband. Her husband died some years ago and she has continued to run the store on her own. I'm not sure exactly how old she is, easily in her 80s, but she's old enough for it to be very impressive that she runs her own business every day.
She is tough as nails.
Over lunch she told the story of how she was attacked in her own home. She lives in an apartment but still owns the family home right next door. A man who does odd jobs in the neighborhood learned her daily schedule. He teamed up with another man to rob her house while she was out. Unfortunately for her, she came home early and caught them.
She started to scream until one of the men covered her mouth, dragged her down to the floor and began to strangle her with his hands. She fought him until she felt herself begin to pass out. So she stopped struggling and managed to communicate that she would let them take what they wanted. They cleared the house of everything of value.
As soon as they left she alerted the neighbors, who alerted the police. She knew one man and got a good look at the other as he attacked her, so the police caught them within two hours. The police returned a few of the items, but as the robbers had no time to sell off that much stuff, she knew the cops had taken a cut. (Police corruption is a huge issue in India.)
It turned out that the neighborhood man had previously been in jail with the man he teamed up with. And that man had already murdered 18 women. Neeru easily could have been killed.
As I listened to this story with my stomach in knots and my heart in my throat, I asked her when this happened. "Oh about a month and a half ago," she said.
Here this woman was describing a situation that easily could have taken her life, where the only thing that saved her was a presence of mind that many many people would not have been able to have, at an age where you would almost expect the person to die of a heart attack if not at the hands of their attacker.
And she was completely calm. Cool as a cucumber. No anger, no anxiety at the memory, nothing. She'd made peace with what happened and moved on. In a matter of weeks.
She is my hero.
Neeru sounds bad-ass. I don't remember her I don't think. Which one was she? There were too many aunts to figure out. I certainly did not realize M had an 80-year-old sister.
ReplyDeleteThe monkeys stealing oranges from the cop car is freakin' hysterical. I love it.