Thursday, February 22, 2007

Know What I Wish

“It’s almost your birthday,” Amanda said to me during one of our Skype chats. My birthday was 40 days away. I’ve trained my friends well. (See appendix for Anna-to-English dictionary of birthday terminology.)

A few days earlier, and partly because my birthday was coming up, I’d updated my Amazon “wish list.” I tossed in a bunch of yoga books, deleted the Cuisipro Donvier Electronic Yogurt Maker (because, really, who has time to make yogurt?) and moved a couple of must-haves to my shopping cart. And then it struck me: where to mail these must-haves? My default address was an apartment in California I’d vacated half a year earlier.

I looked at the other addresses in my Amazon account. There was the LA address of a company I no longer work for and the Brooklyn address of the pad I shared with Amanda and Sash. There were three Jersey addresses: the house I fixed up with Jason, the tiny apartment I lived in before that, and the hotel where my ex-employer put me up when I moved to the Garden State.

I’ve lived in more than a dozen cities. The addresses span three continents, eight U.S. states and Washington DC. It’s why I draw a blank every time someone asks, “Where are you from?”

I’ll never get tired of seeing the world. I think I’ll always travel. But these days, the first item on my wish list is a permanent address, a place to put the baubles I bring back.

A little while ago I found myself at Chennai’s Home Store, a giant furniture and housewares retailer à la Crate and Barrel. I didn’t need anything. I wandered through every department, caressing throw pillows, comparing kitchen gadgets, sniffing scented candles. Most of my belongings are stacked in a shed, stuffed in a car trunk or sitting in friends’ homes. I’m a home accents junkie without a home.

In the end, I changed my default address to my mom’s place in Pittsburgh. It’s the closest thing to home. It’s where I’ll head when I return to the States at the end of March. And, ahem, it’s where all birthday gifts should be sent.

Appendix
“My birthday is coming up.” . . . . . It’s 6-8 weeks away.
“It’s almost my birthday.” . . . . . It’s 4-6 weeks away.
“What’d you get me?” . . . . . It’s 2-4 weeks away.
“It’s my birthday!” . . . . . It’s up to 2 weeks away.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Another India

Goa is India’s Sunset Strip. It’s where people go to party. By day, backpackers, ageing hippies and escapees from India’s urban centers lounge on the shores of the Arabian Sea. By night, they dance, powered by thumping music, pills and booze.

I didn’t go to India’s smallest state to party. I went to see Gina and Manny, friends from LA who have a condo in Benaulim, a coastal village in South Goa. Manny is Goan; his family lives near Benaulim. He and Gina have visited Goa three times since they were married almost four years ago. When we exchanged photos of India after my first trip, it seemed as if we’d been to different planets.

Goa is known for its beaches: long stretches of wheat-colored sand shared by sunbathers, fishermen and cows. During the tourist season, the beaches are lined with small huts that serve as guesthouses and bigger huts that serve food and drink. They look like they were built by the first little piggy; they’re dismantled before monsoon.

Chennai has beaches, too. I live within walking distance of one, but I rarely go there. Once, at twilight, I went for a stroll on Chennai’s Marina Beach. I walked as if drunk, head down, zigzagging to avoid piles of shit. The crabs darting across the wet sand reminded me of the aliens in a game of Space Invaders. I looked up when a dog emerged from the shadows and growled at me. A leathery fisherman ordered the dog to desist, and I continued on my way. There were many piles of shit, and I worried about crossing paths with other territorial dogs. When I looked up again, I saw men squatting by the water. I realized I was safe; it wasn’t dog shit.

In Goa, you can wear a bikini. Chennai’s too conservative for that; a mid-calf skirt is considered short. In Goa, you can sip a Kingfisher beer and watch a Western retiree practice fire twirling while waiting for a burger. Most of Chennai’s restaurants are dry, and beef is rarely on menus in this predominately Hindu city.

Goa, unlike most of India, never belonged to the British. Portugal held it for some 450 years. Until 1961, when the Indian army booted the Portuguese, visitors needed a passport to enter. The Portuguese missionaries were cruelly efficient; Catholic churches and chapels are more ubiquitous than ATMs.

Goa was just what I needed, a break from my break. I bobbed in the ocean with Gina. I ate home-cooked meals with Manny’s family. I bought jewelry from gypsies. I sipped strawberry juice with sloshed tourists. I inhaled sea air instead of rickshaw fumes. In the shower, the sand came off easily, not like the black film on my arms after a day on Chennai’s roads.

Thanks, Gina and Manny, for sharing your paradise.

Manny and Gina

fishermen


Friday, February 09, 2007

Clever Girl

My friend Nadine scanned an article I wrote for a yoga magazine and put it on her blog. Because I lack such tech-savvy, and because I have no shame, I’m directing you there.

Mary Agnes, Who Wishes to Meet Her Maker

“Can I ask you a question?” Mary Agnes says to me. “Tell me the truth.”

I promise to be truthful. Mary Agnes and I are on the express train from Chennai to Goa, a 23-hour affair. That’s long enough to swap life stories, unless you have a story like Mary Agnes’s.

She’s Indian but lives now in Dubai, where she keeps house for a Lebanese woman. Every two years she has four weeks off, and she comes back to India even though she has no family here. Mary Agnes was raised in an orphanage run by nuns. I can see their influence when she turns on her cell phone; a full-color cross materializes on the screen.

“How many sleeping pills does it take to die?”

I tell Mary Agnes the truth. I don’t know. She’s disappointed and takes another sip from her bottle of whiskey.

This is why Mary Agnes wants to die: She has no one. She has money, but no love. (“My madam pays me very well,” she says of her employer. Every time she mentions “madam” she kisses the tips of her fingers like an Italian chef proud of his puttanesca.)

In India, having no one is worse than having nothing. It’s not unusual for a dozen family members to sleep in a one-room house; not one would trade that life to sleep alone in a mansion. Children don’t grow up and “get a place.” They live with their parents or in-laws long after having children of their own. Solitude, loneliness, independence – these are strange concepts here. When I say I’m traveling alone, I’m asked the question again. “You are here with?” They’re confident I misunderstood the first time.

Mary Agnes, who’s 45, had a husband once. She was young and naïve when the nuns coaxed her into marrying him. She didn’t drink or smoke then. She didn’t know where babies came from. He never kissed her and had a habit of dragging her by the hair. She left but didn’t divorce him. She didn’t want another woman to suffer.

Mary Agnes is sharp. She doesn’t read or write, but she speaks six languages. Her English is excellent, though it gets a bit worse with every sip. She wears a watch with a maple leaf on it, a souvenir from a trip to Canada with “madam.” She used to have a bracelet with diamonds, but it was stolen by people who called themselves friends.

“I live only for him,” she tells me, hand raised to the sky.