A well traveled man once told me that you either love India, or you hate it, there is no in between. Truthfully, there is too much variety and chaos in India to completely love, or completely hate anything in total. I love the sound of my hotel owner singing in the next room, but hate the million bugs buzzing into my face and arms as I'm trying to write. I love the food, but hate it's aftermath effects. I love the ginger tea, but hate that an 8-year-old boy was it's maker. I love the crowds and large sense of community, but hate when they are all in one bus with myself. There are pros and cons to everything. And therefore, looking back, I have compiled a list of my personal loves and hates of India.
1. The Wandering Pinkies and Man Love
In general, I like the conservative practices of the predominant Muslim and Hindu religions. While the arranged marriages and sex-segregated schools are extreme, I prefer it to the pregnant 13-year-old girls that I saw everywhere in Central America. Many consider the Indian man sexually suppressed by his culture, which is why he leers,stares, and cat-calls at the white women walking down the street. But very few actually are brave enough to go beyond that. But the few who actually venture out to touch another women have created a very stealth and sneaky method, which is so bizarre it is almost comical.
I had my first experience with this on a crowded bus in Rajasthan. After taking a seat next to a teenage boy, I felt, every few seconds, a brush on my upper arm. Thinking it was just an accident at first, since bumping and touching are common on the bouncy bus rides, I ignored it. But when I happened to look down, the boy had is arms folded across his chest and was stretching his fingers out discretely from his armpit. When I looked at them, he immediately pulled them back in like a frightened turtle, all the while looking casually straight ahead. Annoyed (and a bit confused on why he would want to touch my jiggly upper arm) I jabbed him with my elbow and put my purse down in between. Almost immediately his hand was on my purse. Not comfortable with that either I snatched my purse back and put it in my lap. He put his hand on the bench in between us and, ever so slowly, stretched out his pinky finger and brushed my thigh.
I grabbed both his wrists and threw them in his lap. It didn't seem to phase him and his hand went right back to the same spot and his pinky began wandering again. He even started playing "If You Think I'm Sexy" from his cell phone to set the mood. I finally yelled at him loud enough for the entire bus to hear, "Hey! No TOUCHING!" and he casually got up and changed seats. Talking to a girl from Switzerland the next day who had the EXACT same tactics used on her, I realized this is a common move in India, which I dubbed - the wandering pinky. Hate it.
But Indians, as a compromise to not touching women, have resorted to being very publicly affectionate with their male friends and family, and it is not uncommon to see boys with linked pinkies strolling down the street, arms around each other, and holding hands with interlocked fingers. I've even witnessed thigh-stroking in front of a textile shop. The man love: I love it!
2. Mob Justice
One positive thing in India, despite the wandering pinkies, is that I never once felt unsafe. For the past eight weeks, I'm pretty sure we were the most dangerous thing in India. While Indian men can be gawky and just plain annoying, I can credit them in never making me fear for the safety of my body or possessions. In Latin America, I clung to my purse and backpack as if they were life itself, and avoided late night walks home alone. In India, I've hiked mountains solo at 2 am, and passed my large pack that contains all my belongings off to the first Indian man who claims to work for the bus. He grabs the backpack and rushes off into a bustling crowd of people and I never think twice that it won't be there at the end of my journey. Why this is, I have no idea. Perhaps it's the Hindu sense of spirituality or superstition. Or perhaps it's the interesting way that Indian's take the law into their own hands.
Like most developing countries, the police are highly ineffective when it comes to administering justice. Because of this, when a small crime, such as traffic accidents and petty thefts, occur, the victim instead of notifying police, sounds an alarm to the surrounding crowd. The general public within earshot, assess the situation and determine who is the guilty party, and let out all their pent up Hindu rage in an angry group beating, which can often be very severe and sometimes even deadly. Afterwards, the bloody and broken defendant is dragged to a nearby police station.
While I never experienced mob justice to an extreme (Thank God), I did see it on a scale so minor it could only be comical. The first experience was in the Rajasthani capital of Jaipur. Jen, Megan, and I were shopping in the bustling old city when a rickshaw driver (a human beast of burden who transports fat locals around in a carriage attached to a bicycle) turned and craned his neck to look at the three white girls walking down the street. While his head was facing the wrong direction for driving, his carriage ran into Jen and a parked motorcycle, knocking it over.
"Ouch!" Jen screamed, "watch where you're going!"
The motorcycle owner also came out and yelled something nasty (I'm sure) in Hindi. The rickshaw's passenger in the carriage noticed the commotion, and as a completely uninterested party, reached out and gave the rickshaw driver a hard smack on the back. The driver looked at the bike and Jen, received the whack, and merely faced forward and continued to drive. The passenger sat back and began chatting with him like nothing had happened.
