the backpacker is like an individual subspecies. we congregate in small parts of big places, starting and ending freindships in an exhalation, getting to know, for however brief a time, the beauty and foibles of many people, and the richness of many cultures. people from all over the globe come together to surf the cultural wave of india, or wherever they may be, manifesting a galaxy of joyous and challenging experiences. the learning is matrix-like in its download speeds, and the imprints are jewels of enrichment in the crown of my india, my planet.
that being said, i still completely fail to understand how the indians manage to take hindi musicals so seriously.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Sunday, July 1, 2007
soon, monsoon...2
each year between may and august, india enters a kind of altered state that starts in the south and moves north with the rising temperatures. the monsoon.
the monsoon arrives like a balm on the scorched flesh of india, as the tail end of summer leaves the lowlands of the southern 90% of the country sweltering. last week delhi hit 50 degrees, and the death toll from heat related issues stands at just under 40. varanassi is experiencing the same and some places in rajasthan are touching 55 deg.
i was in delhi almost 2 months ago when it was a balmy 44, and the place was already on edge. the heat induced tension and lack of tourists meant the place was a bit of an energetic hothouse. three "cold" showers a day would barely suffice, and generally you were sweating before you dried you self off anyway, and thus were back where you started.
dealing with taxi or rickshaw drivers was an extreme sport, or at least required the guile and tenacity to meet the sharks face to face. getting a taxi? no problem. communicating your destination? piece of cake. actually getting to your destination? thats a whole different story. i've discovered that something like "HEY! STOP. THE. FUCKING. CAR!" can be reasonably effective at making yourself understood, as is opening the door in the middle of 7 lanes of traffic.
the scam can go something like this - if you're freshly arrived into delhi, the drivers will pretend not to know how to get to your hotel which is right in the middle of the most popular tourist area of town. then they will tell you your map is wrong, the roads have changed. then they will take you to a tourist information office where some guy will pretend to ring your hotel, and the guy on the other end of the phone, most likely in the room out the back, will tell you we've lost you booking and we're full, or your room has been double booked. then you are very politely encouraged towards another more expensive hotel, where everybody involved takes out your wallet and carves up the spoils. i wish i'd read the lonely planet section on this prior to arriving. half way through my rather trying experience i realised what was going on and resorted to my previously mentioned methods of making myself understood, and i assure you they work. but if all else fails, resort to violence, or a serious attempt at convincing the indian man who is trying to drive you to the badlands that you are mentally unstable and he is putting himself at great risk by having you in his cab. techniques for this method include random unprovoked screaming, quickly reciting lines from your favourite episodes of seinfeld or lyrics from cold chisel songs or anything else that may sound like complete gibberish to an indian, as long as its said at high volume and within a 2 inch radius of his eardrum.
note: be careful when finalising your victory. if your screaming and threats of violence eventually get you to where you want to go, your driver may ask you for a tip, the sheer audacity of which can kick start a whole new round of screaming and violence can kick off, putting at risk you bags which are still in the boot. make sure you are where you want to be, with all your stuff before telling buggerlugs to go sit on a flagpole while you hoist his tip up to him.
but i digress.
the wave of heat starts in the south as summer kicks off, and then follows half of Israel, as they make their way up through gokarna, goa, hampi, mumbai, rajastan and rishikesh until everybody arrives in the mountains in the north, where they wait out the heat.
it seems that just as everything is about to cook beyond repair and all life is about to collapse under the weight of the heat - Ssssssssssss, the rains come and cool everything down, and then the death toll changes from heat exhaustion to drowning as the whole country goes into flood control.
i've just returned to dharamsala from srinigar in kashmir, trekking up near the border with POK (pakistan occupied kashmir), which despite the unbelievable military population is remarkably serene. dharamsala has been raining solidly for a week, and the heat has definitely subsided, but everything is wet inside and out.
as things heat up, the energy of the place seems to come to a head, where you can imagine the place exploding if the rains don't come, in fact in the past it has. in 1947 when india and pakistan attained independence from britain, the massacres and bloodshed that gripped the country in the aftermath (including the assassination of Gandhi) occurred against the backdrop of a monsoon that was 2 or 3 months late - india was in the grip of a heat wave for almost 15 weeks, instead of the usual 5 and the place boiled over.
