Goa and Gorkana

"I'll be telling this with a sigh, ages and ages hence"


My coworkers suggested a kickback at my apartment the night before our 6 am flight. Last minute packing consisted of throwing clothes in my backpack. At 3 am the 12 of us drove to the airport for our flight to Goa, on the coast of the Arabian Sea, south of Mumbai.  At the airport we loaded into a Traveler van and followed the coast to our stay, a homestay just off of Baga beach, one of the main beaches in the state known for all night beach parties on long stretches of white sand under swaying coconut trees.

Goa is an anomaly in India. Though Bangalore is considered one of the most Western cities in India, “Pub City,” though bars are ordered to close at 11 pm, the beach territory of Goa caters to the flocking tourists that sustain it. As a result, the police, normally dismissive bribe hungry overfed men in khakis, are on their beat to protect the tourists from themselves and the elements that prey on them. And the Russians. Goa is their Caribbean vacation. I had read somewhere of how the Russian mob and tourist packagers discovered Goa a few decades back, and since fortified their hold over the once easy breezy sands. They brought and bought clubs, hotels and attractions, and controlled all the elements for losing control, creating a Vegas on the beach. Together this eccentric state was a mix of Red Russians (I mean this because they were sunburn, nothing else), Indians selling beach trinkets and marketing tattoo shops on every corner, and all night and day beach shacks blasting Bollywood hits.  

My first swim in the Arabian Sea. The water was brown and with salinity like nothing I had ever tasted before. To find shells I just closed my eyes and used my hands to scour the bottoms, looking near the sand bars. I found one and in feeling it, something crawled out of it and felt me back. I immediately dropped it. And on the shore, starfish and hermit crabs in the spirally shells washed past your feet with each receding wave.

During the days we went swimming and returned at night when the shacks put tables on the sand with candles for dinner and picked from the catch of the day. While our seafood dinners were prepared we were visited by all sorts of people walking the beach offering head massages, tattoos, and fresh pineapples. On our first night there, with but an hour sleep from the night before, we went to an Indian club. That was interesting. The next day we headed to Old Goa, the former capital of the Portuguese colony. Through narrow streets and under the shade of trees, we rode past churches in ruin on our mopeds.

Our visit to Goa coincided with the display of St. Francis Xavier’s body every ten years in one of the churches. I believe the intended effect was aiming for something of reverence and awe, and obediently felt some of that too, but also a curiosity and revulsion when looking at a 500 year old saint’s body.

That night my friends had me try the local liquor of fermented cashews and another, err interesting night ensued.

And as days on the beach with too much sun and little sleep do, the days blended together. We slept in and stayed up late. On our last day we took the scooters to Anjuna beach for the weekly market where locals and people that were once tourists sold to tourists. In the parking lot, ear cleaners from the street greeted everyone getting off their bikes with their metal picks and waist bands that held their cleaning oils. I have grown accustom to politely declining unwanted sellers, and for the persistent ones that followed, ignoring them. These simply came up to you when you weren’t paying attention and started examining your ears with their hands and prodding you with their metal cleaners, to which I first shocked then laughed, had to push away. One Russian man in the same predicament turned red and began yelling, sending the people around him laughing even more.

We made our way to Vagator after, and climbed the hill to the ruins of a Portuguese fort atop the bluff that overlooked the mouth of a river flowing into the Arabian Sea. The hillside was strewn with the same red and black porous rocks that made up the natural beach walls, the same rock of the old Basilica and fort we approached. I sat on the ramparts of the old walls and watched the sunset. The first sunset I had ever seen over an ocean that wasn’t the Pacific. A whole 12 hours ahead of all those back home sleeping, and I imagined them soon waking to the same sun I was seeing now dip into the Arabian sea.

The next day, Thanksgiving, I ditched my flight back home. My coworkers tried to talk me out of it. They saw that after a week of Goa I was exhausted. But I had stumbled upon an article about this isolated beach gem south of Goa called Gorkana and decided I had to go see.  I had only looked at it from a map and misjudged the distance. I be there in 3 hours I figured. Three buses later and almost 8 hours down the coast shouldering the Arabian sea and Western Ghats, the bus came to a halt in the last stop in Gorkana village and I figured it was as a good as time as any to get the hell off. I had been sitting on the window watching the passing seaports and fishing towns and ended the trip with a sunburn on one side of my face, a two-faced look.

I hadn’t eaten much all day except local cashews I bought before leaving Goa and the fruit I purchased from the bus windows from women who swarmed the bus when it stopped long enough in the villages we passed to extend offerings of plantains, pomegranates and oranges.

On the ride down I became aware of an incredible body ache I was having. I attributed it to peculiar arraignment I found myself in on one stretch of the trip where the crowd of the bus forced me into my seat before I could take of my bag and I was squeezed in a corner. But as soon as I got off the bus it hit me again, and harder. I planned to get a ride with the Chilean backpackers I had met on the bus, but I realized I needed to get moving. It was a 9km ride from the village to the coastal bluffs, through the corridors of the village up the dirt roads to the untouched hills that spilled into the ocean.

From the bluffs I put on my pack and made my way down the rocks. As soon as I hit the sand something happened. I was having trouble breathing.

Maybe my straps were too tight. I dropped my bag on the sand, when I realized I was having an asthma attack. I couldn’t even stand. So I too dropped to the sand, hand clutching my chest. The sun was going down. I needed to find a vacant beach hut on Om beach and soon. Each deep breath sent me coughing and a pain ripping through my chest and head. I grabbed my bags and in shallow hauls, kept moving. My arms were getting tingling.

I struggled to formulate sentences and inquire for an empty beach hut. I finally found an owner with one and as soon as he opened the door, I walked in, dropped my bags and sat up in the bed.  Under the mosquito net I turned on my cell phone for the first time since LA to notify my mom and college roommate of four years I was having an asthma attack. First one in almost five years, but I knew the symptoms too well.

And I knew I had to spend the night there. I was a 2km hike to a 9km service road to a village hours away from a main city. I had to relax as best as I could. Thankfully I packed an emergency inhaler.

This was my 7^th Thanksgiving away from home, first alone. I thought of all my friends and family and their very different Thanksgivings, far from being alone having an asthma attack in some isolated beach hut. And my very different Thanksgiving last year. At first this made me resentful, I was cursing my stubbornness and curiosity that got me into this situation. I was alone except for a monkey overhead of the hut keeping me up. So in the middle of the night in just my jeans I moved my stuff to another hut closer to the beach. And then I did something a little more productive, thinking about the things I was thankful for. And for the first time since August, fell asleep to the sound of the waves.

