nilima en el mundo

So, I flew into JFK and am staying with my cousin in Manhattan for two days before going home It’s a long story (when has that stopped me before?) but essentially I had about 10 hours to wander around NYC, and it occured to me that in many ways it’s similar to India.

(Here’s a terrible picture of me to add some color until i can get more pics. Um, i guess it relates tot he entry because it is the the woods in Rishikesh, which, while not NYC, could have been in the US or India.
Similaries:
Communication Issues So, I was going to China town to see my aunt’s famed Chinese Herbalist, and of course I didnt really check the directions, so got off the subway like 10 blocks away. I asked this middle aged Chinese woman where Canal Street is. She smiled, started gesticulating, said something incomprehensible. “It’s okay, don’t worr–”
i started, but she gestured me to follow her around a building to the next block where she pointed me in the right direction. Ironically, I had fewer language barriers in India than in my first hour back in the states, but the same friendly spirit pervaded both places.
Crowds — gee, I wonder what I’ll say here? That both places have lots of people and not much land is obvious, but in India that is usually considered a drawback, whereas i hear people raving about “the City” and seem to thrive off of the crowds. (To be fair, Im sure many Indians do actually like the busy hustle and bustle of the cities, and might feel lonely or isolated with out them, but as far as visitors go, while the crowds might be thrilling for a visit, the people I’ve spoken to, myself included, could not imagine facing them for extended periods. To be fair here, when traveling in INdia there is really a surprising amount of beautful countryside, open areas of patty fields, rock hillsides etc, so the more apt comparison here would be Indian Cities to NYC).
Filth
It could be argued, rightly so, that India is much dirtier than NY, and it is, and therefore, of course the crowds are more oppressive, cause it’s hotter too, and smells worse etc etc. All this may be true, generally, but based on my subjective one day experience in NY, these were ironically not pertinent. As I held on the railing in the subway, aware of the greasy finger prints left by thousands of other fingers, I tried not to think about what they might have touched (of course, in the US we have vastly greater sanitation systems, true, but compared to the more isolated living im used to in VT this still made me consider). As i walked through the pavement near china town, the sun beat down on my unprepared face and the sweat clung to my legs in my jeans more uncomfortably than in the lose cotton pants I’d worn in India. I was hot, and it smelled. I mean really bad. Of course India smells too, thus this in an apt comparison. I think once or twice Vasi and I were truly nauseated, but often the Indian smell is pungant but not terrible — spices, burning garbage, cow dung etc, but it quickly shifts, or you move on quickly. I was stuck at a light going the wrong way as throngs of highschool students in a huge posy crowded against me and I couldn’t get away from the awful smell. It was some sort of unidentifiable (as if i tried) meat roasting in the open chinese market, yet it smelled so horrid.

Diversity well, India mostly has, what would appear to the outsider as Indians, whereas, to the outside NY is much more diverse, having cultures from all over the world, a true melting pot. But, wouldn’t most of those people consider themselves “new yorkers” just as a Malayalam speaking Christian from Kerala and a Hindia speaking Hindu from Uttar Pradesh would all consider themselves Indian? Across the subcontinent food, language, and dress differ immensely. I mean, sure, despite that there is “tremendous regional variation”, in my opinion, food from Andra Pradesh (South) and Uttaranchal (north) has more in common than Chinese and Honduran, for example, but, they are geographically closer too. So, though not a completely accurate comparison, India and NY are both incredibly diverse (and for the most part) people live harmoniously together, despite the at times Tower of Babel -esque attempts to communicate.
crime, india felt safer