A few days in India

on By
Good morning everybody. It is 3:50 am in India and I am awake due to the jet lag.
I love being in this country. I have a diary entry that I wrote in the summer when I was last here, and I think it quite perfectly describes my experience here, so I will share it with you today.

“We have arrived in India. There is something about this country that I love so very much. I stepped off the plane into another world. The air is thick and hot, like soup. I almost feel like I am swimming through this fluid world, swarms of people like molecules, making their way around me. There is no shortage of people here. There is a certain smell to this place. I cannot say it is a very pleasant scent, but it is a familiar one and one that I look forward to. Intact, it is more than a scent, it is more like a flavour. An air of spice and jasmine. The women wear flowers in their hair. Their skin is warm and dark. 
When I got to my aunt’s house I woke up my cousin D from his sleep. It was only 6am by the time we got home so the blinds were closed and he was wrapped so tightly in his light blanket. I told him he looked like an ancient Egyptian mummy. D and I are very close. He is just a few months elder to me, our mothers who are sisters were pregnant at the same time. They tell us stories of our childhood together. And even though I moved away, we remain close. He has a big exam tomorrow so I am not to disturb him until then.
I looked in the mirror at my skin. It is golden from the sun and dewy from sweat I guess. But I feel beautiful. I wear a long skirt after my shower, one that reaches the ground. I let my hair dry naturally. The water is cool. There is a slight hint of warmth in the water, but it is subtle like a secret that only reveals itself at certain times of the day. n the morning, cool is cool, and in the afternoons, you can feel the warmth. The water here is slightly salted, so I keep my mouth closed. 
My sweet, delicate grandma sits beside me at the table. She is chanting sacred prayers from a book. she began quietly but now her voice becomes louder and stronger with each verse. I feel like this is exactly what I need to hear right now. 
Earlier today, she let me try on her gold ring. Her hands are small like mine. We drank coffee. The coffee here is milkier and sweeter than I am used to. It is more like coffee flavoured milk. It is foamy. I drank two cups but the cups were small and shaped like an apple. I took a few photos of things I find beautiful. 
Here in India, my life opens up for me. There is time. Each moment is filled with nature, conversation, gardens, butterflies, prayer, connection, colour, temples, a dalmation, children, serving, rain, yoga, mosquito bites. Glorious. Here, each moment demands to be felt.”
—–
The next few days are very important days in my life, as they lead to my marriage to a golden man. It is something I would like to prepare for mentally and spiritually, and I wish to enter this phase of our life with consciousness and a brightness of being.
The “wedding home” is intense and crazy. My best friends from all over the world, are all together, in another part of India, making their way to me in my home, and seeing some beautiful things along the way. There is so much vibrancy, intensity and love around me and I feel blessed.
I’m sorry there are no photographs to accompany these words. I need to upgrade my wordpress account for the increased image allowance. It’s strange writing a personal post, but as always, my life is rich and full with spiritual lessons that I am uncovering each day and I look forward to sharing them with you sometime soon.
Take care, friends.
Malavika

13 Comments

  3. Welcome to my country and best wishes for your marriage. I am pretty sure you are not in somewhere north.. it’s getting pretty cold up north. PS: you can always use picasa, flickr etc to upload images and then embed in your post. Or you can host your wordpress blog on your hosting account. It’s better than wordpress upgrade and offers unlimited space.

    Best wishes for your wedding!

    Mahendra

    Reply

    1. Thank you Mehendra! You’re right, I am in Kerala. Though I have so much intrigue and fascination for the traditions and rituals of the North. There are some wedding rituals of the traditional north indian wedding that I want to incorporate into ours, but I am not sure if we can do that. I guess we will see. Where abouts are you from?

      Thanks a lot for the tip on photos. I had no idea you could do that! lol, I am unfamiliar with these kinds of things. But I do love to share photographs and did feel quite restricted with wordpress’s upgrades. I’ll have a look at flickr to embed photos.

      Reply

Leave a Reply