I woke up to the sounds of the roosters roaming outside my beach hut. After muesli and a mango lassi, I took a swim in the sea. In August I spent a lot of time at the beach, in the weeks leading up to leaving for India. On one of those days I went with some friends, days before some of us were leaving for school, work, some of us not knowing we would soon leave. I was in my favorite cove. With goggles, I swam out and kept going down to the bottom, turning around and kicking off. As I approached on one dive and was about to touch the bottom, the sand shook up right my face and a stingray the size of dinner plate came up and darted past me. I remember spending the rest of the day swimming around the cove with my friends, bobbing in the waves, listening underwater to the waves run over the pebbles, utterly content.

Only this time there were no rays, only gentle slow turtles. I felt so rejuvenated after the swim I almost convinced myself I didn’t need to leave today to see a doc. For the first time since getting to this secluded beach paradise I felt on the same wavelength as the backpacking couples around me. Lounging in the sand, playing Frisbee with locals, and swimming together. That has always been my definition of perfection, swimming in the ocean with someone you love. And despite the coughs and shallow breathes, I managed a nap on the beach. Waking up I went to a shack and had red snapper fish for lunch. “Stay for dinner and the fishermen promised me king fish” said the cook. I agreed, but knowing I had to leave that the beach before sunset.

I packed up my bags and left after my late lunch, stopping along beach several times to breath. I stopped a French couple to take my picture since I hadn’t had any of myself before I left. The protective lens somehow shattered on the bus ride here, and catching the sun, casts a tear down each shot. I took pictures as I walked, knowing I had seen the most beautiful beach I had ever seen in my life, and though my stay was shorter and unlike what I imagined it to be, I might not ever see it again.

At the top of the bluff, out of breath and coughing, without the usual verbal arraignments, I jumped into the tuktuk and agreed to whatever price it took to get to the village and await the 10 hour sleeper bus to Bangalore. While waiting for the bus I figured it was as good of time as any to self medicate. The cities and villages of India have medical shops on each corner, some Ayurvedic natural medicinal and other pharmaceutical. No need for a prescription or doctor’s note. I walked up to one and conversed in a cough and pointed to my chest and was handled a bottle of something. With no legible instructions, I drank some as I boarded the overnight sleeper bus to Bangalore.    

With my bag at my feet, the scent of the incense in the driver’s cabin drifting through the body of the bus mixing with the mountain air of the Western Ghats, I lay on my lower cot with the windows open and watched the stars on my way to Bangalore. And but for the brief stops picking up passengers in the dead of night at crossroads and train tracks, the medicine knocked me out. I made it to Bangalore and the hospital got a breathing treatment for the first time in five years, rested and recovered.

And I kept thinking for what I was thankful for. My niece, my grandmas. The power of support coming from all my friends and family back home, and how in turn I will share them such stories. And my parents, to witness not just their love, but a bond of commitment and communication, and how those two things gift a lifetime of shared moments borne of sacrifice, raising a family, and giving to the other continually. I’m thankful for the ocean, for being big enough to take all of my worries and thoughts and give me serenity and ecstasy in return. I’m thankful for my coworkers turned friends, who help me order food, who grab me by the arm and lead my across streets while I cross oblivious to cars I assume will stop. Who show me their homes, answer my silly questions, introduce me to their children, share their stories. I’m thankful for a job that gives me this opportunity. I’m thankful for cilantro in Indian food. I’m thankful for trains. I’m thankful for elephants. I'm thankful its December and I have a tan (Arabian sea tans look quite good on me). I’m thankful for India tapping into and indulging my politico, spiritual and nerdy history sides. And I’m thankful to be able to move. Thankful to breathe. And yes I am even thankful for my stubbornness and curiosity.  

Mountains and Temples

Once in Chikmagalur I found my driver, with the always helpful description “I have a blue backpack.” When I arrived at the homestay, the owner greeted me over a fresh glass of buttermilk from the plantation’s cows, and shared how his family acquired the 100 year old British estate after independence, his heritage as a 6^th generation coffee grower, and his recent 1 year anniversary at the end of the month to his wife.

Except for the company of their four cats that begged me for chicken curry, I ate lunch in the courtyard alone. Afterwards the owner had the house servant walk me through the 400 acres of coffee plants, over foot trails carved by the estates laborers, as the family called them. They floated through the coffee plants silently and would disappear. I briefly lost the servant and turning down one path, saw a lady with a jug of water in the distance, made eye contact and then turn and I lost her amongst the forest.  

On returning I found the owner’s bachelor friends from Bangalore all circled around in the courtyard. I accepted the owners offer to join them for a beer saying “Just one” and he told the servant “bring him two.” The friends were rising government players, traders and one a Kannada actor, that I did not believe until he showed me video clips. Soon the owners uncle joined and a niece, some of their nine dogs, and I tried to follow as I best I could to a good natured political debate spoken in Kannada with sprinklings of English.

After not having slept on the bus, my second cup of coffee gave me a second wind. Later that evening, they asked if I wanted to join them for drinks at their hangout, an outdoor roadside shack isolated on a mountain ridge. “How many beers should I pack you?” the owner asked. Just x would be good. “No, no I’ll bring you more.” We took two separate cars and I rode with him and his beautiful young wife who once in the passenger seat, turned around to introduce herself and ask questions about my travels, family, love status, and the peculiarities that strike many Indians around a solo traveler. “We Indians like to travel and be in big nosey groups, you are only the second solo guest we have had.”  

“You like spicy food?” she asked surprisingly as I ate from the side dishes we ordered over drinks, as more of their friends from neighboring estates joined us on wooden stump seats. “Of course, I’m Mexican!” I said, later feeling a heat rise in the side of my mouth where I was chewing, and mixed with the cold mountain air, left my jaw feeling like it had been shot off and was just hanging by a few tendons.

The party spilled into the parking lot, and when the yellow lights from the shack cut, and we all were standing there with just the light of the moon and one or two estates on the opposite side of the valley. In the car the wife sang a song perfectly in the direction of her husband as he swerved around the mountain roads with one hand on the steering wheel and another pounding the roof of the car to the music. I sat in the back, riding the rollercoaster brought on by the road, drinks, and closing my eyes, I laughed. At the estate gates we found his alcoholic guard slumped over and the owner playfully scolded him that he needed to quit. “He can’t support a wife and his thirst on his allowance” he later told me. This was but one of many impassioned speeches he went into, one preceding being to his friend who had an accompanying servant/driver/body guard with him and his friends need to recognize his worth. That this man was an extension of him he said, and he owed his livelihood to him, just as the man owed his to him. I stood there as an observer to that one, the owner, the government friend, his servant and myself. Together with a conversation about the lives of the laborers on his property, an intimate insight into notions of servitude, workers and caste that I had long observed without insider commentary.  

Over a fire in the courtyard, the drinking continued with his bachelor friends and those that followed us back from the shack. The friends were happy to welcome me in, and on a comment on one’s gratitude for the surprise in having met me, another’s on the path that was leading me to this place, the owner launched into another speech, this one aimed at dispensing wisdom to me. About concepts of Hindu beliefs in fate, friendship, the guest is god, the necessities of a man in his twenties (with the playful disapproving looks his wife sent us), advice and commentary on the parts of my story I had shared with him earlier, responsibilities he has to those who depended on him, and that we are but simply playing out our lives. It was planned our paths would cross. Though drunk I listened intently as I starred at the fire. Thoroughly convinced in all parts, if in part owed to the high spirited energy and mood of that night.

