The Bat Cave

Dear dedicated reader,

Sitting alone in the dark of the biggest cave in Nepal, I began to relax. I could hear the voices of the others farther on in the chamber and see their lights flash in a disorganized way around the walls. They were looking for footing in order to climb the steep incline of the cave floor; an ascent I could not make because of my inappropriate footwear. Their voices became more and more distant until they cleared the steep incline and their lights and voices were subsumed by darkness and silence.

I’m not sure what I was thinking when I packed only my flip flops for my four week trip. I knew I’d be coming to Nepal; I knew one of the major attractions here for tourists is trekking. I can only assume my thinking just hadn’t gotten that far or I seriously underestimated the terrain I’d be dealing with (only, you know, the highest mountain range in the world…geez, Cat). Either way, this is how I found myself holding on to a stray root stretching out from the side of the path as I gingerly tried to find footing on a slick, narrow trail stretching downwards hundreds of feet at a terrifying angle. I could see farther ahead the guide we’d hired from the tourist information booth in this tiny village of Bandipur (a local science teacher at the Nepali medium school who only had a half day of school, incidentally) looking up at me with a concerned look on his face.

I faked a smile like I do this everyday and his face relaxed, but only slightly. The rest of our group (Kate and a Spanish couple who’d jumped into our hike just as we were taking off) looked equally concerned as they reached the plateau in the path where he was standing. I let go of the root that I was clutching, still smiling, and continued to move downwards, slowly, concentrating my full attention on each step. I could hear the others chatting as they caught their breath down below me, but I couldn’t let myself be distracted: my mind was busy calculating the likelihood that the next rock would be the one I would slip on and would pitch me face first over the mountainside.

With a luck that I can only attribute to God or sheer, embarrassed determination, I was able to make it down to where everyone else was standing. This, however, was only the beginning. Our hike out to our a destination, the largest cave in Nepal according to our trusty and ever present Lonely Planet, was reported by the same to be about an hour and a half. At this juncture, we’d hiked approximately fifteen minutes. I gritted my teeth and slugged some water before following Sandra the Spaniard down the trail under the watchful gaze of the snow peaks rising towards the heavens on the other side of the valley. At that moment, their peaks appeared as hands in prayer, soliciting the sky. Hopefully on my behalf, I thought.

To my own amazement, one and a half hours later we arrived at the narrow opening of the cave, sans broken ankles or any other injury save a little soreness in my knees. Around the opening to the mouth of the cave were a few idle looking Nepali men who demanded payment of 50 rupees and offered up the hire of a large industrial sized flashlight of which the Spaniards promptly took advantage. Kate had brought a practical head lamp which I figured I’d just follow (I mean, really: a girl who can’t be bothered to pack sneakers can hardly be expected to remember fancy gadgets like flashlights!)

Entering the cave, I had a sudden flashback to a five day field trip we’d taken in the 7th grade to West Virginia, during which spelunking was mandatory. It was a rather narrow gorge that we were expected to crawl down on hands and knees, and I chickened out about ten minutes in when we got to the part where we were expected to go underwater and then come up on other side (called ‘the keyhole’ or some such thing). I’d waited outside, cold and wet, until the rest of my group emerged, triumphant, from the mouth of the cave. As we entered, I told myself this cave wasn’t nearly as narrow and anyway that was twelve years ago and I am an adult now, after all.

Navigating without a light was a little like trying to find my way to the outdoor bathroom at our guesthouse at 3 am: I kept having to stop and sort of feel around with my sandaled foot to see if I was all right to continue forward. Kate kindly kept turning around to shed a little light (literally) on the situation and in this way, I managed to make it out of the main entryway and deep into the cave itself. The rock itself was smooth and though navigating it in my flip flops was difficult, I was able to scramble across the rocks with the use of all my limbs as supports.

The obstacle which finally stymied my progress was a rather smooth decline to the next passage in the cave that had been made particularly slick with water dripping down from somewhere in the cave’s ceiling. Kate went first and I made to go after her until she made the intelligent observation that I might not be able to get back up again. The surface was very slick and there didn’t seem to be many natural footholds, at least that we could see. I hesitated, unsure of what my options were. With no flashlight, it was impossible for me to turn around and exit the cave to wait there, but continuing on seemed impossible in light of the terrain. After another moment, I finally said the only thing I could think of: “I’ll just wait here; you guys go ahead and I’ll get you when you come back.”

“Are you sure?” asked Kate. “Do you want the light?”

I hesitated again. I didn’t want to take her flashlight, but the idea of sitting in a cave in complete darkness didn’t really appeal to me either. “Uh, yes,” I admitted. And then, “Sorry…”

She handed me the headlamp, which I put on. They made to move on, and while I could see them, I tracked their progress with my flashlight, hoping to be useful in any way that I could. After they’d moved out of flashlight range, I could still hear their voices but realized that I was pretty much on my own.

