Friends have been asking about my India experience so far. To that I chant the Hindu Advait Vedanta matra- Neti, Neti, Neti meaning “Neither this, Nor That”. There really is no one way to explain what India is or has become (even the past, present, future tense stand still here).

I get up every morning and along with chai (that mom makes) get the newspaper. At that moment I feel love and belonging like none else. As I read the paper the feelings get a little more complex. The newspaper reads like an absurdist tabloid. There is an article, two full pages long, about a conference held for and attended by the worlds leading luxury goods manufacturers who see India as their fastest growing market. Jostling for space is another article about farmers who are unable to pay off their loan and are forced to commit suicide. Sharing the same page is a news about record yield of strawberries and how India is to become the largest exporter of strawberries to Europe. There is an article in today's newspaper about the influence and power wielded by women politicians. Yesterday there was one about a woman in rural India who was accused to being a witch, tied to a tree and beaten up- all this on broadcast TV. A school teacher beat up a student with a stick and she died (parents say due to injuries, doctors say its unclear). Another article tells me that the government has announced plans to set up eight more IITs and seven more IIMs- those hallowed corridors of education that catapulted India into the world technology and business arena. When then does one begin to rejoice and when lament?

Even if one were to step out of the incongruous and confusing world of the newspaper on to the roads of Delhi, the contrasts are hard to miss. I am not even going to go to the absolute lawlessness of the roads (that is now a subject too blasé for discussion here). The new metro public transport system shines as truly a much needed and much awaited blessing. A sign that things are improving- slowly yet surely. Yet we get power cuts that last hours ( I dread the fast approaching summer), everyone buys mineral water because what comes out of the taps is undrinkable and every year everyone digs deeper and deeper to pump water from the ground. No one seems to care or talk about the time when there is nothing more to dig and what when you can't dig anyways because there will be no electricity to pump water with.

I went to a mall with a friend last week and I am sure I was very irritating company for all my surprise oohs and aahs. There isn't a creature comfort that you can't get. From designer clothes to Brookstone kind of stores that tell you what you may need and then sell it to you. It could be a mall anywhere in the US. The service was impeccable, even if a little amateurish. Most of the salespeople are young college or school graduates who still haven't developed the professionally polished calm and disassociated politeness of the salespeople of the west. They are so eager to please they stalk you through the aisles and don't rest till they have found what you are looking for (that you are having to move an inch to look for something on your own is an insult to their profession). At the restaurant where we ate the manager asked several times if the food was ok and did everything to accommodate our needs- something I don't remember ever happening in my past life in Delhi.

Yet most of my mom's needs are met within a km of where she lives and she finds little use for malls and grocery chains. A banana seller comes every morning, followed by a vegetable seller and a fruit seller. They all ring the door bell, bargain without much gusto- as if they just need to go through the motions to justify the sale they made. Last evening I went to the local grocer with mom. We have known him forever and a few days- since the time his dad ran the shop. After his father passed away he took over the family business. His mother helps in keeping things organized. People come and rattle off their list of requirements. The mother assigns tasks to a couple of helper boys who then bring whatever you asked for and put in a basket. The basket then goes to the son who with his brand new handy dandy computer calculates your bill for you. I had barely made it to the front of the shop when my mom reminded me to say “Namaste” to the grocer's mom (“she always asks after you”) Not only did the lady remember me but also every detail of my life. She inquired after me, my work, my life. All this while the rest of the people waited for their turn to rattle off their grocery needs. If this wasn't enough we realized that we were a few hundred rupees short (on account of my having made my mom buy a few “healthier” things). I was going to tell him that I could come by and pick up the stuff later but he raised his hand, palm facing me (a universal gesture for “ I shall hear none of that”) and made mom sign the back of the bill, then put it away on one of those little spears that hold loose papers. There was a thick wad there from other people who hadn't paid the guy yet. He did not take any money at all saying that he would rather clear it all later. How is that for a credit card? No APR either.

