And in the End....A Return to the Old Favorties

Well, as it turns out, the lack of electricity and reliable internet service finally took thier toll on my ability/desire to blog while still on the Subcontinent, and as such I haven't posted anything in just short of a month now. So, now I'm back sitting here in air-conditioned comfort in Austin, 28 hours, 3 flights, 2 lay-overs, and 1 taxi-ride away from Delhi. I could offer some final reflections on the trip, some parting words if you will, but I've decided to let it be as it may and just wrap it up already. After my first protracted stay in India, I felt much more compelled to try and dissect and capture a lot of the feelings and experiences I had upon coming back home, but this time around I know that my stay here is just more of a work obligation or a type of furlough between future trips. I'll be back to South Asia soon enough, and after that I'll be there again, and again. So, as of now, I'm officially signing off the travel portion of this blog. Thanks for reading!


That being written, I plan to keep up with other aspects of my creative pulse here, and as of right now this blog is reverting back to primarily a forum on music and ideas thereof by yours truly. Any of you who have been reading this over the summer may have noticed and/or wondered about the heading on this blog, "Pigeoncore", and that's exactly what it's reverting back to (see above banner). Some of you may know, I have been a musician for nearly 20 years now, and write/record/produce all my own stuff out of my home in Austin, Texas, as I have done for nearly a decade now. Since I've started grad school at the University of Texas, my output, both band and personal, has decreased significantly, and with good reason: I ain't got much free time. So what I plan to do in the coming weeks is try and compile and organize the often cluttered, unfinished, and loose ends that I've left behind over the years, and this blog will be an outlet to that process. I want to keep moving on, writing and recording when there is time to do so, but back projects and ideas from a while ago have begun to pile up in spectacular fashion, and if I don't put it all together soon, I run the risk of sitting on a closetful of unfinished ideas in the very near future and not as much that can be said to be "finished". Much like thoroughly cleaning the kitchen begets a better cooking experience the next time around, I don't really want to write anything new until I've cleaned out the corners. Which at this point includes 4 unfinished albums worth of material plus quite a few things that never got properly mastered/mixed, etc, etc. My back-catalogue is still intact, of course, and I plan to post about that stuff too.


So what I think I'll do here is lay out what I have and what stands as it is. I will post about the finished projects that I have, as well as the unfinished ideas (with apt commentary). For the completed ideas, I want to record what went into the process; notes about production, the period involved, time it took, what I used for recording and what programs, soundbytes, etc. For the unfinished albums, I'll use this space to flesh out where I would like them to go, who I would like to play on them, etc. So if that's interesting to you, come on along, but if not, that's cool too.

Finally, in order that I keep this post-feed as predominantly a travel narrative, I'm going to be posting for the near future on my other blog, http://www.mulattopigeon.blogspot.com/

It's essentially the same thing, but it will be 100% music oriented, whereas I'll come back to this one the next time I travel or just feel like waxing about whatever. See you all soon!

The Wonder Years

Hello all.

If you take a good look around you at any given minute of your day, there is bound to be some reminder on hand that we are living in the golden era of the mega-consumer era. If you stop and think about it, the significance can really floor you. I mean, humankind has been striving for thousands upon thousands of years, through heat and cold and malaria and wild animal dodgings and the like, to arrive the species at where it sits today. And what a well-stocked world we live in! Through the wonders of capitalist exploitation and the fashioning of globalized neo-Silk Roads capable of giving the people of Nowhere, USA, the best of South Korea and/or Ghana in 24 hours or less, the handicrafts and foodstuffs of a millennia of human sweat and strife have been layed wide open for the world to consume. From buffalo skins to digital watches to happy meals, the goods of every corner of the globe have been mass produced and mobilized and enabled to reach our doorsteps in a timely and cost-effective manner (granted that you reside in the correct tax bracket). SPOILER: If the sarcasm of the past few sentences was a little too subtle or you're busy Facebook chatting as you casually read this, allow me to put it into no uncertain terms: there are massive and pressing problems with the systems we take for granted, and god willing we will make some much needed changes in the near future. But this post is for humour alone (note the witty insertion of global export Queen's English), so carry on. Right. Now, while the activists and socially conscious nay-sayers amongst us will always be ready to interject with some nonsense about child-labor or equal distribution of wealth, I for one can see an upside to the situation we currently reside in, and this post is to bring light upon it, to illuminate it if you will, which in some cultures/languages means to shed light on a subject and/or idea, which I suppose works just fine in English as well. So forget about any and all issues you may have with the global capitalist order for a moment and consider this: Nutella.

That's right, Nutella. Created in Italy during the Second World War, now exported world-wide, and chock full of hazelnutty goodness, Nutella is quite possibly one of the most amazing food products known to modern man. Rich, creamy, nutty, chocolatey, sweet and yet subtle, Nutella is one of those foods that you eat right before exclaiming "damn" in a loud voice to anyone who will give you an ear to do so. Nutella is divine, a food of the gods, and it's mysteries are hitherto unplundered. It's good on most anything, really. Cookies? Check. Toast? Hell yes. Chocolate bars? You better believe it. And what about on a spoon already covered in peanut butter? Amazing, and just a little bit arousing. I've been eating so much Nutella lately that my teeth hurt just thinking about it, which makes me want to consume more of it. And to think, in India of all places. Until a year or so ago, I was unfamiliar with the taste of this ambrosial delight. Yes, I had seen it on grocery store shelves in the past, or heard of people singing it's praises. But to each their own in their own time, and my time just happened to be in Jaipur, India, about as far away from the main centers of Nutella consumption as one can get. I mean, Europe? Yeah, they're nutty about it, especially in France, Belgium, etc. My peeps in NYC told me about it previously. And I heard it's la bomba in parts of Latin America. But I had a moment, which changed my snack/dessert mindset forever. Here's what happened, in brief:

April and I walked down to Big Shopper in Raja Park, a chain grocery store in our neck of the woods that's the equivalent of Ralph's, Whole Foods, and Central Market rolled into one, and then dropped in India: it's not terribly dirty, they have a decent selection of stuff, and it's over-priced. Anyhow. Peanut butter was on the agenda, a staple food back home that I've been missing like mad here. April had just gotten back from a week in France, and as we passed a lone container of Nutella on a half-barren store shelf, we said to ourselves, "What the hell?", and we went for it, despite the steep price tag: $5 American, a princely sum for any food product in this country. You can purcahse 5 kilograms of wheat flour for less than that, which will make rotis and chapatis for two months for three to four people, and don't get me started on vegetables: we're getting screwed royally by the grocery stores back home, every day of the week. Anyhow, we had a moment of opulence and ability and made the purchase. What the hell, sometimes it's nice.

So we got home, and took out some Hob-Nobs biscuits from the pantry (another amazing product of the globalized world economy: the best British digest-a-biscuits that rupees can buy), and the newly purchased peanut butter and Nutella. It was at this point that I had my first spoonful of the delectable deliciousness of Nutella. I was blown away. Forcing a stream of explicatives from my chocolate and hazel-nut smeared lips, I downed some more. God, it was good. Phenomenal, really, and damned tasty. At some point, I had to stop myself, lest it all be consumed in one sitting. An hour later, I came back for more, and basically have been doing so for the past week. I'm crazy about it. Hence, this blog post.

