Ashram

After a several months on the long and bumpy trail, Laura and I were ready to settle and perhaps do something more  with our lives than wandering around looking at nice things. We poured over the lists of farms where we could WWOOF, and ended up at Anamay Ashram mostly by chance and a last minute cancellation at another farm. We ended up backtracking across the country over 3 days and around 45 hours on 5 different modes of transportation that dropped us off in the little town of Kausani in the state of Uttarakhand at the top of a small winding trail. We walked down through beautiful Himalayan countryside, not entirely sure we were even in the right place, and stumbled upon a man in orange robes who showed us into a sunny, wood paneled room full of several foreigners having tea. Exhausted and bewildered, we slowly found our place in the strange little world.

The ashram is primarily a Vedic school for Brahmin boys for religious training to be pundits, with around 30 students. They try to be as self sufficient as possible, with dairy cows and vegetable gardens on the property (which is where WWOOFers come in). It is headed by Ashutosh, the memorable and rather strong minded Swiss-born swami who was a main disciple and leader in the movement of the famous Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. There were lots of interesting people coming through; several other WWOOFers, spiritual seekers and old friends of Ashutosh. The work was simple the first few weeks, the (kinda unnecessary feeling) job of sorting large matter out of compost, but I had no complaint sitting in the sun watching worms and grubs in the mostly composted, beautifully rich cow shit. 
All of the wishes we moaned for in our months of travelling were granted (I just want to drink tap water, I just want hot water, I just want a kitchen, I just want to not have to worry about being fed, I just want to work, I just want a salad) as well as a few other miracles we never dreamed of like a washing machine and olive oil. 
The food was simple and delicious, brought up from the kitchen which served everyone on the ashram. It was all purely Ayurvedic, so we had no processed foods, refined sugar, non-vegetarian food- including eggs, caffeine, spicy food, peanuts, mushrooms, eggplant, among others. Dinner was always rice, chappati, and dahl. Lunch was the same with the addition of a vegetable dish which changed every few days, and on special occasions a green salad. Breakfast switched between a few porridge-like dishes. I managed to never get too tired of it, unlike some of the other WWOOFers. We combated the lack of variety by alternating combinations of herb salt, regular salt, no salt, olive oil or no, honey or no. We drank lots and lots of chicory coffee and herbal tea.

The ashram was full of characters:
 Mr. Grover, the elderly gentleman downstairs, kind old soldier spouting poetry and philosophy and stories in his slow, intentional, playful manner. He points out the world to us as we go about busily, not noticing if someone is trying to work or meditate, messing with people just enough to make them pause. "Oh!" he exclaims to Laura one day as she puts on her shoes, "You only have two feet." She looks up confused. "Oh well, that's okay," he says reassuringly, "If you had more than two feet then it would not be okay."
My hero, Deepaji, the only woman permanently on the ashram who holds the entirety of feminine energy there. She is mother, giving milk to all the boys, she takes orders and requests with a secret smile because she is all-powerful. The hardest working of anyone, occasionally taking breaks from her usual work cleaning and maintaining the place to carry the heaviest loads of anyone casually on her head. She is beautiful, smiles a little, laughs as Mr. Grover requests milk in flowery rhyming poetry, we are all a little in awe and fear of her.
Gandharva, one of the few purely good beings in the world I have come across. He left a successful job in the US for a more fulfilling path back where he was born. At the time he was working to find solutions to many of the problems facing local farmers, experimenting with new crops, land fertility, and new markets.

Several Indians came to stay at the ashram to learn meditation during our time there, all in utter reverence and adoration of Swamiji, who utterly refuses to be adored. "More rice babaji, can I serve you?" No, he grunts, he doesn't seem to notice except when it cannot be ignored. The man known to Laura and me as the Cheshire Cat for his rather unnerving and persistent full-toothed grin leads the pack. "Swamiji I am just so happy to be with you. I don't know if the meditation is doing anything, but I am just so happy here when I am near to you." Swamiji brushes him off saying that is entirely the wrong way to think, of course it is the meditation.

Ashutosh has a brusqueness, wisdom, and absolute certainty to him. He operates on a different level, oblivious entirely to some seemingly obvious things like movie plots and espresso makers. Swamiji doesn't take much to empathy. He is matter of fact to the point of cynicism and taken to grand statements. He is a brilliant teacher and storyteller, eyes lighting up as he instructs meditation or recalls crazy stories from the era of Maharishi. Everything is absolute for Ashutosh; anything that goes against his view is the most ridiculous thing he's heard in his life, nonsense.  Every word of the Vedas, caste system, karma, is irrefutable natural law. Each building in the ashram is designed and constructed according to vastu, the architectural laws of nature, the food perfectly attuned to the prescribed optimal spiritual diet of ayurveda. He has voraciously studied all the ancient knowledge, he does not follow blindly.

When the Prince (as we call another guest) gallantly makes his own spiritual assertions in booming royal voice, "No, no, no," he is interrupted, Sanskrit scripture quoted back to him in a rolling, heavily Swiss accent. The prince and the Swami spout back and forth, we start dinner without them, listening with amusement to two self assured voices thundering from the next room for hours. The prince however, as much as he loves the sound of his own voice, is not immune to idolizing. The ji's and may I serve you's come pouring out in equal measure with the couple from Delhi and the Cheshire Cat.

Laura and I have to work not to catch the others' eye and burst out laughing as they trip over each other to agree wholeheartedly with and win the favor of the oblivious Swami. We are not from a culture of reverence or sometimes even respect. The system of devotion to a Guru, of listening to authority without question just does not come naturally, as much as I can see some of its benefits.

