"Aschi" or "I'll Come Again!" ~ It's So Much Easier Than Saying Goodbye.

The last few days have held one goodbye after another.  First Chompa and her family came to tea, then the gender group ladies, then the evening school kids at Anturanga, and then, this morning, Dr. Ganguly, then the younger Anturanga kids.  Even the house dog here at Akanda, my Santiniketan home, followed me around all morning demanding farewell stomach rubs.

With each ending, a little piece of my heart has been torn off and left behind with each beautiful soul.  Chompa and Bishar, her son, and Gopal, her husband whose name I finally learned, got all dressed up and came for cake and tea.  While Chompa and I sat holding hands, she suddenly, took a beautiful necklace she was wearing off and put it over my head.  It was explained to me, through Chandana, that Chompa's brother had brought the string of glass and silver beads from Goya Gali, another holy city on the Ganges near to Varansi.  On the necklace was something called a narisha, or a stamp of the Goddess.  Which Goddess, I could never get.  Chompa was transferring the stamp to me, and with it, she said, her blessings for safe travels.  As if that wasn't enough, the necklace was bought near the site where Krishna fell in love with the married Radha.  So Chompa's blessing also carries with it, I was told, a purity of love, the wishes for a perfect love, unspoilt, heaven sent.

When the phone rang and it was abruptly time for Chompa to go, I hugged her close, as she has held me on our first goodbye a month ago.  This woman who had been so intrusive and jarring to my senses when we shared the same space six weeks ago, now feels like a guardian angel of some kind, sent to shield me and protect.  I was unprepared for the transformation.  Just as I was unprepared for Bishar to hug me.  As they walked away, it was as if the rug was being pulled too fast from under my feet.

Not that time makes saying goodbye any easier.  I had four hours to spend with my Chitra girls, the women of the gender group.  We worked hard, weaving the scenes they'd created of Chitra together with the stories from their own lives, stories that would soften the hardest hearts, true life tales of abandonment, abuse, strength, shame, and transformation.  For the last two weeks, I've been getting them to practice saying beautiful things about themselves, asking them to own their own strengths and uniqueness.  The first time they had to say something kind about themselves out loud they each giggled and covered their  mouth or mumbled it so lowly that I could barely hear them over the constant whir of the ceiling fan.  But yesterday, after telling the story of Chitra and their own harrowing stories, they finished the piece we've been creating by looking out at the audience (which was me and Chandana) and going one by one around the circle saying their name and what they feel is beautiful about themselves.

You must remember they speak in Bengali.  So even though, at some point, these strengths had been translated for me, in this first and maybe final rehearsal of the entire piece, I couldn't remember the exact translations.  What I could understand was that each woman spoke clearly and loudly and proudly. They each looked me in the eye.  They each owned their own beauty.  I could not have been more proud of them, or felt more blessed to witness their transformation.

Afterwards, I gave them each a little picture that I'd drawn with the phrase, in Bengali, "To me you are beautiful."  They gave me a scarf that I'd admired in their craft bin.  We all sat in a circle, quiet and teary.  Rupa, one of the women who had taken to the acting work particularly well, said, "We have had good teachers before and learned a lot from many people, but we've never had someone here like you who was really ours, who we knew loved us so much."

Darn it.  Now I can't type.  Hold on.....

Ok.  I can stop crying now.....

I told Rupa, and the rest, that she'd articulated exactly what I was feeling about all of them.

At the Antaranga evening school, where we had written poetry together, I showed them two youtube videos as a little going away gift.  The first was of elephants painting.  This blew their minds.  The second is one of my favorite viral videos of all time: Where the Hell is Matt?  In it this guy named Matt is filmed in various places around the world dancing a silly little dance, first by himself, then with people from the local areas.  I just thought since the kids and I had had such a great cultural exchange, it would be a lighthearted way of celebrating, plus I knew they'd like the geography lesson.  When the video started up I remembered that the first place Matt is found is in Mumbai, my first stop in India.  Half way through the video I remembered that the last place Matt dances is in Seattle.  So, as the kids watched, spell-bound, I started to sob quietly, overcome with the beauty of sharing the world with them, and the simple beautiful circle of starting in their world and ending in mine.

