My friend Indigo Bubbles has been in India the past few weeks and has been posting some wonderful observations. So now that things have calmed down after my whirlwind of a few months I think I'd like to indulge a little bit in ruminating over India as well.

This was my first trip for leisure in a long time. Several previous trips were about my mom's health, the last one being when she passed so emotionally and mentally I was apprehensive about how I'd feel when I got there. This was also the first time I was going to India with a husband. OK I need to take a detour for a minute...

Can I tell you how weird with a big W it is having a husband? I've woken up a few times in the middle of the night a little freaked because there is someone in my bed. I have times when someone asks me for a drink after work and I don't think twice until I get ready to leave and realize "Shit I have a husband now I might want to check with him." It doesn't help that he lets me still live like I'm single. I never have to ask for permission about anything. He looks at me like I have two heads if I ask him to go somewhere or do something or buy something. He's dealing with his own "this is weird" moments. It's really nice, I have to admit but it's definitely a strange out of body experience to go from being swinging single to being married in less than a year.

OK back to India...arriving in Mumbai you get the feeling that it's a lot like New York. Fast pace, noise, hustle bustle and dynamic but dirty, polluted and there aren't very many rules. New York's chaos is coordinated, deliberate and makes some sense. Mumbai's chaos is a bit overwhelming. Yet almost immediately the moment we walked into my uncle's door, we felt completely surrounded with warmth and love. People are genuinely nice and genuinely interested in talking to you, meeting you and spending time with you. They want to feed you, take care of you, make sure every one of your comforts is met and they do it with genuine hospitality.

Also people are more than willing to take you somewhere, get something done or help you out in any way they can. It could be a cousin or a neighbor or the shop keeper's son that you just met. Of course a lot of people also overpromise and underdeliver but culturally it's very different from the US where if you really can't do something you say no and there is no shame in it. In India people often don't say no and sometimes that can lead to unrealistic expectations.

It's strange arriving with a husband because people immediately treat you differently. They treat you with respect because marriage is held in such high regard. I mean lets get real; I could have married a monkey and it would have still been considered a big deal! I was lucky I married a man most people find adoreworthy and several wondered, some rather obviously; how the hell I landed a American born Maharashtrian Surgeon a la Madhuri Dixit style! To those that don't get the drift apparently my husband is such a big catch I almost don't deserve him and as one aunt suggested 'I should put up with anything he may dole out to me because I'm so lucky he picked me.' You know what's strange? That I could only garner a laugh at that and nothing more. If I was younger and more angst ridden I'd have chewed her a new one.

Being married in India and being older than the average bride in India also brings with it a strange set of expectations. Are you trying for kids? You should try because you never know how long your old ovaries might take to produce one! That's the other thing about India. There are no filters called etiquette when it comes to personal matters. People will openly discuss their bodily functions in detail and ask you personal questions about yours. After a particular woman I had just met in my in laws home kept pushing and prodding me to let her in on the "Are you trying for a baby" secret I got quite flustered and said "We are trying, everday, sometimes several times a day, thank you for asking" and promptly felt embarrassed and turned red after realizing I had just made that statement in mixed company with my inlaws in the room. There was dead silence. The women got up and went into another room to speak to someone else and my mother in law (god bless her) busted out laughing and then everyone laughed about it, until the end of my trip!!

My uncle in law had a mini bus for the week to take the entire visiting entourage on day trips anywhere we wished. The actual trip itself left much to be desired, being on a bus on bad roads and having your bones rattled for half a day is painful. But the experience that goes with being surrounded by family and friends on a road trip, eating a picnic lunch you brought along with you and singing songs is blissful. It's hard to count how many times I went back to my childhood in that week. Being fussed over and pampered and treated with so much consideration and love. My husband's family was absolutely adorable.

When we finally got to Rajasthan I was so desperate for some downtime and alone time with him that it ended up being a real honeymoon. Given all the places we could have visited and all the options we had on earth we both without any argument choose India. Why? I'm not sure. It's more complicated than a simple explanation. I have never traveled thru India and I wanted us to meet each other's families. I also had practical things to take care of like my mom's property issues. He wanted to always go to India with a wife. Apparently guys have dreams of doing things with spouses as well. Who knew?

I suppose for me taking a ABMS (American Born Maharashtrian Surgeon) with me back to the place that chewed me out and kicked me out after my mother died was the best and biggest fuck you there could be. I never did talk about what happened when I was in India. It was really hard. Cremating a mother I expected to be around a long time and loved dearly was something I couldn't describe in words. I was so heartbroken. Then there was the unfortunate discovery that my mother did not leave a will behind. A lot of people including my own family and my mother's family banded together and showed up to claim most of it or at least find a way to screw me. I was followed, watched, spied on and eventually thrown out of her house at 2:00 am in pouring rain. Yes this sort of shit doesn't just happen in the movies. This trip was cathartic in a lot of ways. I received closure of sorts. The bad guys didn't win.

Men are treated like gods in most families. Women tend to them like they would wither away and die if they were left alone or to fend for themselves. It's even worse if you are an eligible bachelor "seeking" a wife. You are untouchable. The men do nothing really. Yes they work but even in households where the women work the men do nothing. Women work like mules literally. They run households, cook, take care of all the kids needs and the needs of inlaws and everyone else in the family, keep everything in order and get pretty much no help from the men. The other side of the men that get treated like gods...a lot of them are total chauvanistic pigs. It's painful to watch them put down their significant others or simply disregard them and give them no importance.

The only hope is that this behavior/attitude is changing with the current generation. Men from my generation don't seem to think it's beneath them to help out their wives and take charge of things in the home.

People eat all day and they eat till late. Everything revolves around food. Breakfast early in the day, tea and snacks around 11:00ish, lunch around 2:00, tea and more snacks around 6:00 and then dinner sometime between 9:00 and 11:00. And even after that they find time to "go for a drive to get ice cream." I was exhausted with all the calls for food and the amounts of food or how rich it was. The food in India is wonderful. Everywhere we went it was amazing and people offered you food regardless of who you were, what time it was and how long you went. But towards the end I couldn't get myself to eat much of it. I longed for simple meals and I felt so sick with all the richness. We are fairly indulgent folks here at home but meals are 3 times a day and on weekends just twice a day so the multiple meals left me confused, filled with the wrong meal and not hungry at the right one and it just spun so many conversations about food and our eating habits it exhausted me.

More later...