On Christmas Day I led a marriage procession through the streets of Baroda while dancing with a Gujarati midget in a clown suit.

Second random encounter of PLC reunion 2005, India: Ravi Patel is visiting his family in Baroda, so we dropped by to see him and attend his cousin's wedding. After all, we were in the neighborhood.

On day one we hit the town to buy appropriate attire. A few dollars and hours later, we're both thoroughbred Indian - especially given my moustache to complement my new Corta (sp? name?). We zip back to the house where we feast on the first of a zillion meals in the next few days. Delicious as they were, I very much deserved the reputation I gained for myself for eating so much at every opportunity.

The overall experience has a prerequisite of explanation. Ravi's family largely lives abroad, be it in the US, Canada, or England. Thus, the quality of English was a godsend; a respite from the usual "you coming from?" that could mean any of several different things, all of which are wrong. The somewhat more in-depth conversations with Indian emigrants yielded interesting views on life (or on time, space, being). For instance, the near terror and complete amazement that we were capable of transporting ourselves around the city in auto-rickshaws was something to inspire awe. All the family members (Ravi, mostly...and Ashesh from Ahmedabad) speak fluent Gujarati, yet some do not venture on their own for lack of confidence in a land so ridiculously opposite the West. Furthermore, the overall experience of India that they have versus what we experience is night and day. While we spend hours on trains, eat at local stands, mingle with passers-by in the street, etc.; they fly from town to town, avoid street food for fear of sickness, and rant "don't talk to strangers!" What's more, the lessons learned and knowledge of the world gained is almost polar: "Sacrifice Goats?! No, we DON'T do that in Hinduism." Ummmmm, guys...

This brings up again a conversation on mindset and the ability of such to change the world. Or at least to change your world. If I were, for example, to return to the United States but maintain my current mindset of openness, of learning lessons and meeting people where lessons and people are available, what would I learn? If I actually stopped in Lincoln, Nebraska next time instead of flying through it, what would I find? Which brings us back to the issue of the new interstate system here - at such a speed, oxcarts and tribesmen can easily be missed unless one is constantly aware. On the old roads, the steady, slow pace forces observation of surroundings. At 60 miles per hour, rice paddies can seem as distant as wheat fields of the Mid-West. What aspects of diversity in India will be buried further as Bombay professionals gain more speed in mobility? What detriments of development will emerge alongside self-beneficial wealth?

Anyhow, wedding night one we spent one of the celbration grounds dancing in a giant circle in the traditional Gurba that precedes any proper Gujarati wedding celebration. Oh, and we ate a feast as well while marvelling at the kaleidoscope of color drifting through the crowd - the saris and cortas of red, orange, pink, blue, and every other imaginable color give a visual nirvana not present in the black and white of American weddings. All of this while dodging falling firework debris from the unceasing display directly overhead - no safety regulations here.

Day two brought requests for blessings on the home from Lord Ganesh, as well as a groom covered in Tumeric to make him fairer for the wedding (here I'll mention that when Jenny and I purchased "Fairness soap with fairness beads," we thought it simply another ridiculosity of Indian English. The correlation between Fairness and Whitening was not made.) Also, we feasted.

That night, we lined up in the street in the typical style - surrounded by flourescent lights, band in front, horse-drawn carriage in the middle complete with an aunt of the groom shaking a sack of coins behind his head to keep him awake (a remnant of the days when the groom would commonly be six years old) - and danced through the streets under another slew of fireworks. Then, we feasted.

On the third day, Christmas, we whiled away the morning before heading for the chartered bus to Nadiad. Jenny and I sat in relative silence while a travel game involving lyrics to Hindu songs was jubilously played. We arrived and were welcomed by the father of the bride at his home for tea and snacks. When Pritesh, the groom, came down dressed in typical turban style, we loaded him into a mercedes, fired up the band, and hit the streets one last time. Here, the lights surrounded a crowd (women in back of the car, men in front of the car) somewhat reluctant to get started. The typical alcohol starter available at American dances is absent, in Gujarat, so another kick was required.

That kick? A midget in a clown suit. An INDIAN midget in a clown suit. And me. You see, the midget quickly set his sights on the white boy and demanded that I dance alongside him at the front of the pack. Every time I slowed even somewhat, he grabbed me again and showed me how. Of course, those in the back of the crowd could not see the green-suited, silver-hatted small person at my side, so surely thought Ravi's white friend was simply insane dancing by himself in a wedding where he doesn't really even belong. Eventually, the crowd got going perhaps due to the continuing fireworks.

