Imagining India

I am incredibly lucky. I have travelled to a lot of different countries and I have feasted on their local cuisines, I have learnt about their fascinating cultures, and I have witnessed sunsets over views that you only ever read about in books. From the pretty similar cultures shared by our European neighbours to the wildly different ones in Dubai and Sri Lanka, I have experienced a wealth of new things.

Over the Christmas period this year I will be spending my first ever Christmas away from chilly old England. There will be no tree, no twinkly fairy lights, no exchanging of gifts and no stockings hanging on the mantelpiece. Instead, me, my mum and my brother will be in Kerala, India. Of course there is a part of me that will dearly miss my traditional Christmas Day. I love nothing more than wrapping up warm and singing carols around the village tree on Christmas Eve, I delight in visiting the Christmas markets across the country, and I fall in love with how idyllic the British countryside looks when frost carpets the fields.  But India has always been a place that I’ve longed to see. Before I actually see the wonder of such a vibrant country, I have written a short extract of fiction which imagines what India might be like. I can only work from things I’ve read about or seen in films, but what I can gather about India is the explosion of colour that bursts from it’s every pore. So here I go, and then after Christmas I can look back on this piece and probably re-write every word!

 

An inferno of colour scorches my eyes. The passionate pinks of silky scarves first alert my attention, then my eyes dart to the beautifully intricate wooden boxes laid out on display, but then row upon row of unidentifiable foodstuff pop into my sight. My eyes roll wildly in my head in fear that I’ll miss something. A sensation of smells dance under my inexperienced nose. Never before has it smelt such a multitude of exotic scents. In the unrelenting heat of the Indian sun my skins crawls. I feel suffocated by the barrage of senses coming at me from every angle. Body after body presses up against me, all dampened by the stifling heat of the day. I haven’t moved for quite some time now. I’m acutely aware of the people bustling past me, frantically absorbing themselves into their daily routines.  Colour, noise and movement  characterize this scene. Perhaps that is why I’m able to focus on her. Perhaps that is why my eyes stop jumping from one thing to another. A petite Indian woman, no more than 10 paces from me, is smiling directly at me. Amidst the blur of passersby, she holds her ground. The happiness in her smile is infectious – it travels all the way up to her eyes and makes them seem too young for the head they sit in. Her eyes are a warm shade of walnut,  framed by deep wrinkles which allude to a life of hard work, but the twinkle suggests that is has been a rewarding life. Her smile does not waver, even when we lock eyes and I catch her watching me. Instead, her curiosity deepens as she tilts her head to one side to study me further. 

 

Now, I don’t know what India is really like (yet!) but when I go there I want my senses to be maxed out. I want to be hit with colour, culture, music, people, noise, heat. I want to immerse myself in a place that has so much to offer. I see life almost like a colour-by-numbers drawing. Remember how as a kid you’d colour all the sections numbered 1 in red and 2 in yellow and so on? Well life is like that. You colour your life with the things you do along the way. One colour for family, one for friends, one for all the jobs you pick up, one for the travelling you do. And if you lead a happy and fulfilling life then your drawing will be bursting with colour by the end.

That’s how I like to see the world. Many things will bring joy, colour and passion to your life and I think that my trip to India will be another section of colour that I can fill in on my drawing.