c'est étrange, etre ange

i am dancing to keep warm and i am dancing to keep my spirits up and, as a by-product, my dancing is attracting the attention of the motorists.  i am listening to colin steele's the journey home on the mp3 player colin gave me, and that makes dancing a very natural thing for me to do.  i remember doing a lot of roadside jigging when i was 19 when i was hitching for the first time.  it surprises me now to think about that because, if it wasn't for the warmth and the spirits up, i would probably prefer to adopt a more sedate posture now, for the sake of the sedate drivers who might not find themselves instantly identifying with sympathising with such a bopping roadside figure.  it is good for me to think about how others see me before i decide how to behave.  yes, mp3 gives instant access to the musical inspiration of others, but creating music oneself - ah, singing - is fundamental.  it is filling the air with vibrations of good cheer and hope. 

seek ye first the kingdom of God,
and his righteousness
and all these things shall be added unto you,
allelu-alleluya...
man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word,
that proceeds from the mouth of God,
allelu-alleluya...
ask and it shall be given unto you,
seek and ye shall find.  
knock and the door shall be opened unto you,
allelu-alleluya.

i love to sing these words.  they wonderfully affirm my faith and...si tu demande avec un coeur pur, Dieu te donnera.  is that true?  yes, it is called manifestation, people tell me.  one can cause things to happen through the heartfelt appellation of a limpid will.  later on, i say to alex:  oui, mais je doute si Dieu veut écouter ma petite volonté, quand je sais que je me trompe souvent. je veux dire:  est-ce que je sais vraiment ce qui est bon pour moi? et pour les autres? en lieu de dire "je veux cela, je sais ce qui est bon pour moi" je préfere dire, "que ta volonté soit faite"

"ah, c'est magnifique écouter cela", me dit Alex, avec son grand sourire,   que ta volonté soit faite, alex repeats in a slow enlightened whisper, as if he had just found the solution to some longstanding conundrum.   
Stephanie is in no doubt that it was my prayer to the Universe which caused our paths to cross: j'arrete pas souvent pour les autostoppeurs, tu sais?  mais là, au moment quand je t'ai vu, je savais que je devais m'arreter.  il n'y avait pas de question.
mon cri avait été:  ahhhh, il fait froid, je veux faire de la route.  je veux rencontrer des bonnes personnes.  aide-moi, Dieu...si tu veux....que ta volonté soit faite
j'ai cri aussi:   ahhhh, je suis petit.  je ne sais pas où aller. montre moi le bon chemin, bon Dieu...que ta volonté soit faite.
c'etait tellement beau a Sisteron, j'ai dit a Stephanie. il y avait beaucoup des personnes sympas sur les rues, et qui m'ont parlé dans le marché.  et puis ce grand parois rocheux qui se leve a l'autre cote de la vallee.  c'était magnifique.  
c'est toi qui fait que tout ça soit beau, elle m'a dit.  c'est toi qui cherche la beauté partout.  c'est toi qui a decidé que nous alliez nous rencontrer.  
alors...moi je tourne ici.  si tu veux venir avec moi, je vais passer le weekend chez mon amie corinne.  il y auraient aussi les enfants - ils viennent chaque weekend.  corinne et moi nous sommes comme des soeurs.  elle est magnifique; une femme toujours remplie de joie et de bonne énergie. et de la force aussi; elle a eu pas mal de contretemps dans sa vie.  elle habite dans une maison qui elle-meme a construit entourée des forets et de campagne.  c'est un endroit magique.  
c'est incroyable, je l'ai dit.  justement je me posait la question: ou est-ce que je vais dormir ce weekend? j'allais visiter mon amie marie qui habite pas loin de grenoble, mais elle va etre a paris ce weekend, alors: oui je serais enchanté de venir avec vous.  

my housemates were so surprised when i told them you were going back up to the waterfall to sleep last night, said marie.  clemence said that before she thought that i was crazy, but that now i seem normal in comparison!  they could never imagine somebody wanting to do that.
it is the humidity which you'll have to watch out for if you sleep near la grande cascade, said ludo. for that reason i lit a big log fire, big long sleeping logs being awakened into yellow flame by the glowing bed of red embers keeping me warm all night.  they fascinated me.  i slept very little.  i lay back and listened to the cold slap of the graceful cascade on the glassy rocks. i was protected by the mossy big boulders. i looked into the universe of the Fire and watched the crimson sparks dancing capriciously up to the naked branches of the trees. i read up to page 137 of Jean Giono's que ma joie demeure, a beautiful poetic-prose elegy to the web of Nature and the simple life in the countryside and the warm relationships between the people.  and the Joy of Life, and the joy of the language, the gracefulness of the old french verbs, which one never hears in conversations, but which capture the meaning with melodious finesse, slowly understood by me through constant ferreting in a little pocket dictionary. 
maire loves to write stories.  she has many projects involving going into schools, going into libraries, going on the radio, and telling stories.  in the library they want my stories to have a christmas connection, says marie, but i don't know how to...christmas is a polyvalent concept, i reflect. first of all it was the christians who loved to celebrate the birthday of jesus, the coming of light and joy and hope into the world. that was mixed with the midwinter wish to get together and celebrate warm times together.  warmth and happiness.   ho ho ho, merry christmas!  and where did the idea of santa claus come from?  father christmas, who is he?  christmas is also an excuse for the people of commerce to sell everything they can, wrapping it up in the package of family warmth vocabulary.   brrrrr, don't want to participate in none of their flashy guileful pricetags.
so why do you want to live with us?
well, first of all i love the songs that you sing.  everytime i pass through france i feel this attraction to come here, even just for a few days.  it feels like i am recharging my batteries with an essential faith in life and the perception of its goodness.  the words are very faith-affirming.  often, when i am travelling, when i am doubting, when things are not easy, i sing the songs to myself and they restore my faith.  
i know it is a different experinece to visit taizé for a few days or a week, compared to living here on a longer term and working as a volunteer.  i am very attracted by getting to know the community better.  i am very interested in living in community.  i know that one learns so much through sharing with other people, and i would really like to spend some time here with the brothers and the other volunteers and to learn together.

well, we recommend that anybody who wants to come stays initially for one month, so, if you wanted to come maybe for the month of april?  write to me in march and i can let you know what you need to know then.  we will be busy in april. lots of people come for easter.


fiez-vous en Lui, 
ne craignez pas, 
la paix de Dieu gardera vos coeurs, 
fiez-vous en Lui
alleluia, alle-luu-huu-yaa


l'ajuda em vindra del Senyor,
del Senyor, el nostre Deu
que a fet el cel i la terra
el cel       i la terra!


