7.25.11. 11:59PM. Day 24. Patti.

This morning we woke up to a house full of people. Mayank, Sunny, and Dr. Paul were all sitting in the living room. I don't think I wrote about him before, because at the time I didn't really know who he was, but Dr. Paul is the doctor in the village of Patti (pronounced p'tti) and he is also the one who took me and Mary to Rishikesh our first week. I didn't find this out until last week, but he is also Sunny's father. Now, I don't know if you remember what I wrote about Sunny last week but having them both in Aunty's living room was both embarrassing and surreal. On top of knowing that I wrote about his son, I was embarrassed because I was walking at a ridiculously slow pace when he took us to Rishi. This was both due to the awkward bulk and heaviness of my bags and that I was walking up hill in my flip flops after a rain. They should be called "slippery-sons-of-accidents-waiting-to-happen-I-can't-believe-I-haven't-fallen-yet-oh-my-God-my-ankles-are-not-going-to-make-it" footwear. I was slipping and sliding the whole time...that and sweating profusely. A great first impression. But he just smiled and asked if I remembered him, I said 'yes' and smiled back. Sunny sat next to Mayank and was his usual silent self. Mayank said that he came to see us off, but really I think he and Sunny were there to show Matt and Rayleen how to get to their clinic sites. It was a sweet gesture though. As we got ready to leave, Mayank told us that he would be visiting us in Patti later in the week. Dr. Paul led the way to the jeep that was waiting for us. We loaded up and were on our way to pick up the other girls who would be joining us: Nikki, Anna, and Lauren.

Apparently there had been drama in their group as well. Anna and Lauren were two of the girls who wanted to switch to Agra at the last minute; Nikki continued on to Dharamsala. Mary and I were not sure how this week would go, we hoped for no cat fights. when we got to their homestay it was a little bit of an ordeal. The girls were not sure, as this was the 4th week of the program, if they would be going back to their homestay after coming back from Patti or if they'd go directly to the train station. Their homestay mother was out in the driveway bawling her eyes out (apparently she does this every time). So the brought ALL of their luggage with them. Anna, in particular, took up a lot of space - she'd bought a sitar, which in itself was bigger than her, but it came in a hard case that was twice its size! This think was huge and took up about as much space as a very stiff-legged, fully grown man. It was bad enough to have 5 people in the back, it was something else entirely to have this much baggage. Also, not to put all of the space blame on Anna, Lauren had a bag the size of a morbidly obese giant sea turtle. But anyway, we'd learned by this point that there is no such thing as personal space in India, so we all happily sat snugly together. Mary and I knew we would be going back to our homestay a day early, for two reasons - Mayank challenged me to a bowling duel for Thursday night and there was a possibility that we would be taking the 5Am Friday train to Delhi. Knowing this, we traveled light.

We started out hour long off-road journey up into the foothills. We climbed and winded our way up and up until everything below looked small. Between the many bumps and dips in the earthen road my mind couldn't help but wonder what Patti would be like. For the past 3 weeks I have heard countless stories from everyone in the other groups about this place. It  was always their favorite. I couldn't wait to see for myself what it was all about. The closer we got, the more excited I got. Well, mostly excited - I'd heard that there would be 5:30AM yoga every morning, and as I knew myself very well...yeaaaaaaah - no. But the rest of it sounded great!

We'd arrived around 11AM, so a lot of the morning stuff would have already happened. We unloaded our stuff into our rooms and then just kind of hung out for awhile until lunch time.

...

I'm not going to lie - today is Thursday, August 11, 2011. I'd not really felt like keeping up with the journal since I came back from Amritsar. So now, two weeks after the fact, writing about my time in Patti is like writing about a dream. It's all here in my head, waiting to be put on paper, but every time I start I quickly find myself lost in memory. It's almost as if I don't want to tell this part - maybe because it was so special that I want to keep it all for myself; maybe I just don't have any arrangement of words that could describe, with any justice, the experience I had here, or maybe like with a dread, I have a secret hope that if I hold it in - it might come true. Or maybe, just maybe, deep down inside I can't  get myself to write about it because I know that once I do, that means that it really did happen already, that it's over; I'm not there, and that my final week in India is over. I'm really back in America, back into reality, and no longer in my dreamland so far across the sea... but I shall try to continue.

