How Being The New Guy Is Not So Bad

Several Friends That My Wife and I Meet at The Raj Ghat 

       My first trip to India was loaded with unique and interesting experiences; the monuments were simply breathtaking, the food was sublime, the traffic chaotic, and the monkeys were absolutely adorable.  But above all else, the most peculiar thing that I have encountered in India, was the people.  The people that I meet in India were extraordinarily kind, and very receptive to Westerners.  In fact, I felt more of a curiosity to them, then they were to me.  Several times during my trip, Indian's would out of nowhere, bust out a camera phone and start taking photos of me and the tour group that I was accompanying.  I even saw instances where locals would push their children up close to Westerners or even hand a perfect stranger their baby and take a pictures.  To me, this seemed so bizarre!  I have never been the center of attention just because of where I have come from. Yet, this seems to be a newly emerging trend in Northwest India.  Personally, I believe that this is occurring, because Westerners are not all that common in here.  When I visited this beautiful land, I had only come across about 50 Westerners in my all travels, including at The Taj Mahal, throughout Old Delhi, and at the major sites in Jaipur. One great thing about this unwarranted attention, is the accessibility of the people that you will encounter. As a whole, Indian's are very welcoming, many shop keepers will invite you into their shops for a cup of tea, or a stranger will approach you on the street and start up a conversation with you. They want to know where you are from, how many kids you have, what do you do for a living and so forth. You know, the usual stuff. This provided me with a wonderful opportunity to ask them about their lives and I was able to gain some great insight into their culture. One thing that I have learned from my travels is that these types of conversations can provide you with more information about a culture, than any guild book ever will as well as provide you with more meaningful experiences during your trips. This is why it can be very opportunistic to be "the new guy" when traveling abroad.