At first, I felt very relaxed. “This isn’t so bad,” I thought to myself. “I mean, the Buddha meditated in caves by himself...” I settled myself into a cross legged position on the high perch where I was stuck. I glanced around the cave, flashing my light into different crevices as I did so. As I looked up, I saw my first bat. I wasn’t really frightened, particularly: I’d seen tons of bats hanging from trees in Kadod. A voice from my past, perhaps from the very same seventh grade camping trip, that it wasn’t a good idea to shine lights on bats for too long. I quickly refocused the light on the ground of the cave.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my breathing. I could still here the vague echo of the others who by this time had disappeared much farther into the cave. Soon this was gone and it was completely silent. I could see why such an environment would be conducive to deep meditation. I tried switching off the light for a moment, but the cowardly spelunker in me found the blackness of the cave was too overwhelming and I immediately switched it back on again. I straightened my spine and closed my eyes again. Breathe in… Breathe out…

It was at that moment that I heard a distinct swish…

I jerked my head in the direction that it came from and saw, to my horror, two bats unpredictably flapping around only a few feet from where I was sitting. I stifled a scream, knowing on some primordial level that this would only make things worse and it came out as a squeak. My breathing quickened and I could feel my heart pounding as I immediately pulled my legs into my chest and my sleeves down over my arms.

All was silent for a moment and I dared to put my head up, but at that moment the swishing started again and I thought I heard a squeaking close to me. I felt my body involuntarily curl into itself. I ducked my head into my legs. I didn’t know if the light made it worse, or better and in looking up again, I really did scream as a bat dived at my head and came inches from my body.

The scream, of course, served no purpose at all since the others were too far away to hear me. I briefly considered trying to leave the cave myself, but the bats were coming from the direction of the entrance itself. I found myself pressing my face against my knees and simply whispering “Please come back…” over and over to no one in particular. Every time I heard the swishing, I’d press in harder, trying to compact myself so much that I’d disappear.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour but in reality was probably only ten minutes or so, the lights of the others flashlights appeared at the far end of the cave. I unwillingly pried my head away from my legs fearfully, but tried to relax my face so they wouldn’t know anything was wrong. I mean, really, I’d already caused enough trouble and after all this was entirely my fault in the first place. I hoped my smile looked like one of contentedness and not of desperate happiness that they had returned.

Making our way out of the cave was much simpler than coming in and soon we were sitting on the thin ledge outside the narrow opening leading inside, discussing which way would be best to return. We decided on the way we came, which meant a longer serious uphill battle, but was much easier for me to navigate in my flip flops than the slippery, steep trail leading down to the road. Really a relief, after having come so far, and all in my flip flops! It was almost something to be strangely proud of. It was with this feeling that I started on the return trip home.

That is, until I remembered the possibility of lurking leeches attaching themselves to my bare feet…

Best,
Cat

P.S. Trip pictures to come on my return to Kadod!

Bus-iness as usual

Dear dedicated reader,

Somewhere between watching a woman repeatedly throw up into a small plastic bag that she carried with her for that purpose and becoming a little too close to the migrating limbs of the narcoleptic man sitting next to me, I realize that there are few joys that delight more than taking the local bus.

Seriously: as we careened haplessly around a hairpin corner on a mountain road with no guard rail with a thousand foot drop on the other side, I happened to quell my terror long enough to spot a comfortable, close windowed, air conditioned tourist bus out of the corner of my eye. The look of utter boredom which was apparent on the faces of the passengers within said bus as they passively took in the countryside was enough to convince me that if I were to die on these mountain roads (a fate which I felt at this point in my observations of Nepalese driving was assured), I would much rather do so while listening to a sixty minute loop of the same Nepalese music with the wind blowing in my face than in some comfortably cushioned video coach.

But really, I should start at the beginning. Bolstered by Obama’s heartening win, Kate and I arrived at the New City Bus Station in high spirits. I can’t attribute these completely to politics: we’d been looking forward to leaving the unchecked chaos of Kathmandu since we arrived. Our destination was the small mountain town of Bandipur which had been recommended by friends and a random Frenchman with whom Kate had struck up an acquaintance before I arrived. We also wanted to break up the seven hour ride to the other major tourist city here in Nepal, Pokhara.

Upon our arrival, we did what any good westerners might do: we set off to ferret out where the tickets for the buses were sold. Immediately, we were set upon by some adolescent boys asking in their accented English, “Where do you want to go?” We’d become used to this routine from our exploration of Kathmandu’s Metro Bus Service (a series of small vans with boys who travel with them and shout out the names of where the van is going to any interested passerby), so we told them. Immediately they grabbed our arms and ushered us frantically to a window which said clearly in Devanagri the name of our destination.

“You pay 220 for one – okay?” The boy/man shouted at us with a frenetic energy I can only attribute to local urgency or cocaine. I looked at Kate.

“I think you should ask at the window,” she said.

I turned back to the window and yelled over the head of the boy/man to the guy sitting behind the grill in Hindi, “Hey bhai, how much to go to Dumre?”

He mumbled back a number that sounded the same, so we handed over a 1000 rupee note in the hopes of getting change. The boy/man immediately took off with us in tow and unceremoniously pushed us onto the bus.

“You sit here,” he said, indicating the seat directly behind the drivers.

I threw down my bag and Kate headed towards the back of the coach, as we had previously agreed on sitting apart during the journey in order to allow each other to fully get in ‘the zone’ (not to mention give a little space).

