Originally Posted on July 21st, 2010.
July is quickly coming to a close, and it won't be much longer before I leave Bangalore and embark on our driving excursion to Northern India. Frankly, I am over living in Bangalore. Survival here takes ultimate patience as well as a greater indifference toward life, people, animals, and nature all of which I do not possess. There are times where the sights before me break my strength and I feel desperate. I can do nothing to truly change the circumstances, nor do I have the right to. My current college course in Environmental Policies has done nothing to take the discomfort away. All day I read about air, water, and land pollution and the fundamental basics of how we are destroying the earth. Studying it and witnessing firsthand, the very visible environmental degradation occurring in India puts me on a perplexing roller coaster of emotions that I cannot clearly identify.
While all of these issues are taking place in America in similar amounts, our pollution is masked by our apparent peachy lives. It's out of sight out of mind. Here, you suffer a constant reminder of the devastation we have caused. There is no comfort here, India is raw.
Anyone reading this may be confused by my apparent love hate relationship with India. All that I can say is that you have to experience it and understand the complexities of living here. India is a beautiful land with amazing people and culture, yet it is also a place where the unspeakable occurs.
At times, I have had enough of Bangalore, and I long for the simplistic comfort of home. Then at other times, I know how heart broken I will be when I return home and realize what I've left behind. My arrival here made me feel as though I had time to do anything I wanted. And now that I have 79 days left, I feel like time is slipping through my fingers.
July is quickly coming to a close, and it won't be much longer before I leave Bangalore and embark on our driving excursion to Northern India. Frankly, I am over living in Bangalore. Survival here takes ultimate patience as well as a greater indifference toward life, people, animals, and nature all of which I do not possess. There are times where the sights before me break my strength and I feel desperate. I can do nothing to truly change the circumstances, nor do I have the right to. My current college course in Environmental Policies has done nothing to take the discomfort away. All day I read about air, water, and land pollution and the fundamental basics of how we are destroying the earth. Studying it and witnessing firsthand, the very visible environmental degradation occurring in India puts me on a perplexing roller coaster of emotions that I cannot clearly identify.
While all of these issues are taking place in America in similar amounts, our pollution is masked by our apparent peachy lives. It's out of sight out of mind. Here, you suffer a constant reminder of the devastation we have caused. There is no comfort here, India is raw.
Anyone reading this may be confused by my apparent love hate relationship with India. All that I can say is that you have to experience it and understand the complexities of living here. India is a beautiful land with amazing people and culture, yet it is also a place where the unspeakable occurs.
At times, I have had enough of Bangalore, and I long for the simplistic comfort of home. Then at other times, I know how heart broken I will be when I return home and realize what I've left behind. My arrival here made me feel as though I had time to do anything I wanted. And now that I have 79 days left, I feel like time is slipping through my fingers.
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