Samaparp Satpretpry is the greatest friend to have in Thailand. If he lived in Switzerland he would be the greatest friend to have in Switzerland. The same would be said for Ghana, Peru or any country he lived in. The reason is – Sam likes to drive, he likes to chat and he likes to show off his country, and he often utters phrases that start with “Well, you can stay at one of my family's condos and then we'll.....”
Sam, coming from a well heeled family, had attended four years of high school in Winnipeg (of all places to send a Thai person) and he and Sean had been Dungeons and Dragons pals. He moved back to Thailand after University and Sean contacted him for the first time in years on facebook mere weeks before we landed in Bangkok. Not only did he meet us at the airport and take us for 2am Chinese food, the next day he laid out a road atlas of Thailand on the table and over drinks (for him, 4 cokes and for us – Chang beer) detailed a week long trip of the North he was planning. It would take him to the Northernmost point in Thailand, the largest dam in Thailand, the Thai-Burma border and, for good measure, the floating market at Damnoen Saduak. Oh, and did we want to join him?
Well, emphatic yeses were exclaimed, and we set out a few days late,r after Sean and I explored Ayuthaya and Kanchanaburi independently. With Sam we stopped and cycled around the ancient ruins at Sukothai and Si Satchanalai, and as we got closer to Mae Sot (the Thai town on the border with Burma) Sam revealed that he had arranged a day trip into the Burmese town of Myawaddy for us and that we wouldn't need visas. Now we had a bit of a dilemma. Sean didn't want to go to Burma at all, but rather than risk offending his long lost pal he grinned and beared it and we crossed the “Friendship” bridge the next day in a hired van with a driver.
Sean did not want to come here, and I suppose I shouldn't have either, but the Lonely Planet articles I had read described Burma's empty beaches, a remote and ethereal temple balanced on a cliff by a single strand of Buddha's hair, its friendly and open people and of a rich animist tradition. I was excited! I saw this daytrip as a precursor to a longer, thorough tour through Burma, from Rangoon to Mandalay and Inle Lake, and I was thankful to Sam for the opportunity to introduce Sean to the idea of this future trip.
Sean had every reason to abhor the idea of visiting Burma – and the number one reason is Myanmar. Myanmar is the new name (a name that the people do not support) that the military junta has christened Burma in the hope that the West will drop its negative associations with the brutal regime that controls the country. This is the same government that has repeatedly jailed democratically elected president (though she has never been allowed to take office) Aung San Suu Kyi, that has shot peacefully protesting monks dead in the street and that refuses to allow any sort of free speech. This is fascism with no ideology behind it, and these are the officials fattening themselves with pork and beer bought with money bribed out of honest people's pockets. This is a hell on earth. Sean was a member of an Amnesty International group in high school, and Burma was one of his pet causes. I could see on his face that he was also excited to see the culture that he has studied and revered, but was deeply conflicted about this visit.
I, on the other hand, ascribe to a belief that even in countries with highly corrupt and violent governments there can be benefit to visiting. I wanted to remind the Burmese that the West has not forgotten about them, that we care and we are not all ignoring them like our governments are. I wanted to put money directly into the hands of guesthouses and restaurants and small shops. And as we entered Burma in our AC van I realized that this was not the kind of daytrip we were going to have.
Myawaddy is not a normal Burmese town, I should point out. While everywhere in Burma people are crippled by poverty, hopelessness and ennui, Myawaddy is a tribally administered area and these problems are coupled with corruption and violence at the highest levels. This is like “Burma Extreme” where the Karen people who are a minority elsewhere are armed and in charge. There is lore that there are pockets of Thai nationals who have been stuck in settlements in the hills for decades, and that if they emerge and try to make it home they will be surrounded on all sides and shot.
This is not a pretty picture. This is not a pleasant place to be.
We had embarked on a tour of poverty and desperation, and we were those people in a van staring out our windows and gawking at the locals. And, in true ironic style, the day we did this tour was Canadian Thanksgiving.
Our modern minivan began navigating streets and small alleys to visit a few places of note, and immediately I noticed the unpaved streets and open sewage running in the gutters. We pulled up to a strange Buddhist temple, the grounds paved in shiny pool tiles and decorated with humongous statues of “Nats,” half human/half animal gods that are remnants of the native animism of this region and that have been absorbed in Buddhism the way that we have absorbed things like the Easter Bunny into Christianity. The temple was filled with people, lazing around in the cool shade and staring at us with absolute indifference. I realized that this was midday on a Monday, and I asked the guide why so many people were here. Shouldn't they be working? Our guide, and extremely sensitive and educated Thai man who spoke the local dialect well, did little to conceal his laughter.
“No jobs! No work. No money. So come to temple.”
We parked outside of the local market, and left the coolness of the van. A wall of moist heat hit me, making me queasy with its intensity, and I prepared for the mad rush of touts and vendors who I expected would swarm us. But no one even approached us. No one tried to sell us a thing, until we were leaving the market and we passed by a large amount of cycle rickshaws parked in one area, their owners napping in the bucket seats or chatting in groups. One young guy noticed us and shyly asked
“rickshaw?” The small glimmer of hope in his eyes slammed into my chest.
As we got back in the van, I noticed that the bank was closed. It was 1pm on a Monday, and the “Myanmar Bank” was gated up and deserted. The guide saw us pointing and talking about it.
“Yah, banks close now.”
“Is it a holiday?” I asked. “Is this normal?”
“Yah, normal. You put money in bank, government take it. Government take your money if they want it. So, no one use bank. Bank have no business, bank close. Bank close for good.” We stood, stunned, at the prospect of a country forced to close its banks because of its own corruption. There wasn't even pretense here. No one was pretending that things were okay.
Back in the van, we wound through streets and small lanes, seeing one sight again and again – small bamboo and thatch huts filled with men. The guide told us that these were casinos – the only businesses that thrive in this part of Burma. We also passed throngs of women and children just sitting around, their eyes lifting to ours and then slowly sinking back down. No one had discernible expressions on their faces – rather than seem happy or angry at our presence they seemed to not care at all. This was something that I had never encountered. This was hopelessness.
And why not? Why have hope? We passed beautiful houses on our way to the next sight, multistoried mansions in comparison to the reed thatched cottages everywhere around us. These, the guide explained, were the houses of the government men – the Karen tribal leaders. We saw, with our very own eyes, huge shipments of building materials bearing the stamps of the UN – supplies meant for the Cyclone Nargis victims in the Irrawaddy Delta a thousand kilometres from here. We saw them being used to build houses for the local politicians. What must these people think of us? What kind of manufactured truth must have trickled down from Rangoon to explain the presence of these materials here? With the heavy censorship of the internet and state run media, what chance did the average citizen of Myawaddy have to learn about what was happening in the world, what was happening in their own country? My face burned with a mixture of anger and shame.
Though my brain was calling out in was in distress, we had one more sight to see. We climbed to a graceful Wat perched on a green hill, removing our shoes and climbing the hundreds of stairs with our bare feet sizzling painfully on hot marble. At the top we were greeted by snoozing monks and women with babies, as well as a painted and gold-leafed tortoise that a monk roused from under a bench for our amusement. I stood on the top of the stairs, gazing out onto the countryside of Burma, and I felt completely numb. I wanted nothing more than to leave this place and forget what I had seen. Us being here was of no benefit to the locals. Sean and I couldn't even make eye contact.
We descended the steps and a small boy about 9 years old silently approached us, holding out a bouquet of greenery he had in his hand. It didn't even contain flowers, it was just leaves and ferns. I have a policy of never giving money to children (I don't want to encourage the adults who put them there in the first place when they should be in school or playing) so Sean and I ducked our heads and murmured “Sorry, no. Sorry. No....” We got in the van.
As we pulled away the little boy's eyes met mine through the window.
“STOP!” I hollered. “Stop. Stop the car.” I reached into my wallet and pulled out 150 Thai Baht (5 bucks Canadian) and thrust it at the child, accepting his bouquet. He looked at the money quizzically, and our guide explained to him how much it was worth in Burmese kyat. Slowly, and in my memory it is in slow motion, his eyes widened. He was stunned for a few moments, and then magically, his face broke into a huge smile. Our van was pulling away and he chased after it, waving the money in the air in thanks or celebration or shock, like he didn't know what to do. I sat in silence the rest of the way back to Thailand.
We arrived back in Mae Sot mid afternoon, and sat down at a Thai-Muslim restaurant near the town's mosque for a fiery curry. While we were waiting for our food, Sam asked us, “So, what did you think of Burma?” Sean and I both struggled for words.
“Um, interesting. Thank you for arranging the trip.” We headed for the Golden Triangle, and didn't speak about it again.
There was something so ironic, so terrible about being in Burma on Thanksgiving, especially the hope-drained city of Myawaddy. For it is a special kind of evil to rob people of their natural inclination to work and create – when the instincts that make us human have been robbed from us, what is left? When we are herded into casinos, when our money and future are stolen, when we elect a woman democratically only to have her rot under house arrest rather than lead the government – hope is lost. This is not a “triumph over adversity” happy ending sort of story – there is no revolution for Burma, peaceful or violent. The military government is relentless, corruption is rife and human rights are meaningless, yet countries like India and China still trade with them, gobbling up their vast oil reserves and textiles, their greed making the West's feeble embargoes meaningless.
The Burmese government dip their fat sticky fingers into everything, including the small amounts made from the burgeoning tourism industry, and so it is nearly impossible to backpack Burma without lining the government's coffers. Even sacred cows like foreign aid medicines and food supplies are confiscated and profits divided between the rich and important. There is a sense of futility – even activists have given up.
People who speak out disappear.
The only reason Aung San Suu Kyi hasn't is because of her high profile, her Nobel Peace Prize.
In Burma, there is often no hope.
But there can be comfort. One thing – one memory of this day keeps me from despair. Throughout Southeast Asia, spirit houses are found in the yards of those who practice Theravada Buddhism (about 90% of the population.) They are elaborately decorated shrines, a small representation of your home that sits at eye level atop a pedestal, like a large birdhouse that is meant to be a place that disembodied spirits can live happily without cursing the inhabitants of your home. Every evening people present it with offerings – fruit, juice boxes and yoghurt, candies, and it is not uncommon in Thailand and Laos for a spirit house to be very costly and posh looking. It wasn't until we were driving through a slum-like neighbourhood on our way back to the border that I saw one in Burma. It was made of plain, unadorned corrugated metal, the same metal used to roof the more permanent looking structures in town, and it was bent into a simple curved A-frame shape. It was perched in front of a small shack, its crudeness unlike any other spirit house I had seen, but still unmistakable as such. I imagined a woman, filled with faith and love and concern for her family, setting sweets and fruits in front of the shrine whenever she could afford to. I can't decide whether the image is heartbreaking or uplifting.
They can't take everything from Burma. People will still dream, even if they have to be shaken awake to do so.
So there. Now you know. Tell other people.
19 March 2009
07 March 2009
"Yes. Very Relax." : An Ayurvedic Treatment in Kerala
It should be said that I was aware that it was an Ayurvedic Hospital, and at no point was I under the impression that it was a spa. The word spa conjures the thought of soft world beat music, dim mood lighting and scented candles, where slippered patrons glide around led by herbal tea proffering estheticians. “Indian Hospital” brings up a much different set of mental images.
Periyar Tiger Reserve and National Park is located on the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the two Southern most states in India, but it technically falls in the former. We arrived after a 4.5 hour bus ride from Munnar, a hill station at 1500 metre altitude famed for its tea and spice plantations. Now that we were coming to the end of our 5.5 months in India, we were traveling at a more frenetic pace than we had before, spending 2 nights in some cities (that gives you one day to arrive and recover, one full day to cram everything in, and then you leave the next day) and just one night in others; an exhausting pace that we had managed to avoid until then. We had originally had a carefully thought out itinerary for our final 2 weeks, one that would give us a perfect and relaxing amount of time to get from Cochi to Chennai, but it had been dashed to pieces a few days earlier by a fellow Canadian couple's recent experiences.
See, I had only ever seen a Hindu temple in Singapore – Vancouver's Indian diaspora is predominantly Sikh, and other than a few free vegetarian meals at the Hare Krishna temples (by the way – that is a Western thing only. All Hindus love Krishna, but they DO NOT shave their heads, recruit at the airport and hawk cookbooks. I have not seen a single Indian Hare Krishna the entire time I have been in India) in my poor student days, I had no experience with a traditional mandir. The temples in Singapore have huge colouful towers decorated with three dimensional sculptures of gods and goddesses, and I could not wait to step off of the plane in Delhi and start seeing them left and right. Weeks into India I had still only seen monochromatic corncob shaped temples, made of natural stone and left unpainted. I assumed that just around each corner my perfect “Really Really Indian” temple would be lurking.....and it never was. I finally piped up, and was told that the style I was waiting for is called Dravidian (the term for the ancient race of Sanskrit speaking Southern Indian people), is unique to Tamil Nadu ( it is mainly Tamils that make up Singapore's sizable Indian population) and that the prime examples were to be found in Madurai – home to the penultimate Dravidian temple, the Sri Meenakshi. I was ecstatic to have figured out the reason, and from that point onward Madurai featured heavily in our plans for the South.
That is, until we met Brad and Lisa. They were a Canadian couple at our idyllic homestay deep in the backwaters near Alleppey who were also traveling for a year, and they had recently been to Madurai. For four hours. In a manner I was familiar with, out of the pair Lisa did most of the talking, and she informed us that they had arrived in Madurai with high hopes – only to get to the temple and find out that the once-a-decade scaffolding and painting of all 12 towers at once was occurring. And had been for 23 months. The Hindus believe that a temple can not be worshiped in part – one must venerate the entire site at once. Therefore, even though there are twelve humongous, gloriously detailed technicolour towers at Madurai, all must be covered until the paint job is complete on each and every one. Stunned with this news, we reshuffled everything around to spend more time in Tamil Nadu in places like Tiruchipalli and Chidambaram in search of my elusive Dravidian dream.
Which brought us to Periyar, a place we had abandoned the idea of visiting in lieu of other, less touristy places but that just happened to lay on the best route between Munnar and Tamil Nadu for our new whirlwind itinerary of temple hopping. We were exhausted from our hair raising bus ride through the mountains, and anticipating another 8 days of breakneck speed we decided to relax with an Ayurvedic treatment and massage at a highly recommended clinic. It's a term that gets thrown around a lot in the West, and is used to hock medicines and shampoos indiscriminately but Ayurveda actually originates in Kerala and refers to medicines and treatments derived from herbs and natural processes. And, for tourists, kick ass massages.
We arrived at the clinic and within minutes had chosen our services, Sean picking a 45 minute neck and shoulder massage and steam bath and me a 30 minute full body massage followed by 30 minute sirodara and steam bath. Sean was reluctant – I am always dragging him into various massages (“ooooh, look honey. Painful Thai leg massage!”) that he is never happy with. About a year ago I even surprised him with a luxe 90 minute couples massage at Spa Utopia that should have been euphoric but ended up just plain awkward when they 'mixed things up' by giving us each therapists of the opposite sex, mine making soothing “ooh” noises. For Sean, it was not so romantic to see a cooing muscular man rub his naked girlfriend. Even our massage on a pristine Jamaican beach was spoiled by a slack jawed American couple who had dragged themselves out of their primordial trailer park ooze to spend their vacation “arguin' o'er da casino an der buffay” next to us. In addition to the unpleasantness of the strange situations we end up in, Sean is invariably left in more pain that when he began, most notably illustrated by giant thumb print bruises he received in Chiang Mai Thailand. The bruises paled in comparison to the sour expression on his face. But, knowing that a true Keralan Ayurveda experience meant a lot to me, he conceded and we entered separate rooms to get started.
