Saturday, December 11, 2010

until next time spice lord

Delhi, I bid you farewell in just a few hours. What am I doing writing a blog post, you ask? >>>
Attempting to collect my thoughts right now, I suppose.
It’s unfathomable how I am about to leave this place, although it always seems hard to feel yourself in a different space when, you aren’t in any other space. There is too much I am going to miss about this place. India has swept open the arena of vast contrasts and contradictions, but there is something intensely grounding about seeing two polarized sides of life living inches away from one another.

I am going to miss long, bumpy bus rides where the driver speeds around windy mountain roads, stopping only for chai and cigarette breaks. I am going to miss when the boy dressed in a tattered, once-white silk short comes on to the bus and sings with his melodic rough voice while his fingers cackle on a drum, a performance worth so much more than the 10 rupees I passed his way.

I am going to miss walking the main road and seeing new things every day. I am going to miss the density and the chaos within that density. I am going to miss the disorder in which you can never really take everything in. I am going to miss how everything is available in a 1 km radius if you really look for it, uncovering the gems of unknown territory existing right under your nose.

I am going to miss rickshaw rides, haggling prices to and fro in a tennis ball match battle of number tossing. The powering of the engine working so hard to speed you along at a brisk shuffle.

I am going to miss the spices in the food, and the smattering of flavor that speckles curries like a sandy beach.

I am going to miss the everywhere chai in the small plastic cups, or glasses… it really doesn’t make sense to serve a hot beverage in a plastic container, nor glass, but it grows on you, it really does.

I am going to miss the plane of marble floors in our apartment, the splay of playground that allows me to do handstands and backbends and downwards dogs. The morning powdery light that filters through the front windows.

I am going to miss crossing the street in a frenzied dance between the flow of cars bikes rickshaws buses trucks elephants… the traffic that smogs the air, the women in saris covering their mouths with shawls as black exhaust curls up in our faces. The endless honking and screaming of vehicles in a permanent cacophony battering my ears.

I am going to miss making the fruits and vegetables, huddled together in large wooden crates pulled by bicycles through the streets.

I am going to miss the herds of people that mash onto the metro at rush hour; the necessary aggressiveness that is required to secure a sardined spot with no space to breath.

Etc. etc. and things and things.

There is so much here that functions as a force of life. When I came to India I received the appropriate advice to “surrender” to the experience – and honestly there is no better way to explain how one should go about living in this place. I have learned to expect nothing and to be open to everything. I have learned that vulnerability is not a bad state to be in – that’s the only way you can truly have these experiences, to know what you are experiencing at the deepest level. It might be hard at times, trying, painful even, but ultimately the most rewarding experiences have been under a complete surrender to this place. You can’t fight life!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

sweep it back up

I’m not entirely sure where all this time went. Somewhere, it has been lost in the South of India. For the first seventeen days of October I have been romping around the Southern parts of this spicy place. Hopping on trains and busses, only to sleep in dream-filled sleeps where I come to awake at some new beach-y coast where the sun or rain awaits me. Brings a rolling shore that never quiets. I haven’t seen a coast for sometime, so this trip truly has been a treat.

The Commonwealth Games occurred in the first two weeks of October. Imagine the Olympics, but smaller, and consisting of the Commonwealth countries. Surely, as we were granted a ‘holiday’ from school during this time, we escaped the mass hysteria of Delhi.

I can’t really begin to type of my travels. Mostly, I have learned that traveling really isn’t that much of a trial as it seems when you find yourself stationary in an area of inhabitance. And now that I am back in Delhi, I only crave to travel more…

Puducherry was our first destination. It took us a fourty-four hours train ride and a four hour bus ride to reach this initial destination. That’s a lot of fours. We were greeted by sky and endless tufts of white clouds. I can’t even tell you how much of a relief it was to be met by a site of expansive blue: Delhi is permanently covered by a cap of gray pollution, always. In puducherry there were bikes that took us places in out and beyond… To ride a bike is something I truly miss here in Delhi. We do see bikes everywhere, but all are rusted with an ancient creak. Covered in a thick layer of rust and dust. Not to mention you must ride them in thick dense traffic accompanied by cars and buses and trucks and rickshaws – all different speeds are swooshing beyond you on these bikes.

Beyond Puducherry, which sits on the Eastern coast of India, we trained to the Western side of this place - - - -
To Kerela! Kerela greeted us with unfortunate amounts of rain, but the coast of Varkala beach was all the more dream-like with a thick layer of moist mist pervading the water-lined horizon. Due to the rain that we encountered here, we mostly found ourselves in delicious restaurants/cafes/bars that offered us the best of seafood wrapped in banana leaves, spicy steam arising from each plate brought to us. We sat with warm ginger tea or deep milky coffee underneath awnings that protected us from moist fat drops which spattered the ocean ahead…

Every place on Earth is beautiful, really, even when drops fall from the sky ‘ruining’ a true beach experience…

From Varkala, we bussed up to Alleppey, where we found ourselves on a houseboat. One of those ‘must do’ experiences that sounds just as romantic as it actually is. We floated around the backwaters of Kerela and swam/bathed in them side by side with plants and a warm, slow current. We booked it up to Fort Kochi from here, which also greeted us with an unfortunate layer of rain – again we found ourselves diving into culinary pleasures. During the clear skies that we did get here, we marched our way around the city and ran across men sitting in a three-walled room with sacks of potatoes lining their surroundings. Thick black rats slicked with grease ran through disgusting ‘creeks’ that may have well been a sewage line. We smelled spices that followed our heels, and the deep blues that crusted themselves on the edges of moldy green buildings were especially bright… everything looked decayed, somehow, in the most brilliant way. Like a fairyland that you would want to run around in at age seven.

From Fort Kochin, we trained up to Goa, where the beaches sprawled and the sun yelled into our bleach-white skin. This was the most ‘relaxed’ part of our adventure, where we managed to sit still for four days, and soak up the glare of sunrays. The beaches of Goa are definitely something to behold; something that I was never too excited about, yet managed to puddle as one of the most enjoyable Vitamin-D packed parts of our adventures. You can’t expect anything from this place except the strange enclave of India that it is… People here seem to cling to the idea that Goa is a “party” place – you’ll see old men with rose-tinted sunglasses and thong speedos. You’ll see old women swimming out into the midst of a calm ocean trying to escape their own existence. You’ll see an egg yolk cracked over a blushing horizon. You’ll see an impossibly tan woman in crinkled brown skin, roasted and spiced. You’ll experience personal ecstasy, allowing your entire weight to float along on the gentle current of a harmlessly tumbling sea, back facing the ocean floor, front facing the bleating sun…..

From Goa we found ourselves trapped on an impossible train ride, where we didn’t think we had a place to sleep it was much past our bedtime. Would we find ourselves huddled in an isle way? Our damp sweat cooled by the breeze from the doorway that faces a dew-laden flooded rice field? We ended up finding berths for our bodies to find rest upon, and in the morning we landed in Mumbai.

In Mumbai our time was short. We mostly drank sugarcane juice and sampled other flavorful delights while walking around the crescent-shaped coast. Mumbai as a gigantic city is an entirely different beast that Delhi. Reminded me of San Francisco with an elder architecture. More of a college town, it seems, with females that can actually grasp a sense of independence; as I was able to walk around past eleven pee.em without feeling threatened or dependent upon a male peer.

I hate for that last statement to seem to glum in the existence of Delhi, but upon my return here I cannot help but feel more and more encapsulated by suppression. I don’t know why the hazy layer of pollution seems to be dwelling on my existence more so than ever, but after feeling as liberated as I had over the past seventeen days of travel, coming back to Delhi has reminded me that possessing white skin attracts attention of all sorts. I can never gleam a sense of anonymity when every eye seems pasted on me… I know that each eye is nothing, really, just a curious flicker of some other person’s consciousness; but I can’t help but feel intensely scrutinized whenever I step out of my apartment. Perhaps it is also the winks and tongue lolls that I get from passing males…

Anyway, my travels have landed me back in Delhi, ready for school work and dig into spirituality, philosophy, and the like. I have also signed up for another three day Vipassana meditation session. It seems to be something that my mentality craves. Don’t we all crave a little bit of inner peace every now and again?

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

I'm not sure [where] to begin

Quite often on this trip, we find that we are asked, “What do you think of India? That question usually pops up within the first few minutes of meeting someone. Depending on the circumstance we can delve into the answer more deeply or provide a more brief response, but we always, of course, verbally share our utter amazement with this place.

