***Okay, so I originally posted this on Aug. 17, but then forgot the email address I used to create the previous blog account... SO I'm restarting my blog, and giving this whole cool/mysterious cyber girl thing (debatable) another go. And here it goes. Take two:
I leave for India in 3 days. I can do all the preparation -- make the airline flights, pick up the malaria pills, stock up on contact solution, decide what "inappropriate" clothing I can make work, and read countless novels on India, but I'm still terrified and have no idea what to expect. Since signing up for semester abroad program in Pune, I have unwaveringly romanticized what I expect the semester to entail. One of the images that has passed through my head, embarrassingly many more times than once, is of me dancing in a beautiful, flowing sari, surrounded by Indian children who stare up at me with wide eyes and beaming smiles. My views of India, and what I expect will happen, have been completely shaped by standard Western perceptions of India. Despite my studies of developing countries and international relations, my viewpoint of India is fundamentally orientalist. Ignoring everything I know to the contrary, I continue to subconsciously view myself as the Western liberator, a Western knight in shining armor (or maybe more realistically, an American princess in a flowing sari). I want that to change. I don't know how it will, or if it will, but I want to start beating that perception down until I see myself as no better, and no worse, no more just or fair, than the people I will meet.
The moment I fear the most is getting off the plane and entering the baggage claim area. As I mistakingly booked my flight a day early, I will be arriving before the rest of the program students and will have to navigate the area alone. I'm looking at this experience as sort of a super intense roller coaster. The preparation for the trip is filled with anticipation, the slow climb up to the peak of the roller coaster, during which you continue to build up fear and apprehension, as you don't really know for sure what's on the other side of the peak. Then comes the peak. The point at which you feel suspended mid-air -- your stomach flies up to your head, eyes opened wide, and a scream develops deep in your chest. This is what I anticipate as the first moment when I can no longer pretend I'm in America. The moment when the voices around me begin speaking in an alien language, and my skin, hair, eyes, mannerisms, clothing, and voice immediately give me away as someone who doesn't belong.
A lot of people have asked me why I chose India for my semester abroad, and my reasoning is three-fold:
First, despite my fear of what is to come, I want to be shocked. I want my comfort zone to be stretched and distorted, to find myself in a place that makes me question who I am, what I think, why I think I am what I am, etc. I feel like I've been on the same general path my entire life, and I think it's time I shake things up a bit.
Second, I fell in love with the fact that through the program I am able to create a documentary film about any aspect of India that fascinates me.
Finally, it's India. What better place to study international development and political economy?
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover" -- Mark Twain
On that note, see you in India.
The moment I fear the most is getting off the plane and entering the baggage claim area. As I mistakingly booked my flight a day early, I will be arriving before the rest of the program students and will have to navigate the area alone. I'm looking at this experience as sort of a super intense roller coaster. The preparation for the trip is filled with anticipation, the slow climb up to the peak of the roller coaster, during which you continue to build up fear and apprehension, as you don't really know for sure what's on the other side of the peak. Then comes the peak. The point at which you feel suspended mid-air -- your stomach flies up to your head, eyes opened wide, and a scream develops deep in your chest. This is what I anticipate as the first moment when I can no longer pretend I'm in America. The moment when the voices around me begin speaking in an alien language, and my skin, hair, eyes, mannerisms, clothing, and voice immediately give me away as someone who doesn't belong.
A lot of people have asked me why I chose India for my semester abroad, and my reasoning is three-fold:
First, despite my fear of what is to come, I want to be shocked. I want my comfort zone to be stretched and distorted, to find myself in a place that makes me question who I am, what I think, why I think I am what I am, etc. I feel like I've been on the same general path my entire life, and I think it's time I shake things up a bit.
Second, I fell in love with the fact that through the program I am able to create a documentary film about any aspect of India that fascinates me.
Finally, it's India. What better place to study international development and political economy?
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover" -- Mark Twain
On that note, see you in India.
No comments:
Post a Comment