Holi isn't over

Guess what? I'm stuck. Nobody bothered to tell me that Holi is a two-day holiday, and evidently the only holiday in India that they actually stop bus services for!! So I happily took the (private) bus out of Macleod Ganj, only to find, when I arrived at Dehra Dun, that no public busses are running today, and there aren't any private busses to Uttarkashi. One more thing to chalk up to experience, and one more city to observe blue-faced people (who aren't smerfs) and cows with pink smeared on their foreheads between their eyes...

India has been doing something to me that I so far haven't been able to understand, let alone explain. One of the victims on my mailing list wrote me that I "obviously have a real knack for connecting with people" - which has to be about the most outrageous thing anyone has ever said about me!! I have always considered myself to be the walking, talking definition of the term "anti-social bitch". The only social knack I've ever noticed about myself is the knack to stay out of society even when I'm with people. The thing is, in India, things just happen, pretty much by themselves. I keep meeting people, and getting involved in their lives, and - most amazing - LIKING it, and liking them!!

On the bus out of Macleod Ganj, I was thinking about the people I'd met in 11 days, some of whom I feel really close to - Nisha, with her husband and two children, Ranjiv, Limor, Javid and his brother, Nikki, Ikoko, Tsering, Livnat, Anil, Tsultrim and his monk room-mate - all people with whom I connected so quickly and easily - how did that happen? I had to go and say a personal good-bye to most of them, after less than two weeks!! Where did all this friendliness come from?!? And the same thing happened before that, in Rishikesh, with most of the people staying (or working) at my guest-house. One of the guys working at the guest-house (Phate-Singh, and the "Ph" isn't pronounced like "f", but like "p" with a lot of air after it) stood on the balcony waving until my taxi was out of sight, after he carried my bag to the taxi and we hugged a fond farewell. How did that happen? And there are more, from other places I've been...

Thinking about it now, this is probably the strangest thing that has happened to me here in India, and I think that it is also the major reason I keep feeling like I'd rather live here than anywhere else. I've never felt so open before in my life. You can say that it's all up to me, and that I can hold the same openness regardless of geography. And then I can say that I'm not DOING anything, this is just happening naturally, and it's never happened before, and we could philosophize about it until kingdom come... I suppose that, just like everything else, I'll just have to wait until I get home, and see how things sort themselves out...

The one thing that is crystal clear to me at this point, though, is that there is no end of material comfort that can be given up for the sake of human relationship and companionship - because, believe me, LIFE IS NOT COMFORTABLE HERE. It's hot, it's dirty, it often smells, a clean toilet is like an oasis in the desert (you keep imagining it, but it's always just beyond your reach), a hot shower is considered an unnecessary luxury (even in the snowy mountains), and the only thing that separates between the deluxe busses from the regular, local ones is that the driver thoughtfully takes the hairpin turns on the mountain-side slowly.

So I'm devoting this holiday (Easter, Pesach or Holi, take your pick) to deep thinking... Have a good holiday yourself, whichever one you want (or all three).