chartandwaters

A huge hi to Grandpa whose birthday is coming up Aug. 22. Much much love and many more.

This blog is broken up into Bangalore, Delhi, Rishikesh, and a list of some reasons I came to India and which ones were good. I just came back from the Indian coffee shop chain "Barista" where I tried to orient myself to Bangalore goings-on. There's no city magazine here, just a few tourist brochures, and I'm feeling in the dark. Coffee culture is big in Bangalore and the only difference beween the coffee shops here and in the U.S. is that they frequently wait on you, which is just weird. Good service is a big aspect of the nicer areas here, unlike most of the places I've been before where it's (genuinely) policy for you to get the waiter's attention. (I was in the equivalent of a Pizza Hut the other day and as I helped myself to a second slice of the pie I'd ordered the waiter appeared to grab the spatula from my hand and serve me. The next time I started to help myself he ran toward me again looking stressed. So for the fourth and last slice I moved in very, very slow motion toward the slice only to be disappointed; he was too distracted by someone else's table. Or maybe the movement was so slow he didn't detect it.)

On my way here I passed a poster advertising a "Freedom Jam" with a big picture of a longhaired rocker on his electric guitar. Across it was a broad sticker: "Concert Postponed. New Date to Be Intimated Next Week." Who knew "intimate" could mean, "To announce; proclaim" (dictionary.com)? One of those British-Indian English moments I love when solid vocabulary, either wittingly or unwittingly, trumps the soundbyte.

Some updates: Monica's Stephanie at Blogger wrote her back fairly promptly to say she was a live human being. I did see Dr. Donden again and because I was fully prepared it went much more smoothly, but I didn't continue my Tibetan medicine regime because I was moving too much for them to monitor me properly and he was resisting giving me a prescription for more than a week. At least I have a prescription that I can take to another Tibetan doctor if such is ever possible. When I mentioned him to a Canadian woman she said, "Is he truly as forbidding as they say?" so that may back-up my account. Meanwhile I am back to snorting saltwater as per someone's recommendation.

On Thursday I went to the head of the little NGO with which I might be working here--his name is Venkatesh and his NGO focuses, it turns out, on providing art classes to children with and without disabilities in a joint setting, as well as to teaching children who are low-vision and even blind how to draw, which many of them really enjoy. Venkatesh has an interesting plan to go do the project in the Andaman Islands for just a month; he himself is a very good artist and would head the class and I would assist. There are some basic facts we have to work out, so I can't speak much more of it yet, but we'd try to start it in the next few weeks and certainly by Oct. 1.

Next, Sumita sent me this wonderful description of the festivals coming up in India. It captures an intensity of things I do hope to experience (I was invited to a celebration of Rakshabandhan but couldn't go) and contrasts rather sharply with the irritable description of Delhi that follows:

"You will spend Indian Independence Day -- 15 Aug in the train -- but do soak in the spirit. This week is Rakshabandhan -- 19 Aug -- Hindu festival. The calendar is lunar so most of our festivals happen on the full moon. This honours the brother-sister relationship. So sisters will tie the rakhi -- silken thread -- on the brothers (right) wrist, give sweets; and brothers will give them gifts. Traditionally -- more a reinstatement of committment that the brother will always 'take care' of the sister and the sister will always wish him well -- even long after both have got married. In today's time, for most of us, a time to re-connect with the natal family and honour the brother-sister bond. It's also linked to seeking protection so traditionally priests will tie rakhi to the king, disciples will seek protection from a Master.

That's Rakshabandhan -- primarily north Indian festival. Then weekend after is Janmashtmi -- birth of Hindu God Krishna. And hence begins our great festivals -- Ganesh Chaturthi, Navratri, Dusseshra until Diwali -- the moonless night in November -- festival of lights. All celebrated in different forms in different parts of the country.

It's a wonderful time to be here --"

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DELHI

Delhi was so hot and dirty, and the area I stayed in, Paharganj, especially jampacked and frantic. I had to go to the train station both days, so experienced the loving pushing and shoving that not all Indians do, but that will, by contrast with other places, not get you killed. It is even more okay, will cause perhaps even less remark, to push ahead of someone in line (or in a "queue"). Queues here constantly remind me of the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

I also experienced the New Delhi train station's International Tourist Reservation Bureau: You make your way through the packed, air condition-less, dim cement reservation bureau for locals, up the stairs (follow the brightly lit arrow) and see the big, lit blue and white sign. Enter and be blasted by AC, see the bright, heady lights, bathe in the spacious, sparsely peopled room. Notice the seats for people waiting on line. Notice the orderly queue. You will fill out a reservation form in English or Hebrew (young Israelis straight from the army being a major tourist industry) and the man who will process your form will speak perfect English, know the answers to all your questions, tell you you don't look your age. And if you are lucky, you will end up having to be there an hour or more; the peace of mind you acquire in these cool, spacious headquarters will prepare you to go outside again.

