Top Bunk or Mykel's India Trip Entry 6

India Blog

October 19, 2018

I write this on my Chinese laptop lying on the top bunk of a triple level sleeper car traveling from Pune India to someplace whose name I forget. It’s noon, and I haven’t eaten today, though I have just taken my malaria medicine which includes the taped-on instruction: TAKE WITH FOOD. The car is filed with the noise of screaming people… girls… mainly ages 3 to 16… screaming, crying, chattering, nagging. It’s lucky that guns are illegal here.

I had been amazed at the deference shown to women in India. You’re not supposed to touch them… when you say hello or good bye you can hug them gently, but you can’t touch cheek to cheek. In commuter trains-- like in Japan-- women (with their children) have their own cars… sometimes their own trains. Frankly, I resented it.

Now, it suddenly occurs to me that there is an added benefit to women having their own place: QUIET ELSEWHERE!

As I write these words we pull into a station. the upper berth is the only one where it’s impossible to sit straight up. Even my 5’3” self cannot sit without twisting my neck into pain. Three guys-- early twenties-- have twisted themselves into the birth opposite me. Another sits in the top berth on the opposite side of the car. All with bent necks. A chiropractor’s dream car!

The guys are shouting at each other… in Marathi, I think… breaking into laughter… guy laughter… guffaws, belly laughs… a few giggles. More shouting… not in anger, but in eagerness to get their point across… tell a funnier story… Then the guffaws! Are they talking about me?

It’s awful! Worse than the girls… Ok, I get it. God is intervening. Showing me she’s pissed off…. teaching me a lesson in the equality of assholitude. What the fuck? I’m 70 years old and God is still teaching me lessons? Gimme a break!

Where last we left me… after an opening of the birth of a massive steaming pile of offal… the mother of all offals… we flashed back to my stay in Mumbai with Anant and his family (Aunt & Uncle) where

I’m staying for a few days.

Uncle is about 80 years old… in great shape… shorter than I am and more dexterous on the street. Aunt is like a Jewish mother… non-stop food with a dose of guilt if you don’t accept seconds… thirds… It’s a vegetarian household, and… as anyone with vegetarian friends know… vegetables mean cooking with… er... eating with gas. Add to that the non-stop spice… in everything… and you get a bellyfull of problems.

[NOTE: Here is the tension… the dialectic… of eating in India. The food is great! Even the vegetarian stuff. It’s eaten mostly with your right hand… the left hand reserved for dealing with the remains of the food AFTER it’s been digested. I have never had a bad-tasting meal in India.

BUT, my stomach, large and small intestines, and colon disagree. They rebel. They fight tooth and nail… spleen and liver… against any enjoyment of the of the spice-laden invaders. It’s the main tragedy of this trip… but there are others.]

Now, to continue with our tragic comedy… After breakfast, Anant’s uncle accompanies me to the bus station to catch bus number 85… aka ८५. He suggested it as an alternative to the city… more views of the cityscape. Today I have two goals: see the aquarium, change some money. [The Lonely Planet Guide says it’s easy. There are money changing stalls everywhere. The Lonely Planet Guide is wrong.]

Because of the oppressive Mumbai heat, the bus waiting areas (outside) are covered with a tin awning. Because of the angle of the sun, that tin only covers the last two rows of the area. Think airports, those lines that snake around ropes and poles on the way to security x-ray. We get on line at the stop for bus numbers बयालीस, चौ, रानवे and of course, ८५.

We stand in the shade of the tin roof, behind a long line of people waiting for bus ८५ or चौरानवे

or निन्यानवे As the buses come and go we slowly move up in line, until finally we're first and second. First position is directly under the sun... outside in the heat. Second position is slightly covered, but not shaded. Uncle takes first position.

And we wait. 10 minutes pass and it gets hotter. 20 minutes. 30 minutes.

"I think maybe we just missed a bus," says Uncle.

I nod.

40 minutes.

"Maybe I should ask at the front and check the schedule," he says, walking out into the sun and heading toward the front office.

I expect this will act like lighting a cigarette... encouraging the bus to come when I don't know how to pay for it, or where to sit, or how to get on. Uncle will be gone... at bus enquiry, and I will miss the bus. One trick in God's many bags of them is to remain unpredictable. If I can tell what her actions will be, I can prepare for them. So predictibly, the unpredictable happens and Uncle returns before the bus comes. He's sweating from the walk in the hot sun.