It is an India of many Indias- owned equally and unequivocally by the farmers -ones who commit suicide and ones that find the next big cash crop, by stores in malls that aim to make life easier for you the consumer to shop owners who are an an intrinsic part of your life, by politicians who are caught taking bribes and by those few that hold up the hope for sustainable development, by parents fighting to get their kids into high end private schools and by kids that shine despite their less than perfect circumstances. India is a promise and promises can go either ways. Until then India remains, at least for me, Neti, Neti,Neti.

So much time has lapsed between my last post and this one and so much has happened. The roadtrip was great. We made it to Boston, MA, stayed there for a few days and then drove back to NJ to catch a flight to India- so technically we covered the width of the continent and then some! It was absolutely fantastic at that level. The chains- of restaurants, motels, gas stations. The unflinching appearance of rest areas along the highways.The very things that were a comfort factor also make the country somewhat homogeneous. This gets thrown up in contrast (not in comparison) as I return now from Goa. An hour and a flight from New Delhi and it may as well have been a different country- food, language, religion, architecture. But I am getting ahead of myself. With the lack of internet access for the last part of the road trip I did not get a chance to update the blog regularly.

After Austin, we drove through Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia,West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and finally arrived in Massachusetts. We stayed in Memphis, TN and Roaneke, TN and finally in Westborough MA.

Without going into too many details (which might yet show up in my future blogs) here are some top award winners.

Starting with the important first...
The poshest Restrooms- TN
Most fun- Austin TX (of course having friends in Austin, bends it in its favor)
Larget expanse of nothingness, mile after mile after mile- TX
Funniest state sign ("Dont Mess with Texas" having lost some of its luster)- Virginia
"Buckle Up Virginia- Its a law we can live with"
Most promise of fun- Memphis
It would have been more fun if we had stayed there overnight and been able to to go to listen to some live music and also if we could get all our friends there.

Hola from Austin! We are taking a break in Austin. We both are spending quality time with our respective college friends. After a rather heavy lunch of piles of tortilla chips, fajitas and a wonderfully moist tres leches cake, my friend is comatose next to me. I have promised to make chai and wake her up. We totally reverted back to college days with trying on clothes in a store, eating, shopping, talking about life, plans, families etc etc.

On our several road trips back and forth between California and Texas, we always took I-40. We rather liked it, with its stunning views, quaint roadside shops and abundance of rest areas. The streach of I -10 between Arizona and Texas has been rather bland in comparison. The landscape did not change much. El Paso was very interesting. It was a bit bizarre to see Mexico-right there! The shanty slums across the street were Mexico. I couldn't help but wonder what goes through their minds as they watch the freeways and across the freeways the malls, the stores the comsumer glut.

Yesterday we stayed at Demings, New Mexico. A small one street town and that one street was called Motel Drive. We stayed in a Gujarti owned Best Western, with its "barely there" amneties and "could have been better" standards of cleanliness. Could have stayed at the one across the street that declared " American Owned and Operated"...I guess the Potels will have to wisen up if they want to keep business.

After leaving Chandler Arizona we took a short detour to see wild flowers in a national park. Beautiful yellow poppies and purple flowers whose names I forget at this moment growing wild and abundant amidst cactuses that were two stories high!

Tonight we plan to eat yet another heavy mexican dinner, sleep well, do our laundry at the friends place and head out again. We have been travelling eastwards on I-10 mostly all this while, now we will head north to our final destination, New York.

Greetings from Phoenix!
We left LA dusty and stormy, a beautiful sunset in the rear view mirror. A sign board tells us that we are traveling "at sea level". We stayed with college friends catching up on old times planning to meet soon in the future. They have been very busy with two kids-one a toddler and the other a six month old. In our friend's words he has been so busy he thought "No Country for Old Men" was a documentary on the future of social security...seriously.

On a more general note, the beautiful long stretches of freeways are a constant source of amazement to us. That someone had the foresight to build freeways that wide, that strong...those beautiful webs of interchanges that we see flying past in the moon roof. Then of course the ultimate - the kohl dark freeways of Phoenix, so smooth it feels like one is slipping over a slab of melting butter.

