RETURN TO INDIA—
In Costa Rica, the phrase I treasured was Pura Vida
(wishing you the pure life).
In India, they use a similar word
—Namaste—a beautiful greeting that means I bow to you.
These are gracious people, including the young ones.
Hemanshu knew Florida at IMG Academy in Bradenton, for awhile playing tennis there. He was an Olympic tennis player for India, a wonderful man of impeccable character. Heman, I called him, took our tired bodies to our resting place, where we crashed sometime around five o’clock that morning, knowing we had to get up early and face the day lagging. I was still on American time and my body was out of whack. There was no time for recovery, and just because we crashed didn’t mean we were going to sleep. It was impossible. And my poor son looked like the ungrateful dead. We peeled off the socks, our dogs barking, lay down on our beds and watched wall-eyed as the sun rose over New Delhi, India from our windows. With little to no sleep, we hopped up early and tried our best to stand on our own two feet.
The miserable sensation of fighting sleep deprivation and fatigue that first night in New Delhi brought back a memory of Mr. Bean, one of England’s funniest comedians, sitting in a quaint English church on a wooden pew trying his best to stay awake and entertain himself whilst the vicar drones on and on.
Mr. Bean falls asleep, jumps awake, sticks his fingers up his eyelids to hold them open, rolls his eyes, turns his face inside out, and plays the part of a contortionist before he finally hits the floor on his knees and face, with feet pointing upward, stiff as a dead mackerel, then jumps awake and returns to his seat to finish off listening to the sermon whilst entertaining himself in sundry ways until the final “Hallelujah Chorus” is sung, hallelujah being the only word of the song he knows, and which he sings to the top of his lungs. (This might well be the world's longest sentence!)
There were numerous episodes that topped Mr. Bean’s antics in the pew that first night in New Delhi with Sean and I pulling every trick out of the bag to keep ourselves awake.You'll have to read the book to fill in these blanks.
Mr. Bean falls asleep, jumps awake, sticks his fingers up his eyelids to hold them open, rolls his eyes, turns his face inside out, and plays the part of a contortionist before he finally hits the floor on his knees and face, with feet pointing upward, stiff as a dead mackerel, then jumps awake and returns to his seat to finish off listening to the sermon whilst entertaining himself in sundry ways until the final “Hallelujah Chorus” is sung, hallelujah being the only word of the song he knows, and which he sings to the top of his lungs. (This might well be the world's longest sentence!)
There were numerous episodes that topped Mr. Bean’s antics in the pew that first night in New Delhi with Sean and I pulling every trick out of the bag to keep ourselves awake.You'll have to read the book to fill in these blanks.
And—wait until you read the account of our day in the marketplace in Old Delhi! It was an experience we will never forget, Sean leading the way. Just to give you a clue, the title of the chapter is "Bonanza" and the caption goes like this:
We gathered up our purchases and started back
to our rooms at the college. It was not long
before we knew we were in leaf-bowl encumbrance,
chased by a laxative-injected mango.
from GIBBO
Jane BG
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