Month in Review

I'm less than a week shy of reaching the one month mark here in Bangalore, and by god, it's time to reflect. It's been a month without raw vegetables, caprese, strawberries, a decent coffee or a quiet night's sleep. A month without an IPA, a live instrument or a store owner without a press agent.
BUT. A month with riding on the back of motorbikes through oncoming traffic, watching cows tear through garbage on every street while men piss in ditches next to them (It's that great of a sight). A month of sitting on my rooftop terrace and watching the busy streets that fall below. A month of eating ruthlessly with my hands and playing snake on my prepaid Nokia and never knowing what the next minute will entail. A month straight of bursting out in laughter without a source, accompanied by periodic pauses in disbelief. And a month of being hold that "Tara" means "star" in Hindi.

Simply put, this trip has been nothing I could have imagined and has by far exceeded any expectations I may have had. Stocked full with conversations, spontaneity, challenges and the rewards that follow.

I walked into work each Monday refreshed and ready to start the week, zero of five articles completed. By the time Saturday rolls around, I discern that a week's worth of work and discovery feels like a year. Time doesn't stand still here, it moves at light speed and so does my conscience. The passing of time is proportionate and never feels consequential.

I feel different here. For the first time in my life, I feel in the moment. I'm not looking to my past for answers because I now realize I've already found them, dealt with them, and overcome them. For the first time, I feel like a young adult with a child-like heart.


Sometimes after a week-long whirlwind I wish I could fly home for four hours, recuperate, and come back. Sometimes I feel like I'm standing in the middle of an intersection, arms raised and neck cocked back while cars whisk by and lights stream lime greens, blues, reds and yellows. I try to be a fucking rock under rolling rapids, but sometimes I just want to let myself tumble and not give a damn. That's the trial of living in the city.


This city is busy. It takes 30 minutes to travel seven kilometers- on a good day. But with the overload of people comes an overload of fun. Coffee shops lace the streets and hookah smoke is often powerful enough in its concentration to mask the smell rising up from the sewage streams flowing through each neighborhood.

*My friend ET once told me we've been trained to think our fecal matter smells bad as a defense from eating it. I suggest everyone just hop a plane to India and stare at the sewage for a few seconds, watch the pipes spraying shit and piss while stray dogs bark underneath, and I swear no one will want to eat their own poop ever again.

Development is on every corner. I feel like I'm living in an adaptation of post- WWII in America. Budding young females and males are desperately trying to grab a hold of the "Indian dream". It's been over 60 years since British Imperialists fled and now rampant, unsteady growth still rages on. I try and remind friends that this unsteady growth is brewing up dire consequences that will become evident over the next couple of decades (and already have). I will dedicate a post to this subject very soon.

My home stay could be a reality t.v. show. It would be a dark comedy, raising a vast array of emotional responses. There are three of us staying with Ammini and Ramgopal. Sunaina from Punjab, Hemant from Rajasthan and me, from America. There's drama like you wouldn't believe, drawn from emotional and logistical closeness and physical proximity. We all rely on one another. I try and stay respectful, especially because the amount of people has skyrocketed the electricity/water bill. So I've recently reduced my showers to one bucket per day-- about 5 gallons (You'd be amazed, Mom!). There is hardly time to be alone. Luckily, I know this is temporary and I try to spend as much time as possible in the company of others.


Goals for the next month:
Ride a bike through the city
Eat more street food
Travel to Mumbai
Travel to Punjab... force Sunaina to show me the Pakistan border.

As far as work.......
Work is work. It gets done, it gets done well and it's left at the office. More on that later as well...