[For example]
Today as I entered the metro station, someone walking to my right got my attention by pressing into my personal space and catching my glance.
“Where are you from?” (This is ALWAYS: the opening question.)
“America.”
“Oh, really? …”
In the brief moments we have before crossing through the security check point and therefore being separated for the rest of eternity (men and women are separated at the checkpoint) we talk about how long I am here for, the fact that I am a student studying psychology, and finally, the interview comes to the expected question:
“What do you think of India?”
“It’s CRAZY. I love it though – ”
“Really?! You like it here?”
“I mean, yeah – sure it’s chaotic and overwhelming, but I am really enjoying my time here. The colors, the food; it’s quite an experience.”
“So you like living here?!”
“Yea! It’s amazing…”

We nod at each other as the realization of the checkpoint comes into view and we go our separate ways to be pat down by someone in a police uniform of our respective sex. Why was this person so genuinely surprised that I am enjoying my time here? Often people seem to probe us for any troubles that we are having in India. Is there anything that I don’t like about India, is there anything that I find difficult about living here, what is the most different thing compared to America… etc. Why does this happen? Shouldn’t it be assumed that I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have some desire to experience life in this country? Mashed in between a cumin seed and a mosquito?
This somehow became a strange preview of events to occur later on that night. As if someone heard my curiosity to why that man responded to my answer with such surprise – oh, but isn’t there any situations which have left a strong impression on you otherwise? Don’t you have any experiences here which have perhaps left a sour taste in your mouth?
Granted, every place has good and bad. Every single environment we find ourselves in will have people will have positive will have negative it’s all part of this human experience nothing ever remains one way for very long and the world definitely does not cater to you to me or to anyone else; It. Just. Is.

After buying a book, eating a sundae, a couple rickshaw rides, sipping on some sweetened coffee, and a few beers… Kelly and I found ourselves in a massive sea of pressed bodies ‘in line’ for the metro at one of the largest stations on the line. This station, which is a transfer point, not to mention connected to a large populated circular shopping area with markets and people and buses and hotels, is usually one of the more ‘crowded’ stations. Tonight, however, I have never seen anything quite as impressively overwhelming as this. This gave a whole new meaning to rush hour. It was more of a chaotic endeavor to mash your body into the body in front of you in order to maybe thrash onto an oncoming train. Like a mute punk show.
Three trains went by as we were ‘standing’ in the mass of shoving nudging stubborn bodies waiting for our ‘turn’ to shove ourselves through the doors of a train that never stopped in quite the same place. I am always wary of stray hands in crowded situations like this – people (men) seem to take high advantage of the fact that a crowd becomes an excuse for inconspicuous touching of body parts. At one point, someone’s leather bag brushed my thigh and I almost began to yell, but luckily I looked down and saw that it was just an inanimate object made of animal skin and I needn’t make a scene.
Okay, I thought, I’m crammed in between pushing shoving squeezing bodies, but I’m okay. We’re all just trying to force our way onto the next metro train. Not get caught as the doors are pushed shut by metro attendants, as stray body parts and bags get in the way, people sucking in their stomachs to press themselves in as the final boarders.
Finally OUR train came. The one in which we were close enough to the door to somehow get thrashed through the doors in a giant flowing wave of eager people. As soon as the doors to the metro opened, the flood of people began to move wildly, and suddenly I found myself being grabbed in too many ways – it was as if the opening of the doors, and the movement of the bodies was a signal for the gropes to begin.
Kelly, much more proficient in Hindi than I, began yelling in foreign tongue shaming all the perverts around her. I, on the other hand, in my shocked state, stuck with the native English that I know so well, yelling,
“What the fuck?!
Do NOT touch me.
Get your HAND. OFF. OF ME.”
Things to this effect.
As we had been separated in the struggle to board, I looked back to catch a glimpse of Kelly’s flailing limbs, obviously wild with offended passion.
Once packed in on the train, people somehow made a path for us to be reunited. That whole ride, we were very liberal with our language, not bringing down our voices to discuss our most recent experience. We didn’t shield our disgust or our surprise at the hands that had meandered in places they shouldn’t have been. We didn’t stop laughing at the absurdity. I personally was in a state of shock. Do you, Mr. Man, really have to get off by grabbing a woman’s ass on a crowded metro? Does that fulfill you? Are you done now?
As a woman, I don’t think I have ever felt more stripped of my independence. I’ve never felt deprived of my ability to take public transportation without feeling like an object for use of entertainment. I don’t think I’ve ever realized the social implications of patriarchy. (Which I realize exists in the vast majority of the world. I am not trying to just pinpoint India.) It’s not even a fear of safety – it’s just the sense that you aren’t looked at as a human; instead, you are a thing, you exist as a concept. I have never felt so out of control among such a vast amount of people - - -
Am I not human? I am existing. I have a mind and a soul. Nothing warrants you to touch me. Not even in the most opportune of moments in the depths of a crowded metro stop.

The crazy part is –
If that man up at the beginning of this post, the one who asked me what I think of India, asked me this question tomorrow in the metro station, I would give him the same answer that I did earlier today. Of course I love India. Of course I love this experience, what I have gained, the smiles, the good; I even relish bad experiences here, as you always can in life… I don’t judge your country based on a metro stop.
Other than spurring a web of thought tentacles, an evening like this could never deter me from my enjoyment of life, and right now that life involves India.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Varanasi: Chug your chai, Henna your Hands, Rake your Rice

Varanasi this weekend began with a Twelve hour train ride. Twelve, Thirteen, maybe Fourteen; it’s a little hazy but so the traveling goes this way.

When I was younger I always thought that long rides – by car, by plane, by train – were excellent for writing or drawing or reading or doing something really productive. I loved the idea of delving into creativity or entertainment while being confined to a moving vehicle for a vast expanse of time. But now I am older and the sparkle and glow has tarnished slightly into reality. The older I get, the more I congeal into the mass of traveling bodies around me that rock in and out of dazed slumbers; my book hardly cracks open before my eyes begin to fall. Sleeping relaxed bodies that all move in a unison dance, bumping in an irregular rhythm produced by the turbulent ride.

Trains are actually incredibly comfortable. In fact, they are infinitely more comfortable than the public buses where you are mashed onto a seat slab, trying to keep your body parts within your boundary line without sacrificing discomfort. But on trains in the ‘sleeper’ class, you get your own BERTH to lay on. It isn’t a temperpedic by any means, but it isn’t a slab of wood either, and with a cushy backpack as your pillow and a shawl for your blanket, sleep comes quite easily.

A night lost somewhere on train tracks in between Delhi and Varanasi brought us into the station of the holy city, built by Lord Shiva himself – or so the story goes. The city reminded me a bit of a mystical Venice, if you will, perhaps a cross between Hocus Pocus and Venice and curry. Getting off the main road leads you into narrow alleyways lined with brick and stone. Tall buildings stand shoulder to shoulder and prevent you from seeing much but dimmed path in front of you. Also, the shore: Varanasi’s shore is shaped like a crescent moon right on the Ganges. Boats line the edge of the waters at the various ghats (a place where stairs lead down to the water) to row you up and down the river.

Part of Varanasi’s ‘holiness’ leads many people to die and have their bodies cremated there. Two of the ghats along the shore are where these cremations happen, and are completely out in the open air, something to view from a short distance. We saw cremations at both of the ghats – one of them while cradled in the hands of a boat, just off the shore. The other we saw from the top of a nearby building. Smoke constantly flourishes to the sky as five or six bodies are sandwiched in between large rolls of wood, aflame. A handful of loved ones come to give the deceased family member one last drink from the Ganges (pouring water into their mouths), adorn the body sheathed in white with orange flowers, and then witness the final release of the soul into the smoky sky. It’s all a very beautiful moving ritual to watch… To see this body left behind, as it was just a vehicle for this onward moving soul. Ashes, the last representation of the material manifestation of the soul, are then scattered into the Ganges below.

The wild Ganges! A holy mass of rapid brown water, chugging along with mystical powers!

Other things last weekend contained: Lots of chai, lots of excellent curries (a new favorite discovered: malai kofta), the best aromatic garlic naan I’ve ever had, the best thick creamy banana lassi I’ve ever had… lots of conversations. Lots of cultural crossings. Flash monsoon rain and henna on my hands.

And now I sit in the Delhi wet. Monsoon season this year has stayed much beyond its welcome. Normally monsoons have already packed up and left by this point, but somehow we have been lucky enough to experience the rains again and again. Day after day the roads flood. Day after day thunder claps in the distance and you hope that the taunting storm takes its path anywhere but towards you. Day after day the park in front of my house remains a pond of still standing water. Day after day men with turbans keep their shower caps ready just in case the clouds open.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Peacock Festers

Where do my fingers begin,
[I haven’t spoken for ten days, written for ten days, read for ten days, expressed myself to others for ten days in any vast outward communicative experience –
Where does one begin?]
Now, when I close my eyes, I get an immediate onset sensation of… well, sensation; of pronounced darkness behind my eyes and a swirling mass of movement of my entire body. This is Vipassana. Or at least, this is the beginning birthing of Vipassana. A 10-day journey, I had once thought a mere four or so days ago, was plenty to lure me into the depths of this meditative practice. Now, I see, that those people who go away for 20 days, for a month, are simply further solidifying and exploring this practice to the always changing full extent of their being. That perhaps someday I will again go for another 10 days, or perhaps extend my own experience.

Not that I didn’t get enough out of this; not that I didn’t experience something within myself that truly will resonate with me for some time, every step of my day. At least, I hope it will resonate with me. My fear is that it will dissipate like a line in the sand, blown away slowly, its intense presence decreasing into a dull vapid presence which I find it difficult to reincarnate.

Anyway, I think that a lot of what I learned and churned and entangled will stay with me. It’s not very often that such a compacted experience can leave such a deep impression on your way of being – but the acuteness in which this practice was implemented,
such as [10 days. 10 hours a day of meditation. 2 meals and one light snack. There was tea, boy, was there tea which I looked forward to. Rest and bathing and washing clothing. Walking along the same paths over and over, circles, lines, all sorts of shapes and moldings of your feet on the ground.]
has been a sure indicator of the effectiveness of the way this practice is presented to those who choose to live this life for 10 days.

