I told you last week how some female visitors from the west had unpleasant experiences in the Indian Holi celebration in 2006. I had a talk with them about this incident right after it happened and a few days later and in my mind, one sentence that one of these women said remained very clear: ‘What I am most shocked about is that this happens in India! I could never have imagined!’
You may now, from today’s point of view, say what kind of naïve statement this is, when everyone knows that India is a difficult place when women’s safety is concerned. Who has informed himself a little bit at least about Indian culture knows that women are still far from being treated equally in this country and that there is still lots of work that needs to be done in this regard – and in many others. But especially spiritually interested people, yoga lovers and people fascinated by India’s heritage of philosophies of life often have a very different imagination of India. They tend to see India through rose-coloured glasses as long as they are in their own country.
Once they come to India, there is a big shock awaiting them!
I had spent many years abroad already at that point and knew very well that this is nothing uncommon. People imagine India to be a kind of paradise, a fairytale land where everyone does yoga and believes in non-violence. Where people pray for world peace every day and nobody commits crime, because everything is just about love. Where everyone lets the other one live freely and respects other people’s limits. Where nobody is interested in his own benefit but just helps each other.
I had also warned many friends and disillusioned them. More however I had heard of people who had come back from India early, a few days after reaching there, because their whole dream had broken down. Their whole imaginary world had fallen apart once they had reached India.
It is not the perfect place they had dreamed of. Not the place where everything was so much better than where they were. They had seen the poverty on the road and had been victims to pickpockets. They were cheated by taxi drivers and saw Indians with overweight who definitely could not do a full forward bend. Their guesthouse room was dirty and did not smell at all of the incense sticks they had at home. It was loud and not melodious like the mantras they were listening to during their meditation. And there was nobody meditating!
Disillusioned, disappointed and disheartened they reach back home. The perfect place on earth does not exist. The spiritual propaganda of the many gurus of that scene made them go with completely unrealistic expectations. India is an adventure, it is great, loud, colourful and fun. But it is not totally peaceful, not completely spiritual and not what you imagine from there, whatever that may be.
These were my observations and thoughts when I heard some people to talk about their trips to India, about their experiences in India or what they were expecting to see in India. And I knew then that there were such wrong expectations on both sides – when westerners come to India and when Indians go to the west!
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Since my childhood I felt a special interest for India. Before travelling to India the first time (already many years ago), I read a lot of books about Indian culture and nice places and organized a round trip for myself and my husband. It was not a spiritual journey, neither only touristic. After some days I realized, that I feel very well there, like home. I looked for contacts with local people and met very nice people, who helped a lot and invited us to their homes.
Some years ago I saw the movie “Slumdog millionaireâ€. I remember one scene, when a couple of tourists get everything stolen and the thieves tell them “this is also Indiaâ€. Very true. Nevertheless I almost everywhere felt safe. Maybe because I did not go to dangerous places and behaved in the proper way. By the way I appreciated your advices to Western travelers, especially women.
Most people in the West actually does not have a very positive picture of the country. They immediately think about the immense poverty, and nowadays also about violence against women. About sicknesses and dirt everywhere. Then I tell them about the smiles I got from very poor children, in their eyes I saw deep happiness, like I seldom see in the West. I tell them also about the very clean homes, much cleaner than the average in the West, and about the people I saw washing themselves and their clothes at the water pipes in the streets or in the ponds. They are as clean as they manage to be. This is my experience.