An Indian experience, according to people I've talked to so far, does not come without a cultural shock. India is definitely not a piece of cake, not by any means.
There is no "Indian" culture or there are so many of them that in the end none of them sticks out. It's a country where everything changes each 200 kilometers you move: tradition, language, the way people look. A comment I heard put it so that India (though polarized in many senses) is more about regional politics than anything. When people are different so are their interests and thus a consensus is simply impossible. In a sense it is even unlikely that India would be one single country in its variety. But Indians have lived this heterogeneous reality since always. Migratory flows have been and are still an everyday phenomenon in the country and moving to another region Indians might face a totally new culture, language and society overall.
I've come to understand why who you are is so important. A country with 1,2 billion people means competition. Competition of the resources (water, food, electricity), competition of your space. Simplest example of this would be experiencing public transport during rush hour. Indians most definitely have to be competitive to get a living: a job opening that might get 20 applications in Europe might result in a thousand applications in India. Connections are everything. Moreover, in this environment full of competition and candidates you have to think carefully who to trust. Being a foreigner you screwed over, A LOT, unless you learn to stand up for yourself. You learn (sometimes painfully) how to distinguish who's telling you the truth and who wants to benefit from you.
What India teaches you is that you have to focus and prioritize. I have travelled and explored around, always excited to discover something new. India just makes me feel that there's no end to exploring. Everything is left shallow because once you've gotten to know to one thing, another always steals your attention. It makes you think, in this world where there are a huge number of paths to take, what is yours? What are you good at now and what will be your expertise?
Another thing is learning to be critical of the source. What people talk about are the "simultaneous truths", everyone strongly believing in their version of it. People are referring to different statistics and expert opinions. After all, there are no ways to simplify the practises of 1,2 billion individuals in charts, not to mention single out best practises.
What I'm trying to tell here is that when you go beyond tourism and really live and work in the Indian context, there are many things that will surprise you and not always in a pleasant manner. However, how would it sound to improve your understanding of the abundance of the world in terms of people, places and practices, to learn the principles of telling a truth from a lie, to be forced to think what is the path of life you choose, and to practice prioritization in terms of what should be awarded your attention.
There is no "Indian" culture or there are so many of them that in the end none of them sticks out. It's a country where everything changes each 200 kilometers you move: tradition, language, the way people look. A comment I heard put it so that India (though polarized in many senses) is more about regional politics than anything. When people are different so are their interests and thus a consensus is simply impossible. In a sense it is even unlikely that India would be one single country in its variety. But Indians have lived this heterogeneous reality since always. Migratory flows have been and are still an everyday phenomenon in the country and moving to another region Indians might face a totally new culture, language and society overall.
I've come to understand why who you are is so important. A country with 1,2 billion people means competition. Competition of the resources (water, food, electricity), competition of your space. Simplest example of this would be experiencing public transport during rush hour. Indians most definitely have to be competitive to get a living: a job opening that might get 20 applications in Europe might result in a thousand applications in India. Connections are everything. Moreover, in this environment full of competition and candidates you have to think carefully who to trust. Being a foreigner you screwed over, A LOT, unless you learn to stand up for yourself. You learn (sometimes painfully) how to distinguish who's telling you the truth and who wants to benefit from you.
What India teaches you is that you have to focus and prioritize. I have travelled and explored around, always excited to discover something new. India just makes me feel that there's no end to exploring. Everything is left shallow because once you've gotten to know to one thing, another always steals your attention. It makes you think, in this world where there are a huge number of paths to take, what is yours? What are you good at now and what will be your expertise?
Another thing is learning to be critical of the source. What people talk about are the "simultaneous truths", everyone strongly believing in their version of it. People are referring to different statistics and expert opinions. After all, there are no ways to simplify the practises of 1,2 billion individuals in charts, not to mention single out best practises.
What I'm trying to tell here is that when you go beyond tourism and really live and work in the Indian context, there are many things that will surprise you and not always in a pleasant manner. However, how would it sound to improve your understanding of the abundance of the world in terms of people, places and practices, to learn the principles of telling a truth from a lie, to be forced to think what is the path of life you choose, and to practice prioritization in terms of what should be awarded your attention.
This might not always be pleasant but to me, India has a lot to teach.
