At approximately 7:30 Am local time on May 4th, 2009 Air India Flight #101 out of Delhi touched down in JFK airport bearing, among it's passengers, a travel weary man who had like many of the others aboard the plane had just finished filling out the declaration form and checking the seat for stray belongings and was just letting his skull fill with the enormous shared thought of all the other American citizens on board:
"I'm Home."
I collected my trusty backpack and fiddle case from the checked luggage carousel with very little fuss and remarkably to my mind, no shouting or pointless arguments. i followed the flow of traffic to the orderly checkpoint. after a short wait in line where, to my surprise no one tried to edge in front of me, the immigration officer took a cursory glance at my paperwork and stamped my passport.
"Welcome back" he said more out of habit than any sincerity. I suspect he was slightly taken aback when i cheerfully thanked him. Customs was surprisingly prefunctary and seemed to consist entirely of an armed guard asking me how much my fiddle cost. relieved and briefly considering the viability of a career in smuggling, i was once again at liberty in the land of the free. I walked out into the chill and the rain, genuinely glad to be back
Cordial and efficient were never words i would have previously applied to the New York Subway System, yet having been on an India Rail train a mere 24 hours ago i was delighted to find the young woman at the gateway between the airport was polite and helpful while i re adapted to US currency. the train slid into the station with very little fuss and i boarded with absolutely no shoving or jockeying for position necessary. Grinning like a fool i scanned the car as if seeing a subway for the first time in my life. the walls were a rich tapestry of advertisements, all in recognisable letters. there was an accurate map posted for all to see by the door. a series of announcements and a light up sign left absolutely no doubt as to where we were, where we were heading and how many stops it would take to get there. My smile started to fade slightly as i realised what really seemed alien to me. it wasn't so much the diversity of different faces of people who could claim ancestors from all over the world. i had actually missed this. nor was it the larger percent of obesity. it was that everyone else on the train was absorbed in their own little world, their concentration focused on their Ipod or newspaper or adjusting their makeup. Nobody looked up or smiled at one another. I doubt whether anyone on that train would have thought to ask where i had come from, offered to buy their seatmate a tea or handed their neighbor's luggage through the window to them so that they didn't have to wrangle it through a crowded corridor. we were all strangers to each other and would probably always remain so. The door slid open in front of me and a black teenager stepped on directly in front of me. He was dressed in the style favored by urban teenagers that is meant to make the wearer look tough and no nonsense. he scanned the car with a rehearsed hardened expression. our eyes locked for a second. after a breath he timidly returned my smile and looked away.
It is the absence of things that we find really surprising rather than the presence of new elements. As i emerged from underground it took me a second to realise that there were no auto rickshaw drivers jockeying for my business. i looked at the traffic and recognised that there were no auto rickshaws among the gigantic looking cars. vehicles slid effortlessly down Delancy street, each staying tidily in their own lane, unencumbered by piles of garbage or wandering cattle. someone blew their horn and i noticed with a start that traffic moved along almost silently and without the constant clamor of horns and roar of psychotic motorcyclists. the streets were free of litter and storefronts were large and kept immaculate. on the bus to Philadelphia i would look out the window and see a Mall that was literally the size of a small village.
In India things are chaotic and people have little, yet they are proud of what they have. Indians are passionate and friendly and joyfully participate in the craziness of everyday life. they are eager to include you in it too. Here in America we have abundance and order. we are polite yet mostly keep ourselves and a few select friends and family apart from the rest of society. we isolate ourselves with our televisions and computers in our tidy houses and orderly streets and forget that there's any other way to be. we wonder why we feel alone and forget that our exile is self imposed. because we can by and large have everything we need, we forget that it has any worth and feel empty and unfulfilled. we worry ourselves unnecessarily and invent new problems and false desires. we call it the good life. i don't mean to preach here , but if there's one thing i hope to keep with me from my journey to the other side of the world, it is this sense of perspective.
Travel changes you. I believe that I am a different man than the one who stepped onto a plane in January. I am calmer and more assertive. my perspective is wider and i have a much greater sense of possibility. in short I've transformed from the guy who wistfully said that I'd travel someday to the one who purchased a ticket and boarded a plane. I've crossed jungles and deserts, I've climbed mountains swam oceans and faced down bazaar merchants without getting ripped off. Ive met people from across the world and been exasperated and delighted by them. I've learned firsthand that it's impossible to be immersed in another persons world, to really see how people different from you think, live, worship and work and hold any hatred for them. i hope that i have become stronger more compassionate and a little wiser from all of this. there are some ways that my experiences have changed me that i cant quite define yet and may never be able to. There are definitely more quantifiable changes in me though. for example, I'm thirty pounds lighter than when i left.
The question you may be asking yourself as I face down an uncertain future with vastly depleted personal resources is would i do it all again? would i take the same risks over again if i knew what the results would be?
ABSOLUTELY!
I would gladly go back tomorrow if the opportunity presented itself. I have been offered at least two interesting projects to work on in Arambol next year. I only hesitate to say yes right now because i don't want to shut down any other possibilities until i know the options are.
that, and i dearly want to see Africa!
As I write this I'm sitting in what was once my childhood bedroom. It has since been refurbished into a guestroom and is almost unidentifiable from the way i knew it growing up. (for one thing it's much cleaner!) out the window I can see the lush rich spring green of the backyard i used to play in as a child. if i were to walk out the back door right now i would be greeted by the aroma of lilac from the bush by the doorway.The pale purple clusters of blossoms from this plant has perfumed almost every spring of my life. Lilacs are one of my very favorite scents in the world because of this bush.
It is good to be home!
John A Ryan
May 8th 2009
Travel Journals XXIV: Epilogue- Re-entry
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