This morning I was dreading going saying goodbye to the little kids at Antaranga.  We'd worked the most together.  One child, in particular, I was very worried about.  Tulsi is a little girl who when I first showed up had an almost ugly, certainly angry looking expression glued on her face.  But after a few days of working with me she started to brighten up, after a week or so she was actually smiling.  Eventually, I noticed that she would be at the gate every day when I arrived.  She'd take my bag and carry it upstairs for me and put it next to, or under, her own book bag.  When we would circle up, she would take my hand and squeeze it.  I would squeeze her's back.  I knew it was going to be hard for her to have me go.

I arrived later than usual today because of some errands I had to finish before the afternoon siesta closed the shops.  Tulsi was looking grim again.  She perked up a little when we played our favorite games.  When it was time to start saying goodbye, I passed out little drawings of hands with hearts in the palm, since it has become tradition for me to give all the kids high-fives at the end of class, or they shake my hand.  I told them that I wanted them all to remember that in each handshake had been my love and when they needed more they could just give the picture a little tap.  What I didn't say to the room, was that I'd come up with the idea for Tulsi, she was the one I knew would need to remember it the most.  She was the one I needed to leave my love with the most.

I sat with the kids, Tulsi on my right, for a class photo and I could feel that Tulsi was on the edge.  She was using all her strength not to collapse or dissolve.  I  put my hand on her back in reassurance.  The picture was snapped and I looked at Tulsi and she was quietly crying.  The other kids noticed.  Nanda, the principal, noticed.  He very kindly told the kids that Tulsi was really going to miss me.  He told me that she had gone down to check the gate every few minutes this morning to see where I was.  I put my arm around Tulsi and she put her head in my lap and cried.  I cried, but only a little.  I was surrounded by little hearts and we all decided to be gently stoic for Tulsi.  But we all let our sadness be ok, too.

Later, after I'd said my final good-byes to Tulsi and her class, I walked by the classroom and discovered Tulsi outside, watching me say good-bye to some teachers.  I went over and hugged her and whispered, "Kup Shundor. Kup Shundor."  ("Very Beautiful.  Very Beautiful") in Tulsi's ear.  Tulsi, I know, was a soul on the verge of disintigration.  Her heart was breaking.  It was my job to hold her and to be compassionate and I was thankful that she had given me someone to hold, so that I, too, wouldn't disintegrate as my heart broke.

Today, in Seattle, there is a memorial for Mark Chamberlin, an actor that I worked with on three occasions.  He died, suddenly, a week ago.  As far as I know, it is still unclear why he passed away.

I had promised Mark that I would write a blog entry from India just for him.  He wanted to know what the food was like here.  I'd tried to write that entry many times over the last few months, but I kept rediscovering that although I love the food here, I don't know enough about it to feel like I can write anything intelligent, other than to say some food is spicier than other food.  Or, its fun to always get to eat with my hands. Or, who knew vegetarian food could be so insanely delicious?

But now, I suppose I don't need to try.  I did.  For him.  Last week, when I heard the news.  I sat down and pushed myself to articulate the differences I'd noticed between food in the south and the food here in West Bengal.  But it was a driveling little article.  What I wanted to write about, for Mark, had nothing to do with food.  It had everything to do with how this country is a lot like Mark.  Both are, were, maddening at times.  They are, were, even more quixotically warm and generous.  When Mark chose to smile at something that I said, it tickled me much the way it does when a particularly hard to impress Indian person suddenly lights up with a smile.

I know that back home today so many people will be struggling with how to say goodbye to a very good man and, for many, an incredibly good friend.  I wish that I could be there to add my own message of love and gratitude, especially for our last show together, A Christmas Carol, where he played Scrooge.

He was in such a joyful place, on stage and off.  He was playful and kind and brought books in to read that he knew I would like.  He hung out in the green room and brought beer for after the show.  He'd also been excited for my trip.  I will never forget the kind of far off look he got thinking about my impending journey, and the sideways smile that spread over his whole being, starting with his lips then going up to his eyes, then just energizing his entire handsome self.

I'd actually, I realize now, been excited to go home and to share stories with him during our next show together while we hung out in the green room.  In fact, I'd decided a few days before he died, that I wouldn't write a blog about the food in India, but I'd tell him all about it when I saw him next.  I thought it would be easier to convey the nuances of the various cuisines if I could add a little, "Well, the prawn curry in Kerala was, well, so MMMMMMMM."  It had been a casual, fleeting thought, one I held lightly because I could never have imagined that I'd not be seeing him again.