...

The first day we went to the clinic right above where we sleep. The living, dining, all-round communal area is on the ground floor, which is at a lower level than the road, and the clinic and little convenience stand are on the second level at road height.. We 5 plus Dr. Paul sat in the clinic office and people started trickling in one by one. Ethically, I'm not allowed to try my hand at medicine on real patients - nor did I have any inclination to do so. But here we were in Patti and the first thing Dr. Paul has The Future Doctors of America do is check lungs and blood pressure.

 This is the most hands-on medical actions these girls have had all month. We've witnessed a lot of things, but didn't actually participate... It was fun to see their levels of comfort at handling people. It was amusing to see Dr. Paul manhandle people's heads to look down their throats which most people did not look at all bothered by, but these girls struggled to get past the whole moving people into necessary positions. Their confidence levels rose as the week progressed. I'm so proud. By the end of the first day the girls thought that I should partake on the action too. When i said 'no thanks' and told them my reasons, most payed no attention and decided that when we had a slow moment in the clinic they would teach me how to take BP and check lungs. I agreed since they volunteered to be my victims and not the innocent villagers of Patti.


Another patient came in, but this one I recognized. Akki, the young yoga master, who I'd barely said a word to the previous week when he and Mayank dropped me off at Dr. Gandhi's, was in the hot seat. He  gave us a weak little smile as Dr. Paul started poking and prodding him, and then he lifted up Akki's shirt (niiice), to show us the 3 or 4 bee stings he got while riding his motorbike in Rishikesh just the day before. He didn't know us, and we didn't know him. Nobody said much more than "oh. ouch...poor guy..." Nobody would have guessed at that moment how we would form our different relationships with him in the next three days. But for now, we all just sat there and watched  Dr. Paul work his magic. After a few minutes he, too, went on his way, and another patient came in...

After clinic we went right downstairs for yoga in the little courtyard. We changed, grabbed mats from the closets and found ourselves face to face with our instructor once again. He looked tired or pained...probably both. I'd hoped the bee stings would have been reason enough to cancel yoga - but no such luck. There was a definite difference in the way Akki taught us yoga than the old man from Rishikesh. Well...Akki is actually from Rishi too, but the point is that their approaches were very different. The old man was obviously old and pushed us as though we too were old men, as is why I liked him so much. "Feeeeeeeeeel your booooodaay....Relax yoooooooooour miiiiiiind..." Akki, on the other hand, is a young yoga stud in his prime, and he pushed us like we ought to be where he is. Not really, but that's what it felt like. My muscles were protesting; I was shaking from my muscles freaking out from having to work. But I didn't complain, I held out and kept going; doing what ever was called for, for as long as it was called for. I knew that my body was going to get its revenge on me the next day, but for the time being i had an ego to protect. I showed no weakness, other than the violent shaking...

We'd finished, and within the hour it was dinnertime. Our cook, Rinku, was an amazing creature in and of himself. He is a small, slender man who is surprisingly crazy-strong and brave. Yet he is the gentlest soul with the purest spirit I have ever had the pleasure of coming across. Right after dinner he saved us all from a rather large scorpion that was right behind Lauren's chair. He quite happily went to the kitchen and brought out some tongs. He picked up the scorpion and put it over the fence, in the rice paddies. He came back singing; that's the other thing about him - he's always singing an old hindi love song from way back when or is playing his little wooden flute or hand drum. He is an amazing human being, and even though it seemed that he only spoke 4ish words of English, "Breakfash's ready," "lunch's ready," and "Dinner's ready" he taught us so much in only 4 days.

