ONE MAN. ONE YEAR. ONE SUBCONTINENT.


Apr 30, 2010

Amalgamated Quickies Division

When, due to circumstances beyond your control, you have nothing to offer but a quickie, you often risk leaving somebody disappointed. Therefore, I shall instead bang out three quickies in a single afternoon, an approach that many find more satisfying. This is not a metaphor. I am strictly talking about blogging. There are no quickies in other parts of my life at all. I can't even have quickies. You see, I'm impoteohgodtheshame

1. Two Trains to Gwalior

I passed through the famed fortress-city of Gwalior near Agra. In the fortress itself, which is quite ruined and empty, the second best part was being a gigantic nerd and hiring a guide to explain to me the engineering feats of the famous palace of the Tomar Rajputs, which was cooled and illuminated with an elaborate system of pipes and mirrors. I love elaborate systems of mirrors, and pretty much anything a geek can do in a middle-school science class. If it cleverly employs magnets, mirrors, or pendulums, you can bet I will be all over it. The best part was the nearly-vanished exterior ornamentation of the same palace, which still features many of its bright blue tiles, and crucially, an entire row of yellow tile duckies.

I then went down into the city and (among other things) visited the famous Raj-era palace of the Scindia Maratha kings. Many people go there to gawk at the dazzling displays of wealth, such as the world's two largest chandeliers. I personally found it most rewarding as a comic gallery of pomp and awful taste. The Scindias to this day are indisputably the most self-absorbed of all the Indian royal families, and THAT is a regal distinction.

I spent a long time in one hallway unsuccessfully trying to photograph the reactions of surprised Indian tourists who entered the passage to see a fabulously gaudy sculpture introducing the locals to the story of Leda and the swan. Invariably they stared for a moment, shuddered in comprehension, and tried to scoot their children away as quickly as possible. And they say Westerners have no appreciation for different cultures.

The most dramatic part of the Gwalior experience however, was the massive difference between the two trains I took through it. Some days before I passed through on a local train to Agra on a 'general ticket', on perhaps the busiest intercity rail line in India. It was like one of those documentaries they show you about the underdevelopment of the Third World, with every passenger myself included forming grotesque human jigsaws with their neighbours and young men hanging to the outside of the train. Family members stood on their luggage and on one another, as fathers held their children to keep them from spilling back off their sacks of luggage and into the open, stinking lavatories. One unfortunate vegetable-seller got trapped by the crowds in the carriage with us and couldn't get off the train for another 100km away from her home. For about 45 minutes I was balanced one on foot, held in place between two strangers' asses, doing my utmost not to slide the three inches over to the fresh pile of banana puke in the aisle.

Not particularly wishing to repeat this exact experience, and acknowledging that, yes, with some advance planning I can use "wealth" and spend more than $1.05 on a train ticket. From Agra back to visit Gwalior I booked the Shatabdi Intercity service. On these trains you get air-conditioning, a cushioned seat, and a free copy of the newspaper of your choice in a variety of languages. A well-dressed man with a silly red turban comes and serves you tea. We arrived in just a couple hours, just in time for me to finish my morning toast. Two fucking Indias.

2. Some Buddhist Shit

From Gwalior I got on a standard crappy night service south and jumped off in the wee hours at some smoky Central Indian town, and rubbed my eyes several times when I perceived there was a gigantic plaster gaping lion's mouth leading into a Durga temple immediately outside the station. By 5:30am I was in Sanchi, an eensy lil' village in the middle of Madhya Pradesh. On top of a small hill is a collection of ancient Buddhist ruins, including a fabulous stupa dating to the time of the mighty Buddhist emperor Ashoka. From the top of that hill it became abundantly clear why very few people from outside India are coming by to visit: it's in the middle of hundreds of miles of empty golden fields, and it was, of course, hot as fuck. However, in deference to the Buddhist inclination to the gentler things in life, the whole hilltop is kept as a lovely little park, and they have bunnies.

3. Place Could Use A Flooding

A typically ass-rumbling day of steaming buses across the summer-parched lowlands of western M.P. finally deposited me in otherworldy Mandu. Arriving in Mandu is sort of like going to an island surrounded by dry land while simultaneously travelling backwards in time (But all travelling in India is backwards! HA!). Mandu is a large plateau surrounded by wide, deep, and precipitous gorges that are crossed by only one narrow spindle of land. Obviously, this is a fabulous place for a fortified city, and so it was under a succession of Afghan kings who turned the entire place into a rich capital of their Central Indian trading kingdom and built themselves a bunch of pleasure palaces hanging on the edge of various picturesque, unassailable ravines. Now the plateau is still remote, and has degenerated into an isolated colony of primitive rural villages clustered in the vicinity of a tiny tourism and market sector. Everyone was amazed to see me here in the summer, when even they would rather be elsewhere. I was repeatedly told to either lock myself in my hotel room or find a large tree to get drunk under, and to return for touristic purposes during the rainy season, when Mandu allegedly acquires water and the color green.

I defied all such advice and promptly fell ill, though I personally blame the local restaurant staff who appeared to be improvising when I asked which items on the menu were "fresh, new, clean, or healthy". In any case, after an exhausting day bicycling around the plateau while the sun gods took a personal interest in me, I eventually had to flop at a chai stall near a distant palace. I noticed everywhere I went that not a single man, cow, chicken, or buffalo could be seen outside the shade, and all (especially the cows) wore an expression that clearly said "Fuck THIS. I am not leaving this tree. Bitches better bring me some food." Aside from your foolhardy narrator, the only beings crossing the baking ground between village loitering spots were the goats, because they are fucking stupid, and the constantly water-hauling village women, because they are oppressed.

Sick and exhausted, I spent another day accomplishing nothing but a torturous 1km breakfast expedition. I almost mustered the wherewithal to write a version of this very post, but was thwarted when I found the only computer within a 90-minute drive and saw that, just as the owner claimed, its feeble internet connection had recently been gnawed upon by desperate squirrels. I returned to my hotel, exotically located behind a disused saloon, and contemplated the shrivelled trees and the dramatic but now bone-dry ravines and I decided hey, what the hell, this could be the one place where being in a monsoon won't just suck, so I'll come back later.



Now, my friends, after yet another truly awful night on a bus (a night spent going nowhere because the fucking axle broke outside some hydration-estranged village in the middle of goddamn nowhere), I am taking my rest and recharging. What does the future hold, you ask? Well, let me tell you. While I lounge about doing nothing and hiding from the sun in my secret lair I am putting the details in for the next, culminating phase of this journey. Look at a map of India, up towards the top a bit. There's a geographical feature you may notice. This summer, Ghostface Buddha takes on the only objects in India that could possibly compare with him in overall eminence...THE HIMALAYAS.

Apr 25, 2010

Quickie (Apr. 25)

It seems the suits in travel-writing headquarters have noticed I haven't done any work for them in some time. Though they seem no less eager to part company than I am, they did draw attention to the fact that my article on Agra had the word DRAFT right on the title, and many of the subheadings read "incomplete". As I am contractually obligated to give a full reporting of Agra, I was forced to return to that vile city, take my revenge upon it, and in the meantime assert my independence once again from the malignant imperial forces of tyranny. It's like "Return of the Jedi" meets the War of 1812 up in this bitch.

So anyways, I dutifully returned to Agra and Fatehpur Sikri and once again slogged about taking photos and writing notes for paragraphs about Mughal tombs. (Sample note: "lame. add more jokes"). Thus, my friends, you are now blessed with Ghostface Buddha's very own pictures of the above-named cities, and guess what, the Taj Mahal looks pretty much as it always has, save for a layer of smog so foul that when you stand by the riverside you can't even see far enough to discern that you are in the midst of a million-plus population city.

