Almost All Things India -- Jennie

I love India.

I’ve never been, but pray feverishly to Buddha for the chance to go someday.

My second-hand obsession stems from Bollywood movies, yoga books, ayurvedic medicine, and stories from a Mumbaian co-worker.

Today, I had planned on blogging about the proliferation of India— how the world’s largest democracy is everywhere these days.

It started with Newsweek’s excerpt of Farid Zakaria’s book The Post-American World, which argues that America has lost its superpower status to India and China. “Relax,” Zakaria seems to tell his readers. “Celebrate, even”; it’s not that the US is losing ground; it’s that other nations are gaining some.

Really? If there was one thing I learned from eighth grade, it was how great America was. Was. Because now, other countries are better?

Oh, the angst between loving India and giving up that American pride!

This sudden conflict was exemplified last week in the local grocery store, its shelves full of flatbread, curried lentils, spicy snack mix, and Punjabi sauce.

Even the Lego corporation has caught on. Okay, so Lego is actually Swiss, not American. But that doesn’t mean that its new 6,000 piece / $300 Taj Mahal isn’t plastered all over our catalogs—and the set isn’t available until September.

India’s hot.

But I’m not going to blog about it.

Because tragedy struck.

In an effort to improve something, anything, about my currently impaired condition (how long does one GD bladder/rectal recovery take???), I dyed my hair. Orange. Then I had to re-dye it. And it came out even orangier. I screamed, my husband laughed, and my ten-year old son asked if I needed to get my head extinguished.

So, I have a real problem.

At the moment, I’m not going to worry about balancing my fixation with the Land of the Tiger and my loyalty to America. There’s nothing like a huge hair crisis to put everything into perspective.