For reasons known and unknown, leaving Juanga breaks my heart. The following photos depict some of the experiences I had on my last two days there, one of which was also my birthday. There are two pictures of a conversation between Bapa and me, which began with him crying as he discussed my final days in India and how hard we both find it to say good-bye. As you can see, the conversation lightened in the end with his good-humored hope to get himself and his cow, Shiva, on the plane with me. The photo was snapped just after he asked me if they both would need a passport?

This last photo is of Pratima, our head nurse and my room mate/neighbor this visit, painting my hand with henna first thing in the morning on my birthday. Besides its simple beauty, the henna serves as a reminder that even when you go away from a place, part of it stays with you. I wish it felt that simple, or that easy to hold on to, as the days continue and I morph back into the fast ways of the West.

Every time we say good-bye I die a little,
Every time we say good-bye I wonder why a little,
Why the gods above me, who must be in the know,
Think so little of me they allow me to go.
When you're near, there's such an air of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere begin to sing about it,
There's no love song finer, but how strange the change from major to minor...
Every time we say good-bye, every single time we say good-bye.
- Cole Porter