Jesus le christ, lumière intèrieure,
ne laisse pas mes ténèbres me parler


from taize i sent a postcard to corinne saying:
c'est la famille et les amis que donne la bonheur aux gens,
et puis, pour ceux qui voyagent, c'est les personnes sympas qu'on rencontre sur la route.
et puis, quand l'on est seul, c'est le souvenir de toutes les bonnes personnes  - leurs yeux souriants, leur sourires - que font que le moment soit tout beau


la matiére - said alex - c'est l'ame a terre, tu vois?  tu sais que lucifer a été jeté du ciel parce que il voulait avoir tous les pouvoirs de Dieu? nous sommes tous des petit lucifers.  lucifer etait un ange - il est un ange, et nous aussi.  nous sommes tous rempli de lumière - ca c'est notre essence.   afin que lucifer regagne le ciel il faut que michel-ange lui met son épée par sa bouche, jusqu'au centre de son corps.  c'est pour ca qu'il faut toujours s'assoir avec le dos droit, pour que l'épée de saint-michel nous entre et nous libère toute la lumière que est en nous.  enfin, ce ce que quelqu'un m'a raconté.

c'est etrange, etre ange.
its strange to be an angel.

i thought alex was perhaps a weirdo when he first stopped for me in his dishevelled van, wearing a dirty leather jacket, fresh dried blood scars on his forehead and a fearless guileless look in his eyes.  i am glad i trusted them.  he was a circus performer and had spent years travelling all round europe, mexico and russia with his own circus company.  j'ai vécu un peu de temps sur les rues, he told me, en belgique.  j'ai quitté la maison de mon pere alcoolique quand j'etais encore jeune.  pendant un temps j'etais perdu, mais après je me suis rendu compte que rien ne me serait donné dans cette vie et que c'était moi-meme que devrait la construire.  alors, j'ai commencé a jongler sur les rues.  je suis avant tout un artist.  je sais que je dois toujours suivre mon coeur, meme si les gens pense que je suis fou.  si je tombe amoureux de quelqu'un, il faut que je la suis jusqu'au bout.  ahhh, peut-etre c'est toi....
je cherche quelqu'un qui parle anglais pour traduire une lettre d'amour.  je faisait un spectacle a saint petrebourg l'annee dernière et la j'ai connu une femme que ne parle pas du francais.  moi, tu vois, je parle pas un mot d'anglais.  mais je sais que elle ressent le meme pour moi - on a communiqué tout avec nos yeux, sans besoin des mots.  tiens, voici la lettre.  tu me rendrà un grand service si tu la traduissait a l'anglais.  je t'invite a un café quand on arrive à macon.  ah, je savais que quelqu'un allait venir, mais je savais pas qui, ou quand.
ca serà avec grand plaisir, je l'ai dit.  his little letter was such a simple almost childlike expression of amorous heartfilled guileless longing.
que ta volonte soit faite - c'est genial ça.
on m'a dit que mon coeur est pur, mais j'ai encore du travail a faire pour le realiser pleinement.  tu sais que j'etais un punk quand j'était plus jeune?   en cet époque, je n'aurais jamais pensé que je deviendrais mystique.  maintenant je realise que il faut pas combattre contre les autres.  je sais maintenant que mon chemin est celui de la lumière - qui est l'amour.

it is our task on earth to go beyond our materiality and realise that pure light is our essence, says alex at the wheel of his van.
 
may this bread - which is the body of Jesus - transform us, washing away all our sins, says the taizé brother in the church.

may the energy of this food be transformed into Love, in our actions and words, says lavanya in her south london flat.

voices

sono appena arrivato in francia e non ho que voglia di parlare in italiano. manaia ma guarda un po' come sono grandi i grattacieli di monaco - esagerati! - sembra che quasi quasi vogliano raggiungere l'altezza di quel monte che si alza dietro, maestuoso e roccioso.  che fortuna trovare questo bel giardino da dove contemplare i colori squisiti del tramonte mentre sotto suona il frastuono delle onde fredde che si sbattono contra le roccie.  un giardino privato - vietato di entrare - maché! ma si la casa è vuota! non é guisto possedere un giardino cosi grande e bello e vietare agli altri di ci entrare. cierto, loro che entrano devono rispettare il posto e le sue belle piante.  io vorrei solamente un posto tranquillo dove dormire, fare un piccolo fuoco. meno male che c'é questo gran pino che offre riparo dal vento.  moi je suis bavarde.  ah oui, je parle avec tout le monde moi - tant qu'eux ils veuillent parler avec moi, bien sûr.  si ils s'en foutent alors moi aussi je m'en fous, eh.  c'est vrai que il y a des conards qu'il vaut mieux ne pas connaître.  je me sens toujours protégée avec lulu.  il est grand, eh?  mais il ne ferait du mal a personne.  c'est juste sa présence qui me fait sentir protegée. des fois il me disent de l'attacher quand je passe.  je le fait.  peut-être qu'ils ont eu une mauvaise expérience avec un chien une fois. des fois ils se fachent contre moi.  ils savent pas que tu es tout gentil, eh lulu?  ah, une fois que tu commence a lui lancer la balle de tennis, il ne te laisserà jamais!  il est très enjoué.  allez, on vous laisse terminer votre picnic.  bonne promenade!  it is not chance that you came to the library, that we met, that we are talking now.  everything happens the way because it must happen that way.  things will have to change radically as we enter the Fifth Dimension - i don't know if you are familiar...  we have to move away from the age of consumerism - and money transactions - and enter the age of Relationships.  even though i am sleeping on the streets at the moment - which makes it seem difficult for me at times - i am here for a very specific purpose.  i am waiting; i am receiving instructions from The Mother; Nice is going to become one of the centres of the time bank scheme - maybe you know about that?  it is not going to be easy.  the local council here is very conservative here.  they are supposed to provide a certain proportion of affordable housing; if not they have to pay a fine - but they prefer to pay the fine, and keep the property prices high.  people are generally either very rich or very poor here.  and there are poor people; i honestly don't know how they manage it - those who earns the minimum wage, not to mention those who work illegally - if they are lucky to find any work at all.  all these immigrants you see - non, la biblioteque est fermé madame; vous voyez, c'est écrit sur la porte. il va ouvrir à quatorze heures - these immigrants come thinking it will be easy to earn money, but it is actually very difficult...salut mon coco, c'est moi.  on vient de passer aix-en-provence, donc on arriverà peut-etre vers sept heures; d'ailleurs on serà en trois - on a pris un autostoppeur écossais sur la route.  il est cool quoi, il est jeune, il voyage...mais non, je rigole pas; je suis sérieux! bah, on peut pas le laisser passer la nuit dehors comme ça avec ce froid...non, je suis sérieux, tiens écoute ta soeur - anna, dis-la que c'est vrai.
- oui, manon, c'est vrai, on a pris un autostoppeur!

chissa scrissa

 ...in questa terra tormentata e bella e calda e ospitale e gentile e luminosa

email di fabri

Scrissa was the imagined ideal place, where the olive trees were old and gnarly and where we could return to the roots of the sacred silent places. not a sound of a car in sight; the land rolling down to the distant sea; at our backs a wall of rock rising up into the deep wild woods and mountains of the Aspramonte. we imagined spending a week up there cooking over olive branch fires and sleeping under the stars.  "chissa se andremmo a scrissa?" was the eternal question; the uncertainty but the longing for a good scrissa future.  who knows if we will go to scrissa? in the end scrissa eluded us.  i got a phone call from fabrizio this morning saying that he was still thinking about heading up there himself sometime, taking some time to be with himself and reflect about things.  i began to feel that my time picking olives was up.  i wanted to begin heading back north anyway, even before the big argument between fabrizio and gisella.

surprising, but the olive tree is not as strong as you might think.  the branch was about the width of my arm.  it was a young branch.  it wasn't an old dry one.  it was fresh and green - seemingly strong - but when your weight pushes it down when it is far from the central trunk. .  . crack!  it was only two or three metres. that big long ramified branch came crashing to the ground, bringing lots of olives and opening up that side of the tree.

