earthly voyages

India

now browsing by category

Posts specific to India travels.

 

Night Market

After leaving the very comfortable mall in Margapatta I grab a rickshaw for the ride back to Burning Ghat Road.  On our way the driver takes a short cut that brings us into a teeming night market I had not seen before.  I ask the driver to stop, saying I want to get out and briefly explore the market.  He tells me it is “wery dangerous, not good place, good sir.”  But in my ongoing euphorically distorted state I say I don’t care, that I want to walk around and see it for ten or fifteen minutes, that he can wait for me if he chooses, or he can go on and I will pay him for this portion of the ride.  “No, sir, I not vait here,” he tells me, “wery dangerous place.  No good place.  No vait, Sir.”  “Okay,” I say, “but what can be dangerous, look at all the people, the lights, just stop and let me off.”  So he stops, I get out, I reach into my pocket for my money and he says, “I vait.”  “Ten minutes,” I yell skipping off, “fifteen at the most,” as I implement my now well practiced Indian street crossing maneuver of attaching myself to a group of people already in the roadway, trusting that if they don’t get hit by a motorcycle or a car, I won’t get hit either.

Once in the market I am swept up in its festive air.  It is crowded beyond a 42nd street merchant’s dream.  Loud fast Indian music is being blasted from speakers throughout.  There are vendors everywhere, kids’ rides, men blowing and selling bubble blowing devices, balloons, cooking fires, phosphorescent lights that people have on and are twirling, and even one darkly dressed Indian woman wearing a pair of lit up red devil’s horns on her head that make her into a very eerie visage and signal a change in aura of the scene, because no sooner have I seen the woman with the horns than I am surrounded by a pack of eight or nine hyperactive boys who I gauge to be ten to fourteen years old and who want to shake my hand, hold my hands, touch me, and are saying things in English that make no sense, and in Hindi that I obviously don’t understand, but are all extremely animated (and a little too close and intimate), and … it slowly dawns on me … are asking for or demanding money, I can’t tell which.  But I just keep smiling, giving them high fives, shaking hands, laughing, saying “no, no, no,” and moving deeper into the market.  And soon they are gone. 

I am reminded here of a sweet note I got recently from my high school friend Susan Levine who said she would never do what I am doing on this trip, but perhaps, she speculates, I get away with it, or think I can get away with it, because of my size.  Who knows?  In short order I’ve explored all I want to explore of the market, have really enjoyed my little foray, and am headed back out through the crowd when I encounter the crowd of young boys again, still screaming, still a little too frenzied and bold, only now swollen to a pack of about fifteen or twenty youths.  An event I witnessed in the Bronx 60 years ago, which I have not thought about for decades, flashes with remarkable detail as I recall a pack of kids I knew of the same age as this group of boys attack a much larger nineteen or twenty year old man. 
As I saw the event then, and even as I think about it now, my initial inclination would be to bet on the far bigger stronger man, not believing then, or even now that I have been proven wrong, than the pack of much smaller young boys could beat and bring down the bigger man.  But they did, and I see it with great clarity.  Maybe the man was adverse to the fight, or maybe the boys drew blood early and it scared him, or maybe at first he didn’t take it seriously, or didn’t want to hurt kids smaller and younger than himself, and clearly in hindsight he shouldn’t have backed up to the parked car as he did, thinking perhaps that he was protecting his rear flank when in fact the car provided a launching pad for the younger boys to climb on and jump on him, and take away his height advantage, and deny him room to move and swing freely and turn.  I really don’t know.  But I do know the younger boys won that fight, and bloodied him badly, and dropped him to the ground, and kicked him until he was curled in a ball crying for mercy, and no one intervened to save him until then, speaking of indifference. 
And it is here in my reverie that I also make a mistake in the night market, because, still acting as if we are all just having a jolly old time, I impulsively reach into my pocket, take out a Kit Kat bar I had purchased earlier, and hand it to the kid I perceive as the leader of the pack, saying at the same time, in what I intended to be a joking manner, “Now show some respect to an older man.” And the boy yells loudly, “Now show some respect to an older man.”  And the throng of boys chants responsively, “Now show some respect to an older man,” and the leader calls again, and the boys respond again, and have started touching me, and grabbing my ass, and pressing on the small back pack I’m wearing, and in my pockets, all the while as I move toward the entrance, waving at the vendors who care to look at the unfolding event, swatting boys’ hands away, holding on to my wallet, passport, and cash in my left front pocket with my left hand, waving and swatting with my right.  And smiling, of course.  And trying to keep the mood jocular.  And hoping the rickshaw driver is still there as I use the throng of boys to move blindly forward into the roadway, reaching the rickshaw, getting into the rickshaw while five or six of the boys try to get into the rickshaw with me, each saying words akin to, “Take me home with you,” as the driver starts to move forward, easing into the roadway, where the boys are forced to peel away, and the driver shakes his head and scolds me, saying, “I tell Sir wery bad place.”  And after putting what he considers to be an adequate distance between us and the market says, “Sir check money and bag,” and I say, “No, no, it’s all good,” and am really feeling good.  And even as I write this I cannot tell you whether it was all in fun, or threat, or something else we will ever know.  And while it may be “odd” to say this, from my perspective I mostly enjoyed the overall experience – that’s mostly – and was mostly comfortable in it, and I would do it again.

