Snapchat vs. Instagram stories: India Style

This may be my most candid post yet, so prepare yourself if you are over the age of 25. Sorry Mom.

Disclaimer: If you follow me on Snapchat, I sincerely apologize. In the past few years of the social media world, Snapchat has become less and less professional. I used to care about having aesthetically pleasing photos of what I was experiencing on there but somewhere along the way, this got lost. Now, Instagram is the place for my artsy photos, and Snapchat is the raw footage. My Instagram story has to be mother and grandma approved before posting, but Snapchat gives me free reign. My Instagram has become the beautiful parts of my life, and my Snapchat has become a make-shift finsta account. For those of you who don’t know what a finsta is, the Urban Dictionary definition is: “A fake instagram account, so one can post ratchet pictures without persecution from sororities, jobs and society as a whole.“

At this point I can actually see my mother shaking her head as she reads this saying “Don’t you know that stuff exists forever,” or “Don’t put your whole life on social media.” Believe me, I’m studying this stuff in school and know the repercussions of having unclean social media, and I still put a heavy filter on what I post. I do want a job someday so I’m not a complete idiot, trust me. I also know social media can be a swallowing black hole that causes a lot of pain, and it may be hard for older generations to understand my use of it. But, I am studying media in college for a reason. I am enamored by its ability to connect people from all over the world and share information in a way never before seen in history. I’m in India across the world, but someone sitting in Cell Biology at CSU can see what I’m up to. It’s a powerful medium to share information and completely fascinates me. I use social media for myself, and to show others this amazing life I get to live. I use it as a journal to flip back to someday and see how I was feeling in that exact moment. Most people older than millennials think of a journal as pencil and paper, but the capacity of journaling goes far beyond that, and is endless now with the use of social media.

So, I’m not sorry for being candid on social media. I’m not sorry for showing how amazing this world is and wanting to share it with anyone with a smart phone. To me it’s not a waste of time and energy, and I still value the importance of taking in a moment rather than getting the perfect picture on Instagram. This world is full of amazing moments and if you blink, you’ll miss them.

Honestly, for those of you who are lucky/unlucky enough to follow me on Snapchat, you get to see the hilarious mishaps and my true humor coming out during my abroad experiences.

Example:

I have a photo of New Delhi traffic on Instagram with the caption “Traffic Jam!” whereas on my Snapchat, it’ll be some weird zooming video with the caption “Move b*tch get out the way” or something else mildly inappropriate.

I’ll have a photo of the Taj Mahal with the caption “Absolutely Breathtaking” with the little location tag, but on Snapchat I’ll have the photo below:

They may be on the cusp of TMI but hey, they’re candid and often capture the belly-laughing moments I have experienced on my time abroad. And believe me, there has been more than I can count.

Pardon my French, but India was a complete shit show. Annie and I did not stop laughing the entire time at how NUTS this country is. We docked in Cochin, Kerala which is much further South on a map. This beautiful state had more beach town vibes and was much mellower than all the horror images of traffic we were shown in pre-port on the ship. I was thinking “This is nothing! I am so relaxed.”

This is the part in the movie where the record scratches and the narrator says over the still frame “Little did she know, she had a big storm coming.”

The build-up to the storm looked a little like this:

I had a field class for my Women’s Studied class the first day in Kerala and I was able to visit St. Theresa’s Women’s College. We had multiple seminars where powerful women of Kerala spoke to us about domestic violence, feminism, representation, and LGBTQ rights in India. If you know me at all, you know I was completely enthralled with what they were saying. Some of my favorite lines of the day included:

“A woman should be seen, but should not be heard.” – speaking on unfair expectations

“Women are becoming bolder, they are becoming stronger.”

“An empowered woman is powerful beyond measure. And beautiful beyond description.”

“If you want something said – ask a man. If you want something done – ask a woman.” – Margaret Thatcher

“The moment a woman wants to assert her individuality and voice, that is when the slut shaming starts. Women who are empowered and educated are silenced.”

I was able to meet women my age and communicate with them their perception of LGBTQ identifying people and how their societies are progressing. We were able to compare similarities and differences in how women are expected to act compared to men in both America and India. Surprisingly, there are more similarities than I thought. People looking at India from an outsider’s perspective think India is stuck in traditional values, but they are actually quite progressive and making large waves in women’s and gay rights. Transgender individuals and gay people were actually given rights in 2017, much more progressive than their surrounding countries.

