Originally posted on June 4th, 2010.
India has started to claim my love. Everyday I walk the streets. It is the least I could do to really experience life here. This world is so foreign in so many ways. Nothing that I see is home, I don’t understand the things I see. So much of it makes me sad. But every time I step out my door and put my foot to the pavement, I start to feel this loving connection, as if here is home in some odd way. So I walk, and I watch the people and the dogs. The strange, loud, and absurd Bangalore. I watch people go about their simple lives. And I witness their basic love for life. How is it that ten thousand miles away, there can be a place where most have immense amounts of belongings; a place where achievement is high and everything we need is supplied, how is it, that people there can be so unhappy but those I see here.... they are? Yes there is suffering, so much suffering. Life here is all about survival. But I see the enjoyments of simple things in life. I see people with their families, sitting outside and just being. They smile and laugh when I walk by them, or if I talk to them. They are so basic and most have this brand of innocence I’ve never seen. The children love when I take their picture. I show them on the screen and they light up. The women are shy of me, they smile nervously and turn their heads away. They all wonder why I am here. I wonder what they think when I walk their streets, stare at the environment around me. Most stare, some don’t acknowledge me there at all. Almost everyone I encounter is kind to me. And I have the inclination even those I take as rude aren’t intending it to be that way. What is about India? I can’t even find the words to describe it.
India has started to claim my love. Everyday I walk the streets. It is the least I could do to really experience life here. This world is so foreign in so many ways. Nothing that I see is home, I don’t understand the things I see. So much of it makes me sad. But every time I step out my door and put my foot to the pavement, I start to feel this loving connection, as if here is home in some odd way. So I walk, and I watch the people and the dogs. The strange, loud, and absurd Bangalore. I watch people go about their simple lives. And I witness their basic love for life. How is it that ten thousand miles away, there can be a place where most have immense amounts of belongings; a place where achievement is high and everything we need is supplied, how is it, that people there can be so unhappy but those I see here.... they are? Yes there is suffering, so much suffering. Life here is all about survival. But I see the enjoyments of simple things in life. I see people with their families, sitting outside and just being. They smile and laugh when I walk by them, or if I talk to them. They are so basic and most have this brand of innocence I’ve never seen. The children love when I take their picture. I show them on the screen and they light up. The women are shy of me, they smile nervously and turn their heads away. They all wonder why I am here. I wonder what they think when I walk their streets, stare at the environment around me. Most stare, some don’t acknowledge me there at all. Almost everyone I encounter is kind to me. And I have the inclination even those I take as rude aren’t intending it to be that way. What is about India? I can’t even find the words to describe it.
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