I GO! | Edition 16: A (moving) Passage to India*

This week: Delhi. Lucknow. Chennai. Bangalore. (In 6 days!)

“It never bored them to hear words, words; they breathed them with the cool night air.”

— E.M. Forster (A Passage to India)

Recently, I’ve been writing a lot about liminality, those magical in-between spaces that invite calm introspection and gentle rêverie.

India is not that kind of place.

India demands your full, undivided attention and presence.

You don’t really visit it - you enter it. And not slowly.

Trip-tease

This week, travelling from Delhi to Lucknow, Chennai to Bangalore (with Saint-Gobain, exploring how we can help make the world a better home, more on that later), was more passage 'in' than 'to' India as time was in short supply to properly taste the essence of an entire sub-continent, let alone some cities we barely crossed. But some lasting impressions:

In Delhi, the air hums with heat and the human activity of a city of 30 million.

In Lucknow, we barely paused - just enough time to marvel at the city's faded grandeur, the Bara Imambara, sunlight bouncing off centuries of symmetry and intricate patterns. A city of old grace, glimpsed in passing, like a striking face in a crowd.

Chennai, one of India's fastest-growing cities, was a brushstroke too fast to properly feel the South, but enough to feel the heat...

And buzzing, modern, thriving Bangalore? Well, a glimpse of India's new chapter...

Yes, not a straightforward trip, more of a whirlwind. But the desire to extend a connection with a land that feels less country, more stream of consciousness. One that carries you across landscapes, faces, honks, smiles, temples, rickshaws, silences, fragrant food, palaces, slums, beauty and deprivation, modernity and history, surprises and unexpected turns.

And the realisation that the only way to properly experience India and gracefully deal with its sensorial surge is to just let go and be present - wake to the moment. No beginning nor end, no judgment, only flow. Surrender to the swirl, melt into it.

"India is not just geography or history. It is not only a nation, a country, a mere piece of land. It is something more: it is a metaphor, poetry, something invisible but very tangible. It is vibrating with certain energy fields which no other country can claim," Osho.

The invisible but thick mesh of spirituality is omnipresent. It is visible through the temples, the dresses, drapes and veils, the foreheads punctuated with colourful marks. It is palpable too - the air thick with ancient beliefs and traditions.

Not just a nation, a world in itself

On surface, coming from the West, it looks chaotic. But a second glance makes you realise it works (shockingly well, in fact. Flights on time. Meetings on point. Professionals reliable and well prepared. Hotel teams razor-sharp), with people going about their business of building Asia's next superpower.

"India? It's like 10 countries rammed into one" resident of Lucknow.

And that makes perfect sense. India is a country of staggering diversity - home to over 1,600 languages, multiple alphabets, every major world religion, and almost every ecosystem imaginable, from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean, deserts to rainforests. A diversity also reflected in the food. Ah the food…

India is home to over 1.4 billion people. It is a country of immense heritage & beauty, complexity, and one of the most pressing demographic and urban challenges of our time.

With nearly 15% of global GDP growth forecast for 2025, India is not just rising, it is redefining scale. Not through perfection, but through resilience. Through movement. Through will.

As global power balances shift, India is stepping into a more assertive role - a geopolitical swing state, a tech and talent powerhouse, and a key player in shaping the next chapter of the global order.

India rushes toward you as one vast, contradictory, exhilarating whole, where beautiful smiles disarm you at every turn.

To cross it, even briefly, is not just a journey. It’s a passage. Into a different pace of life, a different way of being.

A country where paradox is the norm, where conflicting ideas can co-exist.

You don’t leave with conclusions. You leave with sensations.

The feeling of being deeply alive.

A reconnection with Earth.

I cannot wait to go back.

Until next time,

In awe, and always in (e)motion,

Charlotte x

*This post is dedicated to my excellent and much appreciated secondary school English teacher Christine Joucla, who made us study extracts of A Passage to India, which clearly left an impression… ;-)