TRAVELLERS DISCUSSION SPECIAL !

Is India a Passion or an Obsession ?     What is the disease called Indiatis ?

 

Obsession - (11 replies)

Do any of you get accused of being obsessed with India? I seem to be getting this over and over again, but what makes it worse than being obsessed with cars or football?? Since my trip I must say I have been pretty partial to returning asap, and yes I do love to talk about it to practically anyone who shows interest... do you find yourself experiencing same same? I think I might have caught a serious strain of Indiatis!!!

1. yes

There seem to be basically two reactions to India...You either can't stand it, and bolt for the airport spewing
anathema, or you fall in love with the place,...those who exhibit the second one quite often walk away dazed,
and dream of returning most of their waking hours....and in many cases, it doesn't wear off, they do return, and
get re-infected, and thus another India traveler is born. so relax, you sound quite normal to me...when you get to the orange pants and brown beads stage, a little consultation may be in order...until then, namaskar..

2. me too

I went last year for five weeks and I am going again in 11 weeks and three days (not that I am counting) for a little over 9 weeks.

I fall into the 'went once and never got over it' camp and I see nothing wrong with being fascinated by the place.

I agree with the above post that if you find yourself in the saffron pants and the tulsi wood beads, that you might want to try a wee bit of therapy.

Until then I will keep saving all my holidays and all of my money and go back as often as I can.

"All of us are lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Oscar Wilde

3. 3rd option


I dont agree with 1. that there are only 2 types. I think there are 3 types, and that the 3rd type is the most common type. Its the one who hates and loves india at the same time. For 2 days everythings gone to plan and its been a truly wonderful cultural experience, then some twat of a rikshaw driver screws you around when you are hot and tired. All of a sudden you hatre this f*****g country and the scheming bloody people etc etc etc.

Then the next morning, a sunrise in Jaisalmer or the sound of the Muezzins across Nagin Lake in Kashmir or being served a home made meal in a Brahmins house with grandmother fussing over you like no tommorow, then suddenly again its the most wonderful place imaginable. I think the most common experience for people is this 3rd option. Its been my experience anyway. I think the place is unique, and i love many of its people, its stunning landscapes, adventures and other plusses.

And at the same time i also despise many sections of the population, its antiquated buearacracy, egoistic lethargy (which they try to pass of as being relaxed and spiritual), ignorance,environmental filth and caste system and many other negative points.

To me, thats the most healthy India traveller. One who is living ONLY in a rainbow coloured peace and love view of India and goes on ad nauseam about its beauty and wisdom has'nt really travelled there yet, and they should leave that beach and travel around. India is wondeful and also a disaster. As Buddha said "Middle way" (3rd option)

LOL

 

 

4. Love it or hate it

I think I agree with poster no 3, Chakra. Sometimes it is hard staggering on and off buses with your rucksack (and finding somewhere to put it) especially as you get older. Other things can be frustrating too. We visited India three times in late 60's and 71, and now five times since 1996. One thing I really appreciate now is being called Auntie, rather than having my bottom pinched.

But compared to living in UK there is always something going on, people talk to each other on buses and trains (and everywhere) rather than sitting silent looking suspiciously at each other or not looking at all.

Especially out of tourist areas we usually feel very welcome - have been to Assam a couple of times and nobody tried to sell us anything (maybe a bus ticket). Planning to go back to Gujerat this November - take the excellent State buses and eat gujerati thalis.

So we do look forward to returning, missing the British winter, drinking chai, eating samosas and gulab jamuns, bird watching, walking in the hills etc etc.

We hope to keep on visiting as long as we can.

5. four types

hey, there are four types. the fourth type loves india and settles down here. i belong to them.
follow your heart.

6. Indianitis

Nope you aren't the only one who misses India. Its an amazing place - so diverse, rich full of life, sound and colours. Both India and Nepal. I was there for 3 months last year/ this year and still have vividly fond memories of the place and I know I will go back one day. I can't say that I have had any nasty experiences in India (other than having an expensive piece of camera equipment stolen on a train which could happen anywhere)... maybe I'm lucky...

I think the 2 thigns I miss the most are the tea vendors on trains at 3am that walk up and down the gangway shouting "Chai Chaye" in a horse voice. where else do you get tea offered to you a 3am?? The second things are the photo opportunities. Oh and the people you meet - I met some amazing peopel (as we all do) oh and the food... ok I'll stop... I could go on indefinitely.



______________________________­­____________
David @ www.thisbeautifulworld.com

7. Type 4 . . .

. . . goes for me as well. Like type 3 I find it a maddening place at times but I don't think I could be as happy anywhere else - and the dosas in the rest of the world are awful! After my first trip I came back every year until I had the chance to relocate and five years on I don't regret it at all, I don't think I have had even a fleeting moment's regret in all that time.

Have fun.

 

8. love and hate

I agree with poster 3 if we definite it as the people they are coming and going and coming again.

