back home

i've spent most of my time back sleeping. and typing this, i'm still unbelievably exhausted. but i've an interview at 3pm today, so it's best to get to bed soon.

india was good for me. just not in the ways that i expected. which is how it always goes, no?

the blog has been completely updated with words and pictures. i went back to the beginning and uploaded it as i had meant to. so now the trip is done.

time to move ever onwards.

bisous my friends, see you on the other side.

i spent as much time on the terrace as possible. it is, hands down, my favorite place in india.

i have, dear readers, attempted to capture the sky for you, since that is the part that i tend to see as i lie in repose on a straw mat. i have done a poor job of it, since none of these pictures have captured its immense beauty, but their cumulative efforts will have to do.

final thoughts

i love this terrace. i don't think i can say it enough times. but this house, this view, the familiarity of it, the settling into the paces of a foreign life.. this is how i define india. when i talk about india, this is what i'm referring to.

meals eaten primarily on banana leaves. food parcels wrapped first in banana leaves, then in newspaper and tied with string. the fact that you're not supposed to put your mouth on any bottles here, so learning to arc the water/soda into your mouth and not all over your shirt. the dirt. the beauty. the sky. the fact that the south is covered in coconut and banana trees. the mountains. the oceans and rivers that are reachable within 20km. the heat. dear god it's hot. the breeze in the evening. the water scarcity and learning to alter how you view it. sitting around under a fan passing the time with sudoku and oh so many cups of tea. scaring uninvited cats out of the kitchen. cousins and family and laughter and food.

i'd like to figure out how to make sure all kids have sandals of some kind. so many go to school barefoot. and they walk such great distances. it makes my shoe collection seem unnecessarily opulent and needless.

i've remembered what it means to be an adult. i've been avoiding it since i moved back home. it's time to properly mean what i say and say what i mean. and to take myself and my actions seriously. i've been so flippant in my regard and disregard, so surprised at when others take my silliness seriously. it's been a long time coming, but i'm glad my resolve has finally made a reappearance.

the last days tend to be quiet

hanging out at my grandparents house

and goofing off in my aunts garden

the cousins leave today

this was our last weekend in india. jenna and sherwin came down to nagercoil with us to keep us company and hang out. without them, we would have been dreadfully bored.

no trip to the beach. my dad came down with a stomach bug that has him bedridden with a fever and cramps.

so... we leave tuesday night.

it's been an interesting trip. it's been hard in ways i didn't expect and terrific in ways that i couldn't capture in film. i don't know that i'm ready to go back, but i'm not ready to stay either. i've done all the progress one can make in a vacuum. it's time to resume my life and see what happens next.

through downtown nagercoil

for a ghee roast. yum. i know, i'm obsessed.

Drawing to a close

Last night was replete with cousins, midnight star gazing and cloud shaped imaginations. There is something fantastic about a view of a sky so immense that it feels like you'll fall into it's starry depths.

There's some gadget called an inverter which stores current so that when the power gets shut off, our fans still run. In every room but the one I was in, ha. But that meant I got a straw mat and wandered to the terrace to watch the sky turn brilliantly blue. Pictures can't quite capture it. It's one of those, you just have to be here.

It's 8am this final Sunday in India. Which means that the power is back on. Time to go find my first cup of tea and break my fast with newly made crisp appam.

he came to iron clothes once a week.

i wish i could take credit for this pic - my dad took it. view from the second floor steps.

choices

there is an amazing amount of relinquishing of control here. the ability to be an adult. now, it comes in handy when you're not expected to attend certain events that you would have to otherwise. but as a female, it's very odd. all the cousins on my mothers side, we're all unmarried, so we're treated like kids. at 20, this was reassuring and helped recenter me during a very difficult time. at 29, it has forced a reemergence of my stubborn independent streak. i'm grateful for it.

when i'm at my parents house, i view it as a vacation. and i'm languid and lazy there in a way that i'm not when i don't live in dc.

i've had a marriage proposal. ha. it was more like a CV dropped off for my perusal. it was odd. the boy had been educated in scotland and norway and was currently living in paris, yet he was going back to nagercoil for a wife. and his way of being progressive was to insist on getting to know the girl before marriage. i was told by my aunt that if i had grown up in india, this proposal would have been taken seriously.

counting blessings.

there are so very many restrictions on what women choose to do. some are imposed by family and culture and area that you grew up in. and so very many are self imposed by this idea that someone is always watching and judging. it's very very odd.

i'm glad that i've woken up. it's about damn time.

I've never been driven into oncoming traffic as often as I have been in India..

on our way back to nagercoil

another village square

trivandrum to nagercoil via kerala and by the beach

my dad insisted i take his picture but really capture the swine flu paranoia.. i had no idea people were so frightened. and i spent a great deal of my holiday explaining how it really wasn't that big of a deal to my extended family.

for our few hours in madras before our flight to trivandrum, we were able to see a few people - including my dads best friend growing up

aww

we went out to lunch and had... ghee roast. a few people had thali meals, but really - why would you have anything other than a ghee roast?!

back to being driven into oncoming traffic...

at this point, I was not at all surprised when the cab-wallah decided, on our way to the delhi airport - there appeared to be traffic that would prevent our making the flight on time, to pull a uturn in a four lane road to take a different exit. Alls well that ends well.

