August 31: Transportation #2

The symposium will be over tomorrow, and on Thursday I'm planning on heading south on what is supposed to be one of the most comprehensive railway systems anywhere. Except, um, I just can't find the time tables online (the Indian railway has a great website with lovely maps -- just the actual time table page refuses to work for me) and it turns out the trains don't really go to any of the places I want to go and I am about to chuck it all in exchange for taking a bus. But then I found this:

BUSES AND TRAINS IN INDIA

Buses - "But by far the worst places to sleep are on overnight bus rides in India. The roads are so bad that I kept falling forward out of my seat and hitting my head against the seat in front of me. Not a wink of sleep the whole night and a sore back and neck to boot." Contributed by Erik Bielefeldt

Buses - "this is relevant to 2001, but it will probably be still relevant till the next century:
if you want to have an overnight ride on an Indian bus, just consider two things:
1. NEVER sit at the back of the bus. the buses are designed in such a way that every small bump will break the bones of the people sitting at the back.
2. be careful about sitting too close to the driver - the buses have horns that can be used as a non-conventional weapon, and the drivers use them quite often through the ride. however, they can be convinced to try and not use the horn so often." Contributed by ? (Added 18 JAN 03)

Overnight Train (New Dehli to Varanasi) - " June 1996 - By far the worst sleeping/traveling story I have, after traveling around the globe, is when my girl friend and I made the mistake of getting a 2nd class sleeper from New Delhi to Varanasi, India. Pure Hell. Beside the rank odor and the disgustingly dirty "beds", we really never managed to sleep because of being constantly bothered. In the middle of the night a woman tried to join my girl friend in her bed, and at one point a thief from outside the train tried to reach in through the metal barred windows and make off with what he could. He was caught, but he then grabbed a hold of the sleepy passenger by the collar as the train started off, both screaming at each other. We felt like we were on a cattle train. Another winner is trying to sleep on any bus in India. Just suck it up and figure you're just not going to get a wink. "

Clearly I'm just going to have to suck it up and go down to the train station, wait in line, and figure this whole thing out. . .

August 30: Music

I am humbled. I am realizing there is no way to understand all the details of another country. Tonight we had a short concert of traditional Southern Indian music with a great deal of verbal explanation as well. The music was energetic, and the percussion the kind that makes you tap your feet -- lovely to listen to. But, but, but, there were just so many things to take in. Not that any single one was so unique or incredible, but there were just so many. A few of the things I remember:

--In addition to the drum made of lizard, one musician played a clay pot.

--There was a flute in conjunction with five percussion instruments. The percussionists by and large improvised.

--The word "improvise" does not mean "do whatever you want" but "cater to an exact rhythm that might, just might, have 13 and a half beats to each bar."

--As it was, they played to a 32-beat rhythm, divided into 4 groups of eight. To count out the eight beats of each bar, you tap the palm of your hand once, the back of your hand once, then the palm, the back, and then the palm four times.

--It was very important for each player to name their guru, their teacher, as musicians have a lineage a lot like martial arts senseis.

--One of the musicians described the constant math going on in his head while playing -- "what's 57 divided by 3?" -- I am hoping he was exaggerating, but I am not sure.

I say all this, and I have not even mentioned that the music clearly is based in a specific culture from a specific spot in India, and that the music was tied to a particular mythology -- as most music and dance is here.

The point is not that the music was so radically different from what I've heard before -- it wasn't. It's just that given the small handful of points I've listed above, all of which are interesting and new, and given that they are just a small tip of the iceberg of one small form of entertainment from one area of a very large country. . . how can one ever presume to get a handle on all that makes up a different country??

I am reminded of a book my roommate in graduate school was reading for her anthropology studies in which the author referred to herself in three ways, two of which were in the third person, while studying a tribe in Africa. The book had sentences like "I am walking along the beach, while the anthropologist notes that today the children are not working. The professor wants to organize their games." Or something like that -- where everyone in the sentence was really a name for herself. This was some post-modernist phase in anthropology where one was trying to hang one's biases and perspectives out for everyone to see.

