Leta and Loving the Dalai Lama (25 July 2016)

There was a small list of things I was hoping to do in India before I left. One of them was to go on a nice hike through the countryside. Dharamsala seemed the perfect place to complete this goal. And also I am rapidly running out of time in India. I woke up at 5 am to get an early start to the day. I packed a daypack full of water and snacks and set my eyes on a little campsite about four miles outside the small city of Dharamsala. Rain wasn't forecast until three in the afternoon so I figured I had plenty of time to make it back. India, as it always seems to, had other plans though. 

I had made it a mile out of Dharamsala, just on the cusp on what you could call a suburb of Dharamsala but it is little more than a few tea stops and one or two guest houses. I stopped into one tea house just as rain began to come down. I sat with a cup of chai and a sandwitch and watched for a while as rain began to come down by the bucket it seemed. The small shop filled up with folks trying to escape the rain. A few Belgians looking for a place to stay, a few groups of Indians all chatting amongst themselves and a couple Tibetans trying to keep their wool vests from becoming soaked. A motorcycle came to a screeching halt outside the shop. A boisterous Australian in personality and size alike came in. "BLOODY GREAT TIME FOR THE RAIN TO START, ME BEING RIGHT OUT FRONT, HOW YA DOING MATE? IMRAM YOU BACK THERE?" He came in through as more of a storm than the monsoon. Moving deftly among the jumble of chairs in the store so to keep people safe from his soaked clothing. I have never encountered someone who seemed to be more out of place and yet right where he is supposed to be in my life. Grinning and bald he towered above us, an Aboriginal design tattooed to the back of his neck. The staff knew him and greeted him with open arms. We didn't know him but it seemed like it was like we were compelled to do the same. "WHERE YOU OFF TO IN YOUR THONGS?" He asked me. I told him my destination to which he let out a bellowing yawp. "GOOD BLOODY LUCK MATE, IT'S A BITCH TO FIND WHEN IT ISN'T PISSING OUTSIDE!" We all stood in the doorway, watching the rain and drinking tea. Steam rising off our damp bodies and traditional Indian music playing softly in the background. As the rain let up and he clapped me on the back so that I lurched forward out onto the road. I could hear him suiting up revving his bike to take off from whatever strange dimension he roared in from. I desperately hope he pops up somewhere else in my life sometime. 

As it would turn out, he was quite right .The path to the Triund campsite was indeed a bitch to keep track of. I got to a fork in the road that didn't appear on my map when I decided to turn back. I am up for adventure, but being lost in the dense Indian mountainside forests during monsoon season isn't ideal. I set my sites on a closer campground named Leta. It was on a road just past a beautiful waterfall that has a few swimming holes as it descends the mountain. I followed a Tibetan monk up the winding stairs beside the waterfall, stopping at each swimming hole to dip our feet in the water for a little while. When we reached the top it was my time to veer off across the river and up the mountain side. 

A two miles of steep switch backs up rock scrambles still slick and wet from the recent rain. A few scrapes to the knees and palms as I lost footing under loose rocks. More than a few stinging nettles to the ankles. from the overgrown trail, better suited for mules than men. The dense pine trees gave way to broad leaf trees as the elevation and the temperature rose hand in hand. After sometime the trail began to level out. I stopped to catch my breath when I heard a branch snap not far from me but concealed by the trees. I crouched down trying to listen. Tigers leaping from my mind into the forest around me. Heavy breathing behind the leaves in front of me. Rustling. Movement. Branches began to shift in my view. A big black cow stumbled out of the brush in front of me. It looked at me curiously, then right back to grazing. I hadn't expected a cow of this high with that climb. Feeling a tad foolish I walked on.

At the peak of the mountain a small village sat. Eight stone houses with tin roofs. The roof had caved in on two making only six appear habitable. A man came out of his house followed by a jumpy white dog. He looked at me and walked up over the crest of a little hill. I followed him to a small spring in front of a temple where a woman was washing pieces of a goat that had been freshly butchered. I took a seat on a rock and began to sketch. The eyes of the man, the woman and the decapitated goat all seemed to make glances at me suspiciously. "Triund?" the woman asked me. "Leta." I said in return. She spread her arms around her, motioning to the land. "Leta." was her response.

