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Heading home This is just a quick mail to let you all know that our day for departure has arrived. In approximately one hour Kyle and I will be leaving the Kololgi's, our home for the last 9 months, and heading for the airport. We have an 8 hour layover in CVhennai before our British Airways flight to the UK and then NYC. We should be back in the STates on SUnday evening, completely disoriented and tired. We have no idea what to expect, how much we've changed, or how much home has changed, but the new adventure begins tonight. See you all soon. Thanks for reading all of our stories, hopefully they were enjoyable to you, it was certainly helpful for our processing to share them. Many more to come out I'm sure, when we are together and reminded of 'our time in India'.
Puja in Tamil Nadu Kyle writes: Today Eva and I woke up at 5:15 to travel to the temple where I was supposed to do the puja to release the karmic debt. The story all started when Eva and I went to see this Siddha astrologer in April. A siddha is the south indian alchemist and healer. The word "siddha" actually means a perfect human. Their goal is to become immortal through working with yoga, minerals and metals, and herbs. This particular siddha was also an astrologer. His father had a dream about some ancient scripts buried in a certain place in Tamil Nadu. He went there and dug up thousands of texts written on palm leaves in ancient Tamil. His father then pasted on the skill of reading the scripts to his son, who we saw. The way it works is that you give your thumb print, your full name, your mother's full name, the place where you were born, and the exact time of birth (or as close as you can get it). Then he somehow finds the correct leaves to read. The first thing he said to me was that I had two moles one on my right shoulder and one on my penis. The he went into a in depth explanation of my future, marriage, and business because those were the subjects I asked about. One of the things that he said was that I had caused the death of a woman in my past life and that I was under the curse of that woman in this life. To remove that curse I had to go to a specific temple and have a honey abisheka done. That is when the idol is bathed in honey. He also said that if I did that I would see the goddess. I thought that these two things would not be so bad to experience. So, I decided to do it. The temple that we went to was extremely old, and it was an Ardanarishwara temple. That means that the idol is half shiva and half shakti. In alchemical terms it means that the lingam was mercurial sulfur (the murcury symbolizes male energy and the sulfer represents the female energy). We had to rent a car to get there because it was sixty-five kilometers away on beaten up roads. It took about two and a half hours to get there. It was actually pretty funny because the town that this temple was in was not on any map that we found. It also was unknown to everyone that we talked to. We were beginning to question whether we were actually going to the right place. When I asked the president of the ashram about this town and temple. He immediately said that I was on the wrong path and was being led astray before he even heard the whole story. Then he said that he had never heard of the place. So, we went to the travel agency, and asked them. They first had no idea what we were talking about, then after a few minutes they knew exactly. It was rather suspicious because there are often rickshaw drivers that we encounter who say they know where they are going and then end up having no idea. We thought that it might have been a similar story today. So, the whole time in the car going there we were bouncing around on the rough roads through rural Tamil Nadu thinking that the driver might have been taking us for a ride (literally). When we arrived there I immediately saw this ancient huge chariot for pulling around the idol, and I felt that it must have been the right place. We went inside to find that indeed the temple was ancient. It was a huge dark complex of beautifully carved pillars small carved black idols and a strong smell of mold, smoke, old milk, and stone. In the center was the sanctum sanctorum where the idol was. It was indeed the correct place. I commissioned the priest to perform the abishecka, and actually there was another man there who wanted a milk abishecka done, so both were performed together. The lingam was undressed behind a curtain, and the lights were turned out with only one oil lamp left on. Then about a liter of honey was poored over and rubbed into it. On the front appeared a picture of a god/goddess half male half female. It was beautiful. Then when the turmeric solution was poored over it disappeared. Then he did the milk bath. During the whole time he was chanting and washing it throughly. Then he brought out some honey, milk and turmeric solution for each of us to drink for the medicinal power. Then we got back in the car and drove away. The way back was much more pleasurable because the doubt had been removed. I don't really know whether it all worked, but it was really great to go to that old temple and have that puja performed. We go back to Bangalore tomarrow morning to do some last minute shopping and saying goodby to our important people. We will be leaving for home on the fourteenth. Yipee!! I hope that I can see most of you this summer before I head for Japan at the end of August from Boulder. Eva writes: Well we've moved on to our final destination point in India (before a return to our house in Bangalore and then the airport that is). We are in the most southern state of Tamil Nadu, famous for South Indian style temple complexes, south Indian "tiffin", and a pride in the Tamil language. We had heard that it would be more difficult than usual to communicate with people here because they really don't like speaking English. So far we haven't had much of a problm with that. This all kind of makes sense, especially in the light that the war between the Tamils in Sri Lanka and the Sinhala is largely based on linguistics and the significance of language to a people's identity. The town we have arrived in is called Tiruvannamalai. It is one of five sacred temple towns in Tamil Nadu. The huge temple here is to the element of fire, the other four most sacred towns have temples to the other elements. We were spurred to come here after our readings with the Siddha doctor in Bangalore. This is a longish story for those of you who don't have a clue what I am talking about, but we went to see this doctor first to learn about Siddha medicine with our Global Health and Healing Traditions class. We learned that he is also an astrologer, that his father had a dream of where to find thousands of ancient palm leaves, and there is one appropriate for every person. I'm sure there are many skeptics out there, and I don't know myself, but what he said to me was accurate to me, and what he said to Kyle was accurate to him in terms of interests, personality, even physical markings that he couldn't see. I can't say about the future however... Anyway the doctor told Kyle that he had a karmic debt to pay. He was apparently responsible, in his last life, for the death of the girl he is to marry in this life. He was told that if he came and did a honey and milk abisheka at a shiva/parvati temple about 60 kms from here the curse would be broken. It seemed an interesting venture to say the least, and so we decided to do it, so here we are. Cheryl sent us to stay in the Sri Ramana Maharishi Ashram here. He was a sage who lived almost half his life in caves in the holy mountain Arunachala that towers over the town. So we have also had our ashram experience, which seems an important thing in India. Yesterday we weren't sure if we were to be thwarted in going to this temple, because each person we asked didn't know where it was. The guy in the office at the ashram told us we were being duped and to forget about it, but we had come all this way and were interested in continuing. We hired a car, and the guys at the travel place at least said they knew where it was, so we figured we would try our luck, guaranteed to at least have some kind of adventure. This morning we woke at 5 am, bathed from the bucket in our bathroom and went out to meet our car. The first thing he said was that the distance would be 75kms, not 60, so we really didn't know where we would end up. The road was pretty rough, and we didn't arrive at the temple until 8 am. The ride itself was interesting though, a slow moving picture of village life in Tamil Nadu. Here there were a lot of men wearing loincloths, and women wearing saris without blouses, something we hadn't seen anywhere else. There were also, visibly, a lot more younger girls wearing marriage chains. The fields were green, a lot of families were out in the sugarcane, or driving their cattle in the road. Thankfully, at the temple itself the driver helped us to communicate and the priest was a lot more accomodating than they can sometimes be. Often we get the look asking why we are there and what we want, or the 'damn tourists' look. This was at least the most extensive puja we have seen in India. The priest 'undressed' the linga behind a pulled curtain by removing flower garlands, wrapped fabric and the sign of siva. He then poured honey over the linga, and on the face a shimmering picture of the goddess appeared. After the honey, milk was poured and then turmeric paste. It was quite beautiful actually, one of the first temple experiences I really enjoyed. So now we are trying to avoid the sweltering heat, another thing Tamil Nadu is famous for, and we are planning our return to Bangalore in the morning. I am writing from a nicely air-conditioned internet place in Kannur, a city in northern Kerala. Kannur itself is fairly non-descript, however just outside along the beach road we have been staying in a jewel of a place. Thanks to Cheryl, a long time friend of the family's who has eben working as a nurse in India for the last several years, all the work of discovering a largely undiscovered beach has been done for us. SO while the rest of our classmates ran off to Goa, Gokarna and the other tourist trap beaches, we have a beautiful soft sand beach almost all to ourselves. The house we're staying in is owned by a guy who lives in Sweden and is married to an Indian lady. He isn't here at the moment, but this is the place where he retreats to watch the sea. Kyle has been teaching me to ride a boogie board, and I've caught a few waves, but I' not really any good at it yet. I just kind of wait for him to say, "Okay go now!" and then I start paddling. I gets to be dreadfully hot in the afternoons, so we have been reading books, eating fruit, and trying to sta as cool as possible. It is quite heavenly. This morning I had kind of a funny experience. Cheryl wanted to go to the beauty parlor for a haircut and suggested I come along. Most places here are women and children only, so that the modesty and secrecy of women's beauty are maintained. I learned one of the secrets through experience and it includes a spool of thread and facial hair removal. I don't know how they do it exactly, but the girl creaed some kind of a loop holding the thread in both hands and between her teeth. She would catch the hair in the loop and RIP. As they say, pain is beauty. So I'll be ready to see you all when I get home. Just a quick note to let you know we're all right. We've been working on finishing portfolios, due tomorrow. Mine is written and printed, but I still have to photocopy and bind, so I don't quite feel elated yet. I am also responsible for the newsletter, and the formatting isn't finished yet and I have to take it to the printer too. Blah. We are packing up this weekend and moving out of our house. It will be really sad to say goodbye to Laxmi, our dear friend, who will have a pretty lonely couple of months until Poornima returns with her granddaughter, and then the house should be quite lively. Much to all of our amazement, Poornima's daughter is allowing her to take her 5 month baby from Canada to India for a couple of years, until she is able to go to school. The joint family has reached across the ocean. I guess the grandparents are supposed to take care of the children while the parents work, but it just seems so sad for baby Meera and her parents. No one here thinks it's that strange though, so it's definitely a cultural difference. On Sunday we're going to Kerala to stay with Cheryl Crosby on the beach for a week or so. That should be fun but REALLY hot I think. Probably unbearably so if we weren't going to be by the ocean. Hope all are well. Kyle is at home finishing his work. We're both a little frazzled but hanging in there.
