This is the part where...

...things all start to blur together. I think I've been everywhere in Bangalore I've wanted to go, seen what I want to see. It's getting that comfortable feeling, the reliability of going to the same internet cafe, smiling at the kid with eczema, eating at the same 5 or six restaurants. (Rotation: Indian, Chinese, American, Indian, Chinese, American...) It's kind of a cool feeling to get used to the streets, feeling the labyrinthine snakes of roads and alleys coalesce into an internal map fueled by instinct. I could never draw the map accurately, but I always seem to know where I am, and when a rickshaw driver is "taking me for a ride".

Other than some wrap-up work for Dr. Sudarshan, the last thing I really have to do in Bangalore is buy gifts for people. It is sort of a strange thing when you go by the appropriate stores all the time. Which one to step into? Stepping in means you'll be buying something. Which neighborhood has the best deals? What do people want? How much money do I have, anyway? One of these days, I'll just pick a spot and a budget, and take care of all of it in one busy day. Email me with any special requests, and I'll do my best to fill them.

So this is the time where it pays to be patient. To not get carried away in being alone and starving for social stimulus. Things will pick up next week. I plan to start traveling around July 1, and will have almost three weeks to take in a few corners of this endless place.

India is the second nation outside the US that I have been that actually feels like a "nation". Brazil had that feeling as well. You turn on the TV and it's all Indian programming. All the food is Indian-grown, the cars, Indian-made. You read the paper, and international news seems to take a back seat to yesterday's cricket matches and bus accidents. Of course there's Bollywood, which is at least as prolific as its parallel universe brother-in-law, Hollywood. Like the US, there is the sense that this is Planet India; if you were to go somewhere else, it'd involve jet propulsion, great expense, and a dire reason to go. There are over 20 major languages, 5+ major religions, endless state and ethnic identities, huge geographical variation... there is this sense of, "how could there really be anywhere else out there?"

But there is. There are a lot of other nations out there living out their existences in their various patches throughout the world. Connected by history, tenuous fiber-optic cable and shipping lanes. When you consider how much humanity is at the end of these narrow pipelines, it's no wonder we still live in relative ignorance of one another. There is no way to be everywhere at once, to know everyone. Most people in the world probably never travel more than 100 miles from where they were born. Even if you do meet them, what do you say? What would make sense to a stranger?