I´m the type who loves it - but not all. Not the beaurocracy, the hassle in Mumbai, the salesman who tries to sell me trousers for 1000rs or more (very cheap)....

But I love India cause it is amazing, there always happens something on the markets, streets, train or bus rides.

I mean in Europe your sitting in a train and don´t talk with your neighbours more than three words in a few hours.
In India your never alone when you are travelling. I met many nice people when I travelled in India....

Especially in Kashmir I felt twice. I loved the Gulmarg area. The people in the Mountains, the landscape. Nagin Lake was nice, my houseboat family very friendly but the houseboatman tried to sell me loads of things. Everyday something different...
All togheter I loved it more than hate it.

uli
 

9. where else

can you get cheap lodges, cheaper clothes, cheapest food and friendly crowd ready to help a traveller..

sam

10. Hey! : )

Thanks all for your replies; good to know I'm not the only one infected!

Of course one of the things that probably draws us all to this country over and over again is the extreme diversity, good and bad, an eye-opener in itself!

Namaskaar!

11. Hi

Hi... my name's Nigel and I'm an Indiaholic.

There...said it.
Phew.
The worrying thing is I haven't even been there yet. I've got the worst kind of obsession. I'm addicted to PLANNING my trip to India.

Thanks for sharing that with me.

 

WEBYATRA INSPIRES A REPLY :

 

I just finished reading this page on India. There's some pretty good points made on the appeal of India. http://www.oocities.org/webyatra

Just thought I'd contribute mine, sorry if its a bit long . . .

Searching for the ‘magic’ of india

I’d been to India once before and truly hated it: The noise, the oppressive heat, the poverty, the swarming mass of mustachioed humanity that engulfed me. It shook me to my very foundations. Instead of facing up to the challenge, I hid pathetically in the lieu of a luxury pad, country club and a chauffeur driven car, horrified by the inhumanity that surrounded me. I had been a coward. But as time passed, and the more and more I heard ‘beauty’ and ‘magical’ associated with a place I considered a god-forsaken hellhole, I became increasingly resolved to return to discover this ‘magic’, while confronting what had once been an incapacitating fear.

‘Jesus H Christ!!’ I thought to myself, while being mobbed by polio-ridden beggars, street urchins and neurotic rickshaw-whallas. I was back in India and it was just how I remembered it. After being cheated by my liar and charlatan of a rickshaw driver, I threw my money at him and stormed towards my guesthouse. I was incandescent. In my jet lagged, ‘oh what have I done’ induced frustration, I shoved open the hotel owner’s door with such might that I almost fractured the scull of his sleeping body. He was not happy. After screaming at me in Tamil, he gave me a room key. While lying in bed that night, listening to the opium induced jabbering coming from outside, I repeated this mantra to myself over and over again: ‘5 months isn’t that long is it?’

The thing about India is that it really does get better. Once you’ve seen out your first few days in Delhi, Mumbai or Madras, you quickly begin to get used to it; the hassle; the chaos; the beggars proffering their various stumps and sores. You change. You have to. It certainly won’t change for you. The human survival instinct kicks in and it’s a remarkable transformation. Instead of turning the air blue with curses every time you receive hot milk on your cornflakes or abusing a Kashmiri for following you through a market, you begin to step back, relax and laugh. No longer do you pull your hair out, you learn to let the little irritants go and it all starts to become very very funny.

It was at this point that I fell in love with India. Don’t get me wrong it can be frustrating: The constant scams, the hassles, the endless bureaucracy, the repetitive questions, ‘Your good name?’ ‘Your native place?’, punctuating every bus and train journey. But with an open mind and a sense of humour it’s an incredible and hilarious place. Something makes you laugh every day, usually a manifestation of ‘Indian logic’; sleeping cows causing kilometer tailbacks; 40 minute traffic jams in bus stations; beach cleaners burying ther rubbish under the sand, the post offices without pens . . . the list goes on and on.

There is far more to India than chaos. It is as culturally rich and diverse, while at the same time poverty stricken and fractured as anywhere in the world. Furthermore, the beauty of Manali, the Keralan backwaters and the surreal ‘Bedrock’-like terrain of Hampi rival anything that I’ve ever seen. Those reasons alone make India a destination of remarkable intrigue and inspiration. Yet for me, India’s real impact lies elsewhere: In its ability to change a person.

Don’t misunderstand me. I didn’t return from India a hippy nor a new -age Sadu for that matter. I assure you, to this very day I’ve never worn tie die nor blessed a chillum in my life. But I feel as though I left the chaos more relaxed, more aware and with a sharper sense of humour. There cannot be many places that can have this impact. Maybe that’s the ‘magic’ of India.

 

ANOTHER SET OF THOUGHTS - THIS IS GETTING INTERESTING ! THESE GUYS THINK IT IS DOWNRIGHT FATAL - THE ATTRACTION !

