Archive for November, 2008

I like tea. Moving from England to China helps. Some might say I know a good ‘cuppa’ when I have one.

So….

When I tell you that tonight – whilst shopping for Robin’s cardamom and saffron – I was given the greatest mixture of herbal tea I’ve ever tried. Ever.

I knew it was going to be good by the way the shop owner kept saying ‘try it’ like he was a 14 year-old boy at summer camp.

I tried it. Bought enough for 80 cups. And I’m poor. Seriously. Much like a junkie is content with his latest fix and never mind the fact he’s sleeping one someone’s windowsill – it was worth it.

Now – being the sharing type that I am, I decided to find out the recipe – perfect, perfect for the winter months, I’m telling you. Try it and let me know how the home version stacks up:

1. Take a fresh cinnamon stick, break into pieces no bigger than two, 1/3 of an inch squared.

2. Two green [not black] cardamom seeds

3. A tiny pinch of saffron [2-3 strands at most]

…boil in a cup of water and serve. You could make it 2 cups, but it was served to me in a smaller cup.

You can also add a tiny bit of sugar to pull the cinnamon off of the bark if you like it sweet.

Seriously – try it. Me passing this one is my Christmas gift to you.

Funny thing – travel… apart from the obvious:

Self-reinvention without the pressures of having to stick with it.

Wait. You’re thinking about a topless Roger Moore now. Okay – I’ll explain.

Udaipur is nothing short of a breathtaking town. While too many towns coin them self the ‘Venice of the East’, this one deserves the accolade. [Pictures to come] So nice, in fact, that this is where the majority of ‘Octopussy’ was filmed. I’d link to that, but each attempt at finding you a good one come a very curt reminder from my hosts here that such a word is forbidden. So look it up yourself. Or continue to look at Roger. Some Moore. Ha. Sorry – but bad quips are a lead into my point. The one I rearranged for you as you were – and most likely still are – looking at him. The stomach, yes, of course, that’s the best part.

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Camp. Self-reinvention. This is what’s fun. Granted, I’ve been the worst offender my entire life. In one year (may have been last) I jumped from mod to goth to prep to…hell – I can’t even remember anymore. Sad. Yes. But I said it first, so we move on. I only admit to it being pathetic because friends were there to see.

Now – had they not been, I’d be a well-adjusted self-confident boy from Oklahoma. But they were. They’re not, however, here with me on the road. No sir. Nor are you. You haven’t seen the facial hair attempts, have you? No. My quiet (get this, Beech) introspective days. My adventurer days. My spiritual days (why, yes – I just had an upstairs reiki session with my friend Valerie, thank you). Et al. I can experiment and stop when I want to. With no fear of ridicule or observations of slight issues below the surface. I can just…stop. And try something else. Or be myself – whoever that is.

With this newfound green light of my parachute of many colors, I can also choose days to be a tourist. Between you and I – these are some of my favorite. Tours. Audio guides. Forcing myself to cry at Jim Morrison’s grave when in all honesty I only knew a few songs.

Touristy things can be fun. Mostly because no one’s watching.

Tonight I did just that. I climbed 6 flights of stairs to the highest restaurant in town that overlooks the Lake Palace and, at 7pm sharp – nightly, like every other restaurant in town – I ate bad, very bad, pizza and watched Bond. I, along with the older German ladies behind me, raised up a little in my seat when the palace was shown on the – get this – VCD. I might have even let out what some might call a squeal. You won’t know that for sure because you weren’t there. Just me and the girls. And Roger.

Even more ironic that on the table was my latest read ‘Hip – The History’. John Leland is, again, up his own ass, but between the forced analogies and constant references to other chapters, it does do a good job of setting up what ‘hip’ is. And why it’s the last word in cool.

I had to laugh – an expensive book that I knew wouldn’t help my own attempts, but at least give me notable paragraphs about beat poets and pulp fiction authors to thrown into any conversation that I was lacking in, yet – here I was enjoying the campest of all Bond’s.

So what is it – hmmmmm? To finally get to the place where one is okay with him/herself? I fear for that day. That moment where you throw up your hands, thus dropping the reigns and say ‘This is me’? I shudder. Not because I think I’m sub-par. I’m cute and funny and can take decent photos and have my Father’s ability to tell stories. Above average, even. A strong 7. Nothin’ to be ashamed of at all. But to be – dare I say – at peace? The same haircut and fashion sense? Re-reading favorite books when the new Murakami is out? Who cares if you don’t enjoy it – you need to read it, man!

