Abha International Hotel Bhuj

... here for nearly 12 hours, I went for a long lunch but the rest of the time I’ve spent drinking chai, chewing pan, chatting to the many locals and joking around. Yet again language has been non-existence but it hasn’t stopped the understanding or camaraderie. Spending such a duration in a garage does sound absurd bordering on insane but it’s a good as cultural outing as any. The garage becomes a hangout for men to chat about the local going-on’s, it’ ...

... out but my legs are less fluid. Sitting cross leg for so long has temporarily crippled me so I wobble out like a 100 year old, trying to be stoic but failing. Out into the open I get a blast of the relentless desert sun, radiating on full brightness and heat. My eyes squint and take a while to adjust as I beeline to some shade to tame the intensity down. Around the middle of the day the sun is superfluous in its' powers draining the energy from everything it touches, the cattle plod ...

... smile as usual, accompanied by the signature indian head wriggle. Then there is Amit, who has hardly any teeth but never stops smiling. His trademark is his blue scarf that he either wraps around his neck (even when it's about 28 degrees as he still says its freezing!!), or he wraps around his head to keep his ears warm. We saw him take it off for the first time in 6 days yesterday, and izzy felt quite privileged when he gave her it to hold (and rightly so!). Food. A blog be me is ...

... we enjoyed the Kutch festival weekend. As far as the organisers knew we were his very important chauffeur driven guests - influential journalists and photographers for a top international newspaper. Tickets for this annual festival are highly sought after with a 2 year waiting list! After watching an impressive procession of traditional Gujurati costume and colour, we drove to a small village to check out the textiles and artisans at work. Hemant arranged for us to stay the ...

... But Shivraj was very warm on our first meeting. He had plucked us from a dusty bus station in Mundra; organized a rickshaw; then a fresh juice on the road side; and then escorted on his motorbike to his farm 8 kilometres out of town. Now we are in a Chikoo plantation just back from the coast of the Arabian Sea, recovering from over-feeding- a typical condition for guests of Indian households. Earlier, on the verandah of the family ...

... the sky where being devoured. Christina and I dat down stared out into the nothingness for some time feeling oddly at home. The soldier who led us up to the vantage point fidgeted in his pockets, occasionally taking out his walkie-talkie to inspect its dials, though it was not turned on. After ten wordless minutes the soldier gestured and grunted towards the distance: "Pakistan" he said. Seventy kilometres due north of us was Pakistan, but it could have been the edge of the world.

... oscar time. Having already seen a few current Bollywood films, I at least had a marginal idea of what was going on, which was nice! I also had a really great research trip into the field this week. We visited a Jat community near the coast of Kutch and spoke with the village leader...a veritable wealth of knowledge. Almost 7 hours later, we got into the jeep to head back to Bhuj (a journey that had me fearing for my life...one lane roads, passing huge ...

... but unfortunately didn't speak the language. This seemed to come as some surprise to the villagers - 'you no speak Gujerati? no Kutchi even?'. Now how we'd have learnt Kutchi - the local language that doesn't even have a written form - I have no idea, but we were clearly a bit of a disappointment. Oops. The next day, which happened - in spite of me trying my hardest to forget - to be my birthday, we had decided to go to the seaside to do Not Much and have a nice ...

... But work aside, it was really refreshing to meet another westerner the other day; an Italian PhD student studying textiles. We all had dinner together (smuggled in some illicit beverages that I'm sure would have scandalized the neighbors) and talked politics, culture and travels long into the night. It was very re-centering and got me thinking a lot about the directions I might want to be heading. And so the searching begins...

... I was reading and writing away on topics I had to teach myself everything about, wondering what in fact I was contributing to this case.

I've begun to realize something-I am hesitant to speak on a wider scale-that has been tough to swallow. India has made me slow down. Not in a physical kind of way, but a mental one. India, in many ways, has grounded me. Expecting the instant gratification that the West has accustomed me to is not so much an option ...