I think what I'm saying, in a fairly convoluted way, is that I'm jettisoning any pretense of The Anthropologist and The Professor. The only way to travel is just to walk on the beach and see what you can see.

August 28: Festival!

Today’s events were over-the-top fantastic. The Indian fellows organized a “mele” – a traditional village carnival -- on an adjunct campus several miles outside of the city. We got out of the buses and were welcomed by a) fireworks b) a 20-foot diameter pattern of flower petals c) necklaces made of jasmine and c) a band. The band began to play and then walk backwards. We were told that at a festival the band always led you to the next event -- so we followed it up the hill to a stretch of field where it was announced that it was time to play games.

Games are always good . . . but in this case, even better. For one thing, they’d created five or six stations for various games all of which already had kids playing on them. They had invited kids from all the neighboring schools to come out on the field and demonstrate, so we could learn the games and then jump in. This is sheer genius and I’m doing it at every party I ever have from now on. But better yet, the games were, well, awesome is the only word. I am humbled when I think that I thought, say, tether ball was a good way to pass recess. There was a game called Coco which is not unlike Duck Duck Goose, in the way that chess is not unlike checkers – I mean it was Duck Duck Goose that required agility and strategy. The fact that this was being played by girls in pigtails and perfect blue-gray sari school uniforms didn’t hurt the picture either. There was another game that was sort of team tag, but you have to hold your breath while you try and tag someone. But the best game, the most intricate of all . . . involved a tennis ball and a tower of flat rocks about a foot and a half high. The game starts out serenely enough, kind of reminding me of cricket. One team stands behind the rocks, while each of the members of the other team have three tries to fling the ball at the tower and try to knock it over. The team in the outfield calmly throws the ball back if they miss. But if the ball makes contact, then the game – I swear this is true – turns into a frantic game of dodge ball. The team that threw the ball rushes forward to try and stack the rocks back up, all while the other team flings the tennis ball at them. If they hit a team member before the tower gets restacked, then they win. It is possibly the best game I have ever seen in my entire life.

After about 45 minutes of games, the band struck up again. I think I may be doing a disservice when I say “band.” We’re talking about seven people dressed in bright yellow robes, three on brass horns, four on drums, playing as loudly as they can while jumping along, inciting all the rest of us to fall into line behind them doing rhythmic dances like rats behind the pied piper. One of the Chilean professors said it nearly moved her to tears. The other Chileans were too busy shaking their hips to worry about crying. The band took us to another field littered with various blankets and activities at each. There were more dancers and musicians, there was a puppet show, there were girls grinding grain, women who wove flowers into your hair, people who strung bangles onto your wrist, a woman giving out henna tattoos (guess where I got mine?), a potter working on a manual wheel that he would keep spinning by periodically giving it a couple good shoves with a long pole like he was a punter on the Thames, men who hacked apart coconuts to eat with machetes, and two fortune tellers. The fortune teller said I would have more than one home abroad but “only” two children and that pretty much nothing was ever going to go wrong in my life. He also said I was supposed to have been born male and that I was very brave. (I neglected to tell him I was so brave that I was carrying a stuffed hippo in my backpack.)

One of the best things about the entire carnival was how many extra people were there. All those working the fair brought their friends and families, there was staff from the college, and there were of course the school children running everywhere – one bold one from each group stepping forward occasionally to ask a name or where one of us was from. There were as many, if not more, non-Meltonites there as members of our own group, and it made the experience all the better, both in its being more realistic, and in watching how much others were enjoying it. One of the musical groups began playing during the carnival and a group of Indian and Chilean fellows began to dance. There is something of a stereotype within the Melton Foundation that it is the Chileans who are the best dancers – so it’s great to realize they’re not the only ones who can really do it up. The Indians were leading the way -- just a handful of the rest of us jumping in – and then members of some of the other dance troupes joined up and a group of uniformed schoolgirls finally dared each other to join too.

