Monday, January 02, 2006
Hello once again
further notes for an autobiographical strip search; world traveler module, 1989-90, Asia; inspired by a rather titillating feeling of absurdity that overcame me during the celebration of a moment in time about 39 hours ago (happy new year)...
When my boyfriend Leon, my friend Nina and I entered India at the Nepalese border on a cold December morning in 1989, the sun slid into a buttery sky at five a.m., illuminating an already bustling border town. Spindly children ran across the unpaved street carrying sweet beige tea to groups of chattering men while silent women with stern, slick hair opened gift shops and drugstores for the early tourist influx.
Before we could divest ourselves of a few rupees to obtain provisions for our long bus ride to Lucknow--home of the nearest train station--we were ushered into Passport Control with the rest of the group we'd traveled with from Kathmandu the night before: six lanky Norwegians lugging skis to their Kashmiri mountaintop destination, a group of German lesbians headed for the holy waters of the Ganges at Varanasi, and a few other wayward travelers like ourselves, courting any new experience that might arise.
The bus was scheduled to depart at seven. The passport officials took so long humming and shaking their heads over each of our visas that we thought we might miss it, but we boarded at five 'til, charmed by the way things always seem to work out just right, no matter how last-minute, when traveling.
The seats on the bus were not wholly uncomfortable and, with our luggage stowed on the roof, there was even room for our knees. The driver was dressed in layers of gauzy white, and bore not a passing resemblance to Pearl Bailey. He puffed his ample cheeks out as he rewrapped his turban, tighter this time, giving the effect of a quickie facelift. The Norwegians jumped aboard with their last-minute purchases of bidis and Life-savers. The engine chugged to life, then all activity seemed to detach itself from the tyranny of time.
The driver leaned from the bus entrance like a wide-eyed tourist on a San Francisco trolley and called out in quickstep Hindi, then English, "Leaving for Lucknow!" A few crimson-clad women carrying macrame shopping bags straggled out of aquamarine doorways and took the last empty seats. Nina, Leon and I conferred with each other: of course, he's just trying to fill the old heap up. After all, he's gotta make a living.
For the next large chunk of time, people crawled out of every nook and cranny of that tiny town, and the bus continued to fill. First, we rearranged ourselves to fit three to a seat, then four, then children and small women were placed on laps. Soon, people were jumbled together in jigsaw proximity, limbs splayed into the air, torsos twisted to fit narrow crevices. When I managed to catch a glimpse of the dainty gold watch on the wrist of the plump, red-saried woman who was perching on my shoulder, it was already ten o'clock. Time for a coffee break.
A few lanky men peeled themselves away from the top layer of bus humanity to follow the driver to a tea shop down the street. The rest of us shifted in tiny, painful ways while we watched them pop gooey gulab jamun into their mouths. Nina tried in vain to open the window nearest her; the man sandwiched between her knees reached up and hit it with his forearm. It quivered, dropped and crashed to pieces in its cavity. By eleven we were on our way. I was pleased to have found a practical use for my years of yoga and meditation practice.
The two-lane highway we barreled down sloped so precipitously on either side that I was amazed the bus didn't roll off into the marshy grasslands we passed. Two hundred miles out of Lucknow, we slowed to a stop where a band of young men and women blocked the road. A student uprising, we thought. A woman in a jeweled, brocaded kurta and a man in dingy white Ghandi-like robes approached the bus. The driver talked to them in hushed tones for about fifteen minutes, then made an announcement in Hindi to his passengers. The woman on my shoulder leaned down to us.
"You are understanding?" she asked.
We shook our heads, no.
"He is saying the woman is high caste, fighting against too many lower caste people getting government jobs, and the man is lower caste, fighting against too many high caste people getting government jobs. So they will be stopping transportation services all over Uttar Pradesh to be making their point."
"Both sides together?" Leon asked.
"Yes," answered the woman, "both sides fighting together."
"Then whose point will be made?" I countered.
