Ahh, the Sleeper Car

I actually did laugh out loud several times in the middle of the night last night just thinking of what to say in here. I did not pull out my journal, though maybe I should have. But really I just wanted to sleep.

What the hell was I thinking? A sleeper car in India without earplugs???? hellllooo? I guess I was just up for another experience. So I got one. And it wasn't so bad, except for the snoring, the smells and the cold. I still had a really cool dream, another pretty perfect India dream. So where to begin, where to begin ....

let's begin in Rishikesh, India where I had been Monday afternoon through Friday morning. On Thursday night, it struck me that I was behind the eight ball again because I had not booked my train ticket yet from Haridwar back to Delhi. I wanted to be back by Friday night and knew the train leaves daily at about 6:00 p.m., back in Delhi a little before 11:00 p.m. However, I also remembered that in wanting to get myself up north I wasn't able to leave the day after I bought the ticket, but the following day, and maybe, perhaps, there could be a similar situation on the return trip. Are you following me here? So the kindly fellow at the desk of the Green View Hotel got on the computer for me to book the return ticket. I was right .... no tickets until Monday, December 15, the day I am due to fly back to Salt Lake City. This will not do. So other options include, taking the bus (an all nighter), hiring a taxi, or booking the sleeper train.

Let me now recall the last time I was booked in a sleeper car. This would be back in 1989 or so probably in Europe somewhere, but very well could have been in Egypt. The Egypt thing was my main point of reference here since it is another, less developed sort of country depending upon what you are considering. The fact that during that trip I was on a five day, four-star tour didn't really sink in so much. That sleeper car actually had things like sheets. I should pull out my old London journal from that year to see if I'm pulling that out of my ass. Anyway. Let's just say, it wasn't so bad. Debbie and I had our own compartment and it was just fine.

Kindly reception guy (I wish I got his name because we shared some laughs and he had a nice smile) told me there are six people to a compartment in these sleeper cars, but I still thought, no problem, so they are probably just a bit bigger or maybe we just need to take turns when the conductor(?) comes around to put the beds up or down, right??? Ha Ha Ha.

So leaving the Green View, me, my suitcase, my courier type bag, the driver and no helmets
(I actually love not having helmets in any one of the rides I got here) ......

...... all hop onto the scooter and head through the market, over the Jhula (bridge, they are pedestrian only, sort of), and over to the bus and taxi area so I can catch a ride back to Haridwar where I can take the train. I love these motorcycle and scooter rides I am getting. I ask him if he'll take me all the way to Haridwar, half in jest, and he tells me if it were during the day---yes, but at night---too dangerous. I ask him whether or not I should use one of the auto rickshaws, vikrams, or tempos, to go back there and he quickly tells me, "no, no, much too dangerous at night." I'm not sure if he is saying this because of the questionable nature of the drivers, though I'm pretty sure that is not what he is saying, but more because of the road conditions, visibility, and number of drivers on the road.

Whenever I wince, or make any sort of noise to indicate my immediate sense of impending collisions, these guys all laugh at me. This one asks me if I drive at home. I tell him, "yes, I have a station wagon much bigger than any of these cars ..." Again, he laughs. I'm not a bad driver, really.

On a side note---- a little info from the Lonely Planet guide ....

"An autorickshaw is a noisy three-wheel device powered by a two-stroke motorcycle engine with a driver up front and seats for two (or sometimes more) passengers behind. Most lack doors and just have a canvas top. They're also known as .... autos and tuk-tuks.

Tempos are somewhat like a large autorickshaw. These ungainly looking three-wheel devices operate like minibuses or shared taxis along fixed routes ..... You may come across vikrams in some areas. These are another name for tempos or sometimes a larger version of the standard tempo."

