Annette’s Trip to India – Dec 6-20, 2002  After two days of snow and ice, the relief that our plane wasn’t cancelled overshadowed my anticipation for India. A long layover in Cincinnati – we booked a hotel so we could watch TV and I could work out.
Cincinnati to Paris, Meena slept the whole way. I didn’t sleep a wink. Nine hours later we are wandering around Paris airport. I was bumping into things but bypassed coffee as I intended to sleep on the plane. Our gate is #87, more dark faces than light waited around that gate. When they called the flight I had the opportunity to experience the Indian version of a queue for the first of many times.
An Indian “queue” is not long and straight but thick, dynamic, dense and interlocking. The crush of people was actually quite polite – those who broke in line never met your eye and those who lost their place never acknowledged it. The idea was to wedge in so tight no one could fit in front of you. Elbows need to be by your side or else they can be used to lever you back. The Indian Delta agent asked me “the three questions”(has you luggage been out of your sight/you packed it/anyone given you anything? - I guess dropping them wasn’t an international agreement) then said I must answer another question but she wasn’t qualified to ask it and could I please step aside until the person qualified to ask that question was available? Why of course, let me just extricate my leg from this lady’s rollerbag, and if you could ask this gentleman to kindly shift his backpack from my kidney, I would be glad to step aside. She smiled – the Indian version of efficiency.
We arrived at midnight and were so glad to see our names (forever misspelled) on the hotel placard. Driving past the airport gates the moon revealed bodies lined in sleeping positions two feet from the street, dogs rummaging through piles of garbage, and a thin naked man standing and scratching himself unselfconsciously. The scenes didn’t change much until the hotel – a starkly clean and well-staffed oasis. We feasted on Indian junk food, roasted lentils, chili hot potato chips, and bottled water. The maid woke us up at 10:15 a.m. just in time to hit the free breakfast buffet before it closed at 10:30. The buffet offered frightening interpretations of American breakfasts so I went for the Indian alternatives. A pattycake of steamed rice/grain (an idli) with a spicy vegetable curry over it, a parantha (fried unleavened bread), yoghurt, and chutneys with sweet tea thick with milk. After breakfast we arranged a car and met Joseph our driver. His rosary on the rearview mirror identified him as one of the rare Christians in Bombay. His English was wonderful, and if I could’ve convinced Meena to speak English I would’ve been happy. She lapsed into Hindi the minute we hit India and only reluctantly spoke English on rare occasions.
At Juhu Beach (don’t get the wrong idea - no one in their right mind would swim there) we were an hour’s drive from the tip of the peninsula that is Downtown Mumbai (Bombay). Indian women are all the more beautiful in their flowing saris, so I was ill-prepared for the Indian version of a young Walter Matthau in drag (a sari) knocking at my window at a stoplight near downtown. Very scary. At the tip of the peninsula was a ferry to take us to an island to see the caves of Elephanta (the fifteen foot tall elephant sculpture that prompted the Portuguese to name it Elephanta is long gone). The gate of India stood like a misplaced Arc de Triomphe, surrounded by people out for a Sunday airing. There were dozens of ferries fighting to be next in line for the stream of passengers diluted into single file out of necessity (the steps leading down to the water were narrow) that boarded the wooden, canvas covered boats. Ninety rupees for a return trip. We boarded. The women were in their finest saris for the day out, children ran around the boat (entrance and exit without banisters), and one Muslim couple on the corner whispered to each other through her black veil. For some reason the flap that crossed the bridge of her nose to cover her from the eyes down was padded. In that heat I can only assume it was to further obscure her face, because it looked smothering and uncomfortable.
She must have been even happier for the 45 minutes of breezy boat ride than I was (and I was pretty happy, it was hot). On arrival we were inundated by souvenir sellers and an offer to ride the train. The train deserves explaining. The long concrete walkway from the jetty, has a track on one side where a train like one from a zoo travels back and forth. It travels only 200 yards packed mostly with parents and children as a man jogs just ahead of it, presumably to keep from running over anyone. We walked – I was glad to have my sun umbrella. I posed with some monkeys on the walk up. Later we saw one steal a family’s lunch.
