slowly rambling

we left varanasi with a magical taste in our mouth, ready to encounter whatever the road and train had in store with grace and indian ease. we hopped into an auto-rickshaw, the often extremely elaborate three-wheeled maniac-on-spinster machines that dot and dart across every urban indian horizon, and made for the train station. our driver was a lively, boisterous man, full of mirth, mustache and music (quite a catch, eh there girls?!), and the three of us - B, mike and i - were having a ball. as it is, indian women neither smoke nor drink, and they usually never drive; they certainly don't sit in the front (of semi-public transport such as autos and cabs) - nor are they "socially accustomed" to spit, curse, cheat, yell, swim (in public) or eat cheese (since the war in 1971 that is). en bref, it is a conspicuously 'old-school' populous with a rather 'antiquated' social contract - much to the chagrin of many a western female traveling throughout the land. to truly do justice to the essence of the story would first require a fullblown character sketch of French B (Berenice). (however, seeing as I am still traveling with her, that will have to wait until further ado)

anyhoo, the auto's buzzing through the narrow, meandering backroads out of varanasi, blasting his favorite hindi movie ballads and basking in his midday fortune. mike and i are crammed in the backseat with the bags, and B is in the front. already an anomaly+2 of sorts, B lights up a smoke and begins to sing along with our driver to the thumping, wailing, screeching madness of the hindi tune. seeing as women customarily neither sing, show emotion, sit in front or even smoke, the driver is on 300millionth heaven (one for each hindi god). the two in front bob their heads together and moan in unison to the earsplitting wails of the neutered chanteur, and mike and i die of laughter in the back seat. we approach a central thoroughfare and he slows down to greet a local coppermate of his. as the piggy approaches, the driver draws an inconspicuously (not) mysterious package wrapped in newspaper and hands it to the baksheesh beneficiary. the cop smiles, puts it in his jacket and lumbers back to his previous post. the driver cranks the music back up and speeds off into the bustle of cars, horns, horses, bikes, rickshaws, porters and pedestrians.

we're heading north out of a different station than that through which we'd arrived and need to get the lay of the land before debarking. as with any other station on the subcontinent, its bustling with yet another wealth of human density that would shake the foundation of montana's bucolic resolve and send her running for the (Northern) border in no time. we look up at the time table and try to track down our train. "it'll be on platform six in one hour," proclaims mike, a man on a praxical mission who, throughout our travels, was always on point. "cheers man, sounds good." suddenly a local officer approaches us, the glint and gleam of opportunism sparkling in his eye. "ah yes, show me your tickets and i will decipher their meaning."
"oh thank you officer, but i think we're set," replies mike, with ample certitude in his response. "indian train station very crazy," he takes pains to remind us, "you wait here while i go invent solution." knowing that he was only looking for a little baksheesh himself (eg tip, bribe), we sat down and laughed it off - resolved to the see the joke to its bitter end. about 50 minutes later, the officer returned. "ah yes, my friends, i have make discoveries - your train is on platform six, boarding in ten minutes!" "wow, officer, your expediency never fails to impress," mike replies with a sarcastic grin, "have a nice day," and we grumble on with our rucksacks towards platform six.

our compartment was uncharacteristically empty and we lumbered on into the slow, hot distance with ample room to chat and chive. we smoke cigarettes and drink warm water, for the car's dearth of density didnt justify the usual chai-wallah march that is customary on most indian trains (when a different vendor selling hot, sweet and spicy chai marches up and down aisles selling 10cent teas every five-seven minutes - a true delight indeed if ever an indian one there was!). we're almost exactly in the northern center of the country, about 200km south of nepal and equidistant between the arabian sea and the bay of bengal. though the monsoon has been too little and too late this year, the effects are still remarkable, and what had been the crispy, arid and earthen scorched beige that reigned across that same horizon only 4 weeks prior was now a mosaic of patchwork, richly irrigated greens that stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. i tried to cram through my novel, the telling though travel-cliche backpackerhit book named 'shantaram' while B and mike played cards, though was too restless to remain put.

