4 days

That's about how much longer I will be in Jaipur. It's weird to think about. Somehow I've felt very at home in this city; everything - the lifestyle, the people, the occasional monkey tearing down our electric wires - all of it seems to be part of my daily life now. And while I'm definitely excited to go home to non-stale cereals and drinkable tap water, my main thoughts right now are about how much this summer has changed me.

Was it a tough choice? Of course. Making the decision to leave friends and family for 10 weeks is one that I can never take lightly. Choosing to miss out on people's birthdays, my brother getting his license, the first two weeks of preseason football, accepting the fact that I will have 3 days with my family before heading back up to school - these are all opportunities that I decided to leave behind when I came to Jaipur. But do I regret the choice? Not in the slightest.

Being by myself this summer taught me a lot. Discovering my own India let me find my own connections to the country I love. It showed me that my parents' relationship with India doesn't have to be (nor should it be) mine. And that was a huge step - seeing my own relationship with my mother country change and mature. I titled this blog "Adventures in the Motherland" as something of a joke, but I think the last 10 weeks made me fully appreciate what the motherland really is.

The connection between a second generation kid and their ancestral home is one that's difficult to describe. I had always consciously accepted the fact that I was Indian American, tied to both cultures in different ways. But this summer really taught me what it means to be an NRI. It means feeling at home in two cultures. It means loving what both your nationality and your ethnicity have to offer. And, more than anything, it means uniting the part of you that will always be Indian with the part of you that will never fully be. And that's why I think the description of us second generation kids as being "caught between two cultures" is flawed. We're not caught between the two, as if forced to make a choice and accept one culture as our full identity. If the summer has taught me anything, it's the opposite. No matter what I do, I will always be a cross of dosas and doughnuts, papadam and pasta -- India and America. So I guess I should end this post with a thanks to my parents for uprooting themselves and coming alone to a new country, all to give me the amazingly unique cultural experience I have now. Thanks, Amma and Achan. I don't know if I have the courage to do what you did.

Thanks to all my readers who have laughed at my bad jokes, cared about my summer, and in general read the musings of this wandering 20 year old. You all are the best.

To the dogs on the street in front of my window:

We get it, you're in heat. Please try to keep your volume down so the rest of us can sleep.

Thanks,

Ashok

I should know better than to expect to get stuff done

This past weekend I was dead set on doing work (namely, starting on my final research paper, a ten page monstrosity that needs to be entirely in Hindi). I made a schedule for how I was going to spend the 3 day weekend (Friday was the program organized trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and I figured that, having already seen it, I could use the time to actually get started on the most significant assignment of the proram), decided on a project idea, and actually started doing a little work. But of course, just when I was on the cusp of diligence, Caleb ruined everything.

Turned out that his friend Abhishek Singh was having some of his art displayed in an exhibition in Delhi on Saturday. Caleb is essentially writing his Ph.D. thesis on this guy (and was sort of responsible for this art show?), so he was heading to Delhi to be there for the opening. Annnnd for some reason, he's really good at pressuring me into things, so before I knew it I had agreed to go with him.

This trip reconfirmed three things:

1) Agra is a terrible city. From the mobs of tourists to the rickshaw drivers who demand Rs. 100 for a 5 km ride (metered fare should be around half that), nothing about the city appeals to me.

2) Art is pretty darn cool. The art show was amazing. Caleb's friend is sick - he does religious comic art, but not in the way one typically expects comics to be. Take a look at some of his stuff here - I think most (if not all) of you will appreciate it. Also, his large-scale paintings for the exhibition were so much more impressive than those on his blog. He was presenting two: one of Rama and one of Krishna. Both were incredible.

3) Caleb is kind of cool, I guess. I don't know how many people in the program I could sustain pretty good conversation with for the 4-hour ride to Delhi and the 6-hour ride back to Jaipur, but Caleb is one of those (pretty rare) genuinely good people. Plus he's also a creeper, which gives us easy things to bond over.

While the trip was fun, I'm now realizing that I have my entire final paper to write in the next 2 days. So... probably won't post till next week some time. I know you're all crushed.

Watch out, ladies

As some of you loyal readers may know, India has changed all of us here at AIIS deeply. I can't seem to find the words to describe these changes accurately... so I'll just let the pictures do the talking.
Disclaimer: Although we look like tonight's Dateline stories, this is in fact totally normal in India. I like to think of it as cultural sensitivity, to quote my friend Tareq.

Also, I tried to sort these in order of creepiness, but you'll see why I found the task a little too difficult, to say the least.

Anish

Jimmy

Matt

Andre

Jack

Tareq

Vince

Caleb

And... me

Shout out to Tareq for the pictures!

Mustaches

I now have one.