Gora Map

The Pleasure of Your Company

You can never be alone in India. I have met so many wonderfully colourful characters on our walks through streets or in places we’ve visited. You simply can't walk more than ten metres without someone stopping you for a chai and a chat to find out more about who you are, where you come from, and how you are enjoying India. Talkative curious men line every street, some with hidden agendas, and some just wanting to practice English conversation, or make a new friend. I’m sad to say that of these friendly and spontaneous interactions, next to none have been with a female. Maybe that says something about my own conversational shortcomings? I don’t know. But from what I’ve found, it’s harder to make spontaneous connections with women in the streets than it has been with men. The women I have had the opportunity to share more than a smile with, I’d have to say, I’ve met under much more intimate circumstances. In fact, I could count on two hands the women who I feel I shared a real connection with and who have become part of my thoughts from shared memories.

The women at Ashok’s house gave me a glimpse into village life, with families and strong personalities forced to live on top of one another harmoniously.The first of these women who I met was Nanni. I can’t remember her name or if it was ever told to me. Nanni is married to ‘Uncle’ and is the head of the Nagri family. She looks like she is in her fifties and she has two sons and one daughter. Nanni has bright, smiling eyes that are curious. Her voice is gentle, even when she is angry. Her legs are thin, but strong. And she doesn’t seem to have as many joint problems as other people her age in the village. She greeted each day with a loving smile, touching my hair the way a mother does. Her maternal gentleness pours out of her through her openly transparent expression and her actions. And the resolute finality of her opinion was never lost in translation. During my stay with Nanni, she never seemed to stop working. Even when there was nothing to do for the farm, she would spend the day in the fields collecting wood or picking vegetables for the family.She seemed happiest and most comfortable when she was sitting on the ground outside the house with her grandchildren, watching them play with one another.

Dropita is thirty-five years old, mother of three and the wife of Sri Hari Nagri, Ashok’s brother. Her family is from a village about 50km from Terela past the town of Beed in central Maharashtra.She is a small but incredibly strong woman. She impressed me when I saw her comfortably balance 30kg of water on her head and carry two 10kg pots in each hand from the local well to the house, a two to three hundred meter return trip. Dropita has a broad smile and a fantastically enthusiastic head wobble, that I grew accustomed to. I got the impression that her children were beautiful reflections of her own traits in their excitability, athleticism, caring nature and a streak of crazy impulsiveness. I think our friendship was forged after she showed me how to properly take a bath with a bucket. I didn't mind being the source of laughter when the family realised that we needed a tutorial from her on how to maximize the water in a bucket. I am an expert bucket bather these days.

Kanjun is the wife of Bibishin Nagri. She is in her early twenties and she was married at the end of last year. It’s been just over a year since she has lived with the Nagri family. Her husband has been working and training at an army base camp in Bangalore since January and isn't expected back at the village until June. Kanjun taught me about sari style. On the night of the party she firmly shook her head when I pulled out a used sari that I thought I picked up for a steal. Instead, she selected a beautiful number from her own wardrobe, in traditional gold embroidery, showing me the difference between ‘bargain basement’ and ‘Indian elegance’.  She wrapped me delicately in the lovely material like her own sister and afterwards stepped back and nodded approvingly at her own handiwork.

Kanjun's responsibilities include chapatti making and cooking, water collecting and any household tasks given to her by her mother-in-law and helping her sister-in-law with all her housework. She is the youngest of all the wives in the house and treated so. Since she has no children she can dedicate all her time to chores and housework. She is quiet and generally only speaks only when spoken to. Often though, she would come into our room just to sit and talk. Kanjun misses her husband a lot, and is counting down the days until Bibishin’s return. She wants her own baby and it would seem that by having a child, she would gain more respect from her mother-in-law and more of a voice within the family. 

Pasang is a beautiful woman who owns a small restaurant at the top of the hill in Darjeeling. She always wore her hair down using a few bobby pins to hold back her hair away from her face. Her eyes are always lined lightly with mascara and this frames her eyes on her white skin, making her smile even more striking. She dresses comfortably and warmly with shoes she proudly announces are from her eldest son who is away working in the Middle East. In a photo she showed me of her when she was younger and travelling. She was wearing a red dress and she looked incredibly elegant and almost like a Japanese woman on her wedding day. Her husband is not around, but we never spoke of him, all that I knew is that they were in love. She runs the shop alone and sometimes has help from her son Karma. She seemed reserved towards us at first, but it’s only natural when people pass through her restaurant so frequently. We had the pleasure of hearing her infectious and uncontrollable laughter that confirmed to me that she is still a girl at heart.

