Weekend in Mysore

Our program recently took us down to Karnataka to explore Mysore, Bylakuppe, and Melukote. I'd been looking forward to traveling after a month in Hyderabad and can happily say our trip was amazing. Rather than walking you through our (lengthy, packed, and detailed) itinerary, I thought I'd share highlights from our trip. Here's what I loved about our visit to Mysuru:

• Early flight: I don't think I can necessarily claim to be a morning person. Without a schedule, I will easily slip into near-nocturnality, and after two weeks of cancelled class, I had gotten into a steady rhythm of sleeping around 4 AM and waking up around noon. So when our morning flight to Mysore required me to wake up, rather than fall asleep, at 3AM, I was more than a little bit dazed. Our bus ride to the airport consisted of me and my roommate-for-the-weekend Rachel having a mildly-hysterical conversation about weddings and music and college roommates, and a coffee I chugged at the airport helped me to stay awake through our flight. But even though I'm not a natural early riser, I loved being able to take a early flight. For one, a sunset is infinitely more beautiful from the air, and for another, we were able to accomplish so much in our first day in the city.

• Good food: I love and appreciate good food, so when our lunch consisted of seriously fresh and presumably homemade paneer (among so many other dishes), I was stoked. And the fact that the two gulab jamuns I got for dessert were literally the best I've ever had didn't hurt either.

• Paper-cutting: A woman came to show us the art of paper-cutting and we got to participate in a cool DIY workshop. She had some stories surrounding her creations—including a peacock, a baby, her mother—that were perhaps unintentionally hilarious, but my friends and I had a fun time creating our masterpieces.

• Bus rides: Ever since Spain, busses have become my favorite mode of transportation, a fact that remains true in a country where roads are often bumpy and rides can be long. I've already written about how the bus rides gave us time to play, but I also appreciated simply listening to music, looking out the window, taking snapshots of the city and countryside passing by, and thinking about whatever.

• Palaces!: We visited the Mysore Palace, which is the most beautiful man-made structure I've seen. I mean sure, the Taj Mahal is objectively more impressive, but the stained glass doors, windows, and ceilings along with the overall decor and aesthetic of the palace reminded me of Devdas, one of my favorite Bollywood films, and our tour guide allowed us inside some areas not all guests were permitted to visit. Although not all of this was appreciated—the room of taxidermy was definitely not for me—it was amazing seeing places where kings had sat, princesses had explored. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take photos but I encourage you to visit yourself!

• Tibetan monastery and lunch: We visited the Golden Temple in Bylakuppe, which was beautiful, and had Tibetan food for lunch. It was fun and leisurely, and I had plenty of time to play with my camera.

• Dollu Kunitha dance: Saturday night, we got to see the performance of a Dollu Kunitha dance group, and even got to dance with them while they performed. I think for me, this and the Mysore Palace were the best parts of the weekend. I also got the chance to try out one of their drums and after dealing with sore arms, hands, and legs as well as a bruise on my lower stomach from the weight of the drum, I had some serious respect for the men who managed to keep a beat and create a loud volume with their drums, all while dancing. More than anything, I was just happy to dance with my friends and getting to try out the cool drum was just an added bonus.

• Iyengari cuisine: On Sunday, we had a traditional Iyengari lunch, and while we were served way too much food, everything we ate was delicious. We were also served on plates made of dried leaves and sat cross-legged on the floor, and I liked that we were able to add a bit more authenticity to our experience.

Overall, it was an amazing trip and I'd recommend visiting Mysore for the Palace alone. Here are some more photos from my trip:

Our trip was incredibly fun, and even though we were productive and fit in an incredible amount of sight-seeing in just one weekend, I didn't feel tired. I went to Bangalore this past weekend and have a trip to Bombay to look forward to soon, so expect more travel posts!

~ V

The problem with writing about India

Being in India is amazing. Or rather it's not; amazing is a silly word to use. It's diluting and reductive and doesn't begin to describe what being here is like, what I've seen and heard and eaten and felt. But the words to describe India are hard to find and putting them together to recount all the stories of the people I've met and the sights I've seen is even more difficult.