Two young ladies in colourful saris covered by blue lab coats ushered me into a treatment room, consisting of a tall wooden bed, a strange box with a hole cut in the top and a changing room with its bamboo curtain rolled up to the top. I stepped inside and one of the women came forward and said “All gone. It's all off” and gestured to my clothes, up and down. She made no attempt to close the curtain, and just stood there expectantly.
“All off?” I replied, though I wasn't surprised. See, in India public nudity is extremely shameful. The tiniest amount of cleavage and the sight of shoulders or knees count as too much skin, and you never see women in anything revealing (except for Bollywood actresses and modern city girls at a nightclub.) As many women have no bathtubs or showers in their homes, they bathe in communal areas – rivers, ponds or streams – and do so while remaining fully clothed in their saris, adjusting and pushing parts of it aside to wash. Ditto for swimming – the full sari in the water, more modern girls clearly wearing a bathing suit under their clothes but electing to keep a undress or capris and tank top on, as if each swim is incidental and the bikini will be revealed at a later point. (It never is.) I have even heard tales of men who have never seen their wives naked. This all changes, in fact goes straight out the window, when it's just women around. I had had 2 massages in India before this one, and every modicum of privacy was abandoned – you strip naked and are massaged everywhere – nipples, butt cheeks, inner thighs - everywhere but your actual genitals, but they do get really close. No sheet is held up to give the illusion of privacy, no attempt to avert the eyes, no precautions at all are taken to make the masseuse and client feel at ease with the nakedness before them. It was in this atmosphere of fluorescent lighting and stained white walls that I unrobed, standing before the 2 women completely nude.
For a moment we all stood there in the charmless room, me all naked and tattooed and them completely clothed, eyes ogling my tattoos. I nervously laughed, “So,what are your names?” The first one replied “Josmy” which took me a second to get and pronounce correctly, and then I looked at the other girl. “And you?” She clearly answered “Lindsey.” I started to say it, and then realized what she had said. “Wait – Lindsey?” Josmy was quick to respond. “Yah, Josmy very difficult name for you, but Lindsey is better!”
“Well, not better,” I replied, “just easier. A famous rock n roll singer in the West was also named Lindsay, he was in Fleetwood Ma......” I trailed off, as they clearly had no idea what I was talking about. “Not so much with the classic rock...”
Josmy was fiddling with a strip of long white cloth, and asked me to turn around while she swiftly fashioned a tight loin cloth thing, prodding and poking liberally at my bum to keep it in place. Satisfied, Lindsey sat me down on a plastic stool, said a prayer and began rubbing oil into my scalp. This was not particularly relaxing, as my hair was still knotted from our open windowed bus ride earlier, and as she whipped my head around she pulled at all of the small knots and caused me a lot of pain. Sensing this, probably from the tense expression on my face, she asked me “You have many problems?” Ever the passive aggressive Canadian traveler, I responded
“Nope! Good!”
We moved onto face massage, and then it was time for me to hop up onto the big wooden table. The table was approximately 4 feet off of the ground, and completely lacking any padding or cushion designed to make me comfortable. Just wood. What was more, the footstool that I had been sitting on seemed to have vanished, and so I was left to scramble up onto the table, loincloth flapping around in the most undignified manner imaginable. As my ankles reached up around my ears the tiny piece of modesty I had been afforded shifted completely and began to seem more and more decorative in purpose.
I closed my eyes, surprised and relieved that the table was not as hard as I expected. A few deep sighs and I was ready for relaxation. The room was quiet, darkened and peaceful, and I could hear the soft tinkering of the women preparing the herbal oils and compounds for my treatments as I lay still and calm.
At that moment a few things happened. There was an auto rickshaw depot right outside the clinic that I had noticed on my way in, and there began a scuffle of some kind. Motors the approximate volume of helicopters roared into life, loose parts clanked and moaned, and men started screeching at one another in Malayalam (the language of Kerala – less 'ticka ticka' than Hindi, and more like 'marbles in your mouth yet you are struggling to speak around them while underwater' sounding.) Then the chanting Arabic of call to prayer at a nearby mosque began howling through the air. At the same time Josmy, whose English was better than Lindsey's and so she seemed to have been promoted to the speaker of the two, asked me “What is your good name?” followed by the popular litany of questions about marital status, employment and parentage that inevitably come after. I kept my eyes closed and my answers curt, hoping that the hint would be internationally understood, and after another minute of questioning they fell silent and I felt a 'whoosh' of hot oil splash up both sides of my body at the same time.
The oil was a moderate temperature, and smelled like pralines (brown sugar and pecan candies) and felt wonderful. Two sets of hands smoothed the oil up and down my body, picking up speed until it felt like they were going to fling me off of the table and into the glass wall behind me. There was no kneading or actual massaging of a particular muscle group, just fast rhythmic gliding from my head to my toes. More oil was lavishly drizzled over me every few minutes, and in addition to the 'ready to launch' feeling, soon I was slithering and sliding around the slick wooden table and their hands, rather than keep me in place, actually seemed to be aiding in the slipperiness. My eyes popped open as I felt myself hula-ing against my will, limbs flying akimbo, and at this point they said “okay – now turn over!”
Things on my back were a little more stable due to the fact that I planted my balled up fists and tried frantically to anchor myself. The girls, now whispering to one another in the international language of heated local gossip, began a similar set of movements that were now accented by foot tickling and gentle pinching of my thighs and bum. A Hindu temple on the same block, perhaps competing with the call to prayer and rickshaw commotion, began blaring a devotional song heavy on the tabla drums and bell ringing. It complimented the bum pinching quite nicely. “You feel relax?” Josmy asked, all the while shimmying me like a rag doll.
“Oh yeah. Very relax.” I replied, wondering when the 'relaxation' massage would end.
Sirodara was next, the treatment I had been waiting for ever since I had seen a picture in a posh Thomas Cook guide of Kerala. Sirodara is an ancient Ayurvedic treatment in which a brass pot is filled with heated medicated oil (or sometimes ghee – clarified butter) and placed over a patient's forehead. The pot is swayed back and forth in a hypnotic rhythmic motion and the oil streams out onto the forehead from a small hole drilled in the bottom. The oil flows backward into the hair, saturating it completely and then collecting in another pot below, to be transfered back to the heater for the process to start again. The thirty minutes of continuous flow are thought to be good for cooling the body and aiding in sleep.
The Sirodara was much more relaxing than the massage, probably due to Josmy leaving the room for most of it and me being left alone with Lindsey. I smiled at her beatifically, thankful that she spoke poor English and was too embarrassed to use her limited skills to ask the questions about my weight/age/paleness that I knew she was aching to ask. Normally I would have engaged her, and told her her English was very good etc, but at this point I was dying to maintain the silence and couldn't bear to answer any questions about how often I bleach my skin (to the shock of many Indians, I don't. Of course I don't.)
To my surprise, the hot oil spirographing its way around my forehead actually did feel cooling (I often find Ayurvedic suggestions full of crap. For instance, there is a common consensus that drinking hot liquids with a new tattoo will heat the blood and cause sickness. Ditto for cold liquids and other situations, and no amount of reasoning can convince people otherwise.) I started to feel very loose and calm, and was able to tune out the cacophony outside and let my mind wander. That is, until Josmy returned. “Nice tittoos! How much you pay?” I paused and thought about how to best answer this delicate question – this is a girl who probably makes in a month what a tattoo session in Vancouver costs for 2 hours. I started to say
“100 US....” per hour, but her shriek when the sentence was half out of my mouth stopped me from completing it. I decide to let her believe that my entire sleeve cost 100 US dollars, rather than the actual, much higher figure.
“Wow!!! So expensive!” She exclaimed, and translated for Lindsey, who clucked in agreement.“You like Sirodara? You feel relax?”
“Yes. Very relax.” I was thankful that my eyes were closed so that she could not see them rolling.
Soon it was time for my steam bath – but first the girls had to wring out the gallon of oil that was soaking my hair. Again, this was entrusted to Lindsey, who clearly had never had anyone pull on her hair before and therefore had no idea that it hurt quite a bit. (Or, she had had many people pull on her hair and she did this job as a way to cleanse her emotional demons by enacting the same torture on other people.) Josmy was keeping a watchful eye on the situation. “Oh! You have many hair fall!” 'Hair fall' is a national obsession in India. Besides being a perfect example of strange Indianized English, it is a mix of consumer manipulation and an actual problem for many women due to pollution in the air, filthy water and a genetic predisposition (probably exacerbated by the small gene pools of caste restricted marriage.) Pantene, Garnier Fructis and Head and Shoulders all cash in on this panic by marketing their own products guaranteed to 'fight hair fall.' I have been shedding more strands than usual, due to a side effect from my anti-malarials, and I started to explain.
“See, I am taking anti malaria pills – you know malaria? See, um, you know the mosquito disease? Bzzzz?” She finally understood the word and gasped.
“Oh! You have!?” I sighed, and tried to backtrack.
“No – I mean, I have to take pills to stop malaria, stop malaria...ummmm – prevent? No malaria pills? And these pills cause hairfall. For us, its common. Malaria. Ummm, westerners are getting malaria very easily, and so....” I paused, as she looked at me with eyes completely glazed over, probably feeling sorry for me about my malaria. “...yes. I have many hair fall.” I finished. Moments like these – moments when a complete language barrier goes up and there is nothing you can do to take it down – are common in my life. Being misunderstood is hard for me to handle, and it inevitably leads to me trying to remedy the problem by using a lot of confusing words and strange hand gestures and I end up making it worse. Like here, I am surprised that she didn't end up thinking that I had syphilis and a midget fetish or something due to my long winded explanation.
The steam bath was actually one of those personal saunas that were a popular fad item at swingers parties in the seventies, essentially a big wooden box with a seat inside and a hole at the top for your head to pop out. I sat inside the box, which had obviously been designed for a much taller person, with my legs swinging around at the knee and only my nose-on-up sticking out of the hole. Beautifully scented steam began to curl around my still loin-clothed body and waft out the top of the sauna, steam that actually smelled a lot like a Christmas supper. There was rosemary and a lot of sage in the herbal compound added to the bath, and my stomach began to growl nostalgically for something from home – something Western that did not come out of a schlocky phone book-thick hotel menu offering “Israllie/Continantal/Chineese/Maxicon/Indian/Pezza” choices. I realized that Sean's treatment must have ended at least 30 minutes earlier, so I said to Josmy, “Is Sean, my boyfriend, is he sitting outside?” She nodded. “Can you grab him? I was hoping he could take a picture.” Her expression turned to pure horror.
“Here? Him in here?” Her eyes darted to Lindsey, who seemed equally stricken with panic at the idea. They rushed around the room, tidying it up and tugging at the curtains to ensure that they were properly sealed (a precaution I had kind of hoped that they had taken before they insisted I strip and then coated me in oil.) Not wanting to offend them, I said
“It's not like he can see me! I'm in a box! Is it okay?” They looked at me like I was crazy, and said
“OK, OK. It's OK,” nervously, as Lindsey started shoving an orange towel into the small gap between my neck and the rim of the sauna's head opening. I will point out that it was so dark inside that even I could not see my own torso when I looked down into the steam bath, and there was no way Sean could have seen even if he craned his neck. The idea that my 'husband” would see me naked, or partially naked, or perhaps see a small shadow of something that maybe could possibly be a breast or elbow was unimaginable to them. When they felt I was sufficiently covered they called Sean, twittering in disbelief as he casually strolled in, took a few photos and left. I couldn't resist. “It's OK – he couldn't see anything! And he sees me naked all the time, so it's no big deal.” I'm not sure that they understood me.
Josmy was suddenly interested in Sean. “How old is your husband?” She asked me.
“Twenty five.” I replied, awaiting the inevitable.
“And how old you?”
“Twenty seven.” Her hands flew up to her mouth in shock.
“No! No! You twenty two! He twenty five, you twenty two!” I had no idea what she meant. Did she mean I looked twenty two, or that if Sean was twenty five I should be younger than him and therefore should be approximately twenty two?
“Ummm, well, in the West its common for women to be a little bit older than their husbands, um, not always, but, y'know. Sometimes.” I sighed. “How about in India? Is this common?” She vehemently shook her head.
“Oh no! Wife always younger than man.” She looked at me seriously. “You twenty two.”
“Do you mean I look twenty two?” I was genuinely at a loss.
“Yah. You twenty two.” Lindsey now nodded in agreement.
“Umm. Thank you?”
The steaming was over, and I slid out of the contraption, slick now with oil as well as steam. Josmy and Lindsey, armed with thin towels that I hoped were stained and not dirty (you know you have been traveling in India for a long time when a stained towel becomes the preferred option.) Vigorous would be a mild term for the way that they began drying me off, sloughing off grey dead skin cells in droves. I began giggling, and even that began coming out stuttered from the movement “hhhh-eee h-hheee hhh-eee.” Off came the loincloth and - ! - there was no sparing even my privates from the onslaught. To my pleasant surprise, the intense drying-off job actually seemed to have left me feeling fresh and clean rather than sallow and greasy like massages usually do. My skin, though slightly dewy, did not feel oily or gross in any way, but my hair was a different story – hanging in strings and coated in thick oil. Josmy advised me to wash my hair “in a day or two” and then she regarded me with eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I began dressing, trying to read the writing on the bum of my panties. It is a cute quote from a popular movie, though a little rude in that American Eagle double entendre sort of way. I quickly hauled my pants up, nearly bailing on my slippery oiled feet rather than have to try to explain what “Flute Soloist” meant, and how it related to the the 'Pinewood Band Camp' crest on the front of the panties.
I stepped out of the room into the equally dingy waiting area, only to see Sean already up and ready in anticipation. I called a quick “Thank you!” to Lindsey and Josmy, who were already off with another client. We walked down the street, past the bickering rickshaw cartel, past the Hindu temple still blaring devotionals and past the mosque, now quiet but surrounded by Muslims munching on kebabs. “So?” I asked Sean, “how was it?” He grimaced.
“My shoulders hurt more now than they did earlier. It was a baffling ordeal. I didn't get my steam bath and no one could explain to me why not. The guy massaging me didn't listen to a thing I said. He actually did the opposite of things I said.” He paused. “How was yours?” I thought for a second.
“It was great. It was a terrible massage, and the sirodara was sucked of all of its relaxation by all kinds of loud noises and questioning, and I think that they may have insulted my age, but it was an experience. A true Indian experience.” Sean laughed. We walked down the street toward our guesthouse, eager to get to sleep in preparation for the hellishly hectic days ahead. I stopped and looked at Sean.
“Did I mention they pinched my bum?”
Periyar Tiger Reserve and National Park is located on the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the two Southern most states in India, but it technically falls in the former. We arrived after a 4.5 hour bus ride from Munnar, a hill station at 1500 metre altitude famed for its tea and spice plantations. Now that we were coming to the end of our 5.5 months in India, we were traveling at a more frenetic pace than we had before, spending 2 nights in some cities (that gives you one day to arrive and recover, one full day to cram everything in, and then you leave the next day) and just one night in others; an exhausting pace that we had managed to avoid until then. We had originally had a carefully thought out itinerary for our final 2 weeks, one that would give us a perfect and relaxing amount of time to get from Cochi to Chennai, but it had been dashed to pieces a few days earlier by a fellow Canadian couple's recent experiences.
