Experiences shape a person; they stay with you whether you want them to or not. I might not understand how much India has altered who I am right now, but I do know that the lessons, experiences, and memories created there will never leave me. Like scars, they left their mark on me. Some experiences will never fade, but instead stay permanently etched into my being; some good, some bad, but all wholly mine.
I wear the scars on the outside of my body, like memories on my skin. Each one is a reminder of an adventure. Each blemish is a whisper of how far I’ve come. I look at the white line on my shoulder and remember catching my arm on the gate to school as my friends and I sprinted from an angry cow after class. I remember the way we laughed and screamed as we darted through the narrow opening and slammed it shut behind us. I remember throwing our weight into the rusted metal praying that the cow wouldn’t test our sandals’ grip on the cobblestone path. I look at that line on my skin, permanently etched there, and I remember the sound of my blood in my ears and how my lungs ached from laughing.
I run my hands across the chickenpox-esque bumps that decorate my lower legs and ankles. These small, raised, purpled, and white bumps tell stories of the mosquitos, the hives, and the hours spent laying on beds itching. These marks remind me of setting up mosquito nets in the middle of finals week because we couldn’t handle the buzzing anymore. The ones on my toes persisted despite the wool socks I wore in the heat to try and stop myself from scratching. Walking to class, I would compare bites every morning with my friends, each of us hoping to have the least.
I can’t see the scar that runs down the back of my thigh, but I know it’s there. I felt it every day for two weeks as I rode across the desert on a camel. I felt its creation when I fell off my saddle that first day and ripped a hole down the back of my pants. It’s a toss-up who was more distressed at that moment, my camel or me. I felt it as my cheeks burned hot while I hid in the back of the group with my leg exposed to the wind and sand until I could get to my bag. I don’t know if it’s possible to blush with a sunburn but I certainly tried my best. For the next couple of days, each sway of the saddle reminded me of its presence.
It took weeks to remember where the jagged line on my calf originated from. Sitting by the Ganga, sleeping on the train, walking through the crowded streets? No, I was just too excited to notice when the door to the roof scrapped my leg one warm Indian night as I sprinted to the rooftop with my host brother. I was too excited by the events ahead of us to notice the pain. We spent the evening setting off fireworks and firecrackers, lit from an incense stick, in celebration of the latest cricket victory. I remember the white pop of the fireworks as they exploded and the bang that seemed to reverberate across the close quartered buildings; my ears rang. My host brother laughed and hollered with each bright white burst.
These are the memories I carry with me; the ones that echo across my body inside and out. I look at these scars and I see my life in India abstractly painted in all its colors with my skin as the canvas.