The Surrender Project: Day 5: Finding The Balance

I think I am officially never going to worry about having nothing interesting to write about again. Today basically only had one event happen that is truly worth the share, but it fits this project and mindset and it stirred up so many thoughts. Which, very soon, we will dive into. However, after I wrote yesterdays blog I ended up getting dinner with the guys who helped clean pigeon poop off of me two days prior, so let me start there before we get to to day five.

I didn’t end up getting onto the metro to go meet the fellas until 10:30 pm. 45 minutes later and I get off the metro, wearing the only pair of pants I have, the dirtiest converse to ever exist, a bright blue shirt that probably fit me as a 16 year old, a bandana over my head because I am a mess, and my sling bag. I didn’t really put two and two together that it would be a slightly more put together dinner, especially at this hour. Anyway, I run off the metro and go hop into the car with the guys, not before a warm welcome and a big hug though. I must have smelt bad or just like a dirty traveler because Abu immediately takes out his spray and gives me a few spritz’ (Abu if you are reading this I know you did that just to share, I am just making light of it!). It is around 11:20 at this point and we have to go pick up his cousin, because we are going to his cousins families restaurant for dinner I think? Anyway, we are bumping tunes and catching up a bit, it definitely felt like I knew these guys for more than an hour or so from the other day. We picked up his cousin, and eventually get stuck in traffic, not rolling up to dinner until 12:10 am or so, at this point I am starving. We head up stairs and greet some of the family, all dressed well and put together, as most of the muslim men seem to be at all times. What ensued was some of the best hosting and hospitality I have ever received. I forgot to mention that Zeeshan got out of the front seat and insisted I sit their when they picked me up. They held doors for me, guided me around and introduced me to family at the restaurant, even though it was supposed to close at 12:00 am. They seat us down and it isn’t long before the food comes. Unfortunately I have absolutely zero clue what we had because my language memory when somebody says a foreign word might be almost as bad as my moms, and that is saying something (sorry mom). But they poured my water, they served me first, they taught me traditional muslim traditions around prayer and greetings, on how to eat and the importance of manners. The difference between right and left and how that symbolizes good or bad. They tried to teach me language and shared things that were important for them. When I finished my glass of water and reached for the pitcher to refill it, they adamantly denied me and went to refill it for me. Always offering to serve me more food when I was done or close to done. If there was one or two pieces of fish, shrimp, or mutton left over it was instantly mine. One roti left? No question, already served to my plate. Actually I do have some memory of what we had. First was a fried spicy shrimp, then a fish in a strong orange thick sauce, and then a mutton Biryani, as well as a sauce with chicken in it with roti. I do not remember the names of the dishes though. When we were finished they told me the words to thank God for the meal. I tried to tell Abu that I would help pay and there was no way in a million years he would have taken a penny from me. In fact, I never once paid for a single thing with them, wasn’t even in question. Overall it was an unbelievable experience. I cannot thank Abu and Zeeshan and everybody else involved enough. Afterwards we walked across the street and into this like abandoned basement floor. I am not going to lie I was a bit sketched out for a minute and was like “Abu where the fuck are you taking me dude?” It was 1:15 am at this point and I had no idea what was happening. He just says “come on!” So I follow, and we head into this little side room that has cigarettes and Paan, which should be closed because it is after midnight. We get Paan, which I still don’t know exactly what it is but they told me to eat the whole thing at once. It is basically a big leaf and inside is honey, coconut, cherry?, maybe some other greens, and a nut or something. It was a mouth full, and it was pretty tasty but for a second I thought they put something in it. Not like to drug me or anything but like, “hey surprise now you’re buzzed on an edible” or something like that. The reason being is because as I was eating it my heart started beating really fast and it just felt like I was coming up on something. And they kept looking at me like, does he feel it? I am not sure why I thought they would do anything like that in the first place, maybe the fact that its 1:30 am, we are in some underground 5x8 box that we had to walk through an abandoned basement thing to get to, and they are all speaking a language I do not understand at times (Abu I know you read these and I am sure you are laughing your ass off right now). Anyway, they later told me it has to do with chewing the leaf, it leads to a head high for a moment. Honestly it was quite nice and made my stomach and everything feel good after eating, as any aperitif is supposed to. I say “high”, it was the equivalent of like a small nicotine buzz, just something you notice but ever so slightly for a minute or two. I am sure my parents are freaking out reading this right now… Sorry guys but I don’t make the rules, just follow wherever life takes me! After we got back in the car and drove around for a bit, just touring different parts of the city now that traffic was non-existent. After a bit I asked about what time this is going to end, because I was exhausted and it was 2:15 or so in the morning, and I am nowhere used to that lifestyle. Side note, we didn’t drink or anything, all sober the whole time. I do not know why that is relevant, just thought I would point it out. Abu told me we are just cruising around until we go to a club by the airport and party. I had a feeling I knew where this is going and I sat and thought for a second and told him I do not think that’s in the cards for me tonight. Now, this is an important part of the story for me and being aware of my own energy and what I need personally, so I want to break all this down a bit as we go. He tried to convince me a bit but I held my ground, just saying he can drop me off wherever and I can catch an Uber home, but that I know what I need right now and where I am at energetically and I am just not up for it. He respected my decision right away and insisted he drop me off, even though it was a 30 minute drive from where we were.

