Memoir

Each and every one of us has vivid memories of our childhood. Memories of getting the tongue jammed to a metal in cold winter days, of staying up late to watch favorite movies, of running through the sprinkler on a hot summer afternoon: memories of just being children. At some point during that time, however, comes an occurrence, one with such great significance that it forces us to grow up a little, place a foot out into the adult world. Events such as these are never forgotten. Whether stirring happy or sad feelings, their memory, with great detail, is carried on and leaves a lasting impact on our lives. As our teacher proclaimed in the class, “write a memoir on yourself, that is unforgivable to you”, the words instantly responded to my brain, and they took me back to the memories of my trip to India last year.

We rushed out of the contaminated smoke and dust of Delhi, and made our way to my ancestral town of Ganganagar.

It’s an eight hour drive from Delhi to the beautiful 'Blue City' of Ganganagar. We arrived at our aunt’s house in the evening. I could smell and taste the dishes prepared by my aunt in the air and was really desperate to eat them all. That night went quick, like a flash; next morning I got up late in the afternoon due to the time difference between India and Canada.

Days passed by, but my family stayed rigid at Jodhpur, like a pole . My cousins go to a private school outside the city and most of the time they live in the hostels at their school. Having no hope of my cousins coming back home; then finally one day, I made my own decision to check out the city by myself, all alone.

Now, I must make clear that I was visiting India with limited time, and I knew it was going to take at least a full day to check out the city attractions.

It was around 7 a.m. in the morning; I rented at rickshaw to drive me to the ‘Camel Safari Junction’, which cost me about 15 rupees ($0.40 Can.).

I arrived at my destination and met my guide Ram, he told me that he had a safari leaving in 2 hours. I explained that, as I was traveling alone, I had hoped to meet some people first and that it might be more fun doing a safari in a small group. “No problem,” he said, “The group that’s leaving in two hours has one Canadian couple, two British girls, and one French girl, all who wanted to be in a group with other people”. Now, I must at this point congratulate Ram for getting to the heart of what might interest a teenager traveling alone in a vast country. I took the bait. Ram hadn’t told me yet though, and I told him that I would like to meet these other people who were supposedly going on the safari. “No problem, we’ll meet them when we get to the hotel”.

Ram indeed introduced me to the British girls who were apparently leaving on the trip in 2 hours. The other people would be meeting us out by the camels.

We drove a few hours and arrived at the edge of the desert to meet our camels and the rest of the group. It was already blazing hot as we met our local guides and mounted our camels for the first leg of our journey. The other part of the group would meet us at lunchtime. We started off into the desert.

Riding a camel was fun, however, it lasted for only about thirty minutes.

I soon started to notice an uncomfortable feeling in my inner thighs, as though someone was prying them apart like a wishbone. I’d ridden horses in the past, but the girth of a camel was something my groin was not used to. How to get relief? The stirrups were missing so there was no way to press down and take some pressure off of your tender regions, so you were forced to sit completely splayed. Another hour passed and I noticed one of my safari mates trying to ease his pain by bringing his legs up onto the camel’s neck. This solved the stretching problem, but resulted in all of your weight being placed on your backside. The never-ending rocking of the camel soon resulted in severe pain from both pressure and friction. This uneasiness could be relieved only by going back to doing the near splits by hanging your legs down.

While I struggled to find a comfortable way to sit, the temperature kept rising. Not only was I was still weak and dehydrated from my recent illness, but here I was, at noon, in the Indian