Reflections on India; culture shock in Thailand

It feels so impossible to begin to describe India in any way that people who haven't been will comprehend. It is predictably crazy and unpredictably beautiful. In each city or village that I visited I always get off of the tourist path - often it often only takes 1-2 blocks - and talk to the local people. The children are always super excited to practice the English that they know and see their photos in my camera. Which is good because children were always my favorite subjects.

In reflecting on my experience in this country, I thought I would share some of my favorite unblogged-about moments, faces and photos...




Joyful children: Who can argue with the sheer bubbling joy that Indian children find in their very simple lives?




Kedar from Varanasi & other young salespeople: His mother died during the birth of his younger brother, so he and his four brothers all work on the ghats selling postcards and other touristy trinkety things. He is six years old, speaks English well from communicating with tourists, and seriously stole my heart. It is very difficult to adopt kids who still have living parents, or Kedar would have come home with me! As soon as kids can walk and speak basic "Tourist English" they are often sent to the streets to sell goods to visitors. This young girl below was six years old, and though she told me that she went to school, I doubted it. It was 6:00 am and she was actively working the ghats selling flower pujas to visitors, including me.



The ritual of offering pujas: Pujas are given as an offering to a god or goddess, and they are given in hundreds of different ways. I offered several pujas and prayers for certain people (you know who you are!) to the Ganga river, and Shiva. They are a small cup made out of leaves, filled with flowers and a small tea-light. You make a prayer into the beautiful cup, light the flame and then release it into the mighty Ganga river.



The beautiful, colorful, sense-filled markets! How can one country have so many colors????


The bus ride that would never happen in the US: At 18-hours, my "10-hour bus ride" was still two hours from the destination and had been stopped because it had just crashed through a police checkpoint at 4:00 a.m. Sleeping passengers woke up with a start, in confusion, and then waited two hours before making other arrangements to get to our destination, Mysore. Earlier in the night, the brakes had overheated which required a one-hour rest, we'd gotten a flat tire (took over an hour to repair), got stuck on a narrow, windy mountain road because our bus was too big (don't they know these things before they take the roads?). My fellow passengers and I made a bonfire by the side of the road to keep warm, and it turned into a quintessential Indian experience!

Perfect night in Mamalapurum: Sitting on a beach in Mamalapuram with Gerdien I experienced a moment that will stay with me forever...Crescent moon and Venus in the western sky, a full slate of bold, bright constellations floating above the ocean in front of me, a warm salty breeze reminding me of my location. We sat on a log, laughed until I hurt, and watched someone offer a puja to the ocean right in front of us, complete with a candle and incense. The roar of the ocean drowned out the sound of our laughter ripe with shared wine. A difficult moment to re-create, but one of those moments that make trips like this so special.

New friends from around the world: There are too many to mention specifically, but this is a photo of the people who studied Buddhism with me in Bodhgaya. Wonderful people from Israel, France, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Australia and more. It has been such a blessing to connect with people who are sharing a similar adventure and have similar values. Definitely many people that I will keep in touch with!


The community of women: The sense of kinship that Indian women feel for one another is palpable everywhere, everyday. It's a kinship born of shared struggles, and the women gather anywhere they can, whenever they can catch a break. I saw many of these spontaneous gatherings in the middle of very rural areas where there was no apparent homes nearby, or sometimes it was in the middle of a busy alley. Always it involved talking, laughing and listening. It gave me a real sense that even though they have terrible, difficult lives, they seek solace in the comfort of friends.





Funny street signs: Whether or not it's interpretation or their very different sense of humor, the street signs never cease to crack me up. One in Varanasi proclaimed proudly, "Yes! We are less dirty!"









Sacred cows: Since neither Buddhists or Hindus eat beef, and cows are considered sacred in India, cows are EVERYWHERE. They appear to have no real "home" and instead just wander the streets and alleys eating whatever organic material they can find. They even walk down the middle of the busiest roads, and the cars and buses swerve to miss them. Some entrepreneurial types dress up a cow and walk to the beach, charging tourists for photos of their "sacred cows". I fell for this trap, but didn't know about the cost until after I snapped my photo - about 15 cents.





Small business, India style: My favorite chai shops are invariably the ones that are little more than a crude small camp-style cookstove, with a pot of tea on top. The vendors set up shop anywhere that they can find a small space with pedestrian traffic, which is about everywhere. They sell chai for 3 rupees per glass, about 7 cents. Often they speak no English beyond what is required to sell the tea, but they always take great pride in their beverages. This one was located in what appeared to be an abandoned shed on the side of the road where there was very little traffic, but clearly it is how this woman makes a living.



