Dec 27, 2007

Two Touts in a Tuk-Tuk

Ordinarily, we know to ignore any tuk-tuk drivers tendering a "friendship" price--they're inevitably touts that will drag you to a rug shop, a jewelry store, and a handicraft emporium before you're allowed to reach your destination. But in Mysore, city of silk, palaces, and con men intensely interested in where you are from and how long you've been in their city, we succumbed.

Our tricksters caught us off guard--they introduced themselves in a vegetarian restaurant, not by soliciting from the street; they were middle-school teachers (probably true, knowing how much teachers are valued financially around the world); they spoke casually of an incense-making competition we might want to take a look at.

Actually, they really only caught me off guard. Isaac was astute enough to notice they had entered the restaurant only after we did and hadn't ordered anything to eat. But I protested: why was he always so suspicious?

As soon as we got in the autorickshaw, I knew why. First our driver asked us where we were staying, then he inquired after the price, and finally, after shaking his head in disgust at the way some hotels were willing to fleece their customers, he proposed to show us some more affordable options. We demurred, but still let him drive us several kilometers outside of the city center to an incense "competition". Sometimes, protecting yourself too strenuously against any tricks and traps means shutting out the world beyond your hotel room, the world you've given up your paradisical Inner Sunset apartment and boarded a series of expensive and uncomfotable flights to see. We decide we'd let ourselves be lightly scammed.

The competition turned out to be a factory, the factory turned out to have one employee actively making incense. What follows is the basic script of a drama that unfolds hourly in the back alleys and markets of Mysore(we went through it twice more, cursorily, without buying anything, in Devaraja market).

First, the salesman will show his prospective customers how a stick of incense is made, using an older woman or, if he's lucky, his brother's cute twelve-year old kid to demonstrate. He'll explain how to mix sandalwood, gum powder, and water into a thick dough--"like a chapati." This makes the tourists laugh, at least the first time they hear it. He'll then quickly summarize the rest of the process and finish off with a few fascinating facts. Did we know one woman can make 10,000 sticks in a day?

After this introduction, the salesman will move onto the real money-maker: adulterated versions of essential oils. Among the oils he'll paint onto your inner arms with are white, black, and green jasmine; sandalwood; lotus. Do we know Calvin Klein Eternity? This is just nine flower oil. Do we know Kenzo? This is just watermelon seed oil. They're such shysters, Calvin and Kenzo, overcharging us for these natural products, but we can outwit them by buying a ten mm bottle for 100 rupees (about $2.50) from our new friends.

And our salesman has many friends among our people. At this point, he'll bring out a few cloth-bound composition books filled with references from other tourists foolish enough to squander their money and admit it in writing. See? Here is someone from Germany...and Holland...and France...and USA.

You're meant to admire these testimonials and then become an official paying friend yourself. If you resist, at this point the farce turns into a morality play: the salesman ends with a warning against all those other unscrupulous dealers out there.

Our visit proceeded according to the manual with one slight variation: at the conclusion of our sandalwood business, one of our salesmen, a Bob Marley aficionado named Max,informed us of his personal motto: "drink and die, smoke and fly." Then he offered to sell us marijuana oil and hash while his sidekick, a dark skinny kid in bell bottom jeans, sang to us of "boomshaka." I thought he had been watching pirated Ali G videos, but he assured us this was a traditional Indian way to refer to the act of getting stoned.

I was ready to move on, but Isaac agreed to have a look at this second set of wares. Max led us to a small back room decorated with a glossy 4 x 6 foot poster of the Saudi skyline, called for one of his minions to bring us chai in thimble-sized plastic cups, and brought out a small vial of the pot oil. We expressed our admiration for his clever product, which could easily be shipped or sprinkled onto a cigarette and smoked on a train, but we declined to sample or to buy. Isaac, in fact, refused to drink the chai, fearing it be drugged.

Dec 25, 2007

Cowed

Isaac and I don't exactly go in for outdoor adventure. Nonetheless we went up into the hills, to a guest house acclaimed for its trekking opportunities, as a way to escape the heat and the honking of urban India.

Our first morning we followed the dirt road into the woods above the coffee bushes and pepper trees that have been Honey Valley's cash crop since the bee's mite-driven demise. We were drawn to a path described as "flat" and "easy" but which turned out to be "prickly" and "pointless" since it was overgrown with sharp grasses and never led us to the expected waterfall. We're natural quitters, though, so we had no problem turning around early and heading back home for our midday meal.

