India Memories

I was going over a bunch of picture cds earlier to look for some old pics I want to play with Adobe Photoshop when a cd labeled "India Memories Nov 2005" showed up. It was December 2005 when I last opened this cd, the day I got it. Since then, it was never opened coz it will just just give indescribable feelings. I tried to suppress this memory but I think it is just right to immortalize the experience through this blog despite how painful it was for me coz afterall it was still a great experience.

I was in India November 2005 for my first and last meeting with someone I knew from the internet in the summer of 2001. Despite the distance, we really had a very beautiful friendship. Never a day passed without calls, text, mails or hours of chatting. It was also hard then coz both of us had to look for an internet cafe to communicate. He was just about to enter a boarding school then to finish his Masters while I was jobless and about to make a quick decision to come here in Cebu City to look for a job with my friend Bane. I was jobless for a month in the city and was budgeting the 1,000-peso-pocket-money my parents gave me courtesy of my brother's piggy bank which they (or we) still owe him until now (they promised to pay him when I start earning and Anthony was 15 then, now 21 and still a student with no idea when he will graduate college). Amazingly, I still managed to spare money for the internet. He became my confidante, shoulder to cry on and a punching bag until he graduated, had an amazing career as a finance officer in a leading telecommunications company in Mumbai and then it was time for him to be arranged for marriage. Being promised to meet me even once this lifetime, we agreed to meet before he will be married. He was denied visa in the Philippines so I applied for an Indian visa to fulfill the promise. We were never sure of how we felt for each other but we knew that we were more than friends but cannot go beyond that coz we knew we will just hurt ourselves in the end. So we met like not strangers.

3 days after I was back in Cebu, he was introduced to a woman his parents selected for him and in 5 minutes she became her fiancee. He didn't like the idea of being arranged but being a good son, his role is to obey his parents. We knew it will happen and even thought it was okay or we will be okay. But right after he told me he was "engaged" , it felt as if somebody just stole your precious possession (I haven't even unpacked my baggage yet from the trip then). I hated him. Really hated him I didn't know why. Maybe I was just jealous because he was settling down while I was still not sure who I will end up with, or jealous with the thought that the attention he gave to me will never be the same again, or because he never told his family that at that time he was inlove with someone else that it was not the right time to be engaged or maybe I was just truly inlove with him that it was hard for me to see him with somebody else which could have been me had that tradition doesn't exist... or maybe all of what I have mentioned.

It was a difficult process before I finally got over the pain. Everytime I change my pillowcase, I still see the wet marks that stained my pillows, a reminder of those evenings of sobbing . We had to stop our communications to avoid rubbing emotions to each other. Today, the pain is gone and the anger I felt is all gone too. But, I still choose to severe my friendship with him and continue to forget the feeling... but never my experience seeing exotic India.

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Eating chicken teka Masala and my favorite alu (boiled potato with spices)

on a tv box with 100% pure silverware :)

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The famous Mumbai slum

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Do you think there is really a train station inside this beautiful building?

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Riding a public bus to see the Gateway of India with
a bunch noisy teenagers shouting to one another (or is just how they talk ??? and the woobly head, priceless).

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Gateway of India at night

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Barefoot: basic uniform of indian drivers

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Mumbai Sunset: Too amazed how beautiful their sunset was

even if you're not at the top of the mountain.

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On our way to Matheran, a 30-minute travel by train from Mumbai. Thankfully, the train just suddenly became empty after 20-mins standing shoulder to shoulder with other passengers. Thankfully, my nose didn't give up.

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Matheran Hill Station: The smallest train station (?)

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This was actually my first experience of horseback riding (or muleback riding). I will never do this again unless I am riding my own 20 Million dollar horse.

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Spending time with Indian monkeys at Matheran Hill

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Lining up for our train ticket surrounded with Indian guys who wanted to get my autograph

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Spending our last day together at Borivili National Park looking for the vegetarian lions and tigers. We're too disappointed to know that the famous animals were taking their day-off that day (at a spa).

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A view of Mumbai from the top: Goodbye India!