A Suitable Girl

my job search and my re-integration into American society are off to a slow start because i have determined that i am, in fact, cold-blooded. i had no problem zipping around outside in New Delhi for 14 hours a day when it was 125 out, but i am now DYING at 55 degrees fahrenheit. with the thermostat cranked and three sweaters on i am still shivering hard enough to give myself cramps. my hands, feet and face could be cubed and used to cool drinks. my hometown is experiencing a cold spring, and i am experiencing the inability to ever muster the courage to get out of bed. i know, i know, it's REALLY not THAT cold, but it's also windy and rainy and depressing, and in the past five months i've become accustomed to the kind of sun and heat that dry out your eyeballs the instant you open them, like opening the door of an oven set to "broil".

the day goes like this: hide in a tent of blankets until eleven, daydreaming about the desert and the beach in Goa and Hyderabadi biryani rice and other things that are hot. sprint to the shower. sprint back into bed before the moisture on my body turns to ice, dress beneath the covers. make the first of the day's endless cups of tea, cook the first of the day's immense meals in hopes of one day again having enough body fat to retain heat (if the look you're going for is "emaciated," then backpacking through India on a nonexistent budget could be the best diet known to man). go online, scan the job ads, fiddle with my resume, send out some emails, quit after an hour because my hands have frozen into claws. go back to bed with a book. eat some more meals. drink some more tea. wonder if i maybe have malaria. wonder if i could finish my resume once and for all if i had a pair of fingerless gloves. go to bed as soon as it gets dark. repeat.

my productivity shows no signs of improving until the sun comes out. so i've had a lot of time to read junky novels, and think about writing my own junky novel. i'm sure anyone who's ever written in a blog and experienced the thrill of anonymous praise has thought "hey, someone actually reads this! and i enjoy doing it! i could do this in a more permanent medium! why don't i just write a book and make a few bucks off it to boot?" perhaps not all of them think about the last sentence. perhaps some of them would like to be published for the sake of art itself. sure, and i would like to write a dark, witty, incisive and wrenching travelogue/socio-political commentary on India from an outsider's perspective a la V.S. Naipaul. sadly, i will never be anywhere near as good a writer as V.S. Naipaul, nor does the American public seem terribly interested in reading social enquiry as penned by an ambitious undergraduate even if i were that talented. sure, i could just make this into one long book about getting food poisoning and playing socialite and fighting off bats. i could write that manuscript, but no-one would ever actually pay to read it. (would you pay to read this blog? a-ha).

the American public does seem interested in reading about India. even more specifically, they seem really REALLY interested in reading thinly-veiled autobiography about young, naive foreigners traveling through India on a tiny budget. witness the instantaneous and gargantuan success of sarah macdonald's holy cow!, william sutcliffe's are you experienced, and emily barr's backpack.

i've read all of these, and i am not impressed. they did what i did, but with more drugs, more faux spirituality, and more whining. the first two abovementioned books have a pretty much identical whiny narrative structure about how much the authors hated India, were forced to stay in India for some reason, traveled around India being really uncomfortable and having horrible experiences, slowly learned to like the parts of India that all tourists like through transformative recreational drugs and/or yoga, and were then relieved to finally leave India but took with them so many important life lessons etc. etc. these people somehow whined loud enough to get published. sure, i couldn't help but complain a little about the bureacracy, but i didn't lose my sense of humor for 30 pages at a stretch. i LOVE India. wouldn't you, the American public, rather read about me loving India and having great adventures?

but no, the New York Times Bestseller list clearly explicates that you, the American public, would rather read about religious conspiracy, ghosts, sharks, and sex. ok. i can run with that. it won't be hard to make a few selective additions to an already rich story. think of all the temples and mosques i visited, i'll just make some of them evil in the rewrite. superstitious friends were always seeing ghosts whenever we drove anywhere after midnight. certainly i personally saw enough dead bodies to give Steven King pause. i swam at beaches on both coasts, so i have my pick of options for fictional blood in the water, you only really need one good shark attack. and...sex. um, how about an "exotic" author photo? me, covered only by selectively placed mangoes and a live cobra?