I had an amazing day with all these women, and I left feeling so connected to them even though they’re on an entirely different continent than my home country. My feminist fire was fueled, and I am so grateful I was able to experience an academic day I wouldn’t have been able to without SAS. Women are incredible no matter where you go. Women are powerful, and deserve to be heard.

The next day, I was on a field program through Semester at Sea that was taking me, Annie and 25 other SASers to Delhi and the Taj Mahal.

The storm looked a little bit like this:

This is the first field program I have done which means the first time I haven’t done independent travel. I have fallen entirely in love with independent traveling. I don’t have someone putting a time limit on exploring an area, I am able to have long conversations with locals, and I am able to be at ease even in chaos. Something I don’t enjoy about tour bus touristing is the presence of a tour guide putting restraints on precious time in these countries, but they also provide structure and information you cannot get from a pamphlet. I decided to do a tour guide led program in India because I was intimidated by how vast the country was and the complicated public transportation. It is extremely easy to get ripped off here by tuk tuks and taxis and the traffic alone would’ve given me an anxiety attack. Another benefit of doing a SAS program is they plan everything for you, down to the lunches you eat. You literally show up and they heard you like cats where you have to go. It’s convenient and after two months straight of stressing travel, I was excited for a break.

We took an airplane to Delhi, India which is in the Northern region of the country. On our bus ride to our hotel, the photos of chaos and traffic from pre-port allllll made sense now. Horns were honking, people were yelling, trash was blowing, and cows were walking around like stray dogs. It was the purest form of organized chaos I have ever seen.

We got to our hotel and it looked like it was about to crumble to the ground. Annie and I walked into our room and were greeted by a weird musky smell and scuffs on our bed spreads. Out of the 30 college students on our program, no one could figure out the WiFi, so naturally everyone was cranky. Annie was running around like a fairy spritzing eucalyptus and lemon oil to “cleanse the air” and was standing in the window yelling at the boys playing cricket below us. The extraneous travel day obviously made us delusional and we could not stop laughing at how ridiculous it was. I am not a priss in where I stay at all, put me on a cot I don’t care, but between the power outages and door that wouldn’t lock, we were a little over it. Sample of Snapchat photo below:

Some friends we met in the program ended up venturing to the hotel bar to get some drinks. A young Indian man was serenading us with Indian versions of American songs while the bartenders looked down their noses at Annie for ordering a second drink as a woman. Naturally, Annie loves to embarrass me, so she pulled the singer over and told him to do a duet with me. After a little convincing, I said “why not, I’m in India!!” So me and this mediocre hotel bar singer sang “Perfect Duet” by Ed Sheeran and Beyonce with an Indian twist. It was a hilarious life moment, until all the old men in the bar area came up to me wanting pictures – ie. the photo below. Peep our interaction on the left hand side.

Salaam Balaak Trust

The next day my group was able to work with a non-profit organization called Salaam Baalak Trust. There is a severe epidemic of children living on the streets and either ending up in prostitution rings, starvation, or drug abuse. In my short time in Delhi, I noticed kids as young as 6 coming up to car windows selling trinkets or asking for plastic bottles to sell for money. Salaam Baalak Trust is an organization in the heart of the city that searches these children out and gives them a shelter, food, education, and the resources to get back on their feet as they get older. I was beyond excited to meet the guides who work for them who are former street children and the current kids in their care to get a first-hand look into their realities.

There’s a saying that goes “Is it actually five minutes, or is it an Indian five minutes,” and now I get it. Our guide said the drive was 30 minutes away, well an hour and fifteen minutes later… we ended up getting out of the tour bus in the middle of the road to meet our guide. I literally had to scoot across the hood of a car to get to the side walk. A city tour guide herded us together and began the walking tour to their organization. We began walking in narrow alleyways filled with people washing dishes with brown water, and cooking on open fires. Thank God I wore closed toed shoes because with the rain and trash coating the concrete, it would’ve been asking for an infection. Being a young white female, I stuck out like nothing I have ever experienced causing me to turn my focus knob all the way up. I wasn’t even looking at my surroundings because I was trying not to fall in a sink hole or cracked concrete. We passed little markets filled with people in alleys that looked like ones I wouldn’t dare enter in the U.S., but that is their everyday norm. We made it to their day care facility, and walked up a staircase with a steady crack running along the side. We got upstairs and could see the kiddos sitting in the library with bright eyes waiting for us to come in.

