March 3, 2016
Listening

My left ear is blocked. A few nights ago, I woke up with a piercing earache and a sore throat. Later that day, I started antibiotics, easily purchased over the counter at the local chemist, on the recommendation of a practicing nurse on the tour. Despite this treatment, I specifically remember standing in the group conversing with someone—and feeling my ear fill with fluid. Now I have to turn my right ear toward people who are speaking to me, and I miss half of what anyone is saying in a small or large group. I’ve been spending most of my days feeling only partially present during this 54-day train odyssey. Several people on the tour have experienced this phenomenon, and they say it’s likely my ear will be blocked for several weeks before clearing on its own. I’m not particularly happy about this.

One of the tour group members is quite hard of hearing. I was a little bit impatient with him/her in the beginning, but now I’ve joined this person in the ranks of the hearing impaired. Although my hearing difficulty will probably be temporary, it has given me a new appreciation for how isolating even partial deafness can be. I have to concentrate very hard to understand, practice lip reading, and hope I can get the gist of the conversation through context and body language. I’m depending on my tour companions to accommodate me and hope for their patience and understanding. It is a tiring and humbling experience. I think it’s safe to say I’m not my usual outgoing self; I’m changed, if only for now.

But it has got me thinking about listening and working hard to understand. It seems to me that travel provides opportunities to listen in new ways, if you are willing. But you have to be willing.

Some travelers to India might be the kind of travelers who complain about toilets, accommodations, different standards of cleanliness, food and slow food service, touts, bargaining, corruption, unexpected religious and cultural practices, traditional clothing, unimaginable poverty, crazy traffic, and shocking evidence of trash and pollution. They might leave India frustrated and judgmental about their experiences. Shouldn’t India try harder to make itself into a desirable destination for tourists? You know, more like the West?

Some might visit India and stay at 5-star hotels and restaurants and travel by luxury coach or perhaps even by cruise ship. That’s a good way to avoid cultural confrontation with local people and customs.

Some tourists might laugh at everything in India, at the strangeness and apparent illogical practices. For example, five throat lozenges cost 10 rupees, but ten lozenges cost 25 rupees. This happened at not just one, but two, chemists. What happened to the Costco effect? Shouldn’t there be a discount on larger amounts, or at least parity? And, are they really worshipping an orange monkey idol? Some things just don’t make sense.

Some tourists might try to absorb Indian ways. I’m thinking of the white ladies walking around the Taj Mahal in sarees, or the hippie-type white guy in a sadhu getup in Hampi. Others come for the spas, or yoga ashrams, or to learn traditional Indian music and dance, or to experience a deeper religious awakening. Niche tourism, maybe.

Other tourists, like me, try to learn about different ways of living in this world. I find myself walking into a new situation trying to be very attentive, almost listening to the history of a place, the different types of human experience represented by the architecture, customs, clothing, language, and so on. And yet, India is a deeply complex ancient society. It has several hundred languages, hundreds of ethnic groups, many distinct cultures, countless mainstream and local religions, massive urban centers, huge rural areas, mountains, coastal regions, alluvial plains, etc. It has endured repeated invasions, conquests, Mughal rule, British colonial rule, wrenching partition, resource exploitation, and Western ignorance and disrespect, among other assaults. The vast array of diverse influences and environments is breathtaking. It is part of what makes India so fascinating and so heartbreaking.

Then, there is the propensity to want to do something about what you are seeing. A few days ago, our tour group went through a slum. About a million people live in this slum, Dharavi, outside of Mumbai. Within the boundaries of the area you will find aluminum and plastics recycling factories as well as bakeries, tanneries, and pottery-making enterprises. You will also find impossibly narrow lanes with fetid drains running along them, four toilets per hundreds of people, tiny one- or two- room homes, and highly regulated water and electric supplies (two or three hours per day). While I was shocked at what I saw, others in my group were amazed at the productivity and industriousness of those in the area. I didn’t “hear” the same things they heard. What they heard seemed like a pretty good deal for some Indians: jobs, community, food, shelter. I could only “hear” about the hovels, unsafe factories, and the exploitation of the slum dwellers by the slum tour operators. Let me tell you how to fix that, I wanted to say. Let me tell you what’s best for India. I wanted to stop listening and start talking.

One of my tour companions suggested I should stop worrying about my blocked ear; I should accept it as the new normal while on this trip. Maybe she’s right. It’s a good reminder that I need to try harder to listen to India. It is also a good reminder that no matter how much I want to listen to who India is, I can only partially hear what she is saying. I’m trying to listen, but I have to admit that I’m listening with a blocked ear. I can’t completely eliminate the influence of my cultural upbringing; I can’t completely understand the depth and breadth of history represented here and how that affects the present. I’m not from this culture, and on a certain level, no matter how much I want to understand, I’m coming into the experience with a limited ability to absorb the “sounds” I’m hearing.

Like my (hopefully temporary) hearing loss, I hope it’s changing me.

I hope it’s keeping me humble.

Dharavi slum, outside Mumbai.