Returning to India - the next chapter

Despite the desperate last-minute nature of my race home for the holidays, it never really occurred to me not to come back. As I made that difficult decision on the morning of the 24th to 'abandon ship,' I was asked by the people who talked me through it if I would pack up everything - in case I didn't want to return.  I declined.

Perhaps I didn't want to risk giving myself the 'out', if I changed my mind on the other side, but I also knew that India and I weren't finished with each other.  The journey was incomplete.  I wasn't quitting, just engaging in a temporary strategic retreat in order to regroup.

Now that I'm back, I've been asked if it was difficult to return.  The answer is yes, no, and yes.  It was hard to leave my loved ones all over again.  It was also with genuine anticipation that I got on the plane, and with excitement that I navigated my way through Heathrow, and out from the Delhi airport back to my guest house.  I smiled, even as I choked on the noxious smell of Delhi rising to meet the plane as it landed.
And it was hard to return to this country of immense and constant paradox, feeling only marginally more prepared to navigate her pathways. 

Perhaps, most of all, it was hard to return to the site of my humility.  To this place where I am faced, over and over, with my own ego and pride, with my privilege, and assumptions and stories.  To the place where I get to witness my own shadow in its fullest embodiment as I am faced with constant ambiguity, and the reality of how truly not-in-control I am.  Because if there is any place in the world to get *really* clear that control is just a big 'ol illusion - Mother India is the place.  She tolerates no insubordination from her children.

One of my favourite jokes is the line, "Want to make God laugh?  Tell him your plan".  That would be Mother India.  Go ahead, make her laugh: get attached to your plans, or to being on time, or to your reservations, or your belongings, or to your identity.  It is suddenly of great clarity to me the correlation between the philosophical concepts of non-attachment, and their geographic place of origin.  Non-attachment is not just a spiritual precept here.  It's survival.

So I'm back, with a very loose plan, holding it very lightly . . . . ready to see what will unfold.

Three Weeks in India. I can go home now.

 The last time I saw my 'boss' before I headed off to India, he said to me, half-jokingly,  "please promise you'll stay at least three weeks?"  I know that he's never been to India, but I think in that moment he suddenly had some deep connection with the immensity of this journey he was sending me on.  And he's a wise, wise, man.
Because at the 3 day mark I was ready to pack it in, but I couldn't, because I promised.  At the week and a half mark, I was SOOO ready to come home!  But I couldn't.  Because I promised. And at the two and half week mark . . . yep, you guessed it:  I want my mommy, and I want to go home.  But . . .I bet you know what's coming: I promised.  So, here I am at the three week mark, and I can go home now, because I've kept my promise.

Funny enough, now that I have the choice, I'm ready to stick around and really experience this place. I don't know how Peter picked 'three weeks' as the magic number, but it appears to be just that.  The last week has been an emotional roller-coaster, dominated by frustration, impatience and irritability.  (To all my friends and family who have borne witness and listened to me vent, Peter and I thank you.) Something shifted last night as I slept, and I awoke softened, more open, more able to see what is . . .and what's possible. 

There is so much to learn from this incredible country, from its people, from its heritage.  When I pause to think about a place with thousands of years of history and heritage, as compared with my country that really only recognizes a couple of hundred years.  wow.

I won't say I'm smitten with India; just like Delhi streets, the relationship is just not that clean.  But, somehow, I'm hooked, and I'm ready to open myself to her.  And there are so many opportunities here to both look outside myself and look deep within as Mother India shines her mirror back at me.

The paradoxes and contradictions here boggle my mind. Every day I pass poverty on the streets like I've never seen. I spent Sunday afternoon with a friend and colleague at her golf & country club, surrounded by immense wealth, and had a powerful conversation with her about holding that place of paradox.  I know that part of my journey here is to make peace, hopefully once and for all, with the incredible wealth that I already have, and the freedom it provides me. (I have a Canadian passport.  I actually kissed it the other day, as I recognized just what privilege and freedom that passport affords me).   We talked about that balance, the ever grey lines around what is enough . . . and the implacable, painful realization that no matter how much we give, we cannot solve all the problems around us.

Literally, my head begins to ache as I think about these things.  Some part of me can't let go of the notion that there is a systemic solution or a system of solutions that could change how we all co-exist in the world . . . . like a series of threads that if we could just reconnect them, would return us to balance.  I am grateful to know that even as I get older, wiser, and generally more cynical, I remain an idealist.  May I never grow up or out of that.

And may I never be hardened so that I can't see and feel the pain of the children on the streets, or the dogs that limp along hungry.  And may I continue to open my heart to see the balance, rather than getting trapped in the sorrow.  To laugh at the simple joy of children playing; even as they weave amidst the traffic, trying to sell me things through the car window . . . and get distracted into playing tag when I won't buy.  Dogs, sleeping in the sunshine, looking content in that moment.  The cabbie smiling at me, surprised, as I give him a 20 rupee tip (about 50 cents).

I truly do not know what this journey holds for me.  I have spent the last three weeks struggling against the not-knowing, wailing against the injustice of the universe demanding that I surrender into trust.  I can't promise I won't continue to put up a fight occasionally, or that I won't continue to have moments of home-sickness, overwhelm, or just general India-fatigue.  In fact, I think I can promise that all of the above will resurface again and again . . . .but I'm ready for them.  I survived my first three weeks in India, and fulfilled my promise.  Now I'm here because I choose to stay, because I am willing to trust the path unfolding in front of me.  Because I can't resist, like a child in front of a christmas tree laden with gifts, the opportunity to unwrap the packaging and see what I find.

PS: Of course I know that I always had a choice to go home if I really wanted to, and I never really considered throwing in the towel . . . but it was touch and go for a moment or two, I'll admit.