Monkeys and Pirates and Ninjas and LANDAVA!

There's a famous V.S. Naipaul quotation about how, in India, all life appears to be sacred except human life.

What a bunch of crap.

It's probably because I tend to dig non-humans more than my mammalian counterparts that I so readily disagree. Non humans, on the whole, are not such dickheads. In India, you see a lot of humans kicking or otherwise harming dogs, cats, goats, cows, monkeys, etc, without provocation or cause. In particular swims the image of an arrogant, swarthy Indian all but strangling a starving mongrel on a chain: on his face a mischievous, cold and cocky grin, in his other hand, a thick stick of bamboo. The tortuous delight on his face is evident as he raises his stick and brings it down with a loud 'thwack' onto the poor, squealing creature. His grin widens as his eyes meet my face. I know I can say nothing, for any intrusion on my part will be carried out exponentially worse on the dog, so I do the only thing I can think of to illustrate my contempt. Without turning my glare from his terrible gaze, I hock the biggest loogie I can manage and catapult it with force into his path.

It's the little victories.

Like when I lose the one cord I need to charge my video camera in Gokarna, and am saving the like 5 minutes of battery I have left for Holi, pissed at myself, cursing my forgetful mind, because you can never capture enough of Holi in five minutes, and I go walking through the Varanasi market and there is literally one stall in the whole place with any cords whatsoever - a pathetic lot - one shitty pair of Apple headphones, two cords for Indian cell phones, a couple feet of telephone cord, and there, holy shit, there on the end, untouched and covered in a layer of dust so thick it's nearly invisible against the cellophane wrapper, thank Shiva, the one fucking cord I need. Shit yes.

Like when I somehow find myself being literally dragged along by a hash dealer despite my insistent, firm 'no's, not twenty seconds after leaving my guest house. Fuck it, I figure, and follow him so he'll let go of my arm. It's kind of the direction I'm heading anyway. We trundle down the stairs underneath the Smoking Ghat and run into a bunch of his homies.

"You want see? Good quality." He says.

"No, dude, I'm fine, I still have." I say for about the seventieth time in the last few days. I make a move to go. He grabs my arm again.

"Best hash. Good price. Just look. No buy. Good price."

"No, dude, seriously, you're starting to piss me off. No hash. I'm good. Leave me alone." I jerk away from him, skip a little to avoid a steaming pile of cow dung, and expertly weave through the crowd towards the closest little stall at which I can get toilet paper and a motherfucking lighter. He's a couple meters behind me, now, but still lingering.

"Stop friend! Hallo!" I cut right and squeeze my way to the front of the stall.

"Toilet paper, lighter." I say, mechanically making the thumb-flick that is the international gesture of lighters. The hash seller has caught up and is once again grabbing my arm. I twist my hand out of his wrist and grab it.

"Look, dude, I am never buying your hash. Ever. I don't care if it's the best, cheapest shit in town, you are never going to get my business. You fucked it up." My tone is still amicable. I'm just explaining it to him.

"Is just business..." he whined.

"Yeah, and you suck at it! Let me tell you something about Westerners. We don't like you guys all up in our faces. I don't know who first told you it was good business, but you should all go kick their ass. You won't leave me alone, so I will never buy from you, ever, just because, fuck you, that's why." He finally backed off. I wonder if I got through to him. I doubt it. But then again, FireKitty did with Boner, and that was a damn miracle.

I'm using pseudonyms now.

Boner is the Indian guy at the guest house who apparently has just five topics of conversation: will you buy some hash, do you need more hash, let's play Spot-It, please play Holi song, and are you sure you don't want any hash. He also greatly enjoys thrusting his hips to dance music and is, bewilderingly, completely fluent in French. His epithet comes from the fact that he (and everyone else at the guesthouse, but mainly him) throws his fist in the air and yells "Landava!" numerous times an hour. If you ask him, he says it's the name of the company he's going to start,  and it means "Fight for Right!" He gets all the guests to join him in yelling landava to say cheers, hello, goodbye, or just for the hell of it.