I don’t know – half of the above is satire and half is not. I’m not even sure which are which. My point is that maybe that schoolyard joke about why fat girls are like moped’s carries through with more things than just poor Pam. What if they are more fun? If you have sex with a fat girl in the woods and no one’s around to witness, is she really fat? I’d love to be able to do more things like tonight and not in the name of irony. But that’s the thing, yeah? The more I would try and not be ironical, the more ironical I would be.

Ugh.

See what happens when the journey to achieve the old ‘one-up’ takes over? We can’t have campy fun anymore. Or maybe we can.

Maybe you can.

I swore I was only standing there for 15 minutes max. The now-hidden sun & cigarette butts at my feet – too many to count – said something different. I witnessed everything & nothing. Heard a thousand voices but for a thousand dollars could not pinpoint one. The bright turned into the same color of the mountains it hid behind. This was second life – a daily rebirth. The black-faced monkeys took advantage of the flat and closely spaced houses to find their perfect spot. I quickly thought of opening my guidebook to note their name but in a place that transforms in, what seemed like, seconds, I didn’t dare move from my spot. The rooftop sarees, now being yanked off of the clothesline were in such number a colorful meteor shower seemed to take place below in the dusty galaxy below. To the left were the bells. In front, a teen sang along to her Hindi radio station. On my right, cars offered their own prayers to for their same in front to move with a quicker pace and behind me, a marching-band set a tree full of the same monkeys into a frenzy.

India changed, right in front of me – I wasn’t even given a fleeting glance. And therein lies it’s beauty.

It’s the gorgeous daughter raised in poverty who will never know her true beauty. She simply gets on with life – and could care less who bears witness.

‘Disturbing Images!’

‘Not for the weak at heart!’

Like any 30-something who grew up on Indiana Jones could ignore the chance.

I first heard about it in passing conversation with a Belgian who had heard that a town, some 2 hours out of Jaipur was the holding grounds for an occasional exorcism. Hindi exorcism, to be exact. A quick online look and, while the exact location was murky, the practice seemed to be real.

Of course, as it goes in India, this would not be a simple task. There happened to be 2 Bilaji-named towns a few hundred kilometers from the town center.

‘I want the one with the special doctor.’

‘You feel sick, sir?’

‘No, I want to watch the doctor take out the evil in people.’

‘What evil, sir?’

‘You know…bad things. Inside a person. This doctor tells them to come out.’

‘What does he say?’

…and so on.

We finally got a hold of a Lonely Planet that gave the information I needed for the bus, along with a vague description.

3 hours later I was dropped off on a dirt road with nothing more than an extended finger in the direction down another long dirt road. So I walked. And walked. Keeping my eyes open for – what? I mean, what’s an exorcism platform look like? It’s India, so most likely there will be a heard of people, but what else? Is it a quiet affair, or, like the guidebook said ‘a rave’? This, along with, well, basically everything else, I did not know.

Half-an-hour later, I came upon the entrance to the village. A village that was nothing short of frantic. But, a good frantic. People were happy. Celebratory, even. Not what I was expecting. I don’t know what I was expecting, actually, but festive was not on the list.

One road – that’s it. And I was the only white guy. One white guy following a big group of ladies. Me, the ladies, Hindi techno pouring out of shops quicker than the overly-gingered chai.

And then I saw a line.

A line so large that it began in the building next to it. A building designated for housing the line. In the line were people with offerings, people who were being carried by other people, people who would occasionally – and simultaneously – chant something. Short. Loud. Quick. Every few minutes. The line was headed into a smaller building, this one with more shouts and the occasional ringing of a large bell.

This had to be it.

I made my way to the opening of the place, but had to keep back about 10-15 feet, as in front of the door, and in front of the iron gate that held those who entered, was a makeshift alter of sorts, with small offerings of food, money and candles. An alter that, in front of it – dividing me from a closer look – was a woman sitting in the dirt. No, not sitting, rocking. Swaying. And shouting. Shouting with no sound coming out of her decorated face.

This was it.

But a simple rocking back-and-forth wasn’t what I came for – I mean, I’d seen crazier things in my few weeks here. Dogs carrying off burned off feet from corpses in Varanasi. Naked sadhu entering tantra while chewing on – what the hotel owner claimed – was human flesh. Rocking ain’t gonna cut it, sorry.

Looking over the crowd, I could barely make out a few things inside. For one – there was a man in black with a cane. He was active. Doing what, I couldn’t tell. A lady in front – who I could only make out by her bright yellow sari – would pop up into view and then down again, obviously convulsing.

