8/8/10, Sunday 7pm IST
well I'm already a couple days into my trip. I'm currently sitting in my friend Sunnys house in Noida, south of New Delhi, India. I met "Sunny" Nishchal Kesarwani, two years ago when I spent a summer volunteering for a non profit teaching English in the slums. I alternated my time between the slum community by day, and an elite crowd of privileged young professionals, by night, but that's for another story. Sunny and I clicked and traveled north to the small town of Rishikesh for a few days, and have kept in touch online since. I am lounging in his 5 bedroom house which he shares with his colleagues in their start up business venture. The evening air is still humid, but the blazing sun has ducked behind the horizon. Timber, a thin, blond, enthusiastic former street dog trots over to lick my skirt, then throws herself on the comfortable brown mat where she wiggles on her back until she gets settled. An electic blend of music chugs along through 5 speakers attached creatively to the wall, ranging from hiphop to classical to electro-pop. I am overcome by a spontaneous burst of sleepiness, an effect of the jet lag induced by the 15 hour plane ride and 9 hour time difference. Its amazing that it has only been 48 hours since I left for the airport.
I finished packing the night before my trip, after taking the last exam of my first year of graduate school in social work. I had enrolled in an accelerated program, eager to get my degree, but after an exhausting summer filled with exams and papers instead of beach trips and happy hours, I am drained. I managed to fit my trekking backpack into my suitcase along with all of my supplies, leaving the opportunity to check both on the way back to make room for the inevitable purchases of intricate tapestries and other crafts. A group of friends were over and we shared a bottle of wine and laughed until early in the morning. the morning before I left I exchanged my metro pass for single ride with a classmate who still had a week of work left, and cleaned my room and apartment in preparation for the subletter. She came by around 11, a future law student I had linked up with through craigslist, the sketchy but useful website for all types of exchanges. She and her mother struck me as nice but rather uptight, a good character trait for someone inhabiting your space although not really what I look for in a friend. I ran some last minute errands and bought myself some celebration ice cream, which I didn't end up finishing since my appetite goes out the window before a big event such as traveling. I finally handed over my keys around 3pm and caught a cab to the shuttle pick up stop.
My large red suitcase was flanked by the trust blue backpack I have traveled with for 10 years, and myself, perched on the edge of the curb with my panda bear neck pillow on my lap. My mom gave this pillow to me two years ago in the airport the first time I left for India, at age 20. The shuttle was advertised to come every 15 minutes but it was nearly 45 minutes later that the bus pulled up and began loading our bags into the underbelly. The driver asked what terminal we were going to and I asked him which my airlines was located in for the international departures since online the company was listed as split into various terminals. The driver shrugged his shoulders and kept on loading bags. A man dressed in business casual offered to call the airlines for me and find out which I eagerly accepted. I sat next to him on the bus while he was on hold and we chatted a bit about my plan to go to India and his upcoming business meeting in London followed by an unusual vacation of visiting his sister in law at a Congolese Gorilla Preservation. He told me the terminal and I settled into a double seat to stare out the window as the New York City skyline faded from view.