After a short while I descended the mountain and made my way back to town. At each swimming hole I did a couple rounds in the shallow pools. I made it back to town around 4pm. Just in time to head to LHA. LHA is a local organization designed to help Tibetan refugees. They offer classes in different languages, employment skills and basic living in India. Every weekday from 4 to 5 they host English conversation classes where volunteers come in just to speak to Tibetans for an hour to practice their English. I made my way up the dark steps to the offices. I poked my head in the secretary's room and asked where to go. He lead me to a small library where I had a seat with other foriegners. After chatting for a few minutes and filling out some paperwork we were all lead down the hall. Three doors opened. We all poked our heads in the nearest room. I was greeted by what must have been twenty some Tibetans sitting cross legged on small cushions. Every few seats were open for one of us. As I stepped in they all motioned to the nearest cushion to them excitedly, all eager to practice their English. I grabbed a seat among three Buddhist nuns and a middle aged man and woman. Quickly I was being shot questions from every direction. A couple were too embarassed to say much but the rest latched on to any conversation they could. Pausing every now and again to ask how to say something to a twenty two year old nun who sat next to me. She was by far the most practiced. They asked me about my sister, how America is, what sports I liked, any range of questions.

"What's your sister like?"

"You're not married?"

"Do you love the Dalai Lama?"

"Do you sing?"

Dance?"

I had an absolute blast speaking with my small little group. In seemed like we had barely started when the door opened up. We all looked at the clock on the wall. 5pm. We said our goodbyes and parted ways. If the already long list of things to bring me back to Dharamsala is not enough, more conversation with Sonam, Palmoi, Dolma, Lobsang and Wozer is more than enough to bring me back.

 

Days in Delhi and Dharamshala (23 July 2016)

After I left Kerala I spent a few days in New Delhi. Luckily for my lack of planning and thin wallet my cousin works in the US Foreign Service so I was able to stay a few days with him on the embassy. As soon as I got into his house I grabbed one of the first hot showers in a couple weeks and went straight to the dinner table then the bed. My first day in Delhi I decided to make my way to a step well in the middle of the city. It wasn't long into my trip when the rain began to pour. I was half way to the step well when I found myself in the middle of a massive protest. A street had been barricaded and people had set up booths and podiums everywhere. Rain had washed away a bit of the crowd but the rest stayed still like rocks in a stream. In front of the main stage a multi color patchwork quilt of umbrellas, tarps, plastic sheets, anything remotely waterproof was laid out. Under each section the quilt stood many men and women holding up their roof. The blue color of the tarps reflecting down onto the solemn faces of those that had come to make their points heard. It seemed to me as if the causes that brought people here were as varied as the rain protection people stood listening under. Signs calling for the resignation and imprisonment of a police officer who had raped a woman in Punjab, teachers from across India calling for education reform, people from the rural areas wanting to halt the rising prices of their goods, a group there on the behalf of 102 deaf and mute girls who were being housed in a facility that was little more than a prison. Every cause had hundreds of supporters rallied around them. Each supporter was more driven to facilitate change than the last and each had some emotional stakes in their matter. It was tough to be there because each cause seemed worthy of attention. But each was being drowned out by all the others. It was clear to me that nothing would come of this protest. There were simply too many voices in the same place seeking to be heard. When the rain began to let up I pulled out my camera. Every step I took I was greeted by a new person asking if I was a reporter, desperately trying to take their story to the public. After a while of wandering I returned to the embassy. I was telling my cousin Casey and his wife Becca about it. Casey laughed and told me that those happen all the time. I thought there was no way for that to be true. The next four days as I would journey through Delhi I would come across more large protests near government offices. Each having large crowds and making loud demands. Each largely being ignored by the people going about their daily lives.

