Guest Bloggers | existabovethenoise

Well the time has come to leave India; all I can say is, “Oh, Delhi you slay me.” I’m not sure what it is about India, but it is surely a special place. While I racked my brain about what to write it was clear that I wouldn’t be able to fully explain my feelings on all the events of this “vacation.” It is often said that the journey is equally important as the destination. So, lets begin with the journey from Indira Gandhi International airport. We were pulled over in our taxi by a motorcycle cop with no siren and no tickets, and eventually let go without any penalty. All the while I’m thinking, “this is a pure waste of time.” Apparently this is the case with many things here. So before I continue here’s my disclaimer: I cannot be held responsible for any confusion as a result of the lack of order in this publication. It is an accurate reflection of this trip.

Indian culture is the product of several religions, languages, and power shifts over centuries. And there’s finally English colonization. As a historian, I would love to say this explains the huge socio-economic gap that exists here, but I truly don’t know. The poverty I’ve seen here exponentially outshines the best “Feed the Children” infomercial. There are literally people who sleep on the ground feet away from Lamborghinis and Bentleys. I assume this is why everything here has a price. Free parking is under the control of self-proclaimed ‘attendants,’ who will flatten your tires if you don’t pay 10 rupees (2 cents). At every historical sight there was some guy wanting his cut. The City Palace in Jaipur boasts a bathroom guy, parking fellow, and even a perfect spot for picture men who double as guides. My sister says that’s why it takes so long to get things done, because there are so many people who need a piece of the action. I’m not sure what it is, but when every job is done with primitive technology what can you expect? Five guys painted lines on the street, which are clearly just a suggestion to the worst drivers in the world (congratulations New Yorkers). Not everything about India and Delhi is bad, but it just takes a bit of patience to see past it.

While here I had the pleasure of dining with a diplomat and his wife in a home that had more servants than I have immediate family members. Any who at this dinner it was clear that Delhi was like an onion and I would only understand it if I peeled back the layers. Similar to eating the street food here, I would have to be a native or extremely bold to try it. Let’s assume I was the latter.

So with my backpack, father and horn happy driver I hit the streets. Vasant Vihar (my area of residence) was littered with small embassies. Most only having one guard in a small booth, which surprised me. In a walk through old Delhi there were tombs that remained from the beginning of Delhi’s existence. It came as a shock that these beautiful structures were only accessible by walking through a maze of side streets and tight back alleys that played host to butchers, barbershops, bakeries, and even a goat with a coat (see above). There were no short cuts taken in the rewiring of streetlights to provide energy to this prehistoric part of town either. Survival is contingent upon family unity. While family does not always constitute shared blood, the love is no different.

So I leave India with my sense of family bonds renewed and my appreciation for the simple things exponentially multiplied. I’ve seen enough palaces and forts to last a lifetime with pictures to prove it. I’ve seen the world’s biggest clock and the world’s biggest silver jar (seriously). My nights have consisted of movies and television shows about old English people with my dear sister and father. My days were filled with walks around Vasant Vihar taking pictures of all the Embassies I could find. I’ve seen a woman balancing 5 pots on her head and dancing to the music of her seemingly mentally ill sons. My vacation has shown me crazy men who beg for money exist all around the globe. With all that said I wouldn’t move India to the top of my vacation list, but I am grateful for the new friends made and time well spent.

ameer2

This week’s guest blogger is Ameer Allen. Born and raised in Newark, NJ, he is a twenty-three year old Lincoln University grad, history buff, and diehard Cowboys fan.

(He’s also my hilariously funny big little brother.)

Nicole Young is currently a grad student at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is studying Education Policy. When she is not reading a million pages a night for class, her hobbies include loud laughing, eating, and pretending to be the star of her own music video/broadway musical.

