I was thinking about how little I know about India.

The young lady of mixed East Indian and African descent who served me the gyro had called me ‘hun’, an American affectation,  while handing me a Greek-ish food. And there I was, reading an Indian blog entry on resilience.

It seemed appropriate that I be reading her words on resilience when everyone I ran into in Trinidad was busy talking about what might happen at Petrotrin, as if their very lives depended on it. Last week, it was the earthquake, this week, Petrotrin.

The gyro was wrapped tight in a combination of paper and thin aluminium wrap – impossible to get off one or the other completely, so either you bit paper or aluminium. It wasn’t her fault, she just handed it to me – it was a problem of the paper combining with the juices of the gyro-ish food I had. So, being hungry, I opted for getting all the aluminium off- paper doesn’t hurt your teeth.

My own form of resilience in the moment, I suppose.

It’s not often I get moments like that one, out in public yet in a certain silence that allowed clear observation of the world around me. Now that I’d sorted out my gyro, which was really quite good – surprisingly so – I cast my eyes around.

This is South Trinidad. I’ve been spending more time in North Trinidad and the cultures, while similar, are not quite the same. First of all, North Trinidad almost always has better options for things. In that, it lacks the charm of South Trinidad where you accidentally find something nice.

It’s getting better, but there’s still a marked difference.

Petrotrin, which was later confirmed to be closing the refinery, was probably going to be laying off people I expect are largely from South Trinidad. This means that a year from now, I might not be seeing the same people were I to sit in the same seat. Since, by this hypothesis, there would be less disposable income in South Trinidad, any gap between quality and choices between North and South Trinidad would likely increase in size.

Again.

I chewed, picking at the odd piece of meat here and there that fell into my strategically placed foil. It’s Tuesday afternoon, maybe around 1:30 p.m. There’s people outside with loudspeakers talking about the need to learn sign language. Well, if you keep using loudspeakers, I expect so. There were people milling about in lunch lines at this hour, which seemed strange. Where did they come from?

Lunch is typically from 12 to 1, yet there were lines at all the health food places – you know, Royal Castle, Burger King, etc, in a country where people still share information on what to drink, eat, or stick in an orifice to ‘purge’. Not that my gyro was absolutely healthy, but I do have some moral high ground here that I won’t waste – it rarely happens. A spoiler for people: If you have healthy kidneys and a liver, your body doesn’t need much more help except with regular infusions of dihydrogen monoxide.

Water.

Reading an Indian writer, watching a South Trinidad floorshow while eating a fusion in cuisine. For some reason, a lot of my traffic here on RealityFragments, as well as on the Reality Fragments Facebook page, comes from India.

That’s why I was thinking about it. From the outside looking in, being a roundabout descendant of descendants of Indian origin (as well as others), what I know is a collection of reading what Indian friends have written or shared with me. They shared with a depth that was inspiring.

And yet I am apart, but then, as I considered India, India is largely apart from India. It’s this mass of people who turned an imposed language against the owner of it and continues to be a growing economy – even as poverty is visible. Conflicted, yet with a depth to those conflicts that cannot allow things to change quickly in a world that hastens in accelerated ways. I cannot know India.

I know it only from parts, pieces, little anecdotes, some articles, a Simputer, and little else.

There’s more to know, I’m sure. But with so many readers from a part of the world I might insult by only seeing pieces of it on a trip, I spent time thinking about it. And I likely will in the future.

So, for the people reading in that place marked by lines on someone else’s map – thank you for stopping by. You’re appreciated, and I’m returning the favor as best I can.