The woman shrugged. "Does not matter. The driver is saying they will be throwing rocks and puncturing tires, then we will be getting it mended, then they will be letting us through."
"Why don't they just let us through now, then?" asked Nina.
"Ah," said the woman, wagging her head, "it is not proper yet. They must be making us lose much time."
Nina and I nodded as if we understood. Leon looked irritated--never a good sign. He'd seen similar meaningless political oddities in his native Soviet Union. And he was never one to be kept waiting gracefully. Again, time had taken an unexpected philosophical turn.
Rocks were thrown, windows broken. Everyone ducked as best they could, and, miraculously, no one was hurt. The passengers cheered when the front right tire gave up its air with a loud pop. Since there was nowhere to turn around on the road, the driver ground the gears into reverse, and we sped backwards for twenty minutes to the last roadside town. There we were allowed off the bus to purchase Nehi strawberry, grape or lemon soda--the only refreshments available at the gas station where our tire was being repaired. There were thirty-year-old Nehi posters and advertisements all over the place. Leon and I figured a Nehi representative had been the last dealer in "western culture" to make it that far into the hinterlands.
When it was time to reboard, the Norwegians climbed on top with the luggage. The three of us followed their lead, spreading out between duffel bags, using bedrolls as pillows. The driver yelled up at us to get inside the bus, but when none of us made a move, he started the engine and forged ahead. It was a little scary feeling we could be catapulted off the roof with every rock we hit, but it was worth the exchange for space and fresh air. As promised, the band of high caste/low caste protestors let us pass, and even waved and yelled greetings at us. They seemed to be having quite a good time, mingling and drinking beer and even dancing: time bandits on break.
We stopped at the next little town to let off a few passengers. This time, the driver climbed up on the roof and told us we would have to get inside the bus or he would not continue. He explained that he had been caught with passengers on the roof in the past, and fined five hundred rupees. Nina, Leon and I decided we didn't want to do anything to rock the bus any more than necessary, so we reluctantly slithered through the sea of people inside and wedged ourselves on the corner of a seat near the back. The same red-saried woman sat on my shoulder. "Hello once again," she said.
The Norwegians were not as cooperative. They sat on the roof smoking bidis and yelling back at the driver in Norwegian, which did nothing but make him angrier. Soon everyone inside the bus was yelling back at them in Hindi and broken English. A few men near the front started rocking the old heap from side to side, hoping to pitch the Norwegians off the roof. They only succeeded in making several of the passengers sick. Nina was one of them. She clutched her stomach and groaned. I watched her face drain of its usual rosy color and fill back up with a sickly violet-green.
The Norwegians finally conceded when the driver threw their skis off the top of the bus. They wiggled their way into the crowd cursing in English, and continued to smoke their bidis once they had situated themselves like fenceposts down the center aisle. Nina was beginning to show signs of intense nausea. Her forehead was iron-hot. A little over a hundred miles to go, and it looked like we were free and clear from here on in. I stroked her hand and told her we'd go to the doctor as soon as we got to Lucknow.
A few minutes later, a cloud of dust spread across the road, obscuring the driver's view. As we slowed to a stop, the dust cleared to reveal a huge mob of people, all holding rocks and bottles and sticks. The driver got out and yelled something at them. A young man and a young woman came forward. This time the man was dressed well and the woman was clad in rags. They whispered in each other's ears and giggled like lovers as they approached the driver. The three of them huddled for a few minutes, then the man and woman each yelled something, which caused the mob to break into two factions and lay down their weapons.
They then retired to a small village that was set off from the road beneath a few immense banyan trees. Within minutes, women and children from the village had set up a lean-to and started selling tea and freshly made chapati to the bus passengers and the few mob members who were brave enough to strike out on their own. The driver and the two spokespersons sat in conference at the only table, and their very own tea boy hustled fresh hot water and batches of steaming chapati over to them as they discussed strategies.
