happy new year

"I don't know how they'll take you in India," said Little Gen to me two years ago.

Since last week's post, I've traveled fifteen hours by plane, five hours by car, several minutes by bus, and a couple seconds on a pogo stick. I'm writing now from a place so different, I feel almost normal. I boarded a plane one year and deplaned in the next. I'm not actually sure what time zone I was in when the clock ticked past twelve, so for all I know, I may still be in 2010.

Just kidding about the pogo stick.

It's Wednesday, I know that much. I'm hoping to post this communiqué by Friday morning, allowing for my American readership to see it by early Thursday evening. So, my compatriots, I write to you from the future. But striving for the impossible is just par for the course here.

Still, Little Gen's reservations about India taking me in with open arms were not unfounded. An as yet unmentioned fact about Little Gen is that she's spent much of her adult life in India, where she's had sufficient opportunity to observe that disability takes on a different nuance. At best, it's a thing to be pitied; at worst, the sign of a curse. The handicapped of this country generally have one career option: begging. And it's a career sometimes forced on its victims by enslavement and intentional mutilation.

In India, there is no up side.

Until now...[cue triumphal superhero theme music]...Yes, folks, you're on the cutting edge, the ground floor, the grass roots, if you will, of the latest research in disability dynamics. Consider me your fearless leader, your secret undercover agent on a mission of mobilization...[Wait, what's happening]...without modus operandi...[Had to Google that]...winging it into unchartered territory...[Now I don't even remember what this post is about].

Oh, yes, India. Though I was intimidated by the prospect of standing out in all my freakish glory, India took permanent hold of me. And I'm rather fond of it as well. Two years after my introduction, I find I'm still in love.

So, welcome to my new frontier. If you're still confused and bewildered about finding OneArmGirl Headquarters moved half way round the globe, wondering if you accidentally looked up the wrong blog, Fodor's Guide to India or Eat, Pray, Love with One Arm...Please be at ease, it's still just me, the OneArmGirl....in India.

As you may have noted, I've not really written much in this post about India at all. But this is mostly because when I start to think about translating the sights, smells, and feelings of being here, I'm stricken with a serious case of inadequacy, and I want to quit writing altogether and drive a tuk tuk instead. Actually, I just want to drive a tuk tuk regardless.

Much, much more to come...

OneArmGirl