What I liked most about this 10 day offering, I think, was that it was made clear that the idea behind Vipassana and meditation and its benefits can be easily intellectualized, and understood through the passage of speech and in sermons. However, to be fully understood, it is only fair and rational that we experience the very nature of the practice in order to understand and live within its benefits, to taste its fruit, to see for ourselves. That makes sense, nah?

Everyone can intellectually grasp the concept of ‘cravings’ and ‘aversions’ and how these underlying manifestations in the deep buried portions of ourselves will guide us through life like a ping-pong ball, bouncing away from things we don’t like and tumbling towards those things we do and we think will make us happy. So much on the outside we believe governs and controls our happiness. This or that made me happy or sad. This event, that person, this experience, those words; but is our life that much out of our hands? Is our happiness really implanted by others? Or is it something that we generate, something that we react to, something that seemingly uncontrollably arises in us so quickly and elusively slipping over us that we can’t seem to entangle this automatic feeling from reality.

Reality, truth, is blank and emotionless. ‘Emotionless’ carries such a negative connotation, so perhaps, objective would be a better word. Reality and truth are objective on a larger scale, really. And we can have such positive or negative reactions to this reality, so easily.

What I feel like these 10 days did, somehow, was entangle these positive and negative reactions enough so that I could observe them, understand them from a third-person sort of a view. Detach my ego and dissipate the need to be completely subsumed by my initial need to feel and react and react and react… How do these reactions create our mental and bodily space of happiness or misery? So easily that we find ourselves sitting in our own space of elation or depression, craving more elation or cringing away from depression – how to see the events of life as passing waves of and ever changing and arising and passing universe which we can simply observe. We don’t need to get lost in our own jumble of passionate emotions leading us astray from a resonating trueness that is baring itself within every moment.
Anyway I could obviously go on and talk hullabaloo for a while. Dripping as my fingers stretch themselves on this keyboard, doing their calisthenics playing leap frog over all these little black keys…

Some memorable moments of the days themselves:

Day 1: Shocking, but not as shocking as I thought. I thought I would break down in a tumble weed of stabbing emotions that left me wanting to run away. This did not happen. I think perhaps I entered this experience with a determined mind to explore this technique as honestly and openly as I could in order to give it the fullest fairest trial possible, and this provided an initial shell to protect my mind from slipping into feelings of deep frustration.

Anyway, day one. After two hours of meditation starting at four thirty in the dark morning, and the breakfast and tea, I walked around the complex a bit – the tiny restrictive paths our legs were confined to – and saw up top one of the women dormitories two male peacocks, their decorative feathers displayed in a flayed bouquet of color. The right front corner and left front corner each had its own peacock, spinning eagerly to vie for the attention of the females who were eating in the field below, clearly uninterested and not impressed with the flourishing display I was pleasantly gawking at. Thanks India, for that experience.

Day 7: Seize Her Day. Somehow on the seventh day I experienced my first seizure of life. I wish I could say that it was because I was so in the depths of my mind that some magical combusting reaction sparked such a strong resonance that it propelled me to seize! Pourquoi non.
At the time I had been meditating for four hours or so, five minute breaks every hour or so. Except the last stretch I had been sitting still and quiet for a hefty hour and a half, and it was in a meditation ‘cell’, so I was by myself, secluded in a small room with a mat on the floor, facing a tall blue metal door with a metal lock that needed to be jiggled into a crusty closed position. At five o’clock, I heard the kitchen bell ring to announce the tea break. Good. Eyes open. Go to stand up, little too fast. Remember leaning backwards to stretch out my back got many good cracks I remember that so many good cracks in my back and then my vision went a little blacker and then I remember nothing.

I came to while banging my head against the metal blue door. I was on the floor somehow. My eyes were open but I was paralyzed and could not find out how to feel my body or will it to stop methodically pounding itself against this blue door. And there was a grate at the bottom of the door. I remember seeing the grate and thinking I was trapped in some sort of closed jail cell. Couldn’t understand where I was; complete disorientation of my whereabouts in life. Saw a spark of lightning connect across my vision.

[that was cool]

I stopped shaking, finally – although this whole experience couldn’t have sprawled for more than twenty seconds I would say, perhaps less – I looked around for any clue of what was happening to me and where I was. I can’t recall quite what thoughts perhaps went through my mind; I wish I could remember my exact thought process. It was probably along the lines of –
‘what drug did I possibly ingest to disorient myself this much?? Wait, I didn’t take a drug did someone capture me? Am I being held captive? Wait, maybe someone drugged me and THEN captured me…’
Except all that and more was compressed into one or two or three seconds… then I stretched my eyes up and around looking for clues –
I can move again! Success!
I see the lock on the door. The metal lock that crusts and scratches itself into place. Suddenly I remembered I was at a Vipassana center. Only then did I remember I was in India.

[that was cool]

I ran outside of the hall which contained all the individual cells. I had been the last person in there; most people had been filtering out a bit before the bell rang… It was raining lightly. The sky was patchy with storm clouds and delicate breaks of light between them. The drops were light but misty. It felt good and it felt okay. My first reaction was to yell out to the first person I saw,
‘I just had a seizure!’
But I suppressed this quickly – the helpers here were merely volunteers that had themselves completed a course in Vipassana. Some were young, my age – there was no hope of any sort of ‘first aid’ here. Would these people give me some sort of solace I couldn’t provide myself with my own limited medical knowledge?
I felt shaky and edgy afterwards for a bit… but I realized that I had probably been experiencing some sort of nutrient deprivation, limited movements, lots of upward sitting and combine a calm mind with immediate standing harsh movement draining blood fast or rushing blood fast… I don’t know, it seemed that I could make sense of it.

Later that evening during one of the sittings, I sat with silent tears. This was my only sort of moment where I truly I lost myself in my a swarm of uncontrolled emotions. I could simply dredge up a word or a person or a moment and the tears would just push themselves out of the corners of my eyes. All of the emotions I had trailing behind such things were boiling beneath them and it was a truly amazing experience to watch the entire immediate reaction manifest in a sadness that could drip down my face.

I think I read somewhere once that we use the same muscles to laugh as we do to cry. Different sides of the same coin.

Each day was a different mental program for me.

I also heard a lot of analogies. If analogies were large amounts of water, I could fill the Ganges with all those analogies.

Things to go and places to do. This savage post that merely scratches the surface of a 10-day mental/bodily/spiritual examination could never exemplify exactly what I went through. But I realize that all of life is like that, nah? An experience is really only felt and realized and understood when it is manifested within you as an experience. Writing about it to be intellectually grasped is a beautiful ability that we do have, but ultimately I know that these words have to end somewhere and I know that the extent of what they can portray and relive for me will only reach as far as the word does go in our conscious mental understanding.

Things to go and places to do to do to do.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Rickshaws that Snake and Honk in the Night

So tomorrow I go into exile. Apparently. Exile of not speaking for ten days and for spending some quality time with myself. Vipassana. Steam.

This past weekend I found myself taking a scheduled trip (thanks, EAP) to Jaipur and Agra. I saw some amazing things –
One of which,
The Taj Mahal; ahem, THE Taj Mahal –
Materialization of a cotton wisp perched on a passing cloud… white marble bathing in the sun’s reflection and rolling over and over itself by my vision in an aesthetically elating view of construction.
Isn’t is amazing that we can put together something so delicate, yet gargantuan? Something so round, with carved floral patterns that breath from sandstone setting. The red mosques that contrast substantially with the white perfection of marble stone framing the palace, standing so beautifully and yet so powerfully overtaken by the beauty of the Taj itself.
And I’ll have you know, that the Taj was built for love; which makes it all the more amazing. Commemorating the love of Shahjahan and his wife who died prematurely in life during a tragic child birthing experience - - - - - - - - -
How romantic, non?

This weekend also made me realize the satisfaction of traveling on your own. We were shipped around via charter bus every place we visited. The sites themselves were breathtaking, but the means of getting there in languid processions was uncomfortable yet compensated by the bulging meals that our hotels offered us. It made me realize the value of finding your own way – of toiling over the journey itself to get somewhere. That’s all part of it. Getting there. When you cut that out, you cut out half the story.

Nevertheless, this weekend was a beauty. Full of forts – tall and bulbous and sprawling red sandstone and drawbridges and elephant rides and walls that outlined mountain ridges…

Vast beauty.

And now I am in Delhi. And tomorrow I go to Vipassana land! I guess you could call this apprehension – but laced with excitement! I know that some things you can only experience when you put yourself through the entirety of the experience (some things? Perhaps most things); there’s only one way to see what happens after you spend ten days sitting with your thoughts and your self and the world in a large simultaneous binge of silence and solitude. And that is to close your eyes and think really hard.
Or, to provide a probably more accurate depiction, just do it.
Ten days in the grand scheme of things really isn’t that long. I’m sure it will slip by in an eye blink – or at least it will feel that way when I look back on it for years to come. I’m well aware that the moment itself will probably exercise its ability to stretch itself into oblivion.

Oh god.

