The Indian Connection

On November 19th, 2009 I boarded a British Airways 777 on my first leg of a trip to India.

After a short rest in Heathrow Airport in London, I traveled the rest of the way to Mumbai, India. This then is the story of a billion people...

My brother and sister-in-law had been in India for two months before I got there, and would be there another month after I left.
Trying to flip your circadian rhythms upside-down is no easy task. The cultural shock was felt, but the physical shock was greater (after a few days of pure gastronomical bliss).
Just because one's favorite food is Indian, is probably no reason to visit India. If you want full appreciation of life in the United States, then that is a good reason to visit India.

India is a first-world country living in a third-world body. India has the highest of high-tech (including the Atomic Bomb), and it has garbage... everywhere! Litter and garbage in city streets. Garbage lined up in the middle of the jungle along a national highway. Garbage heaped all around a beach near where religious pilgrims come to cleanse their sins in the ocean.
Add that to the many tin shacks, piece-meal tents, poor people, professional beggars, and the many times I blessed my shoes in holy cow dung and you've got yourself a vacation destination!

The people of India are mostly friendly, wear beautiful, colorful outfits, have good personal hygiene as far as I could tell, and if they weren't selling anything, were as nice as the finest people on earth. So, why the contrast? How can you reconcile personal cleanliness with walking barefoot down a street littered with trash and cow manure? Is it just because India has over a billion people in an area smaller than that of the United States? ("Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." -Yogi Berra) Or, is it something in the national psyche that allows the juxtaposition of clean, beautifully clad women walking along a street with raw sewage running down the side?
In the Indians' defense, I will say I've spent many hours in Chicago being almost overcome by the fumes emanating from manhole covers.

There are people who will tell tales of abject despair, hate, and pessimism about this country, but I didn't come away feeling hateful. I truly enjoyed being in a different culture with people that don't think western (as illogical as they sometimes seemed). Eastern logic doesn't have to equal western logic, but it seems it does tend to equal a kind of mayhem and anarchy. Especially on the roads.


There is only one rule for drivers in India. And that rule is: there are no rules! Well, they do try to go with the old British holdover suggestion of driving on the left side of the road. But that's only if you're not passing somebody, or there are no cows or pedestrians on the road. But human, animal, and vehicular obstacles are the norm. Wait, there are a couple more rules: honk your horn at everything at all times and when you're in the right lane passing someone, the vehicle coming toward you must flash his lights signifying that a crash will occur in approximately 1 1/2 seconds.

Maybe I should dispose of the critical commentary and just talk about the food. Unbelievable! And the cost... dinner for three: $10. Would you believe dinner for three: $2.40? Would you believe the true cost is a couple of days of intestinal betrayal? All true!
Now, Indians believe that we westerners cannot handle true authentic spicy Indian food and that that is what makes all tourists eventually get sick. This, of course, is not true. Maybe it's my western prejudice, but sometimes many of the populace did show signs of a certain naivete at times. Like, are these people serious? Have they not heard of bacteria? (maybe that explains the trash, sewage, and various animal droppings in public places!).

I did get sick a few days into my journey but I know it was because somewhere along the line something was mishandled, prepared badly, unpasteurized, or somebody slipped local water into something I drank that should have been bottled water.
There are also some "entrepreneurs" that take used water bottles and refill them with local water and resell them as pure bottled water! I don't think that happened to me, because my main handlers (my brother and sister-in-law) were wise to that trick and always checked the caps on our water. You can read about this and other tricks of India in my brothers blog: an-american-in-india
As a matter of fact, forget this one-time-blog and just go over there and read about India. It's written better and is far more insightful.

But, if you must stay I'll try and make it as painless as possible. This then is the story of a billion Indians eating incredible food...

...meaning, here's a bunch of pictures and silly comments.

A toothpick. Yeah, yeah... just wait. It gets better.

