Hi! I am in Nagpur, India right now. It is a bigger city in my State. I have been here for 2 weeks and have one more week to go. We (exchange students) are preparing some bollywood dances for the Rotary District Conference which is on Feb. 4th and 5th. I will post pictures and videos of the performance later on! Anyway, I thought I would give you some interesting information on the culture that is now pretty much "normal" for me. Although, when you read about it, you may be pretty surprised! This is my life now... so get a good picture!
Families are so close here. They have joint families and nuclear families. A Joint family means the son, his wife, and children all live with his parents. So if their are two sons, then both families live with the parents. A nuclear family is where the couple and their children live alone...like what we are use to. Whether or not families live in a joint family, they are still close with their extended family. I do not know a family here that goes a day without at least talking to their siblings and parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, etc. Even the kids are close with their cousins. When someone says "Oh this is my brother." I often come to find out that it is their cousin...but here, that basically means it is their brother or "cousin brother" technically. It is interesting to me how close people are here.
I miss getting in my little car and driving wherever I needed to go. But at least now I take a rickshaw (a.k.a. an auto, a small, 3 wheeled, black and yellow, taxi like, vehicle). I like taking them because at least I feel independent again for a little while. You can take 'private rik' or 'shared rik'. Shared is where everyone crams into this little rickshaw and they all pay about 10 rupees (25 cents). Private means you pay for the distance you go and you get the whole thing to yourself.
There are beggars on the street...not as many as in the bigger cities, but I mean Nasik does have 1.9 million people, so there are still beggars. The problem is that now I know them all. It is hard to see the same people, the same kids, doing the same thing, everyday! That is their life.
Traffic is insane...the rickshaws, bikes, motorcycles, scooters, cars, cows, goats, and pedestrians all have the right away (but cows are main priority) and I am not being funny either. I cant explain it really... it's just every man for himself I guess. I love riding on the back of scooters or motorcycles and taking it all in. Just experiencing it (and by 'it' i mean India) best thing ever!
Here we eat with our hands. It's just how we do it. But make sure to only eat with your right hand because the left hand is considered unclean. Why? Well they pretty much don't use toilet paper here. Just water and your left hand. So then naturally they use the right hand to eat with. Again, this is not funny stuff...it is the culture. I am glad I brought some toilet paper along and found as store that sells it!
To bathe I........ well it depends on the house. Here in my second host family we have a normal shower. But in my first host family, and most homes here, they use a bucket. So basically there is a faucet you use to fill the bucket up with water. Then use a small container to scoop the water out of bucket and pour it on your head. This saves A LOT of water and one bucket is ALWAYS enough. Who knew?! :)
I remember the first street fight I saw in India. It really shook me up to watch it. I could barely deal with it and got out of there as fast as I could. Often they beat the person up so bad that it is to the point of death, it is the reality. Everyone just gathers around and watches it, no one helps or it would just get worse. I don't understand people not calling the police and just standing there to watch this. But then I learned more about corruption, paying off the police, and how if only one man is getting beaten up by a handful of other men, then there must be a "good reason" as to why he is "deserves" it. Very sad! :(
It took me so long to understand the rules between boys and girls. I still cannot really explain it very well. In general it all depends on the family. Parents do not think that teenagers or even young adults are mature enough to choose their life partner. So they instruct their children to finish their studies and wait until post graduation (from university) to begin looking for their future spouse. They also want their children to only date with the intention for marriage and that is why they try to keep their teens from dating. In Nasik especially, it is not allowed because the families are more orthodox in their way of thinking and not as experienced with the western culture as they would be in bigger cities like Mumbai. Still, all the teenagers I know 'date' in secret. I use the word 'date' loosely because I would equate most relationships here (even those of 18 year olds) to relationships that 13 and 14 year olds would have back home.
When it comes to marriage, they look at it as a joining of two families...not so much a joining of two people. This is why arranged marriage is still so prominent in India. After several conversations with people, they believe that arranged marriage is better because it works so much easier for the family and for the couple. Of course the younger generations are getting more and more use to the idea of love marriage. But still, 70% of marriages in India are arranged, even now in 2012.