"Ten minutes," he says.

"Don't you want to come out of the hot sun?" I ask him.

"No, you stay there... the bus will be here soon..." he answers.

And it is.

"Remember," he says, "the women sit in the first six or seven rows on the right. The first six or seven rows on the left are reserved for the aged. You can sit there if you like."

I thank him, get on the bus and head into town.

Very slowly... Mumbai traffic is Bangkok traffic, New York traffic, Dakar traffic all rolled into 1... with curry sause added. It runs on horns... constant blasts from motorcycles, tuk tuks (called "auto rickshaws" or just "autos"). It runs on people running... the way to get across the highway... or any street is to play dodgem with the busses, motorcycles, and "autos."

It's a scramble with the result... so I'm told... that India has the highest pedestrian (or is it ALL street accidents) fatality rate in the world. The bus takes half an hour... to go a block. It isn't near the aquarium for 2 1/2 hours.

Google maps says the aquarium is 850 meters away. Google maps is usually right... but sometimes... In this case, I follow it. The sun beats hotter. Someone on the bus says it's 40^o. Translated into Fahrenheit , that's fuckin' hot!

I've been using the same handkerchief to blow my nose, wipe my hands after a hand-eaten meal, cough my GERD into, and wipe my face in the excessive heat. It's pretty rank.... but it's all I've got.

Walk this way… walk that way… turn in 20 meters… how far is that? The hankie grows stinkier.

STOP:

October 31,

So much has happened since that last story, that I don’t know where to begin… except here. On the top bunk of a double decker train, on the way from a border town (spitting distance to Pakistan) to Jaipur. The train was about 2 ½ hours late… poor Anant and his brother who accompanied me to the station got more than they bargained for…

So the 8:00 train to Jaipur leaves at 10:30. Right ahead of me are my cellmates… a couple maybe a few years younger than me with 4 suitcases, each a few sizes larger than my torso. They take up the whole compartment. In a few hours, they get everything situated… we have a where you from chat.

The man, “Where are you from?”

Me, “New York.”

The man, “Oh, the US! We’re going to Seattle.”

Me, “When?”

The man, “Seattle. Seattle. It’s in America.”

Me, “When are you going?”

The man, “My son works there… a very good job.”

Me, “I see.”

The man, “You know Seattle?”

Me, “Yes, but it’s very far from New York.”

The man, “Seattle, yes. It’s in America.”

I smile. The woman smiles and waves up at me.

Lights out… then the snoring begins. Earplugs… They don’t work. But somehow I manage to drift off to a dream-filled sleep, dreaming, for some reason, about lawns.

Not for long.

6AM The phone rings, not my phone, but the woman’s. (For some reason, cellphones here do not seem to have VIBRATE mode, but all ring on the loudest volume with a 30 second ringtone, supposed to bring up images of Bollywood.

The woman answer and shouts into the phone. This lasts about 10 minutes. Then she passes the phone to the man who shouts into it for another quarter hour. Then, they start a non-stop conversation… with each other... fastest chatter in the world… like it’s a TV game show where the one who can say the most in a fixed time wins a chance at a new washing machine.

I moan. Fart loudly. Nothing helps. They go on non-stop… I pound the wall, the volume of their conversation lowers... for bout 10 seconds. I fart loudly again. Get up to piss, not looking at them at all… realize we’re in the station and not allowed to piss until the train starts moving again… I return and climb up to my bunk. They continue to chatter. I stare at the woman. The guy is directly beneath me so I can’t see him.

Arms folded... the evilest eye I can give to the woman in the lower bunk. She sees me… Lowers her voice… a bit… her phone rings.

Flash to 9:30am

They have left now. But it’s already morning… no longer late night. The whole train car is awake.

--more later if I have time… maybe I can sleep for 10 minutes--

The Start of a Huge... one of those days or Mykel's India Entry Number 5

Oct 16, 2018

Breathe… Breathe… Push… Breathe… Push.. Yes! Yes! Yeesssss!It’s the mother of all shits… a vast pile… bigger than a basketball, though less round… not a shit brickhouse… no turds to speak of… just a huge pile… consistency of a Big Whopper. This is what giving birth is like. An expulsion that instantly turns unimaginable pain to unimaginable pleasure.

Keep that image in mind… I’ll get back to it. But first let’s see how I got there… some background.