Relaxing in Kerala Kyle writes: It has been a long time since I wrote to you all, and that is because I was so caught up in writing and putting my portfolio together that there was nothing very exciting to write. Now, it is finished, and Eva and I have been spending the last few days at the beach in Kerala. One of her family friends, Cheryl has been living in India for quite some time, and found this beautiful beach guest house that is directly on the beach. The beach is called Payambalam Beach and it is just north of Kannur in northern Kerala. It is a long beach protected on both sides by jutting rocks. The sand is very soft, and the palm trees grow right up to the edge of the beach. It is very lovily, but hot in the midday, so that is the siesta time. We have been swimming in the mornings and evenings, and cooking, sleeping, and reading during the rest of the time. It is pretty fabulous to not have any responsiblities besides keeping my computerized skin from getting too scorched. We will be here until the night of the eighth. We will then head to the intolerably hot Tamil Nadu because I am going for a special puja (an offering to the god and goddess) to remove some karmic debt that I have accumulated in my past. Cheryl has been to the area and reccommends that we stay at an ashram of a very famous indian saint, Ramana Maharshi. Niether Eva or I know very much about him, but we have found out that he was a great adept, and spent his entire adult life meditating and teaching on life and death. It seems quite fitting. The temple that I need to go to is only forty kilometers outside of Tiruvanamalai (town of ashram), so we will probably stay at the ashram. Then we are back to Bangalore for some last goodbyes and off to the old U.S.of A. and some family time. The powerful influences of this whole nine months in India is really just setting in, and I am starting to feel a little nostalgic about leaving. I don't really care if am never visit the city of Bangalore again, but some the friends and teachers that I have come across have been really great. Also, the difficulties and diversities of living here each day have been huge teachers for me. It is rare to find a single day in India that is just easy and comfortable. But, it can be found in more natural settings like mountains, forests, rivers, and beaches. My connection with nature has been a great reaffirmation for me in India. I did not always recognize how much I depend on nature for time to regain my balance and ready myself for the world. There has always been the mountains, skiing, hiking, swimming, boating, and just playing that has been a part of my life. Living in Bangalore I did not have many chances to get out of the city and play. It is really fun to be playing on the beach. Eva writes: Anyway, the beach here is really glorious. The gate of the house opens right accross the street, and we've been running across to swim and walk, and then hiding in the house when it's too hot and sunny. Cheryl has been really fun to hang out with. We've been chatting a lot, and cooking some good food. The other day we made hummus and salad and little kabab things taht we ate with yummy pita that can be bought here. Today Cheryl and I went to the beauty parlor, and Kyle went to the barber for a shave. I had a facial and "threading", where they pull out your eyebrow hairs using a sewing thread and their teeth. It has truly been a luxurious vacation. On the 8th we're going to Tamil Nadu, to one of the famous temple sites. When we saw the astrologer/Siddha who reads palm leaves he told Kyle to go to this place and commission a particular puja in order to break a curse from a past life. Anyway, we were going to do that and then head back to Bangalore for a few days to see our facvorite people, finish our gift buying, and prepare for leaving. t's coming ever nearer.
When in Varanasi 
Ghat by the river 
Sadhus don't need cremation before burial 
Cleansing in the river 
Kyle overlooks the river
Death in Kashi is Liberation Two years ago, while I was attending college in the cold, wild woods of Vermont, before I had any inkling that I might come to India, my mother called to tell me of the sudden and unexpected death of an old family friend. I had not seen him for several years, but had strong memories of him from my childhood. In more recent years, his wife had been working as a nurse abroad, and he had been moving around, dividing his time between the countries she was working in and the US. Her job at the time of his death happened to be in a monastery in Bylekuppe, only a few hundred kilometers from Bangalore in South India. My mother knew very little of the circumstance of his death apart from one interesting detail, that he had fallen ill while traveling and the place of his death was the holy city of Varanasi. In fact a devout Hindu would say that his sudden death was in fact a great fortune. People come to this place from all over India to die here, for Death in Kashi (Varanasi) is Liberation. Kashi is the final destination of a long pilgrimage through many lives. From Kashi one makes the great crossing to the far shore. Death in Kashi is not death feared, for here the ordinary God of Death, frightful Yama, has no jurisdiction. Death in Kashi is death known and faced, transformed and transcended. (Eck, 24) Six months before I came to India, I had the chance to hear the story of our friend's death from his wife. Her telling entranced me with a sense of the spiritual depth and mysticism to be found in India. She described his death rites, and the people who appeared like angels, seemingly out of nowhere, to perform them. Being Buddhist she incorporated a traditional Buddhist prayer ceremony, followed by a ritual procession to and cremation in a holy cremation ground, and finally the release of his ashes into the holy river Ganges. For the first time in my life, death sounded beautiful. I felt comforted by the idea of a place where death was not feared but rather considered sacred because it offered the promise of reunion with the divine. Growing up in the United States, where death is commonly perceived as morbid and tragic even when the person passing on is an elder who has lived a full life, it is no wonder that most of us fear death. We are not taught to accept our own mortality as a rite of passage. I imagined that in a place where death received due respect, it would not appear like a monster tearing one apart from life against one's will; but rather like a mother welcoming a child back into her womb. I decided then that in the hope of slaying my 'death monster', I would make my own pilgrimage to Varanasi, to feel the peace of sanctified death. When it was announced at the beginning of this semester that we would be returning to the north for our class fieldtrip, it seemed that this would be my last chance to see Varanasi. Though we only had a few short days after the conclusion of the official trip, and adding Varanasi meant adding almost 30 hours of travel time, I felt it essential for making my Indian experience feel complete. I should stop and laugh at myself at this point in the writing, first for even putting 'India' and 'complete experience' into the same sentence, because there's no such thing as 'doing India'; second for allowing my romantic notions to take hold of 'Varanasi', and warp it into a place untouched by time and tourists, where everyone is there in the interest of spirituality and self-discovery (or perhaps self-abnegation is even more common, though still in spiritual pursuit). I imagined that everyone, visitors and residents, would act as one does in a sacred place - with respect and reverence. I imagined the whole city as a house of God, and that upon entering one would act accordingly, quietly and with the intention not to disturb. The romance began to fade as soon as we stepped out of the train station. 'The City of Light' looked like most larger Indian cities, trapped between two worlds, one of the 'developed' future, and one of the space-efficient, well-worn past. Tall buildings and billboards now towered over wooden shack shops, crammed with merchandise. In the center of town, the streets were large and wide, teeming with taxis, auto-rickshaws and painted cycle-rickshaws. Our enlarged group of six (four of us from our school and a Latvian couple we acquired on the train) piled into a single taxi that inexplicably had two men sitting in the driver's seat. We drove as far as the road would allow, and then Kyle and I got out to walk around the narrow streets of the old city to find a hotel. Even the smell inside was old, like ancient dirt and stone, moist with water from the river and swollen with memories. We were like Mary and Joseph, approaching every door in hope of finding refuge, only to be turned away. As we wound through the streets, we became more and more confused as to our whereabouts, and more importantly, confused about how to find our way back out again. We were at this point, with no place to stay and no directional bearings, completely at the mercy of our two taxi drivers. For double our agreed price, they agreed to take us - the long way we later discovered- farther down river to a place where we would be guaranteed to find rooms. Though suspicious that this was working out precisely how they had hoped it would, completely to their advantage, we had little choice but to agree. By the time we reached the Om Home Guest House, after refusal at two more hotels, it almost looked nice at least nicer than the sidewalk. They showed us students a long room attached to the upstairs veranda that had four beds with dirty sheets, broken out windows, and a door with what appeared to be a removable panel. All this could be ours for a mere 70 rupees (approximately $1.75) per bed. We asked them to change the sheets, and when the new ones seemed acceptably clean, decided to stay. The next morning we caught our first glimpse of the river. We woke at dawn, our rustlings accompanied by the call to prayer. The owner of our hotel led us through the streets, which at this hour were empty save a few scraggly dogs. After about ten minutes of walking, we turned right and ducked through a doorway. A covered hallway served as a passageway between the street and the stone steps or ghats, which led down the river. Several people slept, huddled against the wall, covered from head to toe with pieces of blankets and old clothe. At the bottom of the steps, a few groups of tourists waited for boats to pull up close enough to the dock so that they could climb aboard. Out on the river, what seemed like hundreds of these exact same little boats had already pushed off, all filled with very similar looking tourists armed with cameras and wearing khaki. We were followed onto our boat by a little boy who lined up stitched, dried leaf bowls on the bench, and placed a lit candle and a few flowers into each. All this was done without speaking. He handed one to each of us, instructing us to speak our names as we placed them into the river, along with the hundreds of others that the khaki clad, camera-wielding tourists had already floated. After each of us had said our prayer, he said 'Twenty rupees each.' After all this time in India, I do know that twenty rupees for leaves, carnations and a small candle is pretty high inflation. We paid five rupees apiece, and he jumped off our boat to find his next customers. As we started off, the boat store, peddling small god images and Barbie sized furniture pulled up along side us looking for a sale. 'We didn't come here to shop,' Kyle said, and after a few moments of prodding and showing off their most tempting wares, they too moved on to find a more souvenir-happy group. I watched them go, cutting a path through price-haggled prayers, and wondered at the strange combination of it all. The aesthetic beauty of it was slightly lessened by the fact that the 'morning boat ride' had become a commercial racket. The sun rose over the opposite bank, casting pink and golden light onto the buildings and the bathers. We floated down the length of the ghats, past hundreds of authentic pilgrims and ritual bathers. As I took in the whole scene I had two thoughts. I wondered at the irony that this most holy and pure of rivers had been allowed to become so polluted. A particular malodorous smell rose from the river and hung in the air; a combination of human and other waste and deposited trash, decaying bodies, and heavy metals. And yet, the physical dirtiness of the river didn't seem to change the ritual purity of it. People bathed in it for their health, and salvation, not at all worried, as I would be, that it could produce the opposite effect. A man swam toward our boat, open-mouthed, allowing the water to wash the inside of his mouth, and down his throat. Those on the bank of the river performed their sacred rites, and those in the boats took pictures of it. ? 'I wonder how they feel about being watched while bathing by hundreds of curious tourists, attempting to capture the moment, every single morning' Kyle wondered aloud. And I agreed; there was something quite uncomfortable about the separation between the boaters and the bathers. I felt a bit like a peeping Tom, disregarding others right to the privacy of bathing without having their picture taken. 'I think I'll take pictures of the tourists.' Kyle said, and turned his camera toward one of the 'luxury line' cruisers. Our boatman didn't say anything at all to us the whole time, until we approached Manikarnika, the 'burning ghat', where smoke and flames billowed from funeral pyres. 'No photo,' he said, and although I felt the temptation arise, I also felt relief that some things were too sacred to photograph. On our return upstream, we passed between a boat with a television airing a programmed puja turned up to full volume on one side, and a boat dragging a dead pig behind on the other. 