my mother (who, i would like to point out, has yet to write her great "mute swans vs. jetskiiers" ecological thriller) keeps reminding me that if i would just knock off ten pages a day i could finish the book in a month. even if i turned out to be Vikram Seth i could finish in under a year. i could forget about finding a job for a while, and then move back to Hyderabad on the profits. too bad my productivity is at such a low. so i'll just be continuing to use this blog for a while longer, as a way to hash through the re-entry process, a place to post V.S. Naipaul excerpts that strike me as particularly valuable, a host for photos (yes, photos! now that i'm out of striking distance for wanna-be terrorists!), and a tool for procrastination.

and then one day you'll walk into Barnes & Nobile and there it will be, with my name embossed in gold on the cover. titled something like The Cremation Cipher and Sharp Teeth on Hot Nights: Anna Abroad.

and in the end i had to leave. i got in a rickshaw and didn't look back at delhi once. at the airport we had some final farewell quintessential indian experiences... when i tried to pass through immigration, officials refused to let me through without displaying my indian passport. "i do not care if you are u.s. citizen also, i need to see your home country passbook. because you are clearly India native. yes?" no, this time i swear i'm telling the truth! i just have a tan!

then at security, i was very intimately scanned head to toe with a handheld metal detector, and my bags were searched twice. they relieved me of two boxes of matches and my only pen. Maciej's flight was two hours after mine, but we didn't feel like sitting around on opposite sides of the airport, so he decided to come through security right after me. at first they didn't want to let him through, because it was too early, but after he gave them some nonsense about how i was a vulnerable young woman all alone on the other side of the barrier, they instructed him to just duck around security "when no-one was looking." which he did. the moral of this story is that i will NEVER not be suspicious to airport security, and Maciej would make a great terrorist. (Maciej, if homeland security uses this against you ten years from now, i'm sorry. it's revenge for the dung beetle).

i remember the flight to India as this huge endurance test. coming back it was like..."fifteen hours? ha! this is nothing! i don't have to rest my feet on someone's back! there isn't a caged chicked on my lap! my seat has a CUSHION." when my mom boarded her Lufthansa flight out of Hyderabad, she saw four rolls of toilet paper in the bathroom and burst into tears.

i landed in Newark at 4 a.m. and the first thing i remember coming off the plane was the smell of nachos somewhere in the terminal. i spend months and months fantasizing about cheese at every meal, but i am all of a sudden hit with a wave of nausea so intense that i drop my bag and double over heaving. go figure. they let me through U.S. customs quickly, probably out of sympathy. two days later i'm still leery of all dairy products. my brain says "this gouda will not hurt you, it will in fact be delicious," but my stomach says "naught but samosas, thanks."

i had a four hour layover in Newark, which i spent with one eye on CNN's analysis of George Bush's new border security plan, and one eye on the sun rising over Manhattan through steady rain. i honestly didn't miss New York while i was abroad. i had too many other things going on, i didn't have time to. the only times i felt twinges were when i encountered huge posters of the twin towers on hotel room walls (this is really popular decor... go figure) and could pick out my old office building among the downtown skyscrapers. to the right of the Deutsche bank, just after the low place between the buildings that means Wall Street. looking at the skyline in the flesh, as it were, i started trying to pick out my apartment building. to the right of the williamsburg bridge, in the low place between the buildings that means the Village. it is out there, somewhere. and all of a sudden, i can't wait to get inside a kitchen that isn't also filled with servants, i can't wait to go to a store where a tag will tell you the price of an item, i can't wait to reconnect with everyone i didn't bother to email while i was abroad, hell, i can't wait to take the LSAT.

