The Fellowship of the Sirloin

It began with an afternoon spent wandering on sand dunes amidst a gathering of 40,000 camels.

It ended two days later on a hard wooden table in an Indian emergency room.

When I say I was amidst a gathering of 40,000 camels, this is exactly what I meant. I was planning to go to Rajasthan soon, but when I got stuck on a downtown Delhi street waiting for a tourist in belly-high shorts, a stupid hat and not one but two Harry Potter books tucked onto his utility belt like a superhero who never grew out of middle school to get his fucking elephant to move out of my way any faster, my mind was set: the Indian beasts of burden, led by the malevolent Cow, have united against me.

An Iron Curtain has fallen across India. The lentil-frying world has been divided into two camps: freedom and tyranny. On one side stands this resolute soldier of justice; on the other, livestock. From its shadowy mountain fortress the Cow directs his wicked armies...the ambling buffalo, the slack-jawed camel, and the heaving bullock...against me. But now we have uncovered the most terrible of the Cow's schemes...from the lost forests of the south he has deployed the mighty elephant against us. Our deflector shields cannot withstand firepower of this magnitude.

There is yet hope...in the desert town of Pushkar lies the lake where Bhrama created the world with the dropping of a lotus flower. It is here that the Cow's power was created, and here it is by casting a filet mignon medallion  into the sacred lake that it may be destroyed. This is a burden that I must carry alone.

Seizing the fortuitous scheduling of the Pushkar Camel Fair, which draws a great number of outsiders to this small town, I resolved to enter undetected and complete my noble quest. Though I was prepared to face innumerable of the Cow's camel pawns in open battle, I was not prepared for the Pushkar Camel Fair.

The Pushkar Camel Fair is in fact two fairs, one a religious festival celebrating the gathering of the Hindu pantheon after the creation of the world, and another held on the dunes outside the town in which a truly astounding number of camels are bought and sold. Whoever is responsible for aligning these two occasions is breakdancing on the fine line between genius and madness. The religious part of the fair is quite literally a freakshow. Of all the many people dressed up as deities and performing various bizarre dances, twirling metal rings and tossing fire around, by far the most unsettling are the young children painted blue from head to toe and trained to do a remarkably creepy impression of Krishna in full regalia. On top of all this, people come from far and wide to display deformed animals, and are somehow confused when one declines to pay for the privilege of holding a cow by the two bloody miniature limbs growing out the top of its spine.

Outside the town, the camel fair itself is a much more straightforward business: there are a shitload of camels. I don't know what to tell you besides that. There's a shitload of camels. 40,000 camels is just too many camels. I did however learn that the best way to deal with an uppity camel is to tie its front ankles to its knees (camel legs have three parts). They will not cease in their attempts at rebellion, but will do so while flailing around clumsily with the finesse of a grounded fish, although a fish which is not graced with a neck has much better reason to be constantly slapping its face in the dirt.

My reconnaisance complete I had some lunch and got back on the bus to Ajmer, where I lurk in preparation for my heroic deeds. This lunch was my undoing.

I soon found myself vomiting profusely, marking the second time in ten days such a fate has befallen me. (for those of you who keep track I am keeping a Scorecard of various statistics I come up with on the side of this blog. This statistic has been added.) Worse still were the other effects of this ailment, which I will leave implied because they are very easily guessed. Suffice to say, after a most fitful sleep I awoke unsure of whether my esophagus and my colon had booked the same hotel room. The profound discomfort of such sickness is made even worse by the fact that, if you will allow me to indulge my inner Victorian, the Indian methods of bathroom hygiene are utterly barbarous and an affront to civilized man. Some civilizations do not adopt the same customs as others. Most pre-Columbian cultures in the Americas did not possess the wheel, a fact that puzzles many. The bathroom customs of ancient Indian society must have somehow been formed without turning a curious eye towards, I don't know, a fucking leaf maybe???

Anyways after a great deal of this unpleasantness for some days confined to my hotel room and paying the local urchins to go buy me mineral water and bananas I mustered the strength to get to a real eatery and have a plate of plain rice. My misery clearly showed, and one very kind fellow offered to take me to his family doctor, who is widely reputed to be the best in Ajmer. When my turn came, the doctor asked me a few simple questions and was prepared to prescribe me some pills when he took my blood pressure, several times to make sure he was not imagining the reading, looked at me with great alarm and had me sent immediately to the hospital by motorbike.

I know this is the camels' doing.

When I got to the hospital, I discovered much to my surprise that hospitals in India do not carry "medical supplies". Instead there are rows of pharmacies across the street, where the sickly or preferably their relatives are expected to go and purchase whatever the hospital says you need. I should have known. Indians love nothing better than the shuttling of slips of paper.  Fortunately my companion stuck  with me through this whole process and I did not have to decipher this inane buearocracy on my own. After various slow shuffles between different doctors and highly critical paper-reading desks, I was finally whisked into a large hall of wailing people where I was deposited on a hard table made of a very special wood that is somehow even more uncomfortable than a second-class train bench and made to lie still for hours into the depths of night while the doctors administered a multitude of injections to various parts of my body and then hooked me up to not one but four IV's and left me to admire the various ways in which the paint was peeling from the ceiling.

All told my adventure in Indian medicine, which included a doctor's visit, 4 IV bags, 8 injections, a 5-day supply of pills, and a night in the emergency room set me back a paltry $18. More advanced treatments seem much harder to come by, as evidenced by the astounding number of paraplegics who crawl about the streets on their hands and asses. Unlike most Indian men, cripples are given the freedom to wear shorts, I guess so that they can show their atrophied legs and verify their begging credentials.

I've been recovering for about a day now. I'm medicated up to my eyeballs and I'm advancing quickly in my understanding of cricket, although I have learned that they deliberately keep multiple sets of rules. India just lost to Australia in a seemingly important game. This is a great distress to Indians, who have good reason to be upset because they somehow lose matches despite being one of the only countries that gives a fuck about cricket, having to rival such powerhouses as New Zealand and Trinidad and Tobago.

Tommorow I'm going to try and see the sights in Ajmer. The day after....Pushkar, I'm coming for you. I've seen your lake. It's a bigass hole with a puddle in it, and your mother's ugly too.  Camels, I'm onto your sorcery, you shan't cast a spell on me again. Cow, your end is nigh.

CORRECTION: The dropping of a lotus flower upon Pushkar did not create the world, only Pushkar. Pushkar's religious significance derives from its uniquely close association with Brahma, and with the conclave of gods that was held there.

Monkey See, Monkey Douche

Fun fact: everyone knows monkeys can do it doggystyle, but did you know that monkeys can do it doggystyle while breastfeeding a hanging baby? Gems of knowledge, gems of knowledge. The only good thing about my extended stay in Faizabad was my growing acquaintance with the 50-strong pack of monkeys that lives at the train station, apparently subsisting on discarded fruit and stolen family-size bags of Indian Cheetos. Though watching the antics of this pack was greatly amusing and partially redeemed the otherwise atrocious experiences I have with that train platform, their brethren down the highway were not so endearing...

I will concede that Faizabad has a very nice colossal mausoleum, but it is otherwise the Indian equivalent of Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is to say that you should never ever go there if your interests include fun. My real reason for being in Faizabad in the first place was to visit the nearby Hindu and Jain holy city of Ayodhya. By now I should really know better.

According to Jain legend, Ayodhya is where five of the tirthankaras were born, including the first, Adinath, who lived there in a mighty city of gold. Of course, this occured an incredibly long time ago as Adinath lived for a modest 593 quintillion years, which seems about right based on the amount of decay necessary to reduce Ayodhya from a golden city of gods to its current condition. Ayodhya is, of course, a dusty little city full of Hindu pilgrims and temple spires dotting the skyline. Most of all, it is completely overrun by monkeys to the point that priests may actually insist you bring your shoes inside the temple proper, lest they be stolen by Ayodhyan simian miscreants. When a stuck-up brahmin priest tells you to break the holy rules, you know there is a problem.

I toured the various temples and they were quite impressive, although the Golden Temple (not "the" Golden Temple, this is just what Indians understandably call any temple in their hometown that is full of gold) was closed. I was constantly implored to visit the temple of Rama, where Rama was supposedly born, but I declined as the temple is not ancient and dates only to 1992 when the mosque that previously occupied its location was conveniently misplaced amidst an angry Hindu mob. As a result of this, religious violence swept the country. I did get lured into one mediocre temple where apparently several people were killed in a bomb blast and ensuing gunfight a few years ago.

The building of the new temple was promoted by politicians of the BJP political party. The BJP, you see, is a powerful, militantly Christian nationalist party that wants to "take back" their country, idolizes the security forces, and lies in bed with big business and unrestricted industrial development that befouls the environment and enriches industrialists without really doing anything for the people, who still vote for them anyways because, hey, fuck Muslims. Oh, wait. Excuse me, I was talking about the Republican Party. The BJP is a militantly Hindu nationalist party...

Anyways I wanted nothing to do with this temple, which I hear sucks anyways, so I spent most of my time in the hilltop castle-like temple of Hanuman the monkey god. A word of advice to aspiring religious architects: if you simply must have a single ceremonial entrance and you reside in a country with more than a few hundred million people, said ceremonial entrance ought be more than six feet wide. Climbing the many steps up to the temple door I became engulfed in what could most accurately be called a throng. Thousands of pilgrims shoved their way up the ever-narrowing stairs and tunnel like sand through an hourglass until finally after a long period of mutual exchange of sweat and body odors, I was propelled through the final gate like a bull being released into the rodeo.The temple was like the inner courtyard of a castle, with numerous brightly colored shrines on the periphery and great lengths of Hindi or Sanskrit text adorning every wall. Though I can read a bit of Hindi I did not even try to decipher these writings, because to do so would be like trying to interpret the Old Testament with a first-grade education, and as I am not from Arkansas I am not inclined to attempt this. I hastily bolted for the side of the temple as the crowd swarmed the central shrine where a troupe of laborers presided over the scramble to perform worship. The scene resembled  the frantic trading of the New York Stock Exchange, except with more throwing of flowers at statues and the added urgency of believing that if the trade is not made you will earn the unholy disfavor of an extremely powerful and displeased monkey, like Diddy Kong wielding the Hammer of Thor. It would probably be unwise to fuck with this entity.