“My wife will accompany you to dinner,” he broke off and I don’t remember what he said before that. “You have a long day ahead.” And so away from the party and fire, we sat over dinner talking. In the shack there was but one light from the roof that cast all our shadows about. In front of the fire I could only partially see faces shown briefly by the flickers of flames. Now as I sat with her I could see all of her face. I imagine this is what it likes to feel like a don juan on a hacienda, I drunkenly thought. She was happy that I liked the dessert she had made and after a glass of water from their spring, I went up to bed. 

The next morning after coffee and idly dosas, I hired a driver and Mahindra Indian Jeep. He grew up in Chikmangalur, left for Bangalore in his twenties for a job and quit within a week “I can have money or I can have peace, I want peace.” Through the trees, past fruit and overhead birds I have never seen and did not know, we drove through coffee estates and their accompanying villages of 10- 20 buildings that housed the laborers. They were all working and empty now except for a few elders, running kids and dogs. .

The first stop was a waterfall. He dropped me off at a trailhead that wove in and out of a path wrought by runoff and erosion. Convinced I was lost after sometime and having not seen a single soul except a few curious monkeys above, I finally heard screams and laughs ahead, and then the waterfall. I returned with a photographer I met on the trail and bracing a tree and extending his tripod, helped pull me up an embankment. He showed me how to eat the ripe coffee cherry  skin and tossing the tan seed. “We use to add salt to this as a kid, never concerned with the value of the seed.”

I trekked Mullayyanagiri next, the highest peak of the state, and part of the Western Ghats that stretched from Mumbai to the backwaters of Kerala . Atop was a temple. As customary, I took off my shoes. The approach to the temple was slow as I tried to navigate the rocks barefoot. Inside the temple I sat on the cold stone floor and listened as adults rang the bell before the diety and children added to the sounds running around, sending their anklet chimes ringing.    

I spent the rest of the day touring the quiet hill station with my driver, before ending with a swim in a lake at the base of Mullayyanagagiri. On the way back to the homestay we picked up a couple going our direction, and the three us rode in the back as the jeep climbed a rock face for sunset. On the way back the sounds of the night bugs reached a fervor, and against the wind and roar of the jeep, we sat in the backseat. We abandoned our attempts at conversation and sat listening contently quiet.

Another party with the bachelors ensued that night. Exhausted from the day and perfectly happy, in predictable manner I followed. One showed me that before drinking it was customary to dip three fingers in the night’s first drink and cast the drips to the ground, “to stave off the three vices.”

“What are those I asked?”

“It all depends on you. They are your three demons.” I immediately saw mine.

Guests came again and I recognized one from last night who had talked of his estate in the interior, and soon he invited to move the party there. Deep into the tiger reserve. With the mention of a night hike there, this little part of tigers was lost on me, especially when someone had said there is the chance to stumble upon sleeping elephants. I must have also missed the part about boar hunting too because as soon as some from the party opted to join and we piled into a jeep, British surplus rifles and double barrel shotguns were loaded.

The second time I had been involuntarily dragged into a hunt. Though the idea of boar bacon did seem like an appealing addition to my meat diet of chicken and goat.

We went deeper into the interior and the trees grew larger and all their roots that cut across the dirt path and gripped boulders, looked of snakes that were waiting to wrap around our jeep. The sound of the bugs drowned out everything and the only light came from the headlights and the pair of lights behind us from another jeep that joined us.

At the estate we waited and drank. I was not sure of the legality of what we were planning, much less was I sure what was even unfolding. I simply heard sleeping elephants and jumped in the car. We were waiting for it to get later, it be safer they said. But shortly after 2 am forest department officers came. Shots had been heard earlier and they were looking for poachers. They searched the owner’s property for registered guns, and when they found a pair of antlers in one of the laborer’s homes, an argument began between the accused, his pleading wife, the liable homeowner and the plumb forest officials.  He was taken away for questioning and the homeowner was obliged to attend.

Five of us were left alone in the house. Soon the power cut and sent us all into darkness. The dogs went beserk and we sat in silence. Tiger! I thought. They went out for a smoke soon after and I followed. I made way to the edge of the property, along the cement clearing where the coffee seeds dried up in the sun dropped off to the mountain face below. I sat there with the company of one of the dogs, and resting his head on my lap, we watched the moon through the trees. 

The bachelors and I were dropped back at the homestay around 4 am. That night, as the night before I listened to the intermittent calls of peacocks coming from the sloped coffee grounds around me. I imagined that blue moon and the colors of their feathers in that light, as they slipped and silently darted in and out of the plants, their plumes shaking the coffee leaves and cardamom spices.

The owner and his wife left for business in town before I woke but left me a message. I hired a driver to take me down the mountain, through the valley where the coffee was roasted, and to stop in the temple cities of Belur and Halebid before dropping me off for the night in Hassan. He spoke very little English but sitting in the front seat with him, through points and words of “corn” “ginger” “wheat” “sugarcane,” he identified the fields we passed over. He was 24, a student, lifelong resident of these parts. He accompanied me through the temple grounds of the twin city and as we exited each, helped navigate me back to the car amidst the rush of sellers that would greet us.

“Look look! See see!” One man who managed to stop me by jumping in front of me and blocked my path said, pointing to an open page of the Karma Sutra. “Hair hair!” he shouted, with his long pointed finger highlighting the depiction of a man pulling a woman’s hair while in the act.

“Yes, yes. Nice, nice.” I took off my glasses and looked to my driver and we both just started laughing. 

At dusk we made our way through the small villages to my night stop in Hassan. I motioned him to stop for bhutta, roasted corn, and we ate while learning on the hood of his car. I dozed off after and woke up in Hassan. We spoke about a hundred words that whole day together, but for some unexplained reason I felt it hard to say goodbye.

Within fifteen minutes of my hotel room I was restless so with the 250 rupees I had left, wandered around looking for food but found a bar first. On the way back I passed street stalls and stopped to watch the clamor of shouting orders, extended hands, and the preparation of dosas and scoops of rice from the ping of stainless steel vats. The commotion excited me and I was joined in shouting “Dosa dosa!” to place an order. A man next to me noticed and helped me. Despite not speaking a shared language, we managed a small conversation of parts. To my animated objections, he paid for my plate. As we pushed through the throngs of people I motioned for him to sit with me on the side of the road over our dinner. He pointed to his car and his waiting wife. I understood he had to go.