Tonight we also ventured to Kareme’s – an excellent restaurant attached to a hotel in Chandni Chowk – the metro stop that we embark upon for our spices and dried fruit and nuts and tea and tasty things like that. This restaurant is in close proximity to the biggest mosque in India and is only open after sunset during Ramadan. Doesn’t that mean it must be really, ridiculously good?

Yes.

I still am overwhelmed by the massive amount of people that were flooding the streets at this time… after the shade of the hidden sun descended upon the city, this area LIT UP with floods of people and lights. Street vendors selling everything from fabric to chai to fried chicken to tandoori chicken to sweets to shirts to bangles and bangles and bangles just lined the streets and the people walked and bumped and meandered through the maze of buildings… and I found myself bumping into every person; impossible to stop unless you sit with a six rupee chai on a tin box while straddling buckets of soaking soapy dishes. Smells and sensations always here.

Always here. Always here.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

and today I was groped by a four-year-old

Am I kidding?

You aren’t sure.

Am I kidding?

I wish I were. It does make a good story though –

It all begins with a long Delhi day. One of those days that takes you through the dust and the traffic and begins with a sensory overload and ends with a sensory overload. One of those days where you find yourself climbing over piles of red powdery bricks stacked in disheveled pyramids. One of those days where the mosquitoes rip you apart, limb by limb. One of those days where you ask for directions once, twice, three times, and always Delhi is such a maze, you realize you were only five minutes away in the first place. One of those days where you come across a large procession of disgruntled men yelling as they trudge through the streets for some unknown reason, specifically directing their attention towards your curious faces as they forcibly hurl plastic bottles in your direction. You cross a scattered mess of honking traffic in order to find a sweet shop with the “best samosas around” –
And damn,
were they good.
The kind of good that is full of cumin and potato and curried peas and raisins and cashews. And you dip the crunchy fried triangular dough into a vegetable sauce that somewhat resembles ketchup but is actually infinitely more flavourful.

One of those days where you take a bike rickshaw to Majnu Ka Tilla, the Tibetan commune off of the metro station two stops down the line. You watch the biker heave his body to the left and right pressing weight onto each pedal in rhythm with the steepness of the street a slight hill makes all the difference. The veins in his arms protruding underneath deep warm skin. His whole body an instrument of movement to propel you forward. Suddenly you find yourself on a downward slope and he stops pedaling and while coasting he navigates around the holes and the gravel in an attempt to ameliorate the bumps of the oscillating roadway.

One of those days where dinner explodes in your taste buds. It all starts out with a cup of milky masala chai and traces of the spices and strong black tea are swirling around dappling its surface and you can tell it’s going to be a really,
really good cup of chai.
Then when dinner comes you almost don’t want to eat it because you’d rather just look at it first; imagining all those tastes that are soon to be swirling around your tongue. The soup – the one with the vegetable dumplings cradled among vegetable chunks in a smooth salty broth. Those vegetable dumplings I hope you remember had the smoothest most delicate skin on them, which covered a flavorful conglomeration of spicy mush. Then the tingmo that you dipped in the broth,
the doughy, thickly rolled dough that looks so fresh was it even baked? But of course it was baked it’s just so soft and plush. Plush! Perfect word to describe this Tibetan bread. Rolled and wrapped and curled and tucked into itself like an infinite cinnamon roll, but a thousand times more and all plush. Perfect for sponging up the remains of the rest of your meal…

One of those days where you get off the metro station near your house. There is abundance of people and a lack of rickshaws that will schlep you down the road. Walk? It’s really only 15 minutes or so…
One of those days where halfway down the street a group of four-year-old boys come running up to you from across the road. You pull your backpack close to your chest and glance behind a couple times as they skip up to you and hold out their little hands their little arms. You turn back around and keep walking forward, and to your genuine surprise you feel one of those little hands grab your ass, more forcibly and less innocently than you could imagine. Whipping your head around, you point at the first boy you make eye contact with, the one with the most mischievous look in his eyes, and you point hard –
“NO. That is NOT okay.” (In all caps, you say these things.)
You turn forward again. Keep walking. The little dude again runs up to you and starts jabbing his little fingers on your thigh and your ass, again. Grab his arm and throw it off! What are you doing little boy! He doesn’t stop. Grab his arms and throw them away! Am I being too forceful with this child? Did I grab him too hard? He doesn’t stop.
A bicycle rickshaw pulls over to the side of the road and hops off his bike. He has passengers on the bench behind him. One of those days where you are saved by a man on a chariot and he chases the kids away. He yells and the kids and chases them away.
You walk faster and look back and see the rickshaw driver continue to yell at the kids and chase them away. He yells and chases them away.

It was one of those days. Where something bad happens but then humanity steps in and you remember that all the people surrounding you are going to be good and bad and up and down and heaven and hell and you run into both and you make your own. And that rickshaw driver just makes you appreciate everything good that happens in life ---

And those little boys with the little hands…
AWESOME.
I’m not sure if I should be disturbed or surprised; but really, I am neither. Life is just ‘how it is’ here, for lack of a better description that is totally encompassing. There isn’t anything really that can impose itself over social rule. And sometimes things are more slackened because of it, and sometimes things are more restrictive because of it. Sometimes personal responsibility is prominent, and sometimes crazy things let loose.

Crazy things happen everywhere though – back home I can sue McDonalds for giving me a hot beverage that I so gracefully spill on myself. I can feign a finger in my chili and then ask you for a large monetary compensation. Sometimes I wait a whole 25 minutes for the next BART train.
Here, little boys grab my ass sometimes, I guess.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

I found the Light of the Appetite: Dharamsala comma YEAH

What on earth is better than the feeling you get when you lose something and then find it again. Something like, your favorite pair of socks, or the ability to eat –

Somewhere during the bus ride back from Dharamsala, the winding, lurching, jolting journey inside a large metal box careening turn after turn, my stomach decided to REVOLT against me. I thought I would spew out the window for the majority of the 13 hours spent on that bus; somehow I didn’t – I think that my lack of vomiting since fifth grade has given me an intense fear of it ever happening… thus I think that I withstand nauseated discomfort better than most in the sense that I resist the urge to ‘toss my cookies’ and perhaps prolong my inward suffering…
Nevertheless, the bus ride was long. My stomach upset continued through yesterday and part of the day today. The mere thought of food was enough to throw me into an irritated state of discomfort. Sweeping nausea. Fun!

Anyway, I have since regained some of my appetite. Bananas are starting to sound real, real good. As is the mango juice that I am sipping on. (No skins!) I feel like I am tasting for the first time. The sweetness of the juice is embellished on my taste buds. Gah, how beautiful, right? Rediscovering what an appetite is. I swear there is nothing quite as beautiful as exercising your sense of taste after not having done so, not having even desired to do so, for even two days.

Besides this little rough patch in my return to Delhi, my weekend in Dharamsala was nothing short of a beautiful emerald experience. Having the experience of a 13 hour public bus ride in Delhi will only make me a more tolerable person. Tolerable of sitting hour after hour listening to the blossoming rumble of the engine, confined to a seat with no concept of personal space, overlapping shoulders or spooning on a hunt for the most comfortable sleeping position, listening to the coughing man across from you spew his germs from the bottom of his right lung…
It was nothing short of an alternative universe, really. Lights off, people constantly getting boarding and departing at seemingly random locations along the way, making a few short pit stops for chai and snacks along the way – really, it puts you in a different place to be awoken from your something-like-sleep state, totally unaware of your surroundings, and shuffle over to a man selling chai at three in the morning on a dusty roadway. Is this all just part of the dream?

We left Delhi at 7:fourty (my four key is acting up again…) and got into Dharmsala around 9 the next morning. For the last hour of the ride we watched rain pour onto a lush green landscape dappled with thick wandering fog – was that Legolas over there? Over bridges of flushing brown water sky congested with gray… Is the flannel I brought enough to protect me from this abrupt climate change?

Dharamsala, unlike Delhi, is full of traveling foreigners that are explorative and innocently awed by India’s beauty. While there, we were able to talk to people from many different places, people who had been hopping city to city place to place, with a friend, solo mission, easily talking to other journeying souls. In Delhi we really don’t run into people who are just here to see the sites. Delhi is a little too chaotic and messy for someone who just wanted to take a week-long bite out of a place, I realize, as most people were surprised we had actually CHOSEN to live here for six months.

Dharamsala is small; easily traversable by foot, even to neighboring areas such as Baghsu and Dharamkot. Tons of yoga, tons of cooking, tons of Tibetans (oh, and the Dalai Lama?), a good amount of monstrous thunder sifting heavy rain, rolling green hills, black pools of malty water on rooftops, good chai, skin-colored mud pasty paths…
One of my favorite moments there was during a trek back from Dharamkot one evening, when the sun was setting fast. The sky was foggy but not thickly overcast, and somehow the light became an extreme rosy violet hue that colored our entire perceptual field of vision. We became enshrouded in a warmth of dimming light…
Other points of this 2.5 day journey that migrate to the forefront of my immediate memory is the Ashtanga yoga class we took, as well as the Tibetan cooking class where we learned how to make Momo’s.
The yoga class left my joints feeling sore and strong and stretched. Our teacher’s voice was more beautiful than a singing bowl and he wore small blue shorts that easily flashed us his modestly bulging thighs. I wouldn’t be surprised if he slept in a handstand. My mat smelled like mold and each person in the class smelled like some kind of ugly (myself included – the use of a shower didn’t come into play during this adventure. Time we just didn’t have…) but my body appreciated every motion of that two hours.
We ate some of the best Indian food I’ve had here (and just before leaving the restaurant caught a fast glimpse of a scurrying rat), some delicious Japanese food, talked to friendly open travelers, got attacked by a drunken Indian man, got moistened in the mist of a waterfall… this weekend was full of sensory experiences only crammed into 2.5 days how do you see something that fast?