There is still one more major good-bye left here in Santiniketan: Chandana.  Last night we ate dinner and had a glass of wine while a storm front moved in shifting the air from hot, humid and still to very windy, cool and, eventually, torrentially rainy.  Thunder and Lightening wracked the skies and knocked the fear of God into the electrical company who summarily turned off the juice, just as a precaution to avoid falling live wires and destructive power surges.

So, Chandana and I sat in the low light of a generator powered bulb and watched the drama of the heavens unfold till she suggested that if we really wanted to celebrate the coming storm season we'd go out and let the rain soak us to the bones.  I put my hands out into the cold water and asked if that was enough to do the job, after all, a couple had been killed by a single bolt of lightening last week during an electrical storm in Santiniketan.  She said, "Not at all.  We have to look like heroines in some Bollywood movie if we want to do it right!"

So, I took the plunge and ran out into the pouring rain.  Chandana followed and we danced around for a minute until we were drenched.  Just as we made it back into the safety of her house, lightening flashed and thunder cracked right above where we'd been dancing.

At the end of the day, that's all we can really do, isn't it?  Celebrate the storm with a good drenching dance.  Take the lightening bolts of connection that light up our lives and the ensuing rattling thunder that rattles us out of our sometimes stupor and let it move us and shake us.

So many good-byes mean that there have been, and will be, so many good hello's, so much wakefulness, so much electricity, so much thunder, so many tear drops falling like so much rain.

Dr. Ganguly didn't really say good-bye, he said, "You will be back, you belong here.  I don't think you can find peace where you are from.  You are not like that.  Only here you can find peace, I think."  He might be right.  Here I have been able to find peace within the crackling of my breaking-into-opening heart.

Tonight, I say good bye to Santiniketan and go to Darjeeling on the night train.  Chandana will drop me off and make sure I am safely ensconced in the right berth.  Tomorrow I will say hello to the Himalayas.

For now, I will leave you with a dance.

Panic Room

When you are in the midst of a grand adventure, in the throes of change, both internal and external, it is absolutely impossible to know what your life will be like when things go back to "normal".

Nicole left last night and for the first time since coming to Santiniketan I am really here on my own.  I'm not counting those few days last weekend, which were more like a holiday from company.  I'm completely moved into my new space which looks, as my spaces always do, as if I have lived here for years.  I can see the next month of mornings beginning with the routine of getting up and making coffee and toast and sitting outside to marvel at the exotic birds filling the gardens with sound.  I'm sure that I'll go to Calcutta and Darjeeling to break that routine, but it will become my routine, none-the-less, a new normal in this extra-ordinary Indian life that I'm temporarily leading.

Every once in a while over the last few days I've found myself wondering what it will be like to go home to Seattle.  I keep thinking of this time when I was a teenager and I went to stay for several weeks with a family on the Outer Banks.  When my mom came to pick me up and take me home, I didn't want to go.  I was at that terrible age when it seems impossible to believe that anyone can understand you, especially your parents.  I know that I hurt my Mom's feelings very much by telling her that I didn't want to go because the family I was staying with understood me better.  In my memory, though I 'm finding it hard to trust, I remember locking myself in a bedroom and outright refusing to go.  I can feel the turmoil in the pit of my stomach, the pain, the fear of losing whatever it is that I'd thought I'd found.

There are whispers of that same kind of despair calling me from the near future, like voices from some prophetic day dream.  I can even see the emotions floating in ghostly, wispy, foggy strands from the cave of the unknown that always lurks just up ahead on the path, drawing me towards the inevitable grief I'll have when I must pack up and move on from Santiniketan and, even more horribly resolute, from India.

On the other hand, I also harbor immense curiosity about what it will be like to return to my beautiful home and my amazing friends carrying everything I've gathered and will continue to gather on this journey.  I wonder if my "old" life will have changed, because I have changed.   Will I be able to see it with fresh eyes and find new wonders in it?  Will it feel confining after the expanse of India?  Will I simply return to life "as usual" circa December 2010?  These questions are difficult to write because I know so many people who I love and miss are bound to read them and I do not want them to feel like my poor Mother must have felt on the other side of my locked door all those years ago.  Come to think of it, I don't want my blog reading Mother to ever again feel like she did on the other side of that door!

But I know my mother who shares part of her heart with me and I with her, would probably understand my current swirling sea of mixed emotions and complicated musings more than anyone else.  If only she could have been here in Santiniketan last night I would never have to say a word to her for her to know my feelings.

