Leaving India Behind, and my trousers.

Marina beach Chennai. My last sunset in India.

I left India five days ago, I have mixed feelings about leaving when I did. 
I'm trying to travel slowly, taking in each place I visit deeply and using the experience and slow pace in order to do some deep thinking. Before I arrived I believed that India was where a lot would change; I wanted to stay until my visa expired at the end of March and along the way keep my feelers out for work. However, with my feet on the ground things were different. Not in a bad way particularly, it was just different to experience I had anticipated.

So the curious reader may ask why not stay in India until my visa expired? The answer is I'm not exactly sure. during my first day in Auckland I overheard a guy in a hostel kitchen telling some young Irish backpackers about his plans to travel in India 'for 4-6 months', they were very impressed by this accomplished traveler, his way of reeling off names familiar to me (yes, in a familiar order too) in a cool french accent, those grungy pantaloons, the very suggestion of over 200 nights spent carelessly kipping on vomit-strewn night buses. Did I want to be that guy? Maybe, traveler adoration is a cheap thrill and that's not really what I was after.

This is what I get for flying Malaysia Airlines

Goodbye India

I could have moved my flight later in the month or even to my visa expiry date, I could have got a visa extension if I found something work-like to do as I had originally anticipated. I chose not to, I had seen enough for now.
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't unhappy traveling through India; I had a great experience, saw and did what I wanted to, went where I wanted to (I never even got started on the must-see list) I mostly avoided the hardcore tourist traps and as a result met the most wonderful people in the street, on buses and trains, it's amazing how different people are there when it is not their job to try to get you to spend some money. Couchsurfing allowed me to pretend that I lived where my host lived, which with the exception of Jungle Johnnie, was entirely believable (I could never imagine living in a tiger reserve) and rather nice. It also allowed me to meet and socialise with real, everyday people and in some cases to make friends (not many backpackers who go from hostel to hostel can say that). I got to know a few places very well and began to be accustomed to living there, I was close to looking for work in Bangalore, maybe teaching English, maybe Science in an English medium school. It felt like the sort of place where I could have stayed for a time at least.

I think the main factor in choosing to go when I did was that my love/hate relationship with the country, the people and the society had a time limit, if I stayed any longer and saw and heard more about the country, I may have started to do more hate than love. In retrospect perhaps that wasn't really a possibility, but it felt as if it could be at the time.
Realistically I got what I wanted from the experience and decided to move on. I was never going to check in to Amma's (hugging) Ashram and open my mind to pre-fabricated belief systems that are tailored to be sold to lost-soul westerners with a few thousand rupees to spare, nor was I about to embrace yoga wholeheartedly and check into a mountaintop yoga school where I would challenge my body and mind to fit into completely new shapes. Physically I managed to stay clean and healthy for the most part; I believe a good dose of Turkish village yoghurt before I left Istanbul made me resistant to the anticipated and much feared food poisoning. I harbour no regrets there, however I do regret not teaching the street kids something or other in the  Bandra beach promenade street school, though I'm not exactly sure what. My experience of India was different than most, not better, or worse.
I liked it because it was mine.

For that reason I wouldn't say I've been greatly changed by 'the India experience', I remember writing about how I wasn't so much expecting to find myself on my travels but to lose myself in a way. At least the parts that I considered undesirable, and about 10Kg. 
Somewhat to my own surprise I found and continue to find that there isn't much I'd like to lose, In fact I'm beginning to believe in myself increasingly. Now please do not think that John has seen the light or something, I'm just beginning to appreciate the little things more, learning that I am capable of doing just about anything  I want (if I want to enough, or desperately have to), learning that I can be very happy by myself and/or with other people, and a variety of people at that and I'm beginning to value my own patience and ability to understand the viewpoints of others (empathy if you want to call it that). I've realised that if you go out prepared to be a friend to everyone, you'll be surprised with how many nice people  you meet along the way and how the world changes when you do so- just a little but enough for you to notice like a tiny earthquake. I've earned to suspend my cynicism a little, but that it can be really useful at times.

Most poignantly I'm realising that the things that I miss about home and those places that I have to tear myself away from along the way are the things that I really should incorporate into my future. Learning what you value is an important part of going forward, because they are ultimately the things that will bring happiness. 

I still have no Idea what I'm going to do with myself when this is all over, luckily now I'm staying with my cousins in New Zealand I have a little time to think about that sort of thing instead of if I'm on the right train or what is safe to eat. The answer may come, it may not, the answer may well be that there is no question. In any case, my mind is open.

What do you mean you don't understand the cause of my love-hatey-ness ?

Auckland

Oh, My trousers? I left Arvind's house in the super-early morning and missed a pair of trousers drying on a chair, nothing exciting. Sorry.