Open Wide – Travels in India and Pakistan #1 – India

Open Wide – Travels in India and Pakistan
Asia
I will leave for India and Pakistan in mid-May. It is most certainly not real for me. I’m not quite nervous, I’m not quite ready, and my head is not quite screwed on tight enough. I am writing this introduction not only for the strangers who may happen upon it, looking for information, but also for my family and friends so that they can monitor my trip as it happens.

I can’t decide what to call this travelogue. Obviously when you read it, a title will have been chosen, but as I sit here, an insomniac, recording silly titles on my laptop at 3 a.m., I can only come up with things like, Betel Late Than Never and Motherlandofthepure – Halving Fun in India and Pakistan.

I’ve spent this year preparing for the trip in various ways. I took a wonderful course in the History of India as well as courses that dealt with Colonialism and Orientalism. And all I’ve learned is that somehow I must learn to travel, tread lightly, make an effort not to essentialize the Indian and Pakistani cultures or report back only the “novelties” of the East. I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to go about doing that. The most helpful thing I’ve learned this year is that there is no real India, so attempting to see it is futile. This relieves some pressure.

I am planning on travelling and staying in backpacker hotels and guesthouses as well as with an international peace organization to which I belong that consists of hosts and travellers. As a traveller, I will be able to stay and interact with local host families. However, there are limitations to this option as an Indian kaleidoscope. I know that the majority of the people who participate in this organization that I will meet will be high caste, well-educated Hindus who speak English. And in Pakistan it will likely be roughly, demographically the same situation, only Muslim.

Why am I going to India? I can tell you I am not going to “discover” myself. I’m not going to become a devotee of a guru. In fact, I’m not going for any particular reason. This could be bad. This could be good.

I don’t have a consuming passion for India. Yet. Every time I travel I fall in love with the country. I do have much curiosity and interest about India and Pakistan. I love Indian food – the Gate of India restaurant in Hamilton, Ontario, was my favourite restaurant when I was little. It was my first introduction to anything Indian.

Later, before I went to university, I was introduced to the music of Pakistani Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan by my acting teacher and couldn’t get enough. I read poetry by Bhakti poets Mirabai and Lalla. When I went to the Univeristy of Toronto, intending to pursue a career as an opera singer, I sang some fairly obscure songs by American composer John Harbison, based on the poetry of Mirabai. I had an excuse then to place myself as the wick of a candle to which Krishna’s flame jumped in a moment of ecstasy. I imagined myself into India then.

And I love Indian music. In an introductory music course, when we came to the section on North Indian Classical Music, I was entranced. My professor and teaching assistant were both tabla players and were so passionate about what they did. I ran out and bought too many CDs.

But likely the catalyst for my trip to India was reading Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. I can’t decide whether it was the book, or rather my best friend, or perhaps medical struggles I’ve been having – Who can ever tell? There is no one India and there’s no one cause for this trip – that played the largest part in my decision to leave music, study literature, and go to India. My best friend Julia read Midnight’s Children and raved. My pure enjoyment of singing aside, slaving away at inane choir rehearsals, and resolving diminished sevenths in theory class had made me insanely jealous that Julia’s tuition fees went to forcing her to read great books. When summer came, I picked up Midnight’s Children and was struck dumb. After finishing it I travelled to Budapest and then to Vienna to learn German (an effort to improve a language I would need for opera) and when flying home, I opened the laminated brochure provided by the airline that drew in crayola-red lines where they flew and saw that one of those lines landed smack dab in India. Though my brain was going all over the map saying, I want to go THERE, and THERE, and THERE, I knew that India would have to be the first place I went.

So I changed programs to literary studies, started learning yoga, tried to learn a little about the South Asian subcontinent, and began planning this trip. In Midnight’s Children, the narrator Saleem says, “To understand a life you must swallow a whole world.” So then, I suppose I’ve decided on the title: Open Wide. It is in this spirit that I hope to travel: with eyes, ears, and heart wide open.