I could spend a day sitting on a street corner in rural Rajasthan, never move from the same spot, and would be endlessly entertained for hours. Life here seems to tumble right out through every open doorway, shop front or alleyway and mix in an endlessly fascinating jumble of laughing faces, bright sarees, bleating goats, empty stares, horn blasts and snuffling pigs. All too often we're bumping through broken down streets on our way to another destination, and from the backseat of the 4x4 jeep I'm torn between wanting to ask to be dropped off for a few minutes to simply look at it all, and being slightly terrified of actually finding myself alone doing just that.
I can't begin to capture it all, but here's a random collection of some of the sights I've found interesting, amusing, and disturbing - often all at the same time, which seems to be India in it's essence.
Traveling by train through cities and towns in the early morning will guarantee you a view of more naked Indian men's bottoms than you could possibly imagine. (Though understandably this is probably not something most people would spend any time imagining, or attempting to visualize.) Slum housing made of brick, wood, plastic tarps and rubble extend out from the railway tracks like small, seemingly well-organized towns, and beyond the garbage heap before you hit the track, hundreds of men can be seen squatting for their morning constitutional.
While I naively thought that horns may be exclusive to big cities, it appears I was wrong. Even seated on top of a camel you can get honked at by motorcycles and cars that are determined to get past you. I think the only form of wheeled transport that doesn't have a horn is a bicycle rickshaw, and as far as I'm concerned, they're the ones that really need it. A friend and I were on a bicycle rickshaw the other night and while dodging a car on his right our driver simultaneously shoved a pedestrian out of the way on the left. At the time it seemed sort of rude, but lacking even one of those dinkie bicycle horns, what choice did he have?
Shops are often set up on tiny patches of sidewalk or by the edge of a dusty road. There's no need for a sign advertising the type of business, as a barbershop chair smack in the middle of a sidewalk, or a sewing machine set up on a ramshackle pile of bricks quickly communicates the service for sale. Today a man approached me at a median with what looked like a Q-tip tucked into his cap and offered his services as an ear cleaner. Having done the job myself yesterday, I politely declined his services. Veggies are sold from tarps spread out on the edge of a rubbish heap, with piglets snuffling nearby and small children digging for bottles to recycle.
As I may have mentioned, cows are absolutely everywhere. And by default, their 'business' is everywhere too. What's really interesting is what's done with the cow patties, beyond trying to dodge them as you walk down the street. Cow patties are dried and used as fuel, and litter roof tops and front yards as they dry in the sun. They also use the cow patties in the construction of homes, as mixing cow dung and local clay and coating the outside of buildings with the mixture is a natural fly repellent. So I've become somewhat obsessed with capturing the many sides of cow patties in rural India - clearly my photography obsession with livestalk extends just a bit too far.
Traffic snarls in the smallest of villages. A herd of goats or water buffalo being led down the road by a tiny boy or sari-clad woman struggle for space amongst camels pulling wagons, motorcycles, taxis and transport trucks so heavily loaded with produce that they resemble a Tim Horton's muffin with an abundant muffin-top.
Women work manual labour by the roadside, digging ditches while their toddlers wander nearby, playing with a stick and pebble. Tiny girls with matted hair navigate busy street corners, with near-naked younger siblings perched on their thin hips. In larger towns and cities garbage seems to be everywhere, covering the sides of roads and what looks like garbage dumps are right in the middle of towns. Often you'll see a small boy squatting going the bathroom amongst the refuse, while pigs are sniffling around a metre away, looking for lunch. It's all heartbreaking.
There's nothing private about bathing in small-towns, as young men just wash by the roadside pump. Clad only in underwear the same colour as their skin, shower-time is often a jarring sight as we drive through town. As three young men quickly wash off from a shared bucket of water, nearby twenty or thirty people go about business as usual, herding goats across the street, with men often sitting by a small chai shop, gossiping, or gambling while beautiful women with heavy anklets and brightly-coloured sarees walk past with large jugs or bundles of branches balanced on their heads.
I find it disturbing that even in the middle of India, my marketing brain doesn't quite shut off. I've become fascinated by the local equivalent of billboards - which in small towns translates to a painted ad adorning the sides of homes and buildings. Companies that don't have much money pay the home owner a small fee to advertise their products locally. What's fascinating is every third ad is for underwear, or 'innerwear' as its called here. The ads are accompanied by a rudimentary painting of briefs and undershirts. It baffled me at first - drawing a pair of briefs doesn't really provide enough detail to differentiate your product. But apparently some of the brands are quite small and local, so the paintings help communicate what the product is. (I've just reread this paragraph and it is disturbingly 'worky'. I can't seem to stop myself!)
Young men seem to be engaged in one of two activities - playing a game of cricket in a dusty pitch or waving and leering at western female tourists who happen to wander past. They resemble tiny pimps from the early 80s with high wasted flares, skin-tight t-shirts that show off their scrawny frames and leave nothing to the imagination, and frequently sport tiny moustaches - and you know my opinion of moustaches. As long as you're not walking on your own, they're fairly easy to dismiss, but occasionally you come across a group with a particularly feral look in their eyes that just says 'I spotted you about a block ago, and now I'm undressing you with my eyes as you walk past me'. I horrified my Group Leader one day by asking how much he dreads it when he gets his list of tourists and realizes that he's going to be escorting a half dozen young women through India. He was extremely polite about the whole thing and wouldn't admit that it sucks. I finally convinced him to teach me some insults to throw back at the super creepy ones, but I was drinking at the time and promptly forgot my new vocabulary.
Wandering through small villages, school-chilren run alongside you screaming 'one photo, one photo'. Being responsible tourists and not wanting to encourage payment for photos, our group tried to politely ignore them at first. But it turns out they just want their photos taken so they can then see themselves on the digital screen. You're quickly mobbed and 'one photo' turns into 'ten photos' as they all attempt to pose for a glamour shot. As we drive through small towns kids will pour out of doorways waving and giggling. At a roadside stop for chai one morning our arrival in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere quickly brought a crowd of about 20 young school boys, who stood and watched us drink our tea with apparent fascination. Touring the Taj Majal brought frequent requests to pose with Indian families for photographs. All in all, its just completely crazy. You travel thinking you want to capture the perfect photo of small kids, but after photographing 20 of them and trying to keep their fingers off all the fun buttons on your camera, you've just had enough. And it turns out we're minor celebrities ourselves simply due to the colour of our skin and the funny way we speak, and pose for numerous photos that will end up in some stranger's photo album. My protests of bad hair days get lost in translation somehow, so I shudder to think of all the photos taken that I wasn't able to delete!
