Love Hath No Color

I sat on feelings of vulnerability, anxiousness, and bliss on the 3:oo pm train bound for Kanpur, Uttarpradesh last weekend. It would be a five hour train ride until I would be able to find my roots.  During those five hours I was encapsulated in a vessel of liminality performing breast strokes through the Du Boisian double-consciousness. I knew in my mind that this three day trip would indeed be life changing. I was, as put forth by a fellow pilgrim, “coming to terms with an ethnicity amidst globalization where the world’s cultures dissolve into homogeny, and one’s roots are often tangled and disregarded.” At one point during the journey a young Indian girl moved beside me.  We cleared any formalities between us and held an intimate conversation. I disclosed to her that I myself was Indian. She was distraught.  She asked me for my last name.  I told her my last name, Chandra, means moon. I then gazed out the train window and told her that I could not see the moon. It was so dark outside.  ”No, of course you can’t find it because it is sitting right next to me” she lovingly replied in a tone where love hath no color. After five hours I had arrived. He was there waiting for me on platform number 4 as promised. My great uncle, whom I had never met before, welcomed me with open arms. He exclaimed that it was time to finally come home where love hath no color. The next day I visited the hospital where my father was born, the bungalow where my grandmother had lived. I walked across her property with tears in my eyes—her presence was with me. I located the primary school my grandmother attended and traveled the route she took to and from school during her lunch breaks. I then visited the five other bungalows her father and his brothers had built. The next day, my great uncle took me on his scooter to a roadside mandir venerating Hanumanji and then to a roadside stall selling famous Kanpur mango foam, a recipe I would later discover was invented by my great grandmother. That evening I returned back to my great uncle’s apartment not wanting to go back to Delhi. I had found a home, I had found a family, and I had found identity in a place where love hath no color.