Monday, November 22, 2010

November 22--one long thought...

Been a while since I last wrote anything—it’s been a series of presentations, some drama and just exhaustion now that I’m coming to the end of my project here. In a week my family arrives and I can hardly wait to hug wife and daughter. I have had an amazing time here in India, but I have some ambivalence about being a tourist for a month. I got so used to being part of the city—my routines and hangouts, the people I see each day. In a couple of days I’ll be just another western tourist enjoying the pretty parts of India and shuttling from 5 star accommodation to 5 star accomodation. I know we have homestays and farmstays planned, but instead of the human connection and relationships now it’s guest service. It’s not that I’m complaining—I’ve been dreaming of a trip like this with my family and we are going to some seriously gorgeous places (Kerala-“God’s Own Country”)—but it’s just different from what I’m used to. I feel like I made it past the first veneer of understanding and now I want more. I made it in a city of 7.2 million people on a different continent—I know how to get around, I can function and give directions, I have a social network, the city feels like home. So now I want to get a better handle on the culture and what it means like to really live here. I’m reading Being Indian by Pavan K. Varma and the Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen and I also picked up Nine Lives by William Dalrymple. These are sort of scratching the itch, but I know the only way it will be satisfied is to return. I tried reading Holy Cow! by Sarah MacDonald and it just made me angry. I feel the same way when at an expat gathering and people just whine about how different India is from the US/UK/etc. I usually get myself to lighten up—these gatherings can be a "safe space” for folks to get a shot of home and share frustrations. I guess I just don’t share the views or find the griping cathartic. My existence has been pretty easy here. Sometimes wonder what my experience would have been like if I was living in a different apartment (what if I didn’t have wi-fi, soft sheets, new furniture and breakfast brought to me each day?) and without a good amount of walking around money? What if it had been a longer assignment? Not sure how productive this speculation is, but I do know that I had a very gentle introduction to India. I mean, I did have some pretty bad culture shock at the beginning, but I think a lot of this had to do with having my project fall apart right in front of me at several points and some housing issues. Besides these hiccups I’ve had it pretty soft—good place to live, great neighborhood, good co-workers, access to technology. I am of the firm belief that a huge part of my success here was due to my network of friends and colleagues. Without the people here to lend a hand (even if it was the simple act of listening or meeting for a meal) or help open doors I would not have had the same positive experience. I never really have to eat alone unless I want to (and even then at some of my favorite places the staff and management know me so I always have conversation). The neighbors down the street bring me movies to watch and I get to pet their dogs. One of my best friends has a car and he’s generous with it. I also think that southern India is easier to get along in despite the heat and language issues—not a lot of Tamil resources in the US. The people are friendly and easy-going (though that can be a catch-22 in some cases, but you just have to kind of accept it as part of the landscape and adjust). My neighborhood has green everywhere, relative quiet (despite having some firecracker lunatics next door and across the street during Diwali—and while it’s tough to find any quiet during the holiday, these people were hard core) and good places to eat within easy walking distance. I am grateful. I looked back at a blog post that I wrote when I was in the airport. I never posted it, too painful. I just said good-bye to my daughter at the airport. I can still see her pleading with me not to go, huge tears streaming down her reddened cheeks. Just the memory has me choking up—and I’m stuffing it back down because I know that I’ll be wrecked for the rest of the week if I think about it anymore. I wondered in the car and while I wandered around the sterile interior of MSP what about what it’s like to want something so bad and then when it finally comes you just want to run away from it. I thought about how close I was to jumping back in the car and saying screw it. I am glad that came to India—it’s changed me a lot and I am really happy now. Found some parts of me that had been gathering dust for a while, found some ways of being that are now part of me. My uncle Paul said that everyone should visit India once—I’m not sure if it is for everyone, and maybe I don’t want to fight the crowds, but it is beautiful and contradictory and confusing and wonderful and heart-wrenching and warm and brutal and overwhelming and like home. It’s a part of me, but not in the way that I’ll take to wearing a kurtha or eating only Indian food or becoming a proselytizing (and irritating) yoga devotee when I get home. I’ve fallen in love with a place and it’s under my skin, I’ve got it bad. Without leaving my couch I feel the warm sun on granite under my bare feet as I walk through the ashram, I smell the rain on palms and fresh mud, I hear the jingle of bharatanatyam dancers, the bell between classes, I can taste filter kappi, and I hear the cadence of speech. While all these senses and memories drift in and out I don’t want to even think about what it will mean to say good-bye. It’s coming but not right now. It will be marked by so much that is India—a warm reunion matched with a set of good-byes. 12,000 miles to come back to the beginning of understanding—pain and joy are both fleeting, they come and go. I chose to celebrate the joy. It is so good while it lasts, but it doesn’t last forever. Live in each moment. Be grateful for what you have and remember to share that gratitude with those who made the joy possible. Hang on to friendships and love for even when you have to say good-bye it’s worth far more than a life of cold preparation and distance.

1 comment:

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