'Well, we haven?t seen a dead human body,' Lisa said. A moment later, as if her very words had conjured it, those of us sitting across from her pointed to something floating in the water. 'What's that'? We asked, though it was pretty clear that what we were seeing was a human leg and hand surfacing above water. We drew closer, and saw that indeed it was a human body, and that the skin was beginning to severely decay. I shuddered, having never seen a naturally decaying body before; only ones that had been filled with chemicals and covered in make-up in a failed attempt to feign deep sleep and deny the reality of death. I looked away from the body, toward the water's edge, and there within view of the body were people brushing their teeth, using the very water. I first felt disgusted, and then marveled at such a strong belief in the purity of the river, that death floating in it was not disgusting. This river was agreed to be a place equally for the living and the dead. Our sunny morning had slowly become overcast and gray. Soon after our passing the floating Sadhu (we assumed he was a holy man by the orange color of his garment), lightning tore through the clouds, and rain came pouring after. Our boatman pulled up to the nearest ghat, and we all disembarked, running up the steps for refuge. For a few minutes we stood under the outside awning of a small temple, until the people inside told us to remove our shoes and come in. The small space was already quite crowded, but they shuffled to make room for us, and we exchanged smiles and namaste. Some continued in the work they had been engaged in, assembling candle prayer boats, others watched us curiously, and the rest, us included, watched nature's storm. That offer of refuge, and the few minutes that we all huddled in close quarters was the most genuine human encounter of our entire Varanasi experience. Back at the hotel, the owner tried his hardest to convince us to visit a few temples, the silk factory to see the creation of Varanasi silk, and then, only if we wanted, to be taken to a very fair-priced silk shop. We tried to demur, but he continued to pressure by assuring us that there would be no pressure for us to buy anything, and that the factory would be of great interest to us. He was not pushing us to see the temples, and we figured that he would get a commission for bringing us to particular shops. Despite this, our interest in the process of creating textiles had been sparked on the field trip and we decided that we would see the factory, but not purchase anything. The brother of the hotel owner arrived to guide us into the Muslim neighborhood where most Varanasi silk is produced. We turned down a street, and he pointed out the 'best silk shop'. We repeated that we were interested in seeing the making of silk, not in shopping for silk. 'Yes, yes, the factory is right down this way,' he said, and we turned down a residential street. After walking about twenty yards he stopped dead in his tracks, a hand went dramatically to his forehead. 'What day is it'? He asked us. 'Friday,' we replied. 'Oh no, Friday is the day of rest, the factory is closed, but I can take you to a very nice shop.' How convenient. 'That's okay,' we said, 'we were really only interested in the workshop. We would prefer to go walk along the river.' We thanked him for his time and excused ourselves. On the main street, a breathless man caught up with us, trying to redirect us back to the intended shop. This time we held firm and continued on our way. We emerged form the tight streets at the river's edge, and I don't believe coincidentally, at the smaller of the two burning ghats. Harishchandra Ghat was named after a king Harishchandra, whose legend proclaims that he, in devotion and good faith, gave up everything that he owned and sold himself into slavery. He was purchased by members of the Dom caste, untouchables, whose designated caste occupation is working the cremation ground. The king performed this 'impure' task, proving himself to the gods. In reward, he was restored his former riches, including his son who had died during his time of struggle (Eck, 223, 248). Since it had been in the interest of making peace with death that had brought me to Varanasi, it seemed I had been divinely directed to this spot. We were then humanly directed to a small, open-sided temple turret from which we could watch the death rites performed. A few men were already sitting there on the edge of the large cement block that supported a Shiva-Linga in the center, chewing pan. They spoke little English, but conveyed that hundreds of bodies were cremated daily, and that the cremation grounds were open night and day. The man sitting beside Kyle pointed to a man who was standing to the side. 'He is the boss,' he said. 'You want to take photo'? Indicating that because the boss was here, we could be granted special privileges. The guidebook had stressed that photography at the burning ghats was strictly prohibited, and even having a camera visible could be considered highly offensive. I remembered our boat ride, and the boatwallahs strict prohibition of photography. It had seemed a matter of unquestionable principle with him. 'No thank you, we are just here to experience,' I said, wanting to respect the wishes of the devout. But I wondered at the willingness of these workers to allow what was taboo, and what the selling price would be. I didn't pursue the issue any further, partly because the idea of selling the sacred made me uncomfortable, and partly because I had become aware of a tussle behind us. I turned to see two men pushing each other, their voices rising in anger. Suddenly one pushed the other against the wall with incredible force, and pinned him there by his throat. The other man struggled; gargled, choking noises coming from his throat. He managed to throw his opponent off, only to be captured again, this time with his head locked in the crook of the other's arm. He flailed his arms wildly, and was finally laid down across the same cement slab that the rest of us were sitting on, practically on top of the Shiva-Linga. I believe that I would have been horrified under any circumstances. I had never seen an altercation of this severity, with so many people watching and not intervening. 'Am I witnessing this man's death'? I asked myself, feeling utterly paralyzed with fear. This was farther from my romantic fantasy than I could possibly have imagined. I had come to meet death as the mother, and instead had come across the monster. As mourners lay their loved ones to rest below, we watched anger and human aggression rear its ugly head in the temple above. I wondered what to do, I wanted to leave more than anything, but the fight was blocking the only exit. It could only have been a couple of minutes, but they felt excruciatingly long. When it was finally sensed by all that the two foreigners were extremely out of place, an outsider intervened. The man who had been choked didn't even look in our direction, but said forcefully, 'Go, GO!' And pointed to the door. We walked around, and down the steps. When we were below the turret, we looked up to see that the fight had resumed in our absence, with the same intensity. I shivered, and we walked on. The sun was hot, and the water's edge had lost the mystique of the early morning. The ghats bustled with activity, much of it geared toward the overwhelming foreign presence. Men approached offering massage, shoe shining, and little boys peddled postcards. One followed us for such a stretch that we finally stopped to look at his large collection of postcards. I was surprised to find that almost half the cards were photos of the supposedly unphotographable burning ghats. For a mere 4 rupees apiece I could purchase photos taken from every angle. I wondered what the Sadhus would think of being sent, naked, through the mail to all corners of the world? We purchased several postcards of Sadhus, bodies prepared for the funeral pyre, and the ever-burning fires of the cremation grounds; and all the while I considered that, in a way, tourism cheapens a place by making it the stuff of postcards and souvenir momentos. Inevitably touts multiply and scams hide beneath a mask of charity and goodwill. Our next stop was the larger cremation ground, Manikarnika ghat, which is situated midway through the walk along the riverfront, but is the last stop on the Panchthirthi pilgrimage. This is Manikarnika, where death is auspicious, Where life is fruitful, Where one grazes the pastures of heaven. There is no Tirtha like Manikarnika, There is no city like Kashi, There is no linga like Vishveshvara, Not in the whole universe. (Eck, 238) 'Both the waters of creation and fires of destruction join in the aura of sanctity that pervades Manikarnika' (ibid.). And it was this 'aura of sanctity' that I was seeking. As we stood to the side, trying to be inconspicuous, a teenage boy approached to tell us that only the mourners were allowed on the lower level, and if we wanted to watch we would have to watch from the tower above. We moved in that direction, to join the other observers who were watching in fascination. Our teenage guide delivered us into the hands of an employee of the cremation ground. I immediately felt wary, but countered my suspicion with the possibility that he could provide valuable information. He described the initial submersion of the body into the Ganges, prior to committal to the fire and the final release of ashes into the river. 'There are five bodies that are considered pure enough to be released into the Ganges without cremation,' he told us. 'The body of an animal, a Sadhu, a pregnant woman, a child under the age of 10, and a person who has died from a snakebite.' I had not read this anywhere else, but it would give a reason for why we had seen the body of the Sadhu at dawn. 'Do you notice that there are no women among the mourners'? He asked. I hadn't until that point, but it did seem strange. 'Women are not allowed at the funeral because they may commit sati, do you know sati'? He asked. I nodded my head yes. This seemed a strange statement, after all the last legal sati occurred in 1861, and the last illegal sati of a young girl occurred in 1987, causing an uproar of people both for and against the practice (Minturn, 233-234). I thought surely this couldn't be a legitimate reason to bar a woman from the funeral of her husband. This particular issue stuck with me, and spurred me to do further research on the subject. I found a few things of interest, one being, 'newspaper accounts of satis appeared about every six weeks during the winter of 1954-55, usually with the comment that it was unclear whether the widow had climbed onto the pyre voluntarily or been forced by relatives. Most of them occurred in the sacred city of Benares, where many devout Hindus go to die' (Minturn, 233). Though from this evidence Varanasi appears to be the place where illegal satis were performed most often, it still doesn?t justify the continued exclusion of women from the cremation grounds fifty years later. It seemed to me that perhaps the absence of women was just a coincidence, or perhaps it was related to another old custon. In my research I also found this excerpt, The separation of husbands and wives, enforced by customs of purdah during their lifetimes, is maintained even at death by excluding widows from the funeral rituals and forbidding them to cry for their husbands. The exclusion of widows from mourning is the final act that dilutes the bonds of marriage. (Minturn, 225) It seems to me equally unlikely that a majority of people would consciously exclude widows from mourning for this reason as the idea that many widows are likely to commit sati, however it remains highly notable that no women were present, for whatever reason, at the funeral ground. Our informative session gradually turned to the amount of wood needed for each pyre, the high cost of the wood, and the difficulties that many families have affording a funeral. I suddenly recalled what I had read in the guidebook earlier in the day, 'Wood touts descend on tourists at the ghat explaining the finer metaphysical points of transmutation ('cremation as education') before subtly shifting to the practicalities of how much wood is needed to burn one body, the never-ending cycle of inflation and would you like to give a donation? (Lonely Planet, 313). We were having this experience, almost to the word. Our informer gestured to a woman sitting on a bench across the balcony, 'a hospice worker' he said, 'and so many of the people who come to the hospice are destitute. If you would give a donation to her.?' I worked for hospice in the US! Kyle responded excitedly, and went to sit beside her. I let them go, hoping that at last I could observe and feel. Ashes swirled in the air, and the entire place had a distinct smell, not good not bad. Several bodies lay on the river's edge, wrapped in pink and gold, waiting for their release. It was impossible to tell whether they were men or women, though I suppose that no longer really mattered. For a few moments I stood alone, absorbing it all, breathing it in. Too soon our original teenage guide noticed me there, and approached. 'Have you heard about the process'? He asked me. 'Yes,' I replied. He was silent for a moment, then pulled out a business card. 'I work in a very nice shop. Very nice silk, very fair price.' I almost couldn't believe that he wanted to take me from the place where 'both the waters of creation and the fires of destruction join in the aura of sanctity' to his silk shop, but why not? Perhaps many tourists happily make that transition, from the 'show' of famous Varanasi sanctity to the showroom of famous Varanasi silk. 'I didn't come to Varanasi to shop,' I said, staunchly enough to send him on his way. 