The caves are carved out of solid rock. They aren’t naturally formed and my first impulse was to run my hand along the smoothness of the massive columns carved monolithically, not placed, from the floor to the ceiling 30 feet high. The walls were lined with damaged story reliefs of Shiva and Parvati playing a gambling game, the androgenous Shiva called Ardhanarishvara – the left half male and right, female – symbolizing the male and female aspects of the deity. This is my first introduction into one of the things I like about the plurality of the Hindu religion. Not only male/female aspects but all sorts of personality characteristics are folded into ideals laid out for devotees. Shiva is portrayed in seven, eight, maybe more incarnations. Each of these stories is a complex play of good and evil that allows many interpretations and encourages tolerance. Eleven languages, many religions: Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Muslim, and all the different interpretations of each (Sikh, Parsi, Catholic, Tibetan, etc) creates such a social landscape of diversity. It is difficult for me to reconcile the violence of Kashmir and Muslim/Hindu hatreds. I know it exists but I can’t see it in anyone’s eyes.
The central sculpture was a three-faced Shiva (Sadashiva) with an angry destroyer face, complacent enduring face, and feminine creator face. Again, the plurality of peace and violence, charm and anger, sensuality and austerity. Meena pointed out how many differences in Indian culture might be traced to a society founded on many gods with many incarnations rather than one God. The guard invited me to walk around the lingham - a ritual of significance I don’t understand - I’ll just hope it isn’t fertility. But I’m a ritual taste-tester and I did this one happily. Late that night when we were ready to sleep, the first of a dozen weddings we were to see began the DJ portion of their reception in the garden of our hotel. This was a Christian wedding, but they observed the Indian tradition of a stage with people lined up to take their picture with the bride and groom. One factor that unfortunately seems cross-cultural is a loudmouth master of ceremonies telling bad jokes. Even in Hindi he made me cringe. And then there was the music: Indian versions of Achey Breaky Heart, Que Sera, Sera, Macarena, and Don’t Leave me Lucille. I’m not making this up. Thank goodness they shut it down at eleven o’clock.
Next day was Ganeshpuri. My dear friend Cindy used to live in the ashram there and gave me great directions for sightseeing. We stopped at the Kanheri Caves first. We wanted to go to the animal park and did actually drive through part of it, but were told it was closed by the old woman our driver picked up at the gate. She lived next to the Kanheri Caves a few miles up. I wonder if she hadn’t needed a ride (and paid Joseph?) if we’d have gone to the Caves. But I’m so glad we did. The Buddhist caves were in much better repair than Elephanta, and was a much more peaceful experience (we were practically alone). The hitchhiking woman told us lurid stories of tigers eating children, and attacking men walking along the dirt road we traveled. She pointed out a cobra and I have to admit the eight-foot snake lent some validity to her scary stories. These caves were also carved out of solid rock, my hands traced the straight edges and perfect right angles of doorways in wonder as we toured the sleeping quarters for families and singles, entered the long high ceiling classroom with two low tables thirty feet long and parallel. The guide positioned us at either end of the long tables so we could experience the acoustics – a whisper carried the entire length of the huge hall. Similar acoustical miracles in the main chanting chapel transformed my unmelodic chant into twelve voices of perfect pitch ringing back at me. Sounds that soothe the soul. I like to imagine 30 Buddhist monks chanting 3-400 years ago so that even the tigers stopped to listen.
Once we arrived (a two hour drive) at Ganeshpuri, we went to the ashram, guards watched our bags and shoes as we walked the peaceful interior. Mentioning Cindy’s name got us welcomed and shown around. We decided to come back for evening services and headed to the Devi Temple (female deities) walking up three levels of stairs I rang the bells over my head at the entrance because everyone else was doing it. There was an altar with a Ganesha (most temples have the fat, happy elephant-headed god of overcoming obstacles) and bright colored models of the deities with gold headdresses at the back. Most of the temples had altars that were a cross between sculpture and decorated dolls. Many had dioramas of various levels of quality (Barbie dolls in stands, manikins cut up and re-assembled so their arms and hands move mechanically, with a few semi-realistic scenes) around the sides of the temple to tell religious stories of importance.