Fresh Lemon Sodas, and other uniquely Indian flavors: A lemon soda is not a sweet drink out of a bottle, it is the juice of at least one, maybe two fresh lemons served with a bottle of soda water. One of my favorite refreshing drinks. Other food I will never forget: South India's coconut chutney and sambar served with dosas, fresh coconut curry, fruit curd muesli, and chocoballs! Yum!

Leaving India like a Princess! Gerdien and I went different directions our last week in India and decided to meet in Calcutta the day before our flight to see the city again, and perhaps Slumdog Millionaire (didn't work). I get a call from her when I'm almost in Calcutta and she tells me that she's met "some friends" and we're going to spend the day with them. Great, I think. Gerdien has a knack for picking people up... So, I get to the train station and it's Rupak and Neha, his sister, and they are prepared to be our guides for the day. They do our laundry (!), feed us lunch and dinner, pay for everything, and let us stay at their house. The most hilarious part was that we were on parade for all their friends and family to meet. It was a perfect way to leave India, and also certainly a different side of Calcutta that I'd seen before.

I arrived in Thailand yesterday to great shock! My bus from the airport was air-conditioned (!?), clean enough to eat off of the floor (I didn't try), and was driving on the equivalent of an American highway with lanes (can you imagine!). The city is very shiny, very Western and already I've seen more Americans than I had in the previous five months. This is going to be a very different kind of adventure indeed!

With love,
Pam

Holy Places and In-Your-Face Poverty

India is full of Incredible Moments that are so hard to communicate. Just a few minutes ago a very typical scene unfolded before my eyes. I am walking down a narrow alley, probably five to six feet wide at the most. On both sides of me there are very small businesses, each with a vendor standing in the front of their store inviting me in to buy. I shake my head. "Mah-dam, looking is free. Come in," they all proclaim. I continue walking and step sideways to dodge an enormous pile of cow dung (perhaps he had been constipated?) and then just narrowly miss an oncoming motorcycle who lays on his eardrum-piercing horn to let me know the error of my ways. I hear music. Very loud, though I can't tell which side it's coming from. A group of maybe ten small school kids are coming straight at me. "Namaste!," they all yell at the top of their lungs. "Namaste!" I say in reply with a great big smile. They all look to my blue eyes incredulously, and I to their beautiful mocha skin and joy. The music is getting louder so I stop to see what's going on. I have to step up onto a crude milk crate step that's been placed over a two-foot deep hole in the alley to see. It's a wedding procession, which is a big deal here in India. A drum and trumpet lead the pack, and behind them scores of very well dressed people come with nearly expressionless faces all stepping around the enormous pregnant cow that fills the better part of the alley. Then the groom comes. Again, stoic and probably scared to death considering the chances are good that he's met his new wife only once. Behind him, there were some people chanting, and two people were carrying a 10-foot-long lime green cloth flat, and shaking it. It was holding something small, but I couldn't tell what. As they passed I peeked inside, and saw a collection of small items that strangers apparently toss into the collection as good luck for the bride and groom. "Hashish?, someone asks me and stirs me from the moment. "No thanks," I reply and walk away smiling as I pass a Hindu woman lighting incense and leaving a puja on a Shiva temple with three goats waiting for her.

I just emerged from ten not-quite-as-silent-as-they-were-supposed-to-be days studying Buddhism and meditation in Bodhgaya at the Root Institute. It was a very powerful, educational and - most of all - inspirational experience. Definitely something that I want to continue exploring when I get into a regular routine again.


While in Bodhgaya, I spent the better part of three days sitting at the Maha Boddhi Temple located adjacent to the sacred Boddhi tree where the Buddha attained enlightenment. It is the most sacred destination for Buddhists from all over the world, the Buddhist equivalent of St. Peters Basilica. Each day there were pilgrims from at least a dozen countries (probably more) prostrating, meditating and chanting all around the grounds. At each turn, a new song emerged, or a new color of robe. On one afternoon, I sat directly beneath the Boddhi tree waiting for leaves to fall so I could bring a few home. When one did fall, I would race to be the first to get it. It was a hilarious scene as I was in a fierce competition with monks, children, sari-wearing women and other rabid tourists. The level of devotion is positively astonishing, like nothing I have ever witnessed before. The energy is electric, and honestly I could have stayed much longer, just sitting and feeling with the masses.