It took me like two days before I learned it means boner. That little fucker. FireKitty (an American girl staying at the guesthouse) went off on him one day about his constant bombardment of hash offers. "Try talking to me for ten minutes without mentioning hashish, and MAYBE I'll consider it." She finally got through to him and he chilled way the fuck out with his 'good business.' She's the one who started calling him 'Boner'.

Stuff was getting routine in Varanasi. It was just about time to leave. I was still having a great time, even though some of the friends I'd made were gone. Most of the Holi Gang - FireKitty and her friends - RobinSong and The Cat from America - Arm and Karr, an awesomely relaxed couple from Amsterdam, and Shipper and Mistletoe, a British couple who lived in a caravan in a gypsy camp and built ships - had moved on. There was just myself, Upman from Italy (though he was born in Karnataka), who sported a swell little moustache that made his grins mischievous, Village, a dude with an awesome face he could contort into crazy expressions, and Hammock, who spent most of his time reading in the hammock. Along with the Indians, of course - Boner, Rulez, Kook, Mercutio, little D (Babu's 3 year old deaf son), and Babu himself, who runs the place. Babu doesn't get a pseudonym because Babu's the man.

Every morning, a gang of monkeys would descend upon the temple next to the guesthouse-rooftop-chillage point. Upman, Hammock and Village were throwing food to them, arousing much interest. One of the bigger ones came over to investigate. Upman and Babu began feeding little slices of melon rind through the bars, and the monkey was attempting to pick at it but they kept pulling it back at the last second. The monkey was getting irritable.

Some of the other monkeys detached themselves from the group and wandered over too. We played with them for about 20 minutes, and the tug-of-war over the melons eventually freaked them out, puffing their cheeks and gaping at us in astonishment. Eventually they dispersed. We started throwing bits of melon to the monkeys at the temple. One of them got into it and would climb all over like we were playing fetch. At one point a melon had landed way up at the top, and the monkey was giving us a hurt look. He began circling the temple, two meters under where the melon had landed.

"He went around the temple, the monkey." said Upman. The monkey returned and looked at us, scratching his head. Upman began pointing skywards.

"It's up there, dude!" I called, in the high-pitched voice that eeks out of me when talking to animals or little humans. Upman kept on pointing. The monkey gazed piercingly at Upman's finger, and began scaling the temple.

"No way. No way. No way. Didja see that?" cried Upman.

"No way." I replied.

"We're like telling the monkey." Upman pointed and began to imitate the monkeys' calls, hooting and screeching. The monkey stopped, looked back at us, and resumed climbing.

At that moment, a murder of crows flocked out from the tip of the temple. The monkey shook his fist at them and disappeared.

"Oh, he found the bird nest!" said Upman. "Ah, they're all going up now!"

Sure enough, a troupe of monkeys had swarmed the temple, and were now scurrying to the top. One made an excellent jump from one peak to another.

"Oh, man! Did you get that?!" exclaimed Village.

"Naw, shit, I missed it," I replied, disappointed. I was filming the whole thing.

That's how Upman showed a troop of monkeys the route to a crow's nest, and how he deserved his nickname.

Varanasi was a fun blend of chillage and amazing experiences, but I decided to go the next day to the train station and get a ticket onwards. I walked around, watched some funerals, drank some lassis, ate some dosas and samosas, gave out Flarbles to street kids, and headed back to prepare some magic. Since I'd performed a number of tricks for everyone two nights before, they were always after me to display something impromptu, and I needed some stuff in my pockets. Upstairs was another Indian guy - I'm gonna call him Amerikka.

For some reason, despite my protests that I completely lacked Japanese blood, and despite three other actual Japanese people staying at the guesthouse, they'd decided my nickname was 'Japan', so hell, one of the Indians gets to be Amerikka. The first four letters of his name are the same anyway.

Amerikka had brought along someone I hadn't met yet, who all the Indians called Actually. She looked somewhat familiar, and I realized she looked very much like the combination of two of my friends back home. She had short brown hair, impeccable posture, and one of those voices that was melodically husky and rasped by cigarettes, making her go from growl to squeak at a moment's notice.

"Hello," I said. "Are you staying here?"

