India, Part I

As I write this, I am sitting in a pool of lamp light, watching snow fall, watching the pines and cars and the road outside fill up with white, contrasting the snowbound hush, the cocooned feel of the house, like a ship at night, with the sights and sounds and the sometimes spicy and delicate, sometimes acrid smoky smells and most of all the feeling of being in India. Contrast is a key to understanding–and not just in the senses but in the heart, in the shift from thinking in the mind to feeling in the heart. Think of what it is like to be outside in the cold and then to come in and be warm, how it can sting and burn at first. Think of what it is like to go off alone to an unknown place–now make it a place vast and complex and famous for beautiful and dangerous extremes. "Be safe," everyone said, even in line at the gate at JFK and in the airport in New Delhi. "Be careful…Don’t drink the water." So off I went to India.  India, Part I