Putting on India

Yesterday I lit a stick of Hem Champa Masala incense in my kitchen. Somehow that one little stream of smoke making its way through my house brings back every memory of India, because it precisely captures what I smelled from the time I stepped off the plane. I don’t know what northern India smells like, but the south, Hyderabad, Chennai, Vijayawada, Tenali, whether in the airport, homes, shops, or on the street – it smells like my masala incense.

On my first trip (forgive me if this story is a repeat – it’s been told many times), I remember walking down a narrow and dark street, more like an alley, with my Indian friend Mary Margaret. Even now, I can picture her beautiful orange sari pulled carefully around her, and the long black braid that reached to below her hips, and how she bought strands of fragrant jasmine flowers on the street to wear in her hair. I think of how she laughed when we couldn’t understand each other, and how she would hold up one finger and say, “Ah, language problem!” She must have been laughing at me on the night we bought my toe rings. That evening, walking along the crowded alley, she was taking me to a silver shop to buy anklets. On a whim, I asked about buying a toe ring like hers. Apparently I hadn’t looked closely, because I was surprised when she insisted I buy not one, but two. Two per foot, to be placed on my second toes like hers. They weren’t expensive and seemed to be sold in sets of four, so I readily bought them. I’m not sure at what point I realized that my decision to buy toe rings was highly significant, but if I didn’t know by the time she led me next door, it must have dawned on me then. Attached to the silver shop – and when I say shop, I mean something the size of a walk-in closet – was a man in a lungi sitting cross legged on the concrete floor. The fire and miniature bellows and anvil were the focal point of his business, but he had lots of little tools around him. He didn’t speak to me, but I can picture him doing the head bobble, the Indian equivalent of nodding, and the whites of his large eyes standing out against the semi darkness. I had to put my toes on the small anvil. Mary laughed because I was supposed to put on the toe rings, but she leaned over and slipped them on, and then the man gripped the rings, one at a time, with a pair of pliers. In his other hand was a hammer, and I can still hear the clink clink it made each time he struck the fat silver bands, driving them closed for good. My first reaction was to ask if he ever missed and crushed a toe, followed by, What on earth have I gotten myself into?

Mary and I walked back down the alleys together to a bigger street – still narrow by American standards -where our autorickshaw was waiting. My toes felt strange in the rings. Had I known about the anvil and the hammer, perhaps I would have chosen thinner, more delicate pieces of silver. Rings that didn’t rub my other toes or feel uncomfortable in my shoes, something I wouldn’t discover until I returned to Texas, where it was winter and no one was wearing sandals. And they couldn’t be pulled off to shower, or sleep, or for any reason, unless I got a pair of pilers. Mary finally explained that toe rings in south India are wedding rings. (Ah, no wonder they’re affixed so permanently.) She hadn’t removed hers since her wedding day.

I wore my toe rings for months, got used to them, learned to like the sound of them clinking on a hard floor and got past being bothered by the calluses they made where they rubbed my other toes. All summer, they reminded me of India. But as time passed, India faded in my mind. What was the point in dwelling on the exotic beauty halfway around the world, if I wasn’t going back any time soon? Plus, I was going to have foot surgery, and no jewelry was allowed. I had to focus on my American life, and I put the India trips away in a mental scrapbook. So finally, I got two pairs of pliers, pulled open the rings, and took them off. It was nice how I could wear tennis shoes without the irritation. The summer after my surgery, I didn’t think about putting the rings back on, and they sat in my dresser drawer, hooked together, waiting for me.

Yesterday when I breathed in the smell of India, it was more than just a sweet memory. It was the start of a countdown: nine more months, and I’ll go again. I have work to do in the meantime, but first, I need to readjust my mind, focus again on the beauty so I’ll be able to get through the tasks ahead. So I began to hunt for the toe rings. And I put them on. I put them on with pliers and a hammer sitting on my porch step, put them on this time with more knowledge of what’s ahead. The first time, I had no idea what it meant and was taken by surprise when what seemed like a small thing had such a big meaning and far reaching effects. Just like Sanctuary Home. I had no inkling that agreeing to start an orphanage with my friend Isaac would take over my life, no plan to be passionate about getting those kids through school, no idea that I would love them. I never intended to learn any Telugu words, or wear jasmine in my hair, or take a bath with a bucket and pitcher. But Sanctuary Home is a toe ring that doesn’t come off, not even with pliers. It’s irritating. It rubs me wrong. It was put on without my full understanding. But I look down and I see the beauty, the beauty of my toe rings, the beauty of India, and the sweetness of my friends and the children there, and I realize that I don’t want to take it off.