Two months have speedily swept by as I ran across India. The sub-continent is too big to traverse in even a matter of years. The people I’ve met here, the generosity I’ve experienced, and the culture I’ve seen have bowled me over, kicked me while I was down, lifted me up, and fed me rainbows. It’s an extraordinary place, and it’s touched me more than any other in the string of nine countries I’ve just visited. I will most definitely be back.
Some valuable Indian lessons:
1. Chopped raw onions on any dish magnifies the taste by one-hundred.
2. India is a force with whom not to be reckoned. Even though the streets are dirty and taxis have to yield to cows, they know what they’re doing. It’s chaotic, but it works. They even have their own set of numbers: 1,00,000 is a lakh 1,00,00,000 is a crore.
3. Femininity is just a nose ring and some nail polish away. Really. I saw women spitting, squatting, yelling, sleeping on the dirty train station floor, or hauling bricks with a bunch of donkeys. And they never lost their dainty splendor in their bright colors and dangly gold trinkets.
4. Never take the first price or option. Always get a second opinion. Always think about it hard. Always bargain. This will help me throughout life. If I had learned this before Papua New Guinea, those damn villagers wouldn’t have taken me for all I was worth.
5. It is possible to say no and not feel guilty. You gotta do it. If I hadn’t learned to say no, I would be coming home with fourteen adopted Indians (two of whom are over forty), several plots of land, bolts and bolts of silk from someone’s uncle’s shop, and stakes in several businesses that are bound to be taking off any day now.
6. Positivity is free and hidden everywhere you go. You must find it. When you’re on that 23rd hour in a train, sweaty, with baby cockroaches playing in your bed, you better realize that you’re in India experiencing the world! It’s much better than sitting in a cubicle. If you don’t find the positive everywhere you go, life can be pretty hard. It’s all up to you.
7. Anything is possible. Anything. Especially in India. If you landed in a spaceship from the year 2356, and you needed to repair your ship’s Glantongerd-345 (because everyone knows Glantongerds are usually the first to go), you could walk into a shop that looks like a garage and hold up the Glantongerd. Even if no one there could help you, someone would know a cousin’s friend’s brother-in-law (which is ‘sala’ in Hindi!) who could. Without hesitation, he’d throw you on his motorbike, bring you to the correct garage-looking shop, and watch with you as a dark-skinned guy in a sweaty tank top welded a new part for you in about five minutes. For three bucks, you’d walk out of there with your shiny new Glastongerd and a horoscope prepared for you by a blind lady who predicted you’d return to India in the year 2356.
In that spirit, here is a video that epitomizes my theory. Eight months out of advertising, and I can still break down anything into a commercial: