India

I still don't want an ID card and I continue to ponder my responsibility as a citizen of this big, wide world. But I have a new thing: India. Nas and I have decided to go to India - not now, or even soon, maybe next September? maybe if we don't find permanent posts right away, we could move there...?? Or at least, move somewhere new and slightly warmer than Britain. Without ID cards.

So yes, India. I have never been particularly interested in the sub-continent - mostly because most of the people I've met who professed a deep and spiritual connection to India were annoying, inarticulate, and smelt slightly of patchouli and sandalwood. I know people, on the other hand, who really do love India and maybe being around them has infected me - or overcome my unfair bias against a country based on fairly limited (and limiting) perspectives. Or I could be completely honest and reveal my own superficiality and admit that it was The Darjeeling Limited ... India was the most sympathetic and stunning character in the film. And yes, part of me really does want to go to that India - you know, the clean, pressed, incredibly polite, but thoroughly modern and sexy India; a fictional construct so appealing that I would watch the film over and over again just to get to know her better. Mostly cause that India is risk-free: no poverty, no strays, no questions - just a pret-a-porter spiritual awakening.

I've never been anywhere that really confronted me with difference - and I cry at NSPCC and RSPCA ads on the telly (especially the latest RSPCA one). I don't want to discover myself - or India - I just want to see it for myself. And everything seems to be pointing that way for me lately - like mentionitis with a whole country... Maybe we'll love it and never come back! Maybe I'll hate it and be a horrible combination of the worst traits of a Canadian and British tourist.

So if anyone has advice, please send it along. Or contacts. Or rupees.