Boy/man then disappeared and left us wondering what the hell happened to our change…

I settled into the seat “assigned” to me. As the bus started and boy/man got behind the wheel, I learned early on that there are a few distinct advantages to having the seat directly behind the driver’s:

1. Front row seats for the magic show that is keeping a Nepalese bus on the road.
2. Intimate acquaintance with the top part of the bus’s engine as it is located (gasp) directly in front of you, shaking and rattling and overheating your legs which must rest on it out of necessity.
3. There’s no one sitting in front of you to throw up/spit/toss trash out their open window that will subsequently splash on you through your open window.
4. First pick of the various snacks peddled at the national high way bus stops including but not limited to: freshly cut cucumber, Indian cheetos, and small dried fish speared on wooden kabobs replete with eyes, scales and fins.

Actually, my favorite part of my particular vantage point was that I got to observe first hand that the driver of this multi-passenger vehicle and I actually have a lot in common. Just like me, the driver would occasionally get thirsty while driving, fumble with his water bottle and hold the steering wheel lightly with one hand or perhaps his knee; also like me, he’d occasionally get sick of the music playing and I’d watch his eyes leave the road so he could fumble around on the dashboard for a different tape, which he’d then have to insert into the bus sound system and press play. But don’t worry: only once or twice during these minor distractions did we actually face the possibility head on collision with an oncoming vehicle.

Another delight was watching the woman across from me breast feed her baby. Now, I am in all for public breastfeeding: I mean, if the baby needs to be fed, it needs to be fed and really its just a natural relationship between mother and child. However, usually, after the feeding is finished, you can count on the mother to remember to put her breast away. Unfortunately in this situation, mom was so distracted by having to throw up in her plastic bag every so often, she and baby simply fell asleep, both forgetting that her breast was still hanging around, literally. I wasn’t sure if, as one of the only other woman in the vicinity, I should say something? I mean, what would you have done?

With a sudden eventual jolt of the bus stopping at some discrete village location, she awoke and rearranged herself accordingly. Fortunately, this particular jolt also woke the narcoleptic man next to me whose head had migrated to my shoulder and elbow to my stomach, and he similarly rearranged. Not so fortunately, his new consciousness also made him realize that his bus stop was imminent, and on seeing an acquaintance of his out the bus window, he poked me in the eye with a rolled up newspaper while wildly gesturing to “Vikram” and hitting the back of the seat of the bus driver to get him to stop the bus. The bus driver having obliged, he got down and I was free, but by that time, our interminable bus ride became terminal as I saw a sign which indicated we were only five kilometers from Dumre.

I mean, honestly, who wouldn’t want to travel this way?

Best,
Cat

Acute Aesthetic

Dear dedicated reader,

My shifting perspective is perhaps being influenced by my travel mate: Kate, a now itinerant artist, moves through the world with an acute sense of the aesthetic and I believe that this tendency is rubbing off on me as I wonder at the new visual feast around me. India itself possesses an incredibly varied terrain, but I myself have not seen much of it these past few months as I’ve bicycled Madhi Road over and over again. Much of India’s visual symbolism I’ve internalized and can now translate easily into meaning. Being in a new country, despite its many similarities, has brought with it new symbolism for the same meanings and I find myself staring wonderingly at the strange blend of Indian and East Asian architecture I am presented with, not to mention the world that contains them.

First, I am watching the prayer flags above a towering Tibetan stupa flutter and the prayer wheels lining its base spin, their inert prayers tactilely activated by the devoted and the curious and released in a clockwise fashion out over the open Kathmandu valley, rising above the shadowed mountains which line its edges and freed into the snow capped universe.

Then, I am sitting in a quiet courtyard in the village of Patan while Kate works in her sketchbook. I listen and watch as two Nepalese girls quietly and unself-consciously choreograph a dance to a popular Hindi film song. Above them, old crumblingly sturdy brick buildings continue their centuries old march onward with pigeon infested garlic hanging to dry from their eaves. Around their doorsteps, ducks and dogs and goats gather for a kind of quotidian worship of the hand that feeds them and their rooftop rose gardens sway lightly in soft valley breeze.

Wandering on, I stop for a moment outside a courtyard of the same town and watch surreptitiously from behind a pillar as an old Nepalese woman shovels rice in a fierce and determined way. She brings her shovel slowly back, picks up a bundle and then throws it in a flinging motion across the courtyard where it scatters on a pile next to a large spread of rice drying in the sun, waiting for feet to sift lightly through it, a practical prayer in each grainy step.

While Kate makes quick, hurried sketches of figures which she observes in the bustling of Patan’s touristy Durbar Square, I find myself making similar quick sketches in my head but, lacking Kate’s practiced skill, with words. I watch as an Anglo of ambiguous origin (Italy? Britain? South America? We can only guess) himself sketches along with a gaggle of thrilled Nepalese children to whom he’s given the use of a set of colored pencils. They eagerly adore his sketches and show him theirs proudly. His smile invites others to join and to me the resulting tableau looks almost biblical. Occasionally as I watch, he looks up, we make eye contact, and I look away, embarrassed by my casual staring. As soon as I think he’s not looking, I look back, fascinated by the childrens’ fascination with him.

In these moments that I’ve described, I’ve never felt more aware of the kind of voyeurism that is tourism. Observing these small, private interactions feels too intimate, more intimate than even when I see such things in Kadod. I think the difference comes in the egalitarianism of it: in Kadod, my life is as up for scrutiny as anyone else’s, as the frequent intrusions on our American constructed privacy often demonstrate. Here, with my hotel room and my camera and my own ambiguous origin, I am inscrutable beyond my immediate exterior and my wide, constantly gawking eyes.