I looked at a map the other day and realized I've only managed to see a tiny corner of Rajasthan, which is depressing, but sort of great at the same time. It turns out India's huge, go figure. This is fantastic really, as I'm already looking for an excuse to come back!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Livestock Report from India
For anyone who has had the misfortune of travelling with me before you'll know I have a bit of an obsession with photographing local lifestock. It's the farm girl in me, I don't have any other explanation. India is no exception.
I've decided that my favorite animal in India is the water buffalo. They have the most peaceful, relaxed eyes, as though they've achieved the higher consciousness I failed to reach at the ashram. The fur on top of their heads looks so soft I want to touch it. And as they stroll about villages, chewing on whatever it is water buffalos chew on while in transit, they see at peace with the world and their place in it.
I'm almost charmed by the Indian pigs as well, but their full-on scavenging habits are a bit off-putting. The pigs here resemble wild boars (or my misconception of what a wild boar looks like), with a shock of bristely hair that sticks up from their spine defiantly like a mohawk. They trot through town as though wearing a matching set up tiny high heels, clickety-clack, clickety-clack, snouts constantly rooting through garbage in the gutters. They often travel in small packs of 2 or 3, with the occasional tiny piglet prancing behind.
And it really doesn't matter where you are in India, turn your head in any direction and you'll see a cow - lounging by the median on a busy city street, prowling through the market, killing time in bus and train stations, or just sort of rambling along slowly, going nowhere. Growing up on a farm, I pathetically was always moderately petrified of cows, and only really relaxed when barbed wire separated me from by bovine friends. But the cows here are totally chilled, very used to people, and aside from the frisky cow who head-butted me a couple times in Pushkar, and my irrational fear has been replaced by a fascination. According to the Hindu religion, the cow is sacred, and as a result, ordering a Big Mac at McGreasy's is impossible in India. Unfortunately, the majority of cows in India are sadly disrespected, which is exactly the opposite of what I would have thought. If a cow isn't producing enough milk and a family can't afford to feed it, the cow is basically kicked out into the street, and has to fend for itself. So there's feral cows everywhere, ribs sadly visible, and most of them root in gutters and garbage heaps looking for scraps of food. I saw a young cow in the train station the other morning eating a piece of newspaper, and I was highly tempted to go buy it a samosa.
The other day I rode a camel named Rama. While our guide assured us before we set out that no tourist is allowed to ride a camel in India without a camel-handler, after 3 minutes my handler passed me the reigns and promptly disappeared. He surfaced about an hour later, with a bag of milk in his hand, so I think he was running errands. Not that it was a big deal, we ambled through the back streets of Pushkar and then out into the desert for about an hour and a half, and it was clear that Rama could have done the route in his sleep. What was really fascinating in a 'I'm about to crap my pants' sort of way was the way motorcycles weave in between camels like they're just another vehicle on the side of the road. I was feeling delicate in the gut region that afternoon, so bouncing around on the top of a camel really wasn't well timed, but it was pretty cool, I have to admit. Half way through we stopped off in the desert for masala chai and cookiesm, totally posh-tourist, but it was fantastic. Getting off a camel is interesting, because you have to lean back, and then pitch forward and back high in the air as the camel sits down. Some of the camels sort of collapse onto their sides in relief once their passenger has dismounted, and sink into the sand trying to get cool. My dismount was less than graceful - for anyone who has ridden a horse, it's a similar feeling but more thigh-numbing, so I collapsed into the sand right between a couple of camels for a few seconds in relief.
I'm a dog person, and have to admit, despite their scrawny stature and obvious infections, I'm charmed by the dog population here. Very occasionally you come across dogs that are actual pets (you can tell because they're a distinct breed and are usually over-fed), but most are wild, and starving. The dogs will sort of follow you looking for food, but usually don't get too close. At night you can often hear dog fights in the neighborhood, which from a distance is sort of just noise pollution, but up close, is actually kind of scary. Yesterday morning, Monika (friend from the tour group) and I were on very early morning hike through the town of Pushkar with the aim of seeing the sunrise from a hilltop, and came across a very violent dog-fight. The underdog (sorry, couldn't resist) eventually got away, but it was touch and go for a second. (No worries Nancy, we beat it out of there pretty quickly!) I come across a bundle of puppies a couple times a day, and have reached the conclusion that when I get home, I'm getting a dog, enough wasting time on the subject.
And well, yes, for those of you who couldn't resist the monkey jokes before I left, yes, there are a crapload of monkeys in India. Most tourists are pretty skitish around them, but I'm usually creeping closer, hoping for a good photo. Perhaps I'm tempting fate, but I've got to get good use of my over-priced rabies shots somehow, now don't I?
Pimp My Tractor
I'm not usually fascinated by transport trucks, but in India I stare at each one that rumbles past like a gobsmacked 4 year old boy. In a country where over-the-top ornamentation is the norm, trucks truly outdo themselves. Every available surface is covered in a rainbow of colour - small murals of Indian landscapes, Hindu gods, flowers, and the front windows are festooned with cascades of pom-poms and brightly coloured aluminum banners like you'd see at a tacky New Year's Eve party.
Farmers get into it too, and I often wonder how they can see out the front window of their tractors for all the tassles and ribbons. Usually hindi music is blaring loudly from the speakers as though at any moment a gaggle of Bollywood dancers might pop out of nowhere, dodging cow patties as they shake their hips across the fields. Apparently professional artists are hired to do the actual work, so perhaps this is a new career idea for me - definitely an avenue for creative expression, and something I could do from the farm! But more importantly, I've been looking for the appropriate souvenir for my Dad, and I think I may have found it. Because upon reflection, I think his tractor is missing a little something. I imagine that if Blake starts driving the backroads of Bosanquet Township with his tractor decorated in tassles and floral garlands this summer he might get some looks, but I think it's important to keep your public on their toes.
