What do I like so much about India?

I got food poisoning four times in India and three more times in Asia, with hospitals, antibiotics, feelings of near-death, and everything in between. Spicy foods and Asian bacteria are almost lethal to me. I would eat every new meal and every unknown fruit as a gift from the hands of each local. I would love to relax and not have to overthink where everything comes from, but I know well that it could kill me. The easy things always seem difficult for me. So, I can’t help but ask myself: What is it that I love so much about being here?

Each time was very particular, and no less overwhelming because of it.

The first time, I had to explain my dire situation to a Vipassana master monk—and 100 expectant listeners—begging him to let a doctor in to see me. He didn’t.

The second time was in Nepal, climbing a peak of the Himalayas alone. The bathroom was outside in the freezing night, and I had to go so frequently that I slept fully dressed—I even considered sleeping in the bathroom, but the sanitary conditions weren’t exactly convincing.

The third time, they took me to the hospital, and the first thing they tried to do was give me an injection, which I adamantly refused.

The second time I arrived in Asia wasn’t better than the first. This time, I had brought my mother along to show her that Asia was a very safe and peaceful place.

Three days after arriving in Hanoi, Vietnam, I vomited uncontrollably on a tourist bus. My mother held a plastic bag and my hair while I clung desperately to a railing, my head hanging down, barely conscious.

The first thing I thought was: "How great that my mom is with me this time! Welcome back to Asia!"

Ten days later, the same thing happened again—this time in the temples of Angkor, Cambodia, right in front of the famous Bayon. I could only admire it between bouts of vomiting, fever, and sweating, in the middle of a beautiful jungle, from a moving tuk-tuk as I threw up into the air. I told my mother everything was fine, that she should keep taking photos and that I’d recover in a bit. The driver kept going too. By then, the three of us had accepted my condition as normal.

At least with style, right?

"How do you live here?" my mother asked, watching these events unfold. The most basic things, like eating, sometimes become a nightmare for me. Despite that, I love Asia.

Inevitably, I had to ask myself:

What is it that you love about Asia? And more than that, what is it that you love so much about India?

It’s hard to explain because most of the answer is just a feeling. The culture, the religion, the temples, the rhythm, the simplicity, the stories, the priorities, the escapes.

As women, we can’t wear the clothes we’re used to or let our bodies feel free. We have to swim fully clothed, and at times, the patriarchy and cultural constraints suffocate us so much that we need a break from it all.

Even something as simple as walking is chaotic, noisy, and full of obstacles. Almost everything simple becomes complex. Things tend to be a bit dirty and "messy" by our standards. There are piles of garbage in the middle of the streets, and places where poverty shakes you to your core. Situations that confront you with the best and worst of yourself and your deepest discomforts. Situations where you simply don’t know where to stand, what to say, or what to do.

From funny things like showering with a little bucket of water or not finding toilet paper, to profound moments—trying to figure out how to cope when a child or an almost-starved elderly person begs you for money to eat.

And the chaos that always welcomes you, when most of the time, you came here searching for peace.

Maybe that’s why, when you do find peace, it’s twice as valuable. Or maybe we need contrast to know how to appreciate things.

So, once again, what do I love about India?

I simply love being here. Even though it has nearly killed me on several occasions. Even though the ways of life can be frustrating, patience can wear thin, and sometimes you just want to eject yourself to a "normal" place. Most of the time, there’s something in my vibration that feels at home.

The third time I arrived in India, I had just spent two months in a Buddhist country. When I got here, the chaos, the poverty, the garbage, and the crowds felt heavy, and I questioned why I was here.

"How can we think about spirituality with so much neglect?" I thought. As if we needed to be in the perfect place to become spiritual and connect with ourselves. Beautiful but unrealistic—especially because perfection doesn’t exist.

But then, when you go to a temple or a ceremony and put on the scale all the spirituality, the stories, and the sensations you feel looking at those people—even if you don’t know them—something there captures you. Something shifts a mental balance you didn’t even realize was there, even if you don’t understand how.

Sometimes, it’s not that you want to stay. It’s that you can’t leave.

You want to stay in that magical bubble a little longer, where time stops and nothing seems more important than what you’re witnessing. Because seeing magic right in front of your eyes is an inexplicable and profoundly captivating feeling. The chants, the fires, the mantras, the prayers in a language you don’t even understand. Sometimes, it feels like "doing nothing," but in reality, it’s just being present. That "doing nothing" that is actually everything. That possibility of being just presence.

It becomes addictive. The devotion penetrates you, turns you into a believer, moves you, excites you, ignites you, teaches you. It brings you back to life after living numb for so long. For all those who complain about intensity—here, you have it a thousand times over.

The sensations go through you, make you cry without knowing why, make you respectful, empathetic, simple. They make you feel blessed. They show you transcendence.

It’s as if a portal opens and you step into another dimension—the dimension of spirit. That is India to me.

You hear words and guides, and mountains speak to you. You see signs, and you hear yourself amidst all the chaos, reclaiming a language you didn’t even know you had.

A reconnection. A celebration. All of that.

