Here I am back in Paris on my last day abroad. The sun is shining and Parisians are smiling and I know I should probably be at a museum or something, taking advantage of the city. But I’m actually staying at the legendary Shakespeare and Co, the left bank English bookstore across from Notre Dame where Hemmingway and Henry Miller hung out. Naked Lunch was written in the room I’m writing in now. And part of the supposed deal of my staying here for free, along with 2 hours of bookstore work a day, is that I be writing, which is actually a completely lax but suggested policy. Writing can’t just be forced you know. But many of the dharma bums here are indeed writing so I thought I’d complete the last segment of my journey.
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30498771@N02
There are six of us here at the moment and it’s surprising to be surrounded again by highly intelligent literati who are all devouring books in the center of Paris. Certainly a far cry from India, and part of me feels wary of all the intellectual self-indulgence. Somehow, it just doesn’t seem as important to me as it used to. But lively debates and wine drinking have characterized every night, so I can’t complain. The sitar case in my hand proved an intriguing mystery to all of them, and they were constantly compelling me to bring it out. I played for them last night, and, though I know I’m a bit rusty for not practicing basically anything in the past 2.5 months, they were wowed by the beauty of the instrument. I’m realizing that, in the West at least, I can impress and intrigue people more by playing the sitar badly than the guitar well. If I busked for example with a sitar, people would stop in curiosity and probably throw out some bucks. But people can’t be bothered to stop and listen to every hippie with his guitar. I see myself this summer at Saturday Market, on Hawthorne or Alberta, 1st and last Thursday with a pick up on my sitar, wearing my Indian hippy clothes, playing the part.
I’m really happy I was able to come back to Paris as part of free stop-over on my (also free) Air France flight. I studied abroad here 3 years ago and I didn’t leave the city on the best of terms. Coming back has been a form of reconciliation but also a demystification from an older and more sober perspective of the city with which I was so intoxicated. My main purpose was to take advantage of the arts and in the past 5 days I have seen the new museum of the Monet Water-Lillies, the Dali Museum, the Debussy Museum, the first Nouvelle Vague film (Le Petit fugitif), concert of Janacek with explanations, a classical guitar concert, an old-time jazz piano show, a jazz jam show and a classical concert of mostly 19th century French composers. Tonight I’m going to see the National French Orchestra play the Rachmaninoff 3rd piano concerto followed by a party with an open stage where I might break out my sitar.
I admit, with a free place to stay among awesome people in an awesome bookshop in an awesome city, I have an inclination to stay for longer. But really I’m tired of being uprooted. The more music I see the more I feel frustrated at being out of practice. And really, I speak French. I don’t want to hang out in Paris with a bunch Anglophones no matter how cool they are; I already made that mistake once. And if I were going to stay in France, I wouldn’t even want to stay in Paris. Lyon sounds like a much younger, more lively, less expensive, less bourgeois city. I feel really ready to come home and make some plans for productivity of some sort. So I’m leaving for Atlanta tomorrow and will be in Portland this coming Tuesday!
Paris is really the polar opposite of India, from the insanity of chaos to the insanity of over-refinement. It is a welcoming feeling to come back to the first world. I remember Paris seeming congested, chaotic and unsafe, but after India, it feels so calm, this city of 10 million people. In India, I had a persistent, never ending feeling of insecurity, not fear of Indians themselves, but of the constant unpredictability and discomfort, the feeling that at any moment, something would fall apart or collapse, a constant sense of unease. In the first world, things work pretty much as we expect them to, and I hope not to take this for granted. During the trek I did over a week ago, I made a list of all the things I was looking forward to leaving in India; that there would be
No more being accosted to cries of “hello sir, buy something!”
No more pungent odors No more trash everywhere and rampant littering
No more dodging cowshit, potholes, bulls, motos, rickshaws, bikes, ox-carts, people, cars, trucks, with no sidewalks for refuge
No more obnoxious and unnecessary honking
No more everything too loud
No more long uncomfortable journeys, always late
No more extreme crowdedness
No more incredibly uncomfortable beds
No more extreme classism
No more getting sick all the time
No more extreme mysoginism/never speaking to a woman
No more being lied to, cheated and manipulated for money
No more being treated/feeling like a rich person
No more fear of cops
No more wanting to go home
No more constant movement
No more bargaining
No more Nescafe
No more 1st world guilt on a daily basis
No more servants
No more being addressed as “sir”
No more lack of hot water
No more drinking mineral water
No more feeling out of place
No more being stared at
No more mangy, lacerated, crippled animals
No more beggars crippled by their parents
No more overly pushy hospitality
But now that I’m secure here in the first world, talking about literature and politics over wine, these things all seem like charming elements that come with the territory of being in India. I know that what I’ll really miss is the
No more cows
No more antiquity
No more restaurants where you can smoke hash and lay down
No more myriads of color
No more incense everywhere
No more saddhus
No more cheap Indian food/eating out all the time for nothing
No more ancient wisdom
No more Ayurveda
No more temples
No more huge mountains
No more spontaneous bizarre conversations
No more constant chilling
No more meeting people from all over the world
No more drinking straight from a coconut
No more bhang lassis
No more constant comfy weather
No more facility of getting around without a car
No more authentic chai
No more freedom to go wherever whenever
No more tropicality
No more cheap music lessons or concerts
No more reading great Indian literature in India
No more children thinking I’m a celebrity
No more cheap massages
No more diversity of roaming animals
I miss it already. They say you hate India until you leave and then you miss. I didn’t at all hate it but I see why westerners who couldn’t adjust might. India leaves a profound impact on you. I’m not at all sure the direction that this experience will take me in. Perhaps it was only a brief window into the other world that exists on this planet and perhaps I will readjust quickly, my life changing little. But that experience is also tugging at me; the privilege to feel guilty is tugging at me asking me what I’m going to do about all this, and I really don’t know. The problems feel monumental; I feel like we’re approaching the apocalypse. While the 1st world is falling into inevitable decline due to no longer being economically competitive, the third world is developing but towards inevitable environmental catastrophe. Going into my little jazz performance program seems at the moment incredibly callous, but at the same time I want to go into my little jazz program. Awareness is the first step; it’s something I need sit with to judge my reaction to it.