Two friends of Chandana's, Aditya and Mridula Mukerjee, came to town from New Delhi to do some lectures at the university; they stayed across the living room for the weekend.  Both Aditya and Mridula are leading historians who head various departments at Jawaharial Nehru University.   They both carry with them a confidence that speaks of countless hours lecturing to thousands of students, who once upon a time included our hostess.  But for lofty academics, the Mukerjees walk solidly, grounded.  They carry themselves openly, their arms at their side, not crossed in a manner that suggests that they know more.  They have none of the bombast that some folks who have become experts in certain areas can wield, throwing themselves around like human bumper cars.  Instead, upon meeting them, I was struck by their playful curiosity for everything around them, their implicit invitation to engage in conversation with the kind of candor you might use with an old friend and their deep, sweet, devotion to each other.

Nicole and I were invited across the garden to Chandana's bungalow for evening drinks the first night, an unexpected delight in these parts.  There was a lot of catching up between Chandana and her friends and then, too, with Dr. Gangluy when he arrived.  Every one was in good spirits, a house full of warmth and bursting with intellect, tempered with a an unusually large dollop of humor.  At one point Aditya, who was mixing the drinks, asked if I "wanted ice served from the hands of a Brahman?"  Nicole and I both laughed out loud.  It was the first time we'd heard anyone in India poke fun at themselves and this crazy country with such ease.

The next day, Mridula was giving a public talk at the university library that ended up focusing on the differing but equally non-violent approaches of Nehru and Gandhi in quelling separate outbreaks of violence after the Kolkata riot in 1946.  It was fascinating.  Nehru and Gandhi both went into villages where Muslim's and Hindu's were killing each other and both leaders said that they would not leave until peace was restored.  Gandhi stayed for several months, humbling himself more and more until he brought about a tentative and tenuous reconciliation.  Nehru only had to stay for a few weeks in his village.  Though he did not use violence, he made it plain that if anymore bloodshed occurred that he was prepared to use military force.  Nicole and I both felt our jaws drop when Mridula pointed out that both leaders were prepared to stick their ground until the problem was solved.  That's unheard of these days.  I thought about the gulf oil spill and wondered what would be different if Obama had gone to BP, sat in the waiting room of the CEO and said, "I'm not going until you stop the leak AND clean up the damage you've done to the eco-system".

After the talk, Chandana had arranged for a group of Baul singers to perform back at the house, a private concert.  The audience was made up of the Mukherjees, Chandana, Nicole, Dr. Ganguly and his daughter Rai, Jan, a Baul expert who lives upstairs, and the lovely family who take care of the house.  Even for Aditya and Mridula who are born and bred in India this was a "once in a lifetime event."  Baul's are the bards of Santiniketan.  Living on the fringe of society, they eschew materialism in favor of free-love and earth connectedness.  Our group, who sat on the floor surrounded by various odd stringed instruments, bells, drums, and a flute, was led by a young man of 28 who is, I gather from Chandana, quite famous.  He has a broad, dark, open face, longish hair that he wears tucked up in a bun.  Over the traditional saffron robes, he dons a patchwork quilt tunic of many colors.  His father and guru who appeared to be close to 60, but was probably really only in his mid-40s, was also playing and singing.  The older man had hair that was even longer, a similar tunic.  Then there were three apprentice musicians, all wearing shortly cropped hair and plain clothes as if they were in musician boot camp.

For two and a half hours we listened to great music and I even danced a little.  Every once in a while Dr. Ganguly would get up on "stage" and sing with one of the artists.  At the beginning of almost every song, someone would come over and translate the lyrics which, like my favorite poems by the Sufi Hafiz who is an energetic cousin of the Bauls, sound religious, but can be interpreted on many levels.  In other words, they appear to be pious, but they are really very sensual and quite saucy.  At the top of one song, a giggling Dr. Ganguly leaned over and told me that the singer was saying, "Don't waste your love juices in an iron pot".  Chandana snuck by later and gave me a different and totally pg rated version which I sadly can't remember.

I would, upon occasion, catch the eyes of Mridula or Aditya and we exchanged silent exclamations of awe.  I can't tell you how unexpected it is to find oneself in a small audience with two of the top historians of India and to feel like we were all kids in a creative candy shop having been given the run of the place by the wizardess that is Chandana.  Nicole, who had to leave early to catch a night train up into the hills, was bereft.   I would have been too if I'd had to leave in the middle of the bizarrely whimsical evening that had fallen into both of our laps.  I, perhaps, might have locked myself in a room and refused to go.

