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I leave my Calcutta behind on that Rajdani train tomorrow afternoon.  Rather than try to write, I want to say goodbye with two pictures.

Both of them I passed every day, and thought to myself, “I ought to take a picture of that before I leave.”
The first one is the ironing man directly across the street from me.  The men may change, but their look never does.  He never changes, of course.

And this is the sufi shrine on the way to the metro.  The corpse of a saint lies inside.

I just got back from a trip to “northeast India.”  It feels like I traveled through three or four countries, each with totally distinct cultures, languages, experiences.  In no way did it cohere.  I’ll list my destinations in order, then move on to the interesting part of the post: first, Murshidabad, on the plains of Bengal, from which the Bengali Nizams used to rule their empire.  Then, an infinitely long and difficult journey all the way around Bangladesh to Shillong, Meghalaya (the first video from that journey itself).  Then back to Guwahati, capital of Assam.  Back through Siliguri, the only transit hub for the whole region, to Darjeeling (scenes from the Darjeeling Limited playing the whole time in my mind), then a long jeep ride to Gangtok, capital of Sikkim, with a daytrip to a nearby monastery featured in this post, if these videos ever upload.  Gangtok to Pelling, and Pelling to Kechopari Lake, where I stayed at a lovely little hamlet on top of a hill overlooking the lake, with a big family of Tibetans and a big (newly formed, two day) family of French, Isrealis, and Americans–much more to say on that point, later.

Having become obsessed with Tony Gatlif’s movie Latcho Drom before I left Cal for this trip, I decided to document the memorable music that I would come across (of course with no intention other than a blog post–I’m no filmer).  Latcho Drom traces the continuity of Gypsy/Roma music from India all the way to Spain.  It is beautifully shot and full of spirit, with excellent sound recordings.  In contrast, my videos are terribly shot, with lots of background noise, a shaky, low-resolution digital camera.  You have to use the same selective listening you would use in real life if you were trying to listen to music, while, say, at a busy train station full of chaiwallahs.  The other contrast with Latcho Drom is that while Gatlif’s movie shows an underlying unity, I hope that the accumulation of these videos will show the huge diversity of experience.  All cultural experience is valid, even if hugely displaced from its native land. There’s nothing inauthentic about covering Bob Dylan in Shillong, not in this era.  Though the legwork on that one is awesomely over-the-top.  Like all the work I do in India, the only thread holding these together is that I was there, that they shaped an aspect of my perception.  I thought about editing them together, but that would obviously look terrible.

The first one was this blind Bengali boy who sang these beautiful bauls while we were stopped at a train station as I made my way from Siliguri to Guwahati, so on that narrow strip of India that connects the ‘mainland’ to the ‘northeast states’.  Excuse the terrible cuts–i just slapped three videos together on my camera itself.  One thing I tried to show was that for the people around us, especially the two men next to the singer who were simply introduced to me as “local tribal men”, the real show was me and my camera, not the singer.  The man with the mustache sort of ‘produced’ the whole thing, by making the boy sit and play for us, paying, encouraging me to video him–he’s in the army, stationed in Hyderabad, and was in the midst of a four day train ride from Hyderabad to his native Guwahati.  Oh, I think that if you listen to the cries of the vendors in the background, you’ll hear one guy walk through saying “Pendrive, Pendrive” selling USB flash drives and loads of other consumer electronics.

This is some hard uploading. I’m sure it’ll suck to download.  Highly recommend hitting “play” then immediately “pause” on each video, then walking away to do something else. Maybe I should’ve done youtube for all of them, but I didn’t. Felt too uncontrollably public, maybe.

The first day in Shillong, at the Bob Dylan Birthday Bash!

At Rumtek Monestary. I was interested in the sacrifice aspect of it, which I speculate is an aspect of Tantra, which transcends the artificial division between Hinduism and Buddhism. Happily for you, I decided against videotaping a goat sacrifice at Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati, which would have been a nice juxtaposition.

This was, literally, my arrival in Kechopari, on my first exploration of the land. Listen hard. She wouldn’t sing as soon as she saw me, but I know she wouldn’t object to you listening.

