Departure

Written over a matter of some days, starting 18th of January

Two weeks left. Roughly. Actually, more like one week left.

I think back now, or begin to look at things, memories, in India, because Nino is leaving and everything last week, circled around this, preparing for her departure with tickets and taxis and preparing for coming back and setting up "a life" again, applying to universities and figuring out where to live, and now as she's scrambled around all afternoon into the dark of the evening in order to pack her rucksack, I too feel as if something is coming to an end for me as well. I start thinking about my own departure, the rough 30 hour train ride awaiting me, from Pondicherry to Mumbai, coming back to Hotel Moti, Colaba Causeway, where everything began in the shadow of Hotel Taj, on the dirty streets and the roads filled with cars driving as if fighting a battle for life and death with soundhorns and swearing in hindi and marathi.

Home sweet oddly tidy home. (YES this is tidy. Nino has packed all her things.)

I think about the other journeys I've made, bouncing inside cars on muddy roads, being brought all the way from rural Nilakkottai to central Madurai by a guy whose name I never grasped, traffic all around us, waiting for my bus till midnight and being dragged from the waiting room into a bus filled with men, not knowing where I was going until the busdriver shouted at me to get off and I somehow manage to find the right bus at the new station and spend a freezing night by an open window, the bus honking till your ears bleed, Bollywood music thumping throughout the night, suddenly time to get off, train station, impossible to find the train because I can't READ MALAYALAM script, finally found a guard, found my train, cup of chai, arrival. Next time, wrong train, waiting for hours and the station in the middle of the night, Indian men staring ominously at my lonely character that confuses them so with my black hair big eyes but to them oddly light skin. Indian families squat all over the platform as we wait, one hour, two hours, pitchblack, bad english being spoken on the speakers and something else that sounds like japanese.

Train arrival, shit I'm the only woman in my compartment, scrambling up to the upper birth and travelling through time and space, not knowing when or where to get off. Black train filled with snoring and the many different scents of food and spices.

Madurai has the best train station ever. Digital signs announce the train both in Tamil and English as well as the wagon numbers as well so that one can start queuing up for your wagon as opposed to just standing all over the place.

So with Nino gone, here I am. David has gone to Bangalore due to the amount of Indian men wanting to beat him up, but I'm not much concerned. AV Security is on the case.