My New Direction

Be Kind Whenever Possible

2010-01-14T15:24:00.000-08:00

While checking my travel plans earlier in the week, I notice that the itinerary says, “First Class” next to my seat assignment.

“Oh crap,” I thought. When I booked the tickets with the corporate travel agent, I specifically asked for business class (and did even that with a guilty wince when they told me the price). I don’t want Pearson thinking I’m trying to take advantage of them, so I call the agency to inquire into the matter.

“Oh yes, Ms. Krajewski, I see here that you’ve received a free upgrade.”

“A free upgrade?” I confirm. “At no extra cost?”

“Yes,” she says, “That’s what a free upgrade usually is. How lucky for you!”

“I’ll take it!” I say, and slam a fist down on the kitchen counter as if I’ve just surprisingly won an auction of all of Jackie O’s sunglasses for the low, low bid of NOTHING. The dog gives a slightly nervous look. I assure her all is well.

Two days later, I’m standing in line at Gate K19 at O’Hare Airport when a skinny, grey-haired Steve Martin-type pushes between me and the other row of people in the “Priority Access” line.

“Excuse me,” he says, as he clunks people with his teetering valise, his wife trailing behind in his wake. “We’re PRIORITY,” he says like he’s just been named President of Earth.

I step to the side, looking at my ticket that reads in all caps: PRIORITY ACCESS while the King of the World walks all the way to the front of the line and right up to a scowling flight attendant who looks at his tickets, points, and shakes her head. He does the same. Finally, they both turn around and part the sea of first class and business passengers through which Mister Priority just waded. As they get within earshot, I can hear the flight attendant telling the argumentative Mister Priority, “Yes, all of these people are first class or business class. I checked all their tickets personally.” She rolls her eyes and they walk on.

The first time I flew first class for this whole India project, I felt terribly guilty. I took notes about how it would be nicer for everyone if they partitioned out the space on the plane evenly, giving each person a reasonable amount of room instead of giving some a whole wash closet full of space while others receive something nearer a child’s coffin.

But I fear a change has come over me. As he walks past, I, too, roll my eyes at Mister Priority and wish he would just stay in his assigned place—behind all of us first class and business class passengers. What an idiot!, I think.

This time, I want that whole, sordid, huddled mass to stay away from me with their coughs and sneezes and their body odor and their too big carry on bags that they will stuff into too small overhead compartments but only after a good 30 minutes of futzing.

This time, I’m expecting a hot hand towel served to me before dinner so I can freshen up—and I’m not despairing for the folks who don’t get one.

This time, there may as well not even be a back of the plane. We are all First Class—except for that one Priority clown, and he’ll have to deal with the Air Marshall if he comes pushing up here again now that we’re on the plane.

This time, I’m entitled. I’ve been deported. I’ve been detained. This whole thing has been a mess. So this time, I deserve a hot towel, and The New York Times—and maybe even a miniature, plastic glass of champagne. Damnit.

But then I think, *gasp*:

Is this how jerks happen? They decide that whatever headaches they’ve gone through mean they deserve better treatment than everyone else? I don’t think so. I don’t think this model of jerkness is sustainable. For instance, I know the minute I see some poor handicapped lady shoved into an economy seat, my sense of entitlement will evaporate in a guilt tornado.

No, I think real jerks don’t base their entitlement on previous pain and suffering, or even hard work. They just think they’re by nature more fabulous, more wonderful, or more deserving. Or maybe they don’t even think about it at all.

Or maybe I’m just trying to justify my momentarily not feeling guilty about the obscenely priced “luxury” of first class flight.

Nonetheless, I flip on the tv and peruse the available movies and shows, hoping there would be some new ones since my last international flight was rather recent.

I settle on the movie District 9, as I remember Scott telling me I might like it. In the midst of the opening credits, Peggy the flight attendant introduces herself and takes my dinner order: the saag paneer (a vegetarian dish of spinach and cheese).

Meanwhile, in South Africa, a race of aliens disdainfully called “prawns” is being held prisoner, experimented on, generally abused, and readied for a forced move to a new concentration camp to be known as District 10—until the male lead accidentally encounters some dark, toxic fluid which causes him to start mutating into an alien.

Half-man, half-alien, he quickly begins to identify with the tortured prawns and realizes they are not mere monsters, but intelligent beings with very recognizable emotions, and strong family bonds.

The flight attendant rushes past me and leaves a plateful of glistening PRAWNS on my tray table.

For a moment, I consider eating them even though it’s the wrong order, but then I look at the prawns, and I look at the t.v., and I look at the flight attendant and just say, “Ummmmm…”

Thankfully, without my having to explain the complicated and rather lame reason that I will likely never eat shrimp again, let alone at this moment, Peggy whisks the plate away and replaces it with my new meal—mushy spinach that was never a member of anyone’s family.

As the movie wraps up, I think, how would I review this? I’d likely have to say something about it being directed by Peter Jackson. This being the case, I was hoping for some giant walking trees, or at least a soft-focused, slow motion pillow fight at the end, but no such luck.

As the movie wraps up, I also think about how I really have less and less an appetite for violent entertainment. The blood and the guts and the guns and the fire and the explosions. I wonder what it’s all for. I wonder if, like eating prawns, I should avoid it completely—but I’m not one for hard and fast rules, except (subsequently) when it comes to eating prawns.

I find the classy eye mask in my first class ditty bag, slap it on, and recline the seat all the way backwards so that it pretty much resembles a bed. I put on an episode of 30 Rock, but don’t even make it all the way through before passing out.

I wake up a few times to hear people walking around or asking the flight attendant for things, but I don’t turn my seat back into a chair until there are just about two and a half hours left in the flight.

So my flight will work out to about eight hour’s sleep with about three hour’s chilling on either end of that. It’s not bad.

We land without incident. I get off the plane, and get through immigration with no problems at all. The monitor tells me to head to Carousel 5 to get my bags.

Our arrival was about thirty minutes late because they held the plane to fix some mechanical problems. Now, as we all gather around the empty carousel, our arrival is delayed even further.

About thirty minutes passes before any bags come out. Then, they appear few and far between, as though the Indira Gandhi airport hires one three-toed sloth to unload the baggage from each international flight. I imagine our sloth outside, moving like the goo in a lava lamp, just taking his time with our bags—one at a time.

I posit this theory to a black guy with braids from Chicago. He says, “You know, in India, they take time.”

Just then, I see my blue suitcase coming toward me, drenched in some sort of toxic-looking black liquid. I rethink my sloth theory. Maybe they have giant prawns working the baggage, I think, but I keep it to myself.

My second bag isn’t far behind. I grab them both and walk through the “green” customs lane, which means you have nothing to declare, and down the ramp where the taxi drivers line up. I read the signs for my name and get to the end of the ramp without finding it.

Must’ve missed it, I think, and head back up the ramp to examine the signs more closely, looking left and right with no luck. I try this trick two or three more times until it’s clear to me I require a strategy beyond looking for my name on a sign at this point.

I am so, so thankful at this point that something like this didn’t happen to me on my first trip into the country. I would have filled with panic and dread and done who knows what.

This time, though, I have a local cell phone (that I hope is still charged). And I have rupees in my pocket. And I have already spotted a pre-paid taxi stand that looks like it will work.

I take out my cell phone and call up the number of The Residence Hotel in GK1, but I get the crazy India dial go-round which consists alternately of strange beeping, Asian music, and a woman’s voice recording saying, “We’re sorry, that number does not exist.” I try every possible combination of numbers and area codes, with and without the plus sign (which sometimes helps but not always). I even ask a uniformed guard to help me dial. Nothing works.

Plan B: scratched.

Plan C? I’ve got Ranjani’s number in my cell. She does HR for Pearson. I call her up and tell her what’s going on. She says Kavita was supposed to confirm the airport pick up, but she’ll make some calls.

In the meantime, a driver holding a sign for The Oberoi Hotel says that sometimes the drivers wait outside as well. I’m suddenly sure that’s what happened, and I’ll soon feel silly for calling Ranjani and bothering her.

I drag my bags behind me into a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. I barely hear it, but catch my ringing cell phone. It’s Scott. He wanted to congratulate me on getting here okay. People push at me from all directions. I see a few signs, but none of them say my name.

“Scott, can I call you back? I’m trying to find my cab and it’s a little chaotic.” I hang up.

Nope, there is nobody waiting here for me: inside or outside. There is nobody at all. They messed up.

A dark-skinned driver with pointy incisors approaches me, “Madam, do you need a ride?”

I tell him yes, but I want to use a pre-paid stand. At this point, I’m thinking I’ll go back to the stand I saw inside the airport, but Toothy points me to a pre-paid stand that is conveniently this side of the pulsating throng.

He leads me to the booth where an Indian version of Danny DeVito fills out a little form and takes 250 rupees from me. He tells me I can take any of the black and yellow taxis in the lane, but Toothy is all over this deal. He grabs my bags and leads me towards the back wall of the arrivals section to a small, cracked up, hatchback.

He shoves my large bag, then my small bag into the back seat, and then I start to get in as well. Before I can sit down, he stops me by putting his hand between my legs. I vigorously swat his arm away, saying, “What do you want?”

He, apparently, wants a tip for having put my bags in his backseat. I think, what else will he want if I get into his cab with him alone?

My cell phone rings while I still have one foot in his backseat. It’s Kavita.

“Vicki, what are you doing?”

“I’m getting a cab,” I say, irritated.

“No! Don’t! It’s dangerous! You should wait. The hotel says they’re sending somebody. Don’t take a cab. It’s dangerous,” she says.

Yeah, no shit. That’s why it would have been nice if the HOTEL WAS HERE TO PICK ME UP!!!!

But, like my prawn joke, I keep this to myself. “Well, I already paid, Kavita. Just tell the hotel to cancel.” For a fleeting, unreasoning moment, I think I’ll somehow enjoy the guilt she might feel if something happened to me. I also want to prove I don’t need anybody’s stupid help.

“NOOO,” she says. “Wait at the airport!”

“Okay,” I give in. Toothy already touched my hoo haa in a crowded public place. I don’t want to even think about where he might really be going tonight. Kavita’s right. It’s dangerous.

Changing direction, I tell him I’ll give him his tip if he just takes my things out of his car. The hotel is sending a cab for me.

I dig into my backpack and hand over 100 rupees in exchange for the harassment I received. But Toothy is the gift that keeps on giving. Now he and his friend want to talk to me.

“You are marry? You are hot, sexy lady. You live United States? You give American dollars to me.”

I tell Toothy I have to go inside to wait for the hotel taxi, but then the phone rings again. It’s someone speaking mostly Hindi, but every 20th stray word makes me think he has the right number. It sounds something like, “slkdjrfweoiuredhj Miss Vicki slkdj aoeiruoiel sdfkljsahdfjhasd Hello? sdlkfjasdhfasdfhh taxi hotel lkejrewoir howeirdkdjfshjfghd skjhieuht Where you now?”

I try describing where I am to who knows whom, but the call gets dropped. All the while Toothy and his friend are leering at me. “You don’t need cab. You pay. You have cab. You like this car?”

The phone rings again. It’s my mystery caller. This time I don’t listen to anything he’s saying, but just start describing where I’m standing until I see a man with a navy blue rag on his head talking on a cell phone, and heading straight for me. He doesn’t tell me who he is, but he says, “Taxi?”

I guess.

I’m not sure this second route seems any less dangerous at this point. Who is this guy?

He points me to the pre-pay booth and tells me to get my money back. I tell him to forget about it, but he insists. Toothy and his friend drag my bags back to the pre-pay booth while the mystery man negotiates a refund from Danny DeVito.

Toothy wants another tip. American money. I tell him I don’t have any. He asks about five more times, with the same result.

“Indian money, then,” he says. I tell him I already paid him.

The mystery man is done speaking with Danny DeVito. I just have to sign for the refund, which I do.

Then the mystery man takes my bags and leads me to the other side of the booth to a large white minivan. He and a second person wordlessly put my luggage into the van and open the door for me to get in, which I do.

I really hope these are the guys from the hotel.

It is a wordless drive. I am angry once again. I even sent an email directly to the hotel this time telling them my flight number and all the details. I’m so sick of everything going wrong.

Well, I tell myself, not everything has gone wrong now, has it? They fixed the mechanical problem on the plane, didn’t they? They upgraded you to first class, didn’t they? They let you into the country this time, didn’t they?

Whatever, I answer myself. I’m still sulking. I decide I’m not going to tip this taxi driver at all. Tip him for what? Forgetting about me? Not showing up when he was supposed to? Jerk. And I also decide not to tip whoever it is that will help me with my luggage either. Dumb hotel. They don’t deserve tips for messing up.

Then I think of my Yahoo signature line. It’s a quote from the Dalai Lama. It says, “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”

Crap.

He’s right.

We pull up to the hotel.

I tip the driver.

I tip the guy who helps me with my luggage.

Then I go try to figure out if that black, toxic prawn liquid on my blue luggage is a permanent stain.

Don't Leave Home Without It

2009-09-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

Don't Leave Home Without It (a/k/a How to Turn an Ordinary Shower into Heaven)

I still fully intend on finishing the last few entries that conclude my first experience in India. My notes have been waiting for me all this time.

However, I have to get this update out now. I have been offered another position in Delhi, beginning in October, 2009. I will be the English Language Teaching Director. As preparation for assuming this position, I was invited to attend three days of meetings in Delhi, beginning on September 14th. This is the story of how that went.

No one mentioned to me (nor did I know) that one needs a visa to spend even ten minutes on Indian soil. So I happily went on my way at the Cedar Rapids airport and the Chicago airport—where the gate agents all checked my passport numerous times and told me I was all set for my latest trip to Delhi. Have a nice flight. Thanks for flying American!

Fifteen hours later, I’m dragging my way off the plane at the Delhi airport. I get through the H1N1 check with no problem. I walk to the next set of desks, and I am halted in my tracks. The man behind the desk starts flipping through my passport again and again. Finally he says, “Where’s your visa?” And I happily explain to him that I’ll only be here for a few days, so I don’t need one. Instead of letting me go get my bags from the carousel, he asks me, “Why did you come here without a visa?” “Because I didn’t think I needed one,” I reply. “But why did you come here without a visa?” he asks again. Perhaps he wanted a more creative answer, perhaps he thought my response was a lie to cover up my evil plot of becoming an illegal immigrant in Delhi. But I had no other answer. “I didn’t think I needed a visa,” I repeat. He shakes his turban and beard at me and motions toward a cross-looking, grey-haired man wearing a swine flu mask who leads me towards a shady office with one-way glass. An Indian woman walks by behind me and looks quite worried. “Are you okay?” she whispers. “I’m fine,” I tell her confidently, truly without worry. I just have to explain my situation to this guy and everything will be fine. Yet in the back of my head, I’m wondering if this is the start of one of the Discovery Channel’s episodes of Locked Up Abroad. Could I get thrown into some Indian slammer and be sentenced to nine years of hard labor? Naw, I think. I should have never watched that series anyway. It gave me nightmares. It’s like watching one of those doctor shows and then becoming convinced that you have the rare ailment featured in the subplot.

The masked man walks behind a contact-paper wood grain desk and motions for me to enter his office. I sit on a dirty, saggy couch as he paces and asks over and over, “Why did you come here without a visa?” The answer is the same every time: because I didn’t know I needed one… Eventually, he thinks of more questions. I answer them all and produce my itinerary, the hotel confirmation, letterhead, a list of contact people and their phone numbers, my return ticket dated September 18th. He looks at it all, poking each document with a pencil, then he unties the top part of his mask and gets on the phone. “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Tika, sir. Tika, sir. Acha, sir. Acha, sir,” he says for the next three minutes. He then leaves the room and returns a minute later with an entourage of shuffling men in faded denim shirts. They form a circle outside the office door and intermittently shoot squinty glances my way. Two more people come into the room. I get the sense they’re tending to something else. As the man with the baseball hat sinks down into a crushed cushion of the opposite couch, he sighs, “Nooo visaaaa?” to the woman on the swivel stool, who shakes her head in reply—both of them acting like I am an inanimate object. The crowd outside the office keeps pulling more people towards it like a static-ridden sweater attracting lint. I wonder if everyone in the airport knows about this now. I wonder if they’ve sent out a code red about me, if this constitutes an “international incident,” if I’ll make the evening news, if I’ll be a two-second story on CNN. What would the headline be? “American Woman Makes Huge Mistake – Pays For It.”

Finally, the crowd disperses and the masked man returns to his desk. Half of what he tells me is intelligible. I get the idea that I have to call someone important to get out of this jam. “Who? Can I have a phone number?” I ask. He shakes his head. “No! You must know. Do not you have someone from your company?” I tell him I’ll make a few phone calls, and he wanders off again. I’m alone in the office for a while, but the whole time men are pacing outside the door.

I fire up my cell phone and notice a waning battery charge. I look at my list of phone contacts. I hope to see Vivek’s number there, but it don’t. I call Joanne, the ELT President I’ve been working with, dreading the thought of telling her of my predicament. I dial three times before the call finally goes through, and Joanne, thankfully, answers. “Joanne?” I say. There is a long pause. Maybe I have the wrong number. Maybe she was asleep already. “Yes?” she finally says.

“It’s Vicki,” I say, while actually meaning, “I’m a useless turd and I apologize in advance.” In preceding weeks, Joanne said over and over again how important it was to be at this meeting, and I assured her I could make it.

“Oh, are you here?” she asks hopefully.

“Well, I’m at the Delhi airport and I don’t have a visa because I didn’t think I needed one and nobody told me I needed one and they won’t let me in and they say I need to talk to somebody and get them to call someone important…” I break for air, and notice there’s just static on the line. Our connection’s broken. “Hello?” No reply. I wonder how much she heard. Shortly thereafter, my phone rings. I pick it up. “Joanne?” It’s her.

“Something happened with the phones. I think we got cut off. So you’re stuck at the airport?” She seems to have heard almost everything. She asks if I’m okay. I am. I am quite fine. No one’s dragging around a large gun. No one’s got any handcuffs yet. I figure if I behave pleasantly, then the worst thing that can happen is for them to send me back home. I fill Joanne in on some details and she says to hold tight. She’s going to look for Vivek’s number and call me back.

Now it’s me pacing the office and clutching my cell phone, which rings after a few minutes. “Hello?” I say. There’s some noise, but no one responds to me. This happens two more times. Then she finally gets through. She found Vivek’s number, and called him, but he’s not there right now. So she’s going to call Sharad from Educomp and see if he can help. She’ll let me know.

More waiting. More pacing. More impromptu crowds and gawking passers-by. Occasionally, people shuffle in and poke at the papers I’ve left displayed on the desk. They talk about me in Hindi, then leave, not even having made eye contact with me. I feel like I’m watching a play about myself—or maybe like I’m on display in a zoo.

I sit back down on the sagging couch and look at my phone, wondering if I should try to plug it in and charge it—or if that might be a punishable offense. As I ponder this, I notice that I have a message indicator. Someone left me a message and it didn’t even ring. I think my phone has Delhi belly. The message is from Joanne. She got in touch with Sharad, and he’s sending someone to the airport to meet me. She includes my savior’s name and number. I call him immediately and get through, but there are a lot of people talking in the background and it’s hard to hear him. He says he’ll be here in two minutes. He wants to know where I am in the airport. He doesn’t know if he can help, but he will try. I thank him profusely, and rest assured that I’ll soon be grabbing my checked bag and heading to The Oberoi Hotel. I luxuriate in the thought of clean, white linens and beige drapery, but after that, I wonder if Vijay’s two minutes will be Indian or standard time. If the former, I could be waiting here for an hour or more. But no matter. Everything will be okay. It has to be.

Turns out that Vijay really meant two minutes. I am so happy to see a friendly face as he shakes my hand. I thank him profusely, but he warns me that he doesn’t know if he can help. I think, “Stop being so modest, Vijay. You know you’re here to become my hero.” Several denim shirts gather around him and lead him off towards the stairs. On his way out, he tells me he’s learned of something called a Temporary Landing Permit that the airline can issue for $200, so he’s checking into that.

Just as my hero falls out of sight, two new people in more serious business attire approach me as I sit on the couch. The man who looks to be in his twenties wears a creased white shirt, black pants, shiny shoes, and a necktie that says, “Livewell Aviation Service.” His badge has a sideways picture of him on it, but no name. Anita Singh, customer service associate, stands just behind him as he addresses me. She nods as he speaks, seconding everything he says.

“Ma’am,” he says sharply, “Get up. You have to go now.” Whoa. I was expecting the wheels to turn for a much longer time before hearing an ultimatum. I explain to him that I have a friend in the process of checking with the airline. He says I can get a Temporary Landing Permit. This provokes Livewell. The sides of his mouth point downwards. “Ma’am, you have to go now. Come on,” he says, but I resist, telling him I have to wait to hear from my friend.

“I just talk to your friend. He tell me you have to go. He call me. He call me on cell phone.” He looks at his phone and reads out Vijay’s phone number to me—but I don’t believe him. I insist on talking to Vijay, whom I call.

“Vijay, what’s going on? Did you tell someone I have to leave?” Vijay says he’s still upstairs looking into the permit, and that I shouldn’t leave yet. I hang up and relay the message to Livewell the Goon, whose eyes narrow as his stance widens like he’s getting ready for a wrestling match or to hit a home run.

“Come on now,” he says, “to get a TLP you need to speak to someone in the office, and you know very well there are no offices open now, so you will go home and apply for a visa. There is nothing open until twelve o’clock tomorrow, and you can’t stay at the airport until then. And you can’t leave here without a TLP. So? Let’s go,” he declares victory. I don’t even move a little toe.

“My friend is still talking to someone. I need to wait until I hear back from him.”

Livewell the Goon realizes that, at this point, he’ll have to either drag me bodily from the couch to a plane, or wait and let me talk to my friend. Bitterly, he opts for the latter, mumbling, “Do as you wish,” as he walks out of the office door, followed closely behind by the silent Anita Singh, customer service associate.

Ten minutes pass, then the Hit Couple returns. This time, Anita speaks. “How many checked bags do you have?” I tell her one. “Just one?” she asks. Well, just one if you don’t count the nerve toxin package that I swindled in between my butt cheeks, I think.

“Yes, just one,” I say, smiling.

I expect them to lay into me again and try to force me out, but instead they have an agitated conversation in Hindi with the masked man who first led me to his office. Arms wave. Nostrils flare. Then they all leave. I am again alone, guarded by a pudgy, turbaned man shuffling his way back and forth by the blue and orange immigration desks just outside. The airport is quiet. The rush of passengers from incoming flights has subsided. Slowly, the swarm reconvenes outside the office door. Livewell the Goon cracks his knuckles loudly, one at a time. I wonder why he’s so brusque, so seemingly angry, and so hurried to get me gone. I feel like the pox, or a termite infestation, or a hot potato, or a time bomb. I check my ass for a fuse. Nothing. Why are they so panicked?

The Goon and Goonetta walk back into the office and sit on the opposite couch. I stare at the floor. I stare at the crooked world map on the far wall. I look everywhere but at them. I reason, like my childhood dog used to do when she jumped onto the nice furniture, that if I don’t look at them, they can’t make me leave. I take out a notebook and start writing about what’s happening. That way, when CNN finds my notes, the world will hear my side of the story. As I take notes, Anita Goonetta comes over and pulls the boarding pass out from under my hand without even asking to see it. She and Goon speak almost inaudibly to each other. She chuckles a bit. Goon gets up and stands with his arms crossed and his legs apart in the middle of the doorway, staring out like a sentinel. I’m going to love seeing his face when Vijay the Great shows up with my ticket to freedom.

Now six men, seven men, eight men enter the office and crowd around my papers like they’re performing a dissection during their biology lab. They are silent, but point and shuffle. Someone spells my last name out loud, stumbling when he gets to the “double u.”

“What? What? WHAT?” I just want to scream, but stick to my not-getting-locked-up-abroad plan and play it cool.

I call Vijay back to check on his progress. “I am very sorry, Miss Vicki, but it looks like we cannot get anything today.”

Well, then, he must have another plan, I reason. “So what should we do now?” I ask.

“You will have to go home and apply for visa,” Vijay says. Okay, so Vijay was not my hero. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing else I can do. I can call someone else. I can just make a break for it. I can ask to go the bathroom then climb out the window. I can…

The Goon interrupts my planning session. “Excuse me, ma’am. Please come with me. You have to go back. You cannot stay here.” I look up and see Anita Singh, customer service associate, standing at the door with my checked garment bag in her hands, the large metallic luggage tag in the shape of a star seems to mock me. “SUPER!” it says.

Crap! I stall by ignoring them and writing in my notebook. He glares at me. I wonder if he can tell I’m writing down everything he says. I wonder if I should ask for a group picture. Lots of Indians love being photographed. That could stall things.

“Now, ma’am,” Goon demands and takes a step closer to me.

“Okay, okay,” I mollify him. “I’m coming. I just need to make some notes and place a call.”

“You can call on the way,” he says, motioning for me to get up.

Now that’s just rude and unnecessary. Let a woman who’s being booted out of your country at least let her boss know why she’s going missing.

Livewell the Goon starts grabbing at my papers on the desk and putting them away. “Fine,” I think, and start packing up.

When I’ve got my bags, Goon demands, “Follow me.” He and Goonetta take off quickly, walking around the counters and behind an escalator. Every three steps, they shoot an angry look back at me to make sure I don’t run away. As we approach an elevator in a dark corner, I wonder where they’re taking me. To a torture room? To the electric chair? To a white slavery broker? I remember a tip from that gruff cop on America’s Most Wanted: don’t ever let your kidnapper take you to location two. That’s where they plan to do you in.

The elevator rings and the doors part. “How do I get out of this? How do I get out of this?” I think and think. Goonetta points to a corner behind her in the elevator. That’s where she wants me to stand. I comply. Goon looks at me and says, “I need your passport and your boarding ticket.”

“I don’t have my passport,” I tell him, growing worried. “You took it.”

“No,” he says. “I gave it back to you.”

“You never gave it back to me. Where is it?” I try to keep the panic from raising my voice too much.

“I don’t have it,” he insists. Then Goonetta points to his shirt pocket. He touches it and realizes my passport is in it. Thank God. He fails to apologize and simply looks away.

The elevator doors open and we are on the second floor. As I follow my jailers, I dial up Joanne and tell her what’s going on. “So why can’t you stay in the airport?” I don’t know. “Who are these people?” I don’t know. “Is there a scheduled flight that they’re putting you on? Because if there’s not, maybe you can stall until tomorrow.” I don’t know.

Why wasn’t I asking more questions? I can be more assertive than that. Goon throws my garment bag onto a dirty and broken x-ray machine and walks off to get someone. I stand there with Goonetta. I muster everything I have to sound pleasant and nonchalant. “So, Ms. Singh,” I ask her, “do you work for the airport?”

“No, the airline,” she says, and I notice she has on a lot of pink lipstick. The airline? So the airline people are the ones being so aggressive and rude to me? Interesting.

“So what is going on here?” I ask Anita. “I need some information. Is there a flight scheduled? For what time?” She tells me they’re putting me on the same plane I flew in on; it’s the same flight to Chicago. It leaves at 11:30. I ask if they’ve also booked a flight to Iowa. “I can’t leave if there isn’t a plan to get me home,” I say, hoping I’ve found a stall tactic or a snag in their plan. Anita tells me she doesn’t know. I’ll have to ask the others.

I continue questioning her. “So can’t I just stay in the airport until we can look into a TLP?” I ask. Goon overhears this question.

“No you cannot stay in the airport. It is immigration law. Besides, you cannot get a TLP. Our airline does not issue TLPs,” Goon reports. But he is about as believable as Pinocchio with a ten-foot nose. Still, there is no arguing with him on this point. There is nowhere to run; nowhere to hide; and he is not letting me go or changing his mind. Goon has brought with him a dark-complected man who tells me in a pleasant tone that he needs to ask me a few questions.

“Also, we have subjected your bag to an escalated security search,” he smiles. I imagine them rolling my dress clothes through dirt piles and smile back. He asks me all of the standard, “Did you accept a gift from anyone? Have your bags been in your possession the whole time?” questions. I tell him every bag has been in my care but the one they apparently confiscated.

“That is wonderful,” he says. “Here are your tickets. One for Chicago; one for Cedar Rapids. You can go through security right there.” He points to a long line, then Anita says, “Come upstairs with me.” I’m confused.

“He just told me to go through security.”

“But there is a lounge you can wait upstairs for priority customers.” And I do seem to be their priority. “Come with me,” she says, and walks up the stairs. I follow her to a well-appointed lounge. “You can take some food or drink. Whatever you want,” she tells me.

I walk in and survey the food. Nothing looks appealing. I grab a tiny mug and get a double espresso from the machine. Then I sit down with my luggage and hope that they forget about me, or that they call me too late to get through security.

But my hopes are dashed again. I’m not even done with my espresso before I am escorted downstairs. At the end of the security line, I kindly let people in front of me thinking I could just do that all night until the TLP offices open. When the people stop coming, I wonder what would happen if I had a giant, pretend seizure. But I conclude being chained to a government hospital bed would not be a good solution, and very hard to explain to Pearson, that is, if they allowed me to make phone calls.

I finally surrender. I’m not staying in India. I can’t believe it. I’m going home.

I take out my electronics and put them in bins that run through the scanner with my bags. I walk through the metal detector, then stand on a raised box as a woman with a wand checks me thoroughly. I feel like we should have a smoke when she’s done.

Behind Security, there’s a little gift stand with the usual elephants and Buddha statues. I check it out, thinking I might feel better if I can at least come home with a souvenir. But they’re overpriced and I have similar versions of almost everything they’re selling.

Okay, this is it. I walk towards Gate 10 to board flight 293. They ask to see my boarding pass and point me down the hall. There’s another queue. A woman at a podium is collecting the boarding passes. When it’s my turn, I ask if I can at least upgrade to first class, which I was told before I left that I was booked for anyway.

She refuses, saying that the system tells her that I am in business class.

“Yes, I know. But I think it’s a mistake,” I tell her.

She tells me she cannot upgrade me because there’s no certificate number in the system. “If you can give me a security number, I can upgrade you.”

I dig through my papers. I’ve got my AAdvantage number. Is that it?

No.

I’ve got all my past flight information. Is it in there?

No.

I take one last stab. “Look, I’ve just been on a plane for fifteen hours, and now I have to spend another fifteen hours travelling—and all because the American Airlines people let me through when they shouldn’t have. Can’t you at least upgrade me as some compensation for that?”

She has a different answer this time, “This airline does not do upgrades. We cannot give complementary upgrades.”

There’s no use in trying to reason or persuade. I deflate and pack my papers back into my bag.

“Wait,” she says, “What I can do is give you a row with nobody else in it, so you have it all to yourself. Would that help?”

Her glimmer of sympathy somehow makes my eyes well up. I say yes, sling on my backpack and continue on to the next line. Here, they are searching everyone’s bags. I put my backpack and suitcase on the table thinking of the long, long trip ahead of me, thinking about how I let people down, how I should have known better, how I won’t know what’s going on with my job assignment. Tears run down my cheeks.

“Madam, are you okay?” the woman searching my bags asks.

“No,” the word jumps from my lips before I can think that the polite answer is always, “Yes.”

She looks concerned. Then the woman tending to the lines standing by the bag checker leans over to her and says, “She has no visa.” They both nod.

How does everybody know? Am I the only person in the world to have done this? Will I be included in the next edition of the Guinness Book of World Records? Will this incident be carved into my gravestone? “Here lies Vicki Krajewski. She has no visa.”

Next, I have to take off my shoes and stand on another box and spread my arms and legs out to get the wand treatment a second time—as if I might have sprouted deadly adamantium claws in the ten minutes since my last wand experience.

In my increasingly delirious state, I think maybe the flight attendants will let me change my seat if they feel sorry for me. I drag myself to 13D and sit down, noticing that business class is a lot nicer than I feared it would be. The seats even lie flat, sort of. If you don’t mind being on a slant. But there’s elbow room and leg room. It’s not like coach. I put my seatbelt on and keep the pillow and blanket on my lap, wanting to bury my head in it like an ostrich. A few minutes pass and a man sits in my row. I wonder if he changed his seat—if he’s not sitting where he was assigned because he thinks there’s more room in my row. I even ask him. “This is the seat I have a ticket for,” he says. So the ticket agent lied to me.

I hold my head in my hands and my nose runs. A flight attendant asks me if I want some orange juice. I say, “No,” but keep looking down. A minute later she passes by and puts some tissue in my lap, which only makes me cry harder for the kindness she’s shown. I use all the tissue.

I was planning on not eating during this flight, but when dinner arrives, I actually feel a little hungry. The flight attendant addresses me by name, “Would you like some dinner, Ms. Krajewski?” Of course she knows me; I’m the famous woman without a visa.

I accept the dinner, watch a movie, and then, thankfully, fall asleep. I wake up somewhere over Russia to the sound of the man in my row snoring. There are about seven hours left ‘til Chicago. So I put on my headphones and find some Peaceful Dreams tracks through the plane’s audio system.

The flight is smooth and we arrive at O’Hare so early that they can’t let us off the plane because the customs counter doesn’t open for another half hour or so. It’s 4:20 in the morning. I recline my chair and turn on my Kindle to read for a bit.

They finally let us disembark, and I feel a sense of dread as I approach the official at the desk with the fingerprint scanner. What if they don’t let me in? What if I am forever destined to live in an airplane flying the same route? It’s like a Kafka plot, or maybe a Samuel Beckett play—that one where the woman spends her whole life partially buried in the sand on a beach, or the one where they’re just looking for Godot.

I present my customs card and passport to the man behind the desk. He examines it and asks, “How long were you in India?”

“For two hours,” I reply. In retrospect, it might have been more like three.

The man cocks his head at me. “Really?”

“Yes,” I say, not offering any information I don’t have to provide.

“Why?” he asks.

“Because I didn’t have a visa,” I reply, “so they sent me back.” Really, where have you been that you haven’t heard about this? On Mars? I mean, everyone else knows.

“Wow, That stinks,” he says, and hands me my passport, allowing me through.

I claim my luggage, take a train to the domestic terminal, call Scott, eat an omelet prepared by a jolly Greek man, hang out a little longer, then board my plane to Iowa.

As the saga draws to a close, I do a quick self-assessment. On the plus side, I’m uninjured and I haven’t been locked up abroad. On the down side, though, my throat hurts, my back hurts, my hair is greasy, my contacts are hardening onto my eyeballs, my teeth are wearing sweaters, and I stink. Bad. It’s Monday and I’ve been wearing the same clothes since Saturday morning, marinating in them, really.

Scott picks me up at the Cedar Rapids Airport and drives me home, continually apologizing. I tell him it’s not his fault, but he says he’s just showing empathy.

I walk into my living room and am so glad to see window treatments that aren’t tiny plastic, unbreakable shades. And there is a whole couch! That I can sit on! I stand there for a moment just taking it in. Then I head upstairs to wash up. I peel off my pungent clothes and throw them into the laundry, then climb into the shower, which is no longer a shower at all, but pure salvation, pure, spiritual and bodily cleansing, pure bliss—better than a thousand full-body Swedish massages.

I shampoo my hair and do a little math. I've spent 32 of the last 48 hours on an airplane. Then I think about what I might post on my Facebook status as an update. I decide on, “Vicki Krajewski discovers miracle secret that turns an ordinary shower into heaven.”

Durga Puja

2008-10-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

Monday October 6

Monday at work I try to blow through as much of chapter nine as I possibly can while still maintaining the quality of my edits. Because I fly out on Friday instead of Saturday, I won’t have that day to work, and Thursday is Dusshera, a holiday, and Tuesday is the day the people from London are filming the video of me. This leaves just Monday and Wednesday as full work days this week. I get a fair amount of work done before five o’clock when I leave with Jonaki and Shinjini to attend a Durga Puja celebration in CR Park.

Shinjini rides in a separate hired cab and Jonaki rides with me in Palminder’s cab. The second cab will take Jonaki and Shinjini home when we’re done so Palminder doesn’t have to drive way out of his way.

Jonaki suggested we go to a smaller celebration that Anindo from work invited us to, but Shinjini is set on this one where we hear the crowds can be choking and the queues can be labyrinthine. Jonaki hopes we don’t blow up or get hijacked or have hijinx. Our track record of going out together includes both landslides and bombings. But when we get to the street where the festival is set up, there are no throngs. There are people around, but certainly not long lines for anything. This festival is several days long. We may have missed the crowds by coming the day before the apex of the event.

Soma told me if I didn’t sample the street food tonight, “It would be a culinary sin.” Shinjini leads us straight up to a pushka vendor. Pushka sounds Polish, I tell Jonaki. She agrees. It is decidedly not a Polish food, though. It is a little crusty puff, which the vendor makes a hole in with his finger, then ladles in a spicy, soupy mixture of vegetables. You have to pop the whole thing into your mouth at once, else the soup will get everywhere.

“I’ve never gotten sick from this,” Shinjini tells me, but she has an Indian belly. Mine’s still American. The questionable part is the watery mixture. I don’t think the water’s been boiled, and I don’t think it’s bottled water. They keep it cold by floating a big piece of ice in it. Is that ice made with Aquafina? I don’t think so. No matter. Before I know it, pushkas are being handed to me one at a time in little foil bowls. The vendor passes them out methodically, one to each person gathered around the stand, and we pop them into our mouths, trying to avoid dribbling. I swallow thinking, “I hope there are no parasites. I hope there are no parasites.” We eat three or four each and Shinjini asks if I want more. Nope. That’s enough. She pays the man and we walk on toward the main celebration.

There is a railing made of bamboo that leads into a large tent-like structure that was built for this three-day celebration. We walk through the lane made by the bamboo, obviously meant to contain a long line of people, but now almost empty, then get to the security check at the entrance to the tent. Our bags are searched and we are combed over with metal detecting wands, then we can enter.

Inside there are big screen television sets, a car showroom, a booth selling a sports beverage called Horliks, elaborate chandeliers and, the main attraction, a one-story tall glittering idol of the Goddess Durga and her family. Durga is depicted at the moment she is defeating the evil Ravana, a glowering green guy who is emerging from a bull. Ravana had the power to shape shift, so was almost undefeatable, but Durga killed him as he was in the middle of changing into his human form. As the myth has it, Rama invoked Durga to help him defeat Ravana because Ravana had a wish granted to him that he could not be beaten by any man.

Durga Puja is a Bengali festival. Jonaki and Shinjini are both Bengali, so the celebration reminds them of home. Delhi being a mishmash of Indians from everywhere, you can find Durga Puja pandals being set up all over the place. There’s a large tent and a glittering, many-armed icon in the park by the Ahuja Residency, and many more scattered about the city.

We sit before the pandal waiting for the ceremony to happen. People mill about and find seats behind us. A pair of reporters approaches us and starts asking about the celebration. When do the pujas take place? What is the story behind the pandal? When they leave, Jonaki remarks about how little they knew. Where have they been? Why don’t they have a clue? They were as clueless as me, I offer, laughing. It is only after Shinjini loudly agrees that we realize the journalists are setting up their camera directly behind us. We sit on our hands in momentary embarrassed silence.

The ceremony begins. There is an insistent drum beat and offerings are made to Durga, held up before her then displayed for onlookers. There is food then flowers then fire. Officiators bring pots of fire to the crowd and they stick their hands in it, just as they did at the Iskcon Temple. The drumming goes on and on and soon Jonaki asks if I’ve seen enough. There’s still more to do. We can walk through the carnival area and we still need to eat, then there’s a whole other pandal in B Block that we can look at.

We meet up with a former Pearson employee who now works at Sage Publications and wander through a lane full of food vendors and carnival games and little kiddie carnival rides. Kids shoot bb guns at a wall full of balloons. More kids ride a tiny ferris wheel. There are vendors selling toys, decorations, graphic novels of Hindu myths and other baubles. The streets are lined with endless strings of colored lights. This is much more festive than church bingo, I offer. This is a full-on street party.

The B Block pandal is an elaborate golden wall of gods and goddesses with four-foot Ganesh statues lining the sides of the enclosure. There are the same chandeliers and ceiling fans set up inside this huge building that is erected mostly out of bamboo and fabric solely for this three-day festival. At this enclosure there is also a sound stage with live singers.

At the next food booth I eat momos: little dumplings with cabbage and other vegetables inside. The dumpling dough is thin and delicate and the dipping sauce is sufficiently spicy to clear my sinuses.

By the time we finish eating, it’s almost nine thirty, which is bad because Jonaki told Palminder we’d be done by eight o’clock. I get a little antsy, as does she, yet we still need to stop at a sweet shop on our way back to the cars. The evening wouldn’t be complete without it.

