The puppy that keeps me sane.

It’s been two months since I packed my entire Indian life into three green suitcases, lugged them through Abu Dhabi, endured a 15-hour flight with no functioning entertainment system and moved back into the house I grew up in outside Chicago.

So, at the risk of sounding overly sentimental, here is a brief list of things I miss:

Rickshaws: I don’t actually miss the rickety deathtraps themselves or their occasionally awful drivers, but I do miss the convenience. In Bombay, I could find a rickshaw at literally any hour—and I’ve tried. In my currently suburban existence, it’s next to impossible to get anywhere without a private car or a bike—of which I have neither.

Street Food: Specifically, the dabeli walla outside Khar Station and the coconut stand near Khar Gymkhana. After buying some heinous canned coconut water at the grocery store, I’ve given up trying to find a replacement until I’m back in a tropical country. Sorry Chicago, you get zero points for coconuts.

Small shops: While it’s great that I can find 20 different kinds of Greek yogurt at my local grocery store (read: warehouse-sized megamart), who needs 20 different kinds of Greek yogurt? And can somebody please explain what on earth Icelandic yogurt is? I miss the days when I could walk down the street, ask the guy behind the counter for dahi (yogurt) and be done with it.

My apartment: Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents, my little brother and our house. I do not love sharing a bathroom with my little brother, the suburban location (though it was great as a kid) or the freezing temperatures the rest of my family loves. I miss waking up to palm trees, the giant window in the living room and the shine of the newly cleaned marble floor.

That being said, there are things I love about being back in the States. I love being able to take a 30-minute hot shower if I want, I love being able to text friends just because I want to, I love hanging out with our new puppy, and I’m really excited to start the next step in my career—even though it’s taking a little longer than I’d like to get to that step.

The humidity smelled the same, the big open greeting area looked the same, but it felt very different. A year ago, these were my first smells, visions and sounds of India. A year later, they seem almost old hat. After spending two weeks in the North, the humidity felt almost comforting.

Last year, I had someone waiting for me. Last night, I was very much alone—and not necessarily worse off. I know how to get a prepaid taxi, and I know the directions to my apartment. I wasn’t nervous or anxious.

Tomorrow, I’ll go back to that airport and leave India without knowing when or if I’ll be back. A year ago tomorrow was my first day at a new job, in a new country.

It’s amazing how much changes in a year.

It hasn’t been an easy decision, but for a variety of reasons—both personal and professional—I am moving back to the US. So, as of July 12th, I will no longer be a resident of Mumbai. The original plan was two years, but plans have a pesky way of changing. There are still a lot of things I wanted to do, places I wanted to visit and food I wanted to eat. But isn’t it always that way? I have rarely left a place I enjoyed being without wishing for more time.

Friday is my last day at work, and I leave on Monday for my last little Indian adventure in Manali. Any travel tips welcome.

Like any truly fantastic restaurant, it’s the food that matters, not the décor.

Last week, I took my second trip to the famous eatery in the Ballard Estate area of South Bombay. I arrived a few minutes before it’s generally acceptable to eat lunch—around 12:30—so I had my choice of tables.

Boman Kohinoor—who was born the same year the place opened and inherited the restaurant from his father—toddled over to the table to ask me where I was from and what I was doing in Mumbai. He’s famous for his chit chat and taking patrons’ orders.

When I asked for a Thums Up, he said no, and offered me a local favorite instead.

“Fresh lime soda—sweet—to beat the heat.”

How can you argue with that?

I ordered the delicious, indescribable mutton berry pulao. The berries are still imported from Iran, and the dish is absolute bliss. I topped off the meal with caramel custard.

As I waited for my food, which incidentally is a very short wait here, Boman brought over faded newspaper clippings and letters he had received from the likes of President George W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth. He’s a charming man, and it’s hard not to be swept up in conversation. But once that plate of pulao is set in front of you, he knows to get out of the way.

By the time I was a few bites in, the restaurant had filled up with a rather surprising lunch crowd: corporate types, backpacking tourists and older couples. By the time I was asking for my leftovers to be packed up, there was a waiting list.

Boman approached me as I was leaving to make sure my food was good and I was happy. It was, and I was. Very happy. He gave me a little nod and said goodbye.

“I hope you have a wonderful day and a wonderful life.”

Image Credit: CNNGo

Itinerary:

• Meeting with Echoing Green fellow Dhruv Lakra at Mirakle Courier‘s Churchgate office
• Lunch at Cafe Britannia: sweet lime soda, mutton berry pulao and caramel custard
• Call with the head of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People for work
• Call with Nandu Madhava, CEO of mDhil—a great social enterprise using mobile technology to spread health information
• One-hour reflexology massage at a spa employing only blind therapists. The cost: less than $7.84 without tip.

At the Golden Temple

It’s a well-known fact that when visiting tourist locations in India, you will be asked to pose in some pictures, and even get some taken surreptitiously with cell phones. I get it.

I’m generally pretty willing to pose in pictures. I won’t, however, pose with young men because I’ve been told by lots of Indian men that they will go back and tell their entire village you slept with them. No thanks.

Once, I was at the Prince of Wales Museum (now called the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya—just rolls right off the tongue) and a girl asked me if she could take my picture. I refused. Not because I had an issue with her wanting a picture of me, but rather that in the company of artifacts that are hundreds, if not thousands, of years old, the thing she wanted a picture of was me.

When we were at Agra Fort last fall, I saw a girl take a picture of me with her cell phone. At the last minute, I was able to catch of picture of her. She met my eyes, and her entire family started laughing at her. At first she looked embarrassed but eventually embraced the humor of the situation.

An eye for an eye.

Sure enough, at the busiest intersection on my route—and where the most beggars hang out—a woman approached the rickshaw with her hand outstretched. But when she got closer, she tried to snatch the bottle from my hand.

I reacted subconsciously and began to pull back—engaging in a tug of war over a bottle of Pepsi that I no longer wanted. This continued for a few frantic seconds until I got the bottle back. The moisture mixed with the dirt from her hands left muddy fingerprints on my arms as she continued to beg for the bottle. Eventually, the light changed and the rickshaw continued and left the woman behind.

I justified the whole incident by saying that I didn’t want the woman to get the bottle because she would assume those kind of tactics work. But really, my fight or flight reflex kicked in, and I chose fight—something I’ve found happening increasingly more often since I’ve been here. I will argue with rickshaw drivers, I will shove men who won’t let me off the train and I will get change from delivery boys.

Out of spite, I finished the Pepsi on they way to the office still feeling conflicted about the whole incident. What would you have done?

Here are a few examples:

Our previous landlord essentially siphoning water from our neighbors to fill up our water tank. If you look closely, you'll notice that he's also standing precariously on our shoe rack.

In one of the apartments we saw, the glass window was broken. Because replacing the glass was expensive, they out a new piece of glass and held it to the window frame with bent nails. I can't speak for its longevity, but it's certainly nothing I had seen before.