Transparency part 2

Written in Darjeeling--January 2009

A 10km roundtrip walk to a monastery, the pollution, coal burning, automobiles, buses, trucks, black.

At one in the afternoon I stand outside my room in Old Bellevue’s enclosed porch and someone is behind me. I didn’t know there was anyone else here.  Ah, grand, an elderly English gentleman in a tweed smoking jacket carrying handwritten letters.

Namaste

The sun is out but the mist and pollution hangs and there are no mountains.

 I must say the first sentences of Gandhi’s essay on Ethical Religion and Lama Thubten Yeshe’s lectures, The Essence of Tibetan Buddhism throw me completely off, it’s a wonder I keep reading but it would be worse if I didn’t and I haven’t…

“Today, I’m unfortunate. And today, you’re unfortunate as well, because you have to put up with me, the garbage man.”

Breakfast at Glenary’s is surreal; Maranatha music from 1983 plays above, patrons look out over a hillside of corrugated metal, breakfast arrives, fresh orange juice, a gold pot of masala tea, fried eggs and salty bacon for a 100rs.  In comes another pair of stunning ladies in a room of stunning women and I sit and write. 

The knot in my back is ever present, though sleep was good.  I slept in my clothes.  The shower is hot alright but I was too cold to take off my clothes.  I did wash my hair and shave since that is all one is going to see anyways. 

Built in 1887 the hotel’s owner knows the Dalai Lama, a faded photo of the two sit on a mantle in the hotel’s private room, a collection of antiques I had the privileged of seeing one afternoon. 

“I am Tibetan”

Honey insists on returning a gift for the red stone I gave her this afternoon: black and white wool socks.  I walked away, she’s so pretty, into the square, with my male bag of socks, shampoo, headache medicine, tissue, and there she was, asking me to sit with her for a glass of milk tea.  Big brown beautiful eyes, freckles, if she let me kiss her I would have.  Her business, how can I help.

J: come with me to the Tibetan refugee camp.
H: I can’t.  My business.

I touched her cheek with my warm hand. Her cheeks were ice cold.  She said she was cold. Can I make you warm. No, wait, did I say it or only think it, I surely
thought it.

*
Siddartha is the owner’s son but he runs the hotel.  He left his job as a lawyer in London for eight years to run this old place.  I envy him. 

Where do you store water in a city on the side of a mountain, 6818ft into the clouds.  A pot of real Darjeeling castle tea, the best I am told, and three cookies and a tacky candy bar I had forgotten at the bottom of my backseat pocket. 

“you are my hiding place…
you are my _________”
“o worthy is the Lamb”
Kungas For Momos

KE Timi Lea KhanuBho

Honey o sweet you are.

On the way to find Kungas Restaurant, Lonely Planet famous for its momos I passed Honey and she had a line of customers.  We looked and I kept walking albeit slower making eye contact with one of the bystanders.  Then I pulled out my rehearsed line and she came over:

J: KeTimi Lea KhanuBho?
H: What?

J: KeTimi Lea KhanuBhAo? 

Obviously my tone was off whack.  An old fella who wears a Fighting Illini shirt over his winter coat every day pronounces it like a BAow but that doesn’t make any sense in part because he has about eight teeth so I show Honey the phrase  and then in English, Have you eaten? A punch in the arm and a no and a hearty laugh.

J: momos I am looking for momos. 

And I found them and they were good, very good, twelve of them veggie, steamed, a 7-up and a nice glass of lemon-honey tea, all for 98 rupees.  I gave the stunned looking girl 160 rupees and then wrapped myself Arabee style with my warm Tibetan blanket and left. 

I like Honey and I know she likes me, however there’s no time for any kind of relationship since I am leaving and really…

Ke garne?  I don’t know what to do other than simply let it be.  Thank you George-Paul-John and Sligo.

“good morning Dr. Chandler”

“omigod its full of stars”. 

The tv hasn’t worked today. Honey was impressed I could hum Hari ram hari ram Hari Krishna hari ram.

J: do you dance? H: I don’t like.
J: You never danced before. 

How old is this girl?  twenty at the most?  It is possible she has never danced before.

J: Do you want to dance now?
H: Where?
J: Right here.  I pointed to the cement in the mall where we sat and sipped chai and chatted. 