At the wedding of 1500 spectators, perhaps 300 watched the ceremony while the rest, what else, feasted. 4 hours or so later the arranged marriage was complete, everyone who wished had given money to and taken a photo with the bride and groom, and the fireworks and band died down. The bus was decidedly quieter, and we headed to the hotel in Baroda before the couple could come home for the first time as a married pair and meet more celebration.

The next day, we sat at a table alongside both bride and groom with what could have been the calm attitude of any other day. We then hit the park, ran around with some tigers at the zoo, and finally jumped a train.

Unfortunatly, there's no ham in this Delhi.

Ridiculousness, what else?

Cricket is a ridiculous sport. Absolutely ridiculous. People who've played the thing for years still can't figure out exactly how test matches are won, or the strategy involved in pushing for a draw after five days of play. Nevertheless, to witness the match between India and Sri Lanka in Ahmedabad was interesting, to say the least.

Interesting, that is, not necessarily because of small lessons like that the ice cream is not allowed into the stands and thus must be consumed out of view of the game, but because of the absurd circumstance leading us to said stands. Ashesh Thaker, the Brahman of Brahmans, with whom I attended the fine PLC institution in college, happened to be on break from Med School and visiting the family in Ahmedabad - the city that you have never heard of despite the fact that at 4.5 million people it is larger than Los Angeles Proper (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763098.html). So after a morning spent in a street vendor's home after he accompanied me to get a shave, we met the college classmate at his home.

The day filled with marvels at coincindence and throwing back a few ice cold conversations about Indian-ness and Western-ness and the mixing therein as ice cold brews are outlawed in this conservative dry state of Gujarat and the intellectual substitutes hit the mark perfectly. In fact, the only people cabable of legally imbibing intoxicating elixirs in this state of 50 some million are those tourists willing to brave the bureaucracy to attain a temporary alchohol permit. The wonder of a homecooked meal (although the curry still doesn't quite resemble the, say, meatloaf I'm used to having homecooked) is something to behold. Not to mention the overall opportunity to mix the views of a bleached tourists with a Gujarati-speaking NRI (Non-Resident Indian). The revelations on both sides were ample.

Today we wandered Gandhi's Ashram, which is unsurprisingly simple and surprisingly lacks too much detail on his life, which seems to be okay with most visitors as we were the only ones I saw actually reading the exibits. Onwards, then to the next big event: bus ride number 8 zillion. Except that this time we pop out of big Bad Amed and hit the Expressway. The recently constructed "Golden Triangle" turns dusty potholed cattle-infested stray dog-covered children playing rickshaw cluttered Indian Highways into four-lane interstates where drivers actually seemed to follow rules. Of course, the rules were drilled into their heads by the infinite sea of signs demanding a civilized entrance to orderly transit. "DO NOT STOP ON THE EXPRESSWAY" "NO U TURN ON THE EXPRESSWAY" "BUCKLE YOUR SEAT BELT" "BETTER TO ARRIVE LATE THAN NEVER" "DO NOT STOP ON THE EXPRESSWAY" "DO NOT STOP ON THE EXPRESSWAY" To the western onlooker the humor in these commands may be elusive, but a week in Asia will teach that every one of the common rules of the road in the West is erased or reveresed here. To tell people not to stop in the middle of the road is paramount to revoking a God-given right. It's practically the tea tax (which 200 years later became the salt tax in India) all over again.

To expand on the marvelously wide, medianed pavement a little more, I implore you to understand that in a land where truckers often write "SLOW DRIVE LONG LIFE 40 KM/HR" on bumbers, speed limits of 100 km drop a man involuntarily to his knees. An hour and a half bus ride that would have taken 5 hours two years ago through all the obstacles to dodge and extra stops along the way - this time without a single stop in between towns. Not a horn was heard in the journey which can only be described as bliss (the alternate option for the bumpers is "HORN PLEASE" and an Indian saying describes "you can get by fine without brakes, but not without a horn).