Something, however, stood in the way of lunch: a mother cow feeding with her calf, companioned by an enormous white bull. They were grazing from the middle of the trail, at a narrow spot hemmed in by bushes and trees. We would have to wait for them to move their meal somewhere less cramped.

Eventually the trio progressed to a section of the trail that seemed wide enough to accommodate us all. We stepped forward cautiously. The bull glanced at us; the she-cow glowered. She kept her protective maternal eyes fixed on us as we edged closer and closer, until we got too close. She tossed her head, snorted, pawed the ground; we ran. We'd grown accustomed to the daily business of street cows, beach cows, front-yard cows, but this was a cow of a different magnitude. We retreated, defeated, prepared to sit still until the sun went down--that, or to call the guest house and request a rescue.

As it turned out, we didn't need to miss lunch or disgrace ourselves. We waited for the soft thud of the cow's wooden bell to grow fainter and fainter,until it disappeared altogether; when there were several hundred feet of safety between us and the cows, we scrambled up the hill and back to start of the trail. Soon we were eating dal and okra curry and laughing over our misadventures.

***

After lunch we started to walk jauntily down the hill from the main house toward our bungalow. Halfway there, our merriment fled: in the middle of the road was another mother and her calf, different from the first pair, but to our overactive imaginations, just as big and horned and potentially lethal. We couldn't go forward.

But we couldn't go back, either, for unlike our previous confrontation, this time we had spectators: Israelis. Israelis who had just yesterday hiked miles through swamps and up mountains, nonchalantly scraped leeches from their skin, laughingly watched a dog rip the head off a chicken. We couldn't let them see us defeated by a cow. We hesitated, and then brought out the cell phone.

For the next few minutes, we purported to look for an Airtel signal up by the main house, hoping our latest bovine adversaries would get bored and go away. They didn't. Our pretence wore thin; we couldn't just keep pacing the same fifty feet looking for a signal. Finally, after whispered strategizing and furtive glances at the Israelis above and the cows below, we decided to act.

We walked steadily towards the mother cow. I looked her right in the eye. I told her: no, don't you snort at me. I raised the index finger of my right hand to emphasize this point. I'm not sure if I charmed the cow into submission, or if she wasn't the deadly beast we imagined her to be, but we walked by her without incident, if not without drama.

Dec 24, 2007

2nd Class Passenger



I had promised Isaac strictly first-class train travel. Unfortunately, there are times when there is no fast, air-conditioned, reserved-seating way to get from where you are to where you’d like to be. There is only second class passenger.

Our first such train ride, we embarked with a minimum of pushing, serendipitously landing in the reserved car, where we were able to buy preferential seats from the conductor. Our two hours on board passed uneventfully, the stubby ceiling fans twirling in their iron cages, the green fields flashing by the window. Still, we appreciated the commotion that the loading and unloading of passengers inevitably entailed, so ten minutes before our stop, we gathered our belongings and stood by the middle exit.

As the train halted, we realized that this exit led not out to the station platform, but down six feet into the next track. The next logical option, the door opposite, was locked. And so we rushed towards a door at the far end of the car, but not before a group of old men and women had wedged themselves between us and the outside. They stood, immovable, intractable, as first we, then the conductor, then the other passengers reasoned, pleaded, demanded that we be let through. But the old ones had made it on board and so fulfilled their duty: how, or if, Isaac, Ben, and I were to get off the train was irrelevant.

They were armed with obstinacy; we had luggage. At first our bags were a liability; already my arms had grown shaky from holding my wheely bag overhead and it had bounced down onto a few bald heads, as well as my own. But once we were properly panicked, we lost our timidity. Isaac went first, holding his green Eagle Creek backpack in front of his chest and bulldozing a temporary clearing. Ben and I shoved our way through in his wake, striking out with our Cordura Nylon ammunition, jumping off as the train started to pull away from the station. So much for respecting the elderly, but I felt no remorse: I took home some bruises of my own.

By our second train ride, leaving Gokarna, we thought we knew the system: find out where the reserved car will stop, get on, buy yourself a seat,and claim a functional exit well in advance. Smugly (those naive Westerners waiting at the opposite end of the platform!), we staked out our position for the reserved car, and when the train pulled into the station, confidently stepped aboard. Into an unreserved car. There was no space to sit; there was no space to stand. There was no space anywhere except up.