Honey has no name for me and that’s fine.  She has a sense of humor and really insisted on this obligation, insisting I select a hat or gloves from a shop run by her friend, her sister, synonymous words in India.  I chose the black and white ones and she refused the money because of the red stone.

J:  ok, give me back the red stone. 

And we laughed heartily and there, a beautiful smile, how it warms my heart.

9:40.  Going to sleep early and not drinking hard stuff to knock me out is tough.  Smoke too much and you just lie there and listen to a 112 year old house.  And the dogs.

And no one else.

I still think of the old English fella with the letters.  I burn candles at night, a nice and warm reminder that fire is. 

fire-water    sun-moon   rain-fish

H: Where you living?
J: Belleview, right up here.  Where do you live?

H: Near railway station.

I walked by this station, built by the British to exploit the price of potatoes between the cities of Darjeeling and Sigulari.  And it is still used because walking up and down is tiring sometimes.  Good exercise, right, except for my aching back. 

J: Do you take the train home every night?

She smiled so big.  No tattoos.  I thought I saw one at the crotch of her left thumb and pointing finger, Christian crosses, Hindu oms on men and women were frequent. 

25 January Sunday

A desire to love is attachment. The desire to live with someone is natural. I wish to attach myself to someone.

non-attachment eliminates suffering. 

“The psychology of attachment is over estimation, an unrealistic attitude”

So wishing any relationship with Honey is wrong?  This is very sad.  This makes me very sad and I suffer in silence. 

How do I interpret myself now? It’s 7:20, no sunrise, my nose is cold, my feet are cold, my nose is stuffy.  I threw a big rock at a pack of angry dogs behind the hotel who wouldn’t let me walk around and the rock hit one dog with a sick thud and it obviously hurt.  “Just let me #@%@ walk, ok, for crying out loud, why do you make me do this, dammit?”

I don’t understand.  Am I supposed to be alone?  I don’t want to be alone. Am I selfish wishing and praying and desiring to be with someone I love?  It isn’t right and it hurts.

Shakyamuni Buddha had a 100 wives and was still dissatisfied?  I don’t know how to think anymore.

Oh yes, the dual mind, controlling the dualism and keeping it un-irritable is a noble challenge.  The peace of ultimate reality eliminates the dualistic thinking. 

Mahamudra or dzog-chen

Attachment to anything is wrong.  Liberation of the human spirit is non-attachment.  Even God?

The nature of God and the manifestation of God in nature and humanity is to be enjoyed.  To enjoy beauty isn’t attachment.  It is pleasure.  A sunrise and the majesty of the Himalayas is wonderful especially if they are seen, throwing rocks at stupid dogs isn’t. 

How will I ever find love if I think?  It seems impossible.

Mr. Buddha, dude, this is suffering. 

The energy of desire and attachment can be used to liberate.  Use desire as a medicine for growth.

“I can deal with all my problems. I can solve all my problems”

“My problems are all related to things I don’t have”

Renunciation

bodhicitta    equilibrium/middle way

Emptiness

                                                           meditation

“I am attached to no one and therefore have the capacity to empty all desire and find love, joy and real happiness”

So, how does one therefore go about achieving the only thing God appears to keep from me?  No attachment, can I therefore even say and use this word, God?

love
money

sacred medicine

you’re not able to save and taking on a woman who has 1. no education, 2. education.  What are you thinking?

love

compassion

It is difficult because of the fear she won’t love me unconditionally the way I ought to love unconditionally in any relationship, oh little princess.

I feel very selfish.  I could contribute so much to her and her family and her community and to her people.  My God, what do you want, John?


Eliminate poverty, marry a woman from a third world country

No Maranatha music this morning to write to, thank goodness.   Nothing wrong with Maranatha music, it evokes emotions and memories.  Instead I have in front of me two people who just prayed before the meal: an American woman with a big camera, big hair and who is with a missionary organization.

Thank God for Red Hot Chili Peppers

“…and it’s Californication…”

I think this tourist is out of her home and country for the first time.  Her guide, a Nepalese man laughs out of politeness to her absurdities: “I don’t like this coffee. I never drink coffee in America,” and deep down he’d rather talk to a tree.