I forget if it’s Mama-Dada or Dada-Mama…. Actually, it’s probably both. Anant’s Aunt and Uncle along with his Aunt’s sister. I could never get this kinship relationship right. There are firsts and seconds.. and once removed and twice removed. And in-laws and out-laws… Me? No clue after Mom, Dad, Brother, and Sister.

I’ve left my first homestay, with Anant’s long-term friend, Jocel, and his wife and child. (Jocel’s wife and child not Anant’s.) With the exception of the general wonderfulness of the couple-- putting up with me for 10 days, making me breakfast, dinner and usually lunch every day-- it was a familiar stay. They live in a big apartment… I had my own room… no AC but the fan was really enough. They lived at the end of the local trainline, so if I traveled local I could get a seat.

The whole family lived in New Jersey for some time, so they were prepared for me. They worried if I liked spicy food, and how much milk to put in the coffee. They ate meat, fish, goat… maybe even beef… I’m not sure. They did not give me a key (would you?), but usually there was someone home, so it wasn’t a problem. Mom used to be a teacher. Dad works in an IT company. The kid is rambunctious… could be Levittown.

Except for the ever-present oppressive heat (98^o today), life in Mumbai wasn’t much different than New York or Tokyo or some combination of the two. It was just exotic enough to keep the camera shutter fluttering, but not Whoa… look at that… like minute in Mongolia is… (I bet there’s nowhere as Whoa… look at that! as Mongolia.)

Life with Dada-Mama and Mama-Dada is different from life with Jocel. First, they keep Hindu kosher. That means no meat, no eggs, no alcohol. Dairy products are okay. (Milk doesn’t stop life. The others do.) The three of them have moved into one room for my sake. I still have my own room (this time with mosquito netting!… though my first night there I forgot to tuck it in)… with a fan, but the apartment layout is different.

There is no hallway between the rooms. The living room opens into “my” room which opens into the other bedroom, where my three flatmates crowd together to give me a private place to sleep. In the morning-- that is about 8:30AM (slightly past my bed-time in New York), is tea and some biscuits… we’d call them cookies. Then half an hour later, Mama-Dada (or Dada-Mama, whichever is the female) and her sister have cooked breakfast. I have never seen the women eat, but Dada-Mama (or Mama-Dada, whichever is the male) and I always eat together in front of the TV that’s usually showing an India soap opera… or comedy, where the words coming from the actors mouths never quite match the lip movements. I’m guessing the original was in Hindi and the local version in dubbed into Marathi for the Mumbai audience.

While the show is on, both Mama-Dada and Dada-Mama are on their cellphones-- either watching OTHER shows, videos or talking with the family in Texas. All the meals are great, even if they’re vegetarian. I clean my plate… some kind of rice with spice… everything has spice in it. My guess this started for health reasons… maybe to induce sweating… the so-called natural cooling system of the body. (I could never figure this out. Maybe it works in DRY places, but sweat in a country like India… where it’s as wet as a sloppy simile… It just doesn’t work.)

Mama-Dada (or Dada-Mama) comes by with seconds. I make the universal thumb and forefinger sign for just a little. I get a scoop. I’m getting really full, now.. and the spices are beginning to work their magic on my digestive system. I can just about squeeze that last spoonful in.

Mama-Dada (or Dada-Mama) is back as soon as I put that last spoonful in my mouth. (They got spoons as well as toilet paper for me.) She holds a bowl with more spicy rice.

“Some more?” she asks.

I shake my head. “I’m full!” I tell her. “I can’t eat a bit more.”

“What’s the matter? You didn’t like it?” she asks.

“I didn’t know you were Jewish,” I don’t answer.

From there… it’s to the bus station. Dada-Mama (or Mama-Dada) suggests I go by bus so I can see more… I’ve never taken a bus in Mumbai.

So, it’s off to the bus station. I know I need to take bus 85… The buses don’t use Arabic numerals. (I guess it’s that Arabic thing.) Dada-Mama accompanies me to the station, and we wait in the heat for bus number ८५.

The shit hits the fan in the next entry.

---more soon---

• You can read my more political/social/punk stuff at: https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com
• And you can join my Mykel Goes to India facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/224707731492653/

Indians! Mykel Goes to India Entry 4

Indians!

Mykel's Travel Blog 
India: Entry 4

Oct 12, 2018

I love Indians… and yeah, I’m talking red dot… not feather. I don’t know any feather Indians… The Navajo I’ve met have all been pretty nice… but I don’t know enough of them to say I LOVE them. But the India Indians???