At nine forty, we leave the sweet shop and walk to the cabs, but the party we leave behind looks like it’s just getting started. The band plays on, the lights glow, the vendors hawk, the people munch on street food.

Just when I thought my time here would get boring, with nothing to look forward to but coming home, I am treated to this kaleidoscope of sights and sounds and tastes. I just hope my stomach is sturdy enough to handle those pushkas.

My Last Sunday

2008-10-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

Sunday October 5

The phone rings at five a.m. It’s Mister Kandhari waking me up for our Sunday morning gurdwara visit. I throw on some clothes and walk over to his garden. I’ve beat him getting ready today. He’s still putting on his socks. I haven’t worn socks since I got to India. This is probably why I’m ready before he is.

He calls to his house helper to get the tea ready. It is sweet and milky, and we eat it with biscotti. Mister Singh joins us and partakes of the tea and biscuits, and then we’re off. Today we don’t pick up Poonam. I ask where she is and Mister Kandhari says she didn’t call this week.

My last visit to Bangla Sahib is very routine. Mister Kandhari pops out of the car and heads off to the langar, and I follow Mister Singh to the shoe check. On the way into the temple he introduces me to a friend who is serving a soupy, spicy lentil dish out of an enormous pot in the area in front of the parking garage that is under construction. I don’t quite understand what this extra food is for, but the man is clearly taking pride in dishing it out. He hands me a small bowl made from dried leaves and a chapatti and ladles in the hot stuff. This thing with eating spicy food so early in the morning is something I’ve not quite gotten used to. It is jarring. It’s not even six o’clock and my mouth is on fire and my stomach is saying, “Does not compute.”

We walk inside the temple and sit down to listen to the Japjee being sung. I’m not as tired today as I was last week; I can stay conscious when I close my eyes. So I close my eyes and breathe and think about what Mister Singh said about wishes. I wish, because what can it hurt? I wish Mister Singh’s wife would get better and not feel miserable. I wish Baloo’s leg would heal okay. He’s the dog with one ear who is friends with Acha and Baby. I saw him limping the other day, poor guy. These are my two wishes today. I wish them over and over, and in between I just listen to the singing.

Soon enough it’s time to go downstairs and start serving. I sling out loaf after loaf of bread. The woman passing out too many slices isn’t here this week, so I don’t get in trouble by proxy. I pass out sensible helpings to the people sitting on the grass mats.

When my arm starts to shake from holding the basket, I know it ‘s almost time to go. I follow Mister Singh back to the shoe check and we meet Mister Kandhari back at the car. They would like to take me to Lodhi Garden today. Every Sunday there’s a members breakfast. I can meet the other members and have something more to eat. As long as we get back by eight thirty, I say. I have a scheduled Skype call with Scott, and then I’m planning on going to church. It’s my last Sunday here, so I’ll have to say goodbye to everyone there. They say no problem. We’ll be back even earlier than that.

It’s just about seven thirty when we pull up to the brick wall that runs the perimeter of Lodhi Garden. Mister Kandhari parks the car and Mister Singh walks off briskly. Is he hurrying because of me? Mister Kandhari trails behind.

We walk over a bridge and into a large rose garden where people are spread out on blankets, their heads touching the ground between their thighs. This is a yoga class, Mister Singh tells me. They come here every morning. If I were staying, I could also come. He interrupts the instructor and tells him that I am here visiting from America and I have been doing yoga since the age of five. Mister Singh has misunderstood something I told him earlier this morning, that I’d been in dance classes since I was five and I’ve done a lot of stretching because of it. Now he’s announcing that I’m some kind of yogi to this classful of ardent yogiites. The instructor steps off his mat and motions for me to lead the class. I tell him I couldn’t. I’m wearing jeans. He insists. I am mortified. I sit on the blanket and do a stretch. The whole class follows. I do a second stretch. The class mirrors my motion. I’m teaching a yoga class in India. After two stretches, I stand up and bow. “Namaste!” I fold my hands and say hastily. They clap for me as I step back off the instructor’s mat.

Next, Mister Singh leads me through the roses past a short rock wall to an area where a ring of banquet tables are set up. “Members, members!” he announces. “This is my friend from America! Vicki!” I feel like slinking back to the yoga class and leading more stretches. A man with a curly mustache comes up to me to say hello. Mister Singh tells him how I just led the yoga class.

“Do you know what yoga is?” the mustachioed man asks. I think it’s a rhetorical question, but he waits for an answer from me.

“Um, exercise and concentration,” I venture.

“NOO!” he exclaims. “Yoga is ancient practice from the Vedas. It is the way to unite your body and your mind. What does your mind do?” He wants another answer.

“It wanders?”

“YES!” he exclaims again. “But yoga makes your mind controlled. You overcome. You find peace. You master your mind. And THAT is yoga,” he tells me and bows, hands folded.

Mister Kandhari wants me to eat. He shoves a plate in my hand and scoops some potatoes in a watery sauce into one of the little sections. Then some peas. Then a chapatti. More spicy vegetables before eight in the morning. I dutifully eat my helpings of these foods, then he asks me if I want more. “What do you want? You want sweets?” I tell him I wouldn’t mind some rice pudding since it looks like they have some and he leads me around a loping tree to the other side of the table where they are serving kheer from a giant foil tray.

I eat my pudding and get introduced to dozens of people, one after another extending welcoming greetings. “We do this every Sunday,” Mister Singh tells me.

Soon enough, it’s time to go. I follow Misters Singh and Kundari back to the car and they drop me off at the Ahuja Residency in plenty of time for my Skype call to Scott. He prefers with the bombings that I avoid the auto-rickshaws, but people are expecting me at church and there haven’t been any attacks this weekend. Chances are I’ll be safe.

Chances are much higher I’ll be safer if I just stay home. My mother would like it if I hid under the desk until it’s time to go. It’s safe down there—except for the occasional beetle who can wonder by and leave you a case of necrosis. Safety is not something you take for granted here, but the risk of something happening is also something you can’t let paralyze you. It’s a balance.

I set out towards the market to catch an auto-rickshaw to church, but halfway there a car pulls over. It’s Ursula, the pastor’s wife, with her two little red-headed children in the backseat. “Are you going to church?” she asks with her British accent. “Do you need a ride?”

I certainly do. No risky auto-rickshaw for me today. Ursula is a godsend.

Church goes by quickly and there is much milling about afterwards. Ruth, the woman with eight children, invites me over to her place for tacos while one of her children stands with her head resting on Ruth’s thigh, eyes glazed over. The kids have all been very sick this week. High fevers. Ruth will understand if I don’t want to come over and risk getting sick. I say it’s okay, but later change my mind. I don’t want my last week in India to be spent in bed with the kind of body-wrecking fever I had a month ago. Besides, Mister Kandhari asked me if I want to go back to the orphanage with him today and I told him yes. I catch an auto home and the ride is, thankfully, uneventful.

Back at home, there is nothing much to do. I watch some tv, read some books on Sikhism and generally laze around, procrastinating on my blogging which has become a little tiresome by this time.

I walk to the market and order a dahi vada at Sagar, then walk home, stopping to pet Acha and Baby and Baloo, whose leg seems a little better. Maybe that wishing at the Bangla Sahib worked some magic.

Mister Kandhari never calls, but I talk to Jonaki and Skype with Scott. I’m still trying to get used to the discovery I made yesterday: that I’ll be leaving on Friday night instead of Saturday night. Because my flight departs at midnight I had the days mixed up until I looked at the ticket and figured out that leaving at midnight on October 11th means I need to get to the airport at eight o’clock on October 10th. I won’t have my final Saturday in Delhi as I planned. This day, Sunday, is my last weekend day in Delhi. I am marking lasts: my last visit to Bangla Sahib, my last service at Delhi Bible Fellowship.

The day is over before I know it. Tomorrow will be my last Monday in Delhi.

The Way Home

2008-10-10T05:08:00.000-07:00

There are just three more hours before I leave the Ahuja Residency for the airport here in Delhi. I have taken copious notes this week in my journal but not had the time to do my daily write-ups. The week has been filled with festivities, busy times at work and sad goodbyes with the thoughtful, intelligent, witty, considerate, soulful and otherwise wonderful people I have been lucky enough to meet while I've been here.

I just got done giving Mira her tip and cried even then.

Even Palminder told me he is "very, very sad" that I'm leaving. Fancy that.

So anyway, I will chronicle my last week in India, but it's a task I'll undertake when I'm back in the United States. The week has been too full to write each night.

To everyone I've met here in India, best wishes and thank you for making me feel so comfortable and so accepted while I've been here.

To my friends and family in the United States, I can't wait to see you all again. Thank you for cheering me on from across the world. I felt your support with me every step of the way.

Check back next week for more entries. I promise to draw this thing to a proper conclusion--or maybe just keep it going. Who knows?

A Smile Face

2008-10-08T02:12:00.000-07:00

Saturday October 4

I was going to be in Jaipur today. I was going to go to Neemrana. All these plans fell through. So I am just spending the day in Delhi, getting some last minute shopping done and relaxing.

I take my copy of Main Hoon Na back to Mercury Audio Video in Khan Market. It doesn’t say anywhere on the package that there are English subtitles. I wonder if I can exchange this copy for one with subtitles. The man at the store tells me he thinks this copy has them. When I question this, he opens the package and tries it out on a mini-DVD player for me. There are the subtitles I’m looking for. Excellent. Flaming auto-rickshaw car chase, here I come!

While I’m there, I wonder if they have the CD of a song I’ve heard on the radio and liked. I sing it for them and they puzzle a bit, then a young guy thinks he knows what I’m singing. He opens the CD and plays it for me to make sure. He’s got it. It’s the song. I thank them and roam around the market a little more, picking up some thank you cards and a package of key chains.

Back in the parking lot, I tell Palminder to take me to the Lotus Temple. There’s a big traffic jam and when we finally get there, the free parking lot is closed. There are busses parked all along the street and there’s a market that’s popped up from out of nowhere: stall after stall of Prasad and burgundy and gold fabric. This is for the upcoming Hindu holiday of Dusshera. I snap a few pictures of the stands and thank the men for letting me photograph them. “Thank YOU,” they say, clearly happy to be my models.

The walk to the temple is crowded, almost shoulder-to-shoulder with people, and it’s hot; like, sweat-rolling-down-my-face hot. By the time I reach the doors, I’m in no condition to meditate, I think. But then I walk inside. The same feeling is there: a palpable and inescapable sensation of complete well-being. I sit down on one of the marble benches and fold my legs. The temple is crowded. Lots of children fail to understand that they shouldn’t make noise inside. A little boy behind me keeps whispering to his mother, who keeps whispering back to him instead of quieting him down. A woman with a Lotus Temple badge around her neck walks by and motions for them to be quiet.

I close my eyes. What should I ask today? What is God? Or did I answer that question for myself the other day? I don’t feel like I did—at least not conclusively. I don’t feel like I know God. I ask the question here but get no answer. I feel rather alone in the big echoing chamber with the high ceiling. Am I? Am I alone here? Is it just me? Or is there something, someone with me making me feel this peace again? I don’t feel anything separate from myself, external to myself. Maybe God is in me. “What is God?” I ask again, but no answer comes, or no answer comes in the brief amount of time I give myself to focus on the question between being annoyed at the crowd and the heat and wondering about other things. The book by Swami Vivekananda that Vivek, the CEO, lent to me said that God is so huge that humans can’t contemplate or understand “him,” so it’s necessary to give him or it human forms. It is only in the human form that we can love God. That’s why we have Jesus and Krishna and the gurus in Sikhism. This seems to me ultimately true. If God is this formless, infinite abstraction, what do we do with it? Still, if God is human, it creates all kinds of problems. We judge him on human standards, expecting him to be just and kind and fair and on and on in ways that specifically make us happy. Then we just get mad at him when it doesn’t seem to work that way. Or, I do.

I get up and walk around the perimeter of the chamber, reading the brass quotes that are so familiar.

“Should prosperity befall thee, rejoice not, and should abasement come upon thee, grieve not. For both shall pass away and be no more.”

“Wert thou to speed through the immensity of space and traverse the expanse of heaven; yet thou wouldst find no rest save in submission to our command and humbleness before our face.”

These words were revelations for me a few months ago.

I round the space and get to the exit but I can’t say goodbye to the Lotus Temple just yet. I stand on the stairs and regard the place, and as I do I feel such a strong lack of any tension or worry in every atom of my body that my fingers start to tingle. I can feel the same vibration spreading up my arms. What is this? Why is it that this place does this to me? How can I carry this with me into my life? I sit back down and close my eyes again to study the feeling. A few moments pass and a line of about seven Indian people with large red folders forms at the front of the temple behind the spray of flowers and clear plexi-glass lectern. It must be three o’clock. It must be time for the Baha’i service. I’ve missed it every time I’ve come, but this time, only because the tingling sensation literally stopped me in my tracks, I’ve stayed long enough to see it.

It begins with a hymn sung in a language I don’t understand. The first man finishes his song, then closes his folder and steps away. Then the next man steps up to the lectern. He also sings in clear tones, the words echoing back and forth inside the dome. He also closes his folder and steps away. Next, a woman steps up and announces, “A Buddhist Prayer.” I get a sense of what is happening only now. This service is seven different prayers from seven different world religions. The Buddhist prayer is in English. The woman says that to give up desire is to conquer all sorrows. So if I give up wanting to posses the people I love, I will no longer be sad when I’m not in their presence. If I give up the desire for perfect health, it won’t be so traumatic when something goes wrong. It will just be a fact, something that happened. The woman continues.

“It is only the fool who thinks to find true happiness through wealth or material pleasures. All these things are temporary and fleeting.” I think of Mister Singh and his ailing wife and the problem of a wish-granting God.

“If you ask for something foolish,” Mister Singh said, “then He won’t grant it.” This is a different definition of foolish than I’m used to. Maybe this finally makes sense. Maybe the Lotus Temple has given me the answer I was looking for even if I didn’t form the question myself this time. Maybe God does grant non-foolish wishes, but those are trickier to make than they seem. Is asking for cessation of someone else’s pain a foolish wish? Or is physical discomfort not the true cause of sorrow at all? Is it only the mind that makes a situation wonderful or terrible? Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so. Here I am again with the lesson of emptiness in this big, empty temple where I was just feeling the expanse of the dome over me and so much nothing. That was what I was supposed to feel here today: emptiness. This is what I need to remember. This is what the Lotus Temple is gifting me with today; this is, perhaps, its parting message to me.

The woman closes her folder and makes way for another woman who announces, “The Lord’s Prayer.”

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” she says. I try to listen to the prayer like it’s the first time I’ve heard it. I try to find it as fascinating as the Buddhist prayer, but it is so trodden. It is so rote. I’ve said it so many times without thinking about it, it’s a struggle to hear it anew, even here in the Lotus Temple, in Delhi, in India where day is night and on is off and everything is different. This prayer is still the same.

The service ends with a Baha’i song. A woman sings that nothing can hurt her because she is armed with the name of the Lord. She closes her folder and walks away. All the people with folders have spoken. There is no ritual or ceremony or sending off. The service is as simple as seven read prayers. I stand up and walk toward the door. I hope I get to visit the Lotus Temple again before I leave. I plan to return during the day on Saturday before my flight leaves at midnight.

I return home and spend a little time reading and relaxing. Mister Kandhari says we’ll go out to eat tonight. He picks me up at eight and we first drive around for a bit. “You like my style?” he asks me. “This is how I like to enjoy the city,” he says.

He grabs a bag of snacks from the backseat and something to drink for each of us and he tells me about a meeting he attended in the morning. He’s very excited. Defence Colony has raised fifty crore to turn the nala that runs behind it into a large park. There were lots of dignitaries at the meeting and Mister Kandhari, the “green man of Defence Colony” was invited to help with the landscaping. The project will take a year and a half to complete. He tells me I can see it when I come back. I will come back, won’t I? Do I promise? I will keep in touch, right? I will remember him, yes?

Yes, of course. Yes.

He drives to a park by the Habitat Centre and parks the car. We’re going to eat some paneer tikka. The wala from the tiny slanted shack comes to the car window and takes our order. We’re eating drive-in style tonight. A few minutes later there is a plate of chutney and fresh chapattis and paneer. Mister Kandhari hardly eats any of it. “For you,” he tells me.

He looks out his windshield at the park in front of us and cocks his head. “Vicki, life is whatever you make out of it. You understand me?” he says. I wonder where this thought came from. “This time can be a heaven or it can be a hell. It all depends on what you do, who you spend time with, if you spend time with nice person, good person. You see?”

I see. I think of the desperate Skype conversation I just had with my husband wherein I told him this last week in India was going to seem like it would take forever because all I can think about is coming home. There are no more exciting plans, nothing else to look forward to. It’s going to be hell. But it doesn’t have to be. That’s my choice to make. It can be heaven. Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so. Mister Kandhari reminds me, as the Lotus Temple did today, of emptiness.

I finish the last cube of paneer and Mister Kandhari throws the plate out the door. “Come, I buy you sweets. You like kulfi?” He puts the car into reverse and backs out onto the street.

“I love kulfi!” It’s like ice cream with fruit in it and sometimes it’s served with little vermicelli noodles. “That’s very kind of you. Thank you,” I tell him.

“You have kulfi before? Where?”

“At Mister Singh’s house, one day after dinner.”

“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness,” he says. “You see, you do things so people remember you well. You leave the people with a smile face,” he tells me. “I like to leave the people with a smile face.”

We pull to the side of the street in front of the Defence Colony market. There is a wala set up to the side of Moets. He’s there just to sell kulfi. He dishes up a serving of the ice cream, puts the noodles and some syrup on the plate and hands it over to me. Doesn’t Mister Kandhari want any? He takes one small bite with the spare spoon but tells me the rest is for me.

A good Sikh doesn’t eat much, doesn’t talk much, gets up early in the morning to recite the name of God, and leaves the people with a smile face.

A few minutes later, we are in front of the Ahuja Residency. He’ll see me in the morning, yes? I’ll come with tomorrow to the gurdwara? Of course, as long as I get my wake up call.

“I’ll call you, yes. I’ll call you,” he says and touches my head. What can I do but smile?

Elephants in Traffic

2008-10-04T07:13:00.000-07:00

Friday October 3

At work I finish chapter eight and take on chapter nine which seems less dense, less labyrinthine and less opaque. Work is hopeful.

I take a walk at lunchtime and notice a monkey on the wall by the tea stand. Since I’m all by myself and this monkey seems contented as he rips apart seed pods, I linger and watch him eat. It’s mesmerizing the way he uses his little fingers to split and peel the pods to get to the seeds. In just about a week my lunchtime walks will no longer hold the promise of monkey-watching. I figure I’d better take advantage while I can.

On my way back to the office, I notice two more monkeys shaking the tree above where the first monkey was eating. Three small children are pointing and laughing. There’s another monkey inside a building that’s under construction. I watch him inside the frame of the building, then a dog pops up from out of nowhere and barks at the monkey who is completely unaffected. As I walk down the street, there are more monkeys. Two of them peep into a large jug of water that someone’s left out in the road. Another one grabs the exhaust of a parked motorcycle. Another one hugs a large earthen pot. Two more shake a tree just out of reach of a barking dog. There is a veritable gang of monkeys in the industrial estate today. My lunchtime walk has turned into a safari. Suddenly the monkey that was on the second floor of the hollow building is in the tree right in front of me. It only took one lightning fast jump to get him there. I get a sense that a monkey attack doesn’t happen in slow motion and that it might not be so safe to be standing around gawking at the hoard. Reluctantly, I walk back to work, back to chapter nine.

After work, Jonaki and Shabnum and Soma are going shopping for their maids. They want to buy them saris for the upcoming holidays. Would I like to go with? It’s quite nearby. Of course. I never turn down a chance to shop, plus I told my coworker that I would buy her a sari if I got the opportunity. This may be it.

Shabnum rides with me and we meet up with Soma and Jonaki in the hot night air of the Madhu Vihar market. The first sari shop is too expensive. We try a second one where they are selling for as little as a hundred and thirty five rupees: that’s six yards of fabric for about three dollars. The sari I select for my coworker is not quite that cheap, but it’s still a steal. We part ways with our bargains in hand.

I walk back to Palminder’s car and climb in. He has found a food stand, thank goodness, so he won’t be pouty and hungry now that I’ve kept him an extra half hour. We pull away but are stopped a few hundred yards from our parking spot by two enormous, lumbering elephants festooned with shiny fabrics and tassels. Yes, traffic is stopped by elephants. This would never happen at home, I think to myself. The elephants slowly cross the road and the traffic picks up again, but we have to circle around. It seems that the elephants were the beginning on some parade. There are men with portable chandeliers and men with drums. There are marching bands and floats full of flowers and lights and people dressed up like Brahman the god with three heads and Hanuman the monkey god. Palminder tries to get out of the market before the parade heads us off, but traffic comes to a complete halt in front of us. We’ll just have to stay and watch the parade. There’s no choice. I laugh at the absurdity of it and apologize to Palminder. It looks like I’ll be keeping him tonight for a little longer than I planned.

Palminder and I get out of the car. Luckily, I have my camera with me. You never know when you’ll get stopped by elephants and a parade of lights, so it’s best to always be prepared.

“It’s so beautiful,” Palminder says as a giant pink head with a fairy coming out of it's mouth rolls towards us. The giant pink head and flaming lips and pointy ears look a little dastardly to me, but I suppose this is a cultural thing.

“Sikh people,” Palminder says when a marching band of men in turbans comes past. He actually seems to be enjoying himself. It’s nice to see.

The parade ends and we climb back into the car. He drives us through twisting streets full of shops. This is not the usual route home. I get to see a new part of Delhi tonight. It resembles Amritsar a bit, with the shops right up to the sides of the street. I miss Amritsar. There is a tear in my eye. This place is so vexing. There is garbage in the streets and so much poverty and at the same time it is so mind-bendingly rich in color and culture and faith and joyous celebration. America will seem so boring, I think. I realize tonight that I will miss India.

Accepting the Questioner

2008-10-03T11:34:00.000-07:00

Thursday October 2

Today is Gandhi’s birthday, so the office is closed, but because I’m on the U.S. payroll system, I can’t enter it as a holiday. So I either have to take a vacation day or work from home. Since I’ve pretty much done the Delhi tourist scene, I opt to have a quiet day working from home. I told Palminder to pick me up at noon. I figure I can run to Khan market over the lunch hour and try to exchange this movie I bought for one with English subtitles.

The morning passes quickly as I clunk away at chapter eight. At noon, I walk down to the car. Palminder tells me that the markets are closed. So instead of exchanging my movie, I tell him to take me to Lodhi Garden. I figure I should see it before I go, and I’m not sure when I’ll get the chance to go otherwise. Saturday I was planning on doing something with the people from work, and Sunday is the gurdwara and church.

The garden is very close to where I’m staying. We pull up in front of it in about ten minutes. Palminder tells me the car will be in the small lot full of ice cream vendors just outside the gate. I try to find some distinguishing landmarks around this gate so I don’t get lost. I figure there are ice cream vendors everywhere. I’ll just have to remember my path as I walk through the park.

Inside I see a little tubular animal that looks kind of like a ferret but isn’t. Jonaki later tells me this was a mongoose. “There are lots of snakes in there, so you don’t want to sit around too much.” I’m glad to discover this only in retrospect.

The park is large and has nice, paved walking paths that aren’t broken up or filled with obstructions. The main path circles around two large buildings with giant onion domes. These are Mughal tombs. I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting as much, but I am surprised. I thought I’d see a few plants and a few trees. Instead, there are picturesque ruins from the 1400s and 1500s to climb around in. Couples sit by the side of a lagoon, snuggling and mopping sweat from their faces with scarves and clothes. A group of men in white lungi sit cross-legged on several blankets spread out in front of the largest tomb. A little brown dog with wispy ears trots up to me expectantly. I pet it and it follows me around to the third building, another tomb enclosed by a fortress wall. It’s in the high nineties if not a hundred degrees. I am soaked with sweat. I retrace my steps past the couples and families with children back to the gate where I came in. Navigating the park wasn’t so difficult after all. Palminder is waiting in the cool car. I consider buying us both ice cream, but we pull away too quickly for this idea to take full shape. I’m not sure about the ice cream from the street vendors anyway.

I have Palminder drop me off in the market where I grab a quick bite at Sagar. Since it’s so crowded, I’m seated at a table with a woman from London. It’s her first week in Delhi, she tells me. She’s been in Mumbai for several months, though. She’s a consultant. This is as specific as she can get about what she does. She asks what I do. I tell her I’m working on textbooks. She says she’s fascinated with the language here, how it’s changed from British English and become a new thing altogether. I tell her it’s interesting editing because there’s no one style, especially when doing adaptations. If it’s an American book, we use American spellings. If it’s a British book, we use British spellings. And then there’s the house style. It’s like there’s a whole new set of rules for every circumstance. It’s so Indian, I reflect. Nothing is cut and dried; everything is relative. Jonaki even told me there are two versions of the holiday that’s coming up next week, Dussehra. Some people celebrate the victory of Rama over Ravana; others say it was the goddess Durga who defeated the evil ruler of Lanka.

Back at home I hack away at chapter eight until about five o’clock when the phone rings. It’s the guard. He speaks but all I can understand is “eighty two.” This is enough. Mister Singh has called on me.

I walk next door and see that Mister Singh and Mister Kandhari are sitting together. Mister Kandhari rises and shakes my hand when he sees me. “How are you? I lost your number. I was going to call yesterday and I lost your number.”

Mister Singh tells me to have a seat. “We didn’t know if you’d be home since there is a holiday, but I thought we would go ahead and try.” He tells me his wife had to go to the hospital yesterday. Her stomach was bloated and hurting her so much she couldn’t eat anything. They had to do surgery on her because she was retaining so much water. And they may need to do another surgery if she doesn’t recover as expected. I tell him I’m very sorry. I hope she heals soon. He is accepting of the situation. He tells me about it in a matter-of-fact tone without much ado, then we move on to other topics.

Mister Kandhari wants to know if I want to go back to the orphanage. He’s going on Sunday. He’s thinking of giving money and he wants to take a tour. So we’ll go. Okay? He’ll tell his friend. We will go. Yes, he says, answering his own question.

Mister Singh says he knows this couple who tried to have a child. For twenty years, they tried. And the man had a brain injury as well. They came to visit Bangla Sahib and prayed that the man would be able to keep his job and that they would have a child. And do you know that the military gave him a desk job? They let him keep working. And one year later he called and said his wife was pregnant, after twenty years. Can you imagine? If you wish for something, Mister Singh says, God will grant it. He thinks for a moment. Unless, of course, you ask for something foolish like you want to be the king of all the world. Then God won’t grant that, you see.

I think of Mister Singh’s ailing wife. She’s been on dialysis for years now. How can he say God grants wishes when it’s so clearly not the case? If God grants wishes, why do people die? Why are they suffering? Why is their poverty? Have we just not wished hard enough? Or are wishes to end these things foolish?

I know what Mister Singh would say. He would say that his wife is suffering because of karma. He explained this to me before. Her illness is the result of something she did in a past life. There is no escaping karma, so wishing it away, I guess, is foolish. And God doesn’t humor fools. People in India are able to live with all kinds of suffering because they believe it’s their karma and they have to accept it. But this concept doesn’t seem to reconcile with a God who grants wishes. What about the man with the brain injury? Why did he get his wish? Why wasn’t his problem chalked up to bad karma? How is it that only some bad things that happen are the result of bad karma? Are others just bad luck? And wishing to God takes care of those?

I don’t want to argue with Mister Singh, but I don’t think God is a genie in a bottle. I can’t believe in an omnipotent God who lets people suffer when he has the power to stop it, when he has the power to grant wishes. So if I don’t believe in that, what do I believe?

“Of course there are some people who don’t believe in God,” Mister Singh says. Am I that transparent at this moment? “But then who is controlling everything? Hmm? Who is making the sun to come up and the moon? Who is changing the seasons?”

Nature? No one? I nod for Mister Singh, but his question lingers. My question lingers. What do I believe?

I believe in the voice I heard at the Lotus Temple; in a force that grants wisdom when it is sought. But that can’t be all that God is, if he is, because that God would only be a God of humans. And God, if it exists, is definitely not all about humanity. God is in the trees and the clouds and the ocean and the stray dogs who won’t eat my biscuits but allow me to pat their heads. Maybe God is selflessness, but that is too human a concept too. As is love. God is love. It’s all too human and God isn’t that. God is an omnipresent energy. God is life.

Though I don’t see the point in wishing, Mister Singh is hopeful on my behalf. “Who knows?” he says. “Maybe you will go to Bangla Sahib and come back to India in a year with a child.” How can I say I haven’t quite made up my mind about that either?

I had wanted at the end of my three months to hit the buzzer and lock in my final answers to these issues, to answer the million dollar questions, but I can see now that it isn’t going to be like that. The stage lights aren’t going to flash around me and it’s not going to rain money as Regis Philbin congratulates me and sends me off into my neat, new life.

And really, that’s good. I don’t want an answer locked in. That would mean I stopped changing; which would mean I stopped growing. My time in India hasn’t been about finding the right answers. There are no right answers in India, or there are a million and one different right answers that all contradict each other and have six arms and no street signs and faulty wiring. So forget the answers; my time here has been about accepting where I am as the one who asks questions. And I think I’ve accomplished something there.

Mister Singh’s house helper brings cold water, then tea and a large jar of biscotti. “I order these biscuits and people eat them like anything!” Mister Singh says cheerfully, offering me a second one. Then there are pakoras, India’s tempura, basically, fried, breaded vegetables. I eat some cauliflower and Mister Singh puts more on my plate. Then more.

Mister Kandhari drops his keys on the ground. They make a jangling noise and he cocks his head, suddenly looking at me as though this has reminded him of something. “Vicki,” he says, “What has most affected you in India?”

Oh my gosh, I think. How can I begin? I think immediately of the Taj Mahal and then I think of the beggars on the streets. “Everything,” I say. It’s such a lame answer, and I wish I had a better one. I want to ask him, “Can you give me a day or two to come up with a blog entry on that, Mister Kandhari?” But the conversation has already left the subject behind. Mister Singh’s granddaughter and her husband have just arrived, and his daughter-in-law is offering me some puffy-looking lotus seeds. “Zero calories,” she says.

“Come, let’s go,” Mister Kandhari says to me, rising. He wants me to go with him to sit in his garden. We walk to his place, the little black dog finding me and mauling me with affection on the way. He jumps at my ankles and wraps his legs around them to get me to stop walking. I almost fall over. I try to explain to Mister Kandhari that I’ve been feeding this dog biscuits and now he really likes me, but I’m not sure how much of this he picks up.

We sit for a while in the garden. Mister Kandhari asks when I’m going back. Soon. He asks what my work is like in the United States. I comment on his new plants. They’re very nice. This is his weakness, he says. He sees plants and he must buy them. I ask him if he worked today or if he took a holiday. He says he took a holiday but it was boring. He got some plants for the gurdwara this morning, then he came back at about one o’clock and slept. It was boring. There was nothing to do. Then his friend called him and they decided to see if I was around.

The conversation hits a lull. There’s nothing much else we can talk about right now. Mister Kandhari gets up and goes inside. He comes out with a bottle of water and two glasses that he gives to me. “Here, take these. Come, we will go for a drive. I am bored.”

We get into his car and he pulls away. “Here, you can put the glasses,” he takes out the drink holder and shoves the glasses into it, then produces a bottle of vodka from, was that in his pants? I wonder if this is legal in India or illegal. Mister Kandhari seems to think it’s okay. I pour a little in my glass, and he would like three drops in his. He is pretty literal about this. I pour in about three drops when he tells me to stop and fill up the rest of his glass with water.

“How do you like?” he asks me. “I enjoy. Everybody like to enjoy life in a different style. I like to drive and listen to music.” It is a pretty nice night outside, and I do like the music.

“It’s nice,” I say. Then I tell him it’s my dad’s birthday today. Just now I realize that my dad and Gandhi share the date.

“Oh, then I will drive you home soon so you can call him,” Mister Kandhari says, and he does. “I think I am one of your best friends in India,” he tells me after a while. “You will remember me when you go back?”

“I will absolutely remember you,” I tell him as we pull up in front of my guesthouse and he shakes my hand.

Practicing Non-Attachment

2008-10-03T04:00:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 1

There has been another Hindu stampede, the morning paper says. This time there was a rumor of a bomb when thousands of people were cued up at this temple outside Jodhpur, the town in Rajasthan my coworker invited me to visit with her. I declined because I didn’t want to do another overnight train journey, and that was how she was planning on getting there.

It’s festival time in India and temples everywhere are attracting huge crowds. After the rumor at the temple in Jodhpur, men started running and caused a panic. About a hundred and sixty people died.

The paper has tallies of all the people that have died in temple stampedes versus bombings this year. The stampede deaths outnumber the bombing fatalities. The paper says it happens because there’s not good crowd control at these temples. No one is there to regulate the line. And then after it happens, there’s no good emergency response. People just cart the victims off by themselves, carrying them by their arms and legs, rubbing their abdomens to try to revive them. At least these are the scenes I see on the news.

At work, I slog through chapter eight. It’s taking so long and making so little sense to me. I feel like I’m in eighth grade math again with the teacher who can’t explain any of the concepts I so desperately need help in understanding.

We take a walk at lunchtime and run into a family of monkeys. I’d like to stay and gaze at them but everyone scrambles. It’s not good to hang out with monkeys. They can scrape you or bite you and nobody wants a monkey scratch. Talk about infection.

A lot of holidays are coming up, Jonaki tells me. There’s Durga Puja and Dusshera, then Diwali. The city will be lit up. People will be exploding firecrackers. October is the most festive time in India.

I leave work a little early because I need to get some final souvenirs for people and I’m not really keen with all the recent bomb attacks on visiting the markets now on the weekend. Shabnum says it’s a good idea to go on a weeknight. I figure Wednesday will do. Palminder drives me to Janpath. He is cheery when I tell him I’ll be back at the car in just about an hour and a half.

I run into the Cottage Industries government emporium where I saw the reasonably-priced elephant carvings when I was shopping with Shabnum. I buy up a whole bunch, figuring they’ll make a nice gift for anyone deserving of an India souvenir. I find a couple of OM keychains while I’m at it. At the register while I am waiting for the gifts to be packed, a British woman asks what I’m going to do with all the elephants. I tell her they’re souvenirs. She says I was buying so many she figured I was selling them or something. Exports are a huge business here, just not my business.

I finish with plenty of time and so walk across the street to the little stall shops. There’s a whole strip of Tibetan stores I didn’t stop at when I was here with Shabnum. I get a few bracelets and almost buy a Buddha statue. Then I think to myself, “What do I want with another Buddha statue?” I’m so non-attached, I think, I don’t want anything else from these shops. I don’t need anything else from India. I’m done with shopping. I couldn’t buy one more thing. Then I cross the street to where the clothes shops are.

With the backpack that Amar gave me, I figure I have room in my luggage for a few more things. I find a blouse with silver threads and elephants for a hundred rupees and a skirt full of sequence for two hundred rupees. I get a shirt with a big blue Krishna on it and another sleeveless blouse with flowers on it. The man drives a hard bargain on the last blouse, only coming down about forty rupees in price. It’s the holiday season now, he tells me. Everyone will be shopping. He doesn’t need to make deals to sell things. I’m glad I did most of my shopping earlier. Things were cheaper during the monsoon. The blouse costs me two hundred and fifty rupees, but I like it a lot, and that’s still only about five dollars.

This is a good practice of non-attachment to my money, I think. I had to do something with all those rupees that were sitting in my wallet. It would be a shame to just have to change them back into American money.

At home, I cart my new souvenirs upstairs and assess my luggage space. I may have enough room without even using the backpack from Amar. I think I’ll be fine. Though I haven’t really tried packing yet. I’ll save that fun for later. If I packed now, I’d just have to dig through everything to find what I needed.

I walk to Sagar for dinner where I’ve been going almost every day. On the way I’m stopped by a flash of light and a big bang in one of the building’s courtyards. It happens almost as I’m crossing right in front of it. For a moment I think I’ve survived a bomb attack. I wait for people to yell and scream. Then I realize it was just some firecrackers. In a city of bomb attacks, there has to be a better way of celebrating that that, I think. I don’t want to hear explosions. I’m kind of glad I’m leaving before Diwali. I think it would be rather unnerving.

On the way home, the little black dog finds me. He trots behind me all the way to the guesthouse then follows me upstairs. There’s no guard to stop him, and I certainly don’t. I let him into my room and give him a cereal bar. He munches it up and stands there, scratching. This was a bad idea, I think. I need to let him back outside before he dirties up the place. But how to get him out? The guard wasn’t at the gate when we came in, maybe he’s still not there.

We walk down the first flight of stairs and the dog sees Mira on the phone. He runs right up to her, wagging his tail, looking for food. She gasps. I grab him by the collar and drag him down to the courtyard. His ears flop and he follows me outside. This was a bad idea, I repeat to myself. I open the gate and usher him out as the guard, standing outside, gives me a puzzled look. I don’t pause for explanation but instead turn and run back up to my room. Street dogs don’t make good house guests. If I could only be as non-attached to their brown puppy eyes as I am to my rupees, I’d be in better shape.

What Won't Kill You

2008-10-01T21:38:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Since my experience here is nearing an end, Scott asked me yesterday if I feel like I’ve changed. It’s hard to say. It’s not like I’ve grown extra limbs or have anything clear to point to you that I can say is different. Well, I guess I have that curvy scar on the back of my knee from the necrosis, and my bangs are still rather unattractive. But I don’t think that’s what he was asking.

“You don’t feel like you know a new culture? Like you’ve learned something about how other people live? Like the next time you run into an Indian person you’ll have a better basis on which to talk to him or her?” Scott asks. “I always feel like travel makes me grow.”

I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned and one thing that came to me was a sort of list. I’ve always tended to be a nervous sort of person, the one who worries about everything that could go wrong. I think I’ve learned while I’ve been here that a lot of things can go wrong and you’ll still come out okay in the end. To that end, here is a discovery I’ve made during my tenure in India: worrying about any of the following items doesn’t help one lick. So you may as well not worry.

Things that won’t kill you:
A strange skeleton key
A few ants marching around your bed
The Internet going out
A power cut
The cable going out
The toilet not flushing
A little case of necrosis
A driver who loves you
Your undergarments flapping in the breeze, hanging outside to dry
24 hours on a bus
Slinging over a river rapids on a rickety cable car
Getting your writing rejected
The Internet going out
Running late due to rain
Running late due to traffic
Running late due to someone else running late
A lack of street signs
A lack of street names
Strange beeps when you’re trying to make a phone call
The Internet going out
A power cut
Not having a cell phone for four days
Not talking to your spouse for four days
A lack of department stores
A lack of grocery stores
Dirty feet
Bad traffic
A tragically bad haircut
Time going too slowly
Time going too quickly
The Internet going out
A power cut
A mess of flies landing on the snack you’re about to buy
Some garbage on the street
A busted up sidewalk
Spicy food
Bumpy roads
Witnessing public urination
Smelling public urination
Dirty looks
Getting up at 5 a.m.
The Internet going out
A power cut
Not having plans until the night before you leave for a trip
A sketchy evening on an overnight train
A terrible dinner on an overnight train
The Bubonic flu
Tea at a drain party
Petting a stray dog
Bargaining with an auto wala
100 degree heat
Sweating until your clothes are wet
A driver who dislikes you
Paying more because you’re foreign
Worms in your cauliflower
Not speaking the language
Not seeing your spouse for three months
Not seeing your pets for three months
Not seeing your parents for three months
Not shopping at Wal-Mart
Not watching CNN
Not eating peanut butter
The Internet going out
A power cut

Instant coffee, though, that’ll do you in. Stay away from the stuff.

Bookslides and Cracker Theft

2008-10-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

Monday

Monday at work there is the afterglow of the book sale. Everybody has a story. Shinjini is the winner with four cartons of books. “You lose your sense of reason,” she says, starry-eyed. Jonaki recalls seeing her pop up from a pile of books in a daze. “I could only see the top of her head and her eyeballs and she was saying, ‘Is Angsuman here? I found his book…’” Daniel was seen sprawling out on another pile of books with his arms out as though he were on a pleasure cruise. Jonaki had a rougher time of it. She got hit in the head by a flying hard back someone in a pile was throwing to someone on solid ground. And someone also stepped on her foot when they were climbing. “I wore my track pants,” she says, not just jeans. It seems like she should have worn a construction helmet and steel-toed shoes as well. Shinjini had a close scrape too. A book pile collapsed around her so she was buried up to her hips. She couldn’t move her legs for a while there. Someone had to come dig her out.