Peggy, my sister-in-law, in her office in Pune, India pretending to be working... she does this everyday.

A picture of me and Ashraf who is Peggy and Gary's

driver in Pune. Ashraf is the one who looks like he

might live in India. I am the one who looks like he

might be a tourist.

Inches from death in a three-wheeled auto rickshaw. The first night I was in Pune, our driver (Ashraf) had car problems. Meaning the car quit in the middle of the most crazy, dangerous traffic you can imagine. After risking our lives by getting out and trying to push the car to no avail, we hailed one of India's ubiquitous auto-rickshaws (approx. 75 million in Pune alone) for a ride the rest of the way into downtown Pune.

A modern mall in Pune. I'll give you a taste of real Indian commerce later, but, for now dig the fact that just outside this mall was a dimly lit street with crumbling sidewalks and sewage running down along the side of the curb. The crumbling infrastructure is typical, but I only experienced flowing sewage this one time (cow dung is another story).

A McDonald's in the same mall. They don't sell beef but they do sell the Chicken Maharaja Mac, the McVeggie, and a fish sandwich (I did not try McDonald's while in India... apparently it is a big hit with Ashraf the driver dude).
Just after I took this picture, a mall security guy told me taking pictures in the mall is not allowed. I think that's him in the lower left.
Most security guards in India, especially the airports, are military personnel that carry machine guns and shotguns. I don't think I have any pictures of those guys, as I wanted to stay alive.

Peggy and Gary at the Ram Krishna restaurant in Pune. One of my first tastes of my favorite gastronomy in it's country of origin. The best food in the world (sorry, French cuisine lovers).
"We lived for days on nothing but food and water." -W.C. Fields

A close up of one of my brothers favorites: a paper masala dosa (with cheese melted inside).


 

We flew to India's smallest state, Goa. Located on the western coast, Goa has some great beaches and we stayed at a hotel on Varca Beach.

In the Arabian Sea. This was really great water to swim in. Warm and very few sharks. (Why are you still reading this?)

Our driver from Goa to Bangalore (a.k.a. Bengaluru) was

Babu. The trip took a few days with many stops

in between, most of it in sweltering heat and

humidity.

Gary, Peggy, and I rented scooters and rode the back roads of Goa. As you can tell at the end of this video: I was born to be wild... ly dramatic.


The sand on Varca is very fine and it squeaks when you walk on it! I took the video at night while we were walking with our new Russian friends to a restaurant on the beach known for fresh seafood. See my brother's blog for the whole story.

And, so  as the sun sets slowly in the west, we leave our

little Goan paradise and head for Gokarna in

the state of Karnataka.

But, before we got there we had to...

... travel on one of India's national highways. Riding on a national highway in India is equivalent to off-roading here in the states. Oh, sure, there are stretches of paved road, but it doesn't take long before you get to a section of what is basically a collection of boulders where someday they might clear them away and put a road in. And sometimes you actually see people doing that (including this dude who made a funny pose for my camera). But, I could see no organization in any of this "road construction". It's as if a bunch of people got up one morning and thought, "Hey, I might just go out to the national highway today and throw a bunch of rocks on it and run them over with a steam roller".

When we got to the "state line" between Goa and Karnataka, we were confronted by a police checkpoint. Our driver, Babu, basically had to pay a bribe to the officers within to continue our journey... which lasted a few hundred feet before another checkpoint (entry into Karnataka) and another bribe. This is Indian corruption at it's finest. It's found at all levels of government in India. I know it's hard for Americans to understand, so I guess the only way to compare it would be our health insurance industry and their pet congressmen.

Gokarna, India.
A recent rain had made the not- so- clean town even not- so- cleaner.

A typical store in small town India. You usually don't walk into stores... you step up to them. They are all small spaces open to the street.

"Lucky", my main man! I bought a couple of small drums from him. The next day we saw him at Om Beach selling drums to the beach bums.