Now go eat some Nutella, and do your part to support global capitalism. In a bygone era, it was only the Italians who had such privileges. But remember, there's always an upside to every situation, and in this one, the sweet chocolatey fantasticness of Nutella is it.

Paging Dr. Bakra

Hello all.

Well, I landed back in Jaipur last weekend after a successful week or so of solo touring via train, foot, and bus. April and I met back up in Delhi last Saturday, and after a morning spent sipping coffee and listening to doo-wop in a faux American 50's Diner in the middle of New Delhi, we hopped a bus back here to Rajasthan, which has been surprisingly mild in weather all week. I've been getting status reports from home, and it's true: Texas in the summertime is as hot as if not hotter than North India. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

So I managed to get some sort of funky sinus infection this week, which has had me feeling pretty janky on and off. Normally, I'm all about rest, liquids, and daytime television in these scenarios, and prefer to let my body handle itself without the additional application of modern pharmaceutical technology. However, here it's kind of imperative that I'm on my toes at all points what with homework and monkey dodging and whatnot, so I decided what the hell, I'll go to the doctor. It will be worth the experience in the long-haul anyhow.

We walked down to the little hospital by my house, and I checked in. The doctor's fees (paid up front) were roughly equivalent to $3.50. Nice. We sat in the waiting room for about 30 minutes, until Dr. Bakra called us into a cramped side-room that was momentarily devoid of patients. He asked me what the deal was, I told him, he nodded as if he knew all along what all my symptoms were, and then got to the prescribing of medicines. A long list, indeed! For a simple cold, basically, he prescribed something like 6 different medicines ranging from antibiotics to mentho-rub to vitamins. I got the feeling that the hospital stood to make a little money off my momentary lapse of vitality, so when we got down to the pharmacy (a brick room, outside of the hospital, with a tiny window that had about 10 guys sticking their heads and hands into it at once), I opted for the antibiotics and the mentho-rub exclusively. The pharmacist gave me a puzzled look; I was turning down modern medicine and all of it's miraculous healing power? No, I explained, I'm just a little too strapped for cash to be quite that ill, plus my bag wasn't quite big enough to take home all the medicines I didn't really need. Funny, same situation in every country, apparently.

Anyhow, I'm better now. And we have had a really delightful weekend, just doing some shopping around the old city, sipping coffee and eating weird sweets for Teej this week. April and I had our picture put into the paper again this week because we happened to be out in public and white at the same time (the third time for both of us, in different papers). I'll post pics when I get them scanned. So, hmm, that's about it for the time being. More soon.

Leaving Trains and Homecomings in Northwestern India

Hello all.

20 some odd hours ago I hopped a train in Varanasi and headed back here to Delhi, where I now sit in air-conditioned comfort at a guesthouse in Defence Colony. Some reflections on the past week.

Benares is, and surely always has been, an intense place. That being said, I'm going to miss it quite a bit, I think, until I can get back to that part of the country. What a strange and unique place. The bustle is so present, the history of the place is suffocating, all is crumbling down to the ground, and the city seems to teeter on the edge of consuming itself at any second, like the serpent eating it's own tail. It's halfway there already, but again, like much of India that I've seen, it exists in this strange sort of half chaos that is at once maddening and relaxing: This is life, human life and society, at it's most pressing expression, and it reminds me that the reverse culture shock is indeed coming, when I return home in a month only to find that the usually unnoticed sterility and compartmentalization that organizes so much of our "developed" culture is in fact quite cut off from the livewire of human existence, in some suspended animation saught between television advert and museum exhibit. But that's the point I suppose; somewhere down the line back into the murky depths of histories past, our part of the world lost and/or destroyed these moorings, this dangerously beautiful mode of existence that lies closer to the lay of life and of death. In it's place we have erected support edifices that were hitherto unknown to the world and to mankind, which certainly has it's benefits: healthcare, sanitary improvements, technology, life expectancy, quality of living. But something gets lost in the translation, and you find it in developing countries, motifs and atmospheres that root backwards to lived traditions that exceed anything we could dream up, box, and ship out for sale on the boats of commerce. That being said, this time around I feel not only exhilarated to be here in this place, and taking in these special things, but also quite appreciative of the opportunities I have and the life I've landed into. But I've waxed long enough on these things, I guess.

The last full day in Benares was very nice. I had met quite a few folks from points afar; UK, France, Austria, Switzerland, USA. Some of us went to practice yoga in a little sweatbox brickroom above the clattering street. At 4 PM on a sweltering Benares afternoon, the work-out is sweat inducing to say the least, but the studio was spartan and easy to be in, and the class was challenging enough to have my muscles still telling me about it today. After, we wandered down to the Ganga and attended the riverfront aarti ceremony. I found a priest and recited my mantras, lit candles and put my little flower boat into the river, Ganga water on my forehead and the priest blessing my family to be. Dasawamedha Ghat is a particularly auspicious place to do puja for long life for husbands, wives, and children, and so I did the same, and it felt good to be there as the sun went down and the wind kicked up, the temperature dropped and the rain started to come down.

We skated off back into the old city, getting soaked, and holed up in a bakery that purportedly had food from nearly every continent. So we decided to have dinner there, which promptly took an hour to be served. Now, I for one am skeptical of non-Indian food in India; some of the worst meals of my life have been Indian attempts at world cuisine. So I stuck to sabzi and rice and was happy to have done it. The British guy with us did the same, knowing the score as well. One of the French girls ordered a cheese/veggie/baguette plate, a sure-fire disappointment in the twisted and dirty lanes of Kashi, or anywhere else outside of France for that matter. It came, and all agreed that the cheese was quite rotten or rancid or whatever, and so she refused to pay and loudly proclaimed so in English. The poor cooks in the back didn't seem like they were having any of it, though, and I for one wanted no part of any attempt to leave without paying for something in this country; the policemen carry rather large sticks and like to use them whenever possibly, especially on spoiled uppity foreigners who walk around like they own the place. Not saying this was the case here, the plate was expensive and the food on it was really quite bad, but let that be a lesson to anyone who has questions: don't order anything too far out of left field in this country, and you'll do just fine.

Anyhow, so I was first in line to split, knowing what was coming, and of course the waiters came running into the street after us yelling about being shorted 150 rupees, but I was well ahead by that point, trying to get past the police posts before they decided to start "questioning" the foreigners (i.e. hitting us with sticks). Luckily, though, the maze-like streets of the old city are easy enough to escape into, especially at night with the frequent power outages that plunge everything into pitch black darkness.

So That about wraps up the trip to Kashi, the Luminous City, and now sitting back in Delhi, I'm about to eat some lunch and then take back to the streets, go check into the hotel, and arrange a car to pick up April from the airport tonight. I'm so excited to see her, it's all over my face. As you all know, I am crazy about her, and I look forward to her return tonight. More soon.

City of Light and Darkness

Hello all.