there are always certain, particular advantages to every human system, for any inherent 'order of things' that was truly unbearable to every party involved would surely crumble in due organic fashion. and though nearly everything in india is late, slow, inefficient and disorderly, rules are only a wise remark, regulations a faint suggestion. as we traversed the indian countryside, i'd sit in the open doorway, dangle my feet and engage my cancer stick, one after the other, as i watched the subcontinent and its inhabitants fade into horizontal oblivion. as the dusty breeze rasped through my dirty hair, we passed through medieval villages made of straw and mud, where the most colorful sari-clad women toiled endlessly in the fields, and the men would wander about barefoot, riding their bikes along the dirt roads, conducting their 'affairs' or simply squatting along the side of the tracks to get the demons out their tummy (which they seemed to do quite often and with great perspicacity. as of yet, i've counted 687 squatting nastiness/getting/ridders/of within view of the train since traveling from Calcutta. perhaps there's something in the wawa)

dusk finally approached and the train began to fill. around 8:30 we pulled into Lucknow, the sight of the famous 1857 indian rebellion, when upwards of 2,000 brits and their loyal locals were sent to the clouds after a year+ seige in and around the governor's mansion (im only 'lightheartedly' recalling the 'facts' of the incident, you may check wikipedia for your own peace of mind...). as is customary in larger cities, you have 35-45 minutes' rest at the train station, enough time to fill your water bottles and fetch a hot meal. by the time we sat down in the stationary compartment to eat our indian takeaway TV tray dinners, a small, gaping crowd had muscled its way into our compartment and immediate surroundings to catch a glimpse of the escaped convicts. woman, man and child alike had gathered to witness the mythical procession of three dirty occidental travelers shoveling an array of precooked curry, beans, rice and roti into their grimy mouths with their greasy fingers and no visible cutlery (as is normal with indian grub)

their curiosity wasn't merely culinary and by the time we'd finished eating, one of the young men mustered up the courage to spark up a conversation, though only once B, our female companion, had taken momentary leave to wash her hands. by the time she got back, our new companions were teaching me magic tricks, how to sing hindi songs and how smoke a cigarette with the cherry in the back of your mouth and the filter at the front. the main jokester sitting across from me was a virile and vivacious puntz of a little man, not unlike the great argie "el gordo" i'd known in general villegas, provincia de buenos aires some years before. when i asked whether he was sure we could smoke inside a crowded, festering train, he replied, "but of course, with this little document i have from my aunt, the transportation minister, my friends and i do as we please, whenever we please, hahahaha! we don't pay train if we don't feel like paying train, and we ride at our own pleasure!" Just at that moment, a ticket-taker was passing through the cabin. "Should i chuck my smoke?!" i asked with a worrisome demeanor. "hahahaha but of course not, let's light another for the occasion! guard - get over here! show me what you've got!" The ticket taker hurried along the corridor without looking back. "Haha - you see - between this little card and my magic tricks, they are all afraid of us!" I chuckled, took another drag and stared off into the starless distance

monkey see monkey do

this morning i was sitting atop a large, ornamented concrete railing the encircles the span of the lake when i got a new and particularly exciting scare of sorts. as has become my quotidian custom here in the raj-era himalayan hill station of Nainital (at roughly 7,000ft), each morning after i awake and shower, i stroll down the steep and narrow street to the makeshift center of town, which pleasantly wraps around the banks of the beautiful pear-shaped lake Naini. as was customary during these lazy, ambulant days, i was eating my omelette sandwich, drinking my chai and reading arabian nights under the bright midmorning sun when suddenly a large, foreign object - alive and extremely well - pierced my periphery vision and then paused, only inches away to the left. i put down my book without recovering the page number to look up at a grey-haired, leather-faced baboon, the same massive monkey that roamed with such grace and authority in the Corbett Tiger Reserve some two weeks back. As it was still relatively early for Indian mountain standards, I was the first and only sitting atop the rail, and we both had momentary troubles understanding the other's intransigence. Though mine was mostly steeped in sheer and utter surprise (ok, ok i was scared shitstupid for 1.23 seconds there), the monkey hesitated only briefly, waiting for me to put my book down before he began to step over me, his front and back paws (hands, rather!) lightly gripping and releasing the flesh of my thighs as he nimbly crawled across me and clambered over on his way down the line...

