I’m sitting down for breakfast in Hampi, India. Once the second most populated city in the world (15th century), now a collection of gorgeous temple ruins in an alien landscape scattered with boulders.
Since I’ve been traveling alone for the past two weeks, I’m very open to socializing with people — any and all humans welcome. With that mindset, I spark up a conversation with an elderly British couple sitting next to me. The woman, let’s call her Janine, seems pleasant, proper, and polite. The man, we’ll call him Jack, seems like he could be an asshole, but I’m also not sure about that yet.
Jack: Where are you from?
Ah, the must-ask question for all tourists. I’m from Belgrade, Serbia — a small country in the Southeastern and Central Europe. If Janine and Jack were not from the European continent, I would have assumed they’d have no clue where I’m from. Since they are from the UK, I trust they know of the country.
Me: I’m from Serbia, you’re from the UK?
Jack (he’s the leader in conversations, not Janine): Oh, Serbia! Terrible thing what happened in the ’90s with the Yugoslavia breakup, the genocide and all.
Oh Jack, I can already tell you have a way with words. Time for an extremely brief regional and personal history intermezzo. I was born in 1991 just as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia started breaking up, with Slovenia and Croatia declaring independence that year. The worst part of the breakup was the bloodshed in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992–95. If you ask me what my identity is, I would say Yugoslav/Serbian. My grandfather was Slovenian, my father was born in Croatia, I’ve lived in both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, and have close friends across the region. And yet, despite me not being a blood-thirsty nationalist or a war profiteer in the ‘90s, I always feel extreme guilt and shame whenever the conflicts surrounding Yugoslavia’s breakup are mentioned. I think about the lives lost and how futile it all was. In addition to my family burden, I sometimes feel I also carry my country and region’s burden along for the ride.
Me: Yes, that was horrible.
Jack: But your accent — you sound American, you studied there or something?
I nod as Jack continues the conversation about something trivial while I’m still in my Yugoslavia guilt trip. He, on the other hand, has no clue about what his words have caused and manages to mention Yugoslav conflict yet again at some point in the conversation, before moving on to India.
Jack: So how do you like India so far?
Me: Oh I love it! The colors, the nature, the people, the food…
Jack: Yes, but it’s such a pity the infrastructure is this bad. And look at this — not a solar panel in sight! And they have the sun for it. They just can’t organize. So inefficient. And the litter everywhere. Oh, and when I saw those wilting plants yesterday…
Janine (welcome to the conversation Janine): He really gets emotional when he sees plants that are not taken care of.
I’m shocked. The rest of this conversation with Jack and Janine is not worth retelling. I desperately try to turn to positives, I’m a guest in this country after all. Jack continues criticizing India, including the coffee he’s drinking at that very moment. Janine sometimes jumps in to add a layer of benevolence to Jack’s comments.
We part ways after breakfast and I spend most of that day walking around beautiful Hampi ruins thinking about what I should have said to Jack instead of trying to soften his critiques of India.
Hypothetical Me (no burden of trying to please people, strangers in particular): Listen Jack, you’ve come from the UK to India to enjoy their hospitality, good weather, incredible food, beautiful nature… Yet you go around complaining about their littering, inefficiency, quality of coffee… And since you heard I’m from Serbia, you’ve managed to mention the word genocide twice. Even though I sometimes feel more Yugoslav than Serbian, I always feel immense shame for what people from my country participated in. Do you ever feel shame for the atrocious history of your country? A history of pillaging and plundering, of slavery and slaughter globally. And yet your country’s museums shamelessly display other people’s stolen artifacts and make money off of them to this very day. I’m honestly astounded by how arrogantly you can go around criticizing the country you’re a guest in, which also happens to be the country ‘your people’ left a permanent criminal mark on historically. Instead of going around so confident in yourself and your identity, you confident prick, you should shut up and be grateful there wasn’t more accountability for your country.
Now listen, maybe the hypothetical me is overly harsh towards Jack. He is, after all, just some irrelevant character in my life, a stain in an otherwise glorious solo trip in India. But I do wish I had at least said something, anything critical to try to shake up Jack’s views of the world and show that I am proud of where I come from. Every country has a fucked up history (that’s how countries became countries — through misuse and unfair accumulation of power, crime, and subjugation), but it seems that I am just now learning to be proud of where I’ve come from. Only took me 31 years. I guess I can thank Jack for triggering that process.
