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.
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.
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