Holy Guru batman! They are terrific.

As a visitor… well, let me tell you their motto… I’ve heard it several dozen times…

GUEST IS GOD

In America, guests begin to smell like fish after three days. Like fish, they should be canned.

In India… they’re annoyed with you if you wash the dishes! “Why did you do that? You didn’t have to do that.”

My best houseguests are the ones who wash the dishes! It’s almost a test of guest value Ten extra points for washing the dishes. (That means you Gavin… my last guest who washed the dishes.)

Washing the dishes is for hosts. God never washes the dishes.

So what happened? I guess I’ll take it in sort of reverse order. This was last night:

You might have guessed that they’re old (not as old as me) punk-rockers. Members and hanger-oners from the great-named Mumbai punk band: TRIPWIRE. Amey, the guitarist, I met on facebook, introduced by the great Luk Haas.

Now we were meeting in person for the first time-- along with friends, promoters and the bass player. We hang out all evening. First they take me to this ROLL place… not bakery rolls, but real Indian crepe rolls. I forgot to take a picture of the really fat guy who owns the small chain. It’s something like a Kushner Roll… but not exactly that name.

“Say it’s an Indian Burito, Mykel,” says Sagar, the bassplayer.

Mmmm sure is good-- spicy with just enough sweet in it to make it a WOW. It sure hits my lingual G-spot. But that’s only the beginning. From there it’s on to THE PAGODA… sort of.

On the way, I casually mention that my boots need fixing. The sole is separating from the rest of the boot. For some reason (the heat?), since I got to India everything seems to be falling apart. A handkerchief I brought with me shreds on its own. My camera front pulls away from the camera back. My shirt loses a button. My body is suddenly filled with itchy blemishes. And more.

“Yo! Yo! Yo!” I say. “You guys know where I can get my boot fixed?”

“Mochi! Mochi!” They tell me.

“I wasn’t asking about Japanese food,” I start tell them… then grip the sides of the car door as Amey pulls a U-ey and drives down a side street, then screeches to a halt.

“Give me your boot,” he says. I unlace it and hand it over. He takes it and bounds out of the car. In a quarter hour he’s back… sole firmly glued in place.

“Ok,’ I tell him. “That’s great. I’ll take care of the Japanese food.”

He frowns.

“You said you were going for mochi,” I say. “You know those chewy rice cakes.”

Laughter.

“Mochi, in Maratha means cobler.” he spits out through the laughs. “I just took your boots to a mochi.”

Bang! Back into the car and off to the pagoda.

That’s another thing about India… it has so much stuff to look at… And we do… can’t go inside but do get to see it lit up… and walk around late at night. The night had a perfect crescent moon with one star… like the flag of a (non-Jewish) Middle Eastern country.

I try to take a picture of it, but the camera refuses to see what I see. So you’ll have to imagine it in stark black and bright white.

After the pagoda, it’s on to a bar. (Who me?) We sit at a table on the side, and order beer. My stomach is beginning to rumble... I am in India after all. 

I excuse myself to go take care of it. I follow the signs that say TOILET! Then end in a little room wtih two urinals. No toilet that I can see. I try to make good with just a gas release... and then I return to the table. 

That's when I notice it. There are only men in the bar. Tables full of men. Old men, young men, groups of men, men sitting alone... just men. 

"Is this a gay bar?" I ask Amey.

"No," he says, "why do you ask?"

"There are no women here," I say. 

He looks around and laughs. 

This is a lower class workers bar. Heavy jobs... construction... cleaning... you know. Women don't do that kind of work.

I shrug.

"But don't men shit?" I don't ask... And I do get through the rest of the evening.

R.A., the promoter, has a whiskey. On Saga’s suggestion, I order a LONDON PILSNER-- STRONG.

“I wanted an INDIAN beer,” I say.

“That IS an Indian beer,” says he.

I shudda known. INDIAN PALE ALE is the most popular style of American beer. So why not have LONDON PILSNER as a good Indian beer?

Yeah! Another good choice.

Aside: I need to explain Indo-Chinese… For Americans Indo China is the peninsula where Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia hang their hats. For Indians, Indo-China is a food style. Chinese food with an Indian twist! [Note: Every country in the world has its own version of Chinese food. Why should India be any different?]