I walked back and stopped at another quieter stall. I was still hungry. As I sat with the other three men on our stools surrounding the cart, a family pulled up. “The pretty girls are always with their families” I remembered a coworker saying. We made eyes a dozen times as we sat there eating our dinner in silence but for the sounds of the street, clanking of the vendor’s pots, and soft talk of the standing men smoking that blocked my sight once or twice. A path cleared and we stopped breaking away and finally I got to see those brown eyes. I motioned to the vendor I wanted to pay and how much, and he did not understand me. She overheard, spoke to him in Kannada and he turned to me and said “30.” I paid him and turned to her and said thank you, she simply nodded. As I was walking away, her family passed in their ride, I looked up just in time and we both gave each other the biggest smiles we had never given to anyone else. Mine complete with a gap and rice all over my shirt. I looked down and had to bite my lips from breaking into a childish giggle.  

In the morning I threw my stuff together, slapped some sambar into a chapati, rolled it up into a banging burrito, grabbed the paper, ran to wave down a rickshaw, gave him my remaining rupees, caught a bus and headed back to Bangalore. 

Lights and Fire

Well I guess the shark and squid teamed up with the goat and quail because a few days after my return from Puducherry I became ill. I ignored it at first as the flu but my boss suggested I see a doctor, so a friend took me to the hospital. Despite my body aches and pain I was giddy to go, experiencing another country’s healthcare system struck me as a chance for a case study. Admittedly if I destined to the emergency room or for a surgery I might not have had the same sentiment. After a payment for the entire bill that equaled my co-pay at home and an examination, the doc said I likely got a bacterial bug from something I ate. I tried to pinpoint which street side stall, shack or restaurant was the culprit. Weak western guts.  

Take this, this and this and get some rest. I was relegated to my apartment that weekend. Being sick is never fun but especially when you are far away from home. Lounging about in the rain, in my moment of sickness and weakness, I had my first acknowledgements of homesickness. Disarmed and alone, I wrestled with these thoughts as I tried to sleep over the body aches and sweats. My bedroom became a battleground.

Well timed calls from friends and Facetime sessions with my family jolted me, quieting my restless mind and allowing me respite to heal. Feeding off their support and finding the strength to do so much more than just kick a stomach bug. And when everyone you have ever known is asleep somewhere far off, the company of the muses. The song from Fleetwood Mac that reminds you of childhood camping trips to the Sierra with your family, serenading the landscapes of the Southwest, as you sit in the backseat feeling safe and secure surrounded by baggage with your Gameboy and blanket. The song from Crosby, Stills and Nash that represents the dream your parents had when they settled down and created a family, and how everything that has been revealed is greater than that dream could have ever imagined. The song from Van Morrison that was the song to this past summer and evenings on the porch with your mom, dad or whoever had stopped by that evening, and over a cold beer you could close your eyes and still smell the coastal sage brush from your beach trip, hike or bike ride.  They, along with a makeshift army of carefully arranged stones, the sentinels of your soul.

And about my apartment, the mementos of true love and support that allows you to jettison off into a future unknown, and in the face of momentary lapses of self-doubt and withdraw, continue on renewed. The realization those pillars that I built my life on will be there to greet me when I return and share our stories. The ceremonious letter my nana has written for me, before each move whether heading back to school, moving to Denver. The picture of my niece by my bed stand. Pictures of smiling friends and family on my walls. Drawings from the students of Annunciation. I miss my Cardinals.

I spent a lot of time on the balcony and when the sun broke through the clouds and I felt stronger than my body aches, walking around the village for tea and bakery treats. And the never-in-a-hurry sit on a cinder block, watching people in the street or games of cricket in the empty lot. And doing the things I kind of lost track of before India, playing (loose word) my guitar, writing and reading (I blame that in part to one or two god awful books that started my year).

“When many gather in the sky and circle about, we believe it is going to rain” someone had told me of the hawks over Bangalore, and almost every evening they did and it rained for a week. And from my balcony I dutifully watch them. Gliding above the neighboring courtyard and its sole tree in the center. Twisting and turning through clothing lines and the fluttering sheets on the neighboring rooftops. Diving and spinning in dogfights with other birds. Circling above unfinished skyscrapers popping up everywhere. I have long since known a porch or balcony is the most valuable place in a house.

My health improved and coincided with the gathering festivities surrounding Diwali. In every doorway were draped ribbons or marigold and jasmine, cars adorned with palms, and markings of thanks given to the items in life that we owe our livelihoods to. These blessing were a tribute to Lakshmi, Vishnu’s wife and goddess of prosperity. In every profession and age, people marked the tools that sustained them, kept them safe, and fed them, with a blessing of thanks and wish for future prosperity. The front car lights that illuminate our way, the office doorway that provides families a living each time we walk into work, the food seller’s street cart that allows him to display his offerings of nourishment to others . In the evenings oil lamps were lit in windows and doorways to guide Lord Rama home, and in the final days the fireworks competed with colorful balcony and rooftop lights for attention in the skies of Bangalore. And if your neck got tired from looking up, at the feet of doorways the beautiful Ragoli sand designs crafted by older women bent over in their saris, accented with pedals and lamps.

To an American it was a mix of Fourth of July and Christmas. Families in homes and festivities in the streets.

At night some of my coworkers joined me at my apartment to shoot off the fireworks I had purchased on the outskirts of town, where they were manufactured and then sold in the temporary buildings that popped up to unload a year’s worth of firework stock for the four day holiday.

As we ran up the flights of stairs, each exploding firecracker made us run faster and skip steps, eager not miss anything and excited for the pending show of our own. From the unlocked rooftop we had a view for miles of fireworks bursting over Bangalore, and immediately set up our poured out beer bottle for a stand and lit the smaller ones first with candles. Flower pots and sparkles, crackers and butterflies. We got bolder as our stock grew smaller and boyish laughs got louder. Taking one of the remaining butterfly firecrackers (called this because they changed colorful and flew through the air in random changing directions, making a fluttering sound of wings) I lit it and just when I went to toss it off the roof, it caught in my hand and shot backwards towards everyone else gathered. We killed over laughing. With tears in my eyes I examined the blacks of my hand. We saved the largest rockets for last, the ones marketed like some sort of Indian scud missiles. After a few that just exploded on the ground, we got a good fly off the last one.

On the final night of Diwali, on the backseat of a friend’s Royal Enfield, my kurta and ears catching the night air, we went flying through the streets under the exploding skies of Bangalore. Shot off from roofs, sides of the road, and alleys. I stupidly asked how fast this thing goes and we picked up speed. Faster and faster. Festival of lights and of hope.

I’m back.

Challo bye. 

Indian Roadtrip

Our last stop in Bangalore was to buy jasmine from sellers gathering before sunrise for the weekend market, to adorn the statue of Ganesha on the dashboard in well wishes of a “safe journey.”  It was just after 3 am when we started off and exited the city limits and shortly after crossed into the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu. A Tata truck with neon lights, equivalent to our 18 wheelers that traverse the interstates at night, flew towards us flashing their high beams and blaring their sequenced horns. This wouldn’t be unusual, to see an oncoming 10 ton truck in your lane except that we were on the national highway. There are rules here! Cones, dividers, if not speed limits at the very least signs that read “Speed thrills but kills.”