Then I'm at the bus stop .... After spending about a half hour getting countless side looks, offers for autorickshaws and vikrams, there is one particular taxi driver who has said he'll take me, and only me, to Haridwar for 550 Rs. This is about $11.00 for an hour ride. I initially think this is too much, try to bargain with him and play the stubborn, I'm-holding-my-ground-on-my-price kind of woman, but he tells me no, and basically he knows he's got me on the waiting game. Every once in awhile he saunders nearby, and then walks past. After maybe another 15 minutes he goes to the roasted peanut cart I'm standing next to, buys himself some nuts wrapped in newspaper, and offers me some. Of course, I cave and say, 550? okay, show me your car .....

This guys drives like a complete madman. He may have two daughters, 14 and 6 years old, but damn, he has no hesitation about passing every car, truck, motorcycle, vikram, and autorickshaw we come across. I start doing the prayer thing fairly early on, the positive affirmations, the visualizations of me walking into the train station, me getting safely onto the plane to leave India, me hugging my children. I also, unfortunately, start trying to figure out how I will throw my body onto the floor when we crash into the oncoming vehicle, that would be this next one .... no, this next one ... no, this next one ... no, this next one .... you get the idea.

When we get into Haridwar, I have some strange affinity for the place with its mishmash of horses, cows, pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists who blow their horns with abandon, horse-drawn carts, cycle rickshaws, autorickshaws, and its twinkling white lights in the store fronts. I do not want to be in the taxi who takes out the next stray dog, or small child or old beggar, so I tell him repeatedly, "I'm in no hurry. It's okay. Okay. You can slow down." He barely does this, but it does seem to make some difference.

NOW I'm at the train station. I have my ticket to Delhi. I know my train, just need to find the platform, and Kindly Reception Guy told me there is even a place at the train station where I can check my bag while I leave the station for dinner. It's about 9:00 p.m., I haven't eaten, and my train doesn't leave until 11:20, so I'm fine to head off for awhile. When I walk into the station it looks like the scenes in airports in winter when families have been unable to catch a flight for days and have hunkered down on the floor wherever they feel like it because they are so damn tired and just do. Or maybe the scene in Gone With the Wind where Scarlett goes to help with the wounded and there are row after row of men on the ground around her. Except here the men, women and children have their wool blankets over their heads, a tad more like an actual corpse. Some have decided a layer of newspaper might be a good idea rather than simply laying on the train station ground.

I am remembering this summer when Zach and Andrew and I took the overnight flight to JFK and were then headed into Grand Central Station and poor, tired little Zach had HAD IT, and threw himself down on the sidewalk in New York. I had about two suitcases and just had to wait until he decided he could walk again, but the New Yorkers who were walking by us on the sidewalk looked at me like I was insane to let my child lay down on the sidewalk. Grand Central Station seems like a place you could lick the floors compared to the surface here. Again, I exaggerate, but still.


SO SORRY .... I didn't finish this post and hope I have notes somewhere about the details of the Sleeper car back to Delhi. I was amazed at the volume of the men's snoring, the smells that would wake me out of a sound sleep after we had stopped at a station midway along because the bathrooms were only about 10 feet from my "bed" and there wasn't the wind from the train pulling the odor away, the hard plastic covered board to sleep on, the sheer number of cots in one car ....

suffice to say I could have gotten a seat and done just as fine. I'm glad I did it, but I'm also glad I'm not on there at this very moment.

I Smudged my Tika

So you know .... a bindi is the jewel women wear between their eyebrows. I'm pretty sure this is representing the third eye. Or rather, the Third Eye. I've worn a bindi during a couple of the wedding celebrations I went to here, along with pretty much every other woman there, and damn, if it doesn't dress a woman up in a wonderful way. I'm serious. I enjoyed how it looked. It felt lovely and I felt adorned in a new and beautiful way. Of course, the only problems are the moment in the course of the evening when you touch your face, as we so often do without even realizing it, and you brush it off. It's gone, and so is the special something along with it, if you let it. The other problem is that we don't wear these in the States. We really should. Much better than piercing one's lip or tongue or whatever. I have put a couple of very, very tiny bindis on my nose to look like I've pierced it, but eventually I touch my nose and that one comes off, too.