Meeting other travelers was great – to see what other people are doing with their lives. One girl, only twenty-four, already married, decided to take a year off with her spouse to see the world. Another guy from Germany just wandering around him and his thoughts until he studies abroad in Paris. A couple of Jewish friends that just want to meditate for a bit in India. Traveling is serious business, yeah? To not be tied down, to not have to worry about who you are and exactly where you are going, to be concerned only with what to experience next. To see see see. Impermanence. We all have homes; we all have friends that know us well; we all have family; but it feels good to slacken your rope and move elsewhere. Fostering and cultivating. In the back of your mind you always have your rock of your origin.

The day we left the rain was literally streaming down the sides of the mountain in river-like veins. Thunder and lighting sprung above our heads without a second’s gap in between them. Being high up on a mountain, though, all the water just streams down to somewhere else – and the monsoons pass if you give them enough time. Rains are no reason to restrict yourself. Especially when a poncho is involved.

A quote from the Lama, Dalai:
“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”

What he said.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

school's flooded

Some days…

Like a rip in your pants.

This morning proved to be highly unproductive. I made it to the University with the expectation of speaking with one of my professors, only to be shafted by his absence. The rain that I commuted through made this journey all the more discouraging. It’s not a quick task to get to school for me; I’m no longer spoiled by proximal convenience.

After I leave my apartment, I wind through the neighborhood streets to the main road. If it isn’t too early in the morning, I’ll walk up the street to a corner sweet shop and order two samosas (6 rupees a piece), stuffing the paper-bagged treats into my satchel. At this point I jump into a rickshaw that’s on the move – motorized rickshaws can hold up to five people, three in the back, and two in the front on either side of the driver, pressed underneath his flared elbows. Normally rickshaw drivers hunt for enough passengers to complete a full five person load each trip they make. So all I have to do is catch the eye of a driver who has one or two open seats and hop in –

I am taking only one class in the psychology department here (along with Hindi and another in the philosophy department), but it is taught by three different professors. School here is surmised a whole lot differently than back home… I like the way it works, but it’s incredibly inconvenient for a foreigner who is only taking one class.

The idea of school here, in general, works really well. We are taking classes at the Master’s level, and the master’s program is a two-year, four-semester long ordeal. So right now we are taking classes in either the first or the third semester of the program. Within each semester, there are only a certain number of classes available to take. Some are mandatory, and some are elective; and I would say for the most part that everyone is taking the same courses. (For the Indian students.) Students are at school almost everyday, bouncing around from class to class in the small maze of hallways for that department. All the professor’s offices are lined up against one wall, the office and department library are close by as well, and the rest are classrooms that are always filled with the same students, rotating from class to class. The classes are always full, and there is always plenty of interaction with the professors. There really isn’t a strict work load, in the sense that assignments are not given and then collected. There are just lectures and an abundant list of suggested readings. From all this information and discussion it is up to us to pick a paper topic that we’d like to focus on, so that we can compose a lengthy paper towards the end of November.

For a student actually enrolled in the University, this sounds great, non? A perfect opportunity to explore the material on your own with the guidance of professors who all specialize in a different area and thus can give you a different perspective on the material. As I said earlier, I have three professors for one class – so each week I am being lectured on the same subject from three fresh angles. How eye-opening! What an inspiration.

However, for a UC student here for one semester and only taking one or two classes in the department, it’s a little frustrating, to put it euphemistically. Since I’m only attending classes there three days a week, I’m missing out on announcements that happen during other parts of the day, as well as more time to interact with a professor I only see once a week. A lot of things happen there by word of mouth – changes in class times, changes in classrooms, new readings, new resources… there isn’t some online archive of everything that’s happening.

To continue my school commute that I began so long ago – after the rickshaw ride to the metro, I ride the line one stop down to the University station. Coming out of the station I am met by hoards of bicycle rickshaws who are vying for your attention with the use of various tactics. Some come right up to you, walk with you, coaxing you. Some just call to you from a further distance: “Ah – o! Bait-o!” “Come! Sit!” My least favorite is when they simply stare you down and slap the seat of their rickshaw – like beckoning a dog.

The walk to school is only fifteen minutes if you walk at a leisurely pace, so I always skip over the bicycle tempters.

A steamy fresh cup of milky chai for five rupees outside of the University entrance, sipped on under the shade of the trees. A perfect place to people watch. I often find it hard here to just sit and people watch – because usually my white skin attracts enough attention to where I’m not the one doing the most watching. The tables just can’t be turned like that in a good people watching bout.

Sitting under the whirr of ceiling fans, attention catered to the wooden platform at the head of the classroom, my professor paces and speaks. Paces and speaks. And then stops, exclaims something witty. And then squints his eyes –
I learn how beauty is the root of war. I learn the ways of this patriarchal society. I learn about happiness and goals. The route of the lecture often bends off into present day constructions of religion, society, and spirituality. Most of the time I can’t believe how engaged I am in a philosophical discussion of the Way Things Are.

Way Things Are…………………………

Monday, August 16, 2010

sam your osa

The sheer amount of bats and kites that whirl through the sky is absolutely breathtaking. The sunsets are always toned with a cool milky blue made by diaphanous layers of cloud and pollution. The moon, even when high in the sky, is colored because of all the haze its reflected light must pass through to reach us. The cap of sky above us is stretched into an extensive vastness that is riddled with trails of cloud smears.

One of my favorite ways to enjoy an evening is to catch this last bit of sunset. Ideally, I will have just come home from a day like today – the morning spent in Lodi Gardens, a beautifully expansive green park with burial temples from circa 1500, then grabbing a chocolate-y mocha at a nearby market, then letting my mind stumble in Hindi class. Finally, on the way back home I stopped at a cart on the street to buy some vegetables that I later turned into a delicious and spicy curry.

A beautiful part of my neighborhood in Delhi are the vegetable carts that men pull through the streets. Full of tomatoes, eggplant, onions, garlic, ginger, string beans, cauliflower, cabbage, and okra, these carts display a mélange of color and flavor waiting to be weighted by the kilo. The men either bike or walk through the narrow streets, their carts trail behind them. Voices echo against the maze of buildings as the vendors call up to warn you of their presence.

This weekend I’m planning on making a venture to Dharmasala. Only a ten hour bus run away, it should promise some quieter spaces and a chance to do a small trek… perhaps drop-in on some yoga and experience a cooking class or two. I feel like I can’t be settled here. I can’t have too much of a routine. I can’t be too bound. My time here is only so temporary and I need to shake myself up here as much as possible.
At least, that’s how I’ve been feeling…
It’s strange. And detached.

I also applied for and got accepted to a 10-day Vipassana Meditation retreat in the south of Delhi. If all goes according to plan, I should be shut up in my mind breathing and letting thoughts come and pass for the opening 10 days of September.
A bit apprehensive? Perhaps. The other night I was the first one to go to sleep out of my three roommates – and I actually felt the aching loneliness of my bed partner’s absence. Now, to imagine myself merely sleeping alone for 10 days is one thing that crunches my inner being into a feared desolation. I take myself to be a fairly independent person; but I also am aware that emotions can creep up on you given the right environmental circumstances. I guess I am afraid to be vulnerable to a new set of emotional probes.
The actual meditation part, all day, each day, for 10 days, I know will be difficult at first but ultimately rewarding. I think of the process a little like going through a heroin withdrawal (perhaps a strong, stretched comparison, but let me delve into it before you shut it away…) The first few days of sitting silently with my breath and my body and my mind will obviously be the most challenging. New feelings will unearth themselves, and I am sure that I will be thinking and feeling a lot of things in such a raw way that they will hit me in powerful ways. The monotony may sweep over me intensely and stretch each moment to be an unbearable experience that lasts a lifetime. Don’t you think a heroin addict breaking free of his dependency would feel the length and struggle in every moment?

Forced analogy ABORT!

