Her

The Taj appeared just off the left side of our bus in a misty white fog. It’s elegant profile elusive against a backdrop of the palest grey and almost--but not quite --inside a cloud of fog. We stopped in the left lane of the Highway (India) so our group could soak her in. The traffic fell away, ennui of a four-hour bus ride gone. I’ve waited 42 years, 11 months and four hours to set my gaze on this glorious form. And she is everything.. A few happy moments later, consciousness settles back in and I again hear the bleating horns of traffic and chaos. We will go to the hotel first and “take our lunch” and then set out for the Taj Mahal. Patience is my friend. We gather back on the bus at 4 pm. Our instructions are laid out before us:

• Bring a raincoat. (It’s raining but it matters not. This is the Taj)
• Do not bring any purses / bags (Bag check slows down the line)
• Bundle up. (It’s cold)
• Bring a small amount of money (You might want a very cheap souvenir)
• You will be asked to put on shoe covers once you ascend the platform (Get excited about shoe covers)
• Food, candy, chewing gum are not allowed (Silly, hungry Americans)  
• Do not engage the street sellers (Sam is probably still waiting for me to come back and buy a magnet)
• No photographs in the tomb (Yeah, right, that happens)
• You can take the fast track VIP line to enter the tomb. (“But how will they know we are VIPs?” I ask as she took back our tickets. She just looked at me. Oh, right. We’re not from India.)
• Watch out for the pickpockets (Well she was right about that!)
• Let the Taj speak to you. She will push you away when you walk up to her, and lure you back when you walk backwards. (What? Is this a way to make fun of gullible Americans ? Talking art? I may try it this India on as I go back today but yesterday I wasn’t buying it.)

Earlier this week our guide told us that India has more rules than most countries. Based on the Taj code of conduct, I guess it comes from somewhere. We move in the parking lot from our cozy coach (with a restroom-important) to a little green metal bus ca. 1970. It has a name—I’ll ask her today. Sam and all of his entrepreneurial friends crowd around the bus opening our windows and pushing merchandise inside. A few poor souls make eye contact and it’s all downhill from there. George rocks the back of the bus jokingly and I’m sure a riot is about to break out. 

Finally Sweet Praveen does return with our tickets and we are off in our little green van. Next we are at the entrance of the South Gate. Men in one line, women in another. But what if…? 

We are scanned and wanded and bags are put though the conveyer belt (this is a common practice at every hotel and monument we’ve visited—India has the poorest of the poor but the infrastructure to protect the tightest boundaries). A place of contrasts. Inside the gate (a photograph of the lock is on Facebook) we are still out of view. Praveen runs down the list of rules again and sets us loose to wander and to wonder, to dance with the alluring Taj, to take pictures, to be a VIP in the tomb only to be swept into a sea of what I felt was certainly potential for a non-VIP stampede. We walk through the South Gate and it’s hard not to stand transfixed. But we have to. Amid this sea of India coming to see her. We are there. Sarcasm aside, I was wrong to judge Praveen's museum education methodology. The Taj absolutely speaks to you. She calls on first sight. “Talk to me”, she says. “Among these masses I am lonely”. And then it is just you and the Taj. It is definitely an architectural hazard. This magnetic work of architectural force will hypnotize you. Be prepared, but you can still never know. You won’t know you are cold or wet or jet lagged. You won’t know the water is leaking into your cowboy boot…until much much later. This Taj Mahal will take you under her spell.

