I'm Over The Legal Limit For B.C.C. (Blood-Chai-Content)

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Yes...India has chai...lots of it. And I consume my fair share. Don't give me a breathalyzer test...I'd fail. For someone who was never a tea drinker of any sort back home, I'm making up for lost time.

Note - 'Chai' means 'tea'...so for those of you who go into the coffee shop back home and order a 'chai tea'...yeah, you're ordering 'tea tea'. It's right up there with saying 'PIN number' and 'ATM machine'.



The People's Court
I made a bad decision. I figured that the 4-5hr bus from Bodhgaya to Varanasi was a good plan rather than a 1hr bus to Gaya to get the the 3 hr train to Varanasi. Seemed simple enough...walk through the fields at 5:30am to the bus stand and I'll be there by noon or 1pm. Not so fast...this is India.

I got good and chai'ed up for the ride and we were off...passing people who were enjoying their morning defecation everywhere I looked. I was wondering if it was National Take A Dump In A Field Day...but it might have just been an average morning in the outskirts of Bodhgaya. Dunno.

It was just a typical super-slow local bus ride until 4pm (yes, 10hrs into the 4-5hr ride)...at which point we came upon an accident site. I recognized it as an accident site by the mob dragging a man out of a truck and proceeding to beat the living hell out of him. I've read about this...that Indians take traffic justice into their own hands with immediate judgment and mete out punishment on the spot. I had kinda been curious to see it - until I actually saw it.

I think we got there a minute or so after it happened. It was soon enough to see the frenzied mob punish the driver with kicks, punches, pounding with shoes, throwing to the ground, etc. It was brutal. The mob was still forming and the road wasn't completely blocked yet, so our driver tried to drive past. Someone came over and punched him in the head for trying to get past. Naturally he was furious and screaming...but backed up and got in line to wait it out with the rest of traffic. Soon in addition to the growing mob, there were a couple of bulky Tata trucks placed to block traffic in both directions. I was dying to get my camera out and record this event, but didn't want to give the hostile crowd any reason to turn their cocked fist of anger toward me (though I did sneak one picture from a distance with my small camera while hiding behind the luggage on the roof of the bus).

I ventured close only once...in order to see if there was a way around. One guy looked at me and with a smile and a shrug said "This is India, man." He informed me that the driver had hit and killed 2 school girls crossing the street and that the mob was protesting that there isn't a bridge to walk across. The big bit of information though was that the protest could go on all night. Why not? This is indeed a place where many people really have nothing to do. So an all night protest is a good option. As is the trend, this 20 second conversation was long enough to draw lots of attention...so I quickly retreated to the bus. Rather than spending the night on this road, I teamed up with a French guy and hired a nearby SUV to take us the remaining 10km to Varanasi.

The moral of the story...if you're ever driving in India, be very careful...or at least be able to run faster than an angry mob.



Don't Shake Hands In Varanasi
Why not, you ask? Because they won't let go. It's a ploy to begin giving you a massage. Just a tip for you prospective Varanasi visitors.

Varanasi was cool, but I'm not quite sure I fully 'got it'. The quick rundown is that it's a city along the Ganges (or Ganga) - a very holy river for Hindus - where people come to bathe, die, and be cremated (not necessarily all in the same trip). The bathing cleanses you of your sins...if you die in Varanasi you attain 'Moksha' (escaping the cycle of rebirth)...and if you're cremated there...well...I don't know what the benefit is...but they do it in droves. All these activities - save dying - happen at the many 'ghats' along the Ganga.

A note about the Ganga - over 30 sewers empty into the river in Varanasi. This, however, does not deter folks from coming here to bathe and do laundry...often next to the sewer dump. Ick.

The reason I say I'm not sure I 'got it' is due to the fact that as I was standing by the river at 6am waiting for the sun to rise, I realized that I was basically standing there taking photos of dozens of men taking their daily bath. Yes, it was in a significant river and was spiritually meaningful to them...but to me I just basically saw a bunch of Indian dudes in their underwear with soapy heads.

I will say, however, that the funeral ghats were quite interesting. My photos of them are limited since I technically wasn't allowed to take any out of respect. But it's a weird thing to stand there overlooking a dozen large fires burning bodies while the families stood and casually looked on. There was even a guy with a big bamboo pole who was in charge of stoking the fires...which means that he'd be poking around and flipping bodies in and out of fires while he rearranged the logs. Truly an odd scene for me.

Families would bring bodies wrapped in colorful material past the fires and give the body a final dunk in the Ganga. Then the body would be placed on a pile of wood and lit on fire. The word on the street is that a typical body takes 3 hours to burn. I didn't stay around to check. Though all the family members seemed quite at ease with the whole process, I felt like I was intruding. So I didn't stay too long.

If a family doesn't have the money for the funeral (wood, special clothing, etc), they simply put the body in the river and off it goes. It's an odd thing to see a body floating down the river.