The author of the finance book has finally responded to our query about the passages that are duplicated on the Internet. He is pleasant but somewhat evasive. He tells us that if the passages are similar to what is available on the Internet that we should feel free to re-write them ourselves. He tells us also, perplexingly, that we should “make the sentences more comprehensive.” I have no idea what he means, but Amar thinks he’s telling us, basically, that if we don’t like it, we should revise it. Authors have tried this before, he says. There was one man who requested that two editors be sent to his home in a neighboring state so they could visit with him for several days and then rewrite the book for him. Some authors, it seems, want more than editing to happen to their manuscripts, which is strange. I would think the opposite would be true: that authors wouldn’t want people to change their work at all. I know I would be a little touchy about having people rewrite my material for me.

Amar tells Shabnum she has to call the author and clarify with him that he can’t use more than fifty words without getting permission and he has to go through all the chapters and make sure this isn’t happening elsewhere. I don’t envy her that phone call.

At lunch Amar and I talk about the new bomb that went off over the weekend. It wasn’t as bad as the first attacks, but it was still an attack in a crowded market. “It’s getting worse I think,” Amar says. And people in this country blame Muslims for it. Amar’s wife is Muslim so he must have an informed view on the issue. I think of the survey I saw on CNN IBN last night. I was surprised by the numbers. It said that 58% of Hindus link terrorism to religion. The overall number of people linking terrorism to religion was 39%. I thought the number was low. I think it would be much higher in the United States. But still Amar says it’s a problem here. Muslims have not been made to feel welcome as part of the community in India. You walk into a bank lobby and there’s a big Hindu shrine. Companies pass out sweets to everyone on Hindu festival days but don’t acknowledge other holidays at all. People do this without even thinking about it, and Muslims feel alienated, and it exacerbates the problem.

After work, I go to Mystic in Bali, it’s a restaurant owned by the same people as The Big Chill. This restaurant is covered in colorful masks of gods and goddesses. It’s got a menu full of Asian food from Japan and Hong Kong and Malaysia and about five other countries. There are about six hundred items on the menu. I’m meeting Katie and Susie and Julianne and a few other people here. It’s Katie’s going away party. She leaves India at eight in the morning tomorrow. Everybody’s getting ready to leave. I leave in less than two weeks. Julianne’s friend Roxanne just went back to Hong Kong yesterday. Susie’s selling off all her furniture. It seems like Julianne is the only one not packing up.

I tell Palminder I’ll be done by eight thirty, but we’re not quite finished. We don’t have the bill and people are still picking at their plates. I run outside to tell him it will just be another half hour. He shakes his head and winces and leans forward like I’ve just put a sword in his gut. I tell him it’s just another few minutes but he won’t even make eye contact with me. He just shakes his head. I go in and throw down some money on the table and hug Katie. She’s on Facebook. I’ll have to find her that way. Keep in touch and good luck with your art and travel safe and it was so great to meet you, goodbye. We hug again and I run outside to find Palminder sitting waiting for me. I climb in the car and notice the snack crackers that I left in the backseat are gone. He’s eaten them. If he needed a dinner break, he could have taken one during the hour and a half that I was inside, but maybe he needs to be dismissed by me. I don’t know. I feel bad but I’m also at the end of my rope with his tantrums. People in India eat late anyway. It’s not like I’ve kept him until one in the morning with no food. It’s not even nine o’clock when we arrive at C-83 and he is off duty. And I would have given him the stupid crackers, but I feel somehow violated that he just took them from me. He stole them. If he’ll take the crackers, what else will he help himself to if I leave it in the car? It’s inappropriate.

When I get home, I call Ms. Sonu. “Is it okay to keep the driver after work every once in a while?” I ask her.

“Yes, absolutely. You keep him for as long as you need him whenever you need him.”

“Because he doesn’t act like it’s okay at all…”

She says maybe I should tell him he can take a dinner break so he knows it’s okay, but other than that, he shouldn’t have a problem. She’ll talk to him.

I hate to get anybody in trouble, but every time I go out my evenings end this way, with a Palminder tantrum and me feeling guilty and harried. I don’t want to end my time in India like that. I’ll make sure I tell him he can eat from now on, but I’m not taking his grouching anymore.

Mister Kandhari's Dance Party

2008-10-01T00:13:00.000-07:00

Sunday

The phone rings. I look at the clock. It reads 5:00.

“Vicki, wake up. Are you coming?” Mister Kandhari croons.

“Yeah yeah. I’ll be there in just a few minutes.”

I splash some water on my face and manage to get my contacts into my eyeballs. I throw on the clothes I got ready the night before, grab my keys and head out. The guard is sleeping in a wicker chair inside the gate, which is latched. He’s a light sleeper. He wakes up and springs to his feet as soon as I try to unlatch it.

I walk the block and a half to Mister Kandhari’s place. He’s sitting in his garden, waiting. He has tea and biscuits ready. It’s nice ginger tea, not the plain stuff I get at the guesthouse. “I just got up and thought I would call you,” he tells me. I thank him for the wake up call and sip my tea.

Mister Singh is not far behind. He sits and drinks the cup of tea Mister Kandhari has ready for him. Before long, we are ready to go. We pick up Poonam on the way. The morning precedes exactly as it did the first time I accompanied these men and their friend to the gurdwara.

We get to Bangla Sahib as the sun is beginning to turn the sky from black to blue. The gold dome against this backdrop is piercing. It gleams.

Mister Kandhari disappears into the langar area and I follow Mister Singh into the temple where they are singing the Japjee, the Sikh morning prayer. “Now that you’ve read the book, you know what they’re saying,” he tells me proudly.

I don’t understand the words, per se, but I know they’re singing about how God is Truth, and what was that other line I liked? “The Lord grants virtue to all. Can anyone favor Him in return?” It’s a long prayer and I wish I remembered more of it. There was the part about countless ways to worship. There was the compulsion to meditate on the name of God. I close my eyes and listen to the singing but I’m so tired that I have to keep jerking myself awake. I’m not cut out for early morning meditation. I would make a lousy Sikh.

After a while Mister Singh says it’s time to go. We get up from the floor and walk outside and down the stairs to the langar. Mister Kandhari has a big basket of bread ready and waiting for me. I take it and begin to pass it out. There’s another woman with a basket of bread this time too, and a man ladling out dal. The heavy set woman wobbles down the alleys of people handing six or eight slices of bread out to anyone who will take it. I trail behind her in another row of people, passing out a more sensible two or three slices. The dal man sees me. “Only pass out what people will eat,” he tells me, pointing to a boy with a tower of Wonder on his steel plate. The boy is poking holes in the pieces, making some sort of sculpture. Okay, I tell him, and continue passing out my two or three slices unless there’s a family and they ask for more. We go up and down the rows, up and down the rows and the man runs into me again. Again there is a man with a tower of bread on his plate courtesy of the topsy-turvy bread fairy. Again the man looks at me like it’s my fault. “Only give out two slices,” he tells me, growing a little impatient with the white girl. Okay, I tell him again, and go about my distribution.

I reload several times, getting more bread and chapattis. Mister Singh says no one at langar wants chapattis even though it’s healthier for you and better tasting and fresher than the packaged white bread. I find this to be strangely true. The freshly baked chapattis are harder to give away, and even the teetering lady avoids giving out stacks of them.

On the bottom of one basket I take is a load of rice. I guess I’m supposed to pass this out too, with my hands. People in India eat rice with their hands though I find this strange. I scoop it up and hand it to people though it makes a terrible mess by falling out through the bottom of the basket. One man wants handful after handful, and as I grope for it, it makes a big mess on the floor underneath. A man across the aisle points at it to tell me I’m making a mess. I know I’m making a mess. I don’t know what else to do. I finally give up and bring the basketful of rice back to the station where I trade it in for some normal bread, but now as I walk down the aisles, icky rice is sticking to my dirty feet.

Soon enough we pack it up and I follow Mister Singh back to the shoe check to get my sandals. Back at the car, Poonam has saved me a little cupful of dal and half a chapatti. I am not dying for spicy beans at seven in the morning, but there’s no getting out of eating it. I thank her and eat up.

There are no extra errands to run after temple today, so I’m home by eight o’clock. I wash my feet off in the sink and lay down for a bit. There’s plenty of time to get to church, but I called Julianne yesterday and told her I wouldn’t need a ride, so if I want to go to church today, I have to get there by myself. No Palminder. No friends. Just me and my wits.

I walk to the market and find an auto parked next to some rubble. I ask him, “Siri Fort Auditorium?” He says yes. I ask him “Meter say?” Which means roughly, “Will you use your meter?” He shakes his head, but says, “Thirty rupees.” This is a good price. I climb in and he pulls away. I don’t know if he’s driving the right way. He takes a different route than Susanna does when she drives us. But the road becomes familiar. I recognize the scenery. He’s not taking me down a dark alley where I’ll have to use my pepper spray on him. It’s all good.

I get to church early and make friends with a couple of dogs outside. Susie and Sara show up and I follow them inside. Julianne comes in later with Roxanne, after the service has already started and during an announcement that the resurrected Pastor Robin is making imploring people to show up on time.

His sermon is about being the salt of the earth and the light of the world. He’s a good speaker. Even though he’s the regular pastor here, this is the first time I hear him speak because he’s been convalescing in England. He says salt in Biblical times was used to preserve meat, to keep it from rotting. This is what Christians should do in a decaying world. They should be a preservational force. I always kind of thought the expression “salt of the earth” meant someone was, well, earthy. I like his explanation. It makes sense. He says salt only preserves meat because it is different from the meat. He says Christians need to be different than the world. They need to stand apart in their will to do good works, to preserve. He says one-third of health care in India is provided by Christians. Is this right? It’s amazing if it’s true. Christians are such a small proportion of the population here.

After church, Julianne asks if I’d like to come to her place. She’s making pizza. Sarah and Susie and Katie and Roxanne and her friend from Hindi school are all going. There should be enough pizza for one more person. I don’t have any plans until eight o’clock in the evening when I’m going to a party with Mister Kandhari at the Defence Colony club, so I hop in an auto and join my friends in GK1.

We all help with the pizza, mixing the dough, shredding the cheese, chopping up vegetables, boiling the tomatoes for the sauce. There is nothing pre-packaged about this pizza. It is truly homemade. Julianne is worried it won’t come out, but it’s just fine. The only thing that is a bit off is the cheese. The mozzarella that you can buy in India isn’t much like the mozzarella you get in the United States. Here it’s pretty tasteless and rubbery. But the pizza itself is good. The crust comes out well and the red sauce Julianne makes is the first good red sauce I’ve had while I’ve been here.

Kate, Julianne’s friend from Hindi school, is here on a Fulbright Scholarship to study reintegrating people into society after they’ve been victims of human trafficking. She commiserates with Susie about dealing with the Indian bureaucracy to register as a foreigner and get her Internet set up. Susie says when she had to register at the foreigner’s registration office, she spent every day there from the time the office opened to the time the office closed for an entire week. The employees would share their lunches with her. She had to provide paperwork in triplicate, then they’d lose it and she’d have to provide it again. Finally, they asked her for the stack of work papers she had with her just so her file would appear thicker and they could consider her case closed.

Kate has been calling and calling for someone to fix her Internet but no one comes or calls back. They just write down her complaint, then nothing happens. She says no one cares about you, but then we decide that’s inaccurate. Everyone cares about how you like India. They care about whether you are married and have children and how long you’ll be here for. And when did you get here? And where are you staying? They want to give you tea and biscuits and make sure you’re having a nice time. They just don’t care about getting you what it is you’re looking for. We laugh. It’s so true.

Before I know it, it’s four o’clock. Susie and crew are going to Sarojini Nagar to do some souvenir shopping. Katie leaves on Monday and she wants to get some jewelry for her friends. They invite me to come along, but I haven’t even showered yet and I feel too gross. I have to go home and get ready for the party this evening. I should also catch up on some blogging. I’m rather behind.

Susie mentions the bombings, as anyone going to a market in Delhi nowadays must consider this factor. Sarojini was not hit this last time, but it was bombed last year. Does that make it less likely to be a target this weekend? There’s a feeling that once a place is hit, it’s safe for a while. It seems that Sarojini’s number might be up. They figure it should be okay today.

There was a survey on the tv news saying that 80% of Delhiites are currently staying away from the markets unless they have to go there. From the crowds I see in the Defence Colony market, I think people may have exaggerated their responses when questioned. Nothing seems different to me. The markets are just as busy as they appeared to be before the bombings. I think people are considering the odds. In a city of fifteen million people, only a few hundred have been killed or injured in terrorist attacks this year. What are the chances?

Back at the guesthouse I shower and rest for a while. I’m not feeling that great; I’m a little weak and shaky and very sweaty. I think I may be coming down with something. I call Scott and tell him I may skip the party tonight, but I’ll walk over to see Mister Kandhari anyway.

When I get to his house, he is sitting in the courtyard. He springs to his feet. “Ready?” he says. “I was just sitting here waiting for you!”

I tell him I’m not feeling very well. Maybe we should just stay for a short time or something.

“Fever?” he asks, and holds a hand to my forehead, then grasps my wrist. “No fever. Is okay. Come,” he says, and eagerly leads me to the car with the dents all along the side from when he hit the concrete pole.

We drive the few blocks to the club and Mister Kandhari buys me a guest pass to the event, not allowing me to pay for it. “You are my guest,” he tells me as he shoos my hundred rupee note away.

We walk through the building and into the large courtyard. It is decorated with thousands of little white lights strewn on the surrounding trees. There are wide streamers of fabric that form a colorful canopy. There are dozens of buffet tables set up and all the chairs at them are draped in fabric and large bows.

“It’s so nice,” I say, surprised. It looks like a fancy wedding is about to happen.

“You see? You see?” Mister Kandhari says. “I know.”

He buys drink tickets and food tickets for us, again not allowing me to pay. We go to the bar and get our drinks and I follow him to a seat near the stage setup. There is a large sound system and stage lights. There are smoke machines and confetti canons. Before long, two men in shiny pants come out and begin the show by juggling fire. Then the event host takes the stage in her glittering earrings and ball gown. This event is brought to you by the wonderful, the flavorful Gorbachow Vodka which we should all take the time to enjoy, she tells us. And now the moment we have been waiting for. A hip hop dance team will perform, all the way from Mumbai.

The men who juggled fire are now shirtless and pounding out impressive dance moves in the humid heat like it’s nothing. They are joined by a third man and three women. The lights and the smoke machines and the confetti cannons are all in full effect. It’s an amazing show. I can’t believe it cost less than two dollars to get me in here.

After a few dance numbers, the emcee is back. She introduces the next act, half in Hindi, half in English. I make out that there is a famous singer. A woman in a red dress takes the stage and sings every popular song I have heard on the radio: Higher and Higher, Don’t Look at Me Like That, Boy. One of the most wonderful sights I’ve seen in India unfurls before me during her performance. A very old couple gets up and boogies so sweetly to the Punjabi dance music. The old man shrugs his shoulders dramatically with the beat and waves his arms in the air as his wife, more subdued, sways back and forth. I can’t help but feel overjoyed to watch them having fun. I took some video of this scene. I’ll get it up on the blog as soon as I have a chance.

Mister Kandhari orders some chicken and offers me some. I tell him I can’t eat it. “Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness,” he says. I tell him it’s fine. I’m not hungry, but he says it doesn’t look nice. I have to eat. He orders some paneer and chapattis and I snack on it. He is relieved.

At about ten o’clock we look at each other. It’s time to go even though the party shows no sign of stopping. Mister Kandhari has stayed up late with me again. He usually goes to bed at nine.

I tell him the party was amazing. I wasn’t expecting so much. He says he knew I would like it. “A new experience,” he says.

He drives me home and pats me on the head as I gushingly thank him for the fun time. I’m so glad I didn’t weasel out of the invitation because I was feeling a little sick. Who knew there would be a full-on high production dance party at the Elks Club in the Defence Colony? And he tells me they have these once or twice a month!

A Beautiful Life

2008-09-29T04:10:00.000-07:00

Saturday

Saturday morning I get up at six thirty. I’m going to a yoga lesson at Mister Singh’s house. His daughter-in-law told me to be there at seven o’clock, “on the dot.” I can’t be late.

I put on a t-shirt and track pants and walk next door. Mister Singh sends me to the third floor where his son and daughter-in-law live. We’ll have the yoga lesson in her living room.

His daughter-in-law brings out a blanket for herself and gives me the nice, padded yoga mat that I suspect she uses when she’s not sharing her yoga lesson with a white chick. The instructor arrives and they talk in Hindi to each other, sometimes gesturing towards me. I’ve told her I’ve done yoga before, so I shouldn’t be a burden or drag down the quality of the lesson for her, at least I hope not.

Mister Singh opens the door carrying a blanket. He will also join us for the lesson today. He spreads out his blanket and stretches out his legs in front of him. “See?” he tells me. “You start by stretching, then do like this.” He shakes his legs out.

This man with his long white beard, who has to be in his seventies, then grabs his legs and folds himself up into the Lotus position. “I’ll show you,” he says. “Yog is not exercise. You cannot do it quickly. You have to go slow.” He calls it yog, not yoga, just in case you were thinking that was a type-o.

The instructor is ready to begin. He stands and narrates in Hindi, and Mister Singh and his daughter-in-law do as he says.

“Can you understand?” she asks me.

“No,” I say, but it works for me just to watch them and mirror their actions. We start with some breathing, then do some simple stretches and bends, then it’s onto the mats where our legs get tangled up in front of our heads.

“Nose touch,” the instructor walks over to me and says. Nose touch? I look at Mister Singh’s daughter-in-law. Her nose is touching her feet which are folded up in front of her face.

“Oh no, my nose no touch,” I say, laughing.

I should say now that I am the most flexible person I know. People actually make fun of me for the way I sit with my legs knotted up. I stretch all the time. I’ve had years of dance and lots of yoga lessons where I’m the one that the instructor points at to show everyone else how it’s done.

But not in India. This is one of the reasons I wanted to take a yoga lesson here; to see how different it would be.

It’s different all right.

Next our feet are in the air over our heads. “Floor touch,” the instructor tells me, and takes my legs and stretches them all the way onto the ground behind my head. I think they’ll snap right off. It kills. I can barely sustain the position and my legs begin to shake.

My legs shake for the rest of the lesson as we hold weight-bearing positions that use muscles I’ve let slacken for who knows how long. All the while the aged Mister Singh is pulling and pushing his body into variations of all the positions we are doing with seemingly no problem.

Mister Singh leaves a little early. He’s going to work on food donations for the gurdwara. We wrap up less than an hour after we began, but it’s not soon enough for me. I feel slightly tortured.

“We usually go faster,” Mister Singh’s daughter-in-law apologizes to me. “If you come tomorrow it won’t be so slow. We had to go easy today because Dad joined us.”

Easy? I almost died. “Thanks, but I’m going to the gurdwara tomorrow morning at five,” I tell her.

“Well maybe you’ll be back in time. I’ll send someone over to check.”

I thank her and hobble off down the three flights of marble stairs marveling at how Mister Singh must have just taken this same path.

Back at my room, I try to steady my quivering Jello legs. I call up Mohinder, the man who’s meeting me at the orphanage. He tells me I should have my driver drive towards the Ashram towards Mathura, then we should call him and he’ll give him directions from there. It sounds like a shaky plan, but who am I to dispute it?

I call up Palminder and tell him to come pick me up at noon. Until then, I catch up on some blogging. There’s lots of spare time when you get up at six thirty in the morning on a Saturday.

Palminder arrives on time and I describe my plan to him. We have to go to Ashram towards Mathura then call this man at this number. He gives me a funny look. He wants to call Mohinder before we leave. It seems like a fine idea to me. He dials the number and talks to him, then passes his cell phone to me in the backseat.

“Yes, Vicki? I’ve told your driver how to get there and I’m just leaving, so I’ll see you there,” Mohinder tells me.

Palminder finds the place with no problem, pulling up to a three-story concrete building and pointing it out to me. “Welfare Home for Children,” he says to me, pointing to big red lettering on the top of the building.

There is a large gate around the place and no way to get in. I don’t see Mohinder anywhere. Palminder calls him back up. We should go around the building to the other gate, he tells us. We do. A man opens the gate and ushers me inside. Mohinder isn’t here yet. Can I sit for a few minutes and wait? Sure.

There’s a little plastic molded play set behind the entrance: a few slides and ladders to climb on. That’s a good sign. Inside, the building is very clean and tidy. The air isn’t on, but there is a huge window unit in the room they take me to where I sit and wait. Two women offer me water and I say no, then they bring me water anyway. There is no refusing Indian hospitality.

I’m sitting in a large room with a couch and a table and a fridge. There is a bulletin board full of pictures of children. On one side are the kids who’ve been adopted. They are embraced by smiling parents. On the other side are pictures of kids at the facility. Many of them are embraced by this portly white woman in a sea green dupata who appears in photo after photo.

Mohinder arrives just a few minutes after I sit down. He introduces me to two men. One is the architect of the building. The other is an aging Indian man with a British accent, and I don’t quite catch the reason he is there to tour the facilities. Is it to donate money? From the way Mohinder dotes on him and rather ignores me, it seems this may be the case.

I present my large bag of biscuits. The woman says I can only give two biscuits to each child and they’ll get the rest after dinner. She takes the bag away and comes back with just four or five packs that she’ll allow me to take upstairs to the children. I am not to be trusted with my wealth of biscuits, apparently.

Mohinder takes us around the ground floor, showing us the kitchen and a storage area. The room where I was waiting, he says, is used for counseling the parents and the adoptive parents, he explains. The white woman on the bulletin board is Dutch. She’s not here right now, but she’s the one who’s in charge of the facility.

He shows us the social worker’s office and takes us up to the second floor, pointing out the quality of the woodwork. There was no skimping when this building was erected. It’s of fine construction.

On the second floor landing, there is a large shelving unit full of tiny black shoes and several sets of large blue plastic sandals. We have to take our street shoes off and put on a pair of sandals before we enter the room where the girls are. They take pains to keep it clean and nice.

We open the door to a roomful of bunk beds and little girls. There are three women here who greet us. The men walk off, Mohinder talking about the construction and the capacity of the building. I open a package of biscuits and am swarmed with tiny hands reaching up towards me. I pass out biscuit after biscuit. A woman points to a small girl curled up on the bottom of one of the bunk beds. I figure I should let her sleep, but the woman shakes her awake a little roughly so she can get her treat. Sleepily, she takes the biscuit from me and munches it. A little munchkin about two feet tall wearing a t-shirt and a diaper has decided that she wants to stock up. She holds her biscuits in her right hand and reaches up to me with her left, making insistent noises and grasping the air. She follows me into the second section of bunk beds where another little girl is sleeping and is roused in a similar brisk fashion. Three or four older girls wait patiently in the background while the younger ones flock around me. When I give them their biscuits, they bow their heads and smile and say “thank you.”

The men are back. Are we ready to see the third floor? We get our shoes back on and ascend the staircase. About twenty boys are seated on a big Persian rug. The boys are all older than most of the girls upstairs. No one here is in diapers. I only have about four biscuits left, so I refrain from handing them out. In the back of this room is a quarantine room so when a child gets sick, it doesn’t spread. There’s also a small classroom. The institute brings teachers in rather than sending the children away to school.

We go up onto the rooftop. Here is where they hang the wash. You can get a view of the surrounding buildings too.

I follow the men back downstairs and ask the woman at the desk if I can have more of my biscuits. The boys didn’t get any. She brings several packages out. I go upstairs and see that the boys have been dispersed from their rug. They are now sleeping. It’s one thirty in the afternoon and these little boys are sleeping. It seems there are not a lot of other things for them to do. I wonder how much time they spend merely asleep or laying around.

I ask the woman if I can give the boys some biscuits. She assents and calls them to attention. They jump up out of their beds and form an orderly line, each one taking his treats and saying thank you in turn. When I’m done I have a few leftover. I ask the women in the room if they want them. They are only too happy to accept and nibble the rest of the package away.

I rejoin the men downstairs. They are talking about sponsorships and companies who give money to the facility. I ask if they do adoptions in the United States. “Yes. You can ask my wife all about that.” She works here full-time as a social worker. I don’t know anything about adoption. I don’t know if domestic adoption is cheaper than international adoption, but the plane tickets alone to India for one trip would set me and my husband back $4,000. And I know we’d have to travel here more than once. This may be an utter impossibility. Still, I wanted to see the facility and make the connections while I was here just in case.

I barely sit down when the men stand up. They’re ready to go. I take this as my cue to leave as well. I shake Mohinder’s hand and thank him for the tour. Palminder is waiting for me at the door. I follow him out to the car and tell him to take me to Malviya Nagar. We’re going to pick up Katie at Susie’s place, then head to the Museum of Modern Art. Katie’s a painter, so she’s been eager to see the place.

I call up Susie. “How was the orphanage?”

I was surprised. I was surprised at how nice it was, at how the children there are pretty advantaged compared to the poor kids I see out begging in the streets. These kids have clean clothes and three meals a day. They go to school instead of working. They have multiple people looking after their well-being. It was still sad to know they don’t have families, but it wasn’t as sad as what I see on the way to work everyday: kids in filthy clothes or no clothes at all begging for a few rupees or food, and little boys using every fiber of their will to try and sell useless magazines that they can never hope to read themselves. Those kids need more help than the ones I saw today.

We pick up Katie and find the museum easily. It’s a stately building with a rounded dome just outside of India Gate, probably built by the British because it smacks of the same architecture as the President’s house and government buildings in this same area.

Inside we find a jumble of paintings: portraits and miniatures and sketches and landscapes. The artist’s name is posted next to most of the paintings on a typewritten card, but there is almost never a year given. Some of the pieces don’t look very “modern” at all. I wonder how this collection got assembled: who decided what works got admitted? Where did they come from? They’re almost all Indian artists, but most of the works are in imitation of western art styles. Surprisingly, there are many, many paintings and sculptures in the Surrealist style: bodies with missing pieces and visible, melting bones. I wonder how surrealism made its way to India and why it seems to speak to artists here.

There is one room full of oversized canvasses that makes the place worth the trip. Here there is a wall-sized painting of three Indian bicycles with milk jugs hanging off the handlebars. It’s titled “Three Cows.” The milk jugs look like you could grab them and pick them up, and the background is like a comic book. The bicycles are life-sized, and as you walk past the painting, somehow the front wheels move and are always pointing at you. The effect is mesmerizing. There are also pieces here which blend traditional Mughal painting style with modern art. These artists are using their artistic heritage rather than throwing it aside and their work is all the richer for it.

The museum doesn’t take that long to cover, so about an hour later, we are walking through the little sculpture garden back to Palminder’s car. On our way, an auto-wala stops us. I flag him away thinking he’s bugging us for a ride, but he is insistent. “No,” he says, “Madam, madam, bomb blasts. There are bombs today. It’s not safe. You must go home. Go to your hotel. Go to wherever you are staying and stay in today, madam.”

Being so close to India gate, I wonder if a bomb has gone off nearby. I thought I overheard a conversation about bombs when I was in the museum, but I figured they were talking about the bombs that went off two weeks ago. I guess I was wrong.

I worry that we won’t be able to cross town to get home. I remember Jonaki telling me that they sometimes close down access to roads when bombings happen. But travel is just fine. There doesn’t appear to be anything unusual. The streets are neither empty or closed down. Everything seems normal. I wonder if the auto-wala was just trying to scare us for some reason.

Back at home, I turn on the news. Two men on a motorcycle threw a crude bomb in a lunch bucket in a crowded market. A kid picked it up and died. Twenty-three people were injured in the blast. There don’t appear to be multiple attacks this time. It looks like a much less sophisticated operation than the last attack when the bombs had timers and were planted all over the city.

I’m Skyping with Scott when my phone rings. “Hello. Kandhari. Where are you?” I hear.

It’s Mister Kandhari. He wants to know why he hasn’t seen me walk past his house today. Almost every night I walk to the market at some point and usually stop by to talk to him.

“I’ve been out today, Mister Kandhari.”

“You come and sit and we can talk,” he tells me.

I tell Scott I’m going to go. He is unnerved. Even though Mister Kandhari’s house is only a block away, I don’t think he wants me going out tonight and I don’t blame him. If he was in a city that was having multiple terror attacks, I’d want him to lock himself up in his room and shove a pillow under the door crack, not go roaming around his neighborhood at night. I promise I’ll steer clear of the market where I was planning on going to get some souvenirs. I’ll get them some other time, or I won’t get them at all, I tell him. Mister Kandhari’s house is safe, I tell him. I’ll be fine.

I eat dinner with Mister Kandhari. He asks me what I do in the evenings when I’m at the guest house. I tell him I write a lot. About what? About my time in India. I keep a blog on the Internet. Do I write about him? He wants to know. Yes, I tell him, thinking he might find this troubling. Instead, he is delighted. He smiles broadly. Have I talked about his garden and the gurdwara? Yes I have, of course. “Thank you,” he says.

Who reads it? Mostly just my friends. Does he have the Internet? I can show him the site. Only at the office, he says. But he wants to read it sometime. He wants to read it. We sit for a while then he says we should get to bed. We have to get up early to go to Bangla Sahib tomorrow. Am I still going with to feed the hungry?

“If you call me to make sure I’m awake,” I say. He shakes my hand and smiles. It’s a deal.

The little black dog follows me home again. I run upstairs to get him biscuits, but as I’m coming back down the stairs, I see him in the hallway of the guest house. He’s followed me all the way inside. I think the guard is slacking a little bit. What if this was an intruder instead of a little black dog? The thought is a bit troubling. I share some biscuits with the dog and the guard comes down from the balcony. I think he might be upset that I have the dog inside the gate, but instead he coos at it. “Indian doggie,” he says in a thick accent, smiling and chuckling. The dog trots off and starts drinking out of a puddle, and this gives the guard an idea. “Water,” he says, and comes back with a pot full for our little furry friend. This is the same guard who played so much with Ralphie when he was here. I like this guy. He strikes me as a very kind person. I’m not so sure what kind of a guard he makes, but he’s always sweet and considerate, even to a lowly stray dog.

I’ve met so many people here who have been so kind, I think, and I’ll be saying goodbye to all of them in just two weeks. In just three short months, I’ve discovered a beautiful life here in India with my friends from work and from church and from my neighborhood. I’m fortunate to be staying at such a nice place with such a helpful, sweet and good-natured staff. It’s a beautiful life I will leave behind—or rather carry with me. I’m so fortunate to have lived it.

Not Enough Biscuits

2008-09-28T05:53:00.000-07:00

Friday

Just when I thought the food was getting boring… I eat a custard apple.

My friend from work and I were discussing seasonal fruits one day. She wondered what we grow in the United States. I talked about oranges in Florida and the apple orchard near my house. She bought some guavas from a cart in the industrial estate and shared one with me. I think it was my first guava. I know I’ve had them in juice blends, but I’ve never just eaten a guava. It was good: sugary with white flesh and tiny, tiny seeds, almost like a kiwi. She had the man at the cart put ashen-looking masala spices on it as he chopped the small fruit into quarters. Spiced fruit is common here. Mister Singh served me spiced apples and pomegranate seeds the night he was planning my Amritsar trip.

As we walked and ate our guavas, she asked me if I’d ever had a custard apple. No, what’s that? It’s in sections almost like a pomegranate and the texture is a little sandy. The next day, she brought some to work for me.

Friday morning I walk downstairs and present my custard apple to Mira. Can she cut it for me so I can eat it? She takes it and walks into the kitchen. In the meantime, there is a Texan on the phone near the kitchen. He’s twanging away and getting nowhere trying to arrange a car service. He passes the phone to Mira. “Here, talk to them,” he drawls and shoves the phone Mira’s way. She takes down several phone numbers and makes a bunch of notes in Hindi script on a piece of paper and hands it to the gentleman. “What’m I spose’ta do with this?” he asks, shoving the paper back at her. I think this man is not going to have a good time in India.

Mira brings me the note and my custard apple on a plate. “Sorry, madam. My English no good. Speak. No write. You write Ashok?” I take the pen and paper from her and write Ashok next to the first number. “Okay, thank you. No English,” she says. “Now Upander, guard.” I write the words down by the second number.

In exchange for this help, she shows me what to do with my custard apple. You don’t cut it. You just split it in half and scoop it out with the spoon. She splits it in half for me and pantomimes with the spoon.

We thank each other for the needed assistance and she shuffles in her aqua and white sari out to the balcony where the large Texan is sitting on the edge of his chair. He looks satisfied with the new note. I think we’re all relieved.

The custard apple looks like it has crocodile skin on the outside and tastes like, well, custard on the inside. It’s like nothing I’ve ever eaten before. It’s fun.

At work I finally finish editing the lengthy chapter seven on currency options. We have two more chapters from the author so far, chapters eight and nine, and I think I’ll be able to complete them both in my remaining time. It’s a goal anyway.

We have yet to hear a response from the author on chapter six and the passages that need to be rewritten. Shabnum is trying to call him as I’m leaving the office for the weekend. We’ll see what happens.

Everyone’s excited about the book sale tomorrow. Shinjini wants to know if I want any Rough Guides. There is always a whole bunch. If I had room in my luggage and the upper body strength to haul books, I’d go scoop up a whole load, but as it is, I practice self-control and turn down the offer.

On my way up to my room, Pachu stops me. He speaks rather excitedly. “Call. Three times. Call six thirty. Six forty-five. Six fifty. Three times.”

Can he tell me who called three times?

“No idea. Boy. Boy. Husband?”

Oh no, I think. Freaki Fredi.

“Did he leave a number?” I ask.

“No. Call again,” Pachu says. I’m sure he will.

I’m not in my room for ten minutes when the phone rings. “Hello. Do you recognize me?”

“Is this Fredi?” I ask.

“Yeah yeah. So did you think about Goa?”

“Yeah and I’m not going to be able to go, but thank you,” I say.

“Okay, that’s okay,” he says. “Some other time when you come back to India.”

At least he finally took no for an answer. But now he wants to go out for a drink. I want to believe that’s all he wants, but I don’t. I think I’m busy next week. And the week after. And then I’m leaving. It’s just too bad we won’t be able to get together. He’s still glad he met me, he wants me to know. It was nice to meet him too.

I remember I need to get the hem of my black pants repaired. I throw them in a bag and walk down to my tailor across the street from the park. This man knows how to sew. I run through the items in my closet and think hard about whether there’s anything else I can have him work on before I leave. That one kurta I bought is pretty baggy on me. I could have it taken in. It’s so much fun to have your clothes tailored.

“Namaste,” I greet him and he bows his head back at me. I show him the pants and ask him, “Kitne?” How much? He examines them and says, “No nothing. Small work.” He doesn’t want to charge me—again. Of course, I’ll pay him anyway. I couldn’t take the work from him for free.

I walk around the corner to the closest thing approximating a grocery store that I’ve seen here. It’s called The Big Apple. It’s lit with fluorescent lights and has wide aisles compared to the other food shops in the market. It even has cash registers. What it lacks is the kind of deep inventory that American stores are packed with. There are just a few items of each kind on the shelves. I’m looking for more biscuits. I want to make sure I have enough for all the orphans I’ll see tomorrow. They only have three packages of the ten rupee kind. The rest of their biscuit inventory is actually Oreo cookies and they’re priced at forty five rupees a package.

I buy the three remaining ten rupee packs and grab a box of oatmeal at the store clerk’s suggestion. It’s on sale, and I need to run up my bill a little bit so they’ll give me change. If I try to buy thirty rupees’ worth of biscuits with a 1,000 rupee note, they’ll throw me out of the place. The clerk takes the box from me and says, “Almost expired, but not yet expired.” I look at the date, which I’d previously ignored, and it says Jan 2008. It’s a strange definition of almost expired. Still, I figure, what can go wrong with oatmeal? I probably have some in my cabinets at home that’s older than this.

The cashier holds my 1,000 rupee note up to the light and gazes at it from three different angles. Then he passes it to the next register where a woman does the same thing. I think, “Please don’t tell me I have a counterfeit bill.” But the gazing seems to satisfy them, and they even give me change. How western of them!

After The Big Apple, I cross the street at the busy intersection to get back to the main market. When I first got here, this would have been impossible for me. I would have needed an escort, a crossing guard. My heart would have been racing. I wouldn’t have even known which way to look for oncoming traffic. But tonight I cross the street without blinking an eye, weaving in an around the stopped cars, motioning with my hand for the oncoming cars to yield to me.

I walk directly to Sagar’s. Since it’s been a day of new food, I decide to try something different on the menu. There aren’t that many things I haven’t yet tried. I don’t know exactly what I’m getting when I ask for the dahi vada, but I order it anyway. Then I ask for a banana lassi. Sweet, I say. “Sweeeeet,” the waiter’s eyes get large and he walks away.

I wonder what that was about until they bring my food. Turns out the dahi vada is covered in sweet yogurt. And a lassi is made of sweet yogurt. Both are delicious, but they’re a little much in combination with each other. "Sweeeeeet." The waiter was right.

On my walk home, the little black dog finds me. I open a package of biscuits and he eats the whole thing. I don’t understand why he’s so skinny. He has a collar on. Someone owns him. Don’t they feed him? Or does he have a bad case of worms? I should slip him some Mebex, the worm medicine Susie recommended I take when I get home.

When the last of the biscuits is gone, his nose finds my shopping bag and nuzzles it. He wants some more. The orphans or the starving dog? Who gets the biscuits? There is never enough to go around in India.

I decide one package is enough for the puppy tonight and walk home. He trails me all the way to my gate.

Honesty

2008-09-26T22:59:00.000-07:00

Thursday

Thursday I have an email in my inbox from the newdirections program home office. They can’t put a link to my blog in their newsletter in light of recent entries. I understand, of course. My blog has been more personal than business-oriented from the beginning. Still, if I had written about breaking a leg or having chest pains or any other number of physical conditions, I don’t think there would have been an issue. No one was embarrassed on my behalf when I told them I had necrosis. The email was very kind, but still I feel a twinge of shame.

I debated about whether I should disclose the information about my health or not but finally decided that if I didn’t, it would be the end of my blog as we know it. How could I take this most important piece of information and pretend it didn’t affect me and my experience here and what I was thinking and seeing and doing? It’s certainly not the most glamorous or funny or intriguing part of what’s happened to me while I’ve been here, but it happened, and it’s part of my story, and that’s what I’ve been putting on my blog the whole time. My story. If I stopped telling my story, I don’t know what I’d post: a list of foods I ate and places I went? Why bother? We’ve been there already and had the meals together. A pancake at Sagar. A pasta dish at Liquid Kitchen. It’s all pretty routine by now.

Am I apologizing? I suppose I am, in case I’ve offended anyone or made them uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to do so. That being said, I’m going to continue to tell the truth, or at least try. It’s not worth the time and the energy it takes to write otherwise.

Thursday at work I get very close to finishing chapter seven. We have two more chapters from the author, and I’d like to finish editing them before I leave. I think I’m on track to do so. Then at least I will have handled half a book on my own while I’ve been here. I wasn’t here long enough to edit an entire volume, especially since at the beginning of my assignment I was working on multiple projects and meeting with people and learning about the editing process in general.

We’ve sent chapter six off to the author and asked him to revise the passages we found on the Internet, though we haven’t heard anything back from him. We’ll give him another day to respond.

“Good evening,” Palminder greets me on my way to the car. The drive has become so familiar and, unless it rains and causes havoc, it is routine and uneventful. We don’t pass any elephants or see any monkeys. The boys sell the magazines at the red light by Indraprastha Park. I am home in about forty five minutes.

At the gate the guard bows his head to me. “Good evening, madam,” he says. I don’t see the little black dog around anywhere.

“No dog today?” I ask.

“No, madam. Eighty two. Eighty two.” Mister Singh has stopped by. I go up to my room and drop off my bag. I take the book he lent me on the Golden Temple and the bag of scarves he gave me for our trip, then walk over to my neighbor’s house, wondering why he called on me.

Mister Singh is sitting in his bedroom on his couch watching tv. He wanted me to see this. There is a broadcast everyday live from the Golden Temple. It’s on from four in the morning until six a.m. and from six in the evening until eight p.m., the times when they “wake up” the holy book and put it back to sleep for the night.

“You reach home late,” he says. It’s already after seven. “Long work day.”

