it is so much harder to be here. And more wonderful. And conflicting.

Thailand was just fun. It was interesting and different and beautiful and full of Adventures. But India...

In so many ways, it feels familiar, but not. Everything I see reverberates with things I've heard from my parents, expressions, little actions I've seen in my relatives in Canada and dismissed as idiosyncrasy.

It's not idiosyncrasy. It's culture. A whole culture that I have never really thought about. It's like I've suddenly been immersed into an environment that gives me context.

I grew up as the only not-white kid in my school. I've told this story before: one day I wasn't the only one... it's because my sister had started kindergarten.

I feel that I've spent my life ignoring the Indian side of me. My parents aren't very indian... they grew up speaking English as part of the minority Catholic middle class. Perhaps I inherited it from them, but I have a vague fear of all these stereotypes: smelling of curry, baggy undershirts, the goddamn Apu accent. The unibrow. Those thin shirts the men wear; always checkered. The Indian character... so often one of ridicule. Maybe not really... but I realize that is the reality in my mind. I intersperse those ridiculous characteristics with my knowledge of a nation that is full of wise and graceful people. A place that is majestic, beautiful, and historic. The site of some of the earliest civilizations. The source of great art, religion, and literature.

And so I've been rejecting these things all my life. And now I'm here and all of a sudden, I'm surrounded by the things I've pretended weren't a part of me. (except for Bollywood. There is no bollywood in my veins. I am sure of this.) I'm just enraptured by the idea that I have roots here... no one in Canada has roots. We're all transplants, just of varying ages. I don't know where my roots are, and I don't know anything about them, but they lie somewhere in this vast nation.

I don't know when this became so important to me. But I truly feel like I've just identified a question (like Jeopardy!), put a name to a blank I've carried with me my whole life. I'm an Indo-Canadian, and I've got the Canadian part down pretty well. So maybe i'm here to see what it's all about... this whole indian thing. Time to embrace more than just the food.

Speaking of... breakfast on the plane: hot chapatis, mattar paneer, tiny samosas and tamarind sauce. Chai. Heaven served in tiny plastic containers. Okay. off to explore.

12:50 p.m. - 2003-08-01