Farting to Peace or Mykel's India Blog Entry 9

India Blog 9

Farting to peace & quiet


It was the fart to end all farts. A massive monster of a fart. Not a rifle shot… but a spinning rumbling bubbling… burbling… growling…  slightly oozy monster fart… a never ending fart… rolling like thunder… each wave of sound and pressure building building to a crescendo… a symphonic far… giant… awe inspiring… deafening… audible for blocks… a collective Was that what I think it was? from the scores of people within earshot. It’s only a prelude of things to come. 

Ahh, now I feel better. 

I’ve got the rest of today and three more left in India. It’s been an adventurous trip… I’ll need a month to recover fully. I wonder if I lost weight? I don’t feel thinner, but I’ve contributed so much to the Indian waste disposal system… those pounds have to go somewhere.

With half of my truckload of Immodium gone, I think I’ve developed a resistant strain. Thanks to Anant’s mom and her prescriptions it doesn’t hurt like it did before. (At its worst, I couldn’t go an hour without screaming pain.) But the sanitation system suffers… as does DAX my poor host whose toilet was already broken even before I got there. Water doesn’t fill the tank, so Dax runs a hose from the cold-water shower to fill the back of the tank. Quite often, I fear.

Then there’s the cough. I’ve long since used up my supply of Fisherman’s Friend. I’ve discovered an Indian brand: Koflet-- that works almost as well and is even MORE foul-tasting. But it works. 

Today I went to what was to be my last Hindu temple. It’s a relatively new temple-- built this millennium… immense…  really beautiful from the outside… within pissing distance of a Metro station. So what could be wrong?

Yeah right… 

When you enter there’s a sign that says BAG CHECK. Ok, that’s convenient. I can leave my daypack there and see the place easier. Nope… The bag check is not for YOU to check your bag. It’s for THEM to check your bag… explosives, time bombs, guns, knives… you get the idea. 

Inside, a crowd waits at the entrance. Just in front of the entrance is a COAT CHECk. I expect, they want to check your COAT for explosives, knives, etc. But I don’t make it that far. In front of the coat check is a sign listing things you cannot bring into the temple: among them: bags, cameras, cellphones, video cameras… Everything you need to document the visit is NOT allowed. 

That sign, along with the massive crowd gathering in front of the entrance (probably for more security goodies) turns me around. I head for the exit… fast. Back to Cafe Coffee Day, where I sit now... typing this… but am unable to use the “free” wifi because it requires an Indian phone number to log it. I don’t have an Indian phone number.

PLAN B: I’ll go to the botanical gardens. I hate zoos, and botanical gardens are just zoos for plants, but somehow I like them. We’ll see….

Yes! The only real peace and quiet I’ve seen in India… at times I feel like I’m the only one in the park… apart from a couple playful puppies. I just sit and read… a park ranger comes over… stands right in front of me…  Openly looking at me… silent as the night before Christmas… staring at me with deadly eyes… I smile and wave. He gives a military turn and walk away. 

Back to peaceful quiet. The only problem is the air… Ah the air in Delhi.  The air.

Oh yeah, back in the metro…. ready t go someplace NOT Cafe Coffee Day for dinner… I’m pleased to find that they still use feet and inches. 

I thought they were metric!

--more to come

--You can read my non-travel opinion pages at: https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

--More Mykel at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

DAX or Mykel's India Trip Entry 8

Mykel's India Blog Entry 8

I write this while lying on a hard thin mattress on the floor of an apartment in a south Delhi apartment. It’s the night of Diweli-- a Hindu holiday celebrated like the mutant offspring of a Christmas/July 4th mating. 

Locals stay home for the day. They give each other presents. Houses, stores and streets are strung with colored lights… there are some lasers. Click on the link below to see some of the decorations… but you cannot HEAR the fireworks.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CXbZhQnqPjSCmFxi6

Fireworks.. crackers, sparklers, those twirly things that give off sparks, the whole kit and caboodle… a lot more big ones… my fading brain forgets the name of them… ashcans maybe... Huge explosives… like gunfire.

I remember my father once telling me… on Independence Day…. “Hear that Mickey?” he says (That was years before I became Mykel). “That’s what it’s like to be at war. It never stops though. And there are no kids laughing.”