It is still mercilessly hot, and so there are actually almost no tourists in Agra at all, and all the vulture-like merchants of the tourist zones are too busy hiding from the heat in darkened stores to bother trying to screw you. It's like the film "I Am Legend", where you walk almost unmolested on famously obnoxious streets, but can safely assume that anyone who approaches you ought to be machine-gunned in the face. Also, as I've hinted at before, my life is about 30% modeled on the film career of Will Smith. Unlike Agra, Fatehpur Sikri has no seasonal mellow. After 24,000km on the road and a second visit to the place, I now confidently report that the modern village of Fatehpur Sikri is home, on average, to the most annoying human beings in all of India, and the upper-extreme outliers are truly a contemptible marvel. Ghostface Buddha may have had to slap a fool.

Anyways, I gotta go for now. According to my sources, I am dangerously close to missing the closing hour of "the only not-very-bad food eatings restorent in Sanchi", and I like my eatings restorents to be not very bad.

Apr 24, 2010

4:20 Die Of Heat Stroke Every Day

On April 20th, 2010, in the tranquil village of Orchha, it was 115 goddamn degrees outside.

CHRIST ON A CRACKER. 115 DEGREES?!?!? IT'S FUCKING APRIL

Indian people wave at me from shops and say "Come in! Come in!" Then when I go in they dont even try to sell me things, they just say "Please, sir, don't be outside."

Orchha is a lovely place, truly one of the most beautiful and relaxing spots in all of lowland India. It's the abandoned capital of the erstwhile kings of the Bundelkhand, and now is little more than a minor pilgrimage village surrounded by scenic ruins crumbling in fields, on the riverside, and being swallowed by the dry forests. I haven't a clue how it's stayed so small and lovely when its epic palaces and temples and its not-that-remote location could easily put it the must-see list of India. Maybe it has something to do with it feeling hotter than drinking boiled chilli sauce from a flaming camel's ass.

I had arrived several days earlier, via a local train so dismally slow the peasants around me took to standing in the doorways and washing their turbans. The last few miles had to be covered by comically-overburdened rickshaws that reminded me that motor vehicles subjectively move twice as fast when you're standing tip-toed on the rear bumper.

As I wondered around the sleepy vegetable patches that now cover most of the fortified river island, I noticed that I had sweated through my shirt, through my backpack, and that this sweat on the far, outer side of my backpack straps had evaporated and left lines of salt and the sweaty frontiers. I felt a need to scratch and salt shook out of my arm hairs. I feel like a potato wedge. My forehead was the same, a sparkling white expanse of sodium chloride. My skull is apparently a salt flat. Pretty soon people are going to start testing rocket-powered cars on my face.

I defied the advice of my well-wishing Indian acquaintances, not only because ignoring sensible advice is my custom, but also because Orchha is just a wonderful place to explore regardless of the weather. After much effort, I found it: the perfect spot. I settled down to read in a breezy nook between swaying green bushes on the riverside in an unperturbed nature reserve directly across the river from empty farms and the nigh-perfectly photogenic memorials of the Bundela kings. I reclined in the shade and took to leisurely reading a collection of essays on modern India (chapter 1 summary: holy hell, Bihar is awful). After a couple hours I reluctantly turned in, because I had just finished my seventh liter of water for the day and felt that not needing to piss after consuming that quantity of fluid probably signalled some kind of impending medical emergency. I would have to be evacuated to a real city by rickshaw, and in a weak condition I would probably have to be tied to the roof. It was either that or die on the forest for my undiscovered corpse to become the local deers' salt-lick, so I shuffled back to my blissfully dark cell in the village.

It was about 111 degrees when these events transpired. The next day, I hiked out in the opposite direction from the village to see the abandoned Lakshmi temple and its fabulous Bundeli paintings. It was then that I checked the meteorological data in the newspaper and thought to myself "Dear God, and it's still only April. What day in April is it, by the way? Let's check the top of the newspaper....The 20th? Oh dear. I almost forgot." Suffice to say, on April 20th (for complicated reasons relating to electromagnetic currents and the counter-longitudinal azimuth of the pole star), it was of paramount importance that I go smoke some weed.

This presented a bit of a dilemma, as I had already budgeted the afternoon to visiting a palace in the village of Datia. Then it ocurred to me...what's the conflict? I hopped onto a bus right away. The palace at Datia is something of a fantasy castle, a ridiculously tall Rajput fortification that begins with several levels of pitch-black chambers at the bottom, passes up through a labyrinth of staircases, and climaxes in an almost Escher-esque courtyard with a gigantic keep in the center which can only be summited by navigating a series of hidden passages, balconies, flyover walkways, and hard-to-find, locked-up stairwells. Nobody comes to Datia, and in this heat, I was literally the only visitor in the logbook, so I had the citadel all to myself.

"But wait," you ask, "you said the stairs of the inner tower were locked up?" Well, they were locked up. The empty palace of Datia was the perfect place for me to combine my two favorite criminal offences, the second being breaking and entering. I actually have something of a history of breaking into castles. The most memorable such adventure culminated in a frenzied nighttime escape through the rain on a wooded hillside in a desperate bid to evade the Luxembourg police. But that didn't happen in India so it's besides the point. Anyways, it just so happened that one critical staircase tucked away within a giant stone pillar was sealed shut with nothing more than a metal door with a twisted metal wire holding it in place. The wire was too thick to untwist with my bare hands, so I began digging in my backpack for some kind of tool. For reasons long since forgotten, there was a toenail clipper at the bottom of my bag. I examined its filed edge and could positively feel the mischievousness glowing in my eyes, or maybe I was just high. In any case, if prison inmates can use a file to break out of jail bars in weeks or months, I could certainly get through a 1/8" cable in a an afternoon. All I needed was patience, and I had several lumps of it in a small plastic bag.

Finally, after what seemed simultaneously like aeons and moments, I had sawed through enough wire to snap it by brute force. I clambered into the forbidden stairs, completely failing to contain my giggles, and loosely eased the door into place behind me. Even in my hyper-alert state of paranoia, my main concern was that somebody's dog would come sniffing up after me, lured by the trail of salt I imagined stretching behind me like an edible, biscuit-seasoning version of Ariadne's thread.

So, for the second day in a row, I spent much of my day listlessly pretending to enrich myself in a tranquil spot marked by architectural beauty, and for a second day in a row I eventually retreated because I was as parched as a trout in a tumbleweed. Once again, I have had my way with the primitive defensive systems that just can't come close to keeping Ghostface Buddha out of a fucking castle. And no one shall ever know. Except you, I guess, or anyone who can read the cached draft of this post, like I guess anyone with a grudge against me and subpoena powers. What's that sound? Are those sirens? Shit...fuck....shit....where are my firebombs? IT'S TIME TO SMOKE SOME BACON.

Apr 21, 2010

Penises

Deep in the Bundelkhand lies a lonely airstrip that sees one or two planes landing every single day, in an area where the bus comes by almost as rarely. Bundelkhand is a dry, sparsely populated region of plains and craggy hills separating the north Indian plains from central India. It is known, above all, not for great riches or sacred places, but as a historical redoubt of "dacoity". A dacoit, it should be explained, is a member of a bandit gang. The Bundelkhand is a poor, empty expanse of scorching fields where you don't travel the roads at night. There is, however, a successfully operating airstrip just outside of a village called Khajuraho. But why? Three words: ancient stone vagina.