"No, I'm at [another guesthouse]." An unmistakable American accent. The sound of my people. She lit up a cigarette.

"Oh, cool. Where you from?"

"Chicago."

 "Sweet."

Amerikka piped up. "You want to stay here? Good place."

"It's true." I confirmed. "This is the nicest guest house I've seen so far.  Other ones have like 'rooftop restaurants' but they're just, like, restaurants. This place is really chill, and I've met some awesome people."

"It seems really nice." she said. "I don't know how long I'll be staying, though. I'm going to the train station tomorrow." She coughed. "Apparently it's like impossible to get a ticket to Delhi in like sooner than three or four days, but that's actually fine, 'cause I wanted to hang out in Varanasi anyway."

 "Word. I was going to nab a train out of here tomorrow as well." I said. Actually bummed me a cigarette.

"I haven't smoked this much in ages. I was at an ashram for like a month before I came here, and I really thought Varanasi would be a place to chill out, but I've just been smoking cigarettes and drinking like every night!" She laughed. "It's crazy!

We went through the usual traveler banter: how long have you been in India? oh, word, and Varanasi? swell, I've been here about that long... How long are you staying? And in India total? Sweet. Where are you going next? She'd been in India about a month and a half, relocated to Varanasi right on Holi, was about half done with her trip in India, and wanted to go up to Himal Pradesh.

"Sweet. I think I'm going to Kujooraho - "

" - Kajuraho - " she corrected.

" - and then hitting Rajasthan. Rajasthan's my favorite."

"I've heard that from a lot of people, actually."

"Yeah, well, I'm from the desert, and I'm like a total desert person... you know the style of clothing that's all decked out with mirrors and stuff? That originated in Rajasthan, and the camels and shit are all decked out... it's awesome."

We ended up hanging out the rest of the night, smoking and chilling and drinking and talking. Amerikka kept ordering more beers and filling up Actually's glass. At one point, Actually mentioned she wanted to swim in the Ganges.

"Oh, sweet, me too!" I exclaimed. "Shit! You're the only other person I've met who actually wants to do that."

"Do you want to share a rickshaw to the train station and then hire a boat or something?"

"Yeah, definitely." I was psyched. I'd mentioned swimming in the Ganges to everyone I'd met, hoping someone would take up the call with enthusiasm, but so far I'd received either vague 'oh-cool' s or 'Oh-My-God-it's-so-dirty-why-would-you-want-to' s.

In between joints, beers, and games of Spot-It!, I reminisced one of my favorite earliest memories.


"When I was like, six, my mum was staying at this ashram in Lucknow, right, and there was this awesome girl who was I think a couple years older than me, and she showed me how to get around the whole city, just on the rooftops, never touching the ground," I said.

"Wow, that sounds fucking awesome," said Actually.


"Yeah, hah, I had such a big crush on her. You know, for like a six year old."

"We should do that tonight!"

I cocked my head. That would be excellent. "I'm down. Where should we start?"

The next day at two I was wandering the ghat, looking for Actually, when I was waved over by Mercutio. I call him thus because he could almost be mistaken for Leonardo Dicaprio's homie in that modern version of Romero + Juliet, his skin was so dark. He was awesome, one of my favorite dudes. I'd seen him attempting to bring some tourists to my  guest house ten feet away, but he'd been waved off irritably as they struggled up the stairs under their huge bags, following a street guy I knew to be a slimy bastard. Mercutio had shrugged.

"They don't want listen another fucking Indian." he'd said with a smile. I had laughed a lot about that, almost as much as at the guy who'd offered me a guesthouse, hash, and then, with a grin, a cow, gesturing broadly to the foraging feral beasts with a sweeping hand.

Mercutio was sitting with Amerikka. "You waiting for girl?" he asked.

"Yarrr." I said.

"Sit here. She come. You have joint?"

"Uh, not on me. Up in my room, maybe."

He waggled his head. "Ah cha. This our place. You can do anything here - smoke joint, drink whiskey. Sabkuch malega. Is no problem." He pointed with his chin. "She come." I looked up and saw a distorted, shimmering version of Actually through the fires as she descended the stairs, the smoke from the Burning Ghats streaming up and raining down.