Farmers get into it too, and I often wonder how they can see out the front window of their tractors for all the tassles and ribbons. Usually hindi music is blaring loudly from the speakers as though at any moment a gaggle of Bollywood dancers might pop out of nowhere, dodging cow patties as they shake their hips across the fields. Apparently professional artists are hired to do the actual work, so perhaps this is a new career idea for me - definitely an avenue for creative expression, and something I could do from the farm! But more importantly, I've been looking for the appropriate souvenir for my Dad, and I think I may have found it. Because upon reflection, I think his tractor is missing a little something. I imagine that if Blake starts driving the backroads of Bosanquet Township with his tractor decorated in tassles and floral garlands this summer he might get some looks, but I think it's important to keep your public on their toes.
Vanity
It turns out I share a vanity with Indian gentlemen - the desire to cover my grey hair. After whining about my hair for the last 2 weeks I finally got tired of listening to myself the other day and splurged on a visit to a salon in Jaipur. The salon boys did a lovely job, and freshly coloured and blown-dry for the first time in a couple months, I felt like a movie star. It's a look the local 50 plus male crowd are going for as well, but perhaps with slightly less success. The cost-conscious gentleman can pay 5 rupees (15-20 cents) for a large bag of henna, which, when applied to white and grey hair, turns it a bright, almost neon orange. At first I wondered whether orange hair had its roots (ha! I kill me) in some religious tradition, but my Group Leader Sunny explained that it was just a combination of vanity and frugality. Unfortunately, contrasted against their naturally black hair, the application of henna actually fails miserably at subtley achieving its objective. Instead, it just sort of screams 'Yes, I'm going grey, please look at me'. I've turned into a paparazzi in the last couple of days, desperate to capture an image. So far the shot has eluded me, as I'm always riding by in a rickshaw and my subject ends up being blurry. Or I'm in a situation where it would be incredibly obvious that I am taking the photograph of an old Indian man, and well, that would just attract attention I really don't need. But I'm determined, so stay tuned.
Flight From the Ashram
Aside from the debacle at the airport in Mumbai, my trip to India has been planned with a military-like precision. My objective was to have as little alone time in India as possible. I see the irony in this now - with a billion people wandering about, there's no such thing as being alone here. But the basic thinking was this - minimize time alone wandering as a single female tourist and reduce the likelihood of, oh, I don't know, wandering down the wrong street and just 'disappearing'. A paranoid view of things? Yes, by all means.
So I really did intend to do the sun salutation pose in yoga class for a full two weeks, then hop in a pre-arranged taxi to the airport, and make my way north to Delhi to join my tour group. By day 4 at the ashram things were looking up - my appetite was shrinking, so moaning over the meals was gradually on the decline, I'd made peace with the fact I was going to skip daily lectures and wasn't going to gain a deeper knowledge of yogic theory, and while I still hadn't found a 'comfortable, seated, meditative position', I think I had acclimatized to life at the ashram.
While I still was a reluctant attendee at satsang, as my pathetic attempts at medication were getting me nowhere, I'd even started to enjoy some of the chanting. The ashram had two Swamis, or spiritual leaders, Little Swami and Big Swami. Their spiritual names were much more complicated and impressive, but I never got a handle on them, so my friend Cate and I took the liberty of renaming them based simplistically on their respective girth. Little Swami, the director of the ashram, was a medical doctor in a former life, quite dishy for a monk, but a bit monotone in his delivery and therefore lacked the sparkle or pizazz to catch my attention. Big Swami was a large guy in his 60's whose orange lunghi (long wrap skirt, sort of like a sarong) stretched across his abundant gut in a way that defied the low fat diet the ashram served up. (I am convinced he must have had a contraband supply of snacks - beetroot salad and lentil stew would not maintain this gut for long.) He had a large, booming, super-impressive voice and really got the temple rocking during the opening chant. And any monk who can work a joke about Michael Jackson into a spiritual lesson has got my attention, I admit it.
Nevertheless, cheetos and an obnoxious Hindu festival combined to make me seek escape from the ashram ahead of schedule. But perhaps I should explain.
A week into the yoga vacation program we were given a day off for good behaviour. Cate had done some research and found mention of a hilltop look-out about 35km away from the ashram which featured views of the surrounding tea plantations, so we set off in an autorickshaw with high hopes. We wound through quiet villages for an hour and a half, and with each passing kilometre it was clear we were travelling where few Western tourists bother to go, as people would stop what they were doing so they could take a good look at us as we slowly rode through town. We chose to look at the experience as a karma yoga gift to the people of Kerala, rather than the other take on it that was possible (feeling like a star of a circus freak show). About an hour and a half into the ride our driver stopped at what appeared to be the outpost for the Indian equivalent of the Ministry of Natural Resources. No one, our driver included, spoke English very well, but the rough translation was we'd ended up at an entry to a national park, and entrance to the park was restricted unless we had permission from the head office in Trivandrum (2 hours away) and paid a ridiculous fee of 6000 rupees each. And we were not even allowed to get out and take photos (which would have been crap, as we were on the side of the road in a bush) because there was a temple nearby which beadie little lady eyes were not allowed to view. I've since learned that a couple Hindu gods were bachelors, and as a result, women are not allowed to view temples that are dedicated to these gods, but at the time it sounded highly sexist and just wrong. So we headed back down the hill, and simply to amuse ourself, had our driver stop off in a small town for a little retail therapy. We purchased anklets at a tiny jewelery shop and bought some much needed snacks. I think it's possible that the chemicals that are in cheetos may have messed with my brain a bit, because after I inhaled a bag in 2 seconds flat, the ashram lost a bit of its appeal. Sort of a been, here, already done this feeling.
The second contributing factor to my flight from the ashram was the zeal with which the local village was paying tribute to a gaggle of Hindu gods. Our first morning at the ashram, along with the morning bell at 5:20 we were greeted with Hindu music echoing through the darkness. At the time, I mistakenly thought the ashram used the music to get us in the spirit of things, and I found it added to the atmosphere quite nicely. But it turns out we'd arrived at the ashram right in the middle of what must be the longest festival in the south Indian calendar, because for the next week and a half Hindu music was blasted from a series of loudspeakers about 18 hours a day. It started around 5am and played solidly till early afternoon, took a couple hours off (probably while the villagers were on siesta), then started again around 4ish and went till midnight. The chances of me actually succeeding at meditation were pretty low, I admit it, but there's no way I could find any inner focus with Hindu music blaring all the time. We kept hoping optimistically that the festival was almost over, but once my masseuse explained that it would continue till late March, Cate and I decided to hit the road for a couple decadent days at a nearby beachtown.