For some reason (which is as specific as the historians get), in the middle ages the kings of the Bundelkhand decided to build a temple city at the site of present-day Khajuraho, and adorned nearly all of these temples with large, intimately detailed sculptures of mind-bogglingly kinky sex. If you've ever wanted to see a sculpture depicting such details as the cleft between a bull's testicles as it sodomizes a nobleman, this is where it's at.

Your narrator, in his nigh godlike humility, disdains to travel within India by airplane and instead penetrated the Bundelkhand by train. As soon as I got on the platform in Varanasi I could tell something was amiss, namely the sleeper carriage in which I had booked a ticket was not attached to the train. A trio of foreign tourists wafting their precious ticket reservations got in the lonely sleeper car down the platform. The fools. I know Indian Railways to well for that, so I boarded a general-seating carriage at random and swung myself wildly into an unclaimed overhead luggage rack. Comfortable it was not, but as the trio of other tourists no doubt both envied and beheld in dismay, at least it was attached to the train when it pulled out of the station. No sandstone orgies for them.

After further ordeals which included a brief interlude trapped on the roof of a moving bus (fortunately, pounding on a bus ceiling has a certain universality in the message it conveys) I clambered off in the dusty assortment of hamlets that together comprise Khajuraho. Visiting Khajuraho is like being trapped on a desert island with your worst enemy's CD collection. First of all, it's hot and isolated enough to be a desert, and secondly the entire human population depends upon annoying the crap out of you or collecting the providential fallings of fruit. On my first day of touring I somehow amassed an entourage in my rickshaw, including the driver, some dude from my hotel who wanted me to teach him how to talk about Hindu architecture in Spanish, and a wrinkly old goatherd with three teeth and nothing better to do. We visited the lesser-known and more far-flung temples that day, and though it was certainly a curious experience ("How you say 'Vishnu ten avatar' in Spanish?"), there was a notable lack of ecstatic stone figures being spit-roasted by throbbing dick. In fact, before I saw a single erotic nude, I happened to see actual people sitting around naked.

I was wandering in a Jain temple and headed into the main shrine, entering quietly as I heard voices. I looked to the source of the noise and saw a young monastic pupil reading intently from a holy book while receiving instruction from a bald, middle-aged man who was not wearing any clothes. They looked at me with some curiosity, though probably less intensely than I was looking at them. I muttered a quick "...er, carry on." and was off, thinking it poor decorum to start taking photographs in a room with naked people in it.

Around the corner was a cluster of more ancient Jain temples, and I did as I do and snooped about. As I was admiring an image of the tirthankar Parsvanath, I heard someone beckon "Please, sit down." I peered into the ambulatory and sure enough there was a similar scene of a studious man about my age receiving instruction from a conspicuously bald and unclothed Degembara Jain monk. Accompanying them was a second monk, asleep in a dark corner of the temple with his head tilted back against a statue of an elephant and his old legs splayed open wide, a sight which brought to mind a caterpillar shuffling in the joint between two rotting branches of driftwood. The monk who invited me was more reserved. Indeed, from the various photographs I've seen in temples and now through personal observation, I must say that Jain monks are incredibly adept at sitting without revealing more than the layperson strictly needs to behold on the path to wisdom. We chatted for quite a while, and I soon found myself on the defensive as the monk repeatedly outdid me in measured nonchalance. "I like to travel simply; I don't need luxuries. Sleep in the luggage rack, whatever, no problem", I would be saying, trying to find some common ground in our outlooks. Then he would respond without giving a single hint of smugness or being a wiseass "I travel only on foot. No vehicle, no animal. I have no clothes. I only walk. Walking everywhere. It is not hard."

Talk progressed in due course to my diet, and I told him that in India I had experimented with strict Jain vegetarianism but had found it incompatible with my bodily needs, and had therefore resumed eating nonvegetarian food, usually eggs. He raised an eyebrow, and when a bald naked man raises an eyebrow the quizzical look is greatly magnified. "But eggs are not a vegetarian food..?" he said. "Well, no, like I was saying, I tried vegetarian food but found I need nonveg food for my health."

"Look at me" he began, choosing a poor moment to change the crossing of his legs. "I eat only fruit and vegetables and I am healthy" he said, running his hands over his naked, middle-aged paunch and down towards the dark, shadowed crease he had reestablished around his own fruits. "I do not eat even all vegetable. I do not take any food that kills or damages the plant. I must wait only for the fruit to fall to me, or to be plucked without harm. This is the holy way..." he said, as he gave his thigh another ill-timed stretch. "...it isn't hard."

This time I had reason to raise an eyebrow. "...Sure isn't."

For a long time after that we debated the philosophical and scientific points of chicken-egg fertilization to the point that there wasn't a single avenue left for me to be defeated in. I uncharacteristically refrained from asking "But which came first!?", yet found myself in no less of a logical quandary, as I was pretty sure I had talked myself into a position where I conceded that eating eggs was only ethical if the hen somehow consensually mated with a non-inseminating omelette-ovulation-provoking contraption. I had one more flash of inspiration but silenced myself when I remembered the Jain prohibition on alcohol, so getting the hen drunk wouldn't count. Finally, I had to say it. "Well, you must be right" I conceded.

"Yes," the monk said matter-of-factly "but come, we have sat and spoken long. Let us stand and part our ways." So he stood and I quickly followed, preferring to meet him eye-to-eye than eye-to-...eye. "It was a good talk" he said, and shook my hand. There was a rustle and the elderly second monk, now almost forgotten in his nook, mumbled "Goodbye", flipped his penis over onto his other leg, and went back to sleep.

I emerged into the light of day and returned to my neglected entourage. "Que tu fues hacendo?" my would-be Castillian compadre inquired. "Hablando con un monje sobre sus huevos" I responded. "Kya?" he asked in Hindi. "Forget about it."


That night I was threatened with physical violence by a jilted drug dealer who took my disinclination to purchase any marijuana from him as a personal affront, but really, what's new.

The next morning I slipped out without my spastically polyglot retinue and headed to the main enclosure of world-famously raunchy temples. Though the quantity of erotica was not as legendary as they would like you to think, it makes up for this deficiency through sheer imagination. The ancient Hindus were determined to make a science out of everything, as so to this day the Hindu rules of rituals, art, writing, logic, music, and yes, sex all carry the strict burden of scripture. Thus, musical composition is rigorously categorized into 85 or so "moods", which strictly define which notes and rhythms may be used in which contexts of key and subject, etc., leaving no possibility, however obscure, unexplored. The same goes with sex. The ancient attitude was roughly "Now, consider, if you were one man and one woman and one horse, and the man is to be in the foremost position with the woman underneath ...not that one should include a horse, obviously... but if you were to do so, the formal fuck-logics dictate that it would have to proceed as follows:..." Most of the erotic sculptures are a fairly benign assortment of differently-arranged couplings, foreplay, and my personal favorite, sexy maidens peeling themselves out of clinging dresses. There are however, some spectacular exceptions, including the infamous horse-sodomy niche, and a renowned panel of an upside-down man so mack that he has three wenches about him, two of whom he isn't even debauching, but is just allowing them to assist with the balance of his partner bouncing on top of his ludicrously-inverted frame. You know you're a real pimp when you keep two of your hoes just to have as scaffolding.

As mind-expanding as the acrobatic sculptures were, they were not even the most surreal part of my day. You see, I rose early in the morning thinking that this would earn me the day alone to enter and explore the temples unperturbed. I was wrong.

Friends, Ghostface Buddha is now literally a poster-boy for the Indian tourism industry.

