Hamish Fox

The Second Assimilation

 

Coming home was something I was really looking forward to. Although India was a joyous rollercoaster of both highs and lows, and sights and sounds, during the final days of Goa and Mumbai I had a chance to finally look ahead to when our flight touched down in Auckland, and to our ‘Second Assimilation’ back into our normal lives.

 

Although I still have not been able to process all the information from our month of adventures, my thoughts over the past three weeks have gone like this:

 

Heading straight down to the family bach, at Lake Tarawera, I saw some peace and quiet for the first time since leaving for Singapore at 1am on the 9^th of December, 2013. I was finally hit by reverse culture shock, and soon the pressures of normal life, such as university applications, shattered the tranquillity of my peaceful hideaway. These pressures also brought back both the stresses and worries that are simply just not present in the small piece of India we were privileged enough to see.

 

From that point onwards, I started to slip right back into my old routine, my old self. This was fine, until Dad asked me why I hadn’t gotten around to doing my urgent university applications earlier. He asked why I had put them off until the very last moment, just like I used to. Dad also pointed out to me that I was being quick to judge both strangers and friends, just like I used to before that day of departure last December. These things were not something that I was happy to sit alone with.

 

These were the exact habits that I thought would be broken by the journey we undertook. I had believed that I would return a different person. I believed that I would have changed in some virtuous way. What I failed to realise however, is that this change would take a lot of conscious effort on my behalf.

 

India has made me realise that I can be so much better than I used to be. I really used to be afraid of the light, not the darkness. What the trip has not done though is automatically start the implementation these changes. India has put the idea of growth in my head and now I must work to achieve it, as I will not grow without effort, as I had previously believed. And while this is now something I am working on, I realise that it will not be completed in one day. Nor one week. Not even one year. The road to being good, being better, even better than what you were yesterday, both to others and to yourself, is a never ending battle; a lifelong commitment. If the soft options that present themselves are taken, then mediocrity is achieved. And a mediocre society is not one that expands, nor pushes boundaries; and that society would be a waste of the small amount of time we have in this life.

 

Overall, the 2013-2014 India Immersion Programme has been an experience that will be not easily forgotten. The journey opened my eyes to both new ideas and new beliefs. I can only hope that the lessons learnt from that harsh and beautiful country accompany me for the rest of my life, regardless of what career ambitions or life goals I wish to pursue. And while there are so many ways to sum up our month in India, I will end with this: Per Angusta, Ad Augusta.