And now, on a rainy night in Kechopari:
A Frenchman:

An American:

First one Isreali:

Then another:

And, before this post is complete, I’ll video Dhruva Lal playing. Check back.

And one more from today, in Kolkata!  a kind of sexy/bored one, maybe.  OK, I don’t know how to turn a video, so turn your head. This is the drum I resisted buying at the music store, though I failed to resist buying an Ektara, which I will show you when I see you.

So, there you have it.  As soon as you get on the road, anywhere in the world, you meet lots of wonderful musicians.  This time I just remembered to turn on the camera some of the time.

So I missed the brunt of what the Western media calls the “cyclone” in Kolkata because I’m in Shillong, Meghalaya (and the Bengalis call “the beginning of the monsoon”), and am now feeling the afteraffects in the form of rain that won’t stop the whole time I’m here.  I’d like to enjoy the hills and everything, but the whether isn’t really ideal…I didn’t expect the monsoon to start so early!

Yesterday, I met three poets who teach at the English department in the university outside of town, North East Hill University.  I don’t have my notes or their books in front of me, but I thought I’d waste some time sharing some initial impressions.

My writing mind is NOT on right now…my language sort of sucks, my fingers feel awkward on the keyboard.  The situation in this cybercafe is very strange–it’s mobbed by students trying to find out the results of their examinations. I’m cold and wet.  I don’t have my notes.  Yet, some of the things that I talked about yesterday were SO interesting to me, and I want to share.  I’ll totally rewrite for my project. (which is still posted below.  Thank you to those of you who have been reading it!  I’ve gotten some hugely good feedback.  I will forever be grateful)Howver, my only other choice is to go back to my hotel room and huddle below my blanket and drink too much tea, and I get bored.

First, I met Esther Syiem, who is a Khasi (a tribe here in the Northeastern hills) poet.  In 2005 she published a book called “Oral Scriptings” that was her re-tellings of Khasi mythologies.  We had a great conversation, she was really eager and engaged…it became clear that the theme of the section for my project that will include her and Prof. Ao will be orality and oral culture.  Neither the Khasis nor the Nagas have a written script–after the British missionaries, they started using the roman script.  The Khasi myth is that at one point the gods called each of the tribes to send a messenger to come pick up their script from the divine source.  The Khasi messenger went and got it, but on the way back, there was a huge flood (like today!) and so to preserve the language, he swallowed the script.  The messenger from the plains hid his script in his pony-tail, so it got preserved.  So, Prof. Syiem’s point is that the myth shows that the Khasi language got internalized, oralized, not lost–it was swallowed. The other major interesting point was that the Khasi culture is matriliniel, (sp?) meaning that the daughter inherits the mother’s name, husbands take their wives names, and the eldest daughter inherits the family property and responsibility.  I just visited the market here in Shillong, and almost all the vendors, all the shopkeepers, everyone, were women.  This makes the Khasis my favorite tribe ever.

Then I met Robin Ngangom, who is from Manipur.  Manipur is one of those forgotten tragedies of the world–not on the international radar at all.  Along with some other places in the Northeast, it’s been wracked by insurgency, revolution, and state oppression, almost since just after Independence in 1947.  Neither side is even remotely justifiable.  The Indian government is responsible for brutality, genocide, and complete disregard for human rights.  The insurgency is holding the people hostage, they’ve lost any real ideology–Robin says that it’s ‘Impossible to know what they want, what they’re fighting for.’  It’s sort of directionless rage, a directionless war.  So Robin lives in exile here in shillong, dutifully going back to Manipur every year to renew his “manipuri roots.”  Not only does he write poetry in English, he also translates some Manipuri poets into English.  He says that his poetry, and the poetry that he translates, is the poetry of survival, the poetry of witness.  Actually, I do have his book with me.  It’s called “The Desire of Roots,” really the work of exile:

“WRITER

A writer can survive without a car

but a window with his palm

testing the breath of a street

or a garden, a few weeping pens

and clean sheets are indepsensables.

