India: Gokarna

Our friend Martin grew up in Vermont and attended Middlebury with us but he was always seeking something beyond his New England upbringing and in his post-grad world travels, he found what he was looking for in India. He settled here a few years ago and built a house in Gokarna in the state of Karnataka. We adapted our itinerary to visit him for a few days and confirm that he had indeed found a special little corner of the Earth.

Gokarna is a small town on the Arabian Sea and a sacred site for Hindu pilgrims. There are several temples and a holy spring that provides free and pure water for all. (This is incredibly fortunate because most water in this country is highly contaminated and unsafe to consume, which means we are buying large numbers of plastic water bottles with no recycling available. It is painful to contribute to the already enormous waste problems here and even more painful to watch the locals’ disregard for their own environment by treating the streets as a public garbage disposal, but I am not here to judge anyone, so I view it not as better or worse than the system I know in America, only different…)

The beach at Gokarna is paradise. It extends forever and is completely devoid of any tourist development, filled instead with village kids playing soccer, cricket and fishing. It has the feel of a place that’s remained unchanged for centuries but with India’s tourism and economy booming, it seems unlikely to maintain that authenticity forever. It is a paradox; as much as I love experiencing places like this, I simultaneously feel guilty for inadvertently changing it with tourism gentrification. My imported dollars are supposed to be for the benefit of the community, but they may have an adverse effect, promoting a cultural shift away from the traditional village life towards one that caters to Western tastes.

I admit that my motives for undertaking these world travels are largely selfish and potentially exacerbate old problems while creating new ones, but I also believe that by meeting people and acting as a goodwill ambassador for my own (sometimes antagonistic) country, we can achieve a more harmonious relationship that can lead to greater peace on Earth. I also hope that by sharing my experiences through words, photos, music and video, others might be inspired to venture out and make their own connections around the world, creating a web of relationships that will overcome the selfish political aims of a few rulers.

We the people can turn fear into love!