The thing is, writing of India is more than a little complicated. For one, I don’t want to misrepresent my own culture—or half of it, anyway. I don’t want to feed into the U.S. orientalism of Indians or Asians in general. And as my new friend Sara says, it's important that we don't share the stories that are already told, those that depict a very particular view of India, those that propagate stereotypes of in-your-face vibrancy or painful-to-see poverty. After all, India isn't Bollywood. India isn't Slumdog Millionaire.

In writing on a public platform for an audience I don't wholly know, I'm afraid to describe what is different in India, to speak of dirty streets and misogyny and spicy foods. I know that to some degree, friends and family and other readers who have been here know what I am describing and are aware that this is not all that India is, that this is not true for all of India. But for the readers who do not know, whose only impressions of India are those in movies and other media that show only one facet of Indian life, my descriptions do nothing to tell them what India is really like. In describing the way I feel walking down the street or going about what is slowly become a routine here, I am afraid to feed into an idea of India that, while not wholly untrue, is in not truly accurate.

What comes to mind when you think of India? As someone who was born here, I think of my grandparents and their homes. I think of the many family members who I rarely see. I think of faloodas and hot weather and shopping. But more than these images, I think of a feeling. I remember how being around my family makes me feel comforted. I think about a sense of home that comes with the dissonance of not fully belonging. And I feel so much more, things I'm still trying to cognize and understand and rationalize and process.

Another issue with writing of India is that I sometimes get overwhelmed by the millions of stories of Indians and Indian-Americans that aren’t told. For one, while my Indian-American peers and I have experienced more subtle racisms than overt acts of violence or brutality, there are thousands of individuals who have dealt with much more. A few days ago, about half of us from our CIEE group visited an NGO called Shaheen. We met with about thirty women who had dealt with experiences such as rape, child marriage, domestic violence, and adversity finding educational opportunities. 

When I tell you this, when I share diluted snippets of their experiences, I want you to keep in mind: this is not what India is. This is not all that India is. This does not only happen in India. This is not a reflection of India, but it is a human rights issue that is to be understood across many dimensions.

It gets to the point where I hesitate sharing these stories. Even in the selection of photos, I try to stay away from just photos of cows, stray dogs, palaces, and forts. These are the images of India that are already shared and overshared. It's not that doing so is wrong in and of itself. Rather, it's that I want to post consciously and I urge you all to consume consciously as well. As Sara and I were discussing, there is no final answer, no clear right or wrong. There’s no resolution or big solution to all of this. But that doesn't mean you stop trying, stop questioning.

At the same time, rather than avoiding speaking of India altogether, I feel compelled to share these stories because so few people talk about these issues. The absence—or rather inaccuracy of representation and lack of a thorough presentation—of Indians and Indian-Americans in American media is astounding and frustrating to me. In The Karma of Brown Folk, Vijay Prashad writes, "In the United States the bulk of the desi community seems to have moved away from active political struggles toward an accommodation with this racist policy." I too have found in the Indian-American community a tendency to accommodate ignorances rather than to resist struggle, to question, or to act. With this in mind, I can't help but feel a sense of duty; if I don't talk about this, who will? If I don't stand up for myself—for ourselves—who will?

It disenheartens me when people don't stand up for themselves or when they are unfazed by subtle racisms. On one hand, it's a sign of accommodating themselves within the system, acquiescing to centuries of racist and imperialist ideology and orientalism. On the other, it adds more pressure upon me. Why aren't all of my peers politically involved, equally frustrated with the inequities and injustices? It makes me question myself and my convictions. Am I taking this more seriously than is needed? Am I making a bigger deal than is necessary? 