About two weeks in we were well settled into our daily routines, the charm of digging through dirt wearing thin, the other WWOOFers set to leave. Then it started raining one night and we woke up to the largest snowstorm the region had had in over 50 years. The roads were completely blocked off with trees and snow, all the greenhouses collapsed, the power went out for 13 days straight (after which it was still infrequent), the workers stopped coming, internet and phone lines out, cooking gas and ingredients dwindling. 

We all stay in fairly good spirits, Ashutosh goes about the surveying the damage, looking incredibly like a stern father Christmas, robed and white bearded, walking in sandals though the snow. It is a complete disaster (and he seems rather delighted by its completeness). The WWOOFers are glumly stuck just as they had dreamed of freedom from rice and dahl. They leave as quickly as rumor of clear roads comes. The Cheshire cat on the other hand can barely contain his glee at being stranded there, and reminds us of his happiness many times a day. Luckily the last car coming to the ashram had brought a shipment of vegetables, and a band of around 10 of us set off on the icy, tree covered trail down to the road. We made quite a sight clambering up the steep slippery snow each laden with huge sacks of cabbages, potatoes, carrots, cauliflower on our shoulders and backs. I took a moment to sit in the snow watching Ashutosh, whose sack over the shoulder only added to his likeness to St. Nicolas, followed closely by the Cheshire Cat, panting passionately, "I will follow in your footsteps Swamiji!"

The new building had lots of furnishings but no roof, so we spent several days shoveling snow around construction, trying to stop more water damage. Days of sitting in the sun felt far far away, but it was satisfying work, exhausting and visibly productive. The disruption of the snow let me get to know the whole place better on errands to the kitchen and little projects around the whole place. During the storm, 17 trees fell on ashram and a neighboring property, so we spent the rest of the time carrying logs and stick bundles on our heads and shoulders down to the kitchens. We worked alongside the other full-time laborers who showed us the impressive amount a human can carry and how to take nice long breaks in the sun. There was a good sense of camaraderie and surprisingly no strangeness around us being foreign girls. We all did the same work (they carried heavier loads and rested more so it tended to even out), and cultural/language barriers don't seem to matter much when you are carrying sticks from one point to another. There is a (usually unspoken) assumption that I as a foreigner will be more comfortable around the better educated classes, but this is rarely the case in practice. It was hard work (made harder by an ego that likes to prove that I can get the big logs too), but I couldn't imagine a nicer place to carry sticks. The whole ashram had an incredible view of the Himalayas that never failed to make me stop for a moment in the morning. The land was covered with oak trees and tea bushes and rocky grass pastures. With my poor poor Hindi I managed to be invited to mid-work teatime with neighbors who were also clearing brush, Lovely hot milk tea, leaves at the bottom, nibble at a hunk of jaggery for sweetness. My shoulders and legs grew tougher, but Laura was the guardian angel of my knees and helped bring my loads down the last stretch of steep downhill stairs.

We carried on saving up hours for taking the day off on Christmas, with elaborate dreams for the holiday, which Ashutosh swiftly and unapologetically crushed as we were set to get a shipment for construction that day.  Laura and I went into town and bought each other stocking stuffers (which ended up not actually getting stuffed for lack of clean socks). A toothbrush, a package of biscuits and peanuts (wonderfully un-ayurvedic) - were so exciting  and a good break from the usual excess of the holidays. 
Santa also remembered to send us a truck full of huge window panes, tiles, wood, mattresses, and other odds and ends for the new building. The whole ashram came to help carry everything down the half kilometer from the road, our usual route at that time for carrying wood. This time was a little more fun though, all the kids made hats of the cardboard protective mattress corners and came barreling down the hill, a mattress flopping around on four tiny legs, tile boxes  on heads and shoulders. Some of the windows required 10 people and lots of resting and puzzling through the forested area, one only to be shattered as it was triumphantly set in its place at last. The charm of carrying heavy things however only goes so far, especially since we'd been doing the same thing for a week. Boxing Day was better, during the hours of generator electricity we managed to make surprisingly successful apple pie in the toaster oven, take our first showers in a few weeks- cleanliness is just not worth it when it's that cold, and even see my family in that strange mixed blessing that is Skype. 

In the two weeks of darkness I got even more adept at the skill of doing nothing. At night, with candles saved for dinner, there were always a few hours where nothing could be done but talk in the dark or meditate. Dinners became much nicer though. The last WWOOFers had started a practice of watching a movie every night, which was fun for a short time, but it was good to have a forced stop. All the best stories came out over spilling candles and rice-dahl-chapati, and just after, with cups of tea or chicory coffee or just hot water. Hot food in the cold is always lovely, steam pouring out of tiffins from the kitchen. The rooms were freezing, and Laura and I huddled together in all our sweaters to sleep. 

It was a lucky, twisty journey that brought us to the ashram, such a distinct and important place to have been. I keep one memory of the morning, sun lighting the mountains and the kitchen, brass cup of sweet tea, honeybees before it was too cold, sitting with Rajendra the visiting future saddhu who had kitchadi in his curly beard, the quietness and peace of the place. We were ready to go when we left, but it was right where I needed to be for this particular December of my life.
Jai Guru Dev

Kochi-Chennai

The South at long last. From Nasik we took a bus 5 hours to Mumbai, then a train 21 hours to Kochi, Kerala (thank god for the foreign tourist quota and Tatkal tickets, and every other strange reservation of rail tickets that makes our impulsive travel possible). A town full of tourists and hot, humid air, but I don't mind for these few days of beach town, easiness and safety walking around. We didn't do many of the touristy things there, mostly wandered as always. It's easy to feel like that time is wasted of not seeing the Sights, but it is just as valuable to get the feel of a place without the museums and monuments.