He can live with the moon

as his eastern neighbour or with pines,

cantakerous mynahs or even factories.

As of now freedom of expression

would mean for him

expression of freedom.

For example, the word ‘clitoris’

would be as exhilarating as uttering,

“the revolution is a farce.”

He would have continued:

“The opthalmic optician

shut down his clinic

after far-sighted revolutionaries

came for a free check-up.”

But that wouldn’t sound aesthetic

even though it’s the truth.

He hates himself for having to mouth

the ugly things and even his

bold words would seem proudish

in free worlds.

This is what clings to him

even in exile,

the reality about freedom

which led to his exile,

the reality about freedom

which lead to his exile

He would have pursued

the more beautiful words,

skies, dances, images, discourse,

trees, nudes, illumination,

if he posessed the gift

of being free.”

The last writer I met was the one that I came to meet, Prof. T. Ao, who is a Naga.  The Nagas are another tribe, really an umbrella for many smaller clans, of which the Ao is one of them.  Our conversation was a little slower, but still really interesting.  90% of the Nagas, and 100% of the Aos, are Christian.  (Most of the Khasis are, too).  The Nagas also have a myth about why they have no script–but they also don’t even have a single language–the languages of each clan is incomprehensible to the language of the next. They may very well have each come from radically different descendants–Chinese, Cambodian, anything.  Again, the theme of Orality has to be paramount-Prof. Ao’s project, like Prof. Syiem, is to capture the feeling of Naga mythology through written, English language poetry.

More lata.

Here’s the latest draft of The Project.  My biggest hang-up is the title right now.  Suggestions?  I literally have no ideas.

I’ve made a fast decision to get out of Kolkata and explore W. Bengal some more.  Tomorrow I plan to go to Murshidabad, and from there to Guar.  From there I’ll get to Siliguri, not to go to Siliguri, but to take the Toy Train to Darjeeling.  I don’t think I’ll spend long in Darjeeling, wanting to get higher into Sikkim.  I’m leaving the option open to go over to Meghalaya (shillong), but right now, I just want mountains.  There’ll be a couple authors along the road, hopefully, to round out the project. I’m going to see lots of cool stuff, and hopefully, be cool in the mountains.  Although I do consider this trip for the project and everything, it’s also a little reward to myself for doing Kolkata for so long and getting a draft of the project–for months I’ve promised myself mountains.

In other news, I’m flying from Delhi to Denver on June 17th.  I don’t know when I’m going to make it to New York, but not too long after that, a month or two.

I’ve got something to show for myself!  (click on something to download it).  I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I also feel good after coming to a good place after weeks of self-discipline in the heat.  Since I’ve found that I go slightly insane and certainly unreliable every day between 1-4 pm (when it’s hottest) I’ve been waking up at 5 or 6 every morning, going for a run every other morning, and working on this project steadily.

The first paragraph is quite cheezy, and hopefully won’t stand.  I’m letting it marinate.

But this draft isn’t a result of my effort; it’s a result of a lot of good, careful, thoughtful feedback that a lot of people gave me on my first draft.  You know who you are, and I thank you deeply.

If you’re in Kolkata, please come to my apartment tomorrow (saturday may 9) to celebrate Rabindranath,  My new little brother (I’m not speaking too soon), and the full moon.  Bring your favorite Rabindranath poem or story!

Things have changed enough already on the draft below that if you haven’t begun reading that draft, it might make more sense now to wait for the next one.

I have to give credit where credit was due: I thought this NY times article on Kolkata was well written; the kind of writing I was resisting doing here, but in retrospect, maybe should’ve done.

“The only thing more confounding than going to Calcutta was coming home to suburban Southern California; how do you explain the city of dreadful night (Rudyard Kipling’s phrase, not mine) to friends who had spent the summer listening to Olivia Newton-John?”

“This is not a luxury destination. It is more a journey through the grimy layers of time. History is inscribed on every lane, like tattoos on an aging diva. Calcutta was once quite a diva.”