"potatura zen", says fabri with a grin.

the zen way to prune.

i am not so concerned when a crunching splintering sound reaches my ears while fabri reverses the jeep.  the man from the olive presser runs out to retrieve my mangled glasses.  i prefer to see them mangled than to lose them, i tell him. when i loose them i am always aware of their ironic irrecuperableness, ever shadowed however by the gleaming possibility of their recuperation.

in the olive grove at the table at lunchtime, a car drives past and beeps the horn at us.

who is that? if it is him, fabri growls, i will hit him with a stick. 

why? i said.
apparently he had saluted fabrizio the other day, addressing him as un pezzo di merda, or some such derogatory term.  it can be considered a friendly way to salute each other here, says fabri, but fabri was having none of it.
but why would you retaliate? i ask.  how will responding to an insult with an insult help?  if you are strong and confident in yourself, then no-one can insult you, however hard they try.

people use a different language here to communicate, glowers fabri.  for example, if a scotsman were to come to the village and open a restaurant, at some point someone would come and ask him for money.  if he didn't comply, he would suffer the consequences.  that is one of the reasons why there are practically no tourist facilities along this beautiful coast. the mafia.  the newspaper showed us a photo of the damage done by fire to the museum of historical instruments in reggio calabria.  plenty old instruments burned and plenty old books too.  why would anybody do that?  fabri and giz are in no doubt that it was the hands of the mafia.  some sort of personal grudge with someone associated with the museum? i speculate.  who can know the macchinations of the mafia? says gisella.  (in words to that effect)
not two weeks previously, when i had met up with finlay and fabri in reggio calabria, we spent an afternoon sitting in the sun drinking beer outside that museum, waiting for it to open - which it didn't.

finlay left for poland.  why do you want to go to poland? fabri had asked him.  especially at this time of year when it is cold up there and warm and sunny here in calabria and you can still swim in the sea? however, i can understand his choice of the cold northern winter. at least the simple action of firmly choosing his own path. whatever cold lessons will be learned there will be learned there.

i have arrived at francesca's house, tucked between the steep sides of a little rocky olive tree valley near rossano. it is a beautiful place she has created, full of art - terracotta sculptures and paintings on the wall and the plants grow with an uncommon radiant beauty.  you walk into the greenhouse and the grand rows of lettuce and broccoli  and pumkins shine greenly strongly slowly vigorously sweetly fascinatingly i don't know how to describe the experience of being with those plants.  

last night we had a french supper.  anything anyone said had to be in french.  maia had missed her french class that afternoon, so we had to help her to recuperate. "bon appetit" everyone says as francesca serves us plates of steaming creamy pasta.  ils sont bons, maia remembers from her workbook.  bons.  i tell her she has to speak through her bon nose.  we pinch our noses with our bon finger and thumb with a view to growing bon accustomed to bon speaking through our noses.   bon bon bon.     ils sont bons.

travel to south italy

rolled into rome i knew it was time to visit my old favorite park and make a bed among the trees and feel the deep rolling peaceful vibrations which roll among the trees that rise tall and strong into the night air.  the next day i am picking the topmost leaves of the pathside nettles with a view to making an onion and garlic and nettle sauce with pasta over a fire up in the woods up over there when eva stops with her little white poodle dog and asks if the nettles do not sting and whatever response i give her makes her wonder if i am from spain, with my slight tendency to use spanish vocabulary.  she tells me that everybody behaves like robots and is, in fact, robots, didn't you know? aliens came and mixed their DNA with the DNA of apes, and made us. some of us have more ape DNA than others and we feel stronger the connection to the earth.  i am shirtless and shoeless and picking nettles and it reminds eva of the life in costa rica where people live freely in nature and not like the robots here who go to work clocking in at a certain hour then clocking out then going home and watching the telly or taking a beer until the next day going to work clocking in and out and so on.  They have fear of us who are free and can think for ourselves.  you know that only about 30% of us have souls?  that is what they want to steal from us - our souls.  if they ever come and ask you to come with them, say no!  just sit still and meditate.  the earth is your home.  they want to control us more and more.  soon they will implant a microchip next to people's skulls. we must remain free. just keep doing what you are doing.  ciao.   i didn't quite know what response to give to this, but now, looking back, i wished i had asked her how she knew all these things, at least to have expressed to her my doubting stance, but anyway, i thought she was right about people behaving like robots while walking through the streets of rome the next day, observing the men walking hurridly in elegantly cut suits while talking irritatedly into mobile phones.  i wondered if it was indeed inevitable destiny that intelligent ape had wanted to continue making life more and more comfortable with new technological know-how and had thus resulted in this modern civilisation with its intricate network of motorway tarmac nodes and service stations where hurried motorists stride into the shop and do not have time or sociability to listen to tall bearded man who wants to get a lift to italy.  i detected a fear in their evasive eyes.  not a real fear, but a complete unwillingness to engage with a stranger, with something unknown, it is inevitable that i shave my beard off and cleanly-shaven, meet the chilean lorry driver who is happy to give lifts as long as the person is able to speak spanish.  a good honest simple chilean lorry driver to whom i could make comments like que hermosa la luna llena grande y bianca que se alza por encima del mare, he thought europe was alright for making money but now when it comes to openness towards your neighbours, each one returning home to remain enclosed within their own house.  the piece of advise he gave to me was to find a wife sometime soonish, because travelling around like you do is okay for a while, but there is nothing worse than growing old alone.  the cyprus trees rising into the sky like powerful peaceful shooting green flames and soft pastel colours everywhere welcomed me to the mediterranean climate, the warm air, the fashionably dressed young men driving past and waving to the young women with shiny fashionably flirting long hair.
it is now the time of the olive, time to extend the nets beneath the beautiful old olive trees and comb the branches with a long little rake and make all the olives fall, both the mature black and the young green ones, they will go to the frantoio olive presser and be pressed into green fresh fragrant new olive oil to be poured over pasta with a tomato and basil paste, accompanied by a fresh new red wine, young and youthful and fresh and red and containing the joy of life.  olives, the south of italy, the warm october sun releases the thick perfume from the minty herbs, ah, the misty peaceful moon hanging recently risen over the shining silver midnight sea, finlay playing the guitar gently in the room while buon appetito ragazzi, the pasta is ready. soft and steaming and bathed in new olive oil, its tomato sauce, washed down with new young fresh wine.

