Settling In, Spouting Bombast, Announcing Hiatus

It’s funny how a life, even in a strange place, in strange circumstances—that is, engulfed in strangeness and unpredictability too—finds equilibrium, and finds it sooner rather than later. A body’s natural state, then, must be at rest, at peace, settled, whether through resignation or contentment or paralysis, or through some cause in the interstices among the three. I’ve often thought to myself, “My God, human beings can get used to anything (although rarely in reference to my own existence, which, all things considered, has been almost entirely free of hardship or extremity).” I’ve marveled at the human capacity for adaptation, and for endurance, and for survival—for it’s honestly something to be marveled at. Certainly our species is unique in its capacity to populate the most inimical of landscapes, climates, and ecosystems, but this is hardly what I mean. It is our capacity to endure change—violent, sudden, dislocating, deracinating change—and our tendency toward equilibrium in the midst of upheaval that fascinates me.

Take away everything a man knows, his family, his friends, his country, his climate, his language, his food, his culture, his dress, his moral code—perhaps he has been rustled off city streets, bound, shackled, and blindfolded, flown across oceans, and dumped in a frigid 4x6 cell—and he will likely be broken, reduced to a state of infantile abjection, without hope, agency, or will, his spirit pulverized. But then, in time—and in less time than one might think—he will adapt. In time, he will accommodate himself to his surroundings, his circumstances. In time he will even find equilibrium, or more likely he will create it. It is a universal human trait, I think, this tendency—it must be. How else to account for the induration to suffering one witnesses in the course of one’s life—the homeless who survive the bitter winters of Chicago, the polio victims who drag themselves through traffic on their hands, begging from stalled motorists, the middle-aged woman who has lost her husband to cancer and both children to auto accidents? “How do they bear it?” we think, but the answer should be self evident: in such cases of cruelest vicissitude, humanity seems to possess a native immunity to despair. Despair is often a more insidious canker, working from within when we little suspect it or little esteem its power or claim on our hearts. We endure cataclysm and its aftermath, but sometimes succumb to a slender vermiform thread which takes root when all about us is tranquility.

I have found equilibrium in Udaipur, though it cannot be said that I have been subjected to any terrible upheaval, unexpected or otherwise. When I arrived I knew, if not precisely, then approximately what I was getting myself into, what life in India, life at Seva Mandir, life 7,000 miles from home might resemble. And in truth, I’ve been as much unsettled by those hardships that I’ve anticipated (difficulty in communication) as by those that I haven’t (lingering homesickness, for example). But after a consistently difficult couple of months, my body finally has found rest, its natural state, though one may wonder if rest and ease is advisable within the bosom of so seductive a temptress as India. Yet I am content to be settled for now, if only because of that interval of turmoil that descended upon my arrival.

I have grown content in small knowledge. I know, for example, where to purchase strawberry jam, ice, or an outlet adapter. I know which fruit stand sells the cheapest kelas on Vidya Bhawan Road and how much crushed ginger to add to a pot of chai. I know the protocol for taking pata puri, the sublimity of cashew ice cream, and the hottest dosa spot in Chetak Circle. I know how many rupees for an auto-rickshaw ride from Fatehpura to Ashok Nagar and where to get prints of digital photos made. I know how much a lakh is and how much a crore, and can refer to meat as “non-veg” without laughing. I know why Narendra Modi is a political lightning rod and Nandigram a rallying cry for progressives and how the NREGA has failed to deliver on its promises. I can tell you which Bachchan is father (Amitabh) and which son (Abhishek) and can argue plausibly whether M.S. Dhoni is ready for the Test captaincy. I can identify a banyan tree and a turmeric plant and ask “Where is the monkey?” in Hindi. I can eat an entire meal with one hand and no utensils, and I can cook an entire meal without measuring a single ingredient. I hardly ever look left before crossing the street any more, and I never consider walking on the sidewalk.

It is knowledge then that settles us, and the unknown that disrupts equilibrium, because knowledge consolidates certainty, and uncertainty, along with the unknown, is the substance of a life's agitation. And, too, knowledge has a threshold beyond which only the most exceptional of events can stir this agitation, which is why, though the Udaipur that I arrived to in September is a different city than the one that tonight invades the guest house through this structure’s every crack and fissure, I remain at rest. I know enough. Though the hills embracing the city have discarded green mantle for dusty brown, and the waters of Fateh Sagar have receded from the lake’s retaining wall (by May they’ll be playing cricket on her bottom), though a permanent haze has settled like a smoldering smudge, and the sun’s rays have become slanted and feeble, equilibrium obtains. Though a chilly wind has rattled the doors of the guest house, and the lizards that scuttled across its walls have disappeared, though the season for the custard apple has come and gone, and stray dogs now seek sun rather than shade for their napping, I am not unsettled.

And now, after such hard won equilibrium, I will leave Udaipur—but only temporarily. India, that seductive temptress, has beckoned, and who can refuse? But I exaggerate for effect: it is really my family who beckons, and I am only too happy to hasten to them. I only hope that I will still be at rest when I return, though if not, I should trust in my own sententiousness and believe that it’s only a matter of time before I find that ease again.

Alas, no blog until I return in early January. I know it breaks your heart, dear reader. Tide yourself over with holiday cheer until then.