Luckily we were invited onto the luggage rack. We spent the next five hours nestled in other people's belongings, first with our knees hugged to our chest and then, as the bags of sweets and boxes of electronics dwindled, with our legs stretched out over the passengers below. Zameer, our saviour, was a university student travelling back from his sister's house in Goa. He rode with us most of the way, during which time Isaac explained why we were childless, why Americans stick their mother and fathers in nursing homes, why we live in a holographic universe--the usual thing. This time, we detrained without a hitch.

By our third train ride, we were able to do it all--get on, sit down, and get off--but of course by the third train ride, Isaac wouldn't accept anything less than sleeper class AC.

Dec 11, 2007

Miss Manners

The morning began, as so many do, with a naïve faith in the “getting there & away” section of the Lonely Planet. It also began with a hot sun, a long walk, and three travelers each crabby for their own reasons: Ben hadn't slept well, Isaac was getting sunburned, and I was still pouting from the night before, when my bargaining abilities had been called into question. I had, in fact, been provoked into one of the big Asian no-no's: causing everyone to lose face by demanding that Isaac fuck off.

And so now I was on strike: I wasn't going to lend the boys my superior eyesight or map reading skills until they, hopelessly disoriented, broke down and begged for some help. My protest was a secret one, though, and Ben gamely navigated us over a footbridge and across the shimmering expanse of parking lot without realizing he was being punished.

He almost got us to the central bus terminal when a travel agency promoting its ticket-booking abilities distracted us. We followed the sign towrds a dank staircase, up two, three, four flights of stairs, and the higher we climbed, the clearer my view of the rag picker in the next street, her dingy sari, her bare feet sinking into a mound of plastic bottles and rotting fruit. I hated India. I hated Ben and Isaac. I proclaimed my intention to go back downstairs and wait in the alley while they chased after the mythical travel agency.

In the alley I sat down on crumbling ledge of concrete, and the owner of nearby business lit four sticks of incense and wedged them into cracks in the wall. He offered me a chair, and my stony little heart relented a little: I didn't hate India quite so much. The incense curled into the damp air. A woman with a pail of murky water walked by once, twice. People stared at me. The midday heat accumulated.

After a while, Isaac joined me, assuring me that Ben was just them in the process of buying us tickets for an afternoon train. I was torn: they had somehow succeeded without me, but I was also ready to have tickets. We sat. People continued to stare. Minutes continued to add up. I decided tickets were sweeter than I-told-you-so's.And then Ben joined us, announcing that the online ticketing system was down. I could still win this one, but my spirit just wasn't in it anymore. I decided to cooperate.

The Lonely Planet came out again. It directed us to the entrance of the central bus terminal, from which point a man possessing neither uniform nor reliable information took over, insisting there was no train on Mondays but nevertheless prodding us upstairs, past a freshly painted train timetable and into hot, lightless room ringed by the shadows of crouching men: the train reservation office. A cryptic sign on the ticket window admonished “no Q’s.” No questions? The steamy, seedy darkness, the paint fumes, the rules against asking questions were too much. Isaac announced we were leaving.

We took our strategizing out into the street, out into the sun. An older man, no doubt intent on selling us some good or service, chose the wrong moment to interrupt, asking where we good sirs were from. Ben answered no, no, no, NO NO! NO!! The man insisted: where were we going? what did we need? Ben told him to fuck off. The man told Ben he was a very naughty boy. Once more, but rather half-heartedly, Ben muttered fuck you. And here Isaac and I,having dutifully read our copy of Culture Shock:India, had been worried about offending people by eating with our left hand or pointing our feet at them.

We decided to split up, Isaac and I inquiring futilely into a few more private bus lines and Ben venturing back into the train office, solving the mystery of why this government-run enterprise was so dark and useless: the power was out. And so we came to terms with our only option: a second-class passenger train leaving from Margao, a transport hub one hour to the south of Panjim. Encrusted with sweat and street dust, anxious about the time, we decided to take a taxi to Margao.

We found a taxi, negotiated a price--I made a vocal point of not participating in this pointless ritual--and climbed in the car. We were on our way! And then...a protest march rounded the corner. For fifteen minutes we watched workers—mostly men but also a few women; mostly miners, but also clerks and dental technicians—stream chanting past us with their orange union banners. By the time the last raised fist had past us by, India's ridiculousness had brought us together again. There would be no more fuck you's directed either at the citizens of this fine country nor at each other.