"You want I get her?" asked Amerikka.

"Nah, thanks man, I'll go. I'll get the stuff from my room, too." He waggled his head obligingly.

I was just entering Manikarnika ghat when I saw Actually sit down by the fires, then immediately stand up and begin walking back the way she'd come. She was moving at a quick pace. I had to dance my way around cows and people and dogs as I followed.

"Oy!" I called. She turned around. Tears were streaming down her face.

"Hi," she said with a laugh. "Oh, god, I got something in my eye. It fucking burns." Her eye was, indeed, red as hell, and pouring out liquid quicker than the dude peeing next to us.

"Aw, man! That sucks. But no worries, it's probably just a bit of searing flesh floating around."

She laughed. "Oh god, right? Fuck! This hurts. I need to sit down."

"Amerikka and Mercutio are right over there, it's a nice spot out of the smoke to sit."

We went. Her eye didn't stop tearing up, but it also didn't stop us from attempting the train station. Along the way to the main street where the roads were big enough to nab a rickshaw, we noticed dozens of places that would be, if not easy, at least possible to ascend. We nabbed a rickshaw at what I knew was at least 5 rupees over the price, but for less than two dollars, careening through the streets around cows, goats, bicycle rickshaws, people carrying insane loads on their heads, cars, sadhus, beggars, and stalls selling everything from silk to chillums, it seemed like a much better deal than any overpriced ride on an amusement park. Ain't nothin' like a damn Indian autorickshaw.

We got to chill in the nice A/C tourist ticket booth, which was far shorter and faster of a line than the Indian one, with couches to boot. Lucky fuckin' 'mericans. Actually went to find an ATM as I held our place in line and got our Acquisition of Ticket Request Forms. When she returned, she was still clutching a sodden mass of tissues to her eye.

"Daaaaamn. Are you OK?" I asked.

"That was crazy! I could barely see anything and I had to cross the road, and nearly got killed and then I ran into somebody! I couldn't see him at all!"

"Shit, that sucks! I'm sorry."

"Aw, whatever. I'm sorry I'm like bitching about it." She chuckled.

 "You're not bitching at all. You're like a total gangster. Where are you going?"

She'd been going to Himal Pradesh, but at the last second she decided to head to Jodhpur. "How long of a journey is that?" she asked.

"I have no idea." I replied.


"Where you go?" asked the friendly old railway ticket man, who laughed in good humor whenever the tourists had fucked something up on their Acquisition of Ticket Request Form.

"Uh... What was it... Kujorahow?" I stumbled.

"Kajuraho, yes, when you wanting leave?"

"As soon as possible."

"Ok... the 14th, yes?"

I did some quick math. Today was... wait, what the fuck was the date? The 9th? 10th?

"Yeah, sounds good." I managed. That would be a Saturday, right?

"Two hundred seventy rupees." A little more than five bucks for a twelve-hour train ride. I'm down.

We rode back into Old Benares.When I checked my ticket, I was appalled to realize that my sense of time had been skewed by the lack of a necessary schedule, and today was the 13th. That meant I would be leaving tomorrow. I was surprised and sad. I wasn't done with Varanasi yet. Not just because of recent adventures, but I wanted the time to say a proper goodbye to Babu and Boner and Upman and Village, and play some more Spot-It! and have a generally good time. Shit.

 Actually's eye was still weeping, but she wasn't deterred. We met up with Amerikka at the same little juice stall next to the Burning Ghats we'd last seen him. He offered to take us across the Ganges, and he paddled us all over. Actually took a turn at one of the oars. We got to the other side, took a deep breath, and plunged in.

"Mmm, that's kinda salty!" Actually said with a laugh as she surfaced. Ewww. We grinned, turned, and watched the smoke from the Burning Ghats across the river mingle with the twilight.

Not every body is burned in Varanasi. The fires are meant to purge bad karma, so children, pregnant women, and 'snake people' (who's fingers have grown together, and who are considered sacred) are carried into the Ganges attached to stones, and set adrift. When the monsoon season hits, those bodies and the bones of the burned are carried away.

Sometimes, the rocks come off before the monsoon.