Ang Mu is a mother of two and thirty years old. She lives in the only house in the district of Yurutse on the edge of the Markah Valley in Ladakh. Her marriage was “not a love marriage” as she told me. She lives with her in-laws, her husband and her youngest son. Her parents live in a village two days walk away. She never went to school. Her eldest son is ten and has been at boarding school in Leh since he was four. She smiles sadly while looking at her almost two-year-old son, and says, “When he’s four, he will go too.” Ang Mu moves and works silently, but laughs heartily when she’s amused and her smile is generous and kind. The family opens their house as a homestay during the summer to earn some more money during the tourist season. It is perfectly situated between Rumbak a popular rest stop for trekkers coming from Zingchen, and the Kande Pass, for those coming from Chilling. 

It hasn't been easy to meet and speak with Indian women everyday. They juggle family and everything else, as well as being resigned workaholics. I realised they're harder to meet because they're generally just very busy and don’t have much time in their days to sit down for a chat! The women I’ve been lucky to meet who have let me into their days, have come from different backgrounds and live in different settings, and despite being imposed into sometimes-difficult social and family traditions and situations, they seem to have found happiness even though it is sometimes born out of tolerance. Although my encounters with these women were brief, it was their independence that first jumped out in the look of their eyes upon meeting them. And while talking to them and hearing their stories, I feel it’s their internal strength, sense of humour and individual spirit that makes them unforgettable to me.

  

You Can't Walk Before You Crawl

As I approach the five-month mark, I have come to regard myself less like a holiday-er and more like a traveller. At one month, I was shocked by the overload of India and still unsure of whether I would be able to sustain life over here for the time I had told myself I would before leaving home. After two months, I had perfected a system for packing and moving, I had grown accustom to hard beds, frequent power outages and I let my taste buds and stomach do the judging of food and not my eyes. Two months would usually signal the end of the longest of holidays, but this was still just a formation. At the end of three months, I could deal with any form of transportation from train to tractor and many a stern stare in my direction could be broken down with a friendly smile and a Namaste. I had settled into a rhythm and I saw myself as well and truly in long-term-travelling territory. At four months, I could say that I was completely comfortable - out of the ordinary has become ordinary. The goal isn't to cross sights off a list or snap the oldest temple or the highest pass. Although these amazing things just happen to be along the way, there is more a desire to converse, to observe, to admire and absorb the soul of places rather than just the statistics they have attached.

To be a ‘traveller’ (for me) is to be able to create routines despite being constantly on the move and it involves adapting to each new environment through making real connections and affecting the foreign environment/ habitat with something of myself. It also implies redrawing the limits of my comfort, and not just surviving the journey, but thriving in it. To last the distance, I've had to take things slow. It might sound ridiculous, but sightseeing becomes more like a job and you need to take a break from it and live life as though you have lived in the place for years. Otherwise you’ll burn out from it, or worse, become desensitised to the majesty and beauty that surrounds you.

Learning to cope with the limitless inconveniences and frustrations of travelling and come out of these situations smiling is a skill that has been refined over these past months. The first thing that becomes quickly apparent is that a structured approach or any plans whatsoever, are never final. It’s not so much leaving decisions to the last minute, but in many instances, it means having to delay decision making or simply going with the flow and letting outside circumstances decide your fate for you. In these cases, fighting against what the Universe has in store is futile.

Constantly changing variables and negotiating immersion into a new culture every few days has become everyday life. In India, arriving in a new place, as soon as you exit the bus, you have to quickly assess your new environment and its people and make decisions on the fly. Moving states or cities equals new customs, new food and new local dress, sometimes new religious beliefs – completely new vibe. You have to gauge people around you – whom do I want to speak to, whom to avoid at first. But at the same time, you have to be open-minded and not avoid every tout or person who makes contact first. Sometimes the first contact could be the most valuable relationship for the time you spend in that town.

Being polite has served us well and I like to think it has even been a sort of protection for us in many ways, without being naïve. We have had what would seem like incredible strokes of luck, but it all comes down to conversation and first impressions. People who we have crossed paths with, have come back to us in a round about way, and we have had mutual benefits from the meeting – either be it finding a comfortable place to stay, needing their help in finding transport and revealing local secrets, hidden around corners opening our eyes to the intricacies of a city or the pulse of town. 

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late, or in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same; there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that or not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”