India take 2

Sigh...India...

I was glad that I spent my final days in Thailand relaxing at my cousin's house, enjoying my hot showers and western toilets with toilet paper, because I aint gonna be getting much of that here. I was averaging 100-300 pages of Shantaram a day. I didn't want to lug that huge ass book with me to India. I have enough to carry.

Arriving to the Bangkok airport to check in for my flight, it wasn't difficult to tell which counter was forIndia. There was mostly men pushing huge carts of potato sack covered packages and huge disorderly lines. On the plane I went to the bathroom and broke out in a huge smile and dance because there was already bhangra music playing on board. Taking my seat, I found myself next to a fat smelly drunk man who downed 4 beers and a glass of wine on our short flight. He kept pressing the bell and light for stewardess to come and barked at them to give him another. He asked me if I was married. Of course I am.

Arriving at the Calcutta airport there were already two women sleeping on cardboard boxes in the bathroom. I took a cab to the one tourist spot in town, which is called "Sudder Street." I saw the cafe where I was supposed to meet my friend Ben, and went there with all my stuff. I felt immediately at home. I took out my many books and ordered a mango lassi and honey ginger lemon tea, both of which were incredible. Ben came shortly thereafter. It turned out that he did a great meditation course in the town of Bodgaya, where Buddha achieved enlightenment under a tree. He met lots of cool people at the retreat who were all coming in and out of the cafe all the time and sat with us. I really felt like we were at Leopolds in our own version of Shantaram.
The parallels continued in Varanasi. I never would have felt comfortable following a "guide" around town if I hadn't seen how much the protagonist of Shantaram gained from his relationship to Prabu. My guide was called "Tota" meaning parokeet in Hindi, because apparantly some people thought he looked like a bird. He brought me to Hindu and Nepalese temples, showed me how to make an offering to the goddess Durga for the holiday of Nivrathri. He showed me the clothing factory where he and others hand sew saris, blankets and scarves. The owner of the factory became irrate when he discovered I didn't want to spend massive amounts of money, but that comes with the territory.

Varanasi and Rishikesh, where I am now, are two of the holiest places I've ever visited in my life. Being by the ganges river and seeing people bathe in it, pray, participate in pujas, dodge cows and monkeys wherever I go...well, I can't do it justice here at this internet cafe so I won't even try. I'm looking forward to seeing many of you again at the end of April.