We went to the hot sulphur baths, each named for a different deity the hottest for the most angry. A middle aged woman was submerged to her neck in the pool in full sari. Two naked children were dunked (one screaming her protest) by their parents for good luck. I sat at the edge enjoying the hot water up to my knees, even with the heat of the day. The 6:30 service at the ashram was mostly chanting, we had a two-sided photocopied sheet of words I could barely pronounce much less understand. Two guys wrapped Ghandi fashion wore swung silver poles with incense pots dangling from the ends with synchronized precision. At the end, we participated in a ritual I saw often: the offering of a blessed something to eat or drink. The first time I did it, it was rose water so I enthusiastically held out my right hand (never the left, although I kept forgetting) to receive a large glop of baby food looking stuff of undeterminied origin that a priest spooned in my hand. Peer pressure forced me to shovel the stuff in my mouth and it was worse than I imagined – overripe bananas (which I despise) were certainly part of the mixture. I followed the line to the waterspout where everyone washed his or her hand. I silently weighed the consequences of spitting it out, but the holes in the drain were small and I would have had to squish the larger carrot banana like chunks down with my hand. I had no choice but to swallow and my face as I type these words is contorted in the same terrible face I made at that moment. It may have been food blessed by the gods but it was nass-s-sty.
The next day we went to the Krishna temple (as in Hare Krishna) and were shown around by a young lady from Slovania dressed in a red and white cotton sari. Her husband (tall, Slavic, blond ponytail emerging from his shaved skull) was getting ready for his second level initiation, the first only qualifies one to cook in the kitchen. (I’m guessing the second elevates you to clean toilets?) The dioramas here were of particular interest. Krishna is celebrated as stronger, older, more everything than the traditional triad of main gods: Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. The temple is formal and beautiful, many columns, arches, and black and white marble tiles on the floor. The only trace of modernity are the plastic, fabric, and plaster figures displayed in the dioramas. One diorama displayed a human size lioness squatting with a man across her lap as she plunged her claws into his belly with blood spurts and everything. Apparently this guy got arrogant when given a blessing that he would not be killed by anything living or dead, inside or outside – so the lions claws (neither living nor dead) did him in as she straddled the threshold of his house (neither in nor out)…the best one is commemorating the guy that took Krishna’s message to the States. He is standing in his robes in Central Park, a skyline of NYC painted in the background (this is directly opposite the lion scene okay?) with two street kids dancing (identified as Bucky and Stan). The diorama demonstrates how the old man’s message spontaneously inspired in these two Americans the sacred dancing of Krishna devotees. We hung around to see the ritual (in the top right corner a digital display lights up in red letters traveling left to right: “Be happy and chant: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna”) but it took so long to set up with palm leaves to lay out, rice piles to pour and flowers to arrange - we only lasted about ten minutes. The highlight was eating in the world famous vegetarian restaurant Govinda’s. Delicious.
Then we went shopping. I’m not much of a shopper but I had a ball. You walk up winding stairs to a white room with three sides of white counters, dark male faces evaluating your size and offering you padded stools on which to sit. Once you have been identified as an authentic buyer, you are offered tea. (the spicy masala tea with milk in a tiny espresso sized cup). And the show begins. Three or four of the men begin to take hangers of silks and cotton outfits (salvar kameez – a shin-length tunic with pants and matching scarf) soon ten deep and my senses are over-loaded. They must be competing with each other as one from the right begins to lay out silk satin ball gown style (only available in Mumbai) with beading that would take one person a year to finish. My senses are over-loaded. After hours of this I finally make a choice they are convinced is my final decision only after another cup of tea and ten minutes of ignoring every new outfit they lay out. I leave happy and loaded down with two outfits for me and more for my mother and Sherry. One sari I liked (I was definitely at low resistance level) I had made into a long scarf…we shall see if I ever wear it. The tea must’ve been laced with “buy-it” drugs. It was fun, though. I felt like a princess.
Next we ended up looking at carpets – our driver’s agenda I think. The baksheesh he might make off our purchases would pale his salary. He was very unhappy when we asked to go to a carpet store of our own choosing – but I suspected we might find a price difference. And I would say $1200 vs. $5000 was worth shopping around and dealing with a surly driver. Junaid, the carpet seller, young and charming won my heart and my wallet. His “father” (really his uncle – mother, sister, father, etc are terms of endearment here) made me promise to visit Kashmir. The next morning there was a story on the front page about a man setting himself on fire in Kashmir – I don’t think I’ll visit too soon. Anyway our negotiations ended with a “trust me” offer of pay me and I’ll keep this carpet but have ten more for you to look at on your way back through Mumbai. “I promise you will leave happy.” Like I said, he was charming. I literally left my wallet in the store as I walked out and had to go back to get it.
