Dear dedicated reader,
This feeling of déjà vu is unmistakable. It was only a year ago that I lay here in the middle of the night writing on this same cot, pulled out in the center of the room so as to be under the fan (and in the process defying all Western rules of space use which don’t apply in such insidious heat anyway). The feeling, however, is somewhat unwarranted as while the circumstances for laying on this cot might be the same, the difference is that our comfortable house in Kadod which we turned into a home has been completely stripped of everything except for this cot and the massive cupboard which houses our English children’s library. The refrigerator is still here, housing one lone bottle of water which I brought with me from the train. The water is almost gone. Tomorrow I will have to buy more.
Bracketed by returning to Kadod, my experiences of the past two months in the US feel strangely foreign. Is foreign the word I want? Or is it parallel? Like another universe, perhaps.
Vimalbhai, our friend who rents his car and driving services for a living, came to pick me up from the train station, bottle of water and flowers in hand, looking for all the world like my grandparents did at airport when they met me not two months before. “Sister, you are the big boss now!” He exclaimed, making me laugh with embarrassment. He followed this assertion with an insistence that he treat me to some roadside sugarcane juice made by running sticks of sugarcane through a manually operated press that squeezes the juice out. As I took my first sip of the sweet, green colored liquid out of a dubiously clean plastic cup, my mind flashed back to the time that I had spent at the Princeton in Asia orientation last month in order to meet our new Kadod fellows. Sitting in on the ‘Health and Wellness’ session, the head of PIA had detailed how you lose the necessary antibodies to protect you from disease when you leave the country for a few weeks.
Vimalbhai looked at me expectantly. “Tastes like India!” He shouted, partially as a question.
Looking into his expectant face, I gave a hearty “Yes!” and a mental shrug, washing it down with my sugarcane juice.
The drive back to Kadod didn’t feel real until we reached the part of the highway that is only sugarcane fields as far as the eye can see. Amongst this expanse of sturdy, leafy stalks, I knew that somehow I had found my way back here, resisting the siren call of all the major cities on the East coast I had visited while home. As we approached the final stretch of the interior road the leads into the village, I started to see faces that I recognized: Anish, my 9E student on his motorbike, the woman who runs one of the local restaurants at the bus stop next to the man who runs the nearby shop whose t-shirt always reads “Work like a dog; Sleep like a log.” Turning from the main road onto Bazaar street, I felt a sudden pang of anxiety. What if… what if I missed Kadod more than it missed me? What if this was going to be one of those sequels that isn’t as good as the original movie?
I guess I shouldn’t have worried.
Vimalbhai stopped the car in front of the local phone booth and yelled to Darshanbhai to come out. All of a sudden, the car was surrounded by Darshanbhai’s family reaching through the window to grab my hands and say a welcome home. My smile widened until my face couldn’t contain it. It was a feeling that repeated itself often today as I reunited with Kamleshbhai the tailor and his family, Vimalbhai’s wife, daughter and nephew Avinash, Vikrambhai and his family, Taiyaba and her family.
How is it possible to feel so at home when it’s home that I’ve just left?
Best,
Cat
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Return At Last
Dear dedicated reader,
Sitting in the Mumbai airport waiting for a dawn departure to the train station en route to Kadod, I finally have time to compose my thoughts to you, dear reader . My lapse in communication these past few months is inexcusable: Over stimulated by my last month in Kadod as a teacher and subsequently overwhelmed with a whirlwind two month visit to the US during which I assumed the responsibilities for my new position with the Foundation, I can tell you that this unaccounted for time left me happy but in turns frazzled, anxious, and unable to write. Know that I have not forgotten you, nor do I intend to as I return to India.
The past 24 hours have had the makings of a most curious transition. The outward markers of my Indian existence which I shed so easily while at home amongst family and friends in the US have been slowly reassumed and the feeling of transformation was most unusual, inextricably linked to the legs of my journey back.
Like transformational waves lapping at the edges of my mind, the first washed gently over me as I sat in front of a chatty Indian girl on the first leg of my flight to Frankfurt. She spoke to her seat-mate, a fellow Philadelphian bound for a German beer festival, of her life growing up in India and what it was like in Bangalore. As I listened distractedly, I felt strangely disconnected from her experience and to soothe and immersed myself in catching up with the blockbuster hits from this past year, feet firmly planted in America.
