The Final Countdown

My last day in India. Or should I say my last endless night. David and I have a horrifically timed 3:30 a.m. flight from Delhi and, with nowhere else to go, assumed we could just get to the airport early and hang out, nap, etc. So at 10 p.m. after touring Delhi’s monuments (a highlight being the Gandhi Memorial) and feasting on a final Chicken Tikka Masala, we hauled our travel-weary selves and even travel-wearier wardrobe to the airport only to be told we had to wait outside until midnight for the British Airways office to open.

Mind you it’s about 50 degrees and we have five bags of luggage, so were forced to fast talk our way past one last Indian official (note: spare rupees always help) only then to marinate in the fluorescent lighting of an overheated visitor’s lounge for 2 hours until we are actually allowed to approach the airport itself.

So I am trying to find some solace in eating the last of the M&Ms out of the 5 lbs of Trader Joe’s trail mix imported from home and drafting one of the last Daily Naan blog entries of my fateful trip. It’s a bittersweet time, really as I will very much miss this country despite my burning desire to sleep in my pillow top bed on Alvarado Street. A snapshot of my thoughts about leaving India: 

• What I won’t be missing: Bathrooms with flies and without toiler paper; being hawked by every single solitary person on the street—young, old, girl, boy, man, woman—and no one ever taking “no” for an answer; cab drivers never knowing where things are, seriously; everyone pretending not to have change; entire slum cities on the side of the room in Mumbai; fearing for my life every time I cross the street; honking horns—so much that I dream about them; Indian men mistaking the street for a urinal-slash-spittoon.
  
• What I will be missing: Cows; Chinese food on every Indian menu; Indian carbs-a-la-carte in the form of naan, roti, parantha, all of it; the intricate architecture and exotic history of the Munghal empire; masala chai tea; beers for $0.50; being a shopkeeper’s first sale of the day; taking photos of little Indian kids and seeing them smile; driving in auto-richshaws; talking cricket smack with every able-bodied Indian male in the universe;  having time to actually think and read; a rainbow’s richness in saris, turbans and spices; not having a cell phone (sorry Howard!).  

In all, it’s as hard to wrap up a trip like this as it is to say good-bye to good friends and family. I learned more than I ever expected—much about religious tensions, class differences and the fine balance between order and chaos—all contradictions that define India both on the surface and on the layer just beneath.  Writing this blog was actually a very cathartic way to digest what was happening as it happened, and while I never was able to write as much as I liked, I found myself thinking about what I wanted to capture in words for myself and for my close to 2,000 visitors back home (mom and Carol’s high click volume not withstanding) as I stood within the walls of a 15^th century harem, basked in the rays of a setting sun on the Goan coast, or beheld the sky-scraping minarets of the first mosque even built in India.

I fought the urge to self-edit, wanting to be fair to the feelings and experiences I had from a big picture perspective, even at the risk of causing a stir back on the home front. I’m proud of that effort despite the mighty maelstrom that has indeed reared its head back in the great First State and can only hope that what I felt, saw, and heard will help others back home understand even a little piece of a place like India. Taking a step back from that, I hope too the Daily Naan was a good reminder that the world of riches as we know it back home, surrounded by the creature comforts of fancy cars, brand name handbags and Bluetooth enabled consumer electronics is far more than what most people even dream of.

There is a whole world out there on the other side of the tourist-bus window. But going back home I think will be just as much of a shock as stepping off the plane in Bangalore. Already in London, where I am now, everything just seems so civil and so quiet. I don’t know how else to explain it, but the chaos that reigns even the New Delhi Airport is already a lifetime away. Am I prepared for the weekly structure of work, school and family obligations that come with my real life? It’s a different kind of chaos, isn’t it…. In India I was almost the eye of the storm around me, at home, I admit to creating the storm itself.

Still, 2008 will be a big year, a good year. Graduation is approaching after three very very long years, attempting to finally work on the house, old friends’ new babies, praying for our families’ health, perhaps the Lake Tahoe Century ride in June, and so many marriages—Francl, Ashley, Andrew Novak, McDonald, Nina, Idil — all so exciting! I am ready to go back home. As for India, I do not know if I will ever return but I hope to someday.

And as for The Daily Naan? Fear not, readers. It will reign somehow.

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