I was walking to the compound's main gate and saw the guards ushering through a big herd of fat rich tourists without checking their tickets. Some younger, upscale pseudo-backpackers strolled by speaking French, and these the guards glanced over, inspeting them as one would a tangerine. I was baffled. As I walked to the ticket booth I could feel the same gazes bearing upon me, and was suddenly seized by a rifle-wielding guard. "Entrance is free today" he said, remembering to smile as he hauled me across the driveway. "Today celebrate world heritage." A portly Indian man with a mustache and a safari hat walked up and gave me a once-over. He burst into a grin. "You are perfect!" he beamed. I snapped out of my panic (I had been trying to remember what, if any, incriminating material was in my day-bag) and mustered "....Uhhh, yes?", then as my composure returned "Perfect, yes. Continue..."

"I am the Deputy Head Assistant Director of Archaeology for the Srivagayapanam sub-circle of Patna division of Archaeological Survey of India" he more or less said. "Today is world heritage. For the promotion of tourism, we take your picture." Two stupidly-grinning lackeys ran in behind me and held taut a suddenly-unfurled Hindi banner extolling the magnificence of India, and Indian world heritage. "We have many tourists here but we need best tourist. You are looking very good, sir." I smirked and tried to form a witty response, but was cut short when the rifle-hefting soldier magically produced a bouquet of pink flowers and thrust them into my hands before posing next to me and the cretinous grinning minions. "SMILE!!!" the head archaeologist shouted wildly, and a photographer popped out from behind him with the daft spring of a Whack-A-Mole. After the flash, the archaeologist spoke as I grinned for more photos, still holding the ridiculous bouquet. The photographer began taking video of us standing there, grinning like fools. And that is how Ghostface Buddha became the Khajuraho poster-boy for India's contribution to the World Heritage program.

When it was all said and done (essentially, when I succeeded in ridding myself of the bouquet), the archaeologist spoke again. "You are the very finest tourist, sir. We will put you on official items for the Khajuraho and the world heritage. India wants to show you. We are wanting more visitors like you."


Ohhhh ho ho.

Oh ho ho.

You have no idea.

Apr 18, 2010

Terror-Creatures From Beyond The Ghats

edit: forgot to mention, Kushinagar and new Varanasi pics are up. Also, this is the 100th post on this blog. How did THAT happen?

Upon returning from Nepal I ticked off the last stop on my tour of the great Buddhist pilgrimages of India, the village of Kushinagar, where the Buddha died.

Even for a Buddhist pilgrimage site in a country that is less than 1% Buddhist, Kushinagar is so sleepy it's almost sad. It's located in a poor, rural part of Uttar Pradesh not far from the Bihar border and is little more than a wheat-farming village with a handful of incongruous temples along one of the roads. Even the monasteries sort of blend in, the ones from the poorer Buddhist countries being indistinguishable from your standard village brick-piles save for the fact that their cheaply-painted murals offer fortune-cookie tips to spiritual enlightenment rather than competing manufacturers of steel rods. In the center of town are the excavated ruins of old Kushinagar, which aren't much to look at now, and in the center of these is the new-ish Mahaparinirvana Temple. This temple allegedly marks the precise spot where Buddha died and achieved the ultimate Nirvana. It's an odd space-ship'y building blending the ancient design with a bit too much modernism. Inside is an enormous gold-covered statue of the Buddha lying serenely on his deathbed, a scene so inspirational it is the one place I have actually observed Hindu people being silent. I saw it firsthand. This is the Indian equivalent of sending a swirling, screeching jar of distilled ectoplasm to the home addresses of the Nobel committee. Aside from the statue, however, the interior of this most important temple is truly hideous. It has polished stone floors, but halfway up the walls become plain, unpainted concrete, and you can see the rusty ventilation fans hanging in the upper windows. It looks like the lobby of a deceptive budget hotel in New Delhi with a massive ancient treasure ready to disappear into a shipping container somewhere.

Beyond the temple and a row of monasteries one could mistake for hardware stores there is basically just a lot of rice and wheat. I found myself on a bit of a stroll through the "village", which was mostly unfinished boundary-walls and stacked blocks of cow-dung fuel next to thatched huts. After about fifteen minutes of surprising quiet in which I saw more ditch-lounging buffaloes than people, I finally found what I was looking for: the ruins of the huge ancient stupa erected on the site where Buddha was cremated. Sure enough, it's still there, in vaguely stupa form, in a blissfully quiet little lawn dotted with palm trees, with nothing but empty fields stretching in every direction. It was fabulous.

I was making my way south from Nepal to Madhya Pradesh, because I hate myself. More about M.P. and Ghostface Buddha's ingrained masochism* later, but the point is I found it convenient to stop in Varanasi as I headed south. *nobody's ever loved me

I arrived in Varanasi six months to the day from my previous sojourn here, and some things have certainly changed. The city seems strangely empty in comparison, perhaps because it is not now the peak of one of India's largest festivals, or perhaps because I am now irredeemably accustomed to suffocating multitudes. The Ganges river, after a problematically dry winter and spring, has fallen many feet, and it is now possible to actually walk up to the door of the sunken temple just off of Scindia Ghat. I would have taken a peek inside the small chamber that is normally immersed in the sacred waters, but feared that it would merely lead me down into a vast lower temple where I would have to negotiate an arcane system of traps dependent on magically-changing water levels and playing wind instruments. On the other hand, the narrow alleys of the old city surely remain the world's most dangerous bottlenecks of cow-shittery. The more things change the more they stay the same.

I went wandering about the alleys again, this time with bolder explorations in mind. As I twisted through the confounding maze of alleys, I couldn't help but notice the heavily-armed platoons of paramilitary police at every corner, and got the strange feeling of being under some sort of quarantine. Then it all made sense...

Varanasi is plagued by zombies.

Think about it: how else to explain the massive paramilitary deployment, the unspoken nocturnal curfew, the photography prohibitions, the insistence upon burning all bodies immediately upon death? The Vedas were telling no mere parable when they declared that Varanasi is "ungoverned by the Lord of Death"! So many pieces fall together. Why are there so many raving holy men seeking nothing but a liberation from further "lives"? Why are the inhabitants of the city so compulsively vegetarian? You would be too if the consumption of flesh brought horrific reminders of the insatiable undead! And why else is there such a profusion of arcane rituals if not to root out zombies incapable of following through with the complex motions? Why are so many buffaloes necessary, if not as mounts for the cow-headed, buffalo-riding Death god Yama? And is it mere coincidence that the interminable ringing of bells - a virtual homing beacon of living worshipers- takes place on elevated platforms or behind closely guarded doors? I think not. And do the authorities think that a mere zombie plague excuses them from clearing the streets of cow shit? OVER MY DEAD BODY

Like it or not, I was not given a chance to do battle with the living dead as I was confined by the curfew. Slipping through the alleys just before lockdown I had a chance at least to test my reflexes, and almost took off the head of an elderly woman who reached with a whispered groan towards my arm from a dark recess in the street. A city where people go to die can be a creepy place.

Ultimately, the greatest threat to my well-being came from others among the living, and as usual, from myself. I was poking about alleys as before, and found myself at an intriguing-looking Hindu temple, and decided to peek inside. I discovered later that it was a semi-underground super-hardcore orthodox temple, one of those that had been established precisely as a spiteful answer to the other temples of Varanasi which were now letting the likes of the lowest castes into their hallowed grounds, and one of the last places it would be wise for me to be. What I discovered then, however, was that this foreigner was clearly not wanted, an insinuation made less than subtly by an angry, screaming mob dragging me into the streets by my shirt. Shit, as they say, got real. I was subjected to a rapid barrage of half-shouted, half-spat, somewhat rhetorical questions like "DO YOU RESPECT RELIGION?" and "WHY DO YOU BRING YOUR DIRT HERE?" I walked a tightrope of apology and defiance, spouting as much semi-relevant Hindu theology as I could muster to save my ass, apologizing profusely, wriggling free of my immediate assailants, and stalwartly refusing to go into the darkened temple offices to "see the high priests for a discussion." Instead I managed to talk so much I drew away a handful of English-speaking mob members and carefully increased my distance from the furious rabble until I backed around a corner within sight of a police patrol. The police and the small detachment from the mob both hesitated; clearly the mob knew there could be trouble and didn't know what to do, and the police were waiting for an indication from the mob to see whether I should be hauled away for a discussion with them instead. In the awkward no-man's land I made another burst of quick apologies, some praises to the various Almighties, and passed off about $11 dollars in bribe before quickly spinning off into a warren of lanes leading to the waterfront.