By the end of the first day, the tone for the rest of the week was set. Those men: Rinku, Virindir, and especially Dr. Paul loved to pull pranks on us - trying to jump out and scare us at random moments. Akki didn't necessarily try his hand at scaring but he would occasionally act as an attention grabber while the others got ready to strike. After the first day, we girls too got into the groove of retaliation, but also of sabotage to the other girls. We would scare Rinku back into the kitchen and lock him in, jump out at Dr. Paul, but also call to another girl to come out when one of the guys hid behind the door. Once, Dr. Paul was in the bathroom, and Rinku chucked a cup of water through the little open air grate above the door frame. We heard an, "Aaaaargh!" and we all giggled. He came out, grabbed his nearby umbrella and chased Rinku around the courtyard before going back to wash his hands.

After dinner things began to wind down. We'd been playing cards for awhile, teaching Akki how to play Go Fish and BS but after awhile the girls went into the rooms and only Akki and I were left outside at the table. He'd asked me to teach him how to do the bridge thing after a shuffle, and I tried my best but he was a slow learner. We talked for a long time getting to know each other a little more, but eventually he reminded me that there was the 5:30 AM yoga to look forward to. It was around midnight already, so we decided to leave it there, and called it a night.

7.24.11. 11:59 PM. Day 23. (The 'Royal') We Are The Champions.

I'd made Mayank promise to take us out. Before we felt for Amritsar, Mary and I agreed that we wanted to hang out with him away from work. So at the train station when he dropped us off on Friday, we told him that we would like to go out to dinner with him on Sunday after we got back. He agreed. So when Sunday night came around, he came to pick us up, and Mayank, Mary and I headed to the Opal Lounge for dinner. We had a great time, laughed a lot, told stories, and decided to go to Baskin Robins for ice cream. It turns out he does this with all of the students who go out to dinner with him. I think he just likes Baskin Robins. Mississippi Mudd, to be exact. His favorite flavor.

Well. Above Baskin Robins there was an arcade. In this arcade was an air hockey table. Now, I don't know how well you know me but the majority of people don't know two things about me that would prove useful within a 500ft radius of an arcade with an air hockey table. #1: I can get VERY competitive. We are not friends at this point. #2: I am the queen of air hockey. I tried to warn him, but alas the male ego was stung and so the shit-talking battle began. We went upstairs to the arcade and there it was - the air hockey table. But this table was unlike any I had seen before - this one was massive, and each player was given two paddles (in hindsight, it could have been meant for 4 players...). I had never played with two, so I felt that the second was only going to slow me down. I was tempted to give it to Mayank because it looked like he could use a third, but instead I just put it on top of the edge of the table. The score was 3-0, and my dupata (scarf) kept falling off of my shoulder so I took my hands away from the table to tie it behind me. My hands were quite literally behind my back when Mayank made his shot. And everybody saw it - the two of us, Mary, and the two arcade attendants. He was so proud of himself: 3-1. He gleefully turned up the notch on his shit-talking dial. I just smiled. I slammed in 3 straight down the middle shots back to back to back. That shut him right up. The last shot I made with a bank and the sweet odor of victory filled the room. He, rather smoothly, proceeded with, "Ah yes. Very good - as you see I let you win..." followed by a dose of, "It was my first time; I've never played that game before in my life." Whatever. 7-1 (the 1 gained in a cheeseball way). I picked up my invisible crown from the table and placed it right back on my head where it belongs. By now, since this game was won in another country, I can now claim International Air Hockey Champion as my rightful title. Bwahahaha. As he continued to whine about his loss, I told him that we could have a rematch when ever we wanted. And that was that. He took us back to Aunty's house. I fell asleep still smelling the sweet aroma of victory.

7.23.11. 5:20 PM. Day 22. I Can’t Come Up With a Good Title for This One.

So the train ride was not to bad. We had fun, met some friendly people, Mati’s bag was stolen… It was rather bizzar, the train made a half hour stop in Haridwar and Mary and I decided to venture off the train in search for bottled water. Mati stayed on the train with the nice people we met. Apparently two of the many orange-clad people there for the month-long Shiva festival (the French lady was right after all) came onto the train and took the bag.