At the first set of stairs going down it’s a madhouse. Everyone is jockeying for the best spot for their portrait with this Queen of India. Strangely, you can’t go to the base of the path of water to take a photograph of the reflection—I guess this is some attempt at crowd control. Guards blow piercing whistles every 15 seconds at some innocent person entranced and unaware of place or time. It happens over and over again. We walk down the left side of the expertly and perfectly symmetrical Mughal gardens (16 squares in the four quadrants of beautifully landscaped native Indian flora). Praveen takes us on a short-cut. This woman speaks Taj. We see the first smaller cemetery where Mumtaz Mahal was laid to rest while the tomb was constructed (it took twenty-two years and 22,000 people). Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan fulfilled a promise he made to her to construct a tomb in her honor following her untimely death delivering their 14^th child. She was his third and most beloved wife. A second tomb was designed for the Shah. It was to be made of black stone and placed on the other side of the Yamuna River. The tombs were planned to be linked by a silver bridge. Following her death, the Shah’s son betrayed his father, the Shah was placed under house arrest and looked longingly at the tomb for eight years before he died. He is buried not to plan next to her in the center of the tomb. This tomb is a letter to love. It is the jewel of India. It is perfect in its ability to draw the breath in awe. This UNESCO World Heritage Site happened because of love. And now we pilgrims of love and light flock here to take in this vision and experience this love for ourselves. What are the other great love letters in the world? This tomb was built as a place where an earthly paradise and a heavenly paradise conjoin. And it is. Until I get to the staircase.

I pull my shoe covers over my very cool Cowboy Boots and climb 22 stairs to mirror the number of years it took to build. (How did they know how long it was going to take?) This view from the top of the platform overwhelms. I want to stop but again, the frenzy of the pilgrims around me and the whistles of the guards pull me from her draw. But, wait, I am a VIP, dammit. Be a VIP. I ignore the rushing lines and just take it all in with my beloved friend and Guru-ji Caron Smith. We hug each other tightly (carefree of the looks) and know this moment is our moment. We study the lace-like carving and we take a lot of pictures (See Facebook) 

We boldly step over the first threshold into the outer corridor of the tomb. I watch her—no falling today at the Taj, please. It’s treacherous going from light to dark, slippery marble thresholds, shoe covers, people with no need for personal space. Maybe by watching over Caron I am somehow keeping myself from falling. Then the whistles. Piercing whistles ricocheting against only marble. I wince and think of Caron with her hearing aids. 

Inside, we are now chattle. We are not moving fast enough. But I want to see! I want to see the inside of this pearl. I get angry—who can whistle and yell at Sweet Dr. Caron Smith for not moving fast enough!! Totally ridiculous. These guys could learn a thing or two about crowd control. I breathe. Imagine how my father really couldn’t be here. I make sure I see Caron and I walk cautiously around the circle of the tomb. The marble! The highly carved ornamental partition around the two graves is polished beyond imagination. It casts a pearlescent glow. It took twelve years to create as the great structure rose around it. It looks like icing. Remember we are cows, now, not well-intentioned Art Historians passionate about India, are whistled at again and pushed along. 

You can’t enter this part of the tomb at the same time you exit (India)—so we are pushed together until the entire circular path fills up and then they switch the entrance to an exit and we will be allowed to pour out. I find my breath. I keep an eye on Caron hoping she sees (and remembers the four inch threshold). I put a virtual forcefield around my pockets. This is not fun. But it’s the Taj. It’s raining at the Taj and I don’t care. Give me full on stampede potential and I’m pretty much ready to get out. Finally it happens. Whistles signal. We move. We push and I remember not to be the compassionate friendly Texan I am but not every part of my 5’10” with cowboy boots and push my way out. 

Outside is better. Re-centered we study more inlay, more sculptural carving on the outer walls of the tomb. We enjoy the other visitors (now more than 1 inch away from us so we can see them). We take lots of photographs. It is lovely again. I am grateful to be here in this long awaited, much anticipated place. Nothing else matters. We take our time. I notice none of the Indians have umbrellas. What do they do in monsoons? I guess an umbrella isn’t really much use in a monsoon. As I look at my umbrella: a fancy Dry-Bar giveaway that is probably made for 1 or 2 time use, I think –well not having an umbrella is certainly simpler!