Bliss, that is, until you jump back into the reality that you are not in Eastern Colorado on I-70, but rather still in the South Asian dreamworld. Ask yourself this question: What happens when you have a country with a billion people used to living life in the street, and whose middle class becomes wealthy enough to own cars? Ah yes, traffic jam. Apparently Eisenhower didn't send the memo that expressways should be above and beyond the average boulevard, lest they cease to be express in any way. Thus, the highway comes to a screeching halt at the gates of Baroda due to the multiple pedestrian wedding processions (partiers surrounded by people with flourescent lamps propped up on their heads and the occasional camel/horsecart/elephant) occupying the lanes. In the traditional continental manner, cars attempt to simply drive around the traffic in front of them, thus blocking traffic in both directions until random citizens emerge from the night with whistles to get things moving again. We use the extra down time to marvel at the physical and mental aspects of transportation system development (like, to add another dimension, the rs 61 toll to drive the particular stretch we'd covered - a cost 3 times the daily wage of some of the women who receive help from the NGO we'd visited earlier in the day. How do you make traffic orderly? Step one: make roads exclusive to the rich.)

Finally, we enjoy another fantastic array of food in Thali (all you can eat rice chapati curry etc) form and hit the cheapest, dingiest hotel we can find. Luckily, the guy in the restaurant next door befriended us in literally 2 seconds and nearly demanded a discount from the hotel on our behalf.

You may be asking yourself - Did the highway really have more impact on the man than his encounter with Ashesh? Absolutely not. Yesterday was the kind of day that makes a trip like this worthwhile - all six months of it (so far), but right now the words to describe seem elusive. So...highways.


As for the next few days, another bizarrely ridiculous coincidence promises that I'll be dancing through the streets with flourescent lights and elephants of my own so the updates won't come until after that oh so big day that will breeze by this land without a flinch.

Thus, I wish a happy holiday to all! Please drink a glass of your preferred Christmas Cheer - be it glug or egg nog - in my honor. I will be forever indebted.

Merry Christmas!

Cracker Jacks? You've all gone mad, haven't you?

When one embarks on a rail transit system in India, he can expect transvestites or transgender or trans....(apparently I didn't pay too much attention to distinctions in class) walking through the cars slapping their hands and asking for/demanding money. This is perplexing for the common white non-hindi completely out of his element twenty-something traveler, to say the least.

Further research both clarifies and perplexes further in the finding that this is an activity pertaining to a specific sect of Hinduism. The explanation from our camel driver would indicate that much of the population doesn't quite know why they should give them money, but they do it anyway. It's like singing during the seventh inning stretch. Any unknowing onlooker would conclude that the crowd had lost sanity simultaneously, while participants think their acts are expectedly mundane. Singing about cracker jacks in the US, then, is sort of like giving money to transvestites in India. Perfectly normal.

Further unrelated research accidentally concluded that the man-woman prowlers may be eunuchs with a historical importance crucial to religion and thus to society as the two describe the same on this South Asian subcontinent. Their role? Indian eunuchs eunuchs take money from believers and in exchange transfer your sins to their beings. They are in every way societal scapegoats. They take your burden by dressing like, and sometimes altering their anatamy to more closely resemble, the opposite sex.

In other revelations not so recent but necessary of portrayal, the whole issue that God is Love or God is Good or blow me some sunshine blah blah blah has been reversed in India along with every other aspect of rational or optimistic thought. Here, Shiva worship is primarily out of fear, which seems to be justified as when this particular deity came home to find his son guarding the doorway while his mother showered, Shiva lopped off his head as he was high off of a "special lassi" and wanted to get laid. Later, his wife forced him to give his son a new head - thus the elephant dome donned by Ganesh. If I were a believer, I'd cower in the face of the God of Destruction as well.

No, we have not found a magic machine to zip us to a backward existence, this is very very real.
How do you like India? I think it's great....but I'm glad it's so far from where I call home.


___
In mundane news we zeroed in on Udaipur in Southern Rajasthan for a few days and have done absolutely nothing save sitting in gavebo-like extrusions extending over the lake from our hotel to admire the palace in its center and eating delicious, delicious food in a flurry of excited curry-flinging action while avoiding the unexpected yet incessant pleas to watch "Octopussy" as it shows every night in virtually every guesthouse because Sean Connery threw his manly charm at on-screen beauties here 25 years ago. We've had just about enough of the Rajasthani tourist mainstream for now, and in typical fashion are moving on tonight to enjoy a few bizzarely coincidental adventures in the coming spins of the planet.