We stayed last night with our friends from Nepal and woke up to the beautiful smells and sounds of prayers. Our friend's father is visiting from Nepal. Their little daughter is peeping from the other side of the door , too shy to come and talk. She speaks no Hindi and little English and I can barely understand Nepali. She is asking her mother why I have a white computer (Mac) while they have a black one (Dell) and which one is better- Ah the big question that many have fought over!

Stay tuned!

Greetings from LA!
We have started our cross -country road trip. A slow goodbye to the US. We will travel from the west coast to east and then fly awayyy!
There was one annoying thing after another on the last day. Each could be a blog posting in itself.

We shipped all our stuff in a container a few days before our final departure. It went smoothly with four packer and movers working in perfect synch. We packed all the small stuff to save money and let them handle the furniture, art work etc. They rocked and were laughing and chatting as the day wore on while our respective backs were burning and our smiles fading by the end of the day! The rest of the condo -owners in the building (mostly elderly people) gave us grief over all things big and small- Dont let the main door stay open ( one of us was always watching), dont move the door wedge( wedge!getting worked up about a door wedge!!),they wanted to know how long the loading will take because of "security concerns". I don't think the fact that the movers were two turbaned sikh gentlemen helped. (but I sincerely hope this is only my hyper active albeit tired imagination).

Selling the cars was another interesting experience...but more on that later. We have a couple of hours before we have to get on the road again! Auf Weidersehn!

Thumbs up! Shumbs up!...the landlord is trying to find as much wiggle room as he can to deduct money...argh!!! We got stood up by people who were going to buy our car...double arrrgh!!! Last minute, badly ditched. An old "friend" tried to make the most of it and offered to buy it for pittance plus had an attitude as if he was doing us a huge favor. Why? Why is so hard for some people to resist the urge to take advantage of others.
Last minute stresses are inevitable, but there are many many things to be thankful for. We have had a steady stream of friends helping us. We had an impromptu party last night when some friends arrived and helped us late into the night, they cooked using all we had in the fridge and ribbed us about all our "possessions"( mostly my collection of assorted glass bottles I use to store everything from lentils to paper clips.) It was an evening spent chatting, laughing, singing, debating and of course packing.
Thats what I want to remember from this experience and not the unpleasant stressful hours.

It is almost the middle of the month and this isn't your average sized month anyways...so the big d-day (departure day) is fast approaching. Some of the major milestones achieved in the last few days- decision about retirement accounts etc (the boring laborious stuff), decision to book a container that will carry across the seven seas everything we have- ah priceless! We feel there should be at least some continuity to this whole thing. Small reminders of what we built for ourselves here.
The landlord came by today and gave two thumbs up to the house. He said in his adorable "Gherman Aaacent" that we have "kepht da place soo kleen". Goody! my last two days of chlorine obsession seems to have worked. My better(?) and usually a little less cluttered half believes I went over-board but what the heck!

The landlord said that he hopes and wishes his doctor son would move back to CA from Texas where he lives now. Different country ditto parents.
Several more steps to go...shall report.

Stage fright=Return to India

The feeling is not very different from the one I remember from my time as a stage actor many eons ago. Now as a filmmaker, this is how I imagine it:

Pulled by an invisible string I walk down a dimly lit corridor. The bright green room with its warm comforting smells of fabric and make-up is now behind me. The cement floor I walk on is cold and the walls around me reflective, throwing a thousand different versions of me back at me. I walk with a my heart pounding, my palms sweaty with a feeling that is an unequal and ever-changing cocktail of fear, excitement and anticipation. I know what lies ahead, beyond. I have been there before and yet there is this strong urge to stop, to rest a bit, to lay my face against the cool cement wall, to stall. I can hear voices from outside, muffled, excited, questioning. Soon, very soon, I will be in the wings, waiting for my turn, trying to get a glimpse of them, trying to make out familiar comforting faces in the dark. I will wait. counting. Thousand and One. Thousand and two. Thousand and three. Enter.

After four nights of tossing and turning, tonight I slept through the night. It has been four days since we made a decision to return to India. The thought of returning home was never far from my mind, but taking it from there and replanting it in the center of the mental space has taken more effort than I thought.