At dinner, at 11:30 that night, the Mukherjees and Chandana and I talked about the phenomenal music.  Then we talked about life, love, their children, my childhood.  The conversation, like Mridula's talk on Gandhi and Nehru, at times was very academic but could turn abruptly from the arena of the mind to a conversation of the heart in a split second.  Sometimes it was only the metaphorical forest that was visible and then the three of them would be analyzing each leaf on the conversational tree.  The ease with which the whole night had engaged first the mind, then the heart, then the soul, then the senses, then the mind, then the senses, and so on, was boggling.  I felt like I was in a movie watching a scene about life in India that was too wonderful to be real, and truly stranger than fiction.

How does one go back to watching movies on the Hallmark channel after a night like that?  That is, after all, what I might have been doing if I'd been back in Seattle instead of here in India.

This might be the older man from the concert the other night.....

Homesick

Can you be homesick for a place that you are standing in the middle of?

I think I might be.

When Chandana heard about my accident the other night she made me show her the damage and, despite my protests, I was sent off in a rickshaw to Dr. Ganguly's who I met last week when he came over to visit with Eva.  We had rum and cokes, remember?

Dr. Ganguly is retired, ostensibly.  But he still has clinics in the morning.  The rickshaw man pulled up to a tiny little building and told me to take a seat in the open air waiting room.  After one person came out and another went in and left, I took my turn.  Dr. Ganguly looked at the cuts on my leg and the big bruise on my upper thigh and told me he would like to give me a tetanus shot, despite the fact that I've had one only last month.  He is sure that the reason I told him I didn't want a shot is that I am afraid of the injection; I just think it's unnecessary.  But I've learned here that sometimes making other people feel better is the easiest choice, and I'm pretty sure another tetanus shot isn't going to do any harm.

He also prescribed some anti-inflammatory pills which he walked me next door to pick up.  I paid for the pills, but he wouldn't let me pay for the consultation: "You are my friend.  My friends do not have to pay." I wanted to tell him that wasn't a very good way of doing business, but I'm not entirely sure that I agree with myself on that one.

I was Dr. Ganguly's last patient of the day and as we waited for the pills to be counted out, he told me that he was very excited and anxious to get back to the book he was reading.

"I am getting goose bumps.  It has been a very long time since a book has affected me like this.  I will give it to you when I am finished."

He is reading The Man from Beijing, which Eva had brought for him as a gift.

"I understand," says me to him.  "With books like that I always feel a little jealous when someone else gets to read them for the first time."  Dr. Ganguly smiled.  He smiles in the most odd and wonderful way.  His lips don't elongate themselves the way many of us smile, instead, his lips draw in, almost like pursed lips, and only then do the corners go up; he lets his sparkling eyes do all the work of telling you that he is glad and happy and that he approves of what you've just said.

Dr. Ganguly walked me back to the rickshaw, pointing out his house across the street from where we stood.  "Not much of a commute," I joked.  His eyes smiled.  We exchanged "good-byes."

As my driver sped off at a crawl, I found myself inexplicably emotional.  Maybe it's the extraordinary circumstances of being so far from my normal support system, but I wanted to cry, to embrace Chandana and Dr. Ganguly, the rickshaw driver, for making sure that I was all right.  It was all probably a bit to much bother for my minor injuries.  But to be seen to and looked after was so touching.  I felt as if my very being was going to crack open and spill out.

It wasn't just the tending to my wounds that made me come undone.  Think about it, when was the last time you went to the doctor and he or she talked about needing to get home to a book that was so good it gave them goose-bumps.  And Dr. Ganguly didn't rush me in and out, even to get to his book.  He lingered and got my medicine, walked me to the rickshaw (the RICKSHAW!).  He was a human being talking to another human being, not a man who knows more, talking down to a patient who knows less.  I had none of my usual feelings of insecurity about being around a doctor.  Just like I want to be a good human before I want to be anything else, I think Dr. Ganguly might just think about himself in the same way....

This morning I moved out of the swanky apartment I'd been living in since I arrived in Shantiniketan.  It had been arranged for by Eva and the three of us had lived there at a reduced rate in deference to her standing in the community, but the rate had gone up when it was just me; the monthly rate was exhorbinant, by Indian standards.   I moved just around the corner to the larger house on the "estate" Chandana lives on.  I have a smaller, more comfily lived in space, but I adore it so much more.  It's not just that Chandana lives on the other side of the garden, but I also love the family that tend to the house: Minou, Jahor, and their daughter Rocky.  (I'm sure I've messed up the spelling of their names...Bengali lessons to begin apace!)

