A story about how I made a friend from India and how he took me and a few others on an adventure with an itinerary that was never shared with me. Cameo by a Polaroid pictures taken on a Bollywood movie set.
October 27, 2017 Yesterday was my first full day in India, a country to where I had never been, where I formerly had no intention of going. I woke up before sunrise to catch a flight to Jaipur and fell back into my little routine to get me settled with how the next few days were to pan out. I familiarized myself with the airport. Found comfort in walking gate to gate and waiting for each flight and subsequent layover. How funny that I found habit in such an unpredictable life. I ended up, along with 10 other friends who I'd just begun hanging out with, putting my life and itinerary into my new friend Dravya's hands, since this was his home. The afternoon began with paying two taxis to drive us around for the full day. Drive where? I couldn't tell you, I don't speak Hindi. All I saw were cows and miracles in the traffic jams that no one was harmed and not a car or moped so much as scratched. Somehow we ended up at a fort palace as the sun started to hesitate low in the sky before turning the world a fantastic combination of purple and gold. In the sky rose rooftops where silhouettes of monkeys ran under the rising moon and the palace lit up under film lights and Bollywood music. As the sky turned black, our taxi drivers took yet another stop in a bustling side street and we were whisked up a hole-in-the-wall shop where the most beautiful fabrics and jewelry were sold and glittered under every light. The shopkeepers shuffled through fabrics filled with patterns familiar only to my imagination. The moon rose higher as we had a traditional Indian dinner at the Virasat restaurant, filling every sense and sight with wonder. As the night began to conclude with drinks on a rooftop bar where the moon was most visible, I let myself laugh and revel in the type of companionship I hadn't yet experienced. I never thought a day could feel so full. Until the next morning, where I sat in the back of a bus with a broken AC and TOURIST written across the top of its windshield with the same friends who got belligerently drunk with me less than four hours ago. Someone compensated for the lack of radio with a speaker and Latin music and I never thought my heart could feel so full either. I have India to thank, for, under her golden hour light and moonlit nights, shining a light on the type of friends who make me feel as full as my heart never knew it could be.