Incredible India...

India, many say, is like an addiction. I agree, because I need my fix every year or two. Else, it leaves me miserable, strung-over and frustrated, teetering on the edge of a collapse. There is something about the air that slows my pace and my pulse down. Time there seems to move at a pace more manageable. People are more personable, even perfect strangers. The days do not leave me feeling rushed, dazed and exhausted like they do back ‘here’. I become my own person, not some harried, do-it-all who is unable to do it all. 

This year’s trip, after two long years, came differently though and I didn't have any expectations. Friends were all too busy, family – close and far, ranged from disinterest and skepticism to occasional excitement. I wasn’t looking to get anywhere, only trying to get away and this has usually never been the case with me. I came on a vacation laden with fatigue, anxiety, trepidation, anger, skepticism and very little of hope for anything wonderful. 

There was a surgery planned but no vacation. There was a hospital stay planned, but no hotel stay. There were tests planned, no get-togethers. I was prepared for nothing and yet, this time, I couldn’t care. I was above and beyond caring and needed the space and the time. 

Surprisingly though, it was not a bad trip. It wasn't all that I had imagined because I didn't manage to visit all my haunts; the get-together’s have been different, have felt a little incomplete; home has felt different but reassuringly same; and people have changed – aged, some in ways favorable, but some in ways sad and unexpected; some places which were defined by their people have changed and become a little more alien. But despite the lack of expectations or plans, I must say things have not been bad. I wonder if it is because of the lack of expectations or because of that deep-seated fear of something terrible about to happen - whose mere absence is reassuring enough… 

After two years of a never-ending maze, I finally feel empty, peaceful, quiet. I can now sense the person I used to be – emerging from the haze. The camera, the books, the places and the people - are slowly becoming appealing. I think I am an addict and need my fix of this country held-together by nothing but its people and ‘jugaad’.