So I still can't meditate. I still can't sit still for more than 2 minutes without some muscle in my inner thigh starting to twitch. But I mastered the shoulder stand, which I'm quite pleased about, and more importantly, can now actually relax in a yoga class and not get all frustrated and pissy because I'm not 'accomplishing something'. And people, that's huge.
So I really did intend to do the sun salutation pose in yoga class for a full two weeks, then hop in a pre-arranged taxi to the airport, and make my way north to Delhi to join my tour group. By day 4 at the ashram things were looking up - my appetite was shrinking, so moaning over the meals was gradually on the decline, I'd made peace with the fact I was going to skip daily lectures and wasn't going to gain a deeper knowledge of yogic theory, and while I still hadn't found a 'comfortable, seated, meditative position', I think I had acclimatized to life at the ashram.
While I still was a reluctant attendee at satsang, as my pathetic attempts at medication were getting me nowhere, I'd even started to enjoy some of the chanting. The ashram had two Swamis, or spiritual leaders, Little Swami and Big Swami. Their spiritual names were much more complicated and impressive, but I never got a handle on them, so my friend Cate and I took the liberty of renaming them based simplistically on their respective girth. Little Swami, the director of the ashram, was a medical doctor in a former life, quite dishy for a monk, but a bit monotone in his delivery and therefore lacked the sparkle or pizazz to catch my attention. Big Swami was a large guy in his 60's whose orange lunghi (long wrap skirt, sort of like a sarong) stretched across his abundant gut in a way that defied the low fat diet the ashram served up. (I am convinced he must have had a contraband supply of snacks - beetroot salad and lentil stew would not maintain this gut for long.) He had a large, booming, super-impressive voice and really got the temple rocking during the opening chant. And any monk who can work a joke about Michael Jackson into a spiritual lesson has got my attention, I admit it.
Nevertheless, cheetos and an obnoxious Hindu festival combined to make me seek escape from the ashram ahead of schedule. But perhaps I should explain.
A week into the yoga vacation program we were given a day off for good behaviour. Cate had done some research and found mention of a hilltop look-out about 35km away from the ashram which featured views of the surrounding tea plantations, so we set off in an autorickshaw with high hopes. We wound through quiet villages for an hour and a half, and with each passing kilometre it was clear we were travelling where few Western tourists bother to go, as people would stop what they were doing so they could take a good look at us as we slowly rode through town. We chose to look at the experience as a karma yoga gift to the people of Kerala, rather than the other take on it that was possible (feeling like a star of a circus freak show). About an hour and a half into the ride our driver stopped at what appeared to be the outpost for the Indian equivalent of the Ministry of Natural Resources. No one, our driver included, spoke English very well, but the rough translation was we'd ended up at an entry to a national park, and entrance to the park was restricted unless we had permission from the head office in Trivandrum (2 hours away) and paid a ridiculous fee of 6000 rupees each. And we were not even allowed to get out and take photos (which would have been crap, as we were on the side of the road in a bush) because there was a temple nearby which beadie little lady eyes were not allowed to view. I've since learned that a couple Hindu gods were bachelors, and as a result, women are not allowed to view temples that are dedicated to these gods, but at the time it sounded highly sexist and just wrong. So we headed back down the hill, and simply to amuse ourself, had our driver stop off in a small town for a little retail therapy. We purchased anklets at a tiny jewelery shop and bought some much needed snacks. I think it's possible that the chemicals that are in cheetos may have messed with my brain a bit, because after I inhaled a bag in 2 seconds flat, the ashram lost a bit of its appeal. Sort of a been, here, already done this feeling.
The second contributing factor to my flight from the ashram was the zeal with which the local village was paying tribute to a gaggle of Hindu gods. Our first morning at the ashram, along with the morning bell at 5:20 we were greeted with Hindu music echoing through the darkness. At the time, I mistakenly thought the ashram used the music to get us in the spirit of things, and I found it added to the atmosphere quite nicely. But it turns out we'd arrived at the ashram right in the middle of what must be the longest festival in the south Indian calendar, because for the next week and a half Hindu music was blasted from a series of loudspeakers about 18 hours a day. It started around 5am and played solidly till early afternoon, took a couple hours off (probably while the villagers were on siesta), then started again around 4ish and went till midnight. The chances of me actually succeeding at meditation were pretty low, I admit it, but there's no way I could find any inner focus with Hindu music blaring all the time. We kept hoping optimistically that the festival was almost over, but once my masseuse explained that it would continue till late March, Cate and I decided to hit the road for a couple decadent days at a nearby beachtown.
So I still can't meditate. I still can't sit still for more than 2 minutes without some muscle in my inner thigh starting to twitch. But I mastered the shoulder stand, which I'm quite pleased about, and more importantly, can now actually relax in a yoga class and not get all frustrated and pissy because I'm not 'accomplishing something'. And people, that's huge.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Can I Have A Loincloth, Please?
Without even realizing it, by heading to the state of Kerala in the deep south of India, I inadvertedly ended up smack in the middle of the massage headquarters of India. Ayurvedic treatment spas litter the landscape here and I don't think they let you board a plane back north until you've had a treatment. I heard of ayurvedic massage for the first time in Mumbai, as a friend Andrew described his experience with it in less than glowing terms. Uncomfortably clad in a tiny loincloth with a small Indian man rubbing oil into his body, I can understand why he was slightly disturbed by the whole thing. At the time, I struck it off my 'Must Do in India' list and dismissed it from my mind.
But 2 days into my stay at the ashram I found myself in the doctor's office whining about the torturous pain in my lower back. I'd yet to find a 'comfortable meditative seated position' and this little problem, combined with the torture device that passed as my bed, was making it challenging to roll out of bed in the morning with any dignity. It turns out ayurveda is a form of medicine, not just a type of massage, and I'd unknowingly landed in the office of a doctor of ayurveda. He gave me two tiny containers of ghee (purified butter that's supposed to have curitive powers), some foul smelling pills and a prescription for 5 consecutive days of ayurvedic massage.
Here's the guidebook's description of ayurveda, so I don't butcher it completely:
'An ancient Indian science of herbal medicine and holistic healing, which focuses on treating the whole organism instead of just the illness, using herbal treatment and massage.'