abundant automnal romania

it is autumn in romania and nature is giving abundantly.  nature gives and gives and gives and people take the cue from her; the neighbours stop by alina's garden gate bearing squash and mushrooms and alina laughs and adds the mushrooms to the already large pile from our own woodland excursion.  that evening we eat with relish a pan full of moist softened salty seasoned mushrooms.  we ask the apple tree if we can pluck some of her red apples from her bending branches; she laughs and throws them rolling across the grass and we dedicate the day to eating them, sliced with honey or softened and sugared into compot or soft and halved and boiled and the water spiced with cloves and cinnamon and drunk with honey with gusto, with gusto and honey, with honeyed gusto.  gypsy boys from the gypsy village come riding horses and make their horses turn round and round in circles, then gallop off.  their fearless voices and laughter ring throughout the woods.  they hang around us, asking us questions directly and unabashedly.   they ask if i am a priest and call me parinte - father - because of my monkish beard.  one gypsy in the street in bucharest had asked me if i was jesus, "you look just like jesus" he insisted, with big open honest eyes; "i believe that you are jesus," he declared, and asked ioana: "do you believe that he is jesus?"  "if you really believe that then it is so," said ioana, while i bowed to him regally.  cip tells me that for many years gypsies were despised and trodden upon and actually used as slaves by the romanians, before being attempted to be exterminated in the second world war.  "these days it is a big question: how to integrate the gypsies into mainstream society?" cip tells me. "they do not want to belong to society.  if any problem arises among them, they will deal with it themselves rather than calling the police."  it is a question.  many people call it a problem, and several people grimly admited to me that they hated the gypsies.  all they do is steal and beg, and they are chronically dishonest.  the barrier of wariness and distrust can be read clearly in their eyes.   of course all groups of people share differences as well as similarities.  what cip admires in the gypsies is their freedom, their unalloyed fidelity to a life of freedom outwith the bounds of mainstream society.  "i think that the gypsies lead happier lives than most of us" says cip.  ioana tells me about the film latcho drom, a purely artistic film, without any dialogue or linear storyline as such, simply showing images from groups of gypsies in india, turkey, romania, czech, france, spain, and, particularly, showing the beautiful music they make.  each shot has been composed with a big focus on aesthetic appeal.  ioana says that when she went to rajastan, she understood instantly that the people there shared the same roots as the gypsies in romania.  one night we watched this youtube version of the film, despite it being kinda jumpy between scenes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weYhYy5u26Y  cip asks the gypsy boys to sing a song for him and one of them does so with real feeling, sitting on the grass holding his heart.  afterwards cip gives him a coin.  the other boy stands apart and remains cocky.  he sings a little song but with a tone of aloof mocking in his voice.  cip gives him a lesser coin.   the boy stands there cracking walnuts open and popping them in his mouth.  it is the first time that i see walnuts growing on the tree.  they are enveloped in a hard green shell which i thought was an apple when i first saw them.  as the days go by, the shell dries up and splits open and the walnuts fall onto the ground.  ioana and i spend hours beneath one stately walnut tree near aurora, filipa and claudian's new place; up in the wild and wooded sweeping rolling countryside south of hunedoara.  filipa envisages winter hours sitting by the fire cracking them open.  she says that during winter it is natural for us to slow down and rest and reduce our activities.  i climb up and shake all the branches and we fill three big potato sacks; hundreds of walnuts, probably thousands which the tree gives and gives year after year. he gives thoughtlessly, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, shrugging the walnuts negligently from his shoulders, he gives wantonly, abundantly, laughing silently at the wanton abundance of it all.  what wealth!   how fortunate is the person who wanders beneath those boughs at that time of year.  i have the distinct impression that romania is a blessed land where nature prepares extra specially rich things amidst her peaceful old woods.  one thing is true about romania, ioana says, :the people eat well.  nature is the source of all food and so if she is healthy and happy then the food will be good.



a comment we sometimes heard while hitchhiking was: yes, romania is a beautiful country.  it is just a pity that it is inhabited by romanians.  a corrupt government, corruption part of many institutions, the cheapest road company is contracted to make the roads; they make them cheaply, yes, and shoddily, so that in three years they will have to come back and remake them and be repaid.  it is autumn in romania.  we arrived a little too late in the season to be able to wander around the glacial lakes near the transalpina - the high winding mountain road which traverses part of the southern carpathian mountains and, with the pass above 2,000m, making it the highest road in romania.  a vehicle with open space at the back stops and tells we can climb on if we really want.  "it is cold you know, there is snow at the top of the pass"  we are happy just to be moving and feeling the wind around us.  it is raining and we cover ourselves with my plastic sheet.  as the vehicle winds uphill, the rain turns to sleet.  the famous beauty of the transalpina: all we can see is swirling mist; my toes and hands feel incrementally colder.  "are you still okay there?" the driver stops and asks.  we laugh because we are cold and because all we see of the famous beauty is the swirling mist and because we are travelling on the back of somebody's car.  as we go down the other side we feel incrementally warmer and we smile because of the mist parting and revealing the beautiful steep conifer clad hillslopes.  it begins to really rain; it turns out that it is not really the day for being outside in the beautiful mountains.  we allow our lift-giver to buy us some sweet swirling bread, coated in sugar and spices and baked around rotating bars suspended above the embers by a laughing woman under the shelter of her roadside shelter.  it is a traditional hungerian thing.  it reminds ioana of the way i make bread wrapped around sticks held over the embers.  our lift-giver turns out to be a generous laid-back easy-going easy to be with type who owns lots of local land and who is saluted as "domnul preşedinte" by the sellers of mushrooms and the other people we pass at the side of the road.  it is really raining and mr president becomes happy to make space for us inside his car.  he is showing his two friends - a happy equally easy-going couple from bucharest - the area, and we end up joining the tour, taking photos of each other next to the big abandoned hotel overlooking the rainy lake and the rainy forest.  we end up sharing a meal with them at a rural pensiune owned by a friend of mr president.  the owner eats with us too.  he is mystified by ioana"s vegetarian choice.  i eat the steak and the chips and the local speciality of plump little beef sausages eaten with mustard sauce, while a big plate of fried mushrooms is prepared for ioana.  we all drink the local zuica - a clear sweet spirit distilled from fruits - and more than one bottle of wine is opened.  we sit around as evening steals over the wooded slopes outside the window.  a big noisette icing covered cake is brought out and we say many happy returns to the woman from bucharest, whose birthday will be that monday.  in the end we tell mr president that we will be happy to put the tent up somewhere in the woods, that we are used to doing that, but he shows us to a nice room with a nice hot shower and we all shake hands and wave as they drive off.  we would have been happy to sleep in the woods, but that hotel room came as a pretty nice surprise.  spontaneously offered unto us by the road and the generosity of its travellers.  ample scope for good feelings,there, abetted by the funky reggae music, as long as it is done for the love of music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX0VjtwBRM8