And then they left.  My apologies for not intervening into their auras, if she were younger, perhaps, and lighter, and prettier, and less American.  My ill thoughts were kept in control but still…

How do dogs know someone is a visitor and someone is staying at the hotel?  Back in front of the hotel one of the hotel dogs came up to me gently wagging its tail and we looked at each other.  He knew who I was.  Another black dog, looking quite noble and ferocious with a thick neck like a malmute, sits on a plinth looking over the valley.  He looks at me, not menancingly, but…I don’t know.  The pack behind the building were quite alarmed I was there but why.  

A big pot of delicious masala tea serves four cups. 

Where there is charity there is love. 

True?  False?

Is the charity a non-moral or moral act? 

A.  If it is non-moral then it may not be love though love varies in degree.

B.  If it is moral then it must be love and the kind of love that doesn’t expect anything in return.

Jesus, mother and Joe

                                                    “FEEL LIKE GOD”

an advertisement for a motorcycle, a man sitting on his new bike. 

Gorkaland

her last words:

“when you come back I’ll introduce you to a friend” HA

Prerna, aka Honey, is all of 17.  I guessed, I hoped, she’d be at least 21.

“you same age as my father” 

At first she guessed 24, and I kissed her dirty black and white gloves.  The same age as her father, thanks for dragging me back into reality. 

*

My hands are cold.  The hot shower was good until it ran out and a quick dress kept me warm. Now, the feet are cold and my breath reveals thick cold air. Beverly Hills 90210 kept me away from writing and I don’t know.  I guess, perhaps not, I don’t know.  Here we always looked at the wealthy with envy and enjoyed when they suffered, usually for selfish reasons.  But this show, what a bunch of clowns. 

I enjoyed the time with Prerena, actually I think I’ll stay with Honey, because she was really sweet. 

H: Don’t sing when you are eating.
J: Why not?  I like the momos.
H:  My mother say not good habit.

J: My mother says it is a good habit to sing at the table…Hari ram hari ram hari Krishna hari ram, hari ram hari ram…”

It was a low hum actually.  She took me to a hole in the wall no tourists would ever enter unless a gorgeous 17 year old took your hand and led you in.  There was a picnic table with five patrons sitting on one side and three of us on the other side and there was just enough room for three stand next to the kitchen where fresh beef momos were steamed.      

J: These momos are long.  Much different from last nights veggie momos.  Those were more like the Chinese dumplings.

H: These are Gorkhamomos.

Across from me a Gorkha wearing a t-shirt and an ivory sword pendent around his neck ate the things with his hands.  Honey and I ate them with forks, chopsticks and eventually succumbed to using our hands.  We also got soup of the brothy kind and it was very good, though I had no idea what it was.

H: I like no rich people tea.  I like poor people tea. 

And we had tea in the mall where on a clear day the Himalayas circle us.  For three days I saw nothing. 

J: July 22 you will be 18.  Wow.  What do you want to do?

She couldn’t answer and in a way it was an unfair question.  Her choices are limited and most wishes were dreams.  She doesn’t want to go to school.  She’s 17 and likes to sleep but she is good with little emaciated puppies who will be dead within weeks. 

I sat across the lane from Honey’s shawls, hung on a line against a wall trying to get a photo off when a short man with a fat pink dog sat down in front of me, both of them shaking their heads.  Namaste to both of you now please move. 

*
The maps of Darjeeling I’ve seen show the place is flat and it is anything but, rendering them useless.  An afternoon looking for Lloyds Botanical Gardens and even asking people to show me the way was a farce.  And then two hours later I’m told it is closed.  Today is Sunday.  On the twisty up and down lanes I did find a convent, the Bishop’s house, and plenty of schools.  The city layout is similar to Shimla’s: you go up or you go down. 

Honey wanted me to try poor people food.  I always hesitate with vendor food even if it looks good because its always spicy hot.  We tried Pootchka, little shells where the man with dark oily hands stuffed pieces of potato, peas, nuts, salt, chili, and with a frightening jar of water which he dipped the stuffing thing into and we each enjoyed five of them for ten rupees.  I guessed if I had ordered them alone they would have cost fifty.  If I knew they were this good I wouldn’t have minded though I know how much a local is charged I’d feel taken advantage of, which is fine if extortion pursing a vendors lips is ridiculously high.

Tomorrow is Republic day and I must travel south to get to the airport in Sagulari for an afternoon flight to Kolkata and lordylou, an eight hour taxi for a 3:20pm flight. 

The rights of the Common man (and woman)

Fundamentalist Hindus calling themselves the moral police, beat women at a party, accusing them of immoral behavior in the state of Karnataka.  Shame on them, your violence is worse than any of your accusations.  Ghandi would be appalled and so are we. 

