the hood

i managed to turn on my camera. snap. die. several times over the last couple months.

here are some snaps of the place that feels the most like home - shalimar bagh, delhi....

these are the rishshaw wallahs.. they ride you in the back at 25 cents for about a 20 minute journey. (thats some trash burning to the side)

mmmmmmm..... chai. the man that works here is the sweetest man ive ever met. he lives in the dirt by his chai stand and yet he has not once let me pay for my tea.

this is my bedside table on the left. on the right is next door. these people are fixing the sewar. i guess they live in this tent until the work is done?

PINK PEOPLE... recovering from Holi festival. the guy in the pic on the right is my favorite in india. his name is rajindra... he's the cook here... he is my friend. the guys in the pic on the left are some of the doctors at the clinic and another kitchen guy. oh! the man on the far left is my new "brother", re the red string.

another friend. i dont know his name, but sometimes i ride on his bike.

on the way to the market.

when i first arrived. note i am a bit grumpy :)

i would like to share one thing i saw in varanasi that i cant get out of my head. i saw a sadhu - naked but for his little orange crotch swatch. well this particular man's hair was just one dreadlock. now of course lots of the sadhus have dreads, many even have odd singular long ones. but this was the whole head... ok what comes into your mind is like a pony tail extending down. no. you are wrong. this was a dreadlock rounded rectangular in nature. imagine the sides extending wider than the sides of his head, the top about 6 inches above his forhead line, then making its way down to shoulder level. blockhead must have been his nickname. in fact, it would be hard to tell it was actually a dread and not some form of helmet hair unless you got as close as i did. i had to. i was transfixed. i still cant stop thinking about it. its like a song stuck in my head, except its something very dirty stuck in my mind.

anyway, just wanted to share :)

ps ive added a few pics to the other posts as well... tonight i go to BALI!!!!

varanasi

so last night i electracuted myself. see i was trying to plug in the rice cooker that i borrowed from dr. raju... but the plug has been taken off, as is common practice in india, and i just stick the three wires into the three holes in the wall. something happened and my hand started bouncing around until the wire dropped out of it and i regained control. it felt odd.

then the top to the rice cooker broke (well technically I broke it) so i couldnt make rice anyway. this whole rice thing is much more inconvenient than one would imagine. today i just ordered it from a restaurant even though ive been given strict instructions to only eat it within 5 minutes of being prepared. fuck it. i needed rice.

so varanasi. it actually breaks my heart that i cant use my camera here. this is a city that is made for pictures and its what i think about as i walk around the alleys - maybe they are roads as there seem to be sub-alleys off of the alleys but no one can drive down any of them. its really very dirty here. not just the water, but everything. more so than the other places ive been in india... i have discovered a new trick though... i pretend to be italian. i mean i am italian, but i pretend to be an italian speaker that knows no english. this has two benefits: i get to practice my italian (which i failed to do before even though ive been hanging out with italians since i got to india), and people stop begging once they realize i dont know what they're saying. i feel a little weird about lying. but truthfully not very guilty.

so back to the dirt... like in the rest of india trash is burned at the end of everyday, so i turn my fan to high and hope the windyness blows the smell away. there are a lot of drugs in varanasi... it seems to be a theme, "hash... coke... blah blah... yes miss?" i try to tell them in italian that i cant even drink juice, never mind smoke weed, but they dont understand. so i listen to this as background music and try not to step in cow shit. well... its actually buffalo shit as the buffallo are hearded through the alleys from the ganges where they are washed. i prefer buffalo because they have yet to bruise me. two cows have headbutted me in the hip so far in india. once yesterday as i climbed over a fence in the middle of the road to escape traffic (true i did get in its way), and once in delhi. i think it was delhi... whatever. there are cows everywhere.

(these are the water buffalo)

so after my sunrise boat trip to view the ghats i think i will be ready to leave varanasi. im not loving it so much as you told me i would joanna! but i am enjoying myself. im just craving seeing some green things growing or something. just one little patch of clean... it can even be a patch of dirt thats not laced with remnants of used toilet paper. just one little patch of pure. :)

this is by my hotel in the evening.

