study to be wise

Monday, December 21, 2009

Kerala



Women on the beach in Varkala.



The people you meet when you travel alone in India.

On the train into Kerala, my cabinmates were two middle-aged Scotsmen who, not an hour into the trip, pulled out this bottle of Smirnoff as well as a steel water bottle that looked like mine only it poured out Scotch. Then one said to the other, “We’re going to a Communist, Muslim state! Bloody ’ell, can’t get much worse.” But they were clearly enamored with India, and they were joking, and it was kind of hilarious.



Then on the Kerala backwaters, I shared a houseboat with two Aussies who were self-proclaimed Socialist revolutionaries. They debated over popular misconceptions of Lenin and whether he really said all he needed was more power. The guy was reading a history of the Russian revolution. The girl was on her way to Delhi where she was going to stay with members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). They weren’t joking, and it was still kind of hilarious.



Finally finished the book while coming and going on a boat on a river. Awesome.





Another sunset, another moonrise.



After over 5,000 kilometres, spread across 14 train rides, 3 of them overnight, this was my last one. We had arrived at the station not knowing when the next train to Kochi was leaving, so I asked the guy in the ticket window when the next train to Kochi was leaving, and he pointed to the one at the platform that was just starting to move. I looked at the train, and back at the guy in the ticket window, and asked him how much it would cost. Before he could answer, I asked, “Can we just get on now?”

He offered a now-familiar variety of sounds and head movements that seemed to answer in the affirmative, and the train was starting to accelerate, so I ran. I ran to the train, grabbed the door rails and jumped onto the carriage for my last, great Indian train ride.

Always wanted to do that.



Scenes from Kochi.



Keener’s. Heh.







These guys invited me—for a donation, of course—to help with pulling up the fifteenth century Chinese fishing nets. I think I did alright.



Got to get up close, too.



And see dolphins.



The guy on the left was the boss of the operation. And after a few minutes with him, I kept getting the nagging feeling that he reminded me of someone. Couldn’t figure it out. Then I was looking over these photos, and saw this one with the cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and imagined it was a cigar, and replaced the white and blue trim of his shorts with red and black, and cut off his shirt sleeves and added a “23” to its front and back. You know what I’m saying?





Kathakali.



Bugs. Constant from my first day to my last.

And that’s all, folks.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Goa

I confess I've been anticipating this post since before I even left for India, as I started to get a feel for the contour of my itinerary. This is a huge, huge country, and I had just one month. But one month is at least enough to do this:



Start in the mountains.



Go through the desert.



And finally, gloriously, arrive at the sea.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Mumbai, the wedding



This I did not plan. I was just walking, exploring, with some sense of a destination but not really, when I heard what I now instantly recognize as the marching band of a wedding. Wedding season is on crack right now; there were two huge weddings going on both nights I stayed at the Novotel, and when I went to see what the Marriott was like, a waiter told me there were five weddings going on in the hotel—that night. And outside of glitzy Mumbai, you can’t go more than a couple hundred meters on a big Mumbai street without coming across what was once a large, nondescript open space but is now a spruced-up, outdoor banquet hall with tacky entryways and Christmas lights.



So when I heard the marching band, and then noticed the crowd, as well as the guy in a costume sitting on a horse, I got closer to take some photos. There was a group of four foreigners who had already gotten closer to take their photos, and suddenly they got swooped up into the procession. People were yelling at them (in, you know, a friendly way) to dance and, as I was about to discover, that’s a hard invitation to turn down.



Look closely at the back of his t-shirt. Familiar campaign logo? Funny, because it turned out they were Australian.



I got pulled in soon enough. It was all pretty liberating, really, because you spend a lot of time feeling hesitant or intrusive about being a tourist or trying to take a photo, and now every other person in this large crowd was basically threatening you if you didn’t dance with them or take their photo.







Groom seemed kind of stressed, to be honest.



