DATED JULY 26: Mandawa, Rajasthan

It pains me that in just four days (I am writing this on the 29th) I have already begun losing any sense of clarity, of orderly memory of each day’s events. Instead, I remember the small details, the feelings, the faces. This account attempts to describe day 2.

We were awoken at the crack of dawn. Some of us were jetlagged, some of us were cold from the excessive air conditioning, and some of us answered early wake up calls. We dragged ourselves to breakfast, still barely knowing each other, and then set off on our first of many adventures.

Our first educational experience was in an educational institution. We visited a school for physically challenged children. We were initially hesitant, scared of being sad, scared of being scared, and generally unsure of ourselves. But the students themselves welcomed us into their lives. In shrill voices, all of the children bowed down in an unsynchronized “Namaste” before they started to show off their skills.

One girl stood up and sang. One boy recited his numbers. Upstairs, in a classroom for deaf and mute children, two boys recited the alphabet in sign language, which was different in Hindi than in English, and then one proceeded to describe in sign language kids in our group as tall and skinny, or too fat. The school was a bit rundown, small, and the classrooms were dingy. But the students were incredibly excited, and the teachers, who didn’t get paid, were incredibly impassioned.

The institution is funded primarily by private donors, with supplemental government assistance. (Any human or monetary contributions would be greatly appreciated. Go volunteer your time!) As we were about to leave the school, we saw that the students in one classroom downstairs started to dance. The organizers of group were in a tearing hurry (a sensation that one feels immediately upon stepping on Indian soil) but we were all drawn by the music and started dancing, too. Forgetting where we were or who we were supposed to be, all of us, regardless of age, size, disability, or any other characteristics listed on the back of an NJTransit ticket, threw up our hands in delight.

After our workout, we visited some bricklayers beside a farm. While we watched, they systematically, without pause, hauled large red bricks into a truck. They made 50 rupees each for every thousand bricks in the truck. Per day they managed to load 5 or 6 trucks. Their practice of laying bricks had been used for generations. Nothing had changed. Life was completely static. The same sect of people, the same location, the same tools. The efficacy of the methods used denied any need for reform. The timelessness of it all rendered our concerns, our reforms, our ideals, and ourselves obsolete. We just stood watching.

The infamous havelis of Mandawa were next on our Yatra. They were splattered with fading frescoes, missing gems, and dusty halls. We felt estranged from a glorious era, from a past we would never know. Cracks in the walls split the frescoes into distorted images, denying us access to any sort of comprehension. An old man was crouched down by the entrance of one of the havelis repainting the thin vines across the wall. He was retouching the walls, history, and promised us with the soft strokes of his brush the potential of the future.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped to visit a potter. Unlike some of the farmers and bricklayers we had met, this family spoke no English or Hindi, and preferred animated gestures supplemented with Marwadi murmurs. The potter, an old man with a wrinkly face, thin voice, and clear eyes, took a lump of clay, water, and smashed it all down onto a pottery wheel, a perfectly round slab of cement and a rock. Out of one shapeless lump of clay, he managed to make vase, a piggy bank, a tea cup, and a diya. There was absolutely no wastage, and he effortlessly molded the obscure pile of dirt into delicately crafted, functional pieces of art. It was another timeless work—his father was a potter, this man had been a potter all his life, his son was a potter, and his grandson, the little boy running around the place without his underwear, would soon learn the trade.

We got back to the hotel exhausted, sweaty, and grimy, and ready to finally become friends.

The Sound and the Curry

DISCLAIMER: These aren't generalizations. They are observations, some substantial enough to formulate scientific theory.

1. Gum Thriftiness. My father has always taught me the art of saving. I print on old paper, I rarely wash my jeans, and I use Tupperware. I also only eat half-pieces of gum. Unless it is Diwali, a birthday, or New Year's, no one gets a full piece. My father thinks I waste a lot by eating half-pieces; I have been a bit spoiled by my American upbringing. When there is a strong need, he distributes one-fourth to each of us.