red string and red fort

its a greeeeeeeaaaaat day.... wallah wallah. well thats what my great-grandfather used to say. it has been a good one. im back in delhi after a 3:30am wake up call, walk across the ganges at 4:00 and drive to the train station for a 6am send off. but yes, i came back yesterday. i heard news that my package with camera charger had finally arrived and i began a special ayurvedic treatment.
so the charger. it worked for 30 minutes. now its broken... i dont understand it, and i dont know why. it seems as though i am just not supposed to take pictures.
so the treatment: i eat some special fresh herb mixed with yogurt, after it received vedic vibration, and then i only eat plain rice. for 17 days. oh and i can drink water. and in 7 days add the water from the top of dahl. and 7 days later the water from the top of yogurt. mmmmm. rice.
today anna-lisa and i went shopping where i purchased my bali ticket - going on the 28th!!!!!! - and waaaay too many things at anokhi. jenny, i got the flower ring. i know. on the way back we had an interesting auto-rickshaw ride where our driver drove the scenic route, spoke english, and then dropped us off with some other driver in front of the red fort. hmmm. not on the way. but at least i got to see the fort (and india gate) as ive done absolutely zero sight seeing in delhi. but the second driver was a little sketchy, tried to bring his friend along which i guess is a big no no. the books say its an indication a "groping" might be forthcoming. we shoo'd him off though, and got home in time for rice :)
after rice i began to inquire where would be a good place to get a yagya. the 9 days of mother divine begin soon and i want one during it. well this very nice man, who is in medical school and training here, has not the best english. he decided he would make me his "sister" and took the red string from his yagya off his wrist and tied it to my own. well i dont know exactly how i feel about this... i mean the red string from a yagya for someone else? and now he keeps calling me sister and says he will protect me for the rest of his life. plus the strings really tight. it sorta constricts my wrist.
funnily enough i was with mary rose again for this event... who is the lady that was with me me when i had to search for the cremation ashes hanging in the tree last week. i think i wrote about that. if not, just know it was one of the more hilarious and embarrassing experiences of my life. and that is saying something.
soooo.... i will be leaving for varanasi with my rice cooker in a couple days. for some reason i dont want to go for too long, although im sure ill end up staying longer once i get there. i also really want to check out this textiles farm in Jaipur that sounds amazing. they're "green", use sustainable practices promote women's and workers' rights and stay true to the original craft... and the shit they make is rad and i want to buy it all :)
miss you.

Ganga

so i am in rishikesh. and it has been wonderful up until about 2 minutes ago... i came into the internet cafe next to my hotel and a man started screaming at the owner... screaming awful racist things... telling the man he was going to kill him... to murder him in the shop... all at the top of his lungs while the place was filled with 12 year old white children in turbans on an ashram trip. the man spit on the floor and spit on the owner and gave me sick feeling deep in my stomach.

anyway, glad that's over. so i am here on the ganga... two days ago i was in haridwar. i put the ashes of a mother divine lady in the water after a puja before the aarti. it was incredibly sweet and fulfilling. my hotel was disgusting but now i am here with a lovely balcony where i think i will stay for a week or so. $5 a night and about $2 a day for food... im chillin.

(Haridwar pics)

this is where i put in the ashes...

evening arti in Haridwar

this morning i went for chai and watched monkeys climb around my head.... then headed over to Mataji's. She was a disciple of guru deva with maharishi and now lives here in an ashram. she speaks only hindi but i was with a hindi speaker, so i got to hear so many stories of their days together with guru deva. she was there with him and maharishi when guru deva left his body and told us the story, and has his sandals he was wearing when he left. she does puja to them each morning. she made us kitcheree and we laughed and she played with my hair. as much as im not making it sound very exciting because the keyboard is sticking and i cant hardly bear to type, it has been the hightlight of my trip thus far.

every evening at sunset they perform the aarti in swarg ashram on the river. they do a whole puja to the ganga with about 100 young pundtants. its wonderful... the singing and clapping right on the water, with as many candles burning and being used in the puja. i got video of it on a friends camera and ill post it when she sends it. some of the osho people were there, who try to achieve enlightenment through kundalini energy and such... so basically they have sex and dance. the dancing was great... they just close their eyes and wildly dance about throughout the aarti. i was loving it... but the BO was strong :(

i hope i find someone with my camera charger soon. i got someone to charge my ipod so i finally get to hear music.

(rishikesh pics)

i'm obsessed with my cheeky monkeys

my favorite gate in rishikesh... the ganesh at the top is so dope. this was an ashram i walked through on my way to arti or dinner every night.

same ashram except at night...

bangle 2.19.07

today i moved on to whatever treatment it is where they they take really hot balls of vegetation/oil mush inside muslin and smash you with them and then rub. it was amazing... so im feeling very soft. i am also feeling very sad about my current music situation, in that i have none. who else brings an ipod to india with no charger?
well... today for distraction i thought i would wander on down past the construction and over to what i heard was monday market, filled with fun things to buy and flowers.
no. this was not the case. i followed the construction which turned out to be open sewer lines that they have been working on for three months (most sewage is open here, so i think its a big deal that theyre closing this), and walked and walked and breathed shit and breathed shit, and then finally i came to the end. there were bright colors and laughing children and fruit and clothes but this was not the market.... oh no. i tried to think that it was as i kept walking into it, but really i had entered a slum. i still am not sure how it happened, because later someone showed me on the map and i though i had walked the right way... but no. so i did the only thing i could do to save embarrasment of walking in and then immediatly leaving this filthy poor place where thousands of people live, squashed together in plastic and metal huts and tents: i played cricket with small boys. yes. it was fun. and then the mothers came out and every one started asking for one rupee and i left.
i am amazed at the sense of contentment that pervades india. people have nothing, or everything, or some things, or the possibility for more, or on the brink of awfulness, and still... they dont seem to mind. they just seem to be precisely in whatever moment is now. seriously... from being able to sleep on a chair on the island between lanes with the loudest traffic ive ever heard, to embracing death and problems, and they way they celebrate events, or work 15 hour days... they all seem to be, well at least pretty, happy. its good for me to see... its good for my perspective. its also hard to not give money to everyone that asks, and to go haggle in the markets or with rickshaw drivers over what ends up being a dollar, but you do it. because its india. anyway, im gonna try and find the real monday market so i can buy some really rad wall hangings for my room here.
holla.