Some of the cousins of the groom invited me to eat with them, and when they walked me down a sidestreet is when my skeptical traveler instinct kicked in and I started to wonder how far I should go with this. But in broad daylight, with large crowds of very happy people—and young kids—still surrounding us, I kept on. Seemed harmless to have a meal, and I was hungry, anyway.

Then they told me to come back tomorrow night, for the second day of celebrations when the younger brother of the groom was also getting married. I hesitated slightly in giving them my phone number, and they noticed, calling me out for it but then assuring me they were honestly just hoping I could be part of the fun.

To reassure myself, I kept coming back to two things: that it was I who first approached them when I wanted to take some pictures, and that there were still loads of young kids around who kept squeaking to have their pictures taken. I figured this would have to be a pretty crazy elaborate plot to have set all this up just to trick a few tourists, and even then, what could they be tricking me into? This was all happening out in the open, on the streets, and there were no shackles preventing me from bolting into a taxi the instant I felt uncomfortable. So I went back the next evening.

And I was part of the fun.



What can I say? It lived up to the hype.









Not a whole lot of Bhangra (though when there was, I had very eager instructors), but it was still non-stop music and dancing and just madness. Kids were screaming their heads off. The group of guys who had invited me were pulling me aside for surreptitious yet large sips of beer. More dancing, on other people’s shoulders, on the tops of trucks, everywhere. Just madness.









Here I stand, on the shoulders of giants, er, other Indian wedding guests.



Was also kind of relieved that the Australian guys got re-invited, too.



Really damn loud firecrackers and fireworks. China’s greatest export to India. Only they are much, much louder in India.



Oh yeah, and then there was the actual marriage.



Finished the night by eating beef sausages. Yup. The guys actually seemed kind of upset that all foreigners think all Indians don’t eat beef. I was tipsy at this point, so this whole discussion of stereotypes in between the wedding madness and the dancing and the beers was like, whoa. At one point, I told them Jackie Chan was my uncle and they were like, whoa. And then I told them I was kidding.

“Ah, Keane, so now you think you can joke with us, huh?”

Joke, dance, eat, drink. You make fast friends at a Mumbai wedding.


Mumbai, not the wedding



Treated myself to a couple nights of this.



Then reverted back to more of this.



Can you say slacker advertising staff?



Hey I used to wear a Fubu hat, too.



On the Haji Ali causeway.



Couldn’t resist.



Beast of a train station.









Lots of pick-up cricket.



I spent several painful months writing my senior essay about this kind of thing, but I’m still always amazed how, on a quiet Sunday afternoon, some streets in Mumbai or Hong Kong or Kuala Lumpur or Shanghai can all look the same, with that twisted charm of Empire, at once appeal and disgust that you’re suddenly in Victorian England only it’s hot and muggy.



I didn’t come across any kind of official markings or memorials, at least not in English. There was one long wall parallel to Marine Drive that I saw while speeding by it in a taxi that had a mural of not-quite-graffiti, “I love Mumbai” painted every few meters, accompanied by some pretty graphic artwork as well as stronger statements against terrorism and evil and that sort of stuff. But in the places where it all went down, the only explicit recognition of the attacks, that I could read, was on the boarded-up perimeter of the Taj Mahal Palace, which pronounced that it was “Restoring a symbol of Mumbai’s enduring spirit and dignity.” And even that doesn’t really count as explicit.



The creepiness of the carnage was its nonchalant-ness, right? That those guys pulled up in a little boat like this to a ramp like this and just ambled their way up and across the road and into the city’s most luxurious hotel. It’s straight out of Counterstrike, and that’s not meant to be amusing; that’s exactly what freaks me out the most.



I’m sure throngs of people have always gathered at this waterfront and just hung out for hours watching the boats come in, probably for centuries, even, as long as they’ve been allowed to. I’m sure if I had come on November 25 last year, I could have taken the same picture. But I couldn’t help but see all these people and think about what happened here and imagine that they were all almost standing guard, keeping an eye out for who or what might be coming over the horizon, and making sure those bastards stay the hell out of their city from now on.