Bagels and Lakhs

For some reason it has started to hit me more and more lately that we live here. For a long time we responded to queries about of length of time in Bombay with, “Oh we just moved here.” But it’s funny how time creeps in and you go from having been here for days to having been here for weeks to realizing it’s been more than two months since you stepped onto a plane into a new life.

You begin to notice this shift through your actions. The transition starts with allowing yourself to eat food with your hands and then eventually you let yourself brush your teeth with the tap water and then suddenly you’re responding to everything with “tikke, tikke” and doing your own version of the Indian head bob.

Phoebe before and after the haircut

This all struck me a bit today because Phoebe got her second monsoon haircut and it seemed crazy to think that enough time had passed for that to be necessary.

The first haircut came over two months ago when we had initially arrived- it was instantly apparent that she was suffering from the oppressive heat under her constant mop of long wet dirty fur.  So as one of our first activities here we took her to a groomer and afterward I posted a photo on the blog showing off our new India-ready pup.

But before we knew it, it became apparent that our India-ready monsoon-proof Phoebe had slowly been overtaken, like weeds on a vine, by the initial mop.  And if the growth of hair can be a visual representation of time passed, then she surely had become a daily reminder of the days we’d spent in India.

But, as always, time marches on and Phoebe went to the groomer. When she came out we were once again presented with a lighter, more monsoon-proof version of Phoebe, happy to be free of the confines of the heat.

For a little while with this new short hair she becomes almost like a puppy, able to jump and play without tiring quickly under the temperature.  It’s like she’s excited to move to India all over again and search and seek until the weight of her own hair becomes too much once more.

I suppose it’ll be like a bi-monthly reminder of our length of time here – a cue that every time we get comfortable we have to try and recreate our initial excitement so we don’t get too lethargic.  Like the trip to Pune, we need to be reminded that our time here will go so quickly and we have to make the most of it.  We’ll need to get our own India haircut every few months to remember that we need to keep seeing this place through new eyes.

Ideally, we should never be just settling in, but always responding that “we just moved here.”