Tabula Rasa

It didn't take me long to realize that people here are accustomed to that which I find enchanting. It's probably akin to the sensation, or lack thereof, that a New Yorker has when walking the streets of New York. After years of coexisting with the steel and concrete behemoths that surround them, it's easy to forget they are actually still there. They just are, and you go on with your life without paying them much mind. Clearly there are people that will never cease to be in awe of their surroundings but, for argument's sake, let's leave it at that.

For the past five weeks I have been living on an island of sorts, a figurative one: a lush green campus on the outskirts of a bustling town of a million. In this respect, one could say that I'm not as of yet getting the full living-in-India experience. I do eat curry at least twice a day and drink copious amounts of chai. I speak a bit of Hindi. I watch cricket matches and Bollywood movies. I try my best to use Celsius. However, as I do not live in the center of town, the area in which I usually find myself is actually quite peaceful. Street noise and pollution are virtually nonexistent; what reigns supreme here is nature.

On the expansive grounds of the campus, there are packs of rather hilarious cackling birds that swarm in gangs of ten or so; squirrel-chipmunk hybrids ("squirmunks" as I call them) that paradoxically propel themselves faster as the morning air thickens; swallows and bats that take to the predusk sky in droves; crabs to distract -- or dissuade -- you from strolling the dimly lit footpaths in the evening; and stray dogs that hover near street lights and swat massive bugs out of the air for nighttime snacks.

In the building in which I work, sparrows fly up and down the hallways and staircases; lizards cruise the walls and windows; a family of owls inhabits a small nook just below the roof, directly above the main entrance -- if you're lucky, which I once was (although everyone here told me I was actually unlucky), you can witness them hunting. Despite the fact that I have yet to see one, a monkey has been known to visit work and dangle outside the windows of one of the laboratories.

I live in a small three-room flat located in the workers' quarters of the malaria institute's campus that I share with T.P. (yes, that's a nickname -- for Tej Pratap), a PhD student working on a malaria vaccine project (Side note: the use of the abbreviation, T.P., as it is employed in the U.S. is probably about as common in India as the use of actual T.P. itself). I don't share my bedroom with T.P., but I have been cohabiting with a small gecko that lives on one of my shelves, seemingly guarding my books and toiletries from any six- or eight-legged ruffians; and a trail of mini sugar ants that daily snake in through one window and depart via another, starting at around 5am and abating at almost midnight.

About a week ago, I woke up at nearly 6am and could not fall back asleep. It may have been a consequence of the extraordinarily small bed that I sleep in, one that forces me to lay diagonally yet still fails to provide ample space for my feet. Perhaps it was a product of me watching the flow of mini-ants approach its typical dawn-time viscosity. Either way, I eventually stood up and peered out the window. Like so many other natural phenomenon that I live amongst here, what I beheld was not something I regularly came across in the States. It was hardly unrecognizable; I mean, anybody that has spent more than fifteen minutes on a college campus knew what that was.

When he eventually got up, I said to my flatmate, T.P.:

"You see all these plants?

Just like the times that I excitedly pointed out the cackling birds, and the crabs, and the little ants, and anything else that seemed remotely interesting, he shrugged and nonchalantly replied that he did, in fact, see the plants.

Sometimes I can't tell if he's disinterested, moody, or just plain ornery, so I tried a different tack.


"You know in America, this is illegal."

"Here too, is legal," he returned.

I turned the volume up a bit: "No. Illegal... Not legal."

"Oh," he half-grunted.

Several years back, I entered a kitchen in Nepal and was surprised to see the dried form of this plant in a rather large pile on the table. When I inquired about it, I was informed that it was fed to goats when they had a "bad stomach". At the time, my Nepali was incapable of eliciting from anyone how to tell when the animals were actually suffering. I probably would have pursued the issue further if I hadn't been distracted by trying to figure out how to subtly convey in Nepali that my stomach was feeling a little off.

I continued with T.P.: "This is what sadhus smoke," referring to the orange-bedecked men that wander India barefoot from one holy site to another.

"Oh," he replied again, disinterestedly, "Ganja."

Yes, T.P.... Ganja. I suppose I too would think nothing of it if I grew up with weed in my backyard. Fact is though, I didn't.

No way his lack of enthusiasm was going to dampen my mood. I immediately swore to myself that I would write to all my friends and tell them about it.

And then I did.