So we have the spicy chicken and the spicy shrimp… and another LONDON PILSNER PLEASE? And another……

11:30… In New York, I’d be just starting, but I’m worried about waking up my Indian family. So, soused and ready to go home… (more about my HOME in Mumbai later)… Amey drives me back.

That brings me to Jocel, Karin… and Lael… my family here in Mumbai.

This is a trio who have put up with me for 11 days and counting. (I THINK I’m leaving tomorrow, but I have learned that PEOPLE PLAN… GOD LAUGHS here in India even more than other places).

Jocel works… leaves at 10AM returns at 8:30… Karen takes care of their cute but rambunctious (just like me!) offspring Lael… is a job and a half in itself. Plus, they both take care of me. I don’t mean they give me a bed… and a room to myself… They do that. But they also feed me-- breakfast in the morning… dinner at night... entertain me with Bollywood on the large screen TV… ask me about my day… suggest places to go… make sure I’m okay… (I’m okay)… do I want this or that? All while taking care of an ever-moving 4 year old!

PLUS! 10 days of this so far. I even try to take them out to dinner to say thank you…. my credit card is declined… THEY PAY!

GUEST IS GOD!!!!

Ok, as God, if I have the choice, you guys get straight to heaven… that’s for sure!

Then there’s Narantha:

No, she doesn’t have half a Salvador Dali mustache… that’s a lock of hair hanging low. I don’t have photoshop in this computer, so I can’t remove it.

Another couch-surfing discovery. Namratha (and I hope I spelled her name right… those Indian names are killers!) was hostessing when I first inquired through couch-surfing in New York. She can’t hostess me. But, she says, she’ll have me for dinner.

“I don’t taste that good,” I warn her.

We meet near where she works: Akruti Trade Center. The auto-rickshaw driver (auto-rickshaws are like Thai tuk-tuks… If you don’t know what that is… ask Google… She knows.) leaves me off at the Akriti STAR Center, which is right across from the Akruti Enterprise Center. I go in and show the concierge the address on my phone.

He shakes his head and gestures moving his hands every which way.

“So I have to leave the building and go somewhere else?” I ask.

He nods his head. I leave and cross the very busy street in front of the building. (Crossing the street in Mumbai is an adventure that deserves it’s own entry. The closest experience I’ve had to it is crossing the street in Dakar. Think, dodge ‘em!)

Across the street, I enter Akruti Enterprise Center and show the concierge the email message. He makes exactly the same hand gestures as the previous concierge. I point to the other side of the street. He tilts his head in that ambiguous way which I think means yes. I sigh deeply and cross the street back to the other side. Then I text Namratha.

I look around for a landmark.

“I’m in front of the Chinese restaurant,” I tell her.

“There?” she says, “I know where you are. I’ll be right there.”

And she is… and it’s all uphill from there. Great dinner. Great conversation. More introductions… Dinner again in two days with her and the Brahmins of Juhu… no meat… no booze… but great company.

Wow! Do I love Indians!

--end--

If you’re interested in my non-travel, more political, social, satirical, scatological, punker writing. You can read more at: https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

The Trains Mykel Goes to India Entry 3

Monday October 8

A week in India. I've decided to keep these reports small, singly focused, despite the time I have, things happen so fast, internet access is spotty, and life takes twisty turns.

I want to write about THE TRAINS. But before I do it I have to explain my first impression that Mumbai is in the same group as New York and Tokyo. Hot and sweaty in the summer.

Filled with people. A strange combination of helpful, careless, self-centered, beauty, and ugliness.

I’m staying in Borivali, a northern suburb of the city… about an hour and a half by train from the old town… where the tourists go… no tourists in Borivali.

As in Tokyo, most of the streets don’t have names… the buildings do. So, for example, I in the Bolivali section of Mumbai, in the AD Colony and in the Titanium Building. [Names changed slightly to protect my friends.] The autocab drivers that get you from place to place (think Tuk Tuk)… station to Titanium Google maps… they just plug in the name and find it with the press of DIRECTIONS button. This is India… tech capital of the world, right? Yeah right.

Maybe they’ll know AD Colony… but that’s a big area. Titanium? Isn’t that some Marvel super-hero?

But lets talk about the trains. Like in other countries, there are express and local trains. Some of the local trains START in Borivali. The express trains start who-know-where… Beijing? All trains have first and second class cars. The difference being the price and air conditioning. I have not (yet?) taken a first-class ride. Express and local trains are the same price.