Every morning in Mumbai I woke up singing “Joy, Joy, Joy” in my head. I loved India and I loved being there. Meena and I headed back downtown to visit the Ghandi museum on our last day. I didn’t realize that Ghandi lived in South Africa for twenty-one years. Pictures along the walls told his story and I particularly loved the letter he wrote Hitler, asking him to consider his actions. Quotes of Ghandi’s on the walls made the peaceful house whisper with his words: “means and ends are convertible terms in my philosophy of life…and the is just the same inviolable connection between the means and the end, as there is between the seed and the tree”, “to call women the weaker sex is libel, it is man’s injustice to women…if by strength is meant moral power, the woman is immeasurably man’s superior…If non-violence is the law of our being, the future is with women.” I agree. We caught a late afternoon flight to Udaipur and were pleasantly surprised at the cool breeze of the evening.
We stayed in one of the three palaces used by the Maharana since the 1600s. The one in the lake was for summer, the one on the mountain for the monsoon season, and the City Palace – where we stayed was for moderate weather. The current Maharana still lives in part of the City Palace where we stayed and the maze of gates and passage ways frequently include a guarded entrance that says private. That night the cool breeze, the bright moon and the luxury of the palace (they gave us a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice on arrival) transported me into a Disney Aladdin frame of mind. I wouldn’t have been surprised by a talking statue as I explored in bare feet on marble floors, with shadowy elephants and courtyards with fountains. The lake glistened around the spotlighted Lake Palace in the distance.
The palace staff enhance the experience in the morning. A man with a ruby in each ear, beautiful uniform, bows and says “good morning madam” like he means it. Everyone seems to already know who we are. I have upma for breakfast – a semolina (grits/cream of wheat cross) with almonds, raisons, and spices accompanied by a coconut chutney. VERY yum. The palace museum will have to wait as I have already spotted the Ayurvedic Massage. I have a camphor scented massage by a woman from South India and make an appointment for the next day. The city palace museum gives a glimpse into the life of Maharana and Maharani (queens). A great square of marble floor surrounded by semiprecious stone-inlay peacocks is for court events and dancing girls the maharana’s box high above protrudes so he can see everything. Another similar on the other side has louvers for the women to peek through. The pastime pursuits are well accommodated. Next to the Lake Palace is complex set in the water just for parties and play. (one of the James Bond movies was filmed here) Back to the city palace one room is surrounded by red, green, blue, yellow, purple, and orange glass panes and internally lined with mirrors – it is like being inside a gorgeous piece of jewelry.
Highlighted story-paintings show the beautiful woman who when hearing two kings were to fight over her – committed suicide, one life taken rather than many. Minature portraiture is a specialty of Udaipur and a 2 ft square area includes hundreds of distinct people in individually articulated dramas (some rather erotic so it keeps you looking – sort of an adult Where’s Wilbur). The highlight was an empty chair carted back from Britain as this Maharana was the only one who refused the Brits invitation to a roundtable discussion back in the 1800s.
The next day I have my Ayurvedic treatment – I lay on my back as a pot of warm oil suspended from the ceiling drizzles oil on my forehead for one hour. I would love to tell you I reached Nirvana…but they had to keep wringing the oil out of my hair, whispering coordinated efforts (husband and wife style) to keep heating the oil, replenishing the swaying pot above, and wringing my hair again. Besides I have some suspicions about the oil they used as I smelled like chappatis all day long. After the treatment I discovered it was the Maharana’s birthday. Garlands of marigolds drape every archway. The steps are littered with rose and marigold petals. We are told that the Maharana will be accepting birthday greetings from 10:30 to 12:30. I get all dressed up in one of the outfits (salvar kameez) I bought and take one of my drawings of an angel from the city palace museum made into a card. Standing in line with staff, villagers and dignitaries I see most of them offering a single rose, he takes it, hands it off to the staff, and the pile to his left gets higher and higher.