It just doesn’t seem fair. And yet, I can’t look away.

Best,
Cat

P.S. I'm posting this in the middle of our morning watching of the election coverage. What a luxury to be able to watch full coverage outside your own country (albeit 9 hours and 45 minutes ahead) Go Obama Go!

Re-setting Clocks

Dear dedicated reader,

I had to set my clock 15 minutes forward today.

Apparently in an attempt to differentiate itself from the overpopulated country shadowing it from the left, Nepal has elected to be 5 hours and 45 minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, as opposed to India’s 5 hours and 30 minutes. Or so I discovered today at approximately 7:48 pm, or 8:03 pm, depending how you look at it.

This quirk is itself only one of the small that have punctuated my early experience of Kathmandu. Having arrived here yesterday afternoon armed only with my visa in need of renewing and the standard traveler’s aid otherwise known as the Lonely Planet, I can honestly say I was completely unprepared.

Nestled in the Himalayas beneath sprawling snow-capped peaks, it is easy to imagine that living here bestows upon its inhabitants a sense of cosmic alignment and direction that is lost to those of us who are only passing through as itinerant wanderers. This feeling is reinforced by the muddled way in which those of us not in the know are forced to meander the unnamed streets of this smiling metropolis. Yes, you read right: none of the streets in Kathmandu have names. The result is that most advertisements you see not only include the name of the place and an endorsement of their products, but also a detailed line drawing replete with landmarks illustrating how to get from the location of the advertisement to the store itself.

This reality is particularly terrifying in the tourist haven (or hell) of Thamel where every narrow alley which passes for a thoroughfare looks exactly the same, lined with t-shirt shops, guesthouses, and trekking travel agencies all selling and advertising the exact same services. The effect on the hapless tourist is like Hansel and Gretel lost in the woods, except any trail of bread crumbs would likely be eaten by stray dogs, cats or errant cows.

Lucky for me, my best friend Kate (and my travel partner for the next 15 days) arrived from the US the day before I did and was able to secure us a spot in a lovely guesthouse just outside of this maze of Daedulus called the Tibet Peace Guest House. It is located next to an English Medium School (I just can’t get away!) from which I heard the familiar sounds of chanting issuing forth this morning as we made our way to find filter coffee. After twenty four hours here, I’ve noticed that everything feels familiar: the signs are written in Devanagari script (same as Hindi), the language shares many of the same words, the people dress in the same fashion (plus nice thick sweaters), the traffic emits the same diesel fumes and the country, like India, is largely Hindu. Even the tourist outlets seem to sell the same hippy styled clothing, the same embroidered t-shirts, the same wooden carved chess sets.

The fifteen minutes of difference seems to come mostly in the attitude in which people approach their interactions with each other. Last night at dinner, I smiled at a waiter and he actually smiled back at me. I was slightly shocked. Having spent the last two weeks traveling in India, I was expecting the grittiness with which most foreigners are man-handled, especially in well worn grooves of the tourist industry. What I’ve found couldn’t be more different: Street hawkers simply smile and walk away if you say “No, I don’t actually want to buy some tiger balm, whatever that is” and taxi drivers greet you by saying “I value the divine in you (the literal meaning of namaste). Do you want a taxi?”

Over the past twenty four hours, I’ve found that this absence of abrasiveness has me re-setting my own clock. My urban shield, built up since leaving Kadod, is still feeling out what defenses are actually needed and which can be abandoned in favor of trustfully and positively interacting with other human beings. What calibration is needed I have yet to figure out exactly, but I suppose I have 14 more days.

Best,
Cat

Trading In

Dear dedicated reader,

This Saturday, I trade in my chalk and duster for a backpack and train tickets. I couldn’t be more excited or more nervous.

Living in India and traveling in India are so different that the latter is like being in another country altogether. Distinguished by my backpack, my camera, my white skin, no matter how long I’ve lived here, no matter what I wear, no matter how well I speak the language, every day becomes my first day in India.

It’s a phenomenon I joke about often and is best illustrated by the following three connected anecdotes from our most recent trip to Mumbai:

Having taken the well beaten path of least resistance (read: Lonely Planet India) in picking our accommodation for our five day sojourn, Melissa and I found ourselves in the known tourist district of Colaba at the southern-most tip of Mumbai. Our hotel had a nice view of the Taj (the nicest hotel in India) from its crumbling location four stories up and one block away. Our welcome to our exulted lodgings was having to politely ask a sleepy eyed construction worker to move just as he was raising his hammer to strike a chisel against the sandbag reinforced wall of the stairwell so we could continue the endless climb to the lobby.

After a refreshing non air-conditioned sleep in our surprisingly bed bug free beds, Melissa and I parted ways in the morning after an indulgent American style breakfast at a local cafe: she, to take her GRE (the whole purpose behind our visit) and me to take in what I could of the sites. I had set my heart on braving the rickety ferries of Mumbai harbor to visit Elephanta Island, home to some temples carved into stone rock faces.