You’ve probably seen pictures of the white-gloved guards in Tokyo whose job it is to stuff the people people into the cars… tight enough for the doors to close.

“We don’t need guards with white gloves,” says Karin, my hostess. “We stuff ourselves.”

The express trains are as full of people as any Odakyu rush-hour train… the only difference… the doors don’t close. So the train comes into the station with half a dozen upper body halves… hanging out… getting air conditioning from real air.

It’s my first trip downtown. Karin takes me to the station. Translates my needs to the railroad clerk. Churchgate Terminal, round trip for one, second class, which platform?

I hand her the money… around a dollar for the round-trip. I get a dot-matrix printed ticket, completely unreadable, except for the all-caps white on brown logo wishing me HAPPY JOURNEY. The picture is for a ticket to a different location, but they all look the same.


 

We’re off to track 9. Karin walks me to the track, confirms it’s the right place with the shoeshine boy, then asks, “Are you okay Mykel? Can you take it from here?”

“Of course,” I tell her. “I’m a New Yorker.”

She leaves and I wait. Not long… the train approaches. It’s packed… Japan packed, but with open doors… people hanging out… gasping for the polluted air of the station…. barely hanging on to the door frame… maybe there are no actual doors at all… just open spots for people to get on and off.

No one gets off.

There is absolutely no space… no one to push me in. No way I can add myself to the crowd… I let the train go.

Next train’s in a few minutes. The doors open… Yes! There’s some space… maybe even a seat… then I notice it. There are only women in this car…. beautiful women in saris, old women with faces as gnarled as their walking sticks… mothers with little kids (yes, some of them boys… but no older than 8 or 9 years old…. I can’t pass.) I’m in the women’s car. Just like in Japan, I suppose, the tightness of the quarters leads to some unwelcome tightness in the crotch of some random guy’s pants. Some extra lumps for the long ride… the girls would rather not. So that have their own car… this is it.

I get out of the car. All the others are as crowded as a poetic metaphorical sentence with way too many different words to be poetic or metaphorical in it. I wait for the next train… about 10 minutes… no I don’t.

Clutching my ticket, I decide to try to try something different. Take the local… It’ll take longer, but it’ll start from here. It should be empty when it starts, right? I ask half a dozen people, most of whom shrug and keep walking. Finally, I find the track… track 2 with one of those huge train stoppers on one end meaning exactly THE END OF THE LINE.

Yes! The train pulls in and I rush in with the others, snag a seat by the window. Right under a fan…. I take off my Bay Stars hat to enjoy the coolish air on the top of my head. The train fills almost to seating capacity… and then starts. The seat I’m sitting on is made for three people, as are most of the seats-- except the benches along the wall. I sit next to a chubby guy. Next to him is an attractive young woman… very sporty looking. Across from me is a white-shirted guy who put his briefcase in the overhead rack. Next to him is a tall skinny college-looking guy. Next to him is a slightly shlubby looking old man… with middle age spread long since spread.

Next stop the car fills more. Another businessman walks up to the seat across from me and-- with his ass-- bumps the slub on his arm. He pushes the others on the bench to slide down so he can get 6 inches of space to rest a single buttock on. The trip continues and I see this repeated… every stop… sometimes between stops. On one of the benches... the end guy… butted over to make a tiny bit of half-sitting space… Except my bench. No one butts the woman at the end of bench. No matter how crowded it gets, the woman has an invisible buffer around her than no one breaks. Separate cars… no ass bumping.. the women have it made here. Even when it gets crowded.

And it does get crowded… hanging out the door crowded…

You can’t imagine:

An hour and a half later, I’m in Churchgate.

No one checks the tickets… either on the way in or the way out.

On the way back I, find that I can’t really tell which trains are local and which are express. The station is filled with cryptic messages… at least the English versions are cryptic.

Okay, here comes the train… what luck! It must be a local. The car is pretty empty… One guy in the corner… with a cane… I sit on an empty bench, near the window. There is some shouting. Some tap tap tapping. Half a dozen blind guys walk in… single file… hands on a shoulder in front of them. Yeah, it’s the blind leading the blind… and they do it perfectly. Right to the back bench… where they sit in a single row and converse loudly in a language I don’t understand.