We had some snacks at this point, and I thought the afternoon was winding down when the band struck up and led us to a courtyard where we watched 45 minutes of a dance troupe. Then the band led us outside, playing music as the sound of fireworks exploded above -- and again I assumed it was time to leave. But we were called forward to sit on the grass in the dark. Someone lit a match, and suddenly colored sparklers lit up to spell “Symp 2004.” There is, it turns out, a whole genre of fireworks that I didn’t know about. Seven or eight wire contraptions were set up in front of us, all covered with fireworks nailed to them. Once a fuse was lit, the crackers would begin to emit flame that would suddenly send all the moving pieces swirling around furiously – a drunken globe, a spinning wheel, and the best: a cobra some twenty feet tall just writhing back and forth. Each whirligig lighting was spaced out by either a display of ground-based firecrackers, spraying sparks like a water fountain into the air, or an intense display of air fireworks. Since these were lit just for our group, we all sat directly underneath the umbrellas of color.

“I’ve never been this close to fireworks,” I said.

And Adrian, an alum from Dillard, responded: “Yeah, that’s because we have laws about it in the U.S.”

It was at this point that a five-inch ball of flame landed at my feet. It went out quickly enough, but I realized my eyes had had a close call, since it was still attached to the three-foot long dowel the firecracker had originally been stuck to. This was not enough to keep me from staring up into space, however. The fireworks lasted for a solid half an hour – one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. The rain of ash chunks falling into my hair was just part of the price.

August 28: Transportation

I took a rickshaw into town by myself today to do an errand, and then had to get into another one to get to the BMS campus for the symposium. It was my first outing all alone (I have to admit that I, um, put the hippo into my backpack for company) but being out on my own was fairly uneventful, with the exception of the fact that the drivers don’t always know where everything is. The first driver pointed at a building I knew full well was not the building I wanted, but I got out anyway, since I was on the right road and I only had to walk a couple blocks. The second driver, however, took me to a completely different university, and I had to go through some lengthy descriptions to help him figure out where I was really supposed to be, way across town.

Being lost, however, is always said to be one of those things travelers are supposed to delight in (Oh – I just have to put an aside in here. I talked to a friend from Germany today who knew exactly nothing about India ahead of time, an experience he prefers when traveling so that he can make his own opinions. He will then go back and read about the country afterwards. “The better to get a culture shock,” he said. And a beat later: “I’ve certainly had one.” Now, while I refuse to read the backs of books ahead of time – this not knowing a thing about the place you’re going . . . wow. There’s a situation in which this girl is never going to find herself. All of which is to say I did, of course, have to take a deep breath and remind myself that it’s ok to be “lost” on a rickshaw, but then it became An Adventure and therefore Alright.) so I leaned back and just enjoyed the ride. I knew we were again on track when I recognized a huge billboard I’d seen on the first day: “Traffic rules are for your safety. Please follow them.”

Which gave me my adventure. . . I started watching the signs. Because the signs on the side of the road, coupled with the actual behavior of the drivers, now there’s a pretty stark contrast. One of my favorite signs is: “Buckle Up! It’s a law!” It’s not “the law” mind you. Just a law. One of them. One you might consider following, perhaps, if it’s not too much trouble.

Stenciled onto the sides of cubbies set at various intersections – cubbies wherein officers sit during rush hour to manually change the traffic lights, because the traffic is so bad that someone needs to oversee the process to keep the roads moving – are the basics like: “Don’t drink and drive.” They also remind one to please “not overtake on the left” – something that only the cars, if that, are following. There are far more motorcycles and rickshaws on the road than cars, and these weave in and out of the rest of the scene with impunity. “Please don’t cross the yellow line” shows up repeatedly, which would be of more use if the roads HAD yellow lines. I haven’t seen any. As it is, the weaving in and out of traffic regularly takes place on both sides of the street, oncoming traffic not withstanding. Just where that imaginary yellow line dividing the road is seems to be a fairly fluid construct.