'Eva,' Kyle called from his spot on the bench. 'Come over here.' When I was at his side he said, 'can I have some money? I want to donate.' I beckoned him away from the man and woman who were waiting expectantly. When I told him that I had read about a similar scam in the guidebook his face fell. 'I just want to support hospice,' he said. 'I know, I just don't think it will get there this way. If you want to donate you should donate directly.' 'I already said I would, so what should I do?' He asked. I shrugged my shoulders. He opened his wallet and extracted his last ten rupees, which he handed over to the man who took it and handed it to the woman with an exchanged look of disdain. We left Manikarnika Ghat then, and wandered over to the leaning temple, a building suffering a similar condition as the leaning tower of Pisa. Our drinking water had run out, and the sun had no plans of beating any less directly, and so we strayed away from the river into the narrow, cobbled streets of the Old City. Most of the buildings were stone, and tall enough to keep out the sun, providing a cool relief. It was much quieter inside. We passed temples and stalls selling flowers, sweets and other delectable offerings for the gods. As we wound through the streets, we made sure that we always ended up heading south, towards our hotel. Once we found ourselves in familiar surroundings we headed for a restaurant. We walked in silence for awhile and I reflected upon my unrealistic expectation to get an authentic feel for Varanasi in the two and a half days we'd allotted in our itinerary. I wavered between feelings of frustration and disappointment, and an understanding that in the time given I could only reasonably expect to be and be treated like every other outside spectator. It takes time to gain a position of belonging in a place that even locals can recognize. The sun was finally going down, the air was cooling, and Kyle stepped in a pile of cow dung for the last of many times that day. Appropriately for a sacred Hindu city, almost as many cows as people roamed freely in the streets. We passed a couple of feet in front of a bull with long horns. In a split second he moved toward me, and thrust his horns at me, making hard contact with my elbow. Fear closed my throat; I was certainly no match for an angry bull. We moved a few feet farther, and out of danger. 'Shit!' Kyle said, 'A charging bull could kill a person.' ?I know,? I said, and inside my head I was telling myself loudly, 'I DO NOT WANT TO DIE IN VARANASI!' The irony of it well noted. I left Varanasi with my original intention unfulfilled, but with a realization that seemed to be the purpose of my experience. I cannot make instantaneous peace with death by visiting someone else's sacred place. The transformation of my death monster will come when I accept the passage into death as beautiful wherever it happens. BIBLIOGRAPHY Eck, Diana L. Banaras: City of Light. New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1983. Minturn, Leigh. Sita's Daughters: Coming Out of Purdah. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. 1993.
Visit to the Snake Doctor Visit to Snake Doctor, Bone-setter What a relief to get out of the city and into the clinics of rural doctors who learned from an oral tradition. These are the healers that fascinate me, people who can be so highly skilled, so precise, so knowledgeable and also entirely illiterate. This was certainly the case for the snake doctor that we first visited Saturday morning. His clinic was an unassuming white cement building on the main street of a small village. One could easily drive by without noticing it there, and yet people of all socio-economic backgrounds come from hundreds of kilometers away seeking treatment for snake bites, other infected bites and skin problems. The doctor's skill in treating patients is highly reputable. Even though he practices a non-codified medical system that is not recognized officially by the government, he has a paper certificate from the state government encouraging his work. He has even treated politicians. All of his careful documentation of cases is written down by his daughter, because he himself cannot read or write. When we entered the clinic, the doctor was not treating any patients. I would not have been able to guess with any certainty which of the several men in the clinic was the doctor. Dr. Bhatt introduced us to a tall man, with graying hair, wearing white shorts and shirt, his teeth permanently colored a brownish-red from years of chewing pan. We heard a little of his background information: he was a Muslim by birth and had learned this medicine from his father. The tradition is passed in families, usually from father to son, but because his own son had died he taught his daughter. He treated anyone who came to his clinic for free; they only had to bring their own caretaker who would cook their own food and shoulder nursing responsibilities. We met his daughter as well and I asked her if it was unusual for a woman to learn this type of medicine. She said that it depended on the child's interest, and that her father had begun teaching her at the age of eight. It seemed to me an amazingly huge task to begin learning medicine at such a young age. We watched father and daughter in turn treating patients by brushing their bodies with pieces of grass and making a 'shhh' sound, as if they were brushing away the poison, skin rash, or other ailment. It isn't just the medicines that they use that are effective. Said Dr. Bhatt. Their spiritual practices are also just as important. People believe in the power of more than just medicine. I asked whether he actually made any medicines that extracted the poison, or if they were all taken internally, and rubbed on superficially to counter the poison that could not be removed from the bloodstream. The doctor replied that it depended on how soon after the bite a patient reached the clinic. He believed that if only a short time had passed indeed poison could be extracted, but if too much time had passed he treated them without using extraction methods. One twelve-year old patient named Jagdish had come to the clinic several days after his bite. His mother had first paid several thousand rupees for treatment in an allopathic facility with little success before bringing her son here. He was improving, but still in a lot of pain. The doctor removed his bandage, we thought to be changed, but later realized only for us to see the wound. The removal of the bandage was very painful for Jagdish, he tried not to cry or cry out, and afterwards rolled over hugging himself. I think we all felt a little guilty for unknowingly putting him through such an ordeal for our sake. The other patients were mainly men and women (though there was one other little boy) of all different ages, from different places, suffering varying ailments. The patients took turns showing and describing their wounds and ailments. They were all very friendly and curious about us. Before we left, as a part of some custom that I wasn?t familiar with, three of us students gave 100 rupees to three of the patients. One of the female patients then bought some jasmine flowers for the girls to pin in our hair. This visit engaged me so completely that I could have remained all day watching father and daughter work, asking questions, and making friendly exchanges. The doctor's primary interest was using his knowledge and skills to help those who needed it; there was no pretentiousness in his manner. He invited us to visit his home, a small cement structure with five rooms in it and a small plot for a garden. He walked us through, pointing out all of the medicinal plants. We exchanged gifts with him on his doorstep and parted ways. Before we continued on to the bone-setter's clinic we had a couple of previously unanticipated (at least by me) stops. We arrived at a nature sanctuary that was located across the street from an extensive medicinal herb garden and brought in our purchased food to be cooked for our lunch. We then went across the road to tour the garden. Dr. Bhatt once again astounded with his wealth of knowledge, and our hour in the garden passed nearly without a pause in information sharing. We then went up the road a few kilometers to visit a very old hilltop temple. We were able to drive up most of the way, but had to ascend several hundred feet of stone steps. The midday sun had already gotten the best of two classmates who chose to stay back in the Qualis. The rest of us braced ourselves for a few minutes of effusive sweating and discomfort. We stopped along the way when we passed under cool, shaded rock overhangs. At the top of the hill we stopped to remove our shoes. Mine had laces, and I fell behind the group. By the time I entered the temple complex the group was out of site. Since according to the schedule pooja was not supposed to happen during that hour, I figured they had decided to circumambulate the outside of the temple. I followed keeping to the small strip of shade cast by the roof of the temple. Several stone deities covered in red vermillion lined the wall and I stopped to photograph them. It was while I was focusing my camera that the bottoms of my feet started to burn. I pressed the shadow and continued forward as quickly as I could. As I rounded the first corner I realized that there would be no more shade until I reached the front of the building, but by the time it sunk in I had already gone more than half way. I picked up the pace, disbelieving just how hot the pavement could get. As soon as I was within range, I leapt into the shade. From there I could hear a pooja in progress and followed the sound. I found the rest of the group inside, receiving flower offerings. I was relieved to stand in the cool stone room, but my feet were still burning. After the pooja we were led to outside the main complex to an opening in the rock wall. We entered a cave that was lit with a few electric lights. It was damp and smelled like things growing in damp rock cracks. At the bottom of the steps was a water spring that we all dipped our hands in to anoint ourselves. We had to carefully avoid the floating bat poop in the process. Afterwards we returned to the car to head back to the sanctuary for lunch before moving on to the bone-setter's. The hour long drive after lunch provided an ideal opportunity for a digestion and rejuvenation nap. By the time we pulled up we were once again ready to be inquisitive students. Judging by the long line of waiting patients it was obvious that this bone-setter was in high demand. We arrived at 3:45pm, and entered the three-room clinic. The main room had two straw mats, each with a man lying on it. Each adjacent room had one other mat in it, which were also occupied. The doctor was working on one of the men in the main room, bending his left leg backwards toward his right shoulder farther than I can comfortably stretch. After his pushing, bending and cracking to the stifled cries of pain from his patient, he placed strips of plaster with coins on pressure points onto the paining area and moved onto the next patient. It was unbelievable to watch how quickly he worked, and how immediately patients were moved out to make room from someone else, without even a moment's rest. Each new patient was directed to the empty mat and given a bottle of medicated oil to hold on the afflicted area. That seemed to be the only information the doctor needed in order to proceed. Few, if any, words were exchanged between doctor and patient. The doctor diagnosed within seconds and set to work. His technique, and I suppose the inherent nature of bone-settiing, was far from gentle, and as each patient was contorted the immense pain was evident. All tried to stifle their cries, some remained silent and clenched their eyes and fists, while others couldn't help themselves and cried out for gods, fathers and mothers, Ayappa! Appa! Amma! We were in the clinic for nearly 45 minutes and probably saw the doctor treat 20 patients. All of the patients we saw were men, though women also come to the clinic. Dr. Bhatt said that women are always treated privately, while the men's treatments were obviously quite out in the open. We saw an x-ray of the fractured arm of a man right before he was treated, as well as an old man who had to be carried in because his pain was too great for him to walk. The one doctor working during our visit was a younger man of 28 who had learned the art from his father, the main physician at the clinic who was also unofficially supported by the government. The younger doctor's manner was somewhat gruff, and I was amazed by the trust of the patients. Bone-setting is the kind of procedure one would only want performed by someone who really knew what they were doing, otherwise the patient could be damaged severely. The doctor moved with confidence, but didn't exhibit much personal care. At the end of a treatment he would sometimes smack the patient with his own hand, presumably to snap him out of shock, but it was still surprising to see. After we felt that we had been in the way long enough, as each of us had been physically moved by one of the doctor's helpers many times, we went upstairs just to glance at the hospital. This turned out to be one large rectangular room with rows of metal-framed beds. People with telling white plasters lay on the beds, while family members and caretakers napped on the floor or milled around. One patient had hung a sari around the bed for privacy. The clinic and the hospital were far from sterile environments, and yet it seemed that people were treated successfully here. In both of these clinics we witnessed medicine at its most raw, oral traditions performed with the tools and space available, for the benefit of grateful patients.