I stood in the middle of the road for 20 minutes or so, trying to squint through the now intense sun into the building, but could only make out more of the same. Man in black with a stick. People’s arms flailing up and down. Interesting, obviously, but not enough to justify the trip I had made.

As I walked over to the other side of the road for some shade and a smoke, I realized that behind me was a temple of sorts as well. I had actually passed it off as a regular building at first, but everyone who entered/exited would touch the steps and then bring their hands to either their foreheads or their hearts. I walked in and, through a series of hand signals, made sure with the small guard holding a large billy club that it was okay that I stayed.

It must have been a combination of both the sounds coming from the main building and the intensity of the sun restricting my view, but inside this large open space was a circus in itself. People were crawling on the floor, spinning in place, shouting, crying, screaming – all while being surrounded by quiet family members who appeared unshaken by what was taking place in front of them. It had an odd sense of peace about it. No – not peace. If I’m being honest, I’ll seemed too normal. A facade. The devil lives inside a blood relative and you calmly sip your tea? No. The young girl I watched, no older than 17, sat cross-legged and rotated her torso in a clockwise motion, but all the while making sure her scarf not fall on the ground. The older man who would shake his head back-and-forth violently while at the same time offering puja with hands pressed high and against each other but, when he was spoken to by the priest who simply made rounds, it was his eyes I caught. They weren’t crazy. Not that I know what crazy eyes should look like, but it didn’t match. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t expect what the famous film showed us, but this just didn’t… I didn’t feel it.

Maybe that’s a very American thing to say:

‘Hi. Yes. I bought a bus ticket to see the devil being taken from people’s containers and.Well. I’m just not satisfied.’

It was interesting, of course, as I moved from my place near the door to the other side of the room where the 4 dreaded men were playing a simple, but trance-y, beat on tablas, but just not enough to update my Facebook status about. I placed myself quite near the alter to get a better look of an older lady now slithering on the dirty floor. My attention was diverted by everyone else’s attention being diverted to a large man in white entering into the temple through the far back gate. He was surrounded by a group of security, much like the ones I initially saw. As I watched them forcibly move people out of his way, I caught his glance. And he did mine. He stopped abruptly and pointed at me with a ringed finger. Immediately 2 of his guards charged me. No – it wasn’t a charge.  It was a half-run. I froze. One grabbed my left arm and pulled me up while the other one slammed me against the wall and held me there while the man in white began walking again.

I said nothing.

I did nothing.

I was allowed in this place by the security guard.

I hadn’t taken any photos. Nothing wrong had been done!

I even wore trousers and a long-sleeved shirt that day just in case. I had done nothing!!

As his club horizontally pressed into my ribcage, the man in white made his way closer and closer, all the while never taking his gaze off of me, not even when the women in the audience would try and touch him in passing. He drew within 3 feet of me and then, continued on past me to the altar. Within seconds I was grabbed by each arm and escorted out of the building where the iron gate was slammed.

This all took about 15 seconds.

Now. When I say that I decided to stay and look around town, please don’t take that as me saying I wasn’t shaken up. I was. Funny how a town that prides itself on convincing things to leave ones body just about did that to me without even a prayer involved. I was scared, but after a smoke, realized that if I was really in trouble, they would have done more than escort me out of the building. So I walked back over to the other side, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone elevating, heads spinning around, something. But got nothing.

I decided to go.

Disappointed that I didn’t actually get to witness anything up close, it was eventful enough. Walking past the large building that was used for keeping people in line, I made one last attempt. Walking up to the man guarding the door, I asked if I was allowed into the main building ‘to see’.

‘No problem. V.I.P. ticket upstairs. 40 rupee.’

Ah ha. Yes please. I would pay less than a dollar to be a V.I.P. guest in the exorcism ceremony.

Upstairs I went, down a long hall and into the only office that was lit.

‘Sit!’ said the overly excited man through 7 teeth, ‘how can I help you, friend?’

‘Hi. Namaste. I would like to go inside and watch. Is that possible?’

‘It is possible. But please let me ask you a few questions.’

[I'll spare you the lengthy interview process that happens with any and every Indian transaction - marriage status. Father's job. Is India great? Family breakdown. Et al.]

‘Wonderful. Just a moment. I need to bring in my colleague.’

Another man is brought in and sits next to me. In Hindi I can tell the first is giving him a breakdown of my entire life. Nodding in understanding, the second man looks at me, then at the first and pointing at me, asks something.