I have to speak out against the “No Honking” signs, because how else would the other vehicles know you’re flying through an intersection at 90 miles-an-hour without even looking if you didn’t warn them? Thankfully many of the trucks have printed in bold blues and reds across their backs: “Sound Horn OK.” I am not sure if this means you should let them know if they’re in your way, or if it’s just a general suggestion, but they certainly get lots of takers. Also written on the backs of cars – i.e. you can see it when you are starting straight at its exhaust pipe -- “Please don’t pollute the air.” I can’t even begin to comment on that one.

My favorite of all, however, stenciled in large red letters on a piece of white-washed wood: “Accident area, drive slow” with a huge, red death’s head across the top. These aren’t merely accidents zones mind you, but areas being overseen by the skull-and-crossbones. Thankfully, my driver actually obeyed that sign, though I think this had more to do with the fact that we were going uphill and his Little Rickshaw That Could was having a hard go of it.

Regardless, I am still a big fan of the rickshaw. After asking other motorcyclists where the college was, we finally got there in one piece after a 25 minute drive . . . and I forked over $1.70 – including tip.

August 27: Technology and Culture

The slippery slope argument has never been one I'm fond of. It is too easy to say "but if we allow liquor to be legal/women to vote/gays to marry, then the entire fabric of our society will rot away and next thing you know society we'll sanction women presidents and/or marriage to goats." I believe that life doesn't actually work that way -- one step and, boom! you lose control. In reality we all pretty much know the line when we come to it, and over time that line will legitimately fluctuate. Female presidents now are officially acceptable (in theory, not that the U.S. has had one); marriage to goats -- never.

This kind of argument invariably gets raised in cross cultural encounters: how can one embrace the good in another culture without losing your own identity? If a poorer nation seeks Western standards of living will they invariably lose their own traditions? Will working at a Western pace destroy villages and families?

This morning at the symposium we had a discussion about leveraging technology to increase cultural communication, and it was interesting to see -- in a group that relies on the Internet to create bonds -- that many people were vocal about fears that I.T. itself could too easily create a society devoid of human contact, arts and music, old traditions, anything but the drive to seal onesself off into a cubby earning money, seeking a certain sterilized version of life.

It brings up issues that U.S. citizens have wrestled with for much of the last century or so: is it hubris to press your values and culture onto another? Or is it hubris to deny them access to better health care, more food, better education because you have decided they are better off without your attempting to change their way of life? In India, Bangalore especially, as the technological boom has revolutionized the city, the question becomes -- for some -- is the new wealth destined to create a new middle class divorced from traditional Indian culture?

It's in my nature to reject this kind of argument in general. For one thing I fall on the side of thinking it's presumptuous to judge the correctness of how another person seeks to climb out of poverty, when you're sitting in a position of wealth and can't possibly relate.

But more importantly, I just don't believe in the slippery slope. The fact that Bangalore sports a Pizza Hut notwhithstanding, there is just too much here that is unique. This is not a place doomed for homogeonization.

My feelings were emphasized when we visited a temple to Shiva later in the day. This was a statue of the god, five stories tall, carved out of ivory-colored soapstone. Shiva is the god who destroys evil, so he wears snakes around his neck and wrist. Shiva is also said to tbe the source of the river Ganges, so a giant water fountain sprayed out of the top of his head. replenshing a pool at his feet. Sitting in front of Shiva were various cross-legged practicioners praying. And there were signs hanging around offering bits of advice, such as: "Work as if everything depends on you; pray as if everything depends on Lord Shiva."

But here's the thing about this temple. And I don't mean to be disrespectful, since it was an impressive place, but my first reaction was that it reminded me of Space Mountain. It was just so much larger-than-life that it kind of deserved to have a roller coaster inside. I figured, however, that such caricatures appear in places like Disney World specifically because they're based on real historical treasures, so I asked how old the temple was.

"Two years," came the answer.

Yeah, trust me, Bangalore is not in danger of losing its personality.

August 25: WOW

This is nothing like I expected. Nothing.

