Travels and Me: A Reflection
It is funny, but when I travel to a country, as a tourist, I prefer to go to places that look more like everyday life. For example in New York, sure I went to Times Square and the Empire State, but I felt more excited when I was in Astoria, Jackson Heights, 9th Avenue, even the FInancial District, because they showed different aspects of New York's everyday life. What made me fall in love with New York were those small details as oppossed to the tourist traps.
So, when I read Journals like ragh_dr 's I feel inspired. Because he shows an India you would not see either in tourist catalogues, nor in most movies, nor in the biased books hell bent on showing the "poverty" and "filth" (whatever the hell the bias of the person considers them to be). He shows India from the point of view of someone who lives there every day, with the goods and bads of everyday life. He has done it in a very poetic yet not romanticized manner.
Aside of meeting my Indian friends and all my experiences here with Indian culture in America beyon the stereotypes and exoticism, this is what makes me want to go to India eventually. It's the mundane, more human details as opposed to the exotic. Same with cities.
My biggest dream (although it is going to take a while to get there) is to backpack through different countries, but not to see the big monuments, as much as to get lost in everyday locations, in everyday details...
Some people think that this is like treating the places as human zoos, but then, how would anthropologist learn about cultures or evolution. I think it is a human zoo if you get caught in the superficial. But for me it goes beyond that. For example, if you go to my pictures on Facebook, you will see that I take pictures of people passing by, regardless of what they wear, do, or eat. But pretending these things that are part of their everyday life are not there is absurd. Same with the friends of other cultures I have had. I learn about their cultures, but I look beyond that, because the culture is but one part of many of the unique experiences of my friends, just as my amalgamation of cultures is one part of mine; as much as it has changed while living in New York.
So, when I read Journals like ragh_dr 's I feel inspired. Because he shows an India you would not see either in tourist catalogues, nor in most movies, nor in the biased books hell bent on showing the "poverty" and "filth" (whatever the hell the bias of the person considers them to be). He shows India from the point of view of someone who lives there every day, with the goods and bads of everyday life. He has done it in a very poetic yet not romanticized manner.
Aside of meeting my Indian friends and all my experiences here with Indian culture in America beyon the stereotypes and exoticism, this is what makes me want to go to India eventually. It's the mundane, more human details as opposed to the exotic. Same with cities.
My biggest dream (although it is going to take a while to get there) is to backpack through different countries, but not to see the big monuments, as much as to get lost in everyday locations, in everyday details...
Some people think that this is like treating the places as human zoos, but then, how would anthropologist learn about cultures or evolution. I think it is a human zoo if you get caught in the superficial. But for me it goes beyond that. For example, if you go to my pictures on Facebook, you will see that I take pictures of people passing by, regardless of what they wear, do, or eat. But pretending these things that are part of their everyday life are not there is absurd. Same with the friends of other cultures I have had. I learn about their cultures, but I look beyond that, because the culture is but one part of many of the unique experiences of my friends, just as my amalgamation of cultures is one part of mine; as much as it has changed while living in New York.