Just as we were leaving, Caron noticed the light change. I love her for this. Yes. The setting sun fills up every droplet of water in this blanket of fog and for just a moment the air is lit in a new way—changing this pearl to the palest of pink. The difference in just five minutes time is astonishing. It wasn’t the sunset I dreamed of at the Taj Mahal. It was better: so alluring, mysterious and only for those looking very very closely. It was only for those listening.

I leave you with this poem by Emily Dickinson—she could have written this at the Taj, but like so many mysteries we will never really know:

1053

It was a quiet way

It was a quiet way

He asked if I was his-


I made no answer of the Tongue


But answer of the Eyes

And then He bore me on


Before this mortal noise


With swiftness, as of Chariots


And distance, as of Wheels.


This World did drop away


As Acres from the feet


Of one that leaneth from Balloon


Upon an Ether street.


The Gulf behind was not,


The Continents were new-


Eternity it was before


Eternity was due.


No Seasons were to us

It was not Night nor Morn

But Sunrise stopped upon the place


And fastened it in Dawn.

Today, we scale the Red Fort in Agra. I will be with the Taj again this afternoon. Now, she waits for me. 

From the place that Love built,  Amy

Don't Fence Me In

Day Two:

8 am start. We rumble through the early morning streets of Delhi while Praveen, our tour guide teaches us about the caste systems—their history and today. I watch people from my big window. She calls the assistants on the bus (they offer water, fruit, they wipe the condensation from the insides of our bus windows so we can see) boys. I hate that for them. I see two people throw up before 8:15—just throwing up from a car and another on the side of the road. I see a man relieving himself at a wall just next to the street. I quickly look away, but by the end of the day I will have seen too many men doing this to count. This is India. Life—all aspects of life are visceral and there is no hiding—no hiding the poverty, the patterns of the day, the needs of the human body. These people are living in a very tough truth. But somehow they are happy.

We see cows at the intersection. I see turbaned men on horseback as if they just rode in from a film set. But they didn’t. They, like the thousands of people I will see today are going through the rituals of their day. They have a list, too.  We arrive at Qutab Minar, the oldest Muslim Mosque in India built in 1193 by Qutab-ud-din Aibak immediately after the defeat of Delhi's last Hindu kingdom. It is early—the parking lot is empty and we make our way. We are given a lesson in crossing the street: wait for an opportunity and then charge! This is not very comforting. The Mosque, a conglomeration of stones from previously destroyed Hindu (27!) and Buddhist temples is a marvel—even with 50% conservation to the grounds and structures. We see neem trees, and ficus, flowering trees and thousands of birds. The 73-meter tower of victory is a virtual time line of architectural style, personal taste and available materials. The optical illusion of a narrowing pillar makes it looks twice as tall as it is. A cold damp fog makes our experience even more ethereal. This place has no time—it is a frozen monument to a tumultuous past, courage marked by the immense effort to be and to display a belief system for miles around. The monument is clean—simple in its presentation and I am glad it is not crowded. I make a mini-mediation I will put up on Facebook later. We take more pictures that we will ever need of the tower. It’s simply a marvel.

We scurry on to our second historical site of the morning: Humayun’s Tomb built in 1565 AD. This place—also know as the Baby Taj Majal (built a few years earlier) is now a World Heritage Site. It is recognized as one of the first significant examples of Mughal architecture in India. It is awe-some in it’s perfect symmetry. Maybe it was the haze of jet lag but this perfect symmetry was calming. Because it is a tomb for Humayun, a Mughal emperor who reigned twice between 1530 and 1556, there is a natural still, but I do think the patterns of multiple 9-square gardens settles the mind and prepares one to enter the tomb’s structure with a certain solitude. This was all true until a wave of hundreds of darling school children consumed our path. They were so joyful and full of light, no one minded the interruption. It was hardly and interruption. They were a reminder of life and our future in a place of death and memory. And they were funny! They pretended they didn’t speak English but we knew better. They wanted to pose for pictures and tell us their names—slowly as if we didn’t speak English. They jockeyed for “first position” in our conversations. I noticed perhaps one teacher to every 50 students. In India, it seems, you are on your own from an early age. Their rancor was orderly, though, and I would say they were very well behaved. We moved on through this three-dimensional “paradise” experience and welcomed the first sign of sun since we arrived.