But in the complicated way that you can be homesick for a place you are already standing in, I will also miss the family that took care of the house I left this morning.  Chompa, the woman whose job it was to clean the dishes and do the laundry is a character, to say the least.  As Chandana pointed out when she was able to translate Chompa's Bengali, Chompa says everything, including the most innocuous of questions, with a tone of angry remonstration: DO. YOU. WANT. ANYTHING. CLEANED???!!!????  or  YOU. ARE. VERY. BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!?????!!!!

She uses this loud tone all day long.  Say that you are trying to take a nap, you might very well find it difficult because Chompa is in the back yard, half a house away, saying to her son something that in tone translates to: YOU WORTHLESS CHILD, GET TO WORK, I HATE YOU, GO RUN UNDER A BUS!!!???!!!! In Bengali, she's probably saying, "I love you, could you please do your homework, I baked you a cake, here's a rupee, go get an ice-cream."

Worse yet, imagine that right after you get up in the morning, you have just made yourself the first cup of coffee for the day and Chompa comes in to change the sheets.  She stands three feet from you and yells through the house to her son.  She's probably saying, "You are late for school.  Make sure to eat your breakfast.  I love you.  Run along.  Kiss kiss."  But, your brain can only imagine, based on the way she's communicating, that she is saying: WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT THERE YOU LAZY IDIOT?  I'M ASHAMED TO CALL YOU MY SON!  GET IN HERE AND HELP ME BEFORE THIS STUPID WHITE WOMAN EXPECTS ME TO DO HER DISHES!"

Ask anyone who has ever had to live with me how I feel about loud noise, especially in the morning or when I am trying to sleep.  Go on.  If you can't find someone, let me tell you myself: it can, under the perfect storm of hormones, lack of sleep, and stressful living conditions, make me crazy mad.  Since none of those things have been a factor the last two weeks, it has only made me moderately annoyed.

The only reason I haven't gotten mad is that Chompa has also taken a shine to me, so she tempers her yelling with bringing me sweets after Puja, hugging me, and doing her best to give me my space, which I know is hard for her.  I also adore her son, Bishar, who is nine and who has one of the all time sweetest smiles.  I've been downloading cartoons for him to watch and we've had little parties with cookies.  Usually it's just us two, but last night Chompa and Nicole joined us.

This morning I said Goodbye to Chompa while her husband, who is a sort of quiet, almost ghost-like figure loaded up his rickshaw for the short journey to my new home.  Chompa hugged me and started crying.  For the first time since I came here, she spoke quietly.  Of course, I don't really know what she said, but I know that it was sweet and spoke of me being in her heart, at least I think that's why she kept touching her heart.  We hugged several times.  As she clung to me with every fiber of her being, I let myself be moved by her emotion.  I could feel her heart breaking and I was sad myself.

I wish I could understand why I am so special to this woman with whom I couldn't even speak.  She kept telling me last night (ok, I THINK that she was telling me) that I needed to learn Bengali, or at least Hindi, so that next time we can communicate.  Of course she said it more like:  YOU LEARN BENGALI, OR AT LEAST HINDI.  FOR NEXT TIME!!!!!????!!!!!

India holds so many layers of emotion, of reality all at once.  It is possible here to be sad and happy and at home and homesick, all at the same time.  I can find Chompa impossible to live with and let her into my heart at the same breath.  I can be taken care of by Chandana and Dr. Ganguly without losing my strength.

Dr. Ganguly has said that he lives in the past.  I asked him, "What about the future?"  He said, "Let's make it.  We have to make it."

That's difficult, isn't it.  To move on, to make the future, when you are already homesick for the present.

But that's the only option.  The only option is to move on.  To hold the past delicately, the present with kid gloves, and to beckon the future with an open heart.

Here, in India, emotion lives closer to the surface.  It catches a heart more readily.  There are shades of grey and green and red and magenta that tangle up the black and the white and make reality a bit more hazy and opaque.

Or does it?  Maybe reality is clearer here, more honest, more multi-layered.  "Home" and "Homesick" no longer remain confined to one place, one time, one person or set of people, and, instead, begin to hold a whole town, a complete nation, I've only just gotten to know.