One Day At a Time

One more pagal (crazy) week on the books here in India!

From experiencing fellowship and delicious phirni at dinner last Sunday night to having my phone stolen at the Gateway of India yesterday, it’s been one thing after another. On the gamut of emotions and feeling, the following have each had their moment in the spotlight: delight, fear, frustration, doubt, self-pity, despair, incredulousness, happiness, gratefulness, anger, resignation, uncertainty, sadness, and restfulness… and perhaps a few more.

* Two Sundays ago, I met with Anna in Juhu. While she kept apologizing for dragging me all the way out, it was really an enjoyable experience seeing a new part of Mumbai. I stayed for a month in Juhu when I first moved here, but I hadn’t really explored the northern half of the town. I saw two of the largest temples I’ve ever seen – one featuring a large poster of Ganesh, and the other, well, I’m not sure who the shrine was built to.

Having met with Anna at the bus station, we made our way to a wonderful restaurant where live music accompanied great service and delicious fare. They even had roti I could eat (made with lentils). Anna is a great conversationalist and a dear friend already. So very much enjoyed her company.

 * Throughout the week, there were multiple opportunities to engage in drawing/art. For some reason I felt inspired to pick up the sketchbook my best friend Rachel gave me before I flew out to foreign lands and to doodle. A few things came out quite well; Kunjal and one of my students, an aspiring art major at Parsons NYU, helped me with a technique that made my drawing even better and inspired me to continue.

[Neither of these are finished, but they’re fun regardless! I think I’ll leave the tractor photo for another day when I can actually draw it on a larger sheet with colored pencils – I colored it in a bit with pastels, but I’m not altogether thrilled with the idea of trying to finish it in that way and I don’t want to completely ruin it. The picture of Anya needs some work – the shading needs to be completed and her silky hair and hair bow need a bit more attention.]

A friend from church also asked me to design some fliers for upcoming events and that made me feel useful. The Paint program and Word, despite their relative simplicity in comparison with Adobe photoshop, etc., are still apt tools for creating fun stuff.

* Thursday was utterly glorious. Life group was powerful and fellowship was sweet. Afterward, I hung around at Audrey’s and started on the canvas. I sketched for hours in the quiet stillness of the house after Auds and the girls left… spent some time with other friends that day as well. As usual, my Sabbath seemed to last forever. Around 10pm I ordered Cocoberry frozen yogurt instead of traipsing down to Carter Road (the Sabbath tradition continues). Mmmm, Sabbath.

* Friday night, a large group of folks from Avatar met at Hive, an awesome little theater/cafe, and used one of the downstairs rooms for a praise and worship session. The Holy Spirit made His Presence known and His revelations were intense. Over and over again, God reminded me of His goodness and faithfulness to me. His promise to give the desires of the heart to those who delight in Him has been kept for me – I bear witness!!

* Picked up a some fabric on Saturday for a mere 300rs ($4.50) – fabric that perfectly matches my pillow covers and will make a lovely curtain for my prayer room door. Now I just have to figure out how to design it so that I make the most of the scraps (that’s what they are, but they’re big enough that I can make a full-sized curtain if I do it just right). Some of the fabric, blue, was perfect for a kind of tied skirt paired with leggings, so I started putting in a seam on that and got about halfway through the first side before I quit for the night.

* Sunday morning, I scurried up the stairs to the sanctuary. Played with Illana and Zoe a bit, worshiped with the body of Christ… then hurried back to work. I taught a class, and then my soul turned a corner.

Sunday evening was absolutely miserable. Why such a deep sense of loneliness and heartache gripped me that afternoon is unclear, but it was devastating. Moment by moment I felt like my rib cage might burst apart, that I might implode somehow. Tears streamed down my face as I messaged a new friend, lashing out through the printed words, wishing I could scream. All the tension from the previous week and the hard realities of culture shock all seemed to set in at once. Plans that evening shifted and I was left with hours on end to myself. As an extrovert leaning toward introversion, usually I would be glad for the solitude, but that night I was desperate for company and affection.

Thankfully, the friend who I was supposed to meet with spoke with me via WhatsApp while I was working on another bracelet. I also ordered Cocoberry frozen yogurt with fig, kiwi, and slivered almonds for the second time this week. The no-sugar-added treat was delivered promptly to my door at a few minutes before 11pm. Needless to say, I started to feel a bit better.

