Eyes still Opening

I hardly sleep. I have packed my sleeping bag and the Indian Winter which claims each night is cold; even in my bed, my own room, its still cold. Someone is playing a guitar badly on the roof top of the hotel opposite. The happiness of the singing is annoying me. I am sad. Every time I feel the sting of the salt in my eyes I chastise myself. Grow up! I tell myself. You will be back. You are going because you booked the ticket so accept responsibility for your decisions! But my advice does little to soothe my self. The voice of my father echoes in my ears. 'So why are you going if you are happy there?' So simple. So true.

In the morning the communal alarm clock wakes me from a crazy dream. Faces of India appeared to say good bye to me. The most bizarre of all was Vijay who poked his head around the door wearing his yoga shorts and sports cap, looked uncomfortable and confused and then turned around unable to wish me farewell. The echo of the muezzin call fades into vibrations mixing with the disappearing creations of my subconscious. My eyes open and I contemplate a hundred thoughts at once: The height of the ceiling, what I still need to pack, that today has arrived and today I will leave India. I debate a final cold water bucket shower, and despite the luxury of 24 hour running water I am not in the mood for its icy fingers to kiss my skin and numb my bones.

Instead I fight my dive gear back into my rucksack, pay the Old Man his tip of fifteen rupees and wake The Man Outside.

Fortunately, The Man Outside is laying in his usual sleeping spot but I was still reluctant to take him from what I know to be a sleep scattered with car headlights and the ache of rock hard concrete. But on my last morning I wanted to give The Man Outside a gift of my Clouds in the Sky Yoga Mat. I knelt down besides his mummified body – a donated sleeping bag engulfing him with the added security of his blue blanket sealing his head from The World. He peeked through the edge of his covers. Like an undercover agent I passed through the rolled up mat. Long fingers extended and lifted the corner of the mat to inspect the Rainbows and the Clouds it contained and then slowly continued to pull it into the safety of his bundle of sleeping possessions. I handed in another bag of unwanted trivialities: An apple (to keep the doctor away), batteries (so I didn't have to throw them away), socks (to fit snuggly under sandals), candles (in case the street light pops) and an assortment of papers and magazines (to provide a mornings entertainment, stimulation and recollection.) I said a 'Good Bye' but I did so quietly, aware of how intrusive I have already been walking into someone's bedroom uninvited, and at the same time surrendering to my innate aversion to farewells.

A new friend appeared. Her smiling eyes absorbing a little of the sinking feeling flooding my body. She took a bag from my collection and together we woke up a taxi driver who was sleeping in the back of his shiny yellow Ambassador. For the privilege (or rather luck) of being the first customer of the new day, only seconds of bargaining were required to ensure the use of the meter, and my dive gear and yoga books were deposited. And then finally - for the final chai – a staple of my time in India, a tribute to the friends I had shared a chai with, friendships which had even been secured over a chai; to all the early mornings at the Mother House where I would pour a triple serving of chai and try to tempt my eyes wide open; to the incredible morning chais at Sishu Bhavan where I would leave Gita for twenty minutes and actually meet those who I was working alongside – the doctors, the students, the mothers, the social workers, the poverty tourists; the utopic, the committed, the shocked, the brave and the naive. In memory of the night buses which would screech to a halt in the middle of nowhere-chai heaven; and to all the chai wallahs and their boy servants across the country, who I have watched as they expertly boiled tea leaves, added just the right amount of sugar and then a whole heap more, and then who pour a hot sweet comforting cup of chai with a taste which was always totally and utterly unique. As I sipped my last chai on Sudder Street, and rolled the clay pot between my palms, feeling the chalky residue and then tasting it between my lips, I heard the depth of my breath as my senses pulled within; a self protection to the tears which would undoubtedly fall if the mind kept thinking as much as the eyes kept seeing and the ears listened. I spoke distractedly with my new friend of her planned work with children in Kathmandu, and I felt the echo of my own indecisions reverberate through my thoughts. A ting ting ting snapped me back to the present as I stared into the face of a sadhu. I smiled in response and he reached up to paint my forehead with a red dash adorned with a white dot. A dash to symbolise the so-called 'third eye'; the eye to see deeper then everything which is superficial. A dash invisible to me but which will accompany me across the ocean – a textured physical mark of this morning, this chai, this country; this potential memory and so much more.

I hugged my friend as she left to work at Nirmal Hriday- the House for the Dying and Destitute which had shaped my first days in Kolkata, intensified my reactions and held a cracked mirror up to my own fears and inadequacies.

I pulled the taxi door shut. Bang, Click. My mind whirled through the past, present and future. I chatted – relaxed, reluctant, anxious - with the taxi driver as I remembered my first – nervous, excited, wide eyed - journey into the city. As we drove through the slums I spied Prem Dam and thought of the severely disabled children who I had watched perform a Christmas musical. I remembered how they had smiled and swayed and singed and drummed with a diligence which had proved their potentials. I realised how familiar these once alien streets were, and how much I have learned and understood and how much I have still to learn and to understand, to see within this myriad of a country – this maze of cultures, contradictions, poverty and riches.

The taxi left the illicit rickshaws and decrepit buses of the road and pulled into the cultivated concrete car park of the airport. I watched as waiting relatives played cricket to an audience of taxi drivers, while Muslim men held their heads high, intricately crotched white kepiah shining out their recent pilgrimage to Mecca. Another click bang click. My spontaneous smile betraying my emotions as the taxi driver insisted on finding a wobbly trolley to transport my luggage. I would see him soon I told him and then I followed the wobbly trolley as we both wandered aimlessly into the airport. Mixed emotions, confusion, weighing down my heavy footsteps. Willing my ticket to be cancelled again, wondering if fate were strong enough to pull me back to the middle of the chaos I did not want to leave. I spoke a of 'Namaste's' as I filed through passport control and back again. And then finally the wet ink stamped down on my precious Indian visa and I walked into the departure lounge. Filled with business men, rich families and a scattering of typically dread-locked tourists I zoned out of the no-man's land around me and stared through the soundproofed thick glass windows. I submitted to my senses and as I did, I almost felt my iris's dilate as they tried to absorb a final image of India.