It happened again. Two things. First, I got my nose pierced again, but by a competent doctor this time. It now has a stud in it and I am happy with my new look. Second, I heard it again. An Indian man, who has spent the last decade living in the States, rieterated what I have heard and said myself before. (DON’T stop reading, there’s more about India) That what happened in New Orleans was appalling and disheartening, that it was like the third world, worse maybe, that in India this would never happen. He said he had had enough of the States, and slaving away in corporations. India was calling him home.

I have to confess something. I have deliberately avoided chatting with Americans since I left the States because I was too afarid of running into the same sort of attitude which made me want to leave. Yesterday, I made an exception. I started chatting with a guy from California, Berkely, no less, and a graduate from that famed university, mind you. I remained calm, I smiled, lots of people were listening. When I started to talk about how the press is no longer free and that in order to get real information, I spent hours every day reading and listening to testimonies in the Senate, looking at statistics, watching footage that never makes it to the evening news, so that I could hear with my own ears and see with my own eyes, what was happening, he said to me “what good does it do you to know about all this?” There it is. The reason I left. The American who doesn’t care to know or want to feel responsible. And they wonder why people hate us all over the world. It brought it all back for me. The feeling of being drowned in a culture that is spinning out of control while most everbody is ignoring the elephant in the room. Pun intended. Oil for blood, what? Go ahead, go on telling yourself that we’re over there to save the poor brown people of Iraq from a very bad bad man, if it makes you sleep at night. Maybe it will erase the nightmares you had when the twin towers fell, maybe it will erase any notion as to why someone would want to do such a horrible thing to the poor, innocent citizens of America, who don’t know and don’t care to know WHY. Not knowing is called ignorance, is it not?

Some people come to India to do Yoga. They come straight to Mysore, stay in their little microcosm, don’t travel and never learn about the history of this country. It’s all the same. You’re not really in it, you’re only grasping a fragment. It’s like going to the museum with a sock on your head. You can’t see the big picture. People who walk around with socks on their heads look really funny to others. That’s why the world is laughing at us. Laughing, but at the same time, really angry as well, becaause the sock on the head prevents vision, which means we are bumping into all kinds of things, causing destruction and stepping on people’s toes. It’s a choice. You can take the sock off, if you like, you can always take the sock off, so long as you acknowledge that the sock is there. Do you see the sock?

Alright, enough about socks. India is strange. Strange and wonderful. I am getting ready to send some things overseas and I have discovered some very odd practices with the postal system. The post office does not sell envelopes or boxes of any sort. You have to go to a stationary store to buy an envelope and all the ones I have seen, as well as the stamps, do not have glue on them. You have to go outside to a table where you can make your own little messy art project with a pot of paste, the kind you used in grade school to make collages. It takes an hour for it to dry. The stationary store does not sell cardboard boxes to send a parcel. You have to go to a medical store and buy back boxes they get from supplying companies. If you’re sending only books, go to the tailor. Seriously. The tailor will sew a parcel around your books with a hole in it so the postal service can see that it’s only books and you will get a reduced fare. Apparently, its cheaper to send only books. Strange and wonderfully surprising it is, India.

It really does take forever to get anything accomplished here. I think that’s why almost everyone you meet here has extended their stay at least once, if not twice. You come here in your own time, but Indian time takes over. Slow down, do this obstacle course first, then maybe you can do what it was you intended on doing. I, by the way, am going to extend my trip as well. I still have a lot to do here. I’m just getting started and I know that I will never be finished, but I at least want to get a good bite in before I leave.

I always forget this about India. I forget the circus in the Mumbai airport, the Internet fiasco, and on. So it was with getting my nose pierced, even when I thought everything was perfectly set up yesterday. Kumar, the cook at the Mandala took me to a ENT specialist at 6:15, 15 minutes after the doctor was supposed to be in. I was told that at 6:30, he would come. At 6:30 someone called to see where he was. 7 p.m. he’ll be here. At 7 p.m., he shows up. I wait my turn. He has a look. Then he sends me to the medical store to buy the neddles necessary for the job. I go to get the goods. He shoots my nose up with anesthesia and then realizes that the piercing needle is too small. He sends me back out into the waiting room with my numbed nose and we wait for the guy from the medical store to roll around with the correct size. It took two hours to have my nose pierced.

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There is no Next Day because I abruptly stopped writing at this point. I ended up going to Varanasi with a group of friends and then on to Thailand and Cambodia. I am still travelling and perhaps will return to the art of journalling, but it was taking up too much of my time. I also began to fall a bit out of love with India. I found it very difficult to be a woman there and after the Dassara festival, it seemed the boys had all gone mad. I got groped in the street countless times by boys as young as nine and twice I witnessed a grown man masturbating in front of me. Living conditions are rough in India. My skin had lots of blemishes and I felt exhausted by the polution. I was only too glad to head to the shores of Thailand where everything is squeeky clean and all the food is fresh and you have very little concerns for your health as Malaria is virtually non-existent. I was so excited by the prospect of being able to do things like have ice in my drinks and wear jeans in public without being hassled. That said, India is still one of the most remarkable places on earth, of this I am certain, and I know that I will return one day to make a pilgrimmage to the many places I have yet to see.

To those of you who read my journal on a daily basis while I was writing it and sent me responses, I offer my greatest thanks. It was nice to have an audience who seemed almost to be living the experiences alongside me. Thanks for tuning in, and come back soon to see my latest additions to the website.