“What is your good name?”

“Excuse me?”

“What is your good name?” was the question the impatient gate attendant asked as he stuck his arm out. I was not sure what he meant; my good name, as opposed to? He grabbed my passport and typed something into the computer then ushered me forward. “Tatenda Jaqueline,” he started and then paused at my surname, which he then chose not to attempt. “Make sure you wait until the sun comes up to get your taxi out of the airport, it is still very dark outside. It is not safe for you.”

You? Who was ‘you’ in this instance? Who wasn’t safe? A dark, brown-skinned person? A woman? A foreigner? A young human? All the above? I repeatedly thanked him. I was not quite sure why, but I felt a sense of inferiority to this man. As though at any moment he could tell me that I did not quite qualify for something and send me back home, but instead he said, “welcome to India” and handed my passport back.

I took the green identity document and sat on the cold airport benches, waiting for the sun to come up as I had been advised. What is my good name? Did the question imply that I had a bad name? Did it refer to the existence of some alter ego that Indians believed existed in everyone? Did it have something to do with one of their multitude of gods? Fine, those were not the questions that raced through my mind, but the reality is that they could have, and it would not have been because of sheer ignorance but because I was living in a space that was continents away from my African home and thus, I was in a world that is not my own. As was said by Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, “we are not in Kansas anymore”.

There I was, amid a new social group, so much occurring around me, three-wheeled rickshaws (which I fondly grew to call Tuk Tuk's), the sound of mucus, and spitting shocking my ears and making my stomach churn. The number of people that constantly swarmed around me almost seemed a steady stream. I had never been in a place with-so-many-people. I was here for school, studying at Jawaharlal University (JNU) as part of the Global Studies Program (GSP). One of the objectives of my program was to acquire global competence, delve into new societies on three different continents, and explore various cultural norms, whilst gaining a formal education.

I had seen foreign exchange students on the UCT campus, and some, to be quite honest, were ignorant, or so I had thought before this trip. I now share a newfound empathy with those exchange students as I have realised that the knowledge one has about a place arises from the societal milieu in which they come from, and before my trip to New Delhi, the knowledge I had acquired about India had not been favourable.

I, unfortunately, arrived in Delhi in the wake of the violent rape and murder of a female student on the JNU campus, which raised many questions about the treatment of women by men and general safety in India. This made me wonder, was that why I had felt uneasy around the gate attendant at the airport? I had been warned in very matter-of-factly, crude terms, that India is dirty, dangerous, backward, and instructed to 'survive’. I embraced the challenge.

During the six months in New Delhi, I learned more about myself and society than I ever would have within the structure of the four walls of a lecture room. Some lessons, I’ll carry with me forever.

Lesson one, you can fly: I had been cautioned about the crowds on the trains in New Delhi, but how bad could it be? The station of the city is named DELHI and its station code is DLI. The metro system was shockingly efficient, the trains arrived on time. I laughed at the signs that read “NO SPITTING”- shouldn't that go without saying? There were carriages for women only, as well as for males only, and then some carriages for mixed. I chose to go to one of the mixed carriages – I was not afraid of the boys.  I was thinking of how brilliant it would be to have a metro system in Zimbabwe when I was literally lifted off my feet and carried away from the train door. My legs dangled in the air, I struggled to hold onto my bag, and I could see I was moving forward but without walking. There were so many people pushing to get in while the others were forcing themselves out! They were carrying me with them, shoulder to shoulder, I was raised off the ground, then I found myself inside the train and it was taking off. Like I said, I flew.

Lesson two, negotiation skills: Take a trip to Sarojini market or Najpat Nagar, you become an expert negotiator. You haggle for almost everything! You can bargain something from Rs500 to Rs200, the trick is to feign disinterest and walk away, they will always call you back. If my foreign status had not betrayed me, who knows how much I could have reduced many of my shopping items.  

Lesson three, the phrase impossible becomes obsolete:  I am not fond of rats! Before India, I would have sworn it was impossible for me to be brave enough to chase one out of a room, but twice I found myself doing the impossible. Granted, I was standing on my bed holding a broom, but the task was done. My roommate and I un-creatively named him Ratatouille. Rats were not the only animals that made themselves at home with humans. The abundance of stray dogs was unbelievable. My friend joked that if I were to marry an Indian, they could probably pay lobola in dogs! The dogs happily strolled in and out of the hostels, cohabiting in a residence full of ladies...those sly dogs!

Lesson four, chillies in your eggs is the norm: The first few weeks of my trip, I thought I would lose weight because, well, honestly put, because of the violent and frequent diarrhoea! My word, there is no way around it. The drastic gradient change in food styles meant that everyone in the program had an intimate relationship with the drop toilets in our residence (a story for another day). Unfortunately, I did not lose weight. The food there was amazing and so highly subsidised on campus. The portions for one person could easily feed a family of four. My favourite thing to eat was from a small, underground shop on campus that sold Punjabi vegetarian samosas which would sell out by 10 am every day! One issue though, everything was hot! With every order, I had to ask for ‘no spice’ or ‘no chilli’ and I would be met with the utmost confusion. Every breakfast for the first four weeks, I would ask for plain eggs, but they would always come spotted with red chillies. Slowly I adjusted and learned to ask them to just cut in one chilli instead of two.

It took me some time to settle in. At first, I mostly stayed blithely burrowed in the bubble of Jawaharlal’s University space but I soon opened up. I have come to see life not through the opaque one-sided lens of my upbringing but through an appreciation of the diverse ways of living in various societies.  I realised that I had been a plain egg all my life and was now allowing myself to be spotted with chillies and have a little more flavour. By the time I left, my pallet and I were a little more adventurous.