Indian Hospitality

Matt Wilson

Pigeon in Jaipur tower window.

Photo: Matthew J. Wilson

        As I slept peacefully in my hotel near Ranthambore National Park, I suddenly felt a slight pressure on my leg.  As I looked down the side of my bed in the half-darkness, two beady eyes were staring at me intently, hungrily.  I could barely see the outline of the face, but it was very clearly the face of an extremely undernourished individual, for whom ‘hunger pains’ I am sure no longer even came close to describing his day to day existence; he had sunken cheeks, and skin so taut and dry that is appeared to have been plastered directly onto bone, with no flesh in between.  And as I looked farther down his body into the darkness I could see nothing but black below his waist.  Even without seeing them, I knew that his polio-stricken legs, now far more of a hindrance than aid, were contorted permanently beneath him. 

        It was one thing to see this on the street in broad daylight, but in my hotel room in the middle of the night?  It was more than I could bear.  I tried to scream, but no sound came out.  I tried to run, but fear had fettered me to the bed.  Then, after what seemed hours of staring into those pained and hungry eyes, I broke my invisible chains and sat bolt upright in bed.  Still panic stricken, I looked around the room.  There were my roommates, Troy and Seth, sleeping peacefully, not a care in the world.  I quickly got up, walked to the door to insure it was indeed locked, then went back to my bed. But sleep did not return to me the rest of the night.  I fear that nightmare will haunt me for some time.

        As we touched down in Delhi, the smog was so thick I could not see the ground until we were actually sitting on the tarmac.  If we left India tomorrow it would not be soon enough for me.  Of all eight countries on the trip, India was the only one I would have preferred to skip.  But when you are taking a twelve week course, it is difficult to say you want to pass on two weeks in the middle. So I gritted my teeth to bear it.  As we got in our tuk-tuks and headed to the New Delhi YMCA, the location of our beds for the night, bums and beggars littered the streets everywhere I looked.  It disgusted me to the point that when we had the day free to explore Delhi, I would have stayed in our hotel even if I had felt well enough to travel about (I was already feeling the adverse effects of the malaria medication, malarone).  Then, when we traveled north to the Woodstock School, an international boarding school at the foot of the Himalayas, I received my first real taste of Indian Hospitality.
 
       At the school we were treated like guests of honor.  Everyone we spoke with seemed genuinely happy to have us at their school.  We were even invited into the home of the Indian teacher who lived next to the dormitory we were staying in.  His wife made hot chocolate from scratch for all eighteen of us as we sat around and completely filled their living room.  It was a delightful experience with two most generous and thoughtful people.  However, this view of India was only present for a fleeting moment as we headed back to Delhi and traveled throughout the country.
 
       Jaipur and Agra were nearly as unsettling as Delhi in that every time I walked down the street, I could not walk more than fifty meters without someone begging for money or following me down the street trying to sell some genuine fake souvenir.  In some ways Bharatpur was worse, even though the number of impoverished beggars was significantly lower.  Standing at the train station waiting for our hotel arrangements, I felt like a caged animal at the zoo.  More than forty pairs of eyes intently stared at me, with no taboo against direct eye contact.  Apparently it is not rude to stare in Bharatpur; it was really one of the most uncomfortable moments in my life.  And just when I thought I had had far more of India than I could stand, we reached Mumbai.
 
       At the train station we were greeted by an assistant of Max Chinai, our host in Mumbai, who ordered taxis for us to Daria Mahal, the Chinai’s bungalow.  As we arrived, we were shown where to take our bags and then immediately invited upstairs for a cup of masalla tea and biscuits, as this is the only civilized way to start a morning.  As we gathered around, Max explained to us that he was an alumnus of Hiram and how very happy he was to have us in his home.  He treated us like family in every way possible, and even went so far as to give each of us 1000 rupees to enjoy ourselves while staying in Mumbai.  If this does not constitute true Indian Hospitality, I do not know what does.    

    I have always had a nasty habit, as many Americans do, of stereotyping a place or country based on popular culture.  We lump everything about a country together, from its economy to its history to the local cuisine and even the personality of one or two locals, into our concept of culture.  This little stint in India has made me realize what a terrible view of the world this is.  This unthinking view accounts for why I was so disgusted in all the major cities; I simply focused on the poverty, the filth, and the pollution, dubbing this an experience in Indian culture that I would never want to repeat.  This is why such an irrational dream, along with the panic and fear it brought me, was projected by my sub-conscious.  If one good did come of this dream, it kept my negative view and distaste for a ‘culture’ alive and vivid in my mind long enough that I could see when we reached Mumbai how ridiculous it really was.  
   
    All the puzzle pieces started coming together in my mind--the generosity at Woodstock and in Mumbai; the begging on the streets in the cities; and, the key that led to each experience, relative wealth.  It is very difficult to be polite or generous to someone when you yourself are starving, and the only way to make those pains subside for a few hours is to annoy someone into giving you five or ten rupees (just a few cents).  Modesty is no longer an option in these conditions.

    On the other hand, the people who can afford, literally, to be generous and kind always have been in my Indian experiences.  It appears to be the culture’s mentality to be as hospitable as possible to one’s guest(s).  Indians who are not in dire circumstances are without doubt some of the nicest individuals on this planet.  I can hardly say the same for Americans when we have so much by comparison.  

    I may not ever be happy about the nightmare I had, but now I have come to think of it more as the beginning of an epiphany, the moment when I really started to open my eyes.  I might never have seen the true Indian culture without that frightening experience.

Matt Wilson

wilsonmj at my. hiram.edu

last updated September 10, 2008