MISSING

Last reported seen in Agonda Beach, Goa, lying
in hammock on the deck of a flimsy plywood beach hut.
If you see this man, please bring him a nice, cold Kingfisher
beer.
Identifying marks: a big grin.

Happy Holidays from Goa!



In other news from my busy life, I have just finished reading Shantaram, a really wonderful book, that i can very highly recommend, despite its 900 pages, it was truly engrossing and fantastic. There is rumor of a movie version with Johnnie Depp in a few years, if youre not the reading type...this is the summation of a great novel....

For this is what we do. Put one foot forward, and then, the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Push our hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God helps us. God forgives us. We live on.
Gregory David Roberts

Hampi

Windmills, like alien craft at night, hovering over the hillsides, white technology not expected in the Indian hinterlands, especially in so great a number. For a moment, I am an american tourist gliding through the dutch countryside in a luxury coach, in another world, another time, the world through the window glistening. Then, the old bus slams a ditch, a pothole te size of a VW, and I am lifted into the air, no seatbelts on this bus to restrain, a second of weightlessness, before gravity grips and pulls me down to earthly reality.
We pull into a tiny roadside restaurant, and the men all disembark. Its wild in this land-most of the people that you see, especially at night, are men. I have read stories about infanticide of female babies, as parents of women have to pay large dowries when their daughters are wed, which creates a hige burden on entire clans, a prohibitive burden. I wonder how this factors into what I see as I get off the bus into the cool, crisp, black Indian night.
The chef behind the single burner kerosene stove, with a single old deformed skillet at his disposal, proceeds to cook 20 different dishes for 15 different men in 17 minutes before my eyes, and I stand, in a trancelike state, in awe of his skills, mouth open, half asleep, as he churns out omeletts, chapatis, basmati rice, curries, and chai tea, hands and arms blurred in the flurry of activity. The man is a powerplant, and his energy draws me in. With a smile and a nod, I am noticed, and he continues on.
Stray trucks, brightly decorated, like gaudy spaceships thunder by sporadically in the stillness of the night.
The horn is blown, and we scramble back into the old worn government bus, leaving this small moment and place, continuing on with a hard jorney northward.

Mysore, Karnataka State 12.23

I've stumbled into a little gem, a rare moment of peace, with a nice breeze, the sounds of exotic birds whistling in my ears, and the most valuable commodity, peace and quiet. I'm sitting in the morning sun and a gunmetal bench on the fringes of the Mysore Zoo. I'm licking my festering travel wounds which have been unmercifully lashed upon me in the las few days . Ignorantly thinking that people would not make a large deal of Christmas in a land populated by Hindus and Muslims (about 94%, anyways), I set about my travel plans with the usual gusto, taking off from Goa and Gokarna some days ago, with dreams of the south in my mind. Only to realize that at least 1.1 of the 1.2 billion people of this country are now on Christmas vacation, and are traveling, and are traveling where I have been intending to travel, swarming through, booking overy room of every guesthouse and hotel, and every seat of every bus and train, leaving me with a dumbfounded glaze over my eyes. Arriving in the hill station of Madierki yesterday after a 5 hour (hard dusty bumpy) busride, I realized there was simply no rooms to be had in the entire town. After a quick bit of lunch and many phone calls, I was forced to get back on the bus for another 5 hour hard, dusty busride to Mysore. Me and the unlucky rickshaw driver who happened upon me at the bus stand visited 15 hotels, all completely booked, finally stumbling upon one place willing to rent a filthy, decrepit room with cold water coming out of a hole in the wall for the price of $15 (which is a LOT in India, let it be said). I was ready to get down and kiss the floor of this hovel, except my typhoid booster is a bit out of date.
But alas, I have managed to find a ticket on a night bus up north, in the hopes of some tranquility amongst the ruins of the ancient city of Hampi, to bide a bit of time and allow all those others who are gainfully employed to return to work and allow the rest of us to continue on in our work...
I continue, with the full realization that traveling is not vacation, there are good days and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks. Having the time and the flexibility to adapt to whatever the road throws at you is essential, and it makes me smile, sitting here on this bench, with the warm sun on my face, my moment of tranquility coming to an end with huge packs of young men in tight jeans approaching, wanting to know my name, where I'm from, and what I do (ha!).
This is India.

Some pics have been posted on picassa.....

