texts from india
~ and some reflections ~
did u receive one of these? no? well, now u have.
02-19-23
Such a nostalgic familiarity to the way I landed here, directly to the Trident Nariman, a fancy hotel in Mumbai, transported by hired driver after a 4 hour customs line. I could be six years old, traveling w my parents to Shanghai for the summer as usual, playing in the expansive closets & 89th floor lounge at the grand hyatt sponsored by apple, everything so much grander than me, everything so bright. It was nearly 5am when I got to the hotel, giddy. Ordered room service before surrendering to sleep.
02-21-23
In Bhopal now. Ran 3k this morn & did a free personal training session at this Marriott (did chest and shoulders lol) at dawn & had the most beautiful Indian breakfast spread, my gut biome is holding up. Inshallah it continues to do so. (you’ll be amused to know I bought the probiotics you got last time & am religiously eating 2/day) Tired but in a sweet way, and now it’s 11am about to start the day & visit w some folks / purchase some supplies. I’ve learned that the circle in the middle of the Indian flag 🇮🇳 is from the lion of Ashoka, a real king from the Maurya empire, one of the first champions of Buddhism, like Charlemagne for Christianity, converted in victory, but unlike him, converted when he viewed the blood river, the human suffering and cost of war,,, altho this may be propaganda from his era, like the obelisks / etc these stories are also erected on tall penis like statues depicting his great acts, and his dhamma (set of edicts). ~s
02-22-23
Filming things versus experiencing things — how to characterize this dichotomy (is it a dichotomy?) For context, I’m in India with a Spanish film crew for a brand deal. We were welcomed into the home of our artists, to witness a set of traditions upon their land and to document it. It would be more difficult to be invited into experiences like these without some utility and pre-existing access to communities, but there is something uniquely odd about standing in someone’s house and witnessing something & telling them to start again because the angle wasn’t right.
Our guide is an Indian speaking Spanish (and English and Italian and Hindi and Tamil and Telugu) and I’m getting maybe 70% of what he says in Spanish because it’s super proper in pronunciation, but like 20% of what the Spanish are saying lol. On the bus into the villages…
I’m also meditating on this idea of what is “real life” — there’s something that feels so temporary about the time in India / my fellowship stuff / my various experiments. I have this sense that real life is back in SF, like I’m living two lives at the same time. It’s not really like a traveling mindset (where things are temporary intentionally, so you can immerse entirely for the duration). It’s instead like I’m living a duplicate life & a real one — there is part of me that’s anchored in SF, having already built a life, a set of loves, a series of knowings. And even away, that part of me is living that life there, thinking “this one is already mine” … I suppose if it is mine, that life, it’ll be there a few months later too
02-23-23
Visited the temple of the local God, where a daily ritual sacrifices of chicken and goats occur. We removed our shoes in respect of the customs, but pressing my feet on these temple grounds was somewhat difficult. I think there’s this visceral component that I’ve underestimated to animal sacrifice, that it 1) needs incense to cover the smell, 2) actively feels antiquated, the baking flesh in the hot sun surrounded by flies and the caking of blood in patches on the floor, and 3) provokes in me questions of belief and tradition — how much is belief, how much is tradition: that people have done it for so long? how do rituals continue and normalize, and how do they end? how interested are they in inviting outsiders to experience the rituals too? Also — in my own ritual death, lol, how will I limit a sense of reversion for others? Alternatively, should I? Is the reversion towards death a super Western framework?
02-26-23
Life is finally feeling more tangible, like I’m actually living my own life!! So tired, but also so alive ~ few days of traversing of rural India & back in Mumbai for one day for a photo shoot, today again rural at an artists’ wedding / art workshop combo a long 3.5 hr drive away ~ learning a few things in Hindi, “what’s ur name, my name is shannon ” has almost become a mantra as it’s one of the only things I can say haha ~ food is amazing, really missing leaves and fruit (still being vigilant on eating only cooked things and uncut fruit with its own peel). Now I’ve allowed myself the ability to eat street food yumm, inshallah good gut continues ~ we said goodbye to the Spanish brand we were working with yesterday; I actually miss them, felt so sweet towards Andrea & Carolina & Santi by the end. Rare that you like everyone in a group, especially traveling and working, and I liked them all ~ also I now know the plot of the Ramayana & the Mahabharata, so I’m feeling learned. Much folklore & customs imbued into the work of the artists, generally more localized though (not the major works but small stories). I bought a painting called “searching seeds” will share when I’m back. xxx ~s
02-28-23
Closing the work part of my trip. Got to spend a lot more time with my new boss Rebecca and some teammates Ritwik and Laya in an airbnb in Mumbai. Feeling wild that I actually believe that a lot of the stuff this organization does matters, and that I have the wherewithal to move it along in the next few months. This negotiation of scope I had with her was interesting too, a feeling of building trust, building openness — I imagine I’ll have to do this type of dance many times in life.
