Why India?

Up until about two or three years ago, I had really no knowledge of nor interest in India. Although, just a bit before then, neither did I really think I would ever be able to travel internationally either, so I had never thought about where I would live or want to visit outside of the United States. Doing so seemed impossible when considering the amount of money it took. But after my study abroad experience to France and after working in the International Study Programs office for a year, I built an ever-increasing relationship with the Field Study program. One location many students went to, and where the field study coordinators had done their own field studies, was India. As I prepared to go on my own field study to Italy, I was hired by the field study office and thus became more and more exposed to the bits of Indian culture that my coworkers would talk about. To make a long story short, my coworkers –who I eventually began to call my family- took me out to eat Indian food at Bombay House and India Palace for the first time…and the second time…and the third time…and for forever more. I returned from my Italy Field Study, started reading books about India, and took a Tamil class. I’d listen to my friends talk about their time in India. I went to the Hindu temple in South Jordan, Sri Ganesha. Eventually, through it all, I came to have a really large desire to go to India and experience it for myself.

With that being said, since I became interested in traveling and in having international experiences, I always think about my desire to go and live in [insert whichever location] for a few months. Is my reason for wanting to go ethical and rational? Why India? Whenever I am able to go, will I be going for the right reasons? Am I going just because I don’t know what else to do in life, because I’m running away from something? Am I going because my friends have brainwashed me into wanting to go, because I want to better belong and fit in with them? Am I going to just promote some ingrown (though for me, definitely unwanted) ethnocentric colonialist perspective, to see for myself that the USA really is “better” just like so many believe?

One weekend, my Field Study family and I went to a condo in St. George for a retreat. Since there were limited beds, a few of us piled in one to sleep for the night, and in the morning we were just laying there with each other talking about things. One of my friends asked me, “Why all of the sudden are you interested in going to India? Where is this coming from?” I immediately felt under pressure. Everyone else in the room went silent to hear my response. I knew I had to make this good, but I couldn’t really vocalize my feelings about it in that short of a time. So I gave some lame response… I don’t think my friend was very satisfied with it. Til this day I still feel ashamed and guilty about that response, both because it really revealed my naivety on India, it didn’t make me look so hot in front of this friend (who was my close friend –now my roommate- but who at the time was also my boss, and thus someone I had wanted to impress), and because, honestly, it really did display that at the time I probably didn’t have a good reason for wanting to go.

Since that day I have thought a lot upon the subject. To be honest, in my youth I did have a tendency to do things because I wanted to better fit in with my friends (who didn’t?). Additionally, I have had another tendency of extremely pursuing things on a whim instead of waiting to see if it is something I really want. The day my friend asked me that question was in January of 2012. After that, I kind of took a mental step back from the topic of India. I was taking a Tamil class, but I emotionally let myself detach from the idea of going, in order to really see if it was a real desire or just a fleeting fancy. The months passed of me being involved in a lot of things and keeping busy. But I still thought of going to Tamil Nadu quite often. I don’t think there was a specific day of me suddenly saying, “You know what, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I have officially decided it is something I want to pursue.” As my interest in it held, I felt more assured. My roommate continued in teaching me Tamil. I wrote an Anthropology paper on dowry marriages in South India. In my World History class we talked a lot about the history of India. I took a class on Globalization in India, a class that was very informative, but also a bit biased. It always seemed to point out the stereotypical negative aspects of India. I always joke that if I made it through that class and still want to go, then my desire is real.

One main passion of mine that has influenced my desire to go to India (and to many different places) is to see life from a different perspective, from a different way than how I have grown up and been raised. A lot of negative stereotypes of India are floating around. Some may even say that India is a “bad” place to go to. I am not quite sure what people mean by this. “Bad” compared to what? Compared to the U.S.? Compared to western Europe? On what scale are we measuring whether or not a location, or an entire country (!!), is “good” or “bad”? I am being a bit judgmental when I say, “I don’t know what people mean by this” because I think I do. Before spending time outside of my culture, I used to think the same way about places (and probably still unintentionally do sometimes). We get used to our U.S. American standards of living, to our cultural values, and thus when we visit someplace different, we judge what we see by our norms. Really, that isn’t the best thing to do because when we visit other countries, we’re not in the USA anymore! How can we expect everyone and everywhere to be just like us? Just because somewhere is different than where we have been raised does not mean that it is bad, or that those who live there are of any less worth or value. Not only can we learn from going abroad or living somewhere different than our place of origin, but we have so much to learn from those who see things differently than we do.

To narrow down my desires of going specifically to India, I feel that the more we are “exposed” to other cultures, the more interested we become in them. I say “exposed” with quotation marks because I haven’t had first hand experiences in Tamil Nadu, but I have been learning a lot about it (as explained a bit earlier in this post). I learned a bit about Hinduism, I have learned a bit of Tamil, studied a bit on Indian history, read the Ramayana, heard about the friendships my friends have made with their host families in Tamil Nadu, and I became more interested and gained a stronger desire to inquire further about these things and to experience these things myself. Additionally, I have a lot of questions about how different values specific to India (religions and ideologies, and institutions such as caste, gender, class, etc.) affect one’s views on life. Plus, I have recently begun to have a strong passion for history. After my world history class and a few lessons surrounding India, my attention has been drawn to wanting to learn more of the history of Southern India. On an official BYU field study, students went into the field with a main project focus or question. Though I won’t be going on an official field study, I still want to develop a main question or project topic, but I haven’t yet decided what I want it to be on. I have a feeling it will have something to do with some historical aspect of Tamil Nadu.

Furthermore, I think that I, and most people, are attracted to areas of the world that are different from their own. I had a hard time thinking about this; for a while I almost felt ashamed. But after talking about it with my friend Heather and after pondering over it for a bit, I don’t feel that there is anything necessarily wrong with being attracted to things that are different, as long as we recognize it and aren’t condescending in our approach of learning more about different cultures. Even having a fascination for or certain feelings of protectiveness over a person or group of people can cause a heightened border between the self and the other.

Overall, I’m sure that as I continue to think about it, I would be able to better succinctly define more reasons of why I want to go to India. Not only did I want to formally write why I want to go, but I also wanted to focus on reasons why persons want to go abroad, especially why students want to go on study abroad and other international programs. There need to be a raised awareness on this question. Are we going for good, thorough, and ethical reasons? Are we being the typical U.S. American and traveling somewhere to “find” ourselves, to place responsibility on a location to help us figure life out? Are we going in efforts to prove that our way of life is “better?” Are we going to take advantage of the location’s luxuries (the food, the expensive hotels, the famous landmarks), all the while not considering getting to know the people who actually live there?

In closing, I want to challenge each of you to think about and identify why you wish to live or visit abroad. I’m not saying that everyone has to think like me, or that everyone has to travel for the same reasons I do. Yet I definitely advise thinking about your reasons of wanting to go and 1) making sure they are at least ethical and not promoting an ethnocentric view and 2) arranging your trip according to your identified reasons/purposes of going. You never know. You might find something out about yourself when you begin to ponder your reasons of wanting to have international experiences.