I chose to take my time easy in Delhi. Sleeping in, enjoying the comforts of the embassy, warm showers, a pool to swim in. I would go out for a few hours each day. Most of those days I would find myself sitting somewhere with a cool Kingfisher watching the city of twenty five million people swirl around me in a dusty, colorful mix of rickshaws, cows, clothing and cars. One night my cousin and I went out for a drink. We made our way to a bar called the Piano Man. I stepped off the Indian street and into what could have been a nice jazz bar in New Orleans. Two floors and a spiral staircase separating the two. On the bottom tables centered around microphones and a piano, on the second a bar and nice view of the stage below. Both floors left so little shoulder space we had to make our way through the kitchen to get from one floor to another. I ordered a Mint Julep on the balcony and made my way to the spiral stair case to rest half way in between the two floors and watch the show. A women stood with every eye in the room on her and a man sat in front of a keyboard to her left. The owner of the bar stepped forward asking for complete silence for the next song. He asked for the bars to stop serving and waited until the folks on the second floor slowed their chatter to the volume of a door mouse. He returned the microphone to the woman. She stood silent for a moment that stretched for an eternity as she looked around the room with her amber brown eyes. A soft and faint melody began to come through the speakers as the keyboard keys gave way to the mans fingers. I could place the tune. She began to whisper softly. "Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens..." Slowly she raised her voice into Julie Andrew's beautiful song of favorites. It seemed as everyone was waiting to exhale for the end of the song. And when it came the place erupted in applause. The next few songs brought with them noticeably less chatter from the crowd upstairs. After a couple melodies she began to speak to the crowd. Explaining why they chose the next song, the weight of it in our world today, a call for help of sorts. Or more precisely a call for love. Her soft voice and barely noticeable Delhi dialect grew into a powerful chorus that still seemed as if she was singling a lullaby as she began to sing Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. The rooms seemed to shrink. The world outside of that moment disappeared as she called to mothers and brothers in a plea for love. I could feel the music in my chest but there was no bass. Soon I noticed that same pressure behind my eyes as she entered the second verse and it felt as it I was on the verge of tears. I could have drowned in the moment. As her voice carried the last few words into the air around us the room started to come back. I became aware of everyone around me again and I turned to my cousin and we exchanged the best explanations of a speechless moment as we could.

It wasn't long after that I left Delhi. I took off yesterday evening from a bus stop. A twelve hour trip to Dharamshala. It wasn't until the last couple hours when I woke up did I notice we were deep in the hills. One could almost be forgiven for mistaking the area for the Blue Ridge Mountains not far from my home. Until you realize it is no ridge but a sea of hills jetting up and down. In the background steep mountains overshadowed all of them. After about thirty minutes of driving though the hills on an empty stomach I became acutely aware of just how empty my stomach was. With nothing to weight it down I could feel each turn in the road. It became a race between reaching Dharamshala and my rapidly failing stomach capacity. I kept track of how far we were. At twelve kilometers out my arms began to twinge. At eight my legs began to feel numb as all my focus shifted to keeping my stomach in check. We pulled off at the bus stop and I have never been so relieved in my life. It seems my home made idli and sambar salsa was safe from being shared with the public. 

I spent the day exploring the city. On the suggestion from a kind traveller I met over breakfast I went to the Tibetan museum. Dharamshala is home to the exiled Tibetan government as they continue to try and maintain an autonomous nature though China rules Tibet with little regard for their tradition and customs. Many refugees have made their way to this area of India, the Dalai Lama among them. The museum was closed sadly but I did get to spend some time walking around the temple speaking to monks. Dharamshala is a small area. It's population seems to be equal parts Indian, Tibetan and multiracial backpackers who take up residence for a short time. I have heard some areas described as "backpacker ghettos" and so far that seems fairly accurate. It seems to be a nice place to hunker down for the next few days before I make my way to Kolkata and a plane ride back home.

 

Lunch with Children and Communists (16 July 2016)

I had booked a taxi to take me around today. I met my driver after breakfast. A short man, twenty eight, a small mustache, white silk tied around his waist and a jean jacket on his back. He asked where we'd be going today in a slightly cracked English. I told him Thakazhi. He looked at me with a slightly confused look on his face. "Why?' he asked.