Ferry Ride Ernakulam to Ft. Cochin Rupees 4 Only:
And the man spoke slowly for his lips were encrusted with barnacles, and the fish were skipping stones around the oil drills, and the white whiskers protruded from the dark skin of his cheek. A rectangle of men around me, a kilo of lightly squashed oranges in my lap. I had a milky sweet coffee for the pink hot clean water, each drained, bill impaled on a metal stake. The air is mostly water now, waves too big for the foam to form a pattern again. Fishing nets, chests thrust forward, heads facing across the channel of water. Dredge VIII spewing waves and jets of dirty water. We are bobbing backwards in the waves, elephants slinking like cats on the road, arching. So many bottles floating in this water, messages drunk clear through. Mad rush to get in the boat, India is one big game of musical chairs. Seems like you're on the moon, he said, proly right, proly right.
We didn't sleep the last night. Heat and Caffeine and probably the restlessness of the last week of Known. Miserable warm when the power would go out, the smell of sewer bubbling up and a solitary mosquito. Mr. Skitters the cockroach making infrequent appearances in our bathroom.
Strolled on the boardwalk past fish stalls and ice cream and trinkets, juice, coconuts, trash and rocks and sand and dogs. Sat on the beach, dipped our ankles in the Arabian sea, watched the sun set behind the smog.

Bus to Madurai 10(?) hours on smooth roads, but living up to its superfast express name, the bus barely kept us in our seats on hours of curves. Arrived too early, so we waited for dawn at the bus stop. We are cautious taking auto rickshaws in odd hours in new cities, and anyhow had nowhere to go. Took another bus into town and talked our way into staying at a grungy hotel (but madam there is such a nice place just down the road, are you sure? Indian toilet only, are you sure?). We slept a long, long time to old Bollywood songs and a merciful fan. Wandered a ridiculous amount of time in search of food, usually in India no need (especially food!) is farther than a few blocks away. But in the end it was entirely worth the circling around. A magnificent south thali, heap of rice on a banana leaf with a dozen little bowls of coconut chutneys, vegetables, sambhar, curd, rasam, sweet. On these streets were mountains of fruit, pineapple, and so many bananas, whole trees of bananas. But the reason we were in Madurai at all was the Meenakshi Temple, a massive complex framed by huge towers carved with thousands of deities brightly painted. A candy cane striped pool in the middle reflecting the pillars, gold and painted in bright pink, orange, green, blue, yellow. We went for several hours each of the days we had there. We haven't had a guide anywhere we've gone yet, so we don't get all the highlights and history but we do sit for hours staring at whatever the heck we want, we get to watch birds flying in circles round and round one of the towers.

Bus 9(?) hours to Chennai on a straight smooth road, and miracle of sweet miracles, our seats reclined! The magic wore off as soon as we arrived and realized that it was late and Chennai is a really big city and we had forgotten to eat all day. Paid a ridiculous feeling auto fare (6 dollars oh the horror!) the long way to the place Lonely Planet said had some cheap hotels. I don't know quite how we always manage to find a place to stay, but we always do.

Goodnuff

     I am getting better at arriving in a new city at night and remembering to buy myself vegetables, worse at forming proper sentences and thoughts to write down. I am surprised and flattered that so many people are still checking in with this blog. And as much as I hate the ubiquitous posts that begin with "sorry I haven't been writing," I am going to break my own rule and apologize for being out of touch. I hope I'll be able to be at least a little more consistent the rest of my trip.

     I sometimes wonder what a map of our journey would look like. It is certainly not a well planned itinerary, more like the path of someone who is confused, lost, impulsive, or maybe blindfolded. Within towns we travel in endless loops and zigzags through alleys and side roads, which I wish could be attributed to our adventurous spirits alone, but probably is mostly due to indecisiveness and losing our bearings. It's quite fun though to find less beaten paths and have the time to make our way by foot. Between towns we pick whatever sounds nice to do next, which means that there have been quite a few multi-day journeys decided a day or two beforehand as well as a lot of backtracking and familiarity with the Indian transportation system. Any trips less than 24 hours start to sound pretty doable. There are obvious downsides to our method, but we have come to some very interesting places as a result, and I feel quite a lot more confidant making my way around in the world.
     To give an overview up til this point, we've gone to Udaipur, Jaipur, Amritsar, Dharamsala (McLeod Ganj), Yamunotri, Badrinath, Rishikesh, Haridwar, Varanasi, Darjeeling, Kausani, Delhi, Nagpur, Aurangabad, and now back briefly in Nasik, not counting all the small towns we've stayed en route. We were in Kausani for the full month of December at Anamay Ashram, a Vedic ashram where we were WWOOFing (a program where work on a farm is exchanged for room and board).
     We have adopted the Goodnuff philosophy for our travels, an ancient system of beliefs we've discovered and pushed to new levels. It  comes to great use in matters of comfort, cleanliness, and carrying out all the tasks necessary to sustain life. It has been serving us quite well so far. Things may not be perfect, but as long as they are goodnuff, cleanuff, warmnuff, ediblenuff, I am happy.
     I hope to write more soon (motivation, time, and Internet permitting), but for now know that I am well and sending love to everyone at home. Write me!
Jai Guru Dev, Radhaswami, Jai Jinendra, Hari Om, Namaste,
Meleah

Merry Christmas!

