Tuesday, April 27, 2010

the city of light

little moments swirling in my memory...

arriving to Agra the one day the Taj is closed, finding our hotel on the east gate...so peaceful! a welcome surprise to the hecticness we were expecting. the sheela hotel was surrounded by gardens and green parrots congregating in the trees overhead. we walked alongside the east gate of the Taj property, to the Yamuna river...past peacocks and a small orange temple in a clearing of trees...arrived to the sunset-lit river, looked up at the backside of the Taj...wow! saw hundreds of bats escaping their daytime refuge for the bugs and the night...birds soaring....men doing puja at a temple near the shore, bells ringing, carrying a flame...they invited us in, and ring ring ring we were surrounded by the bell sounds, looking at Durga and her lions, incense, flames, holy water flicked on us by the priest's hands, devotional songs hummed in a pattern, i hummed along, bells bells, walk back in twilight, peace.

meeting two young German guys at the yummy south indian restaurant called Dasaprakash in Agra, sharing a rickshaw with them to the train station. we waited for 3 hours in the general waiting room area and were approached by an indian man in his 60's who immediately stood in front of me, chattering away, pointing his finger at my face and said i looked just like a little doll. 'well, thank you...' is that a compliment? he meant it to be. he spent the next hour trying to coax me out of my address and phone number, scrawling drunken directions to his chaat shop in Shimla and explaining to me how to get there, telling me of his home and that i could stay there for 15 nights for free, and writing down his address and phone number, and son's phone number, and daughter's phone number...then trying to get me to drink some of his water from his water bottle cap (like a small cup)...then asking me for a banana, and then trying to feed me some of the banana with his fingers...then trying to give me a bar of soap, and then some packets of shampoo....really he just wanted to give me something, anything. the Germans were hilarious, and i finally relented and gave him a fake address and phone number, and an Indian woman complained, and he was scolded by security and sent to sit on his blanket on the floor across the room. what a bizarre experience! he could have relented much sooner, we were all quite overwhelmed by his presence by the end, and people all around us were watching the whole thing unfold.

later, we waited for our train by the platform, and an older Indian guy with a long string of hair sticking out of the top of his head came up to us, grabbed the German guys last cookie and the cookie wrapper out of his hand, ate it, and sat on the floor, tracing his fingers in a serpentine fashion over Hindi words, in a women's health and fashion pamphlet he must have found in the trash. he would look up at us every once in a while and burst out in gleeful laughter, then go back to humming the words. i don't even know if he could read, he was singing deeply some other song...then he brought out a handful of bottle caps and other trinkets from his pocket, and proceeded to move a folded business card back and forth as if it were a miniature harmonium, and continued to sing his fashion bhajans...priceless moment. he seemed so happy and joyful, just sitting there on the ground, bursting out into laughter. a street kid with teeth growing out of the base of his nose, frazzled hair, and the dirtiest clothes looked on. he smelled like train grease. the tall german talked to an Indian man about Hitler, the British in India, and religion. our train came and we ran to catch it in time.

arriving to Varanasi, after sunset descending on the ghats to watch the Aarti fire ceremony that occurs here every night. priests wrapped in orange saffron robes stand facing the Ganga, moving fire about in their hands in various shapes and motions, incense wafting, sitar and table music soaring, thousands of people congregated, sitting, watching, out in boats looking to the shore, bells ringing, young girls selling leaf bowls filled with flowers and a candle for a river offering "good karma, good karma..." lights twinkling on the water, the city of lights, this happens every night...

arriving to Delhi early in the morning, sky is brown, dozens of men sleep curled up on the sides of the street, we are earlier than the city wakes, walking down Chadni Chaak in old Delhi, a man sees our disappointment as our favorite Dosa spot Haldiram's is still closed and tells us to go to the Sikh temple across the street while we wait for it to open...we walk across the street, cleanse our feet in water, and walk in to many people sitting on the floor, a man speaking through a microphone giving a teaching...we circumnavigate the place where the holy book is, and turbaned men sit praying, and the holy swords, and photos of the gurus, and sit 13-hour-overnight-bus wearied on the carpeted floor, and close our eyes, and the men sing, and the big drum up above us booms, and they slide the shiny cloth off the sacred book, and sing verses from the scriptures...and a man next to us explains everything..and they ready the harmonium...and someone comes by and places warm buttery sweet prasad in our hands, and we eat it and are grateful for this sanctuary in the middle of this huge city, welcoming our tired selves after such a long journey...

wandering the narrow alleys of varanasi, squeezing by pilgrims who wait to enter the golden shiva temple that we as non-hindus can't enter, stepping aside for motobikes cruising through, navigating around cows, piles of their shit, piles of human and dog shit too (oh my, what's it going to be like to be home and walk around on streets that aren't constantly covered in shit?!)...shops with pictures of shiva, with mala necklaces, with shiny golden candle holders for offerings and prayers, with incense, with chaat and puris, with bangles and bindis, with sweets and prasad, with bowls of flowers for offerings, lotus and marigold garlands, smoke, men sweeping piles of debris and the dust flying up from that into our noses, men wanting to sell us things, sari shops, scarves, postcards (always postcards, everywhere)...hustle and bustle, every day, saturation of sights and smells.

morning boat journey, sunrise wake with our new friend from eugene, wendy....being paddled along the shoreline, watching people bathe, men wash laundry by pounding it on slabs of stone by the sacred river Ganga, rows of jeans hang to dry, white sheets spread flat on a tilted embankment, the crematorium sends smoke into the air, piles of mango/banyan/sandalwood line the two main burning ghats, a body lies on a bamboo made stretcher covered in golden ribbons and saffron colored fabrics waiting to burn, two buildings house old and sick people who are waiting to die (Varanasi is the holiest city to both die and be cremated, in all of India...) walking along the ghats in the afternoon, heated from the day, a young girls' cricket match, an older guys' cricket match, piles of wood burning, we see a body by the river wrapped, just had it's last bath, now is being placed by a group of men onto a pile of wood and lit, flames....i see a human lumbar vertebrae bone below me on the shore, next to a forgotten black sandal. little boys swim and play in the water right next to where the bodies burn...sewage empties out into this river from 116 cities previous upstream from varanasi...sewage empties into the river here....pilgrims bathe to wash away all impurities, garbage floats, the river is brown, yet it is holy, so does it matter? i dipped one finger in as i released my plateful of marigolds and a flame as an offering, that's my own holy dip, just one finger please!

oh there's so much more! this keyboard is sticky and it's hard to type, and we're escaping the current 107 degrees for the slightly cooler fan-in-my-face green walled internet shop. we have today and tomorrow in varanasi, then two days in buddha's enlightment city bodhgaya, then a final day and a half in kolkata...oh india...we're almost leaving your colors, your assault on the senses, your contradictions, your constant attention from every kind of tout, your yes and no lessons, your spicy food, your quiet nights, your ritual and temple around every turn, your red dotted foreheads, your tradition, your caste system inequality, your cricket games everywhere, your dirt and filth, your golden roofs and wealth, your rivers and mountains, your hate and your love, all of it, and i have soaked so much up, and i have so much more to share, to give.

melissa

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