Nina was going into convulsions. The over-sweet chai didn't help. A group of curious young children who were too young to help their mothers with their new enterprise gathered around Nina and ran their hands through her long, blond hair. The red-saried woman, who introduced herself as Mira, explained that they probably hadn't seen anyone with blond hair before. Some of the village women came over, too, and soon Nina was encircled by a small mob of chattering people, all grabbing at her hair and stroking her white skin, ignoring the chartreuse tinge. An undeniable product of her guilty-liberal, Marin County, California upbringing, Nina was embarrassed and annoyed by the attention but loath to shoo the crowd away. Mira took over, swatting at the children like flies and chastising their mothers for letting them misbehave so brazenly. Nina's fever was rising, and I was afraid she would pass out if we didn't get her to a doctor.
An hour or so went by. The three strategists now seemed to be having a sort of party, sharing smokes and passing around a bottle of homemade moonshine the driver had kept stashed in his voluminous white garment. Leon was so irked that his usual steely composure was beginning to visibly melt. He was beginning to throw up his hands and gesticulate in an extremely Russian way, indicating a silent cry that went something like, "Oh, why is the world so full of idiots that do nothing but plague me and make my life miserable?!!" Mira advised us to go over and tell them my friend was sick. I asked her to do it.
"They will not be listening to me," she said. "I am part of this because I am Indian. But you can play like you are not understanding. Go try."
I hated pulling rank as the privileged Westerner, but I was really beginning to worry about Nina, so I thought about it for a moment...then convinced Leon, who had a far more imposing affect than I, to stride over to the table and say, "Excuse me, but my friend is very ill, and I need to get her to a doctor."
Before he could even add a polite request to get moving as soon as possible, the driver stood up, threw a wad of rupees at the teaboy, shook hands with the two spokespeople and shepherded everyone back onto the bus. He cleared out the front seat for Nina and Mira while Leon and I perched nearby. Looking at his watch, he said, "Time will be flying now," and started the engine.
The bus reached alarming speeds as we zoomed by the several bus stops on the way into Lucknow. The driver wouldn't stop to let people on or off; he kept smiling back at us triumphantly and patting Nina on the knee. The passengers who had wanted to get off at those stops were apparently caught up in the joint cause of getting this beautiful, tall, very ill, blond American to the doctor as quickly as possible, for they cheered along with the driver. I wondered if he was going to pay them off, or even drive them back; what were they getting out of this? A good story, probably, just like me.
When we reached the Central Station at Lucknow, twilight was just beginning to spread its garish pinks and oranges across the sky. The rest of the passengers exited the bus in a state of flushed excitement; some of them came up to us and shook Leon's hand.
"You see," Mira said, "you have been doing something we would all like to be doing. But we Indians are not making things work. Instead we are only making time."
She showed us where to find the station doctor, and gave us her phone number in New Delhi in case we should pass that way. We thanked her and waved at the driver, who winked at me and gave me the "OK" sign.
Nina threw up in the gutter on the way to the station doctor's office. Her face slowly regained its true color, and she stopped grasping at her stomach.
"I thought I was going to pass out," she said. "I can't believe we're really here."
The train to Agra was three hours late and counting. We washed up, played seven-card stud with two men from Bombay in the waiting room, watched a Tamil soap opera on television, drank A&W Root Beer (Lucknow's answer to Nehi) and ate delicious onion fritters made by an old woman with a little portable cauldron. At midnight, the station was still hopping. Trains due at six were just pulling in, and a noisy musical was playing on the waiting room video machine. We dozed sporadically and played twenty questions.
Our train came, finally, as we knew it would. It was crowded, too, but much less crowded than the bus. No one complained about the train's not being on time. No one apologized, either. In fact, no one seemed to notice. Nina, Leon and I were too tired to care. As far as we were concerned, we had all the time in the world--or in India, at least.
