Since the rain, I haven't been as angry at Pushkar. The rain helped sooth me and realize how very much I'd allowed my predispositions to clot up the emancipation that's a by-factor of being in the present. Since the rain, I've also been inspired for the first time in ages, finally catching up on my blog, practicing magic, and writing some heartfelt if sloppy hip-hop.
This evening I'm to once again take the bus into Ajmer to attempt to pick up my coat, but I'm finally resigned to the fact that it would be a bigger waste of time and money to leave here with a useless jacket than to spend a few days further to ensure I have a technicolor dreamcoat capable of achieving the impossible. Resignation is really the wrong word; what I feel is more of a relaxation, whereas merely a few days prior I felt as fatigued as a soldier after a useless compromise.
Yesterday I awoke still giddy over the simple fact that I'd performed magic the night before. Nothing leaves me with more satisfaction - or more of a notion that I'm doing what is required of me by my inner sense of direction - than mesmerizing strangers through the art of legerdemain. Lowly sorcerer though I am at present, my tricks limited by my lack of years of practice, I feel a deep soothing well up from within me whenever I perform the simplest of miracles. This is the force that apparently hooks all magicians. The looks on their faces. The need to aid that particular stimulation with guidance and good humor, some physical shock or torture thrown in for good measure, and to hook the skeptical in the sheer bewildering nature of it all. Best of all is if you can hook the skeptics, which, when one is not run amok by one's own nervousness, is laughably easy to do. "It's easier to dupe a clever man than an ignorant one," famously wrote Robert-Houdin, "the more he is deceived the more he is pleased, for that is what he has paid for."
Pleased with my own performance, and still having a small bottle of rum half-full, not to mention a hash-stash that was more than adequate, I proceeded to read and practice tricks for most of the day, venturing as normal into the heat only when my grumbling stomach could wait no longer. As twilight neared, however, I felt a sense of regret that I'd continued in my pattern of ignoring the town and decided to take a walk around the lake, which I'd yet to have done. I'd spent all my time in the very market I despised, and blaming the town itself for being full of tourists. Silly bastard. I set out, and came soon to the closest ghat. I took off my shoes as customary and slung 'em into the nearest empty 'Place-for-shoes-keeping,' then descended the stairs.
The full moon hung above the temple-gouged skyline of the lake, tall staffs rising majestically out of shadowed domes reaching for the stars; in the near distance, an ascension of bright white lights curling around the mountain framed the stepped path leading up to the Saraswati temple, which in the darkness very much resembled a stairway to heaven or an alien force-field leading to a larger ship. A dead or dying tree's sillhouette, it's base surrounded by a circle of polished stone, pure white in the moonlight, cut across the moon's reflection in the water of the nearest bathing pool, stone and rectangular, separated from the main lake only by a thin wall of stone in my vision. About halfway around the ghats, to my right, some sort of puja was happening.
This was nice.
I walked toward the puja and through it, the light somewhat blinding after only the moon's illumination. People were descending the steps in groups, washing themselves in the water and offering up a prayer. Before them, almost floating on the water but for the thick stone steps connecting, sat another gorgeous, imposing white temple, decked out in flowers. Likewise awash with flowers were the floating candle prayers I'd seen before in Varanasi. Kids were playing in the water, too, and running back and forth giggling or angry, playing games and settling scores in between the barefoot bodies of the solemn yet beatified adults, who largely ignored them as easily as they did the cows, dogs and birds, occasionally aiming a halfhearted kick at them all, children and beasts.
The rest of the lake's perimeter was quiet, a few leafless trees' silhouettes looking like something out of an early Tim Burton movie as the shadows of their branches loomed across the snow-white stone walls and around the numerous domed tops of surrounding temples. Halfway around the lake, I came upon a group of sadhus squatting on the steps further up, bare-chested and wearing only tattered orange skirts. They waved me over.
As I approached, one of the sadhus, with a disarming, enormously friendly grin, dropped half a banana in my hand. It looked as if it had been chewed in half, skin and all. I myself have eaten bananas this way, actually preferring it to the skinned version (something in chewing the texture is helped by the leathery strands of the skin), so I chomped on it merrily. The sadhu looked at me sideways. He took the banana from me and, as if showing a three-year old or an imbecile, showed me how to peel it. He squinted at me.