See, I had only ever seen a Hindu temple in Singapore – Vancouver's Indian diaspora is predominantly Sikh, and other than a few free vegetarian meals at the Hare Krishna temples (by the way – that is a Western thing only. All Hindus love Krishna, but they DO NOT shave their heads, recruit at the airport and hawk cookbooks. I have not seen a single Indian Hare Krishna the entire time I have been in India) in my poor student days, I had no experience with a traditional mandir. The temples in Singapore have huge colouful towers decorated with three dimensional sculptures of gods and goddesses, and I could not wait to step off of the plane in Delhi and start seeing them left and right. Weeks into India I had still only seen monochromatic corncob shaped temples, made of natural stone and left unpainted. I assumed that just around each corner my perfect “Really Really Indian” temple would be lurking.....and it never was. I finally piped up, and was told that the style I was waiting for is called Dravidian (the term for the ancient race of Sanskrit speaking Southern Indian people), is unique to Tamil Nadu ( it is mainly Tamils that make up Singapore's sizable Indian population) and that the prime examples were to be found in Madurai – home to the penultimate Dravidian temple, the Sri Meenakshi. I was ecstatic to have figured out the reason, and from that point onward Madurai featured heavily in our plans for the South.
That is, until we met Brad and Lisa. They were a Canadian couple at our idyllic homestay deep in the backwaters near Alleppey who were also traveling for a year, and they had recently been to Madurai. For four hours. In a manner I was familiar with, out of the pair Lisa did most of the talking, and she informed us that they had arrived in Madurai with high hopes – only to get to the temple and find out that the once-a-decade scaffolding and painting of all 12 towers at once was occurring. And had been for 23 months. The Hindus believe that a temple can not be worshiped in part – one must venerate the entire site at once. Therefore, even though there are twelve humongous, gloriously detailed technicolour towers at Madurai, all must be covered until the paint job is complete on each and every one. Stunned with this news, we reshuffled everything around to spend more time in Tamil Nadu in places like Tiruchipalli and Chidambaram in search of my elusive Dravidian dream.
Which brought us to Periyar, a place we had abandoned the idea of visiting in lieu of other, less touristy places but that just happened to lay on the best route between Munnar and Tamil Nadu for our new whirlwind itinerary of temple hopping. We were exhausted from our hair raising bus ride through the mountains, and anticipating another 8 days of breakneck speed we decided to relax with an Ayurvedic treatment and massage at a highly recommended clinic. It's a term that gets thrown around a lot in the West, and is used to hock medicines and shampoos indiscriminately but Ayurveda actually originates in Kerala and refers to medicines and treatments derived from herbs and natural processes. And, for tourists, kick ass massages.
We arrived at the clinic and within minutes had chosen our services, Sean picking a 45 minute neck and shoulder massage and steam bath and me a 30 minute full body massage followed by 30 minute sirodara and steam bath. Sean was reluctant – I am always dragging him into various massages (“ooooh, look honey. Painful Thai leg massage!”) that he is never happy with. About a year ago I even surprised him with a luxe 90 minute couples massage at Spa Utopia that should have been euphoric but ended up just plain awkward when they 'mixed things up' by giving us each therapists of the opposite sex, mine making soothing “ooh” noises. For Sean, it was not so romantic to see a cooing muscular man rub his naked girlfriend. Even our massage on a pristine Jamaican beach was spoiled by a slack jawed American couple who had dragged themselves out of their primordial trailer park ooze to spend their vacation “arguin' o'er da casino an der buffay” next to us. In addition to the unpleasantness of the strange situations we end up in, Sean is invariably left in more pain that when he began, most notably illustrated by giant thumb print bruises he received in Chiang Mai Thailand. The bruises paled in comparison to the sour expression on his face. But, knowing that a true Keralan Ayurveda experience meant a lot to me, he conceded and we entered separate rooms to get started.
Two young ladies in colourful saris covered by blue lab coats ushered me into a treatment room, consisting of a tall wooden bed, a strange box with a hole cut in the top and a changing room with its bamboo curtain rolled up to the top. I stepped inside and one of the women came forward and said “All gone. It's all off” and gestured to my clothes, up and down. She made no attempt to close the curtain, and just stood there expectantly.
“All off?” I replied, though I wasn't surprised. See, in India public nudity is extremely shameful. The tiniest amount of cleavage and the sight of shoulders or knees count as too much skin, and you never see women in anything revealing (except for Bollywood actresses and modern city girls at a nightclub.) As many women have no bathtubs or showers in their homes, they bathe in communal areas – rivers, ponds or streams – and do so while remaining fully clothed in their saris, adjusting and pushing parts of it aside to wash. Ditto for swimming – the full sari in the water, more modern girls clearly wearing a bathing suit under their clothes but electing to keep a undress or capris and tank top on, as if each swim is incidental and the bikini will be revealed at a later point. (It never is.) I have even heard tales of men who have never seen their wives naked. This all changes, in fact goes straight out the window, when it's just women around. I had had 2 massages in India before this one, and every modicum of privacy was abandoned – you strip naked and are massaged everywhere – nipples, butt cheeks, inner thighs - everywhere but your actual genitals, but they do get really close. No sheet is held up to give the illusion of privacy, no attempt to avert the eyes, no precautions at all are taken to make the masseuse and client feel at ease with the nakedness before them. It was in this atmosphere of fluorescent lighting and stained white walls that I unrobed, standing before the 2 women completely nude.
For a moment we all stood there in the charmless room, me all naked and tattooed and them completely clothed, eyes ogling my tattoos. I nervously laughed, “So,what are your names?” The first one replied “Josmy” which took me a second to get and pronounce correctly, and then I looked at the other girl. “And you?” She clearly answered “Lindsey.” I started to say it, and then realized what she had said. “Wait – Lindsey?” Josmy was quick to respond. “Yah, Josmy very difficult name for you, but Lindsey is better!”
“Well, not better,” I replied, “just easier. A famous rock n roll singer in the West was also named Lindsay, he was in Fleetwood Ma......” I trailed off, as they clearly had no idea what I was talking about. “Not so much with the classic rock...”
Josmy was fiddling with a strip of long white cloth, and asked me to turn around while she swiftly fashioned a tight loin cloth thing, prodding and poking liberally at my bum to keep it in place. Satisfied, Lindsey sat me down on a plastic stool, said a prayer and began rubbing oil into my scalp. This was not particularly relaxing, as my hair was still knotted from our open windowed bus ride earlier, and as she whipped my head around she pulled at all of the small knots and caused me a lot of pain. Sensing this, probably from the tense expression on my face, she asked me “You have many problems?” Ever the passive aggressive Canadian traveler, I responded
“Nope! Good!”
We moved onto face massage, and then it was time for me to hop up onto the big wooden table. The table was approximately 4 feet off of the ground, and completely lacking any padding or cushion designed to make me comfortable. Just wood. What was more, the footstool that I had been sitting on seemed to have vanished, and so I was left to scramble up onto the table, loincloth flapping around in the most undignified manner imaginable. As my ankles reached up around my ears the tiny piece of modesty I had been afforded shifted completely and began to seem more and more decorative in purpose.
I closed my eyes, surprised and relieved that the table was not as hard as I expected. A few deep sighs and I was ready for relaxation. The room was quiet, darkened and peaceful, and I could hear the soft tinkering of the women preparing the herbal oils and compounds for my treatments as I lay still and calm.
At that moment a few things happened. There was an auto rickshaw depot right outside the clinic that I had noticed on my way in, and there began a scuffle of some kind. Motors the approximate volume of helicopters roared into life, loose parts clanked and moaned, and men started screeching at one another in Malayalam (the language of Kerala – less 'ticka ticka' than Hindi, and more like 'marbles in your mouth yet you are struggling to speak around them while underwater' sounding.) Then the chanting Arabic of call to prayer at a nearby mosque began howling through the air. At the same time Josmy, whose English was better than Lindsey's and so she seemed to have been promoted to the speaker of the two, asked me “What is your good name?” followed by the popular litany of questions about marital status, employment and parentage that inevitably come after. I kept my eyes closed and my answers curt, hoping that the hint would be internationally understood, and after another minute of questioning they fell silent and I felt a 'whoosh' of hot oil splash up both sides of my body at the same time.
The oil was a moderate temperature, and smelled like pralines (brown sugar and pecan candies) and felt wonderful. Two sets of hands smoothed the oil up and down my body, picking up speed until it felt like they were going to fling me off of the table and into the glass wall behind me. There was no kneading or actual massaging of a particular muscle group, just fast rhythmic gliding from my head to my toes. More oil was lavishly drizzled over me every few minutes, and in addition to the 'ready to launch' feeling, soon I was slithering and sliding around the slick wooden table and their hands, rather than keep me in place, actually seemed to be aiding in the slipperiness. My eyes popped open as I felt myself hula-ing against my will, limbs flying akimbo, and at this point they said “okay – now turn over!”
Things on my back were a little more stable due to the fact that I planted my balled up fists and tried frantically to anchor myself. The girls, now whispering to one another in the international language of heated local gossip, began a similar set of movements that were now accented by foot tickling and gentle pinching of my thighs and bum. A Hindu temple on the same block, perhaps competing with the call to prayer and rickshaw commotion, began blaring a devotional song heavy on the tabla drums and bell ringing. It complimented the bum pinching quite nicely. “You feel relax?” Josmy asked, all the while shimmying me like a rag doll.
“Oh yeah. Very relax.” I replied, wondering when the 'relaxation' massage would end.
Sirodara was next, the treatment I had been waiting for ever since I had seen a picture in a posh Thomas Cook guide of Kerala. Sirodara is an ancient Ayurvedic treatment in which a brass pot is filled with heated medicated oil (or sometimes ghee – clarified butter) and placed over a patient's forehead. The pot is swayed back and forth in a hypnotic rhythmic motion and the oil streams out onto the forehead from a small hole drilled in the bottom. The oil flows backward into the hair, saturating it completely and then collecting in another pot below, to be transfered back to the heater for the process to start again. The thirty minutes of continuous flow are thought to be good for cooling the body and aiding in sleep.
The Sirodara was much more relaxing than the massage, probably due to Josmy leaving the room for most of it and me being left alone with Lindsey. I smiled at her beatifically, thankful that she spoke poor English and was too embarrassed to use her limited skills to ask the questions about my weight/age/paleness that I knew she was aching to ask. Normally I would have engaged her, and told her her English was very good etc, but at this point I was dying to maintain the silence and couldn't bear to answer any questions about how often I bleach my skin (to the shock of many Indians, I don't. Of course I don't.)
To my surprise, the hot oil spirographing its way around my forehead actually did feel cooling (I often find Ayurvedic suggestions full of crap. For instance, there is a common consensus that drinking hot liquids with a new tattoo will heat the blood and cause sickness. Ditto for cold liquids and other situations, and no amount of reasoning can convince people otherwise.) I started to feel very loose and calm, and was able to tune out the cacophony outside and let my mind wander. That is, until Josmy returned. “Nice tittoos! How much you pay?” I paused and thought about how to best answer this delicate question – this is a girl who probably makes in a month what a tattoo session in Vancouver costs for 2 hours. I started to say
“100 US....” per hour, but her shriek when the sentence was half out of my mouth stopped me from completing it. I decide to let her believe that my entire sleeve cost 100 US dollars, rather than the actual, much higher figure.
“Wow!!! So expensive!” She exclaimed, and translated for Lindsey, who clucked in agreement.“You like Sirodara? You feel relax?”
“Yes. Very relax.” I was thankful that my eyes were closed so that she could not see them rolling.
Soon it was time for my steam bath – but first the girls had to wring out the gallon of oil that was soaking my hair. Again, this was entrusted to Lindsey, who clearly had never had anyone pull on her hair before and therefore had no idea that it hurt quite a bit. (Or, she had had many people pull on her hair and she did this job as a way to cleanse her emotional demons by enacting the same torture on other people.) Josmy was keeping a watchful eye on the situation. “Oh! You have many hair fall!” 'Hair fall' is a national obsession in India. Besides being a perfect example of strange Indianized English, it is a mix of consumer manipulation and an actual problem for many women due to pollution in the air, filthy water and a genetic predisposition (probably exacerbated by the small gene pools of caste restricted marriage.) Pantene, Garnier Fructis and Head and Shoulders all cash in on this panic by marketing their own products guaranteed to 'fight hair fall.' I have been shedding more strands than usual, due to a side effect from my anti-malarials, and I started to explain.
“See, I am taking anti malaria pills – you know malaria? See, um, you know the mosquito disease? Bzzzz?” She finally understood the word and gasped.
“Oh! You have!?” I sighed, and tried to backtrack.
“No – I mean, I have to take pills to stop malaria, stop malaria...ummmm – prevent? No malaria pills? And these pills cause hairfall. For us, its common. Malaria. Ummm, westerners are getting malaria very easily, and so....” I paused, as she looked at me with eyes completely glazed over, probably feeling sorry for me about my malaria. “...yes. I have many hair fall.” I finished. Moments like these – moments when a complete language barrier goes up and there is nothing you can do to take it down – are common in my life. Being misunderstood is hard for me to handle, and it inevitably leads to me trying to remedy the problem by using a lot of confusing words and strange hand gestures and I end up making it worse. Like here, I am surprised that she didn't end up thinking that I had syphilis and a midget fetish or something due to my long winded explanation.
The steam bath was actually one of those personal saunas that were a popular fad item at swingers parties in the seventies, essentially a big wooden box with a seat inside and a hole at the top for your head to pop out. I sat inside the box, which had obviously been designed for a much taller person, with my legs swinging around at the knee and only my nose-on-up sticking out of the hole. Beautifully scented steam began to curl around my still loin-clothed body and waft out the top of the sauna, steam that actually smelled a lot like a Christmas supper. There was rosemary and a lot of sage in the herbal compound added to the bath, and my stomach began to growl nostalgically for something from home – something Western that did not come out of a schlocky phone book-thick hotel menu offering “Israllie/Continantal/Chineese/Maxicon/Indian/Pezza” choices. I realized that Sean's treatment must have ended at least 30 minutes earlier, so I said to Josmy, “Is Sean, my boyfriend, is he sitting outside?” She nodded. “Can you grab him? I was hoping he could take a picture.” Her expression turned to pure horror.
“Here? Him in here?” Her eyes darted to Lindsey, who seemed equally stricken with panic at the idea. They rushed around the room, tidying it up and tugging at the curtains to ensure that they were properly sealed (a precaution I had kind of hoped that they had taken before they insisted I strip and then coated me in oil.) Not wanting to offend them, I said
“It's not like he can see me! I'm in a box! Is it okay?” They looked at me like I was crazy, and said
“OK, OK. It's OK,” nervously, as Lindsey started shoving an orange towel into the small gap between my neck and the rim of the sauna's head opening. I will point out that it was so dark inside that even I could not see my own torso when I looked down into the steam bath, and there was no way Sean could have seen even if he craned his neck. The idea that my 'husband” would see me naked, or partially naked, or perhaps see a small shadow of something that maybe could possibly be a breast or elbow was unimaginable to them. When they felt I was sufficiently covered they called Sean, twittering in disbelief as he casually strolled in, took a few photos and left. I couldn't resist. “It's OK – he couldn't see anything! And he sees me naked all the time, so it's no big deal.” I'm not sure that they understood me.