(There are many good arguments for creating such a retreat: Tourists need English speakers, we ask so many questions we slow up the line, and there is a foreign tourist quota on trains that often enables us, unlike natives, to buy tickets at the last minute, which could possibly cause some tension.)

I went to several other things in Delhi, in this order: I passed the incredibly vast and sprawling Red Fort which wasn't open because they were preparing for Independence Day. I went to the ruins of a very old Jamia Masjid (the main Moslem mosque in any town), Firoz Shah Kotla, enjoyed climbing up to the tops of one building and running into a man I didn't trust who wouldn't leave when I asked, who refused to leave before I did even after I said "police", and only did when I shouted down to some guy on the ground, "Do you know this man?" I had dinner with Sumita and Harsha and learned about Sumita's plans to go touring India for three months. I am so interested to hear more about this, to think about the differences in our experiences and what it will be like to be a lone native woman perceiving things with her intimate knowledge of and reverence for India.

The next day, going up the stairs to the latest (I think) Jamia Masjid, I learned visitors couldn't enter for another hour. I turned to find the amazing Emily Teplin and her boyfriend walking up the stairs, so we had lunch. I know Emily from an internship she did at DRA some four years ago; mutual friend Michele told me she was here but I didn't think I'd have time to see her in my two-day visit. Emily is doing an internship for law school in Delhi and her boyfriend Nick had just arrived for a week's visit. It was pretty amazing to run into them. We went back to Jamia Masjid together.

I toted Harsha through Humayun's Tomb, which he was willing to go to only since it's right near his work, and which the Taj Mahal is modeled on but which seemed--perhaps it was my mood--like just a nice place to have a picnic; then we went to a nice dinner. At which point, going back to my guesthouse to pack and catch a nighttrain, I realized I hadn't allowed enough time in case the rickshaw decided to drive me in the wrong direction or a porter tried to steal my bags, etc. It was fine though, because by the time the porter I used (it turns out I didn't need one but nevermind) tried to get twelve times as much money as he should have from me we were already on the train. There were others on the train and I finally got him to leave by saying in a progressively louder voice, "Do you want me to start screaming? I'm going to scream. Do you want me to start screaming? I'm going to scream," etc. He darted off just at the moment when I like to think people would have begun to come.

Did I mention Delhi is India's most polluted city? I know some people will forgive me for saying that one of the things I most like to do while I'm there is leave, particularly I suppose during the hottest season of the year. I had brief regrets about not seeing Independence Day celebrations but was pretty sure I'd be happier on the train. A plane is the most expensive route I think, at $90 or so; I took the third most expensive route which is a $56 two tier AC--generally two stacked beds on walls on opposite sides of a window, and two against the wall across the aisle.

India's train system is well-known for its quality and efficiency, but when people heard I was taking such a long train they groaned as if it might not be worth it. In any case, I was really curious to experience the train, but when I was on it and realized it had started to move--it wasn't supposed to leave until 9:15, and it felt early--and I looked at my watch and it was exactly, precisely 9:15pm, I knew I was about to experience something really special.

None of the four buses I have been on here so far, which have been the only way I've commuted between towns, ever left on time; two left more than an hour late and maybe one of them arrived when it said it would. A lot of them are night buses and some are roomier than others; the one to Kashmir was the devil and I had a square foot of floor space all to myself, but some others are better. The natives are very used to the small spaces. No buses have shocks--I don't think--but a headset seems to compensate because your body just relaxes and bounces along.

It turns out that the train was unusually empty because of Independence Day celebrations, and because I got one of the last tickets I had the car all to myself (except for the one young man who came in looking for a better seat, saw me and gave me that weird, unnerving, familiar look that says he has a 99% chance of getting lucky, made some peculiar remark about how we must "do our duty" at midnight, and finally drew from me such annoyance that at one point--when I noticed there were at least two other completely empty compartments he could have slept in without bothering the single girl--I woke him up demanding to see his ticket. He refused and told me to see the conductor; I didn't pursue, barely slept, whatever.)