“Um can he do that?” I asked after I sat up alert in the backseat and the lights and noise passed and before us returned the darkness and silence of the highway.

“It’s India” my coworker friend said, “Incredible India.” We laughed and the music continued and the four of them joked in their mother tongue and I just smiled, a real smile. My first Indian road trip. The nation with the largest stretch of road second only to America. Eisenhower highways, the road leads West, Grapes of Wrath, Route 66, roadside diners, ghost towns, the car. I wondered what this would reveal about India. And that maybe, as at least I interpreted, that look some give you when on the road, the one that conveys the same message you have seen on faces elsewhere scattered across the Southwest, is universal. Where are you coming from? Where are you going? A look from the ones who dream of mobility in faraway towns and villages, even in the big cities you pass through. Not a look concerned to find an answer to who are you? The need to move isn’t an exclusive tenant of some American “exceptionalism.”  

I realize in writing this a few weeks after the fact is a disservice to my recollection. But after such a long writing hiatus in general, I accept infrequency as a side effect of my return. But I disclosed that to you in my first post, that my sharing might be sporadic. And, as in the following retelling of the trip, I will also call upon the transparency clause of my first post. For many reasons. When I return home I can share with you over some laughs the parts that even after a few weeks of not putting down in paper, I won’t soon be able to forget about this trip and the entirety of my stay in India.

Alas (because you never get to say that enough unless you are Tolkien or Whitman, but the latter is a prick) we continued driving into the night and soon passed what was to be the sole McDonald’s (or any Western fast food joint for that matter) we would see on a 13 hour road trip.

I had my knees bracing against the backs of the driver and passenger seat, since there were no seatbelts in the back. Going 135 kmph, this little useless precaution made me feel safe. “Do you want the corner seat belt?” my friend asked when he noticed my peculiarity. “No its okay, my life isn’t any more valuable than yours” joking and we laughed.

I did my best to stay awake, but woke up to a roadside pit stop. It was just after sunrise and through the fog, a village was waking and a few in the distance were already walking through their mango groves and sugarcane fields. After an extended visit to Vellore and the Golden Temple, we picked the last brick buildings on the outskirts of town to eat, before the road again gave way tropical forests of green, only to break into the clearings of rice paddy fields and isolated inhabitants. At a three walled blue building we sat outside next to an open fire and metal slab that turned out hot dosas we dipped in even hotter sambar and chutney. As soon as we got inside the car and not a second later my friend reached under his seat and threw me a beer (because it’s legal-ish for passengers). Cold beer is not a necessity they told me. I had one and immediately passed out from exhaustion, waking up half an hour later to be instantly handed another.

The roads led through forests and farms, until villages turned into trading hubs were we would stop at crossroads. At each we pulled over and asked directions to Pondi, take an unmarked turn, and were back on green stretches, stopping only for fresh pressed lemonade or sugarcane juice.   

By the time we reached Pondicherry I was feeling excited, immediately though I sobered up when seeing a commotion on the side of the road. A crowd of people was attempting to lift a car off a calf that was trapped underneath. It came bolting out full of adrenaline and small streaks of blood on its white coat. I sunk back in my seat processing that image, just as we passed the sign welcoming us to the union territory of Pondicherry. The greeting humidity and lack of sleep set me into a gentle delirium, but that was soon calmed with a gentle stroll down French quarters and Goubert Avenue that ran alongside the Bay of Bengals. Over pineapples from the fruit carts, we spent the rest of the evening on the boulders overlooking the sea.

On the first full day and after a good night’s sleep, we headed out to an island of Puddacherry full of dragonflies. After volleyball and beers under a shack, we headed back to the mainland to sample some Indian seafood, a spread of masala crab, minced shark, and curry squid in a dimly lit restaurant. The usual food coma set in, mixed with that blissful post-beach exhaustion. After eating we drove outside the French quarter to an open beach head to swim. I had apparently lost some weight since summer and had to use one hand to hold up my trunks. I can only guess it lends itself to being cut-off cold turkey from craft beer and tortillas. However my exploratory addiction to sweets here and the revelation of an expansive world of Indian breads beyond the naan will likely counter the issue. Think roti, chapatti, parathas, poori, all in different types of finishing adornments, cooking methods and regional flare.

                I asked my friends to come out deeper and join me bobbing out in the murky water, but they all confessed to not being able to swim, a reality I often forget growing up by the sea. I never understood how American inlanders could travel miles to a beach vacation to just sit on the shore and read, to deny the euphoria of the waves and summers past, forgetting not knowing how to swim is a damn good reason. I stayed out there till I spotted a red jelly and came back to shore. We left shortly after, not before eating fried fish from the seafront stalls and drinking them down with coconuts, sitting amongst the painted fishing row boats beached on shore.

                That evening again we spent like I imagine brisk weekend nights of French Rivera would be spent. French heard drifting through the air from vacationers and residents helped. The pastel yellows, blues of whites of the colonial buildings all stood silently facing the sea, with families and lovers walking down the yellow lit boardwalk. The slight humidity and faces under swaying coconut trees reminded you weren’t in Europe, but somewhere far far away. We went for drive later, past the old French administrator buildings, churches and residences, across the canal and into the Tamil Nadu quarter with narrow streets of concrete and steel, painted signs and billboards, and metal storefront doors and roofs. The streets were abandoned except for the laying oxen near empty carts and occasional orbs of red light that would appear down a narrow alley as someone struck a match to smoke.

                We had plans to sleep on the beach under an awning but with the cyclone advisory for the neighboring northern state, we were content with the room. One by one we feel asleep until it only a friend and I were awake, with another snoring in the middle of us. We got to talking over beers about our perceptions of each others’ countries but also of a shared and I presume somewhat universal goings of 20 somethings. How when answering what were some things that intrigued me of Indian culture, I answered a reverence for the family and the measure of restraint and duty people seem to govern their lives by. This was something missing in the cities he said, the fluid definition of family, how when he would go home everyone comes by your parents house to see you through open doors, to hear your stories and share in your victories. Things were shifting, demands that had driven people from the villages to the concrete cities of Bangalore, amidst a great backdrop of changing norms of the individual, love, faith, and obligation, playing out in the lives of millions. He got to telling me a religious story from childhood, how the humble Chipmunks got its stripes, adding he did not know if people really believed it. I nodded saying I was not sure not if believing that story or maybe even others was the point, but rather what the story represents. A connection to our roots, the families we left back home, our communities that sustain us and a framework instilled since childhood that determines how we see, interact and make sense of this world. It’s written on our foreheads, he added at the end of one the stories shared where it can be hard to make sense of it all. A reference to How Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer have marked you with an ineligible destiny.

