I am writing my first blog post from my native town of Jalgaon, Maharashtara, in central west India. I have never actually lived here, but it is the city where my parents met and fell in love thirty some years ago, where I have relationships that go back generations, and where pieces of my own heart lay waiting for me in unassuming gullies and on dusty street corners. I have early memories of spending summers here with both sets of grandparents. Aaji-Azoba and Nana-Nani. Those summers in Jalgaon would stretch on for ages and consisted of mostly languishing in the sweltering heat with short reprieves in the form of syrupy Alfonso mangos and cool narial pani.

At first impression, there are no words for India. Just sensory overload. Like the jolts of sitting in traffic, the push and pull of daily life is unrelenting, and from a western perspective – uncomfortable. I want to revisit this idea of comfort in another post, but India is, objectively, less comfortable than the US. It is hot, dusty, loud, crowded, sometimes pitiful, sometimes infuriating, sometimes confusing.

The proximity of other beings on the road, the used laundry water of the lady upstairs trickling through your open window, the cow dung flung into the air by a passing truck, bunking with the whole extended family, and rarely having a moment to yourself – these things contribute to a feeling of invasion of personal space and boundaries that we Americans have so carefully cultivated around us. What Americans insist on holding at a distance lives up close and personal from Mumbai to Chennai.

In the States the average citizen can hold death, poverty, hunger, and filth so far from their day to day, that it’s possible to forget these make up a fundamental part of human existence. Just as life cannot exist without death, neither can excess exist without a lack. These things are a part of life on Earth, meaning no matter how much we may try to hide from them, there is ultimately no escape from chaos and discomfort. The things we are afraid of and that we try so hard to avoid will always manifest elsewhere in life.

In flavors, the weather, and daily interactions – life in India has a depth and complexity that is not apparent in the US – not to say that it doesn’t exist. This flavor profile can be compared to that of Miami, Chicago, Marseille, Brazil – places where life is lived unapologetically and out in the open. Places where chaos is present and we expect nothing less than the unexpected.

Where the US is domesticated, India is where man and dog run free. Where the US is bleached white and spotless, India basks in vibrancy and rich patterns. When one refuses chaos, disorder, and death, they deny themselves key elements in finding balance and perspective.