The three people I met on the way to NH

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I've been back now since saturday morning. I've been meaning to write down a few things since I got back but I haven't been able to get my thoughts straight until now. Mostly I wanted to describe three encouters I had over the 30 or so hour journey from Dehradun to New Hampshire.





I traveled from Dehradun to Delhi via the 5am train on Friday. I arrived at the train station around noon. My flight to the states didn't leave until 11 that night, so Mayank had arrainged for a taxi to take me to a hotel for the afternoon where I could store my bags/relax until it was time to go to the airport. I'd been in India for a full month by now so I wasn't really suprised when the driver was an hour late and only turned up after two phone calls to Mayank and some legwork on my part. I thought I handled myself very well in that situation and was feelign very good about how open minded and aclimated to the country I had become as we drove to the hotel. Feeling good and talkative I conversed with the driver abotu where I'd been and what I had seen...right in the middle of regailing him with some anecdote there was a knock on the window. There was a girl no oldert than 8 staring up at me from just below the bottom of the window. Her left arm was in the beggars pose: Elbow tight to her side, lower arm loosely flexed so that the butt of her palm almost touched her shoulder and her fingers were curled loosley into her upturned palm. Her right arm was holding a baby that for all intensive purposes looked dead. as he mothed the word "Chapati"


My "open mind" told me to lock the door and I did...the light changed and we drove away.




I got to the hotel shortly after that and since I'd been up now for close to 24 hours and it was hot so I decided to just otrder some fod and some beers and relax in my room until it was time to leave for the airport. I must have dozed off because the "wake up call" from the front desk came almost immmediatly. I got back into yet another taxi and made it to the airport, where I did the usual airport things (check bags, go through security, WAIT) until I borded the plane. I had a months worth of travel behind me and a 14 hour flight ahead of me...I was alseep before we reached crusing altitude.

About an hour or so out of Newark the stewardesses began passing out the customs and immigration forms for everyone to fill out. As I was yanking my passpot out of the overstuffed bag under my seat I notcied the man sitting next to me looking at his forms with a very pained expression on his face. I offeered to help him...now the pained expression was aimed at me...I offered again...this time pantomiming the act of filling out the forms...he smiled and nodded "yes" (This in itself was a relief as for the past month I'd been tryign to decipher the ambiguous Indian head-bob...had he resorted to this form of body language we'd still be on final approach). It turns out he was a tibetan refugee who had been living in exile in Darhmshala, Inidia and was immigrating to the US to reunite with his wife whow as in the Bronyx. I was able to figure out he was tibetan over the course of an hour with the help of a chinese-english dictionary, a VERY CRUDE map of india drawn by yours-trully, some very poor sign language..the restof the info was supled by the random tibetan who showed up five minutes before we landed and offered to translate... Hey at least I get an "A" for effort.

After all the forms were filled out I think we were both pretty wiped out form the effort of communicating. I put on my airline supplied headphones and he loked out the window. Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff were singing Summer time and I rememebr being happy I would be home in NH for the summer again... but before I got too far into my day dreams I notcied my neighbor was staring out the window watching the lights of New Jersey get bigger and bigger and I realized that his guy was seeing America for the first time. I can't even begin to imagine what was going through his mind but I hope he was happy and that he finds everythign he's looking for here.


My third and final encounter wasn't really an encounter at all...it was more of an observation of behavior....I was waiting for my connecting flight to Manchester halgf reading my book, half dozing off when a couple sat down across from me.

They were middle ageed and wearing enough travel clothing to be trendy although I'd be wiling to bet that upon inspection, the impracticality of their duds would revel itself in a "dry clean only" tag. The man was holding up the end of a one-sided conversation:

"...and a few years ago GM was going to buy Fiat. Now Fiat wants to buy GM...it's funny how things change"
The woman just nodded...deep into her issue of "Financial Times." The man picked up a magazine and held it in front of his face so I had a clear view of its cover....the picture was of a brilliant stainless steele kitchen. The headline: "HOW TO SPEND IT"

I picked up my camera and snapped a picture as clandestinely as I could...despite the flash they didn't even notice.


I want to thank everyone for taking the time to read this blog and commenting on it while I was away. I have pics of everything but I'm having ahard time gettign them up here...if anyone wants to see any part of the tri[p in particular or had any question si'm always available....until next time.


Jim

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Comments

[Ginny Simpson]

thanks
Jim, you have given all of us a special gift. Your journey and your thoughts are incredible. I will never forget your humor, frustration, admiration and sadness as you portrayed your travel and life over the past month. It is an honor to know you and I look forward to seeing the great doctor you will be. See you in September........Ginny

[Kelly]

Thanks for sharing
Hey Jim- Thanks for sharing your travel stories. It's definitely an amazing thing to visit a totally foreign country for a long period of time. Good luck with whatever comes next! kelly