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post about the article on Zen and Psychoanalysis that appeared in last week’s NY Times magazine.  The article wasn’t very good; I thought–perhaps because it takes on an impossible task.  I talked about what has become my entrance into meditation, but then I got shy and took it down, beacause I can’t talk honestly about it without talking about my body and all of its different energies, some of which are more socially acceptable than others.  If you’re interested, shoot me an email.

Rather than try to figure out why my word processer just stopped letting me typed (a data-loss restart in my immediate future), I thought I’d rather share with you my average daily fruit consumption these days:

1 KG (5-6 pieces) Mango

1 whole watermelon (small, but substantial)

4-5 Banannas

.5-1 KG grapes

I wrote a post about meditation, then I got shy and took it down.  Maybe I’ll put it back up.

I’m back in Kolkata where it is HOT and where mangoes are 40 rs a kg

I just posted a LOT of pictures on the page on the right called “Orissa, Hyderabad, Karnataka, Mumbai”  I figured I’d do a page this time because it would overwhelm the blog immensely.

Yesterday was a beautiful day that could use a blog documentation.  Notice that this is my second post back-to-back–I’d like you to read my apology below because it’s important to me.

It was my full day to see Hampi.  Hampi was the capital of a massive empire in Karnataka from about the 14th century to mid 17th century, when the Mougals invaded.  It covers a huge, beautiful, green area in a fertile river valley, with hills of giant boulders balanced on top of each other in impossible configurations.  I heard that when Hanumaun was flying over India carrying a mountain with some herbs growing on it to give to an ailing Seeta, some rocks fell off the mountain and fell here.

When I first got here, I took a little wander and found beauty immediately.  After meditating, waiting for the sunset, wrote “I saw Ganesha and asked him for the strength to be an artist.  I climbed a lingum rock overlooking the valley, and when I saw the rocks protruding from the green bananna trees, I didn’t feel so alone anymore.  I wait for the sunset tho it might be many hours from now.  My rock radiates heat into my lowest gate.  Nothing supernnatural will happen, but what is natural is enough for me, now.  So I gave up for this moment closed-eye meditation.  Eventually, white folks gather over there, ogling, and I ogle them with pleasure.  I want company, but certianly not them.  Is it worth the courage?  No..”

That night at guest house cafe, made friend of Michael, an Italian  who has been living in India for years, buddhist.  I  he had spent three winter months living in a villiage high in the mountains of Uttaranchal, an experience which taught him that life need not be so full of action.  My life is very full of action.

I woke up early in a sleepy town, at 7, because the heat was coming and I felt prepared.  I didn’t know where the main, famous sites were besides, variously, 3, 6 or 8 KM outside of town (the town is really a tourist center, one street sandwiched between ruins and the temple.  I walked, then wondered why I was walking when I could be running, so I held by purse in my hand and ran down the road gleefully in fast bursts in my green fisherman pants that match my green chackos, flailing.  I came to a place to enter the ruined capital, and so did, but there wasn’t much remaining out there.  After being cheated of eight ruppees at a pay-and-use toilet (the relief was worth it without question, I went back onto the road, where I saw some adolescent boys watching their fathers load huge bunches of green banannas.  I wrote up dialogue for that encounter last night on my little toy typewriter, but the encounter culminated in them giving me seven juicy, sweet, delicious ripe bannanas as a gift, which I accepted only because I knew that they weren’t theirs to give (if the bannanas had represented their personal wealth, of course they would have been bought.  But they’re the bosses’ wealth, and the bosses’ wealth should be taken).

[then I saw the Vitallita temple I had to pay rs 250 to get into! ]

Along the river between the vittalita temple and Hampi bazzar I had adventures.  First I walked upriver, beyond most of the ruins, into the canyon, where I bathed in the river.  Incidentally, my malaria medicine kills a broad range of infections and blood parasites; I don’t ever go in dirty water, but when the moment and the river is clean, I don’t feel like I have to worry about it.