So today was my first day in Varanasi and this place exceeds all of my expectations about it. It's hard to imagine a more urgently present city than this one; I'll try to get some of it across via the printed word.

This city is wild beyond all compare. The old city is like a maze, with tight alleys full of people and cows and shit, temples on every corner with the gods silently gazing into the street, huge water buffalo sauntering down alleys so tight that they barely fit into them and causing massive traffic jams. The monkeys rule the eaves above your head, occasionally tossing things at passerby, plant life is growing in every crevice. No cars, not even autos can reach the inner city, it's all foot traffic, and the place looks like it could fall to pieces at any minute but every inch hums with life and energy. The whole place looks ancient, but in reality I think the very oldest of the buildings is probably around 400 years old or so, but sitting on and in ruins much, much older. Varanasi is reputedly one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with people living here for at least 27oo-2800 years. And at times one can imagine things as they used to be before our modern, globalized age; especially during one of the numerous rolling blackouts that happen in the evenings, when the narrow alleys go pitch black and the streets are lit by candles and torchlight. One could get lost in the cramped, dirty maze of the old city for seemingly days on end, and everywhere one lays eyes, there is something exotic and amazing to see.

I awoke at 4:30 AM today to take one of the fabled sunrise boat rides on the Ganga. I walked down the narrow lanes of the old city towards the ghats, and all was quiet and still in the pre-dawn glow. We arrived at the water's edge, descended the steps and got into the boat and shoved off. The view from the water of the ghats slowly rolling by is something special to behold. The morning bathers were coming to the water's edge as they have done for centuries, the burning ghats that constantly cremate bodies on the waters edge, the temples and high buildings around them smeared with ash and soot, the yogis and sadhus with their golden bowls filled with Ganga water, some of them smeared with ashes from the cremation grounds, the sun slowly rising across the wide plain to my right.

After, I visited some of the more antiquated and vibrant temples in the area, and got lost in the old city for a while. Then it was off to Sarnath, 10 kilometers away, to see where the Buddha preached his first sermon and officially started the Buddhist faith. The main stupa there is reputed to hold bodily relics of the Buddha himself, and is an important Buddhist pilgrimage site visited by people from all over the world. In true Indian archaeological site fashion, I climbed unhindered to the top of a 2000 year old stupa and looked at across the Gangetic plains; the monsoon was rolling in and the skies were blackening. It poured and the lanes and alleys filled up with water, everything washing eventually back into the mother river.

Now to leave the internet and the 21st century behind and wander my way back to the guesthouse in the pitch black. But I'm not alone, and I can feel the eyes of Varanasi on me as I walk, and it's true that those who come here really do find what they are looking for, even if they didn't know what it was in the first place.

Crossing the Ganga

Hello all.

Two things. One, I'm quite impressed with the Haridwar/Rishikesh area generally. It's a really fascinating place, especially given it's status in the cosmology of the Hindu worldview. The town of Haridwar and all surrounding enviorns are alive with tourists and pilgrims come for thier chance to bathe in the Mother Ganga, participate in the huge puja on the ghats, and do walking pilgrimages of the surrounding sacred sites. The energy is in the air, and the people (if you speak the slightest bit of Hindi, especially) are among the most welcoming and accomodating that I've met anywhere in the country. Two, Western tourists to India are a strange and complex lot. First, the tourists.

I first noticed this last year when i was living here previously, and visiting sites both sacred to Hinduism and central what to the Western pre-conceived notion of India "is", I've found that the Western tourists I have encountered are (generally) pretty easy to read. I took this observation today when I was passing a beaded ghora (whitey) in Rishikesh, and when we locked eyes (hesitantly, accidentally), I smiled, and he averted his gaze without emotion. Now, perhaps I'm generalizing a bit, but most of the many, many foreigners I have come across in India have come off to me the same way. If you happen to run across them, there's never any back and forth, never any acknowledgement. It's like the fact that there are other white people that travel and live here just blows their whole experience. A disclaimer: hold your objections if this hasn't been your trip here, remember that this is my blog and I'm doing my own personal musing based on my own experiences.

For many in the west, India is one of those places that you were drawn to for a reason. You don't just happen to go on vacation here, you come with an idea in your mind as to what this place represents and what it 'is', like it or not. Thank the Western counter-culture of the past 50 years, but everyone has a pre-ordained 'idea' of what this place is about, for whatever reason. And, I think, for a lot of people what this place actually is and what they think it should be doesn't really jive. This really shines through when you come to these types of places, where seekers and "spiritual" enthusiasts have been drawn for generations. India, the tangible, living and breathing mass of humanity that comprises this place, is out there, and yet it is hard for those of us from places far afield to digest sometimes; admittedly, even I was originally drawn to the academic study of this region because of a yoga practice and an exotic notion in my head of a place that was completely counter to the Christian white-bread world I was brought up in. I dreamed of going to a place where the people were all so "spiritual", and where the experience was somehow removed from reality by virtue of distance and cultural boundaries. Then I started learning about this place from other types of books than those printed by yoga publication trusts, and finally, from real people on the ground in this place. So I'll be the first to admit that my own exoticist ideas have bled from my mind slowly, and that the process is a continuous one. Luckily, my experiences here have been in school and in other types of situations than that of just wandering and seeking something too ephemeral to grasp, and something so placid and atmospheric so as to have been created by my own imagination. Again, this isn't so much to slam that kind of experience; it surely has it's validity and to each their very own. So it is for all who travel here; their conceptions come with them, and although each experience is different, I think it is nearly impossible to leave this place with the same type of mental geography intact. What is it that always accompanies the traveler? Learning. India is everything it is said to be, and it is nothing it is said to be, but in all it is one of those places in the world that has been created both by the imaginations of others outside of it as well as by the pulsing humanity of those that live here, that re-create it and sustain it daily. So if you're visiting here, and you run across a fellow visitor who happens to be the same skin tone, just remember that whether you like it or not, you are of similar place, mindset, disposition. And smile! You're traveling. I'll spare you all the rant about the holier-than- thou whitey new-agers who think they own the place because they can touch their feet to the backs of their heads, memorized a Sanskrit mantra and bathed in the Ganga--save it for another posting, I've got a train to catch.

Randomly, I was walking by the river today and took up an offer to head up to Lakshmanjhula. So I hopped in the flat-bed with some young guys dressed in ochre and went up to the foothills of the Himalayas, to the sprawling little group of towns collectively known as Rishikesh. It was beautiful, but poured buckets (the monsoon is on in full force), so I holed up in a temple with a Brahmin priest and a betel-chewing passerby and discussed the recent Mahabharata television serials for an hour or two. It's pretty exciting, my Hindi is getting good enough that I can converse with some manner of ease (at my best moments), and can listen to people and get a good bit of what they are saying. Rishikesh is really nice, and the Ganga flows fast and hard out of the mountains here. I crossed the huge suspension foot bridge, saw the aashrams on the hills, put my feet into the cold river until I got chased out by the storms. Coming home, we packed 15 people into a six seater vikram and sang songs as we drove back to Haridwar in the sheets of rain, and I was happy and full of life and so were those around me. One young guy was so overtaken with the moment that he climbed out of the speeding rickshaw and sat on the roof in the pouring rain, singing songs and praising all of existence. Those in the vikram with me agreed: it was a wonderful moment.