After Humayun’s tomb we found ourselves in Old Delhi for a rickshaw ride. I am suspect. I consider opting out. I hate the idea of a human laboring to carry me just for fun. I debate it in my head. I decide to try on this India.

I didn’t think about being 5’10”. I tried not to grimace or comment when the tiny (!) rickshaw driver attempts to PUSH me into the tiny seat. Everything is tiny. Except for me. I go with it. Legs too long—no place for a natural foot pose. Caron snuggles in next to me (she’s tiny) and off we go. I try not to think about how heavy this weight must be for this minuscule man. I decide he has muscles and this is his livelihood. I take it all in: smoke, dirt, the smells of a rotting street, people with a list, men, mostly men all with a purposes, electrical wires loosely webbed over us, dogs, sad, skinny dogs near lifeless at the side of the road.  I see a group of men carrying a wrapped corpse draped in marigolds and red flowers. We wonder where the pyre is. I forget to look at their faces—but they, too, are in this web of purpose. This is the thing they have to do today. And so it goes on for every person I will see today. It is a moment and then they are gone into the hustle and dim of the street. Impermanence. I brace my elbow against the bars of the rickshaw. The seat slants forward so it’s all a good test of my ability to brace my 5’10” frame and keep myself from landing on sweet hardworking rickshaw driver and falling into the questionably puddled street. We encounter the alluring contrasts of India: above the threshold of these rugged streets vendors sell with unbridled enthusiasm saree fabrics, glittering embroideries, tassles and silks fit for queens. This is India: a juxtaposition of the unexpected, the extremes of beauty and the reality of the struggles a city with more people than the population of Australia. We sample spices and tea and popped Lotus kernels. I never knew the potency of cinnamon until yesterday. No wonder merchants of the 16^th century took such risks to import these delights. Just like them, I want more. We barrel on through the streets. I see my first domestic monkeys. I try not to hear the driver grunt when we go over a pothole. I’m all in, and I’m not falling out.

Back at the hotel we have a quick turnaround. What was that the guide taught us about planning? Anything is possible but nothing is planned. We are waiting for the amazing tailor who has worked on three sarrees over night to deliver them to us at the hotel. The bus is leaving for the opening reception of Texas at 5:45. I shower quickly—hot and bothered by the lack of time, lack of saree and no real plan B. I am worried about my speech (6 pm) and pulling it all together with this remarkable opportunity to celebrate the Texas artists we’ve brought to India for the first time. I needed about two hours to write something meaningful—find a text of a Texas writer’s impressions of India, a song I can’t think of (I will later—5 minutes after I speak). I needed two hours and I had about 3 minutes. At 5:35 I decide I will go to plan B at 5:40. At 5:39 a welcomed knock at the door from my invaluable colleague and friend Stacie Adams. At 5:44 I have half the saree on and no real plan for how I will drape all 5’10” of me. Plan B? No. I go with it and race to the lobby where our beautiful group waits. Praveen, our guide laughs when she sees me. I stand in the lobby while three or four lovely friends race for safety pins and resident saree experts to help me. I try not to sweat.