i don't find myself missing India. i love the country more than anywhere i've ever been, returning there is a certainty. i have my next trip half-planned already. going abroad there was hands-down the best thing i've ever done for my education, as a student and as a human being. but i don't miss it. yet. actually, i predict that i'm not going to have time to. where i would expect to feel loss, i feel a sense of motivation. i'm champing at the bit to march into some immigration law office, explain what i've been doing for the past five months, and throw myself into improving indo-U.S. relations one visa at a time. you don't need the nuclear pact, you need me.

the first things i did when i got home were: a) scrub off three layers of skin in the shower, b) cook a huge pot of black bean soup with oranges and c) turn up NPR to volume 10. tomorrow will be dedicated to updating my resume to reflect my new world-traveler status, and picking out who to send it to. maybe i'll try for a firm in midtown, give myself landmarks on the skyline all along the island. my horoscope says that i am about to succeed in anything i try.

we're back in Delhi, after what i hope will be my last-ever fourteen hour un-air-conditioned bus ride. it was not as cramped as the bus to Haridwar, where a gorgeous child with a Hare Krishna haircut wrapped himself around my ribcage like a sloth and went to sleep, but still pretty hellish. i will not miss sweating to death inside a tin can on wheels. although i will miss that these buses go everywhere you could ever want to go, and leave every half an hour, and cost a dollar.

and i'll miss...uh oh, everything. i love lists, but i can't come up with a list now, lest i break down in the middle of this tiny orange internet joint in the middle of the Tibetan Colony. prayer flags flying, monks chanting, bootleg sneakers for sale on every corner, and me with a tear in my eye.

i suppose (in order to steel myself against a giant wave of anguish) i'll just keep reminding myself of the other things i won't miss about India. like theft! when i came up to delhi, i opted to store my bigger baggage, everything that wouldn't fit in a backpack, in an airport storage locker. i say "opted," but i couldn't come up with any other options, so i went ahead with it even though the storage area didn't appear to involve any sort of locking mechanisms. as i filled out the claim ticket two weeks ago i could practically see one of those LED "under constuction" signs floating in the air before me, flashing BAD IDEA BAD IDEA BAD IDEA. trust your instincts, kiddos. it was a bad idea. my bigger suitcase, which is so overpacked that it feels like it might be filled with solid gold, is safe and sound now in my hotel room. but the little sporty bag filled with gifts and clothes, reshuffled at the last minute...gone. (don't worry, steff! it was NOT your rabbit-deer bag. that i have guarded with my very life). it was locked, but it was also light enough to fling over a shoulder and slink away with. this brings the grand total of Pairs of Shoes Stolen From Me In India to 4. two from the suitcase, two on trains. and i now have but four pairs of underwear to my name.

oh well, i'll never see it again. there's no way i'm filing a police report...as i know from experience, that would mean remaining in India for another two months at least. the police, another thing i will not miss. and my flight leaves tomorrow.

we spent the last couple days in Haridwar, where the Ganges River emerges from the foothills of the actual honest-to-god Himalayas all fresh and clean. each evening thousands of pilgrims gather on the banks to worship and inadvertantly pollute it at the earliest possible opportunity, with leaf-baskets of flowers studded with little candles, cotton wool lamps soaked in ghee, human waste, corn cobs, plastic bags, old newspapers, and the wrappers of thousands of ice creams. huge bells ring out across the river and holy men smeared in ashes flick water over the crowd. perhaps more amazing than all of this, the weather was actually cool.

from Haridwar we ventured up to Rishikesh, in the mountains proper, where the Beatles went to live with the Mahareshi Mahesh Yogi and write the White Album. beyond the enormous cliffs and everpresent fog which is extremely conducive to rainbows, i fail to see what attracted them. it's just decaying concrete and tin buildings clustered around rickety suspension bridges. kind of a rathole.

and i know a rathole when i see one. some years ago i read about the Karnimata rat temple in National Geographic or the like, and became stuck on it the way some people get stuck on seeing the pyramids before they die. call me grotesque. i've always had a soft spot for anything with long whiskers and an overbite, and a huge marble temple devoted to the worship of the humble rat seemed like the 8th wonder of the world. and when i realized i had two weeks to roam India and see anything i wanted to...it was destination number one.

