Sunday, June 7, 2015

Day 1 in Delhi: An entry from December 2014

A travel entry from December 2015




If the fourteen-hour flight to India was death, then I suppose that the seven-hour art history lesson today was purgatory. The woman who held the lecture today was a knowledgeable woman with a detailed PowerPoint. I looked her directly in the eyes as I fell asleep over and over again.

As I awoke from one particularly vivid dream about a violent bearded man, I wondered how everyone else was staying awake. I realized I was the only one not taking notes. Notes, I thought blearily. The professors leading the trip had encouraged us to draw during the class and I had taken that advice to heart. Not a single note marred the pages of my sketchbook. Instead I had drawn the speaker herself, surrounded by the images from her slideshow.

I fell asleep, and then woke again. One of our tour guides looked at me with concern and I answered her with what was meant to resemble a smile. She edged away from my grimace. Every time I closed my eyes I felt a gentle roaring at my temples. The very thought of a cool pillow was almost like the satisfaction of sleep.

To stay awake, I began to record how many times the speaker said “yeah?” or “you know?” in her gentle, pleading manner as she tried to drive each point home. Final count was ninety-five for “yeah?” and sixty-eight for “you know?” but to be fair, I fell asleep with over an hour left in the session.

I woke to one of the professors massaging my shoulders. I woke to ask a self-explanatory question (I believe it was something along the lines of why monks settled along the Silk Road, and the answer was obviously financial in nature).

I woke abruptly when I heard the speaker apologizing for taking too long. “NO,” I said too loudly, “this is good,” then fell back asleep.

And then finally, it was over. As I emerged blinking into the sun, I was reminded of exiting a plane, or perhaps of being expelled from a birthing canal. The rest of the day was a blur. I jumped out of the way of an aggressively running baboon. I loathed myself as I ignored a beggar. I stepped around skinny stray dogs. And yet, at the end of the day, I feel strangely triumphant. I’ve made it out of purgatory and I’m excited for the adventures of the next three weeks in India.

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