Rajasthan

I’ve been cramming too much into the last few days with not enough time to feel a part of any place I visit.

I’ve noticed pretty much from the beginning that the voice that comes out in these posts is a fairly narrow one. It goes about as deep as my senses and pretty much stops there. My experience is changing as I go, and I think that, in order for me to continue getting anything out of this, I’m going to have to sink down into a different place when I write. Thing is, I’ve never done that in public.

I only have a few minutes in this Internet/copy/printing house. So, I’ll probably stick with the observations for now.

Rajasthan is the desert part of India. Camels on sand dunes and stone forts rising out of nowhere. Intense colors punctuating a brown and green landscape. Men in white shirts and sarong-type skirt things with brilliantly colored turbans. Camels put to work pulling carts from the marble quarries. Trucks everywhere. Big, loud, brightly painted trucks with intricate designs and dangly things and baubles hanging all over the cockpit. Trucks with sacks of stuff and men riding on top of the stuff, blasting down the road, black smoke pouring from the tailpipe. They almost all have something painted on the back like “Horn Please”, or “Blow Horn”, “Sound Horn OK”. Since everyone wants to drive in the middle of the road, blaring your horn is the preferred way to let the driver know that you need to get by.

Yesterday, on the way to Pushkar, there was a traffic jam caused by about fifty monkeys. Sitting. In the road.

Watched the sun set over the lake in Pushkar, while sitting at one of the fifty-six ghats. So beautiful, as the evening turned cool and incense wafted through the air. There was chanting and singing and holy men praying and families tossing rose petals into the holy water. The flowers, rice, coconuts, and color are offered to God in hopes that prayers will be answered. Then the holy man asks for a donation and everyone is happy, except for the skeptic. At some point, maybe I’ll write about how I navigate this terrain, If I can come to a place of understanding for myself.

The ghats circle the lake, with buildings circling the ghats. They’ve been there for hundreds of years and were built by the Rajahs who each had their own special ghat. It’s disconcerting to me and not a little annoying that, behind the ghats, ringing the lake as well, one layer back, are shops of all kinds and the same annoying taunts that interrupt every step at every other touristed site. While I fully appreciate that this is a very poor country and people need to make a living where they can, I would love to be able to visit a beautiful place like Pushkar without constantly having to say “no”. I don’t like walking down the street not making eye contact or responding when someone says “hello”. I need room in brain for something other than responding to sales pitches.

I’m finding my frustrations with India to be on the increase. There are so many things that folks do that just isn’t in anyone’s interest. I know we all do that, but, folks… turn your lights on when you drive at night! When you see an entire family of five on a scooter on the highway, maybe give them more than three inches of room. Stop complaining about the mess as you drop your cup on the ground. Think about maybe NOT taking a shit right next to the ancient temple. Maybe move down the road just a bit. It’s confounding and maddening at times.

I have to run and I feel rather disconnected to this process right now. I need to evaluate how and where this site is fitting into my intentions for this trip. It’s been a lot of fun and I so appreciate the positive responses, but I’m finding myself distracted by it.

Hmm… we’ll see where it leads.

Peace, y’all.

From Delhi, with rain

Delhi is intense. Intensely intense. And being alone here, is, well…. intense.

My head is spinning. I’ve been walking through the markets of old Delhi and came across this ‘cyber cafe’. Old Delhi is like stepping back in time a hundred (or thousand) years, except for the scooters and the riot of electrical wires strung overhead. It’s just too much to take in. Really. So, I don’t really try to take it all in. I walked and walked through the market’s tiny streets and when I found an open spot I just stood there for a really long time. It comes at you like watching twenty bizaar movies at the same time. I’m in the process of letting go of the notion that I can figure this place out. When I realize there’s no way I can comprehend what the hell I’m seeing, I extrapolate that to my own life and realize that, when I think I have it all figured out and tied up in a bow, I’m deluding myself.

I love it here. And I hate it a little, too.

The next few days are a combination of stop and go, with a car and driver, overnight train and airplane. Pushkar, Jaipur, Vrindavan, Mathura, Agra and Varanasi. Then back to Delhi to fly to Katmandu.

I arrived Sunday on very little sleep so I napped for several hours. Or hid, depending on how you look at it. I’m staying in the Karol Bagh neighborhood where the predominant business is fine ‘jewellery’. Several of the bigger shops have guards standing outside with 12-guage shotguns hanging from their shoulders. Second to those are the numerous stalls that sell scooter and car parts. There are folks in the street and on the sidewalk rebuilding Vespa transmissions and welding parts to old Royal Enfield motorcycles. By dusk, the sidewalks begin to glow deep amber from the numerous coal fires that are started in order to cook dinner. It rained last night, with deep thunder and lightening that cracked through the darkness, revealing huddled figures sipping dinner from their bowls.

There are fires all over the place. Yesterday morning, I saw three men build a fire in the doorway of an abandoned jewelry store. A fire made from the piles of garbage laying all around. Apparently they were building it to keep warm. It was such an odd sight… well dressed men gathering garbage in a pile, on the front step of a business, with others walking in and out of the building, stepping around the fire.