But then I think about how this is how this sort of ideology and discourse functions, that with injustice comes a tendency to internalize misogyny, racism, etc. and to transform self-worth and one's experience of oneself. Across the board, whether you consider experiences of disability, race, gender, sexuality, and other groups that are or have been systemically disenfranchised, there are those who have had to be responsible for their people, who have had to be the pioneers of their communities. Of course, I in no way mean to suggest this is what I am; rather I remind myself to be grateful for those who are and to perhaps borrow a bit of their courage, passion, intellect, and bravery. It might be that this frustration and this unrelenting passion is a reflection of my youth. But it's 2016 and I'm tired of accommodating ignorances and apologizing for who I am and what I stand for.

You might be asking, what is India? If it's not just bad traffic and street dogs and spicy foods, what is it? Well the thing is, that can't be said. Of course, it isn't possible for me to sum up the entirety of what a country is in one blog post. But for me, India is family. It's a weird sense of home closely tied to the contradictory sense of not fully belonging. It's an educational experience of understanding another way of living my life and being or becoming myself. It's early mornings and late nights and a sense of calm amongst chaos. So yeah, there is bad traffic and street dogs and spicy foods, but India is just so much more.

~ V

Goodbye D.C., hello Hyderabad!

{me and my mom in Bombay circa 1999}

It's official—I'M GOING TO INDIA!!!! This spring semester, you can plan on visiting me, my falooda, and my improved Hindi at the University of Hyderabad. I am so excited for this journey and all it means to me and can't wait to blog about it the whole way through.

As some of you may know, I was born in Bombay and moved to Lagos, Nigeria and Houston, Texas before growing up in my small town in New Jersey. And even though I used to visit India every other summer, it has now been six and a half years since my last trip to my other home. Even still, I can vividly remember how each trip changed me, made me rethink views I had, made me compare the two sides of my identity and grow beyond being simply Indian or American. 

India always makes me think, grow, and feel in ways I have forgotten, and sometimes even in ways I never imagined I could be. It might be in part that I had changed so much in between trips that going to India served as a marker, a reminder of who I was. I got to see my growth and change through the eyes of family that only saw me every two years. But I think visits to India went even beyond that. 

When you're an Indian-American kid, you're always working on a balancing act, and when you're younger, you let Western culture dictate a lot of your feelings about yourself, your relationship with your racial identity and culture, the decisions you make, the borders you draw between the two parts of yourself. But coming to GW has changed a lot of that for me. Partly because I got out of my small, nearly homogenous town (which I still love), but also because I made friends who were figuring things out for themselves, too.


Going to India as a kid forces you to acknowledge that, though. You're forced to look at the decisions you've made to be this much Indian or this much American. I'm always teased by family in India about how "American" I am, or how much of my "culture" I've lost or retained. But at the same time, here, today, in America, a similar thing happens. My friends and I joke around with each other all the time about how "Indian" we are for loving Bollywood or certain foods or whatever. The term "fob," for those who don't know it stands for Fresh Off the Boat, and it becomes a sort of way to police immigrants and second-generation kids about how they've defined their culture, what parts they've chosen to keep or let go off or whatever. So either way, you're policed—whether it be by yourself or by others—about the decisions you've made.


For me, I've come to value the parts that make me who I am more than I'm capable of describing. I love that I know four languages, that I have multiple cultural and linguistic lenses through which I can look at things and make sense of the world around me. Take something as trivial as skin color for example. Traditional Indian culture favors fairer skin, while here in America it's not uncommon for people to hop into tanning beds or lay out on the beach for hours. I'm not trying to say that one is right while another is wrong; I don't know that a right and wrong necessarily exist. It's just that understanding both sides has allowed me to love the skin I'm in, quite literally. I don't mind that I turn "pale" in the winter or that I tan ridiculously quickly in the summer. Having the two lenses enables me to decide for myself who I am, what I want.


But cultural duality goes beyond that in a way that I'm still learning about and still trying to understand. In that sense, I look forward to letting Hyderabad push me; I welcome the moments that will teach me through tough love as much as I await those that will remind me what raw, unforced, unadulterated happiness feels like. And lucky for me, the University of Hyderabad offers courses in my fields—English, Creative Writing, and Film—but I know that the majority of the learning I'm going to be doing will be outside the formal academic environment. 