"Uh, yeah..." I said. "Thanks." I palmed the rest of the banana and discarded it at the nearest moment, all the while pretending to continue chewing. "I actually prefer them this way."
We walked down to the waterside and they all began began bathing. I positioned myself alongside them squatting on the edge, and splashed the water about my head, face, arms and legs. Then we squatted back on the ghats and another of the sadhus offered me a biri.
"Word," I said. "Thanks." We smoked in silence for a while. The rest of the sadhus began to peace out, and motioned for him to join them, but he waved them off good-naturedly. After a while, he began to speak earnestly to me in Hindi, and I grasped vaguely at some stuff.
"Uh, I'm from America... no, I'm not Japanese, from America... Hoku. HO-KU. Yeah. Hoku.... and you? Ap Ka Nam Kya Hai? Oh, cool... What?.... Sorry, I don't understand... uh huh... What?... Sorry.... yeah, no..." The conversation was getting away from me. He gestured vividly with his hand.
"Sex? SEX?" he practically yelled. Oh.
"Yeah, dude, sex is nice," I began, stupidly and tentatively. "You haven't had sex, right, being a sadhu and all... You? Sex? No?"
He shook his head. "No sex." He looked half-ecstatic and half-crestfallen.
"Uh... how's that?" I ventured lamely. "Is nice?"
He nodded vigorously. I thought he might snap a vertebrae. He frowned. Something was on his mind. "Sex? Girl?"
"Erm... yeah, I've had sex with a girl. More than one. Uh. Yeah. It's nice." I knew Indians were, especially at present, extremely interested in the whole Western attitude towards sex and how it might just potentially be better than being unconsentingly married to whomever your parents think is right for you, or being without it all your life. But I didn't really know what to say, not yet having had this conversation with a sadhu.
"And... boy?" he asked.
"Not really... I mean I guess I had a threesome with one of my best friends one time..."
"Boy?" he asked again.
"Yeah, he was a dude, but the other one was a girl, and well, the dude and I didn't really do much..."
He leaned over. "Penis?" he asked.
"Uh... landava!" I exclaimed, unable to think of anything else to say. He grinned and pointed at my crotch and repeated his question. "Yes. I do indeed have one. And it works and everything!" I was taking this in good humor, despite being slightly uncomfortable. He reached out and grabbed at my crotch. I grabbed his writst. "Woah, dude... no offense, but I'm like not attracted to you." He looked sad and motioned towards my crotch again. "No. Sorry. Not your fault or anything. I don't want."
"Please?" he asked, almost begging. I felt almost sorry enough for the dude to let him touch my penis. Shit, why not? Aw, shucks, buddy, if I was completely unable by my culture to touch a woman, or a man, to never get laid, ever, I'd be gagging for it and pleading with all kinds of tourists to take me, let me touch 'em, whatever.
Maybe not back in Santa Fe. All you'd get there is fat white Texans. Not exactly my style.
Nor was this guy's. I pitied him. And if there's one thing that turns sexuality off, besides being the wrong gender for one's particular preference, it's being pitiable. He scooted next to me. He tried to lean his head on my shoulder. I stood up. "Sorry, dude, but I'm gonna go get some food."
"No hurting!" he gasped. I shook my head.
"Naw, no bad feelings. No hurting. I just don't want. Good luck, though."
"Please!" he cried. Poor little miserable blighter. I wondered briefly if it was some Indian gal in a wet sari, saying the same things with the same desperate manner, if I would go for it. Hell naw. That kind of vibe is just plain unattractive. Poor little sexless sadhu. I reached out to shake his hand.
"Nice to meet you, dude," I said. He grabbed my hand and pulled it towards his own crotch. I pulled away. "Dude, no! I said no and I mean no! Sorry but please piss off." I began walking away.
"No hurting!" his voice followed me. I turned around.
"Naw, man, no hurting, but you very-bad need work on your game," I said, and continued on my way. I still felt picked up and energetic, the full moon rippling slightly in the water to my left, monkeys hooting somewhere on my right, and I decided to head for a pleasant-looking array of lights on the edge of the lake, obviously a restaurant of some kind. I felt peaceful.
At least someone had tried to get into my pants tonight.
