India After Ten Years

Dearest IHP,

I am thinking of you today. I think about you a lot, but today I am coming back to India today for the first time (apart from a weeklong wedding rush) since our trip.

Some of you have been back in this part of the world many times and for much longer periods of time, and I haven't even left the airport. Nonetheless, I wanted to share what it has felt like for 10 minutes after 10 years.

I'm on the bus from the international to domestic terminal in Mumbai for my transfer to Kolkata. Airports all look the same minus the language on the signs. This one also happens to have a less sterile smell than Houston or Chicago.

It's dark out, about midnight their time. I forgot that we drive on the left side here. I envision the bumper-to-window-to-wheel-to-arm traffic pulling up to MG road from the high rises in the tech belt in Bangalore everyday. I flash back to an accident Belinda and I had on bus. No one had been hurt, just yelling and broken glass. Flashback to the moped accident with Lindsay in Vietnam where someone had been seriously hurt, to feeling helpless. Could I, would I do more now? I read about central line technique in the ICU book on the plane, would that have helped?

We keep driving and I see construction to our right. It's something that looks like an unfinished terminal serving as a hanger for Jet Airways. Would we have that in the states? Would we have runway workers sleeping under it?

On the same side there is a wall. In front of it are layers of barbed and even thicker ones on top. Behind it, there are corrugated iron roofed houses.

In my head, I start asking questions: how much to people pay to live there? Why not build them apartment buildings? Employ the unemployed to do it. Who could do it better, corporations or the government? Or, do these people want to stay in their homes. I find that hard to imagine, but then think back to the singing women protesting the dam in Kerula.

Do we have an equivalent to this in the US? Probably. Did I ask these kinds of questions on IHP? Probably, but it's been so long I can hardly remember. 

I had a hard time leaving home. I cried when I kissed Olivia and fought with Dave. I worried about my parents and grandparents. I was emotionally labile from exhaustion with the flu. It was harder than I ever remember it being.

It only took a few hours without my phone to start to read more than I have in a while, to start to observe in a different way and to write. 

I am grateful for this experience and for the chance to share it with you and see what you think. What has your experience been like traveling-- those of you who do it for work, Jack, Al? Those who have spent prolonged times here like Volps, KJ?

Love you very much,
Sash