Thar was Darwinian

The novelty of riding exotic camels through the deserts of Rajasthan loses its romance when you realize you might as well be in Nevada - except, of course, for the presence of turbans, camels, saris, etc. And there's no Belaggio, which is disappointing to say the least.

Nevertheless as we rode atop the great humped beasts, we reveled in the solitude not often afforded in the India of rickshaws and narrow alley-ways/cattle herds. From our perch ten feet off the ground, the expanse of extra dry desert (five year drought) inspired the initially dull and annoying bounces of the saddle to become something of a rhythmical beat to count thoughts. The time on these wonderful animals was well-worth it to relax the mind.

It was not entirely devoid of educational material as well. You see, when a camel sits it doesn't sit, it buckles its knees until its calf touches its thighs, and folds the limbs under his belly like the legs of a banquet table. It lays in this seemingly painful position for hours without so much as a wince - not that camels seem cabable of wincing. Usually, they just have a dumb look of "I have no idea what's happening right now and I don't care. Just fetch me a cigarrette." It's not hard to see how Camel Cigs got their name. Sheer marketing genius, as I think has already been proven.

Anyhow, the most incredible aspect of all this laying on bellies is that the animal has rough padded skin and support at all the integral sand-connection points. The front of its underside right next to the front legs is the most impressive - a round patch perfectly suited for keeping the rest of its stomach off the scorching grains. The word "evolution" seems to beam from these patches such that it almost stuns the observer - as if he could never have wholly comprehended the word without this camelous example. If they put these things in the textbooks where opposable thumbs currently reside, there'd be no more debate in Kansas.

It would not be wholly unjustified to replace the time previously dedicated to the course in creation with a class along the lines of "Ridiculous futility of Socioeconomic Development on a Macro Scale in the 20th Century." (Colleges have classes with much more ludicrous names than this, believe me, I've taken them.) In fact, 20 years ago, while the World Bank was pumping dollars in the billions toward dam projects to destroy ecosystems and drive nations into the abyss of debt, our camel driver was still starting fires by rubbing sticks together as matches had not yet made it to the vicinity of Jaisalmer. Today, he makes 125 ruppees per day (less than three dollars) to lug tourists around the desert and act as though they (we) are wholly incapable of performing any task more complex than peeling garlic. We compared our pamper variously with Maharajas and colonialists a la Orwell. Hell, we even pay similar wages - adjusted for inflation, of course.

So there you have it. Thar Desert? Check. Moving on....

You mean, those things are REAL?

The night train landed us in Jodhpur, a town promising little more than a pleathora of blue buildings as both status symbol and "effective" insect repellent. Yet as the sun rose the view from our window revealed the majesty that had been by far understated in the guidebook. Atop the only hill in sight, Mehrengarh fort (sounds much more impressive with a Sean Connery accent) towers above the blue sea of houses as an ominous omen. It beckons, "Watch your step, for your being is a castle of cards fated for the monsoon. Don't tempt Marwar (the city of death) to crash down upon you ever sooner.

Mehrengarh is imagination's perfect fort incarnated through past Maharajas' power. Impenetrable walls, luxurious etertainment quarters, secret balconies, concubines' courtyards come together in all their spendorous palacial might. While we walk we ponder the luxury the current maharaja has enjoyed since his 1952 coronation at age 4; and at how displeased the buried maharajas must be that their empires and war games have crumled such that tourists with six spare dollars might roam the halls of their power The fort where victory came as the option opposite only of death, and to which at least one man gave himself in sacrifice is now a mere museum. Nevertheless, I gazed upon the walls with an awe for history, might, power, leadership I never expected - not so much for what it was as for wonder at how it possible came to be.

We quickly moved on to Jaisalmer, which may as well be Rushdie's Jahilia. Here, loose granular rock approaches holiness as water all but disappears. Sand-stone creates every edifice and sculpture to form the monocolor civilization that blends perfectly into the Great Thar Desert. Fittingly, the fort looks from afar as though a child got a little carried away with his sand castle. However, the village inside its walls is far less palacial than Jodhpur's, and its thousand year old buildings are now filled with German bakeries and Italian Restaurants; with touts pushing their ankle bracelets and beggars pleaing exclusively to white strangers. And while the inner regions of the forts are dominated by such a nauseous tourist industry, the outer rim is filled with trash, rubble, and sewage. So while Mehrengarh creates magesty at every turn, the flashing Christmas lights atop a vandalized timeless edifice within Jaisalmers former defenses bekcon to travelers afar to keep their distance if they want to keep their illusions.