The place with the magical-looking lights from the lake was a downer. Ugly white people. I split. Shit, I'm gonna head back to Baba's, I thought, maybe there'll be some folk who remember me as the magic guy and wanna see more tricks. Baba's was full, and lacking rain, it was full of pre-ordained groups. I sat at the barren table in the midst of the groups and opened my book, a zombie novel which, segregated as I was, made me self-conscious. I wished I'd brought a magic book or something so someone would talk to me. New people arrived at the group nearest my table and a woman asked me if I minded the children sitting with me.
"Not at all," I said.
It's funny how often I end up at the kid's table. Which is usually more fun, and where I fit in the best. I said hi to the two little German girls, each around 9 or 10, but they seemed very self-conscious, so I turned back to my book and ordered another beer.
"Excuse me," said a voice. I looked up to see a cute British girl bending over me. "What book are you reading?"
"Uh, Handling the Undead. It's by the guy who wrote Let the Right One In, which was awesome..."
"Yeah, my friend recommended it.to me. May I read the back cover?"
"Sure." She did so, intrigued.
"It's really good," I said. "Although it's starting to kind of get preachy about the existence of a soul and Heaven and stuff, so if it ends like that I'm going to be really pissed off, 'cause it's got great potential up till now..." She shot me a sharp glance of distaste and walked back to her table, where her boyfriend was waiting for her, his face wrinkled in a glare cast in my direction. I settled back into my book. Literally not thirty seconds had passed when -
"Excuse me," said a voice. I looked up to see an even cuter, tattooed girl bending over me. "What book are you reading?"
You're fucking kidding me. Zombie novels, guys, that's the way to go.
This gal didn't scoff mockingly at my distaste in Christianity's presence in a zombie novel, so I said I'd give it to her when I was finished, in about 20 minutes. She resumed her place in the multitude next to me. The kids were still ignoring me. Eventually they all stood up and left, the woman interested in zombies giving not a backward glance in my direction. Too bad for her, I'd only had 4 pages to go.
A gentleman near my dad's age, a little younger, balding, with dorky glasses that enhanced the obvious laugh-lines around his eyes, was looking worriedly at the full tables. I knew I had more room than anyone. I gestured they should sit with me. They proved to be incredibly pleasant folk, so that the conversation and laughter didn't ease between us at all, and the final four pages of my book remained unfinished. Everyone I've met from Spain has been exceedingly joyful and welcoming. I can't wait to go there.
Actually, it's about time for me to go and hopefully purchase my finished coat. If you'll excuse me.
This evening I'm to once again take the bus into Ajmer to attempt to pick up my coat, but I'm finally resigned to the fact that it would be a bigger waste of time and money to leave here with a useless jacket than to spend a few days further to ensure I have a technicolor dreamcoat capable of achieving the impossible. Resignation is really the wrong word; what I feel is more of a relaxation, whereas merely a few days prior I felt as fatigued as a soldier after a useless compromise.
Yesterday I awoke still giddy over the simple fact that I'd performed magic the night before. Nothing leaves me with more satisfaction - or more of a notion that I'm doing what is required of me by my inner sense of direction - than mesmerizing strangers through the art of legerdemain. Lowly sorcerer though I am at present, my tricks limited by my lack of years of practice, I feel a deep soothing well up from within me whenever I perform the simplest of miracles. This is the force that apparently hooks all magicians. The looks on their faces. The need to aid that particular stimulation with guidance and good humor, some physical shock or torture thrown in for good measure, and to hook the skeptical in the sheer bewildering nature of it all. Best of all is if you can hook the skeptics, which, when one is not run amok by one's own nervousness, is laughably easy to do. "It's easier to dupe a clever man than an ignorant one," famously wrote Robert-Houdin, "the more he is deceived the more he is pleased, for that is what he has paid for."
Pleased with my own performance, and still having a small bottle of rum half-full, not to mention a hash-stash that was more than adequate, I proceeded to read and practice tricks for most of the day, venturing as normal into the heat only when my grumbling stomach could wait no longer. As twilight neared, however, I felt a sense of regret that I'd continued in my pattern of ignoring the town and decided to take a walk around the lake, which I'd yet to have done. I'd spent all my time in the very market I despised, and blaming the town itself for being full of tourists. Silly bastard. I set out, and came soon to the closest ghat. I took off my shoes as customary and slung 'em into the nearest empty 'Place-for-shoes-keeping,' then descended the stairs.
