Badam milk is the drink of the gods. Give me badam milk and make me happy. Such a simple equation. I don't really have anything specific to say, I just feel like writing, so I am.
India is such a cool, amazing, ever-spinning, sometimes backwards place. Driving home in a bumpy, swerving rickshaw last night after watching Lost in Translation, I was smiling, laughing to myself watching the goings-on on Gokulam Main Road, the same way I do sometimes in Montreal when I see someone doing something like riding a bike while toting ski gear, skis, poles and boots. Same same, but different. I don't even know what it was that made me smile: the rickshaw driver trying to rip me off, the coconut stand still bustling under the half moon, the perfect temperature, the other rickshaw being pushed up a hill by running young men, the light bouncing off the sparkling bracelets in the bangle-seller's hut or just the general bustle? Thinking, wishing I could somehow snap a picture of it all, capture life in India and mail it home like a postcard. "Wish you were here. The chai is too sweet, the poverty is widespread, the air smells of burning shit, we just narrowly missed hitting a cow, and it's perfect." It's just so alive, so raw, so real. No sterile little strip malls, no fluorescent glow pouring out of McDonald's, no concessions made for tourists, just glimpses into real life, into every-day Indian realities. It sounds insignificant, but I've come to realise that in the Asia in which tourism is becoming so central so quickly, those brief glimpses into the quotidian routine, even the mundane, are rare, few and far between.
Luckily sleep found me last night, aided by the comforting warmth of badam milk. The night before I found myself wide awake, tossing and turning, having conversations in my mind with people back home that I haven't seen in years and may never see again, the obscure acquaintances, friends from the past who will remain in the past. I worry about things like whether Trudeau airport has a currency exchange desk, where I'll get boxes to start packing and what I'll wear to meet my parents when they roll into town. Maybe I'll find a place in Toronto with one of those vintage bathrooms with the 1"x 1" tiles; maybe I'll be allowed to paint my room taupe. These are the questions, the thoughts that keep me from my dreams...

- posted by Andrea @ 2:27 a.m.