Thakazhy is small town roughly seventeen kilometers (10 miles) outside of Alappuzha where I am staying. I had spotted the town on the train in from Kerala yesterday and was quick to mark it on my map for a visit. Town I suppose is a rather grandiose term for Thakazhy. Village would be more apt. There are about fifteen thousand people living in an area roughly have the size of Manhattan. They are spread out among the backwater channels and raised farms where rice grows. We made it into town about a month before the rice stalks raise out of the water. The way around town is simply either dirt roads wide enough for a motorbike to fit on or simply walking on the lines of piled dirt that are about a foot thick that rise up out of the waters to separate different crop fields. The people of Thakazhy were just as startled to see me as they might have been to see a submarine rise out of the rice paddies it seemed. Every person we ran across would give us an curious look before a beaming smile broke across their face. Everyone was incredibly welcoming and friendly. To get from one side of town to another you had to cross a bridge. By bridge I mean two discarded pipes lashed together and thrown across the canal. My foot was wider than the two pipes put together. I struggled as I crossed, holding my camera in case I fell so I could try and keep it above the murky water as best I could. Once I gingerly crossed a woman who looked to be in her fifties walked across it carrying a large jug of water as if she had never left the road at all. 

We took our sandals off and walked into the rice fields. Trying our best to stay on the soil that separated the fields. A man took us to his own rice paddy which was barren for the time being so I stepped down into the water from the bank I had been walking on. He pointed out the layout of the town. There were a few areas reserved for fishing, a few outcrops of people's homes and vast amounts of water divided up into neat squares. As we talked a tractor worked away tilling one of the fields before us. Wheels designed to work through the muck below the water kicked up the mud all around and flocks white egrets flew off so not to get their pristine feathers tarnished by the mud.

The area reserved for fishing was another sight to see. Men worked to pump the water out of one small field into another. While they pumped a square of piled mud was built up in the center of the field and men would toss whatever fish they could see trying to escape the mud to open water into the square enclosure. While fish were dumped into the pen men inside either placed the fish into large metal jugs or shoveled mud out of the enclosure. The combining of the pumping water out and the stirring up of mud left the inside of the field a dark brown mess. My driver decided not to follow me in as I waded into waist deep, thick brown sludge. All around people were coming over to watch me try and navigate with a camera in my hand and the other trying to avoid being put into the mud.

Once we washed off the mud as best we could from our legs at a the house of a kind family who gave us some cold water to cool off we continued on. After some walking we found our way to a small primary school. As we peaked in, the six small girls erupted and soon we were seated on a bench made for people a fourth of my height while the kids performed choreographed song after choreographed song. The teacher joked that once they started they couldn't be stopped. Each girl looked as if she were wearing a princess dress to school. All had wonderful bright fabrics adorned with beads sewn in, earrings dangling from their ears and necklaces and bangles hugging their skin. It was lunch time so I sat on the floor with them and ate their food while they tried to sing and dance as best they could with mouths full of rice and hands full of food. 

After a while though it was sadly time to go. We said our goodbyes and went on our way back to Alappuzha. I hadn't mentioned this in past posts because I wanted to find out more, but there are a shocking number of walls adorned with hammers and sickles in Southern India. It seemed like every other wall had the symbol painted on it. I was asking my driver who explained the communist situation in Kerala to me. The Left Democratic Front (LDF) is a Marxist party in India. Within the local government of Kerala they control ninety one of the one hundred and forty electable seats in the Kerala legislature. They are incredibly popular and most people I've met are quite proud and happy to be represented by them. It is strange to come from America where communism in every form is taboo, reviled even. From America I went to Armenia, an old Soviet country where the remnants of the USSR are still everywhere as a nation tries to establish an identity the world can recognize. Finally, Kerala where a democratically elected communist party runs the government and people for the most part seem overjoyed to have it so. My driver explained to me as we pulled up outside the LDF party headquarters in Alappuzha, "Communism in Kerala, good. Much good for the people, for the community." I was hoping to speak to someone in the LDF headquarters but sadly it was closed for the weekend.

If life for most people in Kerala is anything like life for those in Thakazhy I saw today, I can understand why Marxism would be so popular. The people there labor in mud and silty water day in and day out. There is a one room school house that can only cater to the youngest members of the local community. There is no hospital near by and infrastructure is a dubious notion at best. Granted I only saw a small area of Thakazhy, but my driver explained the whole village doesn't differ too much. According to the LDF election manifesto, the party is working to guarantee education, employment, welfare access and modernized infrastructure and economic variety to all people in Kerala. I cannot speak on how much the party has been able to accomplish so far. I believe the party just recently came into power in 2015. But I can say while I was in Thakazhy, walking the dirt banks that served as roads, a team of men were working on the roads there. Solid, concrete walls lined the dirt banks with small steps down into the fields. Secure infrastructure, for those who need it most, seems to be on its way in Kerala. 