I found the Tibetan Refugee Self Help center and men were stacking wood planks and kids along with Mariano and Andy were shooting hoops while Beckman (his t-shirt said so) repaired the nets.

B: You be sponsor?
J:  Sure, why not?
B: You be sponsor?  (laughing )

J: Yes, and I am going to take your photo putting up the nets.  Om mani pay-me um dude.

And then we played a game until I was out of breath and sweaty and we won 6-3.

Sixty years of India Republicanism

Sixty five percent of Indians live in villages.  Why, we got a rural republic here. 

J:  Mariano, please tell me you are not from Argentina because you look exactly like that dude who plays basketball for the San Antonio Spurs.

M: Yes, I am from Argentina.  Ginobli.

A nice fella, along with his girlfriend and Andy from Leeds who played with a black furry newari hat.  Nice chaps indeed. 

The guidebook says carpets were for sale here.  Not today.  The gift shop has a big pad lock on the door.  I did have the intention of buying something but played hoops with the kids and the boys. 

                                                                        Ho hum-Lo Lun

And I played without water.  I didn’t talk to Mariano’s girlfriend  but she did offer peanuts.  I sucked on lemon cough drops which I don’t recommend but it was better than nothing for the next hour until I found a shop.

“Bring domestic violence to a halt, ring a bell”

“Touts, don’t harass female tourists”

Incredible India Ads

After the visit and game I set off for the BoisyBaty Monastery and it didn’t take too long this time to find it though I did pass the path a few times, folks kind enough to turn me around when I asked.  I stopped at a tiny kiosk named millennium and when I motioned for drink, water being the desire, a woman waved me inside and there she was rolling momos and offered me a bottle of millennium rum.  Yikes, the food smelled good but water was my objective. 

As soon as Honey asked my age I knew my minutes were turning into seconds which turned into the end:
J: 937
H: What? Ha.  Really.  How old?
J:  139, I think this is my fourth life.  I believe in reincarnation on occasion and when it is necessary.

sigh fizzle drizzle sizzle cold

Not paying attention to anyone is very very liberating and when a 17 year old is unafraid to lead me around like an Irish fucking setter, I should be flattered. 

Two adorable kids play with and around me while I sit on a two foot plastic stool, the little boy plays hide and seek with a girl a year older and neither of them speak a word of English. 

I looked all around to buy something for Honey, something that would surprise her, something not from her, but alas…I did find a nice 70/30 pashmini shawl exactly like the one I priced earlier in the day at 700 rupees:

J:  3200 rupees? You gotta be kidding me.
s:  good price, special sale for you.

J:  I saw one like this for 700 rupees, I have never heard of such unspeakable theft!!!

What color are you? 

Black White

out of sight

light the bowl

spark a candle

feel the freeze

inside your feet

renounce, don't sneeze

*

Peten, the young man at the Bellevue counter led me into the room full of collectibles that Siddhartha the owner said I could visit.  Cool stuff included a Victrola, two silver double barreled pistols with gold inlay and very heavy, once owned no doubt by a brit who probably couldn’t shoot a pomegranate off his mother’s head, the photo of Siddartha’s father shaking hands with the Dalai Lama, old wardrobes, beautiful Indian silver, a half dozen hi-fi systems with old LPs including Trini Lopez singing West Side Story tunes, If I had a hammer, and This land is my land…and Petum hadn’t heard of any of the songs I hummed for him. 

Butia Busty, The Monastery.  A temple dog was not at all happy to see me.  Earlier a smaller mutt blocked my path with its snarl.  A little girl stood by and watched me confront the ratty dog and I asked her to pull this mutt’s chain so I could pass, as if I knew she and the dog knew each other well enough.  Well, she must have because she cracked a stick at the little wienie and I passed by. For her kindness I gave her a tiny bouquet of yellow and purple flowers I picked on the way…

The temple dog was another matter.  I read temple dogs are reincarnations of those who wanted to live the life of a monk and couldn’t cut it and here they are to live a life worthy enough to return as a human and try again.  This old orange beast howled as I approached, albeit slowly:

J:  Please, I will not take photos and I will take off my shoes, alright?  I am not your enemy and if you try anything you’re coming back as a cat if you don’t shut the hell up.