It is not at all surprising that Buddha's Four Noble Truths were conspired while he was in India. Not surprising because they are all about "suffering". Granted, the Buddha was speaking more of a dissatisfaction than our Western definition of suffering as pain, but the word is so appropriate when you travel here. So many people in India are really, truly poor. So poor that they don't have food to eat, access to clean water or a proper roof over their head. The faces of the lepers, old people with skin hanging off of their frail bodies and young, starving and very dirty children pull my heart out. And as tourists, we are instructed in every guide book and by everyone we meet to not give money to beggars as it just encourages their habit. It seems suffering is just the way of life for a great majority of India's 1.2 billion people. This country is not for the faint of heart to visit, or clean freaks for that matter.

Garbage is something that has fascinated me since I arrived in India, only because there is so much of it and I've never seen a proper garbage truck or dump. Here in the narrow alley ways of Varanasi people pile up their garbage outside their businesses and a barefoot old man with osteoporosis and a wheelbarrow comes to pick it up. This is, of course, the morning after the sacred cows, stray dogs, monkeys and wild boars have eked out every bit of organic material that they can find. He makes one trip at a time, to a location I can't imagine, though I am certain it is on the side of some road or in front of someone's home.

Varanasi is an amazing city, the most sacred for Hindu people. In fact, it's the place where Hindu's come to die so that they can be cremated on the very holy river Ganga. The scene on the river is mind-blowing. Each day, approximately 200 people are put to rest on the shores of the river, and for all to view. It's similar to what I experienced (and also loved) at Pashupatinath in Nepal, but at 100 times the scale. I took a row boat ride a little ways up the river to the "burning" ghat. It was sunset, and the sky was turning from light blue to dark blue, and the moon was rising. There was very loud music coming from an ill-equipped loudspeaker at the ghat, and at least 20 simultaneous cremations taking place with orange fire and smoke rising from each. A cow was placed on a small platform above the fires from which he couldn't move, and I suspect had something squishing his privates, because from the water the screaming moos of this agitated cow echoed constantly and furiously. The fires illuminated the night, and our boat at one point was so close that I could feel the heat of a burning body. It is a tragic, beautiful, and peaceful scene, the likes of which I am not sure any movie producer could ever recreate.


In early February, I took a train from Chennai in the south to Calcutta in the north. Gerdien and I got off the nearly 30-hour train and instantly knew that something had changed. The south and the north really are like two different countries. I had heard it said, but it is true for certain. Off the train, walking on the pedestrian bridge towards the city to spend a 12 hour layover, we descend some stairs into Calcutta's famous Flower Market. It was beautiful, and we were definitely the only westerners in a very crowded and colorful scene.

Calcutta's poverty was unlike any I had seen anywhere in India. Two thirds of Calcutta's estimated 19 million men, women and children live in the city's infamous and enormous slums, with no water or proper sewage. One anonymous quote I found interesting about the city is:

"The people of Calcutta actually love their city and accept the dilapidated living conditions, the lack of space, the lack of clean water, the dirt, the daily power cuts and the extremely crowded public transport with scolding resignation. They regard Calcutta as the most Indian of all cities."

And I close with one of my favorite quotes from Mother Teresa, who has gained an enormous amount of status in my book after seeing this city that she chose to love so faithfully.

"We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love."

With great love,
Pam

A Really Bad Idea

Don't. Ever. Get a haircut on the street. In Calcutta. Or anywhere, for that matter. I don't know why I thought it was a good idea. My bangs needed a trim, and I was heading for two weeks of contemplation and stillness, and I knew that they would drive me crazy. This is the result...

But the experience was hilarious. Positively worth waiting for six weeks of growout. We had 10 hours in Calcutta between trains, and I had mentioned to Gerdien that I would like to get a bang trim if we saw a place. A few minutes later, out of heaven (!) appears a very kind Indian man, sitting in a 3' x 3' spot on the sidewalk where he has set up shop, with another man before him getting a haircut. And it was a really nice haircut. For a man. So I thought, perfect! Divine intervention. I am MEANT to get my haircut here. I sit down, tell him I just want a "little bit" cut, and I pinch my fingers to represent a half-inch or so. "OK" he replies with a headbob. I should have known...

It took less than two minutes. His scissors were raised with purpose and after the first CHOP I grabbed the mirror and saw it was too late to turn back. He'd cut nearly an inch and half off of my not-very-long bangs. ARGH! Random Indian men were starting to gather quickly to watch the scene.

"Thank you," I said unenthuasiastically as if to say "Thank you, I guess", as he was very proud of his work. As were the 30 or so people who had gathered in the street to watch the guillotine take place. Since then, I have three different people ask me if I was Russian! This has never happened before, so I take that to mean that Russian people are known for the dramatic bang effect. Now I know.

Oh well. It's only hair...