Back Home Again

This is my last post about our trip—we made it home safely and are walking around feeling very tired and very quiet after all we’ve seen and done—and while I could probably write for another month about everything we’ve seen and touched and smelled I won’t subject you to it, I promise. Instead I'll leave with just one more post and some of my favorite pictures that my father took.

My parents wisely told me it is easy for Americans to be consumed with the shocking things about India—trash in cities, pollution in the rivers, smells of agriculture and beggars in the streets—and miss the beauty. So I came with an open mind, aware that India might be the exact opposite of the life I’ve been used to but looking for whatever it was that made her unique.

I'm probably biased after such a trip but I think India is the most exciting place in the world. If there is a spot on the earth that is the exact opposite of Alaska it must be India and nowhere is the parallel of old and new so apparent and so hopeful. If India were a person, she would be a young girl in that preteen era before she becomes self-conscious—finding joy in everything and smiling with ease for the camera but she could also be an old woman who, while full of history, is still healthy and agile enough to be convinced that her best years are ahead of her.


The sounds of India are of cars constantly honking and motors revving. Everything is under construction—partly from original shoddy workmanship that now requires repairs and partly from a constant stream of government projects waiting to be completed. Everywhere you hear hammers driving nails and jack hammers breaking up concrete and brooms sweeping.


The languages are full of melody and cadence, rolling the Rs’ and clipping the D’s as if they were weaving some lacy pattern in and out with their words and while they sound foreign there is also this underlying familiarity that reminds that we came from the same roots, English and Hindu.


But my favorite sound in all our time there was the Muslim call to prayer at morning, noon and evening when the mosques would send voices floating on the breezes over the traffic and smog of the city, calling the people to remember God.


The colors of India are startling and bold, with flowers, silks and fruits. With statues draped in flower garlands and foreheads dotted by jewels and red powders. You see beauty in laundry fluttering on clotheslines, in blue houses with orange trim and green doors and even in the patchwork color of scattered trash in alleyways and vacant lots and blue tarps set up as permanent bivouacs in crowded campgrounds throughout the city.


India is the world’s largest consumer of gold and women wear their jewelry as their dowry and the only possession that is completely theirs. They love the yellowest tones of the 23 carat gold and the voluptuous contrast of a round golden earring dangling seductively from a woman’s ear against the warm brown richness of her neck has no equal in the west.


You could focus on the smell of decay that haunts any area lucky enough to have water or the sewers running under the sidewalks where the cracked granite slabs have broken up in places, allowing the reek to float up from beneath your feet but if so you’ll miss the strands of tiny white jasmine hanging from the women’s hair. You'd miss the spices and herbs piled on trays in the marketplaces, the smell of red clay bricks baking in the sun or livestock wandering through the city to nibble on garbage and stray blades of grass pushing up through cracks in the cement.

You might see the beggars wandering through traffic standing at stop lights, tapping on car windows and asking for money while holding up a baby they probably borrowed as a prop but then you’d miss the curving, twisting spires of temples rising on every city block and the cubist glass compounds of the tech trade where new jobs are sending more and more people to universities and toward life in the middle class.

There is no cigarette smoke but the smoke of outdoor cooking fires throughout the city takes the place of modern ovens. As a solution to trash removal you'll see piles of burning garbage here and there throughout the city--some with flames leaping waist high and some that are now smoldering. You’d think that in such a dry heat all of India would catch fire but the cities are made of so much brick and cement that no one worries about the danger and everywhere you'll see charred and blackened sections of soil bordered by cement.

After all this America seems very boring to me. I will miss the way Indians bobble their heads in a gesture that can mean “yes,” “no,” “maybe” or “I don’t know” depending on context and mood. Mom says to do it you draw a figure eight with your nose and it’s such a joyful little move it makes me smile every time.

I’ll miss the modesty of Indian women. We saw no more than twenty western faces the whole vacation and I grew used to how elegant and feminine Indian women looked in their saris. When we arrived back at the airport to see mini skirts and tank tops once again I couldn’t help feeling how vulgarly the European and American women displayed themselves in what was essentially someone else’s home. I was embarrassed for them and understood a little better how the western values of promiscuity and immodesty can offend other cultures.

But it's strange that even with discovering this new love for a land so far away I still feel a thrill when I once again touched down on American soil. It may not be as colorful--Alaska has two colors: green and white--or as much of a feast for the senses but it’s a good place. Reliable, solid and strong and I love it because it’s my home. America will always be my native place but there will also always be a special place in my memories for India and someday I hope to go back.

Sponsored by Annette Lyon, whose new novel Band of Sisters is now in print.