Then, on the way back, I saw more temples and carvings and beauty than I could assimilate.  My body was ruling me, my sun energy flowing strong as I absorbed the growing heat of the morning.  I felt strong in the legs and less so in the mind.  So, for this journey in the morning, I had fun with my strength, weaving and saloming through unbeleavable architecture and carvings and gods and sexy stone dancers.  There was a big mountain with a temple on top, and I walked around it till I found the staircase, climbed up it, met the crazy man in the temple (not a priest or anything, just a crazy guy who didn’t understand why I didn’t understand Kannada, so we talked about our beards and our hair with gestures).  I missed the cave, apparantly.  I always miss things when my legs are going so fast.  Then back down into town for thali lunch.

I gave you a flavor of the morning, so I’ll skip right to the evening.  There was a period of restlessly hiding from the heat and drinking lassie.

We had (an Italian named Michael and I–who turned out to be worthy of respect, who has been in India since 2002) rented bikes for 20 ruppees, heavy, one geared mountain bikes. I had bought the ticket to see the two sites that you have to pay to get in–a silly purchase, because there was so much to look at for free, but since I had shelled out rs250 for it (a substantial amount of money–my budget for food and lodging for two days–on lucky days), I had to go see it.  We petalled out, I saw it, appriciated it, but not as fully as I could have if my mind had been more present.  I had a physically epic day, and Michael was waiting.  Better we get back on our bikes and explore together.

On a whim, we turned away from town, though we knew that it would be dark, because we saw a temple nestled in a cliff down the road.  We biked to it, up the hill.  It turned out to be a big, lively temple with brahmin residents and music, perched on a cliff that overlooked the valley illuminated by afternoon light which fell in distinct shafts that emerged from behind a single cloud in the sky, perfectly placed to shield us from the power of the sun.  It was said that Rama and his brother Lakshmana camped on that boulder on their way down to Lanka to rescue Seeta.  I believed it; it is where I would have camped, unquestionably.

We took the same road I had taken that morning back, first past the vitthalita temple, riding into the most flamboyantly orange sunset I have seen in a long time.

We were dragging our bikes over the ancient road, built by a long-dead empire, along the river.  Pushing our bikes, mostly, in the twilight that was becoming night quickly.  We went back to a temple I had walked past that morning, and he showed me the carvings I had missed–the most hilarous, well preserved, and well done carvings I have seen in India; debaucherous animal sex.

I had put my clip-on sunglasses in my pocket unthinkingly in the setting sun, overwhelmed with beauty.  I have lost those sunglasses, to my shame.  I have a long and terrible history of losing every expensive pair of sunglasses I have ever owned, tragically; I feel just the same as I felt when I lost my expensive oaklies as a kid.  I have to be a dreamy American who goes to India and simply hemmoraeges wealth and material posessions that anyone with any conscience and appriciation for things would treasure with their life.  Especially given that it was a wonderful birthday present from loving parents, given with good energy towards a rich trip in India.  I indulged my self-loathing on this point this morning as I retraced our footsteps from the night before, searching for them.  When they did not appear, I have to suppress it; I cannot indulge in attachment to material objects at the expense of my mental and spiritual life.  Gladly, I lost none of the love with which the glasses were given to me, so I really lost nothing.  That’s the end of that.

We had dinner in a dark cafe outside of town, wallowing in perfect silence overlooking a river.  Watched dogs fighting for territory.
Biked into lively bazzar, returned to guest house for coffee.  I ought not to have drank coffee last night; it was strong, South Indian steam-brew, and I slept nary a wink last night.  I know that I will have the energy to travel today, because I have no option, there is no alternative.

Over coffee, we talked.  He has a new job in Bangalore writing Italian subtitles for American blockbuster movies.  He asked me why all American kitchen sinks are directly below windows.  I told him that was just in the movies, of course–for dramatic lighting of the wife as she does dishes.  But then I let slip that I thought it was nice if you could have a house arranged like that, that it brings some liveliness and interest to the chore of doing dishes.  He told me, being studied in Buddhism, that the window only serves as a distraction from being present in the moment, washing dishes.

Then, sleepless with caffine I’m unaccostomed to, I meditated.  Wrote meaningless nightime rambles:

“Many realizations, mostly first and sticky American layer of irony.  My mind will not slow down.