Josmy was suddenly interested in Sean. “How old is your husband?” She asked me.
“Twenty five.” I replied, awaiting the inevitable.
“And how old you?”
“Twenty seven.” Her hands flew up to her mouth in shock.
“No! No! You twenty two! He twenty five, you twenty two!” I had no idea what she meant. Did she mean I looked twenty two, or that if Sean was twenty five I should be younger than him and therefore should be approximately twenty two?
“Ummm, well, in the West its common for women to be a little bit older than their husbands, um, not always, but, y'know. Sometimes.” I sighed. “How about in India? Is this common?” She vehemently shook her head.
“Oh no! Wife always younger than man.” She looked at me seriously. “You twenty two.”
“Do you mean I look twenty two?” I was genuinely at a loss.
“Yah. You twenty two.” Lindsey now nodded in agreement.
“Umm. Thank you?”
The steaming was over, and I slid out of the contraption, slick now with oil as well as steam. Josmy and Lindsey, armed with thin towels that I hoped were stained and not dirty (you know you have been traveling in India for a long time when a stained towel becomes the preferred option.) Vigorous would be a mild term for the way that they began drying me off, sloughing off grey dead skin cells in droves. I began giggling, and even that began coming out stuttered from the movement “hhhh-eee h-hheee hhh-eee.” Off came the loincloth and - ! - there was no sparing even my privates from the onslaught. To my pleasant surprise, the intense drying-off job actually seemed to have left me feeling fresh and clean rather than sallow and greasy like massages usually do. My skin, though slightly dewy, did not feel oily or gross in any way, but my hair was a different story – hanging in strings and coated in thick oil. Josmy advised me to wash my hair “in a day or two” and then she regarded me with eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I began dressing, trying to read the writing on the bum of my panties. It is a cute quote from a popular movie, though a little rude in that American Eagle double entendre sort of way. I quickly hauled my pants up, nearly bailing on my slippery oiled feet rather than have to try to explain what “Flute Soloist” meant, and how it related to the the 'Pinewood Band Camp' crest on the front of the panties.
I stepped out of the room into the equally dingy waiting area, only to see Sean already up and ready in anticipation. I called a quick “Thank you!” to Lindsey and Josmy, who were already off with another client. We walked down the street, past the bickering rickshaw cartel, past the Hindu temple still blaring devotionals and past the mosque, now quiet but surrounded by Muslims munching on kebabs. “So?” I asked Sean, “how was it?” He grimaced.
“My shoulders hurt more now than they did earlier. It was a baffling ordeal. I didn't get my steam bath and no one could explain to me why not. The guy massaging me didn't listen to a thing I said. He actually did the opposite of things I said.” He paused. “How was yours?” I thought for a second.
“It was great. It was a terrible massage, and the sirodara was sucked of all of its relaxation by all kinds of loud noises and questioning, and I think that they may have insulted my age, but it was an experience. A true Indian experience.” Sean laughed. We walked down the street toward our guesthouse, eager to get to sleep in preparation for the hellishly hectic days ahead. I stopped and looked at Sean.
“Did I mention they pinched my bum?”
(If you live in Vancouver and you want a great massage with a professional who, I can assure you, will not pinch your bum - click here.)
02 March 2009
India Hit Me
There should be a question mark at the end of that sentence....I don't always get along with India, but when I do it is a love affair that sweeps me off my feet.
I find tears of joy in my eyes nearly everyday, and sometimes my voice cracks when I am trying to describe a recent experience, no matter how mundane, to a fellow traveler. Something about the way that the ugly and the beautiful are entwined here is addictive and emotional, as how walking a filth covered street leading to a gold dipped palace makes you appreciate it with all the more rapture when you get there. The sheer amount that you have to work in India to make things happen – the amount of false information and bad directions you have to sift through to get to your final destination makes the pay off of what you came to see so much more dramatic and rewarding. If you had to slay a dragon to maneuver through the halls of the Louvre, you'd really fucking enjoy that mysterious smile.
Never have I felt as alive, yet I have become blase at even the most hair raising danger on the roads, and am no longer afraid to eat or drink things that could make me sick. It's as if the excitement and chaos surrounding you blinds you to your own mortality, and risks unimaginable at home become commonplace. A different sense of danger exists in India; a helmetless family of four on a single motorbike weaves in and out of traffic; a toddler balances on her father's handlebars for a bike around town; unskilled people work with live electrical connections to fix a short, sparks flying; young men balance precariously on the tops of crowded buses that wind their way up potholed mountain roads. At first all of these things shocked me deeply, but now as my auto rickshaw adds to the din and pollution of the roads that we zigzag across I no longer even bat an eye.
My emotions run at extreme highs and lows – its as if I have manic depression brought on by my environment. One moment I am marveling at the neem whitened grin of a bejeweled local woman, and the next I am recoiling in horror at the carelessly spit splash of red paan from someone's mouth that has landed on my bare foot. Some days I can never imagine leaving this place, but home sickness, when it hits, hits hard. We both treat each other with utter disregard at times - my love affair with India is an abusive relationship.
It is a land of paradox. I grit my teeth with frustration only to have my mouth fill with poetry.
Conversely, it is often when I am at my wits end that amazing things happen, as if all of the thirty three million Hindu Gods come sweeping in from their crowded heaven to remind me of the love that I have for this country. I may not thrive on the squalor and filth like some European backpacker types, at times I fantasize about modernity and cleanliness when I should be calmly appreciating local customs, and some days I cannot force any more masala into my tender stomach, but I am truly a different person from the girl who arrived in Delhi in late October. I love it here. I love it in a way that is made more intense by all of its problems, just like the way I love my mean, troubled cat with more passion than I do my sweet and banal cat. She's so easy to love that it seems uncomplicated and less meaningful. When Kevin (mean cat) loves me it is fierce and difficult and powerful. And, I suppose, not for everyone.
I have a tendency to dwell on the negative aspects of situations when I write – writing is my catharsis, I use it to vent all of the ugly thoughts I have when instead I should spend more time with the good ones. The past 4.5 months in India have been unbelievable, and I will always remember the way I feel – vibrantly alive, completely fearless and filled with wonder at the magic of the world. So, I'll end this with a list of some snapshots from my brain that I will carry with me forever.
*A tiny mewling “Hello!” from the mouth of a toddler in the backwaters of Kerala as I walked by, her young mum giggling at the cleverness of her painted baby.
*Rushing past a 500 year old temple in Hampi at sunset and witnessing a spontaneous marching band performance featuring pounding tabla drums, and remembering to slow down and enjoy every minute of life.
*In Mumbai, teasing begging kids in my limited Hindi and having them drop their well-oiled routine and react like giddy children, bouncing around either side of my rickshaw.
*A sadhu in Rishikesh administering a prayer ritual for which many holy men charge tourists inflated prices, and then refusing my money in the name of spirituality.
After the blessing.*A cooking class with a Tibetan refugee in Dharamsala when I was having a really bad day– I came away knowing more than just how to make a momo and with some perspective on my trivial troubles.
*The unpretentious welcome to eat communal food with thousands of Sikh pilgrims in the vast kitchens of Amritsar's Golden Temple.
Inside of the communal kitchen at the Golden Temple. That's A LOT of chapatis.*Escaping the bitter cold high in the Himalayas by sitting around the indoor fire pit on a farm in Chamba, and eating the most amazing home cooked food of my life. I later commissioned the matriarch of the family to come to Canada to cook for my wedding.
*Witnessing the sheer majesty of the Taj Mahal twice, once with my love and once with my mum.
*Seeing microlending in action in the marketplaces of Rajasthan, where women use small loans to start family businesses, creating self sustaining local economies.
*The echo of men's voices singing Keralan folk songs as we canoed through the canals just past sundown.
*Emerging from the Jama Masjid and choosing the youngest cycle rickshaw driver to give us a tour of Old Delhi, his face cracking into an unimaginably infectious smile when we paid him double the agreed upon rate.
No English but a HUGE smile.*Asking our friend Shaily, he who has confessed that he's “not very good at being Indian” how to say things in Hindi, and the exchange inevitably playing out like: “Hey Shaily, how do you say
*insert word* in Hindi?” “Just say *word*. Everyone knows *word*.”
*The delight of eating each amazing meal in Anjuna, especially the huge stuffed omelets, homemade bread and fresh juice prepared by a Goan family in their beautiful Portuguese style home.
*Drinking beers at Leopold's Cafe mere weeks after terrorist attacks left 10 patrons dead, joining the multitudes of Mumbaikers refusing to cower at home.
*Performing nasal cleansing, sun salutations and dragon pose in the yoga capital of the world, Rishikesh.
*Eating in a “Meals Ready” thali restaurant in Mysore, a dozen different dishes ladled out on a huge pile of rice set upon a banana leaf that you eat with only your right hand.
*A quiet early morning moment drinking spicy masala chai while surrounded by the craziness of the annual Pushkar Camel Fair.
His name was Mr Raju.*Being offered snacks, tea and meals by even the poorest people that we met along the way.
*A rickshaw driver insisting that Sean take the wheel one late night in Udaipur, and his peals of laughter echoing through the streets as Sean weaved unsteadily down the roads.
I know that there will be more memories that I will think of and have to add to this list. SO many many more! I don't think I'll ever stop. India hit me, and it felt like a kiss.
Kommunist Kerala.
Okay, so I couldn't resist the alliteration. But it is true – the Southern Indian state of Kerala, home to lazy backwaters, a rich Jewish and Catholic heritage and strange and beautiful art and dance, also has the world's only truly democratically elected communist government, and also the longest running (1957.) Kerala, is a literal and figurative breath of fresh air from the pollution and the chaos of Northern India and it is partly due to an efficient and responsible communism that should be an inspiration for the rest of subcontinent.
Simple things shock me now that I have spent 4.5 months traipsing through this baffling country. I'm so used to certain unpleasant aspects in the cities that I now notice when things aren't fucked up, rather than when they are. Upon pulling into the nicer neighbourhoods of Mumbai, I would look at Sean and say in wonderment “Look! There is very little rubble here! I mean, there is still rubble, but much less than most places!” (As a note, I have kicked rubble in my flip flopped feet numerous times, once cracking my toenail nearly in half. It is something I constantly have to be on the look out for.) Or, even more commonly I will have a sense that something is strange at a bus stop or train station, and I'll realize “Hey – I know what it is - it doesn't smell like pee! Yay!”
Sean and I spend hour after futile hour discussing what we could do to fix the lack of Indian infrastructure, and we always come up exhausted and lacking in even the most basic of solutions. Their colonial past has left India in a much earlier state of self governance and experience – hundreds of years of racist British rule set back homegrown politics and they are still recovering. And now, in the aftermath of the urban explosion, India can be an “every man out for himself” sort of society – why worry about that pollution/beggar/leper/dog if your own house and family are safe? Sheer disregard for human suffering is a hallmark of modern, city dwelling life around the world, and therefore things like reliable electricity, an adequate living wage and clean drinking water for the masses become a last priority. I would have a lot less irritation at the state of things if the media didn't constantly proclaim how modern and advanced India is – as if its problems have been fixed! The people with money and power refuse to see the plight of the poor as anything but a deserved consequence for sins in a past life or caste justice, and instead insist that India is on the cusp of world power status – as if this is on the basis anything but its huge population.
Maybe I should clarify the lack of simple quality-of-life measures – in some places there are no street lights. This seems like a trivial thing, but truly try to picture a city the size of Edmonton with no street lights – in a country that is touting itself as a modern nation. Now also imagine no sewer systems in those same places. Roads everywhere are potholed with giant craters – they have been there, unfixed for so long that now rickshaw drivers instinctively swerve around them. The monthly welfare amount given to widows is 400 rupees – 10 bux CAD – even in India this is a pittance. Very few state run orphanages and old age homes exist, and the few animal welfare programs are funded privately. Many villages and small cities have only the most basic of public schools, and attendance is not mandatory. Sewers, hygiene and innoculations against disease are not found out of the cities. Yet – INDIA HAS A THRIVING SPACE PROGRAM. And they are damned proud of it, at least if one is to believe the media's constant nationalist braggadocio. While children starve - hundreds each day – billions of rupees are funneled into redundant exploration with the sole purpose of stoking the nation's ego.
Reading Western media and hearing news that they are in the space age, one can easily be fooled into thinking that India is now part of the “Second World,” pulling millions out of poverty each year and playing with the big boys on the world political stage. Upper middle class Indians shop at lavish shopping malls, dine in world class restaurants and vacation in Singapore, Dubai and Maldives. Everyone else, the people who clean the shit from the open sewers, the labourers who construct the highways and then live on the side of them in tents at night, the butchers and bakers and candle fucking stick makers – they suffer. They suffer because there is no social safety net if they get sick or even just age, and therefore this entirely new middle class that India is bragging about finally having achieved is one step away from the slum. The workers are exploited while a more true bourgeois than the world has ever seen relaxes and reaps their caste based rewards and eats at TGI Fridays while congratulating themselves on the “New India” in which they live. If there has ever been a country more perfectly poised for a true Marx style communist revolution, this is it.
That was a bit tangential, but it's hard to talk about Kerala's Marxism without referencing the rest of India. This is the wealthiest state, has the highest literacy rate of all of the developing world (91%!) and an infant mortality rate 5 times lower than the rest of the country. Signs advertising jewels, private medical treatments, cars and luxury items are everywhere. The streets are clean – they actually have garbage pick up rather than large piles of trash in the street (most of India relies on cows, dogs and rats as their waste removal strategy, followed by scavengers who take all items of value for recycling, followed finally by burning, which leaves soot in your eyes and a burning plastic taste in your mouth.) Government run stores advertise “no margin goods” - making food and textiles affordable for everyone. Religion, often stunted or outright banned in communist societies, is tolerated and embraced, and red hammer and sickle flags decorate streets that are lined with huge churches, synagogues and Hindu temples. Most shocking of all – no children have approached me to beg for money since I have been here.
Its like a giant endorsement for Marxism.
Isn't this counterintuitive to what we've been taught about communism? Isn't the common statement “Oh, I believe in ideal communism, but in practice it can never work...” being proved wrong here? Granted, this is a state level government, and we have no idea what would happen if Kerala separated from the rest of the subcontinent, but in my eyes it's looking pretty good.
Communism in India is not unique to Kerala – the Bengali state government has also at times elected communist officials, and openly Marxist parties have fared far better here than in the West since the 50's. Although it's also not always idyllic fluffy socialism - Naxalites, communists from the Naxal region who believe in taking power forcibly with violence, have been active for decades and still commit terrorist acts, and even the most centre socialist parties have been rocked with corruption. But not in Kerala. Here it has worked.
Marx was convinced that Germany was the perfect candidate for his communist revolution – the criteria of many skilled workers being exploited by a small number of wealthy who were reaping all of the benefits easily being met. France or England could have also fit the bill. But despite the best efforts of agitators in these countries, Communism did not sweep across Europe, rather waiting nearly 50 years for Lenin and his Bolsheviks in Russia. Lenin bent and broke Marxism until it was scarcely recognizable, substituting the disgruntled factory workers with landless peasants – an agrarian revolution rather than one hatched in the city. All the rest - Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Castro and Pol Pot all followed suit, using their rural farmers in place of the proletariat – and all (arguably) failing, at least to some degree. But India.....
