Om-ing for Home-ing

Back to Delhi
4 January 2011

Rachel’s apartment in Chennai afforded us a sweet respite despite all my cat and mold allergy troubles. On the last night Misty and I walked single file down a nearby dark and narrow main street (with no room for the many pedestrians) centimeters away from whizzing tuks tuks and cars. We had dinner at Rachel’s favorite local thali joint.

This is a place I’d love to open in TC. Stainless steel trays on each table with indents for the various and changing dishes of the day/night: rice, pappadum, ghee slathered phulka/chapatti, vegetable “curries” like okra (ladyfingers) or squash, coconut chutney, sambhar and dal and yogurt, all scooped out of a stainless steel buckets. The phulka (full-kah) are puffed, hot chapatti made fresh with wholewheat atta flour. I ate four of them, they were that good. Misty drank a sweet lassi, her favorite.

We decided to buy some fruit and cat food so walked on down the street to a tiny vegetable/fruit market wedged in between a tiny pharmacy counter and tobacco shop. Across the street we saw a large, brightly lit, 4 storied store, and, mesmerized, walked in. Wow. An assortment of foods from granola to cashews and beyond on the first floor with appliances, clothes and so on the upper floors. Cat food was on the 4th floor. I trudged up and found a bag of dry cat food for R300, about $7. Misty and I each bought one plus some wet food as a treat for them. Those playful little buggers got under our skin. Misty was able to lap-sit and pet them. They were sucking at her clothes, poor orphans.

Don’t get me started on the suffering here. I can’t bear it. I have to close my eyes, but all I see when I do are the tattered homeless people huddled around smoky fires, and bony dogs without loving humans. It’s still rare that people have common dogs or cats as pets. I’d like to get a bunch of feminists together to donate money to have the female dogs of India spayed so they don’t have to have the endless dependency and strain of constant pregnancies. A true female liberation from suffering. We girls have to stick together. I’ve found PETA-India and plan on donating money for that purpose.

On our last night in Chennai, Misty went up to Rachel’s apartment, but I wanted a night-time look at the Bay of Bengal, a short walk from her apartment. (Google “Valmiki Nagar” for a view of her beach. It’s lovely.) The broad, inky-dark water had a dangerous feel to it, ancient and deeply alien. Rachel says that the undertow is incredibly strong and she, a strong swimmer, is afraid of it.

On my walk to the Bay I passed by the ironing-walla stand, closed for the night. It’s a high-end neighborhood so there are few people on the street. I passed a family—two parents with a small boy. They were cleaning up after dinner. The woman was brushing her hair while sitting on a small stool. The little boy was stretched out on a bamboo mat studying by a lantern. The dad was putting things away. I think they may have a stand of some sort there and live there at night as well.

Left Chennai, hot and dusty, to a 37 degree F Delhi to eagerly await Bill’s sister, Barb, and her son and daughter-in-law coming from Africa. Both Misty and I had to buy warmer clothes. We were not prepared for this kind of cold. We ended up, somehow, at a glitzy mega-mega mall; I felt uncomfortable. I don’t even shop at those places at home. But when we saw Calvin Klein we walked in and found what we needed $100 each later….Delhi is a large city; it costs every time we go out for a taxi or tuk tuk. So we bit the bullet and bought. I have spent so much more than anticipated on this trip that it hurts.

The day before my sister in law was to arrive I got an email from her: she didn’t know she needed a visa (and I neglected to mention it…) so that when she arrived at the Indianapolis airport she found that she couldn’t go. Same with my nephew in Africa.

So Misty and I decided we wanted to come home early. I called American Airlines: upshot was $250 change fee and over $2,000 for the change in ticket price. So we went on with our trip to Varanasi and Sarnath. Both of us were disconsolate. And tired.

Psycho-Walla

Arriving in Varanasi was cheerful. The sun was out and it was warmer so that lifted our spirits. We went to the hotel that Barb had booked (Pallavi International) because the Hotel Buddha we’d booked for $25 a night hadn’t been paid for. Pallavi had beautiful grounds; it looked like an aging grand old lady—very Moghul-ish. Clean, but the room was small, dark and without heat. And the hotel was eerily empty.

