Where I Didn’t Go

I never went to India. I almost had the opportunity once in the early seventies. I had been dressing in a sari around the house for years, had a blue bindi on my forehead, and read the Bhagavad Gita every morning after my yoga and meditation time.

I envisioned the India of my dreams: the temples; the yogis on the banks of the Ganges, burning off my karma in their fires of sacrifice and renunciation; the incense flowing with the changes as petitions to the multi-faced gods of that system. I thought that was the truer me, and I wanted to explore those streets, that country’s people.

I never went. To this day, my sister will ask me, “Didn’t you go to India years ago?”
And I’ll reply, as I always do, “No.”

I was engrossed with two kids and a marriage that was shaky at best. I never did get on a plane, for $464. round trip, and fly across the great waters to land in a teeming city of India.

I stayed home and raised my sons, lighting the incense made in that country, wearing my imported purple sari and doing the sun salutation every morning, facing east. I knew as I looked out at the Atlantic through those sliding glass doors, that the great Motherland of my dreaming, was on the other side. But it has not been for me to visit there in this life, yet.

Jyoti