India is still 50% agrarian, but more and more its citizens are streaming into the cities, making them bloated giants with no infrastructure to take on these new financial refugees. Things become hotter, more crowded, even less livable. The rich, whose generations-old caste privilege is a direct parallel to Marx's land owning bourgeoisie, exploit the poor. They then grow ever more wealthy, all the while losing their practical skills, unable to even make a small meal or do their own laundry, these tasks all done for them by people who are effectively indentured servants and who go home to the slums at night. I think this all fits nicely into Marx's theories, don't you?
The exploitation of cheap labour is not confined to the poorest of the poor – increasingly IT hubs such as Bangalore and Mumbai are serving the needs of Western business at the expense of the locals. Tech and engineering jobs are highly desirable, and this has led to such a glut of recent grads that both Western and Indian firms can treat these middle class workers as expendable, knowing that there is a line-up of applicants waiting for their chance. Here, as always, the history of colonization in India is still tangible and relevant. This should come as no surprise – after all, where would India be today if it had been allowed to have its own industrial revolution rather than contributing to Britain's? Perhaps they would have achieved social equality under other terms and all of these problems would be a long distant memory.
I say Workers of India, Unite. The country would grind to a stuttering and groaning halt almost instantly without the chai wallahs, maids and rickshaw drivers willing to work for peanuts. This isn't even to mention the factory workers and manual labourers that Marx actually specifies in his 150 year old doctrines, or the newly exploited educated middle class!
A new, truly Marxist era in a country where it just might work.
Now I just need to convince 1 billion people that I'm right......
Simple things shock me now that I have spent 4.5 months traipsing through this baffling country. I'm so used to certain unpleasant aspects in the cities that I now notice when things aren't fucked up, rather than when they are. Upon pulling into the nicer neighbourhoods of Mumbai, I would look at Sean and say in wonderment “Look! There is very little rubble here! I mean, there is still rubble, but much less than most places!” (As a note, I have kicked rubble in my flip flopped feet numerous times, once cracking my toenail nearly in half. It is something I constantly have to be on the look out for.) Or, even more commonly I will have a sense that something is strange at a bus stop or train station, and I'll realize “Hey – I know what it is - it doesn't smell like pee! Yay!”
Sean and I spend hour after futile hour discussing what we could do to fix the lack of Indian infrastructure, and we always come up exhausted and lacking in even the most basic of solutions. Their colonial past has left India in a much earlier state of self governance and experience – hundreds of years of racist British rule set back homegrown politics and they are still recovering. And now, in the aftermath of the urban explosion, India can be an “every man out for himself” sort of society – why worry about that pollution/beggar/leper/dog if your own house and family are safe? Sheer disregard for human suffering is a hallmark of modern, city dwelling life around the world, and therefore things like reliable electricity, an adequate living wage and clean drinking water for the masses become a last priority. I would have a lot less irritation at the state of things if the media didn't constantly proclaim how modern and advanced India is – as if its problems have been fixed! The people with money and power refuse to see the plight of the poor as anything but a deserved consequence for sins in a past life or caste justice, and instead insist that India is on the cusp of world power status – as if this is on the basis anything but its huge population.
Maybe I should clarify the lack of simple quality-of-life measures – in some places there are no street lights. This seems like a trivial thing, but truly try to picture a city the size of Edmonton with no street lights – in a country that is touting itself as a modern nation. Now also imagine no sewer systems in those same places. Roads everywhere are potholed with giant craters – they have been there, unfixed for so long that now rickshaw drivers instinctively swerve around them. The monthly welfare amount given to widows is 400 rupees – 10 bux CAD – even in India this is a pittance. Very few state run orphanages and old age homes exist, and the few animal welfare programs are funded privately. Many villages and small cities have only the most basic of public schools, and attendance is not mandatory. Sewers, hygiene and innoculations against disease are not found out of the cities. Yet – INDIA HAS A THRIVING SPACE PROGRAM. And they are damned proud of it, at least if one is to believe the media's constant nationalist braggadocio. While children starve - hundreds each day – billions of rupees are funneled into redundant exploration with the sole purpose of stoking the nation's ego.
Reading Western media and hearing news that they are in the space age, one can easily be fooled into thinking that India is now part of the “Second World,” pulling millions out of poverty each year and playing with the big boys on the world political stage. Upper middle class Indians shop at lavish shopping malls, dine in world class restaurants and vacation in Singapore, Dubai and Maldives. Everyone else, the people who clean the shit from the open sewers, the labourers who construct the highways and then live on the side of them in tents at night, the butchers and bakers and candle fucking stick makers – they suffer. They suffer because there is no social safety net if they get sick or even just age, and therefore this entirely new middle class that India is bragging about finally having achieved is one step away from the slum. The workers are exploited while a more true bourgeois than the world has ever seen relaxes and reaps their caste based rewards and eats at TGI Fridays while congratulating themselves on the “New India” in which they live. If there has ever been a country more perfectly poised for a true Marx style communist revolution, this is it.
That was a bit tangential, but it's hard to talk about Kerala's Marxism without referencing the rest of India. This is the wealthiest state, has the highest literacy rate of all of the developing world (91%!) and an infant mortality rate 5 times lower than the rest of the country. Signs advertising jewels, private medical treatments, cars and luxury items are everywhere. The streets are clean – they actually have garbage pick up rather than large piles of trash in the street (most of India relies on cows, dogs and rats as their waste removal strategy, followed by scavengers who take all items of value for recycling, followed finally by burning, which leaves soot in your eyes and a burning plastic taste in your mouth.) Government run stores advertise “no margin goods” - making food and textiles affordable for everyone. Religion, often stunted or outright banned in communist societies, is tolerated and embraced, and red hammer and sickle flags decorate streets that are lined with huge churches, synagogues and Hindu temples. Most shocking of all – no children have approached me to beg for money since I have been here.
Its like a giant endorsement for Marxism.
Isn't this counterintuitive to what we've been taught about communism? Isn't the common statement “Oh, I believe in ideal communism, but in practice it can never work...” being proved wrong here? Granted, this is a state level government, and we have no idea what would happen if Kerala separated from the rest of the subcontinent, but in my eyes it's looking pretty good.
Communism in India is not unique to Kerala – the Bengali state government has also at times elected communist officials, and openly Marxist parties have fared far better here than in the West since the 50's. Although it's also not always idyllic fluffy socialism - Naxalites, communists from the Naxal region who believe in taking power forcibly with violence, have been active for decades and still commit terrorist acts, and even the most centre socialist parties have been rocked with corruption. But not in Kerala. Here it has worked.
Marx was convinced that Germany was the perfect candidate for his communist revolution – the criteria of many skilled workers being exploited by a small number of wealthy who were reaping all of the benefits easily being met. France or England could have also fit the bill. But despite the best efforts of agitators in these countries, Communism did not sweep across Europe, rather waiting nearly 50 years for Lenin and his Bolsheviks in Russia. Lenin bent and broke Marxism until it was scarcely recognizable, substituting the disgruntled factory workers with landless peasants – an agrarian revolution rather than one hatched in the city. All the rest - Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Castro and Pol Pot all followed suit, using their rural farmers in place of the proletariat – and all (arguably) failing, at least to some degree. But India.....
India is still 50% agrarian, but more and more its citizens are streaming into the cities, making them bloated giants with no infrastructure to take on these new financial refugees. Things become hotter, more crowded, even less livable. The rich, whose generations-old caste privilege is a direct parallel to Marx's land owning bourgeoisie, exploit the poor. They then grow ever more wealthy, all the while losing their practical skills, unable to even make a small meal or do their own laundry, these tasks all done for them by people who are effectively indentured servants and who go home to the slums at night. I think this all fits nicely into Marx's theories, don't you?
The exploitation of cheap labour is not confined to the poorest of the poor – increasingly IT hubs such as Bangalore and Mumbai are serving the needs of Western business at the expense of the locals. Tech and engineering jobs are highly desirable, and this has led to such a glut of recent grads that both Western and Indian firms can treat these middle class workers as expendable, knowing that there is a line-up of applicants waiting for their chance. Here, as always, the history of colonization in India is still tangible and relevant. This should come as no surprise – after all, where would India be today if it had been allowed to have its own industrial revolution rather than contributing to Britain's? Perhaps they would have achieved social equality under other terms and all of these problems would be a long distant memory.
I say Workers of India, Unite. The country would grind to a stuttering and groaning halt almost instantly without the chai wallahs, maids and rickshaw drivers willing to work for peanuts. This isn't even to mention the factory workers and manual labourers that Marx actually specifies in his 150 year old doctrines, or the newly exploited educated middle class!
A new, truly Marxist era in a country where it just might work.
Now I just need to convince 1 billion people that I'm right......
24 February 2009
Near Violence.
We arrived at the Hospet public bus station just in time to hop on a local bus that was heading to Hubli, four hours away. From there we would catch an overnight train to Mysore, and we had booked a slightly higher class than usual, so I was feeling a bit excited and relieved that this sleeper would not have a) giant cockroaches, b) many small cockroaches c) 4 people sitting upright on a berth meant for one and then chatting all night or d) all of the above. Now just to get through this bus ride and we would be set.
The bus was about three quarters full when we got on, but I knew not to get my hopes up. At the last minute, just when you think you will have some breathing room, people (and on a night bus from Goa to Hampi, an entire marching band with instruments, including a tuba) pile in and fill up every square inch of space. That's why I was surprised when the conductor told us not to stow our bags under the bus – rather we should stack them on the very last bench seat and sit beside them. As I had predicted, the seats around us filled up quickly and the bus heaved to a start.
Almost instantly a man in full Muslim dress (long white top, baggy pants and small crocheted cap) gestured at the bags and motioned for us to move them. Now, these are not normal bags. They bulge out like pregnant women and are awkward, heavy and strangely shaped – but he still grunted and pointed. “I'm so sorry! They are too big. This is the only place they fit.” I said to the man in a polite and friendly totally Canadian tone, “See?” I pointed to the luggage rack, which was only deep and wide enough to accomodate shopping bags, and then back to our backpacks, showing with my hands the difference in height. With the bus packed we could not have shimmied them back out of the space they were jammed into even if we had tried. He looked irritated, but I apologized profusely a few more times, and though he didn't speak English, he wobbled his head to show that he understood.
The ride was bumpy as hell – Sean and I literally getting 2 feet of air on some speedbumps (which the driver of the ramshackle bus did not slow for) – with a cycle of people getting on and off the bus. As this was a short distance bus, I could tell many people were using it as work transportation, and this made the seating situation a bit more awkward. People couldn't immediately see that the bench was being occupied by our insensitive Western bags, and they would beeline for what they thought was the empty seat, only to arrive at the back and be disappointed. I felt like a bit of a dick – but there was nothing we could do.
It got dark around 7, and we were still about ninety minutes from Hubli. The bus emptied at a stop and refilled quickly, with a few men left standing in the aisle. It was far from packed, yet the 3 remaining seats beside us were full. An older man in a lungi (loincloth thing) marched right up to us and really leaned in. “Move.” He said, pointing at our bags. We repeated the spiel about space. He repeated, “Move.” It was now Sean's turn to be irritated.
“Where to, Sir? They don't fit anywhere!” This really set the man off.
“THIS IS 6. NOT 5. 6 PEOPLE SIT. YOU MOVE.” I then chimed in, with an exascerbated yet still polite tone.
“We cannot move them. Please speak to the conductor. He told us to keep them here. They do not fit...” As I was speaking, the man's face began to get red.
“MOVE BAGS.6 PEOPLE” Now Sean and I were mad, and people began to look on curiously. The conductor was at the front of the bus, making his way slowly as he collected fares. He was far enough away that he could not hear the exchange.
“We can't. Where would we put them? The conductor, talk to the conductor.” I said loudly, Sean echoing my statements with slightly different wording. To this man it may have seemed that 2 young denim clad foreigners were disrespecting him in front of his countrymen, and in India saving face is the number one priority in life. He must have only been able to understand part of what we were saying in our strange American accents, and he was PISSED off – probably more at what we represented than at the situation itself. He pushed his pointed finger into my face, and then thrust his hands ar our backpacks and screamed “MOVE BAGS!” Sean reacted quickly and swatted his gnarled hands away.
”NO!” I shouted, also protecting our bags from his grasp.
“YOU STOP TALKING NOW. YOU! STOP TALKING NOW!” He shouted directly into my face. I was incredulous.
“No. I will not. I don't have to. Talk to the conductor.” I said dismissively,
“YOU STOP NOW. YOU NO TALK! YOU! NO TALK!” He shouted again at me, and then looked at Sean, pointedly addressing only him. “MOVE BAGS. SHE NO TALK!” Everyone around us was looking. The young men beside us scootched as much as humanly possible and made room on their bench for the man, but he again thrust his finger in my face to silence me as I called for the conductor. Sean had had enough.
“You don't point at her!” I had to physically remove Sean's arm from the air in front of the man, and I just kept talking – mostly to prove a point. The man still yelled.
“YOU STOP TALKING! YOU NO TALK!” I laughed and shook my head.
“Sir, you have gone crazy. You are being very rude.” I waggled my finger near my ear in the international symbol for loony. This was perhaps the wrong thing to do, as he became incensed, fists balled and shaking with rage. It was very apparent that he wanted to hit me, and a macabre part of me was fascinated to see if he would. Still screaming at me to stop talking, he sat down directly beside me where the boys had made room. “See, sir,” I said sweetly, turning my head toward him “there is simply no room for our bags anywhere.”
The conductor was nearby now, and while a part of me was a bit gleeful at the calm way I had carried myself while this man had lost his shit, I wondered if I was somewhat in the wrong. This is a male dominated society, and I should be culturally respectful when traveling in their country. Women here DO NOT talk back in public (maybe jokingly, or in Mumbai – but not in rural Karnataka) and here I was mouthing off an elder and refusing to shut up when he asked me to. To be sensitive to Indian cultural mores should I have stopped talking?
I decided no almost instantly – this is not United Arab Emirates et al. I did not knowingly come to a country where sexual discrimination is legislated - this is the world's largest democracy – and so if misogyny rears its head at me I do not have to abide by it. That said, in practice India is still crazily patriarchal and in ways sanctions violence against women – many things demonstrate this collective violence. Acid attacks leave many disfigured or dead. Just 3 weeks ago at a bar in Mangalore (also in Karnataka) a group of girls on a staggette at a pub were attacked and beaten up in public for drinking and being out at night. In small towns, mobs have attacked women who dare to wear jeans rather than a salwar kameez or a sari. Wife beating is an acceptable practice in rural areas. There are still witch burnings in remote areas(!). And of course, honor killings, while not that common, are not all that uncommon either. And most of the time, the men and their families who commit all these crimes are mysteriously never charged.
BUT, and it's a big but - this is also a country that has had an elected female Prime Ministers, has equality laws on the books and worships a pantheon of Mother goddesses. Would this old crazy man have wanted former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to “stop talking” when she was on the world political stage, speaking on his behalf? Did he want fierce warrior goddess Kali to shove her lolling tongue back in her ash rimmed mouth and shut the fuck up?
