Return to India

It’s hard to believe it was almost a month ago that I arrived in Delhi in the middle of the night, feeling a little jet-lagged but otherwise pretty good. It was really nice to be able to help out a Canadian traveller on her first visit to India before I even got out of the airport. Somehow she had sensed that this wasn’t my first time here. When I walked out into the Delhi night at 3am and felt that steamy, hot, sticky air, thick with the sensation of burning garbage and diesel fumes (and it is so much more a feeling than a smell), I felt strangely at home. I guess Delhi is the closest thing I have to a home right now since I gave up my apartment in Vancouver. I at least have an address in this place.

I quickly got out of the city and headed for the Navdanya organic farm in the beautiful Doon Valley near Dehradun, in the state of Uttarkand. I took a course called Food Safety and Food Security with Vandana Shiva, Marion Nestle, Mira Shiva, and others, and met some fabulous new friends. I’m now in Mussoorie, a relatively small town clinging to the foothills of the Himalayas, completing a two-week course of Hindi classes at the Landour Language School. On my first night here, I stood outside my little cottage and looked across the valley at the massive mountains, with the most spectacular red sunset you could ever imagine: tiny sliver of a silver moon floating just above the horizon. This place is almost indescribable.

I do appreciate how good my life is right now. I have to keep reminding myself that I am here for work, because I'm having such a good time. Every day I go to sleep knowing that tomorrow will be completely different than any other day I've experienced. These days are strange and surreal, sometimes a little frustrating, but never, never dull. All the apprehension I was feeling before leaving has gone, and I once again have that feeling of being more alive now that I'm settled in here. I have lost a lot of my blind amour for the country, as I am seeing more the faults and wrinkles in this strange and sometimes oppressive culture. But I still feel like it's the right place to be, for me, right now. This is of course despite the fact that I detest the way that, as a woman, I am either gawked at when alone, or rendered invisible when walking with a male friend. Still, there is something about this place that makes me feel so alive, so comfortable in my own skin. I can't explain why or how, and maybe it's best if I never really figure that out.

Maybe it's just a feeling of being closer to "god" (whatever that means!), which I guess is the same as being closer to oneself. Or maybe it's just the elevation in Mussoorie (2800m, and cold too).