Family & friends ask: Why would you want to go THERE?

Please help! I had this challenge when I went to India several years ago (younger and single then): trying to explain to a handful of friends and family my desire to go to India. Now I'm married and planning a trip to India with my mom, and trying to help my husband (a true blue American Republican--don't know how we got hooked up, me being such a free spirit! ) understand the pull India has on me. I know he probably won't ever understand--it's not his type of vacation--and that's ok. His loss if he doesn't try. And he does only want me to be safe and have a good time.

So how do the rest of you help your baffled loved ones see the light of India?

Thanks,
Susan

I'd ask the opposite question: I guess I find it hard to understand why they should be so baffled?

Especially as, depending on budget, India can be anything from a tough adventure to a comfortable (even luxury) experience...

HA! just like mine, although mine isn't a Republican, thank goodness!

frankly, I gave up trying to get people to understand. I went to study yoga and even some "yogis" didn't get it.

I guess you can always say what Louis Armstrong (?) said about jazz: "if I have to explain, you wouldn't understand...."

Indeed - why WOULDN'T you want to go to India?! India is the most complete country in the world..

If you want cities or forests or plains or festivals or solitude or beaches or architecture or dance or good cuisine or friendliness or mountains or safety or ease of travel or good value or a range of hotels or wildlife or temples or snow-fields or flowers, you will find it in India.

Where else can you stay in a Palace for $100 per night? Where else can you make someone's day by giving them 50c? Where else can you be in such exotic surroundings whilst still speaking English? Where else can you get vegetarian food everywhere you go? Where else can you see a riot of sounds and smells and colours to delight the senses, yet still walk safely through the streets in the evenings? Where else can you experience a multitude of religions, and find people who are pleased that you are interested? Where else can you smile at a tiger?

India is complex and clever and kind. India is educated and electric and ecstatic. India will delight you if you want to be delighted. It will shock you in a thousand ways. It will make you ask deep questions about yourself, and shower you with a thousand answers, all of them true. India will revolutionise your thinking, and question all your values. You can take as much or as little as you want, but wherever you go, your smiles will be returned one thousand-fold.

Love it or hate it, you'll never forget India.

Tim in England

I'm the same as your husband (RNC contributor, NRA life member) and he should go with you--he'll enjoy it. My only real complaint about visiting Indian is that they make it impossible to bring firearms along on vacation, and nearly impossible for me to operate a ham radio rig in India.

As far as how you got hooked up with your husband, many free spirits secretly yearn to be under the iron hand of a male authority figure. One I learned this my life got a lot more interesting.

I just nearly fell for the TROLL above

lez

Well said Yogagal! That was exactly my thought when one of my sisters asked so I haven't replied about it. When someone has to add "out of all places" to the question, you already know they just don't get it. I wish I had the opportunity to go to India much earlier in my life; agree w/ Nick- Why NOT go to India?

Thanks all, for the thoughts. I know it's probably an uphill battle trying to explain/show the lure of India to my hubby. Some people will never get it...

As for PortieOwner's comment, I think he was joking about "free spirits secretly yearn[ing] to be under the iron hand of a male authority figure." At least I hope so! I had a good chuckle. Like I chuckle when my husband says similarly silly things--he's no dummy--he knows that if I'm not happy, neither is he.

And to Tim in England, you said it. Anything is possible in India.

Susan

So you, err, like India, then, Tim? Well said, and the Indian Tourist Board really should hire you

Portie... I'm sure that if you explain your deep insecurities to the customs guy, and that, on top of all that you're American, that he'll see reason

Gypsy, I'm still interested to know your husband's reasons for not visiting India...

He thinks all of India is a third-world country, and why would anyone want to go hang out where it's dirty, crowded, diseased, etc. The only foreign country he's ever been to is driving through Canada to get from Alaska to the Lower 48. I would love to take him to, say, England, for a first trip abroad--someplace similar to home, but different enough that he'd have fun--he'd love the history and old pubs and no-nonsense attitudes. Then maybe Australia, then the Caribbean, then Italy...

Bottom line is, he's listened to right-wing talk radio shows for years now, and those guys pump so much fear about the world out there into people it's sickening.

He and my father had both, at one point, thought they might want to come along, but my mom and I knew they'd make us miserable by being paranoid the entire time. We as sweetly as possible convinced them that we wanted a mother/daughter trip--we are, after all, going to visit places where her father and grandparents lived. Selfish of us, perhaps, but there you have it.

gypsy, are your husband and my husband twins separated at birth?

thank goodness mine's not a Republican who listens to Rush Limbaugh!

Oh.......... umm, OK.

Not much to be done about that then

If he really fancies being ripped off, stuck in traffic, being at much greater risk of crime, and so on an on ...then send him to London! You'll be much safer, and maybe even healthier, in India!

1. Best first overseas trip is Ireland, not England. Maybe he'd go for visiting Normandy in France. I saw a lot of guys dragging their bored wives all over the landscape of the invasion beaches.

2. I disagree with you about talk radio.

3. A little paranoia is not a terrible idea. Just not so much that it ruins the trip

Portie

Everyone knows that the western media mis-portrays countries particularly the poorer ones. No wonder that whenever any avg. American thinks about India, he mentally pictures only the images that he has seen of the poverty and filth in India on TV news and documentaries and decides "yuck who wants to go there for a vacation". Europeans and other nations to a certain extent have some idea of India's history and ancient culture, but the majority of American's don't.
There are plenty of Indians too that don't want to come back to India. My own cousin is one such person who has declared quite often "Not even a million dollars would tempt me into visiting India". So what can one say?? Fine, don't come, India certainly will not miss you!

I disagree. American TV and movies didn't prepare me for how bad India was, or for that matter how bad Europe or Mexico was. But the media did prepare me for how bad New York City was (in the late 1970s). Similarly, TV and movies didn't do a good job preparing my in-laws for their first visit to the US. And I disagree with your last sentence, besides being potentially racist it has a number of logical inconsistencies.

Portie