03-01-23
My feeling of foreignness expands the longer I stayed India. I think there are some places you go to and you feel like “this could belong to me, this could be mine.” India didn't feel like mine at all.
Strangely, perhaps, it wasn’t that any individual place or person was all that different. The towns and villages -- bhopal, jhabua, ganjad -- were what I thought they'd be. I saw the workings of a government culture department loaning us space, I saw the slums of bhopal where our artists lived and offered us chai in their living room (15 people together to greet us), I saw a proud shotgun carrying village artist lead us to his home for a dance and dinner (a 10 min hike through the fields). These things, many of them first time experiences, were easy to process; anywhere, you'll find the generosity and curiosity of the people, the bureaucracy of government (we bribed 4 policemen on a photoshoot in Mumbai), and the gatherings of a small group of people in communion with one another.
The energy of this place feels different though -- the flow of life itself. Not any one person (most every person felt relatable), but a people and a practice of life. I wish I could be more specific, but I don't think I totally know.
There's so much to wonder at; I find myself wholly in a place of not knowing, really like a child witnessing many things for the first time, everything from the jobs of the Spanish brand partners to the ritual practices at the temple of babadev, from the ways of tea processing in munnar to the story of the ramayana. Most things I can't place in context, so even the most basic questions come out of my mouth. And there have been such wonderful interpreters for me of the questions I've asked, grateful.
03-02-23
Solo in Kerela, the Southern backwaters and tea plantations. Night one, I met a random guy from the area on the road who had dinner with me & told me to walk with him along the boardwalk. Then, he proposed going to Munnar together; he’d show me all the spots. We could ride a scooter the whole way, stay at his friend’s place.
lol I didn’t do that. Rebecca keeps talking about mushroom moments, moments of random connection and craziness, don’t overplan and let the things come to you. India as a place that spans the entirety of human joy and pain, evil and goodness; that you can control the experiences you have and the energies you give out into the world.
Maybe if I were 2 years younger, I would have gone with him. It’s not that age makes me more cautious (I actually feel pretty confident that it would have been “fun”); instead, I think age has made me less interested in meeting and knowing everyone. Maybe that “traveller’s mindset” — an ephemeral and intimate knowings of another — has left me. I’m not interested in ephemeral anymore, not that I necessarily have ever been. Seeking silence and solitude among tea plants, I think.
03-03-23
Cashews are the most humbling item for me. The sneaky cashew has gotten me now 5 times in this here India (Chicken curry SFO to LHR, Good Day cookie 1 but I thought it was the cardamom tea, Good Day cookie 2 and finally read the ingredients list, in pesto paste in an omelette, unlabeled and twice reassured curry at the airport in kochi). This is barring every time I asked and almost ate cashews!! Cashews galore, cashews as the gut equalizer, cashews to remind me of my humanity!!
Eating cashews feels like getting poisoned in battle on Pokémon. The slight shake of the DS every few steps & the shiver on the screen. Throw up before u die lol.
Cashew frequency in vegan meals is most disturbing for this here non-cashew eater. Many vegan things use cashews as a thickening agent, and thusly cashew butter, cashew milk, cashew cream... Also, griping more, why don’t flight attendants get briefed on the ingredients of the meals they serve; this seems basic for a person to ask “does this contain cashews,” and for an answer to be “let me check the ingredients” rather than “I don’t know and I don’t have a way to find out”
Down w the cashew, but also gratitude to the cashew. Better this flaw in my constitution than anything else I suppose.
03-04-23
On the flight to Munich, had the worst food of ages, the most bland sausage, omelette, and pasty spinach… Speechless. Is this culture shock? hahah
ps: reply back w your interpretation of this fortune cookie. how will my life change? opened 3/3/23 in the airport lounge of the kochi airport.
