Things I'd Never Thought Would Happen to me in India

Some crazy things have happened in the couple of months have been here. Many of them I would never have anticipated. Among them are seeing an oracle in trance, witnessing monks doing tantric cham dances, letting cockroaches live as I watch them crawl across the floor (part of our agreement while living at Sarah College was to respect all sentient beings, even the disgusting ones). Hell, I'd never thought a monkey’d almost pee on me, and that happened to me yesterday as I was walking through Varanasi. Still, the likelihood of all of these happening seemed greater to me than what I did on the day before I left Dharamsala for spring break.

Eternal Creation's moto is "Ethical Fashion from the Himalayas." Eternal Creation's designer is an Australian woman named Francis who lives in Dharamsala with her family. The brand has a small boutique in Mcleod that one day posted a sign on its window: "Want a free wardrobe?" If anybody wanted to grab my attention, this was the way to do it. I was late for class but stopped and continued reading.

This was the deal: if you fit into their size Small and were willing to pose for their online catalog, your imagination's the limit in terms of what Eternal Creations would give you in return: fabric, ready made clothes, health advice, an acquaintance with a lovely family in India who will offer you their home when you fall ill. Not all of these were listed on the sign when I first read it, but through the process of posing for their fall/winter catalogue I've discovered that free clothing was the smalles of the many kindnesses Francis and her family would offer me.

Francis lives with her husband and two children in Dharamsala, and started Eternal Creation about fifteen years ago. When her children were born, she started designing mainly for them, and found her niche. She then started designing for the mothers of the children, which is where I came in-not as a mother though. A good portion of their sales come from the online catalogue, and, as they put it: they're not short on fabric, but they are short on models. Though I'm quite awkward in front of a camera, the promise of free clothing made me do it. Here are the pictures www.eternalcreation.com. Laugh away.

I shot a good portion of these pictures the day before turning in two mediocre papers and boarding a 12 hour bus to Delhi, where I met my parents. It's been a hectic ten days which end tomorrow as they board a plane back home. In those ten days, we've explored Delhi, Agra, Udaipur, Narlai, and Varanasi. If it's exhausting just typing out itinerary you can imagine how beat we are, but it's been worth it.

These ten days have transformed the way I look at India. I haven't decided whether in a good or bad way, at least not yet. I'm including some of the most stunning pictures of our journey, which I'll be writing and reflecting about in the coming days.