Hey you. It’s been awhile.
I know you’re feeling like you might have made a huge mistake. It’s okay – studying abroad on the other side of the world for a semester is a big deal. It’s okay though. I know so many anxieties are running through your mind – what if you don’t bond with the group? What if you can’t handle the literal heat? What if it’s absolutely horrible and you’re stuck there? God, and that’s just the tip of the iceburg.
You play it cool – you brush it off as if it’s no big deal, and it’s true that you’re mostly excited. But oh man, there’s still that fear that you’re making a big mistake in leaving the comforts of campus for a semester in a wildly different country.
However, I’m here to tell you that it was the opposite of a mistake. You can’t even begin to fathom the things you will see, hear, eat, smell, pet, touch, cry at and laugh at. Yes, campus is nice and you’ve got the day to day school life down pat, but this will surpass even your wildest dreams.
When you get back, you’re going to be obsessed with scalding hot showers, but you’re going to miss the small victory of managing to make the water lukewarm. You’re going to have a hard time breaking the habit of always carrying a scarf with you not for warmth, but to be able to cover your head in case you stumble across an incredible mosque. You will not miss the sleepless nights due to fireworks, explosions, and sparklers, but you’ll now not only associate fireworks with New Years and the Fourth of July, but also Diwali.
You can’t even begin to wrap your mind around the sheer number of cows, water buffalo, monkeys, goats, and dogs you will see on a daily basis, even in the densest urban areas. You’ll eat foods that you never even knew existed and you’ll never be fully satisfied with masala milk chai again after drinking the liquid perfection from your host mother’s stovetop. You’ll learn how to wrap a sari, haggle down prices like a boss, and become a professional jaywalker.
You’ll sleep in a row of beds within a library on a rural school campus, and you’ll fufill your childhood dream of being like Madeline (luckily, your appendix is already removed). You’ll see the sun rise over the Ganges, pose in not-so-simple ways at the Taj Mahal, and stay in a seaside bungalow in Pondicherry. You’ll go fishing with some locals in Chennai and eat the fish while still in the boat out on the Bay of Bengal, and you’ll dodge waves on the Arabian Sea in Kerala.
And oh man, you’re going to love the group. Don’t worry – you’re actually going to make friends! You’ll form the weirdest inside jokes in Hinglish, and with them you will learn how to dance Baranatyam, sing basic ragas, go on adventures, and learn how to say “the monkey is not a bomb”. The co-leaders will be so incredibly supportive and ensure that the program is the best that it can be.
You’ll meet a crazy cast of local characters too – a pompous history grad student at the University of Delhi, a boisterous café worker in Banaras that loves to play chess, VANDANA SHIVA (!!!) and a whole slew of top-notch intellectuals and professors. You’ll go to nightclubs in Delhi where you’ll see Elijah Wood (yes, as in Frodo Baggins from Lord of the Rings) perform a DJ set, you’ll stay in a rural ashram in breathtaking Kerala, and you’ll see the most incredible buildings you’ve ever seen.
You’ll hang out with bats and djinns in a centuries-old Delhi mosque, you’ll see a Shrek themed restaurant in a posh Chennai neighborhood, and you’ll get human ash in the form of crematory smoke in your eyes on the burning ghats in Varanasi. So don’t you fear – that weirdo side of you will definitely be nurtured, even if you won’t be in the States for Halloween (but spoiler alert: you’ll be on a backwaters houseboat, which is a top-notch alternative).
You’re going to become a pro at jumping onto moving trains and using Indian-style toilets. You’ll go to one of the best art museums in Delhi that will rival any that Paris has to offer. You’ll get really good at navigating narrow alleyways, all while dodging cow dung and motorcycles. Also, you should be forewarned that you’ll become addicted to lassis.
Towards the end of it all, you’ll look back and be amazed at how much happened over the past three months. You’ve changed so much – you’ve gotten really tan, you are more assertive, and you can now sleep wherever you lay your head. The cities become your textbook, and you’ll fall in love with learning by exploring. Varanasi will crash its way into being one of the top five cities you’ve ever visited, and you’ll have the privilege of living there for a month.
So yeah, it’s true that you’ll end up missing soft beds, toilets with seats, fresh air, andand the lack of car horns, but you will want to stay so much longer. You’ll form a list of places you want to visit next time you return to this incredible country, and India will enter your heart as a third home of sorts.
So relax. You’re going to love it here. I promise. India is waiting for you.
Banaras, India
Nov. 24, 2015