Nov 122009
I left San Francisco late morning Thursday and 24 hours later, on Friday night local time, arrived in Delhi. About an hour before landing, I struck up a conversation with a pilot deadheading to India. He told me that it was tricky landing in Delhi on Friday because Delhi’s “fog” problem was complicated by smoke from the crematorium. He informed me they cremated their dead on Thursdays and the crematorium was near the airport. This was the first of many contradictory stories that I heard as I traveled around the beautiful and chaotic India.
While I’m not sure of the cause of the smog, I do know that it was overwhelming–my eyes burned and it was hard to breath. The air was soupy with the pollution that the ever-diplomatic guides wanted to call “fog”. I live in San Francisco, I know fog, this was not fog.
I immediately and reflexively started looking for similarities in our cultures; I found few.
Delhi’s streets are a jumble of cars, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, bikes, cows, and dogs. Horns blare to move someone, or something, out of their path but there doesn’t seem to be any road rage–it’s just the way it’s done. Our streets are ordered and relatively quiet, but heaven help the cow that would get in the way of the ambitious American on their way to the office!
In India ninety percent of marriages are still arranged and divorce is very rare. Americans marry for love, yet well over half of American marriages end in divorce. I couldn’t help but wonder if passion has been sucked out of their existence by tradition and replaced with calm.
But the biggest difference? America is a much more culturally secular nation. India is around 80% Hindu, American is around 78% Christian; both have secular governments but religion permeates every aspect of Indian life. We Americans compartmentalize our religion, taking it out when we need it and tucking it away when we don’t.
Some people travel with a critical eye: they want to compare host country to home country with home country being the gold standard. Others prefer to self-flagellate as they canvass new territory, constantly criticizing America and “other” Americans ( this may be uniquely American!). I like to travel with a live and let live attitude. Different doesn’t have to have better or worse attached to it–except for the “fog” in Delhi, I say viva la difference!
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