Living in an ashram, one with a rigid schedule, means following simple instructions for the injestion of medication is seriously complicated. Two pills a half hour before you eat is tricky when you only eat twice a day and you're in the middle of the headstand pose in yoga class a half hour before breakfast. And the ghee - it looked like congealed lard, and well, I was not keen at all. Luckily on my first attempt of trying it the container exploded as I tried to pour it into my tea, and I ended up chucking it in relief. So all my hopes were pinned on the massage.
One really good thing about ayurvedic massage treatment is you're treated by a member of the same sex. This became especially important at my first appointment, when I was told to take off all my clothes and not provided a loincloth. Not that a loincloth would have actually covered much, but there's something unsettling about being completely naked in front of a woman you met 30 second earlier. And given her English vocabulary was limited, it seemed pointless and a little prudish to carry on about my naked state, so I just tried to go with it. Surrendering to India to stay sane is something you read about in guidebooks, so I just stayed silently horrified and kept my hang-ups to myself.
Ayurvedic massage starts with a head massage, so I was quickly seated on a small plastic stool having herbal oils massaged into my head. It should have been relaxing, but I spent most of the time wondering about whose bare bottom had warmed this stool before me and speculating on the likelihood that any sort of disinfectant had been used. After the head massage I got up onto the massage table - a massive wooden structure, turned dark, almost black by millions of beads of oil dripping off other naked bodies and soaking into the wood. At first I sat cross-legged and she put a dot of oil on my forehead, palms, belly button and feet. Then, after having my back oiled, I lay down face-up and spent the next hour and fifteen minutes being marinated, tenderized and battered like a giant piece of raw chicken. Ayurvedic massages isn't deep tissue massage, but rather a repetitive massaging of herb-infused oil into pretty much every square inch of your skin. Nothing was left untouched other than the area where my loincloth should have been. I admit it, I had to supress a fit of giggles at times because it was just so weird. Periodically during the marinating stage she stopped to pick random hairs off my oil-soaked skin - which as I'm sure you can imagine, horrified me. Later in the process I found a small hairball stuck to the back of my leg, which was very traumatic for me - especially as on quick inspection it was clear other people had contributed some materials for the mass. This led to more internal freaking out as I pondered the cleanliness of the massage table, so the experience was less than relaxing.
After 45 minutes of marinating we moved onto the tenderizing stage. Herbs wrapped in satchels, heated over a propane stove came next, which were pounded into every surface of my body. As each satchel cooled another heated one replaced it. This should have relaxed me, and on a certain level I recognized it was quite nice, but I was still hoping for a more aggressive treatment of my back pain, so in my head I was just like 'can we just get on with it, please'.
And yes, I mentioned a battering stage as well. Obviously after all that oil and herbs being rubbed into your body, you're just one massive oil slick. Using a minimum of instructions, I was led, naked, into the bathroom. Showers in India are traditionally bucket baths, which means you fill a large bucket of water and use a small bucket to pour manageable amounts of water onto yourself. The masseuse grabbed a handful of chickpea power and quickly mixed up a paste. While she did this I sort of just stood there desperately wanting to cover myself, but the rational part of me realized that this was now pointless. She then demonstrated the battering and showering procedure, rubbing some of the chickpea paste on my arm, then dumping water on it to rinse it off. She sat on the plastic stool outside while I showered, with the door open, so I felt like some crazy exhibitionist, but just sort of went with it anyway.
As you can imagine, I was sort of dreading my next appointment. At appointment number two a loincloth was produced, without my prompting. I don't think the lack of loincloth at the first appointment was deliberate to see how much it would make me squirm, I think they just either have some on supply or they don't, and you just sort of adapt accordingly. I'm not exactly comfortable with semi-public nakedness now, but my loinclothless days have made me a stronger person.
But 2 days into my stay at the ashram I found myself in the doctor's office whining about the torturous pain in my lower back. I'd yet to find a 'comfortable meditative seated position' and this little problem, combined with the torture device that passed as my bed, was making it challenging to roll out of bed in the morning with any dignity. It turns out ayurveda is a form of medicine, not just a type of massage, and I'd unknowingly landed in the office of a doctor of ayurveda. He gave me two tiny containers of ghee (purified butter that's supposed to have curitive powers), some foul smelling pills and a prescription for 5 consecutive days of ayurvedic massage.
Here's the guidebook's description of ayurveda, so I don't butcher it completely:
'An ancient Indian science of herbal medicine and holistic healing, which focuses on treating the whole organism instead of just the illness, using herbal treatment and massage.'
Living in an ashram, one with a rigid schedule, means following simple instructions for the injestion of medication is seriously complicated. Two pills a half hour before you eat is tricky when you only eat twice a day and you're in the middle of the headstand pose in yoga class a half hour before breakfast. And the ghee - it looked like congealed lard, and well, I was not keen at all. Luckily on my first attempt of trying it the container exploded as I tried to pour it into my tea, and I ended up chucking it in relief. So all my hopes were pinned on the massage.
One really good thing about ayurvedic massage treatment is you're treated by a member of the same sex. This became especially important at my first appointment, when I was told to take off all my clothes and not provided a loincloth. Not that a loincloth would have actually covered much, but there's something unsettling about being completely naked in front of a woman you met 30 second earlier. And given her English vocabulary was limited, it seemed pointless and a little prudish to carry on about my naked state, so I just tried to go with it. Surrendering to India to stay sane is something you read about in guidebooks, so I just stayed silently horrified and kept my hang-ups to myself.
Ayurvedic massage starts with a head massage, so I was quickly seated on a small plastic stool having herbal oils massaged into my head. It should have been relaxing, but I spent most of the time wondering about whose bare bottom had warmed this stool before me and speculating on the likelihood that any sort of disinfectant had been used. After the head massage I got up onto the massage table - a massive wooden structure, turned dark, almost black by millions of beads of oil dripping off other naked bodies and soaking into the wood. At first I sat cross-legged and she put a dot of oil on my forehead, palms, belly button and feet. Then, after having my back oiled, I lay down face-up and spent the next hour and fifteen minutes being marinated, tenderized and battered like a giant piece of raw chicken. Ayurvedic massages isn't deep tissue massage, but rather a repetitive massaging of herb-infused oil into pretty much every square inch of your skin. Nothing was left untouched other than the area where my loincloth should have been. I admit it, I had to supress a fit of giggles at times because it was just so weird. Periodically during the marinating stage she stopped to pick random hairs off my oil-soaked skin - which as I'm sure you can imagine, horrified me. Later in the process I found a small hairball stuck to the back of my leg, which was very traumatic for me - especially as on quick inspection it was clear other people had contributed some materials for the mass. This led to more internal freaking out as I pondered the cleanliness of the massage table, so the experience was less than relaxing.
