Back in Blighty

I often wonder if I will ever feel settled. I quite fancy staying in London for a good three years now (my idea of ‘settled’) but I do catch myself thinking about living in Manhattan or in Italy again or somewhere new altogether – like Australia or Japan. No, I take that back, not Japan -- too foreign.

Even though I’m a little tired of being on an airplane every weekend, I’m already thinking of travel alternatives – I haven’t seen much of the English countryside. It’s lovely and accessible by train – and not flea-infested smelly ones (but the tea on board won’t be quite the same).

Now that I am back in blighty (a term derived funnily enough from the Hindi word vilayati, meaning ‘foreign’), I thought I’d wrap up with a couple anecdotes, ‘after mint’ to my time in India, if you will:

When I have a cold in the US, my friends make sure to keep their distance. In fact, I have a number of friends who won’t share a water bottle with me even when I’m perfectly healthy. Right after Jaipur, I was running a fever but work was hectic, so I worked through it, even fitting in a work dinner despite being close to delirium. At dinner, we were all served an unidentifiable thick green beverage (think wheatgrass shot but a little larger and reportedly made of mango). I took a tentative sip – it had a tart, acquired taste that I wasn’t up to acquiring that evening. Bani eyed my glass, and I warned her – don’t even think about it – I’m really sick. Two minutes later I noticed the glass had been drained of its offensive liquid. “Bani! Did you drink that? You’re mad. You’re going to get sick. In the US, I wouldn’t have even been invited to dinner in this state!”
“Well, in India,” Bani responds, “we believe that you need your friends to get even closer when you’re sick.” That made me smile. I’d found the silver lining on the cloud of a country that’s not the most hygiene-conscious.

In India, toilets tend to have a little tap, a bucket full of water sitting directly beneath the tap and a smaller receptacle with a handle (sort of like the one you’d use for netilat yada’im) bobbing in the bucket of water. In Cochin, Andrew and Eimer led me to believe that Indians use their bare hands to wipe, after which they wash their hands off in the bucket. Convenient explanation for [a] lack of toilet paper in all public loos and [b] Indians seeming never to wash their hands when they exit a toilet stall. A little hard to believe, but I shrugged my shoulders, thinking 'This is India’ and took their explanation for truth. I wanted to ask someone Indian about it but was too wary/embarrassed at the prospect of a confirmation – until I finally asked Bani when we went to Mussoorie. The real story: they scoop up some water in the smaller receptacle and chuck it at the sullied areas. If there’s toilet paper, they’ll wipe dry; if there isn’t, they won’t. They think it’s terribly unhygienic that Westerners don’t use water to clean their bums after they shit. I’m really pleased I got that story straight before leaving India. Check out this link for pics & useful explanatory diagrams: http://www.pbase.com/jtodhunter/indian_toilet

That’s it. Five months, two little anecdotes and no grand epiphanies. Although I have JUST left. The epiphanies may still be on their way. I do think, though, that I could have done much better in India than I did. Knowing what I know now, I could have achieved more at work, experienced more of what the country has to offer, made more friends and, through them, learned a lot more about India’s culture & people. Of course, when I first came out, I didn’t know what I know now. Such is life. The next time I go to India on a 6-month assignment, I’ll do much better. Promise.

Masala in Mussoorie

This last weekend in India was one of firsts. First train trip in India – and overnight at that! First visit to a hill station – I’ve been hearing about them since I arrived (Darjeeling, Ooty, Munnar), they’re just a little hard to get to and back from on a weekend. Most importantly, first weekend with an Indian friend! And most unfortunately, first weekend without my camera (Google Images to the rescue! Pics courtesy of: Images � Roman's Travel Website, http://www.hobotraveler.com)

Bound for the foothills of the Himalayas, Bani and I arrive at the train station in Delhi on Thursday night a good hour and a half earlier than is necessary. When I ask her why, she replies that hanging out at the train station is fun. With a chill in the air, stray dogs begging us for food we don’t have, more bugs than I’ve ever seen in one place at one time and nowhere clean to sit, I’m not exactly sure what she means by ‘fun,’ but I try to make do. I take to pacing back and forth so that the bugs don’t think it appropriate to land on me, though this only helps the situation marginally. I’ve already fished a teeny spider out of my eye and am pretty miserable. I’m very happy when we finally board, and when Bani implies that I’m high maintenance, I laugh because I think I’m doing pretty well under the circumstances.

