The Real India

When I travel I invariably say "I want to see the real [fill in the country name here]".

I have only the best intentions when saying things like that. I mean, essentially, that I want to experience life in that country like a native would. I want to stay in the thick of things, eat in authentic restaurants with the locals, use the available public transportation, walk, explore the side streets, talk to people. I want to immerse!

Versus, being housed in a chain hotel near the airport, shuttled around in the largest vehicle that can safely maneuver the streets with 50 blue-haired Americans, participate in carefully scripted souvenir buying, eat at restaurants that can efficiently deal with 50 blue-haired Americans (while maybe not serving the most authentic local food). I might as well stay at home and spend the day at Concord Mills, as explore the world this way.

And I find myself overwhelmed because India has so many different realities to see. High tech modern country with an exploding economy; the largest democracy in the world with a new PM from a modest beginning; a country with a vast gulf between the haves and the have-nots living elbow-to-elbow with one another; an ancient society where a rigidly held system of social stratification is starting to deteriorate with increased wealth and movement of young people to cities; a traditionally religious population revering millions of instances of the One True God; it goes on and on.

I expect that my immersion will be in the new High Tech India, and that my excursions into traditional areas may be only as gritty as my guides can acknowledge.

And as a girl from One-Stop-Light-Ville South Carolina, I totally understand.