Tat Twam Asi

As I start to write this story, I can't help but wonder how you, my reader, will receive it. My mind races, envisioning your eyes move from word to word, in anticipation of something interesting coming. I hope I can take you through this journey I have made. I hope I can transport you to a certain place, paint the canvas of your mind's eye with a million and one hues of the places I have been to in this trip. I want to fill your ears with the sound of that land, your nose with the smell of its earth, and I want you to take the next few minutes to travel with me, in this journey where I went not just to a place in space but also a place in time, filled with precious memories, some simple and wonderful, some poignant.

In winter of 2010 I traveled to India. At the risk of painting the picture of just another of the living-abroad-working-abroad-visiting-home-every-two-years genre, I have to tell you that I am an Indian girl who lives in the U.S, studied here and work here, and am married, and have a little baby growing up here...

I went to India to visit my family and spend some quality time back home. Not just that, but there were other reasons that made this visit special. My sister was going to get married. My sister-in-law had had a baby. It was our baby's first trip to India. The reasons were endless... However, I found that these were not the only things that made it memorable. The trip took me back to my past, to my years of having lived on that soil, reminded me of my childhood and adolescence, and also at the same time took me to the future, as I watched and spent time with my parents who had grown to be so different from how they were back in my days in India. For these reasons, it was a trip on so many different levels.

Arrival and week one: Chennai

We (my husband, our baby and I) landed in Chennai on November the 25th, in the wee hour of the morning. We were received by my father in law, who actually danced when he saw his grandson, too excited to be his usual composed self. We got home in the huge taxicab that fit all our enormous luggage effortlessly. Our little baby, sat on his grandfather's lap, looking quite dazed as he was allowed to have the most exciting, loud and bumpy ride without being strapped up in a car seat as usual. When we got home, the little prince was received again with boundless excitement, by his grandmother and his aunt, my sister-in-law. And then out of the room was brought a tiny precious boy, her brand new baby. My husband was a first time uncle, excited and happy, and also eager to share his new-found parenting tips and tricks with his sister.

We were really happy to meet our dear uncle (my husband's uncle) too, after nearly 3 years!

That whole week was spent in quite a bit of excitement. Our son, who was locked up indoors in the U.S because of the bad winter, was now in tropical land, free to run where he liked. He would run out into the compound, quite often past the compound and into the road, run behind a dozen dogs, and pick up as many germs as he could, while thoroughly enjoying every bit of it. When we were back indoors, the meals at home never failed to add that extra dash of spice to our trip. My in-laws are food lovers and each day saw a smorgasbord of variety, North Indian, South Indian, you name it!

In the nights we would sleep under a whirring fan... ah, the soothing sounds of India...

This was awesome for us, having spent the past several months working our asses off, both at work and at home, what with the new baby, the difficult economy, the challenges of parenting, the challenges of balancing parenting with career and other activities, and all that good stuff. This was the best my husband and I could ask for- relax! Though physically I still felt weak as a withered leaf, because of the energy running behind my son all day long demanded, mentally I was in vacation, and chilled out!

Bangalore

After a week (our jet lag had bid us its goodbyes by then), it was time to get on a train to Bangalore, where my parents live. My sister was going to get married and cousins and aunts and friends and uncles were to come home! I was excited! The train ride by Shatabdi Express was uneventful (in a good way), except for the diaper changing bit, given that they don't have diaper changing stations in the restrooms. But rest was fabulous. Good food, clean train, beautiful countryside views.

We got to Bangalore where my super-excited parents were waiting restlessly at the station. Needless to say, the first thing my mom said was that she saw little me in my son. We rode back home, while the teeny brat wrecked all the books and brochures and sketchpads my dad had kept in the car.

The days that followed were filled with awesomeness- sweets and other special food delivered home every day, the ceremony to install the Pandal, the auspicious front door decoration with banana shoots and flowers, for the wedding, relatives pouring in, henna ceremony, and all the fun stuff! Added to this was our trips to downtown Bangalore, some interesting coffee shops, and a lovely arts fair at the Chitra Kala Parishad... super!

And of course, all the fun culminated in a grand, fun, memorable wedding ceremony. My baby sister was married! Hard to believe! The occasion drew together many of us cousins. We met for the first time with our next generations, which was especially interesting. Oh, and how can I forget this, the wedding was in the same venue as our wedding. This made the occasion all the more nostalgia-filled for us.

The days after the wedding will remain imprinted in my mind for a long, long time, if not forever. I was in my parents' home, where I had stayed before leaving for the U.S at a young, eager-for-the-world and impressionable stage of my life. I was filled with awe just witnessing my life... coming back to the room where I used to stay, with my son now! And this was the time when I dug up a goldmine of memories from the past. There they were, in a wooden box I had once used to make a pinhole camera as a physics experiment, back in middle school. The box now contained several old letters from friends and relatives from years, and in some cases, decades back. It was (is) kept behind the mirror in a cupboard in what used to be my room when I lived there. Reading the old letters brought memories back, and with it, a torrent of emotions. I wonder whether time distorts memories. I think it does. However, even though specific incidents are skewed, our overall feelings about people, I think remain unchanged...