That same month, after returning to India—but to the real India, to a deeply local place overflowing with intensity, mysticism, and faith—I once again felt at home. Almost naturally, I found myself surprised, riding my bicycle back through the night toward the town’s main street—the same one I once despised—seeking a bit of that mass of human warmth that wandered the streets singing to Shiva. That chaos that no longer felt like chaos was now devotion, stories, moments, admiration for local creativity, laughter, hidden corners, tales, emotions, photographs.

I think, in the end, it could all be summed up in that feeling of being alive, a passion for life that is contagious and makes you a believer, even if you don’t want to be.

All the shades and colors of reality, without any anesthesia. The same shades that sometimes hit you like a punch in the mouth, and other times draw you into the reality of another world that fascinates. A world that seems like a movie from a thousand years ago, and the dichotomy of real life at its peak.

The streets are chaotic, sometimes smelly, and mostly impassable. People push you without remorse. They don’t ask for permission; they don’t ask for permission for almost anything. But one day, after living here for a while, you start to perceive how bodies adjust within the chaos, as if they acquire a collective spatial awareness so incredibly sharp that they gain the almost magical ability to avoid collisions. They organize themselves in the tiny open spaces. They glide past each other, barely brushing but moving in harmonious synchrony, as if they could telepathically predict each other’s movements—without ever intending to do so. Once you learn that, moving through the chaos becomes easier and even intuitive.

Incredible India. Oddities, eccentricities, nonsensical things, devotion, extremes, miracles, simplicity. Being. The little—or the much—sense of needing, and life suspended in time.

The polarities. Madness and enlightenment. The sacred and the absurd. The spiritual and the commercial. The Gurus and the impostors. Knowledge and illusion. Transcendence and colorful mirages.

Sometimes everything becomes unbearable, so much so that it forces us to ask ourselves what to do with it.

At times, it gives us peace; other times, it forces us to face the depths of life, of ourselves, of what is good and what is bad.

On some occasions—many—it makes us grow; other times, it only suspends us in a bubble of time and lets us float. Sometimes, it is simply about living with less mind and more presence. Aberrations and fascinations coexist with all their contradictions, but those magnetisms, exaggerated by the value of difference, cloud our vision, leaving us with wide-open eyes and a comfortable soul. So much so that something does not want to move and anchors itself here, even though “we” keep looking at the clock and the to-do list, ready to get up. "She" stays, and she stays with us too, in this world of fantasies and infinite possibilities—one that, once you enter, luckily, becomes hard to leave..

Could it be that power they have to symbolize everything? That power to believe, to create, and also to see beyond? That transmutation of meanings? That arrogance they have to transform?

To turn a candle into a wish, a mountain into a God, a river into a mother who blesses.An empty action into a ritual, a nothingness into a whole, a fragment of something into a figure with shape.A common place into a sanctuary, a banana into an offering, an incense stick into a purification, a doubt into faith, a void into meaning...

Because what I love most about India is this: the creation of meaning in the face of the emptiness of the modern world. That same world that I so often find almost void.

—What are you doing here? —people ask me.—I live —I answer. Like you do in your countries, but here. Here I have time, here I can cultivate my spirituality, my practices, my personal projects, my mind, my dreams. Basically, I can dedicate myself to what truly matters to me without money becoming the commander of my ship. I can have deep conversations with people about things that interest me—about life, about death, about transcendence—and not just superficialities, political frustrations, and elevator talk. I can take care of myself, care for my body, my diet, my awareness, my actions, my karma. Here I can live, and I can also dream and make my dreams come true. I can live more awake… here, I can be free.The basics—the very things that have been lost in so many societies.

Here, I meet other beings who are also on this path, the path of stepping out—out of somewhere and into something else. And though we don’t put a name to it, it is always, without a doubt, a little closer to who we truly are. Here, no one stares at you, few judge you, and little by little, you learn to do it less yourself. You stop feeling weird, crazy, bohemian, out of place, and you find people with the same questions as you—people who make your own questions sound more normal, wiser, and less insane. You meet people who walk, or have walked, similar paths—paths of searching, curiosity, learning, illusions, inspiration. They, the ones who vibrate without fixed destinations, are open to everything, and because of that, they fill you with life and infinite possibilities. These are the beings who, without planning it, quickly become your traveling tribe.

Here, you move lightly and find time to live without so many worries or imposed expectations. You create a new list of priorities—perhaps more authentic, perhaps just different. And of course, all of this is already within us, but the right environment always helps, encourages, propels, and inspires.

SO WHY DO YOU LOVE INDIA SO MUCH?

What else can I say? Maybe all of this sounds foolish, childish, and libertarian. And maybe it is—and that’s where the rebellion lies.I must have lived here in another life because my soul feels at home. Sometimes, even I don’t understand it. Sometimes, I no longer ask myself why.Sometimes, I stop questioning and just live—still amazed, moment by moment, to find myself living in this film of time and freedoms.

I no longer try to explain it within the limits of the mind, because I have understood that words don’t grasp everything.I have learned to live it, and that is enough for me.

What I do know is that most people who come to India once always return—like a first love. Well, not everyone—only the lucky ones.

I know the risks of these lands—sometimes amusing, sometimes not so much. But I believe it’s the price to pay for touching, even just for a moment, the full light of the Universe’s magic with your own fingers.

So, how could I not take the risk?

Mother India. India Maa. I thank you and I bless you, because you have touched me, because you have blessed me.

Hari Om ૐ