India — a few closing thoughts.

By Glen Bruels
This is part of a series called Seabourn Half-World cruise
Show More Posts

Today is our last day in India; tomorrow we fly to meet the ship in Dubai.  Unfortunately, as I write this, I am sitting looking out over the ocean with a case of “Dehli Belly,” rather than touring around the city as originally planned.  Having said that, our time in India has been nothing less than amazing.  India is an explosion to the senses – the sights, the sounds, the aromas, the tastes, and even the “touch” of the country.

We encountered so many pleasant surprises and largely debunked a lot of the preconceived notions we had about India before we arrived.  Like many other countries, India isn’t a “uniform” experience.  It is largely reflective of the history, people, culture, and belief systems of the regions and states that make up the country.  Even though we were only here for a week, we got to experience a lot of it.  You will learn more as I put up the individual posts for each of the stops we made along the way.  I would like to offer a lot of kudos to the Oberoi Group, whose hotels we stayed in at each of our stops.  Not only were their properties and service spectacular, but they also arranged the entire ground portion of our journey – from airport transfers, to drivers, to tour guides.  It made life a lot easier and let us focus on seeing and learning about the country.  A couple of particular “shout outs” go to Shruti Khattar, the woman from the Oberoi Group I worked with to set up this sojourn (everything was totally planned for and arranged, and all the properties knew better than we did what we were supposed to be doing) and Suresh, our driver for five days (his driving skills got us through a lot of exciting times and he always got us where we needed to go).

So onto some initial thoughts – the best insights I can muster up with a total experience of one week in the country.  First of all, I think I can safely say that we loved India and look forward to coming back.  People here seem to be generally happy and pragmatic about their lives, no matter what their station or circumstance.  I think this is because of their belief system that, at it’s center, revolves around karma (good or bad actions that we each take and the ultimate reaction (or response) to our actions).  But this karma doesn’t just result from interactions between humans; it applies to all living things (some variations exist between religions).  Consequently, we often saw people stopping in the morning to feed the birds grain and water as an act of good karma.  The second influence is their religion – primarily Hindu.  Key to Hinduism is the belief in reincarnation.  This is where karma becomes real – the ultimate “you reap what you sow.”  Hence living a good life filled with good karma, should lead to a better next life.  But they don’t have to deal with this totally on their own.  Rather than a single, all-powerful God, Hindus have over 330 million gods, who really reflect various aspects of a Supreme Being (e.g., knowledge, power, love).  But the key is that the Supreme Being isn’t some detached, controlling/judging deity.  Rather, all living things are part of “god” and each of the Hindu deities reflects all of the manifestations of life on earth (not just ultimate “good” or “evil).  Consequently, there are lots of gods and goddesses (in their various incarnations) to call upon for help and guidance.  The last thing we learned is that Indian people tend to be very superstitious.  They are big believers in astrology (no, not the horoscope column in the newspaper!) and for centuries have been deeply into astronomy and constellations related to the time and place of their individual births.  It impacts who they should marry, what their lucky numbers are, etc.  Religious priests often interpret their astrologic details down to the level of what they should wear, etc.  This appears to be quite pervasive throughout their society.  The net of all this, though, is that everyone knows that they are part of the “greater system” and their actions have definite consequences – for their own lives as well as others.  There seems to be much less individual ego – something I think we could learn from.  Anyway, the people have been a joy to get to know and understand.

I think I will sign off now.  It may take a while to get the individual blog posts done as we are going into another intense touring period (Dubai and Oman), but they will get there sooner or later.  I hope everyone is well and thanks for following!

This entry was posted in India, Travel
Glen Bruels

I am a traveler and sometimes clay sculptor, following a long career working in consulting. My work allowed me to travel the world extensively and I was hooked. Today, I travel with my wife/best friend to explore new places, meet new people, and learn new things.

Related Posts