At 5:50 we are on our way—appropriately (perhaps in a modern way) draped. I hear Julie Tobolowsky receive a call from her husband George (he is one of the leaders of this amazing project—and one of the artists). He’s a bit distressed at 6:01 that we haven’t arrived and the program (the one where I am speaking) has started. I start breathing slowly on the inside knowing that the next fifteen minutes are going to be a hot mess. Bus arrives. I race out first lining up what I am going to say in my head. George is at the curb. With all the elegance I can muster we walk in to a very crowded room, TV cameras, documentary camera crew, guests, artists, Ambassador, speaker of the senate…and on and on. I smile. Adjust my saree and take a front row position. And suddenly my nerves are replaced by happiness. So happy for these artists. So happy for this beautiful exhibition (that I haven’t seen yet!). So happy to represent the Crow Collection and Dallas—and so happy that I get to talk to this warm and love-filled room. I thank 3 out of 4 of the dignitaries and talk about the importance of this moment. I talk about the importance of cultural education and the gifts of what we have learned in Texas from the simple practice of a Namaste. I announce future exchanges between the Lalit Kala Academi and the Crow Collection. I consider singing (with the Texans in the audience of course) “Oh give me a home” (because I can’t think of the song I know is just right) but (thank goodness) I decide not to. I try to connect us all with my words-and it is happy and good. We light the ceremonial lantern (nested in flower petals) with real fire and smoke fills the gallery. Oh, India. I wish we could be more like you.

It is a perfect night. Tea with the Chairman of the Lalit Academi and his wife, the festivity of something new for Delhi, a post-reception on the rooftop of the Taj Mahal Hotel. At this moment I remember the lyrics I think are just right and at the welcome I shared a little Texana thanks to Gene Autry, the first movie star cowboy born in Tioga, Texas:

Don't Fence Me In

Oh, give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above

Don't Fence Me In

Let me ride through the wide open country that I love

Don't fence me in

Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze

And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees

Send me off forever, but I ask you, please

Oh, don't fence me In

Just turn me loose

Let me straddle my old saddle underneath the western skies

On my cayuse

Let me wander over yonder 'til I see the mountains rise

I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences

Gaze at the moon 'til I lose my senses

Can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences

Don't fence me in

(Just turn me loose

Let me straddle my old saddle underneath the western skies

On my cayuse

Let me wander over yonder 'til I see the mountains rise)

I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences

Gaze at the moon 'til I lose my senses

Can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences

Don't fence me in

I read all of the stanzas-even the repeated ones. And isn’t this true? I am grateful for the opportunity to jump fences with passport and visa in hand and be here. Be in this moment. I am grateful to learn how alike we really all are-and how love seems to be our most connective tissue. We toast (not an Indian tradition) and laugh and make plans for more India in Texas and more Texas in India. And I know in my heart this is just a beginning. And isn't it a blessing to have beginnings? 

Oil and Transcendence

Day One. It was hard to wake up. It was likely the “gentle” sleeping aid I took the night before. I wanted to walk but had been warned not to walk alone. I didn’t hear from any members of the Delhi Sunrise Club, so I enjoyed a lovely English Breakfast Tea in the sitting room. Thanks to the Magic of George Tobolowsky, an artist in the exhibition and the co-captain of this beautiful project with Bill Fitzgibbons, the hotel thinks I am American Museum Royalty.

I watched the veil of morning stay veiled in a very dense fog: no sign of a sun rising—just light after there wasn’t. This morning many of the major streets around the hotel are closed for the “Dress Rehearsal” for the Independence Day Parade—we couldn’t make any appointments as the city is virtually shut down. There is also lots of talk of Obama’s visit. I read the “Indian Independence Times” and realize his trip to the Taj Mahal is one of the two days we planned to be there. My heart sinks. I remember Praveen, our guide, saying the night before, “This is India, anything is possible. You just can’t plan for it to happen.” I guess this is where that beautiful Sanskrit works comes from: Sva-ha, surrender. 

We meet the leaders of our group for breakfast downstairs in the bustling restaurant with an exquisite spread of South Asian and non-South Asian delights. We meet a few of our guests for the trip—it’s like the first morning of camp: you can feel the excitement for what is to come. We meet a group of sculpture professors and the dean from a university in Minnesota. They just finished an installation with a group of  students from a NGO school south of New Delhi. I love sculptors. George spotted them the day before in the lobby as they walked in carrying their welding helmets. We are all amused by the coincidence—but remembered how possible India is—and invited them to the opening of our exhibition this evening. The website for their project is www.vesperatelier.org. I’m thinking this may be a school we can partner with in the future. 

