Five things I love about India so far.
1. Colors. I’m drunk on the colors here. I’m especially fixated on women’s clothing because the colors of their outfits are combined in unexpected but such beautiful ways. I always wear a lot of black and neutral colors because I’ve never known how to wear colors together. But now I’m suddenly getting it. Well, maybe. As you probably noticed in one of those previous photos, I basically look like a four year old who’s allowed to dress herself, if that four year old also has a clown fetish. More colors! More colors!
2. Women. Aside from matching their clothes really well, the women here are just generally fascinating to me. Suffice it to say it’s a good thing that staring is culturally appropriate here. Their clothing, jewellery, hair, makeup – they are just so immaculately put together and spellbindingly feminine. And not like, “Oh me so little Thai flower” bullshit either. There is something very real about Indian women, in the midst of their highly cultivated feminine trappings.
3. Bhakti. I’m not sure if I’m spelling that right but I mean the Hindu devotional path, which I’m naturally very drawn to. And then I see things like two autos (what they call tuk-tuks here) in a row – one with a sign saying “God is Love” and the next saying “Love is Life”, and I get that warm yay feeling of being in the right place.
4. Synchronicity. It keeps happening. Like one day Mary and I saw this book called “God Loves Fun” and were so impressed by the phrase that it immediately earned heavy rotation in our repertoire. A day or two later we get into a conversation with our Indian Catholic homestay owner who told us about how a Hindu teacher helped him deepen his love for Jesus. Yeah, it’s obvious right? – the same guy who wrote “God Loves Fun.”
Maybe it’s just because this is such a huge, busy, overflowing culture that you don’t expect to see the same detail presenting itself more than once, and so it feels really significant when it happens.
5. Warmth. It’s nearly the height of the hot season here in Kerala and I love it. It actually hasn’t been that hot here or in Delhi, at least not for me. But then I’m the one who needs three layers in San Francisco when other people are wearing tank tops. I’m finally warm all the way through, for the first time since I left Southeast Asia last spring. What a relief.
Tags: Kerala
sandyo
me so little thai flower..
Isn’t it crazy how India can be unapologetically spiritual and committed to secular democracy at the same time? There are exceptions, but India is generally great at making sure success in one of these realms doesn’t interfere with success in the other. Feels good.
I am not sure I am going to like Sandy experimenting with color too much. I like those red pants of yours though.
I’ve just been trying to figure out where you got a baseball cap.
ok. so i start reading colors…. reciting it in my head with my best sandy deadpan impersonation. and as i hit the part about a four year old dressing herself, i crack a little smile. and then on to the clown fetish and i convulse with a laugh that projects my mouthful of lunch at my computer screen.
thanks a lot sandy.
but really, why didn’t you twist my arm to join you? we had three days of amazing heat and now today wind is whipping through the mission right and i’m afraid to step out into it.