These are the days

Okay, so you really have to just close your eyes and picture this: Friday is market day in Palghar... the fruit vendors and trinket sellers come early from all over Thane District, placing battered mats and tarps along the sides of the main road, forcing already congested traffic to draw further into the middle, motorcyclists swerving around cows and honking loudly at suicidal rickshaws. By the time I'm walking to work at 9am (you *never* drive in Palghar on Fridays, unless you're looking to end up in a muddy pile with a bunch of cattle), the market is in full swing; brightly-dressed vegetable sellers shout out prices as women rummage through produce piled high on mats, gold and plastic bracelets clinking together briskly; the smell of fish and fried corn warms the air, surrounding the scavenging dogs sniffing at raw meat and old women chopping feverishly with impossibly large knives. There are fresh fruits, pressed towels, combs, socks, shiny bindis, yards of silk cloth, tiny coffee cups and recently slaughtered chickens. As I'm walking through it begins to rain... actually, to be more accurate, it never really rains in Plaghar... instead, it pours, like God throwing buckets of water down from his swimming pool (come on, he's got to have a swimming pool).

The rain is heavy, pounding, splashing in puddles and quickly turning them into flowing rivers that wind along the road and flood the marketplace. Umbrellas are cracked open, saris lifted, spools of plastic thrown over heads and wandering children. In my brilliance, I don't have an umbrella, and for a few minutes duck under a crumbling awning, taking refuge amongst flies and a bored security guard. Deciding to continue on, I resign myself to getting completely soaked and focus on my surroundings... and this is what I see: walking calmly along the middle of the road, two young children in tow, is an elderly Adivasi (tribal) woman. Her gray hair is matted down from the rain and her short violet sari is soaked, exposing the white blouse underneath. She's walking along slowly, calmly... children in one arm and... a monkey on a leash in the other! And not just any monkey - this was clearly a mommy monkey, with (presumably) her child pressed tightly underneath her belly, all four little paws wrapped around her back. I just stood (ankle-deep in a puddle) and stared as she walked by, calm-looking monkey in tow. I kept staring until I realized it's pretty cold in the rain, then shrugged and continued on. Hell, it's India.

Sometimes India angers me, startles me, or threatens to turn me into an overweight high school girl, wanting to crawl into bed with a pint of ice cream and watch Friends re-runs. But mostly, India fascinates me... some days i feel comfortable here, almost forgetting that i'm halfway around the world... and then, there are the days with monkeys. It's been a difficult week, but i've done my best to throw myself into work (more on that later) and vacation planning... it seems to be working, i'm finally smiling again. There's not much more I can say about Moti and my feelings afterwards... I was angry and saddened by the sensless loss, and, perhaps, temporarily blinded to the good all around me. I'm going to say that allowing myself to fully feel and then emerging from the emotional roller coaster makes me stronger, tougher, thicker-skinned and better able to take on the world. I'm going to say that with a deep breath and hope i'm right. I read other people's blogs (my favorite: "Suddenly...Sudan", written by a rather eloquent ER doc), surrounding myself in their narratives, imagining being in their shoes. The truth is, as much as we can suppose and contemplate, we can never know what it's like to have someone else's experience, and even less what it would be like to actually be that person, in that situation. I'm going to say that I handled myself appropriately, that i'm stronger as a result, and that anyone else would have felt the same way. I'm going to say that because I have to believe it... and, I guess, because there really isn't anything else to say.

I'll write more about my work's progress later... I hope everyone back home is having a wonderful weekend. Now, i'm just wondering... maybe I could get my own pet monkey? ;).