Column: Indulging in India

Arriving in India meant using all of my senses.

The act of absorbing the many different tastes, smells, sights, sounds, spirituality and intensity overpowered me.

The best way to illustrate a taste of India is through its cuisine.

The food is rich, rigorous and revitalizing, each bite an extraordinarily composed experience that can never be precisely predicted.

Like the culture, people and geography, Indian food has a full helping of history, and each region has a unique take on its recipes.

As I traveled in Agra ­— home of the Taj Mahal — Jaipur, New Delhi and Cochin, I could sense both the similarities and potent differences that made each area unique.

In an Indian meal, the banana leaf is often laid out and covered with rice, the staple ingredient, which is smothered in spicy, sweet and sensational sauces, vegetables, curries. The entire course  is seasoned with a specific dose of spices to make the traditional taste.

The banana leaf has all of the far-out flavors that, like India, both beautifully blend and powerfully contrast, all merged into one munch.

I found that combination in the sweet yet spicy mix in the samosas, curries and stews I tried, all within the streets of India. I saw part of the combination in the richest of
the rich.

It was woven into shimmering sarees worn by the women. It was engraved in the elaborately designed temples decorated with the Hindu deities. It could be smelled near the spice factories that released incense of ginger, masala, cumin and vanilla into the air.

But I also tried the second slice of the combination.

The intensely impoverished slums with shacks made of worn-out tires, emaciated beggars and trash tucked into every square inch of space created a different type of pungency.

Although the two juxtaposed intensities differed so immensely, they somehow moved together like bangle bracelets, all joined into this banana leaf-like container, India.

The Indian meal oozes with flavors that require particular ingredients to fill the plentiful portions put on the leaf.

I noticed in my favorite dish, a coconut and cabbage curry, that certain flavors stood out, enhancing others.

My experiences in India were similar.

Like the sweet coconut milk, some experiences left a honeyed aftertaste.
Those experiences included watching the sunset while meditating with a yogi, visiting the Taj Mahal and dining and dancing with locals.

Like the spicy chilies, certain experiences completely caught me off guard.
The dozens of cows squeezed onto the streets, a child seeking shelter in a box and the maze-like Bazaar left me searching for security.

Blending the two flavors was taking a rickshaw tuk-tuk taxi ride.

All traffic laws fly out the window as you zigzag across the lane lines, creating your own street.

The honking horns fill every inch with sound.

It was as if  they were blaring “Ready or not, here I am.”

Reflecting about my experience in India, I am tremendously satisfied but left craving much more.

I overindulged in the sensations and overate the unique cuisine.

I stepped onto the rickshaw-filled roads of India, where I was swallowed whole, presented to the diverse menu, requiring a longer time to digest.

— espitzer@indiana.edu