Sometimes my own naivety surprises and delights me. I've noticed that when my naivety is an innocent, curious wandering rather than mere ignorant unconsciousness, it often places me into adventures of prosperous synchronicity.
For example, my guest house. While following the brown-toothed drug merchant along the ghatside alleyways to his recommended locale, I couldn't help noticing the haze in the air and the absolutely mammoth piles of wooden logs stacked neatly around every corner. 'That's interesting,' I thought to myself. 'Huge piles of wood all over the place. Huh.' I immediately threw this observation aside, proceeded to check into my afore-mentioned filthy room (which, as it turned out, I completely misjudged, but more on that later) and wander about almost an entire day without realizing that my guest house was just about as close as you can be to Manikarnika Ghat and it's surrounding temples.
The Burning Ghats.
So close to my guest house that from the roof you can look down upon certain flames, dozens of bodies of devout Hindus are burned all day and all night, in a constant ceremonial offering of flesh and cleansing of karma. Numerous bodies per hour are carried through the streets by my house and artfully incinerated down to the bones.
Once again, I'm glad I have no sense of smell.
I woke up a couple days ago after an intensely disturbing dream. I found myself suddenly driving a car down a curving highway exit, by a brightly illuminated outlying mall. The shock of finding myself behind the wheel with no explanation led to me losing control of the vehicle, while the mid-40's woman in the passenger seat screamed in terror.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, HAROLD?" she yelled. I managed to skid out onto a patch of grass, where we sat, engine smoking. "HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, shaken. "My name's Hoku and I'm supposed to be in Varanasi right now. What's going on?" She looked at me, aghast.
The rest of my dream was confusing and overwhelming. I was taken to a mental health clinic, where they - the doctors, the woman (named Cindy, who, tears flying, desparately attempted to convince me she was my wife), and numerous psychiatrists tried agonizingly to make me believe that I was Harold Gupson, a 43-year old electrician, who'd suddenly, bafflingly, come to think of himself as a 24-year old world traveler. The lucidity and strangeness of the dream made it so that, when I awoke, I had to spent several minutes convincing myself that I was, truly, Hoku Donovan-Smith, and that I had not undergone a relapse of my disorder.
Needless to say, I was not myself that morning. I walked through Varanasi in a haze thicker than the smoke from the corpses, feeling out of place and wandering what the hell I was doing there. I tried for over an hour to find a pay phone to call Grannia, and when I did, I sat in the gutter trying to make sense out of her crackling, distant voice. I subtly tried to get sympathy for my mental state by mentioning how overwhelmed I was by everything, the hawkers, the bodies, the bewildering maze of tall thin alleyways that make up the streets of the Old City... but I'm afraid she found my descriptions nothing by interesting and enviable, and I hung up feeling lost and discordant.
I notice I'm finally making mechanical motions that, mere days ago, had to be made of a conscious effort. for example, I never really paid attention to it, but in the States (where we drive on the right) if you walk up to someone and have to step out of their way, you usually do so on the right. This led to much stumbling, bumping, and 'sorry's on my part. Now, I reflexively go to the left, and navigate the crowds easier. Also on the list are pointing with the hand instead of the finger, and using my right hand only for food, my face, and other people where possible. The left hand touches anything that might be unsanitary, like my bum, although on that day I finally broke down and bought toilet paper, sick of wiping with water and flesh.
I meandered back home, only getting lost a couple times, and smoked a great big joint all to myself. When I exited again, I found myself smack dab in the middle of a funeral procession, and squeezed myself out of the way just as the corpse was carried past. I had seen them being burned, I had seen them being carried, but this was the closest to an actual dead person I'd yet been. Something about it twisted my worried insides and filled me with reverence as I felt the presence of death.
I enjoyed myself the rest of the day. I was, however, feeling rather lonely, and, as every Indian who called me 'friend' was an obvious hawker for guest houses, hashish, opium, boats - mostly all at once - I found myself pining for travelers of my own ilk. I looked up places in the Lonely Planet that seemed like they might contain the group I was looking for, but each restaurant/cafe/lassi shop I went to was filled with non-English speaking Chinese or too-English-speaking fat white Russian couples, glaring at their food in skeptical disgust. Eventually resigned, I returned to my room to read.
After a couple chapters which failed to grab my attention, I figured, hell, I might as well check out the rooftop cafe of the place I'm staying. I was wary of running into the dude who runs the place, who was insistent to the point of desperation that I try some of his hash or opium, but figured I could at least get a chai and watch the rowboats and candle-prayers float down the Ganges.