Badrinath October 25th, temple bells ring, are ya listening?
     It's snowing heavy flakes coating my black shawl, we're sitting toes chilly in bed, a towel wet on my greasy, sulfur hair. I slipped on the bridge, falling on the other side of my tailbone, which had finally healed from Nagpur, luckily not bad this time. I am the happiest I've been in a while. Billows of steam rising from below the temple at dusk, we made our way through the fog to the Tapkund. The hotsprings here are the opposite of the last, now the water is to hot to dip in. It's empty now, with thick swirls of steam. We got Indian-naked in conservative underclothes and sat splashing scoops from our plastic containers, so scalding and absolutely marvelous, quick splash arm, arm, head, arm, arm, knee, knee, talking and laughing and trying to keep from burning or freezing. Outside the snow is still coming down. Conversation is easy because talking about the future and present doesn't run out.
     We slept in this morning. I had oats which are so much more fun now with our iodine water, which turns from piss-colored to purple in the metal bowl. Almost makes up for eating oats soaked in cold water every morning. Later we had chai and paratha in the purple plastic cups and shiny silver plates. Our new breakfast favorite, the men flailing around like a parody of something, a skit of a married couple, the man with the big mustache and kerchief tied around his head whacks the other with a rolling pin on his behind as he passes, telling him to hurry up to serve their customers, who number fewer than the staff. The thin teenage boy in baggy clothes boiling chai looks like he might start rapping and the entire scene would turn into a music video.
     We walked through rock pasture to Mana village, up to the temple for the mother of the five brothers in the ancient Hindu epic. We watched a movie playing in the chai shop, the kind of really great, old effects religious film with uncomfortable looking fat actors with ill fitting wigs. As they all cross the bridge, the mother falls down, her blurred, photoshop outline slowly sinks into the water, help me, but the men only look slightly more uncomfortable and sad and keep walking with their black dog. We sat for a while up there, I wrote letters I wont send on the stone steps surrounding the red temple. Went down past the people breaking rocks up to the stone village with mustard growing and hats and cozy sweaters. Two temples where the Bhagavad Gita and other parts of the Mahabharata were written thousand of years ago in caves in the rock. We are getting used to being dragged into pujas in the temples and then asked for donations, which usually happens in the tourist-frequented places. the disappointment with our very small contributions is a little off-putting.The very long road home with dark storm clouds pouring in from the south, starting raindrops and then snow.
Before we saw the Himalayas, but now we are unmistakably in them. Surrounded on each side by peaks so massive, you can't quite take it in, even if you schedule 5 days to do just that. Photos do even less justice than usual because each one could be taken from anywhere and be beautiful, there isn't any way to get the scale.
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And up here even higher, we are on a lichen stone table in every fantasy novel, mountains ducking in and out of clouds. My face is so dry, chapped nose and bright sun. . Even less oxygen here, makes you feel even smaller than the scenery make you feel already. We can't see Badrinath at all, only sign of humans is a tarp stretched over a rock, maybe a dwelling or an out of season chai stand. We haven't seen anyone past the shack where we had condensed milk smoky chai, except one man in religious clothes who disappeared far up into the glacier. This place is a different world, the snow is still in patches here, in the town it has all melted. There is a river on the sun side of the valley, which echoes of rocks on the other side. I dreamed I was at a contra dance last night, spun so much I lifted off the ground. There's another sound coming from the mountain above us, irregular, could be air, water, or earth and I wouldn't know. I don't know this land, I love this land in a new way. Where we ended our hike farther up, and the base of a huge peak, I have a page in my journal with lots of scribbles. It was the first time I actually wanted to capture something, usually I am satisfied with a little piece of it, but I'll have to rely on a few blurry pictures.

Married Life

    Jaipur was our second stop after Udaipur. We had many lovely experiences and good meals and saw beautiful old forts and palaces, but what stuck out most was the endless harassment as we explored the city. This isn't unique to Jaipur (or India) as women travelling alone, but the sheer volume of catcalls and less than comfortable situations coupled with hot, dusty weather and lots of walking was overwhelming. In just a few days we (probably more me than Laura with my bright-white skin) had hundreds of men calling out to us, asking to take our picture (or not asking). I had at least three men serenade me, once while I ate lunch someone sat at my booth to try to talk to me, once we were followed for a decent amount of time by two boys on a motorcycle, once someone drove by on a motorcycle, touching Laura's arm. I got much better at sticking up for myself in a very short amount of time. Several of the rare, proper Meleah-yells made their way into the world. None of the situations felt like I was in any serious danger, but it is so frustrating to have the act of going across the street to eat be a big, stressful undertaking.
      I have gender envy like never before. Being a female certainly has it's charms here, access to the community of other women has been a valuable experience, especially when I lived with my Indian family, but for the purposes of travelling, I am finally realizing how short my end of the stick is. In order to stay safe, we have to generally avoid being out after dark, keep our adventures to a minimum, always keep a foot on the beaten path. It is an exacerbated version of the patriarchy in the US, but one that's harder to ignore because it is in an unfamiliar context.
     It's also always hard to get straight information about places to travel. "That place isn't good for you" can either mean "It's closed," "It is actually not a safe place to travel," or "You are probably too weak to go on that awesome hike because you weren't born with a penis."
     Life had gotten a little easier since I got married. It's easier to explain that we aren't two women travelling alone in a foreign land, but that our husbands are eternally waiting dutifully for us in our hotel rooms (or we'll meet them in the next city if we are taking transportation). Being married puts the concerned aunties and uncles we meet at ease and makes us look a little less vulnerable.
     The other day Laura and I sat exhausted waiting for a train, our dusty backpacks seated in the chairs next to us, each with its own character and I realized we haven't been entirely lying. Our backpacks are our husbands, forever kindly waiting for us in the room while we go on adventures during the day. We haven't solemnized the event with rings yet, but we are on the lookout for nice bands. 

Yamunotri Going? Guide Chahiye?

