Dear Miscreants,

Please do not try to mislead me by dropping some currency notes.  And please, don't tell me that my money has fallen down.  I know better than that.  Miscreants may be rampant in Chennai, but I'm from Delhi.  We're wise to your game.  We've seen it all before.

I enjoyed myself last weekend; my middle school girls soccer team played well in their tournament.  But please-dropping some currency notes?  And trying to tell me that my money has fallen down!?  Give me a break!  Like I would let you steal my valise from right under my nose.  It would never happen.

The warm climes of tropical Chennai might lull some into a hazy blur, but not us Delhites.  Miscreants are a dime a dozen up here, my friends.  We will not be misled.

Your jig is up,
jason

Dear Uttarakhand,

Thanks for hosting me for two great weekends this past month!

For some, the prospect of an early morning train ride from Delhi to Dehradun and the return trip the next day didn't sound very promising.  Six o'clock AM?  Six and a half hours?  Coming back the next day?  Seems crazy.  But when I started to explain the reason why, the tone changed.  "You see, there's an independent filmmaker," I said.  "He's filming a movie about Indian ice hockey and he needs a 'Canadian' team to play against the Indians."  With that simple sentence two years of my Indian dreams started to come true.

You see Uttarakhand, I started playing hockey in Korea and fell in love with it.  Then I moved to Bangladesh where nothing is frozen.  Ever.  When I moved to India, I heard stories of an outdoor tournament in your northwestern neighbor Kashmir, I began to crave it.  My first two years, I wasn't able to go.  Another unfulfilled craving was my desire to be in a movie.  In the land of Bollywood, it seems that almost anyone can be in a movie.  Several friends were in Eat, Pray, Love, but I missed that too.

Then it all came together.  A call from the director to the Canadian High Commission, an email appeal for players, a solicitation for a goalie, a train ride to the mysteriously built rink in Dehradun and bam!  A two-fer.  But hey Uttarkhand, why did you build a full-sized ice rink that nobody uses anyway?  Seems weird.  Maybe Delhi.  Even Leh, in Kashmir where Indians actually play hockey.  That would make sense.  But I digress.  We arrived, goofed around, shot scenes for four hours then it was back to the hotel, and back to Delhi the next morning. Whirlwind, but totally worth it.  Thanks for the rink, maybe I'll be back.  You're a wonderful northern state, known as the Land of the Gods, but to me you'll be the land of my film debut.

Getting ready for my close-ups.  To all directors-Yes, I am available.

Wow!  Looks like I just saved the day!

Film secrets revealed.

So yeah, that could have been enough to make me love you Uttarakhand.  But just three weeks later, I was coming right back to you.  This time it was another whirlwind trip.  The transportation was classed up as we flew to Dehradun.  The fifteen minute flight from Delhi was exhausting, but luckily they served a snack.  Then it was an hour in the car to Mussoorie, The Queen of the Hills.  As I'm sure you know Uttarakhand, Mussoorie was a British Hill Station, and it was the entrance point into the Himalayas.  Thanks to our friends Jake and Kelly we had a place to stay while we explored another of your fine cities.  Although we were only there for one night, we still enjoyed walking(!) around, goofing off with other Indian tourists, taking chai breaks, riding the cable car and taking in gorgeous views(when the fog lifted).  You know Uttarakhand, my reputation from Dehradun must have preceded me because we also took part in a pretty important photo shoot.  Here are some of the best shots.

  


 

When I took this photo, the man behind me said, "Old is gold."

So anyway, thanks for some great times Uttarakhand.  I hope to visit with you again soon.

Tourist-ily yours,

jason

Dear Algae,

Wow, you really know how to ruin the party.

I was so excited for the annual staff retreat at Neemrana this year.  Visions of years past flooded my memory as I drove the two hours to arrive to the 700 year old fort palace.  As I whizzed the Opel Corsa past cows, donkeys, auto rickshaws, giant trucks, tiny motorbikes and other cars hellbent on getting out of Delhi, I was reminded of the trip undertaken in years past.  Such a gauntlet was necessary, perhaps, to enhance the peacefulness of the Neemrana property.

I knew that upon my arrival, I would be greeted with the white glove treatment-hot towels, cool drinks and all of the accoutrements of five-star service.  Then it would be off to the pool for drinks, card games and socializing with friends old and new!

Oh the pool! What a treat on those hot, hot Rajasthani days.