I for one did not see fit to engage in this flower donation because I appreciate not having my ribs crushed by hordes of little old ladies and men with sub-par porno mustaches. To hell with the monkey god I thought, I'm not dealing with this mayhem. Perhaps not coincidentally, I spent the next four days trapped in fucking Faizabad.

Next time I'm in a Hanuman temple I'm doing what I'm supposed to. I'm not getting this deity any more pissed at me than he is already. I've read Congo.

India Haiku, Vol. 1

Vast India;
home of one billions souls,
twelve billion teeth

A rickshaw at night
plying calm and empty streets
honks at sleeping goats

Agra. Beautiful
as a slave maiden's bosom,
putrid as her stool

Bollywood movies
Much dancing and gibberish
but also wet shirts

Indian weather
hotter than a camel's ass,
wetter than fish pee

"Final price five hundred
rupees. Highest quality! ...
O.K., one hundred."

Great Faizabad
Abode of angels; blessed
with rich culture. NOT.

"What is your country?...
Blo Mi? Very good country,
many my friends there!"

A cricket match
"Three sixes this over!"...
Who fucking knows

"Excuse me sir, please
come to my silk shop, good price.
No? You like hashish?"

Clang clang clang clang clang
clang clang clang clang clang clang clang
clang. Hare Krishna.

What is that odor
on the afternoon breeze?
Surprise. It's cow shit.

Faizabad

Fuck Faizabad.

My greatest wish is for a Faizabad-sized alien mothership to blow this place away a la Independence Day with a plasma cannon. No, I lie. My greatest wish is to get the fuck out of Faizabad. I returned to the train station to tell the ticket office that I wanted to trade an essentially worthless gamble "wait list" ticket for a useful ticket to "literally anywhere but here." When I got back to the prison-like Reservations Office, there were this time not one but two cows within, and they both pissed on the floor. This sums up my experience with Faizabad. I hated Faizabad even before I got stuck here, and now I am trapped in this shithole for another THREE DAYS. Fuck Faizabad for all eternity. Allow me to list just a few of Faizabad's numerous shortcomings as a center of human civilization:

Faizabad has the charm of a burnt pork rind.

Being in Faizabad is less adventurous than watching the 2am timeslot on QVC.

Faizabad has the topography of linoleum and the biodiversity of an Oklahoman prison cell.

Faizabad is less interesting than a Country Music Awards afterparty.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn could write a book about Faizabad called The Lameness Atoll, but this book would be boring.

If Faizabad were a woman it would audition for Rock of Love but not be cast.

200,000 people live in Faizabad, presumably by accident.

Faizabad is host to fewer worthwhile cultural events than Pripyat, Ukraine.

If Faizabad were a food it would be a bowl of salted lettuce

Faizabad is less memorable than the film Home Alone 3

Faizabad is as relevant as Shia LeBouef's views on professional lacrosse.

If Faizabad could cling to rocks, lichen would grow on it by mistake.

When one attempts to think about Faizabad, one's mind drifts instead to guessing the volume of empty buckets.

If Faizabad were a video game it would be the demo version of Windows Notepad.

If Faizabad hosted the Olympics, every athlete would compete in one event -Leaving- and the gold medal would be awarded to people for never fucking coming.

Happy Diwali, G's

I have left Varanasi and yet again my war against Indian livestock has moved to new soil. While waiting in line to get a train ticket the hell out of Faizabad (more on that later), I found myself in a typically dense line in a small cage-like enclosure they see fit to call the reservations office. About two hours into this almost meditative excercise in monotony,a great yelp erupted from the crowd and people began fleeing from their covetously guarded positions in line. I tried to discern the source of the commotion, and it became quite obvious. Not more than two feet behind me was a gigantic bull, which had found its way indoors and around through the door of the reservations office, and was determined to force its way through the mass of cueing customers. The customers wisely chose not to resist. Having caused such a stir, the longhorned monster was quite content to sit in the corner of the office and swat flies with its tail. Always,fucking cows.

Diwali is a month of good luck and festivals. At its climax is a Festival of Lights, which includes formal rituals and more importantly, fireworks. As such the occasion is much loved by Indian children who spend at least a week prior randomly detonating firecrackers, and is equally despised by Indian monkeys, who have no idea what's coming. There is no creature capable of greater athleticism than an urban monkey fleeing a cataclysm. From a Varanasi rooftop I was treated to a 360-degree panorama of colorful explosions that went on for hours. Indian fireworks are spectacularly cheap and unsafe, so the locals amass sizeable arsenals which they launch gleefully well into the night. There is an added element of excitement as projectiles may misfire in any direction at any moment, periodically sending volatile mixtures of gunpowder and chemically-treated birdshit rocketing ever so gracefully into, say, a third-storey balcony.

The kids, whose enchantment with fireworks knows no bounds, buy firecrackers by the sackful. They have also discovered that the safest and most convenient way to light them is by standing them upright in a cow turd. This is usually fine, until someone misjudges the potency of the explosive and the situation becomes utterly catastrophic, most of all for the children themselves who take no heed of the great distances being rapidly covered by their elders, and are surprisingly slothful for people who know they've just set a bomb in a pile of wet shit. Serves them right.

My last day in Varanasi tied up a lot of loose ends. I finally bought some clothes I've been pretending to waffle on for days to score a better discount. I attended a fire ceremony at the ghats and paid my respects to my favorite saddhus.

I met a guy who calls himself a Truth Speaker, who took me on a tour of the Varanasi underworld. He showed me where the false holy men lurk to count the money they begged from naive pilgrims and buy opium, the stair-alley where a guru was murdered for speaking out against the desecration of sacred river fisheries, and past the boat where a prostitute he particulatly disliked ("nobody likes this family" he alleged) lures customers for illicit contacts on the holy river. Though I had suspected much of what he told me I was glad to see a side of the city most of the tourists don't. Finally he took me into the actual underworld of the city, where an ancient shrine to Vishnu was concealed 25 feet underground through a twisting passage hidden in an alley I doubt I could ever find again.

I'm back on the road. Mo' trains, mo' towns, mo' fireworks at 3am. Farewells can be bittersweet. Some can be sweet. I ran into my shoulder-fondling freakshow one last time. Upon telling him of my immenent departure I saw the last glimmer of hope fade from his eyes as he ungrasped my hostage hands and dissolved into mist, whispering "no ten rupees...". Then he was gone.

This Shit Is Banaras

One of the reasons for my lengthy stay in Varanasi was to ensure that I celebrated the day of my birth in a place I knew not to be a complete craphole. Determined to make a special occasion rather than just stroll along the ghats for hours yet again, I looked for some way to mark the day in my memory. Inspired by the sight of bathing saddhus and swimmers, I decided to take a ceremonial plunge into the Ganges.

This was an exceptionally poor idea.

Though I intended to use the experience to take in my surroundings and allow the reality of my awesome new life to sink in, the only things that sank in were a plethora of industrial byproducts, and the various forms of waste deposited by the approximately 200 million people upstream. I have also been reminded that in Varanasi alone about 100 corpses are dumped in the river a day. Fantastic.

I freely admit that I am no stranger to vomiting on my birthday, but I would say that it is preferable to achieve this via foolishly dedicated binge-drinking than it is to do so as the result of tropical diseases. I spent much of the rest of the day having an adventure in plumbing, as Indian toilets (a bizarre and fascinating topic on their own) are even more uncomfortable and degrading to puke into than Western ones. At least they have knee pads. Fortunately the effects of this folly were short-lived and after a lengthy rest I was well by the next day.

I am being stalked by a masseur. There are countless men at the ghats offering massages and using the "Varanasi handshake" to trap unsuspecting tourists into an experience with their less-than-supple hands. One of these men follows me great distances every day, argues with me, frequently puts his hands on my face, and has numerous times sneaked up behind me and started rubbing my shoulders. Today I snapped at one such intrusion after he had trailed me for about 500 meters and lashed out with a would-be devastating insult, only to be reminded that my razor tongue only limply wiggles when deployed on an Indian audience. "Ten rupees sir, only ten rupees", his incessant refrain echoed as he grasped me by the cheeks. "I wouldn't give you ten rupees if your oldest daughter was massaging my dick", I shot back. "...Only ten rupees sir. Good massage."

I suck at India.

There is a dog - Cerberus is his name - that lives below my window. He is the single most evil-spirited animal that I ever hope to encounter. His hateful, dragon-like growls haunt my sleep and I have many times awoken to the yelping of dogs and puppies he has bitten or the thundering hooves of tooth-scarred cows rounding the corner. Were I not locked in here every night I would grease my chest, dig the leotard out of my backpack, put on my lucha libre mask, go outside and knock that fucker's teeth out with a bar stool.

I met a silk wholesaler today and for journalistic reasons (Ghostface gotta get paid) visited his factory to take notes on the weaving and dyeing process. All you need to know is that the scent of each color is capable of producing a subtly different form of nausea, and that the presence of that much dye is enough to make you feel like your eyes are going to bleed, and not just because the designs are way too garish for autumn.

Much more pleasant was my half-planned run-in with my old homie the buffalo herder. "I wait for you," he said "take one pole." Sweet God, yes.

With the neophyte zeal of a fraternity pledge I joined in herding his buffalo out of the Ganges and up the massive steps to the city streets, slapping buffalo belly and waving my stick all the way. Dozens of people stopped and stared , but I've come to accept that as the price of doing anything really fun in India. Maybe it's because they're so unused to seeing a member of the tourist hordes give up their dignified distance and actually immerse themselves in the day-to-day of common Indian life, or maybe it was because a guy in royal blue Indian pajama trousers and a Serbian t-shirt was loudly slapping a herd of buffalo.

