I took my first Typhoid pill today, and am starting the incredibly expensive Malaria vaccine next week. “Better safe than sorry,” I told the clerk, but I’m not sure I meant all $230 of it (after insurance). In return, she flashed me a Midwestern smile along the lines of what overly critical, or cunningly perceptive outsiders refer to as, “Minnesota Nice.”
Through the addictive power of Barnes and Noble, I also stocked up on gifts for my home-stay family. Some Indians I haven’t met yet are soon to be the proud owners of one 2008 Wild and Scenic Minnesota Calendar, a photographic look at Minneapolis/St. Paul, and a picturesque look at Minnesota’s natural landscapes, which to me invokes the American sentiments of endless abundance and Manifest Destiny.
This inevitable detachment from connections in Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Unistar (a state of its own, mostly mental), has sparked a previously unheard of generosity in me. I feel compelled to randomly gift things to not only my host family, but to people here. However, this chord extends only to peripheral friends, not everyday ones. I have thoughts on why, but don’t feel like articulating them into words right now.
I also picked up a new sketchbook and a journal, as well as a couple of comfy bras.
Something great! Shubhang and his family will be in India (for the first time in 14 years) in November visiting their friends and relatives. Jagruti said they’d definitely be seeing me in Pune, because they have friends there. Also, Rose is studying Buddhism all term. In her words: “I’ll be sitting crozz legged wit mah eyes closed all semester in Bodh Gaya, in the Burmese Vihar…and where will YOU be, lovely?” Response: on the other side of the country, but maybe…
Things to do in the next couple of weeks that aren’t ‘Pack’ include: Read Love and Longing in Bombay, by Vikram Chandra, as well as India: From Midnight to the Millenium, by Shashi Tharoorskip (this still hasn’t arrived in the mail, which sketches me out), put together a photo album of my life here to bring there, GET MY BLOOD TYPED! rawr rawr rawrrrr!, send out a mass e-mail collecting addresses and spreading mine, see Water, UNPACK FROM COLLEGE, etc. etc. etc. not gonna think about it.