But you algae, you had other plans for us, didn't you?  You were so desirous in your pursuit of photosynthesis that you didn't account for the 60 or 70 of us that were interested in cool, clean, blue water.  "Blue water be damned," you screamed from the murky depths of what had previously been the Neemrana Fort Palace pool!  Algae, you had different ideas.  Perhaps your  green sheen should have reminded me of stories of envy and humility.  Perhaps I could have accepted Neemrana's inability to keep a pool clean.  Instead I was reminded of the dark green hue of the Incredible Hulk, indicative of the rage that was growing inside of me, ruining my weekend.  Had you been yellow instead of green, you may have inspired me to make lemonade, but instead algae, I was left with pea soup.

At least I have a story.

Hulked out,
jason

Dear Murphy Lake,

There goes the neighborhood.

Your new neighbor,
jason

Dear Grandmother,

First of all, thank you. Thank you for everything. It's hard to explain all of the things that I'm thankful for, so I'll try reverse chronological order.

Thank you for waiting for us. I know you were in pain for a long time, and I knew you were ready to go, so thank you. Thanks for enduring it for a bit longer until we arrived to see you this summer.

Thank you for winning the last game of cribbage that we got to play. I thought I was hot stuff when I beat you two days before that, but in classic Nancy Ann fashion, you were tough till the end and put me in my place. I always loved that about you. You could dish it out and you could take it. You calmly listened to my trash talk, then creamed me the very next game. I should have known better than to think that I could best you in cards.

Thanks for getting email. It was fun to send you letters from abroad and getting replies asking when I was coming home. I loved imagining the giant pile of free AOL discs on your desk that you kept to keep your Internet running.

Thanks for throwing me to the wolves at the Fon du Luth Casino. Those old ladies taught me the hard way about taking the dealer's ten.

Thanks for imprinting crazy images in my head like the "Grandma Nancy Ash" and "Lil' Toot."

Thanks for full cookie jars, Sunday dinners, trips to the races and humoring my imagination at the Lester Park Greenhouse as I pretended to be a jungle explorer.

Thanks for the pumpkin story and for exposing me to AM radio and true country and western music as we drove around town on one crazy adventure after another.

Thanks for not believing me when I broke my leg (kidding, i'm over it) and thanks for spoiling me rotten when I was the only grandchild.

Thanks for everything Grandmother, Granny, Gram, Fancy Nancy... I love you and I'm going to miss you more than I realize.

Gratefully yours,
jason

Dear Taking a Shower in America,

You are so awesome!  This is going to be a gushy love letter, but I just have to say it out loud.  Taking a Shower in America, you are so dreamy! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 


I love the way I can turn your hot water on and it comes right out of the tap!  I love your water pressure!  But most of all, I love how I can let the water wash all over me and swallow up mouthfuls without fear of typhoid, giardia or cholera!  What a treat!


Squeakily clean,
jason
xoxo

Dear Turkish Bath,

First of all, thanks yet again for a fantastic experience.  I'm so glad that you don't meet the stereotypical view of what many must think you are.  You did not feature a swarthy, mustachioed Turk twisting and contorting me into a world of pain.  You did not feature a room full of sweaty, dodgy men with eyes darting to and fro.  And you most certainly were not a gateway into Istanbul's dark world of hashish and crooked deals.

On the other hand, you were everything I hoped you would be.  I'm glad that we trusted your out-of-the-way location behind Suleymaniye Mosque.  It contributed to the privacy and peace we were looking for.  I'm grateful that your staff was kind and helpful.  The wooden slippers you gave us to help us from slipping on the marble floors of the hammam were well-intended, even if I thought they would cause me to topple over and meet my doom, rather than slip.

The 100 degree temperature in the hammam was just right, as we let the stresses of the year sweat out of our bodies.  Laying on the heated marble for forty minutes may have just a bit too long, but nobody passed out.  When the scrubbers came in a greeted us with a cascade of freezing cold water and a friendly laugh and smile, we again knew we'd chosen the right place.

And then we got down to business.  A great exfoliating scrub, hard but not too hard.  A luxurious, foamy soap down and massage, again hard but not too hard.  Another rinse, a quick dry, wrapped up like burritos and an apple tea to relax and it was over.

Hard to believe that ninety minutes had gone so quickly, but when we left, we were rejuvenated, happy and ready to continue our exploration of a great city.

Scrubbed and happy,
jason