Finally I ran into my saddhu friend. This guy is an old man who just spent 45 days walking barefoot from Delhi to Varanasi with nothing but an orange robe and a sack of body pigments. We sat down and in very stilted English talked for some time about the meaning of love. After offering a great many romantic tips (Do not let her father see your filthy toes; shop at her parents' store and casually flash wads of cash), he concluded "What is good? One wife, whole life." I swear, somewhere in India is a massive academy that instructs people in the English language solely in rhyming verse. "Burning is learning, cremation education". Even people with only the slightest English know at least half a dozen random couplets. I'm going to donate a truckload of Snoop Dogg CD's to this academy and blow India's mind.

Buffalo Herding: the Way of the Samurai

One can learn a great many things in India. I've been spending much of my time listening to people discuss the history of Varanasi, and the various metaphysical beliefs of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. While this is all much appreciated, I strive also for practical knowledge and I have been blessed enough to speak to great masters in the arts of how to burn a corpse and how to herd buffalo. Corpse-burning is pretty much straightforward (get a crapload of wood, set it on fire) so I now present...

Buffalo Herding: the Way of the Samurai

Sun Tzu wrote that in battle, one must know his enemy, and one must know himself. With this, victory is assured.

To know thyself, understand that you are human. You are small and fragile, but you are intelligent and you possess the power of tools, separating you from the animals.

To know thy enemy, know what a buffalo is and is not. A buffalo is not a cow. The cows of India are independent, aloof bastards content to sit by themselves or stand lengthwise in the most inconvenient spot possible. Buffalo, on the other hand, move in packs. This truth you must know. A buffalo, though like a cow, is not so holy as a cow, and may be treated with a corresponding diminishment of respect. The cow is shogun; the buffalo, wayward samurai.

A buffalo is strong, but it is dull. It is lethargic, and its bulk cannot be moved by the meager might of man. However, "Give me where to stand" Aristotle proclaimed "and I shall move the world." So too it is with buffalo. Stand then in the Field of Enlightenment, for it is from here that you shall draw your strength.

After knowledge of self and foe, one must possess knowledge of purpose, and knowledge of the field of battle.

One may have two purposes in herding buffalo:

1. To productively herd one's own buffalo from one place towards another
2. To defensively herd someone else's buffalo away when it is up in your shit

One must also understand the two fields on which this battle may be fought:

1. A battle with buffalo in the water
2. A battle with buffalo not in the water

Let us begin with a discussion of productive buffalo herding, for it is the finer art, and with it mastered all other buffalo arts are as but a child's game.

To herd buffalo one will need two items. The first, wisdom, we have already procured -- or all is lost. The second, a large pole can be found wheresover poles are sold. While the buffalo are in water, first shout at them and wave. The profound indifference of a buffalo extends to his own immobility, and he may move for lack of an inclination not to. When this fails, do as the master told this pupil and "take stick, make big splash". This will move most buffalo. If it does not, resort then to the Grand Master's Stroke. Shout mightily, as though charging  the ranks of an army and hit the buffalo with the pole. The sound, graceful as a flute-wind passing over the thawing mountain snow, should be thus: HAAAIIIIIII*thwonk*. This will move even the stoutest and most stubborn of buffalo, unless it hath fatefully dared the Gorgon and been turned to stone.

When the buffalo is on land, clearly a splash will not do. First scream as one would when the buffalo is in water. Then, if reluctance is found, slap the buffalo heartily upon the flank with an open palm, as one would to a prostitute. Remember, though a noble foe, the buffalo has the failings of the common whore, its dalliances and indolence great nuisances to the master it serves, earning it this needed slapping. Should the buffalo muster such insouciance to refuse to obey even these violent ministrations, threaten it with the pole, and if need be, thwack it. Sometimes one ought beat even a seemingly cooperative buffalo, lest it lose its fear of the pole and forget the name of its daddy.

Live by these words, and your buffalo's will shall be aligned to your own.

Remembering that at times one must also confront buffalo that are not one's own, we turn now to that subject. Here we do not distinguish between the buffalo wet and dry, for we must know only that the enemy knocketh upon our castle gates.

If the buffalo approaches one's noble works, and the defense of one's livelihood from the trample of hooves, the vagaries of grazing, and the torrents of buffalo excretions becomes imminent, find thee also a large pole. As one does not care whence the buffalo flees other than that it is away from one's own business, the use of more graceful techniques of direction are superfluous. Wield your pole with honor, and charge headlong towards the beast, screaming as you go, pole brandished high over the head. This will turn all buffalo to flight.

By this path let the buffalo be herded. Go in peace.

edit: it might have been Archimedes who said that.
edit: retroactively making this a Ghostface Buddha Guide

Young Buddha Got It Bad Cuz I'm Brown

Right about now Indianz With Attitude court is in full effect.

Maharaja Dre presiding in the case of IWA versus the police department.

Prosecuting attourneys are MC Curry, Ice Lassi and Masala muthafuckin Chai.

Order order order. Ice Lassi take the muthafuckin' stand.

Do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth

and nothin but the truth so help your pajama-wearin' ass?

Why don't you tell everybody what the fuck you gotta say?

FUCK THA POLICE

On my way back to Varanasi from a place called Sarnath, my rickshaw got stuck in a mix of vehicle and pedestrian traffic that had all the makings of a riot. Dozens of assault-rifle wielding police officers were escorting a backhoe which I first thought was just being a pain in the ass and blocking traffic. Soon I realized it was methodically assaulting shops and tearing down parts of the storefronts as shopkeepers and cutomers fumed within. Crawling down a kilometer long stretch of road we saw the evidence of a day spent unannouncedly destroying parts of people's livelihoods, bricks and iron laying in twisted piles in front of hundreds of shops, and people's eyes fixed in rage upon the invading machine. I'm sure somebody knows why this is happening, but I'm just gonna go ahead with what is usually the proper response and say Fuck Tha Police.

It's been a busy day, between hanging out with my surprisingly philosophical gaggle of little children, visiting monumnents out of town, and having lengthy discussions with priests and gurus of three different religions, I absorbed a fair amount of knowledge, leaving just enough time to slice my way through an angry mob.

First things first. One of my little child friends informs me that last night's episode with the handgun was nothing to be concerned by. To paraphrase my little buddy "If he own a hotel in this hood, fo sho he packin' heat." It's becoming increasingly obvious that I'm living the hood life. Last night in addition to the customary dogfight, I also got to hear an argument over the price of opium. The lodge shuts itself closed with steel doors at 10 and the owner takes a gun when he goes out at night. This is why I'm always shutterred up in this bitch blogpostin'. At least until I get my nine.

Today I decided to get out there a little and I took a day trip out to Sarnath, a peaceful little town with an assortment of ruins marking the spot where Buddha gave his first sermon and thus started the cycle of the wheel of law. It is the birthplace of Buddhism. One day they're gonna build a stupa to Ghostface Buddha at a netcafe in the Pahar Ganj of Delhi marking the spot where I first made a cow shit joke online.

Sarnath is a lovely little place. There are a plethora of quiet Buddhist temples and monks from the various Buddhist countries wander around and mingle with the foreign tourists and Indian picnicking couples. I'd have to say the Sri Lankan temple was my favorite, as it was quite nicely built, had a tranquil garden of palms and a sacred bodhi tree, a golden Buddha statue quite like the logo of this fine website, and also had a deer park. I spent a great deal of time walking about reading pearls of Buddhist wisdom carved everywhere in about 15 languages. I also talked to a Buddhist monk but he had to scurry off and assist a pack of Japanese Buddhists, who even in their grey robes and orange sashes still carry a bevy of GPS-enabled, mp3-playing, remote-control-helicoptering cameras and needed someone to take the group photos.

You take your shoes off to visit temples, but I decided to just wander around the whole town barefoot. The very idea that it was possible to do this without having to constantly dodge paan spit, broken masonry, and animal manure was an irresistible novelty. People looked at me funny. Them bitches got a smile and a toe-wiggling they will never forget.

I eventually stumbled into a Jain temple, where I talked to a disciple for about an hour. Jainism, I have concluded, is essentially Buddhism on acid. He opened our discussion by distinguishing between the two branches of Jainism and proudly announced that he was of the minority Sky-Clad variety, meaning that when he becomes a guru in his own right he will go around completely naked. To illustrate this point he presented a massive folder of photographs of himself with the various naked gurus he studied under, naked-ass gurus blessing government ministers, and a picture of the Dalai Lama seemingly bowing before a Jain guru's member. Sarnath is holy to Jains because one (three? I forget how many) of the Jain tirthankas (sort of like prophets) were born here....hundreds of millions of years ago. They were also several stories tall and lived for various periods of a thousand to 8 million years. Mahavira, the last tirthanka and a historical figure quite similar to Buddha makes the most sense, while the others sound like characters from the underwater sequence in the film Yellow Submarine. Because of their diminishing size, the fact that Mahavira was a reasonable human height leads Jains to conclude that the next one who will show up in about 100 million years will be approximately a foot tall. The disciple confessed that he had great difficulty understanding these matters, as they were incredibly bizarre in comparison with the actual philosophical tenets of his faith...which is saying something.

One thing I have to say about the Jains is that they're consistent. Though they've been around 2500 years, they are willing to accept the implications of modern knowledge on their faith. For instance, now the naked gurus aren't even allowed to wash themselves, because this would kill bacteria and they are sworn to harm no living thing. I quickly concluded that I don't want to be a Jain, because I roll over in my sleep, potentially killing insects, and I also am not attracted to the idea of pulling out all the hairs on my body one by one with my bare hands. I am a hairy man. Plucking my thighs alone would give me arthritis; going any higher would leave my hands reduced to a cyborg appendage on a stump, leaving me looking like a naked, bald Luke Skywalker.

Finally I entered the archaeological site where the ruins of some of the world's oldest Buddhist structures are lying around. Among these is an enormous round brick tower marking the precise spot where the Buddha first expounded the core of Buddhism to an audience of 5 erstwhile ascetic friends. The Buddhist monks I talked to spoke with deep reverence for the place. It's not every day when you can see the place where your deepest beliefs originated. I'm no Buddhist (or a Jain, no matter how cool they are) but all told Sarnath was a pretty cool historical experience.

Back in Varanasi I instantly ran into my kid buddies again. This time they directed me to a riverside Diwali ceremony where fire-dancers and yogis performed on mattresses at the ghats while hundreds of ecstatic saddhus singed and clapped along to the music, pausing only to smear red paint on my face and toss candles into the river. One of my urchin chums bought me dinner and me and the cook talked about the meaning of life.