In totters an old man… looking much like a classic guru… long beard, white robes, and a heavy limp. A couple with a child sits on the bench in front of me. The man has no eyes… I don’t mean he’s blind… I mean he has no eyes. Two empty sockets… his wife and child lead him to the seat in front of me. I smile coochy coo style at the kid. Then notice that mom is missing a hand.

Note: those who know me well know that handicapped people do not freak me out. Actually, I enjoy their company and feel them to be some of the bravest people I know. My father lost an arm in the Second World War. He worked for an agency that found jobs for handicapped people… I used to visit him at the office near the Chrysler building. I grew up with handicapped people. Even now, one of the most important people in my life is blind. And yeah?

What freaks me out here is ME!! This is clearly the handicap car and here I am taking up space in it! I can’t move, because the other cars will be packed by now. I just have to sit here and feel guilty. I’m wondering if I should leave with a limp. Nobody says a word and I get off at my stop.

Whew!

+end+

Mykel Goes to India Entry 2

Entry Two , 

October 5, 2018


I lost it yesterday… on the street… not far from to the world famous train station. I was already pissed off. My Indian pals… the ones I’m staying with… AND the Lonely Planet Guide say it’s the most famous “modern” landmark in India.

[Note to Millennials: A guide is a book that lists important points on where you should visit and what you should avoid. A book is a bunch of paper pages, bound on one side with printed words on most of the pagers. There are also some pictures. To scroll from one part of a book to another, it is necessary to turn the pages. Check YouTube for instructions on how to open, read, and bookmark a book. Control-D does NOT work to bookmark a book.]

I’m talking about Victoria Terminal, the most famous building in Mumbai. Built in the 1800s when India was a British colony, it is huge, beautiful and still in use. I took the train from Borivale (a sort of Brooklyn of Bombay) to Churchgate… then decided to walk the rest of the way to Victoria. Google maps was not cooperating with my phone, so I decided to ask strangers for directions. [If you don’t know what asking for directions is, you can also check YouTube for instructions.]

I ask a young guy who removes one of his headphones. I ask again. He shrugs. I ask an old woman, sitting on a bench, wearing a beautiful Sari. She doesn’t even look at me. I ask and ask again. I get shrugs. I get sorry. I get I don’t know. I get a double tilt of the head… like the Bulgarian body language for yes. But here it either means I don’t know or Fuck You! The most famous building in town and they don’t know? It would be like a New Yorker in mid-town saying she doesn’t know where the Empire State Building is. They just don’t want to tell me, that’s what it means. It’s a goddamn World Heritage Site!

The streets are crowded. Most people walk on the left, like in Japan, but there are jostlers who walk any which way and push you out of their way if you are too slow for them. For the last few blocks, I’m pushed more than I like.

The crowd thickens A fat guy… even shorter than me... shoulders me aside and walks on ahead. I run to catch up with him. Put both hands on his back and shove him hard enough to make him stumble. He turns his head and glares back at me… I’m the whitest person in the tunnel so I’m hard to miss.His fist tighten… but he’s in a hurry… I hold back. He decides his train is more important than my chin… and keeps walking.

“Culture! Culture!” I whisper to myself. “Don’t make judgments without context, Mykel. Cultures are different.”

I keep asking random people on the street. “Where Victoria Terminal?” They shrug Or tilt their heads in a completely ambiguous gesture… the kind people use to shake water out of their ears when they come in from swimming.

I’m mad! They know! They’re just not telling me. Pretending they don’t know English… What are they, French? Is it my skin color? That I don’t speak the local (of over 200) language? Bad breath? Shrug after shrug.

A few cops… older guards at government buildings… they give me vague that way directions. It takes an hour or so, but I find it. An extremely spectacular building that you can enter through a tunnel underground.

Pretty hard to miss, don’t you think? Those assholes must’ve known. They were just fucking with me, the fuckin’ fucks! Jeez! What’s wrong with you people? When I get to the building… people push past me to enter to buy train tickets. It’s really a cool-looking place, and, I hear, one of the only World Heritage Sites still used for the purpose it was built. That pisses me off even more.

THEY KNOW!! THEY ALL KNOW!! THEY’RE JUST NOT TELLING ME.

Then, I see the plaque… black on gold:

The name was changed in 1996. Nobody born before 1975 is gonna know what Victoria Terminal is? They know it as Chhatrapati Shiva Maharaj… I can’t even say that.… Victoria is from 2 centuries ago! Before I was born! They we’re fucking with me, they just didn’t know what I was talking about.