I love traveling across this vast country via car. Bumpy hazard filled and life threatening as it may seem, the countryside and villages that you wander through are breathtaking and overwhelming. The different sides of India are most clearly seen this way.

Back in nagercoil, plotting how to get out of going to church and instead spending the day at a beach in kovalum. We spend most of our time here trying to be as close to water as possible.

I'm going to miss the dusty roads and masses of people. I've several journal entries to transcribe, and many pictures. Soon. We'll see what I can pull off here in the muggy south.

Rode an elephant today

this was about as close to riding an elephant as my mother got.

one of a pair - largest vessels carrying river ganges water

my dad called this the harry potter mirror

largest sundial in india - my mother would have made us stay there all day to hear about the scientific research of old kings had it not been so ridiculously hot

the palace garden

the mirror hall of the winter palace

view

tour guides doing their thing

view as we rode on elephant back up to the palace - my dad had the cameras on his elephant

jaipur palace - the intensity of the light should give you a hint at the heat. it's intense.

it's hazard filled - crossing the street - so i figured while i was there i might as well take a picture

how i love fruit vendors

It didn't occur to me what riding one actually entailed until I was at least thirty feet off the ground on the biggest elephant they had. I didn't pick, she just happened to be the next one in line.

Terrifyingly awe inspiring. Our dear 35 year old lady carried us up to the Jaipur palace with ease, which in turn helped my sudden onslaught of nerves.

Back in Delhi for the night, our flight to chennai is at six am. Oui.

Tourist traps

It's hard for me to do tours and guides. Give me a book and a map and I'll wander around any city happily for hours. Guides are also notorious for taking you to shops afterwards for which they get a cut if you buy anything.

My parents love them. I understand the convinence of a tour guide when you've got limited time and resources.

I've been planning my next trip here in my head. If I must be a tourist, next time I'll do it my way.

the entire north feels like an elaborate tourist trap. it's very very odd.

like i said before, this is a side of india i've never seen before.

and next time i'm here, i'll make a definite effort to see it my way. perhaps my opinion of it will change. i sure hope that it does.

Jaipur trumps Delhi

a camel on the way to jaipur

By a long shot. We drove from Delhi to Agra to Jaipur today. Way to be a tourist, no? Next time, there'll be more time here. There's more of a soul to this city than Delhi. It reminds me of south India, but a tad more modern.

One week left. I wish I could say I hadn't reached my saturation point, but I have. I need a vacation from my vacation. Luckily, we're spending the last few days back in nagercoil. We fly back to madras and then to Trivandrum on friday. A few days hanging out with the grandparents doing lots of nothing sounds so very appealing right about now. We all know I don't play tourist well. I prefer to do my version of getting lost and then found.

I'm looking forward to my 530 wake up call via the power going out and the heat and blood sucking villains descent. I usually go up to the terrace, layback on a straw mat, crank up the iPod and zone until the sun is fully risen, it gets hot hella fast. Time to go make my morning tea time. Say hello to the grandfolks and cat, write in my journal, do a sudoku, and right about then, the power comes back on. Eight. This is how I kept track of time in the morning for my first ten days in India. Not a bad way to go, all in all.

I've been doing alot of thinking. Looking at the why for some of the things I have or haven't done. Things I'm proud of and things I wish I could do over. Failures and how I've dealt with them. Successes and how I achieved them.

Space and quiet. For all it's bustle, I've gotten quite a bit of both here.

And so far, it has led me back to this, I need to follow my bliss.

agra for a half a day

did you know that he built the taj for his mistress? i thought it was rather breathtaking. i had originally been prepared for something less than the hype, but the taj lived up to it and then some. it's immense. a grand statement for the woman he loved, even though she wasn't the one he married. i just finished reading dune, and all the - we may be concubines, but we're better loved than their wives - has been beautifully illustrated.

Delhi is overwhelming.

This is a version of India I've never seen before. and while we drove around for a half a day and took in the sights, really, I don't know that there is a good reason to visit delhi twice.

random mosque - my favorite thing about delhi was all the Mogul architecture

red fort

lotus temple

my family. can you tell how hot it is?

around delhi

delhi

it's heavy and mashed together in an odd way.

the poverty in the north is oppressive in a way it isn't in the south. the divide is obvious and vast. in the south, the poor are there, but they live next to the rich. the segregation here makes it that much more tragic.

possibly more so, because the extreme dichotomies are what i love about india. the hut next to the expansive manse. the clothesline of bright clothes near a dark heap. the bright lines of lights in villages. the flowering plants that flow out of the homes in the poorer areas. the beautiful bright saris worn everywhere, in every area. jasmine flowers being strung together for others to wear in their hair by street urchins.

the beauty next to dirt. i love that. it's everywhere in the south. perhaps i'll see it again here in the north, but i'm currently overwhelmed. and sad in a way that i haven't been since i've been here. the poverty is crushing. and the opulence is evident. it feels like delhi has sold it's soul. the western influence is definitely apparent here. my cousins are always surprised that i prefer rickshaws to air conditioned cars. the dirt to western like malls. i want india to be india. not rome. not dc. not london. i hope that it can do that while still moving from third world forward. progress does have a price. and here in delhi. well, i don't like it. not at all.

fishermans cove for the day

temple carved out of stone at night

the ashoka tower. taken while hanging out a car window.

my dad went to IIT madras - there are banyan trees all over the campus - evidently the seeds for the tree are mustard sized...