I'm cutting this short, as my train to Benares leaves in a few minutes. Hello 15 hour train ride. More soon from the plains of North India.

Wandering North India and the Omnipresent Spectre of Drew Thomases

Hello all.

So I've been here over a month now, and have exactly four posts up to date. Not the best track record, but hopefully you're still tuned in. If you are, read on.

Just as Robert Smith once crooned, Jaipur has been hot, hot, hot, but we've been making due and we recently acquired a new/used swamp cooler to try and dampen (literally) the blow of the nighttime heat. It's been helping, surely, and the Indian summer is nothing to understate, but I've been getting reports from back home (Texas) that the temperature has been comparable to within 5 degrees or so most days. Ouch. It's been between 110 and 115 here most days, so do the math.

A quick note before I launch into the day's events. Little does he know, but Jaipur and indeed large swaths of Rajasthan are host to the lingering spectre of Drew Thomases. Thomases, or "Munchwallah" as he is affectionately known locally, is a grad student from Columbia who lived with me at the Raj Garden flat last summer, the same flat I currently inhabit once again. Drew stayed on and did the year long Hindi program in Jaipur after the rest of us went home last year. He has since returned to the States. I began to notice early on this summer a large number of queries as to Drew's whereabouts, especially in Raja Park, our old (and my current) stomping ground. Not surprising; Raja Park is a fairly small place and Drew is a noticeble guy, especially with the mustache ('munch' in Hindi; hence, 'munchawallah', the mustachioed one). So no big deal. But I hopped a rickshaw in the Old City the other day, completely randomly, and the driver asked me if I knew Drew. "Sure," I said, "I lived with him." Strange, but still Jaipur, isn't the biggest town in India. Then it happened again, same situation: a random rickshawwallah in another part of town asks me, of all people, if I know Drew. Now I'm starting to wonder, am I being tailed here? What's happening? Then April and I went to Pushkar, and this was the doozy, someone in a town 200 kilometers away from our own asked me if I knew Drew. Cue Twilight Zone theme song. But that's not all.

So we tried to get wireless internet hooked up in the apartment, so we called an Airtel representative, he came out, I filled out the forms, dropped the deposit and the first months rent, and he split. Then the hook-up guy didn't show for two days, and we called, maybe about some oversight or something. The original guy came back over and started explainging in Hindi that one Drew Thomases (and company) "forgot" to pay their last wireless bill, and as such the Airtel people can't hook up wireless in the apartment again until somebody pays up the (rather large) difference. We all arued for a while, but nothing doing, so we requested a refund for the 2000 rupees we paid ($50 or so), which of course before we paid, we weren't informed about this little problem. Now, a refund check is supposedly in the mail from Delhi, and the ghost of Drew Thomases has begun, poltergeist-like, to physically affect the world he left behind. Anyhow.

That being said, things go pretty well. April took off for France yesterday, and I was certainly sad to see her go. She's performing in the south of France all week, in Biarritz, with her dance troupe. Lucky. I wish her well, though, and miss her very much.

So I decided also to do some traveling, and last night I jumped a bus northwards towards the Himalayas. I won't quite get to the snow caps due to time constraints, but I landed here in the foothills, in Haridwar, which is a really great little town. The bus ride ran about 15 hours or so, but it wasn't so bad. Haridwar is a particularly holy city within the Hindu cosmology, and one of the holiest places along the Ganga (Ganges) for living relatives to bring the ashes of their deceased loved ones to deposit into the river, which in Hinduism is considered a living goddess that sustains the life of the land. It's especially popular with people from my neck of the woods (Rajasthan) due to proximity, but people from all over are constantly coming and going into the city. Every night, there is a large aarti ceremony in which people line up along the ghaats (steps into the river) and put lighted lamps into the swift current. Songs are sung and music is played, and all in all it's a beautiful experience. I went to the ceremony tonight, did my puja and recited in Sanskrit with a Brahmin priest, dropped flowers into the river and splashed the cool water onto my face and hair. There were so, so many people there, it was overwhelming and beautiful and popping with life. I had the priest recite a shloka for long life for my wife-to-be and any offspring that may come our way, and I went down and put my hands and feet into the river and blessed the prayer beads I had bought at a rickety little road-side stand and for a moment even my sturdily non-denominational tendencies were thrown. The Ganges is a little muddy here, having come down out of the mountains and hit the plains, but it runs fast and cool is impressive to say the least, and the spirit is infectious and I danced and sang with people I didn't know and under the massive, three-story tall statue of Shiva we made merry as he silently looked out towards the vast expanse of the Himalayas, to all those innumerable cave-dwelling sadhus and rishis and babas that keep the land holy and safe by power of their asceticism and devotion to this holiest of rivers. Coming into town by bus this afternoon, we passed a line of pilgrims walking from the town that quite literally stretched for over 40 miles in an unbroken mass of people, dressed in orange, walking in the summer heat. It must have been thousands and thousands of bodies, walking in unison, and I was glad to be here at this point on the surface of the earth, at this point in time.

Tomorrow night I leave for Benares, (Varanasi, Kashi) also known as the City of Light and the holiest city of the Hindu geography. Although I've studied the place for some years, I've never been able to get away from my studies long enough to warrant a trip while I was here, so I'm quite excited. More from the banks of the Ganga to come.

Pushkar, Aapka Pani Kahaa Hai?

Hello All.

I hope all has been well with you all since we last rapped at one another, or rather I rapped at you and you read about it, but whatever, you know how it goes and again, I hope it goes well. Things flow here like the river, and life washes, studies take up the lions share of my time, and the (true) Indian Summer is bearing down on us with a vengeance. The good news is that the monsoon has broken, and the rains are starting to come in sporadically. When they do arrive, the sigh of relief from the slowly roasting city is almost palpable. Sometimes in the afternoons, we can see the clouds rolling in across the western hills from our seventh-floor windows, and the whole spread of the town slowly goes blueish-grey as the clouds block out the sun, and the dust blows in our open doors and windows and swirls around in the corners of the room. From our high vantage point, nestled as we are in the eaves of our high perch over the city, it is an amazing sight. The rain's arrival also usually drops the temperature by about 10-20 degress, which is an added bonus to the visual panorama.

April and I went to Pushkar last weekend, had some laughs, took in the sights, etc, etc. Pushkar is a tiny little town west of Jaipur by a few hours bus ride. By the time you get there, the land has begun to dissolve into the scratch and dirt of the Thar, and the scrub-brush does a poor job of keeping the dust from just floating about in the air. This overall geographic disposition, coupled with the extreme lack of rain in Rajasthan generally, keeps the smell of dirt constantly in one's nostrils, but (most of the time) it is a good, earthen, clean smell. But Pushkar, right?

