This will most likely be my penultimate post from India as I’m leaving in just over a week and half (!). Craziness. I have some mixed emotions about leaving. A fondness for the place and places and people as well as a habituation to the backpacking lifestyle has grown, and much will be missed. However, it is really cheap, and it is not impossible, with saving and planning (frequent flyer miles have also surely helped), to go off to Asia or the “Third World” to live and experience and work again. Thoughts of living in Fort Cochin in Kerala, the most simultaneously pleasant, beautiful and cosmopolitan Indian city I’ve been to in India, are already blossoming. They have an excellent cultural center with several performances a day and good quality music lessons. Maybe in a few years…I too have learned that life is full of possibilities.
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30498771@N02/
However, I’m excited to get back to my life again. I luckily got to see almost every place I wanted and do everything I wanted. I trekked in the Himalayas, began a semi-serious study of Indian music, experienced Indian music in one of the cities where the tradition is the most alive (Varanasi), studied yoga in the holiest city in Hinduism (again Varanasi), got to travel by myself and with great friends I met along the way, swam in the Goan oceans, traveled with my dad, stayed in ashram, traveled with my mom, and experienced the Birthplace of Buddhism. Not bad for 4.5 months. The only thing I didn’t do that I had planned was a meditation course, and I decided not to because I can do the same exact course anywhere in world (10-day Goenka-Vipassana course-http://www.dhamma.org/). These are donation only courses that are all over the world, so I’m hoping to do a course with Stacia at the beginning of April two hours north of Portland. It’ll be strict and difficult: minimal food, constant meditation, 4:30 AM to 9 PM schedule, but I think it will be transformative.
Rishikesh was great. It was a respite from the high-paced traveling of the past few weeks and even months. I admittedly only did one yoga class there (it’s the world capital of yoga) because I was tired a got a cold which I still haven’t recovered from. But I don’t expect too much of myself while traveling. I’m a creature of routine; it will be much easier to reestablish the practices I’ve been interested in and have learned about here when I have a steady home to myself. My mom and I stayed in a beautiful ashram, adorned with Hindu statues, where people from all India and the world come to do yoga and worship on the Ganges. We hiked to a water fall and toured the ashram where the Beatles stayed for a couple months, Paul and John creating the songs that grew into the White Album while George learned the sitar. Ringo, always the odd one out, found the comforts lacking and returned to England early. The ashram had been abandoned 25 years ago, and touring it felt like touring ruins of the modern world, chairs left in cobwebs, files strewn across the floor, wall bearings falling, and everything in a state of decay. 1000 years from now, perhaps that will be what it is like to tour the remnants of the ancient civilization of America!
A daily puja (worship) ceremony accompanies the sunset at Rishikesh overlooking the Ganges where chants, kirtan, clapping, and bhakti style Hindu devotion can’t help but raise the spirit. So much more lively than anything white people are originally responsible for. I mean, I’m a devotee of Western art, but attending mass no matter how beautiful the music is and going to a classical concert are occasions of solemn piety. I enjoy the informality and chaos of Indian worship and performance. I imagine puja would have parallels in the west only in black gospel. America’s music, its soul, to me, is black, or, really, a composite of extremely mixed race.
30 hours of traveling brought me and my mom to Bodhgaya, the birthplace of Buddhism where the Buddha attained enlightenment meditating under the Bodhi Tree. The place is small but chaotic and has become the focal point for international Buddhism. Every Buddhist country has a monastery there, and pilgrims come from all over the world. Buddhist culture, which is an international movement throughout the world, feels so much more inviting than Hinduism, which feels much more culturally specific; Hinduism is for Indians-they don’t proselytize; you’re born a Hindu or not. One realizes in Bodhgaya how many Buddhists there are in the world! Tibetans who live outside Tibet, the only Tibetans allowed to travel (mostly from Dharmsala where the Dalai Lama is in exile), come in droves of pilgrimage during this time of year. It’s hard not to fall in love with Tibetans; their presence is illuminating and comforting. It’s also hard not to sympathize with their plight. The Chinese have moved in and effaced their culture for the past 50 years; Tibetan culture is more vibrant in India than in Tibet itself. They crowd around the Mahabodi temple which is built next to the Bodhi, clicking their rosaries and prayer beads, swinging prayer wheels, chanting “om mane padme hum” (“Hail to the jewel in the lotus”), prostrating endlessly towards the temple center, all in deep meditation. But they also do things like put on “Free Tibet” concerts, which we attended; more like Tibetan pop karaoke, but the singers were quality.
