A Thousand Memories of India, No Photos Required

Not just because I lost them all

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My group of friends in college was eclectic, diverse and amoebic — absorbing anyone who dared to swim too close. Indians were probably the most represented, by birthright or familial link, creating for me an immediate cultural immersion.

One night I would make a promise I vowed to keep — for the first marriage I would journey halfway across the globe. I didn’t foresee it happening as early as it did (though I should have), so less than a year after graduating, I would quit my job, and in the first month of the year 2004, take all my earnings to another world.

Me in College | by Author

From the moment I set foot on India’s rich orange soil, I would never be the same again. The colors, the chaos, the pulse of humanity— it put its hooks in me and never let go.

I was with friends for weeks, then solo, then with newfound friends and families. At the three-month mark, my figurative pockets were still full of cash and I was in zero rush to get ‘home,’ so I popped into an STD and bravely proclaimed, “Mom and Dad, you’ll see me when you see me!”