Leaving Chandigarh 12/10/09 Part 1

Okay, today it’s time to cut the crap! I’ve been blogging as a tourist, safely protected by the walls of what many would consider to be palaces, and yes that includes the Star’s humble and spacious Bronx apartment. I know now that I’ve been on “holiday” so far. I’ll pick up my description of London and Ramsgate, England and all the sites and experiences of Nepal at some later point. No more of the easy life, even in Southeast Asia. I, like the Buddha, have come to see that my work and experience lay on the other side of the palace walls.

Just yesterday, about 9:30 am I was having another pleasant ride to the office with my most recent of gracious hosts when she said, as if discussing the weather, “We’ve guests coming to stay that we are obligated to host because of who they are to us.” I didn’t ask. I know that the room I have been staying in is the only spare quarters in the house. We were both sitting in the backseat and in many ways ignoring the driver as if the car was on autopilot. I’ve yet to get comfortable with what I will refer to as a ‘colonialist’ attitude—ensuring everyone stay neatly within their caste. I knew immediately that I was getting a very gracious heave-ho. I’ve overstayed my welcome, for this phase anyway. She continued, “We thought you would be here for only a couple of days and now that we have others…” I interrupted, “I completely understand and I can make arrangements to leave within the next few days.” She cautioned me, while her hands did the universal sign for slowdown, not to be too hasty. “Let’s wait until Puneet tells me when the guests are coming. We should know something later today.”

I guessed that I had at least a couple of days to arrange, what exactly? I felt my temperature rise and knew not to show the wide array of emotions that were trying to surface. The displays of emotions (fear, tears, or upset of any kind) are seen as a sign of weakness in both mind and character in this country. And they certainly have absolutely no place in business! I’m glad I wasn’t hoping to recruit Puneet and Anu as coaching clients because I’d sealed a certain “no deal” the moment I shed tears of missing my mother and sister at the dining table on my second evening here. What I’ve learned in nine short days, is that if I can’t suppress my ‘public display of emotions’ I just shake my head and say while smiling, “I have allergies,” or do the universal hand signal for “I’m congested”, which will quickly put those around at ease.

I Skyped with mom for about 30 minutes, the first seven minutes where taken up with my emotional display of a tremendous wave of homesickness, coupled with fear, uncertainty and those emotions still indescribable to even me. Mum was encouraging, compassionate and more accepting of who I am and what I feel now than I ever knew her to be. I see her journey paralleling mine. Our conversation turned comfortingly generic and then it was time for her to find out who was voted off of So You Think You Can Dance. I asked her to Skype me once more before going to bed, which she did. We signed off in the usual fashion, in which I wait for her to hang up first, so I can enjoy a site for these sore eyes. I watched her image fade to the gray vacant Skype screen and just then Anu came into my little office space she has been allowing me to occupy and said, “if you could leave tomorrow that would be good?”

“Shit,” I have to plan my next designation, reference it with hotels or ashrams and book train tickets. All that on top of the errands I intended to run which included, exchange “Beginners Hindi” to a book shop (too small to call ‘store’) that’s open at the oddest hours (12:00 to 14:30 and reopens again at 17:30 to 22:00 or 23:00—whichever the bookseller fancies) as well as make time to go to the shoe store to get the last American currency changed into rupees and finally locate a cable or chain for my luggage to be secured on the train. Yes, a Shoe Store, which the three “Singhs” (my Seik lunch companions at the Chandigarh Subway) turned me on to the day before. There I was at the high-gloss white counter in the midst of a currency exchange while the woman beside me was purchasing a very trendy Western pump. I wondered how they knew the shoe merchant was moonlighting as a money-changer. We went outside, faced the shoe store and while one Singh pointing at the large glass storefront said, “See there, that will tell you that you can change money here.” I questioned, “See what?” as I looked behind a tall stack cardboard boxes full of new merchandise that was blocking an 8x11 sheet of paper taped to the window advertising that they also serve as a local Western Union office. I surely hope they weren’t expecting too much business from a sign that is 1/100th of the glass window it’s taped. Nonetheless, Indians are very enterprising and always looking for more way to generate income.

“Okay Tracy, assess the situation.” I’ve been on sensory overload for the past few days in attempting to get a most coveted data card to bring Wireless Internet freedom to my life and being cared and cooked for their servant, Busanti, a woman that has treated me as though I was terminally disabled and she’s trying to make my last days of life as pleasant and effortless as possible. But, at 16:30 I had two train vouchers in my hand and knew that I would arrive in Varanasi 8:50 India Standard Time (IST) Friday morning. No hotel reservations, just a full-page list of the many ashrams that the Mobera Systems ‘tech guy” printed out for me. After that I have no idea what the future holds. I put my backpack on and set out to complete my errands. I exchanged the book, exchanged money and went to three places that sold luggage that had no cables or chains. Another book vendor next to the Samsonite store said, “Go to Sector 19 to the hardware store by the post office.

I went to the main roads to hire a touk-touk (a nickname for the motorized rickshaw), to take me to Sector 19 to buy the chain and then ‘home’ in Sector 6 of Panchkula. I bartered with the driver to pay him half of what he quoted for the journey. Most Indians believe that Americans, even over most Westerners, are all wealthy. From my limited perspective of India, the poorest of Americans in fact have so very much more than even the Indian working class.

We arrived Sector 19 in the dark. My touk touk driver pulled to the left side of the curved road and pointed across a busy street that I had to cross to get to the dusty and dirty hardware stalls, each specializing in only one category of tools or equipment relating to plumbing, lumber and metal, which sold chains. I stepped into the staring Indians, greeting them with a friendly “Namaste”, which most respond to very favorably. I mean really could you reject a person if as they approached you they powerfully declared that the ‘God in them recognizes the God in you’? My fair Western skin is known to stop traffic, which also stopped all employees and customers to stop what they were doing and observe me. The metal chain merchant understood what I was looking for and pulled a few feet of chain from a spool under the counter and handed it to me. I put a two or three foot length in my grasp and pulled. Unable to break it, I still didn’t trust it to secure my unattended luggage. I handed one end to the young man behind that counter, motioning for him to pull on it. An older man, I assumed was the owner or manager said, “Strong, this will not break” and nodded for the young man to pull. Just then the chain snapped as we both regained our balance and laughed. All the seven or so men, including nearby voyeurs, laughed out loud. It was a very unifying moment. The owner instructed the young man, in Hindi, to fetch another strength, he resurfaced from the dust and darkness dragging a length of chain that could safely anchor a lengthy sailboat. I laughed, thinking how desperately I’ve been working to lighten my luggage and he brings me my weight a single length of chain. I thank them all and choose the leave this task for when I arrive in Delhi.

I returned to the house on the very dark streets of Sector 6, Panchkula. I couldn’t get anyone to answer the bell from the front of the house so I walked around to the back of the house. As my eyes focused with a new light source I saw Busanti’s 10-year-old daughter, Sonali, running towards me. I’ve befriended this amazing child; to my hosts’ disappointment because our friendship stands to blur the very defined social lines between employer and employee. She swung her arms around my neck in full embrace. I lifted her up knowing what she didn’t--that this in many ways is farewell embrace, possibly for be a long while. I was taken back to find a large truck parked at the gate, a fire burning in an oil drum to warm the many men working. I came through the back gates to see men setting up catering tables covered in very white linen, sparkling wine glasses, white plates and silverware. For a moment I thought my hosts were throwing a party to celebrate my leaving, but in an instant reminded myself that, ‘It’s not always about me.”