We attended a few times a daily Zazen (Japanase Zen) session, which is a meditation session in which a drum begins to beat monotonously, literally beating the thoughts out of your head. Then it leaves you in that space of nothingness for 30 minutes. Very powerful, and, for me, an effective way to prepare for meditation, which can be difficult to access without time and preparation. I’m excited for Vipassana! We toured the beautiful monasteries and found the International Meditation Center, where my mother is going to be staying for the rest of her trip. She’s planning on doing Vipassana there for 3 weeks! Pretty hardcore. I’m really glad I got to go to Bodhgaya, definitely one of the most moving places I’ve been to.
We have made it to Darjeeling after deciding not to do the trek in Nepal do to unfeasibility and lengthy travel. We’re both glad that we did, as Darjeeling is so charming, British colonial remnants mixed with Tibetans and Nepalis. Darjeeling makes it up with Pondicherry and Kochin as the only places I’d consider livable in India, and that is because, sigh, of colonialism in all three cases. There is a Bell-tower here in the Westminster style and the familiar ring resounds at the hour. Clubs for rich English of a bygone era are converted into hotels for rich tourists. Buddhist gompas (monasteries) line the hills. Darjeeling is, as you’d expect, full of delicious tea that even a coffee drinker like me can appreciate.
We were surprised that it is warm enough to do a three-day trek on a ridge overlooking the third highest mountain in the world Kanchenzunga. It’s visible from Darjeeling but it’s too cloudy in the valley at this time of year, and it would be a shame to miss a glimpse of the Himalayas, the only one my mom might get to have. So we’re leaving the day after tomorrow to freeze our asses off even more than we’re doing now, guided by a delightful, long-haired Tibetan dude. It’s great traveling with my mom. We get along well.
After that, only one more week. We’ll go back to Varanasi so I can show the city to my mom and pick up my sitar. And then I’ll do a three-day meditation retreat in Sarnath (the place of the Buddha’s teachings, the Mount Sinai of Buddhism 10k from Varanasi) with my mom before heading off to Delhi to leave India. but also . I get to stop off for a week in Paris in between!
I’m happy and blessed that my life in Portland is compelling enough to come back to, and moving back there seems more like a progression than a regression. I am hopeful for America at this moment; I’m such an Obama devotee and have probably too much trust in him. But we’ll see. Compared to being abroad 3.5 years ago when I encountered a constant barrage of shit for our “fascist” country (even from Germans hah!), it has been great to be respected abroad as an American. The rest of the world is inspired by us and they are hopeful too. I hope we won’t let them down. To be very honest, if John McCain had won, it would have been clear to me that the Republican majority was entrenched in America and that we are completely on a downward slope of barbaric idiot conservativism; I’m pretty sure I’d have become an ex-pat, maybe moved off to France, though Sarkozy isn’t exactly inspiring either.