The maharana is 58, his grey beard parted in the middle and drawn left and right past his ears up into his turban. He looks just like the paintings of his predecessors. When it is my turn I hand him the card, the auto-pass motion gets a hiccup and he looks up with a “you’re not from around here look.” He smiles and puts his hand out. Now I don’t know whether to curtsy or shake his hand our what so I ended up sort of grabbing the tips of his fingers and giving them a little waggle. He smiled. I headed for the exit. There were buffet tables – a king always feeds his people – and when the guard motioned us away we thought, oops, not for foreigners, but no, we were being invited into the VIP tent as honored quests. There was barfi (unfortunate name) that is a cashew marzipan, gilded with silver that you eat. Balls of fried sweet bread soaking in honey, and tiny yellow funnel cakes (I’m guessing we stole the idea.) The tea is masala already mixed with milk. That evening we went to the Lake Palace for dinner – unfortunately an international hotel management group has leased it and while beautiful had none of the genuine charm of the City Palace.
I can tell I’m getting sick – a sinus infection – which I know from experience can incapacitate me. So on the ride to the airport (past the camel pulling a cart) I ask if we can stop and get me some medicine. All the “shops” look like rows of Lucy’s lemonade stand. Long concrete lines of boxes with a counter and a roller door overhead. I step over the cow curled up in front and the man behind the counter listens to my symptoms. I’m expecting something more exotic than, “if you want antibiotics, I have amoxocylin.” I buy ten for about $5 and say a prayer of deep gratitude, step back over the cow and get back in the taxi to the airport.
The antibiotics weren’t immediate so for most of our stay in Delhi, I was sick. Meena passed on the Taj to visit relatives so I hired a car, crawled in the back seat with a pillow and blanket and slept the three hours to Agra, spent an hour and a half at the Taj, and slept the three hours back. It was a very expensive way to go but that is one of the advantages of being over forty – I now understand that health is worth spending money. The Taj is made of marble – you can read that in a book, but you have to stand on, in, around the marble inlaid with lapis, malachite, mother of pearl, coral, etc before you really understand: the Taj is made of marble – all marble, massive walls of white marble, steps of marble, carved filigree screens of marble. Smooth and cool even in the heat. The man who built if for his wife’s burial place was imprisoned by his son before he could complete his plan to build a black marble one for his own grave. I can see both sides – without this guy’s total obsession we’d never have such a thing of beauty. But Dad’s spending must’ve driven the son nuts.
The next day we fly to Calcutta to be met by Meena’s parents who have taken the train and spent the night in Calcutta just so they can meet us at the airport and accompany us on the train back. Family is very important in this country. When I see the Calcutta train station I am grateful all over again for their kindness. I like to think I can manage anywhere but this situation (especially still not feeling well) would’ve done me in. How to describe Calcutta train station. Remember how Indians “line up”? Well, the taxis do that too. The taxis are all old Ambassador’s – 1940s style diesels in yellow and black in varying states of disintegration. They are shoved into every available space with rickshaw lining the outer edges. Calcutta is the only place we saw with rickshaws still drawn by human power (advice to remember: don’t lean back!) The humanity starts on the ground, believe or not some people are sleeping there. Children of poor people clutch their mothers. Beggar children shift eagle eyes for new prey. Some of them probably started life purchased by beggar’s who drugged them and used them as props – now they are on their own. Some of the coolies use long wooden carts with two wheels in the middle. But the one Meena’s dad has been negotiating with, begins wrapping a cloth around his head, and unbelievably takes my eighty pound super size bag and puts it on his head. No one will listen to me about the rollers on the bag. I watch him carry it on his head into the station, down long corridors, up two flights of stairs and down the other side all the way down our platform to the door of our car. As Meena’s dad goes to give him the 40 rupees (75 cents) they agreed upon, I have to rush to the next exit and surreptitiously give him another 100 rupees.
We were in a sleeper car and I crawled up and was asleep from the rocking of the train in ten minutes. Mum and Dad had packed a lunch and later we gathered around paranthas and potato curry, drinking cokes I purchased before we got on the train. It was delicious. I spent ten minutes with my arm searching my entire bag for the box of chocolates I knew were in there somewhere. We each had one for desert and chatted for the rest of the ride. After four hours we were in Jamshedpur, a small company town built by the Tata family (think Indian Rockefellers) to surround their steel refinery. Gardens, trees, schools, and roads benevolently built and maintained by the company. “One thousand trees planted a day for one thousand days.” But the air was so polluted I could hardly breathe. No one who lived there (including Meena’s parents) acknowledged the poor air quality. It is a collective form of denial only outsiders seem to notice. I know we Americans have our own denials, but it’s kind of creepy. The house was large rambling and giving way to the deteriorating elements of weather. I was upstairs with a full size apartment and slept most of the time. I ended up with a sinus headache and a touch of food poisoning so I’d drink a concoction of ginger, lemon and honey and go back to bed. Every afternoon at 4:30 I made a point of joining Meena’s mom for devotional chanting. We were joined by the three girl servants, Meena’s dad, and Meena’s mom’s secretary – who was hired mainly for her beautiful voice in leading the chants.
