Indians: The Original Hippies

---

“Varanasi is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.” –Mark Twain

When my plane landed back in Fuzhou two days ago, I was stricken with a few things. First, Fuzhou really pulls no punches during the winter, because damn, it was cold compared to the balmy Indian subcontinent.

Second, wow, China is a very sober, very organized society, chugging along nicely towards modernity. India, by contrast, is still much encumbered by its poverty and its backwardness, though sometimes you have to wonder if it really cares. For the feeling India gives you is not of a country who is in a desperate race to catch up with the world and is dying to liberate itself of the shameful fetters of poverty and backwardness. Rather what we see as the burden of poverty has been coolly, almost indifferently taken up by India, like a knapsack on the shoulder of a wandering ascetic, one who is not so much rushing to meet the future, but ambling toward it freely and unperturbed, convinced of its eternal mystery. We who bear witness to this spectacle may balk or sneer at the destitution left in its wake, but none but the most callous observer could deny that however queer or grotesque or baffling the fruit, the roots of Indias’s tree run deep, deeper than surface privation could ever touch, deeper than the ebb and flow of fortune, deeper than time.

“The basic lesson of Indian history material power like kingdoms and kings, including Alexander the Great, comes and goes. But spiritual power, embodied in religion and caste and spiritual unity with Brahman, the changeless essence of the universe, lasts forever.” (Arthur Herman)

Far from its East Asian brethren, India is not a straight-A student, sober and face-conscious, but a rascally dancer, always a little drunk with the god’s ambrosia, always a little high with ecstatic festival fever. Ever is he extending his enigmatic hand to his 4000 year old friend up North to come down and laugh and dance and get dirty in the dust, but ever is modest China unwilling to join, characteristically preferring quiet prosperity to mystic bliss. But then, is it not that the prim and studious Confucian scholar looks always scornfully at mysticism in the flush of his success, but sympathetically, even longingly, come the onset of his failure? The Confucian in me balks at India’s filth-ridden streets and wandering mendicants, but the Daoist, he smiles in solidarity.

●

India is a land of contradictions, and Varanasi (Benares), the last city I visited in my two and a half weeks of travel, is the capital of contradictions. It is India’s holiest city; it is also its most polluted. If foreigners think that the streets of China are dirty or chaotic, I’d kindly invite them to take a stroll down virtually any street in Varanasi, which are ritually graced with the droppings of a variety of animals (cows take the lead), and which can be so congested that even foot traffic is driven to a standstill. In China, there is chaos in the streets. But it is chaos that, slowly, one learns to drift with and eventually swim within. I got my sea-legs after the first several months, and now swimming is fun. But India’s waters are so turbulent and opaque that even staying afloat is a challenge to the uninitiated. No wonder foreigners end up washed up on the shores of cozy Western cafes, which resonate for us like islands in an unforgiving ocean. Gasping (sometimes literally), we climb on board, mostly relieved, but sometimes with a tinge of shame. “I thought I could swim!” we silently wail. Yes, but that was before you came to India. You may be an Olympic swimmer in the kiddy pool, but this is the deep end, and it humbles no small number of venturers.

Varanasi is a city of extreme exotica, violating Western norms more extravagantly than other Indian cities, and it is partly for this reason that more so than elsewhere, tourists and locals seem polarized into two camps of mutual misunderstanding. A perfect example is the ghats. The ghats are sets of steps on the banks of the Ganges (which famously runs through Varanasi) and can be used for bathing or other religious rituals. The most famous ghats, however, are those in which ceremonial cremation takes place. This cremation is open to the public, who can freely see the kindling gathered, the bodies dressed, the fires lit and the corpses burned. Not for the light of heart, to say the least.

Standing on the ghats observing this daily ritual, I was reminded of the words of one Western observer:

“In India life is entangled in certain times and phases. The individual, involved in this cycle, is relieved of his own decisions. The tradition has already thought out all the problems to the end. Life and death extend so wide beyond the individual that it would be hopeless for him to strive to fathom them out.” (Alice Boner)

●

On my last day in Varanasi, I had a late lunch in a cozy Western café and then went down to the ghats one last time to fill up a small vial with water from the Ganges, a little souvenir. Never to be caught out of character, hundreds of Indians were gathered near the river for the celebration of some kind festival. It was a revealing slice of Indian society: there were the Indian women dressed in their spectacularly colored sarees; there were the well-to-do Indian men with their round bellies, collared shirts and conspicuous watches; there were the slim, scruffy-haired members of India’s “untouchable” caste (which is no-caste), ranging from 5 years old on up, the younger ones running around and playing barefoot, others selling food and trinkets; there were, finally, great numbers of sadhus, India’s holy men, with painted faces, lean frames and awesome staffs, sitting up and down the chaotic walkways, begging bowls extended. Passing threw the throngs of festival-goers, I got my river water, and as an extra, purchased one of the many “candle-boats” being sold in honor of the holiday. It would be my offering to the river, I figured, in return for procuring some of its waters. Sending the dancing light out onto the dark sea, I made a wish and quietly headed back to the hostel.

The moment was, in my head, the climax of my journey. I would be catching a train that evening, a plane two days after that. It was all falling action from this point. But little could I have guessed just how eventful this return journey would be.

That evening, my stomach felt a bit queasy. A generous couple from London took pity on me, offering medicine and Pepto-Bismol. But it was hopeless. By the time I got on the train at close to 11:00, I was nearly delirious with bowel pain. Fortunately, I was riding first class (kudos to the travel agency in Delhi; if it had been me doing the booking, I almost certainly would have reserved a sitter-ticket beforehand, near suicide considering my condition). Arriving in New Delhi in the morning, it was all I could do to take a tuk-tuk to my hostel, check in and crunch up in agony on the bed. I was in and out of fitful sleep for the next 20 hours, getting up periodically to relieve myself in the bathroom, and when resting, falling into states of half-conscious, fever-induced delirium. Dreams and nightmares of a horribly vivid, hallucinatory nature. The next morning, I was still sick. I called my dad and he wisely insisted that after 30 hours of food-poisoning, it was time to go to the hospital.

I asked the hostel reception what my options were, and they made an excellent suggestion of a nearby private hospital, which I took a tuk-tuk to immediately. Naturally afraid of what a clinic might be like in India, I was pleasantly surprised by their uncrowded, sanitary facilities and high-quality care. The doctor hooked me up with some fluids, gave me some medicine, and I spent the better part of the day resting on a hospital bed. By 5’clock, I felt like a new man, strong enough to begin making my way to the airport. I had a 10:30 flight to catch. They wheelchaired me to the hospital door, handed me my medication (including ice-refrigerated live-cultures) and I was on my way. The price for this excellent care: 100USD.

A half a day later, I was back in Fuzhou, feeling not 100%, but certainly better than in the train and hostel. In retrospect, I see food-poisoning in India not so much the sour note which ruined my journey in the end, but my gruesome, probably unavoidable initiation to a land which is both culturally and microbial-ly alien. But one glimpse of the alien, one dip in the deep end, and it is hard not to wonder when I’ll be going back. It was a good trip overall: I got a chance to rent and ride a motorcycle in the Thar Desert of western India, I played badminton with a former Indian nationals competitor and I engorged myself with delicious Indian food. Perhaps a longer trip sits somewhere in the horizon.

For now, I am content to roost quietly on my little hill here in Fuzhou, a home away from home, and a home away from that wild dancer down south, who is ever wandering his wide sub-continent, feet dirty, but hand happily extended.

---

Photos

Cremation Ghats
(Warning: don't look too closely if dead bodies easily spook you!)