India, what happened . . .

Sleep has been difficult lately. India is hurting and I don’t know what to do.

India is the land that birthed me. To this day, 20+ years after we parted ways, I still miss the smell of the Indian earth after the first monsoon rain. I miss the people, the languages, the sights, the smells, the colors, the birds, their chirps, the sunshine, the joy and the world that was mine at another place and another time. I stand awkwardly, often adeptly, often precariously between two worlds that may now only exist in my mind. India is hurting and I don’t know what to do.

I have a life to live. A reality to face. To grow up and see that tragedies will be seamlessly folded into my space. I am not the master of my world, yet often I delude myself. In times like these I grapple with my being. What should be done, what can done, what is enough and what isn’t. India is hurting and I don’t know what to do.

I turn off the phone, turn off the news, I return to my bubble. For just a moment, I pretend that nothing has changed hoping desperately to snap out of the nightmare. India is hurting and I don’t know what to do.