I had explored the inside and out of the malleable concepts of "home" and "roots" when I made the documentary, but sorting someone else's thoughts is infinitely easier than sorting ones own. With yourself, you don't know where to begin or which end is up.

To NRIs( Non Resident Indians) the "Will you stay ,Will you go" discussion is at the center of most gatherings or even casual meetings. We talk about it ad infinitum. I have too. Now the time has come to put my money where the mouth is...and it ain't fun, I can tell you that.

There are people who draw up lengthy Excel spreadsheets detailing the pros and cons, benefits and losses and those that feel that the fact that you have to draw up a list is a ridiculous way of rationalizing a perfectly human instinct to go home at the end of a hard days work.

I straddle these two. I do not have any rosy ideas fed by years of nostalgia about living in India. It will be tough especially after the honeymoon phase with friends , relatives and even immediate family is over. Then what? Will the axe of realization fall? The corruption, the pollution and my least favorite - the meddlesomeness of everyone and quiet literally their aunty in everything you do/don't do/plan to do/don't plan to do. Hopefully this is just my hyper-active alert imagination. Hopefully I will be able to take these on ( I have in the past after all!). The temptation to stay is strong, yet, the reason for going back are so personal that , that alone is a deal breaker.

Then there are these other rather calming thoughts- the world is smaller, Indian economy and media are "on a boom"( though all that goes up must come down) and the biggest one of them all, this- I remember clear as the water in Lake Tahoe, the day I arrived in the US. The United Airlines stewardess announced that we were ready to land. I remember my hands growing clammy and feeling as if someone had pulled the lungs out of my chest. The fact that I had left behind a fairly cushy well paying job and the comforts of home to come study in the US, to arrive in a city where I knew one person vaguely and who I was banking on to come pick me up did not seem like such a hot idea for that half -hour before landing. Thus I arrived one cold COLD San Francisco summer day. For the next few years I lived in a room in someone's garage with no heat and industrial carpet, making laughable money (and paying most of it for the garage). After about two years someone broke into the garage and took pretty much everything of any value that I owned including a camera I had managed to buy with my savings( I was good at my work and got a better title and raise). Dammit! Start again!

So to cut a rather long and interesting story ( that I can dine off on for years to come) short, I survived this and many other things (note to self- blog those before you forget!) - Even as I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes with thoughts of doom and of becoming the regretful old hag who "once lived in America" , I think I will be O.K.

Last spring when I was in India, I was amazed at how many billboards and signs I saw that were in English but written in the Hindi script... sort of an opposite of what our friend blogger.com does. Transliteration feature, it tells me here, can change what I write in roman English into Hindi script. So if I write "Namaste" in English and press the handy-dandy button up here, it will look like this नमस्ते।... अवेसोमे!...I mean Awesome!( By the way the transliteration did not work for Awesome- it reads Aa-vey-som-may!!- Lost in transliteration.)

For once my procrastination paid off. I always wanted but never dared to learn how to use a complicated Hindi keyboard... and actually never needed to. Now it seems I don't have to.
So as I was saying earlier, in India, upwardly mobile businesses that want to woo their upwardly mobile clientèle (English being the language of the elite etc. etc.) spell out English words in Hindi. So. "Refreshing Cola" will be "रेफ्रेशिंग कोला".


So what will happen fifty years from now (or sooner)? Indian Bloggers will be writing in the roman script to be able to read in Hindi, then when tired will go out to get that रेफ्रेशिंग कोला from the neighborhood Coke stand (Yup Coke will still be here). Will this Hindi-Roman-Hindi thing finally break class barriers and let people use the languages inter-changeably? Yes, No, Maybe, Who knows? I doubt it. I know people who grew up in North India, whose parents were native Hindi speaker but who when "in company" would feign ignorance of the language. A book called "Rapid X English Speaking Course" was all the rage in the eighties. Now, boards for "British Language School" have given way to "Call Center Training Schools" where everyones "gonna try to getcha!". Interesting.
This Hindi (or any of the other eighteen Indian regional languages) meeting English half-way in everyday life is a very interesting melt. I have to admit though, the thought there is that iota of a chance that Hindi script will vanish ( as a friend had argued with me once) is saddening, that it may also be gone forever is sadder still. For now Viva Hing-Lish!

