November 28, 2008, 1:45 PM IST
I got the first call yesterday at 2 a.m. – my father, his voice trembling, checking to make sure I was safe. He was the first to tell me that terrorists had attacked Mumbai just a few hours earlier.
Text messages flew back and forth for most of the rest of the night, until I had heard from almost all of my friends. I finally fell asleep around 5 a.m., only to find myself being attacked by a dog in a nightmare. A phone call from a friend’s mother saved me. I managed to assure Lisa that her son Daniel was safe, having headed away from Mumbai when I last saw him. I didn’t mention that we had eaten dinner at Café Leopold in Colaba just a few days earlier; one of the half-dozen locations at which the terrorists had opened fire, targeting Americans and Brits.
Despite the urging of several friends to stay indoors, I decided the best thing to do would be to go to my usual morning yoga class – my mind was racing and I knew nothing better to calm me down than the firm instructions of Mrs. Kamdin, a subtly powerful woman whose admonishing looks could put an army general in his place.
When I arrived to her building the security guard shook his head and said simply: “Mumbai.” No class.
I found out last night that Mrs. Kamdin’s son is one of the 172 dead. He was a chef at the Taj Hotel. I keep trying to picture how she is handling this, or how I would console her, but I’m drawing blanks.
I did yoga alone in my room this morning.
November 28, 2008
November 22, 2008
Breaking through
November 13, 2008, 10:53 PM IST
In my last post I discussed my frustration with the haves versus have-nots dynamic in India, as reflected by my relationship with Rajendran, the caretaker of the guest house I’m lodged at in Delhi.
Rajendran often stares out the window onto the street while I’m eating breakfast. He’s got the air of a daydreamer, when he’s not dutifully attending to my every need.
Yesterday I decided to brave the language barrier and try to actually connect. I can’t even remember what I asked him, but it didn’t take long for him to open up. His wife and thirteen-year-old son are in Nepal, I discovered, along with the rest of his extended family. He’s been apart from them for six years.
Breakfast ended and I thanked him, as usual.
This morning, work stress and a prohibitively slow internet connection put me on edge. I was sitting on the couch with computer in lap, contemplating chucking it against the wall. Rajendran walked over, presumably to ask if I wanted tea or water or anything else.
Instead, he extended a tin box with a photo on it. “My family,” he said, pointing.
He kneeled alongside me and handed me his family photo album. For the next hour as we looked at the photos together, I lost my stress somewhere in Rajendran’s tacit narrative.
In my last post I discussed my frustration with the haves versus have-nots dynamic in India, as reflected by my relationship with Rajendran, the caretaker of the guest house I’m lodged at in Delhi.
Rajendran often stares out the window onto the street while I’m eating breakfast. He’s got the air of a daydreamer, when he’s not dutifully attending to my every need.
Yesterday I decided to brave the language barrier and try to actually connect. I can’t even remember what I asked him, but it didn’t take long for him to open up. His wife and thirteen-year-old son are in Nepal, I discovered, along with the rest of his extended family. He’s been apart from them for six years.
Breakfast ended and I thanked him, as usual.
This morning, work stress and a prohibitively slow internet connection put me on edge. I was sitting on the couch with computer in lap, contemplating chucking it against the wall. Rajendran walked over, presumably to ask if I wanted tea or water or anything else.
Instead, he extended a tin box with a photo on it. “My family,” he said, pointing.
He kneeled alongside me and handed me his family photo album. For the next hour as we looked at the photos together, I lost my stress somewhere in Rajendran’s tacit narrative.
November 14, 2008
(Un)comfortable luxuries
November 9, 2008, 10:03 AM IST
It’s Sunday, mid-morning at the corporate guest house where I’m staying in New Delhi. The thirty-something caretaker Rajendran knocks on my door.
I open the door. “Lunch?” he says, asking me whether I would like him to make me lunch today.
“Yes, 1pm?” I answer, knowing his next question will be “What time?”
“Non-veg? Veg?” he asks. In India this is a critical question. A significant portion of the population is “veg only,” often for religious reasons.
I tell him I’m veg, thank him, and close the door. A minute later he pokes his head back in my room: “Market, one hour.” He’s heading to the market to buy food to cook for me. I say “thank you” again.
As he leaves, a pang of guilt washes over me, a reaction I’ve come to expect from daily interactions like this one. I want say something else – invite him to eat lunch with me, ask him how old he is, what his hobbies are and what it’s like to work here, tell him I’m sorry he has to wait on me. But the language barrier stops me.
Rajendran smiles politely and closes the door.
