The Quest

You never forget your time exchanging pleasantries with a fully clothed man while sitting butt naked on a stool on a warm Kerala afternoon. 

This is spiritual India, the one that has attracted scores of westerners over the past decades including the Beatles and Steve Jobs. Whether it’s the gurus, the yoga, the aryuvedic medicine, there’s something here tied deeply to the people, their religious beliefs and cultures, that is magnetic for people from all over the world. 

Almost two weeks into our trip I’m coming to understand that this is the part that draws people to India, and what gives it such a mythical status in the realm of spiritual quest seekers. They don’t come for the party culture, or the cities or the scenic beaches, which was something I had been struggling with for the past few days. What exactly is the draw of India?

So many of the people I know who have been to India exhibited such a strong affection of their time here, but two weeks into the trip and struggling to understand why I don’t feel like I’m making the same connection. Without doubt I am glad that I am here, and find India fascinating in every way, like most of those who have come before me. But I also feel that India has yet to truly pull me in, to make me yearn to return only weeks after I’ve departed. Rightly or wrongly, I had somewhat assumed that it would just happen here.

I think part of it is the cities. I love cities, they’re my favorite part of travel, and we’ve spent so much time in the Kerala cities of Kochi and Trivandrum over the past two weeks. But people do not visit India for the cities. They are congested and dirty, and unfortunately by dirty I mean the dirtiest I have seen. I know this doesn’t represent the whole of India, but it represents the part of which I’ve been the most exposed, and it’s been challenging to witness how cities are put together here and the lifestyle they encompass. 

I know there’s more out there, and this represents the problem of only having 3 weeks, and a restricted 3 weeks at that due to class requirements, to really experience a country. 

And with that I found myself sitting down on a stool for my aryuvedic massage, understanding that it would be a chance to experience a slice of the alternative medicine tradition here that is so popular, and maybe connect a little more with the spiritual side of India. 

I’m not a spiritual person, so perhaps it’s not a surprise that I failed to find the connection here once again. It was a new experience to be sure, and again something I’m glad I had the chance to do, but mostly it left me feeling oily and confused, and I walked out thinking about how according to the dudes in robes who used to instruct me on right versus wrong, I was now supposed to go into a little closet and confess what just happened to me. 

What I look for instead of spirituality in traveling is humanity, and a connection to the people and places I am visiting through local interactions and adventures. And this I think is the other missing piece of the puzzle. Being in a program here, almost everything, save for a few hours for dinner each night, is planned out for us. The challenges of arranging travel, securing lodging, and navigating the people and cultures, are all taken care of for us. With my hands washed of all of this, I simply find myself writing about not being able to connect with a place from the lobby of my luxury hotel, and staring out of the window of our pre-arranged bus as it ferries us from one place to the next. 

I think if anything I will owe India another visit, a chance to truly experience it the way I would choose, and to see how it would feel when viewed through my own lens. It won’t be through a spiritual lens, as so many from the west choose to do, but I do think there’s an India out there for me.