This is surely because I am:

a) in Bangalore -- a slightly wealthier, more modern city than, say, Bombay or New Delhi, that has gone through incredible growth in the last five years

b) staying in a modern hotel -- the bathroom has, I SWEAR, for its sink one of those trendy glass basins that sits on top of the marble. The kind of thing that is de rigueur in every new urban restaurant bathroom these days. (Still better than those see-through Swiss toilets though.

c) am surrounded by locals whom I know fairly well.

But still.

My plane landed at 1 AM, and so I wasn't in a cab to my hotel until about 2 AM. I chalked up the spaciousness -- of the airport, the sidewalks, the streets -- to the late hour. I had prepared myself for crowds and poverty. Instead as my cab driver sped forward (never slowing down at an intersection, simply leaning on the horn to make sure his presence was known) my thoughts were along the lines of: "Those banyan trees would make good climbing trees," or "Hey, we're driving on the left side of the road!"

This morning, after a breakfast of vegetable curry that despite all warnings that REAL Indian food was going to be too hot, was fantastic, I made plans to go into town with five fellows -- two from Germany, two from New Orleans, one from China. As I walked out of the hotel, a friend from India stopped me and gave a bit of a warning that sounded almost like an apology: "Now you're going to see the real craziness of India." The six of us hopped into two rickshaws (which are powered by motorcycles here, not bikes) and . . . went into Indian craziness.

Except it wasn't crazy. It was exuberant. Simply energetic and exciting and happy. Our rickshaw looked a lot like a yellow hansom cab, except there was only a roof and a floor. The sides are wide open, so you feel the wind as you drive -- an automatic mood enhancer. But there was more. The inside of the rickshaw was decorated in puffy blue and green designs with gold piping, and had a fake chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Our driver didn't know the exact address of where we were going, so he called to motorcycle drivers -- often with a woman in a sari riding side-saddle behind them -- as he went asking directions. He, too, blew the horn as he passed through every intersection, but it sounded nothing like a cranky NYC traffic jam. This was more of an announcement to the world, a rickshaw's shout of "I am!"

When we got out of the rickshaw, a little boy perhaps age 5 called out, excited about the Westerners and a chance for money. He did three cartwheels with a smile and then held out his hand for coins.

I didn't give him any. I had been so prepared for hoardes of people begging that I had inured myself ahead of time. I was going to nod and say no to anyone who asked . . . and I realize now I didn't need to. He was the only person all day who asked for money, and he even did something in return: he gave me his exuberance. Next time I'm paying up.

August 23: Flight

. . . And now I'm sipping champagne in a business class seat on a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. One of my visitors in Woods Hole, Eleni, has a friend who works for Lufthansa, and she asked him to get me an upgrade. It's one of those kinds where they decide about 5 minutes before the flight leaves if they have room for me, but hey, so far so good. I'm crossing my fingers that I get the upgrade for the second leg from Frankfurt to Bangalore too. It's a much needed rest, since I drove home from Cape Cod yesterday, getting home around midnight, and then rushed around all morning to do the last things that needed doing. I really truly thought I was completely packed, but there are always a few things left to be done. And then suddenly there are 3000 things left to be done and life gets hectic and then I have to call Noah and have him come over and help me pack and pick which books to take with me, and then have him go through the last of my bills that need dealing with, and, and, and. . . .

I was not completely unready, however, I did get some very important things done prior to departure -- both crucial on this current airplane excursion. First of all, I have the tricked-out-est of palm pilots that you ever did see. It has a little keyboard and it's an MP3 player and a digital camera and it pretty much rocks. It's what I'm writing this on on the plane. . . but even more importantly -- I bought a hippo. Do not laugh. It is the softest, coziest, most comforting creature of all time, and I am convinced it is going to solve any and all loneliness problems while traveling alone. Really.

August 23: Cooking

As you can tell from the complete lack of Woods Hole entres, I didn't do much more than lie around for the entire time I was there. . . but I did finally finish up an article for Ride Magazine that had gotten stalled a month ago when we postponed the article for a month. So I can feel like I did SOMETHING besides eat and drink and play games late into the night while I was there.

