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Provided they aren’t traumatic, bad memories always fade away long before good memories, and of the character of the Indian people, because their bad sides will be more difficult to recall in years time, as they are even now, I will say the most standout aspects are a hunger for knowledge and an amiability. As regards the latter, I have never seen a people so fast and eager to make friendships. I have met many nations and races who are hospitable, who are welcoming, or generous, but wouldn’t say this is precisely descriptive of the Indian, although some certainly can be all of those things. I would instead say that they simply adore friendships. The perfect example of this came on my day of departure, when I didn’t have the attention span to write a farewell message to each person with whom I had exchanged phone numbers, and instead opted to publish a broadcast message that addressed them all in unison. This couldn’t account for the people I had only met on Instagram, but it was something.
This didn’t only include Indians by the way, but a man from Japan, one Thai, and also a Vietnamese monk. I credit this to the fact that the Indian amiability is so infectious that it plants a seed in the hearts of foreign visitors. The seed is of the strangler fig genus, and it grows into a plant that crushes Robin Dunbar’s number into powder. I met friends who invited me to their homes, invited me to their states, took me around town, invited me to their mother’s home, gave me local advice about where to go and help organize my dinner, taught me about their religions, challenged me in argument, and helped me save money on local products.
The other aspect of the Indian character I mentioned was a hunger for knowledge. I have met several people now from the Sub-Continent, and I can firmly say they are the most ferocious intellects and possess the greatest vim for the education system of any people that I’ve ever seen.
Two men in particular, Punit and Vishal, were standouts. The former, along with being just as bubbly, vivacious, and amiable as the finest members of his race, came to visit Banares from Assam. At his age of 29, he had already obtained two doctorates and was in the middle of pursuing his third. The latter was the quintessential streetwise sage figure, whom I really liked because he had done all kinds of traveling in India. At the time I had met him walking down the street, Vishal had just begun practicing tantric yoga and meditation, and was hungry for mystic dialogue. He pushed and pulled as I explained the Buddha Dharma to him, which in turn stretched my own knowledge of my own faith and my abilities of diction and elaboration to the limit. At one point, realizing our paths lay down opposite streets, we stopped on the side of the road to try and conclude our chat, but it instead grew so impassioned that soon a ring of young men had appeared around us to listen, including two who began filming us.
These characters, though one was met at the end of a long day and the other at the beginning of one, both had the same effect. Summon forth if you can, the feelings and sensations of your perfect morning—when whatever routine or weather conditions combine to not only wake you up but charge you up—clearing and sharpening your mind. This was the effect that Punit and Vishal had. It’s the effect that one of my closest friends in America always has on me, himself from the Sub-Continent, though a Pakistani. It was an unlooked-for blessing to experience first-hand and is such a perfect rain gauge to see one’s own character. Are you really as smart or wise as you think you are? Are you really as worldly? Do you really have as many things figured out as you believe? It’s another challenge this ancient land throws up in the path of the traveler, but unlike the heat, dust, and stomach irritation, it could not be more welcomed. WaL
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PICTURED ABOVE: This author’s friend Siddharta in Bihar. PC: Andrew Corbley ©