India rules.

My Home Away From Home. Also, A Gun

Varanasi is the holiest city in all of the Hindu religion. It lies on the Ganges river and is said to have been founded by Shiva, the most important of the Hindu deities. To die in Varanasi grants one instant liberation from the cycle of birth and death, the ultimate goal of the spirit in Hindu philosophy.

I'm sorry, I have to stop for just a second. I just started typing this basic history of Varanasi when the restaurant manager at my lodge comes up to me at the computer and excuses himself to open a locked drawer just above my keyboard. He pulls out a pistol and says "This is American gun, from Obama." This is happening in REAL TIME. OK now I am having a discussion about Barack Obama and the history of the Nobel Prize with a man casually waving a firearm. Something is being muttered about Muslims. We're now discussing the alleged stupidity of both Barack Obama and the nation of Sweden. Now he's reading what I'm typing. Now I am telling you in real time about what my subject is saying about what I am saying about him in real time. I think I just founded Gonzo Postmodernism. The gun has been tucked into his trousers, and he's going out into the alley...

OK where was I?

Historically, the city has been a major religious center since at least 1400 BC and a handful of sites have been used continually since that time. It is a beautiful and bizarre place.

Arriving in Varanasi, one gets the familiar feeling that surely nothing must be holy, because Varanasi forms the third apex of what I call the Douchemuda Triangle, the well-known trio of Delhi, Agra, and Varanasi that suffer from the worst of tourist-plaguing scum. Fortunately, my India game has increased substantially since the dark early days in Delhi and I was able to navigate the thoroughly unnatractive new districts on the fringes of town with relative ease. The rickshaw drivers dropped their full arsenal of attempted scams, until I caused such a scene that they had to call in other drivers whose reputations had not yet been tarnished by being caught in bullshit. After being dropped on the edge of the Old City, more rickshaw-wallahs offered to take me here and there, all bullshit. When I finally told them where I was actually going one guy offered up "Is very far, over two kilometers!" Knowing this was patently false I said it was more like 500 meters and the rickshaws weren't allowed there anyways. "OK OK, one kilometer" he offered, performing an astounding feat of rickshaw-wallahdom that moved the location of the Golden Vishnuwarantha Temple and transcended geography and physics as we know them. "Oooohhhh magic!" I exclaimed, prompting uproarious laughter from the assembled crowd (India is crowded, crowds assemble themselves over anything) and impressing the erstwhile scammers such that one actually took it upon himself to lead me through the alleys without a hassle or pitch.

Once you get into Varanasi's Old City, everything changes. It is a dark maze of exceptionally narrow streets between centuries-old lodges, bazaars, and countless temples and shrines, ranging from 9 to 2 feet wide. There are no cars, no rickshaws, and for the first time in India I heard no honking. It was bliss. Walking down the street one brushes shoulders with a diverse cast of characters. There are tourists. there are merchants and the ubiquitous hustlers and fixers they rely on. There are drug dealers and pimps. The drug dealers identify themselves immediately ("want something high?"), whereas the pimps blend seamlessly into Indian society, revealing their true intents only once they have tested the waters with lengthy small talk. There are policemen by the hundreds, armed with rifles and tucked in squads into tiny alcoves from which they maintain order, most importantly serving as a shield against religious fanaticism, because if there is anywhere where religious zealotry could suddenly combust, it is here.

Most noticeably of all, there are the myriad different Hindu priests and holy men. One of the great things about Hinduism is that it accommodates an essentially infinite variety of religious practice. However, this also has the effect of giving the loonies free reign. Varanasi draws a dazzling array of wandering religious men, most of whom have long beards, painted skin, and orange robes draped over their haggard bodies. Some are additionally weighed down with purple and yellow cloths, wreaths of flowers, skulls, bells, pots, conch horns, and an array of offerings to be made on the circuit of the city's greatest shrines. Some of these men carry the very aura of piousness, others seem suspiciously like kooks who take great pleasure in leading a life where they can paint themselves and harangue strangers with bells.

There are the cows. Dear lord, are there cows. Fat, happy cows. In Varanasi, the myth of a single cow bringing all traffic to a stop is true, not because traffic ever really stops for a cow (there are no rules to the road, you just go around), but because the cows are so fat and the streets so narrow that one may find oneself in a standoff with a creature that takes up the entire passage and has horns. However, I can't bring myself to dislike the cows here. They just seem to belong, hanging in their favorite alleys and wandering the cityscape without a care. Within the physical body of every cow is God, I was told one night over tea by the side of the Ganges. The cows here are so serene, so strangely noble, that I can feel myself almost starting to believe it.

Finally, in Varanasi there is the unmistakable presence of death. It was here that the Lord of Death was given his power, except in the City of Life itself. Varanasi's spiritual heart is the ghats, the massive riverside steps that extend along the length of the city. There are dozens, each capped with temples and shrines. From the steps people commune from all walks of life. There are the laundymen, the meditating saddhus, the pious pilgrims washing themselves in the God-infused waters of the Ganges. Finally there are the dead. Two of Varanasi's ghats are the great burning ghats, where the dead are publicly cremated by the sacred river. At the larger of the two cremation ghats, massive piles of firewood line the streets and barges offshore, with dozens of funeral pyres burning at a time. The heat is tremendous and the smoke, though mostly from the hundreds of kilograms of wood in each pyre, feels as though it fills the lungs with the ashes of the dead and the crackling cloud-bound embers of liberation.

With liberation as its reward, countless people travel here to die. Above the ghats where the dead are burnt, within the warmth of their glow, lodges house the dying who await their turn. One can look through the darkened windows of these lodges and see nothing for the dying lie too low to be seen, but every few minutes a party of Untouchables carries another veiled corpse from these quarters or from the narrow alleys leading to the rest of the city. Over 300 people are burnt here every day. An additional 100, Untouchables, lepers, outcasts, and holy men who have transcended the caste system are bound to rocks and dropped into the Ganges.

I'm not drawn to these spectacles of death. Indeed, for the most part I avoid them. The heat is uncomfortable, the endless activity of overlapping funerals at the ghat approaches the mundane so much that it is numbing. I find myself tethered here instead by an intense awareness of life. Perhaps with such stark contrast in evidence, pillars of white smoke perpetually marking the cremation ghat's position on the riverside, an awareness of life is all but inevitable. Everyone else here seems to feel life too. The sincerity of the pious gazing longingly into the Ganges, the remarkable color and vibrancy of the city's spiritual life, the ever-present clamor of bells, the majesty of the massive steps leading up into the city, the claustrophobic lanes where one can't help but be bumped into one of the innumerable shrines, flowerpots and candles floating downstream, the brilliant flood-weathered architecture all make this an inescapably alluring place.

Aside from working on a valuable article for work about the finer points of travel by rickshaw, I've mostly just been absorbing the city and learning my way through the labyrinth, periodically sit by the river and learn my way up and down the riverside through all the gates. I have favorites. The Marikarnika Ghat, though known mostly for its cremations which I avoid, has also a fascinating pool, said to be the well into which Shiva dropped his earring in a cosmic dance at the time of creation. Just beyond this is the Scindia ghat, where a massive Shiva temple has fallen into the river, leaving its ornate spire tilting out of the waters. The waters rise several stories every monsoon season. I am assured that the trees on the plain across the river are left completely underwater. Looking at the height at which the main shrines sit above the steps, and the height to which the steps are caked in thick, packed mud, I am inclined to believe this. The city maintains a fleet of small pump-boats whose purpose is to blast river water at the mud and clean off the monsoon's deposits on the ghats. Firehoses are pumped without regard for passers-by and without warning, sending pilgrims and cows alike to scatter in shock. Sometimes this occurs at perfectly clean ghats. I suspect this is the stepcleaners' way of fucking with priests, cows, and the Establishment. If I could turn firehoses on smug-ass cows and unsuspecting meditating saddhus every day, that might be the one job in India I would trade for my own.

I'm making Varanasi my base in India, a place to periodically return. I can sit on the ghats for hours, and the absence of honking and smog make it an appealing place to work between journeys. Indeed, I have all my needs met without having to leave the twisting confines of the Old City, free from the ugly commotion and decrepitude of New India. I have a little room in a lodge in a tiny alley. At one end of the alley is a marvelous Japanese cafe, at the other an Indian restaurant with live Classical Indian music. I've got a computer and hot breakfast and it's cheap. My alley has a rotating cast of cows, some of whom I'm starting to recognize as regulars. My only complaint is that I have a first-floor window facing an even narrower alley leading to a busy temple, and every night a battle between three angry dogs for mastery of this alley takes place beneath my window, interrupted only by the occasional interventions of a man of questionable mental health.

I was going to write some more about my theories regarding the Indian rules of traffic, the institution of Indian pimphood, and the beginner's guide to buffalo herding I promised, but I got carried away writing about how much I love Varanasi. That and I was literally interrupted by a dude with a handgun.

He hasn't come back. I'd really like to know what he's up to.

Big News, Small News, BREAKING NEWS

BREAKING NEWS first. Indian goats are quite possibly the stupidest of the domesticated mammals. All I'm saying is, if you're a goat in a goat market and you see other goats being slauhgtered in the street and goat heads being tossed around with relative abandon, perhaps you, an untethered goat, should at least try to make an escape. Seriously, man, even the chickens know when to panic.

