The FInal Stretch

Its strange to think think about the near future because the near future for me, no longer includes being in India. I am in the Final Stretch.

In the last months when I have thought about the near future it has always included a complete unknown, somewhere in India. Now thinking of the near future includes leaving this part of the world, all this magnificent food, all of these beautiful people and the feelings I have only here. India has taught me some really amazing things, it has atsonished me and let me down too. I have lived in another world and tried to relay some of it through the medium of 'the blog'.

Overall, when I reflect on my time here its hard to sum up what is my favorite part, or the best moment. I have been feeling a consistent push and pull here. While in Goa, someone asked me what the most important thing I have found here is. And while there are many important lessons to learn simply from being here adn seeing what is to be seen here, I was surprised with the accuracy of my unplanned response. I told here that the most significant thing I have found in India is the widened spectrum of life that exists here. All of sudden every emotion, every experience is deepened, widened and in some way has more impact. For example: the train ride from Goa to Delhi is about 32 hours. I did this journey while finally suffering from a nasty bout of travelers tummy (most people get this in the first two weeks). In the final woozey hours of the journey I gazed out the window as we made our way into Delhi. Going from sandy colored foggy fields to the outlying slums that line train tracks seemed to utterly surreal. The slums themselves embody this spectrum. People seem to be bursting from the seems of ramshackle and makeshift illegal housing, brightly colored (but also dust ridden) clothing hangs from everywhere, drying in the dirty air that blows from the passing trains. Children are shitting on the tracks, or playing cricket, women are cooking food or cleaning clothes or yelling and hitting children. Men play cards, sleep, chop wood, smoke or hang around. Life, however desperate and devastating is everywhere. And here is the clincher - as I sit and wonder how it is that people can live in such conditions, wonder how governments and as well as an entire country can exist while this does without doing something I notice how colorful it all is, how people are still smiling and how, life goes on, with full steam, just like my train. I simply glimpse in on this world, from behind blue metal bars, watching and wondering feeling a potporri of emotion. I look around teh train. Families surround me, children in the arms of loving mothers, being fed, blankets surround them. We will all arrive in Delhi and continue to warm homes fill our bellies and dream big. And this is just one example.
India is constantly thowing me back and forth, from loving India to hating India. From feeling trapped to total freedom, I can feel pure and healthy in one moment, and the next day I feel like my stomach is being torn out by something I've eaten. It is this amazing spectrum of feelings, of emotion, of landscape, people, culture, music and everything that is the most important and significant thing that I have experienced in India.
And then I think about returning to Canada. I think about the snow, the late sunrise and early sunset, the snowstorms and false attempts spring will make in March and April. I wonder if I will find the same kind of 'life' at home now that my eyes have been opened to it here, or if i will have to seek it out. The incredible peace and chaos I can feel in a day is really quite amazing and wonderful.

However, with all that said, there are somethings that I won't miss. THere are many things I can't wait for, mostly being family and friends I love and miss. And there are some thingsI am looking forward to alot of silly things that at first I didn't miss like hot showers, western toilets and the garauntee of toilet paper, pizza and bagels, ice water, tv in English and other superficial luxuries. I have never felt so excited to appreciate such things before.

Well, until next time...