Categories: backstory, friends, travel, India
me contemplating the Taj Mahal, Dec. 1989
Time is arbitrary in India. The difference between Nepal standard time and India standard time, for example, is fifteen minutes, so residents of border towns are obliged to change their watches whenever they cross the imaginary line, and change them back on the way home. This constant temporal flip-flopping renders time a slippery concept on the sub-continent, at least if one enters it from the north. But localized technical aberrations such as this do little to explain the overall discombobulation of time in India. Time is simply a far more spirited, multidimensional and elastic phenomenon there than most westerners can easily imagine. Take a little trip with me, and I'll show you...
When my boyfriend Leon, my friend Nina and I entered India at the Nepalese border on a cold December morning in 1989, the sun slid into a buttery sky at five a.m., illuminating an already bustling border town. Spindly children ran across the unpaved street carrying sweet beige tea to groups of chattering men while silent women with stern, slick hair opened gift shops and drugstores for the early tourist influx.
Before we could divest ourselves of a few rupees to obtain provisions for our long bus ride to Lucknow--home of the nearest train station--we were ushered into Passport Control with the rest of the group we'd traveled with from Kathmandu the night before: six lanky Norwegians lugging skis to their Kashmiri mountaintop destination, a group of German lesbians headed for the holy waters of the Ganges at Varanasi, and a few other wayward travelers like ourselves, courting any new experience that might arise.
The bus was scheduled to depart at seven. The passport officials took so long humming and shaking their heads over each of our visas that we thought we might miss it, but we boarded at five 'til, charmed by the way things always seem to work out just right, no matter how last-minute, when traveling.
The seats on the bus were not wholly uncomfortable and, with our luggage stowed on the roof, there was even room for our knees. The driver was dressed in layers of gauzy white, and bore not a passing resemblance to Pearl Bailey. He puffed his ample cheeks out as he rewrapped his turban, tighter this time, giving the effect of a quickie facelift. The Norwegians jumped aboard with their last-minute purchases of bidis and Life-savers. The engine chugged to life, then all activity seemed to detach itself from the tyranny of time.
The driver leaned from the bus entrance like a wide-eyed tourist on a San Francisco trolley and called out in quickstep Hindi, then English, "Leaving for Lucknow!" A few crimson-clad women carrying macrame shopping bags straggled out of aquamarine doorways and took the last empty seats. Nina, Leon and I conferred with each other: of course, he's just trying to fill the old heap up. After all, he's gotta make a living.
For the next large chunk of time, people crawled out of every nook and cranny of that tiny town, and the bus continued to fill. First, we rearranged ourselves to fit three to a seat, then four, then children and small women were placed on laps. Soon, people were jumbled together in jigsaw proximity, limbs splayed into the air, torsos twisted to fit narrow crevices. When I managed to catch a glimpse of the dainty gold watch on the wrist of the plump, red-saried woman who was perching on my shoulder, it was already ten o'clock. Time for a coffee break.
A few lanky men peeled themselves away from the top layer of bus humanity to follow the driver to a tea shop down the street. The rest of us shifted in tiny, painful ways while we watched them pop gooey gulab jamun into their mouths. Nina tried in vain to open the window nearest her; the man sandwiched between her knees reached up and hit it with his forearm. It quivered, dropped and crashed to pieces in its cavity. By eleven we were on our way. I was pleased to have found a practical use for my years of yoga and meditation practice.
The two-lane highway we barreled down sloped so precipitously on either side that I was amazed the bus didn't roll off into the marshy grasslands we passed. Two hundred miles out of Lucknow, we slowed to a stop where a band of young men and women blocked the road. A student uprising, we thought. A woman in a jeweled, brocaded kurta and a man in dingy white Ghandi-like robes approached the bus. The driver talked to them in hushed tones for about fifteen minutes, then made an announcement in Hindi to his passengers. The woman on my shoulder leaned down to us.
"You are understanding?" she asked.
We shook our heads, no.
"He is saying the woman is high caste, fighting against too many lower caste people getting government jobs, and the man is lower caste, fighting against too many high caste people getting government jobs. So they will be stopping transportation services all over Uttar Pradesh to be making their point."