“And I’m the first one to leave the office each night,” I tell him. My colleagues work incessantly. Speaking of whom, I tell him, my boss has decided he wants to visit Amritsar. He heard me talk about it and it sounded so good, he wants to see it now too.

Mister Singh smiles. “Tell me when he wants to go and we can fix it for him.” He’s offering to set everything up again like he did for me. He’s a regular ambassador to Amritsar.

We watch the broadcast and listen to the hymn for a bit. He gets up and gets several books from the shelf behind his bed. One is wrapped in an orange bandana. Sikhs do this as a sign of respect for their holy books, Mister Singh explains to me. So this is what I saw everyone carrying around at the temple. He hands the wrapped up book to me and tells me to open it. I untie it and see that it is still shrink-wrapped. He tells me to tear off the packaging. I do. This is the Japjee, the Sikh morning hymn. The book’s in English so I can read it.

Poonam walks in clapping her hands, delighted to see me. I am likewise delighted to see her. She sits down next to me on the couch and says how much she enjoys listening to Mister Singh when he explains things to me. “I learn from him too,” she says.

Opposite the table of contents, there is a verse written in Punjabi. Mister Singh tells me this is the heart of their religion. It begins with a symbol that is like Om, but means more specifically that God is One. It continues with a symbol that means God is Truth. “God is the only truth,” Mister Singh says. “Man is never true. There is always something. But God cannot be untrue.”

I think of my dictum to be honest when I write. Am I? Can I be? It’s true that however much I disclose, there is still more that I keep to myself. Am I even honest with myself? Mister Singh is right. However true I try to be, it feels like an onion and I am never at the center, I’m always just peeling back layers. If I ever got to the middle, what would be there? Nothing? God? Some essential version of myself?

Mister Singh flips through the pages. The book begins with a short introduction, then has a verse about what makes a good Sikh.

“Read it out,” Poonam says.

I read aloud and surprisingly my voice cracks a bit in places because in reading this description, I very much recognize my kind neighbor, Mister Singh:

A true Sikh rises before the night ends
And turns his thoughts to God’s Name,
To charity and holy bathing.
He speaks humbly and humbly he walks.
He wishes everyone well and he is content to
Give away gifts from his hand.
He sleeps but little,
And little does he eat and talk.
Thus he receives the Guru’s true teaching.
He lives by the labor of his hands and he does good deeds.
However eminent he might become,
He demonstrates not himself.
He sings God’s praises in company of holy men.
Such company he seeks night and day.
Upon the Word is his mind fixed
And he delights in the Guru’s will.
Untempted he lives in this world of enticement.

Mister Singh shows me the rest of the introduction to the prayer. There is a brief biography on each of the ten Sikh gurus. He tells me the holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, was put together by the gurus and they took hymns and wisdom from all over the world.

Verse 17 of the Japjee says:

There are myriad ways to worship the Almighty—whether they be through rituals,
self-abnegation, the practice of austerities, exaltation or contemplation.
Limitless are the scriptures and their elucidations. Numerous are the devotees
and their ways to attain self-realization.

Sikhs don’t try to change anyone’s religion, Mister Singh says. They believe, like the Japjee says, that there are multiple routes to God. Another large quote precedes the prayer in the book:

Some call him Rama, others know him as Khuda.
Some serve Him as Goswami,
Others remember him as Allah.
Some bathe at Hindu temples, others go on Haj
Some recite from the Vedas, others from the Quran
Some wear the blue robes, others are clas in white
Says Nanak, he who obeys His command,
He alone understands the secret of the Lord
Raga Ramkali V (Guru Granth
Sahib, 885)

Mister Singh tells me the story of the ninth guru who was beheaded at the gurdwara in Chandni Chowk when he refused to convert to Islam, the same gurdwara where Palminder picked us up the day we went to the spice market.

I could stay and listen to Mister Singh all night, but I tell him I have to leave. Mister Kandhari has invited me over to his house at eight o’clock tonight. I’m going to meet his daughter who lives in New York.

Okay then. I should go. I should tell my friends they can see the Golden Temple on tv whenever they want to, though. And he’ll ask his daughter-in-law about yoga on Saturday.

He gives me the Japjee. I can take it home and read it. I should also take the book on the Golden Temple that he lent me before. I can give it to my boss. As I’m leaving he asks if I’ll put the books in my room before I go to Mister Kandhari’s so they’re safe. Of course. I shake his hand and thank him. It’s so nice to have such pleasant company in the evening. Normally I spend the nights alone. He says he’s happy to have my company as well. He enjoys talking with me.

I take the books home and walk over to Mister Kandhari’s house. He’s in his living room talking to a business associate. Mister Kandhari is always working; his cell phone is always ringing or he’s always off to somewhere to meet somebody. He works six days a week, he says, then on Sundays, he runs the kitchen at the gurdwara. And everyday, he works for two or three hours on his gardens. I don’t know where he gets the energy, except that he seems to really enjoy whatever it is he’s doing.

His daughter is heavy set. She’s dressed in black western clothes and wears an enormous rock on her left hand index finger. It could be a diamond from how successful Mister Kandhari has described her as being. “Would you just give me two minutes?” she says and walks away into the house.

Mister Kandhari asks if I’d like to sit inside or outside. Outside, I say. It’s pretty nice and his garden really is beautiful. He has his house helper set up three chairs.

We chat about how things are going. I might go to Jaipur. There’s a place about two hours past there that’s good for meditation. He’ll tell me all about it if I go.

His daughter sits down with us. They talk in Hindi, or is it Punjabi, about what I can’t make out. She asks me some questions. What am I doing here? How long am I here for? What do I do back home? Her cell phone rings. “Take him to the Cheesecake Factory,” she says. Just hearing Cheesecake Factory sounds so funny in India. It sounds so out of place. She’s clearly talking to someone back home. Always working, just like her father.

She wishes she could stay longer, but she has to go. Maybe I could stop by tomorrow if I get the chance. She leaves on Saturday, so it’s pretty much her last day here.

“I hardly get to see her,” Mister Kandhari says. It’s a real Cats in the Cradle moment. I feel bad for him.

He asks me to stay for dinner and I do. We eat in a little sitting area in the corner of his bedroom. He turns on the tv news. There is more investigation into the Indian Mujahidin. It’s sad that there’s so much terrorism here, I tell Mister Kandhari. I didn’t know it was such a problem before I got here. “Yes,” he says. “They hate anyone who is not a Muslim.” They learn from a young age that people other than Muslims are evil, then they go out and kill.

When we’re done eating, Gopi brings two large containers of ice cream. “Take,” Mister Kandhari says. I do. Like his rice pudding, it’s made with less sugar than usual, but it’s still good.

We walk out into the garden and sit for another little while. It’s almost ten. It’s past the time when Mister Kandhari goes to sleep. I tell him I’ll be going. “Will you come on Sunday?” He wants to know if I’ll go to Bangla Sahib to feed the hungry again.

“If you’ll call me to wake me up,” I tell him.

“Okay. Okay,” he says, and shakes my hand on the deal.

Amritsar

2008-09-26T04:27:00.000-07:00

So here are some videos of the border ceremony and the parade we saw in Amritsar. There's also a link to my pictures of The Golden Temple and surroundings which completely don't do the place any justice.

Photos of Amritsar:
http://s458.photobucket.com/albums/qq302/vkrajewski/

On Unaccepted Charity

2008-09-25T05:04:00.000-07:00

Wednesday

As if something or someone were trying to prove a point to me, I spend Wednesday sweating my brains out. Is it hot in the office, or is this a symptom, a sign?

Palminder drives me home and as I walk into the Ahuja Residency, the shaky feeling is less bad than it has been. I’ve looked the thing in the face and told it, “I know what you are and you’re not going to scare me.”

Up in my room, I decide to test out the pepper spray my sister-in-law sent me to have when I walk to the market by myself at night. Comically, it has “American Defender” emblazoned on the side of its casing. She said it has a kind of safety on it like a barbeque grill lighter, but I can’t find it. I depress the pump and push hard. A little burst of red liquid issues forth. I’m hoping it doesn’t drip down onto my purse when I realize I’ve sprayed it in front of the air conditioner—and the air conditioner has an oscillating vent in it—and it’s about to blow my way. I can feel it when I aspirate one or two tiny drops. The pepper spray works.

I run into the next room and stick my head in front of the other air conditioning unit trying to breathe in as much fresh air as I can. I think it’s going to get worse and start burning and making me cry, but it doesn’t. You must have to use a lot of it. I’ll make sure to be generous should the occasion arise.

After recovering from this small incident, I dig out the business card of Mohinder Singh, the man I met at Mister Kandhari’s kitty party who deals in international adoption. He told me at the party that he would take me to see an orphanage if I wanted to while I was here. I think I’d like to go.

I stare at the card for a while, debating whether I should call him. I wonder if he’ll remember me. He does. I ask if the offer still stands. He says we can go on Saturday. I should call him around ten o’clock. My plan is to buy up all the five rupee packages of biscuits that I can get my hands on from the drain vendor at work and bring them to the kids. I concocted this plan last night before I fell asleep.

After we hang up, I grab my pepper-sprayed purse and head out towards the market. I only get a few feet past the Ahuja Residency gate when I see this small black dog with white feet trotting its way toward me. I stop and pet it. It looks young, maybe seven months old, and it’s so skinny. It must have worms or just be underfed. It’s loving the attention I’m giving it when a man walks up to me and says hello. Where am I from? I tell him I live about four hours from Chicago. Telling someone here you’re from Iowa typically doesn’t mean that much.

He wants to know what I’m here. How long have I been here? How much longer will I say? What do I do with my evenings?

“Pet stray dogs,” I say.

“But you must do more than this,” he wonders. I acquiesce. Yes. I walk to the market sometimes. I read. I write.

Don’t I get lonely, he asks.

I’m okay, I say. I’ve met a lot of nice people while I’ve been here.

Well we should go out sometime, he says. He can show me a nice club near here. He travels a lot for his business so he knows it can get boring; it can get lonely, especially in the evenings. He just spent three days in Duseldorf. There was nothing there to do, but he met a woman and became great friends with her. They will keep in touch now. She lives in Toronto.

He didn’t catch my name.

I’m Vicki.

I’m Fredi.

We shake. Do I want to join him for a walk in the park?

It’s nice outside and there are plenty of people around. Plus now I’m confident in my pepper-spraying skills, so I figure I’ve nothing to lose.

I met the gentlemen who maintain this park, I say. He doesn’t know them. Too bad. They’re very nice. We do a few laps around the little paved pathway and the little dog scrambles behind us, ears flopping happily.

Have I gotten to see much of India? Yes. I’ve been to Agra and Himachal Pradesh and Amritsar. What about Mumbai or Goa? Maybe next time, I say. I’ve had no time to make it down there.

Well I should go before I leave. He’ll take me. He has an apartment right on the beach in Goa. He’ll pay for everything. I’ll be his guest. It’ll be a great time. Three days right on the beach. He has speakers outside so there’s music. The whiskey will be flowing. It’ll be crazy. It’s freaky. He’ll show me a freaky time, he says. Freaky. And I won’t have to worry about any expenses. He’ll be my host in India and when he comes to the United States, I can be his host.

“Well I don’t have any apartment on the beach,” I tell him.

Where do you stay? he asks.

“Me and my husband have a townhouse,” I specify. He is not discouraged.

“If God gives you a good life, you should enjoy it, you know? Let’s go to Goa.”

I tell him thanks but I don’t think I have time.

Time? What time? It’s just three days. What’s three days? I should do it.

I tell him I can’t, but thanks.

Why not? I should at least think about it.

Okay, I say because I am so bad at just saying no and I’ve already tried two times. I’ll think about it.

He is finally satisfied.

I tell him I have to go, but it was nice meeting him.

He says he’ll take me out to dinner tomorrow night or Friday. He’ll give me a call at the guesthouse. I might just be busy when Freaky Fredi calls back. I shake his hand and walk out of the park. “I feel lucky to meet you,” he tells me. “I really mean it. It’s just too bad we didn’t meet sooner.”

Well it’s not every day a girl gets an all expenses paid vacation offered to her, even if it is from Freaky Fredi.

The little black dog follows me out of the park and rubs its head against my leg. I can’t say I feel unloved tonight. The dog looks so starved I decide to feed him my leftovers. I walk the half-block back to the guesthouse and the dog follows me. I tell the guard and his friends that I’m going upstairs to get some leftovers for the dog. The guards say, “Already lunch here today.” They fed the dog lunch at the guesthouse. I ask if they think the dog will stay while I go upstairs. “Yes, yes,” they say, “two days already.”

I get the Swagarth leftovers from the night of the bombing. They’re pretty tired but still okay to eat, especially for a stray dog. I go downstairs and the dog and the guards are all waiting expectantly. I put a little food down and the dog actually eats it. The guard finds an old board that I can put the rest of the food on without making a mess of the pavement in front of the guesthouse.

We all watch as the little dog has its dinner. He likes the mixed veggies and paneer, but only picks at the okra. One of the men makes a joke about the dog not being a vegetarian. They chuckle.

I walk off toward the market hoping to avoid Freaky Fredi, and I do. Mister Kandhari is sitting in his courtyard. He waves for me to come talk to him. I ask him how the election went. He was elected to the committee, but Mister Singh and his other friend were not. It’s too bad. Mister Singh seemed so excited about it. That stinks.

“How is everything going,” he asks me.

“It’s going good,” I tell him. Just then a car with two old men pulls up.

“My friends are here,” he says. He has to go. I get up to leave and ask him if his daughter is in town. “Yes,” he says. “You should meet her. Come tomorrow. Come tomorrow morning or evening… Come tomorrow evening,” he finally decides.

“What time?” I ask him.

“Eight o’clock,” he says.

His friends are walking into the courtyard as I’m leaving.

“Hello, American Beauty,” says a smiling old man in a blue turban. His comment isn’t creepy. It’s grandfatherly, like he could pinch my cheeks if I let him.

If a girl needed her ego stroked, tonight was the night. With an offer of a free trip to the ocean and a salutation like that, how can I feel like less than a woman? I fold my hands and bow my head in greeting, laughing and saying hello, good to see you.

At the market I figure on another veg burger and rose milk soda. As I’m walking to Kent’s, I see this little blonde dog with his tail tucked between his legs cowering between the moving cars. He looks so lonely. I walk behind the car he’s hidden behind wondering if he’ll be scared or if he’ll want some attention. He acts like he was just waiting for someone to notice him and love him. He presses his head against my leg and follows me every time I try to walk away. I feel like the patron saint of stray dogs tonight. I think I’d like to round them all up and get them the veterinary care they need and give them a huge, green farm with plenty of food and nice places to play.

At the outdoor stand, I order a rose milk soda and a veg burger and ask for two pieces of bread for the dog. “There is no charge for the bread,” the man at the register tells me. I feel like I’m having one of those Pay It Forward moments where an act of kindness begets another one. Only here they call it karma.

The men hand me two pieces of bread in a little plastic bag. I break it up and hand it to the skinny dog whose ribs and hips are sorely visible. In typical Indian starving dog fashion, he refuses. He just wants me to scratch his head.

After the men were nice enough to give me the bread, I feel slightly embarrassed. I hold it out for the dog who just yanks his nose away from it. I wonder if this is something how Freaky Fredi felt when I told him I wouldn’t go to Goa. Why won't you go to Goa? Why don’t you want this bread? It’s perfectly fine bread!

I thank the men anyway and tell them I know another dog who will appreciate it, so their gift won’t go to waste.

On the way back to the guesthouse, the little black dog is hanging out with the guards who click at him and talk to him. I offer him the bread but he refuses it too. The mixed veggies must have filled him up.

As a last resort, I break it up for the birds and put it out on my balcony. Somewhere, somehow, something will eat this bread. I refuse to let it go to waste.

I hope the kids at the orphanage will eat the biscuits I’m bringing them on Saturday. If not, there are going to be some really fat birds at the Ahuja Residency.

I Have India

2008-09-24T02:25:00.000-07:00

Tuesday

Tuesday nothing happens again.

Nothing has happened since the beginning of July, reproductively speaking. I have not had my period since the week I arrived in India.

I’ve been nagged by this fact but choosing to ignore it, put off thinking about it, worrying about it, but on Tuesday there is nothing else to think about: nothing but this lack, this emptiness, this maddening nothing. I keep waiting and waiting, but nothing happens.

I tell Scott about this on our morning Skype call. It’s nothing, he’s sure. It’s just my body freaking out because of the time difference and the travel. It will all be fine once I get home, but I’m worried it won’t be. What if it’s not?

By the time I get home from work, I’m shaking like I was the day before. I can’t name the reason, but I know it in my heart. It's a dark shadow that's been tracking me at a distance. It's a diffuse cloud of anxiety that is now seeping into my room. I try to think about something else. I try to read, but I can’t concentrate. I think today is the day I need to face this thing down. It’s been coming to get me and now it’s here. I need to acknowledge its presence in the room. I remember my mother telling me something about early menopause years ago, but it can’t have been this early. It can’t have been. Or can it? I should call her, but I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear it. It’s just a few missed periods. Everything will be fine. But I’m afraid that it won’t be.

I look up the symptoms of menopause on the Internet. For the first time ever, it doesn’t seem like I have what I’m afraid of--or is that just a refusal to admit what I'm afraid of? I haven’t been feeling hot flashes, or have I? How would I know in the hundred-degree heat and humidity of India? I have had spells where I begin to sweat profusely in the air conditioning. But that can’t be a hot flash, can it? I look up the consequences of early menopause: more years spent with an increased risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, gum disease, incontinence, forgetfulness. I can lose my teeth and my hair will grow thin. Basically, I’ll be the crypt-keeper a year from now. Basically, I’m drying up from the inside out and getting ready to die.

What kind of cruel joke is being played on me that I just start beginning to feel like I could handle having a child and the physical capability to do so is taken away from me? Why does every baby I see suddenly look at me with adorable, longing, big wet eyes and wait for me to smile at it? How could this have happened?

Maybe it didn’t. Maybe Scott is right. It’s nothing. But it doesn’t feel like nothing. It feels like Nothing.

I decide to walk to the market, and maybe I’ll see Mister Kandhari or pet my dogs on the way. Maybe they’ll make me feel better, or at least distract me. Mister Kandhari isn’t home and the dogs are busy getting fed by a boy on a bicycle with a metal can full of something they apparently love.

I’m not hungry so I do a few laps in front of the shops. I go to the chemists and buy a pack of Mebex: the medicine Susie told me to take for worms.

A voice inside my head repeats, “Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so. Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so,” and I feel better. I feel the kara on my wrist and think, “How can I be so worried about myself when there are so many other people in the world? Why don’t I just think about others?” I am comforted just by looking into the faces of the people passing me by. Things could be so much worse. I am so privileged. But even if I weren’t, I would still be me. I would still be okay.

I think of this book I read by the Dalai Llama on a plane trip down to Florida. It said the human condition is one of suffering. Every human being suffers, and every human has in common with every other human the want to escape this suffering, the want of enjoyment and happiness. I feel bound in this way to everyone I walk past. We are all bound.

The lump in my throat smoothes itself. I walk to Sagar and the doorman greets me. The waiter seats me. I start to order but the waiter interrupts and asks me how I am. It’s the same waiter I had yesterday. He smiles when I tell him I’m good.

I order a sweet lassi and paper masala dosa. It’s the giant, crispy pancake that comes with all the dipping sauces. It’s not my imagination that my pancake is extra big today, like three feet long. The woman sitting next to me orders the same thing and hers is only two-thirds the size of mine. I think they made me an extra special pancake. I feel bad when I can’t finish it.

I buy some paan at the counter that I figure I can either share with or drop off at Mister Kandhari’s place on the way home.

The dogs aren’t out tonight for me to pet, and Mister Kandhari isn’t home. His daughter-in-law is on her way out of the house as I walk past and she tells me I can just give the paan to the guard. It was sweet of me to bring it.

Back at home I think of calling my mother, but my computer is ringing before I have the chance. She tells me all about how the cousins from Texas were staying with her because they were evacuated in the wake of Hurricane Ike. Their kids are so cute, she says. And so polite. She tells me about my niece, Kathryn, and how much she’s eating now.

I tell her I have a question for her.

“Uh oh,” she says.

“When did you get menopause?”

“Really early,” she says.

“When?” I say.

“Why?” she asks.

“How old were you?”

“Thirty two,” she says. Thirty two. That’s two years younger than I am right now. I tell her what’s happening to me and she says that’s exactly what happened to her. Her period just stopped. She’d get it once every couple of months, then it just stopped altogether. But it was kind of nice not to get it, she says.

“Yeah, but you already had kids,” I say.

“Oh, did you want kids?” I’d always said I didn’t, but lately I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve always kind of envisioned myself adopting, but I thought as a back-up I could have my own kid. Now I have no back-up plan.

She says they can do things. They can give me hormones. I should just see a doctor when I get back. I’ll be fine. And I will be. But I’ll be different. When people told me India would change me, this was not one of the changes I had in mind. But at least I’ve been able to make an occasion of it. At least I have this wealth of new experiences to enrich me instead of just feeling impoverished, instead of just feeling grief and loss.

So I may not have a child, but I do have India.

Gopi and Worms

2008-09-24T00:44:00.000-07:00

Monday

There are two people in the car this morning. Palminder sits in the passenger seat and a bearded young man with fluffy hair, Gopi, sits behind the wheel. He explains to me he’s driving today because Palminder is very sick. Poor Palminder. He can’t just stay home and sleep. He has to ride along with us, presumably to show Gopi the route.

At work, Amar asks me how my trip was. I tell him it was wonderful. The Golden Temple was amazing. He recalls being a child in 1984 and hearing that two Sikhs had assassinated the prime minister. At the time, Sikhs were fighting against the Indian government for independence. He says there were some terrorists who took over the Harmandir and the Prime Minister sent the army up to disburse them. In return for what the Sikhs saw as an attack, the Prime Minister’s two Sikh bodyguards turned on her and killed her. Amar remembers his school principal crying.

This is certainly a different view of the Sikhs. I have to make room for this information in my schema. Things are peaceful now, it’s clear. But at one point, not so long ago, certain Sikhs were regarding themselves as freedom fighters and others were regarding them as terrorists. “We are a martial people,” Mister Singh told me. I wonder how the peace was made, if the horror of this assassination was enough to quell those clamoring for their own state.

At lunch there is a cauliflower and potato subzi. I don’t think it’s bad, but Amar says it’s undercooked. After lunch, I’m talking to Shabnum and Yajnaseni walks up holding her stomach and whining. Lunch was so bad. It wasn’t cooked. She hopes there were no worms in the cauliflower. At least if it’s cooked, the worms are dead.

Worms?

Great.

We take our post-lunch walk as I ponder what I can do at this point to kill the possible worms in my stomach. How about a lot of hot coffee? How about some of that Indian after-dinner chew stuff? It’s supposed to be good for the digestion. I admit to myself that if there were worms, I probably can’t kill them on my own. I’ll probably need drugs. I'll have to email Susie and ask her for the name of that medicine when I get back to my desk.

Shabnum’s excited about the Pearson book sale coming up this Saturday. Am I going? I probably won’t, I say. I don’t have any room left in my luggage as it is, let alone the prospect of stuffing heavy books into it.

You should go anyway, Shabnum says. It’s really something to see, Jonaki agrees.

Maybe I’ll just go to browse then, I say. But Shabnum says there is no browsing. There’s climbing and yelling. The sale takes place twice a year in a warehouse where a giant pile, a heap of unsold books, is unloaded onto the floor. You get there at about nine in the morning and you have to climb up the side of the pile and start digging for books that look good to you. Last year Jonaki took off her shoes so she wouldn’t harm the books and then almost lost them in a landslide as she scrambled up the side of the pile.

Angshuman usually gets there early and digs a hole for himself in the pile. He picks up good books and calls the titles out to see if anybody wants them. The books are all, like, fifty cents a piece.

This sounds like an interesting event: something that might be the bonus round on a Japanese game show. I still don’t know if I’ll go, though. I wanted to sit in on Mister Singh’s daughter’s yoga class this Saturday morning. Yoga or book diving? It’s a tough choice.

I thought that Gopi told me he was going to drop Palminder off during the day, and he’d be driving me home by himself in the evening, but Palminder is still sitting in the passenger seat. I get in the car and we take off. I can see that Gopi, like Palminder and Sonu, is a Sikh. He seems to have pretty good English, so I tell him about my weekend trip. “I went to Amritsar,” I say. “And I bought a kara!” I hold up my arm and show him my bracelet. He seems excited about it. How did I like it? he wants to know. Did I go to the Wagaugh Border too?

Gopi is chatty all the way home. He tells me he lives in Punjab about 30 kilometers from Amritsar. His father farms wheat and rice. He has three sisters and a brother. He’s not married, but his number is up. It’s his turn. He points out sights as we pass them. This is the Akshardam Temple. It’s beautiful. Very beautiful. And here is a Sai Temple. Sai Baba.

I wonder how sick Palminder is and if Gopi will be my new driver for the rest of my stay. Not that I want Palminder to be sick, but Gopi is so much more friendly and helpful. Through all our conversation, Palminder sits silently with a familiar blank look on his face.

Gopi drops me off and I give both him and Palminder a tip. “Thank you, madam,” Gopi says and smiles, like he’s totally surprised to get a tip at all. Palminder just grabs the money and says nothing.

Gopi tells me tomorrow it will just be him picking me up. I say that’s just fine.

I spend the evening petting my dogs and having a mixed veg uttapum at Sagar. I think they finally recognize me when I walk in. It only took about three months.

God Versus Pizza

2008-09-23T05:09:00.000-07:00

Sunday

Our wake up call comes right on time. Katie and Julianne don’t exactly jump out of bed. I can’t let myself lay back down because I know I’ll fall back asleep. This was the first sound sleep I’ve had since Wednesday night. Thursday night I was all worried about the trip and Friday night was the long, sleepless train ride.

We get ready and make it down to the lobby by four thirty. Our driver is waiting with the brown Vanagon. Susie and Sarah are nowhere to be found. We sit and wait. I’m antsy. We didn’t leave ourselves a lot of extra time. I wonder if I should go upstairs and check on them. I check the time. It’s just four thirty five. Still, we need to catch the train by five. Julianne says it’s fine. They’re coming. The driver says, “Late?” and this is all I need. There is no way I’m missing this train because I was being patient. I jump out of the van and run up the stairs. As I ascend to the second floor, I see that Susie and Sarah are on their way down. It’s okay. We won’t be late.

The driver drops us off at the station. We really were only ten minutes away from it like Susie said. The ride seemed so much longer to me yesterday morning for some reason. Maybe it was my lack of sleep the night before.

The Amritsar station actually has signs above the platforms, so it’s easy to find our train. Once again, my seat isn’t with my friends’ seats, only this time it’s worse. I’m not even in the same car. The place I’m supposed to be sitting is all the way down on the other side of the long train. My friends are in car twelve; I’m in car forty three. I decide I’ll just follow them into their car and sit by them, then when the porter asks for my ticket, I’ll ask if I can switch like I did before.

This train, the Shatabdi, is much nicer than the Chattisgarh. The seats are plush and clean and recline. I sit down next to Susie and the next thing I know, I wake up with a little tea service in front of me. There is a thermos and cream and sugar and a little package of biscuits. The tea even tastes good. I barely finish it when the porter comes by to clear it. I fall back asleep and wake up again when they are bringing us breakfast. There are little potato puffs and green beans with carrots. They pass out more tea and liters of water and mango juice. This train is nice. We should have taken the Shatabdi to get there too, but my friends wanted to save the money on a hotel for Friday night by taking the overnight train, and I joined the trip after these plans were already made. Who knew the Chattisgarh would be such a clunker anyway? I guess you just have to go to find out.

The trip is six hours total and we arrive right on time in Delhi. Susie stays behind in the station with Sarah and Katie. She needs to buy a ticket for something while she’s here.

Julianne and I walk out front. We’re going to try to split an auto-rickshaw ride since Defence Colony is pretty much on the way to Greater Kailash. There are all kinds of taxi and auto wallahs asking us if we want rides. Julianne says no to all of them until we get to the lane of green auto-rickshaws. They’ll take us for 120 rupees. Sounds good to me, but Julianne says no. They’ll take us for the metered price, but they’ll start the meter at 20 rupees. Sounds okay to me, but Julianne says “Why? There’s no reason they should start the meter at 20.” She walks to the prepaid auto booth and tells the man we need a ride to Defence Colony and Greater Kailash. He says, “No. Only one place.” So she tells him Greater Kailash since it’s farther. He writes up a bill for 68 rupees. We worry that the auto wallah will harass us when we try to go to two places instead of one, but he drops us both off without any problem. It pays to be persistent. So it only pays, like, the two American dollars we saved by going through the extra hassle, but still, it pays.

I am so relieved to be back at the Defence Colony. Even though it’s two in the morning back home, I call Scott. He told me to call him when I got back so he’d know I was okay. I surprise myself by getting totally choked up when I hear his voice. I can barely speak to him. That someone would want to talk to me at two in the morning is so sweet. And he’s not even groggy or crabby. He wants to know how my trip went and what I saw, and all I can do is bawl because he’s so caring and I’m so thankful for him.

I hang up with Scott and compose myself. I unpack my bag and flop down on my bed with the book on the Golden Temple that Mister Singh lent to me. It’s even better to look at the pictures and read about it now that I’ve actually been there. I didn’t have time to read a lot of the history before I went, so I’m catching up, getting the details of the Sikh’s struggle against the Mughals, then against British rule and finally against the Indian government.

I’ve only read a few pages when the phone rings. It’s Mira. She says, “Mister Singh call.” I thank her. I figure I’ll walk to the market and get a thank you gift for him, then stop by on my way home. I walk out and see Mister Singh standing outside my gate. Oh. He was calling in person. I’m glad I decided to come out.

He wants to know how the temple was. And the hotel. And the driver. Did the owner take care of us? He was supposed to take care of us. Did we have everything we needed? Were the rooms okay?

Yes, everything was wonderful. It was a perfect weekend trip, thanks for Mister Singh. I can’t thank him enough.

Good then. He is satisfied. We shake hands and he walks off back to C-82 while I go to the market. I find a basket of biscuits at the Defence Colony Bakery and buy a little decorated envelope at the stationery store. I think the envelope comes with a card, but when I get it home, I find there is none. I have to cut up a bag I got from a boutique to make the thank you card, but when I do, it’s cute. It looks like expensive paper. I thank Mister Singh for sharing his faith with me and for planning the trip for my friends and me. I tell him I will remember it for the rest of my life.

I will.

I take the basket and the card and drop it off with his guard, then return home where I watch a bad American movie about some college students who build a nuclear bomb. I had planned to catch up on my blogging, but this is just the brainless respite I need.

I’m about to take a shower when the young guy who helps clean my room knocks on my door. “C-82,” he says. I lock my door and walk outside. Mister Singh’s guard is waiting in the street for me. He ushers me into the courtyard. From the entrance I can see that Mister Kandhari and another man are sitting in Mister Singh’s living room.

“We have just been to the gurudwara for the election,” Mister Singh tells me. I see that my card is sitting out on his couch. They are all three running for some committee. They’re waiting for the results. They should receive a call in about an hour.

Mister Kandhari is beaming. “So?” he asks. “How was your trip? You didn’t come see me to tell me. I introduce you to my friend and you didn’t come see me!” I didn’t know I was supposed to. I tell him the trip was wonderful and the temple is amazing. “Is there anything like it?” he asks. No. There isn’t. It is one of a kind.

“Yes, she has given me a certificate,” Mister Singh says, referring to the thank you note I wrote him. He has already shown it to his friends.

His daughter-in-law brings us tea with ginger in fancy little cups and serves some of the biscuits I bought him. They tell me about the election. The third man’s son was just elected president. They are all very happy.

Mister Singh gets out another large picture book on the Guru Granth Sahib. Would I like to borrow it? Do I have time to read it? I actually do. I am interested in learning more about the hymns Sikhs sing. He tells me not to keep it with my shoes. To keep it nice. It’s a nice book. I assure him I’ll treat it well. He gets out another book that he’s sharing with his friend. It’s entitled “Essays on Sikh Values.” He says he reads it for about ten minutes each morning. There’s an interesting piece on Sikhism and yoga. Most Sikhs don’t practice yoga as part of their spirituality, but this piece talks about how the ancient practice and the religion are compatible. His daughter-in-law takes yoga classes. Am I interested in coming? A man comes to the house to teach her every morning at nine. I could come on Saturday. I wouldn’t have to pay or anything. They already take care of the fee.

That would be wonderful. I’ve been wanting to take some yoga classes in India but when I called the yoga centre, no one spoke English. “Hindi, madam. Hindi, madam,” was all I could make out.

“I have made some three new gardens,” Mister Kandhari tells me. I tell him I thought he had no more space, which is what he told me the last time I asked him if he was going to make something new.

“I know,” he says, smiling. “No space, but I just get in my head and I have to make. I have ideas in my head and I must make them. What can I do?” he asks.

“We’re going to go to Mister Kandhari’s house. Would you like to come with us?” Mister Singh asks. Okay. Why not.

Even though it’s just about a block away, we get into Mister Singh’s car and drive over. We sit in Mister Kandhari’s courtyard and he shows us his new compositions. There is one with a pine-looking tree in the middle and three straight rocks that rise up around it. He is fond of these rocks because they look like animals, especially the one on the left. You can see it has two eyes and ears and a nose. “Very clear. Very clear.”

He gets up and waters his garden, aided by his house helper who untangles the hose for him. He finishes and tells his house helper to move this newest piece with the animal figures in it up against the wall. I think to myself it seems to be balanced quite precariously on a tiny bucket. Just after I have this thought, it falls, mud going everywhere and the rocks falling out of their places. This is much like the moment when Mister Kandhari rammed the whole side of his car against that concrete pole. He is completely un-phased. He just tells his house helper to scoop up the dirt and stick the rocks back in the way they were. He steps away to water some more.

Just then I notice a flyer laying on his garden table. It’s for Dominos Pizza. I haven’t tried Dominoes yet, and pizza sounds kind of good to me tonight. I pick up the flyer.

Mister Singh says there’s a raga, a hymn, and the words to it are, “God, how can we know all your virtues?”

I’m looking at the flyer and noticing that the Dominos number is really easy to remember. It’s four four’s and four eights. Four four’s and four eights. I can remember this and order pizza tonight.

“God, how can we know all your virtues when we know our own faults? We know our own faults.”

Four four’s and four eights. A fault of mine would be that I’m totally obsessing about pizza right now. I guess it’s true; we do know our own faults.

Mister Kandhari returns to the sitting area. The men have to leave. They are going to the gurudwara to find out about the election. If they were meant to serve God in this way, they will win. If they were meant to serve in some other way, they will not win. Either way it’s fine.

I shake their hands and wish them luck. Mister Singh says, “I’m not worried,” and offers to drop me off at home. I can walk. It’s okay, I tell him. His friend wonders if I know how to get home. It makes me feel good that I do. Even if it’s only a radius of a few blocks, I have the Defence Colony C Block all figured out. Amritsar, now, that's a different story. I would have been lost without my friends of superior navigational prowess. But the rickshaw wallahs would have helped me out. There's always someone around to help, it seems.

I return to my room and decide not to order pizza after all. I’m in the mood for a rose milk soda and a veg burger from Kents. I can get pizza any time. The days are numbered when I will be able to enjoy my rose milk sodas.

The Golden Temple

2008-09-23T03:46:00.001-07:00

Saturday

We climb off the train and into the station at Amritsar. In the middle of the platform are large piles of burlap sacks and black metal trunks. Freight cargo. I walk behind Susie and Sarah. They seem to know where they’re going. How, I have no idea. But they walk quickly and with purpose. We come into a large room in the middle of which is a scale model of the Golden Temple, just like Mister Singh described. Standing right next to the model is a man in a turban holding a sign: “Mr. Vicki,” just like Mister Singh described. We greet him and he turns and walks quickly across the street. Outside there is a large red billboard that reads “Welcome to Amritsar.” There’s no thinking we’ve gotten off at the wrong place.

There is some discussion about what we want to do. I’d like to go to the hotel and check in. Susie and Sarah don’t know if we can, but they say we can try. Most places won’t let you check in this early, but this is what Mister Singh told me to do. “You can reach there, then go to the hotel to wash up, then go see the temple right away.”

The driver leads us toward a large brown van that looks a lot like a Volkswagen Vanagon. There is plenty of room for the five of us to climb in. There is no air conditioning, but it’s improbably not that hot and the breeze from the open windows more than suffices.

Ten minutes later, we are at our hotel: the Sitara Nawas. There is a lobby with wooden doors and flowers and a marble front desk. The clerk gives us two keys and leads us to the third floor. One room has two beds and the other room right across the hall has three beds. It’s perfect.

The rooms are neat and clean and have fans and air conditioning that works quickly. There is a proper shower and a toilet “sealed for your protection” just like a hotel in the US might have. It’s a nice place. The sign in the lobby posted rates of four thousand rupees per night. Mister Singh told me we’d be paying eight hundred. I can hardly believe it. In fact, I’m ready for the bait-and-switch like Raju gave us, with the magically raising rates at the last minute. Only time will tell.

We go down to the lobby and begin the laborious check in process. We each need to fill in a page in this large book that asks for our address, our passport number and all the details of our visits to India. How long have we been here? When are we leaving? Why are we here? It feels like it takes an hour just to complete this, but it can’t have taken that long because we’re off towards the Golden Temple by ten o’clock.

We can see the temple from around the corner of the hotel. We’ll be able to walk there from here, which is a good thing because our driver seems to have vanished when we walk out front to find him.

Susie and Sarah walk out front again, leading the way down Amritsar’s narrow streets through shops and shacks set right up against the road. Amritsar is a very different city than Delhi. It’s a lot smaller for one thing. The roads are so narrow that cars don’t really drive on them save for the occasional taxi. This makes it nicer to be a pedestrian here. You can walk on the paved roads without much dodging and without getting stuck in piles of rubble at their sides. There are no sides of the roads; the shop fronts come right up and stop at the drains. It also seems, as Amar was saying, that men don’t pee in public here. The only time I smell urine on the streets is when we pass the “public convenience,” a public bathroom set in from the road.

Susie takes us to Lucky Tea Stall, a place I would never have occasioned on my own, but it seems okay once we sit down. The parathas we eat are so hot that, like the surface of the sun, no bacteria could survive there. Everybody chows down, but I can’t finish. I’m just not hungry. The chai is excellent, though, and mine is gone as quickly as I can drink the steamy, sweet drink.

The Lucky Tea Stall is just a block away from the Golden Temple’s gate. We snap some pictures of the proprietor and each other, and walk off toward the gate. I take the orange bandana that Mister Singh gave me from my purse and tie it over my head. The rest of the girls are wearing dupatta, and they wrap these around their heads. Once they do this, they look so Indian it’s hard to keep track of them in the crowd, especially from behind where I invariably find myself trailing along.

We find the shoe check and pass in our sandals in exchange for a token with a number on it. Next we walk through the footbath which is constantly fed with clean water. Unlike the one at Bangla Sahib, this footbath seems to be doing its job. It’s a bit dangerous, though, to walk on the solid marble with wet feet, and Susie almost looses her footing. We pass through an arch and see the glistening golden building appear before our eyes. “Oh my gosh,” I say taken aback, “It’s so beautiful.” I have to stop for a moment just to take it in, but my friends are moving on and I can’t get separated, so I move on as well.

The gurudwara is framed by an external gate that is all white marble with arches and domes. This white marble building is huge. It easily spans a full kilometer. Inside, the ground is solid white marble with varied geometric patterns of black and brown inlaid into it. This walkway around the temple is also easily a kilometer. The Golden Temple itself rises out of a square salowar, or bathing pool, in which you can see its reflection from any vantage point.

We walk along the white marble pathway towards the entrance of the Harmandir, the gleaming building in the center leafed in real gold. For all the conflict that the Sikhs have seen, threats of extermination from the Mughals and freedom fighting that culminated in an ugly assassination of the prime minister in the 80s, this place exudes a true majesty and peace.

If I have ever seen a palace built for God, it is it. The reverence that Sikhs have for their one true deity finds a sublime expression in the architecture here, its design and art and opulence. There are other temples I’ve visited where I feel like the money spent on the temple has impoverished the spirit of the worshipping done there, that the contrast between the richness of the building and the poverty of the worshippers is a sin in itself. The Golden Temple doesn’t feel this way, for although the building is ornate and exorbitant, the Sikhs give shelter to the homeless and feed the hungry three times a day at the huge langar where the metal plates never stop clanking. Thousands of people of any caste or creed eat here for free every day. Hundreds of people sleep here. And it’s all staffed by volunteers.

