India Calling!

I have been homesick ever since I landed in Canada. But I somehow held strong for 1 year and 3 months (in my dictionary “strong” excludes, weeping 10 times a day on skype). After months and months of emotional tactics, buckets full of tears and countless threats, finally Ashish’s best friend’s wedding did the trick. And now, I am going to India. No matter how many times a day I say this, it still sounds as exciting and new as it did the first time. Or at least, the people in my office are polite enough to respond with same enthusiasm every time :)

I had forgotten what it felt like to be in a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, deafening noises, and nonstop honking. I had forgotten the sight of cows and dogs napping in the middle of the road, and everyone driving around them. People sleeping in between two avenues, a place that barely fits a body, while cars pass at full speed just besides them. Even if I try hard, my memory cells fail to recall the last time I took a stroll with friends to a tapri (street stall) on streets for chai and pakoras.

I have been spoilt in the clean and fresh environment of Canada so much, that I desperately need to get my lungs polluted again. I need to experience the bumpy rides on the streets in those black and yellow taxis straight from retro movies. I want to be lost amidst the crowd, cops, cows, motorcycles and rickshaws once again.

Here are a few things that I want to experience again in my coming trip:

1. Drive like we Indians do: A few days ago, when a car suddenly slowed down in front of us while moving at 120km/hour, my heart was in my mouth. I almost wanted to roll down the window and swear at the driver. But I couldn’t. Forget giving him a piece of my mind, I couldn’t even blow the horn. That’s when I realized how the practice of blowing horn had become alien to me. It the last 1 year, not once have I used the horn of my car and now I have forgotten what it sounds like. Where, honking was an inevitable part of my driving, it just seems very impolite now.

During this trip, I want to drive on the streets. I don’t want to give signals while changing lanes (do we even have lanes in India?). I don’t want to check my blind spots and I want to HONK.

In theory, we are supposed to drive on the left hand, but in practice, we Indians drive on any side we want to. AND IT WORKS! I want to do the same.

I want to drive a motorcycle, without a helmet and without a license (just like old times :))

2. Jay-Walking: I don’t want to wait for the “walking” sign to turn on (even if there is no vehicle in your sight), rather, I want to run and cross the road (like we Indian’s do), kind of like playing that video game where we made the birds cross a busy road and the intensity of the game increased with traffic getting heavier with every level. Of-course, the birds had 5 lives in the game and plus, that was a GAME ;)



3. Need to be Impolite: I want to sit in a restaurant and talk LOUD, without the fear of people pointing and staring at me.

In India, we don’t greet friends with a “Hello, How is it going?” We start with calling them names, marking them, punching/ hitting them and then maybe follow a hug.

It dazed me how every time my friends at work, I have lunch with, would thank me for having lunch with them.

“Thanks Deepali. It was great having lunch with you”.

“Seriously? EVERY TIME?” is my reply to them EVERY TIME. :)

Back home, we don’t even bother to ask our friends before thoroughly enjoying their lunch, leaving them to starve all day. We don’t wait for them to wrap up their work to join us for lunch, we simply pull them out of their chairs.

It astonishes me how polite people in Canada are. Sugar coated sweet. If you “accidently” bump into a person, the series of apologies that follows is insane. Try doing that in India. There is no such thing as “accidental” bumping in India. It’s all INTENTIONAL.

I am tired of this civilized living. I need to break some rules now. India, here I come ;)



4. Street Food: “We shouldn’t have a Pani-Puri stall in the entrance. Deepali won’t move beyond it”, was the usual reaction of organizers of various events. They weren’t wrong. If you ever had to spot me in a crowded event, simply look around the Pani-Puri stall, I would be found loitering around there.

But things got difficult when we moved to Canada. The absence of Pani-Puri stalls made it very difficult for Ashish to find me in a crowded event. Now he just ties a rope around my neck ;) And trust me, it isn’t fun bouncing around with a rope tied to your neck. ;)

I want to eat a dozen Pani Puri every single day of my stay in India. Period!


5. The sophisticated people of Canada (and Ashish), will never understand the joy we get in watching a Salman Khan movie in a single screen theatre, with cheap crowd, ripping the seats apart during a fight scene, dancing on the seats along with our superstar and wooting insanely at every powerful dialogue. I want to watch at least one such movie and come out refreshed and energized, ready to punch the next person I see. (I wonder why my friends never accompany me to a Salman Khan movie ;)

6. Shop till I drop: Can you imagine how insanely taxing is it for a shopaholic, to shop in a “no bargain” country? No, I am not talking about myself here, but about all those ladies who have been pampered by India’s “street shopping”. Who have experienced the luxury of wearing a new dress every day. Who have been pampered by the lavish yet affordable fashion statement of India.

I want to take empty suitcases and shop till each one of them is full, and then shop more to fill Ashish’s suitcases too ;)

7. Most importantly, meet my lovely family and my friends. I have missed them all so much that I don’t know how I am going to survive the next 5 weeks. Mishti, the love of my life, all throughout my stay in Jammu, I want you beside me. I want to cuddle you, hug you, bathe you, brush you, cuddle you more, walk you, sleep with you (Don’t worry Shanu, I am not going to suffocate her to death ;))

To summarize it all, India is a unique place. Earth can be split into three, East, West and India :) Fun, Energy, enthusiasm, love, festivity, dripping from every corner of the country.

Here I come!