Tika is made out of rolli. This is what the men (in the teeny tiny shop where I am typing) tell me when I pester them about it. It looks like the brightest red flour you've ever seen. Water (or oil??) is added to it, and during some religious ceremonies or offerings, some priest type guy dots it on men and women's foreheads between the eyebrows .... again the Third Eye.

Am I being rude enough here with my ignorance, "some priest type guy" comment and so forth, or what???

So I went to a ceremony on the Ganga this evening, got the red dot on my forehead and take the cycle rickshaw to one of my favorite restaurants here, Big Ben Restaurant, to enjoy the Paneer Sagwala with a couple of Roti ---- I want to tell you about these in detail later on. all I can say now is "yummy." And after dinner, in my exhaustion, I put my hands to my face and rubbed them all over. I completely forgot about the Tika, and when I happened to glance down at my hand there was red powder all over it. This is far worse than chalk pastels in the smudging department. I was sitting next to a mirror, and when I looked over, I witnessed red all over not only my forehead---- I repeat ALL OVER MY FOREHEAD, but also around my left eye, below my left eye, all over my left cheek and onto my nose. Helllllllllllooooo Bozo! I had to laugh out loud, and in fact, I am doing so now because it still remains ALL OVER MY FACE and I look ridiculous. As if I don't get enough looks with the blonde hair ..... or the mendi (when you could see that.) I just realized I have to take a picture. Maybe I should have the guy who runs the place do it.

He was watching The Spy Who Loved Me in Hindi, and Indian Idol, before another guy came in to use the second computer in here. I still love this place.

maybe no one will notice if I wear my hair over the whole left side of my face.

No, I'm Not Going to Touch the Monkeys

Just some observations from the train departing Delhi on the way to Haridwar .....
For the first hour, the city continues though I don't know if at some point this is considered Delhi or another "city." Seemingly endless squat, brick dwellings, all in need of repair since they are falling down or half done. I imagine this is absolutely not the way the people who live here feel .... they are what they are, a home and their neighborhood, their community. All manner of roofs, if there is a roof at all--- steel, sticks, concrete, some other things I'm not so sure of, some covered with bags of garbage, some with areas to walk and hang clothes to dry ..... there is garbage along the tracks where you can barely see the ground it is so thick, narrow dirt streets among the buildings and rock and bricks. A florescent light or bulb from some rooms with no doors to the outside of the dwelling. It reminds me of photos I've seen of people living in war torn areas, or places where natural disasters have devastated the surroundings. I feel almost guilty writing that. The critic in me assuming the worst in a way, and then saying it out loud. As though both are wrong, even though it is how these people live, it is just what I'm seeing through my own lenses and it is just what I happen to be thinking and putting out there.

As I go by these areas, it has me dreaming of what it would mean to have a red bell pepper plant there. Would that be strange, or would the seeds be a precious thing to others living nearby, something I could share? Would it even grow with the conditions of the air quality, the water content, the soil? Would it be possible here? I believe it would grow if there were attention, care and ?love? given to it. Anything can grow with enough attention, love and care .... anywhere. I know many might find such an idea naive, but maybe that is exactly how the world began. Out of nothing at all.

And there is something here.

There was a fog, before the sun came up, that sat so low --- an inversion where the tops of trees or bushes were visible, but you couldn't see the ground. It was lovely in its way. I can see now that the world here has woken up, people moving about, the sun up and seen through the thick haze ... the depressing state outside Delhi was, in part, an area still asleep ..... immobile because the day had yet to begin, not paralysis.

Now I'm among fields ..... a cart pulled by a cow, bicycles all over, people carrying all types of things. I find this place beautiful.

"Cow patties" drying in the sun next to the tracks. They burn them for heat, I think. A low brick wall separates the tracks from either the town or fields. Patties lined up in rows, or leaning against one another in whorls neatly.

