January 10, 2016

Yesterday, I visited a Jaipur temple, Kanak Vrindavan. It involved walking a long steep zigzag path up to the top of a hill. The temple is frequently referred to as a monkey temple because of the many monkeys found along the way, not to mention boars, goats, cows, chipmunks, pigeons, and dogs. Very photogenic, as were the gorgeous scenes of the city of Jaipur below.

There were also worshippers making their way up to the temple: Women in saris and sneakers; families with children, groups of single men, a few tourists like me (some breathless Turks asked me if I had any cigarettes!). I encountered priests in a hut near the top of the hill singing and preparing offerings. There were barefoot worshippers come to pay homage. A group of adorable children showed me the Sun god and took me by the hand to show me the Hanuman god and gave me a “tikka” blessing of orange powder on my forehead. As I was leaving, the singing priests carried into the temple a silver-colored platter filled with a colorful offering of flowers and food.

I’ve been in India nearly a month. I’ve traveled to Delhi, around the state of Rajasthan, and now in Rajasthan’s capital city, Jaipur. I’ve visited many fascinating monuments; enjoyed natural wonders; I’ve stood amazed at the variety of animals (feral dogs, holy cows, goats, sheep, pigs, boars, monkeys, chipmunks, blue bulls, Indian antelope, Siberian cranes, cats, camels, elephants, Painted Storks, cobras, rats, etc.) in the streets and natural environments; and I’ve eaten fabulous food.

But the most interesting aspect of any visit to India is the people: Women of all classes and castes in breathtakingly beautiful but everyday saris, men in traditional clothing; men expertly driving tuk tuks, cycle rickshaws, and riding ramshackle bicycles through chaotic streets; whole families on motorcycles with women in saris riding sidesaddle cradling infants in their arms; turbaned sadhus (priests) in all white begging for alms; worshippers bringing puja (prayers and offerings) to the temple gods and goddesses; slum dwellers, sweepers, and begging acrobatic street children. Indians going about their private daily lives living very publicly on the street: Bathing at town center spigots, men urinating out in the open everywhere; people shopping at the chaotic crowded markets; families dressed in their very best while visiting monuments and other tourist destinations; the women-only Metro car in Delhi where working women in Western dress mingle with women in saris and hijab; women in saris carrying water jugs or loads of bricks on their heads. The riotous visual feast of color and confusion. People very different from me in beliefs, economic class, ethnicity, skin color, traditional practices, language, and political beliefs, differences which are often most clearly apprehended through clothing and appearance. The variety of expression is dizzying. I want to possess all of it on my camera, to show my family and friends and the world, to marvel at their exoticism. “Look,” I want to say. “Aren’t Indians amazing in their ‘difference’?”

Last year when I visited India, our small group followed our tour guide on a walking tour around a small village, Tordi Sagar. This was a very different experience than that of going about the larger cities like Delhi. As we walked past stone homes where village women crouched on porches watching us watch them, some with small children whom they encouraged to greet us with an adorable, “Hello,” and some operating spinning wheels, I felt conspicuous, like an intruder, into their 19^th-century way of life. I felt that just by my very presence I was imposing my Western values which admittedly cannot all be called good. When we returned to the hotel, I began to weep. I asked our tour guide all kinds of questions about the women’s health, work, and welfare, but my tears remain a mystery to me even now. It’s not as if I want to romanticize a 19^th-century way of living, and I certainly don’t want to romanticize 21^st-century Western life. Why the tears?

I think my emotions may have been related to confronting the “other” in their home environment, and not from the distance afforded me while they went about their anonymous daily lives on the street. These were their homes, and they were real women, raising children, running households, and working, who were just as curious about me as I was about them. They got a good stare in, as did I. Perhaps those tears were tears of shame for my earlier objectification of Indians as cultural curiosities…but I may be giving myself too much credit.

Frequently, I am asked to pose in photos with Indian nationals. I am treated almost as if I am a celebrity. This can happen anywhere, anytime, and often it involves patiently waiting while my photo is taken with each member of the group. Sometimes it can become quite annoying. The other day, someone took my photo as I walked down the staircase to the Metro. Really? Did that one photo capture the essence of “me,” or even the essence of all my “identities?” (Late-middle-aged white woman in Western clothing who is probably Christian and English-speaking, apparently traveling alone—gasp—very carefully walking down steep stairs into the Delhi Metro.)  But perhaps there is a certain justice to it.

The conundrum reminds me a bit about the anthropologists I read about in one of my graduate school courses who had to theorize, eventually, that they were unable to study the customs of the “natives,” or “savages,” without recognizing their own biases, and that it is impossible to be completely objective in reporting what they study—they bring their own cultural judgments and assumptions to their observations. Who’s to say who is “different?”

Last evening, after I returned back to my hotel, someone told me a story about one of her Thai friends who went to a temple in Bangkok dressed in traditional dress. This Thai woman was the subject of much conversation by English-speaking tourists who frequently snapped her photo as a “representative native,” and a curiosity. How did this story make its way to me? Because this Thai woman is a college student at a U.S. university and understands English perfectly. She conveyed this story to the person with whom I was conversing who then reported the experience to me. The young Thai woman was mortified to be subjected to this “othering,” to assumptions about her based on her ethnicity, dress, and location.

At the Kanak Vrindavan temple, I snapped photos of the walk, the animals, the temple, the view. I wanted to take photos of the people. I wanted them to be memorialized in my camera, on my Facebook page, on Instagram, on my blog, to use their images to promote my importance, my adventure. I’m still amazed and curious about people who are different than I am. But I did not succumb to this desperate desire.

I do regret the many photos not taken. I am not any better than the average tourist. Yesterday, though, I chose to regard the people around me as human beings and not as mere objects of photographic interest. But I still have 4 ½ months remaining in India. Every moment of every day I will have to make a choice. Who is this real person in view of my iPhone camera lens I am trying to categorize?

Who do I think I am?