I'm Seeing Stars

Yesterday I saw stars for the first time since I arrived in India

Peering out a bus window on the way back from Pondicherry I looked up and there they were. Wow.

I also realized yesterday that coming home might indeed involve a bit of "reverse culture-shock." In Pondichery I walked down a wide, clean road with almost no one on it and rather than enjoying it, I felt deeply uncomfortable. Where were the people? the smells? the garbage? the life? Have I really been here long enough to crave crowded dirty streets? Maybe it was just my being sick taking its toll (Chennai and India in general are soo bad for one's health, no one, not even people who live here are ever healthy for more than a week or so) or maybe not. In any case, I'm back in Chennai at least for a day and reveling in my strange relief at being back amidst the smog and dirt and noise and shit once again.