a few ditties

Tonight I decided to try to catch up on some emails that have been in my inbox for over a month. As I wrote some emails catching friends up on my life I realize there are some great little ditties from my life over here that I skipped in my previous blog which gave a 3 week sweeping overview of my trip in India thus far. But any traveler knows how action packed even a single day can be on the journey. So, in short, I skipped some true gems in my last blog.

First of all, before I even got to India, starting back on….oh, let’s say November 2nd… I was dreaming of where I would be to watch the live broadcast of Obama’s inauguration speech. Once I realized I would still be in Arambol for it, I was pretty psyched because of the several venues here which have satellite television connections. After scouring the town to see if any of them planned to show Barak’s speech, I wasn’t feeling so hopeful. Plus his inauguration was the same day as Piya’s 50th birthday. Piya is the owner of the living room (also known as Arkan Bar) and mother to all of us who live in this neighborhood in Arambol. It is an event every year but this one was a big one because she turned 50. The party was an easy distraction from lamenting missing Obama’s speech. In the midst of it all, djs, dancing, fireworks, a full house of amazing travelers from around the world, I had honestly forgotten about the inauguration speech. Getting up from chair to hula hoop a few to some blasting remix of Johnny Cash, I returned to my chair to find some cute Israeli guy in my chair. I took the opportunity to say hello, cuz well…he was someone I had never seen before and he was pretty hot. He gave up the chair and we stood together transfixed in our connection and conversation. Finally I asked, “by the way, what is your name anyway?”. And he answered “Barak”. I was like, dude, what did you say?? And he repeated “Barak”. Then I got the whole spacey blissed out hippy stance and was like “WOAH. Dude. What time is it??” and he reached into his bag and pulled out a large face digital clock with a light up screen reading the exact time (with the time change factored in) of Barack Obama’s inauguration speech!! WOAH
Anyway, that’s the end of that story…no smooch or dirt or anything.

Ok, next…
There is a somewhat annoying phenomenon in the traveler scene in India. People come traveling by themselves and I guess they feel lonely and need an outlet for nurturing and being nurtured. Plus they see all the strife and poor conditions all around India. And this strife goes particularly so for dogs, which lead a pretty rough life over here. Anyway, you put it all together and then here comes a cute little puppy and, voila…you get this typical lonely traveler adopting a pet. Yeah it’s cute, and the dog gets fed and whatever. But what usually happens is that the end of the 6 month visa comes around the traveler goes home and Fido (or little Siddhartha perhaps) is left high and dry with no one to take care of it anymore. So the dog is now reliant on being taken care of and is now left to the whims of life in India, including the people, the other dogs, the big trucks, the starvation, etc… Anyway, it is something that a first time traveler may not recognize as being so totally unsustainable. It is frustrating to me but there’s nothing I can do about it so I let it pass.

Anyway, a new twist this season is this guy…let’s call him “rat man”…ok so maybe that gives it away. But anyway, this dude has adopted a rat. The situation is quirky and interesting and I am sure he gets a lot of attention for it. So rat man walks around with this white rat sitting on his shoulder and with a musical instrument in hand.
I decided one night to attend a late night jam session where, as it turns out, rat man was part of the ensemble. As I sat enjoying the soft jamming of drums and guitars and the nice company…the hot chai cooling on the table…rat man wanted to be more free to make music so dropped the rat off to hang out on our table. Shortly after the rat arrived, we realized the rat is blind. So initially it was pretty comical because we would wave our hands in front of his face and he would sniff around oblivious…oblivious, you see, because he CAN’T see. Ha Ha…yes this is so amusing! Hee hee! But the longer we watched him as he wandered around our table, the stranger it became to have a rat ON OUR TABLE at a restaurant. The blind bugger would poke around slowly and blindly but as soon as the plate with cake on it was placed down, he scurried freakin fast. And that’s when it just got really creepy.
But he was really clean…in fact half the time he was blundering around blindly but then as if the aimless ramble became boring, he’d stop to wash himself for a long time. So I was like, “hey well he’s a clean little fellow. Perhaps I should transcend my prior opinion that rats are dirty disgusting animals”. So I tried it. But then I watched him licking the condensation off of my water bottle and that just felt weird. And maybe you are wondering how I can so boldly continue to refer to him as a HE? Well, because of his disproportionately massive balls. Ok, that’s it, get this frickin critter off the table!

Yeah,so transcending conditioning….
That’s what I’m working on in this course I’m taking. I’ve had three days so far and I am keeping one foot steadily and solidly planted in realityland while the rest of me is open to this mysterious new and “life changing” approach to life. The vague messages and constant repetition has me all cynical as hell and my brainwash radar is blinking… anyway, I am being cautious yet open. I’m not supposed to talk to others in the class about what goes on in there so to maintain a sense of “quiet” in the teachings. But I ended up at a restaurant during a lunch break with these two brothers from Toronto who are also in the course with me. Within moments we were gushing about all sorts of stuff about the class…ooh, such a big no no! It’s refreshing though! And the laughs we get from making light of what appears inane is so fun and refreshing.
Tonight we each put 50 rupees in on a bet to guess who will be the first person to quit the class. Winner takes all. I chose the Australian guy with the puppy.