I walked up the stairs and into the exact fucking scene I'd been craving all day. Cool looking people relaxing in hammocks and on futons and chairs, playing games, smoking joints, and, conversing with ease. Still feeling slightly awkward, I stood out like a horse's dick as I tried to find an empty seat. Seeing my futility, a girl about my own age came up and introduced herself.
"Can I join you guys?" I asked, trying to keep the hope out of my voice. She smiled and gestured welcomingly. I sat on the futon and made introductions with the group, all of whom were staying in the same guest house and hanging out on the roof together often. It turns out that if I had indeed let them clean my room before I moved in, I would've found it to be a very decent place. Many of the others' rooms were clean and spacious. The wonderful prices are, I think due to the proximity to the Burning Ghat, which I suppose makes some travelers uneasy. I made a lot of friends that night, and went to bed immensely satisfied and more than ready to celebrate Holi.
Holi, for those of you who don't know, is India's Festival of Colors. Most popular in the north, it's when the whole country comes together to raid the streets armed with colored powder and dyes which they throw on any and all who pass. It's a chaotic, exuberant, fantastic affair loaded with catcalls and whoops of joy. It is also a time when India's strict social norms are loosened, and the citizens roam the streets drinking alcohol in view of the police and embracing openly, which is normally at the height of impropriety. The darker side to Holi is to be found in the drinking; old feuds are revenged or renewed, fights break out, and clothing is torn aggressively off locals and tourists by packs of stumbling, yelling young men.
It's definitely the best Holiday ever. I can't believe some people's favorite is, like, Christmas or some shit. Seriously, where in Christianity are you allowed to chuck water balloons at people watching funerals, or at temples, or even at complete strangers? Let alone water balloons filled with dye so strong it doesn't wash off for days. The whole town gets decorated in splashes of blue, red, orange and purple.
Now that I was hanging out with the communal group on the roof, I got the full script about the dangers of Holi from the family who run the place.
"Don't go by yourself. Don't go out before noon. Stay near the hotels. Don't exit Old Varanasi. Stay with other tourists." Et cetera. I'd purchased tons of dye powder which I'd used to fill 6 big-ass water bottles, and my backpack was full and ready for a fight. When they saw me going out with my backpack, they got worried. "Don't take your backpack. Many thieves. Leave your camera. It will be damaged."
"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry. My backpack - look! - only for Holi. Camera no problem. Waterproof. See?" I smilingly poured some water onto my video camera. "And, y'know, even if it gets stolen, that'll suck, but it's ok. I got rid of everything I own before I left America." I said with a smile. Still, they wouldn't let me out of the guest house. It was only when I insisted and became irritable that they consented to open the padlock and let me out, cautioning me all the while not to leave Old Varanasi. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah...' I thought.
Twelve feet from the front door and a huge wave of pink doused me from head to tow. I looked up to see some kids giggling from the roof of the adjacent building. "Good shot!" I yelled approvingly, and pulled out a bottle of dye. I was ready.
I spent about an hour and a half running around, dousing and being doused by mainly kids. I think most of the adults were, at that point, on the main street that's big enough for even rickshaws to go down, drinking and being rowdy. I wanted to find them but got lost navigating the back streets and found myself back by my guesthouse. By that time, I was freezing cold and dripping wet, so I decided to take a break. I called out until they unlocked the gate, and learned that the communal group was having like a tourist-Holi on the roof, so I went up and joined them.
If all the travelers I'd met hadn't been such lovely people, you can bet your ass I would've risked my clothing, camera and dignity to venture out to the main streets, but as it was, I was having a blast with them. We formed a platoon and started accumulating ammunition. After we had tons of bottles of dye and water balloons, we hit the streets. It totally felt like playing Call of Duty or something, running around these winding, mazelike alleyways, getting bombed from the rooftops and squirted from doorways. It was fucking awesome, and we traipsed around yelling "Happy Holi" to everyone before covering them in color. The folk from our hotel were guiding us like sheepdogs, and made sure to steer us clear of any dangerous zones, although Alex from France did indeed get his wifebeater ripped halfway off before yelling Indians berated the drunk kid who did it and chased him off. Before too long, our guides hustled us back to the guest house. It was definitely a sheltered side of Holi, which I hadn't been planning on participating in, but the exhilaration of running through the alleys like a scene from a (very colorful) war film amongst friends more than made up for it. We were all exhausted when we returned, and collapsed on the futons to smoke, eat, drink, and make merry for the remainder of the night.
