The Lifetime Journey

I wish I could tell you.

I wish I could tell you what this is like.

I wish I could share the sounds, the smells, the sights, the tastes, the feel of my experiences. It is so foreign to me I don’t yet have the words to describe it all. My current vocabulary can only go so far as to say “loud, bright, spicy… different”. However, that is so incomplete, so lacking that it verges on just wrong.

I want to describe the feel of the broken pavement beneath my feet, the mixed cacophony of birds, dogs, horns, and people, all a symphony on their own. The way countless languages yelled over traffic into cell phones can drown out your thoughts until you wish you could only understand what was going on around you. The rush of adrenaline before that inevitable leap of faith known as: crossing Hosur Road.

How it feels to know I do anything but blend in, when all I want to do is mix into the diversity of my surroundings until I am another small, indefinable thread in the tapestry of India.

I am foreign and strange in a land steeped in story and myth and history. It is as though I am walking atop the infinite layers of history, personal and collective, that make up India. Every step I take has been taken countless times before on countless journeys in countless people’s lives.

I began with silent wonder and am now the babbling brook of questions. I feel like a child, pointing to everything I see wanting to ask, “what’s this? what is it called? what does it do? why?… why?”

To summarize the development of my thoughts:

Day 1: ….wow.

Day 2: …India.

Day 3: I am in India.

Day 4: India.

Day 5: India is…..

Day 6: India is….. Many things.

Day 7: India is….. So many things.

By the end of my time here, I would like to be able to elucidate more, but I have a feeling I will come away with much more knowledge of myself, than of India. 

In a land so ancient, and yet so modern, I can not help but be the pupil to its mastery.

June 7, 2011

I have not written in quite some time. For that let me express my deepest apologies. In just 7 days time, I have arrived, traveled and made new friends. A woman after my heart from theater and feminism to Harry Potter, we are truly of like minds. She is my first ‘Indian’ friend and I am so excited. I have already made some Sudanese, American, and French friends, This is wonderful.

As far as classes go, so far they are… interesting. I have a feeling they will be easy for me, once I learn what my professors are saying. I may not have to learn a new language, but I have to learn a new way of thinking and understanding in English. Everyone here is at the very least bilingual. I feel very behind.

Let me tell you about my first weekend. I travelled to Coorg, a smaller city in Karnataka. We went trekking (readL hiking) up a mountain and were essentially a travelling buffet for the native leeches. I was bitten more than 10 times! And because of their natural anticoagulation, I did not stop bleeding for almost 2 hours! yuck! The monsoon in Coorg is far more … monsoon-y than in Bangalore, and so I was soaked. Furthermore, my poor packing led to me spending the rest of my day in wet, bloody clothes. The next day however, I changed into my Salwar Kameez (which is beautiful). We went to an Elephant reserve and got to pet and bathe them! We almost got to ride them as well, but the ground was too slippery because of the rain. An elephant even sprayed us with water. It was tons of fun and they were very big, and very beautiful. There was a baby elephant and the water was too deep for it, and only his eyes and trunk were above water. It was possibly one of the cutest things I’ve seen. Now the bus ride to all these places is another monster entirely. If I get ‘car sick’ back home, here I can do nothing but become vehicular-ly terminally ill. Popping PeptoBismol tablets were my only reprieve.

Speaking of, the driving here would give any American a heart attack. Lane lines are the shadows of suggestions. Between the buses, 2-wheelers (read: motorcycles/scooters) and auto-rickshaws, I am truly amazed I haven’t been killed either on the road or trying to cross it.

Perhaps it’s a testament to my open-minded nature, (or the short amount of time I’ve been here and my haughty nature) that the culture shock is not what I’ve expected, if I’ve had it yet. Maybe it’s the Western city with a mall down the street I’m privy to.

Today, one of my classmates was humming “Friday” by Rebecca Black.

Yup, the world just might be flat.