‘He wants to know what you think about India. How living in America is different.’

Oh – I know this one, thankyouverymuch. I’ve had it in Spain. I’ve had it in China. Everywhere. This one, I know. Well.

‘America is an amazing country. But – [and here I paused, as I have done so many times before, head down while resting my hands on each of their forearms. Head comes up - eye contact with both and deliver - ] family here is so, so strong. The most important thing. I think we can learn from India.’

And every reaction is the same. Jubilation. Such an intense nodding of heads you’d think they belonged downstairs in line. Needless to say, my pass was approved.

I did – however – have to wait another hour while they (get this) took it to the maharajah to sign. Yes. I would wait an hour to have something approved by someone I only knew from Disney movies.

An hour passed quickly and I returned to pick it up. Apparently, a simple white piece of paper was all the man in pointy shoes deemed worthy for me (am guessing they didn’t tell him about my ‘family’ comment or I would have been now holding something carved in marble) and I was off. Along with instructions to bypass the crowd that had been there all day and walk right up to the front gate.

So I did. Me and my maharajah-signed scrap paper. Right up to the guards, right through the guards and into a small office where a dusty old man wrote in all of my information in a book and called for an escort. A younger man came in, bowed, and led me down a back way of hallways to the loud area.

This was it – in a few seconds, I would have a courtside seat to someone who had been possessed. All of my life I had stated that if I ever came into contact with the supernatural, I would devote my life to studying it and it was close. Very close. Judging by the sounds, only a few steps away. The door opened and I found myself on the other side of the barrier. The same side as the man in black. The opposite side of the frenzied crowd.

‘Do you see it?!’ asked my guide, almost short of breath.

‘No’ I shouted, scanning the entire blocked off area for any signs of demonic possession.

‘There!’ he screamed into my ear, pointing to the back wall.

It was a carving of a gold elephant. At its feet were flowers and offerings. My guide could barely make eye-contact with it as he was furiously kneeling and praying, his head touching the ground.

That was it. The man in black turned out to be security. The large cane was a baton used to hurry people through. What I thought was someone convulsing was simply people bowing quickly.

There was no exorcism going on here.

Trying hard to hide my dejection – seeing how I and my good answering ability got me closer to this image than 99% of the population would – I offered a puja slightly, touching my head and heart in the same manner I had witnessed outside and walked out.

I was taken back into the small room and dusty old man asked me how I liked it.

‘It was so special’ I lied.

‘Yes. A gift!’

‘A gift. Indeed.’ I nodded.

‘A Gift. Yes. Here.’ he said pointing at the blank space next to my name. A space that Mr. Beroledi with a phone number that began ’089′ had generously written 20,000 rupees [$420] into.

Oh. Shit.

I didn’t have $420. I didn’t have half that. In fact, my only job had just gotten a call that morning for an December advance. Hell, I didn’t have $42 to give and thought that my eating budget of 10% of that would be offensive.

Fuck.

Thinking quickly, I feigned disappointment that ‘the tour was over so quickly’ and ‘could I go outside to take another look at the beautiful building?’.

Of course I could!

Then I’ll be right back.

I walked slowly out of the room, intentionally taking note of the pictures on the wall.

‘He’s certainly a curious boy’ they would have thought ‘and surely not one who would run like hell once he reaches the outside gates’.

I ran like hell once I reached the outside gates.

I ran faster than the pick-up truck laden with people and jumped into the back, hoping it was headed down the road I took when I was dropped off.

It was. I then shouted at any large automotive that slowed down near the intersection for ‘Jaipur?!’ Jaipur?!?!’.

One said ‘yes’. Filled to twice it’s capacity but perfect for me. I squeezed in and stood crammed for the entire 3-hour journey.

Later – much later, I had to laugh.

Only in India can you sit next to the possessed for free (save for a few sore ribs) but a glimpse at a gold statue took an hour wait, approval from the highest and what should have been a large donation.

there’s no other way of describing it – my state, my decision-making ability, my mindset, all of it – fucked.

I’m still uneasy talking about it, for one. another thing is I cannot separate fact from fiction. nor do I really want to revisit the experience to sift through.

