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The village is lit up with LED lights all colors of the rainbow. Some are blinking, others not. Every tree and house is decorated with lights and in the center where most of the shopping and restaurants are the lights are even more spectacular. In the distance, lasers are beaming on the sky. This is no holiday season and yet the place is more festive than many cities are during Christmas.

I had to wonder how many more lights go on when they have a major holiday. I buy a little vermillion sand bracelet for J. It is meant to ward off the evil eye and attract prosperity. The shop-owner is a young woman probably about the same age as J. We converse using a translator. She wants to know how old J is and if I want smaller or larger beads in the bracelet. She picks out something that she thinks would be nice for her. 

Buying a piece of jewelry is always imbued with meaning far beyond the act of purchase. I am thinking the color would suit J very well but I also want her to a have a piece of a my trip that I had long looked forward to. This is a place she would have loved. I want her safe and protected at all times -  even if random men ask her ask her out while she is walking to her apartment from the metro late at night. I learned to make peace with feeling constantly anxious about her to finding my peace by sending good thoughts her way. This bracelet is meant to give my thoughts for her a shape and form. 

A week or so later, when I am back home, I will remember this young lady taking the time to find me something for my daughter as if she were a sister in spirit. I will recall also the dinner we had on the way back to the hotel - how the food was unlike I am familiar with but there was so much of India in it. I had to use my fingers to eat and a Slavic woman in the table across from me who had ordered the same dish smiled at me admiringly. There was no other way to get a handle on that dish - you had to get your fingers dirty. 

The friendly people, the large crowds and the food got me feeling connected to my roots and my childhood while in a foreign country. I know for a fact that as much I enjoyed the visit, this is not a place I want to ever return to. In that there is a certain parallel with time I spend in Kolkata. If I can strip everything away from the experience other than meals with family and friends in the comfort of my parents' home, then it would be a trip to enjoy and even return to. But that is so far not the reality of any visit there and accordingly I am never eager to make it.

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