People bathe and wade in the salowar, which is supposed to have the power to heal lepers. Men stand at the corner with skimmers and clean the pool. We round the far corner and get in the long line of people waiting to enter the Harmandir. Susie and Sarah somehow take the express lane and blow past Julianne and Katie and me. We see them in the stream of people coming out of the temple before we even get in. They’ll wait by the exit, they tell us, as they walk past.

A beautiful baby with big, dark eyes is really interested in me. He smiles every time I look at him and wave. He stares at me and stares at me from his mother’s arms, waiting for me to look back and smile.

Women push past with browned leaves. I suppose these are offerings of some kind. I can see the man at the exit with a big bowl of Prasad (a.k.a. the brown goo), handing it out to everyone who walks past.

Finally, the man at the entrance lifts the orange cord and lets us enter. The inside of the building, impossibly, is more ornate than the outside. I don’t even know where to look.

Sarah said I shouldn’t take pictures inside, so I have only my recollection and the book Mister Singh lent me to furnish the details. Here’s how the book describes the inside. It does a better job than my memory could.

The lower floor “is faced with marble panels inlaid with exuberant and whimsical designs and motifs—from geometrics and abstracts to arabesques, flowers, foliage, fish, animals and a few human figures. Onyx, mother-of-pearl, lapis, lazuli, red carnelian and other semi-precious and colored stones are used in the inlays.” There are 300 fresco paintings. The walls are covered from top to bottom in detailed gach and tukri work. In gach, artisans crush gypsum and water and fry it into a paste. The paste is then applied to the wall and designs are etched out of it. Next, the designs are filled with gold leaf. In tukri, pieces of colored or mirrored glass are cut and laid into the gach to form patterns and reflections.

The first floor walls are marble, but from the ceiling up, the walls are gold-plated copper with jewels and mirrors and intricate patterns carved into them. Gold, silver, copper and brass are all used in the designs. It is the most ornate and intricate building I’ve ever seen. Every square inch is covered in some sort of wild design and color. There’s no way to take it all in, but the total effect of it is staggering. I think it’s the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen.

On the ground floor in the center is the Guru Granth Sahib, the enormous, handwritten Sikh holy book. There appears to be another copy of it on the second floor, and also in the small shrine on the roof. Lyrics from this book are sung constantly. All of the versus contained within are set to song and sung in the classical raga style at appropriate times of day.

The Harmandir is crowded on the inside. It’s hard to find a place to sit, but we do. The baby and his mother sit right in front of us, but the baby is no longer interested in me. There’s too much else to look at, I guess.

I am simply overwhelmed. I can’t concentrate. There’s too much gold and jewels and people and inlaid marble. Mister Singh said maybe I could sit here for an hour and meditate, but even if I didn’t have my friends with me, I’m not sure I could meditate here. It’s just too much. I wave goodbye to my baby friend and his mother and we walk up the second set of stairs onto the roof. We look around a bit here and decide we’ve seen enough. We walk down the marble stairs and out past the man handing out Prasad. None of us take the offering.

We walk out and meet Susie and Sarah who have been patiently waiting for us back at the marble walkway. On the way out we pass the 400-year-old Beri tree that Mister Singh told me about. It’s a huge thing and who cares if it isn’t really 400 years old. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. It’s a good story. Baba Buddha, the first head priest of the Harmandir Sahib, sat under this tree while he supervised the construction of this temple that was first built 400 years ago, but has been razed three times only taking its present incarnation in the 1800s.

We get our sandals back and walk out into the streets. Susie buys some water and Katie and Sarah get lime sodas. I find a booth selling karas, the metal bracelets worn by Sikhs to remind them to do good works. This tradition, unlike the “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelet fad, is 400 years old. I buy a kara for ten rupees. I figure I can use a reminder myself.

I follow Sarah and Susie through the streets of Amritsar. We’re walking next to Jaliwanwagah Bagh, the site of a British massacre of Indians in 1919. The British killed over 300 unarmed Indians amid a climate of gathering political tensions and Sikh threats of self-rule. They wanted their gurudwaras back.

This site is only a few blocks from our hotel as well. We walk the gardens, look at the Indian Oil-sponsored eternal flame and read the short biographies of some of the freedom fighters featured with their portraits in the Hall of Martyrs. These are people who attempted or carried out political assassinations in the name of independence. The deeds are dark. These are not simply victims. They are murderers who believed they were killing in the name of justice. The Hall of Martyrs is a complicated place.

At the front gate I find a kitten. I’m attempting to approach it when Susie and Sarah go running off down the alley that leads back to the street. There is a parade complete with a marching band of sorts. There aren’t really any floats. It’s just people in trucks and people on foot with drums and horns. We walk off after the parade ends. I’m not sure where we’re going, but I’m following. Finally I stop and ask. What are we doing?

We’re trying to retrace the path the taxi took in the morning. We passed a restaurant called The Brothers and Susie and Sarah think we should go there for lunch. I try to tell them that the restaurant Mister Singh recommended was called Two Brothers, but they’re not interested. They want to find this place. We walk and walk and I lose track of where exactly we are when we emerge from a narrow road into a traffic circle that I remember from the morning drive. They’ve found it. The Brothers restaurant is just up the road from here. We actually catch back up with the parade in time to see people standing on rooftops throwing showers of flower petals.

The restaurant says it’s dhaba food—not synonymous with haute cuisine—but I guess it’ll do, especially since we don’t have a driver to take us to the destination of our choice, which would be Two Brothers.

We order thalis, platters of food that come with a variety of subzis and dals. It’s like its own mini-buffet. The food’s okay, but really oily. This is a chief complaint among the people at work: Indian food is oily. Now I know what they’re talking about.

We eat and split the bill. Outside we debate: should we walk back or hire a rickshaw to drive us? The rickshaws in Amritsar are larger than the ones in Delhi. The five of us could fit into one quite comfortably. We decide to take the rickshaw. The auto wallah will drive us back to our hotel for thirty rupees. I show him the business card that the manager gave us when we checked in, and he knows exactly where to go.

We have a few hours to kill before we go to the Wagaugh Border ceremony, the next thing on Mister Singh’s list of things for us to do in Amritsar. There’s apparently some kind of changing of the guard every night on the India/Pakistan border, which is just thirty kilometers from where we are. He said the car he hired would take us there.

I take a shower and we watch tv and take naps. Then there is a knock at the door. It’s the owner of the hotel, Mister Narander Singh. He tells us that Mister Diljit Singh has called three times today to make sure we arrived safely and to see that the car service is okay and we have everything we need. Mister Narander Singh would like to make sure we are having a good time. Is there anything we need? He tells us that the car will be ready to take us to the border at four o’clock, then he offers us each a Coke. He says we should eat dinner at Crystal. The car will take us there after the border ceremony. Then when we come back, we can go see the Golden Temple all lit up and night. He’ll go with us if we like.

Our driver reappears at four and is ready to drive us to the border. We drive through lush green farmland: wheat and rice crops. There’s also a park with go-carts and water slides and several “palaces,” giant halls for weddings and other parties.

We park in a lot that is three inches thick with fine dust. It clouds up under our feet as we walk toward the gate to the border crossing. Dozens of vendors are hawking freshly popped popcorn, sodas and water. We get to the gate and are turned back. We can’t bring any purses or bags in. We have to leave them in the car.

We make our way back through the dust bowl parking lot and stow our purses under the seats in our brown Vanagon, except I can’t leave my wallet or my passport unattended. I don’t have any pockets and I don’t want to hold it loose, so I shove my passport down my shirt to keep it safe. This is fine except that I also start sweating buckets and I can feel its pages curling. As long as it gets me through the security at the airport, it doesn’t matter what it looks like or where it’s been.

There is stadium seating around the wide gate that marks the border with Pakistan. The India side is packed full of revelers. The Pakistan side has about twenty people sitting there. We think this is because it’s Ramadan and the Muslims in Pakistan are all waiting to break their fast. That or they just aren’t interested in this little border ceremony at all.

There is a street party going on. A crowd of young people dance to Punjabi music, waving their hands in the air and jumping up and down. It’s a wonder they have the energy to move at all in this late afternoon heat. The dancing goes on until the ceremony begins, when the children are ushered back to their seats and a line of guards dressed like peacocks in flood pants stomps out in front of the small brick building at the front of the bleacher seating. There is am emcee with a microphone. He chants “Hindustan!” and the crowd yells something back. A line of men at the back of the bleachers waves a row of large Indian flags. “Hindustan!” chants the man in the pink shirt that is drenched in sweat. “Hindustan!”

Then there is something of a shouting contest. The man in the wet pink shirt holds the microphone to the mouth of the first guard who lets out a yell for as long as he can sustain it. During this, there is a horn that comes from the Pakistan side. The Indian man yells a bit longer than the Pakistani can sustain his horn note. This happens a second time and a third. The crowd cheers wildly. Little boys walk through the bleachers selling DVDs of the ceremony.

Suddenly, the yelling man snaps into action and does this crazy, straight-armed power walk towards the gate that marks the border. Halfway there, he stops and kicks himself in the head. The crowd cheers. He stomps hard with his feet a few times, then continues his power walk toward the gate. I feel like I’m at a zoo trying to decode some strange animal behavior. What does it mean when he kicks himself in the head? Is this a display of authority or just of flexibility? One things for sure, it is one of the oddest displays I’ve ever seen.

The whole line of guards takes turns yelling and power walking and kicking themselves in the head and stomping, the crowd cheering and yelling the whole time. Eventually, the gates are opened and a giant, exaggerated handshake takes place between the guards of both countries. Then the Indian and Pakistani flags are lowered simultaneously. Then the Indian guards close the gate and do their crazy power walk back to the little brick building.

When the ceremony ends, people flock to the guards to get their pictures taken with them. There are so many people around that we can’t even get out of the crowd for a while. We just have to stand and wait.

Soon there’s a path we can squeak through and we make our way back to the car through the three-inch-deep dust. I have chosen to wear black pants and I can see the dirt just caking onto them.

The driver is waiting for us at the car where our purses are all completely safe. I take my wet passport out of my shirt and stick it back in my bag.

There is a little bit of a breeze as we drive through the dusky night back past the farmlands and the wedding halls. We all concur: the ceremony was not what we expected. But what ever is expected in India? If it wasn’t a surprise, that would be a surprise in and of itself.

We eat dinner at Crystal, the place the hotel owner recommended. It’s really good food at reasonable prices. There are large paintings that look something like copies of Toulouse Lautrec works: close ups of slightly garish people in bars holding beers and ordering waitresses around. Katie, our resident artist, says they’re interesting. She says the people look so awkward and uncomfortable. She laughs and says she’s inspired; she’s going to do a whole series of awkward paintings. “But who will buy them?” Susie asks. They’ll have to be for a gallery show, Katie says.

The driver takes us back to the hotel and I pick up the tab for his services. It only costs about twenty US dollars for all the schlepping he did for us all day: picking us up at the airport and taking us to the border and dinner and back.

We have to settle the bill for the hotel tonight as well because we’re leaving at 4:30 in the morning and none of us are prepared to get up even earlier than that to mess around with payment.

This is where I expect our bait-and-switch. I expect to find out that we will be paying thousands of rupees instead of the hundreds that Mister Singh promised. But the manager on duty writes up our bills for 800 rupees. Actually, for the room with three beds, they charge 1,000 rupees, which is even cheaper when split three ways. I can’t believe we actually got this enormous discount. We’ve paid less than a third of the posed rates for our rooms.

Sarah has been sneezing like crazy since the ceremony at the border, and she decides to go upstairs to bed. The rest of us take a walk over to the Golden Temple to see it at night. We check our shoes and walk over to the langar to see the large scale cooking operation going on. It is crammed with people coming for their evening meal. The metal plates clank and clank as people come and go.

Now that the sun has gone down, the evening has a slight coolness to it. It’s a beautiful night outside. We walk through the footbath and up to the arch that leads to the Harmandir. We take a few more pictures and Susie says, “Ready to go?” But I’m not. I say I’d like to walk around the perimeter. It’s so nice outside and the place feels so peaceful. I’ll never be here again. I’d like to enjoy it. Susie says help myself. I can meet her back at the stairs. But Julianne says she’ll walk with me and this seems to change Susie’s mind. We walk the kilometer or so around the cool marble balustrade, stopping to talk to friendly Sikhs and their wives who wonder where we’re from and what we’re doing in India.

Back at the hotel, they ask if we want a wake up call. I didn’t count on this convenience, but am glad for the offer. We need to get up at four in the morning in order to catch our train, which leaves at five.

Just in case, we all set our cell phone alarms as back-ups, then fall quickly asleep in the soft beds with the thick, fuzzy, flowered blankets courtesy of Mister Singh. Our visit wouldn’t have been so easy, so smooth and so enjoyable without him.

Prayers and Baksheesh

2008-09-22T03:49:00.000-07:00

Friday

I walk over to Shabnum’s desk and she has a site up on her computer monitor called Article Checker. It’s a Google service that lets you paste in a piece of writing, then it searches for content matches on the Internet. It’s basically a plagiarism checker. Just out of curiosity I try this with chapter six. It comes up with about a hundred different matches. Just when I thought I was done with chapter six, I find out there is a lot more work to be done. We have to flag all the copied content and send it back to the author to ask him to reword and revise.

Plagiarism is a common problem here. There isn’t the same kind of enforcement of intellectual property rights that exists in the United States. There is a whole market full of dubious DVDs that is affectionately known as “the pirate market,” and the stacks of books peddled in traffic, I’m sure, are unauthorized translations. There is a children’s movie in production right now called Hari Puttar—A Comedy of Terrors. Warner Brothers is suing the Indian producers who say they have no idea why. There is no copyright infringement going on.

Suffice it to say this is not the first time the office here has had to deal with such an issue. No one is shocked or surprised, though they are disappointed. It’s all part of the routine.

After lunch I take a walk with Shabnum and Jonaki and Preeta. Preeta says she’s going to go to the temple. The temple? I follow her. Just down the block from the nala vendors is a building that looks like a tiny version of Iskcon with orange and white spires rising out of it. This is a Sai mandir: a temple to Sai Baba. “You must have read about him,” Preeta says. Yes, I have. I checked him out online after a friend at Pearson told me a story about going to see Sai Baba at a crowded temple where he almost lost his shoes. Sai Baba is an Indian “saint” who is omnipresent, that is, he supposed to be able to appear in more than once place at the same time. But there is some confusion because there is more than one Sai Baba. There’s the one who this temple is to, who is deceased, then there’s the one my friend from Pearson actually saw, who has an afro and is still alive. He’s the one with the mystical powers of appearing all over the place.

Preeta tells me that this Sai Baba was all about unity. He believed in the universality of God and wanted to end the conflicts between Hindus and Muslims. She tells me that the shrine in this temple is open every Thursday. She used to come every week until she got too busy at work. The best Sai temple in Delhi, she says, is in Noida. It’s the biggest one.

We retrieve our shoes at the door under the big brass bell where we left them and walk the two short blocks back to the office. Of course there’s a temple near the office. I don’t think you can be more than a few blocks from a temple or at least a shrine in all of Delhi.

I leave work a little early today in order to go home, pack and pick up my friends on the way to the train station for our Amritsar trip. I am home by five o’clock and ready to go by five twenty. I call Susie and let her know that I’m running early. Is it okay if I hang out at her place for a while? She says sure. I shove the last of my essential belongings into my backpack and tell Mira downstairs I am headed to Amritsar until Sunday. “Come back Sunday,” she repeats. Yes. I think she understands me, but it’s hard to say.

As I’m walking to the car, Mira calls to me over the balcony. “Where going?” she asks me. I repeat, “Amritsar.” She begins talking as she does, in no language known to man. I make out only the words market, bomb and be careful. Was there another bombing? I thank Mira for her warning and walk out to my ride.

We hit such bad traffic that I am not early in getting to Susie’s house after all. I’m glad I allowed so much extra time. Susie opens the door and I expect to see people ready with their bags. Instead, her roommate and her friend, Katie, are lounging on her couch, watching a movie on her laptop. They barely move when I come in. It’s as though the room is filled with Jello and everything inside is happening in slow motion. I realize just how piqued I’ve been when I hit this vibe. Everyone is so relaxed. I am their opposite, not having slept well the night before because I was worried about packing and worried about the train ride, just having downed another shot of espresso before leaving the office. I expect them to spring into action, to grab their bags, to busy themselves with checking if their place is ready to leave behind for their trip, but they just sit. “Hey, Vicki,” Sarah says from her place on the couch. Are her eyes half closed or am I imagining that?

“Was there another bombing?” I ask Susie as I take off my shoes at the door.

“No,” she says, “At least, I haven’t heard anything,” but then she turns on the news. There has been a shootout in South Delhi, it says. Two suspected terrorists have been killed. One cop is also dead. The shootout lasted for several hours. Two suspects were also arrested, and four fled the scene and remain at large. This must have been what Mira was talking about. Bullets were flying in an apartment complex not far from where I stay. Defence Colony is in South Delhi. Anyway, the shootout is over and there seems to be calm in the city at the moment. I am glad nothing else has blown up since last week Saturday. It seems that we can proceed with our travel as planned.

Julianne is at a meeting just across the colony from Susie’s place. We have to pick her up on the way. We all pile in to the Indica and stop at an apartment where Susanna’s banana yellow car is parked. Julianne comes down bearing the bangles I forgot at her apartment when I slept over last week. Somehow we smash four people into the small backseat and head out toward Nizamuddin Station, which everyone tells me is pretty close to where I stay.

It may be close in distance, but it takes forever to get there. The streets are clogged with cars. We are in the evening rush hour. We are parked on a flyover (which is what they call overpasses here) for over an hour. Even though I set out from my office at four thirty, I begin to wonder if we’ll make it to the train station by eight fifteen when our train is scheduled to depart.

Julianne wants to say a prayer for our trip. We bow our heads and she asks God to keep us safe and thanks him for the time we’ll spend together. She asks that the situation with our seating works out too. She is so sweet to be thinking of me in her prayer. Susie bought the tickets for herself and Katie and Julianne and Sarah. I bought my tickets on my own, so the seats are not together. I will have to sit by myself on the train rides unless we can get someone to switch tickets with me. This prospect has been stressing me out, especially since I hear stories of the trains not being the safest place in India. Pickpockets and thieves find trains lucrative from what I hear. They’ll even poison you to get you to pass out so you’re easier to steal from. Then you wake up having missed your stop without your money or you cell phone. Amar told me this happened to a friend of his. He only got home again because he knew the porters on the train and they allowed him to ride for free and pay when he returned. Suffice it to say I would prefer not to be alone on the train, especially on the overnight ride up to Amritsar. This is another reason I didn’t sleep well last night.

We finally arrive at the train station just about twenty minutes before we are scheduled to depart. I’ve already spent over three hours in traffic just to prove that travel in India is always difficult.

We ascend a concrete staircase that leads to the platforms where the trains take off. There are stray dogs trotting all over. Men with suitcases on their heads weave through the other pedestrians. Down the stairs to another platform, a sea of women sits on the ground forming a rainbow of saris. It looks like a painting.

Nowhere are there signs saying which trains depart from which platforms, and we can’t find any attendants either. I am so glad I didn’t just try to meet my friends here as Susie suggested. There are no landmarks, there is no visible organization to the place: just people walking in all directions and a bunch of staircases leading to platforms without signage.

Sarah, Susie’s roommate, goes off to ask some guards in an office where we can find the 8:15 Chattisgarh Express. While she’s away, Susie asks another man who looks at our tickets and simply tells us the train isn’t here yet. An announcement comes on in half Hindi, half English. I hear the words “Chattisgarh Express” and “delayed twenty minutes.” There is a long list of trains and I keep hearing the words repeated, “delayed one hour… delayed one hour.”

“Did you hear that?” I ask Susie, but she wasn’t listening. Sarah returns and leads us past the sea of saris up the stairs again to where the dogs are running around. We walk down the opposite side and wait on a different platform. There is no train here, but Sarah seems assured that this is the place. A rat plays with some paper thrown onto the tracks. A man walks by selling small travel pillows. We stand in a circle and talk about movies. Katie and Susie used to watch a lot of movies in Hong Kong when they were teaching there together because there was nothing much to do in the evenings when they first arrived. They throw out quotes from Meet the Parents and talk about tv series they like: Bones and The Office and a crime drama I don’t recognize.

It doesn’t feel that hot outside, but somehow my hair and back are wet with sweat. “It’s humid,” Julianne says. I guess it is. I feel so gross and know I won’t get a chance to shower until tomorrow since we’re taking an overnight train. Whatever condition I am in now is how I’ll have to spend the night. Eew.

The blue striped train pulls up almost on time. We find our car and enter. It is dirty. It’s been on a trip before us and no one has cleaned it out yet. There are food trays left behind and garbage on the floor. There is a funky smell like rotten celery. I follow my friends to the seats they have and sit down with them even though my seat is several rows away. The seats are blue plastic benches. The car we’re in has an upper bunk and a lower bunk, though other cars in the train have bunks that are three layers deep. This one is supposed to be nicer. We’ve paid extra.

We sit and sit and nothing happens. The train doesn’t move from it’s spot. A porter comes by and leaves pillows and sheets in brown paper bags for each of us. Another man comes by and asks if we’d like to order food. Isn’t it included with the ticket? No. We have to pay extra if we want to eat. Forty rupees. Since it’s an overnight train and I’ve been travelling since forth thirty, I have to order something to eat, otherwise my dinner will be the cereal bar and crackers I packed from home and that doesn’t sound too substantial. I order a vegetarian dinner and everyone else orders the “non-veg.”

It seems stuffy on the train. It feels closed in and dark. I try not to think about the fact that we’re locked into this little compartment until eight o’clock in the morning. I try not to get claustrophobic.

“Is the a/c on?” I ask.

No one can tell. “I can turn on the fan,” Susie says, and she hits a switch that I didn’t notice. Thank God. Moving air. I am rescued from the vague panic I felt creeping up on me. The train feels less like a coffin and more like public transportation.

We talk about my going home. Will Scott pick me up at the airport? Yes. I’ve seen the scene about a million times in my head. I jump into his arms and we kiss. He squeezes me so hard all the air comes out of me. An American Airlines employee yells at me for leaving my baggage unattended because I’ve dropped it all and ran as soon as I saw Scott. I see the scene once more.

We talk about snow. Susie remembers the one blizzard they had in North Carolina. A news crew came out and filmed her and her cousins playing in the foot of snow that accumulated on their street. We had so much snow last winter. I tell my friends about our driveway which is on a slant, so at the least bit of snow or ice, I have to slide up it sideways and shovel before I can get my car into our garage. I had to do that, like, once a week this past winter there was so much snow and ice. I hope the coming winter isn’t like the last one which never seemed to leave either. It didn’t really warm up until July, until I was leaving for India.

Now that I can breath okay, I’m resigned to just sitting in the train and not going anywhere. An hour and a half passes as we sit and talk. Finally, there are a few clanks and chugs and we begin to move, an hour and a half behind schedule. Amar once told me about a train trip from Assam that took him forty eight hours because once you’re running late on a train, he says, they de-prioritize you and make you wait at all the switches. So if you’re late, you’re really late. Sarah tells a similar story. She spent two days on a train once too, only it was in a lower class car so there were beggars all around and garbage and it was filthy. At least they have picked up the garbage on our train. At least there are no beggars here right now.

The porter comes by and we have to show him our tickets. Sarah asks if I can sit with them. He agrees. I can sit in the benches with my friends and when I sleep, I can use the top bunk right across the aisle, bunk 30. I don’t have to sleep in a shared compartment with strangers. I have a little bunk separated from the rest of the car by its own curtain. Julianne’s prayer comes through, or I get lucky, or both. Whatever the case, I am relieved.

They bring our dinners on little plastic trays. Mine is all smeared with white goo from a smashed contained of rice pudding that has leaked all over everything. I eat the smashed container of damp rice, then peal back the aluminum cover of a small rectangular tray. Inside are some wet potatoes. I eat some of these with a miniature plastic spoon. There is a second container full of yellow liquid and two long, skinny, red chilies. I try the yellow liquid. It tastes like bile. I leave it alone and try to eat a few more potato bits. Much like my haircut at Verma’s, even though I’m spending only about a dollar, I still feel ripped off when the porter comes to collect the payment.

I have to go to the bathroom before bed. I hula dance in the swaying aisle off to the front of the car where there is a western style bathroom and an eastern style bathroom (read: hole in the floor that leads right down to the railroad tracks beneath us). Susie says the eastern style one is better, it’s cleaner, but I still choose the western style. I don’t know why because I attempt to stand the whole time without touching the toilet anyway. The seat just makes this harder to do. Standing up and swaying like this makes me a little motion sick and I have to steady myself once I get back to my seat.

After dinner we talk a bit more. Susie mentions something about not oversleeping. We may miss our stop. Don’t they announce the stops? No. They just stop and you have to know when to get off. How will we know when we’re in Amritsar? I ask. We’ll just have to ask a porter or someone else who knows. I picture us all ending up in Pakistan with no way back.

Sarah gets out her book and starts reading. Katie climbs up into her bunk with her book. I say goodnight and crawl across the aisle up the ladder into my bunk by myself. It runs the length of the train instead of going width-wise and it seems narrower. But I’m happy for it; happy not to be in a cabin with the strange snoring man across the way; happy to be able to draw the curtain and be separated, at least by fabric, from the rest of the people on the train. I leave my curtain open for a while so I can read by the light in the aisle. I read about Babur, a Mughal emperor who took his father’s crown at the age of 12. I read about thirty pages then my eyes start glazing over. I put my book into my backpack, which is at my feet, then curl up around my purse so no one can steal it without waking me up. But they wouldn’t have to wake me up because I can’t fall asleep. I face the wall, then I face the curtain. Then I try putting my feet on top of my backpack, then under it, then I hang them off the side of the bunk. I stare at the curtain, then the wall, all the while listening to the two snoring men in our car. At one point, I remember I need to take my medication. I sit up as much as I can in the bunk and take my liter of water and pills from my backpack. As I’m doing this, a man in a turban lifts the curtain and peers in at me. “Hello?” I say and he drops the curtain and shuffles off. All night people shuffle past, I presume on their way to the bathrooms at either end of the car, or maybe they’re just looking for wallets and purses to rifle though. Who knows?

I think I finally get an hour or two of sleep towards the morning because when Susie lifts my curtain I’m kind of out-of-it. “We’ll be in Amritsar in about half an hour,” she tells me. How does she know? Susie just has a way of finding these things out.

I grab my backpack and slide out of the bunk so I can sit across the aisle on the benches with my friends. How did everyone sleep? It seems that everyone but me slept well. Perhaps they trusted Julianne’s prayer more than I did even though it seemed to do the trick for me. All of my belongings are in tact and I got to stay close to my friends so that we didn’t get separated. Or was this just luck?

Either way, we pull into the Amritsar station together, just an hour after the time we were scheduled to arrive. Susie pays off the porter. She apparently bribed him to tell us when we’d be reaching our destination. What prayer can’t take care of, a few rupees can.

Short Hiatus

2008-09-19T01:37:00.002-07:00

I'll be offline until Sunday when I get back from the Golden Temple. I'm not taking my computer with me, so I'll have some catching up to do when I return!

Namaste!

The House of God

2008-09-19T01:37:00.001-07:00

Thursday

I’m too full at breakfast to eat my banana. I throw it in my bag so I can give it to a beggar should the occasion arise.

After eating, I call on Mister Singh again. His isn’t home. His daughter-in-law comes down to see me. What did I need? I tell her I need the name of the hotel and the phone number of the taxi service Mister Singh was talking about. I leave the papers he gave me so he can write it on them. She says no problem. He’ll be home in an hour and they’ll get this done and have the papers sent back to my room at the guesthouse.

I catch my ride with time to spare today.

We stop at a red light and I see an old woman walking from car to car, tapping at the windows. I think, “Good candidate for my banana,” and dig it out of my backpack.

There’s a moment when she sees me, freezes, and tilts her head. It’s like I can see her getting a great idea. She hunches over and starts dragging her right leg behind her. Suddenly she is a crippled hunchback. She limps up to my window and raps on it. I roll it down and hand her the banana. She takes it but starts rambling in Hindi, clearly explaining to me that she wasn’t asking for a banana, stupid. She holds up a rupee. She wants money. I shake my head. Take the banana, lady. She rambles on while I roll up the window. She does one limp away from my car, then straightens up again and walks off as normally as could be. It comes off like a comedy routine. I hope she doesn’t slip on the banana peel.

At work I’m finally making some good progress on chapter six. I can see that I’ll be able to finish it by Friday.

After lunch I take a walk with Shabnum. She was reading my blog and says I didn’t get it quite right about the hijras. They aren’t servants to their gurus. They’re more like disciples or followers or students. I’m glad I have good editors.

There is an email in my inbox that says my package arrived. At first I just ignore it. I think it means that a package has been sent to me, but then I see it says it was signed for by someone with an Indian name. I must have a package here somewhere. Jane, my friend from work, asked if she could send me something a little while back, but I didn’t know if she really would. Now I think she actually has gone to the effort, but I wonder why no one here has brought it to me. I write down the tracking number and go up to the front desk. Is there a package here for me? Bibouti calls the guard shack out front. Yes, they have my package. I guess they were just waiting for me to psychically find out about it and track it down.

I go outside. They speak to me in Hindi and point to the address on the box’s label and laugh. I’m always good for a laugh here in India, apparently. I take the box down to my desk and pull at the packing tape. I can’t wait until I’m home to open it. Besides, this day has been dragging on and on. I need a little something to break up the monotony of currency forwards and futures and cross-hedging and yield curves.

No. I should save the package for tonight. I’ll be stuck at home if it rains with no company. It will be a great diversion.

No. I just have to peek. I’ll just peek.

It takes me a good five minutes just to get the tape off. I don’t have a pair of scissors handy, so I have to get creative. I use a binder clip. I told Jane that some salty snacks would be nice. There’s nothing really in India save potato chips and I don’t really like those. I lift open a flap of the box and decide not to disturb the contents too much. But what a great surprise. There is lip gloss inside. And it’s Carmex. I love lip gloss, and my lips are pretty parched, especially after my long day in the beating sun at Agra. I open the Carmex and decide I’ll leave it at work so I always have it to use during the day.

I peek a little more. There’s a magazine in there! An American magazine. How awesome. And there are two cards that I don’t open. This is way better than the salty crackers I was expecting. This isn’t a box of salty snacks. This is a box full of home.

In the car on the way back to the guesthouse I can wait no longer. I have to read the cards. The first one I open isn’t from Jane at all. It’s from another coworker, Linda. She tells me that I even made a visit to the eye doctor fun to read about. I am so buoyed. I love to know that people are actually reading my blog and, even better, enjoying it.

It begins to rain again, but today is not as bad as yesterday. I get home just before seven. I turn my funky skeleton key in the door and open it with baited breath, hoping to see the papers from Mister Singh sitting on my table with the information about the hotel written on them. There is nothing. Now what? Now I have to bother him again? Or do I just go to Armritsar with no hotel lined up? That was Susie’s plan. But Susie also uses the water here to brush her teeth and takes auto-rickshaw rides in the dark. Susie is more adventurous than I am.

I decide to let this issue simmer for a bit while I dig in to my package. There are lens cloths for cleaning your glasses. And a package of band aids. And hygienic toilet seat covers. I laugh out loud. Someone has been reading my blog very closely! Then I find a small white box with colorful ribbons tied all around it. There is a small purple note taped to the top with a quote on it, “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” The note is signed by my director, the woman who first suggested the newdirections program to me, Nancy. Inside there is a smooth piece of quartz with the word “Create” etched into it. It’s beautiful. I cry from the kindness of all these people at home who took the time and the effort to do this for me. First I’m lucky enough to be able to participate in this program, then I’m lucky enough to have people like this cheering me on, supporting me. If I was feeling a bit alone today, I am no longer.

I open up a bag of Ritz crackers that was in the package and wander downstairs to find Pachu. “Did anyone drop off some papers for me?”

“Newspaper?” he asks.

“No. Paper. Just paper, with writing on it.”

“Oh, paper. Yesterday,” he says.

“Yes, paper like they brought yesterday. Did anyone bring some today?”

“No. No paper.”

It’s still raining out, so I decide that I’ll just call Mister Singh. I find his business card and dial him up. “Yes,” he says. “I wanted to talk to you. Why did you send back the papers I gave you?”

“Thank you for those. I just wanted you to write the hotel information on them.”

“Yes,” he says. “Give me the coach number of your train so I can call for your cab.”

I grab my ticket and tell him it’s 2A.

“That’s it? That’s the coach number?”

“Yes.”

“No. The coach number.”

“That’s what it says.”

“Maybe sometime you can come over and show me.”

Sometime? My train leaves tomorrow. “Can I come over now? I can show you now.”

“Okay,” he says and perfunctorily hangs up.

I grab my tickets and my umbrella and walk next door. The guard waves me in. I see Mister Singh through his bedroom window tying his turban. The door is closed. I get the guard. Should I just walk in or is there a doorbell? The guard opens the door for me and shows me to the sitting room.

Mister Singh joins me there in a minute. “Yes, I wanted the information about your train so I can call for the taxi, you see. He will meet you at the station and take you to the hotel so you can wash up. Then you will go straight to the Golden Temple. He will be holding a sign for you. We went on an eighteen-day trip to Europe and there was a French woman with us all the time. When you travel you need help so you do not have to worry.”

He leaves the room and comes back with a business card from the hotel where he, indeed, has made reservations for us. I am so relieved.

“Let’s just set this now,” he says, and gets on his cell phone to the taxi service. I can understand a few English words sprinkled into his Punjabi here and there. Miss Vicki, he says. Golden Temple, he says. Saturday.

“It is set,” he says, hanging up. When we reach the station, we should look for a replica of the Golden Temple, a little scale model of it. The taxi driver will be waiting there with a sign that has my name on it. I’m amazed he’s arranged all this for me.

Poonam walks into the room from out of nowhere. I am excited to see her. She is always so full of praise and joy. I throw up my arms and say hello. She mirrors my gesture. “I worship this man,” she croons as she sits down beside me. “You know why? Because he is so kind and so noble. I am so lucky to have such a friend. He has good heart. If there is someone to help, he will help. Just anyone.”

“I know,” I tell her. “He just set up my whole trip to Armritsar for me.”

“When you think of India, you will think of this man!” she exclaims.

“And I’ll think of you too,” I tell her. She is bashful about this.

“Oh, thank you,” she sings and touches my arm.

Mister Singh draws me a picture of the layout of the temple and shows me the path we’ll have to walk to get inside of it. “Remember the gate you come in so you can find your driver,” he tells me. Here there is a four hundred year old tree with berries on it that the birds like to eat at dawn. Here is the place where the profit used to sit to watch the temple being built. Here is where we can go to sit for an hour or so just to enjoy, or whatever we like.

A house helper brings three plates and some chaat: there is spicy apple and banana and pomegranate seeds. “There is chili,” he says looking concerned, but I am already gobbling. “This is okay?”

This is fine.

Next Mister Singh has another house helper bring a stack of headscarves for me to borrow and a bag to keep them in. We’ll all need to cover our heads when we go inside. There should be enough here for me and each of my friends.

Have I had my dinner?

No.

Then would I like to stay?

Is it okay?

Yes. Poonam tells me I should stay. Okay, then.

Mister Singh shows me a directory he produced for the people at his gurudwara. The front of it is filled with information about Sikhism which he begins explaining to me. Poonam grabs my chin as I lean forward to listen and smiles. She says I’m his “gurushishya,” his student, and soon I’ll know all about the Sikhs.

Mister Singh talks about Sikh marriages, the status of women in Sikh society, the meaning of the bracelet that Sikhs wear and, as always, the fact that the Sikhs fought against the Mughuls and abolished caste.

Poonam tells me, as always, that Mister Singh is a good man. He takes care of his wife so well. She needs so much attention and he is always there to give it to her.

Mister Singh says he is fortunate to be able to care for his wife. He is fortunate to have the money to do it with; it costs 1.25 lakh a month. Even so, even with this expense, he likes to give to charity. It is a Sikh value to help others. Whatever we do, we should help others. And we should be thankful for what we have. We shouldn’t complain to God whatever happens. We should bow our heads.

Sikhs don’t bow their heads before anything but their holy book. There are no idols. They don’t even bow to their gurus. Their gurus, he says, are like dust on the feet of God. They only bow to the book because in it is everything they need to know. It contains the wisdom of every religion that believes in one God only: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. There are quotes from all these religions in it.

The phone rings. It is Mister Kandhari. Mister Singh tells him in Hindi how he’s set up my trip for me. I understand, again, a few English words sprinkled throughout the conversation: trip, taxi, tomorrow.

He hangs up. Mister Kandhari is, how do you say it, a man-eye-oc about his garden. He gets up at five o’clock every day and works on it for three hours with three of his house helpers, watering, trimming, fertilizing.

Poonam says this work keeps him moving. Otherwise, he would get old.

Mister Singh asks how many house helpers God has? How big is God’s house? How many people does he need to help him? These are deep questions, he says.

He asks if I’d like to wash up before eating. I walk to the bathroom. On my way out, he shows me a file of papers. It’s receipts and records of all the blood drives he’s helped to run in Delhi. Then he’s helped with eye donations. And he raised money for a cricket player with kidney failure. The papers go all the way back to the 80s. They are a catalogue of good works.

Dinner is served. There are two vegetable dishes and a dal. Today, there is also tandoori roti, a thicker bread baked in a stone oven. Mister Singh gets out the pickles again, offering me first something stewing in mustard seed. This actually tastes good even if it looks like a long dead body in a jar. Then he gets out the lime pickles and plops one on my plate against my objections. I scoop it up to eat it and Poonam puts out a hand, “No!”

No?

No! You’re not supposed to eat the whole thing like that. You’re just supposed to touch your roti to it to let it get a little bit of the flavor. No wonder the lime pickle was so bad last time I tried it. I touch my bread to it and eat it. This is much more palatable.

After dinner, there is yet another large jar that we’ll try something from. These are olives, Mister Singh tells me, though they look more like peeled kiwi fruit.

A house helper puts an olive on each of our plates. “It’s very healthy,” Poonam stresses.

I eat it and it’s good, but it tastes like solid sugar. It’s candied. I wonder what is healthy about it, but don’t ask.

I ask Mister Singh what time it is. It’s ten. Ten? I’m late for my Skype call with Scott. I tell him I have to leave but thank him profusely for all his help. I reach to shake his hand and he extends his but doesn’t grasp mine with his thumb. He kind of keeps his hand together while we shake. He doesn’t quite have this gesture down like Mister Kandhari does. When I fold my hands and bow to Mister Kandhari, he acts like I’m being silly and grabs my hand to shake. I think maybe Mister Singh is more traditional in this regard. Next time, I’ll try bowing to him.

I grab my bagful of scarves and the gurudwara Mister Singh has given me and dash off back to the guesthouse where I scramble to set up my computer. I can’t believe my good fortune this evening to have so many people thinking about me and helping me out.

And all I’ve been able to do lately is obsess about getting that hotel name out of Mister Singh. Maybe I need to think more about others. Maybe I need to take a lesson from my neighbor and coworkers. How many people does it take to run the house of God? As many as He can get.

A Room or No Room?

2008-09-19T01:37:00.000-07:00

Wednesday

By Wednesday, the subject of the bombings has been exhausted. It comes up no longer in conversation, though it still appears in the headlines. The police are tracking down suspects, the paper says, though it’s a little vague on the specifics.

The larger headline today, the one that takes up almost all of page one, is about Lehman Brothers going bankrupt and how that will impact the Indian economy. India stands to lose 25,000 jobs because of this event, the article says. Banks, apparently, do a lot of outsourcing.

At about quarter to nine, I walk over to Mister Singh’s house, as per Mister Kandhari’s directions last night. Mister Singh’s guard is outside polishing a posh sedan. He ushers me through the marble foyer and into Mister Singh’s sitting room. He turns on the ceiling fan for me and goes to tell Mister Singh he has a caller. I hope I’m not intruding. I don’t usually just show up at people’s houses.

Mister Singh walks into the room and sits down on the couch opposite me. He’s dressed in earth tones except for his blue turban. His shorts bear his skinny legs. How am I doing? How did I like the dinner the other night at the gurudwara? The Sikhs are nothing like the Hindus, he tells me. Hindus divide society into four castes: the warriors, the holy, the workers and the untouchables. Sikhs think caste is wrong.