* Yesterday, I woke up with a familiar sensation – for the last several days my vision has gone blurry at night. I wake up in the morning with a film covering my eyes. Not sure what that’s all about, but I’m hoping it fades out on its own. Maybe something to do with dust in my apartment? Definitely sweeping and mopping again today or tomorrow evening.

At any rate, I got up and went in to work, where I realized I didn’t have a class until 5pm. Grabbing my “miscellaneous” binder and some student files, I had it firmly in my mind to go to a small coffee shop at the base of Pali Hill, settle in, and solve math problems from practice tests and prepare for class. I made sure to take the attendance sheet from Kunjal and was on my way out, when another coworker offered to drop me off at the shop, as she knew where it was and she was on her way to pick up a few things.

The coffee shop trip impulsively turned into an adventurous journey to Colaba/Churchgate, where the Gateway of India stands in all its glory. A number of firsts occurred during the fateful excursion:

• Standing in a queue at the train station, I was told by a rather kind and considerate man that I could go to the end of the row and purchase a first class lady’s compartment ticket. Of course, he said it in Hindi and I had no idea what he was trying to say. It’s a good thing I was hanging out with a local… my colleague and I boarded the women’s train car, which was surprisingly empty. The 20 or so handles – hanging within a six inch radius of one another from the center of the ceiling in the middle nearest the exits – did seem to indicate that the small car was engineered for far more people than the few of us spaced out at that moment upon the blue plastic seats. Another train passed by us and I saw men packed in like sardines, some holding on to the thin rails that stand proudly in the center of each doorway. The bodies of a number of these men were almost 100% outside of the train. Somehow, I found their courage attractive and wondered what it might be like to get to know a person who was willing to travel at 75km per hour with less than 30% of their body mass within the vehicle of their choosing. (Side note: our return to the Bandra station hours later was anticipated by a gaggle of women waiting to board our car, who more or less rushed us before the train had even come to a full stop. I got a feel for what those men must go through before they subject themselves to such dangerous air speeds.)

• I bought a hand-painted elephant figurine. This process reinforced my knowledge that standing around and debating on whether or not to buy can reduce the price of your chosen item significantly (that is, if you consider 75rs – about $1.05 – to be significant. When you start out at 250 rupees, you’ve managed to get the salesman to reduce his asking price by 30%. Not bad for a few extra minutes of simply staring at/turning over the product in your hands and appearing skeptical about your potential purchase).

• The much heard-of balloon sellers at the Gateway, I discovered, are all too real. And the balloons are HUGE and… oddly shaped.

• The architectural wonder of the Gateway of India loomed in front of me, and I found myself taking pictures of the pigeons instead – their plumage was shimmering in the Mumbai sun and I thought they would be wonderful to draw or paint. My colleague remarked on my strange behavior: what tourist takes pictures of the pigeons instead of the renowned landmark itself? Regardless, I wanted a better shot of the Gateway, so we walked around the barricades and more or less broke protocol by slipping past the ferry ticket booths and taking photos without having purchased entry… yes, I felt slightly guilty. But after my coworker – using my phone – snapped priceless photos of me in front of a massive bronze statue of an Indian militant and the legendary portal of the emperor and empress, I felt enthusiastic. I could share these fun photos with you and add them to my collection of captured memories…

• Not so much. Penance was in order (not really, because Jesus truly paid it all, but I digress). Not only had I skipped out on actual work to experience Colaba Causeway in all its glory, but I’d also illegally gone past security to take photographs. Furthermore, I’d foolishly tucked my smartphone in my backpack’s side panel in full view of a pickpocket standing in a nearby crowd. Before my colleague and I flagged a taxi to head to the Bandra Gymkhana for lunch, my phone (along with the aforementioned photographs) was snatched from said panel and disappeared among the throngs of people milling about the entrance of the Gateway. Not the first time my phone has been lost, but the first time it’s been stolen whilst I loitered in a tourist trap.

• I was the guest of a member of the Bandra Gymkhana… I embraced the elegant tea-room furnishings of the pristine colonnade, and – once we opened the door to the cafeteria – almost felt transported back to one of the small cherry-paneled corners in the lunch halls of Michigan State University. After a lengthy review of the menu, with its offerings of chicken biryani and Chinese delicacies, I finally decided a highly satisfying ragi roll with grilled chicken, jalapeno, and greens dipped in hummus, which I consumed before we headed back to Bandra.

And that’s a wrap!

At least for now. Today is another quiet day at the office and I’m bound and determined to get a good deal of prep work done. I think I’ll just stick to the perimeter this time around. 😉