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It is my last night, my last hour in a country that had been foreign to me a few years earlier. I had arrived here with preconceived notions of poor people lounging at every corner, convinced I would be forced to beg in throngs for my food as well. I had not hated India, but I had not embraced the idea of having to drink triply boiled water, walking through mud to get anywhere, waiting for the cows to move to the side of the road, the sweat, the stench, or the cloudless sky forever blockaded by thick, black smoke. I was not ready for the lack of laws, the corruption, the despair, or the hopeless attitude. I saw naked children showering in front of their dilapidated huts, men urinating openly on street corners in broad daylight, women with sagging breasts enveloped in threadbare saris trying to sell their overworked bodies, and experienced perverted men that got a rush from bumping into you, touching your shoulder, thigh, whatever was needed to jumpstart their imagination.
The stares, there was always an abundance of stares, as strangers definitely worse off than us Americans appraised our worth. Our Indian clothes, American-Urdu accent, our walk, appearance, our height, everything was closely scrutinized. Their judgmental gaze made me feel like a beauty pageant contestant. We Indian Americans with red rivers of pride flowing though our veins, hung our heads in embarrassment, afraid to look any male stranger in the eye; sick of being winked at and tired of the disrespect aimed our way. To them we were just slabs of meat. Bathing out of buckets as a result of the limited water supply, and having to depend on an unreliable power source were a few of the every day actions that humbled us. It is not like we were snobs, we had not arrived fully equipped with hair dryers, make up, and suitcases full of clothes. But humbled or not, the little things soon began to annoys us. The lack of privacy, the placement of mirrors in obscure, dimly lit corners, and strict societal expectations were enough to drive anyone insane.
Yet here I am, in a country whose definition of an air conditioned taxi is any car with windows that open. It is here that I am oddly content. It was here that I finally met my grandmother, after 13 years. I got to eat her chicken, with its distinct taste, that resembled the sensational food of my dreams. It was here that I was finally able to see my heritage, my roots, the places of my parents' childhood adventures, the country that had shaped us. I saw the land that had been passed down through my mother's family for generations and my uncle's bottling factory. I met cousins I had never known existed, experienced the boundless devotion that holds joint families together. I ate food made with the freshest ingredients, garnished abundantly with lots of love. I was waited on by family, who unable to satisfactorily express their love in words, conveyed it by trying to make every minuscule aspect of our life comfortable. Their love for us, complete strangers from another country, astounded me. How could they unconditionally love us so much? What had we done to deserve such hospitality? All we had done was boarded an airplane and arrived.
Yet here I am, leaving all that behind, the good and the bad. I'm going to miss all the new people I have met, half of whose names I have already forgotten. I am going to miss walking down streets that smell like the sewers, being scared by transvestites aggressively knocking on taxi windows for money, piling on top of one another with a record 19 people in a Sumo. I am going to miss PDP park, smelling the foul air, standing at the water's edge fully clothed, getting splashed with dirty brown water as the moon rises in the jet black sky with all my cousins. I am going to miss the little children that climbed onto the trains to sweep beneath our feet using the only shirt they own; hope etched into their lifeless eyes, their hardened faces too proud to display their pain, secretly hoping to receive a few rupees to help quiet the pangs of hunger throbbing in their bloated stomachs. I am going to miss the bazaars, the rancid fish markets, continuously being grilled about our true origins, being ripped off, driving around with lowered windows at three in the morning finally freed from the city?s traffic. I am going to miss eating freshly made corn on the cob, the ice cold, refreshing glasses of sugarcane juice, and the early morning trips to Whorly Sea Face. I am going to miss playing uno, dum sharas, and cards with my cousins; sharing stories, laughing, and telling jokes until everyone is on the brink of exhaustion; which is why I look out the window, unable to believe it will all be over in a few minutes. Bright voices, last minute thoughts, memories, and jokes swirl around me in our air conditioned sumo, bringing me back to a reality I do my best to avoid. In a few minutes I will be leaving for who knows how long. In a few minutes I will be forced to part with half my soul. Soon I will be gone.
The stares, there was always an abundance of stares, as strangers definitely worse off than us Americans appraised our worth. Our Indian clothes, American-Urdu accent, our walk, appearance, our height, everything was closely scrutinized. Their judgmental gaze made me feel like a beauty pageant contestant. We Indian Americans with red rivers of pride flowing though our veins, hung our heads in embarrassment, afraid to look any male stranger in the eye; sick of being winked at and tired of the disrespect aimed our way. To them we were just slabs of meat. Bathing out of buckets as a result of the limited water supply, and having to depend on an unreliable power source were a few of the every day actions that humbled us. It is not like we were snobs, we had not arrived fully equipped with hair dryers, make up, and suitcases full of clothes. But humbled or not, the little things soon began to annoys us. The lack of privacy, the placement of mirrors in obscure, dimly lit corners, and strict societal expectations were enough to drive anyone insane.
Yet here I am, in a country whose definition of an air conditioned taxi is any car with windows that open. It is here that I am oddly content. It was here that I finally met my grandmother, after 13 years. I got to eat her chicken, with its distinct taste, that resembled the sensational food of my dreams. It was here that I was finally able to see my heritage, my roots, the places of my parents' childhood adventures, the country that had shaped us. I saw the land that had been passed down through my mother's family for generations and my uncle's bottling factory. I met cousins I had never known existed, experienced the boundless devotion that holds joint families together. I ate food made with the freshest ingredients, garnished abundantly with lots of love. I was waited on by family, who unable to satisfactorily express their love in words, conveyed it by trying to make every minuscule aspect of our life comfortable. Their love for us, complete strangers from another country, astounded me. How could they unconditionally love us so much? What had we done to deserve such hospitality? All we had done was boarded an airplane and arrived.
Yet here I am, leaving all that behind, the good and the bad. I'm going to miss all the new people I have met, half of whose names I have already forgotten. I am going to miss walking down streets that smell like the sewers, being scared by transvestites aggressively knocking on taxi windows for money, piling on top of one another with a record 19 people in a Sumo. I am going to miss PDP park, smelling the foul air, standing at the water's edge fully clothed, getting splashed with dirty brown water as the moon rises in the jet black sky with all my cousins. I am going to miss the little children that climbed onto the trains to sweep beneath our feet using the only shirt they own; hope etched into their lifeless eyes, their hardened faces too proud to display their pain, secretly hoping to receive a few rupees to help quiet the pangs of hunger throbbing in their bloated stomachs. I am going to miss the bazaars, the rancid fish markets, continuously being grilled about our true origins, being ripped off, driving around with lowered windows at three in the morning finally freed from the city?s traffic. I am going to miss eating freshly made corn on the cob, the ice cold, refreshing glasses of sugarcane juice, and the early morning trips to Whorly Sea Face. I am going to miss playing uno, dum sharas, and cards with my cousins; sharing stories, laughing, and telling jokes until everyone is on the brink of exhaustion; which is why I look out the window, unable to believe it will all be over in a few minutes. Bright voices, last minute thoughts, memories, and jokes swirl around me in our air conditioned sumo, bringing me back to a reality I do my best to avoid. In a few minutes I will be leaving for who knows how long. In a few minutes I will be forced to part with half my soul. Soon I will be gone.
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