As my personal energy waned — lost to sleep deprivation, summoned by clay sculpting, expended via sightseeing, drained through armpits, hands, and feet, tapped by mobile phone manipulating*, stolen by rupee and calorie counting, challenged by curriculum planning, finished by total classroom overhaul and communication through several layers of go-betweens — I observed our interpersonal energy wax.
I could read their moods better, and they could read mine. Our trust was growing. Our walls were tumbling. Mine, Emily’s, Malika’s, Monali’s, Sundar’s (our driver for today, who waited for us patiently as we melted into the masses and reappeared 45 minutes later), Vasundhara’s, Shiv’s (who followed us to our apartment after a long day’s work and showed us how to turn on the hot plate, enabling the transformation of dangerous vegetables into nutrition-sustaining supper). It might be audacious to say, but maybe even India’s.
Today, Emily’s batteries literally ran out and recharged. We discovered that the A/C couldn’t run last night because I’d flipped the wall switch that cut off its power. We caffeinated three times — morning, noon, and night — to sustain our work-play-work lifestyle. We cooled it down with domestic gin & tonic and all-American Gilmore Girls. We also charmed Sunayha and Hash, the proprietor and little rascal of a small arts center, respectively. There was the plump woman in the sari who kept turning around to gaze at us and chuckle as we twisted our way toward the shrine. A couple in the elevator remarked how sweet it was that we thanked the operator in Hindi while they uttered “thank you.”
“The law of conservation of energy is a law of physics. It states that the total amount of energy in a system remains constant over time (is said to be conserved over time). A consequence of this law is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed: it can only be transformed from one state to another. The only thing that can happen to energy in a system is that it can change form” (Conservation of energy).
In the land that long ago spiritualized this law (reincarnation by another name), I’m living its wisdom. You get out what you put in.
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