After 45 minutes of marinating we moved onto the tenderizing stage. Herbs wrapped in satchels, heated over a propane stove came next, which were pounded into every surface of my body. As each satchel cooled another heated one replaced it. This should have relaxed me, and on a certain level I recognized it was quite nice, but I was still hoping for a more aggressive treatment of my back pain, so in my head I was just like 'can we just get on with it, please'.
And yes, I mentioned a battering stage as well. Obviously after all that oil and herbs being rubbed into your body, you're just one massive oil slick. Using a minimum of instructions, I was led, naked, into the bathroom. Showers in India are traditionally bucket baths, which means you fill a large bucket of water and use a small bucket to pour manageable amounts of water onto yourself. The masseuse grabbed a handful of chickpea power and quickly mixed up a paste. While she did this I sort of just stood there desperately wanting to cover myself, but the rational part of me realized that this was now pointless. She then demonstrated the battering and showering procedure, rubbing some of the chickpea paste on my arm, then dumping water on it to rinse it off. She sat on the plastic stool outside while I showered, with the door open, so I felt like some crazy exhibitionist, but just sort of went with it anyway.
As you can imagine, I was sort of dreading my next appointment. At appointment number two a loincloth was produced, without my prompting. I don't think the lack of loincloth at the first appointment was deliberate to see how much it would make me squirm, I think they just either have some on supply or they don't, and you just sort of adapt accordingly. I'm not exactly comfortable with semi-public nakedness now, but my loinclothless days have made me a stronger person.
My Bollywood Crush
On my first day in Mumbai I picked out a Bollywood film soundtrack to get myself into the spirit of India. Perhaps its a superficial part of Indian culture, but its one that quickly appealed to me. I picked the soundtrack based purely on the packaging - it was very over-the-top in a Harlequin sort of way, which made me nostalgic. The back cover featured the star, Shah Rukh Khan, and his 8 pack of abs, and well, I was mesmerized. Farah's cousin Zarik informed me that the film it was based on, 'Om Shanti Om', was crap, but that I might like the music. Over the next couple days, I forced Farah to endure the cd non-stop while we were in our hotel room and conscious, and by the end of the week I was singing the title song, 'Om Shanti Om' under my breath as we shopped our way through Mumbai. And my boyfriend, Mr. Khan? It turns out he's India's #1 star, and he makes gobs of money on endorsements, so while we were stuck in traffic in the back of taxis I could admire him from multiple billboards around the city. I'm conflicted however, now that I'm at the ashram. Apparently 'Om' means universal consciousness and 'shanti' means 'peace'. We end yoga class and chanting sessions with the chant 'Om shanti, shanti, shanti'. And while I try to concentrate and be all pure like I'm supposed to be, I'm usually giggling to myself and thinking about Mr. Bollywood's abs. I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't think lusting over abs is going to help me reach another level of consciousness.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Bling & Naan - My Own Personal Paradise
Some people come to India seeking spirituality. My motivation is much more shallow, and I make no attempts to disguise it. I've often wondered if in a prior life, I may have been Indian. My evidence, you ask? Let me explain.
1) The Bling Factor: There's something about the oppulence of colour and explosion of glitz that I associate with India that has always appealed to me immensely. While it's possible I've just watched one too many Bollywood movies, I don't think that's it.
2) The Naan Factor: I am obsessed with naan bread. I love it, love it, love it, much to my thigh's disgust. I'm contemplating installing a tandoori oven in my imaginary future home, just so I can have a constant supply of naan.
That's right. I ended up in India determined to satisfy two of my favorite hobbies - shopping and eating. Last Fall when my friend Farah spontaneously suggested that I meet her in Mumbai to help shop for her wedding, I hesitated for only a nanosecond before I started mentally rearranging the itinerary of my trip so I could squeeze in a trip to India.
By setting myself the goal of experiencing Bling and Naan, Indian-style, I think I've probably got it easier than those here in search of a spiritual awakening. My gurus came in the form of the Mullick ladies, who quickly introduced me to the magic that is shopping in Mumbai. My days were filled with sarees and silks, bangles and ribbons, and an exhausting selection of jewelery. I've never shopped so hard in my life - and it was fantastic.
But the Bling extended beyond the shops and the markets. Mumbai is a city dripping in jewel-toned hues and fairy lights. Mosques that sparkle at night like a tiered wedding cake, lit with a thousand candles. On a daily basis we'd drive past 5 or 6 Hindu weddings in full-swing, canopied tents leading right to the sidewalk, garishly festooned with strings of flowers and twinkling lights. At the Gateway of India tourists can catch horse-drawn carriages and ride along the bay. But they were blinged-out carriages, punched tin pieces of art elaborately decorated with pulsing lights - it was like riding along in your own mobile carnival. And everywhere, women and young girls walking through the streets of Mumbai, their sarees painting the city every colour imaginable.
And as for the naan? I'm happy to report that its even better than I'd hoped. In India I've been introduced to buttered naan, which is nothing more elaborate than the name describes, but frightfully tasty. I'm slightly bitter at my years of wasted opportunities, before I knew buttered naan existed. But discovering it here in India somehow makes it worth the wait.
1) The Bling Factor: There's something about the oppulence of colour and explosion of glitz that I associate with India that has always appealed to me immensely. While it's possible I've just watched one too many Bollywood movies, I don't think that's it.
2) The Naan Factor: I am obsessed with naan bread. I love it, love it, love it, much to my thigh's disgust. I'm contemplating installing a tandoori oven in my imaginary future home, just so I can have a constant supply of naan.
That's right. I ended up in India determined to satisfy two of my favorite hobbies - shopping and eating. Last Fall when my friend Farah spontaneously suggested that I meet her in Mumbai to help shop for her wedding, I hesitated for only a nanosecond before I started mentally rearranging the itinerary of my trip so I could squeeze in a trip to India.
By setting myself the goal of experiencing Bling and Naan, Indian-style, I think I've probably got it easier than those here in search of a spiritual awakening. My gurus came in the form of the Mullick ladies, who quickly introduced me to the magic that is shopping in Mumbai. My days were filled with sarees and silks, bangles and ribbons, and an exhausting selection of jewelery. I've never shopped so hard in my life - and it was fantastic.
