chartandwaters

Dearest everyone, happy happy happy and new new new new year. The documentary trip was cancelled and instead I went quickly to a place called Karikiyur, near Kotagiri, which is near Ooty, which is a popular tourist destination. Karikiyur is about three hours from it, a "tribal village"--its inhabitants are some of India's earliest settlers. We are giving a small art workshop here and it is fun. But the email connections are none, and we came into Kotagiri, 2 hours away, to write email, and have only a few moments to catch the bus back. So on this unsatisfying note (for me), I wish everyone the very best holidays! Much love and happiness, Gabi

So now I steer away from other stuff for a bit to join a little documentary team that's surveying ancient sites in India (Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Gujarat) to document what's been lost by tsunamis and flooding, historically, and what's survived. We leave today so I can't talk much, lucky for you, and anyway I think it's important to have a short blog entry every so often to reassure you that I can do them. But I do want you to know that right now when you buy a carton of Tropicana here (a splurge at $1.75), it comes with a free glass. Not a glass that says "Tropicana" or anything like that, just a glass. The salesperson gives you the carton and then hands you the glass. Love, Gabi

As people here might say, just I receive this email. It's from a friend of a friend; the writer is studying to become a Jesuit priest and is very good, nice, and friendly. All three of us had dinner and three days after, he wrote this email. Name withheld for obvious reasons:

> Dear Respected Gabi, greetings from [name].
> I hope that you recognize me. I do not know how
> to address you. Therefore, I started with ‘Dear
> Respected Gabi’. I think that I should ask you
> how you are. Am I correct? I think I am
> correct. Ok, how are you? M………but in return you
> are not asking me anything. Ok, though you
> don’t ask me how I am, let me tell you how I
> am. I am very fa……t. Gabi, I can not send you
> mail without writing anything. I was thinking a
> lot what to write. Finally I ended with this
> way of writing. If it is boring you, I am very
> sorry, ok? Gabi, thank you very much for
> reading this mail.
> [name]

"Art is the ability to tell the truth, especially about oneself."
--Pryor quoted in 12/11/05 New York Times obituary

Pico Iyer is a well-known travel writer who writes, sort of in the same breath, about the places he visits and about why people travel--about both the interior and exterior experience of travel. For instance, he writes in Sun After Dark, "You go into the dark to get away from what you know," as if to say, as much as you travel to see something foreign, you travel in order to see nothing familiar. You could say you're travelling for the sake of a negative image. Sometimes you may travel simply to feel confused, to have your mind bend with illogic simply because you can't decipher what's going on. I hear a few of you saying, Gabi, you were already confused. Nevermind it's not my point; stay focused. At times, when we start out mystified, often, when we finally find out what's going on, it's not nearly as satisfying. We're seeking, in essence, to feel in the dark, rather than to be sated with knowledge. Why do we need this when things baffle every day? says the non-traveller. I think the traveller knows why, even if she can't express it.

Now I'm in Chennai, and ooo do I have stories for you. Or maybe they're just for myself, but until I tell you about them, they don't seem to be stories. And they have no beginning or end or climax, so what are they precisely? One is shooting down the street last night on the back of Kristin's scooter. Sitting on a scooter, looking out on the crazy traffic, often makes me smile goofily, and I'm especially happy to know this Tamil-speaking white girl who has taught herself the ways of Indian traffic. Sitting sideways on the seat, knees together, in the Indian woman's way, I saw a group of women selling fish by candlelight on tiny, makeshift tables, laid with whole, shimmering fish. The tables were knee-high, maybe 2 feet square, and on every table, from what I could make out, two lit candles had been melted at their base to either side of the displayed fish. "Oh my god", I said, and Kristin said from the front, "I know, amazing." A few seconds later the smell caught up with me and I said, "PHEW!" "I know," Kristin said, "That's amazing too."

This a.m. I watched two men find space in a busy intersection to drag a tape measure across the street and quickly mark something like a compass rose in chalk in the center of the street. In a few moments they were gone, and the compass rose remained, doomed to rain and tires.