                On our last morning we took our time. We stopped at a roadside stall for vada, idli, sambar and coconut chutney, down a cobblestone corridor that fed into the sea. The ocean breeze channeling down the walls kept the rising temperature at bay. After we strolled alongside the sea one last time, passing the weekend carts selling trinkets on the sand. We found the old man who was shouldering a hundred pounds of necklaces over his neck, shoulders, elbows and wrists that we had spoken with last night, with his wife carrying their baby. She talked me into a red coral necklace for my sister. Our last stop was to the liquor store to stock up on alcohol in the union territory where taxes were suspended, but limits strictly enforced at border checkpoints. We held our breathes as we crossed the border from Pondicherry back into neighboring Tamil Nadu and when passed, laughed and drove off fast.

                We took a different route home and found the national highway, stopping in a town known for leather. We quietly ate biryani and deep fried quail on palm leaves, to the sound of clanking metal bowls in the open kitchen and the call to prayer from the adjoining white mosque. It had been sometime since I have heard the call to prayer, but hearing it an enclave of town where India’s largest minority was the majority, added with the heat of food and atmosphere, and commotion of foot traffic and motorcycles that had become my white noise, seemed to heighten its impact. A feeling of serenity and affection for strangers around me, the normal act of a roadside lunch turned transcendental communion.

                And that all too common “I don’t know what I am eating exactly but damn this is good.”

                After lunch we stopped in leather shops (the byproduct of anything but the revered cow) and sampled shoes and belts in one basement level shop. The power cut, stopping the single fan that cooled the storage container-sized store, the fan that I had been standing under sipping my lemon soda. I returned to street level to walk around. Soon after we piled into the car and onto the highway, catching the sunset before it cast the valley into increasing darkness. 

Call a Friend

And I went off and saw things I’ve never seen

I really wanted you there

But…

-          “Long Flight”

Future Islands

But the song goes on. And there always is a but. When you know it is real, but the reality of walking out, and waiting communicates otherwise. When you wonder if your niece, to who you are one of a few male figures she trusts, will see you as a stranger when you return and not give you a besito. When you think of all that a four letter word HOME represents.

Last week I wasn’t having the best of days so I called up a friend while sitting on the balcony watching the monsoon and lightening. He posed a question to get me refocused “What have you gotten out of your experience in India so far?” knowing it is not a question that could be answered in a single sentence or even quickly. But that if you were doing it right, that question would send you spiraling across hundreds of mental images still being processed. Insights, colors, laughs, questions, dishes, similar struggles, new challenges, curiosities and sights that stop you in your tracks. All only possible with the practice of presence. That’s why you are there (well that and my job!), he said, and to come back and share those stories.

When he first posed the question, I sat there in silence I first went to the surface level of observations I have had. The initial observations I had the first weeks that revolved around “similarities and differences.” I realize though in relating these, it seems like a rather confiding albeit Western approach to trying to categorize and relate to place as immense and complex as India. So yes, that aside, that was where I originally went with his question. The observations that hit me in the first few days and I am sure will become commonplace as I make this my home for the next few months, like:

The unexplained pleasant smell after it rains, coming up from the streets. Except here a similar sensation mixed with the red clay-like earthy dirt, a subtler but equally desirable post rain smell. How green it is. All this rain, temperament climate and the upkeep of former British established parks give Bangalore the nickname Garden City. Even when you drive out of town it becomes wild green. And the varieties of trees, I don’t want to even begin to guess the kinds because most I have never seen before. I learned the name of one tree, known commonly as the rain tree, an expansive tree that produces a large canopy of thin leaves, with no under foliage other than the outside sphere. It’s beautiful. 

Another major difference, this one about myself, is that I am snacking more and eating a lot more sweets. That might not seem noteworthy to some, but knowing me it is. I tried to find a reason why this is, but settled with the fact Indian treats are something else! I have just scrapped the surface, I want more, and am addicted. Last weekend my coworker brought me a bag of deep fried and battered vegetables from his bakery, which I tried the first week here and kept pestering him for more.

Celebrities and athletes. I took the daily newspaper to work to ask my coworkers who this one dude is, I see his face on everything, TV ads, posters, soaps, honestly I wake up and it’s the first human face I see on something, his huge smile, 8 pack, and signature wavy hair. Indian version of Brad Pitt I assumed. “Yep, pretty much,” a coworker confirmed. One of THEE guys in Bollywood. Another later said, “If it is two things that are bigger than the gods here, its cricket players and movie stars.” With its own flare, cultural markers, entertainment industries and a billion plus market, India much like the USA produces a lot for its own consumption, why look elsewhere? There are regional outlets, Sandalwood for example the nickname of this state’s movie industry that produces movies in Kannada, the local language. But there are also national prides, Indian cricket team playing Pakistan. And with a sport like cricket, the imports take a back seat. Sad to say Miley Cyrus and Beiber are still vaguely known here. Still some of my coworkers said they perfected their English by watching American films like Star Wars, Martin Scorsese films, and American Pie. On a discussion on dating culture, someone referenced American Pie and asked how real of a depiction it was of the realities of America. More on that subject at a later time.

Some other similarities in one degree or another with the American psyche if there is such a thing: the sacrifices some are called to make and answer to provide for their families, optimism, a colorful and diverse history. And one more, parks are meant for lovers. 

During my volunteer year, two simple themes that kept popping up and I sought to carry away with me were the practice of presence and the value of another’s stories. Practicing presence as a volunteer teacher was not too hard to do, kids require it. But you can lose sight of that easily, when you don’t have kids pulling at your shirt to tie their shoes, a student running up to you screaming about a bloody nose, and the same kid later making you nearly cry laughing as they recount their weekend adventures complete with kicks, jumps and “and then and then…” And when you aren’t present, the art of listening is lost and whatever you absorb from those stories is distorted. You fail to acknowledge the invitations to enter into someone else’s space. The value of stories was something I always appreciated, I guess just hadn’t ascribed as principle truth, a value to guide your life by. Over the course of the last two years though I recall a specific few stories, and the corresponding straining of every part of your body to receive those next shared words, eagerness to absorb each ounce, either oblivious to your surroundings or aware that it enhanced the story, and the welling emotions inside you. And always the content intermittent silence and my trivial offerings of similar experiences of joy, rebellion, pain, laughs or simply my appreciation or admiration. Last summer when driving up to the Sierras and my Nana and I were the only ones awake and she shared of first trip namesake grandfather to his childhood home in Death Valley and standing in the frame of his old house and him driving her to the top of the hill to see the town, sitting outside an old corner Italian restaurant in the Denver Highlands with a teacher from the school I volunteered at and hearing his stories of growing up near Federal and coming here as a kid for spaghetti and meatballs, and the excited and out of breathe stories of cousins at the end of camping trip recounting the events of this trip and preceding ones. These experiences, and their permanence, all in part owed to presence and the inherent value of another’s story.  