Margapattaville

I visit the shopping center, a mall I suppose you might call it, that services the Margapatta community in which the yoga studio I’ve been going to is located: green grocers, little shops selling kitchenware, ice cream and pizza shops, Indian fast food joints, restaurants, cyber cafes.  It is Sunday night after 9 PM and the place is alive with people: teens, younger people, clusters of men and women in their twenties, gatherings of women chatting, of men chatting, young couples, young families, young women in jeans, men in shorts, it is all very familiar except for the fact everyone here is Indian, everyone is eating with their fingers and then licking their hands clean, all the signs are in Hindi, the lighting is not quite what we are used to, and I am the only non Indian person there … and very comfortable.

Adventures in India: Day One

January 1, 2013

Chennai to Mamalahpurum

I don’t know what I expected when I chose Chennai as my point of entry into India, but my first impressions of the city are that it is way more and way less than whatever that was. The smell of the city is omnipresent and intense: old urine, onions, car emissions, something cooking that smells tempting, something rotting that smells and is repulsive, a hint of flowers when there are none to be seen, incense, jasmine. &;People sleep in the streets day and night. It is very hot and very muggy. And at the risk of making a gross overgeneralization, the people who are not sleeping in the streets seem very pushy and very aggressive, even by my New York standards. More than just the necessary jostle to get through a crowd there appears to be a sense of wanting to get ahead, to gain an advantage, to be the first. And it is not uncommon for me to be having a conversation with some shopkeeper or hotel receptionist when I am interrupted by someone else who simply wants to get in … now.
I did manage to arrive at the guesthouse I had hoped to stay in without a reservation around 11PM, notwithstanding the harrowing reality that the cab driver I rode with and his fellow Indian terrorist vehicle drivers all have absolutely no regard for the lane of the road they are driving in and I cannot even tell if they drive on the right side or on the left. In fact I think it may change from street to street or as conditions dictate. And when red lights that hold the vehicle terrorists back on occasion indicate by their digital countdown signal that there are less than twenty seconds left before the light changes to green the honking starts, and with about ten seconds left the entire lane of cars is moving forward through the remaining red light. As for crossing the roadway as a pedestrian, although it is accomplished by me by attaching myself to any one of the Indian contortionists who do so with casual regularity, to me it seems like a feat of immense daring and perfect timing.
The guesthouse is locked when I arrive there, but, after much bell ringing, the door is opened by a sleepy old man and an even sleepier younger man. They say everything is closed early because it is “election time,” although I’ve seen open teashops on my way into Chennai and later learn that the election itself is more than a month away. My room at this inn, complete with cold shower, toilet without toilet paper, and terrace surrounded by prison bars, is in an olden Maharaja’s home. After that it’s all down hill. The sheets have burn holes in them and I can scratch my itchy back on their roughly textured weave. The floor is concrete, cracked, dirty – no make that filthy – and has never met a rug or tile. The soles of my feet are dirty – no make that filthy – within a second or two and I have to take them into the bed with me. The walls are cracked, ancient, discolored, moldy, and covered with flaking plaster. Electric wires are hanging everywhere, although there are no electric outlets. Also no hot water, soap, towels, blankets, cabinets, or even wall hooks. There is one old rusty metal folding chair. All in all it feels a bit like a cell. We are definitely talking upgrade.
In the morning I move about the Triplicate neighborhood streets among throngs of people, cars, trucks, rickshaws, horns, mufflers, whistles, and yelling. Eye contact is rare, make that non-existent, notwithstanding that I look at people directly, and stick out as an obvious, tall, white, foreign guy. The sight of green trees able to breathe and grow in the city comforts me. The calling of crows with gray collars that make it look like they too are dirty also helps, although I ’m quite sure that what the kahkahs – which is Tamil for crow – are saying and asking me is, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?” And, of course, the crow guides’ question is the absolutely right question, which I don’t really know the answer to (on a spiritual quest? studying yoga?), because all I’ve found so far, at least to my eyes, is a dirty, highly polluted, teeming, and somewhat nondescript, gray city. Besides, what I really want to know first, even before I try to answer the crows, is can my diet for the next five weeks in India really consist of only bananas, cashew nuts, Kit Kat bars, and water?
My favorite moments are when taxi drivers seeking to take me on as a fare as I walk aimlessly – the only obvious foreigner – through the streets ask me, “Where are you going?” And I reply, “I have no idea.” And I really don’t. Over the course of four days in Chennai dozens of people ask me, what I am doing here, which I can’t answer, followed by the even more pointed and revealing question “Okay, but why did you choose Chennai?” And for three days I tell all of them, I really don’t know.