 

Trivandrum to Alappuzha (15 July 2016)

Yesterday was the last day I spent in the small city of Trivandrum. I didn't really know what to do with myself so i walked to the sea wall to sit and draw for a bit. Down the wall a ways two fisherman were standing on the rocks fishing. Well, the man with his shirt off was fishing and the other with his stomach poking through his shirt was drinking. They waved me over to them. "We always see you writing things in your book. What do you write." They flipped through my notebook and saw my sketches. The man who had been fishing excitedly pointed to the market and in my sketch book to where I had drawn it. After talking for a bit they offered me some pickled mango. After eating mango and chatting for a bit longer they offered me rum. They had one small cup they would pour some rum into and then cut it with water. I poured my self some rum before I knew they were cutting it in the cup and started to sip on it. They seemed laughed that people would drink liquor straight. When they learned I was twenty two they laughed even more. They were in their mid to late thirties. They each had wives and kids and we spoke for a while on the subject of families. After a while that same question that is almost always the third question popped up. The one that follows "Name? Where are you from?" and the fisherman weren't about to let it slip. "Are you married?" "Nope." "Why?" It is almost like being at a family reunion I imagine. They started telling me all the wonderful things the women of Kerala have going for them. I changed the subject. All the while one of the men kept fishing. He didn't have a pole, just string, weights, hooks and small fish for bait. He'd cast his line out and feel it move through the current, guiding it with one hand. If he felt a small pluck on the line he would give it a tug and hope to hook whatever was nibbling. Time and time again he would cast out above our heads. Each time he was coming back empty handed with a bit smaller piece of bait.

When are stomachs were empty and the bottle of rum was as well they offered to cook lunch. They would try to catch fish a while longer before turing to the market. I thought that sounded like a fine plan so after a while of no luck with the fish we all chipped in. One of the men ran off while I talked to the other. He was a snorkeling and boating guide at one of the resorts during tourist season. In his three months with out a job he just likes to fish each day. He had a permanent ring around his finger where he had looped fishing line around it each day. When the one man returned from the market he had four fish, tinfoil, green chilies, lemons and more rum. One man gutted the fish with hand while the other cut the chilies and lemons. They wrapped the fish in tin foil with some sliced peppers. One foil pack of the fish from the market, another of the would be bait. I was wondering how we would cook our lunch when they hopped off the rock and started breaking up palm branches that had fallen. In five minutes there was a make shift fire roaring with the foil packs placed in the center. I had always wondered why there was a continuous smoky smell in India. I wonder if it's all from cook fires of people just wanting to eat a decent meal. After a few minutes on the fire the man grabbed the packets and placed them on the discarded lid of a styrofoam cooler that laid on the ground near by. He tapped the foam and said "Plate." We hopped back on the rocks and opened up our meal. We squeezed the lemons over the fish and chowed down on what was one of the best meals I've had in a long time.

Today I left Trivandrum to head to Alappuzha, a town on the backwaters up the coast a little ways. When I got up here, I dropped my things in my room and took off to explore the town. I stayed in a small residential area about a mile from my hotel. I walked for six hours and barely covered all the streets. There are two main roads that run parallel to each other in this community. They are set about a half mile apart and in between the two is a maze of smaller roads that don't show up on maps. Roads of dirt, grass, tile, pavement, water. They span the half mile distance at all sorts of angles and cut throughs. I walked in a few circles but the people were always there to direct me around. This was small town India. Coming from a small town, this is the type of India I like best. I was walking around just as school let out so I could barely walk a few blocks before I would hear "Hello!" in a high pitched voice. I'd look around and see a small child in a blue or green uniform each time. They would all be so excited to practice their English. I made the mistake of walking by one school yard before they had been released and girls ran up to the gate to wave me down. Two boys came over and chased them all off by throwing an empty water bottle at them before turning around and stealing their place at the gate. It always feel so nice to go somewhere and just walk around meeting people. I enjoy going to tourist sites and doing the things you go to these areas to do. But the people are what really make a trip for me. Especially when they are as friendly as everyone here has been. 

