Contrasts

A leaf flutters in the wind along the cobble stone road as I walk along the street in Olching, and I jump slightly, thinking it’s one of the many rodents I saw in India. ‘It’s just a leaf,’ I tell myself.
I look around the room at my Tante Lissy’s trying to find a place to hang my cotton bag which holds two apples and a few croissants. Then I remember there is not an army of ants or family of mice waiting to march in to eat up the food, and I let the bag sit on the floor.
Looking out the window as drive along the autobahn, I see beautiful stone houses with red tile roves instead of the blue tarps which cover families and their few belongings.
Something brushes my bare arm and I automatically move away, ready to glare at the beggar, and then see a woman’s purse has touched me as she walked by.
A woman pushes a small cart down the train aisle as I travel from Nurnberg to Munchen selling coffee and soda. I think of the Hijra woman on the train from Delhi to Agra who walked flamboyantly down the aisles to collect money from passengers before cursing them with her harsh words.
My Opa’s house is a large, cold stone house where he lives alone at 89 years of age. Raji was the ama at the American Pavilion who lived in a mud house for her large extended family where they shared a bed for five individuals. My Opa has seven beds.
Bright, colorful sari’s wrapped around the small, thin figures of Indian woman, then the skinny dark jeans, Converse classics and thick scarves wrapped around the German youth.
Big, curious eyes and crooked smiles on mocha-skin… versus blending in racially yet ethnically always an outsider.
Meat, chocolate and beer. Rice, chapattis, and sauces.
Friends of the same sex holding hands all over South India, and then heterosexual couples holding hands in Delhi and Germany.
The vegetarian dishes in Germany include fish and sometimes chicken… I personally find this hilarious. I once asked my German relatives how often they ate meat, and they said about once or twice a week as they bit into their ham sandwiches, not considering the cold meat meat.