More to write later about actually being in Haridwar. There is so, so much to see, to say. My friend Shailaja said to me she is looking forward to hearing how I process this trip after I return and have time to digest it more. She pointed out how much of the trip is what is taken home or comes up later on. so true. Shailaja grew up in Bombay / Mumbai, whichever you choose to call it, the same place. Of course it is not the same place, I'm sure. There are probably things that don't seem to change at all as she visits each year, and yet other things new here, surprises all the time.

As I ate my very late lunch or early dinner this afternoon and did some people watching on the street from the Big Ben Restaurant here in Haridwar ..... I noticed the clothes and variety, practically rags .... no, in honesty, rags draped all over a few people, or western jeans worn low with leather belts and cool shirts on good looking twenty-something year olds, women in simple long shirts--- I forgot what they are called-- in some bright colors, but more plain ... or vibrant, sequined sarees (not sure what the spelling is on that one) in brillant colors, school children in uniforms with backpacks or one child carrying his or her two year old brother in ragged, dirty tops and nothing on their bottoms.... Two female soldiers with their guns slung over their shoulders ..... and, what do you know, here is another cow! (this is so common I almost don't notice them anymore) ..... bicycle rickshaws (I got one to my hotel from the train station), scooters, motorcycles, bicycles, carts, carts with horses, carts pulled by men with roasted peanuts, vegetable, plastic Buddas that have tinsel around their necks, I can go on and on and on and on ............

I almost forgot the monkeys! On the patio of the hotel Haveli Hari Ganga, sitting along the Ganges (to you and me) there were about a dozen. I took pictures of the mother with her baby .... they walk along the railings .... a couple humping each other (there is a reason for the expression "monkeying around," of course) .... I'm fascinated initially. There is a sign that reads, "TO AVOID MONKEY MENACE PLEASE DO NOT DRY CLOTHES ON THE TERRACE." It is a good thing there is one of those pull out clothes lines in the bathroom. I am planning on splashing in the Ganga to wash away my sins (my Catholic girl is so thrilled!) and I will have some wet clothes since I'm most definitely not planning on jumping in nude or with the suits I've left in the States anyway ..... I mean, I am HERE for God's sake, why not get wet? So its cold, so what? This is close to where it comes out of the Himalayas, not where it empties into the ocean after travelling through the country. However, I am not planning on touching the monkeys. The guy with the big stick who is banging it around and scaring them away for maybe five minutes will help me make sure of that.

Adding to the List

Does my list of animals spotted by the side of the road include those that are in wire cages for sale?  Yes, it does!

today I need to add:

roosters

baby rabbits

ducks (in cages to be sold)

pigeons (in cages to be sold)

many more goats

I just realized I can't write "many more .........."  because I will constantly be listing the cows, horses, etc, etc. from the first list

parakeets, love birds, other birds I really should know the names of by this point in my life

loud stuff in cages

goats on the roof

(sorry about the goat obsession tonight)

Safe and Sound

My sincere apologies to those out there wondering if I was okay, expressing their concern, during the suffering in Mumbai late last week.  I am in Delhi, don't ever watch the t.v. around here, and didn't even know it was going on until I heard about it from the US.  Then I called my Mom to provide the most immediate reassurance I could get out.  Then I called Anthony, Andrew and Zach's Daddy, to reassure all of them.  I hope and pray Zach and Andrew will do the same when they begin traveling around the world. They will.  Travel around the world, I'm betting.  Hoping so .... 

