India has always played a silent but pervasive part in my life. Every time I look in the mirror, I see India, from my skin color to my hairline to my body’s shape, but I don’t really know India.
That’s about to change.
For the next three weeks, I’m going to be officially introduced to the country of my birth.
I am the first child of an American couple, and they adopted me when I was only six weeks old. With my parents’ encouragement, I’ve always attempted to keep India in my life. When I was younger, my family attended cultural events and parties the adoption agency hosted. I always did school reports on India, and I was proud to say India was a part of my heritage when we traced family trees. But I’ve never really had an ethnic identity.
I hope that’s going to change too.
I’m going with the International Center’s Kotwara Project, which involves taking classes on India for a semester and then traveling there. While in India, I will meet government officials, see landmarks and holy sites and help build a school in a small Muslim village in northern India called Kotwara.
Throughout my trip, I will be sending journal entries to The Chronicle on the most regular basis I can. I hope to share this journey with the U community.
I’m just a few hours from takeoff, and every moment that I’m not hectically preparing, I think of India.
This trip is not a search for birth parents or an impetus to reinvent myself?it’s a way to discover a part of me that I have never truly connected with before.
I’ve traveled to various parts of Europe and Canada, but I’ve never been to a country filled with abject poverty. I don’t know how well I’m going to handle that. Having small children beg change off of me in order to eat is probably going to affect me more deeply than I can imagine.
Maybe more oddly, I’m really worried about how I’m going to feel about not being a member of the culture I was born into. I was the bastard child of a 13 year-old girl, and if I had stayed in India, I would probably have been a burden to my family. Most likely, I would be extremely poor, married and baring my second child to a man willing to accept someone of such a lowly social position. Handling the fact that I am living a comparatively extravagant, free and educated life in the United States is going to be, in the very least, humbling.
I’m also a little concerned about the current situation in India. I know the U would never send a group of students to a dangerous area, but I hope that the Hindu-Muslim violence does not make itself known to me on this trip.
Regardless of my concerns, I’m indescribably excited about being surrounded by a culture that is so distinct from the Western cultures I’ve grown up with. I’ve wanted to visit a country that hasn’t been Americanized ever since I first stepped foot in Europe, and I think staying in an Indian village will yield that opportunity.
This whole semester, I’ve been learning about India from an academic point of view. I’ve been trying to learn Hindi, and just seeing the structure of the language and hearing the foreign tones and syllables fascinates me. I can’t wait to be surrounded by millions of people speaking a language so beautiful and foreign to me.
But what I’m really excited about are the little things about India. I can’t believe I’m going to know what Delhi smells like, what the Ganges River sounds like and what the Taj Mahal feels like.
While I am trying to focus on the small joys, I plan on getting some sort of minor illness and having difficulty adjusting to the 95 degree heat.
However, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be for the adventure that awaits me, and I can’t wait to awaken the part of me that has lain dormant in me for the past 19 years.