Sights Seen within India

… and if so where … a quiz from approx. 2012

Really good chocolate croissant made at local bakery … 50 cents

A loaf of spectacular sesame whole wheat bread made at 2nd local bakery … 50 cents

Brewed coffee at organic market selling familiar western products … 30 cents

Brown sugar for coffee with small ants walking around in it … free.

A sea breeze.

Nice clean guesthouse room … with wall safe … in pristine wooded setting … on dirt road … $7/night.  Rented motorcycle to get around.

Busloads of international visitors. 

Old hippies.

Young hippies.

Relative quiet!!

Architecturally designed buildings that are unique, AND serviceable, AND fit in.

Experimental musicians and artists.

Cows with different colored socks and brass caps on their horns that are the only thing in the roadway vehicle traffic slows for.

A solar kitchen.

Purified community drinking water.

A BASKETBALL COURT!! (have seen no players yet)

Multicolored busses. 

Multicolored religious icons of dancing gods … pretty much everywhere. 

Women with their noses pierced on both sides wearing BIG jewelry to match their earrings … pretty much everywhere. 

Beggars.  Yes, pretty much everywhere.

And the answer is??

OTHER CATEGORIES


BERNIE SANDERS

I’ve got a lot of respect for this politician, and I’ve enjoyed being involved in his movement over the years.


COMMUNE STORIES

Over yonder are a few of my tales and yarns which reflect my communal living experiences.


CURRENT PERSPECTIVES 2022

Follow along to partake in my current views, reflections, and perspectives… particurly pertaining to this year of 2022.


IMMIGRATION

This is an important issue which demands further attention and consideration from all of us.


IN THE USA 2022

My reflections upon recent domestic travels and my State’s-side journeys can be found here.


INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

It is important to respect and bear in mind the indigenous people who hold an often overlooked, but crucial and integral position in our community.


ISRAEL & PALESTINE

The conflict and turmoil which the people of Israel & Palestine have endured for ages is a cause for serious concern.


JOURNAL ENTRIES

I have kept a journal since my thirteenth birthday, which allows for many reflections upon my life and the world around me.


LAW STORIES

Tales from the courtroom can be viewed within this portion of my website.


MISCELLANEOUS

Here is a collection of my more prosaic and essay related works which are somewhat off-the-beaten-path, for your reading and enjoyment.


ORGANIZATIONAL AFFILIATIONS

There are a great many others, who are worthy of attention and contemplation – and so I’ve shared some of them here.


POETRY

Peruse through a collection of my various poetic pieces.


SPORTS WRITING

When the game is afoot, I find the field of sports to be a great source of inspiration and entertainment.


THE CHIEF

Stories of a man of magnificence, a person of power, and a character I call The Chief are shared here.

Introspection re India

A Note on My Travels to India

The adventurous trip within the vast country of India has left me with a profound feeling of respect for the many experience that I encountered during my times within this varied and culturally rich part of the world. Because of the myriad of different encounters, lessons and insight that I have gained from this journey, I have broken this section of the website into a series of jump-links which can be accessed from the navigation pane to the right. I hope that you enjoy reading this selection of my reflections upon the India and it’s subsections.

Chennai to Mamalahpurum

Giri

Yoga in Chennai

Food

Day Three

Yotam

Multhiy

Mamalahpurum

Auroville and Beyond

Urusala

Yoga in Auroville – Shambhu

Motor Scooter

Sankar

Puduchch

Transition

Getting into Pune

My mental state

Finding Yoga – Guru Dharmavi

The dialogue

Margapattaville

Idanna mum – nothing is mine

Rupannga Yoga

Moving on

Ellora and Ajanta

Foodie

Begging and bargaining

Return to Pune

A Word of Gratitude

Getting to Varanasi

Varanasi

Burning Ghats

Yoga in Varanasi with Sunil – Part 1

Getting to Delhi

Delhi

Yoga in Delhi

Sam in Brief

The Amber Fort