"Look, the dog is eat the body," said Amerikka disinterestedly. We'd just come out of the water. Indeed, about three meters away was a bloated, purple figure in rags only barely recognizable as the remains of a person. A beige mutt, who looked like it ate surprisingly well for India's standards, was tearing at the rags.

"I'm glad we saw that after we swam in the Ganges," said Actually. We went over to take a closer look. One big purple bump, one medium purple bump. "Is that his head, do you think?"

It was strange how not strange it was. I suppose after seeing the daily accumulation of bodies, the parades of them down the street, unrelenting, for over a week and a half, one grows somewhat desensitized. We strode around the beach for a bit, drying out, and went to get back in the boat. By now the dog was ripping at what we'd guessed was the stomach, and, yup, those definitely looked like intestines being masticated. We hopped in the boat, bade goodbye for now, and went to our respective houses for a nice shower before attempting the rooftop venture.

The hardest part about playing Ninja in India is finding a place where no one is looking at you. After ages, we decided to at least try the temple they said was impossible (undergoing renovation, the place was not in use at the time, and would hopefully be unoccupied), and went in that general direction. Excellent. It was secluded enough, and looked easy enough, for our purposes.

It took us about an hour and a half, and lots of maneuvering, but we eventually climbed onto the black-and-white-checkered marble floor of the temple. We had to duck and scurry underneath the view of what I presume were the people watching over the temple to make sure stupid fucking American tourists didn't climb in. We had some close calls, but we got close enough to the area underneath my guesthouse rooftop that we could hear Upman and Village talking and laughing.

Unfortunately, then we were discovered. Someone went out onto their porch and saw us slinking by. We were obvious. It was embarassing.

"Uh... Hi," I said. "Hallo." He was unimpressed.

"Where you going?"

I motioned upwards, to the green balcony visible not six meters above. "My guesthouse," I said. "Uh... is this not the way?" Talk about the lamest fucking excuse in the world. His expression, humorless, was unchanged. He pointed back the way we'd come.

"Go."

"Uh... can we, like, try climbing up?" I managed. I felt like a featherless pigeon in a cockfight. His eyes narrowed.

"No."

A little shaken and humiliated, but not too much, we returned to the climb from whence we'd come.

"That was still cool," I said.

"That was awesome," Actually replied.

Someone, who was probably fucking with me but was backed up by other people, who also might have been fucking with me, had said you could see dolphins in the Ganges at sunrise. No fucking way. If it were true... that would be too awesome. Actually and I stayed up for the sunrise and meandered sleepily to the ghats. When we sat down, of course, we were accosted gently by a sadhu wanting to smear red shit on our third eyes and ask for money. He muttered a Sanskrit chant, reached out, smeared a dot on my forehead, and stuck out his hand.

"Fifty rupees."

"No, dude, sorry."

"Forty rupees."

"Om buhr, buva swaha, tat savitur verenyam, bargo devasya deemahi, dhiyo yonaha prachodayat," I replied. I stuck out my hand. "Fifty rupees." He smiled, but didn't move, and began reciting another chant. I raised my fist. "Landava!"

He burst out laughing, and departed. At that point, Actually noticed something floating in the water.

"Oh, my god, is that a dead kid?" she said, more fascinated than repulsed. I followed her gaze.

"Woah. Damn." We stared at it. "Wanna go take a closer look?"

"Ok."

We ascended the ghat. The small figure, as bloated and purple as the corpse we'd seen the day before, resembled a chicken carcass long past its sell-by date, its legs held bent and aloft, open at the groin, on its back floating peacefully amidst biscuit wrappers, flower petals, and softly knocking boats.

This resemblance to a chicken was aided by the fact that the body had no head.

Morbidly intrigued, Actually and I edged as close to the rim of the ghat as we dared. The child bobbed slowly up and down not three meters away. A passing boatman, maneuvering expertly as always amidst the accumulation of filth and boats, noticed our locked gaze.

"Hallo? Boat?"

The innocent phrase, spoken so often it was part of the passing scenery, was so out-of-place in that moment that Actually and I burst out laughing. We couldn't stop. It was hysterical. The crowd of Indians who'd predictably gathered just to watch us appeared bemused and perplexed, but we nearly fell over hooting and hollering and pointing at the boatman and the floating dead kid.

