cooking, seeing and thinking

Hi Everyone,

First of all, thanks soooo much for the birthday wishes :) Really appreciated them! My day went fairly went. During the day I was at office, but in the evening, Shirin (my supervisor) and I cooked (more like Shirin cooked and I assisted) in making dinner for all of us as Mervyn came over for dinner. It was a lovely feast! And I did made some parathas (different type of bread). Believe it or not, I think I am actually getting better at it. I have been cooking more frequently, and I really hope that by the end of this internship, I can cook at least one entire meal from scratch alone. I am pretty sure that will happen.

Yesterday was Sunday and the day went well. We woke up late, and then started cooking lunch as Mervyn was coming over for lunch. Again, an elaborate meal, which tasted sooooo gooooodd!! We finished lunch by around 3.30 and then got ready and took a bus to Somnath. There is a temple there and a beach there. To get to Somnath, we have to go through this town called Veraval, it's a port town where the people's primary income is through fishing. And holy jeebus, just riding past that town and really, you smell that extremely peculiar and sometimes intolerable fishy smell. I couldn't believe how the people there could get desensitize to it, as it is everywhere! But what amazed me even more were the people who actually do this work and I would imagine that their entire bodies can become consumed by that smell. Nonetheless, by the time we got to Somnath, it was 6.00. We made it just in time for sunset. I was sooo excited to see the ocean after a hiatus of almost 2 months. we ddin't even go in the temple, though it looked pretty good from the outside. I was a lot more satisfied by the ocean around me.

Indian beaches are a different experience all together. The water is warm!! There are camels, horses, dogs, cows, sometimes even donkeys roaming around. Street vendors selling all kinds of awesome awesome food everywhere and lots of people. But you know what? I loved it. If only Victoria beaches were like this, it would be perfect! :p When we first got on the beach, we bought coconuts and drank the coconut water. These are giant green local coconuts and we slash them open from the top, and a put a straw in it and start drinking that awesome awesome water. Coconut water is supposed to really healthy for you, and its amazing, the amount of water that is in these cocounts. Anyway, that was lovely. Then, we went and sat down and I started clicking some pics. I really wanted to ride a camel, so convinced Shirin to get on a camel with me. The ride was short, but it was soooo lovely! The camels were lovelily decorated :p Then, we came back and sat down again and Mervyn got some freshly roasted peanuts. By that time, it was dark and the stars came out. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... The waves were rolling in, the stars were out, the fish boats lights were tinkling off in the distance, and the three of us were sitting on nice cool sand eating roasted peanuts and just hanging. It was really lovely. In a bit, we had to leave as our bus was leaving. However before leaving, we managed to eat some ice cream as well :P I have been consuming soooo much ice cream here. But seriously, even the best of brands there DO NOT compare to the classic Vadilal and Amul ice cream here. they are just asdjfklsdjfklsdjfklsjdflksjd!!! Eating these ice creams is truly something that can improve your mood 100% (badly phrased sentence I know, bah english getting worse already!)

Nonetheless, it is such positive experiences that has started me thinking on my connection with Inda. Perhaps I am going through my own little honeymoon phase with India. My experiences have been positive so far, and I am seeing a whole other side of my own country that I had never seen before. I am getting to see a different side of India that I had only seen in movies and would always consider it suspiciously. However, seeing that myself, and living in this environment has made me want to at least ponder about the question: what would my life be like here? Can I live in India in my future? Can I start a career here? "Can I settle down here?" I already know that if I choose to continue living in Canada, I will have a very comfortable life. I will have a reliable future, and i will be in my comfort zone. If I continue down this career path, a Phd is inevitable, and maybe a professor job. It's a life that I can visualize, a life of comfort and ease for the most part. When I start to imagine what would a life be like here in India, the image is very hazy, extremely hazy and cloudy. But at this moment, it's a feeling I get. A "what if..." That's all. Perhaps it's just a phase and over the next few months, I might have some experiences that may make me want to change my mind entirely and never want to come back or realize that Canada is where I want to be. But in the meanwhile, I am wondering....

Also, on a completely different note, I have started seeing some bad dreams again. I hadn't seen a bad dream for a long long time. For those unaware, I am a vivid dreamer, and I usually see negative dreams related to myself and death, destruction, drowning, so on and so forth. However, over this month, those dreams had stopped, until last night that is. They started up again and caught me off guard. Not sure why that is. I won't exactly go in the details of what I saw as it might disturb some of you, but I had become something in it that terrified me. I was glad to be woken up. Not sure why these dreams are coming back, but I hope they stop.

Anyway, today has been a long entry but I hadn't written in a while and wanted to catch up. Hope you are all well! And I tried really hard to post up 2 more pics but it's just not going through. So Will try to post them up soon!! Meanwhile, enjoy this one!