 

BEWARE ONCE AGAIN ! INDIA IS A TRAP AND IT IS SO NICE !
Make no mistake about it people, India is a trap from which there is no escape!!!

Once you've been there, it's either impossible to escape, or, if you do manage to get out of there, to go anywhere else on this planet! India just keeps you there, makes you addicted to it's people, culture, food,..., and before you know it, you can no longer live without thinking of it for every second for the rest of your life... It happened before ( to all those people who have ever set foot on Indian soil ), it's happening as we speak, and it will happen again ( to all of you out there who are dreaming of their first trip to the subcontinent )!

 So beware! Be prepared to become an India-addict! Don't be foolish and think that you will be able to go to India only once, because before you know it, you're back on a plane heading for that magical place...

So, if you will excuse me now, I have a plane to catch; Madras is waiting. Yi-ha!!!

'Reality is personal'

1. Nah
India is fun, but going to someplace more developed (like Thailand, for example) after a few months in India is fun, too. It's just amazing how much easier it is, with so much less hassle.

I've been to India twice, and I'll probably go back again at some point, because it is a great adventure. But I'll never forget landing at Heathrow airport in 1997 after a few months in India and Nepal. It was the early part of January, the weather was cold and sleeting, and I got a single room at the Bolshover Hotel for 10 pounds a night.

I walked all around London, ate and drank beer in the pubs, and thought to meself, England is fookin paradise! (and I'm a Yank!).

I was so happy to be in a "civilized" country, and my joy was apparently contagious, because the people in the pubs, etc. were very friendly. So I guess my point is, just as the order and routine of my industrialized homeland makes me appreciate the chaos and freedom of India, the craziness of India makes me appreciate the creature comforts and ease of life in my homeland.

2. Yi Ha!
O.P I like your enthusiasm and compulsion towards India. I will be there for my 6th time in 7 years come this February and could easily imagine staying the entire while through if it weren't for the fact of needing to return to earn-up the $$$ time and time again!

While I donot doubt that #2's declarations are true for himself I am often deflated by coming back to the west where things are so damned easy, though i do love the fact about Thailand where a decent balance can be struck. Thailand makes the "travel" part of traveling alot easier. Here in the states (or London) everything is so damned predictable and contemporary. India is far less capitulating to our whines for comfort, but the rewards for enduring her are as vast as they are unique. Ah yes indeed, I will be happy to be at the banks of Ganga Mai once more!

I am a two-diget midget with only 90-some days to go 'til lift-off!

As you put it, "YI HA!"


3. un-civilisations
I donot think of India as uncivilised. THAT would be REALLY cool! Infact there is too much attention put on civilIzing her these days!

"All good things are wild and free"
- Henry David Thoreau

4. why $$$??
#2 and probalby the rest of you too - here's an honest question:

"if it weren't for the fact of needing to return to earn-up the $$$ time and time again!"

Why? Why the need to earn money back in the West? i'm just asking because next week I emigrate to Nepal - I have bugger all savings but I don't intend to return to the West. Why do you?

:-)



5. Hooked, or what?
I've only been to India eight times.

Each trip has been for five to seven months. Twice cycling thousands of kilometers, and five times by motorbike, and once touring in an auto-rickshaw. Also been to Central America and loads of European countries, plus cycling round every SE Asian country. This year it could be Africa or maybe China with a stop on the way home in India for rickshaw parts.

Oh, for a nice veggie thali and a lassie. Actually, maybe I will just miss out the other countries and go straight to India again. Is there no hope for me?

6. Indyyaa -yes here i come again ...
Yeah I spent 5 months there last year, after I tavelled borneo, malaysia, thailand, laos, vietnam, cambodia, china and India sticks out so much. Its fookin fantastic. I've never been to a part of the world that so captivating, so full of extremes, energy and madness. Its the funniest country I've ever travlled. It really does get under your skin and stays there. I'm already planning my next trip there in July. I know it'll be far too hot but tht's the earliest I can get there, and I can't wait.

India is the best.

7. Must Admit - barring the land rover...
I've been there twice and have something drawing me back. The ultimate would be having a Land Rover and unlimited access...
8. India
turns "normality" on its head which is one of the big reasons I love it so much. An excellent book, which i'm just about to finish, is "Holy Cow! ... An Indian Adventure" by Sarah MacDonald (Australian). Team that with your lonely planet guide and you'll have a good start, although i'd agree with what was said above, - nothing really prepares you. I thought i'd prepared myself well before my first journey, but was still floored. The FIRST big shock was the noise and air pollution of Delhi. I'd never encountered any thing remotely like it. Sydney, which is the biggest city i'd experienced to date, doesn't come anywhere near. And the traffic chaos, and incomprehensible behaviour on the roads - in cities or out of them. I still haven't worked out why car drivers only turn their lights on intermittently at night!??? I love to travel by road thru India tho, there's always something happenning ... and so far the gods/goddesses have protected me. Have a great time!

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