Breakfast: Dahl, Idli, chutneys, chickpeas, plump pomegranate seeds and a delicious pudding with almonds. Sapna writes later on my Facebook page that I chose well—all 6 tastes, vegetarian—a perfect breakfast, and it was.

After the streets clear, four of us arrive at a ayurvedic wellness center that was highly recommended for it’s authentic treatments. After learning so much at the museum from our in-house Ayurvedic expert, Sapna Punjabi-Gupta, we were eager to experience this practice in the mother land. We enter a beautiful retreat, change clothes and are asked to enter the meditation room for ten minutes of chanting. The entire spa is made up of square slats of wood resting over water, as is the meditation room. It is small, but glows with a soft yellow light. A three-dimensional mural is our focus: a grey disc surrounded by subtle, fresco-like painting of a radiating sun-shape. It is calm. Our teacher invites us to sit as she explains that it is Friday and today we focus on the color yellow. Each day of the week, the meditation is illumined by a different color. She leads us through a meditation: far away from the erratic and non-sensical traffic outside (Indian Pediatric Association is convening in our hotel), far away from our jet lag, far away from any Western notion of what this experience might be like. I remember Sylvia Boorsteins’s meditation: “I come here fully present to this moment, I come here as a friend”. And so I do. I will try on this India. We chant three long cleansing “Ohms” together: Stacie, Jill, Caron and I am enchanted by how beautiful our voices are in this little yellow space. We separate into different treatment rooms for ayurvedic massage and a hot oil treatment. In my room, my feet are washed in a copper bowl alit with rose petals, my practitioner, “Bessi” tells me that she is asking the gods to give her strength and energy to work with me, to help me get the most out of the experience and to send that energy into me. (Amen to that). Then she stands in anjali mudra pose  and begins to chant with a long Ohm. Because I am in the zone, I belt out the Ohm with her but swiftly realize, that, “no, Amy this is her chant” as she goes into a series of Sanskrit phrases—I laugh to myself, grateful she didn’t laugh, too and let her glorious voice fill my heart.  She works with my stiff, stressed non-ayurvedic limbs for an hour. In this Kapha season, I am making Sapna proud: we are “oiling up”—lots of oil, lots of sweeping motions away from the heart—this massage is like nothing I’ve experienced. We move to a second treatment room for the hot oil on the forehead experience. This is a perfect antidote for my sinuses—a full hour of hot oil dripping in a continuous stream on my forehead. The oil is massaged into my scalp and shoulders continuously. I’m pretty sure I levitated off the table. This is Oil and Transcendence.

When it’s over, I wobble (with some uncertainty as to where I am, and a little oil in my eyes) back to the relaxation area. I wonder how people don’t fall off of these little island stepping platforms into the water below. I don’t fall. I wash my hair three times with questionable shampoo and it still glistens with oil. Oh well, Sva-ha. We compare notes on the differences of an ayurvedic experience, gobble down a delicious peppery artichoke soup and wade back into the sea of pediatric doctors outside the spa. It was pure Indian bliss.

At five, I greet the cousin of my dear friends in Dallas: Raj and Ruby Bhandari. Ruby’s cousin and two tailors have kindly arrived to help me with my saree crisis. Her cousin, Havinder, is the Dellhi side of their company: www.silktreads.com. Ruby dresses the ladies of Dallas in sarees, salwar kameez in her own designs: a beautiful hybrid two cultural influences. It was pretty comical—I’m in the lobby looking for a gentleman I don’t know, I’m chatting with George and suddenly the three gents approach me—the tallest wearing his beautiful turban. Much to George’s surprise I introduce them and assuredly (in apprearance) take them all up to my room. Yes, it was awkward. Good thing I have the complimentary suite. We try on and measure and wrap, and fold, and wrap again. Word gets around and soon three ladies from the museum are in my room asking for saree blouses and alterations. It was such a beautiful experience: the sweeping motions of four different sarees—different in color and pattern folded, unfolded and positioned just so—smiles everywhere when the tailors say they can turn this around in a day. We will be the belles of the ball, the cinderellas of India. I am grateful these kind men have come to help us—on the eve of a three-day weekend, extending the start of their own vacations to convince all of us that no, this saree will not fall off. India is Kind.

