A friend of mine recently sent me an email that perfectly summarises how I feel about living in India. Don't you just hate it when someone else says exactly what's on your mind, but makes it sound so much better? ;)
(Pasted with the author's permission)-
I'm in an interesting place right now. India can be nothing but a transition for me in the long term, but I've decided that thinking of it like that in the short term would be like only halfway living here, and I'm never a fan of halfway anything. I'm much more of a jump in with both feet and suffer the consequences later kind of person :)
So, jump I have, and thrown myself fully into my job, attempted to create, not just a place to stay, but a *home* for myself, and made not only easy friendships but fast connections with some pretty fantastic people. I was looking at plane tickets to the States today, and started daydreaming about New York, the people I love there and how they've changed over the past year ... and all the things I love about the city--the Chrysler Building, the poet's walk in Central Park, the sidewalk cafes in the West Village, bagels with cream cheese and lox ... but everything has been dulled around the edges, a patina has formed on my views of the city, and i just can't quite taste the bagels like I used to. It's certainly not the end of the world, it can only be expected when a year passes between a person and a city, but it made me realize something. My relationship with New York has changed. It's not "home" anymore. New York is my long-term love. I've left it because to better love it, I needed to experience what the rest of the world has to offer. I had to go to China and climb the Great Wall, get an authentic Thai massage in a Buddhist temple, take the tram up Victoria Peak and see Hong Kong harbour at night, sit with village women in rural rural India and talk to them about the changes they're making in their communities. I'll steal away for a short tryst from time to time, to be seduced again by the buzz that surrounds the city, by the in-your-face-attitude, by it's toughness and by its grace. After a time, when I've studied the pre-Columbian ruins in Peru, helped make wine in a South African vineyard, learned to dive in the Great Barrier Reef, I'll go back to New York. And lucky for me, cities don't get jealous of other lovers. If I was getting to any point here amidst my tangential thoughts, it's that my home, at least for now and for better or worse, is India.