In the morning I realized I was in heaven: Blasting AC. Gorgeous India countryside passing by. Helpful courteous staff. A smooth train, cheap food you order from and have delivered to your seat, clean fresh ironed bedding and towel, new pillows, pleasant whirring of the train, a choice of Western or squat toilets side-by-side in case you wished to compare, soap in the bathroom (soap!). Again, the most beautiful lush countryside, all freshly green from the monsoon but no rain; the train slowly passing farmlands and field workers, the women in multi-colored, blowing saris (many wear silk in the fields and I haven't seen kameezs--only saris--in the countryside). And the young man had left before morning: I was all alone.

(In so many poor communities the women are out doing construction or farm labor; in Dharamsala women and young girls had been shipped from the poorest state, Bihar, to repair a road; each day they would carry huge bowls of wet, so extra heavy, gravel on their heads. That they bring in so much of the pay makes me wonder whether the women have any more power at home.)

Fascinatingly, you could see the tracks of the train whizz by through the hole of the squat toilet. Sadly, I think this can only mean that the train system is contributing to water contamination, which led one politician to ask that people only be allowed to run for office if they have toilets in their homes, as related in this article (thanks, Michele):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/south_asia/4742929.stm.

In any case, I relished the quiet, roomy luxury of the train on Independence Day.

***
BANGALORE

As many of you know I had a lot to look forward to in Bangalore. You may have heard Thomas Friedman, promoting his popular "The World Is Flat", suggesting that technology has been leveling the playing field such that it is "now better to be an A-student in Bangalore than a B-student in Brooklyn." The title might be better as "The World Is Soooo Not Flat" or "In Bangalore the World Has Flat Areas", but in any case, he's teaching people about Bangalore, which is the IT hub of India, with a thriving upper class area, a fab pub scene, nightlife, and fancy stores. Also, unlike its neighboring cities it keeps a very comfortable temperature in the summer, and there are said to be many more trees. Bangalore's also considered the most Western city in India, which of course is not an automatic plus, and also the most liberal: People wear more Western clothes and some men and women hold hands in public. Finally Bangalore is in the south; southern India is known to be much nicer to women and friendlier generally.

(Story for my Dad: I was briefly reminded it was "still India" when the Java City I came to--marble cafe tabletops, two stately old-fashioned streetlamps at the entrance, and a Range Rover just pulling up in front--had, "sorry madam, no hot coffee"--a power outtage and one of many times when India has facilitated my effort to quit coffee. But this was sort of a decoy; there hasn't been a single power outtage elsewhere, as opposed to the 2 or 3 a day everywhere else I've been.)

The first thing I noticed when I got off the train was the breeze--a steady breeze that seemed to come from all directions and never stop. And the weather was very comfortable and dry. As I left the station and started to look for my hotel, an innocent, very, well, average looking (horrible phrase) man began helping me with directions, keeping a healthy distance, then asked if I wanted to have company for my stay. Company? What kind of company? I could keep you company for your stay. I don't need it. Don't you get lonely travelling alone? No. I could provide you company. A lot of Indian men would like to give white women company. The words as they came out shocked me and shut him up. Propositioned within 15 minutes of arrival; okay, so it wasn't going to be that different.

According to Lonely Planet Bangalore's nicknamed the Garden City and this is deserved; the place, particularly in the more upscale areas but not only, is just floating with huge trees, swaths of green, palms and other tropical foliage. Very soothing to see all the green (reminds me of my friend Mireille visiting Point Reyes from New York City, "I think I just feel more comfortable around trees.") Many of the nicer areas are landscaped.

Of the city's many neighborhoods the one that is most well-known and most "western" is the MG Road area (MG for Mahatma Gandhi, silly). Although Bangalore's "India's Silicon Valley", don't imagine a wired city, people with exposed Palm Pilots, etc. I've seen a few Ipods and no laptops. But Debra and Gilles say there's an area where all the tech companies are--they have large campuses--and that's where all the wired people are. But they're usually working so you can't see them.

On the other hand the nearby town of Mysore has announced it's going wireless--the whole town, so you can open your laptop anywhere and hook up to the internet.

