Sights, Sounds and Smells Of India

I’ve wanted to visit India ever since I saw A Little Princess. I wanted to wear a white satin nightgown and lie on an elephant while beautiful women in rainbow saris sang Hindi lullabies to lull me to sleep. I was 5 when I came up with that image of India.

Fourteen years later, after visiting India, I still think it’s just as magical as I imagined. I didn’t see any elephants or wear a satin nightgown, but beautiful women in rainbow saris filled the streets, Hindi voices pervaded my dreams, and I almost always had tea in hand.

I spent most of my days in Cochin, eating palak paneer, butter naan bread, curry and drinking rich masala tea. Most of the left Cochin and flew north to Aggra, Jaippur and Veranasi, so by the third day, there were fewer than 70 students left and the noise level lowered significantly. I adore our shipboard community, but living in such close quarters with so many people is difficult at times, so the tranquility was refreshing.

My delightfully freckled, red-haired friend Rowan and I found a cozy hotel in Fort Cochin called the Old Courtyard Hotel. It was a charming white building with fewer than 10 rooms distributed among 3 floors. Our room overlooked the small courtyard from the third floor and was fully equipped with a large mosquito net to protect us at night.

In India, I tried to focus on sensations as the food is delectable, the colors richly saturated, and the scents extraordinary.

I was warned that the stench of India might be shocking, that I would smell it coming from a mile out at sea, that it would cling to my clothing and the humidity would fortify the odor and fasten its molecules to my hair. India is a large country and it’s possible that’s true in another part, but in Kerala, I wanted to bottle the scents and bring them home with me. Whenever possible, I bought bags of masala tea, bottled kerala flower essences and coconut oil, desperately trying to capture the smell of India and preserve it for myself.

Particles of diluted gasoline and coconut oil emanate from the Alleppey backwaters, but the surrounding villages are soaked with campfire and melted butter perfume. Curry pulsed through my veins and bled through my clothes in the damp heat, and my words tasted like masala and the cedar-scented gifts stores braided my hair with their fragrance.

Our meals were as aromatic as they were satisfying, filled with dashes of honey and buttermilk, nutmeg and coconut, and bananas and peppers. Rowan would say “we’re living this trip from meal to meal,” treasuring each and anticipating the next.

At one meal, I unintentionally bit into a black roasted pepper. I was speechless for nearly five minutes. My brain simultaneously shut down, and began shooting off in different directions at light speed. My pores nearly bled and I feared that my esophagus was slowly but surely disintegrating until it would eventually leave a gaping hole in my neck that my tongue would somehow fall through, leaving me mute and sweaty.

I won’t be eating and more of those peppers, but on the upside, I can now say I’ve had a near-death experience and my lucidity did gradually return with my ability to speak in tow.

It’s really not fair to compare to one another because every single one has given me wonderful experiences and introduced me to beautiful people and helped me find another part of myself. India is, however, the richest in culture so far. As I mentioned before, it is a huge nation and I learned from my fellow students who traveled north that different regions vary, but in the south, the Western influence was nearly nonexistent.

Apart from an occasional Kentucky Fried Chicken, I didn’t see any Western chains or hear any Western music. Women still live and work in traditional clothing and wear bindis and the upscale stores sell designer saris, not dresses or slacks. It’s the only place I’ve been that you can walk down the street and see every woman wearing the same garment, particularly one that flatters every woman wearing it.

Men walk hand-in-hand and no one thinks anything of it because in India, the concept of homosexuality doesn’t exist. It’s not even thought of as a real thing, so physical affection is strictly platonic and men and women do not touch whatsoever until marriage, so the craving for human contact can only be satisfied by holding hands or putting one’s arm around a same-sex comrade.

Personally, I think that denouncing homosexuality as a sexual orientation all together is terrible, but I do enjoy seeing a society where affection for one’s friends is openly accepted and doesn’t immediately sway people to suspect anything more than a platonic relationship.

Developing societies don’t tend to accept homosexuality but as they become more progressive, their citizens gain more freedom to express themselves openly. It’s illegal in , frowned upon in and only now becoming acceptable in , but among Chinese youth, it’s considered hip. Homosexual men and women are admired for their confidence and rebellion against the outdated mentality of former generations.

I look forward to seeing that when I do get to China, but Singapore and Vietnam are up next and I’ve been told stepping into Singapore is like being shot into the future, which I cannot wait to experience.