Initial Reactions Upon Returning to India

This is something I wrote in the journal I must keep as part of my course work associated with this internship. It's 5-6 days old now, but I thought I'd share because I write about how different India seemed when I arrived from how I remember it.

My initial reaction to the past five days of being in India is that this does not feel like India the way I remember it. There is even some disappointment in that reaction. I never expected New Delhi to feel like Varanasi and yet I find myself wishing it did in some ways. Varanasi was my first impression of India and in learning about it and experiencing it seemed so India to me. By contrast New Delhi feels part India, part international, which of course it is. I am finding myself having to reconcile the only part of India I ever really got to know with the reality of what India is. It’s both a struggle, but I think also very important to tear away the romanticization of India as old, breathing in ritual, and on sensory overloaded. The last is one of the most drastic differences for me. Varanasi and Sarnath were overwhelming in large part because my senses had never been used so much. I remember Sarnath had this incredible smell of burning wood that was ever present. In Varanasi the sounds of prayer, begging, vehicles of all kinds, and the cows were the constant soundtrack. In contrast New Delhi doesn’t smell much at all. It of course has its smells, all places do, but it lacks the smell I associate so deeply with India. I am excited to learn about this other side of India and get to know it, but it was certainly unnerving to arrive to a place that seemed so different from what I was expecting based on prior experience. More than anything I just need to get out and start seeing Delhi for what it is. It is my plan to take on that task with as much of my spare time as I can.

Photo is from the roof of the guesthouse where we are living. We are in a ritzy and quiet neighborhood that houses some of the smaller embassies. It's very different from Sarnath and Varanasi.