Anyway, it would be an experience to have. I think I could only walk away from it churning and growing. Any experience, good or bad, will take its effect; an opportunity for learning and processing. We can’t expect everything to work itself out as a perfect twist of fate. Ups and downs are how we learn and live. How we learn to live.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

what a wastrel

The park across from our apartment, that lays just beyond the road at our door front, has again become a raging sea of goopy dirt and dusty water. The rains came this past week – and although the streets drain eventually, our park seems to contain its water very effectively. Maybe it’s really a community pool, and we accidentally mistook it for a park in its dry stages…

Yesterday we took a slight adventure to Connaught Place – near where we had stayed at the YWCA when we first arrived in India, before securing an apartment farther north. The base of the metro stairs, at the exit, met us with cascades of water slipping down the sleek black stairs. Luckily, a drainage system ushered the water away before it managed to crawl too far into the station. We stared up at the gray booming sky –
Our destination was simply a movie theater, somewhere up above in Connaught Place. Connaught Place is in the shape of a circle (going along with the theme of roundabouts that are scattered throughout Delhi, with makes it even more of a maze to navigate) packed with people and beggars and shops and bars and travel agencies and movie theaters and places to grab food – except at the moment, it is ravaged with construction. It is nearly impossible to perceive a store front, a sidewalk, a path, or to grasp any sort of cohesive vision of what this Place is supposed to look like. For example, in order to get from the metro station to the shielded walkway underneath an awning, we had to walk about 30 yards. This distance –
Caked with mud and viscous brown rainwater, trapped between rock and brick clusters, the entire area swallowed our feet as we slipped and dipped through a sopping mess of debris. At one point we had to walk single file across a beam of wood over a newly formed pond, step up over some metal bars, through what will someday become a brick-lined planter, down onto some piles of uneven rock, and more mud…
I felt like I was on a Safari through some concrete ruins. And on our left you will see the Wild Men in business suits, covering their head with brief cases, frolicking in shined shoes to get to the metro station.
Even navigating around Connaught Place itself was tricky – construction is literally flailing at every corner. Scaffolding made of what look like thick branches tied together in rectangular-like structures are in the middle of walkways, stuck in the mud. Holes gape at you from the ground, unprotected. Wire. Cranes. Chaos.
It’s all somehow incredibly beautiful, though; something that would inspire an artist to sculpt massive piles of debris in still visions of chaotic asceticism.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Delhi. Spew.

My face is back to its normal state. The culprit? Mango skins. Produces the same sort of rash like poison oak or poison ivy, as it belongs to the same plant family. Perhaps I got contact dermatitis around my mouth from scraping the mango pulp off of the skin with my teeth? Then the reaction morphed into bloated eyes and ears, a rash on my hands and arms and chest, and an itch that raged under the surface of my skin.
Eck, whatever the exact method of flaring a histamine response from my body, mango skins had everything to do with it. THOSE BASTARDS.
The funny thing is that I am constantly introducing so many new things to my body internally and externally that it was impossible to pinpoint any one thing that could be causing my face to balloon in a red rough plane of itchiness. Was it those new sheets that I bought? How about cashews? That mystery vegetable that I cooked the other night? That awful lip cream that I bought from the chemist?

To be honest I didn’t even suspect mangos. Only after consulting my mum and google for a couple hours did the idea even occur…

Anyway, the rashes are subsiding on my arms and hands and chest. More than anything I have gained an incredible peace of mind knowing that mango skins and I do not tango very well. I like not being skeptical of everything that comes in contact with my body. The helplessness of not knowing what is causing your body to rage against you is an awful feeling. Like any relationship, not being on the same page is really damaging. I should have just confronted my mango skins instead of ASSUMING we were compatible... what a fool I was.

That was one long week – worry what part of my face would be swollen when I woke up in the morning, if it would ever be ameliorated…
I think it helped with the staring, at least. People would dart their eyes over to me, as usual (because I’m white), and then they would get a glimpse of the rash I was attempting to conceal under my scarf – I think at this point they averted their eyes.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

FANS THAT GO *KABOOM* IN THE NIGHT

In the wee hours of the morning, as Kelly and I were drifting in and out of a not-so-deep slumber, a spark flew from the sky. The sky of our ceiling fan, that is. Our other roommate shot out of bed, “Do you smell that?”
“…no…”

We all tried to go back to sleep, but the electricity had gone out at this point and not having any air circulation lays in the thick heat in a much too perceptible bodily glaze that makes it entirely hard to relax into a slumber – also MY FACE felt like it was going to peel off –
>>>Speaking of face issues, I attempted to see a dermatologist yesterday. It was about six in the evening when I walked up to the hospital whose parking lot looked like a valet stand at a mall. Cars were parked haphazardly and constantly being herded in and around the cement lot. Papers flew around at desks inside the hospital. I was told by two different receptionists that the dermatologist was not in at the moment and I would need to return today. The first man I spoke with told me to come in at 11:30, and that he would be available for one hour only. The next lady I spoke with told me to come in at 12:00 exactly, and that he would be available until 1:00. These people were in reception desks probably 15 feet apart from one another.

<<<>>>

So lying awake in bed for a bit lead us to be conscious and mobile for the sunrise. Our first noted sunrise in India. The rise of the sun is really only perceptible once it gets up past the mass of dense smog lining the low part of the city. Today we saw gashes of pink light illuminated around the edges of clouds in splotchy patterns as the cradled hot orange sun became visible among the blue milky clouds/smog/pollution. A dream, I tell you. Masses of the misty clouds/smog/pollution rolled over and in front of the sun, sometimes obstructing the view of its exact shape – but leaving the wildly electric imprints of orange rose that it shed onto the sky around it.
A fitting comment for the morning: “This is an Indian sunrise. When would you ever see this back at home?”
And it’s true; of course there are plenty of things to see here that one wouldn’t see back at home – but something as simple and universal as the powerful imprint of a shockingly pink sunrise seems as though it would have notes of home. Instead, this sun rises like a different species of sun. It doesn’t awaken into a yellow yolk, but smears its presence…

That was beautiful.

So power out, but beautiful sunrise, and then that smell that my roommate spoke of? My phone charger, which had been plugged into the wall, literally exploded. Only half of it dangled from the outlet, and the rest lay in a charred black pile on the marble floor.
Awesome, India.

Everything else in our apartment, save the internet, is wonderful, though. Huge open spaces big enough to do yoga and handstands, to sleep, to read, to feast – throughout the day, but especially in the early morning and at night, vegetable vendors roll their carts through the narrow streets up and yell up to the residents with booming resonating voices. All you must do is peek down off of your balcony and motion for them to stop! Hold on! I will come down and purchase a kilo of tomatoes for a dollar!

Again, shall I be off to the hospital? Fix my FAAAAAAAAAAAACE. I am a bit nervous to put my face in the hands of India… but… alas, what else to do? I can only apply calamine lotion and Vaseline so many times…
It isn’t nearly as bad as yesterday or the day before – but it still feels as though someone has poured a vat of elmer’s all over my lips and then let it sit and crack in the sun. And I no longer look quite like a pomegranate. More just like a girl with puffy cheeks.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

4D$$AMMMNNNN

Hello.
My name is Nina and I possess frustration! Frustration, which I am letting go of… of course, because what else can you do in India? Just blow in the wind like a kite at milky sunset.

Frustration reason #1:
I have an effing RASH on my effing FACE.
Mystery rash, I like to call it. My little friend, as I ironically like to refer to it. A really large annoyance, as I most accurately can describe it.
This mystery rash jumped up on my cheek and chin and mouth area earlier this day. Did I eat something? Did that cream I got from the ‘chemist’ do something awful to my visage? Does India like to make my face itch inconsolably?
It feels like I smeared glue all over my cheek and upper lip, and now it’s dry and not letting me move my face very much. To the touch, my skin is roughed – swollen, too. It looks a bit like I got my wisdom teeth out, if my wisdom teeth were my incisors. MY FAAAAAAAAAAAACE.

Semi-Frustraion-but-mostly-humerous #2: Our apartment floods.
The monsoon knocked on our door today. This morning, actually – it was our wake up call. Claps of thunder and then the faucet turned on for a wash wash wash of thick pelting drops that flooded the street flooded the park* and flooded our front room. After stuffing two rugs underneath the door as a makeshift damn, we watched the rain from foggy windows until it let up enough for us to open the gates [doors] of our living room. The drains on our roof also were plugged, clogged, and choking on mud and leaves which made the roof well up with water and then the water spilled down our indoor stairwell and made the entirety of the spiraling steps a Titanic set of running water.
*By ‘flooded’ park/streets – I mean that the grassy knoll turned into a lake and the cement street into an ocean.

At least the monsoons keep the air fresh and the sky clear-er. Opens up the air, too; disintegrates the heat.

Frustration #3: Mosquitoes just LOVE my legs. I look like I was just in a paintball battle and have circled red wounds spiraling down my legs. It’s awesome.

Frustration #FOUR: Okay I JUST came up with this one; a fresh discovery of sorts. My ‘FOUR’ key no longer works!

Frustration #5: My face. Sweet sticky syrup on my face – that’s what it feels like, more than glue. If someone mistook my face for a pancake and loaded it up with some Auntie Em’s or whatever that syrup woman is called and now it’s just a mess…
Oh, life. GET OFF MY FACE.

In other news, I had my ‘first day’ of class last week. On Tuesday, I met with the head of the psychology department, as well as two other professors who teach some ‘papers’. For every class, there is only one hefty paper at the end of it, for which you must designate a topic with your professor and then mesh in all your new-found knowledge. So instead of being asked, “what classes are you interested in?” it was, “what papers are you interested in?” You don’t really sign up for classes here, by any means. It seems as though students just head to school in the morning and wander around the cracked white hallways until they find themselves ushered into a class they want to take. Anyway, that is why we met the head of our department – the only way to really get into a class for sure is to talk face to face with the professor and express your interest and why. The classes are small. Communication lines are thick.

I decided on a class called Indian Paradigms in Counseling Psychology, and another Buddhist Philosophy course in the philosophy department. Hindi, as well. So for the next four point five months I am going to write two papers and learn how to survive using Hinglish. That’s awesome.

MY FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE.

