Nothing foreshadowed my first encounter with the subcontinent. Because one thing leads to another, a podcast I listened to led to a 1:1 session with Meghan Rose, an LA-based astrologer. Her eerily accurate insights concluded with a vision of a solo trip. Bear in mind I’ m a mother of threeunder-three, so“ solo trip” couldn’ t be further from the sleep-deprived, family-first era I was in. I was being“ called” to journey solo to India to attend the Maha Kumbh Mela, the greatest human gathering on Earth. 400 million people would be there, and my claustrophobia doesn’ t exactly love a crowd. But Meghan’ s reading had been so truthful that I thought,“ Why not?” What she didn’ t know was that my parents had planned this exact trip months ago, and so although I didn’ t see the“ solo” aspect of my journey, I knew I had a way in.
I stepped out of the airport, surrounded by dense tropical greens, expecting the horrendous smell I had heard so much about. Nothing. Sure it smelled like a city, but New York wasn’ t any better. The driving, however, was exactly as described. Rickshaws, Range Rovers, and kali-peelis, the retro black-andyellow taxis, wove in and out of traffic, dangerously so. The city’ s pace was frenetic, but with a certain languor – maybe it was the heat, the children playing cricket, or the people chatting around a street-side chai vendor. The city, unabashedly maximalist, was bathed in a harmonious golden light. What everyone says about India? I get it. A shock to the system. A flooding of the senses. Soul-altering. I was head over heels in love.
The solo element came in pretty quickly when I realized they were heading to New Delhi and I was on a flight – alone – to Mumbai.
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