My second to last day in Bangalore, I visited a school for children with disabilities living in a slum area. Michele had recommended I visit as she had gotten to know some of the teachers very well. It was run by a savvy, caring man named G. Manivannan--"savvy" and "caring" are shorthand for the many stories he related of the good deeds he seems to have done very effectively. After the tour he invited me to a Karnatak (South Indian) music concert, and I was delighted. But first he showed me a new beautiful theater that had been built in Bangalore, and gave me tips on how to explore the cultural scene in Bangalore, which is happily bursting side-by-side (though, oh, never as fast) as the tech scene. And then I needed to switch hotels, so from his home, as he tried to wake his children to come to the concert, I called hotels. Though I was using my trusty NEW model Lonely Planet (published in September), and working with only a short list of hotels, he grew impatient watching me, apparently feeling responsible to take on this burden of mine. Finally, the next place I called didn't speak such good English, so I hung up and passed the book to Manivannan, and he identified the place as owned by a childhood friend he hadn't seen in 20 years. He redialed the reservation desk and got his old friend's number in order to make a personal reservation.

At first, I don't know why, he said that he would tell the friend later who he was, but first he wanted to make a reservation. I find booking a room generally straightforward, but I suppose he was trying to bypass any possible nonsense and ensure a booked room for me. But his friend wanted to know, was impatient, understandably, who was calling. "Mannivanan," he said, and then, after the pause, tenderly, "How are you Neeraj. Such a lifetime no we've not met." They began to make my reservation and Manivannan carefully spelled my name: "G for Gujarat..."
Gujarat is a state in India that for foreigners has become synonymous with devastating anti-Muslim riots--generally understood to be state-sponsored--in 2002, and a huge earthquake in 2001. Neeraj also invited us to his sister's wedding reception, happening that evening.

"Would you like to go to an Indian wedding?" Manivannan asked me quite kindly--and generously; how much less a thrill such a thing would be for him. So after the incredible! thrilling! dazzling! Karnatak music, we went to the wedding reception, which was mostly an awkward mingling among strangers, though with great hors d'ouevres and something called a "welcome juice" that tasted just like an orange creamsicle but with floating bits of mango. While we were there, Neeraj repeatedly insisted on leaving the wedding reception to check me into my (very low-cost) room, and it was only after much, much persuasion--as we were all standing outside Manivannan's car--that we convinced him not to.

My new hotel was walking distance from my old one (which had a bad paint smell), in the incredibly bustling, wild, always awake, potholed, gridlocked, extremely crowded center of Bangalore called City Market. So I just needed to be dropped off at the old hotel to pick up my luggage. Driving there, Manivannan and I gossipped about whether Neeraj's hospitality was more extreme--in a strange way--than standard Indian hospitality, which Manivannan said is represented in a Kannada phrase that means "treat every guest as a God". Arguing that perhaps it was not strange, I listed examples of the very extreme hospitality I had experienced in India. For example, there was the couple who insisted on driving me around to look for a trolley (luggage cart), an item that I was soon to learn does not exist in India because of the treacherous roads.

At least twenty minutes into the search, the couple explained that they were just on their way home from the hospital, where their five-year-old son, who was sitting very quietly in the back seat, had been overnight with a 105 degree fever. I protested heavily against further searching; no, no, it had to go on, it was part of their caste and in their blood to take care of foreigners. While the mother waited in the car the father took me from store to store; every store had a suggestion, no one had a trolley.

Once I managed to persuade them it was time to give up the search, they wondered aloud whether I should come for dinner. I said, please, your son, and they said, well, no, it's just that because of our religion we're fasting right now. I agreed that that meant it probably was a bad night for dinner, so we made it for the next day.

Still, Manivannan argued that Neeraj's hospitality was bizarrely extreme, what with inviting us to the wedding reception and then nearly leaving it. To show what more normal Indian hospitality looks like, Manivannan gave me examples of the decisions he had made about what HE had invited me to throughout the day. For example, he reminded me, he had admitted to me when I first called him that he wasn't free, rather than setting everything aside for a foreign guest (I don't think this is normal, I think it's just the behavior of someone more sophisticated). And later, he had invited me to something--the music--that was in HIS plans, not making new ones for me. (Same.) At this point I began to feel a bit less excited by our day, as if he were dissecting the extent to which he had successfully fulfilled his duty of treating me as a god. But at the end, Manivannan, his two restless children in the back seat, insisted on driving over City Market's bumpy roads and through the absurd traffic (neither of which, I realize, feel as extreme to him) from my old hotel to my new one to see that the room had been effectively booked--since he worried that Neeraj, in his excitement, hadn't booked it after all. Many a time had I found a hotel myself, and there were many in the area. I finally buckled and looked oppressed, as people often feel in the heat of Indian hospitality, and, nearing the hotel, he pulled over sensitively and let me out.