The dog who wouldn't die

I tried to kill a dog not once but many times however in the end it wasn’t a bad dog after all.  Bear’s owner was mean spirited, kept the large dog on a very short leash and he, the dog, howled in spasmodic and uninterrupted yelps that went on for hours and hours every time the Illinois central came a clacking through, its whistle heard for miles away.  It bothered me, the treatment of the dog, that is.  Fed only human table scraps, never able to run, the owner cared less for the dog than a man would for someone who stole his blue-eyed girl. No, I didn’t want to kill the dog.  The woman I married wanted me to kill the dog.  I heard the dog at night only after she woke me up to hear its cries.  Being compliant I opened the window and sticking my head out the window yelped and Bear quieted, albeit until I was back in bed.  After deliberations with the police, the owners, the Jackson County humane shelter, and all who would listen to no avail left the woman I married to believe the animal was possessed and had to be taken care of somehow because as I heard it, the yapping from inside became louder than the yapping from outside and my job was to agree. 

Lean, ground beef meatballs mixed with drano, pepper and salt.  The German shepherd ate them up greedily.  For days I watched and nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  He’d shake his tail so hard his rear flung back and forth when he saw me.  A Mormon colleague suggested soaking sponges in blood and then tying them up tight so when the strings finally break but that sounded messy…Bear took an entire bottle of sleeping pills mixed in a can of dog food and I watched for a few days and nothing.  Some Quaker friends offered us a pistol but we were law abiding citizens walking the path to God.

I let Bear off his leash and we went for runs and was that dog happy and I hoped he’d keep going.  In darkness he flew through the forest and around houses and I was running two to three miles and he always found his way back to the mean home that fed him.  Then Bear’s owner attached a new and stronger leash though it wasn’t human proof so he was loosed again and he ran and ran at three in the morning and I don’t know why I thought anything would be different. He kept coming home. 

It was decided the only way to get rid of the dog was transport it at least 25 miles away across the Ohio, into Kentucky, because demons don’t cross rivers.  I dressed in black, had a few steaks, a flash light,  rope, gloves, and the 94 Mercury Villager, seat down, paper lined, ready to transport the dog.  At 2:30 in the morning I backed the vehicle next to the fence that separated the mean spirited people from the ‘we’re gonna get rid of your dog people’ and lo and behold Walt had welded the chained collar right into the dog’s neck, holy shit.  Using the car lights I tried wrestling the chain loose but I needed clippers.  I knocked on our bedroom window and woke up a furious woman, everyone can hear you, you’re blowing it you stupid @#$%. I wrestled with the kindly beast, covered in mud, grass, and hair and tried unsuccessfully to release it without clippers. Exhausted, I sat in the mud while Bear licked my ear. This is stupid.  

I came into the house and there was our last moment of horror; the next day she left. 

selling your stool

written in Al-Ain, January 2008

Outside it was hot enough to fry milk so I went out and fried a quart. 

My god, how long did it take you to turn the calendar this month?  Eleven o’clock  and 13 feet in front of me hanging on a filing cabinent there is a calendar—December 2005.  who stopped keeping track?

The relatively new road to Dubai, the big arch above Jimi and which intersects at the welcome to al-ain roundabout, shaves about 10 minutes of drive time, 9 minutes if you have a hummer 2 and you don’t see the new rural roundabouts. 

It is hard to believe getting and giving directions still takes aerial logic and a four dimensional sense here.  How many of us without the aid of a compass or GPS can go through a roundabout and know which way is  East?   I followed directions to a home not one kilometer away and I wound up in a municipality parking lot.

Quiz: What do you find in Al-Ain’s west end?  

There’s this astronomer here you can listen to at the link below who describes four different kinds of symmetry in the two dimensional scene and not one of them explains the symmetry of driving here.  A wondrous mystery one might say, a reason for the chaos another will utter, it’s all part of the big experiment says the dude in the black Landcrusier with black windows.

Ok dude.  The dude abides.

 http://www.wnyc.org/studio360/index.html

 Looking at the layout of the city one guesses geometry wasn’t asked to contribute an opinion.  What good is math except predicting how long will it take to turn around if you go the wrong way?

Not wishing to think badly of the roads, it is this opinion overall they are the best kept roads in the world.  And sometimes it’s like a Monaco speedway, but who encourages that, it must be the spacious tarmac, the checker flagged curbs, stretches of road without roundabouts for miles!