Overdue update Today is finally cloudy, which lessens the heat and makes movement more bearable. Usually by the middle of the day I'm sweating no matter what I am doing, even if I'm sitting under the fan! Okay, enough about the weather, I know that's been my favorite subject lately, but mostly because I'm finding it difficult to think of other things. Today as a cool breeze blows through the window, I'll take advantage of a non heat-enlarged mind and write. SInce our return from the field trip, we have been focusing most of our time and attention on an intensive class called Global Health and Healing Traditions. We have been learning about the most popular codified and non-codified Indian medical systems. Because my dominant interest is in the socio-cultural aspects of health, the non- codified, or oral tradition medicinal systems have been by far the most interesting. This last weekend we visited a snake doctor, a man who treats all kinds of poisonous bites and skin reactions with herbal remedies as well as spiritual remedies. We spent time in his clinic, talking to his patients and watching him work. He used a piece of grass to brush all over a patient's body as they stood in the doorway, as if sweeping ailment away, while making "shh-shh" noises. He and his patients said that this was a very important part of the healing, it isn't just about the remedies. He was vastly knowledgeable and wise, and he was illiterate, which continues to show me that a formal education is not necessarily what gives a person wisdom. We also visited a bone-setter's clinic. It is twice as extreme as chiropractic in terms of the way the doctor contorted people's bodies, and they were all already in severe pain. But, as our favorite teacher Dr. Bhat said, "If traditional oral medicines didn't work, they wouldn't be passed on." Which makes perfect sense to me, and most of this unwritten medicines have long histories. This week we finished our yoga class, as we are being given more free time to work on portfolios. Our final assignment was to create a large mandela on the floor of the center using colored rangoli powder mixed with sand. SInce there are four of us in the class we chose to represent the four elements, each of us creating one. Mine was earth (of course) and Kyle's air. I think I'll use a picture of it for the cover of the newsletter. This week we have also been invited to three of our teachers/administrators houses for dinner. I guess they're all feeling the pressure of the end of semester as well. Tonight we go to Sudha's house, she works in the office and is such a dear. We hear she's an excellent cook too. SHe just gave me a run-down of the menu, masala dosa, and several side dishes. She wasn't sure if that would be enough! But that is Indian hospitality at its best. Tomorrow night we'll go to Mansi's (yoga teacher) for ice cream and Arabian food (funny combo) and Saturday to Geetha's to be stuffed with chicken and sausage because she's so worried that we're all suffering through all this vegetarian food. I'm looking forward to seeing their homes and meeting their families. This weekend we are taking our last field trip for GHHT, which will be 4 days spent in a tribal village about 6 hours from here. This trip was one of my main incentives for taking the class, so I am definitely looking forward to it. I'll let you all know how it goes...
In the desert 
Kyle doing yoga in the desert 
Mansi, inspired into the camel pose........... by the camels. 
Eva coloring the desert. 
Mr. India, the baby of Kyle's camel.
Anything over thirty is hot I?m sure that many of you are surprised about recent email developments, namely that Kyle has become a much more reliable emailer than I. Luckily for all of us, he?s been writing humorous and true accounts of all our adventures. I have been trying for the last several days to finish an article about our trip to Varanasi, which I?ll send when done. It again was an experience of the extreme contradictory nature of India. While I expected to be filled with a feeling of the sacred (what does that feel like exactly? Peaceful? Powerful?) since this is a place where people have come for pilgrimage, prayer, and death rites for thousands of years. I suppose I expected that stepping onto the train platform would feel like entering a church, mosque, temple or other place designated for worship. In those places there is a sanctity that is maintained by the believers and respected by visitors. Rather than feeling at peace in the house of God, I spent most of our three days feeling rather unsettled, and looking forward to our return to Bangalore. Varanasi has the most tourists passing through of any place in India, and it feels like it. Wherever there are tourists there are tourist traps, scams, restaurants, deals, and everythingwallahs. There is a strange combination of the people who come here as a zenith of their spiritual path, and those who have come to take a picture of it. There are a lot of shady goings on, but probably as a result of so many of "us" being there for the wrong reasons. Back in Bangalore it's blazin hot, and I no longer believe the comforting words of those who tell me that it still isn't as hot as everywhere else in India. I say, once the temp. passes thirty it doesn't much matter how you put it, IT'S HOT! This week we had a few free days, and I planned to take a trip to a S. Indian ruins site, but I?ve been having asthma trouble, which has been keeping me up at night, so I decided I should stick around and pay some attention to my health. Yesterday I went to the Ayurvedic doctor, and I do think that the medicine she gave me is helping. Last night was the best I'd slept in a week. Anyway, I'll send more soon, just didn't want you to think I'd forgotten about you. This is from an earlier post. I was waiting for you, dear readers, to digest the last batch. Phil Funny signs are seen all over India. Some of them are in 'Indian English', meaning that words are used in contexts that we often wouldn't use them. Usually things sound much more severe, "Do not fail to..." is often used on airport signs etc. Here are a few interesting/funny/strange signs we caught glimpses of on the trip. 
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Spring there.......Summer here Kyle writes: Happy spring equinox, a couple days late. It was interesting how I completely missed the day. I was sitting in the doctor's office on Sunday, and Dr. Jampa was explaining to me how important that day was for the Tibetans'. He said that it was when the moon was in the waxing quarter phase, and some other thing. I did not make the connection to the equinox until the next day. I saw that the calendar said it was the twenty-first. I thought to myself, "I wonder when the equinox is this year. Maybe, that is what Amchila was talking abou yesterday." Tah-dah, I was right, and once again I missed my chance to stand an egg on its end, or maybe give my thanks to the change of seasons on the day of change. I have since did a puja to the five elements, but it is not quite as effective after the fact. Part of the reason that I forgot the change to spring is because here it is summer. The nights are getting hot and the days much, much hotter. Bangalore is actually supposed to be more temperate than other parts of South India, but still I would not like to be any hotter. There is one sign of spring that is very pleasant to the ole'shnaz. About a month ago Ashok and I stripped all of the leaves off of a very big vine(a tactic I have never done before, but the basic idea is to force the plant into super-reproductive mode) that climbs three stories on the house. The vine is now covered in Jasmine flowers that exude a luxurious scent. Laxmi collects the buds every morning and makes chains to put in the girls' and her hair. Unfortunately, that is only exceptable for the female sex, so I only get to enjoy it vicariously through Eva. The last email that I sent out was a play-by-play recap of the journey to the Taj Mahal(The Tomb of Love, dun, dun,duuuuuu). I just got an email from my mother, which was full of encouraging, or prodding as I sometimes like to say, me to tell a little about our journey to Varanasi(the city of light, joining between the three worlds, Shiva's residence, place of direct enlightenment). Well, all of that is written in a very scholarly book (my nose turns up in an academic manner) called, "Banares, The City of Life" wriiten by Diana Eck. Luckily, Eva is around to find these great books, so that we may be briefed before arrival. We ended up reading a large portion of it out loud, and it is one of those academic books that is not a complete bore. Our intitial plan for the trip was to go there after the field trip because we were within a thirteen hour train ride each way, and hey, that's not so bad in India. As some of you might know I can get a little bipolar sometimes where I am introspective, thoughtful and rather well behaved at times, and then there are other times when my mouth jabbers away incessantly, I jump around and do gymnastics, or I sing in some loud and out of key voice. Well, I was in one of the latter moods, and I happened to tell two of our housemates all of the cool things I had been learning about Varanasi, how Eva and I were planning on going there, and Oh, I would not mind if they wanted to tag along. Whoa, wait a minute there. What exactly does that mean? I was soon to find out. After leaving the Taj, we found a decent restuarant to drop our bags, and get something to eat. The table clothes were stained, and we were the only customers, but the food was pretty decent (partly because I had not eaten in hours because of my previous adventure with "A Night of Purging on the Train" starring: Sir Apple Pieonthetracks and Miss Toiletta Isreallyahole. Gosh, I crack myself up!!!! Anyway back to the story, When we finished our meal Meghan looked down at her watch, which showed that it was 8:23PM. "Shit our train leaves at 8:48!!!" we all said in unison. We thought that we were five minutes away from the station, but after arguing with the rickshaw driver over the price, loading our bags on the luggage rack, and driving to the station it was 8:45. We took off at a gallop, and I must give some well deserved props to Eva as she performed extremely well under pressure. She was carrying a huge pack with Rajisthani textiles in it, her computer, and the train ticket. She singlehandedly carried all of that stuff and managed to figure out which platform our train left from in about four point two, three seconds(it is actually really hard to get the correct information in India as everyone has their own different answer to any question). We ran like we had never run before, up the ramp, through the corridor, down the other side, and the half-kilometer to our train boady. Ahh, we made it and hey the train did not leave for another six or seven minutes. I would like to take a minute to give credit to the staff of the Indian Railway between Agra and Varanasi. They would most definately win the award for India's most filthy train. I have only been in India for seven months, but I have gotten the chance to ride in trains to all of the regions. We had a 47-hour journey to Delhi, a 72- hour journey to Darjeeling, a twelve-hour journey to Kerala, and that is only about half of them. This train was absolutely disgusting. There was about one centimeter of muddy water with trash floating in it all over the floor. the wall of my bunk had dried cow shit splatted on it. The bunks were covered with grime that was of undetermined origin. All we could do was to put our bags on the seat and try to make some room to sit down. We ended up sleeping propped- up against our luggage. Actually, it was more like trying to sleep because the fans did not work, there was a bad smell of old urine, and the florescent lights did not go out. But, Meghan definately had it the worst because she was in the next campartment down from us, and all of the other passengers were males. I had offered to switch with her before we got on the train, but when we were actually there the scum over powered our thoughts of sexual harassment from men. She first sat there with all of the men staring at her and speaking in Hindi with the occasional snickering. She thought that