My second experience was in the backpacker ghetto of Delhi. Megan and I, hungry for a late night snack, were buying eggs from a street vendor, who was frying them up in a pan on a kerosene stove. While we were waiting for our tasty treat, a group of naughty teenage boys walk by and one of them gives Megan a lingering and hard butt squeeze. She whips around and immediately starts yelling, "HEY!! NO NO, NO TOUCH ME!! VERY BAD!! I ANGRY! NO NO" (Our English dumbs down for the non-native speakers). Our egg-cooker, looking from Megan to the boys, deduces what happened, sets down his frying pan, and walks out from behind the cart. He goes over to the guilty looking group of boys, and without saying anything, shoves one with both hands in the chest. Another shove. And one more for good measure.
Then he walks back behind the cart, flips the frying egg, and nods at us with a grunt, as if to indicate that justice has been served. Megan and I left a tip.
3. Mammals and Filth
A quote from Paul Theroux's book describes it accurately when he says "Indians value all life except for that which is human." You can see that all over India with the thriving population of animal life. Cows hog the roads and block traffic, stray dogs run in packs and howl all night, large hogs with hairy back bristles rummage through the trash, monkeys hop from rooftop to rooftop, and rats scurry along the floors of trains. The Indians merely swerve around them in traffic, shoo them away from their porches, and live in their filth. While I do agree with the ethical treatment of animals, to allow them to reduce the quality of human life creates an appears of life being backwards. Plus, having been attached by three dogs, a baby cow, and a monkey, my tolerance of animals (which was never very high) has dropped considerably.
The animals, however, can't take all the blame for the high quantities of filth in India. There are no garbage trucks or dumps, and trash is just thrown from people's rooftops and bus windows into the streets. Open sewers run through many cities, and people will stop on the side of the road, squat and relieve themselves. I don't often blame them, as the side of the road is often more clean than some of the hideous public restrooms, where even I've peed on the floor to avoid actually using the toilet.
But, like so much in India, amid the feces and trash, there is always something beautiful. Even the majestically white Taj Mahal is surrounded by meandering alleyways filled with sludge and crumbling homes. 
Indians are just more acclimated than westerners. Or they revere it as holy. In the pilgrimage city of Varanasi, people bath and drink the holy water of the Ganga River, while dead bloated bodies float a few feet away and hundreds of thousands of pounds of human ashes are thrown in from the cremation ghat (which is located next to the laundry ghat, by the way)4. Happiness to meet me
But the crazy spirituality and superstitions of the Indian population is probably what gives them the ability to tolerate western tourists like ourselves, who smother people in buses with our huge backpacks and clog their sewers with our toilet paper. Even with all my bad behavior, I was told after a broken conversation with a young Indian girl on a long hot bus ride, "I am happiness that you meet me." I don't think I've ever heard it put so eloquently.
Despite our cultural differences and language barrier, I've been welcomed with open arms into a large Muslim family, inherited a new protective and hilarious Indian brother, and was invited to a large Hindu wedding without knowing a soul, where we received more attention (and photographs) than the bride herself. The sense of community and family is something very beautiful in India, and the generosity of the poorest of people is gloriously convicting. Both virtues I see lacking very much in America and within myself: the sense of family and sharing. In the Muslim community where I spent several days, the house was shared by 11-15 people, which extended to the neighboring houses. Women talked over the rooftops while doing laundry, and called to each other from windows. 3 or 4 girls shared one bed, and they ate in big groups on the floor. "When with the family," my Indian brother Dilshad said, "You are a little bit more happy. When alone, feeling more sad."
5. DOODA LOO....pause...DO DOOT
And while I love the sense of community, I still haven't figured out if it is genuinely part of the culture, of if it is forced on them by India's massive population. People are everywhere. Literally. It is almost impossible to ever be alone. And there are many after effects because of India's massive amount of bodies. One that you will notice right away is all the noise, Noise, NOISE!!! You fall asleep each night to dogs howling, people yelling at each other, then singing to one another. Ever bus ride I've been on has had at least one person who nobly decides to add a musical soundtrack to the ride by blasting music from his cell phone.
Even if there aren't several people serenading the bus crowd, bus trips tend to be the loudest human experience on earth. Actually, any motor experience, or being within 100 mile radius of any road means that you will have the pleasure of hearing India's constant backdrop noise of honking. I think honking might have been invented in India. There is no purpose or reason behind 95% of most honks, but from the toot-toot of the car to the dooda dooda dooda loos of the bus, India's roads are screaming out 24 hours a day. I don't think Indian's even notice it, like the sound of the wind or breathing. There have been more than a few times that a motorbike has whizzed up behind me, laying on his horn, causing me to turn, with my fingers in my ears and scream "OK!! SHUT-UP ALREADY!!, only to have the driver look at me like a crazy person. My personal favorite, and one most likely to drive you clinically insane, have been the musical bus horns. All the driver has to do is tap a button on the dash and the long winded toots come out: DOODA LOO DOODA LOO DOODA LOO DOODA LOO DOODA LOO DOODA LOO....pause...DO DOOT.
The doodaloos and hoots of the street life: hate it.
Conclusion:
Despite it all, both the things that I love, as well as hate, have had positive effects on me. I am leaving India with the determination to develop a greater sense of community in my own life, within my family as well as my friendship, and to be at least half as generous as the population here. The conclusion, in the words of my female bus companion, is: India, I am happiness that you meet me!
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