A Morning Monologue

India is surreal. It is intoxicating and sobering, uplifting and depressing - in all places you witness the most bizarre juxtapositions of life's circumstances. There are slums next to luxury apartments, and the cows, camels, and rickshaws move with the traffic flows beside Mercedes and Marutis. You may at one moment find yourself talking to a Muslim about karma, and in the next moment watch a Jain drive past on a scooter - face mask in place - so as not to accidentally swallow an insect. Hindus and Muslims, Sikhs and Jains. This is a land blanketed with religious diversity, held tenuously together by ancient threads of tolerance, then tensely interwoven with prejudice and caste, and patterned with a new consumerism. It is surely the strangest country on Earth.

I spent a very enjoyable three days with Ricky and Ashik. We traveled around Jaipur and we drove to Bundi and Bikaner. Bundi was a fantastic little town. It was Indiana Jones meets Agrabah meets the 21st century. Every twisting little street was lined with quaint shops selling cookware, shoes, and a hundred other trinkets. Interspersed throughout the town were a dozen miniature temples and shrines to Ganesh and Hanuman and Ganesh (he is a very popular god). And, in the evening huge swarms of bats filled the twilight sky over the town.

Our second day in Bundi we traveled to a waterfall (water trickle) 20km north of the town. After a short hike we found ourselves bathing in Varuna's sacred water with an eldery, half naked Hindu priest. All the while the sadhu's assistant was relentlessly grinding some green substance with a morter and pestal. When we were finished bathing we were instructed to drink this green substance - which was apparently bhang. I was expecting, at some point, to be asked for money, but the whole thing was apparently a legitimate religious experience. The sadhu was greatly ammused by my presence and participation and cackled almost non-stop with delight. Other pilgrims were trekking to the waterfall as we left.

The following day was spent mostly back in Jaipur. We drove around the city until we got a flat tire. You see, when I first arrived in India I marveled that there weren't more traffic accidents and flat tires. The road conditions are often terrible. People drive at unnerving speeds. There seem to be practically no traffic laws. Everywhere there are goats, cows, rickshaws, and children weaving in and out of immensely congested streets. I have now come to realize that there are accidents occuring - all the time. The city buses are full of dents from the relentless pounding of auto rickshaws and other vehicles. I saw a woman get clipped by a car the other day. So, our flat tire came as no surprise. Of course, rather than change it ourselves Ricky paid a lower caste/status repair man to do it for about 100 rupees (two dollars). Labor is immensely cheap in India, but that is a topic for another post. The repair man was easy to find because, I've now noticed, there are tire shops all over the place because flat tires must be incredibly common. Indeed, we only had to walk one block.

Yesterday was spent traveling around Bikaner. Ricky, Ashik, and I were supposed to go into the desert in the evening to camp out. However, much to my disgruntlement Ricky and Ashik were apparently not good guys. It was hard for me to accept, but they had apparently been trying to sweeten me up to con me out of money. They wanted to leave me in the desert to wait on a camel and guide that would supposedly come while they went back to Jaipur to fix Ricky's rickshaw. They expected me to "let them borrow" 14,000 rupees. They offered a very emotional and heartfelt story about their financial woes, and told me what a good friend I had become and how I needed to do it for my karma. So, I told them I didn't have any money and that they needed to drive me back to town to the ATM. (They didn't seem to anticipate this. I think everyone here assumes Americans travel everywhere with massive wads of cash.) Once I was back in town I grabbed my pack and hopped out of the car and told them that the money would be impossible. They became rather upset and continued to beseech me, offering entirely new reasons for needing money. The whole experience was very upsetting. I'd spent three days with these guys, and the fact that it was all just a ruse saddened me. I told them I did not want to see their faces again. By this point there was more darkness than light, and they tried to usher me away into the shadows. Somehow, their continuous deceit and increasingly nefarious intentions caused something in me to snap. I told them "take it easy or I'm going to have to take it hard." (This was something Ricky had told a rickshaw driver a couple days ago, so it had a sort of special meaning to him.) Ricky and Ashik tried to laugh this off, but I told them once again to "get lost" or I would contact the police. Knowing that I'm in a better position (financially) to bribe an officer than they are, they finally left. The whole experience has made me a more cynical person.

Alright, I need to go. I'm still in Bikaner, and I'd like to enjoy the city for a day or two. I've posted photos on Facebook, if anyone is interested. Chow.