I’m having more and more thoughts of not packing off to grad school and sacrificing my 20s to a library. There is much to experience and do if I have the motivation and the discipline. I have a lot of reservations particularly concerning what an academic is in the humanities/fine arts, a critic at the periphery who didn’t do the things that the people he admires did, who doesn’t get to decide where to live, who sacrifices job security until the age of 36 to write papers no one to few will read or care about, works constantly, sacrifices reading the literature of the world for a narrow niche of boring academic writing, etc. blah! At this point I see these two immediate paths I could go down: one would be the cosmopolitan/alientating life of being a grad student, being paid to live in a city like sf, ny, chi, boston to study the music of the world and rub shoulders with cultural elites. Or the provincial/comfortable alternative: do a jazz guitar performance program at PSU (relatively cheap as OR resident), live in Portland, build contacts in the music community, actually play music, see where things go with a certain someone, live where my mom lives, maybe become a high school teacher and live a life of relative leisure. At the moment the latter seems much more appealing. Plus, the main attraction to something like ethnomusicology is the opportunity to be sent to another country and study music. But, as I’ve already mentioned, I can do that anyway with saving and planning and without institutional support. I’m hoping curiosity can carry me further than the academy. But we’ll see what reality brings.
So many thoughts of the future cloud my mind, but mostly I feel present and grateful for my experience, that (so far) it has been a success with no major setbacks. Only when I was getting sick often was I breaking down and feeling incapable, but I dealt with it and found another route; things have been looking up since. It’s not over yet and I’ll post my final thoughts probably waiting for my flight to take off. I already know though that I have learned tons about the world, myself, and myself in the world, and that is invaluable, by which I mean valuable.
Latest Chess Results: Kerala Backwaters Boatman 1, Harvard 0; [same] 1, Reed 0 (shorter game)
Down from Kumily in the Cardomom Hills through verdant green hillside tea plantations in a bus that took the hair-pin switchbacks with aplomb at hair-raising, nail-biting speed, Andrew and I arrived (safely!) in Kottayam, our jumping-off place for the Kerala Backwaters. (Kottayam, on the southwest coast, is also the town featured in “The God of Small Things”; and the Backwaters is a network of inland waterways.) Next morning, we took a lengthy ferry ride to Alappuzha (f/k/a Alleppey), a slow and scenic treat of small villages with people bathing, washing clothes and cooking at the shore. (See Andrew 756, 764 & 767 at http://www.flickr.com/photos/30498771@N02/.)
The plan was to rent a houseboat for an overnight trip on the Backwaters. The guidebooks said to “choose your boat with care”, as it would be a big expense, albeit a very worthwhile one. As it turned out, we were able to make a favorable (mutually) deal with the folks in the first office we came to, the manager of which was shrewd enough to use not just a low-pressure but a no-pressure approach. We gave him a deposit, and then he asked how many bottles of beer we wanted. We responded “four” (knowing he was referring to the huge India-sized bottle), and it was settled that we would return to the office at 5:30. Andrew headed for a cyber cafe, and I went off on a successful(!) search for Scotch via auto rickshaw, the ubiquitous three-wheeled “tuk-tuk”. (The Scotch turned out to be “McDowell’s No. 1 Reserve Whisky [sic] blended with Scotch and select Indian Malts”.)
Upon returning to the office at the appointed time, we were dismayed to find it was closed; and, of course, dire thoughts about a lost deposit crossed our minds. After a short wait, Andrew went across the street to phone the numbers he had copied down from the sign outside, but almost immediately the proprietor showed up on the back of a motorcycle with the four bottles of ice-cold Kingfisher Strong – oh we of little faith! So we all piled into a tuk-tuk and off to the dock.
Our boat was just the right size for two guests – some houseboats are much larger – having an enclosed cabin with bathroom “en suite”, a dining table in the open bow area and a galley aft. So we settled in with our crew of three, and the last thing the arranging guy saw was two very happy-looking fellows in the dining chairs facing forward chasing sips of Scotch with gulps of beer. (Andrew 774.)
We didn’t sail far – distance was not the point – before we tied up on a bank. Before long up came an older gent in a canoe offering to take us “where our big boat couldn’t go”; and our captain said that’d be fine, as dinner would be ready when we got back. So we looked at each other with an in-for-a-dime-in-for-a-dollar look and said “sure”. As it turned out, that was another good bet, as we spent sunset and dusk in quiet paddling in and around, here and there, having a good chew about life-in-general. (Andrew 776.)