The next wave was stronger, firmer and more unsettling. I walked through the spidery, dark halls of the Frankfurt International Airport passing an international myriad of hurried and leisurely walkers to my gate (I myself fall squarely in the former category). At the end of the hall, I spotted the sign I had spent half an hour following signs and searching for: C16. Upon turning into the gate, I was greeted by a sea of brown faces peppered here and there with a few foreigners like me. The strange familiarity of this pierced my consciousness – the strength of my recognition and the depth of my discomfort surprised me. However, like pulling on an old pair of jeans folded in the back of the closet, after squirming for a minute of so I found that my discomfort left me and I sat down on a bench to wait for boarding. The recollection of the feeling, however, that definitive shift of mind, stayed poignant.
And then I was fully drenched as yet another wave crashed over me: The airline attendant presented me with my specially ordered vegetarian meal, which on a flight from Frankfurt to Mumbai can only be Indian food. Know, dear reader, that I’ve been on an Indian food ban since I left Kadod, knowing that upon my return this would be my only fare for the next year.
At first, as I peeled back the sides of the aluminum top and revealed the tripartite dish underneath (rice, saag, and rajma arranged like a tiny reproduction of the Indian flag in my easily reheatable airline food container), I reluctantly eyed the contents. Running my eye over the rest of the tray left me feeling similarly disappointed: a small salad with limp, diseased looking lettuce, some suspicious looking raita (yogurt with vegetables mixed in) and a dessert which took my unexercised eye a minute to finally identify as a type of halwa (milky Indian dessert) with pureed pistachio.
I took up my plastic fork with trepidation and for a moment poked idly at the rice in the center of my tray. I took a bite. Not atrocious. I took another. The buttery feeling the rice left on my tongue brought back a picture of the daily blue bowl of rice, sitting on my kitchen table in Kadod. I took another, this time taking a little of the patriotic green saag. Too soon, I decided as I swallowed the spicy bite with distaste and took a bite of my neutral looking roll to soothe my unamused mouth.
Next I decided to turn my delicate attentions to the halwa. My spoon dove gently into the soft mass and brought up a bite. Things were beginning to look up, I decided as my tongue agreeably caressed the spoon, searching for more sugary halwa. For an airline approximation, this was good. I promptly ate half of it and, spurred by this victory, decided to attempt the suspect raita which I also found surprisingly pleasing.
It was then that I spotted the small packet of mango acchar (pickle). Acchar is a commonly used Indian table condiment that is like a spicy jellied fruit that you eat small portions of in conjunction with your main dish for flavor. There are many kinds, but spicy mango is popular and common. Normally, acchar is one of my favorite parts of the meal. However, on this occasion, I found myself twirling the sealed butter packet sized container between my hesitant fingers. My fingers passed over the pull tab that would open the lid. It felt like a . . . . commitment. It was so unarguably Indian and as I watched the oil shift from side to side through the clear plastic packing in time with the ministrations of my fingers, I balked, thought, breathed and pulled back the tab, spreading the contents over the top of my main dish.
The linguistic transition seemed simple after my commitment to the cuisine. Watching Billu Barbar (SRK Bollywood blockbuster from earlier this year) during the latter half of my flight was like splashing on the sandbar compared to the mental steps I’d made over the previous sixteen hours. My mind played with the Hindi phrases in my head, puzzling over some of the more complicated ones and storing others for later use.
And now I have arrived: after being checked diligently for swine flu by men in white breathing masks, fighting eager Indian passengers awaiting their luggage at the belt and changing my money from dollars into rupees, my transformation is complete. I’ve even changed back into Indian clothing thanks to a conveniently located bathroom near customs.
Only two more hours to go till I’m en route to Kadod. I can’t wait.
Best,
Cat
P.S. I just killed my first mosquito.
Sitting in the Mumbai airport waiting for a dawn departure to the train station en route to Kadod, I finally have time to compose my thoughts to you, dear reader . My lapse in communication these past few months is inexcusable: Over stimulated by my last month in Kadod as a teacher and subsequently overwhelmed with a whirlwind two month visit to the US during which I assumed the responsibilities for my new position with the Foundation, I can tell you that this unaccounted for time left me happy but in turns frazzled, anxious, and unable to write. Know that I have not forgotten you, nor do I intend to as I return to India.