It’s Sunday, mid-morning at the corporate guest house where I’m staying in New Delhi. The thirty-something caretaker Rajendran knocks on my door.
I open the door. “Lunch?” he says, asking me whether I would like him to make me lunch today.
“Yes, 1pm?” I answer, knowing his next question will be “What time?”
“Non-veg? Veg?” he asks. In India this is a critical question. A significant portion of the population is “veg only,” often for religious reasons.
I tell him I’m veg, thank him, and close the door. A minute later he pokes his head back in my room: “Market, one hour.” He’s heading to the market to buy food to cook for me. I say “thank you” again.
As he leaves, a pang of guilt washes over me, a reaction I’ve come to expect from daily interactions like this one. I want say something else – invite him to eat lunch with me, ask him how old he is, what his hobbies are and what it’s like to work here, tell him I’m sorry he has to wait on me. But the language barrier stops me.
Rajendran smiles politely and closes the door.
The theory of in between
November 9, 2008, 8:03 AM IST
By the time I was a teenager, I found it so pleasantly easy to fall asleep and wake up well-rested when staying in hotels, that I consciously looked forward to the opportunity to do so.
In high school, I began traveling alone more frequently, and it became apparent that I found equal solace in air travel. While I witnessed the bustle, urgency, and stress that emanates from airport terminals, what I felt was tranquility. I even sought occasions to fly alone to avoid the risk that my travel partner’s anxiety would ruin my relaxation.
This phenomenon is widespread in my life. There was the three-week camping trip in Colorado when I was fourteen. (Upon returning home, I tried sleeping on the floor in my sleeping bag in a failed attempt to preserve the esprit of tent-dwelling.) There was spring break my sophomore year of college, when I borrowed my dad’s car and drove around upstate New York for a week. I look back on that as one of my best vacations ever.
It’s no wonder, then, that when looking for a job, I found the busy consulting travel schedule mildly appealing.
I look back on my first year on the job, living in Boston, as the best year of my life; I was really at peace with myself. I’m certain that the fifty-some-odd flights over eighty-plus days on the road actually helped me somehow. (I had just two really bad days that whole year, and can tell you the dates and the cause of each, but that’s another story.)
My question is, why?
My current theory is that being “in between,” as I like to call it, removes the emotional clutter, the accumulation of meanings and experiences, good and bad, that color each moment spent in a familiar place. Being somewhere new allows me to live in the present.
If my theory is correct, my next question is, how can I bring this serenity into my daily life without moving around constantly?
Note, I write today on my 60th day in India, having spent 37 of those on the road. I am currently in New Delhi, at the midway point of 17 consecutive days of travel.
By the time I was a teenager, I found it so pleasantly easy to fall asleep and wake up well-rested when staying in hotels, that I consciously looked forward to the opportunity to do so.
In high school, I began traveling alone more frequently, and it became apparent that I found equal solace in air travel. While I witnessed the bustle, urgency, and stress that emanates from airport terminals, what I felt was tranquility. I even sought occasions to fly alone to avoid the risk that my travel partner’s anxiety would ruin my relaxation.
This phenomenon is widespread in my life. There was the three-week camping trip in Colorado when I was fourteen. (Upon returning home, I tried sleeping on the floor in my sleeping bag in a failed attempt to preserve the esprit of tent-dwelling.) There was spring break my sophomore year of college, when I borrowed my dad’s car and drove around upstate New York for a week. I look back on that as one of my best vacations ever.
It’s no wonder, then, that when looking for a job, I found the busy consulting travel schedule mildly appealing.
I look back on my first year on the job, living in Boston, as the best year of my life; I was really at peace with myself. I’m certain that the fifty-some-odd flights over eighty-plus days on the road actually helped me somehow. (I had just two really bad days that whole year, and can tell you the dates and the cause of each, but that’s another story.)
My question is, why?
My current theory is that being “in between,” as I like to call it, removes the emotional clutter, the accumulation of meanings and experiences, good and bad, that color each moment spent in a familiar place. Being somewhere new allows me to live in the present.
If my theory is correct, my next question is, how can I bring this serenity into my daily life without moving around constantly?
Note, I write today on my 60th day in India, having spent 37 of those on the road. I am currently in New Delhi, at the midway point of 17 consecutive days of travel.
Delhi smog
November 9, 2008, 10:27 AM IST
On the rikshaw drive home from dinner last night, the street light hung in the Delhi smog, giving the night an eerie yellow hue. The thick air and buzzing motor muffled the street sounds, and the city seemed strangely empty. For a moment my rikshaw driver became Charon, the ferryman of Greek mythology, slowly paddling me to the underworld.