We hopped the bus to the holy city here in Jaipur after some terse monetary conversation with a fare-hiking rickshaw driver; to no matter, though, we got to the bus stand only to have our bus run about 3 hours late. So we found a small AC restaurant with some pretty decent dosas and pao bhaji (well, the pao was less decent), and waited around for the bus to get there already. Finally, the bus showed up and we scampered on. For the bus ride from here to Pushkar, roughly the same as a drive from, say, Austin to Houston, the fare ran us 235 rps for the both of us on a nicer AC bus, which converts to about $2 and some change a piece. Nice; prices in India can't be beat unless you're spending Euros over here: the folks from the Continent have it criminally easy in a place like this.

The bus dropped us in Ajmer, the Indian equivalent of a glorified cow-town on the other side of the mountain from Pushkar. For some reason I don't particularly care for Ajmer; there's a strange, chaotic energy to the place that doesn't jive for whatever reason. I went last year to the 1000 year old Dargah (Sufi Shrine) there, and that was quite impressive, but aside from it the town is a dessicated blip on a larger map to more interesting enviorns. Anyhow, we landed in Ajmer at the bus stand right at the evening rush hour and the place went wild, and we were the main attraction. Aliens touched down in a strange land; we might as well have had four arms and been breathing fire. Foreigners are interesting enough to the local populace in a place like this, but foreigners dressed like Indians who can speak some Hindi are cause for collapse of local transportation grids due to extreme rubber-necking--i.e., we get mobbed and stared at a lot. We waited for about 30 minutes or so, and by the time the local bus came clunking into view we had spoken, I'm pretty sure, to every one of the 5000 people in the place at least once, and every last one of them had asked roughly the same questions: "What is your country?", "You know Hindi?", and "You are married?". The secondary part to question #3 is "How many children you are having?", which of course elicits different answers depending on mood; I might start telling people we have 18 kids, just to practice using my numbers in the language.

Oh yeah, the second bus. We took the 7 rupee local bus over the hill, and it was real India in every way. We had to literally push our way onto the crowded bus; it was all din and clomor and heat but we got on and took the ride over, arms and legs and bags and bodies piled onto one another, along for the ride so to speak.

So we took the bus over the mountain, and arrived. Pushkar is considered a holy place in the Hindu cosmology. The tiny town surrounds a small lake, the waters of which are held to be purificatory in nature and divinely created and maintained. Legend has it that Brahma, the four-headed god of the so-called Hindu "trinity" (alongside Vishnu and Shiva), dropped three lotus flowers from heaven, all of which created lakes in otherwise inhospitable places in the western desert-like scrub of North India. There is of course a long list of other noteworthy theological events that have occured there as well, and I think the number of temples and cows in the town far outnumbers people and other building combined. But Pushkar is exactly how I envisioned North India to be before I actually came here. It's small, cramped, dirty and loud, filled to the brim with cows plunked down in the middle of every street and alley, monkeys on every rooftop, camels pulling carts full of turbaned men, religious pilgrims coming and going in a huge procession of color, brahmins perched in the doorways of centuries-old temples with their faces smeared with ash and saffron, and the painted sadhus sitting together on shady street corners smoking hash and begging for change with their silver bowls. Pushkar has it's drawbacks, such as the over-confluence of empty-headed, bhang-guzzling Euro-trash backpackers who walk around like they own the place; hence the glut of places named the "Pink Floyd Guesthouse" and the over-use of bad English slang by the locals. But overall it's a great place, and highly worth visiting. Crazy thing is, that when we arrived, we had no idea that the lake would be drained of water. Turns out, there is some sort of enviornmental clean-up project underway and the lake is being cleaned out from the downside up, and so the main attraction of the town is curently not in service. This makes for rough puja when the lake water is required to consecrate the ceremony. It did make for a lot less tourists though, and I for one was glad for the dearth of human trafic on the normally congested streets.

We arrived in Pushkar late, posted up at our hotel and went to get some food, which was to date the worst meal I've ever eaten in this part of the world. The problem is that we strayed too far into unfamiliar territory, and opted for enchiladas (right?) and mo-mos, which are a veggie dumpling type dish from extreme north-east India, Nepal, Tibet, etc. The enchiladas resembled some sort of stale pizza made out of dirty "bread" and wrapped around oil-slick chunks that used to be vegetables, and the mo-mos were pretty awful as well. I smuggled them out and fed them to some stray cows laying in the street, which is a very auspicious thing to do in Pushkar, so it wasn't a total loss. The next day we did a good bit of shopping and swam in an actual pool, which was too decadent to explain properly unless one has spent time in places like India. We had some adventures, nearly got trampled by a herd of stampeding cattle (literally), and argued with many people over the price of many things. Ah, but the hour grows late. More soon, classes are getting underway, and there's always another story to tell. Stay tuned.

Back to Delhi, Back to Jaipur: The Change Game and the Timeless Art of Rickshaw Wrangling

Hello all.

It’s been about a week since my last blog posting, and there have been things that have occurred, some momentous and some not so memorable. So, let me take the liberty of rambling on about them for a while.

I took a bus back to Delhi last Friday, to meet up with the incoming students at the AIIS guesthouse. When I came into the city on Friday night, there was considerably more activity than when I last left the AIIS environs, and students were arriving from all points West and East. The guesthouse was jammed that particular evening, so we called a friend of the Institute that was willing to put me up at his house for the night. I took a cycle rickshaw, a young boy of 13 or 14 pumping his legs furiously, dragging myself and my bags through the evening humidity in Delhi. The ride ended with me having to assert my male presence over another, smaller, male, which I guess evolutionarily is a neutral thing but which doesn’t lead to such good vibes in the humanitarian wing of daily affairs. The story in a moment. First, a word about the Change Game.

Playing the Change Game here in India can be a bit trying at points. In order to do much of anything you need a steady supply of smaller bills than the usual whitey is walking around with. The chaiwallah, a rickshaw ride, a Thums Up attack on a hot street corner, any of these and you’re going to need between 4 and 20 rupees, but all you’ve got is a 500 rupee bill. What’s a privileged First-Worlder to do when the whole country can at points be simultaneously out of small change? This leads to major problems with the goods and services exchange, and the last thing you want is to be forced to buy 5 bottles of water instead of 1 because the counterwallah is unwilling to part with the money you know he has in his shop somewhere. And this will happen, often, even to the detriment of his income if you leave because he won’t give you change. So, you play the Change Game, or CG for short. Here’s how the parameters are set, but each plays to the best of his or her ability.

