Well That Makes Sense

India has always held a sense of mystery for me - at first it was the tangible energy of the land - such that I think you can actually hear it sometimes...but I was in Auroville, and now that I've been away for a while I wonder if it wasn't Auroville itself.

In any case - it was the land, and the people, and the colors and smells and everything-being-new. India, for me, was an internal struggle making itself animate among all the external chaos, and an external struggle all its own.
I suppose alot of people experience that here.

But after living here for an extended period of time the mystery of India has shifted a bit from spiritual and intangible toward solid reality.

Like today, while shopping for nails we learned that 99% of all hardware stores do not stock these, or tools.
We did finally find what we were looking for, but it was in a tiny greasy little closet-turned-shop, about twelve feet in height and maybe five in width stocked floor to ceiling with brown cardboard boxes; each full of metal objects of any shape and size for fastening things.

I also know now that I will always intially be quoted prices at least 150% higher than the true local price, simply because I am blonde and therefore must be a tourist.

Finally, we learned that Mexican food in India means a "burrito" - vegetarian of course (but that's fine with me all over again), with most of the usual stuff or at least some reasonable facsimile, and a special added bonus, Indian style: a pickled maraschino cherry right on top. I was too curious not to try it - having never seen such things mixed with salsa. It was, as I suppose anyone would expect, sort of icky.

There have been many lessons while we've been here; India is a place for these things.
Infinite patience makes itself a must, and so does lack of expectation - both of these are attributes people search for all their lives - and in the end I guess they equal inner peace, which is always a good thing.