The Real India: Intro

If you have been keeping track of me and my blog posts for the past 6 months, I am sure that you have been disappointed by the general lack of exposition on Kalimpong, India, and what I am observing about both.

In a tourist guide to India I read last year it said something like “the more you know about India the less you understand.” This has been very true of my experiences the past months. The more I see and learn, the more realize that I cannot fully know of understand this country or its many peoples.

I haven't written much about of my insights or observations on India and its culture on this blog yet because I feel ill-equipped and unqualified to do so. I am looking at things here through the dimly lit kaleidoscopic lens of being a foreigner in this place, I get glimpses of the dark and light of reality but they are all jumbled up and out of context in my perception. What furthers this handicap is my experiences are quite shallow. I feel that in this cozy house, 

tucked up on the mountain side, 

surrounded by a fences, 

buffered by school grounds and the principles house and gardens, 

which rarely looses power or has water problems, 

where I eat dahl and rice made by our cook for lunch,

but am treated to American dinners and baked goodies in the evenings, 

that I haven't earned a right or a place to comment on the culture and country that I am living in.

The garden in the front of our compound

Though I feel unqualified to comment at all, I am still going to attempt to share with you what I am learning about this strange wild beautiful country I am living in.

Check back for posts in a series I am calling “The Real India”