Just hours before I took my flight to India, a friend told me a story of a woman who’d been abducted in Delhi. She’d gone to use the bathroom in a restaurant, her friends had waited for her to return, but she never did. This was my friend’s way of warning me. I was a female traveling alone. To some this made me brave. To others, like my friend, it made me downright stupid. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I told her. ‘Trust me’. Others gave me cautionary travel tips. ‘Make sure you bring a silk sleeping bag with you,’ one friend had said. When I asked why, he told me how when he was in India he’d asked a hostel worker for a clean set of sheets. The hostel worker simply sprayed his dirty sheets with a can of disinfectant and gave them back to him. Another friend told me to be careful of the currency. Foreigners are sometimes given fake rupees in exchange, he said. So when I found myself newly arrived in India in a currency converter shop, wanting to change my money, I was distrustful.
I had stepped into the back of the shop and into the gaze of four men. The coolness of the shop had relieved me. It was 43c outside and pre-monsoon. One of the men was standing by the door. He said hello and gestured for me to sit on a plastic table the other three men were sitting behind. I told him I needed some water. I showed him my Australian dollars. He handed me some rupees. I studied them. ‘Sure I can use these?’ I asked. The man smiled. ‘Don’t be like that,’ he said. ‘You are in India’. He flapped his arms, looked at me squarely. ‘Fly,’ he said ‘like a bird’. Then he pointed to a bar fridge behind me stacked with bottled water, offered me one. ‘Go on’ he said. ‘Take one. It’s free’.
I left that shop reminded that expectations can limit us. I wasn’t going to let the experiences of others define my own. I was in India. I was going to soar like the beautiful eagles I saw in the sky. And I did. I let go. In Vanarasi I sailed along the river ganges at Sunset. I saw life, I saw death and I contemplated and rejoiced in mine. In Calangute, I rode a moped. I played snooker. Relaxed pool side with locals. Had a stare down with a stray dog. In Jaipur I crashed a wedding party. There was a procession of drums, flags, trumpets, horses and fireworks and I danced among it, spun by bright, smiling faces. I was at the Golden Temple in Amritsar when I found my divinity. An older woman late fifties, gestured for me to sit with her. I sat on the mat next to her and crossed my legs into a half lotus position. Speakers sounded the chant of the Sikh holy book. Sikh pilgrims circulated the shrine and we sat silently, taking in the moment as if we weren’t even strangers.
India was a coming home for me. It amazed and silenced me. Every day in Delhi felt like waking up on a Saturday back in Melbourne after the working week. I was comforted. Gregory David Roberts says in Shantaram that ‘The simple and astonishing truth about India and Indian people is that when you go there and deal with them, your heart always guides you more wisely than your head. There’s nowhere else in the world where that’s quite so true’. India is like no other. If I was going to give any advice for traveling there I’d tell people to let go. Set free all that you know or think you know and let your feelings guide you. If you do that, you will surely have no regrets.
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Undoubtedly Delhi is really a nice place but due to some bad incidents name of Delhi is news for bad reasons.Hope there will be no more such incidents.
Beautiful post about India. I felt the same overwhelming gratitude when I spent 2 months traveling through India last year. Many more happy travels! x
Excellent blog. Lots of useful information here, thanks for your effort!