 

Last Day in Mysuru, Meeting Up With Old Friends (11 July 2016)

Today was my last day in Mysore. Before I left there were a few people I wanted to see. After waking up a little late from watching the final to the Euro Cup (Vive le France over Portugal any day), I made my way just outside the city to the suburb of Gokulam. Gokulam is, from my understanding, essentially the yoga capital of the world. Practitioners and instructors from all over the globe make their way there through out the year to learn from local instructors. It was in Gokulam I sought out Anu and Ganesh. Anu runs a small café on the roof of her beautiful home situated on a hill in Gokulam. Yoga practitioners seem to flock to her house to eat delicious vegetarian food, indulge in decadent chocolate semolina, work on their mindfulness and present state of mind while ingesting the phenomenal brownies made of what I assume was beets and hang out with her remarkably relaxed black lab. Maybe not so remarkably as the lab lives in the middle of the yoga mecca, eats what I imagine to be some of the best dog food on the planet and is surrounded by exceedingly kind yoga students all day. I enjoyed a small lunch from Anu’s roof before meeting with her and discussing the organization she helps run. Admittedly I don't currently have the name or a link to the organization's website but I can tell you what I know. She works to bring children who have been raised on the street into a boarding school and give them all the opportunities she can. The organization she partners with provides meals, vitamins, education, recreation, anything you can think of for those who have so little. When I hear from Anu again I will add in more detailed information, a website link and how you can help her organization at the bottom of this entry. 

After an afternoon in Gokulam I returned to the hotel briefly before venturing out to Chamundi Hill. Chamundi Hill sits just outside Mysore and is a very holy site for Hindus. It is here, Hindu tradition has it that it was on Chamundi Hill where the goddess Chamundeswari defeated the ancient demon Mahishasura. To reach the top of the hill one must climb 1,008 steps. I had climbed Chamundi Hill in the past, three years ago. The last time I climbed it was on a day where it seemed all of Mysore turned out to race up the hill as part of a competition to build awareness on forest fires. There were people of every age range then, all wearing the same white shirt with a picture of a cow escaping the burning brush that surrounded it. This time it was a much more solitary climb. I didn't have any of my friends with me. No one to break with and catch our breath up the steep stairs. No camera crew from the local news documenting the foreigners who had travelled all the way to India just for the race up the hill. It was me, my camera, my water and my laptop. I had brought my lap top along because near the top of the hill there is a small community of people that live there. It was there three years ago where I took a detour through the village and photographed a girl and her baby brother. I was hoping to find them.

As I made my way to the top I could hear the village getting closer. Children yelling and enjoying the hot summer day. As I rounded the corner where I came face to face with the village square I saw a volley ball net had been set up and a group of ten middle school aged boys were playing a game. As I walked past them one called out to me "Hello, what is your name?" I responded with Eamon and he bobbed his head and turned back to the game. As I passed I could here another boy mocking him. I reached where I had remembered taking the picture of the girl and her brother only to find that the house I remembered was no longer there. A new house was being built in its place. Dismayed I was wondering if I'd find them or if they had become another connection I'd never see again. I decided to ask the boys playing volley ball if they recognized the girl in the picture. I called over the one who had shouted out to me and he sheepishly came over. i showed him the picture and he became very taken a back. He didn't speak much English and he was asking quite a few questions in Kannada (the predominant language in the area) and broken English that were a bit too rapid fire to comprehend. The other boys came over and saw the picture. As it turned out the girl was his sister. So they all began to speak to him in Kanarese and punching him in the arm. Teasing him for what I would rather not imagine comes out of a middle school boys mouth when a stranger from far away shows up with pictures of your sister. But I was able to explain I had met her and his brother on the day of the race three years ago and how I was looking for them to share the pictures. He shrugged it off and guided me to a house and ran off back to return to the game. I knocked on the door of where he had lead me to find no one was there. I asked a young boy in the street who looked at the picture and promptly raced around the corner beckoning me. I hastily followed him and found three women sitting on the ground. I showed my pictures to them and they became overjoyed. They were sharing stories in a language I could not understand but I can understand when a voice cracks unexpectedly and a person must clear their throat and wipe at their eyes. It turns out the siblings I had photographed were one of the woman's children. She asked for three copies of each of my pictures and I eagerly tried to explain I's mail them as soon as I got home. I didn't get a chance to meet the daughter who had had such a warm smile and was so eager to show off her brother, but my suspicion is the little boy who darted around the corner in such a flurry and lead me to the women was none other than the boy in the picture. He followed me around the rest of the time I was on the hilltop. He would lead me to the tops of houses to see the view before excitedly going off in a tangent in Kanarese and bashfully knocking things on the ground about with a long stick he had been carrying around.

