Hot feet

April 1, 2010

I slept decently that night on the train. I woke up in the morning having to badly use the loo. I wriggled out of my silk liner and climbed down to my shoes. Where were my shoes?

I had chained my bag the night before below the lower birth and left my Teva flip-flops tucked to the side. A 10-second debate in my head on whether to bring my filthy flip-flops into my bed with me for the night had ended with me deciding that every other passenger had left their shoes free on the floor, I should do the same. And now, as I looked around for my comfy, brown, trustworthy Tevas I still saw every other passenger’s shoes abandoned on the floor, but mine were nowhere to be found. They stole my flip-flops!!! Why? Why would someone do that to a person on a train, they didn’t even know I had another pair of shoes with me, I could have been shoeless!

“Someone stole my shoes.” I said to the woman in the lower birth. “No, that wouldn’t happen, they must be here,” she replied casually. I didn’t reply with my thought of, “This is India, of course it would/did happen! But why mine?” In a dance of frustration of being robbed and having a full-bladder I wrestled my sneakers free. Of course I knew why mine had been stolen, because they were “western.” They were unique and someone took a fancy to them. Of course I hadn’t thought that my foam, simple Tevas were such a commodity when I had left them with fancy slippers, sneakers, and business shoes lying on the floor around them. But apparently they are more valuable, because all the other shoes had survived the night on the floor of the train.

I reached Delhi and found an auto-rickshaw to take me to Niharika’s. I was excited to see her again after 2 years since my time in Uttarakhand. It took an hour to get to Niharika’s neighborhood, Malviya Nagar, I had no idea Delhi was so enormous. And it was even hotter than UP.

When Niharika and I embraced in front of her house it occurred to be suddenly that I really barely knew her. We had spent time together in Sonopani and I conducted a dance workshop with her at the NGO AAROHI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YiQ01cUZG0), we had shared personal stories, and we had stayed in touch with occasional emails. But when I saw her again I remembered that we had not had the time to develop a close friendship or any deep trust. I had travelled across India to work and stay with her and she was opening her home to me for a week, how would it go?

Within minutes of putting my pack down in her beautiful, simple 2 bedroom apartment we were catching up on each-other’s lives. It was the girl talk I had been missing for 3 months. She told me about her boyfriend, I told her about mine. We talked about our families, school, work, home, hair, clothes, travel, plans, plans, and more plans for the next week and 2 months. But before I knew it I had freshened up and she whisked me off to the Swechha office (http://www.swfc.org.in/).

Sunny, Niharika’s co-worker, was attending a meeting about an upcoming protest being organized by the Bhopal Gas Tragedy victims against DOW Chemical Company. It would be interesting for me to tag along. Tired and hungry, I agreed the meeting would be interesting without knowing what Bhopal was and got into the car with Sunny.

It was mostly curiosity that motivated me to attend the meeting. What happened in Bhopal and why was there a protest being organized, and who was this Sunny character? In the less than one hour that we had to chit-chat Niharika confided in me that her wonderful, relatively-new boyfriend was her co-worker and no one at work could know about it. I was eager to meet him.

The Bhopal meeting was extremely interesting, though mostly in Hindi. I had known nothing about the Bhopal Gas Tragedy until Sunny filled me in on the horrific industrial accident that occurred in the 1980s, an accident whose repercussions are still affecting the health of thousands in Madhya Pradesh. DOW chemical company inherited the responsibility of compensating the victims sufficiently, something that has still not happened. An international march was being organized in April by Al Gore’s NGO, named Live Earth. The hundreds of 6km marches were an effort to bring awareness to the scarcity of clean drinking water all over the world. Ironically, Live Earth’s single sponsor was DOW Chemicals, a company responsible for the pollution of water sources in numerous developing countries. But today corporate responsibility is a hot topic and huge companies like DOW are “taking action” to make a difference. A million dollars spent on organizing marches is a drop in the bucket for a company like DOW, but acknowledging the responsibility for thousands of victims of an industrial accident would be a headache for them… And so I learned that the Bhopal movement had plans to hold their own march in Delhi, registered with Live Earth under the pseudonym “Hindustan Sea Turtle Alliance.” They would show up in sea turtle t-shirts, set up booths and gather people, then strip to show their Bhopal shirts and flip their posters and signs to show their true message, DOW cannot hide their mistakes and responsibility by throwing an international party celebrating cleaning drinking water. I supported the ideas and was sorry that Atish and I would not be in Delhi on the day of Live Earth to join the “Hindustan Sea Turtle Alliance” in their mission. I was sworn to confidentiality that no one would hear about their plans until after the date, it was too risky if DOW were to catch word of the mischief.

In the car Sunny and I discussed my travels and India. He told me about his work with Swechha and the huge issues behind the Commonwealth Games soon to be held in Delhi, we talked about religion and the government in India. By the time we returned to Niharika’s place I had learned that Sunny was an excellent listener, intelligent, socially aware and active, and a musician, check, check, check, and check; I approved.

My time staying with Niharika was extremely enjoyable, even though I was still fighting off a cold, cough, and general weakness. She proved to me a most gracious host. I was fed and watered, taken to nice restaurants and given home cooked meals. We went for the delicious, famous chicken shwarma in New Friends Colony. She took me shopping for kurtas (traditional long dress shirts). She arranged all the plans perfectly so that I could teach a wonderful series of dance workshops with a group of girls (more on that later!). We went to an excellent play with famous Bollywood actors. She tagged along with me to check out the local salsa scene. And last but certainly not least she enthusiastically helped me to set up the scavenger hunt for Atish which I had been planning in my head for months. Over the course of that week our friendship was built on shared stories and experiences, advice and thoughts shared. By the end of that week it didn’t feel as though we had barely known each other 2 years ago, but more like old friends reunited. We booked train tickets to Sikkim for a two week adventure together in May that we both looked forward to.

All the while, I desperately tried to find replacement flip-flops in Delhi to provide my sweaty feet some relief. It was surprisingly difficult to find a suitable pair. There are shoe stores everywhere, but I can’t wear plastic between my toes, I get blisters (I tried too, and I got blisters!). Even after nearly 10 different stores in different parts of Delhi I hadn’t found a pair of foam flip-flops with cloth straps that fit me. Alas, I surrendered to wearing my hiking shoes and having hot feet.
If the phrase having “cold feet” is not being sure of something or wanting to quit a commitment, then is having “hot feet” wanting to see something through, eager for the final outcome or a new beginning? I eagerly awaited the arrival of Atish and our time together, so when the day finally came when I would be packing my stuff from Niharika’s and waiting for Atish’s flight to land I could hardly believe it. After 3 months of traveling through Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and India, Atish and I would be in the same place, together. And so, in the 109 F weather in Delhi I headed off the Hotel Tara Palace in Old Delhi where Atish would meet me in the evening.