Hero's Journey- The Ordeals

     I asked our friend, John-from-Cornwall, who has been to India 3 times, what keeps drawing him back.
     "Because India," he said in his English accent, "more than any other country takes you out of your comfort zone and knocks you upside the head."
    I recognized this answer because I have given it myself.  Yet somehow, 5 years of growing older with memory foam beds and unlimited hot water pressure showers had romanticized my memory of the ordeals of India.
    If you only had one sense, say smell, and your nose was given a 30-second whiff of India, it could take days to process the complex effect that the intermingling of incense, exhaust, urine, coconuts, cowpies, fried samosas, and cardamon has on your nasal cavity.  Now add in the (at least) 5 more senses that we routinely use and 24 hours of immersion in the sweltering, sticky, sweaty pulsation of one billion heartbeats, everything unutterably complex and confusing. Eyes assualted by garbage piles in the holiest of places, tongue tortured by the fire of a green mango pickle, red bumps of unknown origin colonizing whole continents of skin.  Every centimeter of every Indian city is lived and breathed.  If not by humans, then by cows, goats, chickens, pigs, cockroaches.  They forage in the garbage piles in this land where waste and life are not falsely separated. 
     Being here is like being an infant all over again.  Nothing makes any sense and there are all kinds of languages, verbal and non, to learn all over again.  There is the language the constant honks, some cartoonish, some insistent. Auto rickshaws operate on a "see no pedestrian, hear no pedestrian, run over no pedestrian" philosophy and as long as they honk loudly enough, they can drive as insanely as they choose.  there is a honk that says "I am here, don't hit me," one that says "I will hit you if you don't get out of my way" and a special holy honk for the holy cows that rule the streets.  Then there is the language and art of the head bobble.  Does a slight diagonal tilt to the lefthand side followed by two to the right mean "yes" "no" "I don't know" or "what a silly foreigner you are"?
     At this point you might be questioning my sanity or wondering if I am a secret masochist.  And why do we throw ourselves, consciously or not, into these trials that strain the very limits of our capacity as beings?  Why do we choose, as John said, to be "knocked upside the head?" Why must the hero's journey include the destruction of all that we know that keeps us safe and sane?  Is it worth it?
   I'll get back to you on that.  In the meantime, in this experiment, I am finding that the more broken open I become, the more my safety and sanity becomes part of a sacred, special core that I carry with me and less and less to do with clean air and comfort and that amazing latte they make at Pizzaiolo.