“Mere videshi dost se milna” – Meet my foreign friend

In Siliguri, as I waited for my bus to Kolkata, a boy looked at me with a mocking smile. When his friends emerged from a street shop, he looked at me and then at them, and said those words.

I’m a foreigner in my own country.

Not looked at as an Indian by Indians, not as a foreigner either, since I’m not a gora, and my ration card and my tax returns confirm that I’m not an NRI. What am I? Fuck knows. A bad speaking Hindi Indian. Probably, the best description.

Aside from the people who try to pull off a scam (and the obnoxious ones), most of the people I meet while traveling are incredible. The more I meet, the more I see, the smaller I feel. And understanding? Forget it. I don’t understand shit.

From Kerala, up to Rajasthan, across towards West Bengal and Sikkim.

In the last chapter of “Travels with Herodotus” by Ryszard Kapuscinski (thanks Yona!), the author writes the following about Herodotus, other travelers and probably about himself:

Such people, while useful, even agreeable, to others, are if truth be told, frequently unhappy – lonely in fact. Yes, they seek out others, and it may even seem to them that in a certain country or city they have managed to find true kindred and fellowship, having come to know and learn about a people; but they wake up one day and suddenly feel that nothing actually binds them to these people, that they can leave here at once. They realize that another country, some other people, have now beguiled them, and that yesterday’s most riveting event now pales and loses all meaning and significance.
For all intents and purposes, they do not grow attached to anything, do not put down deep roots. Their empathy is sincere, but superficial. If asked which of the countries they have visited they like best, they are embarrassed – they do not know how to answer. Which one? In a certain sense – all of them. There is something compelling about each. To which country would they like to return once more? Again, embarrassment – they had never asked themselves such a question. The one certainty is that they would like to be back on the road, going somewhere. To be on their way again – that is the dream.
We do not really know what draws a human being out into the world. Is it curiosity? A hunger for experience? An addiction to wonderment? The man who ceases to be astonished is hollow, possessed of an extinguished heart. If he believes that everything has already happened, that he has seen it all, then something most precious has died within him – the delight in life. Herodotus is the antithesis of this spirit. A vivacious, fascinated, unflagging nomad, full of plans, ideas, theories. Always traveling. Even at home (but where is his home?), he has either just returned from an expedition, or is preparing for the next one. Travel is his vital exertion, his self-justification is the delving into, the struggle to learn - about life, the world, perhaps ultimately, oneself.