As the bus pulled up to the Newark airport and we gathered our bags, I found myself in step with the same man and we continued chatting. As we approached the line to check in everyone paused and groaned, cursing the bus for being so late because the line of people almost filled the rows set up for waiting. The man next to me said, "well I'm like super elite so if you want you can come with me", we followed the signs for the elite class and went to a different floor where we were immediately attended to and checked in. Now he offered, he could try to get me into the first class lounge, I liked that he did not come off as pompous, it was more like he was enjoying sharing his privileges with someone and understood how it was a bit of extra fun for me to partake. We got into the Continental Presidents lounge and continued chatting over a glass of wine. He had just returned from living in Mexico City for seven years, and now was traveling frequently all over the world doing some type of business. The realms of business and finance all blend together in my humanities-minded brain but it seemed that whatever he was doing, he was quite successful at it. I found out he had gone to the same globally minded business school which my college roomate was studying at, and realized he saw something of himself reflected in my youthful idealism and wanderlust. I told him about some of my travels and experiences and at one point he smirked and said "how old are you? 50?". I laughed and told him I had just celebrated my 23rd birthday earlier that week. He told me about how he had gotten his first job by just hopping on a plane and going door to door, and supported me in my traveling adventures. He impressed upon me the importance of taking advantage of my age and lack of responsibilities in order to travel and find what I wanted to do. He warned me not to get into a serious relationship until age 30 and not to think about kids until 35. I explained to him that my boyfriend was in the military, which already imposed challenges to my wandering lifestyle, and he rephrased his warning not to be against relationships in general but told me "just don't end up married with kids in a couple years living in new jersey". We laughed and I assured him that was not in my plan but reminded him of a phrase I enjoy; "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans". My companion excused himself to go catch the plane to London and I told him "have a nice flight!" he responded with a quick "have a nice life!" and left through the automatic wood paneled doors.
I smiled to myself, pleased with my journeys first adventure. I logged into the free internet and made some final phone calls before my trip. I stocked up on the free chips and crackers and left the lounge to board my flight. The plane ride was thankfully uneventful, I watched a few movies on my personal screen, popped a sleeping pill and woke up in time for breakfast and then we landed. I marveled at the improvements to the airport in the two years since I had been here and followed the herd through immigration. I bit my nails through the inevitable sinking feeling that my bag would not arrive, but after the 5th big red suitcase which I checked, found mine and headed out to the arrival greeting area. The smell of India struck me, a mixture of humidity, dirt and a slightly rancid quality which though not appealing, was nevertheless familiar and reminded me that I had indeed been here before. After a few minutes of parading in front of the numerous Indian men vying for a spot at the railing to pick up various passengers, I asked a guard if I could please use a phone since my friend was not there. I called Sunny and, rolling my eyes because I was not all that surprised, he apologized and explained he had thought I was arriving the next day and that his car was out of gas and could I possibly take a taxi? I declined, not wanting to head out into the foriegn city at night with all of my stuff and no cell phone. I agreed to wait in the airport and argued with the security guard to let me back inside, I settled into a seat in the air conditioning and got my first indian meal of the trip. The samosas were delicious and the numerous vegetarian options were very welcomed.
I called Sunny again for 2 rupees (about 5 cents) and headed outside into the mugginess to wait for him. I picked him out quickly since he was the only familiar face and gave him a hug even as I chastised him for forgetting what day I was arriving. His hair was recently buzz cut from his unfortunate hairstyle of a mullet, and his missing earlobe stood out along with the tattoo of psuedo-arabic writing on his neck. He was the type of entrepreneur who was either totally out of his mind and doomed to failure, or destined for the success reserved for an eccentric genious. We were in a cab since his car had run out of gas near to his house and went to his twin sisters house. She welcomed me with a glass of white wine and a few of us hung out listening to music and chatting for awhile. I logged on briely to email my parents and managed to chat with my mom, despite the time difference and confirmed that I had arrived safe and sound. I marveled as I always do when I travel that in a matter of hours I had been transported to a totally different world, yet here were a bunch of young people hanging out together on a Saturday night, the same as my friends surely were doing in New York. They asked their domestic maid, Puja, to whip up some paratha for dinner and teased her for being shy, informing us that she had been married for 7 years even though she was just 20. I've never quite been comfortable in the cultures where you either are a maid or you have one. I wondered what she thought of her job, and as we left I realized we had been relaxing in air conditioning while she was watching tv in the sweltering night air. Neha bid us farewell with boxes of Lindt chocolate since she was working in the company's marketing department and we caught a rickshaw home. Something about the vibration of the rickshaw as it chugs along tends to make me doze off and I awoke when we arrived at Sunnys house. I showered in the tiny spray of cool water, not quite used to pouring it out of the bucket and was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
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