as per request

it smells like:

Each inhale is different.  Sometimes it smells like sewage and shit but my next breath will be sandalwood incense.  Othertimes I breathe in fried fresh samosas, heaps of garbage, body odor, brewing chai, the clean halls of Tagore, nosefuls of dirt.  When I first came, I remember the night had a distinct smell, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, just foreign.  I cannot smell it anymore, and I think about how Sandy told me that as soon as I start breathing the air, I'm taking India into my cells and changing my deepest biology. There is nothing subtle about india, and this is especially true for its smells.

it feels like:

having dirt in your shoes, cold showers, burning showers, freezing morning bike rides, nausea, sleeping on a hard bed made of hay, henna squeezed onto your palms from a tiny tube, soft thin loose clothes against your skin, always needing a nap, breathing harsh air into your lungs, speeding through campus on a flimsy bike, dodging traffic with the wind on your face, going faster than you would have dared to back home.  It feels like my jeans growing too tight, it feels like a pain in my foot from a tough yoga pose, it feels like an autorickshaw ride through Indian traffic with music blaring and the world spinning out around you dangerously at forty miles an hour.

Right now we have just returned from a long day of touring with the whole group - a scavanger hunt across the city.  I am sitting alone on the front balcony listening to Tracy Chapman and the murmurs of other students inside.  India is daunting, my feet are dirty, and I can only see one star through all this pollution.  It smells like chapstick and burnt food.  I will be staying in Tagore, officially, and I am regretting this decision.  Even so, I will put off unpacking.  I am not yet quite ready to settle.

I hope this helps, Mom.  Sorry to not send a more personal email, but I'm into this blogging idea right now and want to explore it a bit (you're also probably the only person reading this regularly).  So much love to everyone back home.