Bangalore is a really, really nice city: With its trees, very wide roads and spacious planning it's a town I think people would flock to in the West. But some stuff is notable for its absence: In the MG Road area, there are no piles of trash on the streets, no slums visible, very few people begging (which I imagine had to be commandeered), few urinating men and where there are there are also adamant signs rejecting them, as one I saw last night: "Whoever urinates here is a (?) and a scoundrel!" This cleanliness and sense of prosperity seems to spill over into many of the poorer and "more Indian" areas (by which I mean neighborhoods with narrower alleys crowded with people, many more small businesses, fewer shiny new storefronts, streets dotted with shrines). The state Bangalore is in, Karnataka (Kar NA ta ka), has an excellent longtime education system, and I'm told many people even in poorer jobs are more likely to finish at least up to the eighth grade. As a result the state is know for its very high literacy, and Debra noted that you'll see many rickshaw drivers reading. (The words as I write them are music to my ears; in Kashmir with the 90% illiteracy rate on the houseboats, I tried to consider the idea that believing passionately in literacy might be elitist or at least culturally biased; I heart literacy.) This is also probably why although the main language of this area is Kanada, many people--including rickshaw drivers, for instance, and other people in lower income jobs--seem to know much more English than in Delhi.

At the start, despite my complicated feelings about the sari and kameez I was relieved to see most every woman in one of them. But in the MG Road area you do see a lot of western wear on women, particularly after hours and on weekends, and some handholding and even a little more. And you see a few women with short hair, as you do in Delhi (the traditional and proper way to wear it is of course long and tied back). Stores here that want to indicate they also sell Indian dress advertise "ethnic wear". Before I got here I really never expected to be so judgmental of another culture's treatment of women, down to something as classic as the revered sari and hyperelegant kameez. In part I just have such a deep discomfort with clothes that make you move in a certain way, and I'm like the princess and the pea; the least restriction is my enemy. I think I also chafe at the difference between the more traditional women's attire and the more modern men's attire, which corresponds to their respectively more closeted and public roles (I think British rule may have facilitated the men's moving toward more Western dress). But it's hard not to appreciate the elegance of the clothes and their modesty. Here is a discussion that argues for the utility and practicality of the sari: http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/attire/saree/sari_story.htm.

Tapping into Bangalore's somewhat self-conscious pride in being young, hep and liberal, there's a particularly fascinating ad campaign here. It's one of those campaigns that started out without telling you what it was advertising, so you were gripped with anticipation. It showed attractive-looking twentysomethings against a white background with a single slogan. By one young man looking sheepishly at the camera, the sign said, "The more I do it, the better I'm getting at it." By an enthusiasic looking young woman, "All my senses want me to do it." Next to a man and a woman back to back, "After a hard day's work we can't wait to do it." (Yes I have them all memorized. I was enthralled.) A particularly horrible one next to a woman, "I was already anxious, but now I can't wait." Finally yesterday the new signs came up that showed they were advertising a gym. One of the new signs included a coy woman, "I used to do it only once a week, but now I do it every day," and another next to something like, "I never expected to like it so much" or some such.

Contrast this with a (somewhat undersubstantiated) article in one of the top papers the other day that families are arranging marriages so their sons can have sex; the couple has sex prior to the marriage(which is NOT how it's supposed to go) and then the man dumps her. The woman's left with the incredible shame of, among other things, lost virginity, and possibly a baby.

Deborah said she and Gilles have a male friend who wants to talk about sex but doesn't want to use the word, which is hard for her because she doesn't know many other words for sex.


***
RISHIKESH

Rishikesh: Was good. It is a very holy site as it is the starting point for a lot of pilgrimages to even more holy sites near where the Ganges begins. So tons of pilgrims from all over India, and many ashrams filled with sadhus of many different kinds. I needed a chart (that didn't exist) to understand all the different kinds of holy men (different colored cloth, different face markings), though they all shared the characteristic of wearing a scant uniform and appearing devoted to renunciation. Rishikesh was also made famous when (hint to Mom and Jonathan--White Plains, 1985) the Beatles visited the Maharishi Mahashyogi here in 1969. After that it became a boomstown for yoga for foreigners and there are many classes of varying quality; many ashrams offer classes by donation. There was a completely great class in my guesthouse and I think I went six times in four days.

Do you remember Bruno from Brazil from many entries back? We kept running into each other in McLeod Ganj and had similar patterns of not leaving it; buses leave daily o Rishikesh and at one point we even thought we might leave on the same bus, but I didn't leave and didn't see him after. Meanwhile I had become interested in the fact that a lot of people I met in McLeod Ganj, no matter what their religion, believed in God-driven synchronicity ("there are no coincidences") to extremes. One mature young woman from Israel told me she thought that, when she went with a group on a hike, it had started raining "just for them". I asked a British man I'd just met if he believed in synchronicity and signs; he said, "Well, you'd be wrong to ignore them." Meanwhile Bhodisatva-bound Matt said that, while Tibetan Buddhism would say there are signs, no one but Buddhas could know what they mean. I like that idea best.