Fuck him. I'm glad I talked back and didn't shrink into the corner like he wanted me to – I was probably the first female in his 60 plus years who had challenged him in public, a right guaranteed to all Indian women and one not often used..
The conductor finally arrived at our seats and proceeded to collect the fares from those around us. The old man gesticulated wildly at our bags while speaking in rapid Kannada, yet the conductor just wobbled his head from side to side in an indifferent manner and breezily responded. The old man protested weakly, but it was clear he had been dressed down, and this time by someone in uniform, a hugely shameful thing in India. He sat in silence for the next hour, still wedged in beside me and putting his elbows in my face as often as he could get away with, like a territorial dog. I contemplated using my limited Hindi to call him one.
As the bus edged toward Hubli I began to have eerie thoughts – would the old man have a son with a bottle of acid at the bus station, waiting to splash it in my face? I mentally practiced blocking techniques that might lessen the damage and leave me with less disfiguration....and I put my swiss army knife in an accessable place in my handbag.
Of course, nothing of the sort happened and to get to the train station we actually disembarked at the stop before the bus terminal, making our way awkwardly down the aisle with our huge bags. I caught a final glimpse of the old man as we reached the door, his mouth agape as he saw the actual size of the backpacks – clearly he hadn't been able to see their entire girth when they were crammed between the seats. I sincerely hope that the belligerent old fucker felt like the ass that he was and realized what a crazy scene he had caused.
I fell asleep on the top berth of our sleeper train with a confused heart – it was the first time that I had felt so much hostility from a stranger while traveling abroad. Hell, it was the first time that I had felt that much hostility from a stranger, period. Was I really wanted in this country? Should I be here? Was I corrupting the local way of life? No one on the bus had rushed to the insolent Westerner's defense – were they all thinking the same bile-filled thoughts as the man and silently cheering him on as he berated me?
We awoke in Mysore – the train magically only 20 minutes late. We quickly got a taxi to our hotel and set off the explore the city, a pleasant and clean Raj-era capital with colonial architecture, a huge, almost ridiculously picturesque market, and the friendliest people I have come accross in India. Rickshaws and shopkeepers charged us fair and consistent rates, and people tripped over themselves to shake our hands, politely ask our “good names” and make small talk. “Which country you from?”
“Canada.” (Which they always liked, because their language and ethnicity is called Kannada.)
“Ahhh, very good one. Big country. French and English!” And just when we thought they were about to try to lead us to their shop or sell us something they would again shake our hands, tell us to enjoy Mysore and go on their way. People thanked us for visiting their city instead of relentlessly staring and seeing us as giant walking slot machines spitting out 5 rupee coins. Any doubts I had about being in India as a tourist vanished.
I suppose one bad egg exists in every city – maybe even a dozen bad eggs. But to witness it here in India - in this place of magic and mystery where archaic gender roles are still enforced and women are severely punished for small social infractions – here it played with my head. For the rest of that day, and until the kindness of Mysore soothed my nerves, I felt like I should be unobtrusive and quiet – a good woman who wouldn't set off any local male tempers. I wished I was wearing a long, attention-detracting sari or abbaya so that I could blend in and not risk anyone yelling at me and pushing their barely contained violence into my face. It was a bad feeling, and one that hundreds of thousands of women deal with every day. So I wrote this and reminded myself of all the things I believe in.
I wish that every woman had this option.
The bus was about three quarters full when we got on, but I knew not to get my hopes up. At the last minute, just when you think you will have some breathing room, people (and on a night bus from Goa to Hampi, an entire marching band with instruments, including a tuba) pile in and fill up every square inch of space. That's why I was surprised when the conductor told us not to stow our bags under the bus – rather we should stack them on the very last bench seat and sit beside them. As I had predicted, the seats around us filled up quickly and the bus heaved to a start.
Almost instantly a man in full Muslim dress (long white top, baggy pants and small crocheted cap) gestured at the bags and motioned for us to move them. Now, these are not normal bags. They bulge out like pregnant women and are awkward, heavy and strangely shaped – but he still grunted and pointed. “I'm so sorry! They are too big. This is the only place they fit.” I said to the man in a polite and friendly totally Canadian tone, “See?” I pointed to the luggage rack, which was only deep and wide enough to accomodate shopping bags, and then back to our backpacks, showing with my hands the difference in height. With the bus packed we could not have shimmied them back out of the space they were jammed into even if we had tried. He looked irritated, but I apologized profusely a few more times, and though he didn't speak English, he wobbled his head to show that he understood.
The ride was bumpy as hell – Sean and I literally getting 2 feet of air on some speedbumps (which the driver of the ramshackle bus did not slow for) – with a cycle of people getting on and off the bus. As this was a short distance bus, I could tell many people were using it as work transportation, and this made the seating situation a bit more awkward. People couldn't immediately see that the bench was being occupied by our insensitive Western bags, and they would beeline for what they thought was the empty seat, only to arrive at the back and be disappointed. I felt like a bit of a dick – but there was nothing we could do.
It got dark around 7, and we were still about ninety minutes from Hubli. The bus emptied at a stop and refilled quickly, with a few men left standing in the aisle. It was far from packed, yet the 3 remaining seats beside us were full. An older man in a lungi (loincloth thing) marched right up to us and really leaned in. “Move.” He said, pointing at our bags. We repeated the spiel about space. He repeated, “Move.” It was now Sean's turn to be irritated.
“Where to, Sir? They don't fit anywhere!” This really set the man off.
“THIS IS 6. NOT 5. 6 PEOPLE SIT. YOU MOVE.” I then chimed in, with an exascerbated yet still polite tone.
“We cannot move them. Please speak to the conductor. He told us to keep them here. They do not fit...” As I was speaking, the man's face began to get red.
“MOVE BAGS.6 PEOPLE” Now Sean and I were mad, and people began to look on curiously. The conductor was at the front of the bus, making his way slowly as he collected fares. He was far enough away that he could not hear the exchange.
“We can't. Where would we put them? The conductor, talk to the conductor.” I said loudly, Sean echoing my statements with slightly different wording. To this man it may have seemed that 2 young denim clad foreigners were disrespecting him in front of his countrymen, and in India saving face is the number one priority in life. He must have only been able to understand part of what we were saying in our strange American accents, and he was PISSED off – probably more at what we represented than at the situation itself. He pushed his pointed finger into my face, and then thrust his hands ar our backpacks and screamed “MOVE BAGS!” Sean reacted quickly and swatted his gnarled hands away.
”NO!” I shouted, also protecting our bags from his grasp.
“YOU STOP TALKING NOW. YOU! STOP TALKING NOW!” He shouted directly into my face. I was incredulous.
“No. I will not. I don't have to. Talk to the conductor.” I said dismissively,
“YOU STOP NOW. YOU NO TALK! YOU! NO TALK!” He shouted again at me, and then looked at Sean, pointedly addressing only him. “MOVE BAGS. SHE NO TALK!” Everyone around us was looking. The young men beside us scootched as much as humanly possible and made room on their bench for the man, but he again thrust his finger in my face to silence me as I called for the conductor. Sean had had enough.
“You don't point at her!” I had to physically remove Sean's arm from the air in front of the man, and I just kept talking – mostly to prove a point. The man still yelled.
“YOU STOP TALKING! YOU NO TALK!” I laughed and shook my head.
“Sir, you have gone crazy. You are being very rude.” I waggled my finger near my ear in the international symbol for loony. This was perhaps the wrong thing to do, as he became incensed, fists balled and shaking with rage. It was very apparent that he wanted to hit me, and a macabre part of me was fascinated to see if he would. Still screaming at me to stop talking, he sat down directly beside me where the boys had made room. “See, sir,” I said sweetly, turning my head toward him “there is simply no room for our bags anywhere.”
The conductor was nearby now, and while a part of me was a bit gleeful at the calm way I had carried myself while this man had lost his shit, I wondered if I was somewhat in the wrong. This is a male dominated society, and I should be culturally respectful when traveling in their country. Women here DO NOT talk back in public (maybe jokingly, or in Mumbai – but not in rural Karnataka) and here I was mouthing off an elder and refusing to shut up when he asked me to. To be sensitive to Indian cultural mores should I have stopped talking?
I decided no almost instantly – this is not United Arab Emirates et al. I did not knowingly come to a country where sexual discrimination is legislated - this is the world's largest democracy – and so if misogyny rears its head at me I do not have to abide by it. That said, in practice India is still crazily patriarchal and in ways sanctions violence against women – many things demonstrate this collective violence. Acid attacks leave many disfigured or dead. Just 3 weeks ago at a bar in Mangalore (also in Karnataka) a group of girls on a staggette at a pub were attacked and beaten up in public for drinking and being out at night. In small towns, mobs have attacked women who dare to wear jeans rather than a salwar kameez or a sari. Wife beating is an acceptable practice in rural areas. There are still witch burnings in remote areas(!). And of course, honor killings, while not that common, are not all that uncommon either. And most of the time, the men and their families who commit all these crimes are mysteriously never charged.
BUT, and it's a big but - this is also a country that has had an elected female Prime Ministers, has equality laws on the books and worships a pantheon of Mother goddesses. Would this old crazy man have wanted former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to “stop talking” when she was on the world political stage, speaking on his behalf? Did he want fierce warrior goddess Kali to shove her lolling tongue back in her ash rimmed mouth and shut the fuck up?
Fuck him. I'm glad I talked back and didn't shrink into the corner like he wanted me to – I was probably the first female in his 60 plus years who had challenged him in public, a right guaranteed to all Indian women and one not often used..
The conductor finally arrived at our seats and proceeded to collect the fares from those around us. The old man gesticulated wildly at our bags while speaking in rapid Kannada, yet the conductor just wobbled his head from side to side in an indifferent manner and breezily responded. The old man protested weakly, but it was clear he had been dressed down, and this time by someone in uniform, a hugely shameful thing in India. He sat in silence for the next hour, still wedged in beside me and putting his elbows in my face as often as he could get away with, like a territorial dog. I contemplated using my limited Hindi to call him one.
As the bus edged toward Hubli I began to have eerie thoughts – would the old man have a son with a bottle of acid at the bus station, waiting to splash it in my face? I mentally practiced blocking techniques that might lessen the damage and leave me with less disfiguration....and I put my swiss army knife in an accessable place in my handbag.
Of course, nothing of the sort happened and to get to the train station we actually disembarked at the stop before the bus terminal, making our way awkwardly down the aisle with our huge bags. I caught a final glimpse of the old man as we reached the door, his mouth agape as he saw the actual size of the backpacks – clearly he hadn't been able to see their entire girth when they were crammed between the seats. I sincerely hope that the belligerent old fucker felt like the ass that he was and realized what a crazy scene he had caused.
I fell asleep on the top berth of our sleeper train with a confused heart – it was the first time that I had felt so much hostility from a stranger while traveling abroad. Hell, it was the first time that I had felt that much hostility from a stranger, period. Was I really wanted in this country? Should I be here? Was I corrupting the local way of life? No one on the bus had rushed to the insolent Westerner's defense – were they all thinking the same bile-filled thoughts as the man and silently cheering him on as he berated me?
We awoke in Mysore – the train magically only 20 minutes late. We quickly got a taxi to our hotel and set off the explore the city, a pleasant and clean Raj-era capital with colonial architecture, a huge, almost ridiculously picturesque market, and the friendliest people I have come accross in India. Rickshaws and shopkeepers charged us fair and consistent rates, and people tripped over themselves to shake our hands, politely ask our “good names” and make small talk. “Which country you from?”
“Canada.” (Which they always liked, because their language and ethnicity is called Kannada.)
“Ahhh, very good one. Big country. French and English!” And just when we thought they were about to try to lead us to their shop or sell us something they would again shake our hands, tell us to enjoy Mysore and go on their way. People thanked us for visiting their city instead of relentlessly staring and seeing us as giant walking slot machines spitting out 5 rupee coins. Any doubts I had about being in India as a tourist vanished.
I suppose one bad egg exists in every city – maybe even a dozen bad eggs. But to witness it here in India - in this place of magic and mystery where archaic gender roles are still enforced and women are severely punished for small social infractions – here it played with my head. For the rest of that day, and until the kindness of Mysore soothed my nerves, I felt like I should be unobtrusive and quiet – a good woman who wouldn't set off any local male tempers. I wished I was wearing a long, attention-detracting sari or abbaya so that I could blend in and not risk anyone yelling at me and pushing their barely contained violence into my face. It was a bad feeling, and one that hundreds of thousands of women deal with every day. So I wrote this and reminded myself of all the things I believe in.
I wish that every woman had this option.
08 February 2009
Goa
Sean and I are in Panaji, the capital of Goa. Its away from the beach - a tiny little seaside town and a delight to meander around – kind of like a tidy Mediterranean fishing village plunked down in messy, splashy Mother India. Goa is the perfect antidote to a) Sean's hectic work schedule in Mumbai that is thankfully over and b) the craziness of the rest of this country. I feel....calm. And relaxed. And like I don't really care what we do tomorrow or the next day, as long as we remain in this blessed state, Goa.
Blessed, I suppose, is an apt term. Goa is a small pocket of beaches, farm land and rolling hills on the West Coast of India (the Konkan coast) that was once the prized jewel in the crown of Imperial Portugal and still remains heavily influenced by its colonial past. So, less multi-armed Vishnus and a lot more thorn-crowned Jesuses and pious open chested Marys. I have always loved Catholic iconography (writes the girl whose next tattoo will be a sacred heart) and here it is definitely bizarre, almost Mexican in its gaudiness, but with a healthy dollop of desi masala thrown in. Marigold garlands drape crucifix altars in nearly every yard, and bindis are painted on the foreheads of devoutly Christian women. Hinduism, the faith 82% of Indians practice, is a far second to Catholicism in Goa, and in a country of 1.1 billion that makes it an interesting anomaly -it feels like a different country entirely.
Religion is not the only mark that the Southern Europeans were here – the architecture is completely Portuguese – whitewashed cathedrals, terra cotta tiled roofs, and sherbert coloured mansions lined up along cobble stone streets in the cities, sand roads near the beaches. Restaurants hawk luscious seafood xiacutis and vindaloos, dense Goan bread and even amazing Western food (I guess the Portuguese were better teachers than the British in the culinary arts – who would have guessed?) Alcohol is not only widely available (sometimes a problem in India – some entire towns are dry, and even the entire state of Gujarat) but dirt cheap – more than two thirds cheaper than anywhere else on the subcontinent.So Sean is happy.....and drunk.
Goans have a totally different mindframe than the rest of India – almost an “Island time” feel that must be due to the proximity to the beach. I mean, taxis still rip us off terribly if we let them, touts harass us and women still dreadlock their childrens hair to send them begging, but for some reason it seems less exasperating. That might, of course, be due to the proliferation of cheap beer.....
I had a fascination with the TV series “Lonely Planet” when I was a teenager (it has since changed names multiple times, to Globe Trekker and Pilot Guides, which is weird.) It was a very nineties show – world beat techno played over scenes of then-happening offbeat travel destinations – Ibiza, Vietnam, Kathmandu, Prague and....Goa. It was the first time that I had ever realized that out there, just out there - a plane ticket away, entire enclaves of blissed out hippies, freaks and rebels lived lives I hadn't even dreamed of. Lives where you could completely kiss society goodbye, dance all night long and be free to be the unique, crazy and creative person you were meant to be, with an exotic backdrop of palm trees, white sand and unimaginably cheap food and accommodation. I honed in on Goa and for years it was a pipe dream, and even though now I am ten years older and immeasurably wiser, I still had a secret douchey need to spend time in Goa.