In the box were letters from my college friend, precious poems of hers and letters from my pen friend from Greece. These and a few old poems and write-ups of mine brought before my eyes an ancient avatar of myself. It was oddly sweet and unnerving at the same time. There was a thick wad of paper with my autobiographical account of the days I spent in the hospital when I had to undergo a surgery. It was amazing that many incidents back then that had really touched me had been wiped out of my memory without a trace. What was more uncanny was when I read the lines "This is something that has had a profound impact on me. In the years to come, I might think of this as just another incident, or might not even remember it, but I want to document that this was an important incident in my life." Hmm...what an elusive thing memory is...!

A couple of things that tore me to pieces were, a letter from my grandmom who is no more, and a greeting card from my uncle who passed away when I was nine. He had sent that card for my birthday when I was, I think seven or eight. It brought back memories... of the first time I had witnessed death in my life as a child of nine, and the first time when I realized that sometimes the young and the old alike, are helpless... That uncle was in the Merchant Navy. I remembered that I used to collect his coat buttons... I even searched for them but sadly enough, couldn't find them...

All my connections to the past that I had compartmentalized deliberately were now in front of eyes, in my mind, in my hands... I felt my past. I felt my DNA. I was somewhere between my past and my present and my future, my son being a definite reminder of the future... I searched for myself everywhere...

The Upanishads say 'Tat Twam Asi', or 'Thou Art That'. The knowledge of this phrase gave me no solace...

Villages and temples, and the Head-shaving Episode

It was time to leave Bangalore. Our plan was for us to make a trip to some temples and the countryside in South India with my parents and in-laws. Also impending as part of that trip was a pilgrimage to Swami Malai, to do the customary head shave for our son... Now if you are me, you will definitely ask why his head has to be shaved. Considering not just that he had the most beautiful locks, but also that we would get back to the U.S in the thick of winter when hair would help keep him warm, I questioned the need for the tonsure. Moreover, my mind went through a riot, between my search for myself, and the coercion to be part of a tribe, to make a holy journey for the cause of the tribe... What was going on in my life, I thought? Does a new generation necessarily bring with it a need for strong loyalties towards traditions, roots, rituals, cultures?

Anyway, the tonsure did happen...

In this trip we visited the beautiful Brihadeeshwara temple in Tanjore that I had been to years back and wanted to go back to. Needless to say, it was fantastic. The light rain that morning made the smell of the earth unbearably divine and delicious... There is something about the energy in certain places. The place took me back in time a thousand years. I was in the stone inscriptions there. I was in the red mud in the compound. I was atop the magnificent shrine, and I was in the half peeled murals... What is this energy that makes you identify yourself with that which you find sacred?* Something just whispered to me... "Tat Twam Asi"...

We ended the visit to this region with our trip to a village. All I can say about it is: Beautiful! It left me with a longing for more. You can find a man I photographed in the village, in the collage here. That reminds me, he asked me if he will ever get to see his picture. How strange traveling is... you capture snapshots of strangers you meet on the way and they are with you for a long, long time... you will likely never meet them again, but you stole a part of them from their past... I should find a way to reach the photograph to that man, somehow!

Departure

As with every trip, this one had to come to an end too. We went back to Chennai, where we spent a couple more days. We had a little 'Cradle Ceremony' for the new baby once we were back. I throughly enjoyed decorating the little fellow's cradle.

The next day was the 20th of December, and we left for the U.S. I left with a heavy heart... I left, emotionally exhausted, and spiritually alive...

It turns out after all, that the universe had decided on a different purpose for my visit. More than just 'time with family', the trip tied me to my past, made me search for my core, and sometimes I did reach it, but I left India feeling a vague longing... I don't know if I am That, but the only thing I know for sure is that I belong in the hearts of those who love me.

I belong not in tradition, but in passion.

I belong not in coercion, but in love.

I belong not in my tribe, but in humanity.

Here's a picture of a card my mother made for me when I was a little girl (back then I used to tell her, "Ma, let's exchange cards", and I would make her a card and she would make me one).

I leave you with a poem I wrote during the trip...

I Search...

I search... for myself
In the morning dust of my mother land,
In words penned eons back,
In old post cards, letters and exotic stamps...
I search, and search...



I search... for myself
In clothes well-folded and kept away for a long, long time,
In photographs from childhood, adolescence and prime,
In little stone temples, broken and being built...
I search, and search...



I search... for myself
In my baby's eyes, and in his smell,
In my aging parents, and faraway cousins,
In winding streets I once walked on...
I search, and search...



I search... for myself
In once familiar food, and once familiar TV soaps,
In my native tongue, and in Sanskrit scrolls,
In stained memories of the past, and strained visions of the future...
I search, and search...



In old music tapes and in Rupee notes,
In broken brick walls and in 220 volts,
In monsoon rains and in my afternoon tea,
In innocence, independence, pride, and poverty,
I search, and search...


I search, and search...




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* I remember having felt this way at a Buddhist temple in Coorg, at a church in the middle of the bustling NYC and at the Palace of the Doges, Venice, Italy.

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Submitted to the ClearTrip 'Trip with a purpose' Contest. You can find my entry here.

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