by Sharell Cook
He continued. ‘Your real fear is coming from the possibility that you might actually succeed in your plans. What if there is a grand new life waiting for you? Then you'll end up at odds with who you currently are. Many people will no longer recognise or relate to you. You'll lose friends. You'll probably feel very alone. But, you'll be tapping into something much greater – the power of doing what you were put on this earth to do. And you'll find new friends in places you never thought you'd look.’
It all made sense. Did I really have the strength and courage to live my life in an unconventional way, the way that my heart told me was right?
Aryan's parents had showed a lot of courage by accepting our relationship. We hadn't expected their support, at least not so soon. Love marriages, especially to foreigners, were still quite rare in India and very much against Indian culture. Traditionally, marriages in India involve the joining not just of two individuals, but of two families. Substantial effort is put into arranging marriages and finding a suitable family from the same caste and of similar social standing. A good match garners much respect in the community. Going against this deeply ingrained tradition can have wide-reaching, even scandalous, implications. Not only can the head of the family lose respect in the community for allowing the marriage to happen, it can also tarnish the family's reputation and affect the future marriage prospects of the other children.
Many people in India are beginning to think progressively. Yet, they're often stopped from behaving in such a manner by the reactions of a conservative community that abhors anyone doing anything differently. Admirably, Aryan's parents had decided to place their children's happiness above community expectations. No doubt, their relief at Aryan finally wanting to get married helped. They were curious to meet the girl who had brought their wayward son back to Mumbai and prompted him to settle down.
I enrolled online in the writing course that I'd come across in Delhi. Each night after work, I shut myself in my bedroom and worked on compiling a website about natural health. Although I was learning a great deal, I was fast ending up with an unwieldy and unpolished website that I didn't really know what to do with.
One night, I came across an advertisement for freelance writing jobs on the Internet for a large article library website. It evoked the same sense of enthusiasm that I'd felt in Manali for the ad for travel writers.
To apply, I'd need to provide details of my background experience and two samples of my writing.
‘There's no point. It's all too hard. You're really not good enough and wouldn't be accepted,’ the discouraging voice in my head piped up. It didn't take much to convince me. Of course, I wouldn't be accepted. I didn't have any experience.
As I lay in bed preparing to go to sleep, a separate and more soothing voice spoke to me.
‘Remember the travel article about India that you had published on the Internet years ago? Find it and submit it. You'll be successful.’
This voice felt right. It was an intuitive voice that came from deep within.
I still needed one more piece of work. After much thought, I decided to write a fresh article about the Sunday market held along Melbourne's St Kilda Esplanade. I immersed myself in the market, noticing and noting down the sights, sounds and smells.
Not long after I submitted my application, it was approved. The website lacked articles about India so I decided I'd write about Indian travel. Perhaps if I was good enough, I'd even be promoted to features. With that resolved, I abandoned my natural health website to focus on travel writing.
A little over a month before I planned to return to India, Aryan's family started looking for somewhere for us to live. Aryan didn't want to keep living with his parents; like me, he preferred quiet and privacy. Plus, his youngest brother and wife were already living with them in their two-bedroom apartment. There wasn't enough room for more people.
I was quite relieved. Although I would have agreed to live with them, it would have been a challenge for me, and made the adjustment process even harder. Aryan's family decided that we should live near his elder sister so she could help me settle in. His mother, eldest sister and youngest brother's mother-in-law took him to inspect apartments.
‘It was such a slow process. They kept stopping to look at things and ask the price along the way,’ Aryan complained on the phone. I laughed, imagining him being surrounded by a contingent of three constantly chattering Indian women.
They found a suitable one-bedroom apartment but it was in a vegetarian Gujarati apartment complex. These denominational apartments are very common in Mumbai, where people of the same backgrounds cluster themselves together. We were neither vegetarians nor Gujarati. The landlord objected.
‘It's okay, my family handled it,’ Aryan reassured me. ‘They argued with the landlord so much that he finally he gave in and agreed to give us the apartment.’
Only a very brave Indian man would resist a feisty group of Indian women.
‘And what did your family tell the landlord about us?’ I was curious to know.
‘They said I'd be living there with my fiancée, and that we'd soon be getting married.’
I giggled. ‘Wait until he finds out your fiancée is actually a foreigner.’
As my departure crept closer, I was inundated with conflicting emotions. Nervousness, dread, sadness, excitement and an overwhelming feeling of wanting to be back there immediately. Again, I was in the all-too-familiar situation of packing up my life and boarding a plane for the unknown. This wasn't going to be just another trip to India, however. I was going there indefinitely, to be with my sweetheart, get married and live my life like an Indian. At one stage, it felt like the time would never come. Then it was hard to believe that it had arrived.