Sometimes, I feel like such a jerk.

-end-

If you want to read more of my, you can read my punk, social, political, writing at: https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com. Comments are welcome. You can also contact me at: god@mykelboard.com or find me on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/mykel.board

Mykel Goes to India Day -1 and counting

Entry One , October 1, 2018


I’m in the train from Penn Station to Newark Airport. Newark is usually my airport of choice from New York. Physically, it’s the furthest, but it’s only three stops on the train... Nine dollars for the comforable miles (old people’s discount)... so here I sit. A medium sized backpack and an over-stuffed computer case at my feet.

Next to me… to my left… is an attractive young woman-- mid twenties… sweatshirt.. jeans. In front of her are two huge suitcases. Next to her is a slightly macho guy over 6 feet tall, with decent shoulders, and an intense focus on the cellphone in his right hand... Not much to look at for me… but as I look at the young woman… she shifts in her seat moving further away from me, closer to the other guy… she leans over and talks with him…. He laughs.

The woman reaches into her purse and pulls out a small bag of Riccola. She offers one to the macho man. He shakes his head. Then she takes one wrapped Riccola opens it... slowly... fold by fold… as if relishing the reveal.. Once opened, the brown lozenge lays in the middle of the wrapper a brown square stark against the white. She holds it up to her face. Her pink tongue darts lizard-like from between her full lips. Bending her head, she touches it to the lozenge on the paper. Withdrawing her tongue, she pulls the paper to her lips and sucks it into her mouth.

Suddenly, the woman turns and looks at me… then shifts even closer to the macho man.

Scene shift:

Newark airport: Some hugely fat guy has been talking non-stop on his iphone. I now know where Florence’s birthday gift is, what to tell Albert when he calls, and that Marty is a money grubbing asshole. I’m at the gate 2½ hours early as is my custom. Lots of trouble with SECURITY-- as is my custom.

“Thanks for your passport. I need your visa,” I pull it out-- the visa that is-- and hand it over to the woman on the other side of the Air-India counter. The not Indian woman smiles as she takes the paper. Then she looks at it... her sculpted eyebrows move closer together. Her non-botoxed forhead wrinkles. She squints... raises a finger in a just a minute signal (which these days could mean anything from Jesus is the one way to White Power.) Then she runs down to another clerk-- this one Indian-- to check with her. There is some conversation and she heads back to me... trying to force a smile.

“I’m sorry,” she says. (How did I know?) “But that isn’t a visa. That is only a confirmation of application. Your actual e-visa should have come in an e-mail.”

I open my phone and go to the email app. 10,345 emails. I search on INDIA. 653. But wait! I fiddle about in my wallet. I find ANOTHER printout… It say E-VISA on top. YES!

 I hand it over to the agent. She holds up a finger again and runs off.

NOTE: I do NOT hold up a finger.

She returns with another woman… much more supervisor-looking. The other woman manages to make her smile look almost authentic.

“This is not an e-visa,” she says. “It is only an email telling you that your e-visa has been granted.” She points to the blue CLICKABLE text on the page. THAT’s where you have to get your visa from.

I remain non-violent.

“Don’t worry,” she says, “we can print out your visa for you… just move down to the last agent and she’ll print it for you.”

I moved to the last agent. She (you guessed it) holds up a finger and disappears. She returns with a small cart. On the cart is a printer.

“Just a minute, I have to set this up.”

She plugs in the printer… turns it on… connects a cord from the printer to something on the desk in front of her… flips a printer switch…

It takes awhile. I use the time to practice deep meditation and breath control.

BRRRRRR ZIP BRRRRR ZIP BRRRR ZIP

The paper comes out. I hold in my hand… an e-Visa. I think.

“Have a nice day,” says the woman handing it to me.

“You too,” I say.

-proofread on the plane… so I got this far-

Postscript (written on the plane): Is this the world’s only airline without a magazine in the magazine holder? In any case, the lights, stewardess call, movie volume are all exclusively controlled by a remote tucked into the armrest. It don’t work. The stewardess has asked everybody to lower their window shades, but only two people in the cabin have figured out how to turn on the overhead lights.

We had dinner… curry of course… not very good. I ate the salad and drank the water… I figured on the plane it must be okay, right? We’ll see. In the meantime, I opened my window shade… we’re over a sea of clouds. That’s all. We’ve been in the air about 2 ½ hours. 11 more to go.