From India With Love

From India With Love
Four months and still counting. My honeymoon stage with India is finally over and it is time to dance the tides.

Last night I have reached the boiling point when I started questioning the very essence of my being here. Frustration has its way of switching off the light in me that tells me I am not a quitter and that the best is yet to come. I gave in to my weaknesses and succumb to my usual self and waived the white flag and put myself to sleep.

I slept for 15 hours and woke up feeling a little better because I got to talk to my roommate Jen. She lets me let it out and it gives me some relief. She always says "good morning" when I wake up and she is around (she is always up ahead of me), and says "goodnight" before she goes to bed (she always sleeps earlier than me).

Over coffee we get to tell how the day went.

I almost said no to going to the other side of town to go see another friend Louise, because I knew I would just be cranky and all I would be doing is bitch about how my day went.

I just realized however, that no matter how I felt, I should get up, change and show up.

I am glad I did just that.

I showered and dressed and sat for a while and browsed through my work again. Something in me has been stirred by the pictures I myself took for my assignment here in India. I have realized I am not doing this for just one particular person or for one particular organization, I was doing my work for these women and children, and that no matter how hard things can be to get a job done, the fact is, it can be done. I just have to find ways to move around the problem and sort it out.

As I stared at the pictures, I heard Jen's voice from the door suggesting that we leave early so she can buy her farewell present for Louise.

I grabbed my scarf and went out of my room, this time in a chirpy mood.

After three shared auto rickshaw rides and ten minutes of walking, all three of us sat at a table at our favorite cafe called Cafe Coffee Day and chatted over coffee.

Then went back to Louise's apartment and had a sumptuous pasta dinner that she prepared for us, and chatted the night away.

The farewell gifts were unwrapped.

I took a moment. I had my present long before this night. I had my present from Jen the afternoon she met me at the train station, and I had my present from Louise the afternoon we went to see Lingaraj Temple.

I am not the one leaving soon because I have just arrived, but I think the hardest part of volunteering is having to say goodbye to the people you have grown a certain fondness with, to say goodbye to friends, not just a fellow volunteer.

I am sorry Louise that I am bailing out on you for another moonlit night in Puri for christmas, because I am not good with goodbyes.

I am sorry Jen that I am not a huggy kind of person because I am not good with affections.

I am glad I have met you both here in India and indeed goodbyes can be hard but then we will always have India, and we have had good times.

Cheers and Enjoy each journey!

Misleading Definition

Someone recently asked me, "what's in a name?" I thought he was just picking my brain by quoting Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet's famous line, but it turns out he was explaining to me the effects of labels with the way we think or feel.

One act of kindness can define friendship, one blink of an eye can define fear, one kiss on the lips can lead to a thousand other meanings.

Why put a label? Why the need to define something as anything, and anything as something?

I guess there are two kinds of people who walk this earth, the one that drives and the one that is being driven. Some people are bound by these labels and definitions so they will know the boundaries, when to cross the line and when not to cross the lines. They need things to be defined so they know if they can claim for it or not. Feelings are defined by emotions for how else can one react to something without knowing it for sure?

Then there are those people who are driven, not by the labels and definitions, but by taking moments. Those people who enjoy the freedom of fluidity, unguarded, unbound, and unbridled, taking moments after moments. The thought of it is quite unnerving.

I could not answer that question with a straight face without feeling all gooey inside, because every time I feel like showing my dimples, I would like to call it a smile, every time I make a goofy face and a crazy person comes out of me I would like to call it laughter, and every time tears roll down my tears I would like to say that I am sad. I have gone through "taking moments" too, kissing goodbye to someone while the rain is pouring so that I could hide the tears, a walk by the beach just talking and not minding the time, eating chocolate chip cookies with friends while watching girl flicks, and I can go on and on.

Clearly, if I am to define myself then that is a misleading definition, I am who I am because of what I am.

Would a rose by any other name still be a rose?

Just Thinking Out Loud

In life we make decisions and the uncertainties of these decisions may even shock our senses and scare the hell out of us. It is not about making the right or wrong decision it is about taking that step and taking responsibility for making a decision, whether right or wrong.

In the end, we are the ones who took that first hit, that first blow, that first hello, even that first kiss. Nobody pointed a gun to our heads to make that first move. Our instinct, our pride, our emotions, our arrogance, our own way of thinking, and even our own prejudices, made us come up with that decision.

To pin it down to someone else, to say that we were pressured to take that plunge to come up with a decision, is just plain immature, reckless and prude, if I may verbalize the actuality of the actions.

Yes, I speak my mind quite eloquently and most of the time quite heedlessly, but I take responsibility and sole ownership for it.

I mean what I say and I say what I mean, and almost always, words do get in the way, and quite frequently I choke on my own words.

I make no apologies for saying what I mean, and meaning what I say, but I do sincerely make apologies for how I may have said it, and how my words are being interpreted and understood.

It can be quite tiring having to make all the efforts to express one’s thoughts, one’s feelings, and one’s past or future, when all that is being understood is how it has been expressed. One can be judged as either being self-righteous, self-absorbed, self-serving or selfish. “Self” seems to be the common word.

It is like talking to a cold wall. All you get is an echo of your own voice and still you get to apologize.

All things being considered, language barrier, cultural differences, manner of speaking, way of thinking, spoken or written words, age, gender, sexual preferences, professionalism, profession, expertise, experiences, level of understanding, points of view, beliefs or even creed, gravity still tells you the world is flat and everything you throw up in the air, falls down on the ground.

Do I understand you? Do you understand me? Are we having an understanding?

It is like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg.

It is a vicious cycle and quite frankly, after all that has been said and done, you are left feeling drained.

Again, this is just me, thinking out loud.