The moral of the story? Conservative clergymen are assholes. I'll take the zombies any day. At least if you disintegrate their heads you don't have to perform ten thousand fire-stake penances or take a basket of 108 conch shells on a pilgrimage to the fucking moon. Amen.

Apr 16, 2010

Not About India

(Nepal Quickie)

As I've mentioned, I had to leave India and pop into Nepal for a spell. Because of Nepal's unique geography, this is a huge pain in the ass. We're talking about a country so mountainous that if you don't count city streets there are only a few dozen paved roads in the entire country. Getting to the central Kathmandu valley from the Bihari border was a six hour journey up a rocky trail over a series of massive ridges and river valleys in a shared jeep that was packed so tight that I had bruises from being smashed against the rear window of the jeep by my fellow passengers on each bone-rattling bounce.

Finally we got to Kathmandu, a largish city that rivals India for filth and ugliness, but is at least quieter and friendlier. The most shocking thing about Kathmandu is the pollution. If you were blindfolded and flown into the city by helicopter, you would have no idea you were in an elevated valley, because the smog is so bad it obscures the Himalayas. I found a hotel not in the main tourist district but in the old hippie quarter. I walked into a self-described lodge and found that it was in fact a spectacularly decrepit hard rock bar. As the building rumbled with the sounds of old heavy metal classics, I was lead upstairs and shown a room which had no furniture, but did have a mural of a mohawked Hindu goblin on one wall and a dark wizard in outer space on the other. I checked in immediately.

Kathmandu is actually pretty sweet. It has an incredible density of dramatic places to visit. The valley as a whole is the center of Nepali religion, and Nepali religion is absolutely insane. It's all one big Hindu-Buddhist-animist stew where every temple has about four different names depending on who's worshipping there. I don't really know how it all works; my knowledge of such things has been channeled almost entirely into Indian religious practice.

Anyways, my pictures of Nepal are all up now. Took me about a MILLION TRILLION YEARS to caption them so I wouldn't forget what they all were. Like I say, Nepal is confusing. Aside from numerous places in Kathmandu I also ventured into nearby parts of the valley. One such place was Boudha, which as you may have guessed, is an important Buddhist site. It is actually one of the centers of Tibetan Buddhism in exile, and is actually the world's largest stupa. The other place I went was Patan (not to be confused with Patna, the Bihari shithole), an old royal city whose central durbar square certainly ranks among the finest urban centers I have seen.

OK, later buds, I have to go prepare for my next stop, where the weather forecast says the daily high will be 111 degrees F. I need to go visit some temples and accrue religious merit while I still have a chance before I roast to death.
-GFB

Apr 15, 2010

Ghostface Buddhism

Sitting beneath Bodhgaya's great bodhi tree, nurturer of Enlightenment, I realized...There is a Middle Way. My friends, I tell you these things:

Do not believe anything because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. If you don't listen to grandpa's senile ramblings about he almost became a shortstop for the Chicago White Sox at the dinner table, nor should you give heed to his exhortations that on every second Wednesday of January the family must dress up as lumberjacks and roast a pig in waist-high snow. Do not believe anything because it is spoken and rumored by many, 'cause bitches talking shit. Do not believe in anything because it is written in your religious books, especially if you are Mormon. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders; life does not hand out rainbow stickers for providing the convenient answer with proper punctuation. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then ask Ghostface Buddha 'bout that shit and he will tell you what is what.

Know this first about your tutor: I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of mere weevils crawling on the flesh of those who care not a whit for the so-called legitimacy of their authority.

I observe the treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles fit for building only a house for bitchly bitch-ass bitches.

I look upon the finest silk as naught but a fragile encumbrance; a vault of ribbons around a hoard of booty.

I see the myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, probably infested by strange insectoid creatures bent on invading the Earth.

I perceive the teachings of the world as the illusions of men overly fond of tweed.

I discern the highest conception of emancipation as a golden brocade in a dream, a babbling creek in a luminous reverie, a flowering kangaroo in an acid trip, an anal bead in a non sequitir.

I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, assuming that mountains have pillars, like maybe when stalactites and stalagmites meet in a cave and form a pillar. Or like, if a stalactite grows all the way up from the ground and reaches the ceiling, that would be a pillar too. Wait, stalactite is the hanging one? G for ground, C for ceiling? Or is it lefty-loosey? I see meditation as unaffected by the Coriolis effect.

I look upon the judgments of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, in that they have a tendency to crush and/or ignite small villages, and the rise and fall of belief as traces left by the four seasons, in that both are overworn metaphors.

Before all else, one must know...
The Four Ignoble Falsehoods
1. The color of a person's skin is an indication of that person's ability to pilot a zeppelin.

2. Blueberry cobbler is best served out of the refrigerator.

3. The cow is anything other than an obese, ruminating poop factory with a hyperinflated sense of self worth and a tendency to get wet leaves tangled in its genital hairs.

4. Love.
Know these and think on them well, then turn your mind to the higher understanding.



I set forth in my teaching the following doctrine:

The Four Noble Truths
1. All Things and Experiences are marked by a quantum of Suffering, Disharmony, and Frustration; that is to say, Suckage.

2. The arising of Suckage comes from Life being a Bitch.

3. To achieve the cessation of Suckage, pimp Life, the above-named Bitch.

4. The way to pimp that Bitch is walking the Eightfold Path.

The Eightfold Path

1. Right Understanding of the following facts:
Life's a bitch (The Four Noble Truths).

Everything is impermanent and changes. To wit, the entity once manifested under the names "Puff Daddy" and "P. Diddy".

There is no separate and individual self. This is an illusion. We are one. I am an adolescent mallard. You are the Governator. Together we are Will Smith.

2. Right Determination to:
Give up what is some weak-ass shit.

Undertake what is the illest.

Abandon thoughts that have to do with bringing suffering to any conscious living being.

Conveniently, any conscious being that crosses a real OG can be considered walking dead.

3. Right Speech
What's the use of the truth if you can't tell a lie sometimes?

Abstain from slander. Man up and commit libel. If you ain't willing to put your defamatory remarks to the written record, you don't deserve to be defaming at all.

Abstain from obsequious and flattering speech; give your every utterance the kindness or malice it deserves. For instance "Madam, pardon the intrusion, but would you like white or brown sugar with your tea and crumpets, you domineering banshee harlot?"

If you use the word "literally" to precede a figurative statement, you are literally a goddamn idiot.

Never use a congregative adverb prior to a transmutative prerogation. Thus, "Cry such malevolence! Cocksure be either they yet none a ploughsman!" should be rendered as a crescendo of ululations, or better yet, ululizzles.

4. Right Action
Hustle and ball.

No snitching.

5. Right Livelihood
Engage in the trade for which you are most suited.

If you are a lazy bastard, find a job appropriate for lazy bastards and spare your human brothers and sisters the pain of moving you to fulfill your offices.