And so we have just come from 5 nights in Anjuna, one of the dozen or so touristy beach communities, and so far it is the one I like best (we still have a few more to try out after Panaji.) In the morning, if I get up on time, I listen for the squeaky-toy sounding horns of the fish wallas – men with coolers full of fish strapped to their bikes – and watch Mary, the owner of our guesthouse, purchase the fish she'll need for the day and then toss one to her suddenly present yowling cat (who has a worse attitude than Kevin, if you can believe it.) Then we head for a HUGE amazing breakfast at Martha's, served in the garden of her heritage house, where I have pomegranite juice and eat a cheese, stewed tomato and avocado omelette. We slowly walk to the beach, lay around for 5 hours and then eat supper, drink drinks and head to bed. Nothing more. Nothing complicated. I was speaking to a friend, and she said that she met people who meant to stay here for a week and stayed for a month. I can see that happening really, really easily.
Most people here get around on scooters or motorbikes, and so on our first full day here, we rented one, despite neither of us having any experience whatsoever other than riding on the backs of them as someone else drives. I had to sit and wait at a restaurant while Sean zoomed off on the back of the owner's bike to a nearby garage. I assumed that they would give him a bit of a lesson and make sure that he was competent, and I sat and patiently waited, expecting Sean and the owner to return at the same time. 5 minutes went by, and the owner re-appeared, assuring me Sean was just behind him. Ten more minutes went by and worried, I went looking for him – only to see a tiny dot in the distance going half the speed of anyone else, veering out of the way of goats and cows. As he approached, I could see that he was shaken, but he motioned for me to get on. Whiteknuckling down the bumpy and narrow street, he explained that they just handed him the keys and he had moments to figure it out for himself. I didn't think too much of it and I just thought it must be really easy, until I tried to ride the bike later that day and it took me 20 minutes to even be able to ride around a parking lot. Despite Sean's superhumanly quick proficiency, we returned the bike the next day and decided that walking was better for our health anyways. Yesterday a local woman was walking down the road near us. She looked us up and down and said “No bike?” When I explained that we weren't good on them, she nodded. “Many tourists break. Better you walk.”
I can't explain why Goa is so enjoyable. It shouldn't be – the beach is mediocre and shitty hippies and even shittier hippies are everywhere, yet it is. We can't decide if it is because we're happy to not be in frenetic, dirty, mad INDIA India and we'd be disappointed if we had flown 11 hours to be here (like all of the European package vacationers) or if it is genuinely a magical place. The cows wandering up and down the beaches, the black volcanic rock outcroppings studding the coast, the friendly dogs digging in the sand, the brightly sari-ed women selling fruit and snacks, the FOOD – maybe it is magic.
Goa is far from the most hip place to be now – that era ended in 1974ish, with a brief resurgence during the rave culture of the nineties. The trance music sucks and the freaks are of a lesser quality than they were in the 70's. But please email us in 2 weeks to make sure we aren't still here.....
Blessed, I suppose, is an apt term. Goa is a small pocket of beaches, farm land and rolling hills on the West Coast of India (the Konkan coast) that was once the prized jewel in the crown of Imperial Portugal and still remains heavily influenced by its colonial past. So, less multi-armed Vishnus and a lot more thorn-crowned Jesuses and pious open chested Marys. I have always loved Catholic iconography (writes the girl whose next tattoo will be a sacred heart) and here it is definitely bizarre, almost Mexican in its gaudiness, but with a healthy dollop of desi masala thrown in. Marigold garlands drape crucifix altars in nearly every yard, and bindis are painted on the foreheads of devoutly Christian women. Hinduism, the faith 82% of Indians practice, is a far second to Catholicism in Goa, and in a country of 1.1 billion that makes it an interesting anomaly -it feels like a different country entirely.
Religion is not the only mark that the Southern Europeans were here – the architecture is completely Portuguese – whitewashed cathedrals, terra cotta tiled roofs, and sherbert coloured mansions lined up along cobble stone streets in the cities, sand roads near the beaches. Restaurants hawk luscious seafood xiacutis and vindaloos, dense Goan bread and even amazing Western food (I guess the Portuguese were better teachers than the British in the culinary arts – who would have guessed?) Alcohol is not only widely available (sometimes a problem in India – some entire towns are dry, and even the entire state of Gujarat) but dirt cheap – more than two thirds cheaper than anywhere else on the subcontinent.So Sean is happy.....and drunk.
Goans have a totally different mindframe than the rest of India – almost an “Island time” feel that must be due to the proximity to the beach. I mean, taxis still rip us off terribly if we let them, touts harass us and women still dreadlock their childrens hair to send them begging, but for some reason it seems less exasperating. That might, of course, be due to the proliferation of cheap beer.....
I had a fascination with the TV series “Lonely Planet” when I was a teenager (it has since changed names multiple times, to Globe Trekker and Pilot Guides, which is weird.) It was a very nineties show – world beat techno played over scenes of then-happening offbeat travel destinations – Ibiza, Vietnam, Kathmandu, Prague and....Goa. It was the first time that I had ever realized that out there, just out there - a plane ticket away, entire enclaves of blissed out hippies, freaks and rebels lived lives I hadn't even dreamed of. Lives where you could completely kiss society goodbye, dance all night long and be free to be the unique, crazy and creative person you were meant to be, with an exotic backdrop of palm trees, white sand and unimaginably cheap food and accommodation. I honed in on Goa and for years it was a pipe dream, and even though now I am ten years older and immeasurably wiser, I still had a secret douchey need to spend time in Goa.
And so we have just come from 5 nights in Anjuna, one of the dozen or so touristy beach communities, and so far it is the one I like best (we still have a few more to try out after Panaji.) In the morning, if I get up on time, I listen for the squeaky-toy sounding horns of the fish wallas – men with coolers full of fish strapped to their bikes – and watch Mary, the owner of our guesthouse, purchase the fish she'll need for the day and then toss one to her suddenly present yowling cat (who has a worse attitude than Kevin, if you can believe it.) Then we head for a HUGE amazing breakfast at Martha's, served in the garden of her heritage house, where I have pomegranite juice and eat a cheese, stewed tomato and avocado omelette. We slowly walk to the beach, lay around for 5 hours and then eat supper, drink drinks and head to bed. Nothing more. Nothing complicated. I was speaking to a friend, and she said that she met people who meant to stay here for a week and stayed for a month. I can see that happening really, really easily.
Most people here get around on scooters or motorbikes, and so on our first full day here, we rented one, despite neither of us having any experience whatsoever other than riding on the backs of them as someone else drives. I had to sit and wait at a restaurant while Sean zoomed off on the back of the owner's bike to a nearby garage. I assumed that they would give him a bit of a lesson and make sure that he was competent, and I sat and patiently waited, expecting Sean and the owner to return at the same time. 5 minutes went by, and the owner re-appeared, assuring me Sean was just behind him. Ten more minutes went by and worried, I went looking for him – only to see a tiny dot in the distance going half the speed of anyone else, veering out of the way of goats and cows. As he approached, I could see that he was shaken, but he motioned for me to get on. Whiteknuckling down the bumpy and narrow street, he explained that they just handed him the keys and he had moments to figure it out for himself. I didn't think too much of it and I just thought it must be really easy, until I tried to ride the bike later that day and it took me 20 minutes to even be able to ride around a parking lot. Despite Sean's superhumanly quick proficiency, we returned the bike the next day and decided that walking was better for our health anyways. Yesterday a local woman was walking down the road near us. She looked us up and down and said “No bike?” When I explained that we weren't good on them, she nodded. “Many tourists break. Better you walk.”
I can't explain why Goa is so enjoyable. It shouldn't be – the beach is mediocre and shitty hippies and even shittier hippies are everywhere, yet it is. We can't decide if it is because we're happy to not be in frenetic, dirty, mad INDIA India and we'd be disappointed if we had flown 11 hours to be here (like all of the European package vacationers) or if it is genuinely a magical place. The cows wandering up and down the beaches, the black volcanic rock outcroppings studding the coast, the friendly dogs digging in the sand, the brightly sari-ed women selling fruit and snacks, the FOOD – maybe it is magic.
Goa is far from the most hip place to be now – that era ended in 1974ish, with a brief resurgence during the rave culture of the nineties. The trance music sucks and the freaks are of a lesser quality than they were in the 70's. But please email us in 2 weeks to make sure we aren't still here.....
16 January 2009
Language, Logic and Lassi
“So, take lots of care in the heat, ok, and drink a lot of lassi and buttermilk.” This was the advice of Kushwant Karen, our sheepishly wealthy Brahmin tour guide. He caught me giving him an incredulous eye. “Yah, its like, good for cooling the body.” The other Indians around made clucking noises of agreement. Kush was pretty used to me disagreeing with these sweeping statements of Indian common sense – after he told me “if you put some Ganges water in a bottle, and you leave it for 100 years even, even then it will not have fungus and still be safe to drink” I said “Kush, I thought you were an atheist?” He regarded me earnestly as we floated past a huge dead cow, and minutes later a human corpse. “ Yah, but this is still true! It amazes scientists even.”
India is an amazing place to listen to the English language. A strange version of our mother tongue is used here – a flowery and oddly exuberant take on the on the language forced on Indians by the British. Its as if they were thinking “Yah, we'll use these terrible words, but oh just wait to see what we will be doing to them, you sisterfuckers!” Words here exist that do not exist in any other English speaking country. I noticed this immediately upon landing at Indiri Gandhi International airport in Delhi. A large sign posted above the baggage claim let us know that the airport was undergoing an “upgradation.” Which sounds normal at first, until you pause for a second and think about it.....
Strolling the streets of Varanasi you can be fitted for “Suitings and Shirtings.”
Indians will inform you to stay away from shopping in “touristic” places, and eye you with suspicion when you reply with “ohhh, the touristy places?”
I am constantly asked for my “good name” - as in “what is your good name Madam?” I am still caught off guard by that one, especially when it is asked by a cycle rickshaw driver without shoes on.
A few weeks after arriving, I booked Sean a ticket on SpiceJet, a budget airline, from Delhi to Mumbai. The day before his flight, he recieved a text message. “Dear Sir, we regret to inform you that your flight has been pre-poned by ten minutes.” Sean and I exchanged looks. “Pre-poned? Does....does it mean what we think it does? Is this like upgradation?” The realization sunk in of how brilliant the word actually is..
“Well, Sean. This is a first for you. You're getting pre-poned for your first time. How do you feel?”
He thought for a moment. “Irritated and dirty?”
“Thats just India, Sean. Thats just India.”
Its slightly embarrassing to speak English to many Indians. Not at all because you can't understand them. Rather, its because they cannot, for the love of god, understand you. At all. In fairness, pretty much everyone in the tourist industry speaks English, all educated people are fluent, and even street urchins who look like they just stepped off of the screen of “The Dark Crystal” can occasionally carry on a passable conversation. But the minute I get into an autorickshaw I have to start dramatically rolling my R's and ridding every word of its vowel sound, sprinkling in every word of Hindi I know (my vocab is getting quite impressive!) Its true. Hindi sounds a lot more like “Ticka Ticka Ticka” than is politically correct to admit. When I drawl out my vowels like a typical West Coast ex-stoner, they have clue what I am saying. I could be speaking fucking Finnish. Hence the necessity of the embarrassing pseudo Hindi accent and phrases such as “Cheli Chelo” (Let's Go.)
Even when I do this, it is not always apparent if the driver, shopkeeper, hotel staffmember etc. have accepted my offer or want to help me. That is because of the Head Waggle - the best friend or bane of every foreigner in India. Indians of all ages, castes, education, culture, religion, and gender (and there are 3 in India.... the hijras are self imposed Eunuchs who make a living by threatening to sing in warbling off key – people pay them not to) wobble their heads from side to side to signify yes. And they wobble to say no. But mostly to say maybe. Sean and I have started using it, and man, as if life weren't complicated enough in India without a third head motion, here comes some extra vagueness. But it is fun to use. Try it. You can use it no matter what you're saying or doing, like an extra little head dance.
Sean's theory is that nothing ever gets done in India unless is it a task that can be completed by throwing a lot of unskilled people at it. No problem solving must be necessary – just a lot of labour – like 1.1 billion people's worth of labour. So things that at home take seconds, here take 20 minutes. If you order a coffee at one of the pseudo Western joints (Cafe Coffee Day is everywhere, and that name doesn't even make sense – again with the Indianisms) do not stand there at the counter and wait for it like you would at S'bucks – the staff will look at you like you are nuts. The 7 or 8 staff members. Go sit down. Even if not one other customer is in the joint, you will hear them start to make your coffee a full 15 minutes later. Start to make your coffee. One person will hold the cup, one will grind the beans, one will take your money and one will stand and stare at you. (An entire essay could be written on the staring. It is not rude here – they also stare at eachother. That is my mantra to keep me from going insane. Especially in the North – where men will actually jockey in around you for a better slack-jawed look. Challenging them and saying “WHAT!?” elicits a head wobble and further staring.) This whole system will break down if a staff member's mobile rings. I have never seen an Indian let their phone ring without answering it. No matter how inopportune the timing is, they answer. Even if you are seconds away from finally gripping your coffee - too bad. Its on hold until that conversation is over.
That is not to say that India is not ingenius when dealing with small problems. Makeshift solutions, small businesses, really small businesses and making do are all a part of living here. Let's face it – 60% of Mumbai's 18 million people (and thats a conservative estimate on both parts) live in slums with no running water and electricity – and yet they make it work. Men live in tents on the sides of freeways they are constructing. Auto rickshaw drivers sleep in their wee open vehicles. And sidewalk dwelling women still wrap themselves in saris and perform puja (prayer). Small blankets are set up everywhere, selling vegetables, trinkets and anything else you can think of. People shine shoes, make paan, sell eggs, make sweets – all off the grid. Driving around in a car or rickshaw you will be accosted at every stop with “Madam, flowers? Madam, book? Madam, tomatoes? Madam, whatever-I-am-selling?” You can do almost all of your shopping without setting foot on the pavement. But big projects languish. People live in unfinished concrete highrise skeletons. Completion dates get pushed back, and then pushed back again. Sean and I play “Spot the rubble pile.” Even in the airport – rubble. (He and I have both kicked rubble accidentally at different times – me almost breaking my toe and taking half of my toenail off.)
But despite the strangeness of the English, the staring and the spitting and illogicalities galore, India works, and my favourite surprises come when my Western “superior” ideas are proven wrong. When people drink the Ganges water and do not get sick. When I discover a term like “pre-pone.” When having 8 people on shift at a tiny store comes in handy. And when, on a really hot day, I ordered a lassi and discovered that though it defies common sense, it really cooled me down. Thanks Kush.
India is an amazing place to listen to the English language. A strange version of our mother tongue is used here – a flowery and oddly exuberant take on the on the language forced on Indians by the British. Its as if they were thinking “Yah, we'll use these terrible words, but oh just wait to see what we will be doing to them, you sisterfuckers!” Words here exist that do not exist in any other English speaking country. I noticed this immediately upon landing at Indiri Gandhi International airport in Delhi. A large sign posted above the baggage claim let us know that the airport was undergoing an “upgradation.” Which sounds normal at first, until you pause for a second and think about it.....