But the Bling extended beyond the shops and the markets. Mumbai is a city dripping in jewel-toned hues and fairy lights. Mosques that sparkle at night like a tiered wedding cake, lit with a thousand candles. On a daily basis we'd drive past 5 or 6 Hindu weddings in full-swing, canopied tents leading right to the sidewalk, garishly festooned with strings of flowers and twinkling lights. At the Gateway of India tourists can catch horse-drawn carriages and ride along the bay. But they were blinged-out carriages, punched tin pieces of art elaborately decorated with pulsing lights - it was like riding along in your own mobile carnival. And everywhere, women and young girls walking through the streets of Mumbai, their sarees painting the city every colour imaginable.
And as for the naan? I'm happy to report that its even better than I'd hoped. In India I've been introduced to buttered naan, which is nothing more elaborate than the name describes, but frightfully tasty. I'm slightly bitter at my years of wasted opportunities, before I knew buttered naan existed. But discovering it here in India somehow makes it worth the wait.
Paan
You can't walk very far down a sidewalk in Mumbai without coming across a cigarette stall. Cigarettes are sold individually, and while this may reduce consumption, I would guess it has more to do with meeting the demands of its ruppee-conscious customer base.
Also available at cigarette stalls is paan, sort of an oversized Indian after-dinner mint, but absolutely nothing like a mint at the same time. On our first afternoon together in Mumbai, Farah and Andrew (Harlequinite based in Mumbai, and our tour guide/social director for the day) both campaigned fairly hard that I should try some paan. I was reluctant - I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that the paan was assembled right there in the cigarette stall. In this case, seeing your mint assembled is actually a bit of a turn-off.
But around 12:30 that same evening, I surrendered to the paan. I'm incredibly paranoid about trying new foods - but usually somewhat open-minded when it doesn't involve unidentifiable meat products. A lot of stuff goes into paan, but thankfully no mystery meat. Suffering the after-effects of little sleep, my protests were feeble and ignored. My defenses were down, and I soon found myself agreeing to sample paan. So in amongst the cigarettes are the ingredients for paan. In a small bucket, spear-shaped green leaves float in water. The stall attendant, a worn-looking grandmother somewhere between the ages of 50 and 80, selected a leaf from the bucket and started opening small tupperware containers. Each container held a different substance - random mystery pastes, which I later learned were betel and ground dates, coconut, spices and those tiny crunchy candies that top short-bread cookies. Each substance was smeared or dropped into the center of the leaf, with Grannie's bare finger, which she then wiped on a rag between ingredients. As she constructed the paan I surveyed the cleanliness of her stall and hypothesized how long it would take post-paan for me to be violently ill. She then rolled up the leaf and passed the package to Zarik, who laughed as he handed it to me.
What I hadn't realized, or no one had explained, is you actually consume the entire leaf. I'd naively assumed it was sort of like a serving utensil and I'd somehow delicately eat the contents without injesting the whole leaf. I was quickly educated, and before I could obsess further, I stuffed the whole thing in my mouth. It was massive, crunchy and very juicy - sweet with an after-taste something like cough-syrup. Apparently mid-chew, locals will spit out a stream of red juice onto the sidewalk. I didn't think I was capable of pulling that off, so kept determinedly chewing on my wad of paan. I was about half way through and quite pleased with myself when Andrew began to critique the cleanliness of the rag Grannie had used during the construction of my paan. I began to gag on the remaining mass in my mouth, and proceeded to spit it into a tissue as delicately as possible. I think I pulled it off, almost.
Rule #7 - from the 'Grooming Guide for the Indian Male'
I'm naturally suspicious of men with moustaches - a niggling fear that they have a fetish to hide or something for which they're desperately trying to compensate. In Western countries, I would estimate that the moustache as a facial grooming habit started to decline in the mid-to-late 1980s, when the goatee began to rise in prominence. (I'm not a huge fan of the goatee either, but that's a rant for another time.)
India seems to be on an entirely different timeline in the evolution of male facial grooming habits. The moustache, tragically, is King. Perhaps it is cultivated as an indication of virility, I'm not sure. However, it is probably best if I don't start conducting interviews with random men on the street to discuss my theory. I'm being stared at enough already, I would guess striking up a conversation and asking about a man's virility might garner the wrong sort of attention.
The dominance of the moustache was nowhere more obvious than at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai, where Farah and I stayed with her parents for a few days. One night at dinner I conducted a quick scan of the room and found that 96% of the wait-staff sported a moustache. I suppose its possible the moustache may have been an official part of the C.C.I. uniform, but I don't think that's it.
So I'm trying to evolve my thinking on the subject of the moustache, because I have met some very nice Indian men with moustaches, and on the surface at least, no fetishes in sight. Very open-minded of me, wouldn't you say?
India seems to be on an entirely different timeline in the evolution of male facial grooming habits. The moustache, tragically, is King. Perhaps it is cultivated as an indication of virility, I'm not sure. However, it is probably best if I don't start conducting interviews with random men on the street to discuss my theory. I'm being stared at enough already, I would guess striking up a conversation and asking about a man's virility might garner the wrong sort of attention.
The dominance of the moustache was nowhere more obvious than at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai, where Farah and I stayed with her parents for a few days. One night at dinner I conducted a quick scan of the room and found that 96% of the wait-staff sported a moustache. I suppose its possible the moustache may have been an official part of the C.C.I. uniform, but I don't think that's it.
So I'm trying to evolve my thinking on the subject of the moustache, because I have met some very nice Indian men with moustaches, and on the surface at least, no fetishes in sight. Very open-minded of me, wouldn't you say?