2. Animals. There have been times in my life when a potentially fun night has been ruined by the flu, by train delays, by last minute papers. The second night we spent in Rajasthan, on the Bharat Yatra trip, could have been a crazy night of reckless youths were it not for the herd of stampeding buffalo that ran us out of the streets. We had had enough of the wild evening and after some time (during which we conversed with locals and got out hearts beating at a normal pace) we retired to our hotel.

3. More Animals. At one point in Rajasthan we were stopped at an intersection. Quite frankly, I am not sure if it were actually a designated intersection or traffic was just going in all four directions. I looked out the window only to find the epitome of biodiversity waiting patiently beside our tour bus. There was a camel, a stray dog, and a cow, all among the scooters, the rickshaws, the buses, and the people riding bicycles barefoot. Of course, the cow had the right of way.

4. Bowel movements. No matter where in the world he's settled, the Indian will freely, without moral or social compunction, engage in discussion, deliberation, debate of his digestive system. Diarrhea has the potential to bond or to break. It is not uncommon for relationships to form from a shared bout of constipation--one thing leads to another, and while you're busy not shitting, you make some beautiful friends. My grandmother has crafted philosophies based upon daily fecal patterns. If a person doesn't do his business every morning, he creates heat in the body, which in turn affects his mental state, and thus leads to high blood pressure, short tempers, and obscurity of thought.

Indians can be very real, very authentic; everyone knows shit happens, and there's no need to hide it.

5. The Sound and the Curry. Meals are events. There are pots clanging, flames raging, people yelling. Always people yelling. We yell so that people eat, so that they take seconds, so that they don't be shy; they yell to convince everyone of their small appetites, to encourage others to take seconds, to then dispel the lies spread of their minimal appetites by inquiring about dessert. There is a desperation to share, to make sure the visiting relatives have tried the ingenius foods of the New World (i.e., Pinkberry, Taco Bell); and in the midst of this desperation and excitement, the actual food is forgotten, and everyone concludes that the cuisine in America pales in comparison to the wealth of spices, colors, textures of cuisine in India.

6. Frindles. If it sounds right, it probably is a word. Phrases are made up for people with big noses, small cheekbones, skinny arms, fat ankles. Everything in Gujarati, especially, is rooted in an onomatopoeia. Sometimes, even if it phonetically is inconsistent with reality, if it is fun to say, it will pass. Monkeys say "hookla" and frogs say "chow chow." I say nothing, staring at the ceiling in silence for answers.

More to come.

salvation by salivation

I still don't know who makes holy water holy. I am pretty confused as to the prerequisites for Heaven and Hell, and I always feel restless in temples or churches. I think my apathy to the institutions, to the pandits and priests, to the rules and the fear, is inspired almost wholly by my parents. My mother and father instilled in me a sense of wonder and excitement, a sense of modesty beside the majestic contours of the Earth; they taught me how to revel in good music, in good art, in good people. And in good food. Apparently, God doesn't just live within all of us, but within gourmet meals and exploding stomachs.

I awoke to a still morning, shattered only by the crackling of morning tea, and then the heavy chatter of humans in the family room. While I was eating my toast, my mother told me we should take my grandmother to the mandir [temple]. I sighed heavily and asked her which one. "Ruch, remember? The one that serves idli dosa?" My frustrations quickly became anticipation. "Wait, there is a temple that serves idli and dosa?" And then my grandmother chimed in. "Yes, we went there last time I came. They serve idli and dosa." Just to reiterate, in case someone had missed the message, my mother repeated herself. "It is a temple that serves idli and dosa."

I went to the gym (I am still trying to work off my paneer from my recent India trip, as well as the implications of free cupcakes at the office). When I came back home two hours later, my father patted me on the head and told me I had an hour to get ready. I asked him if we were going to the temple that served idli and dosa. He shook his head. "No. We decided to go to that restaurant, Moghul Express. Everyone got excited about the idli and dosa so we thought we would skip the mandir and just get the goods."