In parts of India-- as in parts of America-- fireworks are illegal. Some places restrict them to non-rockets… Exploding is okay… flying is not. The laws don’t matter.

A conservative pal reported that some capitalist think tank said India’s low standard of living was due to “government over-regulation.” And there are rules and bureaucracy up the wazoo. But the reality is, though there’s are thousands of petty regulations… most are routinely ignored. 

Alcohol sale is prohibited during Diweli. My host is sleeping on the couch right now… boozed out. I myself am on shaky ground. Last week, my hotel didn’t have a liquor lenience… they went out... brown bagged it and served me from the kitchen. 

Flash to more generalities: 

I don’t think I’ve had as many young men run their hands up and down my legs since my days in the backroom of The Stud in the 70s. Every shrine, every museum, every movie theater has an airport style baggage x-ray, a metal detector and a guard who feels you up.

There are women guards too, but you don’t get your choice. 

Security, security, security…. check into a hotel, they ask for your passport number, your home state, your cellphone number, where you’re coming from and where you’re going. Then they make a copy of your passport.

All this information is studiously written down, double checked, and kept forever. Yet a terrorist could run a tuk tuk full of fertilizer explosives into the parliament building on Diwali eve, and people would think it was just part of the celebration. No one ever looks at the books. Few police are on the street… and they are so crippled by diesel exhaust fumes, that they couldn’t catch an errant puppy. 

Flash to now:

I am feeling a bit forted/palaced/templed/mosqued out. It’s my last week in India, and I have the feeling I’ll be spending most of it making up for lost sleep. I like museums… and they’re in-doors. A necessity in this most polluted (in the world?) city I’ve ever been in. Maybe I’ll go to the Gandhi museums (musea?) One for Mahatma, one for Indira… both assassinated… did you know that?

I arrived in Delhi (which I consistently misspell as Dehli) via a 5 hour bus trip from Jaipur. In Jaipur, I developed a bad cough, which turned into bronchitis by the time I arrived here. 

I’d planned to splurge on my first few nights (stayed in a hotel!) but I was too sick… feverish… chills… fuzzy brain… to do anything other than cough…  I felt sorry for the people in the next hotel room.

I was back texting THE DOCTOR (aka Anant’s mom). She recommended some stuff. I went to a pharmacy and got one of her recommendations and something else the druggist promised me “is just as good.” 

The cough remains, but I don’t feel sick any more. There are daily smog reports… always in the red zone. The local paper shared a list of air-cleaning houseplants  a must for every resident. It’s like smoking ten packs of cigarettes a day… worse.

Speaking of which, my host has a cough worse than mine. A near-death sounding hack. And he may be the heaviest smoker I’ve ever seen. Except when he fell asleep from our beer-prohibited beer party (yes! I did beer… and pizza (but NOT Dominoes) in Delhi). He had something smokeable in his mouth from the time we said hello until the time he kicked me off the floor last night… and gave me the bed. Then again, until he passed out for a second time. 

Then, this morning, the first thing in his mouth (no, not that… he’s not my type)… is another self-rolled something or other. As far a I can tell, he’s the most hardcore chain smoker I’ve ever seen. But, it makes sense, if you’re living in Delhi. Why not CHOOSE what makes you spit green in the morning.. instead of being a helpless victim?

DAX is his nickname, and he’s a sound engineer. We trade CDs… even though we have completely different musical tastes. 

He introduces me to this African Reggae guy who can sing in 4 languages… (Africans are amazing for a lot of reasons… one of them is language ability). One of those languages is HEBREW!! 

Holy shalom batman. 

Check out JERUSALEM… I need India to find this stuff. By the way, ANI in Hindi means AND. In Hebrew it’s I, as if you didn’t know that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcqK9Ls7Eos

DAX is also a fan of The Beats. He’s a painter... and a writer. I hooked him up on facebook with my Moroccan pal El Habib… the first guy to translate beat poetry into Arabic They should “meet” each other. They need to talk in a quiet place together. 