I do feel that this is the real India, though. Air travel is the new trend, and it seems that every day there’s a new article in the Times of India about the desperate shortage of qualified pilots, but the masses still make their way across the vast subcontinent by rail. And once I’m on board, tucked into my top bunk, pretending not to see the stains all over my sheets and covering the equally dirty pillow with my pashmina, it’s not unpleasant. We glide rhythmically along the tracks and somewhere between Delhi and Hardiwar I fall asleep. We arrive in Dehra Dun early Friday morning and take an old-school ambassador up an hour of tight twists and turns until we arrive at The Queen of Hills – Mussoorie.



Mussoorie’s lovely – sweeping views of hills and valleys, fresh mountain air, monkeys, walking trails, and a very rickety cable car to the hill station’s highest point. It’s rather refreshingly brisk out: I finally get use out of my ski jacket and Bani and I stop to sip on sweet steaming masala chai every hour or so. We pick up all sorts of other snacks along the way too – masala popcorn, warm peanuts dipped in masala, freshly squeezed orange juice with masala. Masala madness! As you’ve probably figured out, masala is a type of spice, but it’s also used metaphorically. If you want to say there weren’t any extra frills in a film, you say it just didn’t have any masala :)

Bani thinks I’m a bit of a pansy because I’m scared of the cable car (you would’ve been too). But that’s nothing compared to how scared I am on the way to Kempty Falls. The driver – clearly not having grasped the concept of human mortality – careens around the narrow mountain roads completely oblivious of the 6000 foot drop inches away from his treadless tires.

I am terrified, and I’m not the only one. There’s a baby on board who’s close to tears. There’s a woman who runs out of the jeep every time it stops and throws up. I’m appalled at this madman’s lack of regard for the wellbeing of the 10 people he’s carpooling down to see the waterfall, especially as there are ominous signs all the way down warning, SPEED THRILLS BUT KILLS. Perhaps he doesn’t read English. Why aren’t these signs in Hindi as well, I wonder?

Bani finally says something to the driver and my heart is able to beat again. We then proceed to enlist the driver’s undivided services for the afternoon (look who’s mad now). He seems to be in less of a rush though, and the trip to Danoulthy is well worth it. The misty, scenic drive takes us past bundled farmworkers and small villages, and an hour later, we are walking amidst wispy, rolling clouds and towering pine trees. Danoulthy is also where I have the warmest, loveliest most syrupy gulab jamun I have ever tasted.

The drive back is even more lovely now that the sun has started its descent into the mountains. The dusky pink sky, illuminated by a golden sun, is mesmerising. I miss the exact moment when pink turns to midnight blue, but it’s dark when we get out of the jeep in Mussoorie. We walk down the Mall Road one last time, looking out over the twinkling, light-studded valley.

We leave for Dehra Dun early the following morning, again – arriving at the train station FAR too early. I don’t know what it is about Bani and train stations!



The train trip back is fairly uneventful. Someone asks me how much I earn (my least favourite question in India) and Bani advises: just say something absurd – like 200,000 dollars. Great. Will do. Hope it comes true! Other than that, I plug in my headphones and stare out the window, trying to ignore the fidgety 8-yr old who wants to share my seat (son of the guy who asked me about my salary).

We arrive in Delhi seven hours later, and Bani’s mom is waiting for us with a batch of freshly made paranthas. Yum. And perfect to line the belly for yet another delayed flight at the Delhi airport.