"Both sides together?" Leon asked.
"Yes," answered the woman, "both sides fighting together."
"Then whose point will be made?" I countered.
The woman shrugged. "Does not matter. The driver is saying they will be throwing rocks and puncturing tires, then we will be getting it mended, then they will be letting us through."
"Why don't they just let us through now, then?" asked Nina.
"Ah," said the woman, wagging her head, "it is not proper yet. They must be making us lose much time."
Nina and I nodded as if we understood. Leon looked irritated--never a good sign. He'd seen similar meaningless political oddities in his native Soviet Union. And he was never one to be kept waiting gracefully. Again, time had taken an unexpected philosophical turn.
Rocks were thrown, windows broken. Everyone ducked as best they could, and, miraculously, no one was hurt. The passengers cheered when the front right tire gave up its air with a loud pop. Since there was nowhere to turn around on the road, the driver ground the gears into reverse, and we sped backwards for twenty minutes to the last roadside town. There we were allowed off the bus to purchase Nehi strawberry, grape or lemon soda--the only refreshments available at the gas station where our tire was being repaired. There were thirty-year-old Nehi posters and advertisements all over the place. Leon and I figured a Nehi representative had been the last dealer in "western culture" to make it that far into the hinterlands.
When it was time to reboard, the Norwegians climbed on top with the luggage. The three of us followed their lead, spreading out between duffel bags, using bedrolls as pillows. The driver yelled up at us to get inside the bus, but when none of us made a move, he started the engine and forged ahead. It was a little scary feeling we could be catapulted off the roof with every rock we hit, but it was worth the exchange for space and fresh air. As promised, the band of high caste/low caste protestors let us pass, and even waved and yelled greetings at us. They seemed to be having quite a good time, mingling and drinking beer and even dancing: time bandits on break.
We stopped at the next little town to let off a few passengers. This time, the driver climbed up on the roof and told us we would have to get inside the bus or he would not continue. He explained that he had been caught with passengers on the roof in the past, and fined five hundred rupees. Nina, Leon and I decided we didn't want to do anything to rock the bus any more than necessary, so we reluctantly slithered through the sea of people inside and wedged ourselves on the corner of a seat near the back. The same red-saried woman sat on my shoulder. "Hello once again," she said.
The Norwegians were not as cooperative. They sat on the roof smoking bidis and yelling back at the driver in Norwegian, which did nothing but make him angrier. Soon everyone inside the bus was yelling back at them in Hindi and broken English. A few men near the front started rocking the old heap from side to side, hoping to pitch the Norwegians off the roof. They only succeeded in making several of the passengers sick. Nina was one of them. She clutched her stomach and groaned. I watched her face drain of its usual rosy color and fill back up with a sickly violet-green.
The Norwegians finally conceded when the driver threw their skis off the top of the bus. They wiggled their way into the crowd cursing in English, and continued to smoke their bidis once they had situated themselves like fenceposts down the center aisle. Nina was beginning to show signs of intense nausea. Her forehead was iron-hot. A little over a hundred miles to go, and it looked like we were free and clear from here on in. I stroked her hand and told her we'd go to the doctor as soon as we got to Lucknow.
A few minutes later, a cloud of dust spread across the road, obscuring the driver's view. As we slowed to a stop, the dust cleared to reveal a huge mob of people, all holding rocks and bottles and sticks. The driver got out and yelled something at them. A young man and a young woman came forward. This time the man was dressed well and the woman was clad in rags. They whispered in each other's ears and giggled like lovers as they approached the driver. The three of them huddled for a few minutes, then the man and woman each yelled something, which caused the mob to break into two factions and lay down their weapons.
They then retired to a small village that was set off from the road beneath a few immense banyan trees. Within minutes, women and children from the village had set up a lean-to and started selling tea and freshly made chapati to the bus passengers and the few mob members who were brave enough to strike out on their own. The driver and the two spokespersons sat in conference at the only table, and their very own tea boy hustled fresh hot water and batches of steaming chapati over to them as they discussed strategies.