Her mom has built a large meditation hall with marble floor that was cool on my skin the couple of times I used it for yoga stretches. As a healer, she did pranayana healing a couple of times and completely removed my pain and discomfort….right up until she walked out the door. I tried maintaining the relief myself with meditation but I didn’t have much success. Meena says her house always turns her into a slug too, so I didn’t feel so bad about sleeping so much. It had the same effect as the first two days on Ocracoke Island – like you are drugged.
The evening before I left we dressed up and went to the local business school (catholic) and heard an oration (the 12th Annual Oration) on business and ethics. Sir Mark Tully talked to a full auditorium (did no one else notice the hacking coughs?) and had some good things to say. Once he said, “what I say next may be considered heresy” and the three priests on the stage nearly got whiplash. The looked relieved when his heresy was simply that some organizations (i.e. the BBC) shouldn’t be run as a business.
The next day I did some jewelry shopping. I bought a 22K gold bangle, ring and earrings. We were entertained in the owner’s upstairs office with tea and coffee, watching the video monitor with him every time his eyes shot over to check in. By four o’clock I was on the train all by myself heading back to Calcutta. Meena and her dad assured me someone would meet me at the station. I jiggled so much with the movement of the train it was hard to read and this time I wasn’t in a sleeper car. The meal was entertaining to examine but I didn’t dare eat any of it. My resistance was low so I was taking no chances. I avoided the coolies on my return using my wheeled bag as it was intended and hurried to the Hindustan hotel in downtown Cacultta. I slept a few hours and at 5:00 a.m. I went down to get my car to the airport for my flight to Mumbai. The man apologizes saying the car I was in the night before had been driven into a ditch and this was the only car they could offer. I had seen lots of dilapidated Ambassadors but this one looks like a parody. I check to see if he is serious. Yep. Oka-a-a-ay.
The fog is so thick that the driver rarely reaches more than twenty miles an hour – which is fine since the max for this taxi seems to be 40 mph. The surreal taxi is soon enveloped in solid fog and the effect is so dreamlike I’m waiting for the ghosts of taxi’s past to appear. Every now and then a car will pass us and light the way with tail lights so he can speed up – but our top speed prevents us from keeping pace and we soon lapse back to the twenty mph with the drivers nose two inches from the windshield. Of course no planes were taking off in that stuff so I didn’t worry about catching my flight (much).
It was one in the afternoon by the time I reached Mumbai and the hotel forgot to pick me up so I had to fend from my self – regular taxi or cool taxi madam? Cool, thanks. I was still sweaty by the time I arrived and so unhappy (the main reason I booked such an expensive hotel was for the pickup service) I was offered a free room service lunch and upgraded to a better room. My favorite part of the room was a bathtub with louvered screens that pulled back so you could take a bath and still see the ocean out the window. Nice. I called my carpet guy and told him I was ready to pick my carpet out and was surprised by his invitation that evening to a wedding. No way I’m going off with a strange Muslim carpet seller from Kashmir to a wedding I wasn’t invited to. Yeah, right. The whole family had been notified and Uncle, cousins, etc were looking forward to meeting me. So after I picked out my silk carpet (he was right I did leave happy) I took a nap so I could go to the wedding. I got a chance to wear my new jewelry and see a muslim wedding from the inside. No alcohol, gorgeous clothes – the men involved in the wedding splendid with pointy-toed silk slippers and gold and silk long tunics. The food was great. The bride in red saris and silks with gold in her nose and ears, hanging off her hair neck and wrists (who would’ve dreamed she was an engineer who works at Ford in Detroit?) I spent most of my time talking to Junaid’s female cousins about empowerment and getting the eagle eye from Uncle. But I still have an invitation to visit, that I might take up someday but not someday soon.
I grabbed an hour of sleep from eleven to midnight and got ready to catch my three a.m. flight. Five seats across on an empty plane – the traveler’s jackpot. I slept soundly. Paris to Cincinnati was shoulder to shoulder and by the time I got home I was ready to sleep again. Dreaming of India the whole night. |
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