Sweet Surrender

When my time in India was nearly complete, I heard a quote in reference to India which might have helped me during my first few weeks:

“Sometimes, you have to surrender before you win.” (this quote is from the book “Shantaram” which you all should read)

Even though I didn’t have those words of wisdom as I struggled to find my place in New Delhi’s masses in January, it seems I followed the advice anyway. When I stopped trying to make Delhi something it wasn’t, when I put away some of my expectations of India and tried to love her for what she is, I began to see her beauty. When I let India take her course, I saw something unlike I’d ever seen, and I know I’ll never see again.

India takes getting used to. In the beginning, the intensity of the weather, dirt, noise, and smells makes many travelers wonder what’s so special about India. They see scams on every corner, they get sick, and desperately want to return home. But with time, and plenty of determination, the sari colors overpower the sights of trash piles in the street, the nose begins to find the wafting scents of masala chai on every corner rather than the strong smells of urine against the walls, and the scams become a daily challenge to beat. Something about the chaos and dysfunction becomes so special, you can’t imagine what your life was like before it. å When this happens, you’ve won.

But India is a country of massive contradictions: nothing is clear, even winning and losing. For a country with a growing number of billionaires, the economic recession has also pushed a growing number of people onto the streets. For a country that offers America’s wealthy a lucrative medical tourism industry, the infant mortality rate is worse than some of Africa’s poorest nations. And for every utterance of love for India’s beauty that comes out of my mouth, an expletive of frustration follows. It can’t be helped: every day is a process, a cycle of surrendering for the daily small gains.

All of my feelings towards India are filled with contradictions; I don’t think I have one opinion about India where I don’t also think the exact opposite about the same issue. She has made me both optimistic and cynical about her, and the world’s, future. She has made me bolder than I ever knew possible, yet fearful. She toughened my skin, and made me cry. She made me sicker than I’ve ever been, gave me more bug bites than I knew I had space on my legs for, and more stomach rumbles than any other country, yet she made me feel healthy and strong for overcoming these obstacles. Each day in the street I exhibited immense patience, and also wanted to send all of India back to kindergarten in the USA to teach them how to make a single file line (among other frustrations involved with leaving the flat)…

After overcoming the initial shock of the chaotic Indian life, each moment was a challenge and brought different feelings for India. Yet at the end of the day, I would fall asleep content with India and all of her beauty and all of her disarray. And now, in a clean hotel room in Hong Kong with hot running water and free internet (luxuries reserved only for the Taj Mahal in India) I miss it. I miss the chaos and I miss the rickshaws and I miss the smells and I miss the food and I miss the colors and I miss my little boys’ smiles. But at the same time, I was relieved to see the Hong Kong metro so orderly, happy to walk on the sidewalk and not the middle of the street, and guiltily pleased by a Starbucks iced soy latte.

I guess that means I surrendered. I surrendered to the contradiction.

This concept of surrendering however became even more apparent to me when I said goodbye to my students.

I spent much of the first few weeks teaching frustrated with their work ethic, and frustrated with the Indian education system as a whole. But when I finally accepted I could only do so much, things got easier for me, and for the boys also. On the last day of class when it came time for me to say goodbye to them, I wept. I told them: “I have had fun being your teacher. I think you are all very smart. I hope you study hard and dream big. I will never forget you.” When I finished speaking, almost all of my class was in tears, some of them were even bawling harder than I was. But the next morning when I came to school to say goodbye to the teachers, the boys came to hear their exam results, and presented me with a surprise gift. They each pitched in a few rupees and bought me a present. I was amazed at their initiative and incredibly flattered.

The Indian contradiction transcended onto my feelings for my boys also…for every day I left so swearing I would never set another foot back in that classroom, there were just as many days when I was hopelessly in love with them. Those boys, all 12 of them, with their lightning smiles and innocent laughs, invested their trust in me, and in doing so, gave me their hearts. Each day I came to school wearing a new piece of Indian clothing they’d point and cry “Shopping!” When I was sick they worried for me. They always made sure I had a chair to sit on and a clean cup of chai. At first I was resistant to their hearts, but by the end, I learned that their love and trust was what made India all of the conflicting things it was: bearable and challenging and easy and beautiful.

The book, “Shantaram,” says “Without love, India would be impossible.” I cannot agree more. My India would have been impossible without the unconditional love of my students and fellow teachers. When I surrendered to them, to India, I let in the purest, rawest, most imperfect love I believe there is: the love from Mother India.


saying goodbye...
back row: suraj, ramnath, shiv shankar
middle row: arun, me, ganesh, rahul, himanshu
front row: prahbath, anad, chandan (manish and aman are absent!)


they all did this...without me asking