Imagine a cool winter morning in Al-Ain, the streets are most to partly empty and with the windows down your best driving music turned on high taking the roundabout curves and long stretches effortlessly , it’s a pleasure to be a part of the mechanism. 

As for driving in Dubai.  Friday and Saturday mornings are the best time to enter the big Schwarma, if you didn’t know that already.  Ok, a lot isn’t open, but who cares, there’s minimal traffic go explore.  The Business Bay bridge and the airport tunnel are worth checking out at least once and the new ghost towns of the new Dubai are eerie. 

Does anyone know when the revised edition of on the road in the UAE will be released?  My copy is already obsolete.

 

For sale ads are a great service to the community reaching intended buyers as far as Sweihan but let’s talk about this stool for sale.

 

 

I’d guess most didn’t click on the link to see this barstool which most likely didn’t have a bar to go with it hence it is just a stool and will be referred to as such from now on.  But what about this seller’s stool?  The asking price was Dh25.    The lone stool didn’t have any other stools to accompany it? And I see from the masking tape junior may have used it to reach for one more tin of tahini.  Surely you’d have to take Dh10 off there.

But for the kind individual who was selling the stool and took the time and effort to take a photo of it to advertise it…I hope you didn’t have to push too hard to sell your stool.

I signed up for three months of e-vision television yesterday and two very distressful viewings prompted me to cancel the service; the inscribing of  Mighty Ducks on Lord Stanley’s Cup and a two foot tall woman nine months pregnant.   Wake me up when the NFL starts please.

Best music to look for this summer:  Bill Frisell, Widespread Panic,  The June 19 release of The White Stripes new kick butt CD Icky Thump.  Suggestions to add?

 

Best reading of the past year:  William Vollmann’s Poor People,  William Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain: A Journey into the Shadow of Byzantium, and Ma Jian’s Stick out your Tongue.  And yours? 

 

Best movies in the theaters this year:  The Painted Veil and The Namesake

Best shwarma, still, in the country:  I keep forgetting the name but it is located at the Bani Yas Square in Dubai.  The only charcoal grilled roadkill around.

 

on the Shalimar Express

There are many liars in the world, and not a few liars, but there are no liars like our bodies, except it be the sensations of our bodies

Kipling

From my first visit to India in 2003.

 

Chapter 5

I leaned on my middle berth thirty minutes from Delhi, with a diet for no food.  Two of the well-kept Indian men in cheap vinyl leather jackets to my right smoked, exhaling blue through a cracked window.  The chai men in red were in full-force, a medium nasal pitch from the back of the throat resonated in the groggy car: chai garum, chai chai chai garum.  The plan today was buy a ticket for Pathonkot, a one-light bus stop spot on the map that was easier to read than pronounce, and then find a bus to Dharamsala.  To leave today would require good timing and a train that was not going to leave before I got to the station and found out I’d missed another.

A nice officer sat at the end of the berth, the end of his rifle came close to my eyes, and we had a nice, short conversation.  He had been in the police force for 20 years and made 7000 rupees a month, or $170.  In the berth next to mine Japanese women put up a curtain for privacy.  It was a nice idea, though it didn’t stop the chai men from stopping and looking in to see if anyone was thirsty for good chai garum, or they just wanted to see what was worth covering up.  I managed to eat a little piece of chocolate for breakfast, along with a diarrhea pill, two advil, sips of warm bottled water and cold feet was my state of the health summary on the 2559 that slowly rolled into the Delhi station.  The trip lasted 13.5 hours and once in the station I offered the angry English man my hand, wished him and his poor and unfortunately luggage-lite girlfriend all the best, then bolted for the foreigner’s ticket office.   

A three-hour hotel room for 400 rupees in order to shower, lie down, and relieve tired bowels was a necessary expense.  I studied my medicinal choices splayed on the bed:  diagnosing an uncertainty that was in all probability not life-threatening required common sense and simple adjustments aside from removing myself from the filth and pollution that surrounded me even in clean places, eating healthful foods, and sleeping right.  As usual I did not sleep much, if at all, on the rails and in the middle berth. The window I rested my head right next to was drafty and I thought every train that went the other way at lightening speeds was going to come through the window and impale my skull with a tail of screaming wind and sound. I chose not to rest my head on the aisle side for concern something or someone would whack, thump, or clang me upside the head with a foot, luggage, or a steel barrel of hot chai.   