Now I intend to board a humped animal and ride him through the desert while I pretend to be some important ancient Rajasthani. Maybe I'll splurge for a few porters to throw Jenny in a Palanquin and we can fully fulfill the roles of Maharaja and Maharani.

Mirrors and Razors and Kites, Oh My

Perhaps traveling in India strains because it defies; from one moment to he next a pattern you thought you saw is broken and another is freshly created to await its certain demise. In SE Asia, one walks through Buddhism and a somehwat homogeneic culture. It's easier to see an illusion of understanding in Indochina. Perhaps in just such a way, India is a better place to study the world. Particularly, that is, the modern world. The integrating world. The world where Washington fears Calcutta's cheap labor more than Japan's exquisite vehicles. The world where Friedman's Golden Arches symbolize more than corporations, but rather progress.

The world where the notion that every McDonald's is the same is blown to oblivion as you walk through a door on Mirza Ismail Road near the old city of Jaipur to find a beefless menu and to order yourself a Chicken Maharaja Mac and a Paneer Salsa Wrap. Maybe economic globalization allows Ron McDonald to hug kids in India, but it doesn't let him trample their lives. People here won't eat beef just because Ray Croc cooked it quickly. They won't waste ketchup packets here just becasuet their US counterparts huck them with the garbage (there's a bin for re-use), and they won't destroy their health just so they can get food faster. After all, ALL food in India is fast, and most of it greasier than McDonald's.

So if there's one lesson to learn from the McCurry Griddle, it's that the US for all its individualist rhetoric needs to cease blaming the corporations for its ills. Stop seeing "Supersize Me" to vent its rage, and instead turn its eyes inwards. McDonald's menu, service, speed, nutrition is not a scalpel for society, but simply a reflection of it. Perhaps, even, it is among the clearest windows to see the revelation that people will choose (and enjoy) oppression and that people don't know what they want as they profess to. After all, capitalism is a system built to allow just such a choice to oppress yourself... just that when people veer down that path they blame the system rather than themselves.

This particular society provides many-a-lesson in duality, as yesterday afternoon when we were invited to a rooftop in the old city, where the thousands of sunday-afternoon kites were flying high. The sky, though polluted, was filled with blues, yellows, reds of flying diamonds spinning circles, diving and swerving through the struggling-to-be-blue-sky. As Jenny's face lit up at their sight like a child at a chocolate bar, I was explained the names of the forts and temples on the surrounding brown hilltops. Then, as when you find out that the monkeys at the zoo aren't playing but fighting to the death, we found out about the war over our heads. The kites, it turns out, twist and curve not in artistic prowess, but in attempts to destroy others. Glass-shards in their cords, they cut the lines that both tether others to the ground and allow them to fly higher and higher. The winners fight on while losers drift earthwards to the hands of new owners.

But of course we recognize the true harmony of the seemingly malicious game in bringing together literally thousands of participants for a friendly afternoon contest to build community. In fact, every person we spoke to expressed unbridled excitement for the "Kite Festival," still a month away, when the sun is said to be hidden behind soaring geometries of warfare. So we sat, enjoyed, and even partook in the spectacle with our newfound friends and a few glasses of whiskey and water; and marvelled at the beauty of simplicity in this world while the interiors of the Rajasthani forts surrounding remained unseen by our eyes.

Agra-vated Glory

We spent our last day in Puri watching a beach soccer tournament, which seemed very odd here in the East. Sure enough, the evidence that people here hold melanin-challenged humans in high esteem walked up and slapped me in the face. Or rather, it walked up and asked me if I'd like to answer a few questions for Calcutta Z-Sports television program. If you happen to be among one of the area's 13 million viewers, tune in and see my answer to: "What would your reaction be if we asked you to form a team for next year?"

38 hours on a train may seem like bliss, but it's not. I'll tell you right now, it's really really not. Samosas, curried potatoes, puris - they're all fantastic the first day you arrive in India. On day 14 they're to be treated as one would treat furry colorful caterpillars that look like they have eyes at both ends and a forest of porcupine needles growing out of their backs. The stuff becomes downright repulsive...and it's all they sell on the infernal trains.

