We woke up fashionably late (noonish). It was one of those languid days where no one can summon up the energy to do anything. It was my last day in Bangalore and I knew I should do something about that, but I've always been curiously awful at goodbyes - and I shouldn't be, since I've made so many of them. My method of leaving a place, even one that's been good to me, is to slip away in the night and attempt to avoid confronting any unpleasant realities. I know it's awful, but it alleviates the pressure on me of having to cut anything off at the stump: I prefer not to think about it.

In any case, Chris, Arvin, Phil, Kasey and I finally summoned up the energy to go for one last nice lunch at the Oasis. I ordered tandoori crab and tandoori gobi: even better then last time. The crab comes in a generous portion and the meat is indescricably sweet and spicy with a nice, charred flavor - awesome. I thought the gobi was scrumptious, but Phil described it as "perfumey". Well, his loss. I also tried some tasty and sweet tandoori prawns, nice vinegary chicken Hyderabadi, and the omnipresent chili squid.

Chris needed to do some work, and I (exhausted) wanted to join him back at Katary. However, Arvin, Phil, and Kasey peer-pressured me into staying out with them, and we went on a long hot trek down M.G Road to find an art gallery that supposedly existed in Cubbon Park. (I was suspicious.) I had a good time talking to Phil about various aspects of the universe, as a guy trying really really hard to sell him a drum followed him down the avenue. (They always leave me alone. Do I look like the kind of woman who wouldn't need a drum or want one? Should I be offended?)

We did find the park, which I hadn't been to in forever and was a nice leafy sort of interlude from the rest of the city. We wandered through the small, somewhat tragic theme park and a lovely bamboo forest, that clattered and shivered in the afternoon breeze. The boy s had popsicles (What flavor is it? .....Orange?) and we gave up on the art gallery and spent some time trying to find some monkeys. Well, they wanted to see monkeys. My monkey policy is avoid at all costs but they don't share my opinions on the matter. Thankfully we didn't find any.

We broke down and decided to go back to the hookah bar on M.G, which was certainly nice and new and air conditioned, although the black-chalk walls are accumulating more and more Indian style slurs since the last time I visited. We smoked hookah and soked ever-downward in the entirely too squishy bean-bag chairs, watching as the (apparantlly all 12 year old) fellow patrons circulated around, staring at us as if we were aliens imported from Planet Zog or something. Kasey isn't used to it yet. Trust me, he will be. I do like hookah: it's a nice cool way to spend a hot afternoon, which I guess is what it was designed for. (Mind you, the overciviliized English call it shisha but...whatever.)

We managed to get a rickshaw back and I spent my last day on my beloved, squalid, cow-infested Thippasandra road doing nothing in particular: purchasing one last overpriced pineapple, one last viciously bargained for kilo of grapes, one last Diet Pepsi from the stony-faced Casio SuperBazaar guys. I hit the internet cafe and on the way down neatly broke the heel off my favorite pair of shoes. Balls. Bollocks.

We spent the rest of the evening talking and watching the usual awful movies. I couldn't fend off sleep any longer and crashed halfway through as Chris raptly watched Failure for Launch, though I managed to reawaken when the others got back from the Night Boozer. We hung out and drank (through yet another damn power outage) and I said my goodbyes and went to bed. I had to wake up early the next morning to make Delhi.


Goodbyes: I've been thinking about them a lot. It's the nature of this kind of trip, of the kind of existence I've led my entire life, really - a constant state of leaving and departing. I had a few theories on the matter, formented this summer in Beijing: I was standing under an umbrella in a humid rain with a Dutch aquaintance, sharing a joint: he turned to me and said, sadly, "You know, friendship is an illusion, a temporary thing: we keep o moving on."

I believed him, I'd been believig him for months and months. In the past week or so here in India, I'd come to the halting, unpleasant conclusion that people are to some extent interchangeable, that I would enjoy the company of different people just as much if the cards had been played differently (if you will) I was with one group of people at Katary for about seven weeks and they were good, good friends to me: but then the new group came in and I could see the potential for the same thing in them - this confuses me. Is anyone really special, or do we simply tolerate each other, grow to know each other, by circumstance?

This would be nice for me, for as I stated earlier, I am wont to simply melt away and pretend I wasn't there when I say goodbye: I hate to put a cap on things, I hate to acknowledge it. If everyone is essentially the same, if no one is truly special, if a good but always temporary friend can be found anywhere...

But saying goodbye to Chris and Adam and Aneesa, that did feel different, it really did. I remember I had a fairly rueful discussion with Adam (I was probably drunk) where I said something to the accord of, "Look, I love the company of you and all the people here, but won't it turn into another Facebook-driven sort of thing - exchanging "lol how r u's" over the internet and nothing more - isn't that how this always has to be? Does anyone really care about anyone else, here?"

Adam is a more decent and hopeful person then myself and he believes that sometimes people really do care, that chance traveling friendships can mean something, that perhaps we are not all interchangeable. I think I may be beginning to believe him. I have role models: my grandparents 40 year long friendship with Sheila and Baldev here in India, still going strong - perhaps we can make friends while traveling, keep in correspondence, remember each other fondly as something somewhat special rather then another face in the crowd - perhaps this is something I have to learn before I can be happy. I do worry if my life will continue as it has been: a succession of chance encounters - but if I can learn to let those make me as happy as the long term sort that stationary people have....(or get better at staying in touch?)

I'm rambling, I know, but these are the thoughts of an unsettled person, the thoughts of a young and unsettled person. Someday maybe I will resolve them. Watch this space.