I sat on the floor of my bedroom, surrounded by boxes, dizzy and my mind in overdrive, coming up with as many memories of the past as possible to hold me in Melbourne. It was torture; I was almost paralysed with anxiety at the prospect of stepping out of my comfort zone. Miraculously, in among all the mental turmoil, came a saving grace from a most unexpected and unlikely source. On my last day at work, a colleague gave me a book, The Dream Giver, by Dr Bruce Wilkinson. In it was the story of Ordinary, who dared to leave his Comfort Zone in the Land of Familiar to pursue his Big Dream.
Ordinary soon learned that although the Dream Giver had given him a Dream, the road to the future that he really wanted was clogged with greater obstacles than he'd ever faced before. Dream-threatening obstacles. These obstacles caused many Nobodies to turn back. But Ordinary put his faith in the Dream Giver's powers and persisted. And the Dream Giver rewarded him with entry through the gateway of his Big Dream.
Increasingly, I was realising the immense power of the universe. Looking back to when I first arrived in Kolkata a little over two years ago, it was becoming obvious that I was being directed and supported to go down a particular path. What was initially a quest for independence and a new perspective had now turned into my life. On the one hand it made no sense anymore, but on the other I had more purpose and inspiration than I'd ever felt.
Giving into my fear of uncertainty wasn't an option. I reminded myself that comfort is a deceptive dream because it becomes a prison. The more I turned away from fear, the more I'd believe that my comfort zone was where I belonged. And the more time I spent being comfortable, the more I'd become convinced that because I hadn't stepped through fear, I couldn't.
The only way forward was to gather my courage and keep moving down the unknown path to my dream, where my soul was calling me. I wasn't running away. I was actually running towards something.
The book became my constant companion for the days that followed, and during my journey to India. As I sat reading it in bewilderment on the plane, with tears rolling down my face, it comforted me in my grief over leaving my home and my parents. That was the moment when I surrendered my dream to the universe and relinquished controlling my life. My dream was just too big for me to handle alone. If the universe had a special plan f
or me, if it was asking me to take such a big step for my dream, I trusted that it would bring into my life what I needed.
*
My eyes met Aryan's through the crowd, fenced in behind the barricades at the airport. Everything looked so strange and yet familiar. We sat holding hands in the back of the taxi, shy about how to act towards each other after so long.
I quickly realised the biggest adjustment I'd have to get used to was my new home. Mumbai is the most densely populated city in the world. In some areas, there are up to 60,000 people per square kilometre. Space is understandably at a premium, and it has pushed the price of real estate up on par with New York City. Around half the city's population occupies chawls, multi-level tenements with single small rooms and a shared bathroom for each floor.
There are very few houses in Mumbai. The middle and upper classes live in apartments. One-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments are common, with two or three generations of family members living in a single flat. Most of the apartment towers in Mumbai reminded me of the Melbourne's characterless high-rise housing commission estates, which housed the city's lowest income families.
Our 500-square foot apartment was less than a quarter of the size of my home in Melbourne, and it needed decorating. Paint was flaking off the walls but the stingy landlord refused to do anything about it. Mosquitoes and pigeons lurked everywhere, along with all the people.
The apartment was located in a decent middle-class outer suburban neighbourhood, but middle class in India didn't translate to middle class in Australia. The building that was our new home was less than five years old, modern enough to have reticulated gas instead of the infamous camp-style gas bottle. Yet, the exterior was already dirty and decrepit. Individuals didn't seem to have an appreciation for property. Rubbish was left lying around. To get to our apartment on the first floor, we had to walk past red paan stains on the stairwell – graffiti from people's mouths, where they'd carelessly spat after chewing the substance.
I slept a lot during my first few days back in Mumbai. My head swam. I felt completely overwhelmed and sick with fear. The words of some of my friends kept echoing in my head about the insanity of my giving up my comfortable life and material possessions. I wondered if I had gone mad. I felt like running back to the safety and familiarity of my own country, where I had everything I wanted and could understand everyone. Aryan and I hadn't discussed the possibility of living in Australia though. He'd always been happy in India, with his friends and work. I was in search of transformation. For that to happen I really needed a change of environment despite the appeal of familiarity.
Then, to add to my fragile displacement, I found myself in a situation that left no doubt in my mind that I was now living a country that functioned entirely differently from the one I was used to. An experience involving an insidious, everyday activity that no level of Indian society was immune to – corruption. Perhaps there was such a thing as a ‘real India’ experience after all.
I had to collect three boxes that I'd sent as unaccompanied baggage from the cargo complex at Mumbai airport. Right from the start, the process was fraught with difficulties. We tried calling the airline responsible for the baggage, only to receive a recorded message saying the number had changed. All the new numbers that were given failed to connect.
More confusion awaited inside the customs compound. A large board, detailing the steps required to complete the customs clearance process, occupied prime position at the entrance. Based on the number of men everywhere, in various states of filling out forms, queuing and waiting, the process seemed every bit as complicated as the board suggested.
A man presented himself to us. ‘I'm a customs agent. I'll kindly do the needful for 2900 rupees (nearly $100),’ he announced.
There was little alternative but to engage his services. We managed to negotiate the fee down to 2200 rupees and asked him to proceed.
