"Whites on Brown Fields"

At least once a day I do something that an Indian bystander or friend finds to be absolutely puzzling. I often get laughs and a chorus of shaking heads for the things I take pictures of, the places I choose to eat or, quite frequently, for walking when I’m offered a ride.

My friends wouldn’t be caught dead eating from some of the street vendors I frequent. When I explain that I go to the street corner kabob guy partly for the experience, I’m usually met with uncontrollable laughter.

I’m constantly amused with Indian habits but wow do people here love laughing at me. Frankly, they love laughing at the “stupid” things white foreigners do. So in that vein, I noticed an article in today’s Times of India. I give you, “Whites on brown fields,” a slightly mocking look at the new trend in bohemian vacation – volunteering to work on organic Indian farms.

The title of the piece is pure gold but the reaction I got from a few Indians about the substance of the article is even better. I will paraphrase for them. “What idiots, who spends their vacation plowing fields?”

Choice quotes from the piece include:

“Foreigners are all over Indian fields, turning the landscape a lighter shade of brown, and deepening into a darker tint of pink themselves.”

OR

“Consider it a free vacation if you count replenishing the soil, sowing, ploughing, threshing, composting, thatching, milking and so on as holiday sport.”

Now, I don’t want to misrepresent the piece. The majority of it is about the rewards foreigners are getting from the experience but you can’t help but think most Indians see this trend as bit of a novelty. I’m not going to disagree with them, but I do understand the appeal of the farm.

Now, anyone who has spent five minutes with me knows I’m about the polar opposite of the bohemian/hippie type but I think there is a certain romance about a simpler life in the fields. I don’t know if I could spend a year there, or if I could handle tevas and female armpit hair, but the sun on my face, calluses on my hands and a good book instead of the TV doesn’t sound so bad.

Anyway, for more on white people doing stupid things in Indian fields, read here.