if she just laid down and pretended that she was asleep they would not bother her. She woke up later with a man standing over her taking pictures of her sleeping. Damn, men are scary and weird. The next morning we met this couple from Latvia who were on their third day in India, and had not found a place to stay. Again, Eva and I agreed to let them tag along when searching for hotels in Varanasi. So, then we had six white people all travelling together, and looking for three vacant double rooms in an Indian city that none of us had been. Not the best style of travelling if I must say so. Luckily, I have gotten really good at bargaining and managed to get us a taxi for fifty rupees (about one dollar, a really good price anywhere in India). We packed the luggage in and stuffed ourselves into the car. Then, two drivers got in, so there were four people in the front and four in the back. I think that Arthur Weasley designed these Indian cars because they all have much more space than is intitially evident. Varanasi is an interesting city because it lookes like any other Indian metropolise with a few more tourists until you get within a few blocks from the Ganges. Then the streets get very very narrow and covered with well worn cobblestones, the buildings are all at least five stories, and there are cows, people, motorcycles, bicycles, and pushcarts everywhere. The street close to the river do not seem to have much of a grid, so upon first entry it feels like a maze, and I was wishing that I had something to leave in my trail so as to find my way back. What happened was the taxi could only go so far, and then we had to walk to the hotels that were close to the river. One of the drivers told us that it was best if he took two of us with him to see about vacancy while the others waited for us to get back. Eva and I said that we would go. The driver proceeded to take us through the maze for about fifteen minutes. We both sarted to wonder what was going on, and I said, "Is this some sort of joke?" I started to think that any moment we were going to be pushed off our path and would loose the guide. We would have bee lost in there for hours. Luckily, he had nothing of the sort planned. We made it to several of the hotels we had read about, but all of them were full. It was the Shivarathery festival (a festival of staying awake all night and fasting in honor of Shiva). The town was booked. We went back to the car, and started our blind search for hotels close to the river so we could walk along the ghats. Two or three hours after we arrived in Varanasi, we found a place that had room for us to stay. They only had two rooms, but at least they were willing to take us. The name of the guest house was OM HOME, and it was surrounded by four muslim mosques(rather interesting because it is Hinduism's most sacred city). The rooms turned out to be a small one with no windows that the Latvian couple stayed in, and one room with four cots on the top of the building. It was definately the roughest conditions we have stayed in. The room had alot of windows with curtains on less than half of them, so everyone and their mother could see in, and one of the windows was broken out. Then, to top it all off, it started to rain, and boy did it rain. It rained outside and inside our room. Between the broken window and a hole in the roof we got quite a bit of water inside our room. It actually rained three times while we were in Varanasi(surprising for the summer), but on the other occasions we had a bucket to catch the dripand had arranged the curtain to keep the rain outside of the window. For all of those bad qualities(including the manager having a rather large scar on the side of his face) it was a great experience to stay there. The guests were not the normal tourists that one finds in the "Lonily Planet" hotels. They were more of the wandering soul seekers, spiritual alcoholic/drug addicts, and the foreigners who just could not leave the city where everyone achieves enlightenment upon death there. The first two people I met were Lucky and Andy. Lucky was a retired gymnast from the UK who had be travelling around India for about 30 years leaving just long enough to get money and renew his VISA. He was a really nice guy, but it seemed as though he was a bit of an alcoholic. The night before he had been drinking a local rum called Old Monk (a favorite because it is cheap and does not cause hangovers. He even told me a story about treking in Nepal when there was a ban on alcohol, and he had several bottles of Old Monk in his pack which he distributed with some villagers. Now, when he goes back there he is known as Old Monk, and is invited to stay with many people when he goes there. Anyway, he was walking through Varanasi at night after a bottle of you know what, and he stepped on a dog. The dog bit the shit out of his foot, so there he was sitting in the hot sun on the roof of the Om Home smoking Indian hash, his foot wrapped in gauze, and telling me that he was going to Nepal that night with his foot all bitten up and a horrible case of sciatica. I decided that what he needed was a massage and some Reiki, so I offered to give him a session before he left for the train. So, I gave him a massage for his sciatica, some Reiki for his foot, and was talking to him about his thirty years in India when in walks this guy named Charles (pronounced Sharl) from France who had long curly hair, his shirt off with the european bikini underwear sticking out, and the type of french accent that is only heard in the movies. It really reminded me of the Monty Python skit about the french soldiers talking to King Arthur. Later on that night I had my first experience of achieving enlightenment in Varanasi as I was sitting in Charles' room. I was telling the story about the train to Varanasi, and how I had come to realise that I had a slight aversion to dirtiness. I think that it comes form my father. He was raised in a house with three sisters and a rather dainty mother.Consequently, he is the type of person that works all day in the dirt, but will noteat a thing without showering thoroughly and more than that he is a little prissy about it. Some of that has rubbed off on me plus the proverb, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." So I was saying that being in India with its littering citizens, dirty trains, and questionable food stalls has made me realise my own aversion to dirt. Charles put it very simply. "Why do you bother yourself with such mundane worries?" For some of you that might not have any meaning, but for me it struck a place of realization, which I had not related to before. I was not completely cured of such worries as throughout our time in Varanasi I stepped in about thirty piles of cow dung, and every time my first reaction was EEUUWW!, but then I realized that it is good luck to step in manure in India and that cow dung is actually one of the cleanest things on the street. The stepping in cow shit was actually a very good metaphor for the entire trip to Varanasi. On the visual level I was watching the people, cows, buildings, river, and so on while I would just step right in the shit at my closest connection to reality (my feet on the ground). On a different level, Varanasi was a disgusting tourist trap with three hundred tourists up at sunrise taking close-up photos of the pilgrims washing themselves with dead bodies floating right in front of them and burning bodies right beside them. The streets were dirty, the tous were many, the river was polluted with human remains, heavy metals, foeces, trash, dead animals, and tourists. Yet there was some feeling I had of easier realisations, slightly more tolerance, and being in the Authentic moment. The girls ended up going to a much more expensive hotel after the first night, but Eva and I decided to stay and hang out with all of the strange characters a the hotel and be close to the river for more exploring.That night we stayed up until about two in the morning signing bastardised mantra songs and talking to the strange folk. It felt really good to be with some of the more "freaky people" travelling in India. The last day Eva and I went to Sarnath, the place where the Shakyamuni Buddha gave his first teaching and set the "Wheel of Law" down for his disciples. It was a really nice place, and I would recomend that anyone travelling to Varanasi actually stay in Sarnath and travel to Varanasi to visit. The scene is much more pleasant there, and just as energetically enriched. The rest of the trip was smooth and fairly uneventful. We are now back in Bangalore finishing up the second half of the semester, and studying about some very interesting aspects of Indian healing traditions, but that story is for another time.
Taj Mahal additions Thought I should send along a couple of Taj pictures to go with 
Taj Mahal at sunset 
Taj in pink 
Through the leaves
Jaisalmer 
This one is actually from the oservatory in Jaipur. Kyle is practicing yoga on the Aquarius sign sundial. In the background can be seen part of the humongous stone sundial,that could tell time within 2 seconds accuracy. It was amazing. 
This is another sun sign seen in Jaisalmer. 
In Jaisalmer we stayed in the Maharaja's palace. Half of it is a hotel, and half of it is still the residence of the former royal family. The rooms were funkier than on might expect but they all had funny and interesting decorations that belonged to the Rajas. This is the king's old gun. The flash of light was accidental but very cool. 
In Rajasthan the practice of Sati was historically quite common. Rajasthan is stil a place that is a little behind on women's rights issues. For example, it is the state with the lowest female literacy rate and our guides still talked about sati with a kind of reverence and admiration for the honor of the women who committed it. These hand prints are "sati hands" placed on the side of the fort's palace by royal women before committing sati. 
This is a picture of one part of the palace we stayed in. The picture does no justice to the majesty of the carvings or the size of the place. 
In the market we watched women selling their goods and learned how to identify the signs of marriage and widowhood, which are different from place to place but quite obviously advertised. 
This man is making the special Jaisalmer milk sweet in a huge mortar and pestle. MMMMMMMM! 
These last two pictures are of the Jaisalmer fort from different angles. The fort itself covers an area of 5 km. About 300 families live there now. We met one merchant who lived inside the fort in a 60 person household. There are 7 women who cook for everyone but he assured us this wasn't a difficult task. hmmmmmm. 
Some other factories and a camel The worst conditions for workers were seen at the chemical dye/screen print factory. 
Here are some men washing the chemicals out of the fabric. Surely spending the whole day in chemical water for years will result in health problems. There is no research that proves this yet since the chemical processes are fairly new. Here we also saw people working stoking fires and turning the fabric wheels in already hot weather. It made me appreciate understanding where my clothing material comes from and made me willing to spend more for vegetable dye, artistry and natural process. 
Camels have a goofy dignity about them. They walk very erect and proud looking but make funny expressions and lumpy movements. They're pretty fun. 
This old lady was separating yarn at the Khadi factory on Jaisalmer. She was the only person working that we saw on a Saturday afternoon. 
These pictures were taken in a family run block print/blue pottery factory. It is easy to see the difference between this situation and the other seen above. The block printer is highly skilled and works on his own. 
The printer showed us that to make a camel or an elephant print one needs a set of five different blocks. When carefully placed different parts of the elephant will be filled in with different colors.
Textiles, pottery and paper As part of our study we visited textile, pottery and paper factories to see the processes of how things are made, the differences beween natural and chemical production, conditions for workers, and the products that play an important role in tradition. 
