Our last day in India my goal was to write a story about our overall feelings for the place. But alas I spent the day in bed moaning about my aching throat and inability to swallow, (looks like I said, “hey Rachael, India might be covered in shit but it is the first time we’ve not gotten sick”, one day early). Then I figured the 40 hours it was going to take us to get home I’d have plenty of chance to write but something about screaming babies, awful airplane air, fat feet and looking after your wife who’s throwing up on the plane were too distracting for any creative thinking.
So now, two days after our return, I’ve snuck out of bed at 6am on Saturday morning to scribble down this absurd inky idea that has popped into my head.
Landing in India, you feel like you’ve awoke swimming in your local poo farm. Everywhere your eyes land you see shit, every time you breathe through your nose you smell shit, everything you touch, it is covered in shit. Not wanting to put your face under you cruise around doing the back stroke and bizarrely come across the odd undigested pistachio floating on the surface. Thinking, ‘what the hell do I have to loose, I’m floating in shit’, you pop one into your mouth…surprisingly it’s rather tasty. And the more you search the more delicious floating undigested pistachios you discover. ‘Things could be worse,’ you think.
After a few weeks of bobbing on your back, curiosity gets the best of you; rolling onto your tummy, you stick your face in, against better judgment you open your eyes you have a look around, ‘HOLY SHIT’, it is like a pistachio gold mine down there. Soon enough you get sick of coming up for air and so take the plunge, you inhale a big lung full of brown frothy aerated shit, expecting to gag your body tenses up...but to your surprise nothing happens, in fact you feel fine; looking at yourself in the mirror you see why, in just a few short weeks you’ve miraculously grown Indian shit filtering gills, Wouzers! No longer encumbered by the need to surface for air you swim deeper, filling your pistachio sack and breathing freely. Slowly but surely you seem to be ‘acclimatizing’ to your environment and can only sense the shit you know is out there if you strain really hard. The deeper you go the denser the pistachios get until a few fathoms down…you discover a solid bed of pistachios…a bizarre sensation creeps over you, ‘your smiling’; and you realize that only now are you experiencing the real INDIA!
Mantis and Mango Are Home!!!
You know what that means…PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are going to be having a potluck dinner and slide show of our trip!!! Everyone is welcome, invite anyone you want!! Please come, and bring a dish to share!!!!
Like every year it is going to be a rubbish free dinner. We’ll have a recycling bin for bottles but other than that we don’t want to create any trash. So bring a picnic basket with plates, cutlery, cups, cloth napkins and anything else you need might need! Plastic plates will be frowned upon!
Date: Next Saturday, April 23rd
Time: Potluck to start around 5pm with slide show sometime around 7pm
Location: 56 Langdon Street, Plymouth, NH 03264 (that is the barn behind my parents’ house)
Parking is slightly limited so please carpool if you can. Please park in my parents driveway, on Langdon Street or if you don’t mind being parked in a number of cars can fit single file in our driveway.
Email or give us a call if you have any questions!! 603-254-8824
Love Mantis and Mango
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