There is a wariness that you must always wear as a traveler here, one that I’ve all but dropped living in the village. The hardened urban shell that I’d perfected while living in Delhi is cracked and in disrepair from living in Kadod, a place where guile is relatively unknown and where its does exist, it is unpracticed and mostly harmless. Walking alone towards the ticket booth for Elephanta Island, however, I felt as one who doesn’t exercise for a long time: nervous I would strain myself or become winded from the interactions I knew were coming.

It was not without reason. As soon as I started walking towards India Gate, one of the most well known landmarks in Mumbai, I was hassled with “Madam, photo?” “Balloon?” “Magic Balls?” “Peanuts?” “Ice Cream?” “PHOTO!”

I kept walking, my eyes looking straight forward. I had a goal and I was going to make it. Arriving at the ticket booth, I stopped, my assured exterior disappearing as I eyed the lines of windows with men sitting behind each. Signs in India have a crowded quality that makes it difficult if you are relying on them to find what you want easily. It is, however, essential that you locate what you want immediately; if not –

“Madam, what are you looking for?” Someone asked me almost immediately.

I decided to just be forthcoming. “I want to go to Elephanta Island,” I said.

“I sell the tickets madam,” this random man told me as he pulled out a bundle from his pocket. “120 rupees, madam”.

The guidebook had said 90 – but my guidebook, leftover from my time in Delhi, is four years old, so I hesitated once again. “Is there a window?” I asked him.

“That window is for tours, ma’am,” the man said.

“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll just try the window and see what happens,” I said.

He shrugs, uninsulted. “If you wish, madam, but that man and I are in business together.”

The man at the window confirmed this and I bought the ticket from the bundle in the first man’s outstretched hand. He directed me toward the ferry loading dock, saying if I hurried I could catch the next one. I lit up with the brief glow of success when the man at the dock demanded 120 rupees and I produced the ticket for the same amount from my pocket. I had successfully navigated one tourist trap! The joy was short-lived.

I had harbored hopes that I would somehow make friends aboard the ferry with other tourists in the same easy way that I had when I was backpacking in Ireland; however, as I eyed the boat’s other passengers, I realized with some gloom that there was no one in my age range aboard. It was mostly Indian couples – there was one other British looking man, but he looked to be about 60 and not very friendly so I gave him a wide berth and for the next hour watched the approach of the Island from the front of the boat.

As soon as the boat hit dry land and I set foot upon the dock, I felt a hand thrust into mine. I looked into the eyes of its owner, who introduced himself as Krishna. Employing tactics I myself used as a canvasser for Greenpeace that one ill-fated summer, he did not ask me if I wanted a guide (I did) but rather merely acted as if it were an assumption. We agreed on the short 1.5 hour tour of the Island, he outlined our itinerary and I agreed. This temple-touting is a common phenomenon here and while some travelers hate it, the historical sites have such poor signage here that I find that, even if what the touts are telling me isn’t true, it’s still more interesting than just looking at the edifices on my own. I find this especially true at religious sites where I feel an inherent ill-comfort.

The tour itself was a whir: he talked quickly, gave me time to take a picture and then abruptly moved onto the next feature. The tour, while detailed, was so rushed I barely had time to process any of the information he was feeding me. I resolved that I would simply go back to the caves to look them over again once he had finished with me. However, after the end of the hour and a half, I somehow found myself sitting in a café belonging to his brother’s sister, drinking filtered water while I paid for him to drink a rather expensive beer. Trying to keep things polite and following the rules of hospitality that I’ve learned in Kadod, I allowed him to lead me through all of this and once his beer was finished, somehow found myself agreeing to go back to the boat and go back to the mainland. On the way, the other foot fell: He wanted me to pay him 1000 rupees for the tour. And the best part? I did it! I just did not, after being led around by him for the past two hours, have the heart to haggle. He told me he thought I had a very agreeable personality. If someone gave me twenty dollars, I’d probably say that about them too.

On the boat on the way home, I kicked myself in the ambivalent way that only tourism in India inspires. On the one hand, I gave myself a good whack for being so agreeable, for worrying more about relationship management than what I wanted, which was to see the caves in detail. On the other hand, it had been an exceptionally good tour except for the pace and while I didn’t quite think it was worth the full price I paid for it, I suspected the money would go towards good use. He’d told me all about his family and his sons and his wife and how hard he’d studied to learn the six languages he does tours in. I knew at least that part was true, and if the rest of it was, then I knew he needed the money more than me.

However, just at the moment that I was feeling the most foolish, a second staple of tourism in India occurred. A man came and sat next to me. I had observed him earlier in the journey: he was sitting across the boat with his wife and his teenage son and daughter. He smiled a broad smile as he sat, and I, as wary as ever, returned it slightly less enthusiastically.

“My son…” he began. I waited. I could sense a mental struggle for the words. “Salman Khan? (a famous Indian film star)” He finished hopefully.

I smiled and replied in Hindi, “If you want to speak in Hindi, you can. I’ll understand. What do you want to say?”

He looked both surprised and relieved. “My son,” he said, “doesn’t he look like Salman Khan?” He gestured across the boat where I could see his family looking at him strangely for walking all the way across the boat to talk to the lone white girl. He gestured to his kids, who obediently came over. They sat on either side of me and began to ask me questions: where was I from? Why was I in India? How had I come to speak Hindi? The girl, 17 years old, wanted to know how I liked teaching English; the boy, 21, wanted to tell me I was pretty because I was so fair, wanted to know if I drank or smoked and wanted to compliment my Hindi. Talking to them reminded me of talking to the kids in Kadod and I enjoyed our ferry ride-cum-English lesson. They produced pictures that they had had professionally taken at Chowpatty Beach, another Mumbai landmark, the day before. I laughed as I saw the skinny son making muscles in the surf. When we arrived at the dock at India Gate, they made me take a picture with them and promise to come visit if I made it out to Madhya Pradesh. I said I would.