‘What do you have in your boxes?’ the agent asked.
‘Shoes, books, kitchen and household items.’
He seemed satisfied with my answers as he recorded them on the forms. That was, until he saw the itemised packing lists I'd taped onto the sides of my boxes.
‘You have electrical items in these boxes!’ he confronted me.
‘Yes, a used printer, DVD player and toaster. What's the problem?’
‘Madam, these are not household items, they are dutiable electrical items! You've made a false customs declaration. This is a very bad matter. How could you do this? My whole family business could be brought into disrepute because of this!’ he shouted.
I was shocked. ‘I didn't make a false statement. These are household items. How was I supposed to know that electrical items have to be declared separately? I've stated on the packing lists what's in my boxes. Besides, these are used appliances. Surely, duty isn't payable on three used household appliances?’ I argued back.
At that point, a customs officer arrived to inspect my boxes. He unceremoniously rifled through and pulled out the contents, while continuing the lecture about my undeclared electrical items. Another customs officer noticed my books on palmistry.
‘Madam, you read my hand,’ he excitedly extended his hand to me. What I naïvely expected would be a straightforward process of collecting my belongings was turning into a fiasco.
One of the customs officers took me to see the chief customs officer.
‘I'll charge you duty on the DVD player and the toaster, but not the printer,’ he decided.
The amount of duty payable was agreed to be an arbitrary 1000 rupees ($30). I was more confused than ever.
‘Happy?’ he asked, as if he were doing me a huge favour.
Of course, I wasn't happy. I became even less happy when I was told it was lunchtime. The clerk I had to pay the duty to wouldn't be back for another 40 minutes. To fill in the time, Aryan and I went to have lunch. The only option was the stuffy staff canteen, crowded with unappealingly aromatic men.
After finally giving everyone their money, I mistakenly thought we'd be able to take the boxes and leave. Not so. While standing under a huge sign, which warned that bribes were illegal, our customs agent blithely asked me for a bribe.
‘Madam, please give me 300 rupees ($10). It will take care of the trouble you caused me and the other officers by making a misleading statement.’
I was incredulous.
‘Madam, kindly be a little generous,’ he insisted.
‘You should be giving me money to cover the cost of the medical treatment I'll need to recover from this ordeal,’ I retorted. ‘I should also report you to the appropriate authority as this sign says!’
Sensing that the matter could cause the day to drag on even longer, I offered him a deal.
‘100 rupees, take it or leave it.’
After much debate he took it. ‘You drive a hard bargain, madam.’
Was this the Indian way of making me feel better about his win and my loss?
Corruption is extremely common and well tolerated in India, despite the occasional public outcry. The reason is often hard for foreigners to understand. In a country where there's such a scarcity of resources, many Indians are more concerned about the end result rather than the means to get there. Western notions of morality rarely apply. It's considered bad if someone has to pay a bribe, but good if the bribe yields the desired outcome. It hurts my head, too, when I try to figure that out.
The prevalence of corruption proliferated in the years after India achieved independence. Politicians indulged in all manner of corrupt acts, unpunished by deficient legislation that produced no conclusive reprisal. Bureaucrats, noticing the corruption at the highest levels, started following the example themselves, justifying that if India's leaders are doing it, it cannot be wrong.
As corruption spread through the administration, ordinary Indians increasingly felt like they were living in an atmosphere of corruption. They began to see nothing wrong with it either. It became something that was simply necessary in order to get ahe
ad and get things done.
It took me around five days to start settling in. I realised the cause of my anguish: while my heart was in India, my head was still well and truly back in the western world. Not only was I imposing my western standards on everything, I was looking externally for my happiness and focusing on what I'd given up, not what I'd be gaining. I'd again developed attachments to so-called ‘luxuries' and ‘wants’, and was struggling to let them go.
‘Remember how you said you felt, being stuck in the office every day in Melbourne,’ Aryan gently reminded me.
Oh, so true! I'd hated it to the point I wanted to run out of there screaming. But it's easy to forget those feelings when you are totally consumed by what's in front of you. Rather than letting my dream of the different life I wanted play out, I was struggling to control exactly how it should be. I was reluctant to give up anything, such as my comforts, to achieve it. Again, the dreaded western mentality was lurking. I wanted everything and wanted it immediately. In India, everything takes time and it's extremely difficult to control the outcome of anything. The easiest way forward is acceptance and surrender, and appreciation of the idea of impermanence.
The troubled feelings wouldn't last forever, I told myself. Nor would the situation always be the same. Aryan and I were establishing our lives in Mumbai; it was bound to be difficult in the beginning. We were, after all, starting from nothing. It would get better.
I had to trust in my dream and the outcome. It was also apparent that the more I sat around thinking about what needed to be done, the longer the dark cloud would continue to hang over my head and overwhelm me.
I threw myself into daily life to absorb myself, and to make a home for us – cleaning the apartment, shopping for decorations and food, unpacking my belongings and cooking. All this gave me back some control over the smaller things in my life and made a huge difference.
