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A wave of nostalgia passes over me, through me, and lifts me up into a world of poetic disinvolvement. Warm sultry, champak odors elevate my spirit, as I tiptoe across the courtyard. The dust is cooled down by the ayahs chasing away buckets of water, and the air is light with a million sounds. This is India in the morning. I am back.

Last night I hardly saw anything. Like coming back to a lover in the dark, so I rediscovered my home, feeling my way through the memories. How long has it been since I left? At thirteen time isn’t measured in hours or days, but in suffering and loss. And God only knows how much I have suffered.

Coming here is like entering a marriage fair. Everything about this subcontinent lends itself to the poetry of romance. I come here to fall in love,though I do not know it. I already am in love, a prelude to the over powering of the love that is to come. I already miss you, I say to him that I do not know, and missing is like knowing, and love. The rhythm of life here carries me into a mad dance of invisible enticement, anticipation prepares me and colors my cheek.

When you are young and naive, every man is a future soul mate. And so, accordingly I turn my attention from no one, each has his chance until he ruins it. ‘You like romance fil-lims’, says one nodding his head and smiling, ‘we will make romance together...’. I pull my shawl a little more over my virgin body. I make my way down the road, India is not full of batik throws and sandalwood Ganeshas (although they are there), the stalls are polluted with decade retarded Western goods. I stop at one, trying on a few sun glasses while I wait for my mother to get us some coconut water. We hail down a rickshaw, and stepping in I think my love would look nice with such eyes, I turn mine.

MG road. Down another, and another. Bangalore: ‘Garden city’. We stop and argue over the fare. I enter Babu’s taxi depot, that is many things before that, and sit on the couch that I know only too much of, as close to the fan as I can.Through the tinted plexiglass, I see Babu’s brother discussing business with aclient, I have time to sip slowly through an lemony ‘Thums Up’ and two warm‘Frooties’, dose a while and make ten impossible knots with the corner of my Salwar. I am still looking for my One, but impatience is gaining over me, inIndia time is a secondary notion, heat must slow its wheels. Finally my mother is shown in, I stay by the fan. An hour to coordinate a taxi for tomorrow, pickup mail and make a few precious ‘long distance phone calls’, and we make our way back to the guest house.

The porter who last year was my partner in crime will not look at me now, as he brings us up two sweet Lassis, something has changed, I have metamorphosed into an Indian woman at the threshold of my adolescence. I put on the pink Salwar that died my skin pink the first time I wore it, and braid my hair, disappointed that the jasmine string has wilted, leaving only its transparent veil of odor.The evening breathes its approval on my neck, bringing with it the cry of monkeys and the foreboding of a late monsoon storm. Before the night we head forthe restaurant.

It is funny how the colonial style here is anything but British, as if it too had been seduced by its new host. The St Marks, that last year was our dining hall, springs to life in a blur of Namastes and Hello-How-Do-You-Do’s. All the waiters flock around our table, even the new ones that we do not know. The conversation flows as easily out of our mouths as the food goes in, this is one of the rare places where sex is not a concern, hidden beneath the table as itall is: I am still a child and my mother is still married.

We take a rickshaw around the corner back to our room. The shower is dripping into the tub as I pour buckets over my head to calm the heat; it has not rained as it promised to. I can hardly tell whether the night is dark or light: the blackness bleeds light. When I pull the mosquito netting around my bed, I imagine a husband behind me already holding me, one with eyes like the rickshaw wallahs, and the rest of the days harvest of features. In my semi dream he holds me until morning bringing coolness to the night, holds me company through thesleepless jet lagged hours.

The SDT across the street blares music, even as (I am sure) the customers try to hear their phone conversations. The words I do not understand but the harmonies play vibrato with my memory. An occasional sound outside the door as the ayahs scurry back and forth. The uproar of passing voices. I oscillate between impatience and gratefulness: while sleep makes me wait I have the time to inhale all the emotions. I am home, I repeat with each swing of the fan overhead, I am home.