Sitaram

We are reflecting back on Sitaram who we have spent the better part of 10 days with.  A quiet, proud man.  We speculate that he is a member of the Untouchable caste.  He is unfailingly polite and never asks for anything - one of the few people that doesn’t have an obvious angle.  At one point he confides his circumstances to SuperK: he has no education so no ability to find a better job.  We had assumed that his position as a driver was a good one when in fact he makes no salary - he’s dependent on tips - and none of his expenses are covered while he travels 7 months out of the year, facts that were unknown to us.  So the 3 months when the monsoons come and no one travels he has no cash flow.  It becomes obvious that this is one of the hard facts of overpopulation and undereducation: this guy is eminently replaceable.  It reminds me of books I’ve read talking about The States during the beginning of the Industrial Age: if you were hurt or couldn’t keep up or perceived as a troublemaker you were out the door just like that.

When our time with him comes to an end he hugs both of us warmly and we demand, over and over, that he gets an email sent to us through a friend as he has no computer.  It almost seems as if it was very difficult for him to even pass along his contact information.

We talk about this, SuperK and me.  We talk about sending him some money from time to time.  We may or may not do this, to be honest about it - the logistics of this won’t be easy and that’s IF he contacts us at all - but it may be that the reason for our trip was to be put into a position to help someone who could really use the help.

Now: Actions or just talk?

Beer? Beer?

We flew Jet Airways from New Delhi, India, to Kathmandu, Nepal yesterday.  It was a standard jet; the attendants told us how to buckle our seat belts so that if we actually hit the ground at 750 miles/hour we'd be quickly cut in two, feeling no pain; and there was a furious food service. Everywhere but The States a meal is provided, irregardless of the length of the flight (1 hour and 15 minutes in this case) or time of day (1:30PM).  Before the food cart comes down the aisle it's pretty standard to see the drink cart, and we weren't disappointed.

Here they came, the darling Nepalese women, with the drinks.

"Beer?  Beer?" they repeated over and over, handing out 8 oz cans of an unknown brew.

"WTF?" said SuperK.

We waved the stewardesses off.  Soon, the food cart came down the aisle and we were offered Veg or Non-Veg.  No drinks.

Never in my life have I seen this.  

Elemental SuperK

Elemental:  Of the ancient supposed elements of earth, air, fire, or water.

SuperK is becoming sort of elemental.  I believe she had been deconstructed down to her basic molecular structure.  I can actually see in between the electrons and neutrons and protons to her actual self - there is no artifice at all left behind.  She becomes pretty funny, to be honest about it, when she gets this way.   She is normally pretty prim and proper, aware of her surroundings and appearance, not totally predictable but awfully consistent - a good German girl, a product of her organized Teutonic heritage.  Now, I can never be sure what's going to come out of her mouth.  I think: "Whaaa?  Whaaa did she just say?"

SuperK, yesterday, unannounced: "I'm liable to do or say anything at this point."

Keep the camcorder rolling and the pen poised.

The Temples of Ranakpur

At one of the set of temples we visited - built 600 years ago by a wealthy businessman in the Jain caste - there was an arch reputed to have the power to grant the prayer of anyone who stood under it and prayed, only if the penitent kept the prayer to himself.

Back in the car I asked SuperK what she prayed for.  I liked saying the prayer but I'm not too big on the god giving people what they want part of the equation, so breaking the Jain vow of silence didn't upset me at all.  If god really did make dreams come true there would be a whole HELL of a lot of rich people, I can tell you that.

"I can't tell you that," she said, dotting her Tees and crossing her Eyes as usual.

"I prayed that our young guide would get everything he wanted," I said, true dat.

"That's sweet," she said.  "You're always thinking of other people"

"Well, first I thought about praying to be as rich as shit," I said.  "But that didn't feel quite right."

"I should have known," she said.

Ah, god is going to do what god wants to do anyhow.