These children have experienced more pain and abuse at the age of eight than I will in a life-time. These kids lived on the streets of Delhi, India before being rescued by this program. When entering the room, the 20 or so kids were extremely reserved to interact with us. They were clothed is ripped leggings and shirts with holes in them and had dirt caked under their finger nails. One kid broke the ice by grabbing the hand of a girl on my program and started a thumb war. He had obviously learned that from some other foreigner visiting before us. We played little games like Rock Paper Scissors and Patty Cake and read language books until we had to leave. Our guide was 17 and was rescued from the streets with his brother when he was young. He ran away from home after his mother passed away and his father started being abusive due to alcoholism. He now works as a tour guide for the same place that saved him, and is currently studying theater in school. Still holding out hope I’ll see him in a Bollywood movie in the future!

Rickshaw

After visiting the organization, my group did Rickshaw rides through New Delhi rush hour traffic. SAS… I have a question? Why are you punishing us for riding scooters in the open roads of Myanmar, yet you schedule those same students to get in a cart pulled by a man on a bike in DELHI TRAFFIC??? Someone give me an answer. This was the most comically chaotic moment of my entire life, I have never experienced anything close to it. I climb into the cart and the driver started pedaling through the rainy streets. During my hour or so on the rickshaw Annie and I: got hit by a moving car, almost slid out of the seat 93928072342 times, and got stared at my middle-aged men with jaws to the floor as we flew by. We were in stand still traffic for about 30 minutes after visiting a spice market, and there were men jumping over our legs to cross the street. We could feel the hard stares from everyone around us and had to just sit in the uneasiness because there was no getting out. Between avoiding death by the skin on my teeth a hundred times, it was so much fun! I thought I-25 traffic was bad… never again.

The next day we went to the Taj Mahal. I’m making another post about my time at the Taj because it fell on my 21stbirthday!!

Rainbow after the storm

The last two days in port I was able to spend exploring Kerala. My friends and I went shopping, got incredible food, went to a modern art museum, had intimate conversations with locals, and did a boat tour.

Here’s some photos from the best modern art museum I’ve ever walked through. Aspin House showcases art work from artists all over the world, but primarily outside of the United States. It was filled with wildly creative pieces jazzed with political statements and tackled difficult issues like abuse and racism. Other than the humidity causing sweat drip down every inch of my body, I was in art heaven. Here are some of the exhibits:

On the last day, I had henna drawn on my hand by a woman that does it out of a little dress shop. We got to talking to the two women in the shop about life as a female in India, travel, money, marriage, etc. One of the women is obtaining a work Visa for Canada and asked how long it would take to travel there. She asked is it was a five-hour plane. After processing my initial shock, I looked it up and it is an 18-hour flight. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers. She had never been out of Kerala, had never been on a plane, had never been on a train! She was fascinated with all the places we’d been and asked us hundreds of questions about Canada and the U.S. and how they would treat a female Indian immigrant. A hard question to answer honestly. The women were shocked at the age of 21, I was still not married. They were even more surprised when I said I didn’t have a boyfriend and that I didn’t want one. Indian girls are taught from a young age marriage and their wedding is the most important day of their lives. They are provided husbands through arranged marriages and are expected to have children instead of have a job. The woman drawing on my hands married at 16 and got pregnant 7 months later. They laughed at how big my eyes got, just like I did to them before. It was the most enriching conversation I had with women in any country and I learned so much about how your environment shapes you.

Here are some photos of our boat tour, amazing $4 brunch and when I finally got my 21st Birthday drink!

I am so lucky to live this life I do, and I’m trying to soak up every moment, even the chaotic ones. India is rich in culture and eye-opening experiences. I’m going to miss all the smells and sounds of horns honking. I’m going to miss the incredible women I met and seeing them resilient despite their circumstances. Lastly, I’m going to miss the curry and naan, and I’m forcing my dad to try out that Indian food place by our house when I get home.