I've been planning my study abroad experience for months, but every time someone asks where I am going, I am almost reluctant or embarrassed to answer. A professor asked me the same question this week and I froze before answering quietly, trying to stop myself from offering some sort of bullshit explanation or justification as if it's at all necessary. But I can't ignore the fact that I feel like people look at me and assume that I chose India because I am Indian. Needless to say, being Indian-American certainly has to do with my love for and connection with India. I can't say what my relationship with India would've been if I wasn't Indian; I don't know who I would be if I wasn't Indian. But regardless of that fact, the assumption that I chose India is diluting and reductive, making my decision to be there less than what it is. Even my Indian-American friends are sometimes confused, asking why I would go to India when there are so many other places to choose from. And the thing is, I can't blame them. Because for the longest time, that was me. I was uncomfortable with parts of my identity, back before my culture became "cool" and bindis were an in thing to sport at music festivals, rather than another reminder of me being Other, another way for people to awkwardly ask me about who I was and what I was. I used to feel weird for being Indian, and sometimes I definitely still do feel like that weird little Indian girl sitting in class. But luckily, I've come quite far since that. Luckily, that's changed a lot.

And the thing is, with my relationship with India being what it is right now, I've really wanted to go back and live in India for an extended period of time, to let it shape and form and mold and change me beyond what six weeks of living in my grandparents’ flat in Bombay can do. I want to live and learn about the life I could have led and almost did lead, but even beyond that, I simply miss India, miss it with every fiber of my being to the point that it hurts and I fear being unable to recognize the country, the world, I consider my own and consider my home. I worry that it has changed too much in one direction and I too much in the other and that when we meet the connection we had will be lost, that it will no longer be mine, that I will not belong, that I will belong even less than I already did.

I feel as though I've lost a big part of me and sometimes I'm even afraid that it's too late to get it back. But you know what? I’ll be damned if I don’t try.

~ V

Thoughts on travel

{Roman sunset}

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to travel. Maybe that’s just what happens when you’re born in one place but live in three, all spanning across different continents, by the time you even turn three. I’ve lived in Mumbai, Nigeria, Houston, New Jersey, D.C., and now Madrid; had my family or I chosen to stay in either of these places longer than we did, my life would have gone in so many different directions. Who would I have been if I hadn’t met my best friends or lived near the family that I am so close to? If I hadn’t met the people who introduced me to Kurt Vonnegut or Kanye West lyrics or The Office? I think the one of the many, many reasons I travel is to compensate for that. My life could have been drastically different and I’m grateful for every place I’ve been to, and if they’ve all shaped me so much, how much more could I grow by adding to that list of cities? How much could I learn and grow after three months in Madrid or six in Amsterdam or eight more in Mumbai or anywhere, really. The place isn’t as important as the people you meet there, the people who make you think and grow; think about yourself and your views and where you come from, where you're going, and who you are. 

You never fully appreciate home until you leave. This is true for America when I go to India or Nutley when I moved to D.C., and even for Madrid while I was in Italy. New isn’t always good but new definitely adds to you: how much you know, how deeply you think about certain things, how closely you hold certain parts of you to what you identify with. So yeah, travel is quite important to me. It always has been, and always will be. But right now? For the first time, I want to stop traveling.

When I first came to Spain, I was excited. I was grateful. On one particularly early and sleep-deprived morning, I cried because of how grateful I was to be here in Madrid, doing what I am. Grateful to my parents for making this possible in every sense of the word, but also to myself for valuing my desires and ambitions more than simply the progression of my career. For investing in myself wholly rather than in just a part of myself, as I would have been doing if I had chosen to intern somewhere this summer. (Hell, at one point I even shed a tear to a Drake song. But then again, if “Look What You’ve Done” doesn’t make you appreciate how far you’ve come or how far your family has come or how much your parents have done for you, then your soul is dead my friend. But I digress.)