Okay, let’s dive into this a bit. I am doing an entire project right now with the focus on surrendering to what life is giving me. This is my whole life right now, everything I do and that happens to me I relate to this and analyze it. So, when an opportunity to go experience a club with my Muslim friends in Hyderabad, India presents itself you would think it is just life delivering me to it. And yeah, part of me was like, “dude this is a crazy cool opportunity and a memory you will never forget, just get some energy and go to this club with your new friends and see what it is like?!” This approach is one I have oftentimes followed in the past, the “do it for the memory” approach. Now, this is still an approach I will go through with, but I feel like it is more geared towards driving four hours and staying up to watch the milky way or something along those lines (irrelevant, Henry, but okay). But when he said club I sensed my energy shift, I noticed a little knot in my stomach that was telling me no. I should also note my phone was on 4% battery and the only way to get into my hostel was to call the guy working to come and let me in. This with the fact that I knew I needed to buy a bus ticket for the next day as well. And yeah, I am sure it would have been an amazing night with these guys and a memory I never would have forgotten. However, when the last five days of my life have been spent alone; in hyper awareness of how I react to things, how I interpret things, how my energy shifts at certain times, what ways certain things shift my energy and why it gets shifted. It leads to me knowing that I needed to trust my gut and stand on my word that it just isn’t what I wanted to do. I knew that if I showed up I wouldn’t have been myself. Maybe this is the biggest takeaway for me personally on this project so far, the awareness of myself. But I will dig into that in a moment. It is also really commendable that this stranger who really wanted to party with me understood, he even asked too, so I told him basically what I just typed out. And he understood completely, and even said it is really cool that you can notice that. Props to this man, Abu. Eventually he drops me off, I get my six or so hours of sleep (had to throw it in there somewhere) and life goes on. I think maybe it was a test from the world on this one. But the second part of this, or the actual day five, will continue on this exact idea so I am going to wait.

