Walking in the oppressive heat of the Delhi summer evening, I savoured every smell, every gust of hot air, every pair of eyes that walked by as if I needed their existence as much as the air I breathe. I realised that India has become a part of every single cell of my being, and my heart is so firmly rooted here it is very difficult to say goodbye.
Leaving Purkal has been the most difficult thing I have ever done. My emotional strength has been tested to its limits and in the end I found it almost impossible to utter a word without tears coming to my eyes. The week has been full of farewell parties and "last times" and yet again I was overwhelmed by the affection everyone shown to me. A friend asked me the other day if I would miss the "caring" in India. At the time I wasn't sure what she meant but over the following week or so it became blindingly obvious.
On my recent trek in the Himalayas, I spent a couple of nights staying in wooden huts with some nomadic tribespeople called the Van Gujjars. They live in the lower regions around Dehradun and Uttar Pradesh in the winter months and migrate to the mountains in the summer. The Van Gujjars rely on their livestock, and are renowned for producing some of the best buffalo milk in India. We met a gujjar who had recently lost two buffaloes in a storm the previous night and the devastation that he felt was tangible.
Each time we arrived at one of their camps, my friends and I were offered a cup of steaming hot, sugary milk, so fresh and full of goodness that it felt like a complete meal. It rained quite consistently for the first couple of days of the four day trek, so we ended up spending much of our time with the gujjars. Wherever we went, despite the lack of any kind of luxury, they made every effort to make us comfortable, giving us blankets and sitting us as near to their fire as possible. When we asked if we could sleep in their huts, they gave us plenty of space and we all slept in a row, with families with 6 or 7 children and the cows sleeping opposite. Occasionally I was awoken by a buffalo poking his head through the open door or trying to eat our food supplies, but all in all I slept like a baby, despite the cold.