Maybe you had to be there.

We said adieu so that Actually could attend her sitar lesson, and I went to do some errands. We'd made plans to revisit the games of the day before, and I got some rum so we could play Pirates and Ninjas. It's only proper pirating if you have some rum while you're on your ship. However, it's very improper to drink on the Ganges, even if the boatmen never give a shit, so I decided to mix it with Coke to disguise it. Then I thought, fuck, I'm in India, I need Thums-Up, not Coke, and besides, 'Rum n' Thums' has a nice ring to it.

I met up with Actually, we hired a boat and returned to another, busier side of the river. It was getting a little dark.

"What time is your train?" she asked.

"Oh, no, I read the ticket wrong. I don't leave 'til Saturday." I said.

This was a lie. I had spent the morning not only acquiring Pirate-juice, but running to the station to procure another ticket. This adventure was too much fun to miss. That morning I'd thrown the I-Ching about it; my first since beginning my travels. For the outcome of leaving that day, I'd gotten The Army (Discipline) changes to The Abysmal. For the outcome of remaining in Varanasi, I'd gotten The Clinging becomes Companionship. It seemed a fairly obvious choice. I dunno why I lied about it.

We rented a boat and went over to the other side. This was a much more crowded area. But on the plus side, there were no corpses to be seen! We waded ankle deep into the water.

"Ooh, it's a lot colder than yesterday," said Actually.

"It's a lot colder," I replied. Nothing like the warmth of the day before. Maybe there hadn't been enough hot ashes dumped in it today.

"I'm a little scared," said Actually, laughing. "Should we just do it?"

I laughed, a little nervously. I was picturing those guts being ripped and chewed by the dog the day before. Something slimy touched my foot. What the fuck was that? "Uh.... yeah."

"Alright, I'm just gonna like dive the fuck in," said Actually.

"Ok."

"You wanna do it too?"

"Yah. Should we do it at the same time?"

"Yes."

"Ok.... ready?" I said.

"One, two, th--" She didn't even finish, her voice ending in a cigarette squeak as she plunged headfirst into the Ganges, leaving me standing like a bitch. I jumped in. It was quite warm, actually.

"That's nice!" I exclaimed merrily. "That's not bad at all!"

"Oh my god, that's much nicer than I thought. I'm gonna chill a little bit."

We chilled. The last rays of the sun were sparkling on the water. A group of Indian men gathered at the water's edge to stare at us.

"Hah, I'd rather get swim in the Ganges and get stared at by a bunch of other people than not swim in the Ganges at all," said Actually.

"Yeah," I replied.


That night, we scaled the roofs of Varanasi like crazy. We got so high up, we were looking down at my guest house and then we were looking down on that point. It was awesome. There were some really scary parts where we nearly died, and we nearly got caught a couple times in really iffy places, but we managed to Ninja it up until the wee hours of the dawn and get away with it Scott-free. Thank Shiva that Babu wasn't chiding or put-off by letting us in at 3 in the morning. Au contraire, he smiled and told us there was some beer upstairs, his speech made almost unintelligible as usual by his bulging mouthful of paan. Actually and I continued to hang out until our separate departures by train (by this time I'd come clean about my ticket-swap).

Now I'm in Kajuraho. My room is twice as much as it was in Varanasi (a whopping $4 a night! Wow!), but it is twice as big with twice as big a bed and an attached bathroom, and food is hella expensive (Fuckin' three dollars for a Masala Dosa, you gotta be shitting me), but the town is nice and quiet and peaceful. Wide open streets, lots of room, easy to get to sleep at night. It won't be like sleeping in Varanasi. I won't be listening to little D running in circles screaming joyful sounds he can't hear while being chased by his grandpa until 5 AM, or Babu's grandmother shrieking in agonizing pain before she wanders dazedly out of her room and shits all over the stairs, or constant chants of "Ram Ram Satyahai" from funerals all night. It will be nice and chillaxed and clean.

I've got to get out of here as soon as possible.