   Bits from my journal Yamunotri (with most of the complaining and repetition and nonsense phrases gone)

In the cold, grimy pool huddled by the stream of hot water, Laura's face lit up, eyes half closed, covered in droplets. A pink room from another dark world. The smell is perhaps the sulfur, but more like a really dirty room. In our kurtas and leggings, splashing warm on our faces, ears, necks, knees, the patch of sun sometimes far off steam rising up and the particles in the water dancing, something long rotten. This is no Golden Temple, but it's divine, the gift of the sun to his daughter, the goddess-river Yamuna, a little dribble of it at least in the neglected women's pool. The temple right above is still freezing, filled with hash and drums, something carried on the shoulders of two men, turned to each direction. Aunties making sure we've had enough prasad, huge balls of warm jaggery, ghee, some flour, and black flecks of the pan. We are so high up, 10,000 feet, lungs straining the 5 kilometers up to the temple, up these uneven steps, metal coverings here and there to stop the glacial drip on out heads. It's like some mythological gorge, shiny rocks shoved up from the earth (why don't I know anything about geology?), the treeline ends where the goddess pours out of the glacier. Dark, gnarled trees, some colors look like fall below, blackberries, ferns, and spiked rose and nettle.
We came out of the water, dripping and freezing, lost Laura's pocket knife somewhere along the way. We stopped in a dubba, sitting on the stone hearth in silence with the men in a comfortable way of humans battling a common element. A huge plate of rajma chawal peas and potatoes, two dollars for two overfull bellies, never too full for tea.
Hiking is strange here, often it feels remote, then a family rides up on ponies. I'm so glad we are not on ponies. Then after the trek you expect some secluded, natural bit and find yourself in a little bustling town, food stalls and souvenirs all carried up the same trail.
Also I don't know if I've mentioned enough how stunning this place is, glaciers lit up by the sun, the valley goes on forever now with rays through the clouds, sunset and sunrise in our ridiculous hotel. The windows are nice, the bed mostly clean, no cockroaches or grime, the bathroom mostly works by pouring buckets to flush it. The very young manager just wants to be friends, but we have to be too cautious for that. This would be so much easier with a man. Yesterday we had a laze and acclimation day, in bed and walking around the village. From our window we see clumps of grass bumbling down the road, closer there are people under the masses, but it's more interesting to see it this way. A dead cow was on the road, there will be a story behind that,

I'm Not Dead!

     Every time I've gone to an internet cafe everything feels very strange and claustrophobic. I get a tiny glimpse into a different life in the form of a screen, and a worn, sticky keyboard to try to tell the people I love that I am alive and well. My brain is working hard to reconcile all of the different places I am travelling and a brief mental trip to the US throws me off. Walking back to the hotel last time, all of the things I usually barely notice were so surreal, the man begging, rolling on the ground with no legs and the white donkey standing perfectly still in the middle of traffic.

     I have spent less than 4 hours on the internet in the past month, which is a lovely break, but also makes the thought of a blog post entirely overwhelming. I have plenty to say, scribbled in margins and sketches and lists in notebooks, and I am now in a place where a flurry of writing seems much more possible and likely. On this blog I can see all the people who view it as tiny little bar graph blips from around the world, a good (if oddly formatted) reminder that there are people who would probably like to hear about what I am doing. I hope to say more in the next few days, but know that I am very much not dead, and for the most part also very happy.

 Much love from Rishikesh, land of hilarious white yogis and breakfast stealing monkeys,

Meleah

Snake City

     Nagpur is in the dead center of India, with hot weather, few tourist attractions, and much more of the feel of a city than Nasik. During my exchange year I stayed there for a month with another exchange student from Portland and her host family. She is now one of my very closest friends, and no one else knows my experience in both countries as exactly as Hannah. This time again I stayed with her host family, parents and two brothers around my age. I don't know if there is a family that has ever made me laugh as much as the Sachanis, each of them is such a great character.
     Her father (I still think of them in relation to Hannah so you'll have to humor me) owns a wheat and rice factory as well as a petrol pump. He speaks only Sindhi and Hindi I couldn't understand so our interactions were limited, but he would always check to make sure I had enough food and change the channel to an English movie whenever I was watching, and show me the metal bangle Hannah gave him as a gift that he's worn since she left. Her mother is one of the sweetest women in the world, always laughing and tirelessly working through my awful Hindi and her bit of English (both aided by copious hand gestures). Often Hannah's grandfather would come in and instruct me to say the Hare Krishna mantra and chant om and tell me about a golden temple that's in America. This conversation would be repeated so frequently that it became almost comedic and exasperating while still staying just as inspiring and endearing. He has bright orange hair, the result of henna dye on white hair which many older people sport. His low-off tone mantra could be heard for hours on end, over the blaring TV and shouting and conversations.
      In India, nights still belong to men and street dogs, but having a family of boys meant I was entitled to the privilege of going out at night. Even small walks around the neighborhood after dinner were welcome, and rides on the back of a motorcycle even better. Riding two wheelers, as they are called here, is probably one of my favorite things in the world. There is absolutely nothing that matches that freedom and exhilaration. Praveen, the younger brother took me all around the city. We went to lots of Sikh and Hindu temples. At one of them below there was a place to feed fish in one of Nagpur's lakes. We sat on the crumbling steps leading down to the water throwing in bits of bread, with only tiny fish coming through the trash and sludge to nibble on the crumbs. Poisonous water snakes would swim by and in the distance the mass of Ganpati idols that had been immersed a few days ago were floating. I let go of my aversion to further polluting the lake, (sometimes in India putting up a fight just isn't worth it) and I hope I'll be forgiven for the pieces of pav sitting at the bottom now. It was still a lovely memory, although I don't know how to describe the loveliness of it, it was quiet(ish) and the water and temple were still beautiful in their own way, but also it was lovely because of the ridiculousness of it. Praveen and I had lots of good conversations while riding around and sitting wondering where to go next. He is itching to go to the Western world as I head the other way, but immigration is hard on his demographic, and he's been denied a visa multiple times without any reason. Many people I know here say that India has to develop. If that means less social inequality and corruption and indifference to problems, I could get behind it. But development is often tied in with the idea of the Western world, and many of the "more developed" areas of India are missing the charm of the traditional culture. I don't know how this country will change in the next few years or decades, but change it will.
     During my short time there I also took a day trip to Wardha, a few hours away and visited the Ashram where Mahatma Gandhi (known as Gandhiji or Bappu) lived and developed many of his ideas. It is so inspiring to see such an important place in person. Somehow to see his mud floored house and bathtub and labelled spot where he sunbathed was just as meaningful as understanding the history of his life. The independence movement is still relatively recent, with far less than a century behind it. Understanding Gandhiji and the work and thoughts of all the freedom fighters is essential to understanding India.
     I had to leave too early. I wish I could have spent just a few more days there, it woke up a piece of joy in me. Perhaps it was to be in a place I didn't know as well as Nasik, perhaps it was all of the two wheeler rides, perhaps it was just the time with this family who has welcomed me more graciously and completely than I can express. I wont forget those four days, there are lots of little memories I have tucked away. I already miss them all. I hate not knowing how many years it will be before I'll see someone again, but it's the trade off I made when I went on exchange and worth it beyond all doubt.