uniţi, salvam roşia montana

that night we were going to go leave bucharest in cip's car, but in the end we went round to see cynthia's new garden and ended up staying there with her parent's and her ninety year old grandmother and eating from a table spread with garden salad and something called galuşte cu prune - a speciality of cynthia's father - made by first boiling potatoes, then mashing them, then mixing them with flour, then covering plums with the resultant paste, cooking the resultant plum balls in boiling water and, finally, coating them with fried breadcrumbs and eating them with blueberry jam ay que interesante.

in the end

we heard there were 15, 000 protesters that day who had been marching round the streets of central bucureşti since four pm.  later that evening we cycled there to check it out.  a big central roundabout had been completely occupied by milling grinning young people, some walking around, others sitting down, some playing the bongos, others dancing.   for me, the protest belonged to the new experience of being in bucureşti, which was new in its entirety to me, but cynthia told me how unique such a protest was, how overwhelmed she felt by the fact that so many people had come out to occupy the streets.  it is a protest against the upcoming roşia montana mine, but it is more than that.  it is a gesture of solidarity, connecting the people who do not want to accept whatever the government and the media and the corporate voices say, people who want an alternative way of doing society.  

see how almost everyone is young, desirous of breaking moulds, seekers of alternative ways?  ioana says 80% of the mainstream media is controlled by corporations in romania.  so on the same day the protesters turned out in such large numbers, one news channel made no mention of it, but instead gave half an hour's coverage to the football match that day between hungary and romania.  everybody makes protest plans via facebook.  that sunday it was said that everybody should bring a parent along to the protest.  

the protest.  a novel experience for everyone.  lots of people walking around with cameras, snapping photos left and right, here and there.  people are on the street, playing drums.  the rhythm is bold, unmistakably one of protest.  after a few hours, the rhythm has been internalised, and one nods one's head in time.  one looks at other people shaking plastics bottle filled with pennies, people grin to each other, reinforcing our united stance of wanting to save roşia montana.  sometime after midnight the police surround us and slowly slowly advance, asking us firmly but respectfully - the voice of reason - to move over there a little bit; finally cars begin to circulate again.  to the very end, when all others have all but gone, there remains one ecstatic man standing on the road waving a huge romanian flag in the air, lost in the swaying glee of the task.

bucurești

this is the casa poporolui - the house of the people - built by the communist leader ceaușescu, the biggest building we have in bucurești, with hundreds of rooms, most of them unused for anything besides the political party's uses.  it is said to be impossible to capture on any one photo; round the other side it has a completely different aspect.  one little part of the building is used for a museum of modern art - we can go and visit it if you want - and sometimes they hold parties there.

later we join the protest against the government's decision to allow a mining company to dig for gold and destroy an area covering four mountains in transylvania, evicting the tenants and using inordinate quantities of cyanide in the process.  romania came out of fifty years of communism only in 1989 and romanians are still learning how to protest.  there is a wall of policemen, preventing us from leaving the piatsa universitati and occupying the streets.  they all look so young, so open-eyed, as if they don't know what will come next or what they will do about it.  there are young people milling everywhere, speaking on mobile phones, coordinating encounters; the ferment of action is in the air.  people are chanting protests, holding up slogans, waving big romanian flags, hitting plastic bottles against the ground.  someone has brought a bongo drum.   i feel somewhat bewildered by the milling energy.  ioana says it always takes her a few days for her energy to adapt to the city after a period away.  i like to see the women looking determined and decisive and participating boldly in public life.  people are milling with intent while i feel as tired as a dog.  lets cycle back.  the city air smells of pastries from bakeries and exhaust fumes being belched on the street and cigarette smoke in the park and cooking meat and oil from the apartments.

the next night there is reggae in the piața which turns out to be a man making noises into a microphone and hands being raised.  none too impressive.  lets stay with the protesters.  one street has been occupied now by hundreds of chanting protesters, those spinning about on bikes, those sitting down peacefully.   when we try and leave the piața, every exit is blocked by a line of policemen.  they have prevented us from spilling onto the bigger streets by trapping us in this one confined street.   it is getting late and we want to head back and how can they prevent the free movement of people in the city like this?  well, actually, it was us the protesters who wanted to disturb the free movement of the streets.  yes  but we want to go home now.  the policemen blocks my passage, looks at me defiantly and asks: unde vrei sa mergi?  i return their determined looks.  ioana tells them that she needs to use the toilet and that she lives far from here, and they let us past.  mulțumesc!  they are actually pretty decent, those policemen.   it is like a game of cat and mouse, each one trying to foresee and outwit the others's tactics.   now on the big avenue in front of the imposing casa poporului others have gathered and occupied the street.  police cars now direct the traffic elsewhere.  they cannot drive on this street because a large crowd is sitting on it.  let us sit with them for a while.  uniți, salvam, roșia montana.  others on their bikes spin round and round, the chant goes round and round and unites everyone, binding everyone in solidarity in their protest.  there is a good atmosphere, people are together on the street which is normally reserved for traffic.  people raise their free voices.  some people are dancing. united we will save roșia montana we chant - even though the governement has already given the mining company permission.   we want to voice our protest all the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhBW7k-4zIA

sunny beach

turkey is a nation - from what i can see - full of expansive open balanced fun-loving helpful individuals.    even the old men are fun-loving; you can see it on their calm amused smiles as they sit in the shade drinking tea as you walk past with your rucksack.  it is possibly the ideal place in which to be a foreigner.   maybe, as shokouh remarked, the turks are not particularly deep thinkers.  perhaps many don't have a flagrant reflective element to their personalities, but that does not matter because they are friendly and will bring you a coffee when they see you making a sign saying BULGRISTAN at the petrol station, and the locals and the loggers will stop and take you most of the way to the border.  the fields give open expansive views to everywhere, fields covered with bending tall sunflowers, which yield lot of little black seeds which you can push out with your thumb.  an open and empty landscape, road animated only by the occasional black car swishing past with german or austrian numberplates.  no honking buses, ragged pedestrians, men on bicycles or overloaded carts - that has all been left behind in india.  just a silent moon who rises at dusk and oversees the calm cool expanse of fields.
i wanted to learn some bulgarian - at least enough to say:  hello, i am going to burgas.  but there was no need to say anything, nobody wanted to stop for me anyway, all i had to do was pay the man on the bus that eventually swung past my shaded spot at the side of the road   everyone has come to the beaches that line the black sea here - a place called sunny beach: big hotels and beach restaurants and cafes and bars.  women walking everywhere in a scanty state of undress that would shock any indian.  a woman's sexual attractiveness is solely to be beheld by her husband, so why does she parade publically like that?  women are sexually liberated here.  the menfolk know this and do not pay any attention to her sexual liberty as she passes.  maybe the men throw an all-encompassing glance, but they know that to linger with their gazes would be inappropriate.  look, she is all but naked there on the beach.  yes, but also here there is a fine nudity line which should not be crossed. she does not want to excite men's attention, she only wants to be free, to feel the sun on her skin, like any liberated inhabitant of the planet who loves to feel the sun on his skin.  ioana and i said:  lets meet at isolated iralkli beach.  when?  3 or 4 or 5 days time?  okay.  if you are not there after a few days, i will wait a few days more.  okay, i will be there.  i have a pot for cooking, and coconut oil.  okay, i will bring food.   see you on the beach!  what satisfying terms for an encounter; it is thither i now repair.