Here I am holding a tie dye scarf at the government supported factory that provides jobs for villagers close to Jaisalmer. This kind of weaving is called Khadi, It is handspun and was propogated by Ghandi who did not want Indians to buy cloth from the British. It is still a symbol of freedom and economic independence in modern India. The scarf I am holding is in the middle of the dying process. 
We visited a paper making factory close to Jaipur. They started small and now are large exporters. It was nice to see that the environment seemed safe and humane for the workers.Don't feel too bad about buying Ikea paper lamp shades because it's probably from this factory. 
The paper made here is very strong as you can see! It is made from cotton scraps from the clothing industry. 
These natural dyes and block prints are from a textiles workshop. 
There are two kinds of fabrics that can be purchased in Rafasthan, real block prints made with vegetable dye and screen prints that are meant to look like block prints. Screen prints use chemicals and are produced on more of an assembly line, not really works of art. 
Paper making 
This is part of a hot bleach treatment for fabric.
Trip to Rajasthan These are scenes from around Jaipur, Rajasthan, the first stop on our trip. The day of these photos we saw the astronomy/astrology observatory, the palaces and markets. 
Waiting for the bus 
At the spice market 
Peacock Gate 
Jaipur Palace 
Chiles at the Jaipur market
Travel Adventures Kyle Writes: After the school field trip to the desert Eva and I decided to go to the Taj Mahal and Varanasi because that was our only chance on this visit. We ended up gathering a couple followers from our house which can tend to make travel more stressful because we were always having to guide them or watch out for them. The trip was full of difficulties, obstacles, and stepping in shit, but we would both agree that it was one of our best adventures filled with beauty, learning, and laughing. I decided to write a story about my experience of our trip to the Taj. Warning: this story is not for the weak of stomach, or people who like fairytales. First Leg: Incomparable Tomb of Love The initial motivation for our visit to the Taj was Eva?s grandmother. She had told Eva that the only thing that she regrets not having the chance to see is the Taj Mahal. After the field trip last semester we made our first attempt, which turned out to be a dismal failure because Fridays are the days of worship for Muslims and that was our only day. On that trip we managed to make it through the five-hour bus trip, past fondling and misleading auto-rickshaw drivers only to be stopped at the gate. Our only pictures that day were of the Taj through barbed wire and the two of us trying to smile through a bright sun and disappointed feelings. On our second visit we made sure that the tomb of everlasting love would be open for business (Hey, it is a 750 rupee entrance fee). Everything seemed to be in order for a smooth trip from Jaipur to Agra on the morning of 9th March until I woke up late night on the Jaisalmer to Jaipur train. My abdomen was emitting sharp pains in the upper right hand quadrant. I thought to myself, ?Oh shit, this will not be fun on the train!? I got up, managed to find my shoes, and quickly walked to the toilet room (with the good ole? Indian norm of urine, shit, BO, and smoke). It took about two to three wretches for the real purging to begin. As anyone who has the experience of projectile vomiting knows, the worst part is when it comes out of the nose, ooh the burning. I did not notice that there were some leftovers still in my naso-pharnyx due to the stomach acid burning sensation. When I returned to a supine position on my bunk I was suddenly aware of it as the postnasal vomit drip that began to flow down my throat. I quickly returned to the bathroom for more purging. The play-by-play version of a very long and disgusting night caused by bad apple pie on an already disturbed system could go on and on, but I think I already proved my ability of writing in a graphically disgusting manner. Let me just emphasize on more time that it was bad. By the time we made it to Jaipur at 6AM I was exhausted, but had managed to stop the flow just long enough to make it to the hotel where the other students were planning to stay. I would now like to thank modern science and technology for the invention of allopathic medicine and hot running water. Our plan was to get on the bus for Agra at 10AM, which was just long enough to shower, gargle and drink boiled salty water, and take some chemical that cements feces in the intestines. I managed to get on the bus with the help of the lovely goddess, Eva, and we were off for Agra. After a short nap and a liter of mineral water I felt much better, and could converse and spot peacocks out the window, it was starting to look like I would survive. Then one of the signs that of good fortune I recognize showed its beautiful self. Rain started to fall, then, it kept falling, and falling until water was pooling in the windowsill and spilling over onto the floor. It was not long before I was asking myself, ?Is this a good sign?? It would have been somewhat unpleasant to see the Taj on a rainy afternoon, but luckily the rain stopped about an hour after it started. Six point five hours after our Journey began we arrived in Agra, and headed toward the Taj with Ganesha on our sides. As soon as the driver tried to divert us from our path we were quick to thwart his efforts, and adjust his direction. At 5:30PM on 9th March we stood outside the gates of our destination for the first leg of the journey. The moment we walked in the entrance it was as though the cosmos smiled down on us. The sky was gorgeous shades of gray, black, green, pink, purple, blue, and with rays of golden light shining from the west. The Tomb of Love shown with golden light surrounded by the most colorful sky either Eva or I had seen during our seven-month stay in India. The view was exquisite, and it was not hard to see why it is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The inside of the Taj was just as beautiful as the outside, and there was no golden light illuminating it. The walls are covered with beautiful marble carving, inlaid colors, and Arabic writing (most likely prayers). The main room has an immensely high domed marble ceiling with eight window-like structures. When we first went in there were a few different men singing, ?Allah hoo Akbar,? a heart wrenching sound into the echoing abyss. Eva and I spent a long time in there calling out and singing the Beatles ?Love is All You Need?. The evening turned out to be a beautiful recognition of the romantic intentions that Shah Jahan had in building such a tomb for him and his wife. I found that if I can get through the obstacles with little tension then the rewards double in effect.
Out of station We are "out of station" (as the saying goes), in the Rajashani desert, about 180 km from the Pakistani border. The city where we are staying is called Jaisalmer, which is "The city of gold", unless you choose to translate it in Hindi, and then according to our tour guide this morning it means "the bloody hell where you should go and die". He said that was a more appropriate name for it during times of war with Pakistan, however we have luckily missed that incarnation and feel that the golden city is a much more appropriate description. It is an amazing place, and site of the oldest living fort in all of Asia. The fort itself is home to about 2500 people, and the entire population is 16000. We are staying in a palace (no joke) although as luck would have it, of all the possible rooms to stay in, some people are in the former audience hall and ladies quarters, Kyle ad I have ended up in the stable. Oh well, hard to complain once you step outside the room and come face to face with the intricate and astounding sandstone carvings that make up the entire outside face. The theme of this trip or our South Asia Studies is food, clothing and shelter. We have already visited a block printing/screen printing textile factory, learning about the process of natural dying and hand work versus machine and chemical processes. Today we are going to see the tie-dye work. It's also been interesting to see the different conditions for workers. Most were better than one might imagine, except for in the screen printing factory where workers stand in a tub of chemical water all day washing the newly dyed fabrics. When I asked the guide about the health effects for the workers he replied that chemical dyes are still fairly new and the ill-effects are not yet known... at least technically. We have seen several palaces, and places built around the city for the royal women who were to always remain in Purdah, covered and out of male sight. They had viewing palaces built in order to watch parades and goings on in the city below, which are kind of like ornately carved cages. Rajasthan actually has the lowest female literacy rate in all of India at 19%, and a pretty blatent attitude about the lower status of women that has been expressed by our male tour guides in a few different ways. The first guide in Jaipur tried to deny that there were any problems, while the guide we had today talked about sati as if it were an honorable act and wife-abuse as something that was normal and not a big deal. On the wall outside of the fort palace there are orange handprint carvings of women who committed sati. For anyone who doesn't know what that means, it is the ritual/traditional practice of a wife throwing herself upon the funeral pyre of her husband because it is better to be dead than a widow. Despite all of this, we have been shown incredible hospitality and are having an amazing experience. This place is absolutely beautiful, and last night we actually had good apple pie. There are about 10 german bakeries around, I haven't figured that one out yet. Tomorrow we are leaving for the desert camp, were we will be staying in mud huts, taking a camel trek, and learning Rajasthani dance. The following day we will ride to a small community village o six families, where we will be learning to cook a traditional meal with the women, and viewing the rural desert life. This will be the last activity for the school planned fieldtrip. As for us, we are then moving on to Agra for a chance to actually go inside the Taj, and then we are going to Varanasi for a few days before returning to Bangalore for our global health intensive course for the remainder of the semester. I have been reading about Varanasi (aka Banares and Kashi). It is a fascinating place. As old as Athens or Peking, but unique in the sense that it has sustained a continuous tradition for thousands of years. There are still parts of it that remain largely unchanged from ancient times. It is the place where Hindus go to die, because it is a thirta, a crossing place, from which they can attain instant moksha, or freedom from the cycle of samsara. I'll write more soon.
Tibetan settlement in Mungod These are picture's of Dr. Jampa's fimily from when we visited on the 9th of February. 
Catch that boy. 
Eva and the family. 
The matriarchs 
I feel like areal Indian woman now, I've ridden a motorcycle in Salwar Kameez 
Shrine in Mungod monastery 
The color in the monasteries is rich, beautiful and bright, and not in a gaudy way as in some of the temples 
The prayer flags for the year were hung up that morning......... 
Thousands of them 
Dr.Jampa's mom serving us a homemade beer called Chung. All over the world, these fermented drinks seem to be one of the things I can't stomach easily. It brought me back to my days of forcing cown Soua. 
With Gandhi and Dr. Jampa's cousin and brother
The infamous farm trip Here are some pictures from the infamous farm trip. 
This is the beautiful little boy Jenarden. He's standing right outside of the pen with a brand new baby goat in it. All lizards can now be referred to as Jenarden's friends. 
This is a picture of the house and some of the barns. 
Kyle milking and learning about the five cow formula for successful farming. 