It was the perfect way to end this leg of my journey. Up until now I have been following the same path I had been the last time I came to India. I had been following where Professor Mergen lead us three years ago. Even down to the hotels. But tomorrow I leave for Kerala. I have never been so far South in India. After Kerala comes Dharmsala, a mountain town home to the exiled Tibetan government in the North. From here on out I am making my own way. I couldn't think of a better way to get ready for this leg of my trip than seeing some old friends from before that I wondered if I'd ever see again. 

 

From Bangalore to Mysore (9 July 2016)

I left Bangalore this morning. As our rickshaw careened through the streets a light rain started to fall. Everything seemed to glisten in the sunlight and the mist. As we stopped at a stoplight a couple on a motorcycle were waiting by our side. The man would reach back and gently touch his partner’s leg while trying to shield her as best he could from the rain. The woman would press her cheek to his back and plant a light kiss on his shoulder, leaving the imprints of her lips on his purple shirt. A child in a rickshaw to our right reached out to feel the rain on her small hand. All the while her mother was holding her at the waist to keep her in the car. The mother’s face smile was hidden by her hijab, but in her eyes the love for her child stretched for miles. There was so much love and tenderness and love at this one traffic stop in the rain in the middle of the city. It was almost like walking through your high school a few days before graduation. My Bangalore graduation glasses.

Once we reached the train station I bought a ticket for my ride. Sixty rupees for a one way ride to Mysore. Less than a beer and barely more than a dollar. I made my way down to Platform 10 where our train was boarding. I had no idea what car to hop on so I nervously passed my ticket to a small man standing in the doorway of train car. He looked, gave me the traditional Indian head bob, a language all to itself that I could not decipher in that moment. After a few head bobs another passenger came back. He looked at my ticket and beckoned me onboard. I took a seat in the row across the aisle from the guy who helped me and his friend. Soon a man came through the car selling chai and lightly roasted peanuts. My helper bought both and sent an order of each to me. Soon we were deep in a very limited conversation. He spoke little English and I speak little (no) Hindi. For some reason one of the first questions people ask me over here is if I’m married. It’s a lot like going to family reunions. He spoke of his wife and his seven-month-old daughter. His friend was single and we joked about being of the same bachelor class.

As the train rolled through the countryside the generosity of the pair I had found became readily apparent. Anytime a vendor came through our cramped car to sell snacks they would hop on it, giving a share to me. Even when I’d try to beat them to it, they would have none of it. Maddur vada, vadai, chai, nuts, a fruit I had never heard of sliced with salt pushed into the cuts, they shared everything that came through. More than this, at every stop people would come through the train car asking for money. A man in an old army sweater and a fake leg dragged himself through the car, a small man with one hand a clubbed feet, a blind man and an old woman with a cleft palette. For every single person they would give them money when few others on our car would. They would share anything they could with the people around us. A baby sat in the row in front of them with her parents and every time the baby’s bottle would run out one of the pair would dart to the back to refill it so the father wouldn’t have to leave his wife and child. They insisted on getting my phone number. So I gave it to them but tried to explain I wouldn’t be able to receive a call until August. “Ok then…August fifth, I call.” He said to me as we were nearing Mysore. Once I got off the platform in Mysore one of the pair insisted on carrying my suitcase to my rickshaw. The driver was a bit annoyed but my new friend couldn’t be dissuaded. As we parted ways he shook my hand for the last time and disappeared into the swarm of people outside the station.