The whole encounter, so typical of Indian tourists I’ve encountered (minus all the conversation in Hindi, which I wasn’t really capable of the last time I lived here), really lifted my spirits as I headed towards the big outdoor market in Colaba to see if I could find some funky jewelry to bring back for some of my friends in Kadod. It was here that I hit Indian tourism staple number three…

Somewhere between the large book stall where I hungrily indulged in too many book purchases (there being no English language bookstores within four hours of where I live) and heading towards a jewelry stand I remembered glancing at the night before, I made the mistake of making eye contact with a man laden down with drums. Eye contact indicates interest and despite my heated protests in both Hindi and English, this man simply refused to believe that I was not interested in his oh-so-useful wooden drums.

“Madam!” he pleaded in broken English as he followed me. “Price usually 600 – but for you… 450 madam, 450…” I kept walking. He followed.

5 minutes later…

“Okay, madam, okay… special price, just for you. For you, only 300…” I kept walking. He followed.

5 minutes later…

“My children will not eat madam, but you will take it for 200. 200 is good price madam.”

It was no use to explain to him that I had absolutely no use for a wooden drum; that I had no one to give it to, no place to put it, no interest in playing it… all of these things were superfluous. He had decided on selling the drum, and sell it he would. I stopped to browse at a bangle shop, hoping that perhaps they stocked my size. When I emerged, dazzled slightly by so many bright colors at once, I thought briefly as I started walking that I had lost him. That is, until he jumped out at me from behind a bush.

“Okay, madam, okay. You take for 100. Last price madam. Absolute last price.”

We had reached a street crossing and I turned and looked at him seriously. I said in Hindi, “Do you know where the 103 bus picks up?” I had heard that this local bus was a good one from which to see the sights of the city and what I really needed was to sit away from con men and just think while watching pretty things go by.

He looked at me with the characteristic surprise that usually comes when I speak Hindi. “It picks up back there,” he replied simply in Hindi. “Come, I’ll show you.”

On the way, he asked me about my Hindi, I explained that I lived here, and he began, with the added vigor of now being able to speak in a language he spoke fluently, to berate me with stories of his starving children, his poor wife, their hunger, their poverty… With the sun beating down and the sweat rolling off my back and my eyes searching desperately for the bus, it was difficult to listen to what he was saying. When we reached the bus stand, I found myself agreeing to buy a drum. As I got out my wallet and handed him the hundred rupees he’d asked for, I found myself thinking I spend more than this on a daily cup of coffee in the US.

Just as I handed the bill and put out my hand to take the drum, he looked up into my eyes and said meaningfully, “Come ma’am… you must give 150 rupees at least.”

Well, I lost it. I was tired and sweaty and India-weary and so, I tried to take the money back from him as I blubbered in Hindi. I grabbed at it but of course he wouldn’t let go, and at just at that moment, the bus arrived and I ended up just grabbing the drum out of his hands and running to jump on the bus. My haphazard throwing of myself down into a seat made the conductor look at me in pity and he didn’t bother collecting my fair. Meanwhile, the drum sat heavy in my lap, branding me with idiocy for all the world to see. I glowered at it, sinking into my seat and hoping I wouldn’t have to move for some time.

The coup de grace, however, dear reader?

I’d gotten on a bus going in the wrong direction. It was a mere ten minutes before the conductor called last stop and I ended up getting off in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, as a tourist, I had an out. I merely hailed a cab and made them take me to my hotel, where I holed up for the rest of the day, vowing never to venture out into India again.

I’m hoping this next month will whip my flabby endurance back into shape. Amritsar, here I come.

Best,
Cat

P.S. I’ll be updating my blog en route as I can, though I can’t promise the usual every 2-4 days.

Swami-ji Himself

Dear dedicated reader,

It is always refreshing when our few hours outside the school each day lead to new discoveries. Our latest is perhaps our most incredible yet: in an unassuming temple quite near to our home, unbeknownst to us until now, lives a 93 year old guru. We made his acquaintance over the weekend through the family of Mr. Tailor

“Even at 93,” Mr. Tailor’s brother, Jayeshbhai, told us, “his skin is still tight. He does not seem this age. He is traveling on tour in the USA two times, all over the world he travels and all places in India. He is speaking all Indian languages, so many languages.” He listed them off on his fingers, “Marathi, Telegu, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil…all of these he is speaking. And he has the powerful command of English,” he said, waving his hand emphatically, “So he will have no trouble in talking with you.”

We nodded and listened to all this as we walked at a double pace to keep up with Jayesh’s long legs striding purposefully along towards the temple. Weighing probably 115 pounds, Jayeshbhai is easily the tallest person in town, standing at some inches over six feet tall. His long, slightly skeletal fingers are adept at the sewing which is his profession and he seems to do most of the work that his brother arranges. While his English is less confident than his brother’s, it is no less powerful, to use the Indian turn of phrase.