I think I was offered more drugs in Varanasi than any Indian city so far. After rejecting his offer, one dude said "It's ok. Varanasi is a Shiva city, maaan." I suppose this ties in with the fact that Sadhus, who dedicate themselves to Shiva, basically sit around and smoke all day. Typically dealers are discreet, but one guy in Varanasi simply pulled out a stash and was holding it out to passers-by. Yeah, I guess that's OK in a Shiva-city, eh?



Magh Mela
Every 12 years there is a festival called the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad...which is a pilgrimmage of millions (supposedly over 30 million last time in 2001) of Hindus to the holy spot of the confluence of the Ganga and Jamuna rivers. There is also a third, mystical river that is said to join here as well. Like in Varanasi, people come to bathe and be washed clean of their sins on special astrologically-determined days during a 1-month period.

In the non-Kumbh years, there is still a smaller mela called the Magh Mela. I had seen photos and read stories about the Kumbh and was hoping to get a taste of what the scene is like...so I hopped on the train for the westerner-lacking Allahabad.

The gig is this...people show up in droves, live in temporary tent cities for a month, and dash into the water at dawn. The Kumbh events can actually be a bit dangerous as there have been incidents of people being stampeded in the past. But the Magh is much smaller and I was there at the beginning of it - so many of the people hadn't shown up yet.

But I was up at 4:30am to take a cycle-rickshaw across town to the Sangam (the holy place where the rivers join) to be ready with my camera at 5:30 so I didn't miss a thing. The mela grounds are rather overwhelming all on their own and I can't imagine what the scene is like with dozens of millions of people there. There were tents, temporary streets, street lights, tea shops, etc for as far as the eye could see.

I made my way to the Sangam with camera in hand, walked a little way out into the shallows, and started snapping away.

Old and frail Sadhus would wade into the water and make offerings to Mother Ganga.

Groups of women assisted an older woman into the water in order to dunk her a few times...no doubt in anticipation of a nearing of the end of this life.

Groups of young men would gleefully run into the water splashing each other and anyone near their path as they ran by.

A man was singing various songs and mantras as he continually placed little boats of flowers and candles into the rivers.

Old men would go into the river and come out shivering while chanting "Sita-Rama-Sita-Rama..."

Women built some sort of sand structure on the shores...no doubt another type of offering.

It was a bit less dramatic than I had expected, but was still quite interesting to see. I'd really be curious to see it during one of the Kumbh years.



A Feat Of Human Anatomical Contortion I Hope To Never See Again
After several hours I left the Sangam and wandered around the tent city for a while. An Indian guy who knew very little English asked if he could be my friend and started following me around. At one point we were standing on a hill looking back to the river and a Sadhu came out of a tent and said, "Come. Sit." He didn't speak any English but still insisted that we exchange addresses. So now I have a piece of paper with a bunch of Hindi-script that I can't understand describing the home address of a man who spends his life wandering around India. Strange.

But not nearly as strange as what happened next.

As is the case with Sadhus, he was just wearing a sheet/robe wrapped around him. It was a chilly morning and I could tell he was shivering. I asked my semi-interpreter semi-friend to ask the Sadhu if he was cold because he was wearing so little. I'm not sure how my friend-guy translated the question, but the next 60 seconds went something like this...

The Sadhu looked at me and stood up.

He reached for his sheet and ripped it off his body - thus leaving him standing there naked in front of me.

"blah blah blah blah blah..." (my friend said that he was saying that he'd walk around naked all the time, but sometimes people stare at him...so he wears as little as possible)

"Uh...Ok", I said. "But that wasn't really the question."

Next the Sadhu grabbed a stick from the ground and proceeds to wrap his...well...just guess what he wrapped around the stick.

He looks at me triumphantly.

All I manage is another, "Uh...Ok"

Then, still with his junk wrapped around the stick, he passes the stick between his legs so that it's now below his buttocks as if he were sitting on it.

Again, a triumphant look from him.

Again, "Uh...Ok" from me.

He finally undoes his contortion, puts the sheet back on and sits down to proceed smoking his chillum.

I don't know if I was supposed to be impressed, or what the goal may have been. But it's certainly a moment to remember. If you want a similar experience, I have an address for you...

The Closest I'll Ever Get To Being Jason Bourne
I love the Bourne movies. Jason Bourne is about as cool as a guy can get. Don't get me wrong, I like being me...but if there's anything I can do to pretend I'm him, I'll do it. Rather than trying to emulate him by being an international fugitive & taking on the CIA...I figured I'd go for a run on the beach in Goa like he does at the beginning of The Bourne Supremacy. Yes, I'm lame.

I wasn't originally planning to go to Goa due to it being rather out of the way. But after Allahabad I was tired and in no mood to see anything cultural or historical. So I began a journey that was 47hrs of non-stop travel door to door from Allahabad to Goa...and I think I set a new record for the price of a sleeper-class ticket when I had to grease a few palms to get on the night train from Mumbai...but it was totally worth it.

I won't say much about it, but it was basically a really relaxing week on a really beautiful beach and I really needed it. I stayed in Palolem Beach (the actual beach of the Bourne filming...this was by coincidence, however) and also spent a couple of afternoons at Patnem Beach a couple kms to the south. I highly recommend both.