Karnimata is a big marble thing in the middle of the desert. no town surrounds it, just a ring of souvenir stands (yes! rat temple fridge magnets!) to my delight, in front of the building was a huge sign reading "THE 8TH WONDER OF THE WORLD!?!?! DECIDE FOR YOURSELF!?!?" i'm going to have to go with "yes." inside are more rats then you ever dreamed existed, roaming free. according to what i could glean from Nat'l Geo and the souvenir booklet, a certain Rajasthani caste believes they are reincarnated as rats, and so rats must be protected and fed and generally doted upon. all over the temple are huge bowls of milk, water, sugared nuts, and flour paste, each bowl rimmed with a circle of perched feeding rats. (the all-carb diet isn't doing them much good...they're scrawny and frequently hairless. a garbage-fed NYC rat could rule this place). knots of rats sprawl on the floor and squirm in the sun. it is not for the faint of heart, the weak of stomach, the delicate of nose, the sensitive of skin, or the phobic of germs. they leap over the idols and run along the walls, and if one runs over your foot it's considered extremely auspicious (this being a temple, everyone must go barefoot). after an altercation with a rat who i think was trying to make off with my sandal altogether, my luck should be extraordinary.

our next mission was to escape civilization altogether. together with another traveller, Mary Ann, we hired four camels, a four camel men, a guide, a cook, and a camel cart (it really was that easy...we told the owner of our guesthouse, "hey, we'd like to vanish into the desert for a few days" and the next morning there we were). the Great Thar Desert is mostly sand dunes and scrub, the kind of wiry silver bushes you could actually clean pots with. every so often we would pass through a tiny village, and stop for tea or lunch or a dip in an irrigation channel. but mostly it was just miles and miles and miles of dust and heat and the occasional pile of bleached bones. our camels were a special Bikaneri breed, tall and muscly. Maciej's camel had six copper nose rings, mine had patterns shaved into its dark fur and an immense wooden nose stud. according to my camel man (actually camel pre-pubescent, he was maybe 14), my camel was supposedly called Raja Hindustani, but i think he might have made that up on the spot...he also claimed that Maciej's camel was named Daisy, despite the fact that he had, pardon my french, balls like grapefruits. i just called mine "Stud."

Stud and i developed a quick rapport. Maciej and Mary Ann spent most of their time hitched behind the wagon, but my camel pre-pubescent determined immediately that i had "good camel seat" and gave me the reins and a big bambooo camel prod. we brought up the rear. every so often, while ambling along, Stud would swing his microwave-sized head back towards me and give me a certain look from beneath his three-inch eyelashes which said "let's ditch these pathetic pack animals." and Stud and i would sloooowly amble away from the caravan and gallop off past them over the silver sand, chasing antelope.

as the sun set, i was standing on top of a dune straight out of Aladdin, brushing my teeth and half-expecting a giant cave in the shape of a tiger's mouth to suddenly open up beneath me, and the evil Jafar to beckon me to retrieve a giant ruby from the depths, when i realized the landscape was vaguely familiar. i thought, hey, this looks like the view over the Jordanian border, from the dunes above the Bedouin camp in Israel, where that jackal came sniffing in the remains of our campfire...i wonder if they have jackals here?

i settled down on a blanket in the sand, and thought, my GOD, in only twenty years i have seen more than a lot of people will ever see in their entire lifetime. i have been more places and done more interesting things than most people ever dream of, (and some of them were things from other people's nightmares)...how did i get so lucky? why aren't i, say, a penniless sweeper in a rat temple? was i just born under auspicious stars?

the self-gratifying revelations might have continued on from there, but at that moment Maciej dropped a dung-beetle on me.

