Mike 2.0: NADIA'S TRIP TO INDIA PART 3

My friend Stefanie and I left the group a week early as Stefanie had made an earlier commitment to attend a family function. I decide to travel with her so she wouldn’t be traveling alone in India. Unfortunately, we missed Varnasi and the River Ganges and were only able to visit Delhi for two days before coming home.

Delhi is a much different city than Kolkata. For one thing, it’s hotter, believe it or not! Like standing beside a flame 24 hours a day. On a more serious note, you see extreme wealth and extreme poverty with a scarce middle class. I wonder if India is still considered a developing or third world country in spite of all the industries and wealth I saw in some parts of the nation.

We spent our first day in Delhi touring Indira Gandhi’s memorial site, The Lotus Temple, and Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial museum (the actual memorial site was closed the weekend we were there).

The Lotus Temple, which is built in the shape of a lotus flower, was one of my favourite places that we visited. It is a temple for people of the Baha’i faith, but people of all religions are welcome inside to pray as they’d like. I said a Hail Mary. It is a silent space shared by people of all religious backgrounds and I felt at peace to be among them. There were many times on the trip where I was welcomed as a traveler and given generous hospitality by the locals. The Lotus temple was where I felt the most at home because I was welcomed as a Christian in a predominantly Hindu country.

Canada is a hospitable country in terms of cultures. Being a first generation Caucasian Canadian, I’ve never felt like an outsider in my native Canada. When you travel to a country where it is quite noticeable that you don’t belong, you develop a deeper understanding and compassion for groups of people who face discrimination based on their ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual preference...you name it. I now understand the meaning seeing the world through the eyes of another person.

We spent four hours of our second day in the Delhi area travelling to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It was a hectic and busy experience but a great way to end such an impactful trip.

My original intent before leaving Toronto was to enter all my experience in India with an open heart and mind. I think I achieved that objective in the sense that I now have an appreciation for the Indian culture from the cuisine to the religion to the way of life.

What I learned most is that when you understand people, you eliminate judgment and in turn you eliminate hate.

Adventures such as this should be experienced by people of all ages and certainly promoted more. My time in India brought me to a new reality, a vision of hope founded on a glimpse of Mother Teresa's legacy in Kolkata, the happiness with less of the people of Darjeeling, and the acceptance of differences in the Lotus Temple in Delhi.

Now, the real adventure is in bringing this newly acquired knowledge into my everyday life in Canada.