We went out to change money and a cycle-walla (bicycle wheels with big cart for two humans behind) came up to offer a ride. We haggled a little with price. Got in and told him where we wanted to go. Unfortunately Misty mentioned changing money and he totally ignored what we wanted and kept trying to take us to a private house to change money (he would get a kickback of course). Misty said that had never happened to her before and it felt very dangerous. He told us Western Union was closed (it was not) and so on—it was distressing so we got out, but he kept following us. We found Western Union and when we came out psycho-walla was waiting. Ugh. We got into a tuk tuk and eluded him.

Hotel Hoppers

We went to see Hotel Buddha and decided it was better—with heat—and better located. I had a good dinner of local vegetables (English peas, carrots and cauliflower were everywhere in season) in a tomatoey-spiced sauce, dal, cumin rice and phulka. The vegetable curry hit the spot! We walked on the darkening streets after dinner. It was fascinating: small shops selling paan packets (a kind narcotic popular around India), tea served in little cups that looked like small terracotta plant pots, several restaurants cooking large batches of chopped greens (probably methi or fenugreek greens), eggplant, and potatoes. Looked so good. Passed by a larger stand and took photos of the milk guy: three large woks (kadhai), one filled with spiced hot milk and ghee that he poured from pitcher to pitcher in high arcs before serving, another filled with paneer (firm fresh cheese) and a third filled with a thick sour-creamy pinkish sweet, artfully layer-topped with lacy rice pancakes.

The next morning we scheduled a morning trip to the gnats and the Ganges. It was too foggy to take the hoped for boat ride so we visited some Hindu temples. Very beautiful. Too cold to remove shoes and walk on marble floors. Misty did, but I declined. Our guide did, but wasn’t keen on it, smile. The Hanuman temple, which had been bombed by Muslim terrorists had guards with guns and a metal detector. The monkeys (Hanuman is a monkey god) were everywhere. Another set of mouths to feed. They were jumping and acrobatting it up on buildings across from the temple. Quite a show. One small monkey with its preternaturally agile hands and eyes was picking through street garbage looking for a morsel someone else that missed.

Muslim Town

The driver took us to Muslim Town (known for silk weaving in Varanasi) and a silk weaving family. It was unbelievable. The room looked like your worst nightmare of an Asian prison—dug down into a relatively small space and crammed with looms. No light. It was too cold so no one was working. But the man who ran it (had been to the States many times) talked about how the weaving was done. Then took us back to his futon padded “showroom” to sell us some goods. He threw meters and meters of silk over us as we sat on the floor: jewel colored brocades, bedding, scarves, bolts of fabric and more. I bought Emily Mitchell a silk scarf (she’s asked for some fabric and that has given some form to my buying). It was enticing and hard to resist buying more silk fabric but I’ve hit my $$ limit I’m afraid. We went back to the hotel and tried to get warm. Under numerous covers (heat was off) after two hours we still hadn’t kicked the chill.

We Caved in for Heat and Hot Water

Misty suggested we go to an American hotel. So we went online and booked the Ramada Inn for the night. We took a car to Sarnath—a stupka set on the site of the Buddha’s first talk. It was restful, peaceful with large grounds and many Indian Tibetans and monks on pilgrimage walking around the stupka. I loved that place. I bought my niece a sandalwood Buddha there and Misty bought some Buddhas too. Driver took us through the small town crowded with pilgrims and tent-shops serving puffy breads and selling holy goods. I went into the grounds of a Japanese Buddhist temple. It was by far my favorite site. The proportions of the grounds and temple were pleasing. A service was going on so I stood outside and listened to the drums and enormous singing brass bowl. Very peaceful. We drove the congested dirt roads back to the hotel in the twilight.