the release of something pent up

all the suffering inside the people, the uncertainty over whether i would make it back to the embassy in time to pick up my emergency passport before it closed, and still have time to make up julia's package and send it successfully to russia before the post office closed, lying at night in a dismal delhi hostel room with a splitting headache, prostrate in viplove's flat with restless, sleepless fever while he drinks and carouses in the room next door with his mates, drinking excessively, too excess, his tales of drink driving, getting caught by cops - all you need to do is plead and protest your own poverty and give bribe and they'll only give ye a few days in prison, the hopeless corruption of indian society, the indian falseness, the fluidity of the meaning of their words, stripped of their meaning, their only purpose is to persuade - please sir, come inside my shop i have very good quality, the guy at the hostel denying me a two minute use of shower next morning because i had checked out the night before, even though i had paid for that night, the desire for money overriding any warmth or empathy with others, the guy at the internet place letting me use the internet and his phone for free and giving me a real genuine warm beautiful smile, the tragijoyous story of life, the glistening gemstones lying in the mud, the shiny stone floors of the airport, having to pass through the duty free to see premium products placed on pedestals - altars to the gods of consumption, pandering to the human desire for pomp and prestige and showy shiny shiny showy, being a hippy traveller and feeling very at odds with the bulk of the world, drinking from and old beat up water bottle, shouldering an old worn rucksack, holding a desire for simplicity and close contact with nature, my affinity with the pulse of life on the indian street, so many making do with whatever does the job, buying a tasty spicy samosa at the side of the street for five rupees, the staring looks of incomprehension from the indians who cannot see why i have chosen to come to their county to walk about barefoot disrespecting their unwritten laws on hygiene, the needless planet-screwing pollution of the air industry which nobody realises or cares about, the beauty of the clouds from the plane window, the beauty of nick drake's songs, the fever and headache and pain and stress of the last few days which had been building up but which i hadn't really been aware of, didn't want to be aware of, only wanted to accept whatever is, anichaa, anichaa, accept whatever is, accept whatever is: some of the possible reasons why i began to cry when i got on the flight and only stopped when the flight was a good way underway.

man proposes, god disposes

i went to the pakistan embassy and asked for a visa but they told me i could only get one in london.

difficult to leave india without flying

it was a hot day and i went under the shade of a tree to take a little nap.  a hot day.  rather stifling.  after a while it clouded over and then warm fat drops of water began to fall from the sky.  soon it turned into a downpour of impressive dimensions.  flashes of lightning and booming cracks of thunder.  groups of people were huddled under building eaves and bus shelters were crowded with people who had been caught out on the street; nobody wanted to be out in such conditions.  a minute was enough to become thoroughly drenched.   i was thrilled to be out surrounded by all that water.  i would quickly dry when it stopped.  the roads became little rippling rivers several inches deep.  i wandered slowly, appreciatively, along the wide, tree-lined avenues which are in that part of delhi, all the way back to the metro station.   dripping wet.

a few days later i took out my passport and saw that the photo had become one unrecognisable blur.

now the only way i can leave india is with an emergency travel document.

the iranian high commission say i need to have a valid passport before they will let me into their country.  so now i've booked a flight to istanbul, and it leaves tomorrow. 

staying with sunil

 

the first words sunil pathak said to me were: "this is a natural place," in an almost apologetic tone of voice, "walk a little way into the fields and do it somewhere near those trees."  it was the middle of the night and i had woken up on a wooden bed in an unfamiliar farmhouse and needed to defecate.  at that point i still wasn't sure who sunil pathak was; i mean if i was meant to meet him, if it really was me he had been expecting and ready to welcome.   Jaya had left some simple directions at the rainbow gathering in parvati:  "delhi to kolkata trainline, get down at dehri, 3 hours after varanasi. from dehri, take local train to kajrat navardih.  village of chowkhandi is 3km from there"  other than that, the only info i had was that there was some land available for a rainbow close to the river sone - a tributary of the ganges - and that there were trees and islands and it was beautiful.

and so getting off the train at kajrat navadih, the only words on my lips were "chowkhandi; nearby village?"
very soon i was surrounded by thirty or so children, young men and old men, and the school teacher was quickly summoned to attend to me.  in broken english he told me that he was very glad to meet me and that sunil pathak was waiting to welcome me.  darkness had already fallen, and at that moment a little packed bus was revving up across the railtracks. "take that bus, sir!" the crowd moved aside and allowed me to run to the already moving bus.  inside an adolescent vacated a seat for me and an old man with crutches was instructed to take me to sunil pathak's house.   by saying chowkhandi there were eager nods of recognition and talk of the temple there, where it was assumed i would be going.  as long as i was going to chowkhandi i felt that i should be on the right path to the rainbow, but in the meantime i wasn't sure that the locals had not mistaken me for a wandering pilgrim, of whose arrival they had been in eager anticipation.  before that night, i had never been the recipient of such deference.  after 15 minutes i got off the bus with the man with the crutch, then stooped with him through a dark ally into a courtyard where a sheet covering a bed was smoothed down for me to sit on; i was given water to drink and offered pakoras, being fried that minute by women in the kitchen.  then a women came with a bowl and washed my barefeet with her barehands.  few words were exchanged.  the man told me there was no electricity at the moment, and thus the candles.  i remarked that the pakoras were very tasty.  my probable mistaken identity was troubling me.  soon we were outside again, following a concrete road through fields by torchlight, the man with the crutch hobbling along and followed by four or five children and me.

