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As much as everything collapsed in Slovenia, the intrigue I'm dealing with for the last two months puzlle the vanished world together.
I admit trying to write something for quite a while now, but somehow never managed. Not that time would be an obstacle. More the lack of a vocabulary. More the fact words were not needed since I was in a state of happiness. Now things around me are starting to change. And I'm being confronted with Indian themes on everyday basis which pushes me to decide.
With Duracell batteries - the best of the best! - : I came from the land of joy where randomness, unpredictability, heat, beggars, love and kindness of people that usually become a need of affection, saturation etc. define what you are. Not just when you open your eyes into city's smogged field or when you hear the silence of grassfields, but also when you're "sleeping".
How can an innocent trip to subcontinent develop into such a "I want" phase, I haven't discovered yet. Maybe it's the open mind - being prepared to every "stupid" change, the need of a body who whispers through intestines or the running away from something. The starting of a new life. Nobody knows you and in the very beginning you don't even know yourself. You're just a blank page and you stay blank. Everything touches you (literarly and metaphorically).
Cold feet of a twin brothers chasing you for half an hour and running away from you when getting a bananna. Stray dogs wailing without one leg and not moving the next day. Funeral and ash. Families. Yellow pupiles. Black skin and the fact that being born in one of India's holiest city means you love it till the bottom of your miserable life. Life, consisting of wishes not to progress. Of staying in the very spot your karmatic ideology has brought you. Circles of good and bad deeds. (Re)Incarnation. Buddha, Dharma, Shiva, Lingam, Ganges, Parvati, Om, Shanti, Holy Cows, puyas, candles, incense sticks, chewing tabacco, cashewnuts and thali. Dhobi wahallas, chai masalas, secret passage, open message, big Bollywood, small brotherhood, crying babies, holding maybes.
Head wiggle is the gesture that describes whole India. It means yes and no, stay and go, leave and pray, take and fly away. I couldn't ignore it, more over: I became one with it very quickly. It somehow gives you the time to think. It's like fast forward option we have with technology: everything is played in the exact order, you know at least in approximate (if not exact) way what will happened and ignoring words, deeds, actions, thoughts, movements is a blasfemy on its whole bare foot in the sandy path of Mumbai.
Options. Mental pattern with its nerves like functions that enables you to test paradigms of your choices is absolutely amazing. Rikshaw for 50 rupies? Too much. I'll ask the next one. "Good Mam, you crazy, you walk to much, you pay and you drive". Calculations - 10 minutes on foot and exercise. Or 2 minutes on bicycle rikshaw and an exercise for him, plus money. "Dus rupies". Laughter from the group. Laughing from me. "Ok. If no, I go". After two steps, you get a yes or a new offer and you bargain hard. Afterwards you even help to push the rikshaw if there are three people on it so the man has an easier task to complete. You do not pay more than you said in the beginning and you say "thank you" when you get off. Sometimes you even try to convince them you're capable of driving this wheel thing with bells and colors on your own but since you're a lady, coming from Europe, basically walking cash machine they do not let you to do it. You have fun with it and you go with the flow.
Being resistant means stopping to want. With India, you cannot. Funny and misunderstood head movements exploit versions of wishes. Neglect, lack or ignoration of what you wanted some time ago now become need. Not of better Duracell but for environment where Ego, developed with such an intensity that is almost unreal or unseen and especially unwanted since the whole concept of being an Indian means feeding yourself with taking care of others, is respected.