Nina was going into convulsions. The over-sweet chai didn't help. A group of curious young children who were too young to help their mothers with their new enterprise gathered around Nina and ran their hands through her long, blond hair. The red-saried woman, who introduced herself as Mira, explained that they probably hadn't seen anyone with blond hair before. Some of the village women came over, too, and soon Nina was encircled by a small mob of chattering people, all grabbing at her hair and stroking her white skin, ignoring the chartreuse tinge. An undeniable product of her guilty-liberal, Marin County, California upbringing, Nina was embarrassed and annoyed by the attention but loath to shoo the crowd away. Mira took over, swatting at the children like flies and chastising their mothers for letting them misbehave so brazenly. Nina's fever was rising, and I was afraid she would pass out if we didn't get her to a doctor.
An hour or so went by. The three strategists now seemed to be having a sort of party, sharing smokes and passing around a bottle of homemade moonshine the driver had kept stashed in his voluminous white garment. Leon was so irked that his usual steely composure was beginning to visibly melt. He was beginning to throw up his hands and gesticulate in an extremely Russian way, indicating a silent cry that went something like, "Oh, why is the world so full of idiots that do nothing but plague me and make my life miserable?!!" Mira advised us to go over and tell them my friend was sick. I asked her to do it.
"They will not be listening to me," she said. "I am part of this because I am Indian. But you can play like you are not understanding. Go try."
I hated pulling rank as the privileged Westerner, but I was really beginning to worry about Nina, so I thought about it for a moment...then convinced Leon, who had a far more imposing affect than I, to stride over to the table and say, "Excuse me, but my friend is very ill, and I need to get her to a doctor."
Before he could even add a polite request to get moving as soon as possible, the driver stood up, threw a wad of rupees at the teaboy, shook hands with the two spokespeople and shepherded everyone back onto the bus. He cleared out the front seat for Nina and Mira while Leon and I perched nearby. Looking at his watch, he said, "Time will be flying now," and started the engine.
The bus reached alarming speeds as we zoomed by the several bus stops on the way into Lucknow. The driver wouldn't stop to let people on or off; he kept smiling back at us triumphantly and patting Nina on the knee. The passengers who had wanted to get off at those stops were apparently caught up in the joint cause of getting this beautiful, tall, very ill, blond American to the doctor as quickly as possible, for they cheered along with the driver. I wondered if he was going to pay them off, or even drive them back; what were they getting out of this? A good story, probably, just like me.
When we reached the Central Station at Lucknow, twilight was just beginning to spread its garish pinks and oranges across the sky. The rest of the passengers exited the bus in a state of flushed excitement; some of them came up to us and shook Leon's hand.
"You see," Mira said, "you have been doing something we would all like to be doing. But we Indians are not making things work. Instead we are only making time."
She showed us where to find the station doctor, and gave us her phone number in New Delhi in case we should pass that way. We thanked her and waved at the driver, who winked at me and gave me the "OK" sign.
Nina threw up in the gutter on the way to the station doctor's office. Her face slowly regained its true color, and she stopped grasping at her stomach.
"I thought I was going to pass out," she said. "I can't believe we're really here."
The train to Agra was three hours late and counting. We washed up, played seven-card stud with two men from Bombay in the waiting room, watched a Tamil soap opera on television, drank A&W Root Beer (Lucknow's answer to Nehi) and ate delicious onion fritters made by an old woman with a little portable cauldron. At midnight, the station was still hopping. Trains due at six were just pulling in, and a noisy musical was playing on the waiting room video machine. We dozed sporadically and played twenty questions.
Our train came, finally, as we knew it would. It was crowded, too, but much less crowded than the bus. No one complained about the train's not being on time. No one apologized, either. In fact, no one seemed to notice. Nina, Leon and I were too tired to care. As far as we were concerned, we had all the time in the world--or in India, at least.
Categories: backstory, friends, travel, India