When we arrived back at the houseboat, dinner was ready to be served, and a sumptuous feast it was! (Andrew 777.) When we finally could eat no more, we broke out our traveling chess set intending to have one of our frequent games. Before we could get set up, however, the captain allowed as how he had a full-sized set and somehow the next thing we knew he and I were beginning a game. (Andrew 782.) (Meanwhile Andrew lit up the Cuban cigar he’d bought in Pondicherry for 450 rupees – a bit north of $9!, but we’d agreed he was “entitled” to at least one Cuban cigar this lifetime – and had been carrying in its metal case for an Occasion.)
Pretty soon I was somehow down my queen. I rallied valiantly and clawed my way back to a rook and a bishop vs. The Boatman’s two rooks (and a couple extra pawns). Eventually, however, I had to do the honorable thing and topple my king. Meanwhile Andrew and the helmsman had been sharing the cigar, and all of us had been sharing the Scotch and the one remaining BIG bottle of beer – a real Guy Moment!
Knowing Andrew’s competitive streak, I’m sure he couldn’t wait to play The Boatman, as beating a guy who’d beaten me would have been the source of considerable satisfaction. In the event, however, Andrew succumbed even a bit faster than I had, proving, of course, the superiority of a Harvard education over one obtained at Reed – but the inferiority of both to the skills of a guy who eventually disclosed that he played every day. Andrew said the Genius Juice we’d been imbibing might have been a factor, but I refuse to believe that. And so to bed – defeated but happy anyway – on the Backwaters.
Andrew Gets Blessed (again – this time for sure)
It was still dark in the “holy city” of Varanasi (f/k/a Benares) when Peggy and I left the hotel for our dawn boatride along the ghats (sets of stairs) running down into the Ganges. Descending one of the ghats to the north, we climbed into our small rowboat. By then it had gotten somewhat light, though the sun had yet to break the horizon, and we could see people bathing and performing puja (prayers) and yoga – an extremely colorful scene. And every so often we’d come across a floating candle – or a group of them. At the southern end, as the sun was rising, we came to one of the few “burning” ghats where a cremation was in its final stages (and thus looked like nothing more than a large campfire).
A bit further on and we did a U-turn and rowed back to Rana Ghat in search of the mandolin and bag of stuff Andrew had stored with Keshava, the proprietor of the International Music Centre Ashram. Andrew had told me the Ashram was centrally located (true) and would be easy to find (well). This last might have been more true had we not been approaching it from the east – i.e., up from the Ganges via a ghat. We soon found ourselves in a labyrinth of narrow, twisting lanes encountering many people who had never heard of the Ashram but, thankfully, a few who were able to keep us on track. After a while, we began to see the Ashram’s posters, so we knew we were getting warm, and then, lo and behold, arrows pointing the way!
Eventually, we arrived at a narrow door no more than five feet high. I was concerned we might be too early for the household, but fortunately we weren’t. Keshava welcomed us warmly and led us up a steep, narrow stairway to the second floor. There he sat us down, promptly produced the mandolin and bag and called for tea (which was lemon-flavored and the best I’d had, then or since, in India). A bit later he introduced us to the sitar teacher Andrew had had, a personable young fellow who is writing a book on South Asian music. Tea finished, it was back to the ghat (much easier this time because at least we knew where the Ganges was). I must say I was very pleasantly surprised that we had managed to accomplish our Mission!
I had been intrigued by the floating candles, and we found a Hindu priest (not a difficult matter on the ghats), who gave Peggy and me each a small tinfoil dish filled with yellow flowers except that in the center was a blob of wax with a lighted wick in it. We followed him down to the water’s edge where he gave us each a flower garland and two colors of ash in the middle of our foreheads and asked me about children and their names. I told him “one, Andrew”, and he broke into a loud, authoritative and lengthy chant. Then he indicated that we should float our candles out onto the Ganges. While we did so, he produced another loud, authoritative and lengthy chant, and when he finished I took a picture of the two little lights floating away. As we thanked him for his services (with, of course, some rupees), I told Peggy that Andrew had been fixed up for good!