My 40 Minute Visit to Igatpuri

     I missed my train stop yesterday coming back from Nagpur, I'm still not quite sure how. I was watching out the window for hours, looking at the name of each tiny station, peering into the tiny shacks so exposed right by the rails. Two young boys were playing on the tracks, with pants too loose to stay up. They sat and I realized that one was squeezing toothpaste from a tossed tube and tasting it. The tracks are littered in every place with trash thrown out the windows. As we took off he threw it at the train and walked off play fighting with the smaller boy. I wanted so much to apologize, I don't know exactly for what. I hadn't realized we'd passed the stop, there are little signs now I can think of, but I was still watching the sun set on all of the bright green farms and huge land formations too intently to realize I should have reached before sunset. Luckily after talking with my family, I was able to get off at the next stop and it was close enough for my cousin and our driver to come get me.
     The Igatpuri station has sweet chai and green, steep hills around. Indian train stations always smell faintly of piss (or not so faintly depending where you are). There is trash strewn all over, generally a decent number of beggars and some people just waiting for the next train, sleeping wherever they can. There are lots of vendors selling chai, coffee, snacks, fried samosas that smell delicious, passed through the windows of the train and carried through the corridors. There are were also the cream-colored lizards on the walls, lots of rats popping in and out on the tracks and a dog walking along with half its leg hanging off, the flesh all mangled. And watching all of this I was glowing, the parts that might have made most people look away were still sad in a way, but everything felt very right.
     My tailbone was still bruised from a fall a few days ago and a few mosquitoes had found my ankle and I was already missing the people I stayed with in Nagpur and I was waiting alone in a strange place through only my own fault, but I was safe outside the stationmaster's office and I felt nothing but content and at peace. I don't feel like that all the time, India doesn't automatically rocket me into bliss, but being here provides me with more opportunities to get out of my usual thought patterns, and that can bring me to really good states of mind. For many people staying in familiar places feels the most comfortable and safe. I certainly love my many homes and traditions to return to, it is important to stay rooted to where I come from, but for me that feeling of safety and contentment often comes through staying in motion.
     

I Little Little Hindi Understand.

     Yesterday as I was bartering, the salesman stopped his friend from translating what he's just said to English. Those offhand words "She knows Hindi" (which aren't entirely true) made me do a small victory dance once I'd stepped out of the market. Language has always been the missing part of my experience here. While all the other exchange students proudly came back fluent in their new languages, those of us who'd been in India had perfect Indian accents with authentic head wobbles and could only mumble through a bit of Hinglish. The main barrier to learning the language here is that there is no one language to learn. Hindi is most widely spoken across India, but the local language Marathi is far more common in conversations -unless you happen to live with a family who speaks Marwadi like I do. The three are decently similar in structure and some vocabulary (unlike many of the other Indian languages), so I am able to understand the gist of most of what is spoken, but prying the three apart has been tricky. At home I can nearly always understand what is being said. Common refrains about finishing your food and what happened in school that day sound completely normal. I am even starting to pick apart tenses and genders and parts of speech enough to string together sentences. I have plenty of excuses for not being fluent. I've had to teach myself everything from one Hindi book and people speak English anyway and there are three different languages (I like to play that one up), but the truth is I still feel like I've failed at something. Hopefully travel will make speaking a bit more of a necessity, and I'll have lots of train rides glancing at my phrases to learn.

     Ganesh Chaturthi, the festival of Ganesha (the round bellied, elephant headed god with many different names) ended a few days ago to loud drumming and blasting music well into the night. Living with a Jain family means that I don't understand or experience some of the festivals as much of the population does, but I still was able to go to the neighborhood nightly aartis (ceremonies) and clap along in the same off beat way as everyone. At night we'd go by the mandals where giant statues of Ganesh are set up with flashing lights and blaring music. Christmas lights were all over the city, and shouts of "Ganpati Bappa! Morya!" could be heard everywhere. On the last day all of the idols were immersed in water. It is traditionally done in natural bodies of water, but the move from clay to synthetic idols has rightly caused a lot of environmental concern and alternate immersion methods. This is probably the only place in the world where elephant-statue based pollution is a real hazard. 

     I am itching to start travelling. It has been so very good for me to be back in Nasik with my family, but I am ready to begin adventures of a different sort. I have loved being able to have the time to rest here. After a summer of busing from house sitting jobs to work and back and taking care of random last minute logistics, it feels strange to be able to sleep in, read the newspaper (often twice), have chai, and realize that my only plans for the day are maybe seeing relatives or going around the city. Or maybe nothing at all. I am so lucky to be able to go out to lunch with my sister and play with a two year old and read. It's helping me get my thoughts together and start travelling from a nice, well rested state. Laura will join me in just a few weeks, and we'll be off by the end of this month. 