His house helper brings a large framed piece of art into the room for me to see. It is a painting of Guru Gobind Singh on horseback holding a sword and a falcon, pointing at a large floating book: the Guru Granth Sahib. Beside him are some versus about Sikhism. Mister Singh reads them aloud to me. The same versus appear on the back of the frame handwritten by the artist.

This artist, Mister Singh tells me, painted a map of India with a naked woman on it to represent Mother India. For this, he was thrown out of the country. It was very controversial.

What would I like? Chai? Coffee?

I tell Mister Singh I can’t actually stay for tea. I have to leave for work at nine o’clock. He looks at his watch. It is five minutes of nine.

He goes to his bookshelf and takes out the book on the Golden Temple that he showed me the evening I had dinner with him and Poonam. He’ll loan it to me this time. I should take it and read it before I go. It tells all about the temple.

I ask him the name of the hotel he’s called and made reservations at. We leave in two days and I’m getting antsy to finalize our plans. He tells it to me but it’s hard to pronounce. The first syllable sounds like “shit” and this throws me off completely. He says he’ll get me all the information I need. His daughter-in-law is on the Internet right now printing out some things. He’ll have them brought over to my guesthouse. What room am I in?

Room ten.

What?

Room ten.

What?

Ten. Sometimes Mister Singh’s English just turns off and he suddenly can’t understand what I’m saying at all. He finally gets it. Room ten. Okay. He’ll have the information sent over.

He walks me out and shows me his little courtyard garden. There are two busts of Roman gods and lots of potted plants. There is a bonsai garden that is unmistakably Mister Kandhari’s work. “It’s beautiful,” I tell him. He tells me again how he is responsible for the rock wall that laps around the park across the street from him. When it was windy, it would blow the dust into everyone’s houses, so he had this wall built in front of his house, then everyone else wanted it too. They had to pay just two thousand rupees a piece for it. Everyone did.

I’m anxious I don’t miss my ride. On Monday when I went to the Taj Mahal, I forgot to call Palminder and cancel my cab for the day, so he ended up sitting and waiting for me until he asked the guard and they told him I’d left in a different car. I don’t want Palminder to think I’ve ditched him again and just leave.

I don’t want to be an ungracious guest, but I need to go. Mister Singh finishes his little garden tour and bids me goodbye at his black metal gate. Outside I see Palminder parked and waiting for me. I jog back up to my room to grab my backpack and purse.

Amar stops by my desk early in the day and asks me what I think about the American economy. It’s in a frightening state, I say. We talk about the headlines, about job losses. We talk about how the banking system in India is different than that in the United States. There are hundreds of small banks here, as opposed to the few giant corporations that have swallowed up all the neighborhood banks in the US.

I tell Amar I tried to open a banking account when I first got here. Finance wanted me to pay for my taxi fare with a check they cut for me. I was trying to cash it and open an account with it, but they asked for so much information I didn’t know where to start. They wanted a passport, two additional passport photos, a statement from work, a statement from the place I was living. The list went on and on. I figure this is different if you live here. It’s probably not so difficult, but Amar says it is. Indians have no social security number, so to do anything, you have to find different ways of proving your identity. This explains some of the famous Indian bureaucracy I’ve seen. The government doesn’t necessarily know who lives here, who exists. So it’s more difficult to get a passport, a utility set up, even a credit card.

At lunch Amar talks about the literacy rate in India. It’s something like sixty percent. This is better than Pakistan, which is like forty nine percent. Amar says there’s free public schooling here, but parents still won’t send their children because to keep them out of school means they can work and earn money for the family. I think of all the little boys selling magazines I see in traffic almost daily and the little boy running the ride at the small carnival outside Kalkaji Mandir. Amar says there are organizations that try to help with this. CRY is one. CRY is a good organization? I ask. Because there was a man from CRY who came up to me one day last week when I was petting Acha, Baby and Baloo. He wanted me to donate money but I couldn’t write him a check and he wasn’t supposed to take cash donations. He wanted to follow me back to my room so I could get my wallet and give him cash. He could go the bank with it and get a draft, he said. I told him I would donate online, but he wouldn’t get credit for having solicited my donation that way. He gave me the hard sell. He said people are so willing to waste their money on expensive dinners and drinks, but nobody wants to give a little bit to help others. I told him I want to help, I just don’t want a strange man to follow me back to my room so I can get my wallet. He said he wasn’t strange. He was my friend. He showed me a badge and a business card. I wasn’t sold. I told him I just couldn’t give that day, but thanked him for telling me about CRY. He didn’t care about educating me. He wanted to list my donation on his pledge sheet and I wasn’t helping him out. He finally walked away, disappointed. But Amar says CRY is a good organization to support. They have education programs for the underprivileged. Pearson also has a foundation where in exchange for learning a trade, people also have to learn how to read. They come because they want to know how to sew, which will make them money, but before they learn that, they are taught some basic literacy skills. How good. Pearson is just a good company.

In the afternoon there is a strange rushing noise and everyone gets up from their desks. It is pounding down rain outside. Arani returns from the nala vendor. He is drenched. He’d just walked out to get some tea when the sky broke open. This isn’t the change of season rain that Shinjini was walking about last week. This is monsoon rain, so thick it doesn’t even look like there are any drops, just solid water. Someone forgot to tell it that the monsoon season just officially ended. It didn’t get the memo.

Thankfully before I leave work, the rain abates. It is dark and stormy looking, but there is just a sprinkle as I walk out to the car. I get inside. “Lots of rain,” I tell Palminder.

“Yes, very rain,” he responds.

I know rain like this means bad traffic. The already narrow roads will pool up with water which will close half the lanes. Tomorrow, there’ll be a headline about it. “Rain Halts Delhi Traffic,” or something like that.

At one point, Palminder nudges his way into the middle of an intersection against the flow of traffic. There are cars pointed at us from all eight cardinal and ordinal directions. Sixteen headlights light up the car. Men shout and wave their arms. Palminder mumbles. The whole time, he is playing this peaceful chanting music with birds in the background, like something you’d use to meditate. The music goes on unaware of the chaos surrounding it. Two pedestrians in t-shirts appear and begin directing traffic. This happens in India. Anyone can direct traffic. They wade out into the water and tightly packed vehicles and begin pointing and waving. Cars inch past each other, and soon, there is a narrow gap between two of them that we can fit through. We are again underway without a scratch, though it was a close call.

We arrive home and it is again raining pretty hard. The guard meets me at my car holding out an umbrella for me. He follows me to the door holding the umbrella over my head as I walk. I thank him profusely.

Inside there are a few papers on my end table. There is a puzzle from Scott. A numbered code that I have to crack to figure out the messages he’s sent me. The last message is “Bye Bye,” and I cry as I finish it. I don’t want him to say goodbye to me. I want to keep playing this game with him, but it’s over.

Also on the table are some papers from Mister Singh, with his business card folded inside. It reads: Diljit Singh, chief executive, Herald Advertising Agency. The papers are general printouts of things to do while in Amritsar. He’s placed checkmarks next to everything on the list. We should go to the Golden Temple, then the site where the British killed hundreds of Indian soldiers, then see the changing of the guard.

There is no information at all about the hotel or the cab service he keeps talking about. I start to wonder if there is a hotel, if he does know a cab service, or if this is just some cultural miscommunication, if this is just a polite thing that he’s been making up the whole time. I start to wonder if it’s a good idea to go to Armritsar at all, especially if we have no hotel or cab lined up. I don’t want to travel without having these arrangements made.

I decide I’ll stop by Mister Singh’s place again tomorrow morning. I hate to bother him, but tomorrow is the drop dead date. I need to know if I have a place to stay in Armritsar or not.

Self Defence Is for Girls

2008-09-17T23:38:00.000-07:00

Tuesday

Tuesday at work I tell everyone I see I’ve been to the Taj Mahal. I’ve been to the Taj Mahal! This is code for, “I’ve seen what you’ve seen there. I know the secret. I stood there. I felt it.” Everyone smiles at my news. Or maybe they’re just humoring me.

Shinjini says she’s surprised I went after the bombings on Saturday. I’m a little surprised too, but we hired a private car and steered clear of markets. I figured we’d be okay even if there were more attacks.

Amar says he went to Central Market on Sunday. This is the market also known as Lajput Nagar where I go to get my ten rupee earrings and hundred rupee kurtas. It is notoriously crowded and chaotic. If there’s a market where security is impossible, it is the Central Market where people smash on top of people on top of people. Amar says it was so quiet and so peaceful on Sunday. It’s hard to imagine it that way. “It was a best case scenario. I wish it could be like that all the time,” he smiles.

He says one of our editors and her husband were in CP when the bombs went off. They were parking their car. Debjani’s husband is a journalist and so wrote a first person account of the attack. Thankfully, they were far enough away so as not to be injured, but they heard the blast and saw the aftermath from their vantage point.

Yajnaseni says now it will be another six or eight months before we have to worry about bombs in Delhi again. Amar says it’s true. Everyone’s on high alert. Delhi is probably the safest place in India right now.

At lunch I ask Amar why these attacks happen. The terrorists are Islamic. They belong to a group calling itself Indian Mujahideen. Against whom do they have a beef? What are they hoping to accomplish?

“They are trying to punish us for our sins,” Amar says.

But who is “us” and what are the “sins”?

Amar is uncharacteristically silent in response to this question. It looks like he winces. I wonder if I’ve asked something I shouldn’t have. “It is like nine eleven,” he says, and I finally understand. There is no sense in it, no reason, not even any political objective. There is just tragically misguided, unthinking, unbridled anger. I understood, or I thought I did, why the US would raise the ire of people in countries that are not as privileged. We have so much wealth in our country and so much influence on the rest of the world, both good and bad. But India? There’s so much poverty here. Privilege can’t be the reason. It has to be something else. People are not religious enough, or too religious in the wrong way? Or maybe they’re still trying to target the section of the population that is middle class. It’s true that the bombs are not going off in the poorest places, in the villages and encampments. I give up. Terror is terror. It is never justified. There is no sense in trying to make sense of it. But if you can’t make sense of it, how do you counter it? You don’t. And the attacks go on and on.

After work, I decide to walk to the market and try a new salon I found called Girl Talk. It’s exclusively for women, the sign says. I dyed my hair a few days ago, and I figure a hot oil head massage will help the drying effects of the chemicals I used.

I walk around to the back of the market where the sign said the entrance would be. It’s dark and a little shifty. The entrance appears to be up a dimly lit staircase. I walk up a flight of stairs and see a door that has “Girl Talk” etched into the glass. I open the door and lean in. Several women look at me like I’m intruding. “Are you open?” I ask. They nod. There are no customers inside. Only women in black and white collared shirts. I step in. These are northeastern women. They look Chinese. Because I’m in a salon full of Chinese-looking women, I feel totally at home. I could be in the Coral Ridge Mall at Nails Plus.

I ask for a hot oil head massage. They tell me to change out of my shirt and put on a gown. I walk behind a curtain, change, and come back out to sit in the stylist’s chair. It occurs to me only after I’m indisposed in this fashion, getting hot oil smeared onto my scalp, that if I were a male pervert and I wanted to attack someone, I’d know exactly where to come: to the salon that has only ladies in it. I picture a creepy, leering, drunken Indian man staggering his way into the salon and I picture myself as Uma Thurman's character in Kill Bill, jumping into action with roundhouse kicks, protecting the comparatively short and tiny women in the salon. I could put my two months of Tae Kwon Do training to use in case of a situation such as this. Everything is fine, I decide.

This second hot oil head massage is lackluster. It’s all over in about fifteen minutes, and she doesn’t even leave the oil in my hair long enough for it to have any effect. Girl Talk, along with Verma’s, is a bust. It seems all the good salons are in the Malviya Nagar market by Susie’s place. I pay my four hundred rupees and walk out disappointed once again. For such a posh colony, they sure have stinky salons in their market.

I order a veggie burger and a rose milk soda to go at Kents. I also order a box of aloo tikka. I don’t want it for myself, but I figure I can share it with the dogs on the way home. When I run into Acha and offer her a bite, she actually acts afraid of the potato glob, kind of like me and the brown goo at the gurudwara. When will I learn that I can’t feed these dogs? They must be strict carnivores. They are the karmic balance for all the vegetarians in the vicinity.

As I round the corner, I notice that Mister Kandhari is sitting in his courtyard with his son. He asks me to come and sit. I tell him I’m just taking my dinner home with me. “One drink!” he exclaims. “One drink only. Then you can go.”

How can I refuse? I walk through the big metal gate, and Mister Kandhari’s son mixes some whiskey with a generous amount of water and a little ice. We talk about my trip to Armritsar. Mister Kandhari tells me I should talk to his friend, Mister Singh, tomorrow morning before nine o’clock. Mister Singh will fix the hotel reservation and the taxi cab for me. He will give me all the information I need. If I go looking for him and he’s not home, I should check here. That’s where he always is in the mornings, either at home or at Mister Kandhari’s house.

At the bottom of my drink, I bid my friendly neighbor a good evening and stroll home through the dark, hot night at the end of a thankfully safe and peaceful day in Delhi.

See the Taj and Get a Free Monkey

2008-09-17T04:45:00.000-07:00

Find my pictures of Agra and Chandi Chowk and the spice market and Akbar's Tomb and crazy monkeys in my updated Photobucket gallery!

http://s458.photobucket.com/albums/qq302/vkrajewski/

Also, here's a monkey video for good measure:

A Long, Lovely Day

2008-09-17T04:43:00.000-07:00

Monday

Monday I awaken at six, completely refreshed from my day of rest. I gather my things: my cell phone, my camera, a water bottle, my umbrella. I’m getting ready to go to the Taj Mahal today with Susie, Katie, Susie’s Uncle Dick and the father of this girl from church who has to work today. His name is Russ.

Susie calls at six fifteen just as she said she would. They are on their way. We are actually going. This trip has been quasi-planned and cancelled innumerable times because of Uncle Dick’s changing travel plans. Today it’s finally happening.

I climb into the way back of the big Toyota van next to Russ. Russ just got here late on Friday, so he still has jet lag and his head is still spinning from the sensory overload that is India to the uninitiated. He is full of questions. He asks me what I'm doing here and how long I've been here. He wants to know about Susie, too. How long has she been here? Two years. How often has she gone home? She hasn’t.

She hasn’t?

She hasn’t gone home in two years?

It strikes me now that Susie is having a kind of Into the Wild Christopher McCandless experience, that she would be fine starving to death on a bus by herself having eaten moldy seeds, that she is at total peace out here on her own, peace with a twinge of nihilistic oblivion somewhere at the end of it. Two years without going home. I could never do it.

Russ and Uncle Dick snap pictures out the window of the car, framing up shots of overstuffed auto-rickshaws and motorcycles holding whole families: the sites that I now take for granted. It is fun to have people around for whom this is all new. It makes me see my surroundings with different eyes.

The back seat of the Toyota is killing my back until we discover we can adjust the headrest so it’s not in the middle of our backs. After that, the ride is bearable, even comfortable. We each have our own air conditioning vent and the car remains cool as we drive through towns and countryside. There is a lot of open farmland on the way to Agra, and every time there is farmland, there are also the grass huts of the agricultural workers. I am amazed to see them. They are like something from a Gauguin painting, but real. People live in them. I try to reconcile this with all the boys we see in school uniforms in the populated areas getting ready to go to school. I can’t. There are two Indias: one for the educated and one for the workers, the people who live in grass huts in the country and tents in the cities, the little boys who persistently try to sell magazines to people in traffic. Sometimes I am annoyed by these boys when they won’t go away; sometimes I admire their happy resilience so much.

We get stopped at some kind of border crossing where our cab driver has to show some papers to an official. While this is happening, men with monkeys on strings approach the car. Uncle Dick wants a picture. The monkey man tells Uncle Dick to get out of the car. He can have his picture with the monkeys. Uncle Dick hops out and one of the monkeys leaps onto his shoulders, perching there for the photo. Another monkey hops onto the end of a large stick. He is surrounded by monkey. Susie takes the shot. Once it’s done the man wants 500 rupees or ten dollars. This is a little much. My whole elephant ride cost that much, and Sonu told me it was way too much. Susie passes the man twenty rupees and tells her uncle to get in the car, but the man won’t let him close the door. “Very poor man. Very poor,” he tells us.

“He’s not poor,” Susie says. “People don’t know better and they all pay him that much.” But I don’t see carloads of people cueing up to get their picture with this man and his monkeys. The cab starts to pull away and the man’s hands are still reaching into the car. Finally he gives up and lets us go. Uncle Dick notices a monkey smell and asks if he has any souvenirs on the back of his shirt, but he’s clean. It’s just the lingering scent of his little furry friend.

After about three hours we arrive in Agra. Our cabdriver pulls over to the side of the road and a man approaches the vehicle. He is Vinni, our tour guide. We say we don’t want a tour guide. How much will he cost? But he tells us he is included in the price of the cab. He’ll just appreciate a tip when he’s done. Can he get in? No one told Susie anything about a tour guide when she booked the cab, but we figure it’s okay. He’s well dressed and well spoken. He seems kosher.

If we didn’t have two strapping men with us, this might have been an issue, but as it is, Katie climbs into the back bench seat with Russ and me and gives up her seat to Vinni who starts explaining how we have to get to the Taj.

Several years ago, the conservators of the building noticed the white marble starting to yellow from pollution, so now there is a ban on gas-powered vehicles within two kilometers of the place. We’ll have to park then take an electric auto-rickshaw. The cab pulls over and Vinni hails a rickshaw. He tells us all to get in: all six of us. Susie sits on the side bar and Katie and Uncle Dick smash into the back seat. I sit very close to Uncle Dick and ask him about that funky smell. Eau de monkey, I believe? Vinni and Russ sit with the auto driver in the front on a seat that is built for one. In this very Indian manner, we crawl the short distance to the gate. It is somewhat amazing that the electric motor can handle all the weight we’re pulling. As we approach the gate, Vinni tells us to beware of pick-pockets and aggressive vendors. I’m glad he’s with us. He’s been very helpful already.

We walk down a sidewalk-width street lined with tiny shops selling cheesy souvenirs like snow globes and magnets. The vendors are surprisingly mild. I don’t even get accosted. At the gate, it is revealed that Indian citizens pay twenty rupees while foreigners pay seven hundred and fifty to get in. We fork over the cash to Vinni and he secures our tickets for us. He takes us to a second booth where they provide each one of us with a bottle of cold water and covers for our shoes that we’ll have to wear when we reach the tomb.

We walk through the gate and Vinni has lots of information for us: how tall the building is, how many towers there are, how it’s built with exact symmetry, how the towers slightly lean outwards. I am interested mostly in the story of why it was built by Shah Jehan: as a monument for his second wife who died in childbirth.

The Taj comes into view and it is shimmering against the blue sky behind it. It’s built right on the banks of the Jumna so there’s nothing behind it. It almost looks as if it’s floating: a massive, white, floating, glittering monument to love. I didn’t know what I’d think or feel when I saw it. People at work have told me that some people see it and are disappointed. It’s just a big building, after all. And then some people see it and are completely moved. I fall somewhere in between. It is beautiful. It is amazing to see something in person that I’ve seen reproduced so many times in pictures and movies. But there’s still something more I want to figure out while I’m here.

When my father’s father was in the hospital diagnosed with heart failure and nearing his death, he suddenly began talking about how he’d been to the Taj Mahal when he was in the service during World War II. He was not an effusive or emotional man. He never told stories. I’d never even heard him speak of being in the service. Yet here he was, nearly delirious, almost unable to speak, not talking about his dead wife or his remaining family, instead talking about this distant memory, talking about a few minutes spent walking around a tomb on the other side of the planet. Why?

We snap a bunch of photos and allow the Indians to take their pictures with us, then we finally approach the monument’s steps and have to put on our little white footies.

There is no photography allowed inside. We walk up to the headstones. In the center is Shah Jehan’s wife. His is right next to hers: the only detail that breaks the symmetry of the place. Vinni tells us this is because his son buried him here. The Shah was planning on building a black Taj across the river for himself, but his son imprisoned him in the Agra Fort and took over the empire, foiling his plans. His son didn’t care about symmetry or memory. His son cared about power.

I stand in front of the tombs imagining my grandfather in his twenties. He has to have stood here. How many millions of feet have stood here to see this grand gesture? To see a tomb?

So many monuments you see and you think about all the tortured craftsmen or even slaves that gave their toil and sometimes even lives to build. The Great Wall of China. The Pyramids. But the Taj isn’t like this. You don’t see the separate bricks that went into making it and imagine the people hauling them. You see one whole gesture. The building looks like one piece of air or cloud that arrived on earth because it was willed to do so. The Taj you look at and you just see love: delicate, timeless love. And I think as I stand where my grandfather must have stood, that this is what he must have seen as well, and this is what he must have remembered all those years later as his heart lost pace with his body and his mind drifted. We lose everything. Our spouses, our hearts, our minds. But what remains glistening like the Taj Mahal, untouchable by time, is only love. Nothing can touch it. Nothing can take it away.

I thank the Taj for yielding its secret to me and follow my friends out of the foyer past the intricate carved enclosure around the headstones.

Outside I realize that I’ve sweated so much that my clothes are soaked and sticking to me. I quickly drink the free bottle of water in an effort not to evaporate completely, but I am extremely uncomfortable. We walk thankfully into the shade of the trees leading down the path to the gate. There is no way I can dry off. Even once we reach the cool of the air conditioned van, I will be wet. I could probably literally wring the sweat from my shirt and pants. It’s disgusting. I just want to jump out of my clothes, but I have nothing to change into. I’ll just have to remain a puddle of yuck for the next unforeseen number of hours.

We meet Vinni back at the gate and he wants to know if we’ll go with him to see some Indian handicrafts. These are the places where he’ll get commission if we buy anything. We walk down the alley of vendors, including a Planet Hollywood, which is a dirty little shack with a metal garage door front that sells curried vegetables on metal plates. There are not even any Planet Hollywood t-shirts for sale.

This time packing back into the rickshaw is easier because we’re all so slippery. This time I don’t joke about smelling monkey on Uncle Dick because I’m sure I smell much worse. At least I’m not the only sweaty soul. Everyone is pretty well drenched.

We get back to our cab and the driver cranks up the a/c. Our next stop is a jewelry store where they sell stones mined in Agra: stars of India. They’re these stones used in the Taj Mahal that, when in direct light, produce a translucent star. They have pictures of these stones lit up at night and glistening in the Taj. I want to buy a ring to add to my collection, but the prices are high. I say I’m not going to spend more than fifty dollars, but they won’t come down. I leave the store and, as I’m climbing into the car, they change their mind. I can have the nice big stone I liked for fifty dollars. I’m their first customer today. It’s for good luck. I am always their first customer in India. I buy the ring as my souvenir of the Taj and we’re off to a rug place, that is, as soon as Vinni gets his cut of the cash.

In the next place we go, they are making rugs. It’s amazing to see them work. There are hundreds of threads stretched taught on this loom and the men are sitting, making knots in an intricate pattern of color with such speed that you can hardly tell what they’re doing. They make the knot, then cut the yarn, and make the knot, and cut the yarn. I don’t understand how they know where to put each color to make the detailed design they are making, but somehow they get it exactly correct just by having a picture of the design posted next to them.

The rug man takes us downstairs and show us where they create the design patterns for the rugs. He says the designs they make are hundreds of years old. Then he shows us a demonstration of how they trim the rugs once all the knots are made. Then he shows us how they have to use a little wooden stick to straighten out all the lines in the rug after it’s trimmed. All in all, it takes about four months to complete a typical rug made in this fashion.

They’re about to go into their sales pitch when we decide no one in our crowd wants a rug. Thankfully, the man isn’t too pushy and allows us to leave without argument.

The next stop is a place that does marble inlay work. The salesman here tells us that the people we’re looking at doing this work are descendants of the people that did the work at the Taj Mahal, that this is a trade that has been passed down through the families for hundreds of years.

He shows us how the craftsmen shape the pieces of precious and semi-precious stones on a grinding wheel, and how they scrape the exact shapes of these tiny pieces into the hard marble surfaces with tiny chisels. He shows us pieces less than a millimeter long that have several tinier pieces within them, mostly flower petals with stems and leaves. He takes us into a showroom and offers us tea. We decline. We can’t buy anything here. It’s all too expensive and large. They’re selling huge, heavy tables. Perhaps we’d like to see the room of smaller pieces, then?

He ushers us into a roomful of boxes and plates and elephants and coasters. Uncle Dick buys a set of elephant coasters for a good chunk of change, so good that they throw in a free elephant for him. Vinni says next we should eat lunch. We can eat at Pizza Hut, or there’s a Chinese place next door. We decide that Pizza Hut is fine. Vinni will leave us, then, but he gives us his business cards. They are handwritten in green ink with tiny lettering that tries to mimic a typewriter. We should call him if we ever need a tour guide in Agra again, and pass his name along to our friends. He wants my email address and Susie’s too because he knows we’ll both be in Delhi for a while yet. We tell him thanks, but it’s enough to have his contact information. He looks rejected, but sorry Vinni. No need to send me emails.

I’m still wet, but I’ve cooled off enough to realize that I’m also starving. It takes what seems like half an hour to decide on what pizzas to order, but we finally accomplish the task. I order a veggie and the crowd gets two chicken pizzas to split. Even though the veggie pizza costs about half of what the other ones cost, we split the bill evenly. I try not to be too George Castanza about this, but it seems like it always happens when I go out to eat. It’s truly no big deal, though. Susie paid for the auto-rickshaw on the way back from the Taj and Uncle Dick paid for it on the way there. Uncle Dick also got Vinni’s tip. It all evens out.

Next the driver stops at the Red Fort, the place where Shah Jehan was imprisoned. As we get out of the vehicle we are accosted by hawkers selling tiny marble inlaid boxes and marble elephants and fans made out of peacock feathers and tiny chess sets. One man tries to stick an elephant in my hand to get me to buy it. Another shoves one in my face. I make the mistake of showing a glimmer of interest and a crowd of them gather around me. “Chalo! Chalo!” I yell at them. Go away!

We walk all the way to the gate of the fort and Uncle Dick is framing up shot after shot, all the while the men are hounding me. “Madam, madam, a hundred rupees. One hundred rupees only!”

“Chalo!” I shout, then Susie looks at me.

“What are you telling them?” she asks. “Are you telling them ‘chalo’?”

Uh oh. Yes, I say, waiting for the bad news. “That means come here,” she says. “It means, like, let’s go. You’re telling them to come with you. You need to tell them ‘jao.’”

I look up and the men are laughing at me. “Jao,” I say, but this doesn’t work. One man jaws this word back at me like a twisted grammar school teacher. “Jaaaaooooo. Jaaaaooooo,” he says, laughing and laughing. Then they cram their merchandise back in my face. “Hundred rupees madam. One hundred rupees only.”

“Okay, I’m ready to go anytime,” I tell Uncle Dick, who is still framing up shots of the fort. “Anytime.”

Finally Uncle Dick is satisfied. We walk back with some effort because we are surrounded—especially me. Back at the car, the hawkers don’t let up. They stick their hands in and keep up their fevered pitches. Now there are better deals. “Madam, two for a hundred. All three for two hundred.” Russ hops back into the car. He has purchased a wooden chess set that he now can’t get opened. How much did he pay? 400 rupees. I think it sounds a bit expensive, but don’t say anything. It’s not like you can get your money back. I think these guys have a no return policy.

They won’t let Uncle Dick close the door, sticking their hands and their merchandise in, yelling out prices without abating. Finally the taxi driver starts pulling away. They walk with the vehicle, keeping on. Uncle Dick tries to close the door but they’re still there. It’s like we’re being attached by an octopus or two or three who’ve gotten into a trunk of sunken treasure. There are arms everywhere with the goodies we just can’t live without. Finally we pull out into traffic and the men have to give up.

A few miles down the road we stop at Akbar’s Tomb. I’m kind of tombed out, I think, until I see it and remember Amar telling me about it. Some people like it better than the Taj Mahal even. It’s more intricate, with more designs on it. It’s captivating. And the grounds are like a zoo, with hoards of semi-tame monkeys and deer and peacocks that have been there for years. Akbar would have wanted it that way.

Half way up to the tomb, I get an ocular migraine, the kind wherein I go partially blind because there’s a big flashing blob in front of my face for about fifteen minutes. But I don’t let it come between me and the monkeys. I take picture after picture and get some great video of three baby monkeys taking turns jumping off a bench.

I can’t say I’m surprised by my migraine, going from such extreme hot to the air conditioning over and over during the day. I would just like for it to go away. I would like to be dry, and I would like my migraine to go away.

Inside the tomb there is a guide looking for a tip. He tells us some trivia about Akbar that I can’t pay much attention to because I’m partially blind and still wet. We travel down a long, narrow passage to a plain room that houses Akbar’s headstone. Here a man in Muslim dress gives us each a handful of flower petals and tells us to throw them onto the tomb. I follow the instructions. Then he tells us we should leave money on the tomb. No one else does, but I get out some coins and set them down. “Two rupees!” the man cries like I’m the biggest cheapskate in the world. The other tour guide goes on about how there’s a five second echo in the room. Two rupees! I hear again. Shove it mister. I’m half blind and all wet. You’re lucky you got that.

The interminable tour guide takes us into the neighboring chamber where Akbar’s daughter is buried and shows us a trick of the acoustics in this room. If you whisper into one of the corners, you can be heard on the opposite side of the room. He hopes we enjoyed the information he says, holding out his hand with a ten rupee note cupped into it to show us just exactly what we should do. Someone gives him a tip. I am out of change, so I can’t.

Walking back to the car we are greeted by hawkers with the same merchandise they were selling outside the Red Fort. There are elephants and fans and boxes and chess sets. Except everything here is about half the price. They are asking two hundred rupees for poor Russ’s chess set. I pay a man and get a large green carved elephant for a hundred rupees. As I pass to the car, a man pushes another man in front of me. This man’s eyes are all white. He holds a few ugly necklaces. “Madam, there is a blind man here,” his helper points out the obvious, hoping this will incite me to buy. It is a unique pitch. But I am hot, I am still wet and I am now in pain from the pounding headache that always follows my temporary blindness. I jump around the blind man and make for the Toyota with Russ.

We are the first ones there. Uncle Dick has stayed behind to dicker with a hawker over a chess set. I think he gets one for a hundred rupees, or two hundred. I don’t much care. I just want the air in the car to dry me off. I just want to lean back and close my eyes and recuperate from the day.

We are all finally in the car and the driver cranks up the a/c and pulls away. We are on our way home. The air gives me goose bumps but I love it. I could close the vent that is blowing on me, but I don’t. For once in my life, I enjoy being cold. I take a nap. I think everyone in the car takes a nap. It’s comfortable and quiet, and it’s been a long day. Travel in India is not a spectator sport. You get jostled around. You need your elbows. Your senses are overloaded. Your clothes are dirtied. Your patience is tried. You are tired out when you are done.

We drop off Russ at Nizamuddin and reach the Ahuja Residency around eight thirty. I say goodbye to Uncle Dick and Katie and thank Susie for what was a totally smooth and fun and comparatively easy trip to see the Taj. If I were going again, this is the way I’d want to do it. There was no messing with auto wallahs or worrying about missing trains or busses.

Upstairs in my room, I call Scott to let him know I’m home safely. Then I pick the last three biscuits from my fridge and head out to see if Acha, Baby and Baloo are hungry. Before I can find my dogs, I find my neighbors. Mister Kandhari is in his courtyard. “I call you! I call you!” he says excitedly. I tell him just as excitedly that I just got back from the Taj Mahal.

“Come to our temple,” he says.

“Now?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says.

“Okay,” I say. “I just need to give these biscuits to the dogs.” I run around the corner and leave the biscuits on the ground, then climb into Mister Kandhari’s car along with Mister Singh and Gopi. The Defence Colony gurudwara is only, like, two blocks away. We park and get out. There are no footbaths here, only a sink in which I am told to wash my hands. We check our shoes and Mister Singh produces a white bandana with which I can cover my head. We stand outside. Inside there is a golden arch and a man singing a raga. There is another man who looks to be waiving a feather duster over the large copy of the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book. We wait outside for a break in the music, then Mister Singh motions for me to follow him in. The singing and chanting continues and pages in the book are turned. Mister Singh walks a few paces to the left to sit down. I’m glad I don’t immediately follow him because I notice that all the women are sitting to the right. I stay where I am and sit with the women. I’m not as worried about getting separated from my hosts at this gurudwara. It’s small and not as crowded as Bangla Sahib. It’s also close to home. If all else fails, I can walk home from here.

The chanting continues, then the book is covered with a golden cloth. The man comes back with the feather duster. Then a man comes around with the brown glop. Before I can think, I hold my hands out and get the warm goo straight from the hand of the man scooping it out. There are no garbage cans around. This is a whole ceremony. There’s no getting out of eating the goo this time. I take a taste. It’s something like cream of wheat with a hint of brown sugar. It’s not bad. I think, I’ll have to ask Mister Singh what the significance of this is when I get the chance. The woman sitting next to me feeds her goo to a tiny little girl crawling around the floor in an adorable yellow halter top and white frilly pants. The baby gets full of goo then gets interested in my rings, touching them with her tiny gooey fingers. The song goes on and a young boy is presented in front of the crowd. A large wreath of yellow flowers is hung over his head and some words are read.

Finally, the Gugu Granth Sahib is put on a cushion and covered in golden cloths. Everyone touches their heads to the ground as the book is raised and carried to the glass chamber where it is kept every night. Sikhs have this ceremony in the morning and the evening every day.

After the bible goes to bed, people mill about the clean, plush carpeted room. Mister Singh introduces me to a childhood friend of his who is impressed that I’m going to see the Golden Temple this coming weekend. He touches my head as in a blessing and tells me that I’ll be close to God when I go.

“Come, Vicki, come!” Mister Kandhari wants me to follow him. “I call you. I call you just a half hour ago, then you come. It is good. We’ll eat some dinner.”

Downstairs, a big meal is being served. Mister Singh explains it is for the occasion of the child being accepted into the church, the little boy who got the wreath of flowers placed on him just a few minutes ago. The family wanted to do this.

There are easily two hundred people in the gurudwara basement. We sit down in a row of chairs. Mister Singh said there never used to be chairs, but then they put them here for the people who are getting older and having trouble with their knees.

Young men come around with buckets and ladles and serve dal, then paneer, then a cucumber salad and finally kheer or rice pudding, as Mister Singh explains it to me.

He tells me for the third or maybe forth time how the Hindus have four castes, but the Sikhs think caste is wrong. Human beings are human beings, you see. That’s why the Sikhs serve food like this, where everyone can sit together, regardless of caste or religion.

“Happy?” Mister Kandhari asks me as he walks past with his empty plate.

“Yes, very,” I reply, as I always do when he asks this question.

The food is good and the meal is over quickly. An old man takes my plate away when I am finished. Then we meet up with Mister Singh’s childhood friend. He begins to tell me how the Sikhs think caste is wrong, but I have to excuse myself. It appears that my ride is leaving.

“Come, Vicki, come,” Mister Kandhari says and begins to teeter up the stairs. I follow Mister Singh to the shoe check and wash my hands. Mister Kandhari gets back into his car with great effort and a few grunts. They drop me off at the guesthouse less than an hour after I left planning just to feed a few biscuits to a few stray dogs.

It’s been a long, lovely day, but I’m certainly ready for a long, lovely sleep.

One More Nap

2008-09-16T23:00:00.000-07:00

Sunday

The phone rings. It’s Julianne. She’s calling because she’s on the way to pick me up for church, but Jonaki is still sleeping. I tell Julianne I’ll have to skip church today. I’m in no condition for worship anyway. If it was painful last week after the gurudwara, it would be excruciating after my date with Indian wine which, I’m finding, seems a lot stronger than the kind I’m used to, or maybe it’s just that my tolerance is down because I’ve been drinking so little while I’ve been here. Either way, I feel like I might get sick.

Jonaki awakens shortly after Julianne’s phone call, springs up and gets dressed in just a few quick minutes. She’s going to call a cab. The hotel wants to charge her for a full day at first just to drive her home. She says she only got stuck here because of the bomb blasts, why are they taking advantage of her? They say ok. They’ll charge for a half day. It’s still exorbitant for a ride across town. She tries two other services. One leaves her on hold for ten minutes then tells her they don’t have cab in our area. They can’t help. She can’t get through at all to the other number.

She goes downstairs and has some breakfast while I stay upstairs, sitting in a chair with my eyes closed, hoping not to get sick. Jonaki walks out to the gate and finds an auto who will take her for 125 rupees. This is a quarter of what the cab service through the hotel was asking. She’s only worried about the border crossing. She lives in a different state. Delhi is kind of like Washington D.C. It’s its own state. Because of the bombs, Jonaki wonders if the border will be locked down and she won’t be able to switch autos like she normally does when going home. But it works out okay. She gets home fine.

In the meantime, I sleep and sleep and sleep. In fact, I pass the whole day lounging around in bed, watching BBC World News and CNN IBN. Turns out they found a few more bombs that didn’t detonate. One was at India Gate. The others were in a place I don’t recognize. There was an email sent to the press a few minutes before the bombs went off. It said there were nine bombs in all. Something like seven have been found or exploded so far.

Sunday I don’t even have the energy to blog. I am sapped. Drained. Empty. Nothing personally happened to me or anyone I know in connection with the bombings. I have no right to feel like I survived something stressful. All I did was stay in my guesthouse. Still, I do. I feel like I need a day to adjust to this new reality: a Delhi that explodes right under you, a Delhi with blood stains in its markets and auto-rickshaws. It’s sad. When I am trying not to get sick, I feel sad that my safe Delhi is gone. There will always be the question of danger now in my head. I will always feel a little on edge in the markets. I will steer clear of garbage cans, and who knows if I can climb into a rickshaw again? I probably will. I will be one of the hearty Delhiites who go on after an attack, because, really, what else can you do? Hole up and stop talking to people? Stop going places and doing things? Stop living? That’s no kind of life. There is no choice but to return to normal eventually.

After I take another nap, though.

Getting Bombed

2008-09-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

Forgive my brief hiatus. It's been a stressful and then busy few days with the bomb blasts and a visit to the Taj Mahal as well. All is well and I hope to get caught up here in the next few days. I will also be loading pictures tomorrow from work where the connection speed is better. Please read on about:

Saturday

Saturday I wake up on Julianne’s spare bed. It is hard like a rock, but still somehow comfortable.

She makes spiced Indian chai and oatmeal with brown sugar for us to eat before Palminder arrives, right on time, to take us to pick up Susie and Katie on our way to Chandi Chowk to explore the huge marketplace in Old Delhi.

We load up the car and drive past India Gate, past Janpath, and into the narrow, clogged streets in front of the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid. Palminder turns up a long street that is lined with shops on both sides. There are lots of jewelers on one side and lots of temples on the other: a Jain temple and two gurudwaras where people cue up to wash their bare feet before entering.

Palminder announces, “Chandi Chowk,” then pulls over. But this isn’t quite where we want to be dropped off. We want to check out the spice market first. However, we don’t exactly know where the spice market is. Neither does Palminder, apparently. He insists we get out where he stopped, but Susie tells him to get out of the car and ask where the spice market is. After this direct instruction, he begrudgingly obliges. He drives back to the beginning of the street of shops and makes a u-turn, leading back up the far side of the street. Here he pulls over and tells us, “spice market.” We don’t see anything that looks like a spice market. Susie jumps out of the car this time to ask somebody where it is, but in the intervening moment, a cop tells us we have to pull out of the way of the auto-rickshaws behind us. We leave Susie behind as the car pulls up about 500 feet. Had I been left behind in such a fashion, I probably would have totally panicked and started digging though my purse for Palminder’s card while sitting on the curb and shaking. But not Susie. She finds the car with no problem amidst the crammed sea of auto-rickshaws and trucks and bicycle rickshaws and cabs, ducks her head in and tells us we’ve found it. The spice market is right around the corner. We get out of the car and tell Palminder we’ll call him when we’re done. He has to go park by the Red Fort, he tells Julianne in Hindi. There’s no parking nearby. You’re barely allowed to stop your vehicle to let people in and out.

We climb out of the car into a smash of saris and salwar and lungi. Susie walks quickly between the shoulder-to-shoulder people and crosses the street which is full of bicycle rickshaws. No engine-powered vehicles can even fit down the road we’re crossing. I try to take a few pictures but don’t want to get separated from my friends. I don’t want to be alone in this market.

