Jiggy Viggy

As you may (or may not, no judgement) have read in the other blog posts, Indian traffic is thoroughly terrifying. Dashing in and out of cars, weaving through streets with no consideration for lanes, navigating through a web of tiny motorscooters: driving has easily been the most difficult adjustment I’ve had to make since I arrived. However, after a week of spending several hours a day in the vans, we’ve begun to get accustomed to the blasé pedestrians and death-defying stops. I thought that, in time, the rides might actually become boring, routine. That was a stupid assumption.

Last week, Anamika (shout out!) purchased, for a mere 75 rupees, one of my favorite aspects of the trip so far: a soundtrack to our sojourns. On the CD are dozens of popular Indian songs, compiled primarily from major films. Now we careen around the city to the sound of cheery Bollywood music, instead of just the sound of muffled gasps as we nearly hit yet another auto-rickshaw. For the last couple days, we’ve been hopping around Hyderabad, bopping to peppy, incomprehensible songs in a mix of Hindi, Telugu, and heavily-accented English.

For the first couple days I just listened, happy to have something to distract me from the chaos outside. I understood very few of the words, and even less of the meaning: “I wanna jiggy-viggy wit choo” is a key example. It wasn’t until Professor Prasad rode in the car with us that I began to understand the music; and consequently, more of Indian culture.

Professor Prasad mentioned how “saccharine” the songs on the CD were: how they were all about love, and adoration, and admiration, and more love. She roughly translated one of the songs as saying, “I can see you in the clouds, I can see you in the flowers, I am in your shadow and you’re in mine.” At first, I grimaced at the uber-romantic sentiment (I’m pretty girly myself, but that takes the cake), but once she explained that Indian poetic tradition was kept alive in Bollywood music (believe it or not), I began to understand a little better.

I’m used to a US Top 40 scene, where Taylor Swift’s love ballads are listed below raps that talk about drinking and drugs. American culture often requires love (at least in popular media) to take a backseat to more hedonistic pursuits. Meanwhile, Bollywood– India’s ubiquitous entertainment icon– actually promotes love and affection!– this alien concept (to someone raised in the States, at least) opened my eyes to a different viewpoint and led to me to consider other demonstrations of the cultural phenomenon.

In India, men hold hands. Boys hug one another. Girls cuddle during story time. The entire country is more open, more affectionate, more loving… and very strange to American visitors. A few members of the group have even commented on these public displays of platonic affection, and I can only imagine what my friends from home would think of men hugging in the streets.

I, for one, think it’s great. As a very affectionate person, my opinion may be a little biased, but I wholly support the freedom of emotional expression that Indian culture provides. I know it would be an extrapolation to try to extend that honesty to other areas of life– business, politics– but I think that American adoption of this Indian availability would be nothing but beneficial. I know the cultures are radically different, and maybe I’m just dreaming. But either way, the music is awesome.