Ahhh. Where to start?
Today has been my first day spent alone in India. I've been travelling with my friend Natalie (from Berkely/Living Routes) for the last two weeks, since Living Routes ended and we left Auroville as fast as we could.
I'm looking at Facebook photos from Vassar's Founder's day madness throwdown/hoedown feast and revelry circus...and I honestly could cry. God, I love all of those people so much, and there's something about founder's day that brings out the essential zaniness and truth from everyone's character- you can see it in the photos. People stand like mountains and I can feel a very visceral love for them circuiting throughout my whole being. dare I look and photos from home? I was considering leaving India immediately after living routes, just to be with all of you lovely people and your beautiful dreams, but something has bound me to this land. Something inside (outside?) of me has perscribed India as the right medicine. Indeed, though I long to be with everyone, I dont think I could handle exposure to the Vassar/American way of life right now; something needs to blossom before I can take on the world.
I'm in Pune, a mistake of a city, a very appropriate place for Osho to stick himself and to dig all of the wester ashramis in their maroon Osho bathrobes, riding bikes with their skirts hiked past their knees, trying to balance Indian traffic with a cigarette and a hot latte, checking on their 401ks between meditations. ach! I've been everywhere already, and I wish I could even give you the highlights; can I even try?
Hampi, Karnataka; finding our way onto the wrong side of the tracks and being offered a mage blubnt from a sweet only lady in a watermelon cart- The cocnut British hypochondriac with theories about India and stories about "Pakis" - the pissed off Brit who couldn't take the tourist ferry prices anymore and demanded the India rate, the ferry driver, wo had nearly reached the other bank, just turned around and dropped him off back on the side we had started on - Mesozoic bats above the Mango Tree restaurant, and sitting on the cement floor beneath the Mango tree as a fierce pre monsoon drizzle swept in - climbing a chiesled seeminly Tibetan cliff to find a huge fort on top (with lost travel buddy Tim, whom I hope to run into in Dharmashala) - seas of unattended ruins, older than anything in Europe, an unguarded World Heritage site, gettin to touch the ancient Ganeshas - on the stray rocks in the cliffs outside the city, ancient rock cutters would practice in the gaps betwen boulders; there were hidden rock doodles everywhere - swimming in the Hampi Bazaar Ghat in the River Tungabhadra with about four kids, all yelling "hello!' before doing remarkably ungraceful dives into knee deep running boulder water; I've gone swimming in a few places, and have yet top find a single India who can do a simple front entry into the water...humm - It'll never be everything - oh wait, Natalie and I running around an obscure corner of Hampi's big temple, only to find, turning right into us from an even more obscure corner, Jamie and Carly, who had arrived in town, unbeknownst to us, the day before.
The Hampi Link, Bangalore to Hospet, Karnataka - Indian railways saves two seats on every train for travellers with tourist visas; Nat and I arrive confused but determined to the reservation counter; there's a white guy ahead of us in line, the first we'd seen in two days - He gets one sleeper seat and Nat gets the other, leaving me to do what few self respecting Westerners ever have the glorious opportunity or the gall to attempt; ride an overnight train in the unreserved second class- Nat takes my bag and I immerse myself into the mob as the train pulls in - everyone rushes in chaotically, men open the windowss from the outside, throwing bodies and bags into the train and laying out anything they can to reserve seats for their families - I dash in, and after a few failed attempts (I thought it was unfair for the guys to reserve seats for their wives and kids; sounds tough but many of the same guys had tried to trip me or push me over as I was boarding) I found a seat sqeezed between an old lady and a family of four (on a seat designed for four people) - this was at the first stop - as the train made more stops, the car continued to fill, and by the fourth stop from my vantage point I could see 30 people and only 10 proper seats; there was a self righteous Drew Carey looking priggish Indian who had claimed the luggage rack above me; he refused to share - with any of the passengers who would end up standing for the entirety of the 10 hour ride - about 3 am, an old lady comes to my section and begins tying her Punjabi scarf to the luggage racks directly above me (drew carey guy was not pleased) I thought she was going to use it to lean on or some such nonsense, when from nowhere she produces a two year old boy - so this kid has the best seat on the whole train, a friggin homespun hammock that leaned with the turns like built in suspension, and all is well - so, a father and son spooning on the floor at my feet, old lady at my right, mother and two kids laying horizontally to my left, heads nearly in my lap, two old guys across from me, weaving their dhotied legs into mine, and mister baby-lila hammock swinger directly in front of me - about 5am I wake up to a strange feeling on my leg - In my daze I hear something spilling on the floor and realize the something's soaking my leg - Yeah, smart ass two year old pissed right on me, right on the train, and I couldn't even get mad because I was in second class - and that's my eternal and first story about how I was urinated on on Indian public transportation
Gokarna Beach, Karnataka - Om beach to ourselves at night; penultimate moon over ocean and mountain islands, ahhhhh.
I love you. Send me an email about you life (paroche@vassar.edu)
from Pune without caprice
Mac
oh, also check this out (www.theawkwardmenagerie.blogspot.com) for more stories from my travels and the travels of the other Living Routes students around the world.
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