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.