But now I am tired. Maybe I’m jaded. I no longer fully appreciate every unique building, every sunset, every stroll through new streets and new neighborhoods. And that just isn’t me. The concept of gratitude and of appreciating every opportunity and every moment of beauty or happiness or peace is such a big part of who I am. One of my favorite quotes comes from a Kurt Vonnegut anecdote in which the author talks about his uncle Alex, who often made a point of stopping to say, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” And that’s what I try to do, too. If these evenings in Madrid, if these views from long train rides, if these glasses of wine and conversations with strangers and new words learnt aren’t nice—then what is?

But somewhere along the line, I’ve lost that appreciation. I was talking to a friend back home and found myself complaining about how I didn’t want to travel anymore, not for a while at least. I need a break after this summer is over. I said to her, “After all, there are only so many cathedrals and museums and parks you can see.” And I stand by that, too. Too much of a good thing really is, well, too much. It gets old and mundane and tiring and you stop valuing it the way it deserves to be valued.

This past May, before leaving for Spain, I was talking to another friend about Madrid and Amsterdam, where I wanted to study abroad this coming spring semester. She had been to China the summer before and loved the experience. We got to talking about Europe and she spoke about how she didn’t feel the need to go there. She had been to Austria to visit family before and it was enough for her. I was confused. I had only been to Europe for the first time the summer before, to London, Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, and Amsterdam. I had loved it all and thought that she was being a bit unfair; in such a diverse continent how could one have had enough after visiting just one part of one country?

But now I see what she meant. The places I’ve been are definitely different from home, but only to an extent. I feel like I’ve learned so much here and I’m grateful for it all, but going to a few more countries and cities won’t do what I need it to. It won’t make me think differently or grow in any way, not when I’m as tired as I am. In a few years, when I go back, I’ll have grown and changed enough that the setting will be able to add to me. But at this point, it’s not going to make a difference.

(I’m trying to be careful here; I know Europe is a big place with an indescribable level of diversity and opportunity to grow and develop. The issue isn’t Europe here, it’s me and where I am right now: tired, weary, jaded, and in need of a break.)

At this point I’m reconsidering study abroad. At moments, I wonder if I even want to do it, which if you know me at all is insane. I’ve been looking forward to study abroad for eleven years, since my aunt spent six months in Australia and loved it beyond words. But even if I do study abroad (and I do think that I will), I’m reconsidering Europe. I’m reconsidering Amsterdam and instead I’m considering places across Africa and Asia, especially India. Being Indian-American is an enormous part of who I am and I think it would be incredible to live in the city where I was born, to reconnect with family that I would’ve been closer to, to explore the neighborhoods that would have been my own. I will never not be grateful for living where I am, for being Indian-American and for the people and places I call home. But sometimes I wonder. Would I still have the views and thoughts I do, be they religious, political, or otherwise, if I still lived in Mumbai? Who would be my friends? What would I think of the family I have in America? It would be amazing to go back, to live in the city that changes me and challenges me and teaches me so much every time I go back. 

I used to go to Bombay every other summer and at this point, it has been six years since my last visit. I celebrated my fourteenth birthday in India and as I inch closer and closer to twenty, it hurts to think about how long I’ve been away from one of the places I still consider home. India has changed enormously since I’ve been away, and there’s nothing weirder than returning to a place you call home and having it be drastically different. Regardless, I know I want to go back and I think to myself, if I don’t live there now, then when?

I still plan on visiting about four more cities this summer; it seems silly to not take advantage of being here and having my weekends free to explore Spain and Portugal. Coming here, I didn’t expect to want anything but Europe. And all those cities across this continent will remain on my wanderlist. But until I’m ready to explore them, until I’m at a place where I will be able to appreciate and enjoy them as much as I potentially can, I’m taking a break. And I’m reconsidering things that I thought to be true, which if you ask me, is one of the biggest benefits of travel anyway.

~ V