DAY DREAMING

At office... My soul feels like a trapped bird. Today I want to...
- feel winter air in my lungs
- look at fresh blossoms
- plant basil on my kitchen window sill
- browse a shop for vintage clothes
- sit in the Tuilerries garden and sip on a Perimenthe
- hug a dog
- walk and feel the fresh spring air in my face
- explore a city with a camera in hand
- see something excruciatingly beautiful and feel my heart swell
- take black and white photos of Gurtaj
- have coffee with my mother
- arrange flowers
- learn to mambo
- eat strawberry sorbet at Ile Saint Louis
- visit my grandmother and talk about the old times
- run my fingers through her white curly hair
- create a beautiful living room
- rinse my hair with diluted apple vinegar for extra shine
- look at a clear blue sky and feel like crying with joy
- take a bus and miss my stop, just because I felt like
- I want to be greeted with a smile and smell of cinnamon at the neighbourhood baker
- sit on a wooden planks floor and listen to jazz while leafing through magazines

Where is home?

It's one of these days, when there's a woman inside my head, screaming and demanding answers. Looking for a meaning. Looking for a straw of logic to hold on to. Trying to reconcile "loving India" with "making sense of India". Struggling to remember the person I once was, before moving stock and barrel thousands of kilometers from everything I knew and everyone who knew me upside down. And almost burning all bridges behind me.

There are sometimes days, when I realise that I have gone through months of total haze and robot-like motions. Then I look around and it hits me: I live here now... Yes, after 8 years I still have "moments of truth". I don't know if people around me realise it: the monumental nature of this move. Although I did it totally in love, not caring of any consequences. With a heart wide open. Till recently, I did not realise it myself. I wonder if then I had this knowledge, I would have still made the move. I look at my husband, and I know - I would have done it in a heart beat.

But nevertheless, here I am today, ridden with questions and so few answers. The most important one being - who am I? Trying to put together the pieces I have left behind, and the new traits of Me in India. Struggling to remember the idealistic beliefs in humanity I had, many of which I have had to put to rest here. The dreams and visions of myself which will probably never come true. The belief that love conquers all, no matter what circumstances life throws at you. The conviction that people change, and tradition, religion and pre-conceptions of how life should be, stop to matter when you are consumed with so much passion...

With the adrenalin rush going down, it all starts to sink in. This is not an adventure, it's life. This is not a wild ride, it is a marriage, which I have accepted to live in a totally foreign, sometimes incomprehensible culture. And this is not a country on my list of 1000 Places To Visit Before I Die, this is home... This is the time when the hundreds of small rivers of life come togeher, and one big stream starts flowing full strenght to the unknown.

This is the time for some important decisions and reconciliations.

- I may never be able to raise my children the way I was raised, the way my parents are raised
- they will have very different memories from mine
- they will live customs and everyday things completely foreign to me
- I may have a son with long hair - who may be a complete misfit in Bulgaria
- I will speak with my children a language their father does not understand, and they will speak to their paternal grandparents a language I do not understand
- I may have to accept that most of my Bulgarian relatives will go through the most important moments of their lives without me around
- and I will go through some of the most important moments of my life without them around
- I may have to burry a very large part of my rebelious self and start being "more accepting"
- there are certain things about myself that my husband will never understand
- there are things I loathe about India that will NEVER change - I am the one who will become harder
- I will NEVER wear a floating white dress and will never be kissed in public
- I may have to accept cremation as a last rite, although I fear fire more than anything else
- I may have to accept that one day, after everyone around me is gone and my kids are away studying in whetever country they choose, I will be here alone

I miss home today SO MUCH! But I am afraid that if I say it to my mother, she will say "I told you so" and if I say it to my husband, he will feel guilty for no fault of his.

Remains if the day

My spirituality and outlook to life has been challenged way too frequently lately and I wonder why. Because, you see, I believe that everything happens for a reason. And the last two weeks have been like a roller coaster of emotions.

Three people are dead, in just the space of these two weeks...

First, the son of one of our closest friends, almost family. He was coughing, so he went to the chemist with his parents to get cough syrup. He dropped right there... A massive heart failure.

A week later, I found out that a person who has been a constant presence in my life in Bombay, Janet Fine, has succumbed to cancer. She had sworn the few who knew into secrecy. I will remember her as one of the liveliest and most energetic people I have ever known. But most of all, as someone extremely enterprising and full of ideas. Another very rare thing about Janet was that she was so very unselfish about her contacts! If she thought someone could be useful or interesting for someone else, she would do anything to facilitate these two people meeting and being in touch. There were times she has called me out of the blue just to say that something she knows I would love is happening across town, and promptly offering to give me a lift. She also made sure I became a member of American Women of Bombay, which gave a brand new dimension of my life here. I will always be grateful for that, and will always fondly remember her CoHO Saturdays - some of the best spent in my life! I went to her apartment the next morning after I found out, to check on Janet's beloved cats. Looking at her apartment and not having her around was a hard, throat choking experience. The cats looked happy. Which reassured me. I believe animals have a sixth sense. So if they were happy, janet must have been in a better place.

But what really hit me was the way life was just going on...

The same evening, the son of my husband's company's VP, just 17 years old, died in the most tragic accident.

We were both stunned... What was happening around us? Why? What was life trying to tell us? Why so many coincidences.