After purchasing a ticket for an early afternoon departure, and getting a room, I sat again at Sonu’s restaurant in Pahar Ganj after I couldn’t sleep for even a few minutes.  It was the one place I had eaten and walked away feeling okay later when I first arrived.  I managed to drink half a coke and a half plate of egg fried rice because I had to take this damn medicine, and not on an empty stomach, so said the two pixel font size directions written in medical English barely discernable, except for a few nouns.  Maybe I was supposed to take it on an empty stomach.

Before I left my dayroom I flipped through the channels and watched a story on Oprah, narrated by an Asian American about a village in Madras where people sold their kidneys for $800 because of unemployment and poverty.  The advice for viewers, according to the sincere lady was just be aware, though she was really saying be thankful how good all of you in America have it.  Just be aware.  It was a good motto to adhere to, but maybe for other reasons.  I suppose if one person were to see that story and do something about it that would be a good thing. The woman should have told the primarily female audience to be aware and find out what it is you’re supposed to be doing on this earth, instead of watching and waiting for television to tell you your special purpose before it is too late to make a difference. 

I sipped a little bit of bottled water and looked at my options with the train in front of me.  I needed help getting on the 4645 Shalimar Express to Pathonkot.  My ticket said I was in sleeper car number four, but their wasn’t a sleeping car four between sleeping car five and a sleeping car three.  I raised my hands up high in complete exasperation; one hand clenched confusing information in two languages.  A nice man showed me the way, up towards the front, and I was grateful but didn’t know if he expected a tip.  Relying on the kindness of strangers without compensation expected reassured me and I was grateful.  I also reconsidered the stereotypes that crept into my thinking about a country that had a lot of empty hands out there that couldn’t help others before they helped themselves.

In the berth we started with six, now eight Indians.  A man who was in my upper berth with my ok and another above me totaled ten.  I sat at the end of the berth and wondered how and when I’d ever get to the toilet with all my stuff in a car that swelled.  I didn’t consider asking someone to watch my backpack, so I waited and held my angry continent at bay with meditative skill.  All the windows were open for an afternoon jaunt northbound and it was a little warmer than it had been, when suddenly a man climbed up and into the upper berth above me, making it 11 in a space that a few days ago held six backpackers. 

The woman who crocheted in front of me was solidly plump in her mid thirties and conservatively dressed, with a flair for contemporary and sensible attire. Her hair was long, tied in the back, and she had an earring in her nose that was big and gold.  There were five rings on her left hand, none on the right, due perhaps to the nifty handiwork on her wool dishcloth or sweater she worked on effortlessly.  Covering her shoulders was a finely knit wool shawl in a shade of Fenway park green and flowery paisley patterns embroidered, running around on some seams but not others.  Her dress was floral cotton that went down to her ankles that I didn’t attempt to see, though she did have little black shoes she didn’t wear.  Under the shawl was a furry wool sweater of a turquoise color in the middle with very pink arms.  Nothing matched but for some strange reason it all seemed to work.  She worked with her head down in three shades of green and had not looked up since the train that left 30 minutes ago was also late 30 minutes. Then one of the three sweater men sitting to her right engaged her into their conversation.  They appeared to be businessmen of the small variety and all of them had rings with stones. 

The man to my immediate left who offered to move so I could sit so the man in leather could lie down in my berth and remain there for now and was out like a light, sat up and sipped chai garam.  The man to my left was the eldest member in this cozy corner, and nary spoke a word.  His wife sat to his left and to her left was their daughter who stared out the window at the uneventful countryside.  Neither woman spoke a word.  The elder gentleman wore a red beret which gave him a distinguished look unlike a former baseball announcer in Detroit.   I speculated he might have been a civil servant in his long career and spoke English. When I found my space on the train the man who lay down in my berth asked in Hindi if anyone spoke English but no one answered and the man to my left shook his head only twice in short resignation. 

The contemporary-traditional looking woman in three shades of green looked more Eskimo, or maybe native American Indian, her smooth milk coffee skin and round smooth face didn’t look like any female I’d seen in Varanasi or Agra.  The two men to her immediately right were brothers; you could see it in their eyes, and their high foreheads were bookends.  The man who sat next to the window was at least ten years younger.  His hair was blacker, he held his suitcase-briefcase to him on his lap, and he spoke the most.    While I watched the business between the brothers, the woman across from me stood up and I saw she wore St. Patrick’s Day green leggings of a heavy fabric that may have been wool.  She sure had a lot of clothes on. 