I woke up on day five feeling worried because I had no idea what time it was and I knew I wanted to buy a bus that day for around 3ish. I rolled over, said screw a train, I am just going to take a bus. It was pretty effortless, so I bought a bus ticket to Mumbai. Which, for the record is not South. My mom asked me why I chose Mumbai, and I legit do not know or remember where that decision came from. In fact, when I arrived in India I remember thinking Mumbai wasn’t a stop that was needed in my journey. Things change I guess. The ticket was for 3:40 at a bus station about 30 minutes away, easy enough. It was late given how late the night before was, but I still had time to get some food, say goodbye to my new favorite tea shop, and do some editing/writing on the website and for this blog. Nothing too eventful happened, when I was just chilling on the rooftop before I departed another guest came and spoke with me for a bit. He is also from India (I have yet to meet or even see a westerner) and we chatted for a bit about what he was doing in Hyderabad. I bring this up because I swear this keeps happening with a lot of the random conversations lately, that they will say something about “nothing you can do about it. Just have to let it happen and if it happens it was supposed to.” Maybe people always say that stuff and I am just hyperaware of it right now. Maybe it is a coincidence, if you believe in that type of thing. Either way, fast forward and I am getting off the metro to find my bus stop. After a bit of wandering around I track it down and head over with ample time to spare, 3:25 and the bus doesn’t come until 3:40. I ask a guy waiting for a different bus if this is the right stop according to my email, he confirms. Now, I have heard many things about the timetables of transportation in India, specially long travel trains and buses, so when 3:40 rolls around and no bus has showed up I think nothing of it. 3:50, still nothing. 4:00, nada. There are still other people waiting so I assume it is just late. I was just sitting there, no music, no phone, just watching life happen, content as could be. In fact, I remember even congratulating myself on how nonchalantly I was waiting. No stress, no nothing, just hanging out waiting for the bus not really caring if it shows up now or in an hour. I knew it hadn’t shown up because another Indian traveler looked like he was going a long distance too. So duh, obviously we are going to the same place. Well, his bus comes and then I realize there is nobody else waiting except for one couple. I stroll over, acting all casual because still my alarms weren’t raised, “hey are you waiting for the 3:40 bus to Mumbai?” The guy checks his watch and goes, “it is almost 4:40.” And I go, “yeah, it is probably just late” and he goes, “no, you should call them.” It wasn’t just late… I get ahold of the driver and he told me he is long gone, was there at 3:45. Said he stopped for a while, tried calling me and couldn’t find me anywhere. I was a bit taken aback, and tried to refute by telling him I have been at the spot since 3:25 or so. I even clarified the exact spot, which is in front of a one entrance mall, pretty hard to miss. “Nope, you weren’t there.” I was so confused, and I tell him I was there, that there must be some confusion. There isn’t really much I can do, there is no point trying to convince him that I was actually at the spot. For the life of me I cannot understand how this went wrong, and I still can’t. I have not missed a single bus/train/car/flight for my entire time traveling. I am not sure if I have ever missed a bus or a flight before, besides elementary school when my mom was driving us and we missed it at least once a week (again, sorry for the call out mom). But it just doesn’t make sense, I booked a sleeper bus, I was at the correct spot way ahead of time, I wasn’t on my phone so I saw every single bus that stopped or drove past, not one was a sleeper. There is no way that bus stopped at this bus stop and I missed it. The way this stop is set up there is only room for one bus to stop there at a time, and only about 3 did the whole time, all were really small and definitely not a sleeper bus. Also all with different names than the company I got it through, and they all left within 30 seconds of a person or two getting on board. I have no explanation to how this could have happened and I missed it. I cannot get it to make any rational sense. So, of course I have to laugh about it. As I mentioned before, because of this project I am hyperaware of everything that happens to me. I analyze why something happened, why every single interaction went the way it did and so on. I feel like I have been sitting back and watching my life play out over the last five days. And when you’re watching it play out and you miss a bus with no explanation as to how? What else can you do but laugh. Immediately my mind thinks it is a test, a test from the world in some way. But I am also a bit annoyed and slightly pissed off. I was ready to move on to the next city, it also isn’t like I messed up and was late to the bus. I was annoyed that there was no explanation, I was annoyed that now I would have to go back to the hostel, buy another ticket, pay for another night, and spent all that time waiting for a bus. I felt bummed out. And I was also very aware that I was feeling bummed. So, I did what any person would do sitting out front of a mall on a busy street, I put in my headphones, wrapped my leg around my backpack straps, closed my eyes, and tried to meditate. I probably look like such a fucking hippy. Who cares. Thank God for noise cancelling AirPods, such a worthy investment the day before I left the USA. This wasn’t exactly a meditation, more so like close my eyes and just think about what just happened and how I am reacting to it, but try to slow the thoughts before I do. Also before I share, this is not normal behavior for me. Yes, I think I am pretty aware and in-tune with my emotions and how I react to things, but not like this. This project has brought it on and it is so fun to be able to do and learn from it. Anyway, here is what I think, our what came in during my self exploration on the front sidewalk of the mall. There is a balance (shocking I know, completely new idea) to this all. Because part of me feels annoyed, hmm I don’t think annoyed is the right word, more so just bummed. It sucks that I have to repeat steps and do this all over, it sucks that I lost money for something that feels completely out of my control, it overall is just a bummer. There doesn’t need to be an argument for this, most people would agree this is a bit of a bummer. On the opposite side of the scale is the fact that it doesn’t really matter at all. The bus ticket cost me $17, the metro to get to the bus stop was $0.45. I didn’t waste my time, I sat there and watched life happen in a foreign city in India in beautiful weather as I ate a $0.55 ice cream cone from a stand. I saw thousands of different people drive by on mopeds, Tuk tuks, motorcycles, cars, buses, in the back of rusty old utility trucks, and even a massive caterpillar machine at one point. I saw a horse in the back of a pickup truck and a guy on either side of her. I heard honking and shouts, people yelling or laughing. I saw bus passengers daydreaming with their head halfway out the window, or women wearing these beautifully colored coverings carrying massive loads on their heads. I saw families walking into the mall store. I witnessed life happening in such a pure way for a while. So no, I didn’t waste my time. But it still sucks that I missed my bus. That’s the balance; between feeling the emotions in this circumstance and knowing that it is okay and nothing bad is going to come from this. I guess this is just called perspective.