Strolling the streets of Varanasi you can be fitted for “Suitings and Shirtings.”
Indians will inform you to stay away from shopping in “touristic” places, and eye you with suspicion when you reply with “ohhh, the touristy places?”
I am constantly asked for my “good name” - as in “what is your good name Madam?” I am still caught off guard by that one, especially when it is asked by a cycle rickshaw driver without shoes on.
A few weeks after arriving, I booked Sean a ticket on SpiceJet, a budget airline, from Delhi to Mumbai. The day before his flight, he recieved a text message. “Dear Sir, we regret to inform you that your flight has been pre-poned by ten minutes.” Sean and I exchanged looks. “Pre-poned? Does....does it mean what we think it does? Is this like upgradation?” The realization sunk in of how brilliant the word actually is..
“Well, Sean. This is a first for you. You're getting pre-poned for your first time. How do you feel?”
He thought for a moment. “Irritated and dirty?”
“Thats just India, Sean. Thats just India.”
Its slightly embarrassing to speak English to many Indians. Not at all because you can't understand them. Rather, its because they cannot, for the love of god, understand you. At all. In fairness, pretty much everyone in the tourist industry speaks English, all educated people are fluent, and even street urchins who look like they just stepped off of the screen of “The Dark Crystal” can occasionally carry on a passable conversation. But the minute I get into an autorickshaw I have to start dramatically rolling my R's and ridding every word of its vowel sound, sprinkling in every word of Hindi I know (my vocab is getting quite impressive!) Its true. Hindi sounds a lot more like “Ticka Ticka Ticka” than is politically correct to admit. When I drawl out my vowels like a typical West Coast ex-stoner, they have clue what I am saying. I could be speaking fucking Finnish. Hence the necessity of the embarrassing pseudo Hindi accent and phrases such as “Cheli Chelo” (Let's Go.)
Even when I do this, it is not always apparent if the driver, shopkeeper, hotel staffmember etc. have accepted my offer or want to help me. That is because of the Head Waggle - the best friend or bane of every foreigner in India. Indians of all ages, castes, education, culture, religion, and gender (and there are 3 in India.... the hijras are self imposed Eunuchs who make a living by threatening to sing in warbling off key – people pay them not to) wobble their heads from side to side to signify yes. And they wobble to say no. But mostly to say maybe. Sean and I have started using it, and man, as if life weren't complicated enough in India without a third head motion, here comes some extra vagueness. But it is fun to use. Try it. You can use it no matter what you're saying or doing, like an extra little head dance.
Sean's theory is that nothing ever gets done in India unless is it a task that can be completed by throwing a lot of unskilled people at it. No problem solving must be necessary – just a lot of labour – like 1.1 billion people's worth of labour. So things that at home take seconds, here take 20 minutes. If you order a coffee at one of the pseudo Western joints (Cafe Coffee Day is everywhere, and that name doesn't even make sense – again with the Indianisms) do not stand there at the counter and wait for it like you would at S'bucks – the staff will look at you like you are nuts. The 7 or 8 staff members. Go sit down. Even if not one other customer is in the joint, you will hear them start to make your coffee a full 15 minutes later. Start to make your coffee. One person will hold the cup, one will grind the beans, one will take your money and one will stand and stare at you. (An entire essay could be written on the staring. It is not rude here – they also stare at eachother. That is my mantra to keep me from going insane. Especially in the North – where men will actually jockey in around you for a better slack-jawed look. Challenging them and saying “WHAT!?” elicits a head wobble and further staring.) This whole system will break down if a staff member's mobile rings. I have never seen an Indian let their phone ring without answering it. No matter how inopportune the timing is, they answer. Even if you are seconds away from finally gripping your coffee - too bad. Its on hold until that conversation is over.
That is not to say that India is not ingenius when dealing with small problems. Makeshift solutions, small businesses, really small businesses and making do are all a part of living here. Let's face it – 60% of Mumbai's 18 million people (and thats a conservative estimate on both parts) live in slums with no running water and electricity – and yet they make it work. Men live in tents on the sides of freeways they are constructing. Auto rickshaw drivers sleep in their wee open vehicles. And sidewalk dwelling women still wrap themselves in saris and perform puja (prayer). Small blankets are set up everywhere, selling vegetables, trinkets and anything else you can think of. People shine shoes, make paan, sell eggs, make sweets – all off the grid. Driving around in a car or rickshaw you will be accosted at every stop with “Madam, flowers? Madam, book? Madam, tomatoes? Madam, whatever-I-am-selling?” You can do almost all of your shopping without setting foot on the pavement. But big projects languish. People live in unfinished concrete highrise skeletons. Completion dates get pushed back, and then pushed back again. Sean and I play “Spot the rubble pile.” Even in the airport – rubble. (He and I have both kicked rubble accidentally at different times – me almost breaking my toe and taking half of my toenail off.)
But despite the strangeness of the English, the staring and the spitting and illogicalities galore, India works, and my favourite surprises come when my Western “superior” ideas are proven wrong. When people drink the Ganges water and do not get sick. When I discover a term like “pre-pone.” When having 8 people on shift at a tiny store comes in handy. And when, on a really hot day, I ordered a lassi and discovered that though it defies common sense, it really cooled me down. Thanks Kush.
06 January 2009
Instant Karma
The Ganges in Varanasi is a fetid sewer that sits at the bottom of the ghats like a lazy bloated cow, filled with shit and cud (a decidely gross word) and stinking up the planet. That said, I still wanted to see it - and it was a sufficient experience- as crazy, gross and kind of awe inspiring as the guidebooks told me it would be. And so I moved on - headed to the Himalayas and then to Bombay - not expecting to see the mighty Ganga again - at least not on this trip. But when my mum guiltily confessed that she wanted to do the typical tourist thing and see the Taj Mahal and the Ganges - I was forced into heading back to the North of India. Not that that is much of a chore, but I hate to backtrack. And so began the giant task of planning an itinerary that included Agra and Delhi, was interesting for my Mum and gave her an authentic slice o'India, and was also not visiting any more cities that I had already been to- especially not polluted, moist Varanasi. Thus - Rishikesh.
Yes, the fabled city nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, made famous by the Beatles, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and transcendental meditation. More douchebags even than Dharamsala. The yoga capital of the world. Fruitshakes and granola and pasta everywhere (for the weak stomachs - if not weak minds - of the hippies.) Yet somehow I really like it here... and am even staying at an Ashram and doing yoga twice a day, a mix of Indian and Tibetan styles that involves acting like a dragon, sinus cleansing and lots of "Aummmmmm Shanti Shanti Shanti Aummmmmmm."
While the Ganges in Varanasi is a stinking mess, here it is a crisp green ribbon snaking through the mountain valleys - almost translucent and much more clean than most anything in India. Ashrams and temples are everywhere, along with sadhus (painted, dreadlocked Hindu holy men dressed in orange robes and who have abandoned their families and possessions) who are either genuine and spiritual and begging; or whacked out on ganja and begging; or pretending to be sadhus so you trust them - and begging. Some - the smiley round ones who say "Namaste Madam!" with giggly voices - I like, and I say "Namaste Baba!" back to them. Others just make me think "jesus christ, go back to your family you filthy deviant deadbeat."
Rishikesh is different in a few other ways - even the cows are different than any I have seen, most of them are short and strangely stumpy. Their bodies are the same as regular cows - but their legs seem cut off at the knees - like a Welsh corgy. (My mum and I call them "uncows.") Until yesterday, I had taken to patting (more thumping) the cows on their heads, like the Hindus do for good luck (but because I like to pet anything that will let me.) Yesterday while walking through a square, after I lightly tapped one on his big handsome head, he gored my mum. He swayed his head at me, and as I shreiked and ran to hide behind a car he laid eyes on my mother, decided "close enough" and gave her a wack. His horns just grazed her, but now she is too scared to go to close to them. Which is difficult, because this is India - so you're always at least a little bit close to cow.
Or a monkey.
There are 2 kinds of monkey in Rishikesh: small tan ones with red bums and tiny babies that look like human babies who have that weird midget aging disease, and huge grey ones with black faces that stand to my waist and remind me of a crouching creepy man - those ones really freaked me out. Until today, when a three legged monkey of the first category carrying a wee baby on its back leapt up at me and slashed open the plastic bag of leftover channa masala I had been planning to feed to the dogs, escaping with the spoils to the top of the bridge. As pungent splotches of chickpea curry rained down on me, all of the Indians around shrugged their shoulders indifferently. They know better than to swing around bags of hot food. Now I am indifferent to the man monkeys, and slightly unnerved by the smaller guys with the progeria faces. And by unnerved I mean I avoid making eye contact and give them a wide berth as if they are a frenemy I've just run into at the bar.
I must admit, here it is a bit easy to get pulled into the spirituality of it all. The nightly "Ganga Aarti" - the evening veneration of the Ganges River with chanting, fire and drums; the constant echo of prayer bells ringing through the valley; the proliferation of yoga, meditation and books on knowing god. But its kind of a diet spirituality - at least for the Westerners here. Enlightenment lite. An easy answer and a quick fix - we come here to use India's ancient traditions for our immediate benefit while we listen to Bob Marley and drape ourselves in gauze. We come not with malice, but with a certain amount of panicked greed and naivete, like we are so overwhelmed with the beauty and magic of hinduism/jainism/buddhism that we have to cram it all inside us to take it home.
Today my Mum and I took a 30 minute walk to another part of Rishikesh, and along the way we stopped to look at what we thought were used dye-print blocks - a popular souvenir cuz they look nice on a shelf at home. As we peered down with interest at the wooden stamps laid on a blanket on the ground, the woman beckoned for my hand. I thought she was going to the block in my hand, but instead she quickly dabbed it into an inky sponge and placed a henna'd print on my hand. Next came narrower stamps - one for each of my fingers. Before I knew it, she had mehndi-ed my hands and I owed her 50 rupees. "Well," I said to my Mum "I think I just bought a henna-ing." Andit looks good - the stamps left a very intricate henna design on my hands - almost like the real thing, which takes hours and hours to do with a delicate quill, and then at least 4 more hours while you sit immobile while the henna dries. This took a total of 3 minutes start to finish.
And I suppose that that is as good a metaphor for Rishikesh as any. Attaining enlightenment takes time, yet the business here relies on a carnival of tourists to come and stay for a week - feel like they've found god, and leave. A pair of fucking mirrored ali baba pants isn't going speed it up, but it might help you believe that you're having an authentic experience with your chosen guru. It is possible here to feel like you are doing something important and healthy in a small amount of time, which is something in and of itself, I guess.
And I still like it here. I just wish that so many creepy European hippies didn't. And that the monkeys would leave me alone.
And we all shine on.....
Yes, the fabled city nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, made famous by the Beatles, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and transcendental meditation. More douchebags even than Dharamsala. The yoga capital of the world. Fruitshakes and granola and pasta everywhere (for the weak stomachs - if not weak minds - of the hippies.) Yet somehow I really like it here... and am even staying at an Ashram and doing yoga twice a day, a mix of Indian and Tibetan styles that involves acting like a dragon, sinus cleansing and lots of "Aummmmmm Shanti Shanti Shanti Aummmmmmm."
While the Ganges in Varanasi is a stinking mess, here it is a crisp green ribbon snaking through the mountain valleys - almost translucent and much more clean than most anything in India. Ashrams and temples are everywhere, along with sadhus (painted, dreadlocked Hindu holy men dressed in orange robes and who have abandoned their families and possessions) who are either genuine and spiritual and begging; or whacked out on ganja and begging; or pretending to be sadhus so you trust them - and begging. Some - the smiley round ones who say "Namaste Madam!" with giggly voices - I like, and I say "Namaste Baba!" back to them. Others just make me think "jesus christ, go back to your family you filthy deviant deadbeat."
Rishikesh is different in a few other ways - even the cows are different than any I have seen, most of them are short and strangely stumpy. Their bodies are the same as regular cows - but their legs seem cut off at the knees - like a Welsh corgy. (My mum and I call them "uncows.") Until yesterday, I had taken to patting (more thumping) the cows on their heads, like the Hindus do for good luck (but because I like to pet anything that will let me.) Yesterday while walking through a square, after I lightly tapped one on his big handsome head, he gored my mum. He swayed his head at me, and as I shreiked and ran to hide behind a car he laid eyes on my mother, decided "close enough" and gave her a wack. His horns just grazed her, but now she is too scared to go to close to them. Which is difficult, because this is India - so you're always at least a little bit close to cow.
Or a monkey.
There are 2 kinds of monkey in Rishikesh: small tan ones with red bums and tiny babies that look like human babies who have that weird midget aging disease, and huge grey ones with black faces that stand to my waist and remind me of a crouching creepy man - those ones really freaked me out. Until today, when a three legged monkey of the first category carrying a wee baby on its back leapt up at me and slashed open the plastic bag of leftover channa masala I had been planning to feed to the dogs, escaping with the spoils to the top of the bridge. As pungent splotches of chickpea curry rained down on me, all of the Indians around shrugged their shoulders indifferently. They know better than to swing around bags of hot food. Now I am indifferent to the man monkeys, and slightly unnerved by the smaller guys with the progeria faces. And by unnerved I mean I avoid making eye contact and give them a wide berth as if they are a frenemy I've just run into at the bar.
I must admit, here it is a bit easy to get pulled into the spirituality of it all. The nightly "Ganga Aarti" - the evening veneration of the Ganges River with chanting, fire and drums; the constant echo of prayer bells ringing through the valley; the proliferation of yoga, meditation and books on knowing god. But its kind of a diet spirituality - at least for the Westerners here. Enlightenment lite. An easy answer and a quick fix - we come here to use India's ancient traditions for our immediate benefit while we listen to Bob Marley and drape ourselves in gauze. We come not with malice, but with a certain amount of panicked greed and naivete, like we are so overwhelmed with the beauty and magic of hinduism/jainism/buddhism that we have to cram it all inside us to take it home.
Today my Mum and I took a 30 minute walk to another part of Rishikesh, and along the way we stopped to look at what we thought were used dye-print blocks - a popular souvenir cuz they look nice on a shelf at home. As we peered down with interest at the wooden stamps laid on a blanket on the ground, the woman beckoned for my hand. I thought she was going to the block in my hand, but instead she quickly dabbed it into an inky sponge and placed a henna'd print on my hand. Next came narrower stamps - one for each of my fingers. Before I knew it, she had mehndi-ed my hands and I owed her 50 rupees. "Well," I said to my Mum "I think I just bought a henna-ing." Andit looks good - the stamps left a very intricate henna design on my hands - almost like the real thing, which takes hours and hours to do with a delicate quill, and then at least 4 more hours while you sit immobile while the henna dries. This took a total of 3 minutes start to finish.
And I suppose that that is as good a metaphor for Rishikesh as any. Attaining enlightenment takes time, yet the business here relies on a carnival of tourists to come and stay for a week - feel like they've found god, and leave. A pair of fucking mirrored ali baba pants isn't going speed it up, but it might help you believe that you're having an authentic experience with your chosen guru. It is possible here to feel like you are doing something important and healthy in a small amount of time, which is something in and of itself, I guess.
And I still like it here. I just wish that so many creepy European hippies didn't. And that the monkeys would leave me alone.
And we all shine on.....
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