BrittaAbroad: The Final Installment

I haven’t written for a while. When I left off, I was in the midst of wrapping up my time in Varanasi - writing final papers, saying goodbye to the friends I’d made and waiting for my family to arrive for their visit to India. Arrive they did - the plane was only an hour late, which is quite punctual by Indian standards. Apparently four Americans and their luggage were too much for the small car I’d hired to pick my family up at the airport, because it broke down halfway into the city. We split up into two rickshaws and completed the ride to our hotel, during which my mother seriously doubted that she would ever see my father and I (who were in the other rickshaw) again. I’d forgotten to tell her that it’s normal for rickshaw drivers to take a detour to buy some paan (chewing tobacco) along the way - no, they’re not trying to kidnap you, Mom.

The rest of our time in India was filled with the trials and excitements that should be a part of any trip to India. My family was awed by the sights and sounds and smells of Varanasi. We took a boat ride down the Ganga - although I think they found the careening auto rickshaw ride through the crowded streets to be more of a thrill. We also had dinner with the family of Prastuti Mishra, my Hindi teacher. I was so happy that my U.S. family got to meet my Varanasi family - and eat some of their delicious food!

We left Varanasi by train, the first of four overnight trains on our journey. I was proud of my parents for handling these long trainrides with such grace - even the time we all had to jump onto a moving train and spend four hours sitting on the floor next to a stinky bathroom ended up being laughed about the next day. We saw the Taj Mahal, in all its majesty - even though one member of the family had to conquer a nasty bout of food poisoning to make it there. We visited the Jodhpur, the “blue city” of Rajastan and wandered through a magnificent centuries-old fort on a hilltop. We saw the sights in Delhi - including the Gallery of Modern Art, the ghat where Gandhi was cremated and Indira Gandhi’s house - and met up with friends the Chopras, who had so wonderfully taken care of me during my time in India.

After a whirlwind week and a half, my father and sister were headed back to the States. But my mother and I still had a week left in India, so we headed north - to the Himalayas - which quickly became our favorite place in India. McLeod Ganj, a small mountain village outside of Dharamasala, is home to tens of thousands of Tibetan refugees, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The town is quaint and clean, with lots of Tibetan babies to warm your heart and delicious Tibetan soups to warm the rest of you. My mom and I visited sites around the town - such as the temple complex that is home to His Holiness, and a Children’s Village that houses orphaned Tibetan refugee children. We relaxed at cafes with our books and wandered the shops. We ate great food - Tibetan soups and momos (dumplings), and even some remarkably delicious Burmese mutton - and took a cooking class, struggling to form dough into delicately pinched momos. (Last week at home we made pakthuk, one of the soups we’d learned, and it turned out wonderfully!). One of our favorite things to do was walk the path that circles the Dalai Lama’s complex - it is lined with prayer flags and prayer wheels, and each day we saw tiny elderly Tibetans walking the path to complete their prayers. All in all, McLeod Ganj was wonderful - clean, beautiful, calm and delicious.

After a nauseating car trip down winding mountain roads, we took a plane to Delhi. From there, my mom flew home - but I stayed another night, with the Chopras. On my second day in India, back in July, the Chopras had shown me around Delhi and welcomed me into their home, insisting that I come back to visit (as I later did) and alert them if I had any problems in India. It seemed fitting to spend my last night in India with them. My first visit in July seemed so long ago; so much time had passed and so much had changed - or maybe just I had changed.

The next night, December 12, I boarded plane - on to Thailand and then home, to snowy Michigan, just in time for the holidays. The sprawling lights of Delhi disappeared into the dark as my plane took off. Goodbye, India. It had been quite a ride.