Everybody saw them there and walk away with the bag too, but they did it in such a way that everyone thought it was their bag. Luckily for Mati, she was a smart cookie; she kept her phone, money, and passport in a little pouch around her neck. The guys only got away with a change of clothes, a toothbrush, toilet paper, and eye drops. A waste. Other than that our train ride was rather enjoyable and we arrived in Amritsar around 8AM the following day.

We automatically thought about breakfast but doubted that any of the restaurants were open before 10AM. Everything else in India seems to open at 10AM so we figured the food would too. We decided to go directly to the Golden Temple, Sri Harmandir Sahib Ji, and get the langar, free meal, while we were there. We took an A. Rick (somehow) to the Golden Temple which was a good distance away – maybe 5km from the train station, and we only had to pay 80 rps total. Not too shabby. It seems we got there just before the morning rush but, being devout Sikhs, many were already there, having gotten up by 4AM. I saw the golden roof first as we turned the corner. I was in shock and awe. I was finally there. The trip to Agra was nice and all but my main place to see had been the Golden Temple from day 1. And there it was. Oh. My. God. We walked up, put our shoes in the shoe rack area, got the boys some bandanas to put on their heads and we girls put our scarves (chunis in Punjabi). I washed my hands, and we walked through the shallow water thing they have and we walked through the atrium and there it was – really in the middle of the water, really made of gold, and really – really there.

 I think that at this point pictures can describe better than I can how this place is laid out so I shall leave it at that. I couldn’t help but take pictures of everything. The ambiance of this place was completely contrasting that of the Taj Mahal. This was a holy place, a sacred space, where even the noise from the outside city seemed to melt away. We were in a bubble. We walked clockwise around the pool once and then decided to go to the langar hall. As we walked up to it there were huge metal framed boxes, with thousands of metal plates, on either side of the walkway.

 People handed us a plate, one by one, and then a metal bowl, and a metal spoon. We were redirected to the second floor as the first one just filled up. Not even 5 minutes later the second one filled up too. We sat in rows on long carpets and people came down the middle and put food on our plates. Dhal, Kheer, and roti. Another person poured water into the bowls, we were not sure if the water was filtered or not but I didn’t care – I drank it anyway. I figured that the experience of the meal at the Golden Temple made any risk of sickness worth it. Completely worth it. No sickness as of yet!

            After langar we went down and just sat under one of the open passages facing the temple. One lady came up and tried to politely explain to Mati not to show the bottoms of her feet to the temple. Mati was confused because this was all in Punjabi so I took over and explained what the lady meant. Mati doesn’t seem to like being told what to do by authoritative figures, so my explaining seemed to defuse her anger. As we sat, one of the temple guards would come around and tell people off for sleeping or facing the wrong way. Every time he came around I would hold my breath and every time he would just pass me by. I was relieved and proud to know that I’d done nothing wrong. We eventually got up and made our way over to the end of the really long line to get into the temple. Again, only pictures could describe the beauty inside, but since photography was not allowed inside I can only try my best. It was gorgeous. That’s all I’ve got. I was so caught up with the experience of just being there that I can’t describe more than the general layout. I’d always thought that the temple was bigger on the inside but it is actually very small. There is about enough room for about 50 people on the first floor in the sitting area by Guru Granth Sahib Ji (the holy book) and then there is a little space for the rest of the followers to bow and mill through around. Around the sides there are staircases to the second floor where another holy book is being read, also there is a cabinet with little books that people can read hymns from. There is another staircase to the roof where there is a very small room where another book is being read in front of a small group. I’m not quite sure about the meaning/symbolism behind the three layers and three books etc, but the view from the top was amazing. I couldn’t help but be amused by the willingness of Sikhs to grow with technology. I’d thought that this feature was unique to the W. Sacramento Gurdwara but I was wrong – in one of the corners of the courtyard there was a movie theatre screen sized jumbotron that displayed the current hymn being sung, in Punjabi and in English words.