I had some plans to get out and about town (ok, make that 'teeming city of millions',) or simply out of the house.  These plans were not enough  to have me ignore the warnings I heard around that time about staying in.  I somewhat thought there would be no real concern since Delhi is so very far north, while Mumbai is on the southwestern coast.  But when I asked a few others whether they thought it was a good idea, I started to hear how I should definitely be back before 4:00 p.m., and they began to ask exactly where I wanted to go, and I had one woman say her husband didn't want her going to any markets where there were "crowds."  Honestly, crowds practically means outside the front door.  I exaggerate, but still.  This same woman mentioned a market that I walked to with Georgia, less than a 5 minute walk away from her backdoor, and breezily mentioned how that market would definitely be bombed "someday."  Georgia had been pointing out all the western stores there that day .... places you might be able to locate essentials like chocolate chip cookies, or a decent Italian restaurant, while here in India.  At the time I found these locales both humorous and slightly (I admit it) reassuring, but now this market felt way too close.  When I inquired with Georgia if she agreed about this notion, she immediately nodded, "oh, yea .....  well, there is a hotel right next to it where loads of diplomats stay because of all the embassies around this neighborhood ...."

I did notice both the Embassy of Paraguay and the High Commission of South Africa buildings as I walked to the post office at the C Block Market, not the one with the cinema and said chocolate chip cookies.  If I had been thoroughly longing for turkey and mashed potatoes, my plan B was to go to previously mentioned hotel for a Thanksgiving dinner.  Nixed that plan.  Though I would have been fine, I'm glad I got the phone call with the news.  And I'm happy to report, no bombing there yet.  

I wrote an exclamation point at the end of the last sentence, but thought that is just too glib.  It isn't that I mean to be lighthearted about the matter when it is far more appropriate to cry, but I cannot let myself become paralyzed about going where I need to go or doing what I need to do.  Bombs happen.  People live in war torn areas, gun fire a part of life.  Granted, not usually in Salt Lake City, but still .... 

Oklahoma City is part of American history.  Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols did some real damage and broke many, many hearts.  I'm as safe and sound as I am anywhere.  I just happen to be in the family room of a gorgeous home in Delhi, India at the moment.

Now I need to go somewhere else where the air is far more clean.  Last night I stayed in a "heritage hotel" called Neemrana Fort Palace, built in 1464, at the enthusiastic request of Georgia, to come see where the family spent their Thanksgiving holiday.  Well worth the trip.  The air was a bit cleaner there.  There was, perhaps, less intensity being in a village near a resort than making our way through Delhi to do almost anything.

I may have already said this, I may end up writing it somewhere in every posting, but I continued to be amazed at the dichotomy of images I see everywhere.    I am pulling this next bit from my journal:

"November 30, 2008, Sunday

On the road to Neemrana Fort Palace .... the dichotomy between things seen here is striking.  I pass a billboard that says, "Make life a bed of roses" and not 30 feet behind it, families and communities live in dirt, little (if any) material comfort, garbage everywhere--- in front of you on streets, no sidewalks to speak of, garbage on the roofs of buildings, open buildings, dirt and more dirt.   There is the entire spectrum of life absolutely apparent.  Visible.  It is difficult to see --- in some ways --- but there is truth in it.  And there are still children playing games, and women (and some fathers too) tending the children, and efforts at business, at trade, ways to "make a living"as we (westerners) refer to it.  Of course, one is either living or dead.  And life is what one makes out of it ... . . .  .  .  .   .   .   .    .    .    .     .     .     .       .      .     .  "

here I began to ramble about American living, romance, sex, security, honesty, fear, dying, rebirth .....  (I sort of wish I were kidding ... I really have to laugh at myself)

"And if we want to create what we came here to do, we need to be dying and reborn all the time.  Well, WE ARE Dying and being reborn ALL THE TIME at least on a cellular level, at the most basic, living level.   Our heads, our minds need to be more aware of what our bodies already simply DO.  Constant Unfolding. 

Constant Unfolding.

Even as we die, and crumble.

Decay and die, there is a 

constant unfolding. "

[ I MUST stop here to mention that as I rewrite this now, without editing my sophomoric philosophy pulled straight out of Deepak Chopra books and poetry that actually is not bad,   this bad, bad poetic sort of philosophizing had me laughing my head off as I wrote it out here and now in the middle of the night .... but I digress ]

"..... Just passed two carts-- on this highway-- being pulled by camels ... the large truck in front of us had moved over, but I did not see why until we passed them ..."