Across the street and around the corner, I see piles of nuts and roots in burlap sacks and metal dishes. “This is the spice market,” Susie announces. In her two years of living in India, she has been here before. She just didn’t quite remember how to find it. I can’t fault her. The streets are a jumble of shops too numerous and chaotic to even be able to find a landmark. If there is a shop, there are ten more just like it just up the street. There are booksellers and jewelers and sweets shops and electronics stores and stores that sell random items like brooms and string and toys.

Once we find the spice market, though, the cacophony gives way to stall after stall of powders and chilies and roots with little price markers shoved into them. Every tenth person is sneezing—and that’s a lot of sneezing.

Susie stops us at a guli, an alley, and gives a little warning. If anybody is sensitive to smells, they may want to wait outside. We all brave it, following her down the narrow twisting path between buildings where men walk with great burlap sacks of chilies balanced on their heads calling to the people in front of them to make way. The smell is not so strong today. Last time she was here, Susie says, her eyes were watering. We make it out of the guli unscathed and walk back down the row of vendors. The street is jammed with bicycle rickshaws that can’t go anywhere because there are too many people and wagons full of burlap sacks. And this is the non-crowded time of day that the guidebook told us to visit during. I can’t imagine this place with more people in it, but, then again, I’ve seen a lot of things I couldn’t have imagined on my own in India.

We decide to try to find the Paratha Wali Guli, or the Alley of Bread. Several of my coworkers have described this place to me and told me I should go there. We use the patented Indian method of navigation and stop by a sweet shop, asking the friendly vendor if he can point us in the right direction. He says we can take a bicycle rickshaw or we can walk. It’s about a kilometer straight up the road, then turn right. We decide to hoof it. A walk is always a nice thing, and this way we can stop and look at the shops along the way.

Susie stops and bargains hard for a handful of watches with beaded bands. She gets five for four dollars. We come to a street where Susie decides we should turn right, and we do. The sidewalk is starting to get so crowded that we can’t negotiate, so we step into the road where no cars can go anyway. Food vendors line the walk and shops with the brightest, most glittering fabrics you can imagine: bright pinks and oranges and blues and greens. I snap photo after photo. I could take a thousand pictures just standing in one spot and each one would be different.

We walk and walk until finally Susie decides we should turn around. I decide to help out with navigation, asking every few stores where the Paratha Wali Guli is. “Famous place,” a shopkeeper tells me. “Turn right.” But no one can tell us exactly where to turn right. At the sari shop? There are hundreds. At the food vendor? There are hundreds of them too. I resolve to just keep asking. “Paratha Wali Guli? Paratha Wali Guli?” The shopkeepers dutifully point their fingers. Just to the right. Just to the right.

We finally find a narrow twisting alley that not even the bicycle rickshaws can make it down. This is strictly a pedestrian experience. You can almost fit your arms across the alley and touch the stores on both sides simultaneously. We have to be getting close. If I were an alley of bread, this is where I’d be. We walk down the row of never-ending sari shops with an occasional jewelers thrown in and everyone tells us we’re going in the right direction. We just need to keep walking. I feel like we’re totally leaving civilization behind. I wonder how we’ll ever find Palminder again, but I trust that with the power of the cell phone, we can just call him up and describe where it is we’re standing and he’ll magically appear. I hope. That is, if we ever see a street that a car can drive on again.

We take a turn to the left and it’s clear we’ve found it: shop after shop of bread and food. These places give a new meaning to holes-in-the-wall. They are tiny shops fighting for space. I leave it to Susie and Julianne to choose the one we’ll eat at. If I look too hard at any of them, I’ll chicken out completely. Men sit on the ground and rinse dishes at faucets coming out of the wall. Great pots of vegetables boil. And giant pans of fried bread fill the air with a savory scent. Susie wants to eat somewhere we can sit down. We find a place with a waiter who points us up a narrow marble staircase to a second floor eating area with a ceiling that barely allows us to stand up straight. There is a menu on the wall, but it is completely in Hindi. I am so impressed that both Susie and Julianne can read it. I have to rely on them once again to pick out something good. They come through. But, then again, I have a feeling that all the food here is good. We each get a metal plate divided into four sections. The sections are filled with different subzis: there is something sweet that’s maybe pumpkin, there is cauliflower, and there is a potato dish. There is one more section with a sweet-looking liquid and bananas, but Susie says not to eat it. If it’s not hot, it may not be safe. The heat kills the bacteria. We don’t want to take a risk of getting sick. We’re all planning a trip to Armritsar in less than a week.

We take pictures of each other in what feels like a little secret clubhouse above the bubbling crowd of Chandi Chowk. Katie asks the waiter to take pictures of the four of us with his camera and he kindly obliges, even turning off a light in the background so there’s less glare. He brings up fresh, hot parathas: stuffed, fried bread that we use to mop up the vegetable dishes we’re served.

When the meal is done, we’re all as stuffed as the bread. People start fishing for change but I decide to treat. For all four of us to eat this amazing lunch, it cost four dollars. No sense in breaking up the bill.

Afterwards, we stop at a bakery that boasts it has been there for a hundred years. All these shops are that old or older. Chandi Chowk market has been here since the Mughul Empire and some of the same families are in the same trades they have been in since the 1700s. Needless to say, they know how to make good food.

As we leave the bakery, we notice that we were just a few hundred yards away from the main road. We certainly took the long way around to find the Alley of Bread, but I’m glad for it. I loved the feeling of walking into centuries old Delhi, far from the gas powered engine and electric lights of modern society.

Julianne says we should walk down to the gurudwara. It will be a recognizable landmark that Palminder can pick us up in front of. We call him and he arrives on the spot in less than ten minutes. He has yet to fail me.

It’s getting on near three o’clock. We decide to stop by the gallery where Katie’s artwork is on display on the way back from the market. It’s a workshop-like space behind the Siri Fort Auditorium complex, full of paint and paintings and painters. The piece Katie painted at the Let My Country Awake event is here. I can see it in it’s finished form. She’s also done a companion piece: one with violent figures inside a lotus flower. There’s a lot of motion and dripping color in this second piece. They are both beautiful. Katie’s work is impressive.

Susie and Katie take an auto back to her place, and I drop Julianne back at her apartment in GK1 before going home.

At home, I call Jonaki. We were supposed to go out tonight. She has hatched a plan while I’ve been out playing. Here it is: she’s going to take an auto over to my place around seven. She’ll get ready when she gets here, if that’s okay by me. Then, around eight or eight thirty, two friends are going to come pick us up in their car. They’ll take us out to some bars, and they can then drop us back home when the evening’s over. It sounds perfect. I tell Jonaki I’ll see her soon.

I’m Skyping with Scott when I get a text message from Susie. “Are you there?” she asks. “Yep. Just talking with hubby,” I type her. Then my phone rings. I pick up but leave the Skype call with Scott going in the background.

It’s Susie. She wants to know if I’ve heard. Heard what? About the bombs. Three bombs have gone off in the city, in GK1 and Connaught Place and Karol Bagh. She wanted me to know because she heard I was going out tonight. I shouldn’t go.

GK1? Connaught Place? These are places I go all the time. I just came from GK1. Julianne lives there.

Scott wants to know what’s up. I tell him that bombs are going off. In places that I frequent.

The phone rings again. It’s Shabnum from work. She wants to know if I’m okay. She wonders whether I’ve heard about the bombs. I tell her I’m fine, but I’m worried about Jonaki. Jonaki is on her way over here right now. She told me she was taking an auto. Autos are notorious targets for bombings in India. Shabnum hangs up with me and says she’ll try to get a hold of Jonaki.

I turn on the news. Pictures of puddles of blood and crying people fill the screen. There is a repeated close up of a black puddle in the bottom of an auto. Scott is still on Skype. I don’t know what to tell him except that I’m fine and I don’t know if my friend is.

The phone rings again. This time it’s my boss from work. Amar wants to make sure I’m okay. I’m fine, I tell him. He says he got busy working around the house today and it’s good. We had made tentative plans to go out and do something, but now it’s best just to stay in. He tried to call earlier and couldn’t get through. The phones are jammed and not working right. Amar says to take care.

I tell Scott who was on the phone and why. Scott says there are a lot of people looking out for me here. I tear up. There are. I am so lucky. I have met so many kind people in my short time here.

Just then there is a knock at the door. It’s Jonaki. Thank God. “Thank God you’re here. Thank God you’re okay,” I tell her. She looks at me kind of cocking her head. Why am I acting so strangely? She hasn’t heard about the bombs. I have to tell her about the bombs. They’ve gone off all around the city. People are dead. People are injured. We can’t go out tonight. Obviously, we can’t go out tonight.

I hang up with Scott and try to get through to Julianne. She was supposed to go out with her friend, Carmen. I don’t think she was supposed to be in GK1, but I want to hear from her to make sure she’s okay. I can’t get through. There’s just a constant beeping. I don’t know if it’s a busy signal or something else. I call Susie. Has she heard from Julianne? Yes. She’s okay. I’m relieved. Very relieved. It seems that everyone I know here is accounted for. Everyone is home and okay. I tell Jonaki she has to spend the night. I don’t want her travelling across town tonight. She’s fine with this plan.

A sleepover party it is.

Jonaki calls her friend Kartik. He still wants to do something. His cousin is winding up four years in India. He leaves this Friday for the states, so he doesn’t want his last weekend here to be a bummer. Is it okay if they come over? They can bring some drinks. We can hang out, have an almost-party.

It’s fine with me, if they think they can get here. It’s unclear whether or not the police will be blocking roads and closing off sections of town. They say they’ll be over in a little bit.

Jonaki and I watch the news. They show victims on stretchers and always return to the close up of the puddle of blood on the green metal floor of the auto-rickshaw. Over and over. The puddle of blood. The body count is at ten, then it is at twenty. Forty people are injured, then it is 100. I have to turn off the television. There is no new information. Just that puddle of blood and now an exploded garbage can in the park near Connaught Place. Jonaki says that’s why there are no refuse bins in Patparganj where the office is: they’re great places for bombs. I think at first she’s joking because there’s so much garbage on the streets around the office, but she’s not. Terrorism is a serious problem here in India: a big one. I think of that article I read in that magazine at breakfast after the blasts in Jaipur that said that India is second only to Iraq in the number of terrorist attacks per year. It was one thing to understand that as a concept, but another thing altogether to feel this reality closing in around me, to wonder if my friends were safe, to have to change my plans because the markets we were planning to go to were attacked. Thank God we hadn’t set out earlier. It was just chance that kept me safe tonight, but I guess that’s the same as every night.

Jonaki says Delhiites are hardy. They’ll take this hit and bounce right back. It’s happened before and it will happen again. Unfortunately. That is the way with these attacks here. Bombs will go off, the headlines will feature police tracking down suspects for a few days, then the idea of the bombs will recede along with the immediate feeling of being threatened, along with the heightened security, until things are back to the same way they used to be before the bombs went off. I’ve seen this already with the bombings that took place in multiple cities just about a month earlier.

It’s nine thirty and still no sign of Kartik and his cousin Raj. Jonaki and I are starving. I don’t have any food in my place and it’s too late to ask Mira to cook for us. We decide to see if we can walk to the Defence Colony market. Just there and back. Real quick. We’ll order it to go. Downstairs, a woman puts a quick stop to our plan. She carries a white plastic bag full of food. “Everything’s closed,” she says. “But you can have some of our food. We’ll cook enough for you. I had to go all over just to get this. You won’t find anything else. It’s okay.” But she doesn’t know that we have two hungry men about to show up.

Then the guard tells us that it’s possible that one of the restaurants is still open. He gives us a menu for Swagarth. We try to call but can’t get through. Pachu dials the number for us and this does the trick. We order some okra, a shrimp curry recommended to me by some woman at breakfast one day, and a mixed vegetable dish. They’ll deliver it in twenty minutes. We won’t have to go without dinner tonight after all.

Kartik and Raj get here around ten o’clock. Jonaki has done well in describing them as not quite the everyday Indian type: they are both stout and their heads shaven. They look almost as if they could be twins in their t-shirts and blue jeans.

They bring in a giant load of booze and soda and chips. There’s beer and two kinds of wine and liquor. Two kinds of wine?

The food arrives just shortly after our guests. I start serving it up. Raj asks if I’m a big drinker. I say no. “You must not be,” he says. “You’re just all, like, let’s get the food.”

But it’s ten o’clock at night. I’m starving!

Raj isn’t hungry. He fixes himself a mixed drink and sits on the couch smiling. His cousin follows suit. I ask Raj what he’s been doing here in India for the last four years.

“Yoga,” he says.

His broad frame and booze-hounding demeanor make this answer sound all the more improbable, but what follows makes more sense.

“I’m done with yoga,” he says, smiling a half-baked smile and slowly, peacefully nodding his head. He is of Indian descent, but born in small-town Pennsylvania, where he’ll return in just six days after four years of living in India. What will he do? Get a job, probably. Probably doing something techie. But first he’ll spend some time at home, peacefully nodding his head and half smiling.

He wonders if I have any music. I play the limited selection I have on my laptop. It’s mostly a Rolling Stones box set that I borrowed from someone at work one day. Raj gets up and checks out the selection, double-clicking on Outkast. He wants to hear some hip-hop, he tells Jonaki when I leave the room for a moment.

The evening is a blur of Indian wine and quiet laptop music. For a while we take our tiny party out to the balcony where the night air is cool enough to be comfortable. Outside is quiet. It seems so safe. It’s hard to believe what happened tonight. It’s hard to believe it happened so close to here. GK1 is the colony right next to mine. But we don’t talk about the bombs. We talk about books and music and movies. We have something amounting to a hurricane party, defying the terrorists to ruin a perfectly good Saturday night for us in Delhi.

At three a.m. Jonaki hints to her friends that it’s time to go. She can tell I’m fading and she is too. Raj and Kartik gather their leftover booze, shake hands and take off into the night, apparently fearless.

I loan Jonaki some shorts and a t-shirt to sleep in and we crash in my king size bed. If anything could help me shake the image of that puddle of blood in the auto-rickshaw, an evening like this could. I sleep, and sleep well, if not a little too well.

I haven’t been a Mother Teresa tonight, running out to help those in need. I’ve been thinking of my own safety, leaving the aid to the locals. I wouldn’t have known where to begin helping anyway. But that is how I so often feel here. I don’t know where to begin. Give a leftover banana from breakfast to a beggar on my way to work? It’s a drop in the ocean. What difference has it made? What difference have I made?

Sometimes it seems like there is so much need in India. There is so much suffering. It is suffocating. It is insurmountable. Hunger and disastrous flooding and now terror. What else?

Sometimes a few glasses of Indian wine are all I can manage.

What Posh Means

2008-09-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

Friday

Friday at lunch we talk about the diversity of India. Amar mentions there is a state in the northeast, Meghalaya, that is matriarchal. Land is passed from daughter to daughter. All the shopkeepers are women. The population is heavily Christian. “You go here and everything is completely different,” Amar says.

I wonder how many Christians there are in India. Amar says maybe two percent, but he says in a country of so many people, two percent is a lot: millions and millions of people. This helps explain why it seems like there are so many Sikhs too, when their proportion is only about two percent as well. Sikhs, also, are unmistakable in their turbans, wearing their copper kara (bracelets). They are easy to see, so that, too, probably makes their numbers seem larger.

In the afternoon I take a walk with Shabnum. We talk about the diversity of languages in India. I wonder if all the different languages keep people from travelling, if the languages increase the sense of insularity that people feel. Does language have anything to do with the violence and hatred between communities?

Shabnum says it’s not as bad as it used to be. Television has actually made a big difference. Lots of people learn Hindi from watching, so can better communicate with others. Her own grandmother picked it up from watching Indian soap operas. These are funny affairs with lots of extreme close ups and dramatic music and women who go to sleep in full make-up, wearing saris.

After work I go to Julianne’s house. She’s invited me over for another Bollywood night, and she’s made amazing homemade soup and bread. Her mother just made the soup and she was missing it, so she made some for herself.

We watch Namaste London, a film about a woman who has grown up in London, but whose father wants her to marry a traditional Indian man. She is engaged to a white guy who turns out to be totally insensitive and stands by when an old man at a party calls India a backwards land of snake charmers. In the meantime, her father takes her on a trip to India where he marries her off to a Punjabi man from a small village. She comes back to London and says the marriage isn’t legal, then resumes making plans to marry the insensitive white guy. Her Punjabi groom says he loves her truly and will wait for her for as long as it takes. At the very end of the movie, she leaves her insensitive white guy at the altar in favor of the Punjabi groom. Tradition triumphs. I’m a little disappointed. The Punjabi groom seemed kind of creepy. He drank milk straight from a cow and there was this disturbing scene where he put his hand over the heroine’s mouth, held a lighter up near her face and asked her what her name was. I hadn’t fallen in love with the Punjabi groom by the end of the movie the way the heroine had.

When the movie’s over, we talk about how strange it’s going to be when I go back. Julianne said the first time she came to India, she stayed for a month and when she got back, the houses just seemed so unnecessarily big. “What do you need all this for?” she wondered.

We also talk about Indian culture and the propensity for long, serpentine storytelling when a few sentences would accomplish the same end. Julianne says when she was watching her friend Maurine’s house, one day she went over there and there was water on the floor of the bathroom and a picture had been knocked off the wall. She asked the house helper what happened. The story started, then, on last week Tuesday when all she really needed to know was that the air conditioner had leaked. It’s the same way in church when the Indian man leads the sermons. It’s a long, circular, repetitive story when there is really only one quick point: we should walk with God. I wonder how much of this comes from being immersed in an oral rather than a written culture.

It’s the same with Hinduism where there is no one central text that the religion revolves around. Beliefs and practices are passed down orally, by the mothers in the families, Julianne says. So for each storyteller, the story may change. So as many storytellers as there are, that’s how many Hinduisms there are. Julianne says that Islam has the Five Pillars and Christianity has the Ten Commandments, but understanding Hinduism is like trying to nail Jello to the wall. Traditions are personal and familial in nature, rather than guided by an unchanging text. It can’t be understood in western terms. You need a whole other paradigm for thinking about it.

It strikes me that trying to find your way around Delhi is also affected by the oral nature of the culture here. There are few street signs and where there are addresses, they don’t necessarily progress in a linear fashion. Even the locals find their way around by stopping and asking passersby if they know where such-and-such is. The catch to this oral tradition of navigation is that no one wants to tell you “no,” so if a person doesn’t know where something is, they’ll just make up something. So you often get wrong directions. No matter. You just ask another person until eventually, someone points you in the right direction.

We talk until late into the night. I’m impressed with how observant and insightful Julianne is for her age. She’s done a lot and seen a lot and it shows.

Julianne makes the bed in her apartment’s spare bedroom. This bedroom has its own bathroom with shower. As I marvel at how nice this is, I catch myself. In the United States, I would have thought this place was junky, with a cracked concrete wall and a moldy shower curtain. But in Indian terms, it’s downright uptown. I’m finally beginning to feel that my standards have shifted. I finally understand what posh means.

Am I Yesterday?

2008-09-14T01:00:00.001-07:00

Thursday

I finally finish chapter five of the finance book. Shabnum sent off chapter three to the author for his approval and gently mentioned the fact that we’re having to reformat all his tables, so it’s taking longer than expected. We believe this may have ruffled his feathers because he sent back a terse note saying to pay closer attention to the new chapter he’s sending. It’s an important one. This author/editor tension is so constant it’s almost a parody of itself. It’s always hard to criticize someone’s baby.

I’ve been looking forward to today because after work we’re going to the Italo Calvino reading put on by the First City Theatre Group. They’re the same group who did the reading I went to with Jonaki two weeks ago. They stage a free reading every two weeks. They make it look easy, but there’s a lot of work that goes into selecting the pieces, making sure they flow, getting the timing right, etc.

We’re standing around talking at about five thirty and Sukanya the intern with the big eyes hears that we’re going. Can she come too? She knows Momo, one of the guys reading. Why not? There’s room in the car. Now we just have to ask Amar if it’s okay if we leave a little early. We decide Sukanya should do it. We follow her over to Amar’s office, Jonaki and Shabnum and I, and we all stand there waiting for her to say something. She doesn’t. So we’re all just standing there in Amar’s office. I feel ridiculous and begin to laugh. Then Jonaki laughs. Then I laugh harder. Amar looks at us expectantly then says, “You are all going somewhere? Then go!”

By the time we actually leave the office, it’s just about six o’clock anyway, so no need for the conga line anyway.

We get stopped by some of Delhi’s famous ten-minute red lights. At one of these, a masculine-looking person sits in the median wearing a purple flowing dupata and kurta. Shabnum sees him and says she’s been seeing so many hijra lately. One touched her on the head the other day when she was stopped in traffic and she got so bothered that she didn’t give him anything.

A hijra is not to be confused with the Joni Mitchell album Heijira. A hijra is a person born with male and female sex characteristics. Or sometimes, they are just cross-dressers: men who feel a need to live as women. In India, these children are given away to and raised in a very hierarchical subculture wherein there are gurus and servants. The hijra consider themselves able to give blessings and will show up at auspicious events, especially weddings, in crowds. There they will dance and sing and demand money for their service. If you don’t pay the hijras a considerable enough amount of money, they will grow belligerent and curse you. No one wants to be cursed by a hijra.

When Shabnum got accosted the other day, she refused to give money. The hijra said, “Aren’t you afraid of being cursed by a hijra?” And Shabnum just said, “No.”

Which leads me to a new ad campaign that is springing up everywhere across the city that seems to be zeroing in on a “new” kind of Indian. It’s for a periodical, Mail Today. The billboards have messages on them like, “I’m not fair, but I’m lovely. I’m not yesterday.” There’s another one that features an Indian man flipping a pancake and wearing an apron that says, “Supermom.” It says, “I’m not just Daddy. I’m not yesterday.” India is changing. Even the billboards say so.

The idea that a man can do domestic work here is new. It reminds me of the 1980s in America. Wasn’t there a movie starring Michael Keaton called Supermom?

So too with the idea that someone with dark skin is as beautiful as his or her fair-skinned counterpart. Didn’t we have a “black is beautiful” movement in the United States in the seventies?

Everyone knows these changes don’t happen uniformly or overnight, but it’s nice to see them coming, even if just in billboard form. Billboards must mean someone thinks there’s a market for this kind of thinking.

Of course, in India, the people who live under these billboards in the road probably can’t even read them. What I’m saying is that these changes are only for the middle class, and, even then, probably only a portion of it. Tradition holds strong sway here. It is hard to break with the past. It is hard not to be yesterday when you’re being cursed by a hijra or when your mother and father want you to marry someone you didn’t choose. I wonder how “yesterday” I would be if I grew up here. It’s easy to say that I’d insist on a man who respected me as an equal and who took equal responsibility in taking care of the house, but how tall an order is that? How long would I be willing to wait? Would I be strong enough to be alone if I never met this man? Or would I cave in? Settle? Compromise? After all my friends had gotten married? After I passed the age when marriages traditionally happen? It’s hard to say how strong I would be if I were raised here, if I were under the pressures that Indian women face to marry and have children—scratch that—boy children. I want to think I’d be a pioneer, I’d insist on the respect I know I deserve, but it’s not so easy here. Nothing is so easy in India.

Past the hijra and the billboards, past the Jumna and the concrete jungle of Patparganj, we arrive at Connaught Place. Jonaki puts Palminder’s number in her cell phone so she can call him later when I need him to go home. Jonaki, Shabnum and Sukanya will be taking an auto back to Patparganj.

Sukanya says she knows Momo from school. She used to do a lot of student films. She actually auditioned for Wes Anderson’s Darjeeling Limited when they filmed it here. She is glad she didn’t make it in, she says. It was so bad. I agree. The film was a disappointment.

Palminder pulls over near the McDonald’s where he dropped us off last time. We find The Attic where the reading is taking place with little searching and open the thick, wooden door. This time we’re early. Sukanya says hello to Momo, who blows her off a little. This will become a great point of ribbing in the ensuing evening.

The reading is good. There is a story about a man who cares for an office plant by taking it outside into the rain. The office plant grows into a giant tree, then loses all its leaves, even the last one, which turns a rainbow of colors before it flies away. It’s a story of nurturing and loss.

There is another story about a husband and wife who work opposite shifts and so only see each other for a few minutes each day. They find intimacy by sleeping in the warmth the other has left in the bed. This story, this aching for love in love’s absence almost makes me cry.

The last story has one of those unreliable narrators. It’s creepy. It’s about a guy who lives apart from society after killing a woman, though he doesn’t say as much. He says the dogs just dig at that place in his backyard because of the moles. But I don’t believe him.

The evening is a crisp hour long. It flies by. Afterwards, we congratulate the readers. They remember me, saying, “Thanks for coming back.” I think I’m easy to remember in these parts.

Shabnum’s fiancée has joined us, and he leads us underground and around a string of shops to a South Indian restaurant where Shabnum recommends I try the mini tiffin: it’s a bunch of different South Indian food in small portions. There is a little dosa, baby-sized idlis, even a helping of a bright orange sweet that tastes something like rice pudding. The dosa is served on top of a bright green banana leaf: a South Indian tradition.

The reading was a great time, as was dinner. We walk out into the muggy evening and Jonaki fishes out her cell phone. There are two missed calls, both from Palminder. I don’t understand why he’d be calling. I’ve only kept him two hours over his normal time and Ms. Sonu tells me that’s fine. Maybe I need to call her back and check on this again. Maybe there is some sort of problem with keeping him later than scheduled. Once again, I feel guilty for having gone out. I wonder why he was calling Jonaki.

Shabnum’s fiancée tells me I should request another driver if this one gives me trouble, but there’s always the chance that I get someone even worse.

Palminder shows up in a few short minutes and we speed off towards home, arriving in record time.

The Worst Tragedy of All

2008-09-12T04:15:00.000-07:00

Wednesday

Wednesday morning at breakfast, Kim from California’s four-year-old boy is running around. “Ralphie,” she says. “Ralphie, sit down and have some milk.” Ralphie ignores her completely. Ralphie has been naughty since they moved here from Pakistan, she tells me. Ralphie is rebelling. She doesn’t know what to do.

Mira brings me an apple and, as she’s setting it down on the table in front of me, Raphie runs up and grabs it. He runs off with it.

“Here, take this one,” says Kim from California, holding up her apple. “I’m not going to eat it. Ralphie’s not going to eat it either.” Just to prove her wrong, Ralphie runs up and grabs the apple she’s offering me and sinks his tiny front teeth into it, then spits out the bite he’s taken. After this, he gives me my original apple back.

The staff here love Ralphie. They stand outside the door and play with him and his little cars for hours. The other day as I was coming home, Mira was telling me a story about Ralphie running up and down the stairs. “Up, down, up, down, all the day,” she laughed and repeated, “Up, down, up, down.”

I finish my breakfast, and when I go out to my car, Ralphie is sitting in the front seat, on the lap of the guard. They will miss Ralphie when he leaves on Monday to go live in his new home. Me: not so much.

At work I come close to finishing chapter five but get hung up near the end when I realize the author has built all the tables using the space bar. This will screw up the typesetting. I have to build actual tables. It will take some time.

Today, I receive a happier email than yesterday. The newdirections administrator says my revised newsletter article will work. I am relieved that I didn’t get a note saying my time here has been for naught, I’m being sent home or fired or other such bad news. I know I made a bigger deal out of this than it needed to be, but there are no clear guidelines for this program because every experience is different. You have to feel it out for yourself. Working within this nebulous framework is both liberating and worrisome. It is refreshing to basically be able to create my own expectations for the work I’m doing, but for someone who tends to need approval and affirmation, it’s difficult because those things basically have to come from within. Nobody is holding my hand telling me what to do, and telling me “good job” once I’ve done it. Just like I had to negotiate my way through my first days in India on my own, finding my ride at the airport, figuring out how the lock worked on my door, besting the hot water switch on my shower, I have to chart my own path through the work I am doing in the office, making sure that both the Indian and Iowan offices are taking the most value they can from supporting me in this endeavor. I’m glad I got my first newsletter article rejected. It gave me the chance to check in and make sure what I’m doing here really counts, is really making a difference.

Susie emails me as well. She wants to know if I’m going to the “Let My Country Awake” event tonight. I tell her I can’t stay the whole time. I can’t keep my driver too late, and I have to go home and get a little work done on my blog, but I’ll go for at least a little bit, just to check it out and see what it’s like.

I tell Palminder, “India Habitat Centre.”

He says, “C-83?”

I tell him, “No. India Habitat Centre. Just one hour.”

He tries again, “C-83?”

What is it with him? He never wants to take me anywhere and I’m getting a little tired of it. I know he can understand what I’m saying, but it’s like he pretends he doesn’t in hopes that he will get out of working. And it’s not just when he’s had a long day. That one Saturday all I did was go to the Lotus Temple for an hour and he was still anxious to get me the heck out of his car afterwards. And two Saturdays ago when I went to the blues bar with my friends from work, I only had him for four hours when he started sighing and asking Jonaki how much longer it would be at each new stop we made. He makes me feel guilty for going out. I know, I know. Eleanor Roosevelt would say that no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. But I have a problem withholding my consent. Go ahead, Palminder. Make me feel anxious and guilty and ultimately, make me go home early. It is getting old, though. I’m not going to continue to let a pouty driver ruin it every time I go out somewhere by making me worry about him. Pretty soon, I’m going to withhold my consent. I swear.

He finally concedes and says, “Ok.”

The India Habitat Centre is a huge complex of red brick buildings very near the Defence Colony where I stay. The event is outdoors, in a little amphitheatre between the buildings. We pull up past a guard booth and into a circular drive. I ask Palminder how I’ll find him when it’s time to go. He says he’ll be out on the street, to the right of the guard shack. He can speak English when the subject matter is about his getting off work.
I walk through the four and five story brick buildings past a restaurant and people in business clothing milling around to where I see stage lighting set up and easels with artwork. The first painting I see is of a banana and an orange floating above and below a martini glass. I am perplexed as to how this is about unity and love, or against communal violence. There are more pieces here, though, and they look the part. One is a crowd of people reaching their hands towards the viewer. Near this one there is a sign: wet paint.

I find Susie on stage with her friend Katie. Katie is a professional painter and will be painting live during the show. There is a huge canvass in front of her, and she is mixing paint: blues and browns. Susie is helping her try to steady the easel, but it’s not working. She runs off and finds an event organizer who gives Katie a different easel that doesn’t wobble.

Susie shows me where she’s sitting. Gloria, the displaced nurse from the Bihar flooding, has come with and is saving us places.

I sit next to her and make small talk. Then some people start playing a guitar and a flute. I think the show’s starting, but this is just a sound check. The real show starts a good Indian fifteen minutes late. It stinks because that’s fifteen minutes of it I won’t get to see. I told Palminder I’d be back to the car by eight.

The show begins with no introduction. A woman sings the words to Rabindranath Tagore’s poem, “Let My Country Awake” accompanied by a violin and a guitar. Susie tells me this was written and rehearsed in a week. It sounds good, especially considering the speed with which it was produced.

After the song, a guy in a brown t-shirt takes the stage. He talks about all the violence in India, Muslim against Hindu, Hindu against Christian, and says that if anyone came here to be entertained or amused, “It would be the worst tragedy of all.” Really? Worse than the flooding in Bihar or the murders in Orissa?

I understand immediately why my monologue was rejected. I wrote it with the intention of being both entertaining and amusing. Instead, I guess, they were looking for something strictly serious, something that nobody could laugh at.

The ensuing acts fit this bill. A man with a guitar sings about burning tires getting put around people’s necks. “The most dangerous place in the world is in a womb in India if you’re a girl,” he goes on.

Susie’s friend Katie paints two figures inside an eyeball. One is hitting the other with a stick. Above the eye she paints the Hindi word for justice.

The man with the guitar goes on with his assorted atrocities, then finishes with a song full of forced rhymes and the repeated line, “Keep goin’.” So the words are something like, “When your car is in a crash and you’re feeling just like trash, keep goin’.”

Next, a theatre group takes the stage. They are dressed in solid black and each has a red scarf on. Their piece is in Hindi, so I don’t understand, but it’s visually interesting and creative. The scarves become nooses at one point and they make a human pyramid to form a gallows. Then the scarves serve to bind the wrists of several of the actors. At the end they use them for a sort of maypole effect.

Katie has plastered white over her painting. She’s starting over. This time she paints two figures in an embrace inside a lotus flower. She sticks with this image, adding color and texture to it as the night wears on. It’s hypnotizing to watch her paint.

The next performance is another theatre group, but this one is led by a guy with a bad lisp who screams angrily the whole time. This one is in English, but I kind of wish it was in Hindi. I might think it was better. As it is, it’s a lot of yelling about different terrible things that could happen. They hold up a sheet that gives a shadow effect and make it appear that a woman is being beaten and raped behind it. A man on stage screams, “Raped! Raped! Repeatedly raped! And now she’s dead. Dead! OH THE BRUTALITY!”

I wonder how this is a positive message about love or unity. Actually, it’s not. Their message is about how people sit idly by while terrible things happen. I know they’re trying to accomplish something with this evening. They want to motivate people to go out and do something that will change India, that will make it a better place. I can’t fault them for good intentions, but this kind of didactic art is really not my thing. It also seems that they’re preaching to the choir, so-to-speak; that anyone who’s already come out for an evening like this is probably doing what he or she can to help. There is not much need in India to be beaten about the head with terrible news. You can see it on the corner of every street.

It’s eight o’clock. I have to go. I say goodbye to Susie and inch my way out of the amphitheatre, retracing my steps back to the circular drive. I walk to the guard shack at the front of the drive and look around for Palminder. I don’t see him anywhere. I stand there for what feels like five minutes, hoping he will pop out and find me as usually happens, but to no avail.

Don’t panic, I tell myself. I’m not alone here. At worst, I will have to go back and watch this whole show, then ride home with Susie afterwards. I walk back up to the circular drive, thinking Palminder maybe pulled up there, but no luck. I decide I’ll try to call him on my phone even though it will be an international call. Do I remember the country code for India? I don’t think so, but maybe I won’t need it. I can always try. I dig and dig in my purse, bringing up little bits of paper. There is Sonu’s sister’s address in New York. There is the handout I took at the British Consulate Library. There is everything but the business card with Palminder’s freaking number on it.

Now I sit down on the curb and start emptying my purse. I take out my wallet, my camera, the roll of camper’s toilet paper I keep with me, a maxi-pad. It’s all spread out on the ground in front of me as I squat on the curb. Just then, I hear, “Madam?” I look up and Palminder is standing there, thinking God knows what about his strange fare. I scoop up the contents of my purse and he walks me to the guard shack and just beyond where the car was apparently parked the whole time. He was right where he said he’d be. I just didn’t see him because I was looking for him instead of the car, and he never popped out.

I stop shaking.

Why was I shaking?

Everything was fine. The India Habitat Centre is a safe place. It wasn’t late at night. I had a solid Plan B. But I was still alone. And things still weren’t going exactly as I’d expected them to go. It’s my (not so) secret fear to be marooned somewhere and not be able to find my driver. Since I don’t have a local cell phone, it’s pretty much up to me and me alone to locate him after he’s left me somewhere. I can’t just call him up and tell him where I’m standing or ask him where he’s parked. I just have to find him, which can be tricky in India’s crowded streets.

Still, I’d like to be more comfortable when things go awry. Getting nervous and worrying doesn’t help. It’s that attachment again: attachment to the exact way that I want things to be. It’s hard to shake. It’s like the guy tonight saying the worst tragedy of all is if people were entertained by the show. It’s a loss of perspective on what really matters.

Palminder drives me home. We arrive safe and sound in less than fifteen minutes. I put my initials in his book to keep track of my hours and give him his hundred rupee tip.

“Madam same time tomorrow? Nine o’clock?” he asks me, as he asks me every weeknight on the way out of his car.

“Yep, same time. Good night.”

Let My Country Nap

2008-09-11T03:42:00.000-07:00

Tuesday

I am greeted at work with an email from Sara Larsson, the woman organizing the arts event against communal violence. It says:

We read through the monologue and we don’t feel it will be appropriate towards
the theme of the evening.

We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, we really appreciate your support for this event.

Thanks a lot for contributing and I am sorry we are not able to use it.

Not appropriate. Ouch. She didn’t even give me a chance to revise or write something else. Just a wholesale, round rejection. “We look forward to seeing you.” Right.

I try to be big about it, but my feelings are hurt. Getting called “inappropriate” stings. And it didn’t seem like she was being too picky about who gets to participate. I wonder if I’m the only loser who got left out.

Now I have to tell my coworkers who I invited to come see me that I won’t be performing, which will be embarrassing. I tell Jonaki, then Shabnum, then Amar that they found my writing inappropriate, so cancel your Wednesday night plans. Jonaki asks if I wrote about the necking couple on the bus. Of course I did. I also mentioned people peeing in public, but I could have easily edited that part out if given the chance, not that I wanted to.

I have a sense that it wasn’t any one little thing that got me kicked out of the “Let My Country Awake” show. It was probably the total effect of what I’d written. I don’t understand what they are looking for. They started out explaining that it’s a reaction to the violence in Orissa where Christians are being persecuted by Hindus, but then they said they don’t want the names of any specific places or communities mentioned. Then Sara told me in an email that she didn’t want to focus on hate or division. She wanted to be positive, focused on love and unity. I wrote a monologue, a personal story, about unity. But I guess it’s not unifying enough.

I wonder if it’s not Christian enough, because I actually have some Hindu philosophy in it. I wonder if she really did want to focus on the terrible events that are happening in Orissa even though she told me she didn’t. I take a few minutes and do some research on Orissa and find that it’s not so cut and dried. The Christians there have been trying to convert the Hindus, then there were several events that culminated in a Christian killing a Hindu swami. That’s when things really exploded. All of this is complicated and political. I don’t know enough about it to even have an informed opinion.

I notice when I look at the poster that the tag line for the event is, “To speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.” I don’t presume to be able to speak for anyone involved in these incidents. That’s why I chose to write something personal, something about how I feel unity can work in my own life. I hoped that would be a universal message, one that other people could use to examine themselves. I guess I was just not cut out for this event.

A few hours into the day, I get an email from the head of the newdirections program. She’d like a 300 word write up on the benefits of my assignment so far for the newdirections newsletter. I dash something up and send it off, only to be rejected again. She wants me to focus on business results. She wants to know how the people in this developing economy are benefitting from my knowledge and skills. I had included a list of projects I’d worked on, but this was apparently not sufficient.

I revise my newsletter submission and send it off again, but don’t hear back. I hope it’s just too late in London to get a response. I hope this second try is what they’re looking for. I’m concerned that it’s still not right.

Two rejections in one day. I’m really racking them up. Now I’m afraid that perhaps I’ve had the wrong focus the whole time in the job I’m doing for Pearson. I’m afraid that I haven’t achieved the purpose of the program. I’m afraid that I’ve taken this gigantic opportunity and fowled it all up. I’m afraid they’re going to be sorry they sent me here, or pull the plug or who knows what kind of retribution might be exacted? Big opportunities come with big responsibilities; I know that. I wanted to do such a good job. I wanted to live up to the expectations or exceed them. Now I’m afraid I’ve blown it somehow.

Driving home, I feel so alone. There is no one to share my concern with. I feel like a failure.

The car stops in a sea of traffic at the red light before the river where all the men hock their goods. They see me today and keep walking. This has never happened. Usually they bang and bang on my window insisting I buy bad translations of Paul Coelho and William Darymple, or dubious magazines packaged in plastic sleeves.

I must look terribly upset for them to leave me alone.

This makes me feel even worse. Tears stream down my cheeks as the car revs into gear and we pull away over the bridge.

I try to remind myself of the lessons I’ve learned while I’ve been here. I think of the quote from the Lotus Temple about not being affected by either good or bad events; they are all temporary. I see a beggar on the street and think how much more fortunate than him I am. But none of this consoles me. I’m just feeling rotten.

I feel even more rotten when I notice that the lights are all off as I walk up the marble stairs to my room. The power is out again. It is asthma attack hot in my room on the top floor of the guesthouse.

I was going to veg out in front of the television or work on getting my blog caught up, but these plans are thwarted for the time being. The only thing I can do is walk to the market to find somewhere cool.

Acha and Baby are out on the corner by Mister Kandhari’s house. I pet them and cry, missing my animals back home, knowing I don’t even get to talk to Scott tonight because he’s going out to lunch with a friend. I am alone for the evening. Most nights it’s fine, but tonight I feel desolate.

I think of the book “Chant and Be Happy,” and what it said about food bringing temporary happiness. I think I’ll take even temporary happiness over what I’m feeling at the moment, so I walk to the market to Liquid Kitchen.