Our sleeping arrangements 
Lakshmi and Barbara 
Indian Gothic
Would you like fries with that? Hi all, I am doing a writing project this semester as well as organizing, and editing our spring newsletter/magazine. My writings are going to be posted on the SAC website. This is the first installment, which will also be available on the blog. I think I'm going to call the series "Making Sense of India". Geetha thought it would be good to have the ponderings of an outsider for other outsiders to read. So, from one foreigner to another: Making Sense of India From an outside perspective Eva Hathaway Would You Like Fries With That? Sometimes I wonder how India is changing my perception of the world; after all, this hasn?t really turned out to be the roughing it experience I expected it to be. Bangalore is a cosmopolitan city, complete with organic food options at upscale grocery stores, coffee bar chains and a happening, drunken nightlife. Nearly every material thing that I might miss from home (except maybe good Mexican food) can be found with a fair amount of ease. However, any doubts I entertained about the severity of the culture shock I would feel upon re-entry to the United States in May were dispelled by the experience that followed a fellow classmate?s suggestion that we go to see the movie Alexander at the new multiplex theater in the new mall. In theory I knew what I was getting into. The Forum is home to the one and only McDonald?s in Bangalore, as well as the new and very modern PVR theaters. In all logical thought trains, the scene that we entered when we walked through the glass doors into the brightly lit and air-conditioned front hall should feel very familiar, normal even. To my American sensibilities, it was exactly what a mall should be: popular music playing quietly in the background, music that I never listen to, but know all the lyrics anyway; young people in mini-skirts and leather jackets sharing French fries in the food court; white floors so well waxed that the bright reflection of the florescent ceiling lights give the impression the floor has lights as well. I could even smell lemon floor cleaner mixed with the unmistakable scent of Mrs. Field's gooey chocolate chip cookies. The Forum is such an accurate replica of a typical American mall, that a man passing in a tucked up white lungi created the kind of juxtaposition that only makes sense in dreams. Suddenly, the place that at home I avoid for its boring predictability became downright bizarre. The feeling did not improve with the stadium, plush seating of the theater; although my huge chair provided a perfect place to sink into and try to disappear as the embarrassing show of millions of dollars tastelessly wasted paraded across the screen. Alexander felt in this atmosphere to be a covert (or not even) political statement, in which the beautiful blondes (all with bad and jarringly out of context Irish lilts) conquered the dark-eyeliner laden Arabs, and went on to attempt conquest over partially dressed ?barbaric Indians?. Leaving the theater I looked around to see if anyone was glaring, offended, in our direction. I didn?t catch anyone, but felt anyway that a poor representation of history, such as what we had just seen, becomes a vehicle for the continuation not the reversal of stereotypes. On the escalator I tried to examine the roots of my feelings, and an answer appeared to me in the form of an advertising catch phrase. A poster hung over my head proclaiming, If movies are your religion, then this must be heaven. Oh, great. I responded out loud, That's exactly what we need, more converts to the plastic, vapid mall religion. I realized that I had put my finger on it. All of the character of India, the colors, smells, sounds, and indeed the constant presence of religion had been buried by Muzak, recycled air and cleaning chemicals. I suddenly missed the things that I usually find tacky, like constantly blinking colored lights around god pictures and church alters. In a country where religion underlies everything, so much so that secularism does not mean the mutual exclusion of religion from public and political life, but rather mutual inclusion, with the understanding that religion cannot be so easily separated from identity, the introduction of the emptiness of ?mall religion? seemed particularly blasphemous. I took in all of the smiling faces that surrounded me, and wondered, is this what people really want? Is the comfort, convenience and safety offered by the local mall worth the sacrifice it demands? It's true there was some relief that came with the escape from the world outside. Inside the mall there were no rows of tent slums to contend with, or grief stricken mothers begging for pitiful sums. Inside the mall, one could be anywhere they wanted to be, eating the same food, for the same price - making the visit to the mall, and even to McDonald?s a status symbol and luxury of the well-off. Large fries cost the equivalent of 99 cents wherever you are, an unbeatable price in the States; as much as a nutritious, all-you-can-eat restaurant Thali meal or a full bag of fresh vegetables from the market in India. The visit to The Forum, although not something I'm itching to do again, helped to illuminate and articulate a feeling I have had about India, and Bangalore in particular, since I arrived. Born and raised in the First World, exposed by travel to the Third World, India confused me by its refusal to accommodate itself to either classification. It is instead a place where the First and Third Worlds have met, mated and bred extraordinary contradictions that allow some to match the standard and cost of living of any Western country, while others languish in debt bondage, unable to repay, even over generations, an amount of less than $5. Some are born with a silver spoon, some into a form of slavery. I weigh contradictions like this every day, and have come to the realization that neither is any more or less real than the other. Sometimes I think that India is a place where nothing makes sense, and then I correct myself and think, in India, everything makes sense, and that?s what is nonsensical. much love to all! There also should be new pictures up soon.
solo musings Eva writes: Hi everybody, Hope all are well, and enjoying cool (or even cold) weather. The suffocating hand of summer heat has clamped itself firmly onto the city, and the asphalt replacement going on outside the center isn't helping. I have been assured that this is unusual for this time of year, which means perhaps it will lift again, or that we have skipped spring altogether and it's going to be a LOOOOONG summer for me between India and the States. Today the school where i volunteer was cancelled after our exhausting sports day yesterday that lasted from 8:30-4. i believe it was more for the teachers sake than the students that we went for the long weekend. I don't think any of us wanted to face the task of trying to get kids to pay attention to math, science or geography on a friday after a fun day. The sports day was fun, although I was reminded of the somewhat uglier social side of middle/high school. The "cool" girls being so mean to the "uncool" ones. I guess I can look back now and appreciate that eventually one realizes that all of that stuff is trivial and meaningless, but it's sad to see the palpable torture of it while it's happening. Power relationships like that are so interesting, because the "cool" girls are only that because the others allow themselves to be trounced by them. Thank God for life after high school! This weekend (starting last night) I am on my own. Kyle went off to Kerala to study with an ayurvedic doctor. My evening and morning have been pretty quiet, and I am planning on getting quite a bit of work done over the weekend. Some of the girls from the center are also vying to expose me to Bangalore's thriving nightlife, smething I have been avoiding because I know it will be filled with bad American music and fashion. Still a cultural experience of sorts, being affronted by the distorted face of American cultural transplantation. I'm a little wary after my scare at the Forum super mall, but I'll probably go anyway. I have been reading Krishnamurti's book "Education and the Significance of Life", which is bringing to light an even deeper appreciation of the educational experience I am having here. The book really makes one question the validity of rote education, and delves into the idea that every person should be educated to flower creatively, learning about and growing into themselves. Much more complicated and difficult to go into via email, but I've been asking lots of questions that I will attempt to answer in my comparative study of educational methods and philosophies. I have also been enjoying practicing meditation and yoga in the mornings, although I'll admit I find it difficult to sit still for even 15 minutes, and I don't think I have even a moment of absolute, thoughtless quiet. I discovered during my credit review this morning that my friend Mr. Venkateshwaran (big-wig political center guy) is a Tamil and knows a lot about the LTTE and the Tamil Tiger struggle in Sri Lanka. I am planning to go pick his brain over, as soon as I brush up on my background knowledge. I have some basis from my Tamil anthropology course at CU. Geetha assured me that he will interogate me, but that it's okay if I don't know, as long as I admit to it. What he hates is people trying to bs what they know, considering that he's one of those encyclopedic people who can smell it a mile away. I want to hear about the Tamil perspective of the peace process and possibilities.
Nutricious not delicious Kyle writes: Hi everyone, I am just writing you to update all of my loved ones on my where abouts and activities. Last weekend Eva and I went to the Tibetan Refugee settlement where Dr. Jampa grew up to celebrate the Tibetan New Year (they use the lunar calendar rather than the solar). It was a long and exhausting trip in which we spent 11 hours on the train and two hours on the bus to get there. We had expected to get there four hours before we actually did, so we missed all of the community celebrations and puja (a prayer/offering). We did end up getting a tour of the monestaries, and we ate a ton of food both traditional and modern Tibetan. As Dr. Jampa says, "Tibetan food is nutrious not delicious." That actually means that it is oily or full of calories. We drank the Tibetan beer called chung, which is somewhat similar to the ethiopian sooa. His family was overly hospitable, and we had a pretty good time even though it was a whirl wind of a trip. When we got back Eva and I both crashed for several hours due to exhaustion. It was a pretty good trip even though I have had some sort of parasite or something from the food which has made me go to the toilet about four times a day and loose some weight. At first the loosing weight part did not bother me so much because we ate so many meals at restaurants while my parents were here that I felt a little giggly, but after a few days I started to realize that I needed to take action before I wasted away. I am now taking medicine for the issue. As far as my study, I have been focusing on yoga, reiki, and my life and death independent study lately. The book I am reading right now called The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying has been really inspiring to me lately, and making me realize how much I can learn from Buddhism. I am not ready to convert by any means because I find religions in general not to be my cup of tea, but I am realizing that there are many truths that I can learn from reading about buddhist philosophy and having an internal spiritual practice. This weekend I am going to head back down to Kerala to stay and study with this Ayurvedic doctor and Yoga master that my friend from massage school, Ariela, hooked me up with. He is a really grounded, intelligent, flexible, guy, and he is willing to teach me some stuff so I should have a learning experience. Then the following weekend our school is heading up to the desert in Rajisthan to study the food, clothing, and shelter of that region. As you can see I am staying pretty busy, so it already seems like the semester is flying by. I am sure that before long it will be time to turn in our portfolios and pack our bags. Until that day I am trying to make an effort to travel and learn as much as I can. I hope you all are well, and are having a good time in this life. That is really important. Life is good.
Pictures from Kyle's Birthday 
Kyle and the Tibetan Doctor's naughty son 
Ashok, Scott, and Dr Yonten 
You are never too old to play with your food
The Dandlya 
Am I possessing this kid or dancing with him? I guess this camera has no red eye protection. 
Here is a view of the Dandlya circle. This dance is traditional in Gujurati weddings. It is similar to a square dance style......... except with weapons. 
not much hidden here 
Laxmi helped to dress me, Barbara is wearing her "Birthday suit" and the tree of us look like different shades of the Goddess.
Digital Rot Something about the way I've been uploading pictures to the photo album has released the gremlins. Pictures are still there but the captions have been randomized and removed. I will clean it up this weekend and start a new album for 2005. Phillip
Kerala 
Walking on water In Kerala the boatmen have incredible balance. They sit and stand in these boats that couldn't be more than 18 in. and not even as deep. The edge gets so close to the surface of the water it's a wonder they do not capsize. Amazing skill and grace. 
On the Backwaters 
Scott and Raji This picture of Scott is from our stay at the Periyar River Lodge. In the forefront of the picture if Raji, a helper we later learned was a member of the Scheduled Castes (meaning he is a Dalit). Kerala is an interesting place. The Communist Party is very strong, it is the only state with literacy rates in the 90s for both men and |