I don’t remember making the decision, but one day I found myself clutching a plane ticket to India — as if swept along by unseen forces whose will was stronger than my own. I’m not the only one to have experienced this; others have told me of a similar impulse that led them to India. It’s as if the country exerts a quiet pull, an unspoken invitation to those seeking something they can’t quite name.

Perhaps we are drawn to India by an innate desire to reconnect with something bigger. A key component of Eastern philosophy is the idea of surrender; allowing things to be as they are. We aren’t taught this in the West. Instead, we learn the importance of struggle, improvement, and achievement. The American Dream isn’t about accepting your lot; it’s about working your way up, transforming your life, and carving out success through sheer force of will.

This dream seems less urgent in India, where the spiritual plane often takes precedence over the material. A visit to the country can act as an antidote to our ordinary lives: an immersive therapy that throws us into an alien reality where surrender isn’t just an abstract concept but a necessity for survival. The noise, the chaos, the unpredictability — India doesn’t adapt to you; you must adapt to India.

That said, life in India isn’t a continuous stream of blissed-out revelations. The country is a physical and mental test, containing heat, dust, flies, and squalor. The poverty is excruciating, and most are hustling just to survive. In Delhi, I met a man who begged me to buy some tiger balm. I told him I didn’t want any, and he replied, “That is a pity. I thought you might be my first sale of the day.” I believed him, which meant he had been pushing through the streets since morning without selling a thing. It seemed impossible that he would find the motivation to get up on an empty stomach the next morning and do it all over again.

That man was further evidence of a growing realisation I was having in India: there is a price to pay for living in the moment, surrendering, and trusting in God. And that price is a lack of organisation, infrastructure, or systemic help for the millions of people who are astonishingly poor. The same philosophy that allows Indians to find peace in uncertainty also leaves many teetering on the edge of survival.

This dearth of planning and foresight extends to the Indian mindset. One morning, I met a labourer who hadn’t had work in weeks and was down to his last few rupees. Two weeks later, I ran into him again, only this time he was beaming. He had found two weeks of work and earned enough to live for the next seven days — so now he was relaxing and no longer seeking work. “What are you going to do next week?” I asked. “You’ll have no money again.” He shrugged as if I understood nothing at all.

That man may have been able to relax into the present, but he was constantly on the verge of destitution. Meanwhile, in the West, we struggle to truly live in the moment because we are always keeping one eye on the future to maintain a reasonable quality of life. Our security comes at the cost of constant worry, while theirs comes at the cost of long-term stability.

Some have told me that since visiting India, they pitch their attitude somewhere between these extremes. Their busy lifestyle persists, but from time to time, they take a breath and remind themselves that life is happening and they are alive. Perhaps this slight shift in perspective is the reason they recommend India to others, and why people will continue to be drawn there in future.