Varanaserating

Varanasi is a marvellous testament to the collective insanity that is India. More eloquently put, they're out of their wanking minds. Not that any of us can claim the contrary, of course; at least the Indians have the gut and (grimy) grace to do it in style (and by style I mean conviction and color.) July is one of 12 holy Hindu months (on the Gregorian calendar of course), though of particular importance to the Shiva-worshipping pilgrims of afar. From wealthy Indian MBA's and drunken rickshaw pullers to American graduate students, I've tried on numerous occassions to understand the theological premises of Hinduism - what overriding principles inflame their fervent beliefs, what inspires the celestial apple of their eye, what brings clairvoyance to the contact lenses of their third-eye... and all to no avail. Hinduism, its myriad gods, multitudinous traditions and multifarious manifestations, remains an absolute and utter mystery to me. That being said, you needn't always do the reading before you show up for lecture.

As we took the auto-rickshaw from Bodhgaya (the surprisingly uninspiring town where the Buddha is said to have achieved enlightenment - though more on that later) to Gaya, there was a strange conglomeration of barefooted orange-clad men carrying idol-adorned walking sticks strung with highly ornate silver incense burners. They seemed to be in and around every cab, corner and platform at the train station. Though they were a remarkable sight to foreign eyes, however, they were no match for Swiss Lilly and French B - my two traveling companions - and I.

I have often heard that if you travel to rural China or the bucolic African bush, the locals are likely to pinch you to verify (on a superficial level) the color of your skin and (on a more intimate level) the veracity of your temporal existence. In India, they mere form a tight-nit circle around you and stare. The comments and sly cell phone pix do not come until the third minute, after which you're relieved they haven't mauled you to death or sold you into an arranged marriage. I exaggerate, of course, and though it's not bad for guys - and can even slightly amusing - it's got to be one hell of a trip for the western woman to take that kind of visual beating from all ten thousand of the platform's freakshow participants (us providing the momentary entertainment). They don't ask me if I'm married until the second cup of tea (and only after I've annoyed them with too many intrusive questions about their religion) On the other hand, most girls traveling here can expect to reveal their marital status within 37.23 seconds of any normal conversation (which is why my traveling companions now respond with the utterly predictable "I'm going to meet my boyfriend of four years in Varanasi (the next train station)" after which their Indian interlocuteur aptly responds: "Only four years together?!" or "You twenty-two years and still no childrens?!") At one point in Bodhgaya, a man came and sat with us at our table. After the usual gibes at our variant nationalities and linguistic capabilities, he gets straight to the meat of any discussion worth having in the modern world: "What us your study?" was followed by a more subtley phrased "What is your hobby," only to be topped by the grandiloquent "What is your desire?"

But back to the little orange men. They were pilgrims from who knows how far, barefoot and henna-ed out, and ready for some transcendental action. Their median age couldn't have been more than 19 or 20 (though I am a poor judge of age when it comes to the subcontinent), yet they weathered the standing corridors of the human and fly-infested trains for hours on end to reach their metaphysical apogee incarnate, the magical Varanasi (and I say that with no hint of sarcasm - it truly is the most mind-boggling place I've ever step foot in), India's holiest Hindu city and primary urban host to the Mother of all Mothers (of the Indus Valley civilization of course), the river Ganges.

Varanasi is the perfect embodiment of the sheer and utter chaos that encapsulates every inch of urban Indian life. I have yet to see Mumbai or the center of Delhi, though would reckon to wager the aforementioned. (a six inch gecko just ran up the wall and into the corner of the internet cafe... he's come back down and is now about 24 inches from my monitor). In short, it's a painfully beautiful and monstrous display of human, animal and architectural density on a crack-binged amorous rage, struggling to test the limits of a sovereignly organized organic infrastructure. The thousands of orange-clad pilgrims that roam the streets by foot, float and SUV, chant the Shiva-worshipping mantras and bath in the disease-ridden, human ash infested Ganges, fade into the background of an even more eclectic human and animal tapestry (despite the impression one mistakingly gets that the Dutch Suriname has just won the World Cup on Queen's Day). You may be wondering why I constantly evoque the 'animal' element of Varanasi. That, my friend, is because in between the asphyxiatingly narrow, meandering and adventurous four foot lanes that criss-cross the old town through stairs, tunnels and (literally hundreds of) temples, live, roam and rule the real sovereigns of Varanasi: the holy cow. Cows, bulls and what honestly look to be bison linger around every corner of the old city, in every crevice (however small!) and every narrow opening. The sit in the middle of an already disorienting narrow lane, at the bottom, middle and top of the stairs, in front of the door to the hostel, hotel or restaurant. They eat the humble refuse of local residents, or the oats of (the all too) generous neighbors, swatting their tails at tourists and flies alike as you pass. The old quarter is excruciatingly hard to navigate as it is. The narrow streets (sometimes a mere 4-5 feet wide), packed with merchants of every spice, fabric, sweet and incense, already vertiginously strained by the multitude of the faithful, must now contend with ambitious motorcycle drivers and pastoral life alike. When it rains, the slippery cobblestoned streets become awash with the run of their liquified stank, and you begin to regret rocking the open-toed sandles.

