The Second Chapter of an Extraordinary Journey: a Bit of a Bumpy Beginning, but that’s OK
If, like me, you supposed I’d weathered the worst in my previous post, you wouldn’t be completely incorrect.
But then you wouldn’t be completely correct, either.
In the possible situation that you haven’t found out by now, you’ll discover soon enough that misunderstandings are quite the motif of this blog.
And, while we’re on the subject, why don’t we make make this the first place in my blog where I caution you, dearest reader, (among the several more warnings that are to follow): assumptions can be dangerous things.
Double, triple, and quadruple-checking that there was nothing left behind in the front pocket of the plane seat I’d been sweating an Indian Ocean in for thirteen hours straight (not that I’d ever been klutzy enough to leave anything behind before *cough cough then-new Iphone 5S which mysteriously disappeared on my flight to Korea*), I anxiously undid my rumpled bun and attempted to look somewhat presentable.
When I emerged from an airbridge brimming with passengers, it was only a matter of seconds before a certain person with blonde tresses came into view, among a sea of ebony-colored heads; without even checking that figure’s facial features, I knew I had correctly pinpointed the fellow Borlaug-Ruan intern who would be working beside me for the next eight weeks.
Her name is Olivia Tidwell, and, wildly different from the rather interesting (haha Olivia 😜) air of intimidation she exuded, back to the May orientation hosted by the World Food Prize at the Hall of Laureates, she proved to be one of the spunkiest, bubbliest, and strangest people I’ve encountered in a long time. Olivia’s greenish-blue eyes found mine, and, with matching paces, we slowly ambled on over to each other with fatigued yet nonetheless excited grins illuminating our sleepless faces.
Because I am, after all, a taciturn individual, my inability to devise a more fitting conversation-starter other than “Well, how was your flight?” at the moment, was really only quite natural.
Yet I was ill-prepared for the verbal avalanche that would come tumbling out of her lips.
“Oh, it was amazing; I had the time of my life! An elderly person next to me offered me a whole chunk of his raw coconut, which was weird but so cute of him, and a 40-year-old Canadian-Indian man who owns these restaurants gave me a list of the top places I have to visit in India. Oh my god, did I mention the spiky-haired male flight attendant who randomly asked for my number?”
Even after having argued, chortled, and sleeptalked with Olivia on a nearly 24/7 basis for a little more than two weeks, it still fascinates me how a person can talk so rapidly and be so unfailingly articulate at the same time. Any further responses from her were unnecessary for me to identify her loquacious personality.
Talking, joking, and yawning all the way — with my new partner driving most the tête-à-tête — , we swiftly wove through Customs and found ourselves parked at Baggage Claim #14 in an unrealistically short amount of time.
The wait for our baggage, namely my two colossal, purple ones, to come was unfortunately not as speedy a process, much to our misery.
Perhaps by the law of nature (which seems to greatly disfavor me for some enigmatic reason), Olivia’s luggage arrived much, much earlier than mine did. As I slowly but surely crippled under a mini existential crisis and prayed for my bags to magically find their way back to me, all the while cursing (mentally of course) my terrible luck and seriously contemplating whether I should call Crystal or solitarily continue my silent suffering, Olivia was actually productive and managed to exchange her dollar bills into rupees — something I would get to do only 13 days later!1!1!
And so if it only weren’t for the hordes of people milling around or my extremely fragile ego, I probably would have performed a small celebratory dance when my luggage rolled up (British pun unintended) after an agonizing 40 minutes. Instead, I decided to give both myself and my ego a bit of a break and wheeled the two behemoth monsters on over to the EXIT sign and out, until I spotted a laminated placard printed with my name.
Waving the placards in the air was a driver sent by the Sehgal Foundation, and, though the language barrier (with him speaking Hindi and us English) complicated communication between the three of us, his friendly, crinkly-eyed smile was all I needed to feel welcome.
There is something huge, ancient, and beautiful altogether about the nighttime scenery of India.
Not a single star was in sight on the night we set foot in the country. Yet, despite being veiled in a white film due to industrial pollution, as I would later find out, the city of Gurgaon did not at all lay serenely asleep.
In fact, Gurgaon practically pulsed with life.
Rumbling and tumbling over gravelly roads and whisking this way and that past dimly-lit buildings of all shapes and sizes, the car (whose steering wheel, to my wide-eyed amazement, was located on the right) rode like a rickety roller coaster, due to the atrocious driving on the roads and ill-respected traffic rules and regulations.
All too often during the 25-minute drive to our dorms, I caught myself in the act of either squeezing my eyes shut or mashing my hands together because the car was — I kid you not — a hair’s breadth away from hitting a hasty pedestrian.
Although the India I could only make out on that first night was heavily shrouded in fog and darkness, several other changes, minus the horrendous traffic and driving, between India and my home country were discernible.
To give you an idea:
- There was an interesting mix of Hindi and English written across the signs, posters, and buildings we passed.
2. Olivia and I (especially Olivia, with her distinctly Aryan features) were gaped at, pointed at, and even photographed in public.
3. We saw significantly more stray cows than dogs on the streets.
In retrospect, my startled reaction to those changes marked the beginning of the culture shock that would suddenly come crashing down upon me without warning, much like the sporadic spasms of lightning that bleached yesterday’s purple evening sky for a split second, only to be snuffed out after letting loose a couple of deafening roars.
And when lightning struck on the Thursday of that week, a new door would be opened to a world completely and irreversibly changed from the one I’ve come to know and accept for so long.