The day before, we had gone to pick up some saris that Melissa had dropped off earlier in the week. Since we now wear the saris daily to teach, it was necessary for her to acquire a few more so that she would have enough variety in her teaching wardrobe to please the finicky staff room. The blouses were unready, but as usual we found ourselves in happy, friendly conversation with Mr. Tailor’s whole family who all work in some capacity in the family business.

As is common practice, they brought up the personal problem of our acne, examining Melissa’s and my faces, still unaccustomed to the heat of the climate.

“Take these pills daily!” The tailor’s father told us in Hindi, brandishing a bottle that he pulled off a top shelf above the sewing machine. “Ayurvedic! They will solve ALL health problems, and clear the skin!”

Jayeshbhai piped up. “You have met my Guru? Swami-ji?” He asked.

We shook our heads.

“You want to meet him?” He asked us in his sleepily excited manner.

“Uh well…” we looked at each other, then shrugged. “Sure, that would be cool.”

“Do you want to go now?” Jayeshbhai pressed, his eyes starting to shed a little of the characteristic sleepiness. “He can cure any body problem – you will ask him about any question of the body and he can cure it. Including,” he indicated our faces, “mosquito bites.”

“Uh…” Melissa and I, simultaneously suppressing a laugh at this common Kadod diagnosis of our acne, stalled. We hesitantly gave our regrets, saying that now was probably not the best time, but perhaps another day? Jayeshbhai suggested the next afternoon at five and was happily satisfied when we agreed.

All of which is a long way of saying that this is how we found ourselves doing double time to keep up with his leggy walk towards a temple devoted to Hanuman that we had previously never seen. The approach to the temple was a dirt path leading its way through an unassuming part of the village. It was a part we had not yet encountered though we were happy to hear the reassuringly familiar cries of “Madam!” and “Teacher!” as we passed the porches and open doors of the neighborhood’s houses.

Once inside the temple, we removed our shoes and were led by Jayesh towards a door in the building which made up the outer wall of the complex. The first sensation I felt upon entering was the twitching of my nostrils in response to the overpowering smell of unwashed hair. I took a moment to recover before my eyes adjusted to the dimmed light and noted an older Indian gentleman with a long beard and high topknot sitting in the lotus position upon a cushioned bed. It was exactly as I would have imagined a guru to be found.

Jayeshbhai went before us into the presence of the guru and put his hands together in the traditional greeting gesture and bowed low, touching his forehead to the guru’s feet. “Swami-ji,” he began, “I have brought the American teachers. They are ones who seek knowledge.”

It was a surprising phrase to hear issue from Jayesh’s mouth and immediately made me question my previous estimation of his English, all the meanwhile turning over the pleasing moniker that I had just been given. “One who seeks knowledge…” I liked the sound of it.

Swami-ji motioned that we should sit and after an embarrassed ‘namaste’ of our own (that did not involve bowing or foot touching), we took a cross legged seat on a tarp on the floor in front of his bed. He asked us the usual regimen of questions: where are you from, what are you doing here, etc. I was grateful that at this moment Melissa took on the larger responsibility for communicating with this man: I, usually impetuously gregarious, for some reason found myself completely tongue-tied. I was also still a little disturbed by the smell of the room, which I was trying desperately to hide until my sensitive nose became accustomed to it. I remembered reading somewhere that your nose can become accustomed to any smell after being continuously exposed to it for three minutes and I was counting the seconds and hoping that it was true.

He and Melissa began to discuss the proper practice of yoga and he offered to let borrow his English language book, the title of which I couldn’t help but notice was “Yoga Sadhana and Magneto Therapy.” Inquiries yielded elaboration: Magneto Therapy is apparently the utilization of the body’s magnetic properties to create harmony within the body and mind. Of course.

Swami-ji elaborated. “You see, the body itself is a magnet,” he said thoughtfully. “The top of the body, or the head, is the North Side. And the bottom of the body, or the feet, is the South side.” I took this new information in skeptically as he continued. “You see, I had a woman once who came to me and said she has spent thousands of dollars on headaches. Her son was in a hostel and during the week, he was fine; but when he came home on the weekends, he was getting too many terrible headaches. The first question that I ask that woman was: in which direction does the boy sleep at night? And she tells me that he sleeps with his head facing North. You see, this will not do, because, as you know about magnets when you have to of the same pole facing each other: they repel! And it creates all sorts of problems for those who sleep and rest in that direction. So I told that woman to get her son to sleep with his head facing South or East. And he did, and he was cured. It’s a very powerful thing, the magnet of the body.”

Swami-ji continued and told us a story about a man who had come to him with recovering from a heart attack. Swami-ji instructed the man to rub an industrial sized magnet on the area just above his heart three times a day for 10 minutes to remagnetize this part of the body and increase its power. The man was fully recovered in no time at all!

I pondered these success stories as a man from the temple handed us a refreshing drink of milk mixed with 32 herbs that are, apparently, potent for the body. As I sipped at it absently, I noted that I share many a Westerner’s general skepticism for alternative therapies, but I couldn’t help but feel that it didn’t seem right to doubt them in the presence of the man who had been practicing them on satisfied patients for many years. I thought about the headaches that I sometimes get at night: was I sleeping in the wrong direction?