The small news is that because I'm writing on this blog a lot more than I expected (I'm usually at a loss for anything better to do late at night), I've been gradually upgrading the site for a couple days. So now we have.....

~~~!!NeW fEaTuReS!!~~~

1)Labels/tags on posts. Each post is now indexed to the relevant cities, states, or major landmarks. These labels can be accessed from the list below the blog archive, or if you like as keywords in the little google bar. I am considering adding thematic tags too, in case for any reason somebody would want to read all my posts about, say, cows. But right now I'm too lazy for that.

2)"Where Am I?" feature with embedded interactive google map showing my location in India as of my latest blog or gmail logon, located to the right of the posts. I'd like to make this capable of tracking my travels but getting this to work while shifting between many computers may be beyond my meager technical skills. Also the map centering is being a little awkward, but it's interactive so you can just zoom out or whatever.

3)Comments are now open to anyone with a gmail account. Also I now receive notices when comments are left, so that I actually read them.

And now for the big news! I'm chilling in Varanasi (Benares to you old-timers), which is pretty much the coolest place ever. I've been making a bunch of contacts here and am setting this city up as my part-time base of operations when I'm not on the road. So now I'm only 80% homeless! Edit: so, Varanasi didn't actually become my pad. Rajasthan was where it's at. More about Varanasi later. A full report on its awesomeness will be issued, as well as a beginner's guide to buffalo herding. Word is bond.

Life

Life, it could be said, is like a road through the perceptible universe. Though each life has a single beginning, each holds infinite possibilities, and at any moment there can be a fork in this great branching path. Some of these forks are clearly posted; we understand their implications. The realization of this phenomenon gives us free will, reason. Other forks are unclear, inscrutable, hidden. Events unfold and our lives take turns we never expected. Contemplating on these mysteries we conjure destiny, or the will of God. I reflected on these matters a great deal, as I tried to pinpoint the exact moment in my life that I became the man I find myself to be today. How, I wondered, did I become a man who was uncertain whether having a skull and a flaccid penis waved in my face should be a cause for alarm?

But to understand the great moments in life, we must first grasp the everyday. You may wonder, when not at toil on his travel guide labors, what does a philosopher/hip-hop legend like myself do with his free time? Well, tonight for instance, I stayed in, sewed a pouch and attempted to watch televised cricket.

I've been spending more and more time just chilling about, starting to actually act like I live in India. I talk to kids a lot. Kids are always fun. When linguistic difficulties arise, silly faces are always appreciated. Once they reach the teenage years though, things are different.

Westernization is an odd thing. It is never the adoption of Western customs by another culture, but rather the adoption of what that culture perceives to be Western customs. The results are typically hilarious. Hip young Indian teenagers, males in particular, embody this phenomenon to a fault. The typical fashion of young middle-class men here could be described as A-Capella-Singer-Meets-Jersey-Guido. It's truly horrendous. In addition to their meticulously greased hair, they invariably carry sunglasses, which are rarely used to shield themselves from sunlight but are constantly lowered over the face for over-serious inpromptu photo-shoots. American Eagle is huge in India. For weeks I've marveled at how these people could possibly watch Western media and then emulate it so ridiculously. Then I saw MTV India.

Indian TV in general is patently absurd, being a potpourri of religious programming, news broadcasts in various languages, Bollywood movies, Bollywood gossip, and cricket. On MTV India a watched a show called "Rock On" which is basically an American Idol/Rock Band hybrid from hell. The one act I watched was a self-described "fusion" group, that sounded like Hindi pop (itself egregious enough in its own right) being double-teamed by Incubus and Linkin Park. India is essentially in 1999. As I walked through the new city in Allahabad I saw a place named F.R.I.E.N.D.S Cafe, the entire premises plastered with promo shots of the cast of "Friends" circa season 7. I don't think Rachel even had the baby yet. Ugh. India is so backwards it's disgusting.

Cultural exchange is in many ways selective. The adopting culture largely picks and chooses those elements of the foreign that appeal to it, and add their own touches in ways that truly tickle the heart. I could only smile at the elaborate red and yellow military garb and turban worn by Pizza Hut security.

When I ask Indian people which their favorite American movies are, I typically get three responses. The younger ones are fond of the Harry Potter and Spiderman series. The third movie, much beloved amongst middle-aged Indians, is Jesus Christ Superstar. At first I was flummoxed. Then one man explained to me "Is like Bollywood movie!" Very true, very true.

Goofy-looking marching bands are ubiquitous and amusing enough, but I have started to notice (although notice may be too subtle a word) that Indians have somehow come to believe that it is a good idea to mount a dozen automated tubas to the back of a truck. And this is only the beginning of the atrocities. Now hitting the Indian interwebs is YouTube sensation "Happy Feet", except because Indians aren't really feeling the Crunk, the video is awkwardly set to a Hindi-language cover of "I like to move it, move it". If this continues it will be mere decades before half of India decides to become Amish.

I have time to write about these little observations because my article about Allahabad took about twenty minutes. Allahabad, you see, is a very holy place where the sacred Yamuna river which I have essentially been following for a week meets the even more sacred Ganges as well as the mystical subterranean Saraswati (river of enlightenment). As such, it is the host of the world's largest religious festival, the Maha Khumbh Mela, which last time it was held drew in excess of 17 million people to a single spot, probably marking the single largest gathering of humanity in history.

That is all you need to know about Allahabad, other than that it sucks and you shouldn't go there. There is nothing to see and nothing to do. The holy Kumbh Mela ground is a big-ass patch of mud and rest of the city is crap. More pilgrims, more rickshaws, more fucking cows. Save yourselves the trouble.

Ghostface Buddha: going to Allahabad so you don't have to.

All this came of course after a gruelling 12-hour train ride in "Sleeper Class", which is clearly a codeword for "WWII-era Red Army surplus." These carriages could serve no purpose originally but to ferry a totalitarian empire's troops to the front. Which brings us back to today's train ride. Failing to locate the carriage for which I had a reservation, I slipped at the last moment onto a "Second Class" carriage, which is the worst type of carriage in India. I do not recommend Second Class. For starters, it becomes so overcrowded that passengers crowd onto the floor, lying under seats, and clambering like monkeys onto the luggage racks for lack of space. In lieu of the personal teapots and newspapers served by silly-hat-wearing attendants in "AC Chair Class" is a rotating cast of beggars, chickpea-sellers, and tea-peddlers at each station. When worst comes to worst, a religious ascetic may harangue you in Hindi while first shaking a mongoose skull at you until the ineffectiveness of this communicative technique forces him to resort to waggling his noodle-like ash-covered penis in your face.

How, I ask again, did my life come to this?

Innermost Reflections: A Meditation On The Taj Mahal

I perform profoundly unnecessary tasks. I just spent the night until 3 AM writing garbage that sounds like this:

The Taj Mahal is a wondrous edifice, surreptitiously effervescent in its timeless versimilitude

Ugh...work. Writing meaningless and subjective judgments about well-known monuments? Why is life sooooo haaaarrrrdddd.

My budding career as a writer is a tour de force in gross generalizations, misused vocabulary, cursory historical research, and superfluous literary flourishes designed to push me over 1000 words for that crucial bump in the paycheck. I'm like a middle-schooler who's just discovered double-spacing. I may as well slit my wrists.

So that being said, I ain't got shit to say about the Taj Mahal. I'm 300 words short on my real article and nobody in the bazaar sells a thesaurus. Fuck my life. Time to review hotels that offer a bathtub and a toaster.

I get paid to travel India, but this entails composing sophomore-caliber art history essays about the world's most famous building. Just put a gun in my mouth and shoot me.

I spend an afternoon touring marble palaces atop the Agra Fort, but I have to write an article about that too. Fetch a ladder. You'll find me swinging from the castle walls.

I have to type information from a street pamphlet about Aurangzeb's battlements without the aid of copy-paste. Dredge the river, I'll be in there somewhere.

Here. Here is some useful info about the Taj Mahal: http://www.google.com/search?=Taj_Mahal

Now read that while I find the train tracks.

Agra-vation

(sorry but it had to be done)

I heard bad things about Agra. There are so many idiot tourists ripe for the picking that it is nigh-impossible for a foreigner to accomplish anything without being hassled or scammed in search of a buck. I had seen Agra already. It was putrid, a Dickensian wasteland where smoke, acid, and shit stain the human heart of the city. And I'm here to write about a fucking postcard.

I jumped off the bus at a clogged intersection where I saw vacant rickshaws, my attempt to depart a la indien comically thwarted by the size of my pack pinning me in the door. Men approached me offering their rickshaw services. I followed a pair, got in with the driver, and was ready to go. What happened next defied all reason. As we made a U-turn around the road divider the other man in the pair leaped into the moving rickshaw and began to scream in Hindi. My life became a scrapped Indiana Jones movie as I was in the back of a moving auto-rickshaw while two men wrestled and punched each other a the wheel, massive buses blaring their horns as we wobbled to and fro between lanes. We struck a cycle-rickshaw, briefly adding a third aggrieved rickshaw-wallah to the fray. With great determination the driver brought us to a stop precisely where we began. The argument continued, drawing in the entire rickshaw-wallah community who formed an inpromptu court around the scene. I gathered that the two were not a pair (though this I had suspected when the punching began) and that the argument centered on who had "claimed" me first, presumably to pop my fresh tourist cherry and get commissions on crap I would naively be pressured into buying at whatever marble shops of fabric stores they would lug me to on the way to the wrong hotel. As the debate went on, seemingly in circles, I felt very passive, acting like a little baby waiting for the grownups to decide what to do with me. Up to this point my unintrusive silence had me a boss acting a bitch.

This could not stand.

"MOTHERFUCKERS" I bellowed over the din of the mob, "SHUT THE FUCK UP." The F-bomb, when used judiciously, is remarkably effective in India. A tourist taking command, showing some balls? Unheard of! The stunned silence began to fade as the wallahs discussed the outburst, prompting the assailant to resume his diatribe. "I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS" I screamed at him, at the crowd, at every sob-story and bullshit-peddler across the entire Ganges Plain. And truly, I did not give a fuck. I had places to be. I was not going to sit around while they summoned the Wazir of Rickshawistan or whoever to dispense justice. "NOW TAKE ME TO THE GODDAMN TAJ GANJ." With that, it was decided. Acting as one, the mob hurled the assailant from the vehicle and scolded him fiercely. As we drove away I saw him being smacked upside the head like a little child. I turned to my driver and calmly said "Taj Ganj, direct, no bullshit, 40 rupees". It was the last and only problem I had in Agra.