But, um, mostly I ate and drank and played games. . . Here's a pic of the fantastic beer can chicken [[PIC WILL GO UP SOON]] Aries and Mykl made one night. Yes, we violated the chicken mercilessly, but it was damn good when finished. And well complimented by the oysters we grilled just until they opened. Love those bivalves.

August 11: Happy As a Clam

Before my India trip, I have a lovely two weeks in Woods Hole on Cape Cod -- my favorite town in the world. I am here now, renting a truly kick-ass house with a great kitchen (which is the most important point) and we've been cooking wonderful food. Besides cooking, it's phenomenally hard to make onesself do much work -- I was going to do all this writing yesterday, and instead I caved instantly when Jane called me up to go out on a boat and hang out on Devil's Foot Island.

We collected clams (or quahogs as those who grew up in Woods Hole insist -- "clams" are reserved for soft shells) -- which is the true lazy person's kind of hunting. You walk around in the mud digging with your feet, while holding your drink in one hand, and occasionally leaning over to pick up a clam when you stub your toe on one. Lovely.

We threw the clams on the grill, and ate them after they'd been cooked for approximately a minute -- so fresh and sweet! And then I debated over whether or not to take the remaining clams home to make chowder, or allow them to live another day. This was a slow discussion, taking place as it did in the heat over ice tea spiked with white wine.

"Should I let them go?"

Pause.

"I mean, I've given them a chance to get away, and it's not like they're really running."

Pause.

Jane: "Dumb clams. It's survival of the fittest. You'd be weaning out the weak."

Pause.

Me: "Yeah, I mean do those look like clams who are trying to get away?"

Pause.

Jane: "They deserve to die."

So I collected them up. My cup runneth over with clams -- and now they're in the chowder I'm eating today. Yay!

August 5: Vaccinations

Today I took my fourth and final typhoid vaccination pill. So now I am vaccinated for five years. Two weeks ago I got a polio booster and a Hep A shot. I need to get a second Hep A in six months and then I'm immunized against that -- forever.

This is just a note to say that I cannot describe for you the thoroughly irrational pleasure and (perhaps misplaced, given all that India may throw at me) security being vaccinated makes me.

(In a separate note: Am reading Medical Firsts by Robert Adler, and I was intrigued to read that the first small pox vaccine created the same amount of ridiculous, unreasoned reactions that modern day vaccines do -- including those who were convinced that introducing something from a cow was not merely an abomination but might cause people to grow cow parts. Though the most outspoken opponent, the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus, simply stated that vaccines went against God's will to weed out the poor. )

August 2: Visas

Ok, my organization level has hit its first snag. And I have to say, I just should have seen this one coming. Today was the day for me to get my Indian visa -- and years of going to the DC Department of Motor Vehicles for anything from a renewed driver's license to registering my car, has taught me that it's easy to get caught unprepared in a bureacracy if you don't do your homework ahead of time. As far as such things go, the Indian consulate was FAR easier than the DC DMV. All the information I needed was right here, clearly printed, easily explained. I got extra passport photos over the weekend, I printed up the pdf application, I got cash since they Do Not Take Credit Cards.

The Indian embassy is a ten-minute drive from my house. The website said it would take not even a full day to turn around the visa processing. I had everything I needed -- I was proud of how organized I was.

And pride goes before a fall.

First of all, let me say -- it was SO much better than the DMV. At the DMV when you pick a number, and then you look up at the flashing red digital sign to see what number they are currently on, you usually do a double take. How can they only be on 45, when your number is 162? You sit on a chair and settle in for the long hall. In this case I got number 36 and they were already on number 29. And they moved through people quickly. I should have known it was all going too smoothly.

I walked up to the booth when my number was called, handed it all over -- and she said in surprise: "You're a writer?" And I said "yes." And she said: "Your application will take ten days."

"Because I'm a writer?"

"Yes."

And that was that.

Pilates instructor. I have to remember to put down "pilates instructor."