Village Walk & Missed Opportunities

By Gabe Ramirez

In hindsight I think that too many of us were overly infatuated with the physical beauty of the wheat fields and the amazing view of the Taj. What went under acknowledged was the generosity of the people in the village. These people gave us their time and resources just so that we could have a window into a very authentic rural lifestyle. As thankful and amazed I was with their immense generosity, I also had a strange sense of during the days that followed. Throughout the entire experience I wondered why I was being gifted so much by these people. I then realized who it was that was really providing for us during our visit. The women of the village were the ones cooking the food and making the tea for us to drink. Along with this they were the people who I interacted with the least. I found myself wishing I had taken advantage of the brief opportunity I had to interact with them after they had served us our meal. The men of the village were the ones who brought us to the village and gave us the walk in the wheat fields, but the women were only working. I found myself wondering how these women felt about our visit and if they even had a say in whether or not we came. This was really highlighted to me when we all circled around the mother of the village and took pictures of her cooking, while she didn’t speak to us. In found this specific aspect of our visit to be quite sad after our visit to Pardada Pardadi. Here we learned about the silencing of women in Indian society and their mission to change this aspect of traditional Indian society. It was quite sad that we were complicit with this societal norm in the form of our actions at the village.

Proper understanding of the place you are visiting is something that I feel too many people lack when they travel. It is the responsibility of any tourist to understand the society, but also to understand what societal role they play during their visit. If people are more educated on the effects of their visit and their presence I feel that a more healthy experience will always be the end result.