So what have I experienced so far? I will continue to keep those words of my friend and let them sink in, deeper than the heavy monsoon droplets of rain that seem to reach your bones.

While this post has gone on long enough. Apologies for the rambling. But to keep it short. I have experienced waking up just after sunrise on the side of the road next to sugar cane fields and mango groves, I have tasted the salinity of the Bay of Bengals as I swam about until I saw a jellyfish and ran out, I have seen kids and grown adults point with excitement at wild monkeys spotted as we waited in line to visit the Golden temple, I have caught buses that assumed would stop but don’t but you must run and leap on to, I have listened to a coworker tell me of his grandfather’s farm and the way of agrarian life that is so different from the growing cities, I have taken a autorickshaw one way and out of frustration with them, desire to explore, need to move, walked the rest of the way and luckily found my apartment. How have these experiences made me feel? What do I know so far? All things for another post, another time.

To the friend on the other end, thank you. 

And at the end of the song, Samuel Herring of Future Islands belts out:

AND I WENT OFF AND SAW THINGS I’VE NEVER SEEN!



To be continued...

Mysore and a Month

Received an email from my grandma this past weekend, saying she was very happy to know one of six months done, that I would be home soon. A month already! Just last week I finally emptied one of the luggage bags.

In a month here, it took me only a week to find my corner bar, its like nothing I have ever seen back home. I can’t begin to describe it. But its just my kind of place. In a month I have managed to improve my negotiation skills with autorickshaw drivers, so as to avoid what happened in the first week when they promised to show me some sites, only to drive me around in circles to their friends’ shops where other Westerners happily opened their wallets for trinkets, while their drivers waited patiently outside over tea for you and his commission. And in a month I have gotten better at ordering food, detecting counterfeit rupees and crossing streets without jumping up in the air at every honk or running like a madman.

Before I came to India, my Indian friend warned me I would see stray dogs. He did so because I am a dog lover so as to prepare me. When I first heard this from him I shuddered, knowing this would be a constant source of pain. When I first saw these dogs, I averted my eyes and was heartbroken. Now, far from indifferent, I see it as part of the many layers of the daily life here I must navigate. To obsess over anything would lead to a point of immobilization, the antithesis of India. I offer snacks if I have anything on me, on a hot day tried to offer one water but he was too skittish, and whistle and talk to them in a loving voice when I pass by. When I do this some even wag their tails, and follow me for a block or two. When I lock eyes with some they will keep them locked until I break it. Some roam in packs, others tend to a litter off the main road, and I can only assume under their caked dirt, scars and scruff, all are tough.  And all are capable lovers. With a nice groom and overfed diet, some could even pass as suburban house pets back home. At night when I return from work, down a dark street lit only by a few street lamps you will see a pack circling about. Sometimes they are fighters. I can hear dog fights at night and one unlucky one yelping. Other times they are playmates, like once in the park when I saw a young puppy running up to other dogs jumping in the grass, leaping on them and disturbing the balance. When a monsoon rolls in, the streets will clear and the dogs, with their tails low and blinking from the rain drops hitting their eyes, disperse down alleys, under stalls and onto porches. This past weekend while at a bus stand, a woman offered a dog a crackle. The dog happily followed her at a distance of five feet, upright and wagging its tail. For the next half hour, as I saw the lady traverse the busy platform back and forth about her duties, the loyal dog was never far behind, never nudging the woman or barking. She acknowledged him at times and eventually when it came time for her to board her bus, amidst the dozen or so other buses zooming in and out of the stand and throngs of people, the dog followed her to the door and sat down loyally as she boarded. He stayed there for some time and I can only assume eventually went on his way.

I had my first getaway from the city this past weekend, to a town called Mysore, my visit coinciding with the Mysore Dasara, known as the festival of lights that started in this town and spread throughout the country. It honors the goddess Chamundeshwar or Chaimundi who killed the demon Mahishasura in battle. Dasara was first commemorated by the Wodeyar Kingdom of Mysore 404 years ago, a kingdom which reigned unbroken up till today, but for a brief military rule during in a power vacuum. The Wodeyar’s were later restored to the thrown by the British and Mysore remained the center of the namesake state until Independence, when Bangalore, a concentrated and developed British outpost, became the capital and the state was renamed Karnataka. This year’s Dasara will be unique given the passing of the king last year, who normally partakes of the annual precession on the final day. Traditionally the king would ride on the back of an elephant past the crowd and before his subjects, but this has long since been replaced with the golden sword of the warrior goddess Chaimundi, adorned in a gold chassis hauled by an elephant.

I caught a bus to Mysore with a coworker who was heading home for the weekend. We were the last ones on the 6 am bus and sat in the row of seats in the back, myself in the middle with a clear view down the length of the bus and driver window. I tried to get some sleep, only to awake midair as the backend hit a bump several times. Other times, the bus’s overtakes of rickshaws and motorcycles and its following yank of the wheel and acceleration to get me and the backend of the bus back into the correct lane before an oncoming semi, somehow didn’t induce the desired sleep I needed.

Managed to take a quick nap that morning in the room I rented, which came out to 8 dollars a night. Normally I assume it would go for less, but it was the first weekend of the 10 day festival. A 6 x 8 room with a bed, ceiling fan and adjoining squatting toilet. I toured most of the city on foot (it is a lot more manageable than Bangalore) and after a day of walking, laid down in the garden grass of the annual Dassara flower show. Later I met up with a coworker who took me through Devaraja Market, a centuries old bazaar selling vegetables, oils, colorful kumkum, the powder placed on the forehead marking the holiest of holy energy spots, or chakras, on the human body. The third eye, which humans see the divine.

That evening after pineapple dosas and tea, I walked along the Mysore palace walls trying to find my way back to my hotel down streets I think I had walked earlier in the day but didn’t recognize. I could see over the walls the palace’s decorative lights and entered through an unassuming entrance that was unlit, past armed guards and smoking men. Unsure what was off limits or not after previously believing it wasn’t open to the public, I followed a family 50 feet ahead, and just when my eyes were adjusting to the darkness, we turned a corner and were in the front of the palace grounds, lit up in celebration of the festival. Thousands lay in the grass watching a play staged at the base of the palace. My manager asked that I text him that evening, it was the Indian way he said, to make sure their guests are safe. As I was texting him about what I stumbled upon, I noticed a large object to my left loom up and obstruct the palace lights, and it was getting closer. I jumped up at the sight of an elephant being paraded down the lawn, right towards me. I reacted with a smile, stupefied shake of the head and a “shit!”