            We stayed there from around 9:30 in the morning to about 1:15 in the afternoon. We left mostly due to the heat and because we saw all we felt we needed to see inside the temple courtyard. We’d seen a coffee shop, Barista, that we also frequented in D.Dun, and decided to go there to beat the heat. On our way to our much needed AC-filled coffee house, we were approached by an old man trying to get us to hire one of his jeeps as a taxi to the India/Pakistan border for the flag ceremony, Bhaga Border. We’d heard about this ceremony and, in fact, did want to see it, but at the moment we all just wanted something cold so we took his card and brushed him off. Once we got into Barista and cooled down a but, we discussed taking the taxi to the border. Creepy-Travel-Ticket-Guy had offered to arrange a taxi for us at 100 rps a head each way. This old man was asking for 100 rps per person round trip, plus 10 rps for the toll. We’d decided to do it. When we left to shop on the main street, the old guy found us again, rather quickly, and this time we signed up for the ride.
            When I say that Mayank told us to go see this ceremony, understand that that is all he told us about it. We had no idea what to expect…either from the ceremony or from the old man. He’d said to meet back up with him at 3:30, so we did. The whole time we couldn’t help but feel that we were getting scammed. There were a few moments where we were pretty worried but there was never fear; at most we would be out a little over 500rps. But this turned out to be a legit deal, we were grouped together with 3 21 year old British university graduates. They told us about how they’d worked their way down from Jammu and are going to end up in Goa by the end of the next few weeks. It was happy time every time they said anything – those British accents, man, woo, nice. We all found their company rather refreshing. The guys liked talking to them about soccer teams, and we girls amused ourselves by admiring the tastefully muscular physique each of them possessed and showed off. It was amusing because they all had on skin-gripping tank tops, above the knee shorts, and flip flops. They were quite the sight for any who looked because having gotten used to the standard of modesty in India, these guys showed more skin than girls in America. At least, that’s what it felt like. But since they were men, no one either cared or said anything to them.

            The journey to the border was about 30km from Amritsar to the gate. It took just under an hour – the going was slow because it seemed like it was rush hour and everyone was going to the same place we were. We passed a toll booth and saw signs for the border. The driver pulled over by a building that looked like it would have been a small convenience store had it not just been full of lockers. We were instructed to take out our passports and cameras; our bags would have to be left in lockers. Also, we could have to walk the last 1km to the gate, cars could go no further. This road was soon overwhelmed by thousands of people going to the border. Completely surrounded on all sides, even if we had wanted to leave it probably would have taken longer than if we just continued onward. The walk was painfully slow. There were so many people that it got difficult to breath, it seemed like there wasn’t enough air to support us all. After over half an hour we got to a point where we could see the heavily armed military men directing the flow of traffic to the checkpoint. One of them announced that all women go to the left. I grabbed my girls and led them to the side and we easily passed up a few hundred men. This happened because people were getting patted down at the security checkpoint and the women were siphoned off to behind a barrier to be checked. Apparently there were far less women going to this event than men because we got through much faster than the guys. To top off our luck, it turns out that there was a foreigner VIP section, so we got to bypass the rest of the masses and sit fairly close to the gate. The being put in the “Foreign Guest” VIP section was funny in its own rite because even with my passport in hand, the guard tried to peel me away from my whities and stick me with the other Indians. I had to insist and flash my passport at him one more time before he let me follow. In hindsight, it would have been more fun to sit with the masses because they were very much involved in the ceremony. They chanted, they cheered, danced, and basically had a party trying to outdo the Pakistani crowd on the other side. The foreigners just sat, watched and took pictures of the whole thing.
            There is actually a dead space between the borders of India and Pakistan. I’m not sure of the actual distance, but it probably is 4 or 5 feet. There was a gate for each country so that the border could not be crossed unless both were open. The soldiers from either side were dressed in similar garb but with distinct colors (I actually liked the Pakistani outfit better). The Indian uniform is an interesting one. It is khaki. The lower ranked officers wore red and gold turbans that are tied (and probably starched) in such a way that the ends stick straight up on top (cockatoo style).

