Owned in Translation

Why a few people in India might think I'm married

I wish I could tell you that my three weeks in India were full of majestic, other-worldly knowings. That I felt home in a way I haven’t otherwise, or that it shifted something seemingly immovable in me, but none of that happened.

I also didn’t sink into incapacitating illness, nor was I injured or truly scared in any way. It was not strikingly life changing in any direction, and yet, it was a series of small shifts and noticings that have amounted to something gentle and substantive. Less a push to the edge, more settling in the middle.

On the micro car ride from the New Delhi airport to Lutyens Bungalow, I came to realize that I would not be able to control anything at all about this trip. A small, ambiguous statue of god held fast to the dash while everything else zigged at the whim of our driver. We averted all other beings and vehicles by fractions of a millimeter, proving the theory that most atoms are made principally of space, which we leveraged. In the maze of cars that all obeyed rules unfamiliar to me, I realized that the best thing I could do was simply trust, and not try to intervene.

I’m not the sort of person who is accustomed to having things arranged for me, but I followed the recommendations and agenda of Bim, a close and personal friend of my former boss, as they were the only anchor I had in a country that is far deeper than it is wide. The bungalow was a small place, near the embassies surrounding an interior courtyard punctuated by centuries of potted plants and flocks of green parrots. DJ and I each had our own rooms, each with a private bath and large window that opened into the courtyard. My time in Delhi felt Holmes-ian, as the thick pollution hung with such a force that my brain considered it fog. I wonder what it looked like when it was built, nearly a hundred years prior.

This was not a tourist’s hotel. The other guests were famous Indiophiles spending a few days or a few weeks to photograph or paint, or draw, or sculpt. One couple had just spent a month hiking in a remote somewhere with elephants, and we dined together, family style each morning for breakfast.

people we met at the Bungalow