Thanksgiving Feast for the Virus in My Belly

One thing I know I'm thankful for in this world is access to safe drinking water. What I'm not thankful for is the stomach infection I acquired in Pune, after 5 days of visiting some friends down there and discovering on the last morning that the tea they served me each day was made from tap water that was boiled for a whopping 30 second. No thanks to that. What I'm also not thankful for is my ego, which allowed me to pass off sharp stomach pains (and other symptoms I'd rather not gross you out with) as 'gas' for a good week and a half, until I woke up one morning knowing it was time to see the doc. So, instead of being in Bangalore with loads of food and other AIFers who adore the day of turkey, I spent thanksgiving in a room that sure didn't look like a doctor's office, but from which I exited with prescribed medicines. Really, though, I'm very thankful for safe drinking water. And I hope you are too.

The seasons, they are changing

Photo: Zoroastrian Cookie Shop, Pune, India

A few years ago I wrote my parents a letter from San Francisco, explaining how odd it felt to be sitting by a sunny window in the middle of December, looking down at shoppers in their summerish clothing. It was my first “winter” in California, and my heart was aching for New England as my life there had revolved around the seasons: The fall was full of rich colors, host to my birthday, the soccer season, and thanksgiving (my favorite). The transition to winter meant cozier times with more holidays and stepping into dark cold nights after sweaty and exhilarating basketball practices. The end of winter meant the Iranian new-year, jumping over fires, and hopes of an early spring arrival. By the time spring actually showed her face I’d already be depressed with cabin fever, but with each warming day my heart (and smile) would expand until it found itself paralyzed by the heat of summer. And the summers, oh, lovely New England summers: going backpacking with the fam, sport camps and swimming holes, pool parties and fort-building in the backyard, homemade and store-bought popsicles, mowing the lawn and jumping in the pool with my clothes on right after, lounging on the deck with stacks of pleasure reading, and warm nights with iced coffee around town. During college my summer days were spent interning and the nights were spent aimlessly exploring whichever new city I was working in. By the end of each summer I’d be ready for school and structure again, promising myself that this year I’d study more, play harder, win championships, spend quality time with the friends I saw less of over the past couple months. The fall would come, adding a new number to my age, and life would start all over again.

I remember that as I wrote that letter from California I was feeling a bit lost in my own mind because everything felt unfamiliar: no poignantly colorful seasons, no winter breaks, no teams. It had hit me that I was writing a letter as an adult, in an office, at work, in a state thousands of miles away from what I knew to be real life. In a way it was transition to true adulthood, let alone California, and when I recognized it as such, I stopped feeling “homesick”. And of course, as the months went on San Francisco started to feel like my own home, so much so that by August of 2007 I wondered why I was leaving for India when everything I could ever want at the great age of 24 was there at my fingertips.

And here I am now, once again thousands of miles from what I had built to be my life in the Bay Area, which was built off my life in New England, but, oddly, nothing feels unfamiliar. My life in Ahmedabad, for the most part, is strikingly similar to my life in the states. Sure, the quality is not as high, but my day to day life it’s quite similar: I get up and exercise, I go to work, get a bit unproductive after lunch, go home around 6, and then I either do something productive (cook, read, write, study) or go meet up with some new acquaintances. The details of course are different: my morning exercise consists of a yoga class and a short jog. Work is definitely really different, but what’s not different is that I’m enjoying it and learning from it. And in terms of the guys I hang out with, instead of their names being Sam or Andy or Evan or Ian or Eeren or Russ, their names are Tajendra, Yazad, Anish, Ankush, Chirag and Bridge.

Outside of my own bubble there are buildings going up everywhere, which was the case in both Amherst and San Francisco before I left; and I have to ignore people begging for money on a daily basis, which I did in Boston, New York, DC, Oakland and San Francisco every day of living in those cities. Now, please, don’t get me wrong, I’m not at all trying to say that Ahmedabad as a city is just like the US cities I’ve lived in; BUT, what I can say is that I think there are certain similarities in the dynamic between urban poor and urban rich no matter where you are, and at the moment some of those similarities, and some of the major differences too, have me thinking hard about the ways I (and we) perceive social issues, especially when we think of development and “extreme poverty” (for example, what’s the productive use of calling the reality of India’s poor “more severe” than that of the US’s urban poor? I understand there’s a difference between the two, but does that difference matter? Why, when I told people I was coming to India, did people gasp at the poverty I'd see, when all they have to do is walk down the street to see something that, in my opinion, is just as severe?). I’ve been trying my best to write more coherently about such thoughts, but so far I’ve just been writing in circles.

And now that I mention it, the fact that I’m even thinking about these things in a productive way, scribbling my thoughts down in my little blue journal, and then attempting to type them up, is perhaps one of -- if not the -- major differences in my own life here. All these social issues that I previously considered and thought about as if they were a side of coleslaw on my plate of life – whether it was one of the many moments I’d step over a urine-soaked man in the Tenderloin district of SF or a short moment of reflection while sitting on my parents’ porch before thanksgiving dinner -- are suddenly in my face; they’re the main course, all the side dishes, the sugary, ghee-loaded dessert, and the filtered water I wash it all down with as well. Maybe it’s because of the projects I’m working on, or maybe it’s just because of my present location on the globe (obviously both), either way I feel more alive than ever for it, because prior to my arrival (or departure) I’d been aching to engage. I was done reading about the development scene from my desk on Sutter Street for the time being, and was instead ready to step out into the hectic, polluted, sometimes harmonious but mostly cacophonous traffic of the world to test out my own brainpower. So far I’ve held the hand of luck and looked both ways, but I’ve got a far ways to go before crossing the street. As for the seasons, apparently they’re changing here in Ahmedabad, but by mid-day it still just feels hot – perhaps a bit less oppressive – and dry to me.