An hour later, we were at the Margao train station. Isaac walked right up to the ticket counter, handed over seventy rupees, and within a minute was holding three tickets and some change. It was that easy.

Dec 3, 2007

Bolly-would-be's


Several years ago, when we were still living in Japan, Isaac sold a computer to an Indian man whose brother had just won a national contest for new Bollywood talent: I don't remember the specifics, but there was talk of a film deal for him. So the plan (meaning Isaac's plan) was to leverage this connection into renown and riches for ourselves. The substance of this plan relied on two key actions. First we had to remember our friend the computer-buyer's name, which took a few days, and then we had to gather the energy to send him an email, which promptly bounced back. That was the end of the plan, and with Mumbai looking increasingly like an overwhelming, expensive city, we had to scrap our dreams.

Fortunately, Bollywood came to us. After my yoga retreat was over, we inadvertently found ourselves in the lovely city of Panjim, capital of Goa, for IFFI, the International Film Festival of India. Unfortunately, we were able to neither attract the attention of a Bollywood director in search of pale, approaching middle-age talent nor get tickets to any of the movies. But one evening we did head off to a nearby beach for a free mass screening.

The film in question, Dhoom 2, was entirely in Hindi and, as one of the project managers of the event told us, not very good. Nonetheless, he directed us to the VVIP area in consideration of our thwarted IFFI dreams (of being able to buy tickets to a good movie) and the absence of any other very, very important people in the rows of plastic seats reserved for them.

The opening action sequence involves a heavily jewelled crown, owned by a kindly, queenly looking white woman with two rambunctious grandsons, being transported across the Nairobi desert in a posh private train.

Suddenly, the movie's villain parachutes onto the train, tricks the guards with his kindly, queenly looking white woman disguise and, when discovered, deflects the ensuing bullets with a mysterious red square. Moments later, he unfolds this red sqaure into a snowboard with which he sets off into the sands, only to reappear moments later in a full-scale dance number. (Though on second thought, the detectives who chase to this "perfect thief" might actually be the stars of that number.)

We stayed until several more jewels get burgled, the mosquitoes had chewed up our ankles, and the non-VVIP screening area filled up with thousands of people. No movie deals out of our brush with Bollywood, but we can now identify and sing along to the theme song "Dhoom Again." It's a start.

A breath of fresh air

I originally wrote this in an email several days ago, but in the interests of making good on some of my oft-repeated blog promises, I've decided some cutting and pasting is in order. So, here goes:

Moments ago I was sitting in a dark Internet cafe, but the electricity in town just went back on, so now we have a fan and fluorescent lights and blaring devotional music in addtition to an ancient computer (which itslef runs off a generator).

This is perhaps one of Isaac's worst days, as his phone, his electronic lifeline, has broken down and it's possible that nothing can be done about it until Singapore. Also, we've been fumigated for the second day in a row by a man pumping a toxic mosquito supressant through the streets of Gokarna. Last night Isaac spotted him and his billowing fumes from at least 100 feet away, and so we had time to run down a side alley and in the opposite direction, towards the beach.

Unfortunately, the boats we had planned on taking home had stopped for the evening, and so we climbed into an autorickshaw which, predictably enough (at least in hindsight), soon drove straight into the cloud of pesticide. Of course visibility was near zero, and you can't run over cows or pilgrims (we're in one of South India's holiest towns), so our driver had to display uncharacteristic caution as he navigated the noxious mess. Tonight we returned to town to email and just as we were ordering our masala dosas, the fumigation man walked right by our window-side booth. Isaac pulled his entire shirt over his face and didn't emerge for several minutes.

Unfortunately, this is but a fraction of the crap we've inhaled into our delicate first-world lungs in the last two weeks. The day we arrived at our bungalow in Om Beach they were burning plastic ten feet from our bed; they've been burning plastic, at greater or lesser distances, for all of our stay. We havn't been witness to too much grinding poverty, but we have seen countless acts of environmental sabotage.

PS: The Nokia Customer Care Center in Mangalore fixed Isaac's cell up right. He also got his pants hemmed for 50 cents, so he's much happier than when we last heard from him.