There is no assignment of labor by one's birth into hereditary castes, save for lute-players and beekeepers. If these should wed, the punishment is death.

6. Right Effort
You may foster iniquity, so long as you destroy inanity.

7. Right Anatomy
The buttocks should be be firm but not hard. A man's chest should be larger than his nipples; a woman's foot longer than her nose.

There should be exactly seven internal organs; these should be chosen with care.

8. Right Miscellanea
Nothing is made less interesting by being set on fire.

The full path to Enlightenment is actually found in the Singlefold Glob Of Wisdom.

The Singlefold Glob of Wisdom

Be thee not a player-hater nor a poseur. To hell with snake-ass motherfucks who want to tell you what to do and what to enjoy. Be careful not to leave the oven on too long; nobody likes an over-crisp brownie. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a whale to enter the Kingdom of Termites. Dance in thought with your third eye attuned to the heavens, your second eye at the marked emergency exits, and your first eye on the hottie in the tight jeans. The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Look Life in eyes, perhaps crack a knuckle or two, and say "HO, YOU BEEN WORKING FOR ME? GET BACK OUT THERE AND BRING ME WHAT'S MINE. AND CURLY FRIES." At that moment you have pimped Life itself.


This is the teaching of the Ghost-faced Buddha. Spread the word.

Apr 11, 2010

Bihar Is Shit

As I expected, most of my computer access time is being used uploading my massive harvest of photographs of Nepal, but I've decided to set aside some time for something too critical for mere images to get in the way. I have a warning that must get through at all costs. I shall deliver my message even if I must pay Pheidippides's price: Bihar is shit.

Bihar is the third-most-populous state of India, occupying the lower reaches of the Gangetic plain before it becomes the delta in Bengal. It is home to some 83 million people, making it more populous than Germany (or France, or a whole lot of countries), though it has the approximate GDP ($21bn) of El Salvador. Here's another fact: it is shit.

I don't expect you to just take my word for it. Allow me to quote the opinion of a rural development expert, none other than the estimable Ghostface Buddha Sr.,
"Bihar is KNOWN as the worst, and poorest, and most corrupt, and most hopeless part of India. Kind of like the right and left armpit of India."
So there you have it. He continues on an anecdotal note
"I remember it as basically flat. I think it was there that some family came up to me and asked me to take one of their daughthers. Happened twice, so I can’t quite remember the geography. I do remember the face of the little girl, probably something in the 7 to 9 year range..."
Shit, Bihar: synonymous.

As for my own experience of Bihar, I must tell you that with the exception of the gem-like island of tranquillity that is Bodhgaya, every moment I passed in Bihar was pervaded by some form of discomfort or disgust. It is indeed a flat place, and (you may be tired of hearing this) ungodly hot. I knew of its poverty beforehand, but was shocked by just how goddamn hideous every single thing is, and how Bihar manages to incredibly surpass the rest of India in just about every conceivable category of awfulness. Passing through every one of the interchangeable villages I sat there with my jaw hanging: I didn't know Indian villages could so much more ramshackle than the thousands I've already passed through. Every building in Bihar looks like it was built last Tuesday and is destined to collapse next Monday. Half-naked people lie in the dirt beneath the full-wall murals for cement companies, which is standard in India, but horrifyingly ironic on an off-kilter house made of bricks without the benefit of mortar. Every village had the same trio of fly-covered babies, stoop-backed old crones harvesting rice, and filthy miserable-looking buffaloes.

There is nowhere to eat in Bihar. Where other Indian states have their standard semi-depressing canteens, Bihar has "restaurants" in disused concrete storage units where dirty, unschooled children work night and day serving customers virulent plates of rice and insipid dal. After several such meals I swore aloud that if I couldn't find a place that served bread, vegetables, or anything other than poorly cooked fucking rice, I would shit all over Bihar. And after several such meals, trust me, that was not an idle threat.

I became ill almost immediately upon entering the state, and was miraculously cured of that illness immediately upon exiting. A microbial conspiracy schemed to prevent me from taking my vengeance on Bihar. A foolish choice of adversary. As I told one comrade, "The pen is mightier than the festering sword wound." Any foe of mine shall know infamy beyond death.

I at least had the advantage of finally being back on Hindi-speaking turf. For the first time in months, I could read the local script... an ability that sets me apart from about 53% of Biharis. The literacy rates in Bihar are dismal, and even more dismal for women. In fact pretty much any statistic you care to name will be head-crackingly terrible. Child labor, income, sanitation, murder, kidnappings, caste violence, corruption, malnutrition. Looking over a sheet of such figures I found myself rubbing my eyes and going "What the hell? How could [Terrible Thing A.] be twice the national average? In fucking India?"

Bihar is in fact so bad that in the year 2000, its southern half broke away to form the state of Jharkhand. Jharkhand -a back asswards collection of impoverished hills and jungles where cartoonishly evil mining companies rape the land and the local tribal peoples are caught between Maoist armies and militia-wielding Indian versions of Montgomery Burns- apparently felt that Bihar was holding it back.

Even the music videos are worse in Bihar. Worse than normal Indian music videos? Trust me, after you spend 10 hours on a bus watching a handful of teenagers dance off beat in someone's back yard to terribly auto-tuned Hindi songs (not "fashionably" auto-tuned, mind you; auto-tuned because they can't hold a note to save their lives), you will concur.

I don't know where the worst shithole in all of Bihar is (I wouldn't dare a thorough exploration), but I can tell you the biggest: the state capital, Patna.

You know I of all people would not say this lightly, especially given the formidable competition for the dishonor of the title I now bestow, but Patna might be the worst fucking place I have ever been. It was the capital of the Mauryan Empire (the largest such realm in Indian history), which prospered around the time of the Buddha, an almost legendary age of cultural richness. Clearly, it has been all downhill for about 25 centuries. I shan't bother repeating my criticisms of large Indian cities; just know that Patna is exactly the same but somehow, just...worse. It is poorer and uglier than the rest, but what really seems to be lacking is a sense of hope. In any other Indian city you get the feeling that, OK, maybe there is no clean plumbing here now, but neither was there in 1823; they'll get to it, however torturous the path of progress may be. In Patna you just feel like it will be shit forever. After another 2500 years of such decline, Patna will cease to even be shit: it will be the human race's first cultural coprolite.

Towering in the center of Patna is its most prominent building: the nuclear power station. Fitting, that they should put it in a wasteland prior to its inevitable meltdown. Granted, as ominous and disgusting as it appears, it is the only structure in a hundred-mile radius that doesn't look like it's about to collapse and kill about two dozen diseased chickens.

Now, as I mentioned, the exception to all this is the town of Bodhgaya, a place which is at the very heart of Bihar's history but owes all of its current prosperity to foreigners. Bodhgaya was the site of no less momentous event than the moment when the ascetic sage and prince Siddharta Gautama found enlightenment under a bodhi tree and became the Buddha. The site was "hidden" for centuries. Or rather, people knew what it was, but these people were brahmin priests who owned the land and concealed it in a spiteful anti-Buddhist coverup. Now, "found" by European scholars, it has flourished as the ultimate pilgrimage site for all the world's Buddhists. Aside from the Mahabodhi temple, which towers over the spot where Buddha sat and shades a 'grandchild' of the famous tree, the entire town is now dotted with foreign Buddhist temples and monasteries. Buddhist orders from the likes of Japan, China, Thailand, Bhutan, Burma, Tibet, Vietnam and more have all put up beautiful edifices here, and a stroll around Bodhgaya is like a gallery of Asian art and architecture.

