writing about india

writing about india isn't the same as being in india. which is overly obvious, i guess. i'll try that again:

writing about india is hard--nearly impossible--when you're fresh out of the bath, when it's one in the morning, when you're between so-clean sheets, on your back, laptop on your stomach, listening to the huge silence that is the tiny new hampshire town where you grew up, in winter, in the middle of the night.

is that better? writing about india in a graduate school application essay isn't the same thing as writing about india for yourself which isn't the same thing as writing publicly about india "for yourself" (oh, blogging) which isn't the same thing as not writing about india at all. if i'd already reached that point, i guess it'd be time to go back again.

i painted my fingernails three different colors today before i found one that looked alright. a friend in kathmandu told me they're up to eleven hours a day of power cuts. after dinner, i watched an hour long special on kids who are addicted to huffing computer cleaning products. a friend in bodh gaya told me his aunt just arrived from tibet, and he is so happy to see her. now it's one in the morning and i'm trying to write an essay about india, and i'm supposed to make myself look simultaneously talented but humble, experienced but in need of education, young but worldly. i actually wrote it weeks ago, but now when i read it, it sounds like a shell of a story of a person. i could send them everything i've ever written about india--there's so, so much, and some of it is terrible and some of it is beautiful and most of it is somewhere in between. but i've got to write one new thing, a couple pages that sum it all up: the life i've lived in india that, right now, i'd rather just be living. honestly, i miss it terribly.