All that being said, the city comes together marvelously. Varanasi, that intricate web of explosive and pious humanity topped off by an army of holy cows, roaming rooftop hordes of monkeys, mendicant baby goats and myriad meandering temples of every shape, size, color and god, exudes a baffling and mystical charm unlike any other I've had the pleasure to witness.

commuterating

the commute to 'work' is never without its myriad peculiarities, and today was no exception. not that i always enjoy it, however - for truth being told, i usually don't. for a metropolis of 16m people, calcutta is unusually late to rise. the metro does not open until 7am and people do not seem to take it until around 8. why and how i know this, you may wonder. despite the odd bottle or two of 'supah strong indian beer'* that i shared amongst roomies last night, this morning i was up again at the crack of dawn, lying in a musty puddle of sweat and searching for the remains of what was once the mildew green sheet that stuck to the mingy brown mattress on the floor in the corner of the room (indians -apart from punjabis - drink little to no alcohol, yet the only beer you come across at the independent/monopolizing storefront beerstands contains a cool 8.5% devil juice). battling a wretched cough and an army of mosquitoes, there was no point in remaining idle, so i got up, put on the kettle and began to tidy up a bit. a few more suitcases had been added to the sacrificial edifice in the corner of the kitchen, though this time there was a plastic-wrapped guitar and a motorcycle helmet on the top of our makeshift shrine (i am alluding to the miniature shrines and/or prayer rooms that the vast majority of practicing hindus have attached to their kitchens and living rooms. at one friend's house, they even pay a local brahman a monthly allotment of sorts to stop by their crib each evening when making his spiritual rounds. nevermind that we were relearning to eat with our fingers as our host explained the universal truth of cricket - the brahman, unnerved by the frontally-curry-stained and gaping occidentals, went right ahead with his evening devotional. once the guru left, i asked our host who the man in the photograph in the upperright hand corner of the altar was. "that's one of my gods," he calmly explained. "as in you get to choose one?!" i asked incredulously. "in a sense, though not exactly," he continued. "uncle ricky was taken, so i settled for my mom's boyfriend from college. i guess they're still friends - sometimes we go for tea.")

but back to the dirty kitchen. epshon, the rowdie union-squaring aussi subway zitarist who lives above us, had gotten back from darjeeling with our icelandic roommate kata sometime in the wee hours of the morning. i cleaned up the hookah furnishings scattered across the table, poured a cup of instant coffee and got back down to hamlet, my 100 rupee read for the weekly train commute (which oddly enough, has only ever been recommended to me by non-native english speakers. whether this is a conspiracy of sorts, a linguistic insurrection, or merely the coincidental advice of several particularly clever non-native speakers, ill never know...). a few pages in, however, and i was drawn by the chance to get a few early morning shots of park street (one of calcutta's principal thoroughfares, off of which i work), so off to the metro i strode...

as aforementioned, tis always a curious commute. after leaving the house, i wander up the diagonally skitzophrenic chanditala lane until reaching the better known bose avenue. our dear chanditala is a real treasure in architectual and urban planning. twisting and turning, our 'petite ruelle' of sorts is covered in the colorful graffiti of local parties' marxist propaganda. though already omnipresent in west bengal (the federal state of calcutta), ebulliently neon hammers and sickles cling to the walls of chanditala at every possible glance. little red hammer&sickled flags lazily droop from every telephone pole, while the aesthetically sympathetic local maoist politicians remind voters, in a variety of different hues and 2-D effect, just how to vote : "when you see this symbol (ie the hammer and wanking sickle), press button"

domestic reflections

Whatever Ubekistan lacks in natural resources, I'm sure it makes up for in producing rediculously fabulous human specimens. I once came across one (in West St. Louis County at that!) - and given the opportunity, the 6'9 Igor Ivanov would never fail to delight. After snatching the guitar from the swooning Norwegian, he'd grab the petite Austrian girl by the pigtail, belch her a joke and erupt in laughter. Should you fail to share the sentiment, he'd turn abruptly, 'stare into your soul' and slowly raise two fingers to his head. After pulling the imaginary trigger, the same two fingers would swoop below his chin and across his throat, before instantly contracting into a fist that slowly pulled the noose into the air. The implications of such a life-boggling act were anything but ambiguous: should you happen to upset him, Young Igor would shoot, slash and hang you in under 2 seconds - though not without a touch of humor throughout the spectacle! (which oddly enough was riotously funny at the time (2003?)).