After much ado and booking the new tickets for our return with the concierge (this involved a walk to a local “travel agent”, a bunch of really nice men—I walked down a dark, quiet street to dinner at a nearby hotel. I didn’t want to eat a huge buffet for R650. The Suriya is an old castle that is being renovated—it even had a hooka smoking “bar” which I stumbled into. In the restaurant, I ordered spicy ground chicken tandoori kabob, kitchdi (rice and dal) and one tandoori roti. It took forever, but I listened to French, Russian and German all around me for entertainment. When the food finally came it was delicious. The waiter said they made it special for me without yogurt or ghee!! Big tip.

When I returned I took a luxurious hot bath, sigh. I won’t for even a minute ever forget the luxury of electricity, warmth and clean, hot water!! The concierge told me that our train to Jabalpur, where Misty was to film an ancient Hindu site, was unheated. We looked at each other and decided to bag that trip! Concierge told us it was colder in Jabalpur, even though it was south. So we spent an extra $500 on hotel and plane fare to return to Delhi, but it was a good choice.

The Ganges Gnats

The morning of our last day in Varanasi I hired a taxi to take me to the Ganges and the gnats. (Misty has been.) It was warmer and I walked a kilometer from our parking lot to get there along pilgrim-clogged streets lined with every manner of goods from fresh milk to shoes and holy items. A cycle-walla clipped my back shin with his wheel and bruised me well plus covered me with shit from the wheels. Sigh, It hurt so badly for a while that I stopped and cried. A group of Indian women stopped to make sure I was okay. If I hadn’t been, I think that cycle-walla would have been in trouble. But on those busy streets centimeters are all that the space between people and vehicles. It must be hard to judge—mostly they do miraculously well.

I walked a good ways along the stone stairs up and down, along the Ganges. Hindus from all over India were stripping and dipping in that cold, greasy water. Smoke from the cremation pyres was choking at times. Tourists with cameras and holy Hindus mingled with dogs, cats, cows and goats capering up and down the rocky steps strewn with yellow, fuschia and white flowers, shit and litter.

Ancient wooden boats ferried people down and across the Ganges. Paint cracked away to grey bare boards and full of holes, I’m not quite sure how they float. There was a sandbar where cows and people seemed to be standing. Did the cows swim over? I walked to a funeral pyre and saw a wizened old man atop it. Stopped my heart for a time. A young Hindu came by asking for money for the hospice that is set up there. They take poor or indigent people who are dying off the street or who walk in, and care for them—feed and massage them, then pay for their burning. I’ve read that they also harvest their organs and sell them. This is India, where nothing goes to waste. Always someone looking for food and all else.

A Last Meal

The last meal at the Ramada hotel I had the local yellow dal with a local mustard oil tadka (tempered oil heated with spices) and phulka. It unsettled my stomach for two days. Probably some tap water stirred in and not boiled? Always the big hotels—Misty was sickened from the Marriott, me at the Ramada.

Ravi Shankar

On the way to the airport I saw the yellow flowered mustard seed and tall, spindly dal plants plus acres of beautifully tended fields and rich earth. Our driver Rakesh, (same one from earlier, I really liked him), told us that Ravi Shankar’s ancestral home was on the outskirts, but still part of Varanasi. His family had sold the home more than a decade ago—Ravi lives in San Diego. Rakesh lives with his family behind the property. He was highly educated—economics—and around late twenties to early thirties—gently handsome with a kind manner. His English was very good. He wasn’t married because he is from a poor family and cannot get work in his field. So he drives a taxi for the Ramada, a good job he says, and dreams of opening a school for orphans. We tipped him well.

8/9 January 2010 Back to Delhi

We came yesterday (Sunday) to Eleven, the wonderful B and B run by Ajay—our home away from home with heat, big hot shower, clean comfortable beds, big breakfast and wifi. Ajay has been beyond helpful and kind. He had rice with turmeric sent to me for my unsettled belly. I spent the day reading and resting. So great. My throat has been congested for more than a week now—the smog, smoke and dirt. I wear a mask when I go out but when I blow my nose it’s full of black.

Today, Monday, we’ll go out to a temple that Misty wants to visit and then some shopping and lunch. Home on Saturday if no storms plague Chicago! Pray for us.