Imagining India

I've been back in the UK two days and I still can't grasp what I've actually returned from. I know in terms of geography where I've been, I know that the culture I immersed myself in was far different from my own. However, how hard I try to put into words what I saw and did I cannot.





That is my mission over the next week...I will, categorically try to pen down my Indian experience and share it with you. I will cover food, culture, fashion, entertainment and the aspects of my trip which I can't categorise but need to share.

India, for me, was not a place I had anticipated ever wanting to visit. The country was too foreign for me to desire or understand its culture. I feel that was the reason that when the opportunity to volunteer there was available I jumped (I think I genuinely jumped off my bed when I found it).

In the months leading up to my journey I had mixed feelings, many of which were more negative than positive. But something changed the second I walked through security at Heathrow Airport alone, I realised how prepared and how necessary this trip was. I had gone for too long dreaming of exploring that I had begun to lie to myself that what I read in books or saw online was just as good as the real thing. This summer was ideally perfect, at a cornerstone in my education and my social interactions I found myself yearning to be among the unknown and meet people who shared nothing but the same experience of volunteering in India.

Now looking back, two days since I returned and still adjusting to being back home, I find the past two weeks to have been the most demanding and happiest fortnight of my life. Like most things, you don't realise what you have till you leave it and the cliche stands. Because it wasn't till I sat in my cramped airplane seat that I wished I could turn around.

Already missing the friends I made and planning when I might return, I have never regretted leaving a place so much as I regret leaving Jaipur. The colours, the smells, the places I walked through were wild yet calming. The most extraordinary part of my experience however didn't happen in the depths of Indian culture, but in the confines of a classroom and looking upon the faces of children with so little to their name but so much to live for.

The final thing I am compelled to say in this post is that I am trying in vain to share my experience but words are too weak; therefore the image I use in this post is currently the closes thing I have to encompassing India so concisely. Please think with that whatever you will.