This was a question my driver asked me on the drive from the airport to the guest house I was staying at. I don’t know why, but the question struck me in a peculiar way. I answered with the answer he was looking for, “No, second time. I came a few years ago.” But as for the answer to myself, I was not satisfied. In the physical sense yes, I have been to India before. But even in those first few hours in my return to India I already felt so differently about this country that I was in less than two years ago. How could I feel so differently?
In many ways, I feel like it is my first time seeing so many things in India. I feel different here this time. Maybe it is because it seems familiar in some ways. I feel confident enough to walk around and see new things, to talk to people I’ve never meet, to bargain for a ride or something in a shop. This was far from the truth until the very end of my trip last time. But I’m also noticing different things. I know how some things work in India… but I also am fully aware that I don’t know how most other things work in India. I studied more about India and Indian culture before coming this time. I am here to study not only the Tibetan population and culture here, but the Indian population and culture as well. I also know enough to know that to even say “Indian population” or “Indian culture” is such a loaded statement (for how do you use two words to describe one nation with over 20 national languages; with over 20 states each with very distinct cultures; with five religions that have had a heavy influence on the nation; and not only thousands of years of history, but thousands of years of history that has left vivid imprints that still exist in the land today?).
I truly feel like my eyes are more open this time, more open to the real “India,” the India that is not just a young American’s first experience abroad, but a real, breathing, moving country with so much history, depth, and experience.
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