The moral of the story, as any quasi-relatively-life-experienced-twat can tell you, is that the world is awash in great characters; India, as you may have guessed, is no exception. Let's start with Mr. Chatterjee, our Brahman landlord who lives directly above us. Not to sound overtly effeminate, but he's a perfectly adorable little man. Chatterjee's got a golden halo of shiny brown baldness to crown his royal little figure, which in its turn is surrounded by a circularly descending flock of white shaggy hair. Apart from his thick-rimmed glasses (either holy or merely intelligentsia-issued) and long, white goatee, he dons a thin, golden sachet underneath his loosely drapped traditional Hindu garb (sorry all you culture-gurus, I can't recall the name of the shirt). He's an extremely well-read and well-traveled man - though has been more or less in the neighborhood since Partition (1947). The stairs to his second floor apartment lead directly to the living room and there are no doors or completely closed-off walls in his abode. When I used to venture up there in the morning to catch a glimpse of the massive, 2X2ft electric clock in the hallway, Chatterjee would either be in the kitchen reading the paper or in the living room catching up on some tubaboober. Behind the television set is a wall length sculptured mural of Socrates (lecturing in the marketplace) protruding from the wall. Socrates' face, shoulder and parts of his forearm are beige (against on otherwise brown blackground) - the rest of the figures are still the primer white. At the foot of the mural there stand a variety of (almost) lifesize Hindu gods (then again I've no clue how tall that demonic blue rascal was reckoned to be!); Shiva the blue-god and Someone-Else-the-Elephant-nosed-child-god are also present - though don't ask me to make the distinction in front of any pious soul.

Chatterjee sometimes gets out the photo album or recites old films he's seen or books he's read. I should've taken note during out first encounter, for truly an eclectic bunch it was. I skim through a biography of Charlie Chaplan that was lying on the coffee table while a four inch salamander comes in from the second floor balcony and scatters across the floor into the kitchen. Chatterjee lights some incense before getting back to the movie: he loves Will Smith, though isn't crazy about this 'Wild Wild West'

India is either (still) 'extremely traditional', overtly misogynous or methodologically patriarchical (whether or not any of you actually see a distinction in the aforementioned terms is another point of debate!). Being the only 'long-term' male in the trainee apartment (we get new interns almost every night from China, though they're usually mysteriously whisked away within 72 hours), I have the privilege of officially interacting with the outside world concerning all matters of practical/domestic concern. I could be in the shower, fast asleep, on the pot or in the park for that matter, and the landlord, waterboy, gasman and delivery guy would wait until I got back before conducting any business with the inhabitants of our apartment (though yes, of course, I am slightly exagerrating). Not that the guy from DHL would question me as to my current marital status (as was the case with a friend of ours who went to send a package back to France) - though some of my 8yearold students were appalled to learn that after twentythreeyears on mother earth, I still wasnt married...

More character profiles to come (and maybe oneday even pictures!)

Urban Necropolating

(selected extracts from the South Park Street Cemetary, circa 1767-1830)

Here lie the remains of

AUGUSTUS CLEVELAND ESQUIRE

He departed this Life 12th if January 1784 - at Sea - a Board the Atlas Indiaman Capt. Cooper proceeding to the Cape for the recovery of his Health

Aged 29 years

IN HIS PUBLIC CAPACITY

He accomplished by a system of Conciliation what could never be effected by Military Coercion

He civilized a Savage Race of Mountaineers who for Ages had existed in a state of Barbarism

And eluded every Exertion, that had been practiced against them

To Suppress their Depredations and reduce them to obedience

To his wise and beneficent Conduct, The English East India Company were indebted for the Subjecting to their Government the numerous Inhabitants of that wild and extensive Country - The Jungleterry