Ok that was long and full of some facts and thoughts. I will let it digest in your brain! Thanks for reading and I hope it gave you a little better idea of some of the cultural differences and aspects.
Families are so close here. They have joint families and nuclear families. A Joint family means the son, his wife, and children all live with his parents. So if their are two sons, then both families live with the parents. A nuclear family is where the couple and their children live alone...like what we are use to. Whether or not families live in a joint family, they are still close with their extended family. I do not know a family here that goes a day without at least talking to their siblings and parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, etc. Even the kids are close with their cousins. When someone says "Oh this is my brother." I often come to find out that it is their cousin...but here, that basically means it is their brother or "cousin brother" technically. It is interesting to me how close people are here.
I miss getting in my little car and driving wherever I needed to go. But at least now I take a rickshaw (a.k.a. an auto, a small, 3 wheeled, black and yellow, taxi like, vehicle). I like taking them because at least I feel independent again for a little while. You can take 'private rik' or 'shared rik'. Shared is where everyone crams into this little rickshaw and they all pay about 10 rupees (25 cents). Private means you pay for the distance you go and you get the whole thing to yourself.
There are beggars on the street...not as many as in the bigger cities, but I mean Nasik does have 1.9 million people, so there are still beggars. The problem is that now I know them all. It is hard to see the same people, the same kids, doing the same thing, everyday! That is their life.
Traffic is insane...the rickshaws, bikes, motorcycles, scooters, cars, cows, goats, and pedestrians all have the right away (but cows are main priority) and I am not being funny either. I cant explain it really... it's just every man for himself I guess. I love riding on the back of scooters or motorcycles and taking it all in. Just experiencing it (and by 'it' i mean India) best thing ever!
Here we eat with our hands. It's just how we do it. But make sure to only eat with your right hand because the left hand is considered unclean. Why? Well they pretty much don't use toilet paper here. Just water and your left hand. So then naturally they use the right hand to eat with. Again, this is not funny stuff...it is the culture. I am glad I brought some toilet paper along and found as store that sells it!
To bathe I........ well it depends on the house. Here in my second host family we have a normal shower. But in my first host family, and most homes here, they use a bucket. So basically there is a faucet you use to fill the bucket up with water. Then use a small container to scoop the water out of bucket and pour it on your head. This saves A LOT of water and one bucket is ALWAYS enough. Who knew?! :)
I remember the first street fight I saw in India. It really shook me up to watch it. I could barely deal with it and got out of there as fast as I could. Often they beat the person up so bad that it is to the point of death, it is the reality. Everyone just gathers around and watches it, no one helps or it would just get worse. I don't understand people not calling the police and just standing there to watch this. But then I learned more about corruption, paying off the police, and how if only one man is getting beaten up by a handful of other men, then there must be a "good reason" as to why he is "deserves" it. Very sad! :(
It took me so long to understand the rules between boys and girls. I still cannot really explain it very well. In general it all depends on the family. Parents do not think that teenagers or even young adults are mature enough to choose their life partner. So they instruct their children to finish their studies and wait until post graduation (from university) to begin looking for their future spouse. They also want their children to only date with the intention for marriage and that is why they try to keep their teens from dating. In Nasik especially, it is not allowed because the families are more orthodox in their way of thinking and not as experienced with the western culture as they would be in bigger cities like Mumbai. Still, all the teenagers I know 'date' in secret. I use the word 'date' loosely because I would equate most relationships here (even those of 18 year olds) to relationships that 13 and 14 year olds would have back home.
When it comes to marriage, they look at it as a joining of two families...not so much a joining of two people. This is why arranged marriage is still so prominent in India. After several conversations with people, they believe that arranged marriage is better because it works so much easier for the family and for the couple. Of course the younger generations are getting more and more use to the idea of love marriage. But still, 70% of marriages in India are arranged, even now in 2012.
Ok that was long and full of some facts and thoughts. I will let it digest in your brain! Thanks for reading and I hope it gave you a little better idea of some of the cultural differences and aspects.