next morning, sunil pathak properly introduced himself.  he apologised for not being able to welcome me the previous night, something his 15-year-old son shubham had done by showing me to an interior bed, asking if i wanted anything to eat: chapattis? rice? no?  okay, take rest.  i would spend quite a lot of time talking with shubham, who was very receptive, but also very sure of the things he knew.  sunil told me that he was a member of a brahmin family, that he owned two acres of farmland and that he taught mathematics in the local government school.  he said that everyone in the surrounding area knew of him and respected him and said that wherever i mentioned his name, there i would receive help and be treated with kindness.  "even the dogs and the plants give me respect when i pass, because they know that i will never do them harm"
  "come", he said, patting his motorbike seat, "i will show you your friends."  it was only when i met ganesh baba, living across the fields next to the brick temple, that i realised that this was the rainbow gathering.   other than ganesh baba, from ukraine, and jaya, from england, no-one else had arrived yet.  it was still a project-to-be, but in the meantime, sunil pathak was going to do his best to welcome any foreigner he came in contact with.  in various cafes - or more properly tea houses (more correctly samosa sheds) - in various surrounding villages, sunil introduced me to all his friends.  my little base of hindi started to jog along as i got used to talking about myself, and especially back on the farm, where i stayed for a week and where sunil's four brothers spoke no english.  i could catch snippets in hindi of sunil explaining the appearance of the foreigner.  "soon they will come from 120 countries" (a figure ganesh baba must have supplied him with) "we must be ready to welcome them all" he told the local men.

sunil pathak met ganesh baba at the kumba mela (massive religious festival) in february.  it is obvious that they must have clicked straight away.  both men have a direct personal way of engaging with people.  both of their eyes are capable of becoming very soft and affectionate when they wish to communicate something tender (perhaps sunil's favourite topic was the heart, and the love which united us all.)  his eyes often then harden, when he has moved onto some serious point which he emphasises with his eyes, before softening into a wide fatherly smile once again.  verily, sunil pathak communicates with his eyes.   his vision is to inaugurate a global community, starting in his local villages.  he wishes to welcome foreigners to come and teach in local schools, teaching english or teaching computer skills, or at any rate teaching (as a product of contact with a foreigner) that we all belong to one global family, and that the apparent cultural differences are in fact minor details.

ganesh baba shares this vision; he tells me - as we are huddled on the back of sunil's motorbike - that he wants to start an evening school, teaching children music and painting and theatre.  "we should only teach from the heart.  children are the only ones we can change - all the adults will not change."   he also has a project to install solar panals in schools.  the government electricity supply is unpredictable and is always cut at some point in the day or night.  "we do not give them to people's homes, they will only sell them . . . and we need to teach people the logical way to build houses - we need to build down, only one floor above the ground, the rest of the house in the earth where it is cool and no work needs to be done on the exterior"

"what about flooding?" i say, "and what about the lack of natural light below the earth?"

"if they want light they come to the top floor" ganesh baba dismissively makes an attempt to be persuasive.  over time i came to realise that he was actually off his rocker.  i could only laugh when he unveiled his plans to ask the indian military for an old jet by which to take children on a tour of moscow and new york and paris and london, and what is your capital?   - edinburgh.   yes, edinburgh too, why not?      "ah, you laugh..."
 

being in sunil pathak's company gave me an entirely new experience of india, which i hadn't known thus far.  "this is rural india," sunil said, "this is real india.  real india is not in delhi or bombay or any of the cities.  the heart of india is in the villages.  here no-one will disturb you; everyone wants to welcome you.  they crowd round you only because they are curious"

the massive heart of india, stretching from pakistan to bhutan, from the himalaya to sri lanka.

sunil never ceased to let me know that he was at my service, with his motorbike, wherever i wanted to go, whatever i wanted to do, or if i just wanted to rest, i should always feel at ease.   my presence at the retirement celebration of a 60-year-old man at a nearby village school was unexpected, but i was immediately ushered to a chair at the front, and garlanded with a garland of orange flowers.  most people were seated cross-legged on the floor, and came up to the front to give a speech, after having taken some petals and sprinkled them by the candle and incense, and bowed before the little shrine.  sunil asked me if i wanted to say something so i stood up and wished - here everyone saw me wondering what his name was; "rajiv" they called out - rajiv a happy retirement and i hoped that everyone continued to teach - and to learn - happily together in this school. all true learning and teaching comes from the heart," i finished, filled with the ideas that sunil had spoken about.  i think my simple presence there, more than anything i might do or say, was meaningful to them.  i mostly didn't understand anything of what anyone said, but my ears pricked up when i heard "scotland."  rajiv himself gave a long speech and finished by mentioning me as "our guest from scotland."  sunil later told me that rajiv had said that he had learned a great deal from two englishman at the beginning of his career and he felt that it was fitting today to have someone from scotland present at his retirement.  afterwards everyone sat in another classroom and ate rice and chapattis and veg sauce and sweet rice from polystyrene plates and threw them in the courtyard outside.  i placed mine on the ledge of a statue in the middle, but someone came and knocked it to the ground, indicating to me that the statue - of an old local landowner - should be respected.

when anybody asked after the purpose of my 8 month visit to india, it wasn't easy for me to find my own words that they would comprehend, and i usually assented to the suggestion that i was here to ghumne - to roam about (an expression that indians love to use), to sight-see - which sounded rather lame.  sunil offered an alternative: "you are a researcher," he said, "you are here to research and appreciate the cultural differences in india, with the aim of  breaking down barriers and promoting global unity."  when i told him that i found it difficult to respond when people asked me what precisely those differences were, sunil told me to just tell them that in the west there is modern thinking, whereas here there is old-fashioned thinking.  "you are here to bring modern thinking to these people," he said.

sunil took me to the small government school where he teaches, where there are 8 classes and six teachers, sunil himself being one of the ones who leaves one class to do a task themselves while he is teaching in another.  8 bare classrooms, some filled with children sitting on the floor, books spread out in front of them.  when i enter, one of the boys immediately stands up and performs a bold clapping rhythm - face full of ferocious concentration - which all his classmates repeat.  a lot of classes are empty and there are a lot of children sitting outside or running around.  they all brush my shoulder bag as they run past me.  "sunil, you should be teaching instead of taking me places," i say.  all sunil says is, "its okay, anil is taking my class"

i note my lack of desire to teach in such a school.  if i did, it would be to present myself with a challenge.  a big part of the school institution is teaching children to obey authority.  the main message that i would give to anyone is to encourage the realization of their own autonomy.  you are free.  precisely to question conventional values and practices.

life in rural india is so bound by predetermined practices and rituals.  it leaves no space for the question: what shall i do?  one does what one is supposed to do.  it provides a safe, secure experience.  the first time i spoke to shubham he told me his family was of the brahmin caste; sabse bara, he explained, the highest.  later i asked him if he really thought it mattered what caste one belonged to and he said, "noooo." but i think he said that only because that is what he thought he should say to me.  over the days i picked up some of the brahmin daily practices. one of sunil's brothers - the retired one with the white hair and the smile - was brushing his teeth with a stick broken off the tree whose sap has antibacterial properties.  i asked him if i could do the same and he assented then after a while i asked him again and he said, "but you have just eaten; first of all you wash, then you brush your teeth, then you are ready to have food."  when going to the toilet in the field, the males use the string they always bear diagonally around their body - whose significance is unknown to me; i saw that it was also used to help wash the back - to loop around their right ear.  it stays looped there until they have come back from the toilet and washed their hands.  sunil's younger son came into the room once when i was in the nude intermediary state between changing legwear (indians don't really have a concept of personal space), i think that is why one of sunil's brothers emphasised to me one night that i should hold a towel around me before letting my trousers drop, and changing them.  "never naked, never!"

