// I’m No Good at Goodbye//

I’ve kind of been putting off this last blog post, partly because I’m lazy, partly because I really don’t know what I can say, and partly because I’m not quite ready to accept that it’s over.

To try to sum up my experience, what I’ve learned, or how I’ve changed in one blog entry will be pointless.  I can hardly think of words beyond “great” to describe my experience when people around town ask me how India was, and nothing beyond “weird” when I’m asked how it is to be home.  The best I can do is try and come up short.

Looking back on the semester, I find that I spent a lot of time asking questions, both about India and about the way I was experiencing and interacting with India.  The funny thing is, now that I’m back, I feel like I have fewer answers than I left with.  Maybe this is why I have so much trouble explaining my time there to people here — I can’t say for certain what it was.

The thing about immersing yourself in a different culture is that, after the initial culture shock, you don’t notice yourself adapting to it, changing to fit it, or going with it.  It is because of this, I think, that I have trouble pinpointing things — the ways India surprised me, the ways I changed, and the things I have learned.  There was no point when I suddenly got it, just as there was no point when I was suddenly changed by my experience.  If I look at things objectively, I can see the differences — the food, the climate, the language, the modes of transportation, the sense of humor, the pollution, the poverty — these are the ascertainable things that differentiate New Delhi from Vermont, and yet there is somehow more than these.  If I look at myself, I can see the changes — longer hair, less fear, a new tattoo — but I don’t know how I got here from there.  These don’t explain why , after a year and a half that was some kind of something, I feel like I’ve finally come out on the other side.  The questions don’t bother me, but they do make me want to keep moving.

I can’t pick a perfect moment from my semester, and I won’t detail a thousand better ones here.  The best I can do is leave things off in this very unsatisfactory, unfinished manner, and I think that’s how it should be.  I’m not done with India, so I don’t have to tie up the ends just yet.  For now, I am immeasurably thankful for this experience.

// Things I was reminded of by my first shower at home://

- The joys of opening your mouth under a stream of running water
- It is possible to burn yourself in the shower
- Conditioner is a very real and very beautiful thing
- Loofahs are God’s gift to grimy humans
- Shower curtains are severely constricting and make me claustrophobic

// Isn’t It Ironic//

The thought of leaving New Delhi tomorrow is making me sick to the stomach.

There’s got to be some irony in that, somewhere.

// A Sign of the Times//

Proof positive of my quickly dwindling time here: I just shaved my legs for the first time in roughly three months.

For all those curious, it took close to 45 minutes to get them nice and smooth… 

// The Authentic India//

I’ve been thinking about what to get my sister for Christmas for the past two months.  The best idea that’s popped into my head has been books, seeing as they’re so cheap here and she loves to read, but I’ve shot myself down every time, thinking how dumb it would be if I came back from India and brought books.  But why?  People certainly read in India.  And Maddie certainly likes books more than clothes or jewelry.  Hell, I’d probably appreciate a pile of good books for Christmas over a pair of brightly patterned pants I’d never wear or a packet of henna I’d never use, too.  But I feel like that would be letting her down, in some way — she’s expecting gifts from India, after all.

This dilemma has gotten me thinking about the idea of authenticity.  Namely, what is it?  If something is not unique to India, does that make it less authentically Indian?  And more importantly, is authenticity the most significant measure in determining the value of an object or an experience?

I’d like to say the answer is no, because MY answer is no, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I will share, when I tell people about my time in India, and I wonder if maybe they will be disappointed.

One of my friends, earlier in the semester, asked me if I’d seen any slums yet.  While it’s certainly a valid question, I felt frustrated that so many people had expectations of what I am supposed to see and experience here.  Like, if I don’t see slums, does that somehow negate everything else I have seen?  Is my time here cheapened because I haven’t seen some of the worst of what India has to offer?

Prescribing a standard of authenticity to a country as huge, complex and multi-faceted as India is an impossibility, so why do I feel such pressure to represent my time here as anything other than what it was — a semester spent in a new, fascinating, beautiful country, during which I learned a lot.

This semester, I lived in an upper middle class home with a fairly liberal family.  There was a coffee shop across the street and a washing machine in my bathroom.  I took the metro a lot.  I went to school, and even dreaded going to school, because contrary to popular belief, being in India does not make school more exciting.  I made friends, got made fun of by rickshaw drivers, and stopped to buy snacks on my way home from class.  This normal lifestyle doesn’t compare to the Bollywood-influenced image of India that so many people hold, but Bollywood is a theater of extremes that would be hard (and exhausting) to duplicate in real life.

I know that, in spite of its apparent lack of “authenticity,” my time here was as real as anything else I’ve experienced.

Of course, there were extreme moments — seeing the burning ghat in Varanasi, walking into the Maha Bodhi temple in Bodh Gaya, having my heart broken by begging children through the sides of rickshaws, seeing the vague outline of the Himalayas in Mussoorie, riding an elephant in Jaipur — and they were all the more effective for appearing in the midst of an otherwise very normal life.

As a side note, I would hazard a guess that more people read books in New Delhi every day than burst into song and dance in bars, but I am no expert.

// T minus 13 days.//

The clock has officially begun to tick.

Yesterday, we moved out of our homestay and into the ashram.

Today, I finished my ISP.

Tomorrow, I will turn in my ISP.

The rest of the week will be a blur of presentations, then a week of travelling, and then the long journey home.

I’m not ready to do the whole touchy feely “how India changed my life” thing, but I’ve developed a knot in the pit of my stomach that tightens every time I think about how little time I have left here.