We are on our way to London tonight and then on to Chicago on Monday. Leaving Chennai and India in general is hard to do, but seeing family for Christmas is something we've been looking forward to for months. We have been on an absolutely beautiful and relaxing 10-day tour of south India the past week and a half. We will have lots of photos and stories to share once we have internet access and time again.

It is hard to believe we only have a week left to work on our respective projects. Tomorrow morning will be my last time flying to Hyderabad. When I return to Chennai, Rock and I will be heading north to see the sites.

Random observations about which I keep intending to write:

I am often reminded of the cultural difference in the concept of appropriate spacing between people when I am in line for something. I give a foot or two of space to the person in front of me and inevitably someone else comes and cuts in front of me, not out of maliciousness, but because anyone in here who is seriously in line would never leave so much space in a line. Not that there is much of a concept of “lines” in India – the culture here is much less concerned about the fairness behind “first come, first served” than your typical American. This makes giving more space to the person in front of you even more counterproductive if you actually want to complete the task for which you are waiting. Promptly reminded of all this, I crunch in and give the person in front of me a half inch rather than a foot.

Reminders that you are in India: when you see a cow or (sometimes, more rarely) a camel parked next to a car in a major city.

Something troubling: “fairness creams” and their commercials. I suppose the grass is always greener on the other side – people with fairer skin in my home country risk skin cancer in tanning salons, and here people buy creams that are supposed to make you lighter. But here some of the commercials make me a bit angry. In one, a beautiful dark Indian girl is at a bank where she gives money to a fairer Indian male, who gives a disgusted look to her. Cut to a shot of the fairness cream. Now back to the young lady, who after taking this cream supposedly becomes lighter, and this time the same male gives her a rose rather than a disgusted look. I have an issue with that message. I have seen this type of mentality harm the self-concept of some of my beautiful, dark friends here.

We will miss India tremendously. We will not miss the stress of our respective projects, although we will miss working with great people and being part of something bigger than ourselves. We won’t miss mefloquine’s side effects--anxiety, sleeplessness, sometimes depression, etc.--or only seeing each other two or three days a week. I won’t miss my biweekly red eye flights on rubber-band planes through monsoon weather. One night I flew on a small propeller plane from Hyderabad to Chennai and arrived to the height of a major storm in Chennai that ended up flooding the city and downing trees. The wind was so bad in Chennai that the plane felt like a rollercoaster. We weren’t able to land and we had to fly all the way back to Hyderabad, where we refueled and waited for the storm to end and then flew back to Chennai a second time. As the storm was moving north, we passed through it yet one more time, but at least it had cleared Chennai by the time we were ready to land. Not fun.

I will miss the sense of optimism, progress and hope here. I will not miss my own reactions to the daily reminders of poverty – I have become more hardened than I would care to admit and have all too often failed the test of compassion. Rock does better.

"... No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise." - Mock Turtle in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

My favorite quote until last night.

More pictures that I didn't get to last night:

Jennifer at the top of the Valluvar Kottam Memorial

A close-up of the gopuram over the eastern entrance to Chennai's Kapaleeshwarar temple in Mylapore.

Rock standing in front of one of the temples inside the Kapaleeshwarar compound.

Jennifer inside the Kapaleeshwarar compound.

Jennifer outside St. Paul's cathedral in Kolkata

"It's a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians." -- QueeQueg in Moby Dick

This is my new favorite quote.

While here in India, late at night, unable to sleep due to the mefloquine we've been taking for malaria, I've been reading classic novels on my Palm Pilot that are freely available on the internet due to their copyrights expiring long ago. I've gotten through the likes of War of the Worlds, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Frankenstein. Now I'm working my way through Moby Dick or The Whale.

I promised pictures. Here come several.

The south side of the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata, West Bengal

A panoramic shot of Kolkata and its Esplanade from the Northern entrance to the Victoria Memorial

Jennifer and Rock taking a horse-drawn carriage ride around the Esplanade in Kolkata.

A picture of Rock on top of the Valluvar Kottam memorial in Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Jennifer at the bottom of the Valluvar Kottam memorial

I’m writing from Kolkata, West Bengal (the city formerly known as Calcutta). I arrived Friday. Jennifer was here with me from Friday afternoon through today. I will have a meeting in the city tomorrow morning, and then head back to Chennai. I spent the first part of the week in the neighboring state of Orissa, staying in the capital, Bhubaneswar, and traveling during the days into the surrounding rural areas to visit credit franchises, including the holy city of Puri. Pictures of the past week are coming soon.

India is teaching me that true faith is having faith in God and his goodness even when he can’t / doesn’t give you what you want when you want it. To still believe, still approach him and seek a relationship with him and trust in his goodness even then – to me that is faith, and that sort of faith enables him to heal our hearts. The healing of the heart really is the largest, most profound and significant miracle of all. I believe the miracles of the heart are those that God most wants to give – such miracles fulfill our purpose in being here – and yet those are the miracles that He cannot force, that we must invite through our own faith manifest in thought, word, and deed.

I don't think I've ever mentioned my experience of Indian restaurants or stores. Being the independent / individualistic American that I am, even after 6 months I have not gotten used to having helpers serve me food every time I make a motion to serve myself. The same experience is repeated in clothing and other stores -- I recently bought some clothes (when my luggage got lost). I just wanted to be left alone to figure out what I wanted, but there was literally someone who followed me around the whole time. Every time I was even remotely considering something, she snatched it from me and held it the rest of the time unless / until I told her I didn't want it and to please put it back. It is all very nice, but somehow I still haven't gotten used to it yet.