When I went to the hotel, not only was my room not booked, but they didn't know who Neeraj was. They had a room for me though, at the same price, and I went up to sleep.

I just walked under a ladder. And bought a packet of Fruitella, India's answer to Starburst. (I hear my mother saying, "That was the answer to a question nobody asked.") The main difference is that Starburst isn't multi-fruit flavored; for example, mine are "blackcurrant flavored chewy sweets." I am trying to make up for the fact that I can't tell you about food in India.

Yes India! I had scheduled my flight for Friday so that I would get into Chennai in time to catch a six-hour train to Bangalore to see Venkatesh receive an award on Saturday, as I'd promised him. On Thursday night, still in Sri Lanka, I raced from a visa fiasco that had kept me in Colombo two days too long to get my bit of large-Buddha-seeing in---I thought, if I can just see one of the large SLEEPING Buddhas like I'd seen in my guidebook, I will feel complete. I don't know what it was about the sleeping Buddhas that so appealed to me, but I suppose it's their humanness; for the most part the Buddhas I'd seen in Sri Lanka are in the cross-legged meditating position, and it's lovely to see a sculpture that refers to even the Buddha's need for sleep. There must be a further symbolism to them. There are several in the three main towns that make up the "cultural triangle" of inland Sri Lanka.

But first I wanted to see Sigiriya, which is one of the most popular sites in Sri Lanka. It's a fort built around 400 A.D. on top of one of those weird enormous rocks that sometimes appears in the middle of nowhere. Probably this one once looked more like a mountain--like Shiprock in New Mexico--or maybe it's still technically a mountain (what makes something a mountain? am I a mountain?)--but it now looks more like a large rock (picture at http://sigiriya.org).

And so a king decided it would work as a palace and fortress, so he built waterways and gardens at the bottom, swimming pools and living quarters for himself and his 500 concubines at the top, and 1200 steps for the slaves to carry him up.

The night I arrived, it's a long ATM story, but I wouldn't have the $20.00 I'd just learned the ticket to Sigiriya costs foreigners until the next day. $20.00!? I went to the ticket counter anyway, hoping for an unobtainable reprieve, but one of the 25 unemployed guides nearby convinced me to come on a smaller journey to a "rock temple" with a Buddha statue. He said it would cost 500 Sri Lankan rupees (5.00$)--($5.00!?)--but before we started off he showed me the ticket he'd supposedly bought for me--without my having given him money--and I realized it was a scam, the temple probably didn't cost anything. If you don't realize this you would also tip him so he'd get maybe 700 Rs. But I knew there was an actual temple and he was an actual guide, so I let him take me up to the statue set high up upon a rock with no steps, only boulders, so it was basically a small rock-climbing expedition (which explains the lack of fee). And there, at the top, lo and behold was, aside from some small ancient meditation coves for monks, one big sleeping Buddha, about 15 meters long, resting peacefully on a pillow. When it opened its eyes it would see Sigiriya. I felt like God was laughing at me. I took a thousand pictures of my sleeping Buddha, the Buddha only those people see who are willing to allow a cheating guide to help them climb the rocks for 500 Rs and, probably, only those who didn't have the $20 to get into Sigiriya. Hence a very special Buddha.

The Buddha's top half had lost a lot of its white plaster cover, so the face was mostly carved masonry. I'd never seen clay bricks sculpted into a form.

(My guide was actually very good and smart, toting my large bag without complaint and diligently providing information in great English. Once back at the ticket counter I confirmed that it had been a scam. I'd still given him no money but he'd offered to drive me free to my hotel, which is a 300 Rs ride, so I told him that I knew he was cheating me but if he drove me all the way, I would still give him the money but no tip. He pretended not to understand but drove me all the way home.)

By the next morning I had nearly decided that no giant rock was worth $20 when you can see so many sites in India for nothing, when, with the persuading of hotel staff that I had "plenty of time" to do it and still arrive at the airport at 1:05pm, two hours before my 3:05 flight, the tides of my mind turned, as they so easily do, and I hurried to Sigiriya with my cash. And I climbed the rock, and it was yes pretty cool, but it took too long even at a rush and I hurried down part-way through. I was only a half-hour behind schedule when I hopped the bus for the supposedly 2-hour busride to the airport. Which, two hours in, after a calm tea break and at a steady, unrushed speed, the bus attendant explained would be four hours, getting me in 30 minutes after my flight. I explained my predicament and the busdriver kindly sped up, but finally I lept off and had an autorickshaw race me 30 minutes at a breakneck 35mph to the airport, where I stepped across the airport threshold at 3:03pm and wondered what would become of me.