I sat there, I eventually opened my eyes but I just sat there for about 45 minutes. I wasn’t really bummed anymore, but I was still trying to find the reason behind this. The unexplainability (pretty sure this is not a word but I sorta like it, so I’m leaving it) in the bus not showing up makes my magic-loving mind seek out a bigger reason. There has to be more to it than just a reason for a kid to reflect a bit. Right?? Maybe not, because I still cannot think of any reason as to why this happened. Maybe that’s all it is, a chance to reflect on something happening and seeing how one might react to such a thing. Maybe there is a reason that I will never know about. Maybe something unfavorable would have happened if I got on that bus. Maybe something favorable happened to somebody else because I didn’t get on that bus. There are no answers to this all, I am merely just sharing my viewpoints on this and other circumstances that are happening in my life. For this one in particular I think I did about all you can; feel the feelings, give them the space they need in order to be able to be released, and then release them and move on. Don’t suppress the feelings of bummed out, because then over time feeling bummed out you missed a bus and suppressing it leads to you blowing up at the driver for not showing up and screaming at the person in the call center trying to get your money back. And putting that energy out into the world helps nobody, but it mostly hurts yourself. Just something to think about.

I still did take it as a sign, just one that I finally have an excuse to buy some things I’ve been needing. So I picked myself up off the ground (literally), turned around and went shopping. I bought a new toothbrush (well three actually because they only sold them in three packs, so if anybody needs one hit me up), conditioner, a bar of sandalwood soap, a hair brush because I haven’t gotten one in 4 1/2 months, face moisturizer because India’s pollution or something is murdering my skin, and a bag of spicy sweet chili Doritos because they remind me of home and comfort, and for a second during the bus ordeal when I got off the phone with the guy telling me it was my fault I felt isolated for the first time. It went away quite quickly but I felt it for a just a brief moment. What a strange thought, feeling isolated in a city of 11 million people, in a country of 1.5 billion people. Well, we will have to wait and see if it pops up again. In a weird way I hope it does. These are the parts of me I want to explore, these are the feelings I cannot recreate back home.

P.S. The water is out at my hostel for the second day in a row. It worked previously all day and when I wanted to use all my new things it went out again. No silver lining on this one, this just sucks.