It is two weeks before I will leave for a long anticipated trip to India, a destination that has been in my dreams for 10 years, almost to the day. When I was in college, as a senior at USC, I had applied for an abroad program in Bangalore, India. I didn't get the approval from USC to travel to India for my final semester because at the time, there were eh, complications with American students and USC felt that it was too much of a risk to sponsor my absence. So I went to Spain instead, which undoubtedly shaped the next 10 years to come. Yet I still longed to go to India and be overwhelmed by the grace and chaos of a mysterious and fascinating place. So when Rajiv, my well liked colleague from work, mentioned that he was to be married in Delhi, well, I might have invited myself to tag along. I can't really remember now if I did get a proper invitation, but it doesn't really matter now, my ticket is bought, the visa is en route from the Indian Embassy and I am recovering from two fierce Hepatitis shots that gave me a slight flu for 3 days.
I am very excited to go, nervous yes. Bold, you betcha. I feel as if I am to surmount a dream and dive like a swan into an unknown wind that could take me anywhere. What if I come back bald but with that hare krishna pony tail. What if I come back and want to quit my job? What if I am kidnapped and held for ransom in some abandoned ashram along the Pakistani border? Or maybe I might spend the entire two weeks in my hotel room pooping out curry fireballs. Whats awesome is that all of those seem appealing in some strange way or another. I realize that whatever possibility awaits, it will be yet another journey through life and parcel of my destiny. Oh yea, it rocks. Tripping out on the life fantastic, really really rocks. And to be in India is going to be nothing of what I expect, I know this. Just as Spain was an experience that was entirely different from what my expectations had drawn. Same for Mexico and living there for almost 2 years. One never knows what is truly before us, and the anticipation is all part of the high.
All of us have the vision of our selves, living our flow in some far away place. Perhaps it is part of the tendency to always be searching for something, even if but a strange experience or forbidden pleasure, a taboo relationship or the search for God. There's a bit of India in each of us, the draw towards something that will shape who we are just by being there. And that's what I'm hoping for. To be changed somehow, even if just for a moment. Even if it is just as the sun slips behind the Taj Mahal at sunset, I will be there to see it, and marvel at how God is everywhere.
