A Trip to India

Written By: Jarred Schmitz
Program Intern, World Affairs Council of Atlanta
Student, Georgia State University
Published: 8/16/2016

As the automatic doors open leaving the airport in Mumbai I am hit with the ever present humidity of South Asia. The smell of curry, masala, and incense fill my nose while I get my first taste of the loud crackling Hindi music playing in the background of the entire country. While I try to cope with the overwhelming stimulus of this new world I have entered, I look out at the mob of people searching for my friends’ mother who is there to pick me up, and as soon as I find her in the crowd the reality hits me…. I am in India! 

When I accepted the offer to accompany an Indian-American friend on a trip to this incredible land I had no idea what was in store.  A simple invitation of “would you like to go see my niece’s wedding” extended by his mother resulted in boarding a plane five months later preparing for a month-long adventure discovering this wonderful country in South Asia.  I distinctly remember riding in a taxi home from the airport and looking out at the dense throng of people in this huge city of Mumbai where in the middle of the night the roads were packed with traffic, people out walking around, stores still open selling products all night long.  The biggest shock of that first car ride was the livestock in the middle of the road in the world’s third largest city standing next to luxury cars like BMW’s and Ferrari’s!  I rode for probably forty-five minutes with my jaw dropped at how crazy this new world was I had just landed in.  I quickly learned that India is a country of incredible paradox.  There is extreme wealth and extreme poverty, extreme conservative traditionalism and extreme progressive liberalism, extreme nationalism and extreme regionalism, and everything in between.  I was floored at the vastness of society, never before had I seen such wealth and such poverty living next to one of the world’s fastest growing and largest middle classes.  Many people go to India and come back having seen the poverty and think “wow, what a shame”, I finished my month in that country coming back saying “wow, what opportunity!”, it wasn’t long ago there was almost no middle class, and society was truly divided between the haves and the have-nots. 

Over the next month I visited temples, historical sites, and ate so much different food I couldn’t keep track.  The first two weeks were spent in south India, experiencing the distinct south Indian culture and cuisine.  In this tropical climate, I ate shrimp curry, and tried coconut prepared in more ways than I thought possible.  I listened to the south Indian dialect, and was eventually able to distinguish it from the northern regions like Punjab, where I spent the last half of my trip..  My friend’s family was able to show me the northern culture and ways it differed from the southern.  There were distinct cultural differences in northern India, and the Punjabi food seemed to be much more flavored.  My taste-buds were overwhelmed! Sweets were almost over-sweetened, and spices were almost too spicy for me to eat.  I was told this is the Punjabi way of preparing meals, and while it was overwhelming, I loved every minute of it.  


On my last day in this country I boarded a bus to take me from Chandigarh to Delhi.  I rode for almost nine hours in this bus taking pictures of the beautiful Punjabi countryside as we exited and entered New Delhi.  At the bus stop, I found a taxi driver to take me to a few more places I wanted to see in New Delhi, then another to take me to the airport.  As I had a few hours before check-in at the airport, I asked the man to show me “his” Delhi.  He was kind enough to give me a driving tour for two hours, taking me to every part of the city he could get to, we bought chai, samosas to eat, and chewed paan, a spiced tobacco popular in south Asia.  When we pulled up to the airport and I walked inside, I was once again floored at the paradox of this incredible country.  After riding in a taxi cab for two hours through the city I walked into one of the most modern and advanced airports I had ever seen.  I sat down on a bench eating food from a corporate-owned chain restaurant then boarded the plane.  As the plane left the ground and I was able to relax knowing I had nowhere to go for sixteen hours, I reminisced on a mind-blowing month.  I thought about how wonderful my friends Suraj and Rey had been to allow me to live with their family and about how hospitable everyone had been.  While it was time to go home, (mainly because I ran out of money) I looked out the window knowing I would be returning someday soon, hopefully for longer, understanding that I had not scratched the surface of what this wonderful country had to offer.