“Don’t forget me” was scrawled in a particularly high school girl style, with flourishes and a smiley face, underneath a framed picture in my cousin’s room. The picture was of my little cousin holding another high school girl, presumably the one who wrote the note, on her back – piggy-back style. Both of them were grinning madly and you could almost hear the giggles through the picture. It was adorable and one of many in a carefully crafted collage. And as I sat on the edge of my cousin’s bed, talking to her about silly things as she did her hair in the bathroom mirror, it really touched me. The three words struck me in such a deep way that I paused and lost my train of thought. “What were you saying?” she asked. I grabbed for something and began again, all the time thinking about the little graduation collage.

What struck me the most was that the phrase, “Don’t forget me” is one I think about almost daily. I don’t want my friends or family to forget me as they go about living their lives. I don’t want ex-boyfriends to forget those special things, those uniquely us things, that we shared. I don’t want the world to forget me when I die. I don’t want my living to have been just another flash in the pan. I want my being here to have meant something and I know I’m not alone. Everyday I watch people make fools of themselves on reality TV or social media all in an attempt for their 15 minutes of fame. Anthropologists and pop culture junkies talk more and more about the unique accessibility the Internet has afforded our generation. And while they discuss the ability of one idea or event or name to quickly saturate every single media market in a matter of seconds and how that has forever changed the human race, for good or evil, no one ever talks about WHY people want those 15 minutes. Maybe everyone’s in on that part but me. Maybe inherent in the phrase “15 minutes of fame” is a perceived opportunity for immortality, but the idea is pretty novel to me.

Believing that no one else loves the way we do or feels sorrow’s depths the way we have, is an inherently human flaw. And as we chide the less talented for their tawdry hopes of gaining celebrity through being a contestant on “Flavor of Love” or even the next “Love and Hip Hop: ATL,” we, the more intelligent, driven people of the human race plot our own 15 minutes. We call it policy, or a contribution, or art, but at the end of the day our attempts to change our stars and make the world a better place are just a cry out against the fleeting nature of life. We don’t want to be forgotten. And this 17 year old girl, writing a note to her friend at graduation, summed up the feeling perfectly in 3 words. It’s amazing how young the awareness of loss begins and how hard we fight from the beginning of recognition to prevent it. We don’t want to lose that piggyback ride or the laughs that followed. We never want to forget that sunset. We hope that even when we’re gone, there will be someone left to remember or something left to remind them that we were here. And what happens in our eternal struggle to make our mark, is that in a particularly human way, we forget that our friends don’t want to be forgotten either. We neglect to tell them that we think of them and that they matter to us.

So there’s loss, the permanent kind, the type that is so final that it leaves us breathless. And then there is quasi loss: the gradual falling away that happens as you get a little older. The kind where something triggers a hilarious, warm memory and you want to talk to the one person who would remember and you realize that you’re not really friends anymore. Sure, you like each other’s statuses and peruse each other’s instagram photos, but you don’t TALK. You can’t remember the last time you spoke and more importantly, you don’t even know if they remember. Somehow it’s even worse. To know that you could reach out to that person if you just had their number and even if you do have there number, if you could get past that first awkward, “So what have you been UP to for the past…9 years.” But you don’t do it. And the moment passes and you’re left a little lonelier, wishing you were your 16 year old self, if only because that version of you would have been able to talk to them.

So then I’m right back to this girl’s three words and the question her message poses. What if you never get your 15 minutes? How do you make them not forget you? After a million years, how do you let them know you haven’t forgotten them? How do you fight the quasi loss that’s bound to come? I’m really no sage about these types of things, but I think you just tell them.

I think you brave the brief moment of discomfort (and the nervousness about rejection) and remind them that their life matters to someone that they don’t see every day. You message them and say that even though middle school was ages ago, you think of them every time Titanic comes on TV or let them know that your Sunday brunch ritual, no matter how long past, was one of the highlights of your 20s. Shoot them a text that conveys ‘yes, you are thought of and often.’ You don’t have to have those awkward phone conversations if you don’t want to and you can continue to skulk on each other’s Facebook pages afterward. But why wouldn’t you want them to know that you remember?

Because truthfully, aren’t we are all hoping that in the busyness of living, they don’t forget us?