the rains are here now, though, and i sense that an exodus from this remarkable country is close at hand for most. for others its the phenomenally epic journey from the north to the south, where the rains are beginning to subside. although, to get there, you've got to go right through the middle of it...
the monsoon arrives like a balm on the scorched flesh of india, as the tail end of summer leaves the lowlands of the southern 90% of the country sweltering. last week delhi hit 50 degrees, and the death toll from heat related issues stands at just under 40. varanassi is experiencing the same and some places in rajasthan are touching 55 deg.
i was in delhi almost 2 months ago when it was a balmy 44, and the place was already on edge. the heat induced tension and lack of tourists meant the place was a bit of an energetic hothouse. three "cold" showers a day would barely suffice, and generally you were sweating before you dried you self off anyway, and thus were back where you started.
dealing with taxi or rickshaw drivers was an extreme sport, or at least required the guile and tenacity to meet the sharks face to face. getting a taxi? no problem. communicating your destination? piece of cake. actually getting to your destination? thats a whole different story. i've discovered that something like "HEY! STOP. THE. FUCKING. CAR!" can be reasonably effective at making yourself understood, as is opening the door in the middle of 7 lanes of traffic.
the scam can go something like this - if you're freshly arrived into delhi, the drivers will pretend not to know how to get to your hotel which is right in the middle of the most popular tourist area of town. then they will tell you your map is wrong, the roads have changed. then they will take you to a tourist information office where some guy will pretend to ring your hotel, and the guy on the other end of the phone, most likely in the room out the back, will tell you we've lost you booking and we're full, or your room has been double booked. then you are very politely encouraged towards another more expensive hotel, where everybody involved takes out your wallet and carves up the spoils. i wish i'd read the lonely planet section on this prior to arriving. half way through my rather trying experience i realised what was going on and resorted to my previously mentioned methods of making myself understood, and i assure you they work. but if all else fails, resort to violence, or a serious attempt at convincing the indian man who is trying to drive you to the badlands that you are mentally unstable and he is putting himself at great risk by having you in his cab. techniques for this method include random unprovoked screaming, quickly reciting lines from your favourite episodes of seinfeld or lyrics from cold chisel songs or anything else that may sound like complete gibberish to an indian, as long as its said at high volume and within a 2 inch radius of his eardrum.
note: be careful when finalising your victory. if your screaming and threats of violence eventually get you to where you want to go, your driver may ask you for a tip, the sheer audacity of which can kick start a whole new round of screaming and violence can kick off, putting at risk you bags which are still in the boot. make sure you are where you want to be, with all your stuff before telling buggerlugs to go sit on a flagpole while you hoist his tip up to him.
but i digress.
the wave of heat starts in the south as summer kicks off, and then follows half of Israel, as they make their way up through gokarna, goa, hampi, mumbai, rajastan and rishikesh until everybody arrives in the mountains in the north, where they wait out the heat.
it seems that just as everything is about to cook beyond repair and all life is about to collapse under the weight of the heat - Ssssssssssss, the rains come and cool everything down, and then the death toll changes from heat exhaustion to drowning as the whole country goes into flood control.
i've just returned to dharamsala from srinigar in kashmir, trekking up near the border with POK (pakistan occupied kashmir), which despite the unbelievable military population is remarkably serene. dharamsala has been raining solidly for a week, and the heat has definitely subsided, but everything is wet inside and out.
as things heat up, the energy of the place seems to come to a head, where you can imagine the place exploding if the rains don't come, in fact in the past it has. in 1947 when india and pakistan attained independence from britain, the massacres and bloodshed that gripped the country in the aftermath (including the assassination of Gandhi) occurred against the backdrop of a monsoon that was 2 or 3 months late - india was in the grip of a heat wave for almost 15 weeks, instead of the usual 5 and the place boiled over.
the rains are here now, though, and i sense that an exodus from this remarkable country is close at hand for most. for others its the phenomenally epic journey from the north to the south, where the rains are beginning to subside. although, to get there, you've got to go right through the middle of it...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