Opium Dreams

As part of our tour yesterday we stopped at a couple of rural villages.  At one a very Hindi looking man wearing a turban invited us to sit on a couple of cushions and he sat cross-legged on the ground in front of us.  There was a complicated looking titration device in front of us.  He pulled out a baggy containing a thick, sticky, black tar-like substance, and began mixing it with water and running back and forth through a series of filters and containers.

Our guide, Sandeep, kind of a hippie looking Rasta man said, deadpan: "This is opium.  The government gives these desert tribes a special permit to import this.  They mix it with sugar water - it is very diluted - and drink it.  It helps them work long hours in the desert sun."

"I'll bet it does," I thought.

"Would you like to try some?" he added.

SuperK and I both froze, admitting to each other later that our initial thought was: "Hell, yes, I'd like to try some."

I've never tried opium.  Funny how the visceral reaction is still Yes until the training takes over.

Cake For The Ladies and Water For Their Horses

We were eating a piece of chocolate cake after lunch today when a young woman from somewhere in northern Europe came over and asked SuperK and me if the cake was good.  To be clear she was sitting in the restaurant, drinking coffee with a friend at the time.  She wasn't in northern Europe.  This is probably self-evident from the context although my sentence construction might lead you to believe she had magically transported in from northern Europe to ask about the cake or that I was hearing her speak through the internet - which is a series of tubes - when she asked about our dessert.

"Very good," said SuperK.  "It has like some fudge in between the layers."
"It's not too dry?" the young woman asked. 
"No, very moist," said my wife.  
"But don't get too close to it or you might lose a finger," I said.

The young woman laughed politely.

I waved the waiter over and told him to deliver a piece of cake to their table which I would pay for.  It cost about 80 cents.  I guess I could have gotten them each a piece of cake for that price but I should give myself credit for the nice gesture.

Unfortunately for me, the cake was delivered at the same time as their sandwiches.  Either the waiter didn't tell them that we bought the cake or they were being real bitches about it.  Maybe they thought I was a creepy old man but my wife was right there with me.  SuperK wondered if the waiter let me pay for the cake and then charged them, too, which is REALLY paranoid.

This all goes back to my theory of doing something nice for someone else . . . 

If you don't get any credit what's the point?

Obama!

Our guide picks us up at our hotel and begins the slow, measured, deliberate walk that we've become accustomed to.  We fall in single fall and ignore the beeping, combustion-engined banshees blowing by, incredibly close.  (Ed. Note: Sorry for the incredible number of times I'm using the word "incredible").  We stroll down to a museum which the guide informs us is closed because of a visit by the President of the United States and because it's Republic Day in India, both well-established facts that should not have caught anyone by surprise.  We see a temple and then learn that everything is closed because of these events.  We are steered toward a shop then a visit to another shop that is owned by a member of the guide's family.  We wonder why the tour wasn't adjusted slightly to account for this stuff.

We are boondoggled.  Kind of the main goal at this point is not to get killed, injured, sick, or lost.  India is kicking my ass.  Everything seems to be fraying and coming apart at the seams.

It's a lovely day and I'm sitting in the usual quiet interior courtyard of the hotel, in the sun.  I am not dead, hurt, infected, or vanished.  Yesterday we had greedily consumed the bottled water in our room's minibar so when we got back to the hotel I asked the front desk to replenish the supply, for which they charged me extra to deliver to the room.  I have long since quit trying to explain the irrationality of such actions, a pile driving daily occurrence.  

It is a good day.

When I was in college I was a prolific letter writer.  I wrote most people under the table.  My nickname was The Howitzer because I just kept blasting away.  Eventually, I meant a friend of Massachusetts Dave who bested me in volume - I couldn't keep up because he really wasn't that  interesting to communicate with.  I called him my Vietnam.  I got bogged down in a intractable conflict - I couldn't envision a way out so I simply gave up.

I would say that India is my Vietnam except that I want to go to Vietnam, too.

I took a couple of trips with Little Westside Jonny - one to pre-war Syria and one way, way back in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador - that pushed me past my comfort level.  I have to put India in that category.  A great, frustrating, intense, amazing wonder of a trip.  I'll not be the same but getting the dross burned off has caused me some pain.

It is a good day.