Surprisingly, in the Buddhist "off-season", most of the visitors are Hindus (as are the site officials, oddly). Before the place was "covered up" outright, the brahmins hatched an equally crafty plot many centuries ago and declared that the Buddha was in fact a new incarnation of Vishnu (and that said incarnation of Vishnu was being misheard when he spoke about a new faith and ignoring caste divisions and the ritual power of brahmin priests. How convenient). The result is that packs of Vishnu worshippers shuffle from temple to temple, being loud, swarm-y, and generally Hindu... to the consternation of the Buddhist monks and pilgrims whose Buddhist composure is clearly being put to the test. You frequently run into Buddha statues that have been completely smothered in paste, flowers, and weirder offerings as per the Hindu custom. The temple authorities have at least conceded to put up very large signs demanding silence for the benefit of their Buddhist guests, lest the Vaishnavite Hindus spark a surreal holy war with the monks by walking into the world's most important Buddhist temple screaming and manically ringing bells.

I also made a trip out of Bodhgaya to the tiny hill of Dungeshwari, a rock-strewn, arid waste containing the very cave in which the sage Siddhartha Gautama spent six years in the most stringent self-deprivation before he abandoned the course of extreme ascetism and got to the important business of founding Buddhism. As I entered the dark little cave I got a tingle down my spine even more powerful than whan I laid eyes upon the shady arboreal spot where the Buddha became enlightened. There in the cave, out in the desolate Bihari countryside, there was nothing but a single, haunting statue of the Buddha in a near-skeletal state of emaciation, yet with a tiny, serene smile on his face. It was quite possibly the most memorable statue I have ever beheld.

On the way back to Bodhgaya past the gauntlet of beggars, dying livestock, and abandoned push-wagons I couldn't help but be shaken out of the spell and reminded I was still in Bihar. I spent the remainder of the afternoon as I intended, testing if the peace and tranquility around the great bodhi tree would lead me to any wisdom. Instead, my thoughts drifted, as they often do, to my own journey. Why do I keep pressing on like this through so many terrible areas and continue punishing myself? This can't be the way. Yet it's neccessary, for spending one's life completely in rest and pleasure is not only aimless but unfulfilling. What, it must be asked, is the best way to live?

Then, as I, Ghostface Buddha, sat in contemplation beneath the great bodhi tree, it struck me: there must be an inspired compromise. There must be some sort of...Middle Way...

Apr 9, 2010

Sad News

Bad news, dear readers: This electricity problem is getting to be too much. Turns out that as large areas of India and Nepal rely on hydropower collected by unsophiticated barriers, this time of year (when the rivers have almost dried up long after the previous year's monsoon) there are scheduled power cuts lasting up to twelve hours a day. And the hours when the power is on are craftily chosen to be such times as when I'm usually sensibly asleep. Clearly, as this post is evidence, I do have internet access, but the limited time I spend on computers for the next month or so will be prioritized to loading up my pictures and actual important business. Thus, I am sad to say, there will be an increase in the proportion of "quickie" updates in the short term. By the time I can actually sit down to type I either have too much to do or I've lost the rythmn of my writing process, unable to seam together the uniquely awful notes I take beforehand and can hardly guess the meaning of after a few days. On the bright side, I guess this means I will be focusing closer on some of the more adventurous interludes. Just assume that the time I would have spent amusing you is now being more productively utilized tossing broken coconut shells at buffaloes. I'm sure you'll understand.
-GFB

edit:to lessen the trauma of this announcement on your delicate constitutions, I have just put the finishing touches on a big ol' photo update I've been loading up for-god-damn-ever. -GFB

Apr 8, 2010

Teetotal Recall

Look at a map and you will notice West Bengal is a rather oddly-shaped state. It basically consists of the megacity of Kolkata, a swathe of forest and impoverished villages on the edge of the Ganges delta, and an absurdly narrow spindle that leads north to a stretch of the Himalayas the locals call Gorkhaland. The Gorkhas, a Nepali ethnic group with weird historical ties to Rajasthan (whence their celebrated martial inclinations) have basically nothing to do with the Bengalis except that they live in the same state, and most of them would like to see that haphazard arrangement come to an end and have their own little mountain state called Gorkhaland.

Aside from the obvious physical differences --Gorkhas have a "Himalayan" appearance while the Bengalis are clearly Indo-Aryan-- the great divide between the two groups can be summed up like this: Gorkha youths wear headphones. As I began the long, winding ride up into the mountains, the jeep I was in carried myself, about seven Gorkhas, and a Bengali man. The Bengali did as Indians are wont to do and turned his mobile phone to full volume, treating the entire jeep and any nearby wildlife to the ubiquitous Hindi pop music which calls to mind hearing a cat being tortured over a walkie-talkie while lying head-swimmingly drunk outside of an Ibiza nightclub. The Gorkhas all glared at the man, and I joined in, as if to say "What on God's green Earth makes you think anyone else wants to listen to your personal choice of music, however terrible it may be?" The man, confused and sheepish, turned off his phone. Its tinny, shrill ululations were replaced by the soft and soothing strings and mild percussion of Nepali mountain love songs at (for India) a radically neutral volume, and the driver looked around the jeep to ensure his choice of radio station had the support of a consensus. It was fucking remarkable, yo. The Gorkhas want to have their own state so that they can administer the unique needs of developing a mountain area that has been rather incompetently controlled from the sweltering plains, and it seems they also just want to be left alone to do things their own way, thank you very much.

I was heading up to the famous mountain town of Darjeeling, known for its mesemerizing Himalayan views, rich cultural heritage, and history as one of British India's premier snooty retreats. There isn't much of the snooty British atmosphere left (not that I mind). Darjeeling is now the premier chaotic hill station retreat for thousands upon thousands of moneyed Bengalis who want to be anywhere but Kolkata during the summer. I got my first taste of Himalayan roads as the highway zigzagged relentlessly up the insanely steep ridges and eventually snaked along the mountaintops through a series of precariously-perched ridgetop towns. For most of its route, the highway winds along with the hilariously narrow tracks of the Darjeeling Toy Train, a bizarrely popular little train service that still runs on steam power and takes people up the hills at half the speed of any automobile. People use the train tracks as a pedestrian sidewalk, because the train is so slow that if it does come by in the highlands, it is quite possible to walk alongside the pathetic chugging and whistling contraption and shake hands with all its passengers before lazily walking on ahead of the train to pick up any errant goats one may have left lounging on the relative safety of the track.

Finally the jeep pulled into "lower" Darjeeling, the filthy, overbuilt ridge-side where hundreds of hotels cater to the holiday droves. I say "lower" Darjeeling because this part of town is at a paltry elevation of 2050 meters or so. By comparison, the famously elevated city of Denver, CO is at 1600 meters. Fortunately, most of the holiday-makers are either subconsciously addicted to the grime and noise of home or are completely disinclined to walk a long distance uphill, leaving the very top of the ridge a fairly nice refuge of quiet foreign backpackers and local Gorkha townspeople. This soon became my first taste of Himalayan roads on foot, and as I told the hotel manager after I finally found his establishment, "I took one bitch of a wrong turn." I looked uphill to where the ridge topped several hundred meters above me and began the torturous labyrinthine zigzag upwards. Somewhere along the way I wrongly estimated my horizontal position and ended up hauling myself and my luggage for over an hour along a road all the way out past the edge of town and to the pinnacle of the mountain, where I figured it would finally switch back to the ridgetop road, and was denied access to military territory, was informed that I had come by the most painful possible route, and that I should walk about half an hour downhill on this ridgetop road to get where I wanted to be.