I agreed with the decision. I got ready in about 30 minutes and we reached the restaurant about 90 minutes later. We laughed and listened to music and wished for world peace en route. As we licked the last of our plates clean, I realized that we managed to attain a sense of contentment for which people search their entire lives. I touched my mother's hand, and she touched mine. And then my dad mistakenly spit ice cream in my face, while my sister videotaped the scene.

Bon Appetit.

DATED JULY 25th

This was the first thing I wrote on the trip. I am not sure I feel the same way. But, anyways, there it is.


Initially the only difference between this trip and any other to India was that my family wasn’t coming with me. Instead, I held on to my own passport, slept on my own shoulder on the plane, and couldn’t steal anyone’s extra bread roll. Everything else on the trip seemed previously seen—the airplane blankets we desperately wrapped around our small brown bodies despite the static cling and smell of vomit; the discomfort of sitting upright for more than half a day; the luxury of watching multiple Bollywood movies in a row. We were all well acquainted with the journey, just strangers to each other.

Once we landed, that same tearing sense of familiarity and estrangement, one that continually resonated with us since we took the very first trip to the home country years before, consumed us. The same disparity between the tall, glass buildings and the short, muddy huts, the same littered streets, the same potholes and stray cows, the same colors in the street and blatant stares at our bare legs, and the same heat and warmth, all equally confused and relieved us. We got into our Bharat Yatra bus and started a 6 hour journey to Mandawa, Rajasthan. We passed by 2 naked boys showering by the highway, and they waved to us with a sense of wonder. We waved back to them with the same sort of curiosity, and took pictures of them as they became part of the frieze.

It soon became very dark, and the bustling India we know in the day conceded to the vast emptiness of the night. None of us was from Rajasthan, and so the night was even more isolating than in years past. The bus drove past endless fields of green, of bent trees, of dirt. And a feeling of fear suddenly rose in my chest, a feeling I have had in India before. I was in the midst of an impenetrable mystery, unable to solve it, unable to participate. We passed by lots of arbitrary buildings, a lone cement block in the middle of a field, abandoned shops and carts, and miscellaneous wrappers evidencing the day’s events. I wanted to know everything that had happened, wanted to know the purpose of the shed, of the cart, and wanted to know who was there just 12 hours before. Every inch of land had a story, and it was in a language I would never understand. I was watching, I was alone. Like everyone else pretending to fit in with ease, I found myself caught up in my own lies, unsure of my place in this dark, desolate, and incredibly quiet place.

How can we call this the home country when we bring with us precautions, when we make sure to carry repellant and antibiotics and flipflops for the perpetually wet bathrooms? How can we call this the home country when we fear theft and harassment? How can we call this the home country when we sit staring, while everyone stares back at us?

I finally went to sleep, in hopes of finding an answer soon, ideally in the next 13 days.

some call it a stomach infection, some call it vestiges of home.

I have been wrestling with myself ever since I stepped foot in America, on the subtle concrete soil of the John F. Kennedy Airport. I keep laughing and crying at the same time, happiest when I look through pictures of stray cows and sweaty, tan friends, and saddest when I look through pictures of stray cows and sweaty, tan friends. I have been so incredibly blown away by the Yatra that I don't know how to express my emotions. I meant to keep a blog, but instead kept new friends, new experiences, and found a new me. For fear of sounding too Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul-meets-Oprah-Winfrey, I find myself completely lost, undiscovered. As much as I can honestly say that the trip helped me find myself, I can just as easily say this trip confused me all the more. In two weeks, I have felt at such ease with a dysfunctional busload of students, cameramen, chaperones, and other randos inevitably on our tour bus. I found solace in strangers, order in chaos, and peace in blaring car horns.

And now that I have returned to an orderly cleanliness, to systematic procedures, and to a house that does not wheel me around a desert state, I don't know what I am supposed to do. Apparently I have to wait on lines now? And I can't just break out in Guju accents to my friends?

I don't know where I am supposed to be. I could be in India, I could be in New York, I could be in a perpetual suspension over the Atlantic. Yatris, please help me find my way home.