A Monument to True Love

It seemed fitting to wait for my husband to visit to see the majestic Taj Mahal. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (1631-1648) to house the tomb of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Although easy to think about skipping — too crowded, too touristy, not that big a deal — don’t. It really is a big deal.

I like to think I’m my husband’s favorite wife. One of the hardest things about a five month Fulbright in Delhi is being away from my husband of almost 30 years. We were lucky that he could visit. I arrived in Delhi on January 3rd, and he arrived almost exactly two months later on March 4th for a two-week visit. It was too short, but it helped.

We knew it would be difficult to be separated, but heck, we had been married for a long time and there was always Facetime, right? I certainly hadn’t anticipated that the phone connections would not always work and that the time difference (Delhi is 9 1/2 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time) would get in the way in strange ways (like, no Zoom cocktails together because it would mean one of us would be drinking in the morning!). Always the optimist, Jonathan pointed out how many times the phone connection did actually work quite well despite the fact that we were almost 12,000 miles apart.

We dealt with the separation by talking every day, sometimes twice a day, and through our own particular strategies. Jonathan started reading everything he could about India so he could better understand my experience and I started getting regular massages and kept myself very busy by making new friends and taking Hindi classes 3 times a week. Learning how to deal with loneliness turned out to be one of the lessons of my experience.