My sister Kshipra, Ganpati, and me

Dear Portland, I Miss You, Love Meleah

I love being homesick. I love sitting at the computer crying over pictures of heirloom tomatoes in my old school garden and reading through things I wrote years ago, and thinking about my family's particular mannerisms. I love tracing the corners of my home and porch in my mind, thinking about the grapes that must be drooping heavy now in the late summer, remembering and not just appreciating, really missing, really wishing that I could be there to see it and smell it. Even if a thought is wrapped in a sadness, to feel anything deeply is a blessing. Wishing for something is a powerful emotion, one that cuts through a lot of bullshit. Nostalgia is the feeling of all of the love in a memory (whether or not you actually felt it at the time is irrelevant). The dangerous kind of nostalgia is when you start comparing a memory to the present moment, wishing to be in another place or time instead of where you are now. Missing something is not the same as wanting it right now. Longing and loving are intertwined in a way that I sometimes think our culture doesn't appreciate. Homesickness reminds me of what I love deeply, and in doing so it reminds me to love. When I look up from the screens and notebooks, everything is more important. My sisters are more endearing, every mustard seed in the idli sambhar and coconut chutney is lovely, I smile more at all of the oddities of India, which are easy to get exhausted by sometimes. Between all of the confused and boring moments, India keeps sneaking up on me very slowly and reminding me how to love.

Look Mummy, Foreigner!

     I've already written plenty about being a foreigner in India (http://indiameleah.blogspot.in/2011/08/on-staring.html), but my views of it are continuing to evolve as it remains a major part of every aspect of my life here.
     Walking through my old college is like that scene in the movie I always scoffed at, the one where the main character walks through a crowd and time slows as everyone watches her, heads turn all the way around, conversations stop and people shoot meaningful glances to their friends Look who's here. But this heroine is about a head taller and 30 pounds heavier than the boys who gaze at her, and instead of flowing behind gracefully, her hair probably hasn't been washed for a few days. It occasionally makes me laugh out loud at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. For the most part though, I don't notice the staring as much this time around. I've mastered the art of walking down the street effectively, looking like you know where you're going, head up without making eye contact with anyone accidentally, hardened eyes, aware, but not too conspicuous. This seems to work rather well. Maybe I'm just used to it, maybe I was expecting more of it.
     In fact, I think my greatest challenge has been to not expect more staring. At a certain point, I'm not sure quite where, ego enters the picture. Assuming that everyone is looking at me is easy to do and inflates me in a way I don't much care for. I keep thinking that when I don't understand the language, people must be talking about me. I've had haughty remarks ready for people who I later realized were focused on something else entirely. The intense Indian stare is not reserved for those with white skin, it is just one way of looking at the world that happens to be unpleasant when directed in a certain way.
     It is a fine balance between the two. Being conscious of people looking at me is important in staying safe and true to reality, but not assuming I am the center of Nasik is also important. India pulls me in lots of different directions. Being here makes me lose my sense of self as I engage and observe such an intense and overwhelming place. It's easy to be in the moment when the moment has so many stimulants within it. Freedom from all the identity I built up in America makes it easier to be true to myself. And yet as I try let go of all of this ego, being a foreigner forces it back. Often I really am the center of conversations I pass by, often people really are looking at me, and I have to admit that I'm not just an observer in this place.

Monsoon

     I suppose it would be a good time to let everyone know my plans (or as much as I know of them) for these next 8ish months. I'll be here in Nasik, the city I lived for my exchange year, with my old host family, for a month. Then my dear friend Laura will be joining me and we'll travel for three months all over India. After that time, we'll renew our visas in Thailand, presumably having a few adventures there, and then I'll be spending the remainder of my time back in India volunteering (the details of which I don't have quite lined up yet). I'll be back in Portland when the sun comes back, likely around late April.
     This blog will be largely a continuation of the last blog I kept while here- http://indiameleah.blogspot.com/ and I will try not to repeat myself too very much, while still providing some context. This one will be a little different from the last, beyond just the change from the 16 year old self who makes me smile and occasionally cringe when I read back. This trip is not about making a home in a new place or understanding a different culture from scratch, although both of those are probably inevitable. This will be a chance for me to travel on more or less my own terms.
     These days I am mostly with my family, watching grating Hindi soap operas and laughing with my sisters and eating good, salty and spicy food. We are in the middle of a Jain holiday (the religion of my host family) which means a lot more time with the extended family and no fruits or vegetables as a sort of fast or penance.  I have nothing to compare with my aunt who is fasting for 11 days taking only water. Still I find myself daydreaming of big salads with plump sungold tomatoes, and my journal is increasingly filled with detailed descriptions of stir fries I'll cook next summer and love poems to zucchini. It is amazing that there are so many delicious meals you can make without meat, eggs, vegetables, fruits, or fresh herbs, but somehow we are living well on legumes, grains, milk, and oil. I've been cooking with my aunt, meaning occasionally stirring something while watching her throw ingredients together with a seemingly haphazard grace that produces consistently wonderful results.
     I've also had a bit of time to explore the city more, taking walks through the neighborhoods and busy streets, making exciting little discoveries while trying to avoid stepping in anything or running into a motorcycle. The rainy season is still upon us, providing billowing clouds and occasional downpours to shield the heat. The other day I went down to the Godavari river, which runs through Nasik and attracts lots of Hindu pilgrims to the holy waters. I sat on the ghats, the concrete steps leading into the river, right in the center of the water and all the life around it.
     On the lower steps women and a few men wash clothes. When you look down, there are hundreds of colorful articles of clothing being scrubbed and swung around to wring them out. The woman beside me in a dazzlingly bright sari gives me an inquisitive look, pours large silver bowlfuls of river water, scrubbing the steps to clean them and then the clothes, soap foaming up and disappearing into the river. Some trash floats down, but in this part it looks mostly clean. Someone above throws a pair of pants into the current and I watch as they drift down and slowly sink to join the other random treasures the river holds. Boys scream jumping into the water just where it channels into a stronger current under the walkway. One boy clings to the corner, singing at the top of his lungs, I am a disco dancer, I am a disco dancer. The slap of children's wet feet on pavement is the same everywhere. There are swallows and white birds above me, cows with painted orange horns on the banks, men flinging trash into a truck, some sweeping it into the river. The smell of burning incense and trash. The temples are so beautiful, the paint doesn't look too old, but the stone crumbles giving way to cascades of plants on the roof.
      I cannot pretend I am an invisible observer in this scene. As more women come to wash clothes, the conversation always comes back to the foreigner in their midst. I can barely understand any Marathi, which is the local language, but I talk with them a little in Hindi about where I came from, what the heck I'm doing just sitting on the steps, and eventually what the heck I'm doing in India. One woman speaks English, and I find out she's a middle class law student whose water had just gone out that day. It is always healthy for me to shatter my stereotypes with encounters like this. I didn't even know that I had romanticized these women until I found myself slightly surprised. After a while I fade into the background, their background at least, across the river and peripherally I can see people watching me. I don't mind too much anymore, curiosity is more than understandable, and I find myself watching a foreigner who passes by with the same unapologetic scrutiny. A group of teenage boys approaches and one stands in front of me as if to say something and touches my arm as he walks by, probably a bet with his friends. I tell them to get lost. These are always the strange in between moments, what to ignore and what not to. Sometimes calling attention to a situation just makes it worse. The women around me yell after them and call over the watchman. A woman instructs me on how I should have hit him, ideally with my shoe, and they're right. I need to remember to make a scene when I need to. It has been a long time since I've had to be assertive in that particular way. I tell this story not to make anyone worry, but to document my own learning process and to let people know who do worry about me travelling here that for every person with less than good intentions, there are dozens of aunties and didis and uncles who watch out for me.
     Some days are like this, the great wonder of India in all her confusing glory. Some days I sit around and do sudokus and eat and don't do much else. Life feels pretty darn pleasantly normal and occasionally boring until I write it out. It's always strange to be in a new place and realize how much can happen in a week. 

