A conclusion, of sorts, or lack thereof
“He who travels far will often see things
Far removed from what he believed was Truth.
When he talks about it in the field at home,
He is often accused of lying,
For the obdurate people will not believe
What they do not see and distinctly feel.
Inexperience, I believe,
Will give little credence to my song.”
- Hermann Hesse, Journey to the East
A man stopped to talk to me on the trek down from Kedarnath. What are you doing here, why have you come, what did you see, what did you learn, what impressed you? I felt like I was being quizzed or interrogated, and I could tell immediately that he had some sort of template in mind. I told him the truth. I was incredibly moved by the mountains, the hike was a beautiful feeling of human pain, I was amazed by the determination of so many people. "You have seen nothing. You have learned nothing. Goodbye."
Much of this accompanied the entire trip. Before hand, there were discussions of what one should expect, and what we want to get out of this trip. During our time there, there were debates over what was worth taking in, and experiencing; debates about what this trip was about; debates about what kind of experience was a valid one, and what kind of experience was missing the point.
As the man trounced off down the path, I reflected. What he said had struck me deeply. I certainly had missed something. I missed the experience that he had. John, I missed the experience that you had. Dan and Betul, I missed your experiences, and I missed the experience of not taking the trip at all, of spending a summer at home, of going backpacking in America, of an infinity of other things. All experiences are as such. We filter reality through our own perceptions, our own mind's eye, and our own personalities. However, I did not learn and see nothing. I missed the experience of being more deeply moved by the religious and human aspects, and he missed the experience of being more deeply moved by the artistic and environmental aspects of Kedarnath. Who is to say which experience is more valid?
Often during the trip people spoke about the great importance of entering an alien culture. It teaches you about other people, and another way of life, and that in turn teaches you about yourself. You learn about what you value, what makes you uncomfortable. What you take out of a trip to India shows you a part of who you are. To superimpose some sort of template on what should be experienced on a trip is to subvert the incredibly important experience of learning about oneself.
Of course, as I have conceded already, to have one experience is to not have another. To not superimpose a template is perhaps to lend no importance to seeing things apart from one's own natural mode of thought. In the end, I suppose the best thing is to, like always, find the balance between the two. Without the one, a person learns nothing about his or herself. Without the other, the person learns nothing about anyone else. I think on such a trip, the two are equally important.
That equality is an important thing to remember and cherish when traveling in a group. Two people can bicker back and forth forever, because they have different intentions and preconceptions. I think it is rare and beautiful to find a person who exudes no personal desires on either type of learning, and discovers her or his self and everyone else simultaneously and spontaneously. However, the majority of us go into a trip like this with desires. We think we want to get this and this and this out of the trip, or that and that and that. We think it is more important to get this and this, or that and that. We are even so attached to our own personal desires, that when someone else is missing that experience, we feel they are missing everything. Of course, they are missing no more than we are. Everyone is missing something. But we forget that fact, and put value judgments on one type of experience or something. It is good to point out what someone is missing. They can reflect on that, and learn about why they are missing it, what that means about them, and then next time perhaps they won't miss it. It is bad to say someone is missing the important thing (this I state as true, but realize it is only an opinion). To state that one is missing the important experience is to devalue his or her own experience, and thus devalue she or he. I don't think that is productive.
Now, I think I have extinguished myself on that topic, and I would like to switch gears. The question now on my mind is as follows. You made this trip to India, you have put off writing the paper for weeks, finally you want to write about your experience, and this is what comes out. What does that say about you? What does it say about me that I am writing this paper about judging other people's experiences, rather than writing about poverty, or babies pooping on street corners, or kids clinging to my leg in train stations, or cripples with dysentery, two half limbs, one full one, and a couple of fingers crying to me saying "Please sir, 10,000 rupees is not enough. I will die of this disease." What does all of that say about me?
I don't know. Maybe nothing. Maybe it says more about this assignment. I think it would be more effective to write ten poems about my time in India. Or twenty. For me the trip is more like snapshots than an essay. We jumped from poor Delhi to rural Mussoorie, to the madness of Kedarnath, to the spiritual vacationland of Rishikesh, to Little Tibet (as I have affectionately nicknamed Dharamsala). I could write one and many poems about each place, and the poems would all be completely different and have different messages and tones. I am not trying to blame any of you, I know that you have to give some sort of assignment. And for others it is probably much better than poems. I just feel limited by this paper, and I so desperately want to convey what India really was to me. I am struggling to figure out how to really do it in this paper. No matter, you will have my journal, and that will serve better than this.
You see, I don't really know what to say. I can tell you something like this:
I was in the train station, on the way to Dharamsala. It had been a long day. I was tired, exhausted. I still felt sore from Kedarnath. All I wanted was to sit down. But I looked around and saw filth. There was trash everywhere. The smell of feces and regurgitated digestive juices emanating from the tracks. On the ground was dirt and grime and grease, and homeless children. I looked at them, felt sorry for them, and thought how I just don't want them to touch me, and how if they did I would want to wash my hands. I kept on standing, with my pack (and all my possessions) on my back. I didn't even want to put my pack down, because the floor looked so uninviting. Finally, the weight was too much, and I was too tired. I took off my pack, put it on the ground, and sat on a chair. A begging kid walked up to me and didn't touch me. I put some rupees in his hand. I think our hands touched. I wasn't sure, but I wanted to wash my hands. There was a water fountain or a sink or a bathroom, but I felt like all of those would have been even dirtier. I folded my hands on my lap, and tried not to think of the microscopic world beneath my fingernails...
Or:
Aarti is a weekly ceremony that they hold on the banks of the Ganges. It is interesting, and people come from all over India to see it. Everybody crowds around the river banks, and many people even plunge in, bathing in the fast moving water. There is much anticipation. Little children and sometimes even grownups walk around dispensing lotus-shaped flower baskets with little candles in the middle that people can light and send downstream. The ceremony starts with bells and music right as the sun sinks beneath the horizon...
Or:
It is clear that religion is of preeminent importance in the lives of humans. One can see the illuminating nature of this truism the world over. It is lacking in no culture. Indeed, religion and culture are so closely intertwined that it is not even clear which is a manifestation of which, or if both are manifestations of each other in a constant flux of give and take. Superceding all other aspects of life, as one can witness in the mountain pilgrimage site known as Kedarnath, is the importance of the deeply metaphysical and asecular understanding of a higher being, reality, or goal. There is everywhere and in everyone a striving for this higher ground, this godliness. What is omnipresent and unchanging is not the nature of that godliness, but the quest itself...
In the end though, my trip was all of those things, and far far more. To write a five page paper on this is a somewhat dubious task. I want to write an honest paper. I want to be true, and not give you five pages of narratorial fluff, or stream of consciousness mumbo-jumbo. I want to try and put you into my head while I was in India. The problem with that though, is that I am not ‘in my head while I was in India’ now. I am in America now, two months removed. The best I can do is try to put you into my head now, as I recollect India. I don't know how well I am accomplishing that task, but as I said, you will have my journal. Look for this essay there, and pay less attention to these vain attempts to try and recollect something that was mysterious at the time, and even more uncertain now.
posted by Chris | 7:01 AM
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