It Finally Happened

After two and half months in India, thinking that my great intestinal karma would perhaps never fail me, touch wood, I finally got a case of the runs. Poland being forever within me, my silver lining was that it was a relatively benign case.
Indeed, the Schedule Sisters had had tummy troubles all week. Mine could perhaps be traced to a lunch in the singularly uninspiring Bhandari Swiss Cottage, or more likely from our almost daily visits to the Freedom Cafe.

It could aslo be partly attributable from anxiety regarding a telephone job interview I had just had. Yes, I know, I promised that there would be no gainful employment for a year. But I am such a sucker for a good come on (they headhunted me off LinkedIn. Although the prospect of my very own BMW convertible, now within tantalizing reach under the California sun, does seem like worthwhile recompense, it did not help my nerves, as I was currently reading Bill Bryson's Notes from a Big Country, in which he relates to his British audience the often funny, but in the same measure disconcerting vagaries of life in America. Americans' near total ignorance of the world, seeming inability to fathom irony, and the nothing short of police-state invasion of privacy by government, employers and marketeers, are a definite downside.

That said, ever the documentation manager with hopes of securing that extra worker or new piece of whizzy software, the Project Plan that was my trip to India featured gross overestimates of the time required to do everything on my India Dream Checklist. I've had a whale of a time in Rishikesh. I'd like to keep improving my Hindi, as it has been coming along quite nicely. A Vipassana course in Dharamsala is next, followed by some urban adventures in Delhi. After that, whatever follows will be spontaneous.

But back to my ailment. It started in the morning when I woke up with a general feeling of unease. I declined the Schedule Sisters' entreaties to accompany them on a Daily Mission trip to Haridwar for lunch, thereby interrupting the cosmic flow of their universe. While the entire stretch of the Laxman Jhula disctrict was subjected to a ghastly morning special session of devotional chanting, I lay in bed, not quite in pain, resting, as gas began to gurgle its way downward in my intestines. After a fashion, I began passing wind in roughly twelve-minute intervals. Big, long, loud, industrial strength doozies, smelling much like a decomposing skunk emanating from my innards. After a few hours of this, it was clear that the time had come to make my way to the loo, where I comfortably let it all rip, to my great relief. The odor had the added benefit of killing all the flies in my room. The following morning it was much better, but I took Imodium to stop it completely.

Mental note: next meal, white rice. And no more fretting about possible outcomes, which remain mere speculation at this point.