This simple jar - made of terra cotta and filled with cool sweet yoghurt. It has become emblematic of excess for me. What can be more ironic then that? And yet it has.
Just a little over a week ago I was travelling on the train from Jaipur to Delhi along with the two other graduate students from the University of Calgary. Our tickets had cost the grand sum of 995 rupees about $25. We were travelling in the first class air conditioned car and from the moment we had boarded we were brought a seemingly endless stream of food and drink. In a nation where people struggle to survive we were being fed to excess.
And then we felt debris banging at the undercarriage of our car. The train ground to a halt while excited employees ran back and forth. With thoughtful translation of an Indian woman sitting near us we learned that we had just experienced the suicide of two young people, likely refused permission to marry. Apparently such suicide by train is not uncommon. Is this then an excess of love or an excess of control?
And now this simple jar will be the vessel of this memory.
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