 Their pants are proper length but are pulled up extremely high on their wastes (Urkel style) which leaves the pant leg higher than the ankle. The pant leg over laps something that I don't know the name of, white that drapes over the shined black boot. I don't know what the height requirement is for this job but these guys appeared to be 5'10" or taller. It was hard to say, because it was easy to see that the purpose of the high-rise pants and fancy turban was to give the illusion of extreme height. These soldiers looked at least 7 feet tall.

 The Pakistani soldiers, from what I could see, a distance behind two fences away, wore black uniforms with black turbans with white trim, also sporting the fancy-feathered look. But the cool part about their uniform was the long black drape of cloth that came from the bottom of their turbans, and that their commander, at least, carried a very long sword. Kinda badass.

The ceremony took place in a stadium of sorts. Half of the stadium was built on either side. The stands wrapped around the entire place (except the dead space) and were raised fairly high. The entire place was packed on both sides with people trying to out-cheer each other.

 When the ceremony started the commanders from either side seemed to have a yelling contest, after each round one or two of the officers would super-high kick their way to the gate and do something. The kicking ability of these men was most impressive. They would open the gate a few times for a few seconds, quick interactions. Finally, with both gates open they would lower their flags diagonally so that they would cross in the middle.

 Close gate. Run flags to safety. More high kicking suspense-building, and finally the gate opens one last time and the two commanders charge each other - deal a quick hand shake and slam the gates on each other. What a show. So much happened, and I understood little to none of it. We were all told to exit, and lots of people lagged behind to get pictures with the soldiers. We had a deadline to keep to get back to the car to make it to the train station, so we left. What took at least 30 minutes to walk before, not only took 10. We made it back to town with plenty of time to even get dinner before our train. We said our goodbyes to the yummy-voiced British boys and made our way into the surprisingly good restaurant across the street from the station.

7.22.11. 4:37 PM. Day 21. Death and a Salesman.

Today was a very rushed day. We started out by waiting for Sunny to come get us to take us men's clothes shopping. He was supposed to get to the homestay between 9:30 and 10AM. We had a little less than 2 hrs to shop before we had our last clinic rotation with Dr. Gandhi. By 10:30, Mary got fed up and went out on her own. At 10:15 I'd texted Sunny and asked him if he was coming - and soon. He replied "yes" to both. I told Mary, but the Indian Standard Time had been boiling up anger and frustration inside her, so she got ready to leave while I stayed, listening to music until Sunny got there. About three minutes after Mary left, Sunny rang the doorbell. He said he saw her at the corner, I called her but she still went off on her own. When I saw that he came on his bike and began to turn it around, I'm not going to lie - I was hoping that we were going to take it - but no. He brought it into Aunty's driveway. We ended up taking an Auto, and he obviously doesn't bargain because the guy wanted 80 rps to the Clocktower. We all know that it should be no more than 40. I quickly got him down to 60, but didn't have the time to go further - we had shopping to do. I thought we were going to the Clocktower to shop at the Bazaar, but no - apparently Sunny told the driver to go to FabInida instead. From the beginning people had been telling us to go there, and from the beginning we could never find it. We also knew it was ridiculously overpriced. But there I was, at FabIndia, with Sunny, shopping for a kurta for Josh. I figured he was the only one who would probably actually wear it out of the men in my family. I also bought a Kurti for Katherine and I bought a salwar (pants) for my friend Valeria, who requested those - since I requested she bring me a woven hat from her trip to Peru. All in all, I spent way too much, and will never shop there again. Ha ha. It reminded me of a Pier 1 Imports, if you've ever been there. From there I told him that I wanted to go to an ATM. So we combed the street looking around, we found two - the first one decided not to work half way through the transaction. The next one was empty, so we were on our way back to the Clocktower when Sunny got a phone call from Mayank, and he said he would meet us shortly. Little did I know that he'd seen us cross the street from not too far away, so he soon appeared and crossed the street in a very, very bright red shirt. He was followed by another young man, Akki - the 21 year old yoga master working in Patti, who was sporting some very shiny and reflective aviators. They came, Mayank crossed the road again to get some papers from his car, was soon back, and then quickly went back again and brought back his whole car. This was all very amusing to watch as this bright red blop went back and forth across the road to only then finally just drive his car over after all of the hassle of crossing the road. Mayank asked me if I'd like a ride to Dr. Gandhi's hospital and, of course, I accepted. We all got in the car, Sunny was dropped off at the post office for an errand, and Mayank and Akki took me to Dr. Gandhi's. I got there about 15 minutes early and Mary came in after only a few minutes. We exchanged stories as we waited for Dr. G to arrive.