The CG consists of being in the constant habit of surveying your surroundings for opportunities to break large bills, and it requires a little strategy and subtlety on your part. It’s all about knowing your odds, like in Vegas or Russian Roulette or something. First rule, always try to break the largest thing you have, even if you have the smaller bills to pay for it. So if you get something that costs 40 rupees, try to cash the 500 first, all they can say is “no,” right? Second rule, know your surroundings and be aware of the pros and cons of every location. A place that has air-conditioning is much more likely to have the back-up cash to break big bills, so always try to break the biggest thing you have, even if it’s on the smallest thing they’ve got in the place. So what if the guy looks at you like you were the one who shot Gandhi, they have to give you the change even if they know it’s gonna cause them an extra trip to get their own change later. Upscale joints (i.e. AC places) are much more likely to make this happen. And don’t be shy about it, just look them in the eye and say “Aapke paas change hai?”, and they will be obliged to handle your request. Jeez, at those type of places, shopping malls and the like, take liberal advantage of the situation and break everything you can on the smallest thing you can buy. And, you get bonus points if you can get somebody to break a bill for you without you even buying anything, this is rare even for expensive places and is to be commended if you can pull it off. Now, downscale joints (also known as places where real people eat and shop), like the places I like to go, are the ones that are trickier and thus require more of a gentle touch. I would say, go with the above strategy of trying to break larger bills whenever possible, but if you’re in a group this becomes harder to do because invariably everyone is playing the CG whether they like it or not, so you have to beat them to the punch. Sure, you want to be loyal to your compatriots and all, but at the end of the day if you don’t move fast you’re the one left holding the bag. An example: Say you’re eating lunch at a little roadside dhaba with three of your friends. You all get similarly-priced items; 20 rupees here, 30 rupees there, and you’re nearing the end of your meal. Now, you’ve got the inside line that all of your buddies have hit the bank that same day, and are only holding big bills. So you take the initiative and before the bill comes, you flag down a worker and break the largest bill you have. This is to the detriment of those eating with you, as you may cash out the small bill reserve on hand at the restaurant. But so be it, it’s dog eat dog out there and everyone plays the game whether they like it or not, and those that play it well are going to get along better than those who don’t. You have to know your odds of scoring change in the CG; it’s critical to not getting stuck paying for everyone’s meal and going through the pain in the ass of having to square up later on, and so on and so on.

So anyhow, the cycle rickshaw-wallah. I asked the kid point blank if he had change for a 100 before I got in (I had been sick and therefore cashed out on the CG), he said he had it. So I hopped in the ricky and he cycled us through the quiet green neighborhoods of Defence Colony for about 5 minutes. We had agreed on 20 rupees for the trip—steep but in the neighborhood of a fair price. We get to our destination, and I get out and present my 100 note, which the kid slyly pulls the “Mere paas change nahiin hai” routine, which he probably did have it but was playing the field to see if he could get more money out of me by saying he didn’t. No dice. I got back in the cart, much to his chagrin, and told him to take me somewhere where I could get change (see, don’t get caught SOL on the CG). So he proceeds to pedal us right into oncoming traffic in the Delhi evening rush hour (heart-palpitation inducing stuff), and we went to a paan-wallah, but he was holding and not giving it up. So we went further down the street, and I finally scored change at a little road-side stall. Now the kid tries to tell me to pay up and walk back to the hotel, which I could have done, but no way I’m doing that because it’s not my fault we got into this mess in the first place. So I get back into the rickshaw AGAIN and have the kid ride me back across the street through the traffic to the guesthouse steps. When I get out, I had a humanitarian crisis in my heart for two seconds, I mean the kid is no more than 14 and working the streets pulling people around on a bicycle all day. So I gave him 10 more rupees than we had agreed on (the equivalent of 20 cents), and told him it was for the extra trouble. But he grabbed my hand and wouldn’t let go, saying he wanted more money to buy water. Well, the price we agreed on was already high, and I had given him a tip, so I wasn’t having any of it. I tried to pull my hand away, but he gripped it a little tighter, imploring me to give him more money, and then I snapped. I yanked my hand away and got into the kids face, practicing my Hindi by telling the kid what was what, and the he should split before I got really pissed. He called me a dog, I called him a thief, and then he left, cursing me still. And that’s why, my friends, don’t get caught on the tail end of the CG when you’re cruising across South Asia.

I arrived back in Jaipur on Monday afternoon, more hydrated and definitely in better spirits than when I left last week. My stomach has returned to normal and my appetite has returned somewhat, though I remain cautious about sustenance choices at the moment. The food at the Institute is good for what ails you, and I’m taking as much as I can get. More soon, kiddos.

Namaste Jaipur, or, The Continuing Saga of Whiskey in South Asia

Hello all.

So, things have happened since my last post, and I now intend to divulge them, to the best of my ability. First a disclaimer: when traveling in a country still known worldwide for its high instances of waterborne pathogens, do try and take care when accepting glasses of the stuff from strangers, even if you are at an upscale joint such as a country club, officer's club, rotary club, bridge club, or otherwise. Make sure it comes from a bottle, or from a filter, and you can rest assured that you may just avoid spending 24 hours layed up in bed nursing fever, chills, and other such un-pleasantries. But that's jumping ahead, so let's start at the beginning.

I took the bus out of Delhi last Monday morning early; there was some mix-up with the tickets, and as such I was redirected to a second bus which appeared as if we just might have to get out and push at some point along the 6 hour stretch, with a motor in it that sounded eerily similar to a dentist's drill running haywire, located somewhere, by all probability, directly under my feet by the sound of it. However, due was made by me, and I popped in my headphones and read the paper and watched the parched Rajasthani countryside come into view. And it is parched right now, I saw two rather large dust cyclones as we drove into the desert, possibly 100 feet high or more; I was reminded of pictures I had seen of the Oklahoma and Kansas dustbowl during the Depression years in the states. This part of India is still hanging on the last precipice of time before the monsoon rolls in, which I have been assured by many people is due to arrive in the next week or two. As such, Jaipur is dustier even than I remember it, and sitting and having chai in the morning in the cool of a roadside stall there was one instance in which myself and a number other well-to-do Indian men have had to take shelter behind trees and whatnot as the wind stirred up a dust-storm that threatened the integrity of our milk and sugar water (with a little tea added in for flavor). But as Shukla has written elsewhere, most Indian chai demands a certain percentage of dirt in the mix to make it authentic as such, so it was really ok in the long run.

I arrived, and Raja Park is pretty much exactly how I remember it. Same people, same shops (excepting that Spencer's closed down), same dogs, livestock, etc. I was very happy to see all the trappings of South Jaipur firmly in their place: the roaming bands of garbage-consuming pigs running wild and free as they wish, the genital scratching monkeys on most every corner, the obligatory cows standing idly in the middle of the roads here, making for even more horn honking and whatnot. Gandhinagar looks as if it's been completely finished (there were bets being made on whether this would occur last summer), and the same rickshaw-wallahs are still having the same chai in the same stalls or under the same trees. To my surprise, I was recognized by quite a few people quickly off the bat, and it made me feel as if I had truly had a home here last summer, and will again this year.

The morning after I arrived, I was walking the lanes of Adarsh Nagar when I ran into my friend Rohit. Rohit is an interesting guy; he sold me a phone last year, and in true Indian fashion, before you could say hospitality we had had chai and biscuits together, and I met his wife and his son, and went to his house (if only the Verizon guys at home were this amicable). Rohit speaks very good English, and so we were able to communicate easily, which adds to the experience of course. I mean, I can speak an Anglicized version of caveman Hindi at this point, but not enough to ask you about your life story or anything. So when I saw Rohit I suggested chai, and we took his car to a place not far away. We talked for a while, and within about 5 minutes he had suggested that I accompany him to Punjab to see the Golden Temple and the Atari ceremony at the Indian/Pakistani border. I thought about it for a while, as he seems legit, but in the end I declined. Maybe next time.

