arriving at kasturba knowing you’ll have to leave again is like falling asleep knowing you are going to have a nightmare; you resist it but eventually it happens anyway, the sweet of sleep and the agony of the dream.

as i arrive this particular day, ten girls are practicing karate in the courtyard. their karate teacher left last year so they are led by sabhina and nisha, two older girls who have taken over the shouting of the numbers as the girls punch the air and kick the heat. their beautiful faces are sweaty, focused, concentrated on their own strength. my eyes well with tears as I sit in the school listening to their energetic voices through the hideous pink curtains. there is a bag of used hospital gowns on the desk; white with blue squares, that have been donated to be used as karate robes. somehow this saddens me deeply; that girls who push themselves practice in the merciless heat without instructor or class should be reduced to wearing the discarded gowns of the dead and dying.

i have asked each girl to tell me their story; their kahaani. i want to have their words tucked into my soul so i can see them when i’m home and missing the bright eyes and poignant optimism of these children whom fortune has frowned upon. some of them have already written them down in hindi as an exercise by the school, but i want their voices, their smiles, their beauty. i haven’t told them that i am leaving again; that i don’t know when i’ll be back. i don’t know if it will hurt them, but i know it will break me.

at dance class last week i learned to let go. my father has been reminding me of the buddhist mentality of action without attachment to outcome. i have been trying to practice this, but it’s difficult. i want to make their lives better, but all i can do is come sit in a circle with them as we roll our shoulders backwards and reach up to pluck imaginary stars from the sky. anyway, last week i came to teach class and i soon realized it was impossible. the air crackled with energy and distraction. several other staff members were at kasturba conducting various business, and the girls could barely sit still, let alone concentrate on isolations and rhythms. but, as we dispersed after a failed attempt at order, two girls, takkaluma and soni, came up to me and said in their barely-there english, ‘disco dancing, didi?’ and they made an attempt at what they think ‘american’ dancing looks like (imagine john travolta had he been born in bollywood). inspired, i ran to my ipod (blessedly there was power at the moment) and put on ‘this is your night’ – a rollicking disco-style song, compliments of the ‘night at the roxbury’ soundtrack. ‘this is your night, dancing free into the morning light, together forever, for this is your night, and everything’s gonna be alri-ee-ai-ee-ight…’ and there in the cement room, we danced. it wasn’t class, it wasn’t technique, it wasn’t ordered or organized or structured. but forty girls and i flung ourselves around the room in pairs and trios, tossing our hair, jumping wildly, grinning ear to ear and bubbling with pure, unadulterated bliss. it was joy; sweaty, barefoot, filthy joy, set to the unlikely soundtrack of a will ferrell movie.

they are coming in now, the girls, done with the afternoon’s karate. their faces are flushed and they splash themselves with water from the hand pump. they glow, each and every one. my heart aches with protective love. i would stay here forever, just to prove my love, how it aches in my belly and behind my eyelids. but i can’t. i have my own family, my own life, my own home. how i wish i could take them with me. in one of the stories in front of me ruhi writes, ‘for me, kasturba is a place where i can laugh, sing, dance, and study.’ i run my fingers over her words. she has the best smile, ruhi. it lights up the room.

i am already planning my farewell speech; telling them that i will respond to every letter, that i will be back in a year or two, that i love them all dearly. i feel like it isn’t enough, but i know it’s all i have. these months have flown by too quickly, with too few classes and too few quiet evenings spent braiding hair and drinking chai. but i’ve stockpiled hugs, sweet looks, and heads rested trustingly on my shoulder in embraces. i remember these moments, so tender and safe and loving, and i close my eyes.

parting is such sweet sorrow. was it shakespeare? it’s a lie, a bitter lie. it’s not sweet at all. it’s just sorrow. bihar is a long, long way from california. when i am here and my life is on the shores of the pacific, i can reach it with tenuous, fragile fingers: the questionable bihari internet, postcards dripping with watercolours, phone calls at $3/minute. but without these advantages, of money and technological logistics, the distance is tenfold. bihar is a long, long way from california.

i am coming back; i know this. maybe next year, maybe the year after. with my boyfriend, sam, or my girlfriend, erika. i would like to bring my parents but every note home that i write that involves ‘six kinds of shit’ ‘187 mosquito bites’ and ‘food poisoning with a squat toilet on a train’ makes that less likely. but who knows if my return will be in time – in time to see ‘my’ girls before they leave. in time to wish them well. more are leaving every year – off to their lives; their schooling (hopefully) and marriages and children, and, too often, prostitution.

my beautiful students, goodbye for now. you will probably never know how much i love you; translation only goes so far. but your stories are flying out into the world to make it better and safer and brighter and more colourful. and you are my angels, every one.

i was going to kasturba to say goodbye to my beautiful students. i promised them yesterday, as they begged me with love and tears in their eyes, that i would return today for hugs. i wanted to take the morning train, at 11, but unfortunately i missed it by a few minutes; odd since it’s usually woefully late. the next train left from forbesganj at 12;58 (in theory) and at 12;50 i went to buy my ticket. the ticket seller was agitated and swatted me away, refusing to sell me one. confused, i headed to the platform, where the plethora of colours and cries meant that the train was yet to come. i found a free corner of a bench and began to read. 12;58 came and went. at 12;15 a goat wandered by. she’s a local gal – a familiar face and a kind one. she’s black and white, but mostly black. she’s particularly recognizable because her horns curl backwards tightly against her head; her right curves over and behind her nubian-esque ear, but her left comes around and presses against her cheek. and her left teat is forked, like a snake’s tongue, with two tiny ducts.

she was scavenging for scraps on the platform (although demonstrably not starving) but it pained me to see her nibbling at dusty dirty bits of who knows what. i dug into my bag and found that i had a handful of crumbled, dried neem leaves that i had picked in kolkata by the lake and taken home. i rummaged around and then fed them to her, one at a time, slowly. her lips were fuzzy and her breath warm and goat-like; comforting. she was grateful to have something green to eat. you’ve seen my car, so you’ll not find it hard to believe that i found several bedraggled cauliflower leaves in my purse as well, and these she ate appreciatively. when i had nothing left to feed her i began to scratch her chin. she hesitated at first, pulling away, but soon she relaxed into my hand and so evidently was in bliss that it brought tears to my eyes. her head rested in my palm, her eyes closed, and she uttered several soft guttural goat sounds of pleasure. animals here, though treated ‘well’ by third world standards, are never pets, and since she clearly was a vagrant, she’d had little affection in her life. watching her eyelids droop and her head tilt and her ears flop was such a beautiful demonstration of happiness, for both her and for me. my fingers were soon blackened with goat grime, and i felt scabs and dirt against her cheek and chin, but for 15 minutes of a hot day on a crowded platform of a filthy station, a girl and a goat were both calm and content.

after the lady trotted away i struck up conversation with the nepali man next to me (‘animals is best friend,’ he said, and i couldn’t have said it better) and discovered that the earlier train, the one i’d meant to catch, had struck a tractor loaded with bricks on the tracks and several passengers had died. that was why there was no train. that was why i got to spend time with a black and white goat.

and, yet again, i experienced the particular peace that comes with being in the right place at the right time. with the right ruminant.