Dr. Gandhi arrived at 12 and we only got done saying hello and saw one or two patients when he was called to go into the ICCU. He signaled with a slight wave of his hand that he wanted us to follow, so we got up quickly and tried to keep up with his surprisingly speedy gate. We went up the ramp and into the ICCU. I had no idea what to expect, but it would never have been what I saw. Most of the people there were old men and women with diabetes related complications like hypertension, angina, vertigo, and other things I haven't heard of before. This time there was a young man in his early 20s who, we were told, had leukemia. He was unconscious and had a racing heart rate and blood pressure of around 208/112...I think. His breathing was irregular and shallow. They were hooking him up to a respirator when we got there. And that's when Dr. Gandhi chose to inform us that he was probably bleeding into his brain. I didn't have to be a doctor to know that that was not a good thing. A lot was happening and I didn't know what to do - I didn't even want to be there, but I couldn't really leave. The patient would twitch every now and then, but other than the assisted breathing he didn't move at all. His heart was beating so fast. Luckily Dr. Gandhi didn't keep us there for long. We went back to his office and continued seeing patients. I asked him what they would do for the patient, he said that there was nothing they could do...20 minutes later he got a very short phone call. "The patient has gone," is all he said to us. He went on looking at patients, but I found myself unable to pay attention. Maybe it's a doctor thing or maybe it's that I haven't been exposed to it that much, but death is one of this things that was always "over there" far away and not seen. But there I was, smack in the middle of it - a reality I'd managed to avoid but now had no choice but to face. I was numb for awhile, just wallowing in the fear I was forced to confront.

The rest of the time was more light hearted and rather amusing. It seemed that 1:30 on Friday afternoons were reserved for pharmaceutical representatives to come try to sell their shiny new products. The would come in one at a time in their over shiny suits, with their big black briefcases, and wormy smiles. It seems that the typical salesman aura is universal because these guys had "cheese ball" written all over them. It got fun after awhile because we could see Dr. Gandhi messing with the hope of a sale for some of them, while we rated the newness of each rep. With one it was quite obvious it was his first day - especially since he said it was his first day. These guys just slimed and weaseled their way in and out of the office, giving their pieces and samples, and flashing their fake smiles.

Sadly, 2:30 came around too quickly and our last day at Dr. Gandhi's clinic came to an end. We had to run an errand before lunch, so we took an A. Rick to the travel guy we ordered our train tickets to Amritsar from. It was a strange experience since just the afternoon before the guy was talkative and sociable with us, and this time he got wide eyed when we approached and seemed nervous to see us. The contrast from the day before was so apparent, but I didn't even bother to think of why. Some people just have up days and low days - I don't know. We also caught him while he was eating so it could have been that too.

It wasn't until later that afternoon that I found out why he was acting so strange. But first, backstory:

On Thursday, after our weekly group meeting, Mayank told those of us who were going to Amritsar to go around the corner from our coffee shop and check the ticket availability for the train. We 5 all went over to this little upperstory shop that was only reachable by climbing up twelve 4 inch or less wide steps. There was so little space in there that it was hard for us all to fit up there comfortably at one time. Still there were 4 chairs, other than the one the guy was in behind the desk, and he insisted that the 3 girls take 3 of them while Sunny took the fourth. Because the other girls, Mary and Mati, took the ones on the outside, I was forced to take the one in the middle - right in front of the guy and his desk. The guy was friendly and spoke English, but still Mati did most of the business talk. I just sat there and watched. Eventually we three began talking about the US and Canada since that is where we are from and where he is going to visit in a few months time. After awhile he asked what we do, and I said I was an Anthropology student. He tried to be sly about it but I could see in the reflection of the glass cabinet behind him that he was looking it up on Wikipedia. He tried to act like he knew what it was but failed to grasp the concept of my general field of study. In the end he settled on complimenting my eyes and telling me other nice things about myself. It was a little strange but by this point, although I am not graceful in anyway, shape, or form about receiving compliments, I am used to getting them - especially from men here, and especially about my eyes. But still, I didn't think much about it and we left with the promise to be back the next day to get our tickets and pay. So there is the background.

After we had gotten the tickets, we made our way over to Dr. Prem Nath's. Matti was there but PA was not. Mary had to go use the restroom, so Mati leaned over to me and asked me if we got our tickets yet. When I said that we did, she asked about how the guy acted. That perked up my interest because he was acting differently and when I told her that, she giggled and said she knew why.

Mati had received a few text messages from the guy the night before. These were not messages that had anything to do with our tickets either. They mostly consisted of compliments such as, "you are a nice girl; you are sweet; I can't stop thinking about your eyes; we should go have coffee." etc. But it was the eyes pne that raised her red flag. She remembered that he had said that to me a few hours before, so she asked him if he's meant to send these to me, and he responded with, "This isn't Arlette?" After Mati assured him that she wasn't me, he proceeded to ask her for my number - to which she truthfully replied that she didn't have it. He then asked her if I have a boyfriend. Uncertain, she cautioned with a 'yes' answer. He replied with, "Oh, okay, I guess I won't ask her out then." Mati then said that when she went to him in the morning for her ticket he asked her not to tell me about their conversation from the previous night.

Of course, I had no idea any of this took place, so I just thought the guy was acting strange but didn't think much else about it. Looking back, now knowing the whole story, a lot of thinks make sense. I was kind of dumbfounded by the whole experience because I was oblivious to the whole situation. I am finding that I have a hard time differentiating when men are being nice or are flirting. Either way, I've been trying to keep a low profile so I don't know why I am getting so much male attention here...

That very night we were to leave for Amritsar via an overnight train. The journey would take around 12 hours in all. Our train would leave at 7:40PM so we decided the night before that we would not go to Dr. Nanda's since Aunty wanted us home at 6 for dinner. Mati came with us from Dr. Prem Nath's and when we were walking down the ally to Aunty's house a few bikes honked and we obligingly moved to the left, not even needing to look back. One car decided to get behind us and honk obnoxiously even though we moved over as far left as we could. Still honking and still behind us, the car for whatever reason refused to pass us by. Finally we all whipped around to confront the nuisance behind the wheel. It was Mayank, and Daniel in the passenger seat. Nice prank.  The 3 of us got in the car and Mayank drove us the rest of the 200 feet to the house. We al came inside and surprised Aunty - she laid out a few more place settings and for the first time we all looked like one big family, talking loudly, laughing, passing around food, and having an all around good time. We basically looked like a commercial for the Olive Garden. I cherished that moment, since big happy family meals seem few and far between nowadays. After dinner we got all of our packs and 6 people miraculously into Mayank's  wee-midget of a car. There is a reason I always call 'shotgun,' 4 of them sandwiched into the back seats. Limbs and heads poking out at odd places. Mayank turns on the music and Biz Markie comes on and I turned up the volume. We all start singing, "Have you ever met a girl that you tried to date..." and then Mayank blasted it even higher. All of us, "OH BABY YOU! you've got what I need, but you say he's just a friend, but you say he's just a friend..." We must have been quite the sight; 5 American 20somethings and an Indian 30something all squished into a tiny little car, blasting an old school American rap song, with body parts coming out of weird places, zooming down the congested streets of Dehradun in the waning sunlight.
We made it to the train station with 15 minutes to spare. I know I said it the week before, but this was the beginning of the best weekend ever.