FLASH TO A TIDBIT: 

Dehli is the only city in India with an extensive Metro (subway) system. It’s crowded, but not as crowded as the express trains in Mumbai. I’ve taken it several times. The patrons are like New Yorkers, forcing themselves into the cars before other people have a chance to leave.  In a double dose of sadness-- TWICE in a Mumbai subway-- young men have stood up to give me their seats. Oy vey.

By now, I think I have more Indian friends than Tonto. That New Years Card list keeps growing. 

Mata, Mykel 

And don’t forget my regular blog… 

https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

Black Privilege or Mykel's India Trip Entry 7

Black Privilege

The cliché about privilege is that you don’t know you have it because it’s just part of you daily life. The only way you can learn about it is when you see someone who DOESN’T have it. That cliché is half right. There is, however, another way of finding out about privilege… when you discover that YOU don’t have it.

It’s like driving on the highway. A classic example of white privilege is the number of times the local black guy is stopped “randomly,” versus the number of stops for non-white guys. (My Japanese friends get stopped all the time.)

I write this lying on the top bunk of a double decker bus. Parked to load up on its second crew of people. Vendors walk in and out selling water and chiplike snacks. I have both in my bag and don’t need any. One guy just dropped a bottle of water in my little compartment, then came back a few minutes later asking for money… like those guys on New York streets who hand you a CD, then follow you down the street demanding money for it. I gave him back his bottle.

The constant barrage of aggressive vendors and beggars is what I hate most about India. If someone asks me for money.. fair enough. I give when I have it… when I don’t, I say sorry. The vendor/beggar moves on to the next person. That’s how it should be… and how it is... unless you’re white in India.

One after the other they latch on to you… refusing to leave. If you’re walking they follow you. If you’re sitting they just don’t leave. I’ve had to resort to growling, barking, howling like a dog… taking out the camera and shooting multiple pictures… with flash… in the middle of the day. They’re like mosquitoes. Pity, empathy, quickly vanish when you find yourself followed and pestered every time you step out of the door… just because of the color of your skin. It almost makes me understand how horrible life must be for beautiful women who have to face this pestering every day-- almost anywhere in the world. Pass the burqua... please!

Attractions, especially old forts, palaces and museums in India all have a two tiered admissions price. The price for Indians is between 10% and 20% of the price for “foreigners” (sometimes they say “tourists”). At first I resented this, then I saw the reasoning that says locals are enjoying the sights that belong to them. Anyone who has the money to travel to India has the money to pay more to see the sights. Those sites belong to India, and it’s not bad if they’re supported by others.

Some places (like the Taj Mahal), offer benefits to the higher price payers. A separate/quicker admissions line… better seating at events like waggah… etc. (More about that later, I hope.)

Flash to the rooftop lounge in the hostel in Amritsar… where the mostly young hostelers gather. Tom (I don’t know his name yet) is sitting at the table. They’re chewing the cud about their adventures in India…. I’ve walked in in the middle of the conversation.

As words pass, hostel conversations always circles back to Where you from? I answer New York, never The US… and not even America.

I’m anxious to talk to Tom. He’s interesting, because he reminds me of Esty… a great friend I made (and stayed with) in my trip to The Gambia. I’ve never met an African traveling in India, and want to find out his story… and surprise him with a bit of walof.

“My name’s Mykel,” I say, extending my hand.

“Where you from?” asks Tom with an accent more like George Harrison’s than Fela Kuti’s.

“I’m from New York,” I tell him. “And you?”

“I’m from Liverpool,” he says.

“Famous for The Beatles,” I tell him.

“Football,” he answers.

“This guy gets all the breaks,” says a twenty-something Indian guy at the table with us. “Tell ‘em your stories, Tom.”

Tom smiles a fake-sheepish aw-shucks kind of smile, “Yeah, people think I’m South Indian. Folks are darker there. I always get the Indian admission prices. Then, when I get inside, I shift to the foreign lines. At first they stop me… ask what I’m doing there… I wave my British passport. They shuffle me over to the foreigners’ line. Best of both worlds.”

I laugh.

At the time I don’t think to ask him if he gets beggar bugged or vendored out by guys offering to be tour guides or by tuk tuk drivers following you around asking if you need a ride… when you’re obviously walking. But I bet he doesn’t get half the bugging I do. He probably can say “no thank you” and people leave him alone.

Black privilege, I say.

--More Mykel at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com