On the rikshaw drive home from dinner last night, the street light hung in the Delhi smog, giving the night an eerie yellow hue. The thick air and buzzing motor muffled the street sounds, and the city seemed strangely empty. For a moment my rikshaw driver became Charon, the ferryman of Greek mythology, slowly paddling me to the underworld.
Cultural pyromania
October 29, 2008, 8:34 AM IST
My first Diwali, the biggest festival in the Hindu year, begins at 5:30 a.m. when a cracker explodes in the driveway 10 feet from my window. It’s Monday in Chennai, the city in South India where I’ve come to celebrate with my colleague Kavita’s family. I decide I am grateful, as she has not come through on her promised 4 a.m. start.
We spend the day eating and relaxing, then at 8 p.m. the house begins filling with more friends and relatives. Dinner is an afterthought, as the thirty-odd guests gather in the driveway and spend the evening lighting firecrackers and telling jokes.
My apathy toward lighting firecrackers is somewhat incongruous with the local firecracker obsession. I stand on the front steps of the house, vicariously enjoying everyone’s euphoria and the up-close-and-personal show. I am joined by two little girls who apparently identify with my ennui. An older woman stops to chat with me and seems amused. I’m tempted to clarify that I’m simply bored, but I think back on July 4 celebrations with my brother (“Taylor, you’re such a downer”) and I decide to laugh along with her.
After all, I am enjoying myself, and also pleased to have been included in this distinctly Indian cultural experience.
My first Diwali, the biggest festival in the Hindu year, begins at 5:30 a.m. when a cracker explodes in the driveway 10 feet from my window. It’s Monday in Chennai, the city in South India where I’ve come to celebrate with my colleague Kavita’s family. I decide I am grateful, as she has not come through on her promised 4 a.m. start.
We spend the day eating and relaxing, then at 8 p.m. the house begins filling with more friends and relatives. Dinner is an afterthought, as the thirty-odd guests gather in the driveway and spend the evening lighting firecrackers and telling jokes.
My apathy toward lighting firecrackers is somewhat incongruous with the local firecracker obsession. I stand on the front steps of the house, vicariously enjoying everyone’s euphoria and the up-close-and-personal show. I am joined by two little girls who apparently identify with my ennui. An older woman stops to chat with me and seems amused. I’m tempted to clarify that I’m simply bored, but I think back on July 4 celebrations with my brother (“Taylor, you’re such a downer”) and I decide to laugh along with her.
After all, I am enjoying myself, and also pleased to have been included in this distinctly Indian cultural experience.
India Unbound, by Gurcharan Das
October 12, 2008, 6:51 PM IST
India Unbound was an initially daunting prospect. I had little faith that I could engage myself in a presumably dry discourse on Indian history. However, my ignorance on all topics Indian was impetus enough for me to start reading.
With this book, Gucharan Das proves my assumption wrong – Indian history is anything but dry. India Unbound tells the story of India’s recent past in a way that helps me feel connected to and part of India today.
Das’ youthful optimism in describing his sense of possibility after independence evoked the impending U.S. presidential election and my hope for the future of America. He traces the increasingly realist path of his own world view, as India’s first prime minister’s legacy became a series of leaders whose blind adherence to faulty ideals bridled India’s entrepreneurial and intellectual spirit. Short stories from his life show his frustration in witnessing how his country squandered forty years of opportunities. These accounts stirred up my feelings towards today’s stagnant U.S. policies on climate change.
Das writes a regular column for the Times of India, India’s pre-eminent daily newspaper. He will be writing an article about Teach for India as part of the Times of India’s support for our launch. I might even get to meet him!
India Unbound was an initially daunting prospect. I had little faith that I could engage myself in a presumably dry discourse on Indian history. However, my ignorance on all topics Indian was impetus enough for me to start reading.
With this book, Gucharan Das proves my assumption wrong – Indian history is anything but dry. India Unbound tells the story of India’s recent past in a way that helps me feel connected to and part of India today.
Das’ youthful optimism in describing his sense of possibility after independence evoked the impending U.S. presidential election and my hope for the future of America. He traces the increasingly realist path of his own world view, as India’s first prime minister’s legacy became a series of leaders whose blind adherence to faulty ideals bridled India’s entrepreneurial and intellectual spirit. Short stories from his life show his frustration in witnessing how his country squandered forty years of opportunities. These accounts stirred up my feelings towards today’s stagnant U.S. policies on climate change.
Das writes a regular column for the Times of India, India’s pre-eminent daily newspaper. He will be writing an article about Teach for India as part of the Times of India’s support for our launch. I might even get to meet him!
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