How India Makes Me Think

Anyone who has spent at least a few days in any Indian city will have stories about their chaotic experiences riding in cars/taxis/autos there. Just ask them. On several occasions, my arm has brushed a passing vehicle as it dangles out of my own overcrowded auto-rickshaw, which somehow narrowly avoids collisions left and right. There are few traffic lights (and those that exist are more like suggestions to motorists) and lanes are meaningless. Even driving on the proper side of the road is a bendable rule. Yet somehow I have yet to see an accident since I have been here. How can complicated intersections and streets crowded with cars function without traffic direction? The answer is simple: without lights and signs and lanes as guides, one must actually pay attention to the actions of other drivers around them, and react to those actions.

There are two important things I have learned during my three months in India. The first is that, as chaotic and disorderly as everything may seem compared to the United States, there is a system here—I just don't understand it yet. If I tried to drive a car, or even a bike, through the streets of Ahmedabad or Udaipur, I would certainly cause an accident because I don't understand the sideways glances or the honking patterns. I cannot blend into the system. Another example to demonstrate this point:

The organization for which I am working here in Rajasthan wanted to purchase a water buffalo so that we could have our own source of milk for the schoolchildren and few families that stay on this campus. Alone, I would have no idea where to purchase a water buffalo. I am not able to log onto eBay to see what is available; there are no stores, no formal market even, for the purchase of water buffalo. You have to understand the system. The system for purchasing a buffalo is rooted in knowing which families have how many, where calves have been born recently, and who may be a little short on cash at the moment. If you can navigate this web of information, you will arrive at the answer of where you should ask to buy a buffalo. In the end, we knew someone who knew someone who was selling their buffalo. The system here is not about internet connectivity, or credit cards, or traffic lights, it is about understanding people.

The second thing I have learned while in India is that it is near impossible to operate on autopilot here. In India, I have to think. How many people in the US roll up to a four way stop intersection and hardly glance side to side before continuing onward, knowing that the other cars will also have to stop at this intersection, allowing them to only halfheartedly check for other traffic? I know I have done it. Green lights tell us to go, and so we happily cruise through them without giving a passing thought to cars on the intersecting road. While this system works for us Americans, it enables us to drive without thinking very much. This is a parallel I can draw to entire hours or even days of my life in the states. Perhaps I am so used to the systems with which I grew up, that I hardly have to think about them anymore. Here, a thousand thoughts pass through my head every minute. I have to be constantly aware. When I offer chai to someone and they say no thank you, it does not mean they would not like any. I cannot simply take their answer at face value. I have to dig deeper and insist several times that they take chai before they, quite happily, agree to drink some. This is what people do when it comes to offering and receiving food, and I have come to understand this.

The systems are complicated here, and they are based in human relationships. I like this. In this small Rajasthani village I have practically no internet, no television, no radio. The sounds I hear, information I gather, and decisions I make all come from the people around me. There will be no autopilot this year, no traffic signs to guide me. This year I will become enmeshed in the community around me—and dependent on these people I see every day—like I never have before. And in this way, I will build relationships with people whose language I can hardly speak—yet. I think I could learn to love this system.