The full moon hung above the temple-gouged skyline of the lake, tall staffs rising majestically out of shadowed domes reaching for the stars; in the near distance, an ascension of bright white lights curling around the mountain framed the stepped path leading up to the Saraswati temple, which in the darkness very much resembled a stairway to heaven or an alien force-field leading to a larger ship. A dead or dying tree's sillhouette, it's base surrounded by a circle of polished stone, pure white in the moonlight, cut across the moon's reflection in the water of the nearest bathing pool, stone and rectangular, separated from the main lake only by a thin wall of stone in my vision. About halfway around the ghats, to my right, some sort of puja was happening.
This was nice.
I walked toward the puja and through it, the light somewhat blinding after only the moon's illumination. People were descending the steps in groups, washing themselves in the water and offering up a prayer. Before them, almost floating on the water but for the thick stone steps connecting, sat another gorgeous, imposing white temple, decked out in flowers. Likewise awash with flowers were the floating candle prayers I'd seen before in Varanasi. Kids were playing in the water, too, and running back and forth giggling or angry, playing games and settling scores in between the barefoot bodies of the solemn yet beatified adults, who largely ignored them as easily as they did the cows, dogs and birds, occasionally aiming a halfhearted kick at them all, children and beasts.
The rest of the lake's perimeter was quiet, a few leafless trees' silhouettes looking like something out of an early Tim Burton movie as the shadows of their branches loomed across the snow-white stone walls and around the numerous domed tops of surrounding temples. Halfway around the lake, I came upon a group of sadhus squatting on the steps further up, bare-chested and wearing only tattered orange skirts. They waved me over.
As I approached, one of the sadhus, with a disarming, enormously friendly grin, dropped half a banana in my hand. It looked as if it had been chewed in half, skin and all. I myself have eaten bananas this way, actually preferring it to the skinned version (something in chewing the texture is helped by the leathery strands of the skin), so I chomped on it merrily. The sadhu looked at me sideways. He took the banana from me and, as if showing a three-year old or an imbecile, showed me how to peel it. He squinted at me.
"Uh, yeah..." I said. "Thanks." I palmed the rest of the banana and discarded it at the nearest moment, all the while pretending to continue chewing. "I actually prefer them this way."
We walked down to the waterside and they all began began bathing. I positioned myself alongside them squatting on the edge, and splashed the water about my head, face, arms and legs. Then we squatted back on the ghats and another of the sadhus offered me a biri.
"Word," I said. "Thanks." We smoked in silence for a while. The rest of the sadhus began to peace out, and motioned for him to join them, but he waved them off good-naturedly. After a while, he began to speak earnestly to me in Hindi, and I grasped vaguely at some stuff.
"Uh, I'm from America... no, I'm not Japanese, from America... Hoku. HO-KU. Yeah. Hoku.... and you? Ap Ka Nam Kya Hai? Oh, cool... What?.... Sorry, I don't understand... uh huh... What?... Sorry.... yeah, no..." The conversation was getting away from me. He gestured vividly with his hand.
"Sex? SEX?" he practically yelled. Oh.
"Yeah, dude, sex is nice," I began, stupidly and tentatively. "You haven't had sex, right, being a sadhu and all... You? Sex? No?"
He shook his head. "No sex." He looked half-ecstatic and half-crestfallen.
"Uh... how's that?" I ventured lamely. "Is nice?"
He nodded vigorously. I thought he might snap a vertebrae. He frowned. Something was on his mind. "Sex? Girl?"
"Erm... yeah, I've had sex with a girl. More than one. Uh. Yeah. It's nice." I knew Indians were, especially at present, extremely interested in the whole Western attitude towards sex and how it might just potentially be better than being unconsentingly married to whomever your parents think is right for you, or being without it all your life. But I didn't really know what to say, not yet having had this conversation with a sadhu.
"And... boy?" he asked.
"Not really... I mean I guess I had a threesome with one of my best friends one time..."
"Boy?" he asked again.
"Yeah, he was a dude, but the other one was a girl, and well, the dude and I didn't really do much..."
He leaned over. "Penis?" he asked.
"Uh... landava!" I exclaimed, unable to think of anything else to say. He grinned and pointed at my crotch and repeated his question. "Yes. I do indeed have one. And it works and everything!" I was taking this in good humor, despite being slightly uncomfortable. He reached out and grabbed at my crotch. I grabbed his writst. "Woah, dude... no offense, but I'm like not attracted to you." He looked sad and motioned towards my crotch again. "No. Sorry. Not your fault or anything. I don't want."
