India is a country full of contradiction. From the West we imagine that India is a spiritual country, everybody is practicing yoga, everyone love each other, there is poverty everywhere but everyone is happy.
India is not a country like other.
India is a choc, a cultural choc. Nothing is the same as in the West, everything is different.
Even though India is on his "westernisation" as it is a big country there are still some places where time has stopped. Sometimes it feel that we are back to the Middle Age.
No offense toward Indians, it is my personal experience.
I am from the West, from Europe, from France, from Paris to be precise. I have lived in Canada as well.
I used to live on my own, not really attached to my family or to any potential boyfriend, the world is my home, wherever I go I'll go and wherever I stay I'll stay. I don't ask anyone, I just do my thing and hopefully everything will be fine.
When I first travel to India it was in 2012 and I hated it.... I did not understand the country, the first 48 hours were excruciating, the country was smelly, dirty, people were staring at me, I just wanted to cry and go back home. First experience Mumbai. Never again I swear.
I did what all tourists do (or most of them are doing) I choose to go to Goa.
Goa is not India as they say, but who cares, I was happy, Mandrem was a nice place, I wanted to study Yoga which I did, I was happy, I was in love the country and decided to go back.
I came back at the end of the year 2012 this time in Kerala, Kovalam to be precise.
The lighthouse reminded me Byron Bay in Australie, all indians were holding hands while walking by the sea shore, some of them are piercing ears and I could not believe it, I thought "what a beautiful place and open country, all gay men are in Kovalam!".
Well I was wrong, soon I understood that it is very frequent for Indians to walk by the street with your friend (male) and hold the hand, nothing at all related to their sexual orientation....
And I also notice that Kerala men where probably the worst men I will ever met so far in India, for them a white chick is an easy chick. They have absolutely no respect for foreigners ladies, therefore they will be looking at you like a piece of meat and would try to convince you to have sex with them, and will be VERY SURPRISE if you decline the offer..... welcome to India ;-)
Fortunately now I am living in Mysore and the only thing I will have to complain, as a general complain, is just the "staring thing", whatever you do, wherever you go, even if there are thousand of tourists in Mysore someone will stare at me while doing my food shopping. Now I am used to but it is still bothering me.
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| This is where I live, surrounded by rice field and sugar cane - Shrirangapattana, Mysore India |
I can not drive in India - why? well because I want to have a long and happy life. Also I am not used to drive on the left. As I can not drive for whatever I need to buy or to visit or to go out I have to ask the driver. I can not do anything on my own, everything has to be planned.
Not only because of my regular Yoga practice I became more flexible in all possible way.
No water - whatever,
No electricity - okay it will come back,
No washing machine - the bucket will be fine,
Big spider - well can someone help me to move it outside,
Rice today, tomorrow and day after tomorrow - at least it is a gluten free food,
Frog in the bathroom - very normal, no stress, it will eat the mosquitos.
Things that used to pissed off in my country now can be managed under control. However things I did not know could happen now really driving me mad such as abandoned cows roaming in the street, seeing a poor horse beaten up by stupid guys, garbage, garbage, garbage and garbage everywhere you go in India...... people expressing themselves very clearly such as spiting, peeing even poohing, belching out, completely normal here.
On the other side the country is absolutely beautiful, the scenery, the sunset, sunrise, animals everywhere, I still continue to take in picture the monkeys in the trees.
India is not an easy country, it is very challenging.
There is a huge culture gap between India and the Western world, actually it is two different world. At one point if you want to "integrate" yourself you have to stop to make any comparison about anything because nothing can be compare to India.
So yes, I do believe if you decide to live in this kind of country in some way you need to compromise a lot and to forget a little bit of yourself.
I am taking this life experience as a growing experience, I know it will help me in my future life project.
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