Back in Bharat

     The subconscious has an extraordinary memory. Yesterday I walked through traffic, bargained with three rickshaw wallahs in broken Hindi until I found the right price, all the while wondering how the hell I'd got there and how I'd dodged several motorcycles, a dog and a cow without more than half a glance. The strangest thing about being back is how very simply and nonchalantly I slipped into a world I could barely remember just a few days ago. 

     It's been a little over two years ago since I left India, three since I arrived wide-eyed, bemused and mystified by everything I saw. I keep having flashbacks to the first time I saw each part of this home. (Our water comes from a clay pot? How am I supposed to eat rice with my hands?  I just touch my relatives' feet to greet them, wait you mean just bend over and touch their feet?). It was a very long and incredible year that left me a new person by the time I came back to America in June. 

     I have changed since then in ways I am only now starting to see. According to my family I am weaker (meaning that I lost the 10 kgs I gained on too much good Indian food). I have a high school diploma and a semester at a liberal arts college under my belt, as well as a refined vocabulary of car sounds and distraction strategies from nannying a sweet one and a half year old boy for the past eight months. I hadn't been planning on coming back to India so soon. I reached a point though where I desperately needed the color and chaos and majesty and ridiculousness I've only found in India. 

     I left on the 19th of August. After a rushed goodbye to my family owing to a punctual and grumpy bus driver, I left my beautiful city and rode to Seattle, where I had a lovely time with my uncle, driving around and savoring the pastries, evergreens, grocery stores, and good talks with relatives I'll be missing this year. I had a very easy flight to Dubai, all the while thinking that there must be something to stop me from going, surely there'd be some delay or accident or paperwork I was missing, perhaps a stern matron popping up saying, "Now listen here young lady, you can't just drop everything and go to India with your main plan as coming back sometime in spring." Somehow though, I managed to get myself in the right place and end up half way around the world. 

     There is nothing quite like flying, the way glaciers look from above, the way clouds shade different parts of the land and roads parallel rivers. How very small our little patches of settlement are and how unbelievably prevalent they are. The way the desert looks just the same as the beach after the tide goes out. And then there is the more mysterious phenomenon of looking up and seeing rows and rows of closed windows and movies playing. As we took off, a woman behind me sang a very long and desperate prayer, and I think I must have been praying as well, probably for different things. I'm pretty sure she was hoping we wouldn't crash; I kept hearing little gasps and exclamations in Arabic as we went through turbulence.

     I arrived at three in the morning to humidity and the wonderful surprise of my whole family coming to greet me at the airport. The sleepy ride back to Nasik was my first glimpse of my old home, and I found myself with lots of excitement, but not much surprise at the erratic traffic, cow herds, and people slowly waking up, gathering around chai stalls, relieving themselves in the trash-strewn roadside. It felt far less strange and exalted than returning to America had felt. Somehow my mindset doesn't seem too very much changed from the one that left Portland. This time around there is not the same awe and mystery to catapult me into a new self all at once. I wouldn't want it any other way. The drive was beautiful, mist covered, and green, and we finally reached our flat at 6:30am. 

     It doesn't seem possible that this is only my third day here, all of the relatives and old friends I've seen, all the walks I've been on, and all the time with no work to be done. I will leave some of the things I've seen already to different posts. I am always honored and a little surprised to see how many people like to follow my journey. If you ever have the chance, please write me at meleahcarlson@yahoo.com, tidbits from afar always keep me going. 

Jai ji nendra,

Namaste,

Much love,

Meleah