We went to the hospital where the body was kept, just to see if we can help. The father was crushed. I don't think you EVER recover from anything like this.

The hospital looked terrible. I did not even want to go inside. Everything looked dilapidated and old. There was a stray dog coming in and out as if it was his home. Hospital staff was pacing up and down in dirty uniforms. Some of them were just standing around in lungis. a really old, shabby woman walked into the morgue... A wounded man was brought in by a rickshaw, and unqualified drivers and cops just helped him shuffle into his wheelchair. A prisoner was taken back to jail after treatment. Despite the tubes sticking out of him, he was just put down to lie on the bench of the police van, far from being long enough to let him rest comfortably. And I suddenly realised. That there are high chances I may die in this country, in a hospital like that, surrounded by completely foreign people. I will not even be understanding the language they are talking. I was terrified. And I just wanted to go home, to things I am familiar and comfortable with.

An even scarier thought occured to me. The few christian cemeteries I have seen here were in a complete state of desolation, with garbage dumps right next to them. The thought of cremation terrifies me. I have always been uncomfortable around fire.

The next day, life continued, I drove past movie halls showing mvies these three people will never see; heard songs they will never hear again... Life was going on... Is life really just waiting for death?

Chandigarh Whispers

I am lying on the bed in an airy, cool, green room, in scented rose-patterned sheets.

I am looking at the pink and white blossoms of bougenvillas swaying in the November breeze.

A bird is peeking at me from outside the window, then another, and it shows off its tail to me, unfolding it like a white fan.

Two dogs are sleeping under my bed, and I can hear them shuffling in their sleep.

I have a wonderful book to read.

I am served lunch in the blue sunny room - crunchy okra, amber-coloured lentils, puffy chappatis, and plump red tomatoes with sweet red onions. Delicious simplicity! Followed by a moist cake with black coffee. The dogs are begging.

I am alone in the house. Nobody is asking for my attention. I can do whatever I want, on my own pace.

I can see the sun outside, but inside the air is crisp - this house is built the old way, to keep the cool (and the warm when necessary) in.

I am actually... at complete and blissful peace....

All roads lead back home...

We can talk about the world becoming a global village as much as we want. We can talk about cultures transcending barriers and merging. We can talk about our ability to adapt till we become hoarse. But let me tell you something: I have realised that a human life comes down to some basic things - the comfort of familiarity, bond and 'sameness'. There is a very famous song (the one which preaches 'don't forget the sunscreen') which says that whatever you do in life, you should always try to reduce the geographical distance between you and those who have seen you grow up... It's so true. Being the only child, I was always sort of rebellious. I wanted, longed to get out of Bulgaria and live away. And that came true. I can't be further away from my birth place.

The euphoria of 'difference' sustained me for very long. I loved the adventure. I loved the thrill. I felt like I was on this endless vacation, a wild ride. But when the years go by and life sinks in, you realise that noone understands you more than those who have been brought up with the same aspirations, with the same challenges or luxuries as you... And that noone will ever feel for you, see into your deepest soul corners, more than your birth family, and your childhood friends. However much you put on a show, they always know what is happening inside.

'AHA' moments, when this truth has hit me like a hammer:

- Tonight, drinking with my girlfriends - Steph from France, Karen from Belgium, Jill from the US (Sheerine from France was sick, and Kirsi from Finland is away on a vacation). From the outside, I am sure we were looking just like a bunch of spoilt rich firangs yapping away, complaining about maids, drivers, roads, airports etc. But I wish everyone the feeling of 'sameness' that I mentioned before, that I experienced tonight. I know that these women heard and understood everything I said, without thinking I am racist, without thinking I am coming from some sort of pedestal. They knew, because we are brought up with the same habits, values, dreams and way of doing things, very diffrerent from the realities here (not saying better, not saying worst - just DIFFERENT). And it is not that I don't find this sort of connection with my Indian friends, it's not that they are less precious to me. But put simply, these women understand 'where I'm coming from'.

- My mother coming to visit me. I know that she just has to look at me and know whant I feel. She knows what hurts me, what makes me happy... No questions asked. Even a simple gesture like putting a bag of mine away is filled of pure love... How can I even live away from her???

- In Sofia last May, leaving my aunt in bed, hurt in a car accident, before coming back to Bombay. I bursted out crying in the elevator. My husband and my uncle felt awkward. My cousin Kathy, just looked at me at reached out to hug me. No words exchanged. Just a simple gesture. She understood what I felt.

I love my husband. And I have a beautiful life in India. But with time I understand that I am destined to live with this huge void, without a crucial support and understanding I used to underestimate to badly...

The Beginning

I have a brand new laptop - a sunshine yellow Dell. I stumbled upon a interpretation of the colour yellow, and it said it is the colour of creative pursuits. So I took it as s sign and decided to start this long-planned blog. It is a bit scary thinking that the thoughts I write here will be out there for the world to read. But what I hope to achieve is

1. That other women, "stuck between two cultures" associate with my ramblings.
2. Promote the beauty and richness of India to the world, and show my adopted home beyond the newspaper cliches.
3. Find some answers to the question which always hounds me: why India?

I am also creating a work space for myself in the guest room - an old desk, and a few colourful box files are all I need.

Let the adventure begin!