But even Liquid Kitchen lets me down tonight. There is no kimchee and no Chinese pickles. The service is slow. The pasta, I guess, is still okay. I don’t even order one of their desserts. And they don’t even have me fill out a comment card. I guess they figure I am a regular customer now. They don’t need to impress me anymore. Too bad. I liked being impressed.

I go back to my room. Thankfully, the power is back on. I jog in place in front of the window air conditioner and watch Last Comic Standing. They are roasting the host. I hate roasts, but I still watch because it’s better than the BBC News which is obsessed with some terrorist trial in London that didn’t go well for the prosecution. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is on the show. He makes me laugh. It’s good temporary happiness even if the permanent kind is elusive for me today.

Before bed, I check my email. Scott is trying to cash the check that Geico sent after the accident he had with my car, but the check is in my name. He doesn’t think the bank will cash it for him. I tell him I’ll just fix my car when I get home. Why not come home to a cracked up car? Just one more fun thought to top off my day.

I go to bed early, hoping to see things more clearly in the morning. I was so looking forward to this week, looking forward to performing. It’s not working out as I thought it would. But not everything does, and tomorrow is another day. I’m still in India, still having the most amazing time of my life. No one can take that away from me now, regardless of what happens in the future. I will carry these experiences with me for always.

More Photobucketing!

2008-09-11T02:32:00.000-07:00

Check out my newest crop of photos at:

http://s458.photobucket.com/albums/qq302/vkrajewski/

Highlights include me in my orange bandana and steaming pots in which you could cook humans. Also look for the tiny monkey who missed his opportunity to steal my camera.

A Special Charan Darshan

2008-09-11T00:36:00.000-07:00

Monday

Monday at work I have a clarifying question for my coworkers that I’ve been thinking about since visiting the Iskcon Temple on Saturday. Isn’t Krishna one of the avatars or forms of Vishnu? Isn’t that why he’s blue? Vishnu is usually blue, too, when you see him depicted in artwork. He is one of the main trinity of Hindu gods: there is Brahman the creator, Shiva the destroyer, and Vishnu the sustainer.

They tell me I am correct. Then I go on about how it’s confusing because Krishna has his own avatars. There is the unicorn-horned fish and the dwarf and the lion man. “Is that right?” they ask me. I tell them yes, I saw a display about it at the temple when I went.

“You are more religious than all of us,” Jonaki says. Amar and Shabnum and Preeta chuckle.

After work, I tell Palminder to go to the Iskcon Temple. He says, “C-83?” No. I want to go to the Iskcon Temple. Just for a half an hour. I want to check out the Radhastami festival that I saw a poster for when I was there on Saturday. It said there was a “Special Charan Darshan (Only Once a Year)” that runs from four thirty in the morning until nine o’clock at night on September 8th.

Radhastami, I discover with the help of my trusty friend, Wikipedia, is the celebration of the birth of Srimati Radharani, Krishna’s consort with whom he is bound in eternal, transcendent love.

I don’t know what to expect from the celebration. I hope it’s not too crazy. Not long ago there was an article that made the international headlines about a stampede at a Hindu temple. I can’t imagine the Hare Krishnas stampeding, but you never know.

As we pull up the hill and drive past the parks on the way to Iskcon, the streets are peopled, but not overly crowded. People walk leisurely, enjoying the relative cool of the dusk. There is even a little breeze to lessen the heat.

Palminder drops me off and says I can find him parked where he was last time. I assure him it will only be about a half an hour.

I walk past the same woman who frisked me on Saturday. She peeps into my purse and asks, “Smoke?” No. I don’t smoke. “Okay,” she says, as she feels me up then waves me on.

The grounds of the temple are tranquil. I hear music coming from inside. I check my shoes at the shoe stand and put the little token that will allow me to get them back into my pocket.

As I walk up the steps, I notice people touching the stairs just as they did when entering the gurudwara. I forget that while there are so many faiths here in India, many of them have common roots in Hinduism, so many of the practices, traditions and beliefs are similar. I touch the stairs and touch my forehead as the others do. Two guards at the door welcome me with nods and smiles. I am the only white person I see here, but I don’t feel like I’m causing a scene. No one here gives me crooked looks or stares. They all chant along with the Hindu monk who is singing into a microphone.

Inside the temple, the various shrines are closed. Intricately designed golden doors hide the idols inside from view. Garlands of flowers are draped everywhere, especially around the circular ceiling and over a life-sized statue of Swami Prabhupeda, the man who is responsible for spreading the Krishna consciousness across the globe.

The music picks up tempo, as do the accompanying drums. The monk with the microphone motions to the crowd that we should walk in a circle. We do. Another monk stands outside the circle and holds a little brass bowl with an open flame in it. As people circle past, they pass their hands quickly through the fire. When they’re not playing with the fire, they clap along with the music, as do I.

Eventually, the circling stops and people stand in place. Some sit. At one point, everyone gets on their knees and touches their heads to the ground, then they stick their hands up in the air and follow the monk with the microphone in chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare.

During this, three little girls sidle up next to me, smiling hugely. They want to know where I’m from. They tell me my hair is bright. They want to touch it. The guard comes up and shoos them away.

I decide to go downstairs to see if the bookshop is open. I want the book with the George Harrison interview that I found here when I came on Saturday: “Chant and Be Happy.” I walk across the grounds in the deep blue dusk. Tonight, the fountains are filled and lit and pulsing with water. Behind the counter sit five monks in saffron robes. They all have two chalk-colored lines running up their foreheads in the shape of a large paperclip. This is the sign of a Krishna worshiper. They sit back, relaxing. I have to ask them twice for the book I want. It costs twenty rupees: fifty cents. Even if I have to leave it behind in India, it’s worth the price.

I walk back out into the dusk with my slim volume in hand and take my camera from my purse. I want a snap of the temple lit up against the night sky. It’s pretty. As I get the temple centered on my camera’s screen, I feel a punch to my behind. A gaggle of little boys stands near me and laughs.

“No! No!” I tell them. I wish I knew the Hindi word for bad. I should have just told them, “Hare Krishna.”

They would be in huge trouble if someone saw them do this, but their parents are probably inside at the darshan while they are out here running wild.

I walk away, but one of the boys follows me, skipping. He wants a picture.

“Nihan!” I say. No! “Chalo!” Go away!

“Nihan!” he laughs, mocking me. He thinks it’s funny that I said a Hindi word to him. He races off back to his group of friends.

After a vibe-harshing experience like that, I decide to go back to the darshan and enjoy a little more of the chanting and singing. The guard ushers me in once again.

I kneel and listen to the music and watch the crowd. The bowl of fire has been extinguished and now there is just the Hindi song that everyone seems to know the words to. I wonder if this is the same thing that has been going on since four thirty in the morning. I can’t imagine they have the same monk sing for the whole time. They mast take turns.

I don’t want to leave Palminder waiting for too long, and I also don’t want to have to find his car in the pitch black, so, as on many occasions, I cut my festivities short to find my driver and return home.

I get my sandals back from the shoe stand and walk out past the gate where the guard greets me with a final “Hare Krishna.”

The darshan was pretty sedate. The crowd friendly and not too large in number. I wish I could have understood the songs they were singing, but I felt welcomed into their midst all the same, even if I did get a punch in the butt by some tiny hoodlums.

On the way home I read the first few pages of “Chant and Be Happy.” They talk about the familiar Hindu theme of seeking for happiness in impermanent places where we can’t really find it: food, sex, companionship, sports, arts. All these things are temporary. That’s as far as I get before we run out of light and I have to stop reading.

Where does true happiness lie again? I need a reminder like a punch in the butt, but I'll have to wait until I’ve got better reading light.

Baskets of Bread

2008-09-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

Sunday

I’m waiting at a bathroom stall. I’m the next in line, but it seems to be taking forever. There is a long cue of women behind me. I decide to use the toilet that is not inside the stall because I can’t wait any more.

I sit down to go when a large lizard swaggers its way up to me. It has huge googly eyes that look like they’re made of plastic. I get scared but I can’t run away. A woman tells me it’s okay. He won’t hurt me. Just then, he opens his mouth to reveal a huge gaping maw like a crocodile’s. He snaps his mouth shut with such force that I feel the ensuing wind. The second time he opens his mouth, he’s going for my arm. I’m sure he can snap it right off. He begins to clamp down with lightning speed when I wake up swallowing a huge gulp of air.

I’m in bed. The googly-eyed crocodile lizard is nowhere to be found. I look at the clock but since it doesn’t light up, I can’t see what time it is. I turn on the light. I need to know what time it is because today is the day I’m going to the gurudwara with Mister Kandhari and Mister Singh. I need to get up at five o’clock to go with them. My clock says 12:01 but for some reason I wonder if it’s wigged out again. I get up and check my cell phone, which says the same time. I have five more hours to sleep. I close my eyes and drift off.

The phone rings. I look at my clock again. It’s 5:15. “Are you awake?” It’s Mister Kandhari with a friendly wake up call. I lie a little, telling him I’m up. Thankfully, I picked out my clothes and got everything ready the night before. All I have to do is get dressed and grab my purse. I’m out the door in less than fifteen minutes, walking through the drizzle to Mister Kandhari’s house.

As I approach Mister Kandhari’s gate, I see him sitting by his wicker garden table under the awning of his house. “Come in! Come in!” he says. “I have made you some tea.” He lifts a metal lid to reveal three tall, thin white mugs. I am so pleasantly surprised. It is the good kind of tea, not too sweet, spiced with ginger. I sit out of the rain and sip. There is also a tin full of five different kinds of sweets. Mister Kandhari recommends the biscotti, so I have one.

Mister Singh arrives just a few minutes after me and takes the third mug. He wonders if I’ve tried the biscotti. Yes. It was good.

They drink their tea in seconds flat, and I am still sipping. There is not a lot of time. We have to go. I take a few gulps and catch up to the men. We get in one of Mister Kandhari’s cars and drive a few blocks. We are picking up Poonam, the woman I met at Mister Singh’s house the other night at dinner. She is standing in the rain in front of her house.

“I was waiting and waiting,” she croons after she climbs into the car. We drive past India Gate which is still lit up against the purplish dawn. Mister Singh tells me some of the history of the Bangla Sahib gurudwara. It is one of the largest in Delhi. The gurudwara is built on the site of a house where Guru Harkishen Dev, the eighth guru of the Sikhs, had stayed when he visited Delhi in 1664. The tank, which you can still see in the compound was blessed by the Guru and is said to cure people of small pox and cholera. The tank’s water is changed completely every few days, and people volunteer to clean it. The entire site is maintained by volunteer labor. Mister Singh is a fountain of information and very generous in sharing it with me. Mister Kandhari fiddles with his car stereo and puts on some music. Mister Singh tells me they’ll be playing the morning raga when we get to the temple. I’ll be able to listen to it. He passes an orange scarf back to me which I tie over my head to cover it so I’m ready to enter when we get there. He tells me when I go to Armritsar I must also bring something with me to cover my head, and be sure to wear long pants that cover my legs. Poonam says what I’m wearing would be a fine outfit in which to visit the Golden Temple.

We pull into the dirt parking lot behind a large white building with golden domes reaching up into the inky sky. There are tent-like canopies surrounding the building so it’s hard to get a good picture. Poonam says we should leave our shoes in the car, but Mister Singh says it’s okay to leave them on for now. We’ll check them at the stand inside.

The rain is thankfully tapering off. I was afraid it would pour on me; I didn’t bring my umbrella. We walk through the parking lot and onto a white marble walkway. At each set of stairs that leads up into the temple, there is a two-inch deep, square pool of water. This is so no one can enter without washing their feet. The first pool we see is a little muddy. I wonder how clean my feet will be after I “wash” them in this way.

We check our shoes and walk into the line to get inside the temple. I can hear the raga being sung and drums being played. There are a lot of people here cueing up along the metal railings running the length of the stairs for crowd control, but the line moves quickly, not like at Kalkaji Mandir. Aside from the muddy footbath, the place is spotless, courtesy of the volunteers who sweep and clean constantly.

People bow down at the entryway and touch the stairs, then their foreheads. Mister Singh explains this is to benefit from the qualities of the pious people who have walked on these steps.

Inside there is a golden shrine that I can’t get very close to because of the crowd. Offerings of food, prashad, are placed in the shrine, and the clean tones of the raga ring out. Poonam, in her aqua green sari, walks away from us, sitting down on the floor on the far side of the shrine to hear the raga play.

Mister Singh and I sit cross-legged on the plush, flowered carpeting. He says they change the carpet every six months to keep it clean, and it’s all done with donations.

We don’t sit for long. There is work to do downstairs for the free breakfast. We rise, me much faster than the aging Mister Singh, and walk to the exit past a glass room where an enormous copy of the Guru Granth Sahib is kept when it is not on display in the main shrine.

Poonam stays behind as we walk outside and down the stairs to a covered area where the food is prepared. Heaping piles of vegetables lay on enormous metal surfaces. Mister Singh points to a large metal apparatus. It’s a chapatti machine for making the flat bread North Indians eat with most every meal. Women sit cross-legged and roll out little balls of dough. Pots you could cook a human in line the wall. They are full of dal. Four long narrow rows of grass mats provide the seating that people are beginning to fill. At a table full of baskets and bread stands Mister Kandhari. He has been down here since we arrived. He asks if I’d like to help. Certainly. He gives me a basket lined with leaves the size of garbage can lid. It is full of sliced white bread. He shows me what to do. Walk up and down the rows holding out three or four slices of bread at a time for each person. They will hold their hands out and I just need to place the bread into them. Okay? Can I do it? I think so.

Not everyone wants three or four slices of white bread. Some people hold up two fingers, or one. Some wobble their heads and smile or hold up their hands to indicate they don’t want any. I walk up and down waiting for a response from each person. Some appear to be in fine condition. Others appear to be in greater need. One man takes his bread with four oozing bandaged fingers. A few boys in blue jeans flirt with me. “Madam, where you are from?” they want to know.

I return to the table for a bread refill. Mister Kandhari hustles, busting open the packages and stacking them into my basket. Mister Singh is passing out chapattis. Another man has a giant kettle of milky tea and little plastic cups. Yet another man comes around with ladles of dal.

I walk up and down the rows with my magic, always refilling basket, giving people as much bread as they want. It feels great. Even though it hurt to get up at five this morning, I don’t feel tired now. I just feel busy. I just feel helpful. I fill up my basket and fill up my basket again. My arm is starting to hurt from holding it at an odd angle for such a long time, but it’s nothing too much to deal with. I think I could keep going for another couple of hours. The people keep coming. Hundreds of them. Men, women, families with children, all sitting on the narrow grass mats, reaching for bread with which to mop up their dal. As good as I feel, it’s hard for me to imagine doing this every morning for twelve years running, which is Mister Kandhari’s track record. The man is impressive.

Now a whole other crew works to clean the dirty metal dishes as they stack up by dozens. I return for another basket refill but Mister Kandhari says it’s time to go, but first, they’ll take some pictures of me if I’d like. He gives my camera to Mister Singh and refills my basket with bread. He wants me to pose with the people I’ve passed my bread out to. I feel a little fakey, but figure I’ll play along. Mister Singh takes my picture a few different times and it comes out looking awfully cute. Who knew an orange handkerchief could be so flattering?

Even though it appears that the meal is still in progress, we are ready to leave. Mister Singh takes me upstairs into the temple again. We need to look for Poonam and, he tells me, I can take pictures inside. Are you sure? Yes. It’s fine. We walk over the lush carpet once more, but there is no sign of the aqua green sari. Poonam is nowhere in sight. On the way out of the temple, people are holding out their hands and getting a little brown chunk of something. I hold out my hand and a man puts some glop in it. I notice people seem to be eating this glop. I’m not sure if I should. I hold the glop nonchalantly hoping for a discrete way to dispose of it. The place is so clean it would be crazy to try to drop it on the ground. A crew of volunteers would flock to the site with baskets and brooms and I’d definitely be caught. Mister Singh walks down to a railing overlooking a construction project. “You can take a picture. These people are all volunteer labor. They are building parking garage.” People walk with large bowls on their heads and move earth. More importantly, there are two trash cans by the railing where I quickly dispose of my brown goo as I reach for my camera. I know the goo is probably something holy. What I’ve done is probably akin to spitting out a communion wafer. In retrospect, I should have just eaten it, but at the time, it seemed like a bad idea. Maybe if there wasn’t so much goo… Maybe if it had been a smaller glop…

Mister Singh says we should go get our shoes. At the shoe check, we discover Poonam has already picked hers up. She must be waiting for us at the car.

It’s fully light outside now, but it’s still just seven thirty in the morning. We find Mister Kandhari and Poonam and drive away. “Well, how did you like?” Mister Kandhari asks.

“It was beautiful,” I say.

We need to drop off Mister Singh. He’s going to Lodi Gardens. Would I like to go with him to see? It’s the biggest garden in Delhi. Truthfully, I would love to see Lodi Gardens, but my friends are coming to pick me up to go to church, so I’ve got to be home by quarter after nine.

Mister Singh gets out on the side of the road and we pull away. Mister Kandhari says he’s going to stop at a garden on the way home. It won’t take long. It’s the place where he gets all his bonsai gardening supplies. It’s a huge place. People come here from Mumbai to get plants. It won’t take long. It will be a new experience for me.

Everything is in India.

He drives over the Jumna River and turns left onto an unfamiliar highway, then he turns over a curb and off the highway altogether. The car bounces along a narrow dirt path with random bricks in it. I think he may be taking me somewhere to dump my body, but he’d also have to take Poonam, unless she’s in on the murder ring. I could see her cheering him on. She’s so encouraging.

Then I realize the fields on either side of us look cultivated. It is a garden center after all. And it is huge. We drive with the fields on either side of us for a good half mile before Mister Kandhari stops the car at a shack. A snarling German shepherd with one floppy ear is chained to a post. A man comes out and holds the dog back so we can pass. Mister Kandhari talks to the man and considers the bonsai trees. Poonam sits down. Her knees are bothering her. She wants to know how old I am. 34. She is twice my age, she tells me. She is 68.

Mister Kandhari is done picking out his tiny trees. Now he digs through a pile of rocks, considering each one. He also buys two stone slabs that he will use as the base of his mini-garden.

Two men in dirty clothes carry the plants and rocks to the trunk. Mister Kandhari has to rearrange all the stuff from the gurudwara. He has giant metal pots and leftover roti packaged in aluminum foil. He gives a pack of roti to the men who somehow fit his purchases into the trunk, and we are off. It’s almost eight thirty now and Mister Kandhari is concerned about getting me back in time.

The car sideswipes a giant concrete post that is concealed in thick greenery. It runs across the whole length of the passenger side, making a grinding noise. His side view mirror is gone. This is a bad accident. But he doesn’t even stop. “We will get you home on time. When I say I will do something, I will do,” he says.

Poonam has been speaking to him in Hindi. He translates for me. She wants to be dropped off in the opposite direction, but he tells her he can only take her as far as the stoplight. She should be able to catch an auto from there. He once again pulls over to the side of the road and drops off another friend.

I feel so bad about his car and about not having time to take Poonam and her bad knees to where she needs to be. If I had Julianne’s number with me, I would just call and cancel, but I don’t, so I can’t. I need to be back on time, and I am.

Getting out of Mister Kandhari’s car, I can assess the damage. The trim is gone and there are streaks of dents along the length of his entire car. He seems unconcerned, much more concerned with the fact that he’s kept his promise and gotten me home on time.

He wants me to come see a movie tonight at his friend’s house. They’re showing Singh is King, the movie that was so popular when I first arrived here with the theme song that was inescapable. It played everywhere I went. Three times a day in the cab, when I walked into McDonald’s, everywhere, all the time. I would love to see the film, but I have to finish the monologue I’ve been invited to write for the Let My Country Awake event. I tell Mister Kandhari that I might be able to come, but I’m not sure. We shake hands and I run out, hoping for enough time to Skype with Scott and grab a quick bite before church.

I do get to say “hello” to Scott, and I’m downstairs scarfing some cornflakes when Julianne arrives apologizing for being late. It’s no problem, I tell her. I’m a little off my schedule today too. The real shame here is that Kim had real coffee at breakfast and she offered me a cup that I again find myself gulping down instead of enjoying. It’s not frequent that I get to enjoy real coffee with breakfast. She offered it to me that way, too. “I have some real coffee if you’d like some.”

Church is abysmal after my adrenaline-filled morning. We sit next to a man with atomic body odor, and the regular pastor is too sick to give the sermon. It’s the repetitive man again, who talks about walking with God because it’s good to walk with God and just what does walking with God mean? It means walking with him. I fight to keep my eyes open, then give in to the need to close them. When will the man yield the floor? We are all at his mercy until he does.

We finally hear our last about walking with God, and church concludes with an instrumental song. We mill around talking with people, then Suzanna, Julianne’s roommate, says she’s going to the Hong Kong restaurant if anyone wants to go with. I take her up on the invitation, as does this woman Rhonda, and Julianne. She drives us all there in her little banana yellow car. Then she drives us each home.

At home, I finish my monologue in a few hours. I am able to recycle some old blog entries and repurpose them, so it’s not like I’m starting from zero. I finish with plenty of time to join my neighbors for the movie, but I feel strange about the invitation. It’s at Mister Singh’s house, but Mister Kandhari invited me. I walk over to Mister Kandhari’s, but his staff tells me he’s not home. I decide I shouldn’t crash the party at Mister Singh’s house and instead walk to the market where I pick up a few take-out menus and buy a foot file. I haven’t been able to get my feet clean after my visit to the gurudwara, so I figure I’ll just file the dirt off. It wasn’t the gurudwara where my feet got dirty. The building itself was spotless, as were the walkways around it. It was the dirt path to the area where we served the food that did it.

Back in my room, I spend some time on Skype with my parents and order delivery from a new fast food place I found in the market: Kents. I can get a veggie burger and aloo tikka (little potato patties) here for cheaper than I can get McDelivery. And at Kents, I can order something called a Rose Milk Soda, which sounds compelling, and is. I think it has real rose petals in it. All this delivered to my door in about fifteen minutes costs less than three dollars.

The Chicken You Eat...

2008-09-08T10:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday

I sleep in a bit, but am restless because I don’t know when or if to expect a Skype call from my husband. He’s gone to Chicago to visit my brother for his birthday.

Kim from California is at breakfast again. We chat about politics. She needs to find out how to get her absentee ballot so she can vote from here. I’ll be home by the election, so I don’t have to worry about it.

I laze around my room until one o’clock, when Palminder arrives and drives me over to pick up Julianne. We’ll be doing some sightseeing today: the Iskcon Temple and Safdarjung’s Tomb. Mister Kandhari said the tomb is nothing special when I told him I was going to see it last night, but it was once of the sights I read about in William Darymple’s City of Djinns before coming to India, so I figure I may as well go see it.

We pick up Julianne and tell Palminder, “Iskcon Temple.” He knows where it is. We drive through the serpentine neighborhoods and come to a hill on the far side of the Lotus Temple. This temple is for the Hindu god Krishna. The worshippers here chant the mantra, “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare,” etc. Yes, these are the people known to some as the Hare Krishnas; the people in airports that give out flowers. Their temples are found around the world and likely in a neighborhood near you.

Julianne says she thinks it’s important to understand other religions so you can understand other people’s worldviews, but she’s always quick to point out that the other religions are just made up; they are not based in truth like her religion; they are wrong.

The parking lot is strewn with piles of broken bricks and bamboo sticks. The cars have Hare Krishna stickers on their rear windows.

We get an intimate frisking by the woman who also checks our purses, then we walk through a metal detector. The grounds of the temple complex are spotless. There is a circle of buildings with a manicured courtyard in the center. There’s almost no one around. We stop a group of students milling around a statue outside and ask if the temple is open. It’s not. It doesn’t open until four o’clock today. At the far side of the courtyard is a sign that says “Vedic Expo,” and I suggest we go check it out.

Once inside, we see that there are three exhibits that we can check out. The first is called the “Bhagavad-Gita Experience;” the second is a robot show, and the third is about the Ramayana.

The young man behind the desk with the two white stripes on his forehead greets us with palms pressed below his chin. “Hare Krishna,” he says. He says the Gita show is starting in just five minutes. Would we like to do all three?

Julianne says we should just pay for one show. We can come back to the desk if we want to see the other things later.

Julianne hands over five hundred rupees but he doesn’t have enough change. All I have is a five hundred rupee note as well. Julianne has a few hundred rupee bills. She pays for both our admission because she’s the only one with change. I’ll have to pay her back later, or pay for her entry at our next destination.

We walk into a lobby with a huge blue statue of Krishna resting on a bed of snakes. There are double golden doors though which we are rushed. The show is starting.

There is a dark room with flashing lights and statues in it. A voice over introduces us to the Bhagavad-Gita Experience.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Julianne leans over and half giggles, half wonders.

The funnier thing is that I have. This is no big surprise. This is just like Akshardam Temple, only on a little smaller scale and not so polished. I tell Julianne she should go to Akshardam. They have better robots there.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she repeats.

The voice recording stops and we’re ushered into a second dark room, along with three Asian people who are looking bewildered and shuffling about. There are stairs in between the rooms and they aren’t lit, so it’s a surprise when you get there.

A light comes on in room number two and it reveals a large mirror. “Look at yourself,” the booming voice-over says. “Who are you? Are you your face? Your hair? Your skin? Or are you something more?”

The recording goes on to talk about the Hindu concept of the soul, the Atman. The Atman, like I read in the Vivekananda book, is God within us. It is identical with Brahman, the all-pervading god and spirit of the universe. It is different from our face, our body, our worldly identity.

“Maybe by the end of this experience, you will know that you are not your body. You are something else entirely,” the voice-over says as the mirror in front of us disappears and we see behind it a line up of statues lit from behind, with little red LED lights that flicker in their chests. I think they are expecting a lot from their little sound and light show.

The man at the far side of the room with a flashlight ushers us and the shuffling Asian people into the next room. There is another small, unmarked step. Julianne tells me to be careful, but I’ve already half-stumbled on it.

We walk down a dark hallway with a statue in the corner of it. It appears to have spiky armor on, and it has two red, glowing LED lights where its eyes should be. Does this statue have two Atmans, I wonder, or is it just a demon?

In the next room, there are flashing white lights, evil sounding laughter and muffled screams. “Confusion,” the deep-throated voice-over says, “and sadness. This is what comes to those who are deluded.”

He explains while different figures light up on the walls surrounding us that there are three types of people. The first type of person I forget because I am too distracted by the laughing and the screaming and the flashing lights. The second kind of person is ruled by passion, he says. This person does anything to stimulate their senses. A distorted and large sculpture of a person shooting up lights up, and a similarly distorted and horrible-looking person playing an electric guitar accompanies it. The third type of person is ruled by ignorance. This type of person eats meat and has a bad temper.

People free of these delusions are ruled by goodness, though, the voice-over tells us. The flashing lights stop and totally different figures are suddenly lit with a blacklight that makes them appear colored in soft, warm tones. A man walks with two goats. A woman holds an armful of vegetables. The lights turn off and we’re ushered off the next precipitous drop into a room with three movie screens in it.

Here, we watch a movie about karma and reincarnation. “The chicken you eat in this life could eat you in the next,” the same familiar voice tells us. These messages don’t really affect me because I’m a vegetarian. I won’t be eaten by a chicken in my next life. But if the Hindus are right, Julianne might. She leans over and says she’s in so much trouble. She’s ignorant and now she’s going to be eaten. She laughs.

This movie theatre is so small in comparison to Akshardam. I wonder if there’s a rivalry between the temples. My movie screen’s bigger than yours. We have better lasers than you.

The room after the theatre, also guarded by a weird armored guy with glowing eyes, has a tiny statue of Krishna in it. He is in a golden chariot pulled by horses. The voice-over talks to the statue. “Krishna, thank you for showing me this form. But I know you also have another form different from your human form. When can I see this?”

Then Krishna himself speaks. “You can’t see my other form because it is beyond seeing.” Shadowy sculptures are lit from the side at the back of this room. There is a twenty foot tall face and another, smaller face that seems to be belching lava next to that one, and a large human figure against the wall next to that. Suddenly, rainbow lasers spiral out of the eyes of the twenty foot head. Krishna explains that this form is too frightening to show most people. It is fierce. It devours the earth and unleashes the powers of nature in the universe. The head belching lava lights up red as the spiral rainbows sort of hypnotize me. Clouds of dry ice arise as Krishna goes on about his all-encompassing power. What looks like a rainbow flying toaster screen saver rolls across all three giant Krishna statues at the back of the room.

Then the familiar voice-over comes back. “Krishna, thank you for showing me this form. But I prefer to think of you in terms that I can understand.” The lights come back up on the tiny statue posed with the horses on a large rock. The man with the flashlights ushers us into the lobby where we find a lit up display of all the incarnations of Krishna. There is Krishna the lion-man. Krishna the angry bore. Krishna as a dwarf. Krishna is also Buddha. Krishna is his own older brother. Krishna is a fish with a unicorn horn. Let alone the giant face with the laser eyes. That’s not even on the display. Krishna is a busy guy.

Outside the exhibit, I wonder where the entrance to the other shows is. There’s still the robot show and the movie, I think, about the Ramayana. Julianne isn’t keen to see the other displays. “If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all,” she says. “Besides, you’ve read the Ramayana, haven’t you?”

I haven’t. It was one of the books I didn’t get to before I left. I read the Gita, but not the Ramayana. Not that the movie would do a good job of explaining it to me. The Bhagavad-Gita Experience was spotty at best in introducing the concepts explained in that book. I’m curious to see the other exhibits, but Julianne seems finished. We walk around the rest of the grounds because she wonders if there’s a restroom anywhere. Instead we find a book shop. I find a book entitled “Say Hare Krishna and Be Happy.” On the cover is a picture of George Harrison. It’s a very slim volume. I’d buy it if I weren’t running out of room in my luggage. It comes with an exclusive interview with George Harrison, the cover boasts. Julianne looks at another book about Krishna consciousness. When the vendor asks if she wants it, she appears slightly alarmed and foists it back at him. “No!” she says, and walks away. I follow her out.

Up a short flight of stairs is a gift shop. I find some necklaces. They remind me of the sandalwood beads I was once given by a Hare Krishna in Washington D.C. That necklace broke a while back. I’m excited to replace my Hare Krishna necklace, but I only have a 500 rupee bill. They probably won’t change it for me. Julianne says I can probably find such a necklace anywhere, but that’s not the point. I don’t bother trying to explain why I want a Hare Krishna necklace specifically. I’m not even sure why except that I feel like it’ll have happy Hare Krishna vibes. I’m sure this would be completely sacrilegious in Julianne’s mind.

I take two little wooden necklaces off the display and carry them to the counter. They only cost twenty rupees a piece. I think there’s no way they’re going to change my 500 rupee bill, but, shockingly, they do. “Hare Krishna,” the man behind the counter with the two chalk colored stripes running up his forehead tells me. Since I have change, I ask, also, to see a string of Indian prayer beads. Julianne is interested in these. “It’s kind of like the Catholic concept of the rosary,” I tell her, “Only much older.” I buy a string of dark red wooden beads—not that I know how to use them. But they’re beautiful.

We still find no bathroom, but there is an immaculately clean food stand and I haven’t had lunch yet. I ask Julianne what a ladoo is. It’s a sweet. Really sweet. They eat them in the Bollywood movies all the time. If it’s good enough for Bollywood, it’s good enough for me, I think. I get a ladoo. It costs ten rupees and I’ve got change because I bought my happy beads. The ladoo looks like a tan golf ball, minus the little divets in it. It seems like it’s made of sesame seeds, some kind of paste and lots of sugar. “I’m glad you like Indian sweets,” Julianne says as I scarf it down and crumple the little silver cardboard plate on which they served it to me. She doesn’t like them.

We get to the signpost that says, “Vedic Expo, Auditorium, Robot Show, Guest House,” and try to decide what to do. It’s three o’clock. If we stay for another hour, the temple will open and we can see inside. I figure we can watch the Ramayana movie, then it will be about four o’clock. But Julianne isn’t too keen on this idea. We leave for Safdarjung’s Tomb, but I ask her if she’d mind stopping at Kalkaji Mandir. It’s the temple she had to find on her “Amazing Race” day in Delhi. For her Hindi class, she had to find a list of places the teacher gave her by speaking to the locals in Hindi. This temple was on the list. She says it’s very different than Iskcon. I want to see how.

The cab pulls over to the side of the road and stops. I see nothing like a temple. Julianne says, “This is it,” and hops out of the car. I follow her into a covered, tiled walkway with a railing down the middle of it. The tile is full of bits of garbage. It is muddy and wet. Here and there men attempt to sweep up the mud and wet and garbage with handmade brooms made of sticks.

The side of the walkway is lined with people sleeping and beggars. The beggars know to hang out here because people who worship at the temple think it’s good for their karma to give to them, Julianne says. We follow this pathway in between the surrounding buildings for what feels like a quarter mile until we come to a small, white circular building that you can hardly see the top of. It rises up between the adjacent buildings and awnings with concentrically smaller circular domes.

“We have to take our shoes off if we want to go it,” Julianne says. We’d have to take our shoes off and stand in the wet muck, she means, in a stagnant line that is almost the length of the whole walk we just took. This is what a daily temple is like. Julianne says she likes to think about the use of the temples she goes to visit. “Who comes here?” she says. “Are they middle class, or is it lower class or is it a combination?” It is an interesting question. The beggars around the temple are definitely not middle class, but the worshippers here don’t appear destitute. In India, though, it can be hard to tell. Even the homeless men on the street will wear collared shirts and pants. And I’ve seen begging women in what look to me like beautiful saris.

There is a crush of people here. We choose to keep our shoes on and view the temple from the outside. There is a giant brass OM symbol and a shrine with burning incense to which people make offerings of food and money. There is a large brass bell at the entryway that people ring “to wake up the gods,” Julianne says. The gods aren’t getting any sleep today.

Next to the temple is a building with a brightly painted wooden façade. Inside music plays and people dance. We follow the tiled pathway behind the temple into a narrow marketplace. Piles of sweets are laced with dozens of bees. There are tables full of red and orange powder that people use to dye their hands and feet. Stalls full of colorful bangles and children’s toys and fabrics pile up one on top of another. Everywhere I look is photo worthy. I snap one after another picture, unable to take it the totality of the place. Julianne walks ahead of me, dodging an old woman with red dye on her finger who tries to put a smudge on her forehead. She tries to smudge me too. I dodge her just because I saw Julianne do it in front of me, but then I think it would have been fun to get painted by the lady. I think it was kind of insulting not to let her do it, too. It was a welcoming gesture and I rejected it. Next time someone tries to smudge me, I’m getting smudged, I resolve.

There is a small opening several hundred meters down the narrow pedestrian market. In it are a few carnival rides for little kids. A little boy bounces up and down in a jeep that spins around a small circular track. A boy not much older than him sits and operates the ride.

There are booths selling Hindi movies and booths selling knick knacks; religious statues and statues of white fluffy dogs sit right next to each other on display. There are photo booths where you can pay to have your picture taken against several different backgrounds. One is a temple with garlands of flowers, another is a beach scene. One of the photo booths has a tiny monkey tied up by its collar. His face is troublingly human. A woman throws him tiny balls of sweets that he contentedly picks up and munches.

We walk to the end of the market, then turn and walk back the way we came. The woman with the dye on her fingers is gone. It is a whole new smash of people we wade through this time. I thank Julianne for bringing me here. It’s not someplace I ever would have found on my own, and it’s so different from the “touristy” temples I’ve seen so far.

Back in the car, Julianne asks me if I know the story of the tomb we’re going to next. I know I read about it in City of Djinns, but I can’t remember anything about it. When we reach the tomb, I see why. It was built in the 1700s for a prime minister of the Mogul Empire. His name is obscure, as is the name of the emperor he labored under. There isn’t much more story than that, at least on the plaque outside the monument.

Once we get inside, it looks much like the other tombs I’ve seen. There are the onion domes and the arched doorways. We trade cameras and take pictures of each other, then walk inside to where the headstone lies. A man in a collared shirt asks where we’re from. Julianne walks away. “Sometimes I just don’t feel like chatting,” she says. We mill around some more and the man walks up to me. He says, “Please madam. I work here. I want to tell you about the tomb.” I think he’ll probably make up bogus stories about the tomb and expect money when he’s done talking to us, so I’m about to walk away as well, but Julianne decides to listen to him. He tells us that the grave marker that we’re looking at is fake, and the real body is buried nineteen meters below where we’re standing. I already knew that because every Mogul tomb is constructed that way. Then he tells us that while the prime minister was Muslim, his wife was Hindi, and so the tomb has architectural and design motifs from both traditions. This is actually interesting information. He points to an inlaid design in the tile floor. The Muslim holy flower is the rose, and the Hindu holy flower is the lotus. This tile is a design incorporating both. He points to the ceiling in another chamber of the tomb. This is a lotus design. And on the wall is a partridge, a Muslim motif. Two Indian girls have joined us. They ask why there would be a lotus design in a Mogul tomb. They didn’t hear the beginning of the tour. Instead of explaining, our tour guide rudely tells them not to ask questions. Only Julianne can understand this because he says it in Hindi. When he is done with our tour, he wants money, but we already paid a hundred rupees each for admission and we never asked him for his information. I high tail it out of there when he asks if we liked his tour.

Julianne tells me he wanted a tip. I know, but I didn’t feel like giving him one. She agrees. She said he was totally rude to the Indian girls because he thought he’d get money out of us, and it was creepy how he kept asking us to step closer to him. “That’s totally inappropriate,” she says. He would never do that to Indian women.

We return to the gate to find Palminder standing outside waiting for us. He points us back to the car which is parked nearby. It’s just five o’clock. I ask Julianne if she wants to go to the Gandhi Memorial. She says sure. We ask Palminder, but he just says no. He doesn’t know where it is. I don’t have a map with me. We try calling Susie’s roommate Sarah who is something of an encyclopedia of Delhi. Even Sarah can’t tell us where it is. The Gandhi Memorial is out for today. Some other time.

I ask Julianne if we wants to go back to Iskcon Temple since it’s open. We can see the inside. She says sure. We can go back, and since it’s close, we should eat at The Big Chill after. Brilliant! I can taste the vanilla malt already.

We tell Palminder to take us back to Iskcon. He gives us a little squint. “Back to Iskcon?”

Yes.

I think he just thinks I’m the weirdest, but at least he humors me.

We’re not that far from the temple and as we drive up the hill one more time, the topic of communal violence in India comes up because I’m participating in the event to speak out against it this Wednesday. I say it’s strange that most people here seem so accepting of other faiths, yet there seem to be flare ups where people just go crazy on each other.

Julianne says that people will tell you they’re accepting, but it stops at a certain point. I don’t understand what she means. When I talk with Mister Kandhari and Mister Singh, they are happy to explain their religion with me, and very careful about respecting mine. Mister Singh told me, “We don’t want anyone to change their faith unless they want to.”

Julianne says they’ll be accepting until you tell them that the only true religion is Christianity, that their faith is wrong, that what they are doing is worshipping in vain. I can see where this would be an impasse.

The inside of the temple is beautiful, adorned with an enormous lotus flower chandelier and huge paintings of the blue Krishna in different pastoral scenes. There are three large shrines that I don’t understand. There are pictures of different teachers in one of them. There are what amount to beautiful dolls in fancy clothes in another. People bring prashad, food offerings for the gods, and monks inside the shrines act something like zookeepers, placing the food in the exhibits for the gods to enjoy.

If I were by myself, I’d sit in the middle of the clean tiled floor and meditate like I see some other people doing, but Julianne looks well and ready to go. She seems a bit uncomfortable amongst the worshippers. It’s like being at a big, beautiful pool with your bathing suit all ready but not being able to jump in. It’s a trade-off, though, and one that I am happy to make. I am glad for the companionship we’ve shared throughout the day. I wouldn’t give that up just to indulge my inner meditator here for a few minutes.

On the way out of the temple there is a huge poster for Radhasiand on September 8th. It says there is a “Special Charan Darshan (only once a year)” that goes on until nine o’clock at night. I wonder if this was the festival that Amar was telling me about. I think, “Maybe I can come back Monday night after work.” Sure I won’t be able to see the robot show then, but I’ll get to see what the Special Charan Darshan is.

Julianne and I conclude our day of tourism at the American-esque restaurant in Kailesh Colony. I order the exact same thing I had the last time I went because I liked it so much. Julianne gets a chicken salad: it could be the very chicken that will eat her in her next life. I guess the Bhagavad-Gita Experience didn’t change any lives today, but it was fun while it lasted.