Goodbye, India

Well, Gentle Readers, this is likely my last e-post from India for some time. We've laughed, we've cried. okay, you haven't really done any of that. Mostly, you sort of just read about me doing all that. And, I have to say, I didn't really cry that much. Well, that one day when I accidentally ate a hot chili pepper in my aloo-bindhi thing. ("Aloo-bindhi" is Hindi for "don't eat the hot chili pepper, you tourist schmuck." No, it is. I looked it up.) But it HAS been quite an experience, and I'm sad to see it end.

All right, that's not completely true. I'm sad, of course, to say goodbye to my little Brazilian Dynamo. And I'm sad to bring to a close my interactions with Sarita and Eddie and their family. And I'm sad to leave behind the sense of adventure and exploration that this experience has afforded me. But traveling in India is hard work, yo. It's not for the faint of heart. I'm not faint of heart. But I'd like to be. I miss being faint of heart. So I'm glad to have had the experience and, at the same time, I'm glad to return home. It's an odd feeling. There's no real word for that feeling in English, but in Hindi, it roughly translates to "don't eat the hot chili pepper, you tourist schmuck."

These moments are always an opportunity to get all ponderous and serious and say really clichéd things, like, for example, "Ohmygod, there are, like, SOOOOOOO many people in the world who, like, TOTALLY live in utter poverty and destitution! That totally sucks for them!" or "Seriously, y'all, we're all just one piece of the global puzzle, there's so much else out there that we TOTALLY can't even, like, comprehend or know about," or "Colonialization, like, inevitably leads to an exploited and utterly desolated population, laying waste to resources, culture and sovereignty, and it's not just stuff in old Merchant-Ivory movies, so we should, like, fully be aware of it when it's happening right freaking now right under our noses by our own administration," or "Holy crap! This McCurry Pan thing is delicious, I think I will eat three of them and spend my evening feeling really bloated and wondering if I'll end up barfing, which would be a total waste of good McCurry Pan." But I don't believe in clichés, so I will avoid saying stuff we all already know. Instead, I'll reflect on this trip and think of seeing my boyfriend dancing on screen in a Bollywood movie, spending hours imitating angry women who may or may not have been entitled to the service they demanded in an exclusive club, feeling the chilly wind in my hair while I ride in rickshaws through the streets of a city I'd only read about before, sitting in a warm living room listening to men tell adventure stories about stowing away on British merchant ships but knowing that these stories were absolutely true and watching Julio's face illuminated by the glittering combination of neon and Delhi moonlight when he has no idea I'm watching him.

I'm happy to go home. I miss you all. I'll talk to you soon.