Happy Holidays and Namaste from India.

agonda beach, goa 12.17

There are cows on the beach. This is India.
I laugh to myself. The waves are crashing in the background, they sound thundering,
no lagoon protects this coast as it did in the Pacific, in the oceans of my memory.
There is nothing subtle, nothing soft spoken about this land. Even the waves are in-your-face.
I was attempting to reason a feeling that I had the other day in Bombay, a feeling I have not felt before, a feeling of being in the middle of complete maddness, and though it was brief, I have been thinking about this feeling since it occured on the local railway in the biggest city in the subcontinent. Gregory Roberts, in his amazing book Shantaram which I am currently reading,
experienced the same rush, the same crush, in the same city, some years before...
"Bellowing threats, insults and curses, he thumped a path through the choking throng. Men fell and were pushed aside with every lift and thrust...people shouted and screamed as if they were the victims of a terrible disaster. Garbled, indicipherable announcements blared from the loudspeakers over our heads. Sirens, bells, and whistles wailed constantly. "

Me, getting onto a train, every man using every ounce of his strength to push, pull, wedge, and fight his way into the already overcrowded car. The intensity of the looks, shouts, made the car charged with energy. I, too, pushed, pulled, and fought, a second notice to my being a foreigner not being taken. When the doors closed, a calm politeness took over the railcar like a sedative. Heads nodded side to side, and courteous men ensured that I was aware of my stop. Then, the doors open, and pandemonium breaks out once again, like clockwork. The terror and politeness, crazed emotion and then civility and serenity, worked over and over again, as a microcosm of Indian life. Just enough of each to ensure that things continue on is such a land.

Udaipur, Rajasthan

Cows, dogs, pigs, goats, birds, people, monkeys, all battling for the same roadside scraps, every step of life in this land a harsh struggle for survival, every glance filled with a particular creature trying to feed an empty stomach, survive another day, to do it once more, what a burden, I wonder if or how they feel, if the burden registers if its all you've ever known.
The train rocks rhythmically, swaying side to side, early morning mist breaking over green tilled fields, a quick glance could be home, so far away, longer looks and differences are discerned, square brick hovels, ancient communist tractors, ragged power lines, weighed down by age and neglect, have they ever worked, I wonder.


Happiness is being aware of whats going on in the present moment, free from both clinging and aversion. A happy person cherishes the wonders taking place in the present moment. A cool brezze, the morning sky, a golden flower, the smile of a child. A happy person can appreciate these things without being bound by them. Understanding that all things in life are impermanent, a happy person does not get consumed by such pleasures. A happy person thus lives in ease, free from all worry and fear. Because he understands that the flower will soon wilt, he is not upset when it does.
Thich Nhat Hahn

Rajasthan pics online.... http://picasaweb.google.com/JeffreyHDow/Rajasthan

Bundi, Rajasthan

"The Palace of Bundi, even in broad daylight, is such a palace as men build for themselves in uneasy dreams-the work of goblins rather than men" Rudyard Kipling

I tuck into a book and a masala chai, aroma of lunch lofting in the air, the city below alive in the midday sun, buzzing.
Walking backwards, through blue streets, faded colors spewn like fireworks, doorways adorned, women cloaked. Children clatter, smiles, genuine smiles, practicing their simple emglish, their hellos ringing, enthusiasm in fleeting glances, the maze reverses.
The medevil fortress towering overhead warrants merely a glance, offset against this bright human landscape. I'm in a place I want to be, I smile at ease, feel in touch, feel free, unburdened, so easy to find, and stay. The bus is arriving a the station, me, crushed next to the dusty window, a small crowd around me, flexing their small English muscles, intensely happy in eachothers company, smiles and nods filling the large language gaps. I drop a few rupee coins in the blind mans silver bucket, the sound they give seems amplified, as my ears maybe hear as his for a quick moment, then he is away, boarding the bus, trying to fill his stomach , hopes high on this new morning, how hard his life must be, but still so dignified, I cannot grasp.
Walking towards the bus depot, only a name in my mind of this distant place im heading towards, overheard in a cafe some days before, taken note of, stored in the back of my mind in an afterthought. Bundi, the couple says, a special kind of place.
In Pushkar, I stroll amongst flocks of tourists, flocking liek flocks do, everyone seeming to find comfort in the Indianized version of home, minus me. The comforts do not excite or entice me, they dull, they bore, I yawn, rack my brain for somewhere to excape this tourist excape. There is a place, I remember, that sounded special. So easy to change directions when the road is home, and the only one to answer to is oneself, too easy perhaps, one can travel in circles and never arrive, but freedom is precious, one of the great attributes of the road.

