You would think that after a 23 hour journey across seas clouds and a whole month spent in your destination you would have conjred up some meaning of the word ‘Culture” or ‘Heritage”  but even after a month submerged  in life in India I haven’t even made a dent in it . I came to India from New Zealand just over a month ago  with no kind of expectation at all after being subjected to stories by my parents about ‘Their India” . But I guess my perceptions on the words culture and heritage have changed .

In the West when people think India, they think a large mass strewn with slums, cows and call centre’s and after hearing that year after year you slowly start to buy into it . But when I arrived here I saw something else entirely. Yes, there were slums . But there were also 10 storey high office towers and shopping malls, right beside them. Yes, there were cows romaing the streets . But there were also Fortuner’s and Indica’s and Nano’s , roaming the very same street .

It has now become so much more that anyone sitting anywhere in the world had ever imagined . There is the means to live a small, simple life along with a materialistic , money fueled one. Everything you would ever need , every designer brand you can find it here.

I guess to sum up our culture and heritage is a mix of old and new , beautiful and ugly, and when I go back to school next year I can proudly say that I dipped my toes in the large pond called India

 

Tagged holiday, India, opinion

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