Once you penetrate the newer parts of Agra (the Excrement District, the Sulfur Dioxide Quarter), the center is actually reasonably nice. It may have helped that I was staying a mere 50 meters from the South Gate of the Taj complex and didn't really have to go anywhere passing through the unpleasantness. In the Taj Ganj district someone hassles you every five feet to buy cigarettes or postcards or come into their marble shop or whatever but they are remarkably easy to repel. There are so many fools about - fat old tourists with stupid hats and knee-socks seemingly stretched up most of their spinal column, as well as legions of rich, carefree Japanese - that even the hint that you are willing to be a difficult asshole makes you not worth the trouble.

I ran into someone with something useful to offer, a cheap ride across the river Yamuna to see the sun set upriver and cast a glow on the rear side of the Taj Mahal. It was quite peaceful. The other side of the river was a mostly rural area, with some small vilages and old pleasure gardens. Though the vantage point was superb, only about 20 tourists were to be seen nearby, ambling silently about while an adorable little scamp used his superb English and hilariously apropos (I am told) Japanese phrases to make a living setting up humorous photo-ops. On the way out a man implored "please sir, touch my soft hairy camel." "Only if you buy me dinner first", I responded. The quip fell flat. My attempts at being a wiseass in India are almost always failures.

First thing this morning I woke up and did not don my usual battle armor, the carefully planned array of money stashes, writing gear, and daytime neccesities that I meticulously conceal on my person. I was going to the Taj Mahal. If there was ever a time when it did not hurt to be a dumbass-looking tourist this was it. I sent my various Indian garments and carefully selected T-shirts in obscure languages to the laundry. Rocking a bright cotton t-shirt with MEXICO emblazoned on the front, shades perched on my head, and a camera pouch slung over my shoulder, I marched out towards the gate.

Ali Baba and the 40 Mexican Novelists

Children under the age of 12 are in unanimous agreement across India: my name is Ali Baba. This information is usually conveying to me with a wide grin and stroking of the beard they might have in a decade or so. They are the only one's who don't buy my story. I've been sowing disinformation...telling everyone I am a Mexican novelist, and occasionally when my bullshit reserves are getting depleted I admit I am a Mexican travel writer. The kids see right through this act. Clearly I am Ali Baba.

Swastikas and camels are both common in India, but I was still incredibly surprised to see swastikas painted on a camel. Perhaps it is the black paint on a living animal that gives the design an alarming tatoo-like quality, as if this was an angry, prejudiced camel. It seemed as though the swastikas should be accompanied by other tatoos reading DROMEDARY POWER, or BACTRIANS RAUS.

I would also like to point out that the 50 rupee bill is the purple one. Cool people know what's up.

Finally, it occurs to me that there is no excuse to plaster a city with ads for "Anus' English Academy". Come on Anu, you run an English academy, you should know better.

Yesterday was my first extended bus ride, a local route through the countryside to the abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri via Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. There are many technical high schools around Agra, meaning the buses quickly become overloaded with teenage boys who, like their counterparts the world over, are the most obnoxious things imaginable. I haven't spoken to a single Westerner since I got to India but this bus treated me to my first encounter with the Japanese. They were clearly in utter misery on this loud, hot bus in the chaos of India. One retreated behind a scarf over her face, anxiously tapping away at some device with an electric stylus while her friend simply cowered, foldering her big floppy hat over her ears. She whispered quietly, perhaps begging her higher power to deliver her back home to a land with orderly lines and digital toilets.

The city of Agra is utterly revolting. It is half slum, half industrial hellscape, and it is a modern Venice of open sewers. Distant glimpses of the Taj Mahal and the liklihood of being able to stretch this city out into multiple articles and get mad bank from the bosses are the only things giving me reason not to dread my impending return.

With only one street, you'd think that the village of Fatehpur would offer some peace and quiet. Ha. One street is plenty of room for traffic jams and general insanity in India. Here motorcyclists and auto-rickshaws must merely content themselves with mostly directing their compulsive honking at camels and horsecarts. It's an odd little town. Traveling as a Mexican usually throws the nags off their routines, but here when I say I'm from Mexico people start shouting "Acapulco! Acapulco!" Turns out this town has a tradition of cliff-jumpers who earn their living by diving from the walls of the mosque into a shallow pool. The Acapulco divers are admired so greatly that many of the villagers have learned Spanish. I've picked up a little Hindi, and I had a very entertaining trilingual conversation with a 12-year old.

The monumental old city of Fatehpur Sikri above the village is truly astounding. Its massive scale is befitting its status as an old Mughal imperial capital, and the stonework is the finest I have seen anywhere in the world. I can't go into too much detail about the architecture because I blew my literary efforts on my work article and I'm really not supposed to be releasing that content publicly. Anyways,in short it is a whimsical but incredibly potent mishmash of Hindu, Muslim, Jain, and Buddhist structural elements into a compelling architectural vocabulary. Fatehpur Sikri is awesome. More people should go there.

I've accumulated a small traveling library. I brought some guidebooks for India and Nepal with me. After a successful trip to the bazaar I now am the proud owner of the following titles:

1) Cambridge Self Hindi Teacher: A Step By Step, Practical Simple, And Scientific Approach For Mastering Hindi, Equally Useful To Foreigners, Tourists, Businessmen And Students

2) Outwitting Squirrels: 101 Cunning Strategems To Reduce Dramatically The Egregious Misappropriation Of Seeds From Your Birdfeeder By Squirrels

I'm about to get on a bus to Agra, the lion's den of Indian tourism. The village imam prayed for my safe travels, but I don't need God's help. Agra bitches is gonna find Ghostface Buddha is more than they can handle. GAUTAM CLAN AIN'T NOTHING TO FUCK WITH.

Bovis TYRANNIS

How many people fit on a blip on the map in India? In the case of Mathura,over 300,000. Today I was resolved to get somewhere even more "miniscule" so I hopped on a bus to tiny Vrindavan and its 60,000 inhabitants. I do mean that I hopped on the bus. There is no such thing as a bus stop here. The vehicle comes to a full halt only at the termini, leaving a steady stream of passengers jumping on and off at any moment. As we pulled into Vrindavam traffic was brought to a crawl by the digging of a massive ditch across which merchants still tried to peddle their wares, presumably offering to throw the goods across or to deliver them via a bag on a long stick. We saw here a typically Indian dilemma...four men attempting to maneauver a 45-foot lead pipe through heavy traffic by strapping it to a tricycle.

Vrindavan, an extremely popular pilgrimage site due to its association with the marriage of Krishna and Rama is somehow even more pious than Mathura. A majority of people on the street are half-naked pilgrim saddhus and the gall of the city's cows is the greatest I have seen yet. In addition to the many liberties taken by cows elsewhere, those in Vrindavan have adapted to outright confrontation with their human peons.

As I sat on a vacant stoop preparing to eat a lunch of rotis and dahl, I saw one of these bovine holier-than-thous making a beeline towards me. It stopped a foot or less from me, taking an extreme interest in my roti and then in my goodie-bag. I produced a dish of dahl, which drove the beast even closer to the verge of daylight robbery. The cow thrust its face withni inches of mine, staring me in the eyes with its snout at my lunch. I tried to resist but it loomed closer and closer until we touched brows. There was no way out...I was held prisoner by a docile but imposing behemoth five times my size, surrounded by religious zealots who considered it sacred and wielded heavy-looking sticks. In desperation I tossed my dahl away. It dribbled down the pavement as a rather bemused cow attempted to lick it up, granting me the precious inches needed to make my escape.

In a town of infirm beggars, veiled widows, and religious mendicants I was the most pathetic creature to be found. For the first time in my life I had succumbed to a mugging, and I had been mugged by a cow.

Resigned to eating plain rotis as I toured the various shrines, I made another discovery. Vrindavan, as everyone was eager to tell me, is the global headquarters of ISKCON. From this acronym I envisioned a cabal of smartly-dressed Indian government officials in a nuclear command bunker with Modernist-inspired elephants carved into a lead blast door, ready to bomb Pakistan into the stone age in a contest over silly mustaches. In fact ISKCON stands for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or as we call them, the Hare Krishnas. Sure enough, as one walks closer and closer to the Hare Krishna compound there is an increasing density of bizarrely multinational monks wandering aimlessly about with their hands clasped. They earned their common name for the frequency with which they say "Hare Krishna", their response to nearly all external stimuli, which they utter ceaselessly and inscutably like some sort of neo-Hindu Pokemon (attacks: New Age Orientalism, 15 culture damage; Praise Krishna, +25 social interaction resistance).

The guidebooks all concur that Vrindavan is dusty, giving me my first chance to make a radical mark on the travel guide world. Vrindavan is not dusty. It is muddy. Lonely Planet can suck a fat one.

I began to suspect that everyone in Vrindavan was either a nutjob or a fanatic (a purely philosophical distinction in my book anyways). Then things got really, really weird and confirmed this suspicion. A young devotee about my age approached me. We made the customary small talk until he said to me "You like poking? You want poking Indian?" The tone of his voice revealed he was not referring to a Facebook poke. I laughed. Repressed societies invariably create pervs, and in India one of the ways this expresses itself is by a prurient interest in how we foreigners get our thangs in action. "If you want poke Indian we can go." Oh great, I thought, it's hardly been a week and I've befriended my first Indian pimp. Why always with the pimps? I was very mistaken. My grin disappeared when when he leant over and whispered in my ear "We go to my room. Poke now. Please." Oh dear. Oh my.

Some two hours after being propositioned for anal sex by a monk I was back in Mathura. I hailed an auto-rickshaw to take me home in an increadingly fierce rain. The streets flooded and the entire city huddled in raised doorways looking at the rain in awe. Every other word I heard was "paani", water, followed by some incredulous-sounding remark. Even for Indians, this was some crazy shit. The waters surged down the streets until they were too deep for even the cycle-rickshaws to ply through, their pedals submerged by the torrent. My driver boldly pushed ahead until with great drama the auto-rickshaw stalled in its tracks and water flowed over into the cabin. As we bailed out the rickshaw tipped with our weight. It was afloat in the street. Not my rickshaw, not my problem, I figured as I forged on alone through the streets. Hundreds of Indians waved and shouted at me in English as I waded through the now knee-deep deluge. Their shouts were a mixture of admiration and ridicule. Aaaaaahhhhhhh, I thought, just like home.