Nevertheless, the seemingly endless whose pain and agony I blatantly hyperbolize eventually do end, and the travelers eventually emerge onto the final railway platform of the journey. And all the while in the autorickshaw that pulls us to our hotel, I think of the trivial question asked of me in the restaurant last winter with the intention of settling a bet. Next time someone says "What's special about Agra?"...well...

As you walk through the outer gate you can't believe you're really here - this isn't one of the seven wonders, it is THE wonder, and here I am just strolling on up to it like I deserve to be here or something. In the meantime, the marble magic towers at the end of its fountain pools, beckoning its beauty toward the sky in celebration of love.

There truly is no way to do the monument justice - you've seen the pictures, read the accounts, heard the stories, loved the tale. But when you walk right up to the Taj Mahal and rub your fingers on the precious stones inlaid in the marble; and as you walk through its massive arched doorways to gaze upon the elaborate tombs of the lovers past, you are stuck in a moment of exhilaration. You walk back out to the pools to get a view again from far away, only to immediately be beckoned closer again, and farther, and closer - as though somehow you'll find the gateway and dive in and become a part of the mysterious perfection. You pace around the perimeter to see more more more more of the massive structure, and eventually give up. Accept that this architectural wonder is beyond hype, beyond the sum of those who made it (and had their limbs removed so they could never replicate such a work), and beyond your attempt to understand the essence of the being.

So you retire to the lawn and sit in silent awe; then further back you go to your hotel's rooftop where you watch the night engulf the gleaming white stones. You lift a glass to each other while saying for the eight millionth time today, "I can't believe we're looking at the Taj Mahal."

Whitey and walking symbolism

In Calcutta we met three (or maybe more) of the mind-bogglingly generous locals who shower us with meals, tours, and overall friendship. The first sat next to us in a park, then treated us to dinner and drinks on him, but not before offering us monetary assistance when we told him where we were staying. The second met us as we walked toward the chaos of Kali temple to witness yet another version of God. He took us through the temple, dotted our heads a-la-India, popped us in and out of Taxis to show us the city, and finally stopped off at a photo studio so he could remember us forever. The third we asked for directions to buy train tickets, and he helped us with the process, bought us tea, and walked for maybe miles to find an internet cafe for us. He would have walked across town back to our hotels with us had we not stopped him.

In each case such seeming altruism occurs (not just these three, but all of them throughout this continent), the same questions inevitably arise. On a basic level, we know that they would not offer such generosity to locals, so the outpouring is based on our own foreigness. On an intuitive level, it is not based on foreigness as a general category, but on the very type of foreigness advertised by the color of our skin. It is based on the idea that the Westerners are more educated. That Westerners are more able. That Westerners hold the answers. The generosity we receive often seems based on the notion that the West is better. After all, strangers don't walk up to Korean tourists on the beach and ask for a picture with them.

Yet in this land where most have never even been to the West, the idea is based purely on local influences. Ideas of the West, not reality of the West. In fact, ideas of whiteness are independent of reality, just as on the other side of the globe ideas of the wisdom of the East are in many ways manufactured.

On the other hand, India retains the tradition of arranged marriages - even for educated businessmen and businesswomen- for instance. On that and other levels the clash between the old generation clinging to antiquity and the next grasping for individuality is very real.

______

We caught the night train to Puri, where 20,000 people make their living from the temple of the "lord of the Universe," highlighting the economic benefits of so many Gods. Sick and weak yet again, we spend most of our first day sleeping.

Day 2 we realize just how large camels really are, for though neither of us remembers if we've seen them in zoos before or not, we are certain we haven't seen them towering over hoards of people on the beach. These stunning pompous creatures shot instantly to a spot among my preferred beasts. After our jaunt, we zipped to Konark for the dancing festival, which was set on a stage with the stunning 13th century Sun Temple as a backgound. The dancing, though, as our waiter today described "is interesting for a glance, but for three hours very, very boring." At least I got to ride back in the very, very cold night on our motorbike feeling like the underside of a camel's enormous foot due to lingering germs.

Today I ate cornflakes for the first time in 5 months and I think I self-actualized.

Places not my own

Occasionally a person walks into one's life for a short stay only to leave an infinite impression. While hitchhiking in the far North a few years back, I met just such a man or rather entertainer, for Dennis Riordan is better known as "Sancho, the clown that loves you." Anyhow, after pouring out generosity to pack two college students in among his tennis rackets, canoe, kayak and unicycle to drive us to Fairbanks, put us up at his brother's home, and lug us all the way across the state to Valdez, he refused our monetary contribution to the effort. Even as he jumped back in the van to head home as his money had run thin, he gave us only an inspirational story of a man who once helped him out of a jam." Just promise me that if you have the opportunity to help someone else out, do it."

