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Date:
January 12, 2003
(Note: Time, money, computer power and blood sugar are all in short supply
so forgive the errors.)
More rumors and stereotypes about India abound than any other country.
For instance, I have heard over and over how crazy the drivers are and
how dirty the country. In fact, I wonder if any of these tourists have
visited Latin America. I have had whole days of isolated roads. There
are not thousands of skulls lining the roads like Mexico. And the
Indians are obsessed with bodily cleanliness. True, the environment
suffers a bit from people evacuating their bodies of filth. Still it
can be very clean. After my coffee and an early morning walk before
most tourists arise -- a habit leftover from Dennis -- people are
scrubbing, sweeping and washing the streets, then drawing prayers on
the their doorsteps.
So, if the rumors aren't true, what is the real India? It is difficult
to define, or delineate, anything because as my art professor said, "If
you look close enough, there are no lines in nature." The only accurate
definition of India I can imagine is: A landmass defined by an
ever-changing, arbitrary political border roughly encompassing the
Indian subcontinent and the Himalayan Mountains to the north, atop
which flora and fauna compete for survival, most dramatically played
out by the people who comprise an ever-changing, ever-evolving mix of
culture. This boring description can fit almost anyplace. Retaining the
artistic metaphor, I think it is more accurate to define India by
painting a series of small vignettes:
I am sitting in a holy shrine hiding from the heat. An ox drawn cart
full of hay just passed. I assume they are ox and not cows of some sort
since they are sacred creatures. Normally, I have thought of workhorses
as sad creatures but I just thought, "Look at the stride, the cadence.
These are strong, healthy animals. How good it must feel to pull that
cart."
I am camped along a river. The sun is setting and the sky and river are
fluorescent peach mirror images separated by emerald green reeds. Fish
jump like skipping stones, sometimes there are three in the air at
once. My host is restaurant owner who is allowing me to stay for free.
I have ordered: two buttered, garlic naan, two papal, a bowl of achar,
chicken masala, a bowl of rice, tea, and a salad of onions and lemons.
For startersÄ.
Two days after I was wistfully staring at the french fries and
chocolate shakes in a McDonald's in Bombay Central Train Station. Two
days later a terrorist detonated a crude bomb here: 0 deaths, 25
injured, 2 critical. It has taken four days for the police to confirm
it was a bomb. The papers do not speculate as to who is responsible or
the reasons.
What I thought were hundreds of mosquito bites over my arms and face
was in fact Dengue Fever, fondly referred to as the Bone-breaking
Disease. My journal entry from one of those days: I was violently ill
last night. I left a semi-circle of vomit, piss and s-- around my tent.
I think I was poisoned at the restaurant. Or maybe it was the 5 liters
of unfiltered water I drank. I was reluctant to ride back to the same
city so I elected to ride 26 Km forward. This turned into 40 km over
two mountains and when I arrived, I spent an hour riding in circles
because hotels in India are actually restaurants. Presumably, every
restaurant owner thought I wanted to sleep in their backroom or next to
the stove. Now I have a horrible headache. The power is out. The fan
broken. Can barely stand. I need some food, caffeine, some antibiotics
perhaps. Touring never seemed so difficult.
I played chess with Rahul, a 14 year-old boy from Bihar, a northern
state of India, last night. I lost 5 of 6 games and was wondering what
happened to my chess skills. Little did I know he was ranked 5th Junior
Chess Champion in the world with a Master rating.
I crossed paths with the President of Turkmenistan today. We made eye
contact, each evaluating the strangeness of the other.
We are camped on the shores of the same river that forms the Dudhsagar
waterfalls (310m in height) 14 km upstream. The reflection of the
greenery slowly dissolves into the rustic-red bottom. I have lain awake
for hours wondering if there are crocodiles in the river. I am only two
feet away. Debbie's friend's friend was eaten by crocodile while
swimming in an Indian river.
Last night while camping, there was a large fire that caught me by
surprise because I was hidden in small quarry and atop a nearby hill a
building deafened me with chanting Hindi music, symbols and the howls
of dancers. Half the sky was orange and filled with smoke. It seemed
too late for the locals to be burning their plantations. I was fearful
it was a large forest fire that would soon jump the road. I went for a
closer look to determine my peril. Several acres burned sending
billowing clouds of smoke and half-burnt leaves slowly churning into
the sky. It appeared like a neon orange tornado. Banana trees caught in
the updraft seemed to be dancing to the eerie music.
People are getting sticky. I canêt stop for very long before being
surrounded by 50 Indians. At lunch, people were pressing the life out
of me. So, I got the water filter out to distract them. I made a game
out of getting them to test their strength. One held the dirty bottle.
One filtered. One held the clean bottle. And two ran back and forth
with pitchers. If only I could get them to pedal my bicycle.
Afterwards, the adults showed me how to eat a betel nut an addictive
substance very similar to the coca leaves of South America. You have to
wrap it in a leaf with lime paste (the base) and a bit of mint for
flavor. It turns your mouth blood red and rots your teeth and generally
makes a person look as if they just had their teeth knocked out.
At sunset, the skies were filled first with flocks of starlings
swooping from side to side. Then flitty bats chasing mosquitoes. And
later, giant fruit bats flew high overhead. There were hundreds all
flying north with slow lumbering flaps. The reminded me of geese except
they lacked the V formation.
Troops of monkeys -- bonnet and rhesus macaques -- keep passing
our room. One guy jumped into the room and snatched a banana. Then
sat just out of reach eating it. Several days later another stole
a 500 gram pack of peanut brickle. I was so mad that if I had a
rock I would have knocked him out of the tree and made monkey curry.
By the end of our stay, we were surrounded by monkeys on all sides
-- two windows and the door. I felt like I was locked in the cage
while the monkeys roamed.
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