the artist formerly known as Rups McSad

so, i'm officially Indicorps staff. Doing a whole bunch of really cool media stuff... but right now, just being there for the new fellows to adjust and prepare for their year.

In any case, the past few weeks have been insane. the last days of my project overlapped with my family coming in... had an amazing time.... then- editing the book w/ rish before he left... then to orientation.... as staff.

Everything just blurred into the next... which has been beautiful... but highly overwhelming. I need a walden pond.

ah well.

in any case, the overwhelmedness,
in addition to most of my fellows leaving ( besides Shiv, my new roommate, and Anup, an artist/architect in training who I'm doing sketches of India w/ every Sunday) ...
in addition to my family leaving...
had made me feel really sad and lonely recently... even though I'm surrounded by super inspiring and talented people.
Extremely sad.
Extremely lonely.

and then, my brother, who I thought absolutely *hated* coming to visit me here... puts this up on his webjournal:

"Well let's recap the summer. spent the first couple of months hanging out with Dan, Jim, Koz and my brother just watching movies and tearing up the town. Normally I would be playing baseball and hanging out with Suds, Kandarp, and Vish as we do every summer, but we sort of split up this time. Beginning of the summer I took this music class with my brother taught by two musicians from India. The premise of the class was to teach me to play my guitar (Western instrument) with my brothers Tablas (Eastern instrument). The class went well. They taught us a couple of songs that we could play together: Ragas, bhajans, shiznack like that. Don't worry non-Indian people you don't know what these things are, try typing it into GOOGLE. Other than these classes and driving my brother the first half of my summer was pretty routine. Family Picnic, birthday parties, summer barbecues, fireworks, all around good times.

From July 21st to August 17th I was in India to spend time with my beautiful and multitalented sister Rup.

Trip: We left on Thursday night, arrived in Switzerland 9 hours later, then another 5.5 hours we were in Kuwait, where our flight was delayed 12 hours- stayed in a sweet hotel in Kuwait and left for Mumbai in the morning, arrived that morning and left for Ahmdebad an hour or so later and Ahmdebad and drove 1.5 hours to Himetnager, where my grandfather owns a gorgeous 3 story home.
Stayed there the night and left for Ludiya (the village where my sister lived) in the morning. Rather than boring you with the whole breakdown i'll just sum up quickly. Let me preface this by saying I was sick before I left and this hectic travel schedule did not aid matters very much. For the first two weeks of the 3.5 weeks i was there i didn't feel completely normal.

Anyways, Ludiya was a very quiet and self-sustaining place. They lived off what they made and were extremely nice people. My sister's project was to empower the women in this community and enhance their sense of creativity by making them more aware of the sewing crafts they would make. I know I didn't describe that very well, but I'm not good with descriptions. Let me just say this- everyone I met there had the best things to say about Rup. She fit into this community completely. They all were drawn to her warmness and her personality, it was truly amazing to see. The love they had for her was very pure. At least from my point of view. After we left Kutch we split up for a while and went back to my dada's house. Where we watched some quality Scooby Doo cartoons dubbed into Hindi, which funny enough there are no hindi translations for "zoinks"

anyways after a couple of days we set off for the state of rajastan and travelete to three cities seeing the forts, palaces, and temples, and native people in these cities. Fun times, after that we just chilled around and did some shopping.

All in all the trip was very hectic and tiring but if I had to do it all over again I would do it. Being sick and all that shit was worth it to see the work Rup was doing and just spending time with her. It was wierd the first day the whole family was back together it was like we hadn't been apart for a second. There was no awkward silence or small talk, it was immediately back to those jokes, those laughs, those memories, that sense of family.


Well to recap India: if I actually told you how many miles we travelled during the entire trip your head would explode so I'll spare, let's just say it's a lot.
Rup and her work are both amazing, there aren't a lot of people who are brave enough to leave everything they know behind to help others. Could YOU? NO! you can't! maybe you can I don't know I'm just messing with you.
Illness: I'm fine now, I lost about 12 pounds on this trip, and I think I have cholera, but maybe I should stop diagnosing myself.
What I learned: That the People of India are very warm and inviting and extremely nice. Every person we would come across would want us to come over for food, and wouldn't take no for an answer. Everyone looked out for us while we were over there and they were all very generous. Even those who did not have that much were willing to invite us into their homes and treat us like family. It is something you just don't see here that often.

Also, being in India simplifies your life a little bit. You can't really take for granted all the little things like you can here to those little things become your primary worries. Things such as clean water, electricity, extreme heat, etc. Here these things are a given so we can overlook them and worry about other things. Over there they are not a given so they become the primary problems. So while I was there I noticed that I would enjoy simpler things like a cool breeze, or a star filled sky, or the company of loved ones... it was a very cool thing to experience. I know this probably does not make sense but it does to me so back off! all in all the trip was very educational, fun, and tiring and the same time, but mostly i had a good time... now it's time to go back to school and enjoy my final year at the University of Illinois. Time to go out with a bang.

To all my friends and family, especially those who are starting college or any other type of challenge in their life, I wish you the best of luck, and if visiting India has taught me anything it is that we are very blessed to have the opportunities we have and to not make the most of them would be an insult to those who do not have these opportunities. So take a step back sometime and think about how much you have and how blessed you are and try to truly enjoy life to the fullest and don't worry about the small things.

All the Best and Good Luck, MUCH LOVE -vimal-"

Suddenly, .... well, perhaps I'm not as unloved and alone as I thought. :)