"Please?" he asked, almost begging. I felt almost sorry enough for the dude to let him touch my penis. Shit, why not? Aw, shucks, buddy, if I was completely unable by my culture to touch a woman, or a man, to never get laid, ever, I'd be gagging for it and pleading with all kinds of tourists to take me, let me touch 'em, whatever.
Maybe not back in Santa Fe. All you'd get there is fat white Texans. Not exactly my style.
Nor was this guy's. I pitied him. And if there's one thing that turns sexuality off, besides being the wrong gender for one's particular preference, it's being pitiable. He scooted next to me. He tried to lean his head on my shoulder. I stood up. "Sorry, dude, but I'm gonna go get some food."
"No hurting!" he gasped. I shook my head.
"Naw, no bad feelings. No hurting. I just don't want. Good luck, though."
"Please!" he cried. Poor little miserable blighter. I wondered briefly if it was some Indian gal in a wet sari, saying the same things with the same desperate manner, if I would go for it. Hell naw. That kind of vibe is just plain unattractive. Poor little sexless sadhu. I reached out to shake his hand.
"Nice to meet you, dude," I said. He grabbed my hand and pulled it towards his own crotch. I pulled away. "Dude, no! I said no and I mean no! Sorry but please piss off." I began walking away.
"No hurting!" his voice followed me. I turned around.
"Naw, man, no hurting, but you very-bad need work on your game," I said, and continued on my way. I still felt picked up and energetic, the full moon rippling slightly in the water to my left, monkeys hooting somewhere on my right, and I decided to head for a pleasant-looking array of lights on the edge of the lake, obviously a restaurant of some kind. I felt peaceful.
At least someone had tried to get into my pants tonight.
The place with the magical-looking lights from the lake was a downer. Ugly white people. I split. Shit, I'm gonna head back to Baba's, I thought, maybe there'll be some folk who remember me as the magic guy and wanna see more tricks. Baba's was full, and lacking rain, it was full of pre-ordained groups. I sat at the barren table in the midst of the groups and opened my book, a zombie novel which, segregated as I was, made me self-conscious. I wished I'd brought a magic book or something so someone would talk to me. New people arrived at the group nearest my table and a woman asked me if I minded the children sitting with me.
"Not at all," I said.
It's funny how often I end up at the kid's table. Which is usually more fun, and where I fit in the best. I said hi to the two little German girls, each around 9 or 10, but they seemed very self-conscious, so I turned back to my book and ordered another beer.
"Excuse me," said a voice. I looked up to see a cute British girl bending over me. "What book are you reading?"
"Uh, Handling the Undead. It's by the guy who wrote Let the Right One In, which was awesome..."
"Yeah, my friend recommended it.to me. May I read the back cover?"
"Sure." She did so, intrigued.
"It's really good," I said. "Although it's starting to kind of get preachy about the existence of a soul and Heaven and stuff, so if it ends like that I'm going to be really pissed off, 'cause it's got great potential up till now..." She shot me a sharp glance of distaste and walked back to her table, where her boyfriend was waiting for her, his face wrinkled in a glare cast in my direction. I settled back into my book. Literally not thirty seconds had passed when -
"Excuse me," said a voice. I looked up to see an even cuter, tattooed girl bending over me. "What book are you reading?"
You're fucking kidding me. Zombie novels, guys, that's the way to go.
This gal didn't scoff mockingly at my distaste in Christianity's presence in a zombie novel, so I said I'd give it to her when I was finished, in about 20 minutes. She resumed her place in the multitude next to me. The kids were still ignoring me. Eventually they all stood up and left, the woman interested in zombies giving not a backward glance in my direction. Too bad for her, I'd only had 4 pages to go.
A gentleman near my dad's age, a little younger, balding, with dorky glasses that enhanced the obvious laugh-lines around his eyes, was looking worriedly at the full tables. I knew I had more room than anyone. I gestured they should sit with me. They proved to be incredibly pleasant folk, so that the conversation and laughter didn't ease between us at all, and the final four pages of my book remained unfinished. Everyone I've met from Spain has been exceedingly joyful and welcoming. I can't wait to go there.
Actually, it's about time for me to go and hopefully purchase my finished coat. If you'll excuse me.
great catching up with your tales blood...just in to italy- jet lagging...lots of love and hugs to you in manali...da
ReplyDelete