The plane had been delayed an hour. I felt relief combined with some sort of neutral shock. There are many stops at the airport where guards want something from you: your boarding pass, your embarkation card, your passport; I dug through my bag, losing each thing each time I put it back in. The airport attendants were wonderfully calming; they ushered me past with kind smiles and gentle questions like, "Are you tired?" At the gate, I noticed that other foreigners looked equally frazzled; perhaps that's what the employees are used to, the disorientation of passengers who have just gotten off a four-hour busride they were told would take two.

At the gate I eavesdropped on a group of upper-class passengers comparing notes on the struggle to find any worthwhile souvenirs, first in Sri Lanka (I can't comment), and then moving on to other countries:

"In America, the hand-blown glass is quite lovely but otherwise there's really not ANything."
"Yes, it's all made in China."

I admired the stewardesses in their saris and the sign in the bathroom that instructs Gentleman, who really can't be trusted about anything, to "Please Lift the Toilet Seat UP". I appreciated the beer served automatically with the meal, and credited my life to the fact that they served a meal in the 45-minute ride, spicy and strange tasting as it was.

I had just finished a popular bestseller (I don't want to ruin the book for someone) the night before. It contains a long scene narrated by a man struggling on the point of starvation and exhaustion, so, his voice deep in my mind, I seemed to feel every one of my measly struggles at that pitch of emotion and severity.

I arrived in a Chennai downpour and hurried to get the train to Bangalore--sold out--so rushed to a bus and departed 10:30pm in pouring rain which continued inside the bus as the roof had several leaks--one over my legs, and then when I switched seats over my right eye. I draped the stinky but somewhat waterproof window curtain over my face and napped. Got off train at 7:30am, found hotel with hot water an hour later. The shower was a few thin light streams all directed at different parts of the bathroom, but I filled the 4 liter bucket provided for the bucket bath and tried to get my whole body in the bucket; had to content myself with the feet and stayed there till the last possible second; got out dressed and fled to the World Disability Day celebration in pretty Cubbon Park to see Venkatesh get his award.

The celebration was great simply to arrive at; often at the level of "those poor things", disability actually seems to get a lot of attention in India--from NGOs and religious sectors--but on the streets I haven't often seen people with disabilities other than those who are begging. So it was really good to see so many people coming from all kinds of disability backgrounds and income levels to share in something that seemed healthy and strengthening for the cause. (I say "seemed" because the presentation was all in Kannada and no one was really translating for me.)

Before the ceremony began a man who had a mobility disability that meant he crawled rather than walked (and also he did not have hands, his arms ended at his wrists) started to climb up the podium steps; police tried to stop him, he struggled and in the struggle managed to break some of the pots of plants gracing the front of stage. And with that a small but loud, angry and seemingly well-organized protest began.

I was just a row away from the pot-breaking and was very startled and excited by the whole thing; it had seemed like such a peaceful, simple event and then someone just busted it up with all their might, and very effectively. I guess I especially liked that he broke some pots (he probably did too). The photographers and policeman gathered around and the policeman were obviously struggling because they didn't want some horrible photo of them battering a disabled man. Then someone started protest chants while he struggled with the police, and slowly others gathered sitting around him. Eventually he was permitted to read the group's demands to the press, the Deputy Chief Minister (like a Lt Gov) responded, and then the police insisted the pot-breaker return to his seat but he refused. The protesters watched peaceably from the floor in front aisle, and the rest of the ceremony was quiet except for a couple of hecklers behind us. Most notably when a woman announced that [a law like the Indians with Disability Act] had been passed in 1995 but not all of its demands had been met, the hecklers cried out "Not one!" and for a moment I felt like I was at a protest in America and a discussion on the ADA--although the comparison can't be fair.

I don't usually see people who crawl rather than walk or use a wheelchair, and you see many very poor people who have managed to get a modified wheelchair that they use on streets. But there were several people at the celebration who either could not get a wheelchair or didn't want one, maybe since it's not conducive to travel on most Indian streets.

Indians know how to bestow honors; the 12 awardees were each garlanded, given huge plaques, glass trophies, and a giant fruit basket, then made to hold all of them at once while they were photographed with the deputy Chief Minister (like Lt. Governor) of Karnataka. Venkatesh is a very, very hard worker, and he was excited and truly honored and humble; it was exciting to see his work rewarded and especially his eager, humble response.