There is a black band on my left wrist.  usually, there is a red band on my right wrist, properly, there is.  Mine just fell off after more than a year; a piece of red hemp I had gotten from a stranger on the street of Seattle, which is of course another, long-distant story.  Now I have a tan line on my wrist.

Body writing.  Cottonmouthed.  Thirsty.

The cool moon force is coming up my left side, because the fan is to my left.  This may be opposite tradition; the book I bought today for its hilarious pictures says so. Irrelevancy.  My cooled leftern half was actively pecieving Parvathi Kali Durga, and my Western halve was vaguely radiating.  At the time, I thought it to be gender-backwards, though now seems not.

Recieving the force is supposed to come downward up, rather than coming down the Hubli river (river name?).

The moon inflicts herself upon me.  My awareness of her power on my life thru my body is immense, and means that I am not free, that I am living as a body not only as a mind.  These are forces, purely mythic, purely physical, undeniable.

Old realities pouring up my spine.  I can see the snake coming upwards up the left channel, black scaled, perfectly halved, constant and eternal, with face, turning red exactly at apogee, diving down red precisely at appogee, at Brenschluss, says Pynchon, just where the rocket turns back to the earth.  (For Rocket: Cobra. Kunda Lizard. Sir Radiation-faced.)

The book distracts me by making me laugh at myself.  I could not be more a steriotype of myself.  I do not particularly want to escape this sense of irony, destructive Americanly though it may be; it is my defense against the danger of institutions and religion.

I was laying east to west, not north to south, and she flowed stubbornly perpendicular to my spine….

The flow is side to side tonight, and feels lobsided because the coolness and rest overpower my depleted sunlight, which I gave over to the sun god today as a sacrifice to his power, and I was rewarded with power, physical excellence, body functioning purity daytime, but weary night.”

Today, I awoke from awakeness, having not slept and only occasionally allowing myself to submit to my meditations, frustratingly keeping myself on surface conciousness, perhaps out of self-torture instinct.  I packed up, ate Idly in a hotel full of police though my body was crying for more substantive nutrition, gave in, ordered fried Puri and potatoes, chai.  Set off to find sunglasses: the loss of the sunglasses gave me the massive gift of a morningtime trip back to my favorite temple among all the sites in Hampi, where I touched the warm breast of stone temple dancers, and took much better pictures of those carvings I enjoyed so much.  Because of that loss, I will be able to share with you some better photos, eventually.

Then I went to the temple in town to do Puja to Kali Ma.  I don’t normally engage in rituals, but I needed to replace that red band to get the flow of my energy straightened out.  It was a simple, straightforward, but perfect affair, not much money involved.  And now I have a coconut to eat as Prasad, which I think I will do down by the river.

TRAVEL:

I am about to travel to Pune, where I will stay one night on my way to Mumbai.  Will fly from Mumbai back to Kolkata on Monday, April 20.

I was reflecting, and became uncomfortable with the thought that my little preface to my quarterly report in the most recent post below might be taken in the wrong light.  The Arnold Committee is not paranoiac system of control like the Interzone Corporation from naked lunch.  I was trying to be funny with myself.  In my reality, Brown and my fellowship is an benevolent, flexable structure that gives me true freedom; immense freedom that is a priviledge I very very few people ever experience in their lives.  They have sent me on a journey, and I thank them for this life-changing and life-giving gift.

Nobody said anything to me about this or pointed it out to me.  I realized the mistake through reflection, and then didn’t have time to get to an internet cafe for too long.

Moreover, I’m proud and blessed to be associated with Brown University, which is respected hugely among the academic and artistic classes throughout India.

The Naked Lunch reference, actually, came out because of a particularly good class I took at Brown from an amazing professor, Prof. Ahearn of the English and French departments.  In that class, we read Baudillaire, Rimbaud, and Naked Lunch.  Ever since, these texts–particularly Rimbaud and Burroughs–have stayed with my conciousness, especially as I have bizzare adventures of the mind and body in this very strange land.  Everything relates back to texts.

So any negativity that might have been hanging on to those words, please read it as a thank-you to a good professor from Brown, one among many.