note: it has been made known to me by persons with nothing better to do that the proper genus name for cows is bos not bovis and that they belong to the family bovinae. Blow me.

ACTUAL CORRECTION: I would like to correct the egregious error of writing that Krishna married Rama. This is quite impossible. First of all, Krishna and Rama are characters in different epic tale. Secondly, they are both incarnations of Vishnu. And finally, they are both male. Rama was married to Sita.

In The Kingdom of Bovis Rex

As I write this (in my notebook) I am sitting along the ghats (river steps) by the side of the sacred Yamuna river in the Hindu holy city of Mathura, surrounded by an army of monkeys, one of whom just stole a silver trumpet from a hapless member of a red-coated marching band and absconded with it into a tree. A baby monkey just did a backflip in midair to beat its siblings to a cookie thrown by an orange-robed, dreadlocked pilgrim. The marching band is doing its utmost to restore its dignity as they have just noticed the arrival of about 25 teenage girls. Baby monkeys can jump at least 7 feet and accurately land on an area the size of a toddler's head. It takes about 9 people to eject a grown monkey from a ceremonial river boat. I know all these things because watching them happen is my job. My life is awesome, and I haven't even started to write what I sat down here to write about.

I left Delhi at an ungodly hour this morning bound for the mythical forests of Braj, the realm in which the blue-skinned superbaby Krishna fought evil princes and lifted mountains with his finger while still having time to steal girls' clothes while they bathed. Krishna, one of the most popular incarnations of Vishnu was allegedly born here in Mathura and the city is overwhelmed by the trappings of Hindu holiness. The most impressive site I visited was the fiercely contested complex where Muslim and Hindu places of worship faced eachother over a heavily guarded prison-like wall, vying for control over the ancient site whose foundations contain the simple dark stone slab on which Krishna was born. It's not much to look at, but it matters enough that the army has a permanent garrison to maintain order. Of course the forests of Braj aren't so mythical these days, replaced by endless farms on the plains with villages tightly packed every few kilometers around a decrepit factory. The train ride was comfortable but unsettling.
note: Here I have excised a lengthy passage about the train ride that largely dealt with the appaling poverty alongside the tracks. It is truly horrendous and merits inclusion in a more thoughtful and, frankly, better-written piece on that subject rather than inclusion in this more comedic post

My first impression of Mathura was its bazaar, a long stretch of utter madness which after just a week in India I already feel all too familiar with. Though swarming, the city has a much more human scale than Delhi, affording one the oppurtunity to enjoy such sights as the intricate ritual interplay of boats and cloth on the river. The city can be crossed on foot and no grand roads clog the air with fumes. I marveled that this hectic place could be but a blip on the map of Northern India.

I went outside to write because the power keeps shutting off. Though mostly the fault of ramshackle infrastructure, I have beheld that it is at least partially the fault of monkeys, who use the power lines as their personal footpaths, occasionally knocking something loose to spark to the ground, prompting witnesses to throw their hands in exasperation as a local shopkeeper pokes his head out, rolls his eyes, and sighs as he goes to fetch a ladder because it is his turn again to fix up after the damn monkeys. The inhabitants of Mathura must be forbidden to harm monkeys (as I believe most Hindus are) because otherwise the adorable little bastards would all be dead after all the mischief they get into.

Try as they might, the monkeys will never rule this place. Sovereignty was long ago unconditionally and perpetually ceded to the cows.

I was passing through a narrow walkway at the side of the bazaar when I suddenly felt two hard objects pushing against the rear of my thighs. I turned to see a white humpnecked cow with its horns leveled at my posterior. The cow surged forwards, pushing me down the street upon its horns. It raised its head, lifting me off my heels so that I had to quickly tiptoe to maintain pace and balance and avoid being flipped...or worse. I felt a most unpleasant sensation. As the cow's horns pressed into my thighs I could feel those organs usually located between my thighs being pushed forcefully into my abdomen by the cow's head, my precious jewels coming to a most cursed equilibrium nestled between the beast's eyes. There is no knowledge on this Earth so terrible as the realization that one's scrotum can feel a cow blink. For five more yards I was gripped with fear, initially out of the obvious concern for the wellbeing of my manhood, but then even more I feared what the crowd might do to me, for I was essentially teabagging the physical manifestation of God.

The cows of Mathura defy man with impunity. Roaming the city by the thousands, they amble brazenly through open doors and into stairwells, making their way to landings and even balconies where they sit smug and indolent, knowing that they sit where they sit and everyone can just deal with it. Bovis Rex, King of the Streets.

Cows rule everything around me
C.R.E.A.M
Get the money
Rupee rupee bill y'all

Of Spices, Snakes, and Sperms

English is widely spoken in India. People use it as a common language to communicate because nobody cares to learn any of the 20 or so major Indian languages but their own. And in general people have a pretty decent grasp of basic English. Then you get gems like this:

Sperms Maker Capsul

I was deep in the heart of Old Delhi, in a labyrinth of twisting alleys between the major bazaar streets. The entirety of Old Delhi is a bazaar, stretching for miles in every direction. You have your spice bazaar, your paper bazaar, jewelry, sculpture, electrical goods, and all types of bazaars. My favorite is the tires-and-wheels bazaar, located adjacent to the main mosque. If you look down from the mosque courtyard you will be treated to piles and piles of motorcycle wheels, as well as Baboor and Son's, which I am assured is Delhi's best shop for fly-ass rims.

I turned to look into the alley to which the Sperms Maker Capsul sign beckoned me. It was dark and lonely, and my Sperms felt just fine, so I left well enough alone. I can make my own, thank you very much.

It is impossible not to be looking at a store sign in Old Delhi. There must be hundreds of thousands of small shops, lining every single street from end to end. In the multitude of signage, I don't know how many brilliant Indian-Englishisms I missed. I was intrigued particularly by a large neon blue and yellow sign imploring me to

BUY BEST COCK
brand rockets and firecrackers

 

Needless to say, upon getting a closer look I was deeply disappointed.

I decided earlier that morning to give up on errands. They were just making me miserable and putting into conflict with every local I spoke to. So I cut out an inset of my hard-earned Delhi map, memorized it as best I could, and strolled unaided towards Old Delhi. Tromping through like I owned the place, I was completely unhassled. As most of Old Delhi holds no appeal to the tourist mob, the people there simply have better shit to do than bother every foreigner they see on the street. On my home planet we call this practice "having a goddamn job." I walked for miles through the madness, ducking ox-carts and rickshaws laden with oversize piles of every sellable product under the sun , and all manner of wandering cows, oblivious and ill-fated goats, and porters weaving through the mob in great haste to get the large sacks of cement mix and other dry goods off their heads until I eventually found my way to the Lal Qila, or Red Fort.

While the Jama Masjid was alright, the Red Fort was awesome. The main gate is a massive fortification that would not look out of place in Lord of the Rings. Within the walls are numerous beautiful marble pavillions of various kinds, as well as the Emperor's public throne, a marble behemoth two stories high. It bears a certain resemblance to the Alhambra in Spain, but is not quite as vast or spectacular. The Indians take great pride in this fort, and as such it is meticulously gardened, and army troops stationed there keep out the ubiquitous human barnacles that attach themselves to you elsewhere in Delhi. It is a lovely haven of tranquility, and Indians from all over the country stroll around in admiration, dressing in fine clothes for the occasion.

When I left the fort I ran into Muzhu. Muzhu is a very impoverished rickshaw-wallah who followed me with great tenacity earlier in the morning, offering to take me on various tours or to drive me to the Red Fort. I declined forcefully on the logical grounds that I could see the Red Fort from where we stood and I didn't need a rickshaw. Such appeals to reason hold no weight in India. Anyways, Muzhu had been waiting for me, as I was the first customer he approached that day and if he didn't get my business he would suffer from ill fortune so he had waited over an hour for the chance to pick me up as I left. I could see the guy was desperate, and I wouldn't mind a little ride, even if I had intended to walk back, so I let him give me a tour. He cycled his rusty rickshaw with great difficulty into some exceedingly narrow alleys I had been avoiding to show me...I wasn't sure what.

Another rickshaw came in the opposite direction, forcing us to stop and maneauver around. As this went on , a man standing next to us asked asked if I wanted a picture. While I tried to tell him that I had no camera, he thrust a small green box into my lap and removed the lid. Out popped the head of a fucking cobra. Now, I am not afraid of snakes, and I am vaguely familiar with the various ways cobra-handlers drug up their snakes and so on to keep them tame, but I did not want this cobra in my lap one bit. I waved frantically, using all the concentration I had to appear angry rather than like a sissy-pants.

In a side-alley off a back-alley off an alley Muzhu stopped the rickshaw. We walked to the end, past a series of dire-looking hovels until we came to an incongruous marble doorway. "Is Jain temple, very holy" he said. Fair enough. I walked inside. Here in the heart of Old Delhi, mixed up and hidden in all the fray is this serene and truly beautiful little temple, packed to the brim with art dating back a thousand years. Jainism has the coolest religious art I have ever seen. There were exquisite paintings of the life of Mahavira, pearl and marble lotus flowers, and silvers carvings of snakes, elephants, peacocks and so on. Jainism. Wikipedia that shit. It's the bomb. When I left I looked up my guidebooks. This was not the Jain temple any of them talked about and was not even on the map. Muzhu was right, he is a very good guide.

Muzhu then took me to the spice market, a massive, multi-story Mughal-era building where all the various masalas are sold by the tens of pounds. The place was both amazing and vile. As we climbed higher and higher up the stair-tower I looked into centuries-old rooms, some packed to the brim with warehoused spices, others bustling shops where restaurant boys carried off huge sacks of spices for the day, and others filled to the ceiling with rotten and burnt garbage spilling out into the hallway. making it to the roof, we had a commanding view of Old Delhi. A pack of young boys stared at us, pausing only to assault each other's nipples with a large pair of pliers. From the roof we could see the fort, several large mosques, the massive Shivaite Hindu temple, the main Jain temple, and of course thousands of shops and hovels. Directly below us a collapsed roof revealed a sweatshop-like bakery in which children fried loaves of bread and lentil cakes. The general stench and decrepitude of the spice market, which was strong enough to overpower the scent of literally metric tons of potent spices, began to get to me so we left. One of the boys finally caught his buddy's nipple and gave it a brutal twist. He came to me for a high-five.