after careful sociological observation, Maciej and i have determined that there are three main categories of foreign tourists in this part of India. first are Japanese tour groups, by sheer volume. they appear out of nowhere in large, cheerful packs, take a barrage of photos, board an air-conditioned bus, and vanish. despite heat which has yet to dip below 105, they are inevitably wearing layers of trendy sweaters.

second are mid-twenties Europeans, or occasionally Canadians, who at one point probably got an education and held down a boring job, but then somewhere along the line were inspired to move to India and become mystical wandering gypsies. they are easily identifiable by sort of Indian-looking clothes which no self-respecting Indian would ever wear. mirrored and beaded belts with dangling amulets, and leather pouches, and layers of glittery skirts and scarves (men AND women). also dreadlocks with peacock feathers braided into them, and "aum" symbol tattoos. they have all discovered the secret to enlightenment in a ten-day yoga course. i'd thought they all went up to ashrams in the mountains during summer, but no, some remain in Rajasthan, lurking around backpacker hostels and offering to show un-tanned, un-dreadlocked innocents "mind-expanding postures."

third are Australians experiencing a midlife crisis. they are always friendly, and also provide living evidence as to why one should wear sunscreen in one's youth.

of course there are other fragment tourist categories, but these comprise the majority. Maciej and i seem to be the youngest travelers around by about five years. which means we're ahead of our game, but being 20 and 21 also means that we're incapable of getting up early enough to beat the worst of the heat. we lost almost a whole day in Jaipur because we stayed up watching "The Craft." to force ourselves out of the hotel room (well, to force Maciej out of the hotel room...i am apparently cold-blooded as the heat has yet to bother me) we did the unthinkable and booked spots on a Jaipur tour bus.

this turned out to be an excellent idea. although the guide spoke incomprehensible Hinglish, we were zoomed around to ten or twelve different palaces and forts over the course of nine hours. all very interesting, although i'd be hard-pressed to tell you anything but superficial details about them...the City Palace, which had a textile museum full of clothes which i would wear today in a flash, a palace floating on the water, forts perched up on the edges of precipices with elephants bathing in the gorges below, Jantar Mantar (the salmon-colored royal observatory, filled with inexpicable towering horoscope calculation structures), a white marble Hindu temple with a detailed white marble figure of Jesus Christ, the palace of a king who apparently stood seven feet tall and kept nine wives locked away in windowless antechambers. although legend and the Lonely Planet guidebook call Jaipur the Pink City, most of the buildings are painted a very light purplish blue, what art majors would call not a color but a "hue." it's supposed to deter insects.

and lo and behold, our tour companions belonged to none of the above categories. they were all middle-class Indians from other parts of the country. even some from Hyderabad, which was exciting and also sad, because i am no longer from Hyderabad. i spent much of the tour answering hundreds of questions about where i was from, where my parents were from, what was i studying, was Maciej REALLY just my friend, why did he have a nose ring, etc. Maciej spent much of the tour channeling the Japanese by taking innumerable landscape shots, and hiding under bushes from the cruel, cruel sun. everyone kept a helpful eye out for us. when leaving each place someone was sure to ask "where are the foreigners? are they wearing enough sunscreen?"

from Jaipur we took the train to Bikaner (rhymes with "legionnaire", not "thickener"). the train has infinitely more possibilities for making new friends than the bus. we met a charming toddler in an acid green one-piece outfit screenprinted with the words "SLOWLY HAPPINESS TURNS TO SADNESS." we also met a large group of Jain children who solemnly requested our photographs and autographs.
in their honor, we spent our first morning in Bikaner visiting Jain temples, but we haven't been in the city much since then. we've mostly been using this dusty outpost as a springboard, a base camp for journeys south to the Karnimata Rat Temple and far west into the dunes by camel. if you're weary of other tourists, that is certainly the way to shake them. it's the rare soul who will venture out into the Great Thar Desert in May.

details to follow later, a power cut is scheduled now.