One Billion + 1
One of the favorite games I enjoy engaging in with shop-keepers is the 'guess what country I'm from' game. Invariably their first guess is Germany, which is a bit baffling, at least from an accent perspective. While a taxi driver told me yesterday that I have a German-looking face, I think it probably has more to do with the fact that Germans are the best-travelled people on the globe. Two nights ago in the beachside town of Varkala, my friend Cate, a shop-keeper and I started a game. Cate volunteered her Australian status fairly early in the game, which got the usual smirk from the shop-keeper and a quick discussion of how well India is currently doing in an important cricket match against Australia. We bounced back to me and after confessing I wasn't German, I threw out the hit that I came from the 2nd biggest country in the world. I think this is right, though maybe Canada is #3. This is a detail I can be hazy about however without too much chance of being corrected. Once we ran through the U.S., France and Spain as options, I began to tire, so confessed my Canadian citizenship. The shop-keeper was surprised at Canada's largesse, then puffed out his chest and proudly declared 'India, we are #8 in size but #2 in population'. I nodded and tried to look impressed, but the dialogue in my head was more along the lines of 'yes, your country is full-to-bursting with people, so keep your pants on and let's practice some population control'.
There are over 1 billion people who call India home, and they speak some 200 languages. In my fist week in Mumbai as I attempted to acclimatize to the endless crowds of humanity, I swear it felt like I was shoulder to shoulder with at least a half billion of them at any one time. No matter what time of day it is, there are people absolutely everywhere. In the pitch-black of night, people stroll along inner-city highways as though they're out for a walk in the park. And on a Sunday night at 10pm when most Canadians would be tucked up in bed, the sidewalks of Mumbai are absolutely heaving with people, and some livestock as well. Families out for a bit of ice-cream. Clusters of men spill out of store-fronts, and young boys, deep in conversation, stroll happily along the road, arm-in-arm. Small children from the slums sit curbside by an open-fire, trying to keep warm. And a half-dozen cows, for good measure, diminishing their holy status somewhat in my eyes, by feasting on that's day's garbage on the sidewalk.
The abundance of people naturally affects traffic. For anyone who complains about traffic in Toronto, myself included, suck it up, crybabies, you've got it easy. The air rings continuously with honking horns. A couple touts on a horn alerts slow vehicles to get the heck out of the way. On the backside of trucks the public is actually encouraged to use their horns, as 'Horn Please' is painted on the back door of every truck. It confused me for a time, but I'm now getting it, I think. How's a truck supposed to know it's cramping the style of another vehicle unless it's informed via the honk of a horn? It actually makes a lot of sense, when you think about it from that perspective. And the attitude of drivers in Mumbai seems to be doggedly optimistic. They simply trust that the flow of traffic will swell to accomodate them, and where a second before there was room for a thin man on a bicycle, suddenly there's space for a taxi to make its way through. Sitting in the back of the taxi is dramatic at first, but you begin to trust in the Hindu God of Traffic (his name is escaping me at the moment), and just settle back for the show, which is always fascinating.
At times though, I really did feel like person number one billion and one, while travelling around Mumbai. Farah and I spent a day and a half in the suburbs of Mumbai, shopping for wedding paraphanalia with her Mom and Aunt. It was a fantastic break from being a tourist, flexing shopping muscles that have been atrophying recently, but there's no chance this white chick blended into the suburban crowds. In India the people have a very natural curiousity about eachother - I suppose with this many people knocking against eachother, there's almost an anonymity in the crowd. As Canadians, we're quite reserved and discreet about examining our fellow humans - the perusal is typically conducted out of the corner of your eye and the recipient of the examination is usually none the wiser. In India, the open stare is very natural and not considered rude. So walking through a busy suburban market, it felt like one hundred sets of eyeballs were trained on me at all times. And when I was having a bad hair day and sweating from hard-core shopping, I just wanted to scream 'You're not seeing me at my best. Come back later for the 8:00 show, I will have showered!'
So I wouldn't suggest a visit to Mumbai if you're craving solitude, but if you're in the mood for some people-watching, there's probably no better place in the world.
There are over 1 billion people who call India home, and they speak some 200 languages. In my fist week in Mumbai as I attempted to acclimatize to the endless crowds of humanity, I swear it felt like I was shoulder to shoulder with at least a half billion of them at any one time. No matter what time of day it is, there are people absolutely everywhere. In the pitch-black of night, people stroll along inner-city highways as though they're out for a walk in the park. And on a Sunday night at 10pm when most Canadians would be tucked up in bed, the sidewalks of Mumbai are absolutely heaving with people, and some livestock as well. Families out for a bit of ice-cream. Clusters of men spill out of store-fronts, and young boys, deep in conversation, stroll happily along the road, arm-in-arm. Small children from the slums sit curbside by an open-fire, trying to keep warm. And a half-dozen cows, for good measure, diminishing their holy status somewhat in my eyes, by feasting on that's day's garbage on the sidewalk.
The abundance of people naturally affects traffic. For anyone who complains about traffic in Toronto, myself included, suck it up, crybabies, you've got it easy. The air rings continuously with honking horns. A couple touts on a horn alerts slow vehicles to get the heck out of the way. On the backside of trucks the public is actually encouraged to use their horns, as 'Horn Please' is painted on the back door of every truck. It confused me for a time, but I'm now getting it, I think. How's a truck supposed to know it's cramping the style of another vehicle unless it's informed via the honk of a horn? It actually makes a lot of sense, when you think about it from that perspective. And the attitude of drivers in Mumbai seems to be doggedly optimistic. They simply trust that the flow of traffic will swell to accomodate them, and where a second before there was room for a thin man on a bicycle, suddenly there's space for a taxi to make its way through. Sitting in the back of the taxi is dramatic at first, but you begin to trust in the Hindu God of Traffic (his name is escaping me at the moment), and just settle back for the show, which is always fascinating.
At times though, I really did feel like person number one billion and one, while travelling around Mumbai. Farah and I spent a day and a half in the suburbs of Mumbai, shopping for wedding paraphanalia with her Mom and Aunt. It was a fantastic break from being a tourist, flexing shopping muscles that have been atrophying recently, but there's no chance this white chick blended into the suburban crowds. In India the people have a very natural curiousity about eachother - I suppose with this many people knocking against eachother, there's almost an anonymity in the crowd. As Canadians, we're quite reserved and discreet about examining our fellow humans - the perusal is typically conducted out of the corner of your eye and the recipient of the examination is usually none the wiser. In India, the open stare is very natural and not considered rude. So walking through a busy suburban market, it felt like one hundred sets of eyeballs were trained on me at all times. And when I was having a bad hair day and sweating from hard-core shopping, I just wanted to scream 'You're not seeing me at my best. Come back later for the 8:00 show, I will have showered!'
So I wouldn't suggest a visit to Mumbai if you're craving solitude, but if you're in the mood for some people-watching, there's probably no better place in the world.
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