This is Om Beach. And speaking of dogs (what?)... besides humans and cows, India is full of wild dogs running around. But, they were very comfortable and friendly around humans. As a matter of fact, I am more nervous around dogs here in the states than there! Maybe it's because U.S. dogs hate being on leashes or penned up.

This is "Om". One of the puppies that lives at the bar / restaurant / rooms-for-rent place we spent a few hours at.

This bovine kept checking back every once and

awhile and was finally seated after a

45 minute wait.

We stayed at an ayurvedic health clinic / resort called the

Om Beach Resort. It was on a mountain nowhere

near the beach. One of the guests was

"The Evil Cat from India".

I met a man in downtown Gokarna. He told me he was from Nepal. He said he walked from there! And he will continue to trek farther south in India. That's well over 1000 miles as the crow flies. I asked if he was on a spiritual quest or pilgrimage or if he was a holy man. He said no. So, I met my first Indian hobo.

Ah, the contrasts in India. Near Gokarna we saw a small work crew, similar to the one in this picture, that was digging a long ditch with pick axes and shovels. What was the ditch for? Fiber optic cable!

The Indian version of a praying mantis. There were two of these guys just outside our hotel room. Just waiting... for us.... to... fall..... a.... sleep....... zzzzzzzzzz... YOW!!!!

It's looking at you...

On the road to Udupi and Malpe Beach. Our

first stop: a huge statue of Shiva. It was built just a

few years ago as a tourist attraction. Kind of like

Paul Bunyan and Babe in Bemidji, MN. Only bigger.

Peggy and I riding a camel on Malpe Beach. The camel refused to wear sunglasses.

What is up with my brother and his dosa's?

He claims he wants to start a restaurant

called a Dose 'a Dosa.

D-Day (feel like Death Day). The intestinal wars begin. Too bad because we were going to a wedding for one of Peggy's former workers. I almost stayed in the hotel room but, dang it, this was one of the things I was looking forward to on my India trip, so here I am in my wedding finery putting on a brave face in the midst of bodily turmoil.

Everybody ready? I hope they play "YMCA" at the dance.

When we got to the wedding we were instantly served breakfast. Just after the ceremony we were served lunch, shown here on the Indian equivalent of paper plates... banana leaves. And the Indian counterpart to a plastic fork... your right hand.

 

With Amesh, my handler for the day.

Handler: one who helps you to understand the cultural

intricacies of what is going on and makes sure

you make no faux pas during the event.

It almost looks like I am about to pass out

from eating two big meals when I desperately

wanted nothing in my stomach.

When we got back to the hotel,

I slept for 16 hours.

The next day we drove to Mysore... 200 miles... 9 hours. Off-roading at it's best. I don't think I ate anything all day. Here I am, 20 pounds lighter, with Peggy in front of the Maharajah’s Palace in Mysore.

We also went to the large Mysore market. Here is kumkum powder which is used for social and religious markings in Hinduism.

The next day: Bangalore. We visited with one of Peggy’s managers, Ramesh, and his extended family. A friend of mine, Erik, wanted me to bring back an Indian shirt. So, I said, "Sure, I'll go to India and bring back an "I Love NY" t-shirt, okay?". I guess I'll settle for an Indian wearing one. Actually, I will correct myself. Ramesh's children are Americans. They've lived most of their lives in the States. They are now in India to absorb some of their heritage, though it's obvious when talking to them that when they get to decide, they

will end up back in the U.S.

 

Now we're back in Pune on the day I was to fly to Mumbai for my

trip back home. Running around town for some last minute

shopping and other adventures, we happen upon the local

elephant whose owners lead around town so tourists

like me can pay to have our picture taken with

the magnificent creature. I was still feeling a little

queasy so I declined a ride.

 

Home, sweet home.

So, now I'm back in the states "and the cutest girls in the world".

Thank you, Beach Boys, for making this

country what it is!

“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” -Matsuo Basho