India

Mumbai, September 22nd 2010

And so to truly complete a journey, a return to where one started is necessary. The great plaza before the Gateway to India dominates the sea; the re-opened Taj Mahal Hotel dominates the city skyline. A full moon hangs low, smudged in the smoke and dreams of this optimistic, energetic city. People chant to Ganesha, whose festival must be close to over now; fireworks explode in the darkening sky before me, sending the stray dogs running for cover.

I sit and write while people and families pass by. A man comes to talk to me, he is from Margao, in Goa. I feel connected, grateful; as the leaving-anxiety slowly changes into a serene sense of happiness, all my frustrations and criticisms of this incredible place melt away. I will not finish my essay of a blog entry attempting to decipher, disect and lampoon India - better writers than I have done it already, many times over.

There is time for one last stroll, to gaze out to sea where the lights of the merchant ships gleam, evoking memories of my sister, so impossibly distant from me right now. Were it not for her I would not have come on this journey. I raise my last bottle of water to her, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Time to go, now. Goodbye India.