My last week in India was spent appropriately, climbing mountains and meditating. I did a three day trek from Darjeeling along the Singalia ridge. My mom was planning to come but unfortunately got sick. Such setbacks are part of the package and she took the disappointment well. From the summit was a brilliant 360 view of the Kanchenjunga range (the 3rd highest mountain in the world) and Everest. Approaching Delhi, my mom and I stopped in Sarnath, where the Buddha first taught his “discoveries”, for a 10-day Buddhist retreat of which I only did 3 days. There were a lot of good sessions and I was very tempted to cancel Paris and stay. Someone told me that if I chose to stay, it would be wonderful and if I chose to go to Paris, it would be wonderful. Only if I decided would there be regret. So I chose to go to Paris, since I had been looking forward to coming back to this city for years, and it’s been wonderful. I left my mom in Sarnath. She’ll be spending 3 more weeks doing Vipassana before coming back to Delhi by way of Agra to come home, meaning that I have her apartment to myself for 3 weeks when I come back! A good way to transition back to Portland, find a place, find a job (yeah right), etc. My train back to Delhi was 6 hours late but fortunately I had left a 15-hour window for just such cases. When the plane finally took off, India started to flash before my eyes (self-induced for dramatic effect I’m sure): all the kilometres traveled, all the sights, the sounds, the beauty, the ugly, the smells. If I ever want to take a break from Western Civilization and live in tranquility I can always come back.
I end this blog with the superlatives of my experience in India:
Most liveable cities: Darjeeling, Katmandu, Pondicherry, Kochi
Most relaxing places: Goa and Kerala
Most organized: Jaipur, Pondicherry, Kerala
Least organized: Varanasi, Gorakhpur
Favourite state: Kerala
Best food: Kerala
Most spiritual places: Bodhgaya, Varanasi
Worst experience: getting badly sick over and over again with insomnia in Varanasi
Coolest Instruments: Sitar, Sarod, Sarangi, Santur, Tabla
Favourite Indian food: Paneer butter masala, thalis of all sorts, Dal Bhat, Momo, naan, chai
Most physically challenging experience: Anapurna Base Camp Trek
Most valuable experience: studying sitar
Most memorable experiences (in chronological order): the view from Anapurna base camp, Varanasi concerts, my cute young yoga teacher telling me “this is 10 days yoga and much improve your asana”, the Taj Mahal, walking around Pushkar holy city in a holy Bhang daze, Dancing to techno on the Goan beaches, driving scooters through the Goan countryside, the ruins at Hampi, going on a houseboat with my dad, seeing the swarms of Tibetans around the Mahabodi temple (marking the Bodhi tree) with my mom, seeing Kanchenjunga and Everest at once, meditating on it all in Sarnath. Best Beer: Hayward’s 5000, King Fisher strong Least favourite city: Delhi
Coolest travelers met: American study abroad students in Varanasi and the French 20 somethings I traveled with for 3 weeks
Best books on India read:
Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children; The Ground Beneath her Feet; East, West; the Moor’s Last Sigh
Arundhati Roy: the God of Small things
Kiran Desai: Inheritance of Loss, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
Charles Duchaussois: Flash
Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love
William Sutcliffe: Are you experienced
Bhagavad Gita
John Keay: Into India, India: a History
Yann Martel: Life of Pi
Rudyard Kipling: Kim
Aravind Adiga: White Tiger
Herman Hesse: Siddhartha
Best Newspapers: The Times of India, the Hindu, Hindustan Times
Other Good Books read in India:
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera
Tom Robbins: Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates
So I leave for America tomorrow. I’m excited; it seems like an interesting time to be there. Thank God Obama got elected, cause really I wouldn’t have come back.
Peace, Om, Change, Love, Namaste and all the rest.
See you soon.
Andrew
Haha, though I couldn’t agree more with what you wrote about Paris, I’m not sure your idea of Lyon being a much younger and less bourgeois city is totally accurate, but I’m just sayin’
Anyway, too bad we couldn’t meet up for a drink when you were there, but it sounds like you had a wonderful time, and I have to say it’s been a pleasure to read about your journey over the past few months.