A long break

I think I stopped writing this blog because I was doubly afraid - one, that someone would read it and two, that nobody would. I imagine that's a common fear for writers. That feeling of wanting to be read but not wanting to be judged. That fear of rejection.

I thought of you while I was away. I wrote this for you. I hope you like it.

I haven’t blogged in ages, for a number of reasons. But I’m in India right now for work and I wanted to make a record of my trip in case I don’t come here again. I wanted to tell you about the drive up from Chandigarh into the Himalayas around 180 degree bends on roads that were paved in a single track down the middle. I wanted to tell you about the different sounds of the driver’s horn, which said alternately, ‘toot toot’ (watch out, I’m right behind you!), ‘toot toot’ (I want to come past), ‘tooooot tooot’ (Move out of the way), ‘toot toooot toot tooot’ (get the hell out of my way!). I wanted to tell you how the houses up there weren’t nestled or perched or any of those adjectives people use to describe mountain living. They were slapped on the side of the mountain, fixed with all the permanency of prit stick, looking almost like someone who’s standing on a ledge, gripping the wall but leaning forward dangerously just to see how far there is to fall.

I wanted to tell you what it feels like to be foreign, to have no idea where you’re going or what you’re doing and to be completely in someone else’s hands. To be stared at for the colour of your skin, or your hair, or your eyes. To be unsure what people are thinking when they look at you. To have your head so full of preconceptions that it’s hard to sort reality from the stories you’ve heard.

I wanted to describe to you what it’s like to sit in Delhi traffic, putting your life in the hands of your taxi driver and watching kids on motorbikes wind in and out of the cars and buses that sit, horns blaring, exhausts blowing, creeping forward inch by delicate inch. To be idling next to a bus crammed full of people of all ages, lines of what – at best – looks like sick, trailing from the windows, and to catch the eye of a shy toddler, who smiles toothily and waves. Or to have small children knocking on the window of your taxi begging for food or money when you have a grubby thousand rupee bill in your hands, waiting to pay the driver.

 

I wanted to tell you about the taste of real naan bread and the special kind of anxiety that comes with eating a meal that tastes delicious, but in surroundings that look to be on first name terms with e coli. If I could describe the texture of the air in the spice market, how it caught in the back of my throat and burned in my chest...but it's not the kind of description I can do justice.