I dream of driving an SUV across the great Rann of Kutch and hobnobbing with lions at Gir (By hobnob, I mean watch them from a safe distance of course, I have no desire to be eaten up by them!). I would love to contemplate life on the banks of River Sabarmati in Gandhi Ashram and drink toddy on the Mumbai-Surat highway.
Ahmedabad, India, where I recently moved to is a city with lots to explore and of course, to buy as it is a haven for shopoholics. I have an empty new apartment to fill up and turn into a home…the list of activities I wish to indulge in is endless.
However, the reality is searing heat and glaring sunlight that blinds you with a vengeance if you step out without proper protection. This part of the country is in the grip of an intense heat wave, the worst in the last decade. I landed bang in the middle of this after just getting through one of the coldest winters in Cleveland, Ohio. My body does not know what hit it and is struggling to cope with the sudden change, which brings me to my pet topic today, CHANGE.
We love to talk about the difficulties of coping with change. Some people are more prone to struggle with it and others seem to quickly take it in their stride and move on. My life just underwent a drastic change and I am still in the process of coming to terms with it. I spent the last five years in cool, cold Cleveland working in the mental health field and my life was meticulously structured and organized. There was a time and place for everything and there were no surprises except in my workplace, which was to be expected because of the field I was in but it was restricted to work hours.
Then…I landed in large, chaotic, colorful India, I landed in a part of the country that feels foreign to me, an Indian, as it is hugely different from where I grew up before leaving the country. As I struggle and introspect over my struggles, it is beginning to dawn on me that I am not resistant to change but in fact extremely susceptible to it. So much so that, I have totally lost focus on my priorities in the excitement of being acquainted with a different place and culture.
My mind is reaching out in all directions trying to experience as much as it can in a matter of moments regardless of its necessity or viability. Excited by all the novelty around, I wish to savor a thousand things in a single day and then, when I come home, I want the apartment to be as well organized and serene as my place back in Cleveland.
I also expect to have the same energy that I had in a cooler climate and I am impatient about having to rest in the afternoons when the sun is at its hottest. I want the kitchen to run smoothly, although we still have not set it up. All I have is a three-legged electric hot plate, a small fridge and a few pots and pans that makes for extremely cumbersome cooking. We have a housemaid as a housemaid is de-rigueur here due to the nature of things but I am impatient about having to supervise her as otherwise she is likely to shirk her chores. Some days, I wish I could go back to my old lifestyle, where I managed everything at my own pace and was happy with it.
My husband travels a lot on business and I want to travel with him. I have always wanted to write and thought this would be a good time to do it, as I am jobless with no immediate intention of finding one. However, days go by before I can compose myself enough to sit down and write something. I have also signed up for a freelancing job online and have to start training for it.
The reality is that it has only been two weeks since I moved here and I was jet lagged for the entire first week. Although, a minute could change a life, how often does a minute, a day or a week actually change someone’s life? I am extremely frustrated and guess what gets the blame? Change of course is the biggest culprit, and then there is the burning heat and having to adjust to a different life style.
I am doing a shoddy job of prioritizing…blame the change!
I am not doing enough to take care of myself in this scorching heat and have not been able to figure out how to accomplish tasks despite it…blame the country!
Remember this is India we are talking about, a country and culture so large, loud and overwhelming that our inability to cope with it can easily be reframed into hating the reality of life here.
I am probably the biggest culprit when it comes to externalizing my issues instead of looking within for the source of the problem. Nevertheless, I am trying harder this time and let us see how things turn out. A good place to begin is to forget the desert, the lions, the ashram, the toddy and the shopping and work on getting myself grounded in this culture and climate!
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