Five Days In

The fact that I was coming to India first sunk in as I bit into one of the chilies on the vegetable curry we were served on the Jet Airways flight from Brussels to Delhi. My obsession with food combined with two years of exploring every kind of ethnic cuisine available in New York resulted in what I thought was an admirable tolerance for spice. I was proven instantly naïve, and for a couple minutes after I bit into the dark red dried chili I thought my throat was going to explode. There was no end to the coughing, the crying, the water drinking, and finally the downing of yogurt we had been given in one hurried gulp. None of it helped, and eventually I gave up the prospect of finishing my meal.

This one detail is one of the many humbling moments I have lived since I arrived five days ago. I agree with the saying that India is incapable of an understatement, and everything from the amount of beggars on the street to the majesty of temples is a reminder of the incredible worlds that I remain ignorant of.


So far, I’ve been lucky to see so much that defines the lives of others. For instance, the many temples I had the chance to visit in my couple days in Delhi have allowed me to glimpse religious existence to degrees highly uncommon –and often rejected– back home. In just a couple of days, we’ve been exposed to numerous practices and encountered individuals whose lives are defined by spirituality. Among the temples we visited are the Gurdwuara Baangla Saahib dedicated to the eighth Sikh Guru, Hanuman Mandir, a Hindu temple revolving around devotion to Hanuman (who incidentally happens to be god of students), Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India, and this Jain temple hidden at the end of an unexpected courtyard hidden amongst the bustling little alleyways of Old Delhi.

In addition, since my arrival in Pragpur (a tiny village in the Himalayan foothills), we’ve stumbled upon several small temples on our hikes. One of them, hidden behind a school, contained an underground passageway to a cave where a devotee lived when he renounced light for a year. It’s interesting how the expressions of spirituality encountered here seem almost opposite to the opulent temples I saw in the capital. No less breathtaking, they’ve led me to realize that, when claiming that India has no subtleties, it’s not just true that all the colors are vibrant and the tastes strong and the poverty intense. Rather, the peace of the countryside, the asceticism I witnessed today, is no less impacting than the thousand-year-old gold paintings I saw in the Jain temple in Old Delhi.

Tomorrow we leave Judge’s Court, this beautiful inn built in the early twentieth century in Himachal Pradesh. Despite the cold that seeps into everything and doesn’t leave when you go inside (in fact, quite the contrary), this is my last taste of comfort for a while. This place is amazing. The furniture and the buildings have been so well preserved, and though there is no heat, I am sitting by a well tended fire and a hot water bottle has been slipped underneath my covers. More importantly, hot water is available from the showers, and the toilets are all western style. Oh, and I almost forgot: perhaps to my misfortune, there is wifi. Tomorrow, when I arrive at the Sarah Campus of the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, it’s bucket showers and squat toilets from here on out (wish me luck).

As fearful as I am of making the adjustment (what if I have terrible aim?) I know that, if anything, my concerns over toilets and showers are silly; I shouldn’t let a little cold water get in the way of anything, as tempting as it is. Additionally, I hope that the five weeks in Sarah Campus will be the beginning of lots of beautiful challenges. I hope that what I learn will force me to think more critically about the life it’s so easy to live blindly in a city as busy as New York (though this is an easy excuse to make). What’s more, I am crossing my fingers that my Tibetan improves beyond Tshal Momos, one of the few phrases in my repertoire. Meaning vegetable dumplings, if my Tibetan doesn’t improve I risk eating this and only this until mid-June.

As I finish writing this I feel the guilt of someone sending a mass text. I feel that I owe every friend and family member a personalized account of my experiences abroad in India, but there are so many of you I might not get a chance to leave this fireside if I do commit myself to such a task. I hope you’ll forgive how general these accounts are, and enjoy knowing that you are in my thoughts half a world away.