Last night we ventured to an opening at the Nature Morte gallery www.naturemorte.com/. Peter Nagy, a French gentleman raised in Conneticut, has blazed a bright path for contemporary art in India. I loved the work and noted that when we organize an exhibition for Dallas, Peter will be very helpful. I meet more of the artists from Texas in our group—and just like I felt on that first day at camp, I settle in with knowing that this is going to be an amazing experience.

And it continues at diner in the Vorq restaurant here in the hotel (Taj Mahal Hotel, Number One, Mansingh Road). Sixteen of us gathered to christen the cultural partnership between Texas, the Crow Collection of Asian Art and the Lalit Kala Academi. I sit with a gentleman from the U.S. Embassy and the Director of the Lalit Kala Academi. We discuss cultural exchanges-the possibilities, power and the pitfalls and ultimately agree that this should continue to happen. Exciting. The conversations are lit with energy and exquisitely prepared and served delights: Varqui Khumb (layers of spiced mushroom, morels on crisp filo sheet), Paneer Anardana (cottage cheese with pounded pomegranate) and a dessert sampler (trio of apple kheer, jalebi and Khaas malupa). Texas should be proud of its delegates—we represented well. I tumbled into bed (no sleep aid needed) just after midnight. 

This morning I am watching the day arrive through a blanket of fog: today a white wall out my window. The bus tour is going to be interesting. Sva-ha.  It’s time to order the tea.

Global Transit

Never before have I wanted to see a place so much. India: the place of love, lore and wonder. India: the place ripe with color and scent and life. Brought to me by the goodness of Jumpa Lahiri, Mira Nair, Sanjay Puri and that wonderful book The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri. 

India known to me through the works in our collection: the Mughal Façade, Ganesha, Vishnu, Lakshmi, the Nandi bulls and the Pondicherry animals. Margaret and Trammell’s India is a collection of power-sculptures—powerful in meaning, representations of world religions beyond Dallas in the 1960s. Our India is not a large part of the collection but it sets the stage for all who experience “Gallery III”: red slate, red sandstone, marvels of carving, works that question the reference of inside. Works that take us outside to a street in Jaipur. I will see that street—with facades carved by 18^th century hands that have stood the test of time and turbulence.

I know this place, this place of India through 67 works of art and my beautiful friends in Dallas who have lovingly shared their culture. They have shared the many cultures of India through meals and shopping, helping me with the Discover India Festival and teaching me how to use henna paste (I love the smell of Henna paste!). 

My India is a collection of beautiful moments with Shailee, Neha, Raj, Ruby, Madhu, Sapna, Shabnam, Sabrina, Puja, Renee, Rekha, Prakash, Dilip, DJ and so many other Dear Ones. And today, and over the globe to tomorrow, my India will change. 

The place I have know through works of art and works of friendship will be come one of real, sensory experiences. I will not hesitate to try on this India. I will wear the saree, taste the tamarind, the cumin and the bitter burst of turmeric. I will listen to the sounds of morning as the sun rises over the Taj. Let's just hope President Obama's entourage doesn't get in the way. 

I am grateful for this trip. I will bring back what I learn. I will write. I will teach you what I know. This little book of India, over just ten days, will be ten little chapters drawing my observations and awe from the whimsy of a very full and adventurous schedule. Join me in the place where India becomes real. The Velveteen Rabbit of my imagination of India is about to come to life in the garden under a very bright, foggy moon.