Along the way down I ran into a foreign tourist who was looking for a public tea plantation. Darjeeling, as you may know, is renowned for producing some of the world's finest tea. I found many an excuse (usually fatigue from endlessly tromping up and down the ridge) to sit in cafes and sip on some motherfucking fantastic tea at deliciously rural prices. Tea, tea, tea. Teeeeaaaaaaa. Anyways, this tourist was schlepping up the hill on the logic that tea grows at high elevations. "Oh it does," I told him. "the high elevations you're looking for are... down there..." I said, sweeping my hand towards the precipitous slopes of clustered green bushes far below us. It bears repeating that the Himalayas are very, very tall.

They call Darjeeling's perch, which reaches almost 2500 meters, a "hill". And you can't blame them, because when the haze clears you can see across the "hills" to what are undoubtedly some genuine motherfucking mountains. Some 70 kilometers away, yet still seeming to tower directly over Darjeeling town is the enormous Kangchenjunga, which soars to an utterly preposterous 8600 meters, making it the third-tallest mountain in the entire world. As I stood on the ridge above Darjeeling proper, I could make out the town at its 2000-meter height. Above that was several thousand meters of solid gray clouds and haze obscuring the hills and mountains for miles around, and then finally the upper portion of Kangchenjunga defiantly rising several thousand meters above that, almost like an enormous rock-strewn iceberg floating upon the clouds. I don't know any other way to describe it: the mountain is huge.

From Darjeeling I wandered around the nearby "hilltops" for days, continually frustrated by being engulfed in clouds everyday by 11am and forcing myself to rise at 4. The mountain panoramas mostly eluded me, but in my explorations I passed by many beautiful Nepali and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and other temples. While I have tired of Hindu temples for the forseeable future, the breathtaking settings of the colorful Buddhist gompas among the evergreen trees on the edge of cliffs looking out to the sacred peaks of the Himalayas is not something to be missed. There are multicolored prayer flags at every turn, and one hill is capped with a bewildering thicket of such flags, hanging in the thousands between the dense trees where the Buddhists and Hindus share the holy grove and sort of share the deities. I also made a trip to the Himalayan Zoo, a fascinating and well-kept place specializing in East Himalayan fauna where you can look at the cuddly, raccoon-like red pandas strutting about in their native habitat and watch as various species of incredibly elusive mountain cats sit around and take naps. The zoo is about a 45-minute walk downhill. Walking back uphill demands a stop for tea.

Finally, however, the weather got worse and worse and I became unable to get anything accomplished as I had comprehensively visited the area's gorgeous monasteries and all that remained were various epic mountain views which I could tell were never going to present themselves. I had other places to be and slowly resigned myself to returning to the lowlands and confronting the barrage of honking rickshaws, shitting cows, and the thousand other swirling elements of Indian urban chaos yet again. Darjeeling may not have any water to spare, but it has sewers. It will be missed.

Apr 6, 2010

Kolkata Kwickie

My efforts to keep "up to date" with this blog (as if I have some obligation to be) are being thwarted by a diabolical combination of constant travel, short business hours, an electricity crisis keeping half the country at only 55% of its required power supply, and illness. I've managed to put well over a thousand kilometers behind me in the time it took to go from being bored in Calcutta to being able to write this short post informing you that I was bored in Calcutta.

Kolkata, as the city is now known (with much more legitimate basis than the renaming of Mumbai) conjures up images of a massive warren of the most crippling poverty with one-legged orphans fighting squirrels for biscuit crumbs underneath moving trains. Let me tell you it is not that bad. Sure, there is a lot of poverty. It's a huge Indian city in the middle of the very poor state of West Bengal, but you have to actually go perversely out of your way to see its more renowned forms of squalor. There are apparently people who are disappointed by the surprising pleasantness of Kolkata and go way over to the infamous blocks where poor people have constructed burrow-homes in rubbish heaps and the like. I passed up the oppurtunity, thank you very much. The heart of Kolkata is a busy and relatively well-ordered business center with large parks, colonial buildings, and government offices, but a distinct lack of families dying in the streets. You do however see a lot of "tana rickshaws", which are like light two-wheeled passenger horse carts with a long metal handle, except you replace the horse with a barefooted homeless man. I opted to take the Metro.

The thing about Kolkata is that it is at its heart still a rather British city and the British were, let's face it, kind of boring. You are warmly invited to stroll downtown and observe old buildings, to discover that a 19th-century insurance company headquarters looks like something that should be an insurance company headquarters. The one exception is the Victoria Memorial, which must be by far the coolest thing the British ever built in their empire. It's basically a massive pile of gleaming white, domed, collonaded, and porticoed European pomp with slight Orientalist pretensions and fronted by a statue of Queen Victoria slumped in her chair like she'd just eaten an entire gallon of English porridge. It's definitely worth a look.

The Victoria Memorial is one of the few things in Kolkata that hasn't been renamed since independence. It's not a street or a park or a building that just so happened to be named after the queen. It is quite unavoidably a gigantic memorial to the late "Empress of India". Renaming it would be as absurd as deciding to try and cover up the Taj Mahal being a Muslim tomb. Any tourist guide will however happily tell you of some of the more amusing re-namings. The Communist state government is surprisingly comical for a group of ineffectual, machine-like Party men. A particular favorite is that the street on which the US consulate sits is now called Ho Chi Minh Road. The best of all is the re-naming of the city-center Dalhousie square, named for a top official of the British Raj, which is now called BBD Bagh. B, B, and D are the initials of none other than three Bengali radicals who attempted to assassinate to aforementioned Lord Dalhousie. If I were permitted to walk into the state Secretariat with its now delightfully ironic rooftop statue to a Roman goddess of Commerce, I would find as many Communist ministers as I could and exchange high-fives (and perhaps suggest they should now attend to, I don't know, reducing poverty maybe?)

I also went to India's foremost Kali temple. Kali, as you may recall, is basically a scary, half-naked, black-skinned ice bitch who wears decapitated heads as a necklace and severed limbs as a skirt while she drools blood over her madly extended tongue. Kali is basically a cross between Durga, Satan, and Gene Simmons. The temple itself is not all that grand but it is very busy, and is known for the intensity of its devotion to animal sacrifices. Once I found my way in to the courtyard I wrinkled my nose at the smell and started to swat away flies. I realized I was standing about two feet from a shin-high pile of entrails. I took a moment to stare as the priests added organs to what I deduced were the remains of multiple animals, and while my guard was down I got...bhramined.

Getting "Brahmined" is an irritating situation that happens in temples that receive foreign visitors with any regularity. One moment you're distracted looking at a statue or a pile of guts, and the next thing you know some bhrahmin has shoved half a pound of flowers in your unexpecting hands, smeared paint on your face and is reassuring you that the offerings only cost 20 rupees. This is of course before you are invited to sign a "charity ledger" where "tourists" (with about four different kinds of handwriting) have all donated large sums of money because they apparently care quite deeply about the upkeep of Kali temples. And that is before you are asked to pay the priest for his services of following you around, periodically grabbing you, and entreating you to throw a bundle of flowers at a Kali idol that is a bizarre fat black head with three red eyes and a two-foot metal tongue. Not only will the brahmin demand too much money for his "help", he may also attempt to get you to give money for the services of various acolytes, whom you may look at with a squint and conclude that not only did they do nothing to assist you but you have also never even seen them before. I hate clergy. And after I squabble and make unflattering comparisons involving the moral character of priests and of the sacrificed goats, it seems the clergy hates me.

Anyways, I had spent enough time in Kolkata to decide it hardly interested me and I caught a night train northwards. Just as I was falling asleep I was roused by a jab in the ribs, and I looked down to see a silky-haired man in a dress saying "Some money, handsome brother?" WILL IT NEVER END??? I need to sleep. I'll go to Nepal.