Submitted by Nathaniel Borders on the 2016 winter session program in India sponsored by the Department of English…
As spotty as the Wifi is, as cold as the showers can be, as smelly as the cities are, every step you take on the streets of Delhi and Darjeeling brings something new to the Western eye. It can be incredibly overwhelming at times. While walking on the streets of Delhi you might run into protesters for some unknown cause, mongrel dogs skulking by the roadside and a multitude of different street vendors selling food you’d never imagined.
Even having been to only Darjeeling and Delhi one thing is clear: India is far from a monolithic country. The culture is as different between these two as it might be between any of the European countries. Delhi has a primarily Hindu and partially Islamic undertone that is all but absent in the heavily Tibetan Buddhist influenced Darjeeling. These places had evolved independently with limited interaction before the British conquest and resulting unification. Each had its own culture and history that stretched back thousands of years. The food is different; the languages are usually different; the people look and act differently. There has been and will be an entirely different feel in each leg of our journey, resulting in continuous novel experiences and culture to adapt to.
A month is simply too short to begin understand any one of these cultures in any kind of depth, let alone all of them. This is due in part to their innate complexity and intensely involved history, but also the culture I come from being fundamentally different. Even with the British influence creating a bridge between Eastern and Western culture, many things just don’t make sense. Even so, I’m enjoying the journey and at least getting a flavor for the places we visit. It has been quite an adventure so far and I can only see it getting better as I learn to go with the chaotic flow that is India.