 

An Urban Jungle in Bangaluru (7 July 2016)

I had no idea what to do today so I got up early and decided to start planning the rest of my trip out. I figured out where I'll be heading after my next stop but that's as far as I got. While browsing things to do in Bangalore, I found a national park near by. Bannerghatta National Park is situated about 15 miles from my hotel in the city and the staff here generously agreed to help me find a rickshaw driver to take me there and back. One pulled up and we zipped away. When we got to Bannerghatta, I was looking at the safari options. It seemed to be that I could either take a bus or a personal Jeep. I elected for the jeep so my rickshaw driver and I hopped in the Jeep and we sped off through the gated facilities. 

They keep the herbivores and the carnivores in separate areas so things in the park don't become to natural for the visitors. We drove along winding dirt paths with the jungle inching itself to the road on either side. Around one bend we came to a clearing. A small lake opened up before us as the trees parted and standing down on the bank of the river was an elephant going for a swim. It was the closest thing I've seen to an elephant in the wild and it looked so peaceful. It's enormous grey body soaking up the muddy water of the lake. It would suck some in with its great trunk and blow it into the air. After a brief moments pause we kept going.

Finding more a species of deer native to India called Nilgai. A family was feeding on some clippings laid out for them by the park's staff. We were whisked away again to another clearing. This one with many more elephants. There was one noticeable difference though. Some of these elephants had chain manacles around their feet. I wondered if the other did as well and I could not see it. I am not fond of zoos or companies that exploit animals for people's convenience. I was suddenly faced with an ethical dilemma that I really would rather not be part of. But I suppose that's the point of ethics. I choose to believe these elephants were more happy than the one who cart visitors up and down the steps of palaces all day. They seemed to be enjoying themselves from what I knew of elephant body language which is none. But I couldn't shake the feeling of regret I felt when I saw the chains around the elephants feet. 

Once we had spied a few more nilgai, buffalos and elephants we started to go through the various carnivore habitats. First came the bears native to India, the sloth bear. Which is predictively as lazy as their names may suggest. While passing one that was grooming itself off in the woods the rickshaw driver and myself were excitedly jabbering and taking pictures. Our guided pointed to the road ahead where there were four sloth bears laid out in the road. They were all snoring. As our driver maneuvered us through the minefield of sleeping bears, they would lift their heads to see what was happening then place them gently back down. Sloth bears were all over in various states of relaxation. It was quite a thing to see these massive animals in such a lethargic state.

After the bears came the lion enclosure. As we drove through slowly, all of us peering around, we saw one. One lion sitting out in a small clearing in the jungle. His mane illuminated by the sun that passed through the trees outstretched branches and landed to cast golden light all around the predator. He was gazing off into the distance. Sitting in the warm sunlight and silently waiting. After a while he got up, stretched and gave a loud grumble. I have never heard a lion make noise before. It caught me off guard. There is so much base in a lion's voice that it reverberates in your chest. You can feel it. It hits this long forgotten, near primal center of your brain and you can't help but acknowledge the power he has.

After lions and bears only tigers would logically follow. So we drove through the tiger enclosure. White tigers lounged in the bushy undergrowth grooming themselves and bengal tigers stalked through the forests. Sometimes the bengals would get terribly close to the car and you could see their fierce muscles laying just below that orange and black pelt. They are a sight to behold. 

On the way back into town my rickshaw driver swung me by a silk factory. I could see beautiful fabrics being woven together in the dark rooms sitting next to the stores. It was very interesting to see the hard work in the dark and dingy rooms. The two men weaving the machine to form beautiful flowers and peacock feathers. Through the grime that coated the old machines and the sweat on the men's brows glistened the iridescent colorings of what would become shawls, gowns and beautiful saris next door. One blend of orange and black in a shawl shined so seamlessly with the colors moving so smoothly together it reminded me of one of the bengal tigers, stalking through the dense under growth as the sun bounced off its hide as the tiger creeped in and out of shade. I stepped into the store for some chai while the store owner laid out dozens upon dozens of beautiful silk wares for purchase. After being doped up with coffee and beautiful fabrics I had some laid out to buy. It wasn't until I caught myself that I decided to see how much they were ready to have me spend. Just shy of eight hundred dollars they had saved at the counter for my purchase. I asked them kindly to put the vast majority of that back and I made out with a few goods.