Oh, India...

A passage from my new project: Shantaram (finishing the 935 page novel before I leave India...that's about 120 pages a week....I CAN do it!)

'India is about six times the size of France,' he went on, as the glass of alcohol and bowl of curried snacks arrived at our table. 'But it has almost twenty times the popluation. Twenty times! Believe me, if there were a billion Frenchmen living in such a crowded space, there would be rivers of blood. Rivers of blood! And, as everyone knows, we French are the most civilised people in Europe. Indeed, in the whole world. No, no, without love, India would be impossible.'

page 85

I liked this because it rang so true with me. I sometimes wonder how India even exists with all its craziness and people and wealth and poverty, and damn TRAFFIC!...but it has its own fluidity to it. It's own way of exisiting and surviving that wouldn't work anywhere else in the world but here. And for all its corruption (and I have seen and heard how much there is,) India really does exist on a whole lotta love. Love for its own people, and country. Interesting and frustrating....but who am I to even try and understand it?

Some recent pics....

Hi World,

I am still here. It's just been a rough couple of weeks for me, so I haven't been blogging. Trying really hard to find perspective and clarity and calm and strength and all this crazy stuff. Anyway, I've been having a bit of fun amidst all of that. Here are a few pics to prove it ;)

First one is of me and my kiddies at the Mother's Day party we had on Friday. We made banana bread and some crafts and cards for the Mums and it was lots of fun. And then my class Mum gave ME flowers! Very nice of her....aren't my kids cuties?! One is missing from the pic....back to the States to get their visas....

This next one is a pic of me and John at the wedding reception for one of the bus drivers at the Canadian School. It was very 'Indian' and I am very glad I got to see it. We weren't able to go to the actual wedding (quite far away on a Wednesday night...) so the reception (the night before oddly enough) was as close as I am gonna get to an Indian wedding in India. I guess they're not really like they appear in the Bollywood movies anyway. Darn. I was very excited about the shirt I am wearing though. Bought it that afternoon. Very bright. Very Jessie ;)