i was pretty keen to go places without wearing chappals (sandals), and mostly did, but after a few days, another of sunil's brothers showed me how i should enter the room at night: (always wearing chappals outside during the day,) at night i wash them while wearing them at the handpump, then leave them by my bed, ready for the next day.  indians are aware that foreigners are unaware of this 'correct way' of doing things.   foreigners are casteless and in a category of their own.  still, sunil often repeated the phrase he had learned from jaya: "think global, act local", meaning, fit in with your (social) surroundings, but remain aware of the big global picture.  a pretty good dictum overall.  however, i still wasn't sure to what degree i should mimic the behaviour of the people that surrounded me.

ganesh baba belonged to a category of his own. grey lush beard, dancing eyes, often sparkling with unusual energy, prone to going off on tangents and rambling monologues, often playing the grumpy baba, scolding people vociferously then winking at me; he was unique and he knew it.  he always walked about shirtless and shoeless and i decided he would be the one i would imitate, despite people initially always suggesting that i put on my shirt when i went out.  i liked ganesh baba's response when we were waiting to see a local politician - an old schoolmate of sunil's.  a smartly dressed man came down the stairs, his eyes alighted on barechested ganesh baba and he promptly put forward the age old question:  where are you from?  ganesh, after a little hesitation, pointed to sunil and said, "he knows!" and promptly walked outside.

despite sunil's avowed support for 'modern thinking', his view of the role of women was very grounded in his own traditional context.   throughout my stay at sunil's house, i never interacted with a woman once.  women were only glimpsed from afar, leading the cows into the fields in the morning.  they never appeared in the patio where the men sat chatting or washed or drank chai or ate food - cooked by the women in the kitchen.  "for hindu husbands," sunil explained, "the wife is a goddess.   and for the wife, the husband is a god.  the woman looks after the house and the children, while the man provides everything for her.  it is also a married man's duty - if he has a job or land - to look after everyone in the community; the one who has gives to those who do not have.  marriage is a sacred bond.  once husband and wife are united, they can never separate - never."
"yes, that's the ideal," i responded, "but what happens if husband and wife are no longer happy living together?  is it not best then for each one to pursue their own path and thus restore happiness in their lives?"  i was trying to provoke him, but he was adamant.  marriage is sacred, infrangible.
"smoking and drinking alcohol is only for men," he stated catagorically once.  "if you offer this to a woman here, she will not take it.  she knows it is not for women"
i told him that if he wanted to welcome people from the west, he had to recognise that western women are liberated and there is the value that both men and women are free to choose their own path.

i became irritated one day with the whole indian rule-bound way of looking at the world.  i had wanted to go into dehri by train to book a flight out of india.   sunil insisted that his brother take me there - 45km - on his motorbike.  "no, what about the petrol...the train's going there anyway" (i wanted some time alone anyway)  come come come, i take you.   after about 10 km we got a puncture and that is the reason i found myself sitting under the shade of a roadside tree for about an hour talking with - which became listening to - sunil's brother, who was maybe called sunil anil.  he spoke only a smattering of english.  i often felt lost in a sea of hindi words, struggling to grasp onto some meaning.  after i told him that he had to speak dhire dhire - slowly slowly - did i comprehend a thing or two.  we developed a way of communicating whereby he would slowly enunciate each word, and finding an alternative way of saying the same thing if i still didn't understand.  

he got talking about the uncleanliness of people from the west, who disrespect the sacred rite of marriage, eat meat, and make pornographic movies.  this was the one who had impressed it upon me that i should under no account display the fact that i have a penis.  he repeated a gesture of licking to show how people behaved in these pornographic movies, then looked at me with eyes which communicated the depravity of such a gesture.  he enumerated the sacrosanct brahmin values.  sex is only for procreation, not for enjoyment, and is solely confined to the marital relationship.  killing any animal is disrespecting the life principle and thus eating meat is dirty.  he was on a roll and i was growing irritated.  the pashcim - the west in hindi - he spoke the word as if it were a synonym of all that is dirty and disrespectful. "you have cut down all the trees in the west," he continued, then motioning to the sprawling overarching tree we were sitting under, "for us trees are sacred, the fountain of life, home to the birds and providers of oxygen.  they are not to be cut down"

ridiculous, i thought.  i got up and made to urinate by the tree, partly in order to move away from him. "not here," he said, "this is where people sit.  go on the other side of the road."  i didn't go back to him in any hurry.  my hindi was too limited to do any justice to any response i might want to give.  after a while he beckoned me over, and now with a smile, said "kya hai?"
"you think i am dirty," i began.   i had confessed to him that i eat meat occasionaly.
"noooo, you are not dirty," he said.
"you said people from the west were dirty"
"not everyone," he laughed, "of course not everyone"
"there are also hindus who eat meat," i said
"of course there are, yes.  they are not brahmins."

he was in fact going back on his words, but i think that for a while i had been privy to the real repugnance inside him towards the west, which contradicted the secure brahmin structures that defined his being.

i was irritated with being with sexually repressed people who are obsessed with distinctions between cleanliness and dirtiness and no longer wanted the challenge of being a foreigner in india.

every night i saw the light of the temple at the top of the hill across the river and one day i made the trip across - about two hours to cross the river alone, employing two wooden boats, pushed by men with big bamboo canes, everyone getting out once or twice to walk across sandy bars while the boat slowly fought its passage upstream.  at the temple i was welcomed by everybody and took part in the first puja (devotional chanting and music) where i really felt like able to be a part of.  there was the big shiva temple at the top of the hill - whose lights i had seen from below - and, a little below, a temple dedicated to parvati - two temples representing both the male and female god principles.  i watched the mother temple become decked with swaddling fabrics then was encouraged to come inside for the puja.  one man played the bongo drums while other men took it in turns to lead the chants next to a microphone linked to a loudspeaker.  everyone else sang along whole-heartedly to the chants they all seemed to know, or passed round cymbals or clapped their hands.  the result was akin to a group of football fans, possessing more enthusiasm and capacity for the creation of cacophony than musical talent, but their whole-heartedness was evident and the earnest invocation of the hindu gods possessed a lot of power in itself.

the sandy banks of the river Sone were unfrequented in the morning and it was the perfect place to meditate or do river yoga in the silky sand brown gently caressing warm water.