Still, I took him up on an offer that evening to accompany him to the Indian equivalent of a country club, the Jai Club in a prestigious area of Jaipur. This turned out to be a good time, but was probably the reason that I fell ill--I assumed, country club = filtered water, but perhaps not so, turns out. Anyhow, the World Series of Cricket is going on right now, and so after a while spent lounging by the pool, we took a seat out on a vast lawn and watched a match, though I can't remember exactly who it was (I'm not the world's biggest fan of sports, but I try to be accomodating). Anyhow, Rohit had managed to smuggle in about three quarters of a bottle of cheap whiskey that he had stolen from his father's room earlier in the evening (the irony is that Rohit is 35 years old, a commentary on communal living I suppose), and proceeded to order a plate of food and some water and ice, and began mixing his own drinks unceremoniously at the table while the sullen faced waiters in white looked on disapprovingly. I would assume, though I could be wrong, that this type of thing is frowned upon in country clubs the world over. After a few polite "no's" I finally broke down and had a drink, which quickly turned into somewhere between 7 and 10--Rohit is a pretty persuasive guy when he wants to be. And he was doubling me for every drink--he can really put it away it seems. Then it gets sunnier. At some point, he decided that it would be a good idea to call his dad, who as it turns out, was drinking in the gambling hall upstairs, and so his dad came down and of course looked at his drunken son and his disheveled American friend with some distaste. But he joined us for a drink anyhow, and went on to ask me what was so great about America anyhow, and if Gatlinburg Tennessee would be a good place to vacation, and why it was that Indians were better at math and science than Americans were, and so on and so on. He also, in a fine display of his Indian-ness, drunkenly quoted some poetry at length (a piece by Amitabh's father, Medushala, which I knew), and sang a few bars of some quaint Bollywood film track from the early 1970's.

So, needless to say, we split the scene, as it was getting late and Rohit and his father were beginning to show some of the biological tendency towards competition inherent in all father/son relationships. As we left, Rohit shouted something at the waiter, to which the waiter responded despondently "Ok Sahab..". Rohit later told me that he had ordered the waiter to put all of our food and drinks on his father's club tab, which he found to be roaringly funny. I did too, turns out.

I was getting tired at this point, but Rohit was up for more action, and when I got out of the club the hot night air woke me up a bit, so we went drunkenly tearing around Jaipur in Rohit's car, thank Bhagwan for the lack of traffic. Rohit, turns out, has friends in high places, and a good friend of his is married to the princess of Jaipur. So we decided it would be a good idea to make a quick visit to Raj Plaza, a heritage hotel nearly 200 years old owned by the King of Jaipur at which Rohit's friend is the head manager (positions of privilege and nepotism exist everywhere it seems). The hotel is huge and beautiful, an old converted estate with massive lawns and stables in the heart of the city. Due to Rohit's influence, he didn't see fit to stop for the security guard at the gate (it's 2 AM now, remember), who cursed us as we passed at 40 miles and hour, and we roared into the driveway in a flash of dust. Rohit beamingly and grandly walked me up the steps to the heritage palace, commenting on this architecture and that, and entered the palace with much noise and commotion. Another security guard stopped us, and Rohit sent him away boomingly, so the guy told us to at least keep it down, this is a hotel for gods sake (well, he might not have said exactly that, my Hindi isn't that good). So we looked at the old pictures and artifacts and polo trophies and etc, etc, etc, which Rohit explained each of them to me in meticulous detail (an example: "This picture, yes it is very old, and the people in it are from long time ago").

Our evening coming to a close, we split and went for coffee, but the place was long closed and some poor bastard was inside washing up and Rohit spent like 10 minutes yelling back and forth, asking him what we could get at that hour, and the guy of course said we could get nothing, so we had just that and left.

So then Rohit dropped me off at my hotel, and I woke up the next morning and felt strangely ill, and by noon I was in the bathroom for 30 minutes at a stretch, and the other times I was sleeping or trying to sleep. I got about 20 hours sleep in the past 24 hours, no joke, and ate nothing, but my spirit isn't dampened, and today I feel a bit better, so much so that I had some chai and biscuits this morning and now am contemplating lunch if I can manage to get my ass up out of this internet cafe and walk somewhere in the heat, which I can do surely. So long kiddos, I head back to Delhi tomorrow and then look forward to April being here on Saturday night. If it's not readily apparent, I need her to keep me in check, and I love her dearly for it. More soon.

Capitalism, Scientology, and Black Metal in Delhi

Hello all.

So I touched down after a 15 hour flight in Delhi, India a couple of nights ago. It's largely as I remember it. The smog is bad, the traffic is worse, and even at night when walking around out of doors it feels as if someone left the oven door open at full blast just as you happened to walk into range. Plus there's many different species of large and dangerous looking bugs, a stray dog population larger than that of the city in which I live back in the states, and the commonplace rolling blackout that threatens this blog post even as I write it. That being noted, there is something positive to be said for a city of millions that collectively believes the best way to dispose of sewage is that it be put it into large open canals that run straight through major residential areas, and in many ways, I very much like this place, although there are constant affronts to my (admittedly debilitatingly) Western sensibilities. However, I have found that what doesn't kill me in fact does make me stronger (or maybe ill for two or three days at most), and a nice extended stay in India is a sure fire way to go back home and wonder to yourself if we haven't been living in the adult equivalent of a daycare center, that has completely rid us of any sort of humanity on the level that delivered us, after thousands upon thousands of years of development, into the shopping malls in which we live our lives back in the states.

First off, I enjoy the fact that despite the fact that the city seems at any moment ready to implode, it hangs together with an insane energy that is omnipresent; you can feel it in the air. Just crossing through the constant whizzing, honking traffic while on foot here is an ubiquitous adventure that never lets one slip into the dreamy sense of separationism that we experience at home. Back there, the freeways and the residential areas are fairly neatly separated, and one never really gets the satistfaction of having a routine trip to the market become a game of Frogger with rather dire consequences stemming from showing timidity or accomodation; you simply have to know where you're going all the time and beeline it there, and always, always act like you know what you're doing. In this way, traffic in India seems to breed agency in the pedestrian, and consequently the drivers appear much less likely to run anyone over, as the foot traffic doesn't freeze up as soon as they see a truck carrying plywood and other random building materials speeding towards them at 50 miles an hour. Rather, you stick your hand out like it would be possible to stop the truck dead cold using nothing but the palm of your hand, and somehow you get the right of way. Try that back in the States; I did last year after an extended stay here and damn near got killed by some idiot who would rather hit me than make a split second decision. And that's just one of many ways that the chaos of this place, I think, engenders a sense of self confidence that we don't get with our sterilized little crosswalks and traffic lights at home. Plus, people here know how to use the car horn properly: rather than it being a "hey, fuck you asshole!" type of thing it's more of a friendly "I'm here so don't hit me, I'm about to pass you by driving into oncoming traffic". Where I'm from, in Texas, half the drivers would have brandished shotguns and blown themselves to hell by now with the amount of honking and crazy yet singlemindedly brilliant driving here. These people are the best (and worst) drivers in the world, I'm sure of it. And they're cool as shit about it; I never see anyone getting road rage, even in the craziest traffic situations (as in the routine event of driving the wrong way into oncoming traffic on a freeway, as my rickshaw driver did this morning when he realized he had missed his turnoff). Add to it the fact that no other country on earth has to dodge as much livestock on their way to work in the morning, and you've got a special situation on your hands. Let's hope the Indians never come up with their own version of Nascar; not only will they blow any southern-fried hillbilly speed junkie right back to Tallahassee with his tail between his legs, but they'll make the whole thing interesting to watch, and then god help us all; there's enough spectator sports in our lives as it is.