On my last night in Mysore, another coworker said he wanted to take me to the top of Chimandi hills to see the decorated lights of the old city below. We were met by my coworker’s hometown friends in their bikes. The hill is said to resemble the body of a beheaded man at rest, the body of Mahishasura, the evil demon that the warrior goddess Chimandi kills and from whom Mysore derives its name. We briefly stopped to see the palace below and continued up to the top of the mountain to Chimandi temple, were performers we gathered outside. Its pyramid tower jutting up into the sky was illuminated by lights cast on its face, allowing you to see the clouds splitting on either side and monkeys scaling up the temple. I had left my camera behind and was initially pissed as I tried to make do to encapsulate that image, complete with a serendipitous sacred cow that walked in front of my view, knowing I would not have language to write about it later as I am failing now. I resigned myself to the fact that this image would never fade in my memory and was the exact reason why I travel. Soon after 9 pm the lights on the celebratory lights on the city below were turned off and immediately a monsoon, that previously operated as nothing but silent lightening, unaccompanied by thunder, behind distant clouds that obscured any bolts but instead illuminated the clouds, moved in. Now it was heading for the hill. As people we vacating the hill, we stopped outside to enjoy the street stalls that catered to the temple pilgrims. Just as we were finishing our snacks, it began to pour and we made our way under the awnings of vendors. The lightening that was previously silent and hidden behind clouds, was coming down right above us and the empty lot we looked out on. Now not just the celebratory lights, but all the lights were out.  Over tea and cigarettes and bouts of laughs, the ten of the friends or so educated me on Bollywood actresses as I fielded their questions on Vegas.

On the way down the hill, the rain was bouncing off streets and the ones bouncing sideways were dozens and dozens of frogs. I got dropped off by the hotel but before entering, rounded the corner to the small bar I had visited last night. Without even a word the bartender gave me the beer I had liked the night before and I paid, turning to walk out the door down narrow alley road to my hotel. It was almost 11, the rain was still pouring down and the streets were empty. The police would be doing their rounds for the Dasara curfew and I had to get back before the hotel locked its door. As I lay in bed listening to the rain and thunder, I fell fast asleep.

My First 2 Weeks in Bangalore

For someone that can often times get lost swimming in his thoughts, India is a place that yanks you right out of them. There is a lot to think about in making this transition. But any stubborn attempt to overindulge this tendency would require denying the clamoring and competing sensory messages hitting your brain, alerting you to the risk of getting hit by a car, or at the very least of missing the beauty of daily life in India. As soon as you step outside and start navigating your way through the roadside stalls lining the street on one side and the rickshaws, motorcycles and trucks on the other (because sidewalks aren’t the norm), you are alert. Layer that with the commotion of the business of the streets: conversations of a circle of men, smells of frying fish at a corner stall, the blending colors of a spread of trinkets and silk scarves, and lots and lots of honking. Even when your mind starts to wander and take you miles away, getting clipped by a motorcycle brings you right back. It took me a few seconds to realize what had hit my arm and by the time I looked up, the guy was driving off without an acknowledgement. Yep, I thought with a genuine smile, I am most certainly living in India.

Though living here, I am keenly aware I am a foreign addition to this corner of the world and the daily business and rituals of life. I am a participant but also an observer. I get to see intimate glimpses of the extraordinary ordinary from my balcony of the families below, washing clothes, talking over a smoke, and children playing. But when I am out walking, there isn’t that barrier and I get to interact, many times reacting to what happens on each different twist and turn. Though most everyone is in their own world, I catch some stares and peculiar glances. Some immediately know I am a Westerner, where still others mistake me as a Northern Indian. “Some of us first thought you were from Kashmir or something” a coworker said, and so must in the streets when I look blankly back at their inquiries in Kannada, the local language, so instead they switch to Hindi and await a response. Still the same blank stare and me pointing and ad-libbing “I want to try some dosas.”

I stay just off of a dirt road that connects to a main road that circles the city. The neighborhood has a lot of older residential developments, some in pastel color brick buildings, others fastened from tarps and metal sheets, but also newer multilevel apartments that cater to the influx of younger workers and their families that move to the city for work. Up till recently this was considered the outskirts of town, and though the villages still maintain their relative calm compared to the bustle of the main roads, everything has been swept up into Big Bangalore. Still the neighborhood I stay remains absent of all obvious encroachments of globalization that breed convenience and consumerism nor the “serenity” lifestyle the modern apartments advertise; none of the new malls and fast food. Everything here is served from street stalls and local restaurants that blend regional cuisine with Southern Indian influences. With one exception, a Papa John’s with their signature Tandoori chicken.

One my first day here, jetlagged and wanting a quick fix, I went in and walked out with a pizza, before asking a worker to point me to a liquor store, which he said was across the main road. I had to cross an intersection where two side roads, the highways, on ramps, and underpasses all came to merge, where water tankers, auto rickshaws, motorcycles, bicycles and carts moved in organized chaos with no street lights or crosswalk. I waited till I saw two men crossing and ran with them like an idiot carrying my pizza. As I made my way there several men joined me speaking and motioning to my pizza, one or two even attempting an air of friendliness as they reached to open the pizza box. All the while I made my way through the gathering group to the liquor store owner, motioning towards whiskey, paying with one hand and guarding my dinner in the other. He jumped over the counter and with some exchanges and laughs, he shooed the pizza cravers away from me, slapping one in the face. He turned to me and told me to go, I was causing too much of a scene. As I made my way back home replaying the event, I settled to eat my pizza on the balcony. I slid the sliding door shut behind me to keep mosquitoes out of the apartment, immediately realizing there was no handle on the outside and I was locked out on the balcony, three stories up. I started yelling and waving to get the gardeners attention below, one just waved his hands and walked away from me because he did not understand what I wanted. Finally I managed to stop another staff that, though he didn’t speak English, was able to understand me through my hand motions and shouts that something was wrong. He motioned that he was going to get help. I waited and waited, decided against kicking in the glass, and just sat on the ground eating my pizza, and couldn’t help but laugh. This was the first moment it sunk in. I am far from home. Day 1.

This past Sunday I woke up in the early morning to meet my coworkers outside my apartment in a caravan of mopeds and motorcycles, on the way to watch their cricket game. I hopped on the back of one of the motorcycles and we weaved in and out of the Sunday morning traffic, until it opened up on the outskirts of town and the cars became cattle and children playing. I started drinking coffee for the first time last week since senior year finals, I am not sure what exactly brought about that, but I decided to pass on a cup this morning. I was still yawning when I got on the back of my friends bike. But I woke up from all the morning air hitting me in the face and with my head on a swivel and gripping the side bars in a death grip, I could do nothing but smile. When I want to have my thought I can go out on the balcony (careful to keep the door open) overlooking the cluster of homes below that circle a courtyard. But on rides like this, I will save the daydreaming, over-thinking and processing for later.

A man walks down the street

It's a street in a strange world 

...

He doesn't speak the language

He holds no currency

He is a foreign man

He is surrounded by the sound

The Sound

Cattle in the martketplace

Scatterlings and orphanages

He looks around, around

He sees angels in the architecture

Spinning in infinity

He Says Amen! and Hallelujah!

                - Paul Simon, Call Me Al