Friday, July 30, 2010

FRISKY FLIES

There are a lot of people in Delhi. Everywhere.
Sometimes we find ourselves in places where the ‘lot’ of people is even more concentrated than our usual experience. Lives swarming the streets. Water vendors, poor men with squinted eyes covered in flies on the ground, a rich family bumping their plump hips through the crowds as they saunter, women with ratty hair holding a baby too hungry to cry, shopkeepers inching away from their merchandise to lure you in, people yelling everywhere, masses of flies traveling in waves and bunching onto sweet sticky messes, unfinished construction as stacks of bricks and tile and debris in piles dribbling onto the foot path, traffic pouring like molasses through the streets in dense walls of tire and metal (Delhi Thrill Ride #54: Crossing the street.)

This afternoon we took the metro the Chandri Chawk – near Old Delhi, a definite artery of the city pumping all kinds of life through it. As soon as we skipped off the metro, we were met by the line of bike and autorickshaws lining the street and calling calling asking asking “ma’am where are you going, ma’am?” Our destination: the spice market. We asked for directions from a nearby woman, which we assumed to be a safe bet… however, in India, asking for directions is a hit-or-miss process. Even if the person doesn’t have a clue which direction to point you in, even if they only have a vague notion of where you want to go, even if they can hardly tell you how to navigate there, you will almost always get some sort of answer; confident and assured, not wanting to displease you, a stranger will send you off on a wild goose chase…

Thus, we managed to navigate around a large square of space before we got to the spices, and we passed a lot of sites that we wouldn’t have otherwise seen. (Delhi lesson #454: Getting lost in Delhi is never a loss of an experience.) Such as, wizard woman. Wizard woman was only one of the many people we brushed past – how can I describe this sort of ‘many’?
Imagine looking at a black wall, and then realizing that the wall is black because it is actually covered in ants.
Needless to say my visual inputs have been completely overwhelmed by my afternoon…
This woman had ratty hair, natural interspersed dreadlocks, and wore shiny reflective cloth wrapped around her body. Gold jewelry hanging from her face, like a gypsy, maybe, and in her hand, a wand pointed outwards. A long, nubby wooden stick of a wand. And her face was beaten by the dust and her body was stuck in her casting-a-spell posture.
The next moment this image was gone and replaced by thousands of others as we pushed ahead on the uneven cement…

The spices. The nuts! The dried fruit. The spices! Puddles of spices in open white sacks, shop after shop…
Just, everything.
And a spicy meal before heading back.
I am being rushed away from this writing experience by Kelly Donohue. Time ticks! Words sparse!

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Ta Da

Alright, Delhi.
So it appears that you do, in fact, posses the ability to unsheathe your stars! I can see circa 20, at the moment. On my roof –

This roof. North Delhi. Close to the campus. Seven of us white university of California students have just heaved all of our baggage and incense and clothing and sweaty bodies over to an apartment one metro stop away from the University. A metro, still in progress, yet hadn’t been this close to being completed merely last year. Shall we consider ourselves lucky? Go.
Metro trains come once every couple minutes. The metro map sprawls all over Delhi – but the south of Delhi is the part that has yet to be completed. Unfortunately, the south of Delhi is where the ‘night life’ is at. Far from campus. Far from us.

Tonight we returned to the Urban Pind club which we visited our first week here. The incentive of the free beers at ‘Ladies Night’ was enough to pull us away from our fresh homely haven of an apartment. It took us two tuk-tuks and a brief metro jaunt in order to make it there. After running our of free beers and our dancing feet, our ride back: a 30 minute motorized rickshaw tumble down the roads and roads and roads and roads… Easier than I thought. Delhi is large, stretched… but able to be navigated! Now that I am getting settled here, I realize that my fingertips can spread to its edges…

Back to our roof, though. Only our apartment has access to this lovely viewpoint. We live on the top floor of a four story green cement building with plants draped across every balcony. In front of us, a park, is splayed with children and power-walking women in saris once the sun drops lower in the sky to relieve us of its brutal heat, so that it can leave us with a less abrasive, yet just as suffocating, heat.

I’ve described Delhi’s stuffy gray sky in previous posts – but today Delhi showed it’s blue. Since returning from Mussoorie, Delhi has lifted its veil, its dusty diaphanous veil, surprising us with its blue tint and white fluff [clouds]. The pollution is still thick and trudges around the outskirts of the sky – but the sky does exist in Delhi. Proof.
This evening as the sun warmed itself behind the milky clouds, drenched in orange and pink, I counted twenty-some kites taking flight off of the surrounding roofs. Kites?! How is this not magic?
Tumbling spilling
But catch!
Before they fall.

Our apartment has a vast living area, three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and an open kitchen area that is currently barren, but welcoming. The counter space is a dream. Hopefully it shall be used for cooking and serving. Potential for delicacies.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Hey now Hey now Delhi is BACK

Delhi again welcomes us into her firey arms.

The first round in Delhi was an onslaught of sights sounds faces… Delhi can see our fresh faces. Delhi understands our vulnerability of being in the madness of this new place. Then, we were ripped away and taken to Mussoorie. Coddled between her mountainous mossy green. A small place that wasn’t too intimidating. Taught us Hindi. Taught us how to be comfortable and familiar. Now we return to this Delhi Delight again, seasoned. The heat also isn’t as abrasive and there are tons more white faces here now. It’s nice to feel like I have somewhat of a grip on this place. Like Delhi isn’t just running me round in circles. I can actually navigate my days…
Delhi is a beast. A beast that never sees the sun – and the sun never really sees. Instead of existing as a golden yolk in a pale blue sea, the sun is merely a presence of reflective clouds tinting the sky to a shocking white. There is something spooky about a place the sun never really sees. A vast land of honks and sweet red paan and roundabouts…

India curried me a happy birthday… jumping through my rite of passage into the legality of alcohol consumption – though I won’t have to use my ID as verification for the ensuing months… proloooonged sigh. Dancing. Sweat. More dancing. Flooding the dance floor with our limbs. All I wanted.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

bon voyage Mussoorie

Final exam came and went this morning. How have I been here for one month? Time is where –

Thank you Mussoorie for your beauty –
The red tin roofs where rain pats, pours, and pounds.
The red tin roofs where monkeys screech and tumble at six in the morning. WWF monkeys have adopted the position of our alarm clock during the week.
The clouds that billow and tuft in between the foothills.
The fog that rolls through to hide the trees.
The moss that shades the concrete fresh green after it rains.
The steep hills that wring out our breath.
The dogs that sleep on the streets, hugging corners, in nooks, under awnings, on cement railings… shaggy splotchy and lazy.
The shop keepers who don’t speak much English; when we can only communicate on a word-to-word basis, a puzzle!
The juicy mangoes –
No clean way to eat one. I’m like a five-year-old gnawing at an ice cream cone and having it melt and spill down my arm and make sticky sugary ring around my mouth when I eat a mango. Too juicy. Perfect. Never have I eaten so meaty of a mango.

My teachers. My four teachers that I’ve seen almost every day for the past month who have shared stories and spirit… One of them adjusts her glasses with the palms of her hand and furrows her eyebrows disapprovingly when you say something wrong (it sounds just as encouraging as it really is.). The next one sold me a jar of honey from her brother’s bee farm, and let her voice lilt and fade away at the end of every phrase. After a 30 minute chai break, my next teacher’s voice scraped his nostrils – I have no idea quite how to describe this man – his hair thin and wild, his face darkly rugged and blemished, and he closed his eyes when he spoke a good amount of the time, all the better to hear his voice scraping gently across every word. His laugh was more of a giggling chuckle and revealed a charming gap between his front teeth – turning his frazzled mystical look into a silly, er, mystical, look.
The day before yesterday, four of us ended up visiting his home. We drank chai in his sitting room while he smoked bidis. He showed us a fraction of his owl collection (owls in India are considered stupid, however, not wise! Yet this man is obsessed.) which completed is about 2,000: golden owls, marble owls, glass owls, owls that take pictures with their eyes, owl magnets, carved owls, big owls, small owls – he even has a beautiful art collection of personal drawings with graceful inky owl feathers in front of etchy scenes… we crowded into his ‘office’ – a room just big enough to fit a few dusty bookshelves and a twin bed covered in blankets, his ‘desk’.

My last teacher of the day – an ex-alcoholic (‘this is the fun of drinking!’), always chewing paan, walking over to the window to swiftly spit it from his mouth while we stumbled through our reading. My favorite day in his class was a story day in his class – about the opium trade through the middle east and throughout India and beyond… an honest black market. It’s the ‘chains of corruption’ that keep it moving along so well.

Another quote of that man: “We experience many things. Sometimes we don’t do these things, but we still have the experience of it,” through stories, through others, through many other pathways… it’s so true though, eh? We pass on stories to create an experience in itself.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

The Wheel of Ferris

Ferris is the man who spins the wheel. Walking down the main road in Mussoorie, on our way to Happy Valley, we passed through a pseudo antique carnival. Popcorn salt cotton candy greasy smells and the cable cars –
A rusty cave as the mouth from where the cable cars descend, rifles to shoot a wall of balloons no bigger than a poster, small metal cars with chipping paint that only the smallest of three-year-olds could fit in, and ferris!
Ferris is a man who stands atop the spinning metal wheel – no more than twenty-two feet high, yellow paint rusting away dangling small benches swaying. What does Ferris do aside from balancing at the top? Suddenly he lets his feet slide down the side of the frame and creates a force to propel the entire circle round. Ferris hops off onto the ground, letting the giant wheel spin spin on spin on… yellow rust wheeling around in the passing fog.

