I arrived back home from India after a month-long trip, visiting family and attending a wedding. I had a lot of thoughts while I was there, but they’re not very concrete, so I’ve decided to bullet point them here for now. Maybe I’ll clean them up in the future and write something more blog-posty.
- Status and respect is heavily tied to wealth. I suppose idols are very big in Hinduism, so maybe that’s part of the reason people put wealthy people on pedestals?
- Power dynamics are in play everywhere in daily life. Example: bargaining at a market. The shop owner may have so much competition that they need to do anything to keep the customer around. The customer understands this and has much more leverage to bargain, walk away, etc. Store owner has to be respectful, at the least, to keep customers around.
- I am still dependent on my parents/family when I’m in India. I need to learn better Hindi to get around this. Until I’m more comfortable with the language, I won’t feel comfortable in India by myself.
- Rajasthan is beautiful. Colors are everywhere, cities are vibrant but not super packed. I didn’t go to Jaipur this time around, but Udaipur and Jodhpur were an amazing time. I also really like shopping at the local markets.
- There’s a difference in the Marwari we speak at home and “true” Marwari. I met a Dadi in Jodhpur and I had a lot of trouble understanding her, partially because she was talking quickly, but mostly because I just didn’t know some of the words.
- Buildings and homes wear down quickly. I’m not sure if in India, people view flats as investment properties like they do in the US, but I’ve noticed that due to the weather conditions (humidity, dust, etc.), buildings wear down very quickly. Some buildings that were new when I had visited 8 years ago now looked like they had been around for ~20 years.
- Malls vs Bazaars vs Boutiques vs etc. There’s a lot of different shopping options and each one has their benefits. Malls tend to be considered “fancier” I think.
- Transportation is cheap. I didn’t take any public transportation, but rickshaws and cabs were so easily available that the only thing you have to worry about if you’re out is getting ripped off.
- Traffic is pretty bad though. A lot of metro systems are being built, which is nice, but generally speaking, there’s so many cars on the road and no one really adheres to traffic rules/regulations (except in Mumbai), so it’s generally chaos. A lot of your day will get stuck here if you don’t time your days well.
- Air quality, trash, etc. Saw a ton of people relieving themselves on the side of roads, piles of trash, smelled things burning, etc. India really needs to address this before full development can be under-way, imo. The situation in Delhi sounds especially bad, and thankfully I didn’t end up going there this trip.
- This is a generalization, but the attitudes of people towards their homelands are very interesting. People feel entitled to things like comfort, respect, etc. “I earned it so I deserve it”, kind of. I haven’t noticed very many people wanting to make their home better (clean up litter, call out others, etc.). I also didn’t put myself in situations where I could find those kinds of people anyways, so maybe this one’s on me.
- At the airports, there was no conception of personal space. Especially in lines, like for bag check in or security, people will be breathing down your neck, and if you don’t say anything about it then they won’t move. Not really sure why this happens, even when the queues are organized (aka, no one can sneak in and cut you).