After a circuitous tour of the Delhi bazaars, Muzhu dropped me off at the tire-and-wheel market by the Jama Masjid. Friday prayers were letting out and thousands of white-robed Muslim men descended the steps around me. Many of them turned into an alley on the corner, where I found Karim's, the most popular Muslim restaurant in Delhi. I had goat kebab. It was delicious.

With some successful tourism and some articles to send to the bosses, things are finally starting to look up. I've decided to say to hell with New Delhi for now. It's too big, too full of scammers and scumbags, and I kind of hate it. I'm going to hit the road for a while and up my game in some more sensible towns. When I do come back I will take this place by storm, and I mean it. Nadir Shah ain't got shit on me.

I Don't Even Know

Yesterday I felt as though, figuratively, India had shat on me. Today, an Indian shat on me. But we'll leave that tale for a moment.

I ventured out again on errands, this time in search of that Holy Grail, a detailed map of India without an overpriced tour package. I knew where to find it and I knew how to get there, but over the course of two and a half hours through the most tourist-trafficked mile of New Delhi, I suffered numerous indignities. Allow me to reiterate: a man shat on me.

Later in the day, seeking to avoid the hellhole the call Connaught Place, a formerly grand shopping district of concentric collonaded plazas in the heart of Delhi, I literally went underground, taking Delhi's lovely, modern metro right underneath it. The Delhi metro, though incomplete is far more attractive and efficient than Boston's, New York's, and even Washington's. I surfaced at the New Delhi train station which was packed with thousands of people from every corner of India. My favorites by far are the Punjabi Sikhs, who wear bright robes, magnificent facial hair, and outlandish weaponry. I couldn't help but smile at the sight of a five-foot man bearing a four-foot sword and a three-foot beard.

I had more fun with the hasslers today. They compliment my beard. One man, a Sikh whose beard clearly surpassed my own, felt compelled to liken me to a series of Indian movie stars. This seems a common flow of conversation. Like so many others before him, he tried to direct me to where I could really get a map. He assured me he was trustworthy. "Yesterday I met with this American man" he said while he produced a business card. "He will meet with me because I am good people." The card read:

Timothy M. Geithner
Ambassador of the United States of America

Sometimes I don't even know where to begin.

When I said earlier that a man shat on me, this was not precisely true. In fact, I was walking down the street in Connaught Place when a man said to me "Excuse me, you have shit on your shoe. I clean it." I look down, and there is, in fact, shit on my shoe. On the top of my shoe. There is a gooey pile of wet, chunky, golden-brown human shit on THE TOP of my shoe, which moments before had been an idyll of shitlessness.

A predicament. I take a moment to meditate. Calling upon the wisdom of all the Gods, I traveled the astral planes in search of knowledge. Beneath the holy limbs of a blessed tree, I found my answer. Returning to the physical realm within a single instant, I knew that I was face-to-face with one of a dying breed, Delhi's fabled shoe-shitters, men who every day surreptitiously throw shit on shoes so that they may overcharge to clean it. My divine self rapidly succumbing to human emotions of bottled rage and silent fury, I beckoned the shoe-shitter to de-shit me. "I cannot do it here, is not allowed" he said as I removed the soiled sneaker. "We must go to pa..." That was as far as he got before a swift leg-sweep had him toppled against the traffic-control barrier and he found himself staring at his own wickedness. He cleaned my shoe. With his face.

Fearing the retribution of local police, who would likely have a more formal approach to justice than the numerous bystanders laughing and cheering me on, I made a swift getaway while brown shitstains seeped through the top of my shoe. I was soon hailed by a man whose mouth contained what could best be described as non-Euclidean dentistry. "Excuse me, you have shit on your shoe. I clean it." he said, but this man had the large wooden box of polish bottles that identifies the honest shoe-cleaner. We sat in the park and he meticulously removed the stains and scent from my shoe. We were surrounded by a pack of ear-cleaners, brandishing their filthy Q-tips and glossy photographs of random Westerners who allegedly paid over 50 dollars apiece to have their ears cleaned. I payed my shoe-cleaner handsomely.

This afternoon I finally did some tourism and wrote about it for my work. I visited the Jama Masjid, the mosque of the Mughal kings and the largest one in India. It was ok. An old Muslim man guided me through the compound. He was the most helpful and informative man I have met in Delhi. He thoroughly explained the architecture and layout of the complex, taught me about the slaughter of goats, and even demonstrated the use of arabic astrological timepieces. The most helpful man in Delhi was a mute.

D-Day

At midnight in Delhi, surprisingly little stirs. The chaotic motion that overwhelms the eye by day is replaced by stillness. The cacophony of competing sounds are replaced by the single sound of endlessly honking rickshaws, the crickets of the Delhi night. Thus it was that in my first moments in India, I was able to remove myself from these senses and truly savor the smell.

Delhi smells awful. Let me say that there is smog. The atmosphere has a pungent odor I previously associated with trains passing through long, unventilated tunnels. Staying in Delhi is like being trapped in a giant elevator in which 13 million people have farted but don't notice because their pets are shitting on the floor.

Here I was, late at night and completely clueless, putting all my trust in the notion that this cabbie would in fact deliver me to the proper hotel in the Pahar Ganj bazaar district. I grew increasingly concerned as we went farther and farther from the main roads, until we were in a series of claustrophobic alleys. Hundreds of people slept in carts and wagons on the streets, and dozens of contemptuous, condescending cows milled about in the nighttime peace. The roads were potholed; the electrical wiring that crisscrossed between every window and balcony looked like an infrastructural plan devised by manic-depressive flocks of birds who had forsaken shiny objects for the haphazard collection of dusty black cables. Seeing the neon light of my hotel around the bend, I realized with both sadness and relief that this was the right place. I went to sleep.

My first real day in India was spent conducting errands and futilely attempting to evade the ever-present menace of tourist-targeting bullshit. It took the entire morning to purchase a mobile phone, which entailed going back and forth obtaining paperwork that surely existed solely to legitimize the "helpers" that follow one everywhere and to confound tourists, perhaps seeking in the numerous miniscule bribes and services required by any errand an effective system of reparations for colonialism. The highlight of this venture was the rare pleasure of bypassing public transportation in favor of being treacherously whisked around the people-congested back-alleys of the bazaar at high speeds and dangerously sudden turns on the back of a motorcycle, dodging rickshaws, pedestrians and fruit-laden bicycle-carts all along the way.

All day I was followed by people insisting I must visit "official tourist office" [not an official tourist office], purchase hashish from reputable gentlemen not Kashmiri liars [clearly liars themselves and probably Kashmiri], and the most ubiquitous of all "I want no money, just talk". This one is by far the worst because you must listen to their inane conversation, as their tourist-trailing feet tire no faster than their mouths, until eventually it is revealed that indeed they don't want money, they just want you to buy them things with money.

In Delhi, silence is worth its weight in gold.

Oh.....wait.

The Eagle Has Landed

For some time now I have known that I was about to embark on a fairly ridiculous and ill-conceived trip to the far side of the world. Three days into the start of this journey and it has become clear that this is a severe understatement. Now, I have never been to India before, but I have been on more airplanes than I can count and I figured at least this much would be familiar and uneventful.

The first leg of the trip, from Washington to Amsterdam, was quite pleasant. I remained entertained throughout by watching such quality films as Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, and Fantasia 2000, and by chatting up my seatmate, the beautiful young daughter of a prominent Danish public figure. Surely, it was love. Love like I have never felt: that of a gorgeous maiden nestling innocently upon my shoulder, her light caresses penetrating my heart as the folding tray table penetrated my gut. Alas Denmark and India are not close enough together for a dramatic cross-border rendezvous under the twinkling moonlight, and we parted ways in Schiphol airport.

I have known Schipol airport since infancy. Every year of my childhood I passed through for another transatlantic voyage. Even as I was rocked in my mother's arms, so too was I gently conveyed upon the moving walkways, the promise of hot American summers and trips to Toys'R'Us a veritable nursery rhyme to my young ears. In this year, 2009, Schiphol betrayed me.

The gate for the flight to Delhi had no lobby and no seats. Hundreds of Indians sat hunched in a narrow passage alongside the walkways in a cruel mockery of what awaited them in the transit hubs of their own country. Hours passed until finally the crew saw fit to open the glass doors to the final gate security checkpoint. A throng arose, pushing forwards as a herd. The crew attempted to prioritze business-class passengers to the front, literally forming human cocoons with which to force through the unwashed masses and escort the wealthy to the plane. Soon thereafter, over two dozen blue-clad airline employees shoved their way through the crowd to take their positions on the plane. They were far too many to staff an aircraft of any size, their numbers seeming more suitable for propelling a Phoenician trireme. I half expected the security checkpoint to scan me for Greek Fire. I waited, trapped in a strategic but paralyzing position at the heart of the human whirlpool, eager to rejoin the current of surging humanity. At long last, a brave stewardess wheeled a paraplegic old Sikh towards the front, parting the throng like the Red Sea and leaving tranquility in their wake. I seized the moment. FOLLOW THE CRIPPLE. In an instant the crowd crashed back together behind me, a sea of Indians drowning the Egyptians.

I slept for much of the flight. I caught a few glimpses of the Ukraine. It was boring. We flew over the Soviet 'Stans. They were even worse. As it so happened, while we were crossing Afghanistan I was watching the fine film Charlie Wilson's War. Accompanying the view out the window of the rugged terrain where even now combat flares in that country, I was treated to a series of statistics about Mujaheddin successes in eliminating the flying machines of invading and occupying countries such as:

Winter 1987. 31 helicopters destroyed. 19 fixed wing aircraft destroyed.
Spring 1988: 43 helicopters destroyed. 23 fixed wing aircraft destroyed.

Good to know the people below me dislike the West and are skilled with anti-air missiles.

Finally after a leg-numbing flight, we landed in Indira Gandhi International Airport and I walked boldly onto Indian soil.

One small step for man, one giant faceplant for intercultural dialogue.