Oh, and I did go running in the mornings on the beach like Jason Bourne. Sadly, unlike Bourne, I was not spending the week with Marie, his beautiful girlfriend...but neither did I have a Russian assassin trying to kill me. I'd say that evens out pretty well.



Mumbai And A Friendly Face
The final stop before the end of the Indian experience was Mumbai. All I wanted to do here was see some cricket, eat at Leopold's (a place mentioned often in Shantaram - see below), and see my friend Geeta from home who was visiting some family in Mumbai. All these goals were accomplished and with a belly full of Geeta's family's cooking, I was off to the airport. It was good to be able to spend a day with a good friend and not have conversations starting with the typical traveler questions.



I Suggest You Try Unreserved Class At Least Once
Indian Railways...the world's largest employer in the public sector with over 1.5million employees. Yet somehow there's always a long line at the reservation counter. In any case, I've now traveled 5 different classes of train.

2 Tier A/C - A sleeper car with air-con, blankets, a towel, shades...quite nice.

Sleeper Class - Open air, 3 tiers of beds, affordable...and in this season it's probably the best way to go.

Chair Car - Comfy seats. Free tea and biscuits...almost all tourists.

Less fancy Chair Car - Wooden benches with 3 jammed in the space of 2...but at least we had an assigned seat.

Unreserved - Cheapest possible...no assigned seats and no limit to the number of passengers...meaning that people are bursting out of the windows and doors. Zero other tourists...and I sat above the bench on the luggage rack. Unreserved can be quite an experience.

Despite numerous warnings from locals about safety on trains, I've only had positive experiences. Every time I've been waiting at the stations, Indians come up to talk to me...and soon there's a crowd to watch the spectacle. They really are super-friendly people here.

Something that struck me right away is that I hardly see any other foreigners at the train stations. In Thailand, for example, the trains seemed to be packed with other backpackers...but here I often don't see many other westerners. I don't think it's because there aren't many other backpackers...rather I think it's simply because there are so many Indians that we just get lost in the shuffle. A typical train would have over 20 coaches with each containing between 50 (2A/C) and 150(unreserved) people...so yeah...about 2000 people per train. Not that this is bad (preferable, actually)...it's just an observation.

All in all, the trains are a pretty bearable way to bounce around this big country.



And In This Corner...
A final short comment about India. I've seen several fights here. In fact, I saw 3 in my first 2 days in the country. I suppose that can happen when there are so many people crammed into too little space.



The Reading Room
Last time I listed several books I've read about Buddhism in the last few months. This time I thought I'd share a few books about India.

- The Inheritance of Loss (Kiran Desai...really good, but depressing story of rural Indian life)

- Holy Cow (Sarah MacDonald...humorous accounts of an Aussie journalist living in India as she explores all the religious offerings available)

- Shantaram (David Gregory Scott...I think that's his name. really long, but good story...semi-fictional and semi-non-fictional. being made into a movie starring Johnny Depp)

- Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God (I forget the author's name. Author retraces the journey of Rama and Sita...two Hindu god-types...and talks about modern Indian culture in the process)

They're all quite good and worth a read.

On a similar note, Ben Keene (the founder of Tribewanted) has released a book about the Tribewanted project and its first year. If you're curious, check out "Paradise Or Bust" by Ben Keene. There is also currently a multi-part documentary about Vorovoro running on the BBC. If you don't know what I'm talking about, see my 2nd blog entry from way back in April 2007 - Maka Na Leka and the Butterfly Effect.



This Place Is Dead Anyway
I'm concerned about my developing chai habit, so in the name of self-preservation I think it's time to blow this pop stand. I've been in Asia for nearly 7 months and it's time to answer the call to once again head west and to a new continent. Not only will I head west, but I'll once again dip below the equator 'cause I love watching the water swirl the wrong way down the drain.

Now it's off to meet up with another friendly face (Dad) as we will together seek out a little pimple on the face of Africa. Perhaps "little" isn't the right word, since it stands 5895m (19,300-ish ft) above sea level...but it's there...it's meant to be climbed...and it's Kilimanjaro.

Thus we've reach the conclusion of my India ramblings. I've certainly enjoyed the Asian experience, and I hope these entries have brought a bit of it home to you as well.

In the words of Alanis Morrisette - "Thank you India..."



Marc

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···Written In Loving Memory of Betty Huddle ···
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Photos

The Accident Mob Scene
Taken while hiding behind luggage on the roof of my bus so I didn't give them any reason to be mad at me.

Golden Sadhu
Hanging by the Ganga in Varanasi

Contraband Photo Of Funeral Ghat
I wasn't supposed to take a photo...but I took one anyway. About a dozen or so fires burn all day...3hrs per body. Crazy scene.

Find The Dead Body...
Hint...it's the floating orange corpse-looking thing next to the boat.

Sadhu
After he had done the anatomical trick and had re-clothed himself.

As Is The Case With All Adventures...
...the sun must eventually set. Bye bye Goa...

Poor Lady
Barefoot...naked kid in hand...another in tow...and carrying some heavy load on her head across town.