Then in Myanma I ran into an Israeli of similar stature in my mind. His utter calm was not a veil but rather a window to the truth of his deep appreciation for all in this world. When he repeatedly observes that nearly everything is "beautiful," he is not speaking hyperbolically or hypocritically. He truly believes in nature, passion, people. Yet he observed that India challenges pluralism and idealism. It challenges your world.



We thought we could buy train tickets at the station the day of departure; so we ended up riding in between coaches next to the toilets and their foul reekliness (yup). This brought us to Bodhgaya: home of Mahabodhi Temple: home of a Bodhi tree: home of the canopy over the very spot where Siddharta Gautama is said to have attained enlightenment and become The Buddha.

Here we watched a somewhat homogeneous yet completely contradictory sort of intermingling. That is, we watches as many cultures evolved from one reunite. We watched Tibetans prostrate where Sakyamuni pondered Causality. We saw the point where Thai monasteries with golden serpents and tiered roofs mix with boxed Bhutanese architecture and Tibetan prayer wheels. Deep red robes mingle with saffron as we meditated with an Indian for the people of the world to realize "ONE." The tree doesn't inspire much, but the magic of temples and churches to overcome the chaos knocking at their gates and hush the wolrd inside with serenity and significance overcame again. This place is more, much more, than the bricks in its monuments or the grass in its lawns. The power of a people come from so far to be together in the name of the compassion, beauty, enlightenment in which they believe is truly magical. Though perhaps only slightly more than Swayabanath, Swedagon, Sagaing, or even Muktinath, Bodhgaya is powerful.

But while waiting for Japan's contribution to the town to open its doors, we met a teenager eager to share with us. Never able to ascertain the honesty or purity of such quests for friendship, we spend a few hours with him and enjoy every moment. He doesn't leave us, though, before pleading that we buy his English book. The dilemma ensues. We decline.

As we then rush the overnight train to Calcutta, we emerge in a city famous today for, above all, its history of poverty. In fact, on the train we met a volunteer eager to encourage, "in Kolkata, take the time to get into the poverty and learn about the lives of the people - it's actually uplifting to see how they live with what they live with." Thus, images of the city inevitably bore images of diseased, decrepit, poor, handicapped, mangled, disfigured inhabitants lining the streets with arms outstretched for change.

Instead we arrive in a sea of classic cars still operating as yellow taxis on wide streets between modern (for Asia) buildings. There are no more beggars here, and no more of them disfigured, than in other Asian destinations. This is not a city to be pitied above all, but rather a city with goods and bads like every other city. It just happens that the brand stuck to this metropolis is one of need and need alone. The reason, it seems to me after months of the developing world to cloud my vision, that the volunteers see so much more poverty here than in NYC or Chicago is that they come with the distinct intention of finding it.

Yet the limbless, sightless beggars still exist and the dilemma ensues ever moreso. When they beg, do I listen to Dennis' voice in my head? Do I hear Roie telling me to just give and at least then the end is not my fault? Do I lead them around the corner to Mother Theresa's mission, which they surely know of anyhow? Or do I decide that the comparatively wealthy businessman working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week and sacrificing of any social or marital life all for a giant multinational corporation that is absolutely pillaging the Indian workers of dignity and freedom for miniscule pay should be working less and helping his own neighbors more? Do I even decide that such misused money as on the grandiose yet gorgeous monument down the road to honor Queen Victoria (only one measley person after all, no?) who pillaged India before the MNCs is not my fault and they should go bang on its doors for equity?

One question: do I turn a blind eye to the outstretched arms to save a dollar or a thousand dollars so I can continue to live cheaply as I wander the world? So far, yes. I even went so far as to ammend Dennis' straightforward statement to fit my situation - strictly monetary help doesn't count, lest they're in need right here right now. These people have lived as they live for their entire lives - my three ruppees to one of them won't change that, and may encourage them even more to a path of stagnance. Thus, spare change isn't really help. That's what I've convinced myself for now, anyway.

If you can't identify, take a walk down to Harlem or the 'other' side of Chicago or Colfax and get back to me; for India isn't a different Universe, but just the other side of your own.