I sensed early on this train a different clientele that with it came the peanut vendors and other entertaining sort.  An old blind man with crooked teeth slipped through the stuffed aisle selling little packets of unsalted skinless peanuts. A boy with a bucket of what looked like macadamia sold handfuls served on a piece of newspaper for five rupees.  I didn’t let anything pass my teeth since I found my place here and had no intention of eating.  The vendors and more people continued to make space disappear and prompted me to make a move to the upper berth; eight people sat in front of me and the aisles were completely mashed armpit to armpit.  I thumbed the man who lay in my berth out and felt a little safer when I suddenly realized why the price for my ticket was cheaper.  This is why.  This was a great experience I found myself in, in spite of the intestinal troubles.  Still I ruminated the possibilities of returning first class or flying back to Delhi.  It was very warm on top and a variety of contorted positions to stem the ever-present flow that wished to cleanse me of whatever remained, kept me very awake. 

The total headcount once the young couple with two hard suitcases wedged themselves in the thick of things, stood at 12.  The shady green lady left.  I felt a little selfish with a half an empty berth when I sat up; all the other beds had two or three bodies fill the space.  I was almost willing to share my space if I could go to the toilet.  On the end of the berth I sat with my legs dangling.  The top of this car was higher than others I’d been in where it was impossible to sit up and read.  Separating the cabins and subsequently upper berth was a mesh of metal.  I heard English spoken on the other side.  A Kashmiri man wanted to know if I was going to Jammu.  Pathonkot is three hours south of Jammu.  He asked again where I was going.  Path…Pathan…Do you speak English? he asked.  Yes, and I don’t speak Hindi. Patonkat…Pa-tan-ko.  Of the few Kashmiri’s I met their English was surprisingly good.  Who had been teaching them up there in the flats and mountains where everybody fought for half a century?  They were a lighter brown than the Keralan Indian in the south of India, but darker than northern Indians.  One man I met in Pahar Ganj was very dark skinned and sported these blue eyes that left me look sideways at him.  The man through the mesh told me he learned English in Delhi and was going home for the holidays to a city I didn’t recognize.  Another Kashmiri man I met in a Delhi gift shop full of carpets, lacquered and hand-painted ornaments, asked me of my thoughts on ending the 57 year conflict in his home of record. How about a new country?  Earlier in the week a train left from Delhi to Lahore, hailed in the newspapers as the peace train while both sides discussed the issues that left the place in such an un-united state. Back on this train I really didn’t want to fraternize with anyone.  All I wanted to do was lie down with my head propped up with my side bag, and cross my legs with every thump and wump in the tracks that thumped and wumped my sphincter.  An old man who sat across from me lit an unfinished cigarette he pulled from his brown sport coat.

When it hurts to hold a position of comfort one is reduced to wonder if this kind of suffering is necessary.  It certainly wasn’t because I could have purchased a first class ticket, ensuring more trips to the toilet without worrying if the bag that was chained to metal framing would leave with the throngs who came on the car in the hundreds with equal numbers leaving.  The aisles were too full to navigate and the scores sat or stood; the car remained quiet to everything but the sound of land that clanged and hushed by on a mostly absurd display of mass transportation. 

Five hours and change passed and I reached the holy grail of sleeping car four and put myself on a new drug for bacterial intestinal trouble.  With an empty bowel, medicine dispensed, my interest in the odd goings on below me peaked.  A boy in the aisle with wooden castanets sang a little song, and did this Elvis hip swagger.  The woman married to the man in the red beret and who hadn’t said a word the entire trip gave the entertainer a coin before he sauntered down the aisle of financial independence.  The faces constantly changed in this car.  There was a man across from my berth who wanted to practice English with me but couldn’t understand a simple question put to him in his desire to do so: why? Two heavily bearded Sikhs who sat across from me were amused at his inability to answer my last question before I went back to my book. 

I was impressed to certain degree, and humbled that the travelers had the patience to endure when there was nothing to be done.  Even with no one to talk to, I saw no one reading or writing anything.  There were long stretches silence, and all looked straight ahead, almost as if they were in states of meditation on the fullness of thinking about nothing or everything that was in their world.