My thoughts were interrupted by the finishing up of the conversation between the guru and Melissa on the subject of daily yoga practice. She was thanking him for the book and it seemed that we might leave. The same awkward greeting process was once again gone through as we said our goodbyes. My shy ‘namaste’ didn’t seem to do the encounter justice: I somehow felt that we should back out of the room, heads bowed with our hands clutched in a praying gesture at our chests as a sign of respect for a man who clearly leads a life of contemplation. Jayeshbhai once again touched his head to the guru’s feet, and then we were on our way.

On the way home, Jayeshbhai asked if we wanted to borrow his ‘magneto belt.’

“Uh, come again?” was my reply.

He described it as a belt that fits snugly around his head and is filled with industrial strength magnets. “I wear it for one or two hours a day while I work,” he said confidently.

We said we’d think about it.

After we parted ways with Jayeshbhai, Melissa and I discussed candidly our spiritual encounter. We both agreed that we wanted to read the book and give it a fair trial. I was relieved to see that she felt as conflicted as I did about the power of ‘Magneto Therapy’ and both of us laughed good naturedly at the idea of wearing a ‘magneto belt’ while we went about our daily routine. The idea, along with the whole idea of the magnetized body, seemed too absurd.

However, I also noticed that we both switched the directions we were sleeping in that night…just in case.

Best,
Cat

A "Properly" Indian Classroom

Dear dedicated reader,

As it is the middle of October, I find my mind turning to my compatriots in the US, most of whom are still working on the first sixty days of the school year, the part where you use your exceptional teaching ability to establish the order and expectations and tone of your classroom that will last you the year through and are the foundation for your ability to get things done.

To my own frustration, my development in that department has been a bit delayed, having been thrown in haphazardly with no preparation as to what to expect from the school or students and no orientation about what to teach, not to mention schedule and class changes that went well into our first month here. As a result, it was difficult in those early months to set the appropriate, productive, unchaotic tone. While my novelty got me through the first few weeks, the students, intelligent as they are, have realized my deficiencies (crippling inability to speak the Gujarati, inconvenient aversion to corporal punishment) and are exploiting these mercilessly to thwart my attempts to teach them a language that some of them don’t care to learn.

In theory, my co-teacher Tabussum and I agree that hitting students is wrong (not to mention illegal, although here you wouldn’t know it), and thus I recently proposed a workable class system so we could be a more united, organized front. One of my more proud accomplishments in the past few months, aside from now being able to wrap a sari in under ten minutes, is learning the names of almost all of my 240 students. If anyone of them is misbehaving, their name goes on the board. If they are caught again, they receive a check and must come and stand at the front of the classroom. If they are foolish enough to be fooling around WHILE standing at the front of the room, it’s straight out of the classroom and to the principal’s office. Tabussum agreed to give this system a try.

As is so often the case, the gap between theory and practice remains wide. The first day of our attempt to institute the system, Tabussum arrived at the door of my class bearing a standard 12 in/30 centimeter metal ruler. As she offered no explanation for its presence, I, unaware of its purpose, began to teach my lesson and the predictable amount of side conversations began as well. I turned sharply around and raised my eyebrows into my meanest, sternest teacher face at the offending student.

After a second warning, I was about to put the name of the boy on the board when I heard a distinctive “THWACK” and turned in time to see Tabussum pulling away the metal ruler from the back of the now pained 9^th standard boy. I paused for a moment, unsure if I should continue as she went on to yell at him in Gujarati for misbehaving or stop and watch in the same fascinated manner as the rest of the class. Merely watching made me feel party to this particular method of behavior management, so I uneasily tried to continue as she, hawk-eyed, made the rounds of the benches, raising the ruler in a threatening manner anytime a student dared to even think about talking.

While I normally find our co-teaching arrangement very satisfactory, I must say that at moments like these its deficiencies become apparent. Luckily, Tabussum speaks excellent English – the first co-teacher we had, as nice and welcoming as she was, barely spoke any English at all which made coordination of teaching philosophy (or anything at all) virtually impossible. When Tabussum arrived to replace her, I was happy to learn that we both shared our idealism about what an English class could and should look like and she was pleased to inform me that Melissa’s and my teaching methods matched much more closely what she had been taught in her B.Ed program than any of the teaching that she had observed so far at government schools and she was looking forward to learning a lot more.

Under increasing pressure from the principal, however, to maintain classes that look and sound like properly Indian ones, I fear she is beginning to crack and the ruler may merely be the first indication. She recently disclosed to me that the principal approached her about the noise level coming from our ninth standard all boys class and asked her to control the classroom “properly”. I asked her why the principal did not just approach me himself: the general consensus, it seems, is that since Melissa and I are not from here, we don’t know what is to be expected and therefore can’t really help in bringing it about.

In light of these dismal expectations for my abilities, I wonder to myself how much role I *can* have in solving behavioral issues. After so much experience sorting out these things in the US, I find that my traditional leverage points (my relationship with a student, my knowledge of his/her individual goals, dreams, not to mention my relationship with his/her family and my ability to talk these things through fluently with both parties) are mooted in the face of volume and cultural appropriateness and linguistic ability. The only one remaining is my ability to create engaging, relevant (oh, educational buzzwords!) lessons that create a motivation in the student to want to pay attention.

And so, for now, I guess that’s the route I’ll continue to take.

Best,
Cat