So we saw a manual ferris wheel. Manual.

Happy Valley is a Tibetan community. As we approached the village we ran into more and more Tibetan faces, and once there we were completely immersed in an entirely different looking people. We spun prayer wheels in a Buddhist temple – the dragons painted on walls exploded with color and snarled at us. Tibetan flags rained from houses, all with green tin roofs. Every house green tin roof green tin roof. Ate beef for the first time in India in a small restaurant with no paint on the walls. Well, white and gray paint – chipping. Might as well have been no paint. The menu was a slip of paper. The less the place looks like it has open arms for tourists, the better the food – but we all know this, don’t we?

Strode past a soccer field – mud. Mud and wet. The entire center of the field one big gaping puddle; dull muddied water. A lively game was going on with quite a collection of spectators.

It was nice walking into this area – much more quiet and peaceful than the bustle of Mussoorie tourism. Less harsh stares, as well. Less honking.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

youngsters

Bus ride down the winding hillside to Perkal – a Youth Development Center for women and children of a small nearby village. Began ten years ago with three children and now the place is bulging with two hundred. All of the money that supports the organization comes from personal donations – no government support. An Australian woman who does a lot of the administrative work is taking classes up at our language school and invited us to visit.
So we did.

Small school bus cramped legs humid air pouring in –
Arrived at the small school. First thing we ate lunch in the ‘dining room’ – small with two long wooden tables lined with wide wooden benches. Circular metal plates like disks hung on wall racks. Two women (cooks) in bright colored saris in the corner serving food; rice and beans a salty mushroom and pepper curry, fresh veggies, sweet sticky mango for dessert. We spaced ourselves out on the benches so that children could squeeze in between us. I spoke with a 12 year old beauty who punctuated all of her statements with “ma’am” (something they all did) and told me she wanted to be a doctor.
”Why do you want to be a doctor?”
”Well, ma’am, I originally wanted to be a teacher here. Because I liked the idea of teaching kids like me.
(most of the teachers working their were previous students)
“But then one day I went to the doctor. I told him that I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. He told me that a lot of doctors nowadays don’t know how to take care of their patients well enough and so their patients die. Now I want to be a doctor so I can help patients not die.”

RIGHT?

These children go to school from 7:30 to 5:30 six days a week They get breakfast, lunch, a snack, and something to eat before they head home. They do everything from math to science to art to yoga to basketball to computer science to English to Hindi… the school is taught in English. Uniforms are provided for them and they are obviously surrounded by love and support. After graduating students still provided support from the organization and go on to become engineers and psychologists and the like…
That’s the children.

The women – in a facility just across from the school, bent over sewing machines or simply with needle and thread at hand, illuminated by the golden backlight pouring in from dusty windows, making quilts quilts quilts!
Fabric patches lined white cupboards.
Beautiful quilts of an eclectic scene involving the sea or the prairie or a sunflower patch… they sell these quilts and keep the profit. The organization merely provides a place for them to work.

Right before we left they divided us EAP children into small groups and sat us in front of separate classrooms of children so that they could drill us with questions. The children all ranged from young to old. Classrooms equipped with only the necessities. Desks – blue. White board. Chairs. Teacher.
“Favorite food? Favorite hobby? Know any Hindi movies?”
”What do you like about India?”
”What do you think of Obama?”
”What is the difference between our school and yours?”
“What do you like about USA?”
“What do you not like about USA?”
“What is the difference between USA and India?”
“What is your aim?” (i.e. What do you want to be when you grow up?)
“What do you think of terrorism?” (wtf?)
“What is your least favorite part of India?”
“Do you go to school with Indians?”
“Why are you learning Hindi? Do you think it’s practical?”

That last question was asked by one of the older girls. I told her that growing up with English was both a blessing and a curse. English is already very useful, but I can’t help but to feel ignorant for not knowing the inner language movements of another culture – I am just thankful to be able to communicate across any other language field besides English. I wanted to talk to this girl more. The older kids tended to have more conversations amongst themselves during this exchange… made me feel silly sitting up there answering questions as if I were on some special panel… the teacher sat off to the side of the room with a stone-stiff face; bland expression. (Apparently other EAP kids had more lively and participating teachers…) It added a little discomfort to the air, though. What did they think of the four of us sitting there?
The younger kids, more curious. The older kids, more territorial… camaraderie in the midst? Je ne sais pas…..

Road back. Small bus. Powering through fog that dampened away the trees…

Friday, July 16, 2010

chicken of the buttery sea

Listening to the rain pelt pelt pelt the tin roof
And gently swish in the leaves of the trees
A river of sound surrounding my mental spece
Growing louder…
Sitting on my bed moldy sheets that never seem to fully dry in the humid air
Legs extended
Candle light
Lights out.

Tonight we tried to explain what the state of being “hot” is to one of the workers here at the hostel… “beautiful. Is. Very beautiful is,” using what little Hindi we had to bridge the communication gap The fact that everyone speaks English here is entirely too convenient – but it’s fun to meet people that DON’T speak English, and that have just as limited of a vocabulary in my language as I do in theirs. It makes communicating more of a game. We both are human. We both are thinking. We just can’t transmit our thoughts in full fruition – we have to use the sparse tools that we have. And there isn’t any other way to excel in using them than to use them. To stumble.

How does everyone in this world seem to speak English? Daily I am reminded of America’s ignorance in creating bilingual youth.

Tonight we swaddled down the main road, 17 deep, to a restaurant bar named Sikoh. I shared a metal bowl full of “butter chicken” – a spicy tomato and cream dish that saturated pieces of chicken in a thick sauce. And some rice mixed with cumin seeds. A few times we were videotaped by men on their camera phones – right up to our faces. “Enough! Enough!” we yelled in Hindi. The amount of blatant staring that is socially permitted is overwhelming. I am trying to imagine what would catch my eye so much to videotape another human being having dinner at a restaurant…

Sunday, July 11, 2010

R. Kesh – do you mind if I call you that?

Just had a beautiful drive home after a short long weekend in Rishikesh. Two days is not enough time to experience anywhere, but I am tired nonetheless. The drive home was lovely; we trekked through many a landscape. The sun was golden and gasping through purple clouds bathing the dusty road in golden yolk. As we made our way up the hill to Mussoorie the fog swept in and carried away the humidity. And now we are left with trees caked by the gray mist and again bombarded by the scraping pounding speaking tapping sounds of the kitchen, which is nearby the room we are staying in here at Dev Dar – have I mentioned this place before? It’s a ‘hotel’ – but I would consider it more a room&board hostel. We take our cold showers from a bucket. Tasty.

So Rishikesh. White hippie HAVEN, damnit. It wasn’t teeming with tourists the same way a big city would be, really, but I just saw an inordinate amount of white travelers curious about practicing yoga. Half-expected to see someone I knew strolling out of an Ashram. It is definitely a safe place to travel if you are a girl in India – for the first time I wore a tank top and didn’t feel uncomfortably stared at (just the normal stared at. The stared at where we get people pointing their camera phones over their shoulders in a not at all nonchalant attempt to capture our ever so interesting white faces. The dead pan stares. The people asking to take a picture with us. The video cameras.) We stayed in an Ashram on the Ganges. The brown Ganges. The swirling Ganges. The rapid water stirring up the fine dusty sand into its current. Cool to the feet.

On Saturday night we watched some sort of Hindu Ceremony on one of the river banks. One of the most amazing parts was the music that accompanied the ceremony, the entire way through. The drums, the accordion-like miniature organ thing, the singing voices sailing over one another in a rhythmic harmony. We had prime sitting spots, in my opinion, on some marble steps mere meters from the musicians. At my feet were young males dressed in the orange Sadhu dress. (Like alter boys! Except… not quite Catholic.) They clapped and sang along with the music – devotion! In front of us the Ganges sailed and a large tall large robust tall statue of Vishnu sat atop a marble platform protruding from the river. Just tickles me that all those people can be gathered to believe in something, together, on the banks of a holy river.

That morning I also had the pleasure of taking my first yoga class in India. Amazingly, YTTP isn’t really that far off from the source – the people here just don’t call it ‘superman/woman’ or ‘bicycle crunches’. And instead of being taught by a beautifully powerful Swedish woman, I was taught by a flexible stick man dressed in white, greasy wavy hair, and his VOICE – luscious. Can I say that? Yes.
“Full relax full relax”
“Breath in good energy. Breath out bad energy. Down past your naval…”
And then an “Om” at the end that could challenge a singing bowl. It’s amazing to think that this religious man who fasts and has a dot between his brows does yoga for spiritual purposes. Moving and stretching and shaking out his ankles and building back muscles and sitting in invisible chairs and wrapping limbs.... and through this practice comes spiritual living.

Today – banana honey crepes and chai for breakfast.
Today – walk/hike to mini waterfall. Stood under its jutting spraying cool water. Coated me with ice. It’s so humid here, though, that becoming drenched in a waterfall’s locks while completely clothed is the utmost relief you can feel from the hugging air.

India you are a magical maze of beauty. Curling your lips up at the corners; amused at our curious travels.