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3rd Log, India Denouement

This was written a while ago, back before I figured out how to combine sleep and internet access into coherent prose.

For most of my stay in India (so far) I’ve been relaxed and somewhat stressless. The turning point happened a bit over a week in, when one night I didn’t verify and maintain adequate mosquito control measures and half way through I realised I have several bites. Getting Malaria or Dengue Fever is my only notable fear being here, I think because being sick is a worse experience away from home and worse still in a place where it’s so easy to accidentally infect yourself with innumerable things I don’t have anti-bodies for (and of course getting sick (Malaria) last time I was here doesn’t help). This then started snowballing into worrying about everything else I need to be and do. My main goal then became to be relaxed and worry free; that is, to keep reminding myself to be in the moment and that the expectations of my EF don’t actually matter.

Instead of worrying there’s so much fun stuff to pay attention to, like the Indian Head Bobble (look it up). I took a few days for me to be able to tell the difference between yes and no (and the grey area in between), but now it seems weirdly normal. There’s also this thing where our apartment is the first one walking into Tygaraj, so if someone was looking for something, or selling something, or enquiring about apartment availability, ours is the door they’d knock on. It is reminiscent of the old stories of people living in NYC where all day long people would just knock on your door asking about random things. Speaking of which, I’m in a place where no one ever looks at me in a way that makes me wonder if they are wondering if I’m a threat to their culture or country. It’s not just the race thing—with my border-patrol safe haircut, no facial hair, and western clothes I look positively rich and influential, so I get deference, it’s off-putting.

Bharat, in terms of equality, is approximately where the US was in the sixties (if one has to use a metaphor as tenuous as it is). A cousin is thinking about leaving an entire profession because they won’t be promoted. In the west this idea is always framed as a gender issue, which has merit, but misses the larger cultural meme of everyone having a station (and deserving it), many normal places have multiple sections for different classes, casts, and genders. As India makes itself more western this is being translated into classes based on how much money one has. I’m not sure what else to say about this—it’s getting better, slowly.

OK, I’ve been in Mumbai long enough. My throat’s been holding on to more and more mucus as it collects the concrete & dirt dust that is all over this city. I’ve done and seen most everything my EF wanted, and I’m getting weary of trying to think of things I want to do (my EF keeps asking) here where I have no context or knowledge of what things are reasonable choices. I so want to go sit alone in a room for a few days.

Instead we went to a temple (of Balaji, mostly known as the destroyer of sins). It was important to my Aunt that I went, having found her faith in her later years. Like everything all the surfaces and crevices were intricately decorated and colourful. One could see several spots were they are adding or repairing things, some of which will take several more lifetimes to complete. It took us much longer than we expected to find the place (even the drivers didn’t know which exact roads would be work (this knowledge is less related to knowing the location and the roads and more about knowing the neighbourhood customs like when the mangowalls are going to set up in the middle of the road)), so we thought we were going to miss all the day’s services. As it happened they decided to have one more, possibly because they had several new people milling around.

The first thing that struck me about the clergy was that they mostly seemed to come from the outskirts of society much like in the western world. You could see the scars of rebellion and angst that come from being a very poor child, so hopefully this life of maintaining the temple is better than their other options. There’s this thing where the main alter is covered and then during the ceremony the curtain is quickly pulled aside to reveal the even more intricately decorated idol adorned with everything colourful you can think of. The gasps of the flock took me completely by surprise, I assuming they were used to seeing it. Maybe those gasps are for another reason, I don’t know.

All in all it wasn’t a bad trip. Much less apprehensive about coming back to see the faces and personalities belonging to the names that contact me from time to time. Even though I have to figure out how to not accept any more obligations, I did make some progress on how to deal with my overbearing EF.