Even crazier are shopping malls, which are popping up all over Delhi, Mumbai, and other locales all over India by the day. These types of places are pretty fancy, even by Southern California standards, and they are wholly and completely out of place on the Indian landscape (or any landscape, for that matter, but that's another story). Catering to a growing middle class with newly exchanged dollars to rupees to blow on high-end consumer crap, the dichotomies exhibited by these malls are a capitalist's wet dream: Inside the air-conditioned and highly glossed (and advertised!) interiors, young and hip Indian couples stroll hand in hand (gasp), trying much too hard to imitate a Tommy Hilfiger advert while up and up families lug around bags and bags of consumer items while their screaming kids demand sweets and prattle endlessly on cell phones (sound familiar?). Outside, of course, you're right back in the thick of it, with stray dogs prowling the ramshackle parking lot, transients asleep on the sidewalks, and underpaid security guards eyeing the whole debacle with a thinnly veiled contempt that makes you want to get the hell out of there fast. The divide between rich and poor in a country such as this is so visible and so contrasting that it makes your head spin. I mean, I spend a lot of time in LA and things are just as bad there (in a relative sense: think Beverly Hills and then think Inglewood), but it's not nearly as visible, and the visbility makes one absolutely unable to ignore the fact that the wholesale capitalists are bending all of us over on a daily basis. Things are no different here. I think that anyone with a very high income in this country (including myself, unfortunately and relatively) has to walk a thin line convincing himself that he shouldn't have just died in his sleep for winding up so much more privileged than so many around him. Don't take me the wrong way here, I'm not up for devloving back to some turn of the century cry for proletariat revolution, but we need some real checks and balances and perhaps a good council of level-headed and non-wealth addicted individuals to lay it down about what is and what isn't necessary for the good of all humanity and then just run with what they say, luxury goods be damned. But hey, all of you unabashed capitalists, feel free to argue with me about the free market and survival of the fittest and what not, but don't do it where the cycle rickshaw-wallas can hear you: those guys will be pissed.

That being said, it's still really funny to take in the whole ultra-consumeristic spectacle, which I did for a while today just for kicks. I went to a place called Ansel Plaza and strolled around for a bit, taking in the scene, which was disorienting to say the least. As I may have let on a moment ago, shopping malls are not my thing, especially so in such a poor country, but that's not to say I can't take them with a post-modern voyeuristic grain of salt and enjoy the spectacle of late capitalism seducing otherwise normal people into a type of giddy myxamytosis. And this mall really had it all, all the usual trappings of shopping mall hell with a few fun twists of which I will divulge here. First, I ran into a kid wearing a Burzum t-shirt, dragging along his sari-clad girlfriend with an angry look on his face. I was taken aback, I mean, I have the same t-shirt in my bag but I'm the only other person I've seen wearing it in public, but before I could snap myself out of it and run back and ask him where he gets his black metal records in Delhi (a larger research interest of mine), I looked ahead and saw a large crowd of well to-do Indians being talked at by none other than an enthusiastic young devotee of the L. Ron Hubbard variety, i.e. a Scientologist for those out there not up on your New Age quackery vernacular. I stopped for a moment, taking it in; a family was being asked to take a free "stress-test" (or rather, fill out a book order form sating which of the 3000+ Hubbard titles you would like to purchase today, with an option to buy more whenever your kids can afford it), and daddy-ji was scratching his chin in absorbed concentration as the young neophyte bubbled on about happiness and love and whatnot. And this is in a country that has taken the nutty yet charismatic guru-type and elevated it into a high art form, so Hubbard should glad he's at least making inroads; without those guys paving the gilded steps Crowley would never have gotten his foot into the door of the Orientalist Black Magick party, as he himself took a thing or two from the streetcorner sadhu in his day. But back to the mall. The starry-eyed orator caught me looking on and was about to extend the invitation, but I ran for the nearest exit door, I'd had quite enough thanks. I thought, as I usually do with Scientologists, about asking them if they knew much more about the life and times of L. Ron the great and his wife-stealing, money embezzling, black magic dabbling ways, but then thought better of it: each person, while not an island, must still make their own choices and forge their own paths, and mine led me down the street towards a small roadside stall where a cheery old man in a dhoti sold me two ripe mangoes for 15 cents. When I ordered in Hindi, saying "Namaste sahab, mujhe do aam chahiye", he was delighted, replying to me "Bahut aacha! Hindi aati hai sahab!". And yes, it did come to me, and yes I am trying, and yes, I love this insane and throughly worldly place, so much so that I may never come home again. As long as I can avoid the shopping malls, I'll be doing just fine. More soon, kiddos.

Pre-Departure Statement (Pt. II)

Hello all.

As some of you may be wondering to yourselves, I have also wondered both aloud and inwardly: "why have a blog that you never post to?" The answer my friends, is blowing in the wind, they say, but still, I'm recognizing of the irony. Here's the rub.

So last year I wrote the post you see above this one. I had intended to serve up some hot and spicy blogs while camped out in India, but it didn't come to pass. I had an issue getting onto Blogspot from the school computers, which may well have been my forgetting both name and password in the swelter of the Rajasthani summer heat. Whatever the confounded occurance may have been, I ended up posting my blogs to Myspace, which as some of you pointed out then, slowly tapered off as summer drew to a close. This is true, but not without good reason.

What happened is that I met a girl and quickly fell in love. Classical poetic conventions in Indian literature state that the rainy season is the time most auspicious for love and tryst, but such was not the case with us, and we defiantly staked out our new emotional landscape flush in the Tandoori oven of the Indian summertime. So much for convention! Little did I know at the time what a momentous happening this would prove to be: we recently got engaged, and plan to wed when time and distance permit. The both of us are heading back to India together in June, and life could not be much better than it stands at this moment. Hooray for us!

So here's to another stab at keeping up with this blog thing while traveling abroad. It's difficult, I know, there are things to do and see and smell in a place like India, and to be sure imbibing will be the order of the day whether desired or no. But please feel free to refer to this page in order to keep tabs on us as we return once again to the land of holy cows and butter naan. I promise, this year, with my favorite person in the world by my side smack in the middle of my favorite place on the planet, to do a better job of keeping a written journal. I am planning on leaving around the 3rd or 4th of June, to be on the ground a bit earlier this year and get my bearings before the program starts proper. I'll keep you all posted.