The Fragrance of India: Cultural Cleanliness and Why I Respect the Smell of Human Feces
Since I returned from my summer studying abroad in New Delhi in 2016, I’ve always been asked by my colleagues what was most memorable about my time over in the east. From being questioned about Prime Minister Modi’s treatment of Muslims, the various types of ethnic Indian food, and others, it’s come to my attention that Americans don’t really understand the radically different culture of India.
It’s not that their questions are invaluable or misguided, I just think they’re stupid in comparison to the bigger picture: Indians are noteworthy not just for their radically different cultural landscape, but for their unique approach to cleanliness.
Americans could learn a thing or two from our somehow-Asian-but-not-quite-Asian-enough-to-be-mistaken-for-the-Chinese friends.
When I was interning for the Revolutionary Economic Troops Acknowledging Rupee Disparity, a NGO tasked with understanding economic development in underprivileged Indian states, I made friends with several natives who were kind enough to show me what it was like to be Indian.
What I took from the experience was that, despite having a diet consisting almost entirely of curry, Indians are more than comfortable to embrace foreigners unadjusted to the local culture. And even though I spent most of my trip using the bat’rum, which in Indian means “shitting just about anywhere,” I was able to absorb what I needed to become a little native myself (mostly masala and garlic).
What also came as a surprise to me was that Indians are actually relatively fair-skinned: in India, there is a practice known as “cologne,” wherein native Indian men actually spray on human feces and cover their entire body in order to attract potential mates. The women, often being married off as young as one or two years old to thirty-year-old men, are then taken by their suitors into the othous, where they make sensual love for forty-eight hours, and are likewise covered in the same cologne the men use for courtship.
This is the sort of bond that never falters. And if a woman disagrees with this practice, legally her husband (or rapist) is allowed to douse her with a highly corrosive substance that will leave her permanently disfigured for the rest of her life. Now, some cultural imperialists on Twitter might suggest that this is highly violent and downright despicable, but these people are likely the same types that would object to a Black father beating his baby mama half to death after a dispute on who gets to drive the Pontiac Bonneville on the weekdays. It’s important to understand that, though we may have different values or beliefs, this is simply a part of their culture, and it’s beautiful.
One thing is for sure, though I am no Hindu nationalist, I have a great amount of respect for Modi’s India and the people who live there. It’s truly a culture like no other and deserves the same respect (and even more so) than our own. Variety is the spice of life, as they say, and India’s just happens to be coriander.