I don’t even know why I did it – I don’t smoke for a reason: it makes me lose my mind. I simply can’t handle it. ask Lis, she found me in the bathtub in Amsterdam unable to move and shivering from the cold water. ask anyone – I say ‘no’ to very few things, but weed and hash are 2 of them. I think (a relative term at this point), think, that it was half out of jubilation from picking up a cash payment and the other being that I had never seen a ‘bhang lassi’ (yogurt made with hash, bananas, nuts, et al) advertised and didn’t really think that the 13 year-old serving me on the rooftop could manage it.

he could.

it started mellow and, to be honest, watching Hash Dealer (another one) hit Snake Charmer was fantastic. ‘this is so India’ I told myself. I was sure that someone was about to get bitten and that made me laugh. no one did. the snakes, strangely enough, stayed fixed during the whole ordeal. however, 15-minutes later as I walked by the burning bodies down on the Ganges riverfront, things started to get…distorted. telling myself it was psychosomatic, I hurried by the burning flesh and in-between the goats that 2 days ago, I found inexplicably amusing. the turn I took was up into town, which – if you’ve never been here, is impossible to navigate – even the locals go home by way of the river, as there are numerous mazes of filthy streets lining it.

I didn’t recognize a thing. 20 minutes of a very fucked-up foreigner stumbling close to shop signs for any resemblance of familiarity. there was none. a kid asked me where I was headed and I slobbered ‘the main street’. he pointed me in the direction and, 30 feet from getting to this opening – one that I had stepped on more than a dozen times my week in Varanasi – it looked new. I’d not been here and the kid was fucking with me. but there are cars, I hear cars, so it must be a place to get a taxi to the train station. the flies were, at this point, stopping a few inches in front of my face to buzz and then scatter when my flailing arms made motion.

the street was…India. during a festival. India is colorful enough on a slow day. during a festival, in the holiest of cities, it was madness. while each day sees your life come within inches of making contact with any of the thousands of old yellow cabs, this time it become milliseconds. I know for a fact I was honked at twice for stepping in front of a few, god knows how many else thought me suicidal and not even worth the acknowledgment.

whether the driver said ‘50′ or ‘500 rupees’ I do not know. I can tell you this, by this time, I was heavily hallucinating. lights seems to trail from all objects, the noise of what I previously referred to as beautiful chaos was now simply chaos. and none that I could escape. finding some way to get on-board, I found myself face-to-face with a corpse – decorated for the journey through town and into the fire. 4 feet from me. both of us eye-level. it was now that I began to cry.

what happened during that half-an-hour ride through town is even too much to relive 48- hours later. I can tell you that children with black-painted eyes ran after me begging for ‘bon-bons’ (true), a bike rider got his tire stuck in the back of the rickshaw and grabbed me to help (true), policemen pointed a shotgun at me (false – but from my raised position and his sitting, it seemed aimed in my vicinity), my driver scowled at everyone who got in his way (true) and took me on a shortcut that for 30 seconds I became so convinced he was going to kill me (false) that I attempted to jump off (true – until I realized I wouldn’t know where to run).

reaching the train station was only the smallest of battles won in a larger war. this was an Indian train station. during Diwali. thousands of bright saris cascaded out of the huge station and it was my job to somehow walk through them…and the noise. oh god – the noise. drivers and music. traffic and fireworks. by this time, tears were rolling down both of my cheeks and how the poor attendant managed to point me in the right direction is still a mystery to me. I found the train, accidentally stepped on a few people who I was certain were going to tell the police I was off-of-my-head and found my compartment.

my bed was the top of a 3-leveled set-up. I’ll go ahead and let you picture that.

it was 5.20pm. I placed my bag in the corner and untied my sarong from it to dry my face. managing a fetal position, I covered my entire head with it until the train started. every once and a while, I peeked out to see if anyone was looking at me. they were. they all were.

I passed out. finally.

only to be woken up by the ticket collector who – up until this point, I had never noticed – carried a pistol. I’m guessing he tried to rouse me a few times because his final, and successful attempt was slamming his open palm down on the plastic covering next to my head.

I quickly thought about calling Scott and realized the embarrassment I would suffer from later wouldn’t be worth it. he’d never mention it, but someday, when we were having a serious talk, I’d wonder if he was thinking about ‘that time Aric called me from India crying’. I quickly contemplated putting on my music, but didn’t want to ruin it like I previously done with Depeche Mode. I passed out again.

woke up at 6am to the sounds of ‘garam chai – garam chai‘ and started to lose it again until I remembered that I was on a train. in India. ‘garam chai‘ means ‘hot tea’. I took 4.

it may have been the chemicals, it may have been the experience, but I stayed foggy fort the next day. checked into the guesthouse and stayed under the hot shower until I felt I couldn’t stand anymore.

hash. all of this from hash put into yogurt.

what a silly, stupid thing to do.