"The land was sacred. but it wasnt political history that made it so. Religious myths touched every part of the land outside colonial Goa. Story within story, fable within fable; that was what people saw and felt in their bones. Those were the myths, about gods and the heroes of the epics, that gave antiquity and wonder to the eart people lived on."
VS Naipaul, India: A Million Mutinees Now

Jodphur, Rajasthan...The Blue City in The Land of Kings

One overnight train trip from Old Delhi rail station, shuddering and shaking and rocking, steel grating on steel, steam whistles and chai sellers halting dreams before they begin.
The Rajasthan countryside seen from behind the safety of tinted glass, all the same, baron, sparse vegetation, concrete bunker houses scattered, Indians seeming to not care for the asthetics of archetecture, at least since Independence, function over beauty I suppose is the mindset of limited means.
The Blue City, the old town of Jodphur, houses of the Brahmin (priestly) caste painted in an ocean blue, as to provide an oasis for the eyes in an otherwise bleak atmosphere. Narrow alleyways, the blues of homes offset against the vivid reds and yellows of saris, womens passing like floating apparitions, eyes struggling to absorb , a feast for the senses. Towering impossibly above, carved into a sheer sandstone bluff in 1459 by the ruling Maharaja of the time, Meheranagh Fort, a marvel. Protected for hundereds of years against invading hordes by sheer 200ft walls, still standing watch proudly over its city. My first taste of Rajasthan, the Land of Kings, is color, everywhere, even the desert shades of brown, offset against the Muslim prayer calls echoing through the city, blazingly bright, hauntingly beautiful.
Photos in Picassa.
http://picasaweb.google.com/JeffreyHDow/Rajasthan

Varanasi

There is no escape from the hecticness of India. Entering the miniscule , overstaffed, and underfunded Varanasi International Airport to find every flight on the ancient scoreboard-type
flight list to be delayed or cancelled. Luckily, mine is only a delay. I will arrive in Delhi tonight, with fingers crossed. Other Westerners enter, dumbfounded at the scene of chaos that soon unfolds before their eyes. I sit and smile. This is India.

Kites, like birds, flew over the city at dusk, peering down at the maze of the old city, silence up in the heavens, masking the commotion unfolding below.
Varanasi was a wonderful place, and I am grateful that I made this pimgrimage, like so many other pious Hindus, even if just to observe. It was neither as scary nor dirty nor chaotic as I was prepared for; there was serenity to be found on the banks of the Ganges, as well as many kind locals, their religiosity shining through in actions and white smiles. This was a holy city, and I felt it in every step, every narrow passage leading to an obscure shrine, the constant ringing of temple bells from above and below, the omnipresence of holy men and barefoot colorful pilgrims. But it is the calm peace of the Mother Ganges that I will take with me in my mind; even though choked by putrid filth, it shone of a cleansing quality evades rational thought.
This is India.
I've put Varanasi pics on my picassa site, take a look.
Namaste.

Varanasi

For Hindus, Varanasi (Benares) is the holiest place on earth, and the chosen home of the Hindu god Shiva. Those who die in Varanasi are guaranteed Moksha, or liberation from the cycle of death an rebirth, no matter what they may have done in their lifetimes. Thousands come daily to bathe in the sacred waters of the Ganges (Mother Ganga). For many devout Hindus, a visit to Benares is roughly akin to the Muslim Haj to Mecca. Around the city, dead bodies are a common sight, delivered to the roaring funeral pyres with the traditional chant, "Ram Nam Satyi Hai."
The Buddha came to Sarnath, on the outskirts of Benares, 2500 years ago to preach his first sermon after attaining allightenment under the Bodyi tree. He delivered his sermon in what was a thriving North Indian trading town on the banks of the Ganges. Benares is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, an imensely intense and enchanting maze of narrow alleyways filled with cows and small shops emptying out at the numerous Ghats spread along the river. Its sights and sounds and smells never cease to amaze.
I am back in India.
What a wild place.
My third time, but it always feels like the first.
Sitting in the back of a cycle rickshaw, the old man in rags peddling the last few kilometers through the dense early morning fog towards the Nepali-Indo border post. It feels like the most desolate place in the world in this early morning chill. Figures appear like ghosts out of the thick white soup, cloaked in homespun cloth, heads down, shielding from the cold. A hazy orange globe rising over the derelect border crossing marking the dawn of a new day, a new adventure, a new experience. Faces get browner and leaner, the stares more intense, it seems, at ever step I take. The usual border grime is omnipresent; why border towns in most of the world attract filth and scum I do not know, but this place is no exception. I walk on.
It hits like a hammer, the intensity of the stares, makes me suddenly bashful, forgetting this is the norm now. There are people, swarming, everywhere, everywhere you look, surounding everything you see, a great swelling mass of humanity at every glance. This place defies every Western notion of existence at every step, every move, everything is alive, laid bare for you to observe, no cloaks, no mirrors, just life. Stifling, overwhelming, beautiful, fascinating.