So a week before I left McLeod I ran into Bruno again, again we both remarked on how we were still there, and I thought, if Bruno were on my bus whenever I leave, now that would be a sign. And a week later there he was, we were seats 15 and 16. Anyway, he's very interested in different kinds of spirituality and seems comfortable, like many Indians, in revering through whatever religion is available as a medium. So, for instance, the Ganges is sacred to him because it's sacred to so many. When we entered Rishikesh and he saw it he literally lept toward it, he was so excited, and yelled, the Ganga! At which point I realized it's the Ganga to Indians--it felt odd to realize I'd been calling their holiest river by something completely else.

The Ganga runs through Rishikesh, much cleaner here than in the very holy city Varanasi where it gain its reputation not only for filth but with the bodies that are sunk in it there (there are I think five groups of people, including lepers and children, who are not burned but simply tied to a rock and sunk, and sometimes they float up). Lots of people were selling various sized plastic bottles for bringing some of the holy water home.

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SOME OF THE REASONS I CAME TO INDIA AND WHICH ONES WERE GOOD:

Coming for yoga: From my experience yoga is a great reason to come here. For one there seems to be greater emphasis on what is the overall goal of yoga, enlightenment through meditation, for which the asanas, mudras and pranayama--the stuff we do in yoga classes--are just preparation. You are much less likely to find this in the west, where for many the emphasis is on the physical activity itself. (As one teacher here said, "In the West many teachers do asanas 4 hours a day. I MEDITATE 4 hours a day." My brother would say they're both crazy.) The emphasis on meditation and the soul was good for me. Also, my teacher in Rishikesh had studied for 10 years in a yoga university and he was really a badass. It seemed to me he was a true yogi, even doing some of the amazing cleansing rituals (do you know the one where you swallow the gauze???). I also went to a lot of classes from the same teacher in McLeod, and really it feels great. What someone thought might be a mark against yoga here--that teachers of Indian students aren't as used to being questioned or even being asked many questions--is true--but if the teachers have a few Western students they get used to it. (It's like we're taking pickaxes to their authority but it's fine.)

Coming for vegetarian food: I started eating meat at 21 but have liked the idea of returning to vegetarianism. Growing up veg in a tiny town in Texas, little could I have imagined what joy it would bring to find an entire country with restaurants advertising "Veg" and "non-Veg", ice cream stands that read "100% vegetarian", restaurants called "Vegetarian Paradise". It's also really interesting to hear the elder Hindu people speak about the non-veg world of the West; they think of it with such sorrow. One man asked me something like, "Is it true there is still much meat-eating in the West?" Many are as strict as if they were keeping Kosher and won't eat in a restaurant where meat (and especially beef) is also served. When a man on a train wanted to tell me a story involving the problems of a meateater, he prefaced it, "You are not eating bull or something like that?"

But I was worried about how spicy it would all be, and, alas, the food here is all too spicy and in the long list of food at Indian restaurants there is exactly one kind of dish, cheese or some other centerpiece served with a cashew sauce called Korma, I can eat aside from bread and rice. Even in non-Indian restaurants their definition of non-spicy is spicy. As a result since Rishikesh I've been struggling foodwise; in Bangalore I'm frequenting places that cater to westerners and looking to move to a place with a kitchen. Indian food is also sort of more oily and soupy than at home. I confess yesterday Michele's friends Debra and Gilles took me to a steak restuarant and I had some and I could not stop eating it. I think I'll go again today.

The last on my list is "Coming to see a place that incorporates spirituality into everyday lives": I mean it's completely fascinating. Venkatesh, when he was brainstorming the schedule for classes, automatically incorporated a period for prayer after lunch. I'm especially into the way spirituality is incorporated in journalism and on the op-ed pages of the Times of India. (There's a correspondingly strong bent toward philosophy; a few days ago there was a little random op-ed about the philosopher Gurdjieff's view of identity and ego the other day and how these relate to concepts in Buddhism and Hinduism--just something that was on someone's mind.) It makes our discussions about the red versus blue states and their different perspectives on religion seem all the more insular. It seems as if, if liberals wanted to better understand the religious perspective of the red states, it might be more efficient for them to come to India, where the filters of red v. blue are off and you can just see a world of automatic and loving devotion.