Learning about different cultures can be really tricky. While it is easy to see what and how things are different, it is hard to see why they are that way. To understand someone's "why" is to understand how someone's perspective, or how he or she thinks. For me, discovering these perspectives is important because they help me understand new environments.
How do I discover new perspectives in India? I like to think of perspectives as the different lenses through which people see the world. Some of these lenses are easy to see through, while others take a little practice if you are looking through them for the first time.
First, think about sunglasses. The world with or without sunglasses looks pretty much the same: in either case, everything is there, but the colors are a little different. Certain cultural differences--like different clothing or foods--are like your own culture viewed through sunglasses. The same could be said of food: even though daal looks very different than pizza, you can easily understand that it plays a similar role.
Now, consider glasses rather than sunglasses.