I don’t get this place. And that’s part of the amazing charge.

I was energized that first night, feeling the thriving spirit of this city and all the people in it. There are some extremely poor people here, but most of them don’t seem to let it stop them from engaging in whatever enterprise will bring them their next meal. They work hard. Extremely hard. And they scrape together a life and they don’t ask for anything, except your business. There are beggers but there are many fewer than I expected to see. There are countless schemes and scams and ripoffs and the corruption runs so thick here that the ‘black’ economy is almost as large as the legitimate one. And there is an innocence that belies the ancient and worldly hardness that is read in the faces. There are wealthy folks here, too. Rich from all over the world. And there is garbage. Everywhere. And after the rain, mud. There are faces of children beaming and laughing and lighting up when they see my camera. They clamor for me to take their pictures. The poorer ones then want ten Rupees for the honor but most just love the interaction. Folks all over stop to say hello and ask where I’m from. It’s impossible for me to determine at first if these greetings are genuinely open connections or openings for some solicitation or complex scam.

And there are some of the most beautiful women on the planet. And they’re dressed in the saris and the Indian pajama and kurta that flow in the breeze. I have to say something about the women here. They are painfully beautiful. Their luscious dark skin and eyes ‘as deep as a well’, jet black hair tied back to reveal the gold dandling from thier ears. It is yet another contrast in this beguiling country that, in a place where even holding hands in public is considered innappropriately sexual, they wear the sexiest piece of clothing ever devised. The sari is without question the most amazing arrangement of silk ever conceived. It seems to barely wrap their bodies with brightly colored wind. Completely tantalizing.

And, a pregnant belly sticking out of a silk sari? HOT.

I hope I don’t offend my Muslim brothers and sisters by describing how sexy the veil is. Holy smokes. If they wanted to make women sexier by revealing only their perfect eyes and the occassional piece of gold, they have succeeded.

I just don’t get what’s going on with that and I won’t try. I’m sure folks more scholarly than me have written volumes on the sexuality of Muslim women. I certainly won’t use this space to discuss oppression or inequality. That discussion is beyond the scope of this here little weblog.

I’m being kicked out of here. It’s 9:00 and time for Indians to start thinking about dinner. I love a country that eats dinner between 9:00 and 10:00.

Peace, y’all.

The next step…

In some ways, my trip begins tomorrow. So far, I’ve had the company of my brother, who showed me around London and shared with me the initial surprises that are India. He flew out of Bangalore today for home and tomorrow I leave for Delhi. All by my little self.

We’ve had a great time here in the ‘deep south’. Thursday we hired a car and went to Srirangapatna and Mysore, gazing at crenulated palaces of Tipu Sultan and the Wodeyar. Yesterday we drove farther south to Kodagu and ended up staying in a working coffee plantation. High up the mountain, in a rainforest with no rain, in a guesthouse called Honey Valley, we hiked amid the ‘exotic’ sounds of jungle birds and insects we couldn’t see, on the lookout for elephants we didn’t find. Hot and humid, with cool evening breezes and fragrant coffee beans fermenting on the patio, we gorged ourselves on delicious treats made by the attentive folks working there. An interesting combo of working farm and guesthouse. It was such a welcome respite of quiet and calm and clean.

Then a brutal drive back to Bangalore, dodging creatures great and small, in our tiny TATA, a two cylinder car made here in India. This evening I got to visit the family of a good friend and coworker. It was very sweet to complete the loop and meet my friend’s mom and the rest of her clan. We packed my brother off to the airport a short bit ago for his 3:30am flight to SF via Mumbai and London. It’s been truly wonderful sharing this experience with him and I am so happy that we were able to make this trip together.

It’s also been a complete blast to reconnect with our old friend Amit who has been such an amazing host. It’s been quite a luxury to be introduced to India by someone so knowledgeable and who can speak Kannada, the predominant language of the state of Karnataka.

So, tomorrow morning, I leave the comfort of my friend, his luxurious home with plenty of hot water, high speed Internet access, boundless information and resources at my fingertips, and head off to Delhi to fend for myself. I admit I’m rather anxious about this step. I have another ten days in India before leaving for Nepal. India presents many challenges and I have been told that those challenges are much more pronounced in the north than in the more hospitable south. And while traveling alone allows for the most intense experience (in my experience), traveling in India is unlike travel in anyplace I’ve ever been. Just as many things you encounter here make perfect sense, many things are completely inside-out from what you would expect. There is no predicting what you will find here and there’s often no way to make sense of it once you find it. And, that’s part of the reason I came.

I doubt I’ll be able to post as often or as easily. I’m not sure what the rest of the trip will bring, and I guess that’s a big reason I’m going.

Thanks to everyone for all the love and support you’ve offered. I’m truly humbled by it. Although I’m going alone, I feel the warmth of those I’m taking with me in my heart.

Peace, y’all.