Photo-courtesy: Supernova's Photostream on Flickr.

When I tell my friends about where I was yesterday, I will probably have to add many qualifiers and explanations. I took a class in Basic Pistol training. Yes, I did! I even have a certificate now from the NRA.
Gasp!!!
Here's the sequence of events and even as I write this I know that it really will not qualify as a "reason" but here it is never the less, in the interest of expanding the mind(mine) and shrinking the world(mine)
A few days ago the Indian newspapers were ablaze with photos of a shameful incident in Mumbai. Seventy men mobbed and molested two women as they stepped out of a hotel. To cut a rather long and sorry story short, the men were arrested two days later and then then let go on bail after which they approached a prominent local politician who not only swore to avenge these men but escorted them through the city in a sort of a victory lap. If this does not boil a reasonable person's blood, I don't know what does.
Many whys , whatthehecks and several racing heart beats later I got thinking about what I would do to make myself safe in a similar situation. I have taken self-defense classes in the past, got a pepper spray and built some muscle but lets admit it, these offer mere peace of mind and nothing more. None of the above would so much so as blow a hair on the mustache of these "virile men", if I were ever encounter them (or their brethren that solo or in groups inhabit public spaces and public transportation in India)
Stretch your anger and imagination with me if you would...I signed up for the basic pistol training. I figured, I may never (and probably will never) buy a gun, even though
scaring the machismo out of molesting men (of which there is an unfortunate abundance in my country) would be fun and a service to womankind. The time seemed right to learn this skill.

The class was interesting, taught by three obese and polite NRA trainers who cracked inane jokes about their inefficiency "at computers" when they were not catching their breath from walking in a 7 by10 classroom . Their reference points were Star Trek and the 70's music scene in San Francisco. We started by watching an NRA video about gun safety. I could JUST SEE how outside of that room, I could edit that video chop chop and make something Michael Moore would envy. "Keep your mouth shut. You are here to learn", I told myself and so I did. We went over gun safety, types of guns, the physics and ergonomics of each type. After this we went into the shooting range. It was fun...yes I said it, it was fun! I shot everything from a from 9mm bullets to 35 magnum, from semi automatics -Glocks and SW's to Colt 1911 ( 1911 being the King,Queen, Prince and Princess of guns according to the 3 gentlemen) to the revolver that Dirty Harry used. I was surprised that I liked shooting and I was even more surprised that I was darned good at it!
In eight hours I was hooked to the skill required to load a gun properly , to the attention required to hold a gun safely and to the concentration required to actually be able to shoot (Zen like).
End of class. Amidst "You were awesome!s" we return to the class room. This is when things get iffy. The instructors start talking about how to get a gun. Wait a minute- I don't want to!
No Thanks! For an additional $25 and a test "you will breeze through", I could walk out with a certificate that I can take next door and buy myself that 1911 I loved so much! NO THANKS!
They insist, talk about gun control laws and about how the lawyers and politicians are "fools writing senseless laws". With every shake of their disapproving head, I am more and more thankful that there are laws that prevent people from acquiring guns. I can not believe that they will let me have that thing over there just for having spent an afternoon with the three messiahs of Bang! I had seen pimply kids with their skinny girlfriends, druggos, weirdos walking in and out of the shop next door. So they were not shooting blanks and targets for fun!? Any one of them could do (and probably did do) what I did and they all have guns!

The instructors lost interest in me somewhat after I said "No" and shifted their attentions to this other guy who is applying to be a Sheriff in the county.

What about my country where all you need is economic and/or political power and you can have all the guns you want...and you don't even have lawyers and politicians making laws everyday that prevent misuse of weapons. NRA would love India!!!

Sum total of it- I am deeply conflicted about my new found fascination. I like the power it brings, beyond what I can achieve physically and past my shouting hoarse about the frustrations of being a woman in a society that when taking its best shot will dismiss me as a rabid feminist.
I also hate that this power is not mine alone. It makes the oppressors just as, if not more powerful. Guns will not solve the problems of a society, only increase them yet I am convinced that only I can solve my own problems.