The past 24 hours have had the makings of a most curious transition. The outward markers of my Indian existence which I shed so easily while at home amongst family and friends in the US have been slowly reassumed and the feeling of transformation was most unusual, inextricably linked to the legs of my journey back.
Like transformational waves lapping at the edges of my mind, the first washed gently over me as I sat in front of a chatty Indian girl on the first leg of my flight to Frankfurt. She spoke to her seat-mate, a fellow Philadelphian bound for a German beer festival, of her life growing up in India and what it was like in Bangalore. As I listened distractedly, I felt strangely disconnected from her experience and to soothe and immersed myself in catching up with the blockbuster hits from this past year, feet firmly planted in America.
The next wave was stronger, firmer and more unsettling. I walked through the spidery, dark halls of the Frankfurt International Airport passing an international myriad of hurried and leisurely walkers to my gate (I myself fall squarely in the former category). At the end of the hall, I spotted the sign I had spent half an hour following signs and searching for: C16. Upon turning into the gate, I was greeted by a sea of brown faces peppered here and there with a few foreigners like me. The strange familiarity of this pierced my consciousness – the strength of my recognition and the depth of my discomfort surprised me. However, like pulling on an old pair of jeans folded in the back of the closet, after squirming for a minute of so I found that my discomfort left me and I sat down on a bench to wait for boarding. The recollection of the feeling, however, that definitive shift of mind, stayed poignant.
And then I was fully drenched as yet another wave crashed over me: The airline attendant presented me with my specially ordered vegetarian meal, which on a flight from Frankfurt to Mumbai can only be Indian food. Know, dear reader, that I’ve been on an Indian food ban since I left Kadod, knowing that upon my return this would be my only fare for the next year.
At first, as I peeled back the sides of the aluminum top and revealed the tripartite dish underneath (rice, saag, and rajma arranged like a tiny reproduction of the Indian flag in my easily reheatable airline food container), I reluctantly eyed the contents. Running my eye over the rest of the tray left me feeling similarly disappointed: a small salad with limp, diseased looking lettuce, some suspicious looking raita (yogurt with vegetables mixed in) and a dessert which took my unexercised eye a minute to finally identify as a type of halwa (milky Indian dessert) with pureed pistachio.
I took up my plastic fork with trepidation and for a moment poked idly at the rice in the center of my tray. I took a bite. Not atrocious. I took another. The buttery feeling the rice left on my tongue brought back a picture of the daily blue bowl of rice, sitting on my kitchen table in Kadod. I took another, this time taking a little of the patriotic green saag. Too soon, I decided as I swallowed the spicy bite with distaste and took a bite of my neutral looking roll to soothe my unamused mouth.
Next I decided to turn my delicate attentions to the halwa. My spoon dove gently into the soft mass and brought up a bite. Things were beginning to look up, I decided as my tongue agreeably caressed the spoon, searching for more sugary halwa. For an airline approximation, this was good. I promptly ate half of it and, spurred by this victory, decided to attempt the suspect raita which I also found surprisingly pleasing.
It was then that I spotted the small packet of mango acchar (pickle). Acchar is a commonly used Indian table condiment that is like a spicy jellied fruit that you eat small portions of in conjunction with your main dish for flavor. There are many kinds, but spicy mango is popular and common. Normally, acchar is one of my favorite parts of the meal. However, on this occasion, I found myself twirling the sealed butter packet sized container between my hesitant fingers. My fingers passed over the pull tab that would open the lid. It felt like a . . . . commitment. It was so unarguably Indian and as I watched the oil shift from side to side through the clear plastic packing in time with the ministrations of my fingers, I balked, thought, breathed and pulled back the tab, spreading the contents over the top of my main dish.
The linguistic transition seemed simple after my commitment to the cuisine. Watching Billu Barbar (SRK Bollywood blockbuster from earlier this year) during the latter half of my flight was like splashing on the sandbar compared to the mental steps I’d made over the previous sixteen hours. My mind played with the Hindi phrases in my head, puzzling over some of the more complicated ones and storing others for later use.
And now I have arrived: after being checked diligently for swine flu by men in white breathing masks, fighting eager Indian passengers awaiting their luggage at the belt and changing my money from dollars into rupees, my transformation is complete. I’ve even changed back into Indian clothing thanks to a conveniently located bathroom near customs.
Only two more hours to go till I’m en route to Kadod. I can’t wait.
Best,
Cat
P.S. I just killed my first mosquito.
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