For example, my guest house. While following the brown-toothed drug merchant along the ghatside alleyways to his recommended locale, I couldn't help noticing the haze in the air and the absolutely mammoth piles of wooden logs stacked neatly around every corner. 'That's interesting,' I thought to myself. 'Huge piles of wood all over the place. Huh.' I immediately threw this observation aside, proceeded to check into my afore-mentioned filthy room (which, as it turned out, I completely misjudged, but more on that later) and wander about almost an entire day without realizing that my guest house was just about as close as you can be to Manikarnika Ghat and it's surrounding temples.
The Burning Ghats.
So close to my guest house that from the roof you can look down upon certain flames, dozens of bodies of devout Hindus are burned all day and all night, in a constant ceremonial offering of flesh and cleansing of karma. Numerous bodies per hour are carried through the streets by my house and artfully incinerated down to the bones.
Once again, I'm glad I have no sense of smell.
I woke up a couple days ago after an intensely disturbing dream. I found myself suddenly driving a car down a curving highway exit, by a brightly illuminated outlying mall. The shock of finding myself behind the wheel with no explanation led to me losing control of the vehicle, while the mid-40's woman in the passenger seat screamed in terror.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, HAROLD?" she yelled. I managed to skid out onto a patch of grass, where we sat, engine smoking. "HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, shaken. "My name's Hoku and I'm supposed to be in Varanasi right now. What's going on?" She looked at me, aghast.
The rest of my dream was confusing and overwhelming. I was taken to a mental health clinic, where they - the doctors, the woman (named Cindy, who, tears flying, desparately attempted to convince me she was my wife), and numerous psychiatrists tried agonizingly to make me believe that I was Harold Gupson, a 43-year old electrician, who'd suddenly, bafflingly, come to think of himself as a 24-year old world traveler. The lucidity and strangeness of the dream made it so that, when I awoke, I had to spent several minutes convincing myself that I was, truly, Hoku Donovan-Smith, and that I had not undergone a relapse of my disorder.
Needless to say, I was not myself that morning. I walked through Varanasi in a haze thicker than the smoke from the corpses, feeling out of place and wandering what the hell I was doing there. I tried for over an hour to find a pay phone to call Grannia, and when I did, I sat in the gutter trying to make sense out of her crackling, distant voice. I subtly tried to get sympathy for my mental state by mentioning how overwhelmed I was by everything, the hawkers, the bodies, the bewildering maze of tall thin alleyways that make up the streets of the Old City... but I'm afraid she found my descriptions nothing by interesting and enviable, and I hung up feeling lost and discordant.
I notice I'm finally making mechanical motions that, mere days ago, had to be made of a conscious effort. for example, I never really paid attention to it, but in the States (where we drive on the right) if you walk up to someone and have to step out of their way, you usually do so on the right. This led to much stumbling, bumping, and 'sorry's on my part. Now, I reflexively go to the left, and navigate the crowds easier. Also on the list are pointing with the hand instead of the finger, and using my right hand only for food, my face, and other people where possible. The left hand touches anything that might be unsanitary, like my bum, although on that day I finally broke down and bought toilet paper, sick of wiping with water and flesh.
I meandered back home, only getting lost a couple times, and smoked a great big joint all to myself. When I exited again, I found myself smack dab in the middle of a funeral procession, and squeezed myself out of the way just as the corpse was carried past. I had seen them being burned, I had seen them being carried, but this was the closest to an actual dead person I'd yet been. Something about it twisted my worried insides and filled me with reverence as I felt the presence of death.
I enjoyed myself the rest of the day. I was, however, feeling rather lonely, and, as every Indian who called me 'friend' was an obvious hawker for guest houses, hashish, opium, boats - mostly all at once - I found myself pining for travelers of my own ilk. I looked up places in the Lonely Planet that seemed like they might contain the group I was looking for, but each restaurant/cafe/lassi shop I went to was filled with non-English speaking Chinese or too-English-speaking fat white Russian couples, glaring at their food in skeptical disgust. Eventually resigned, I returned to my room to read.
After a couple chapters which failed to grab my attention, I figured, hell, I might as well check out the rooftop cafe of the place I'm staying. I was wary of running into the dude who runs the place, who was insistent to the point of desperation that I try some of his hash or opium, but figured I could at least get a chai and watch the rowboats and candle-prayers float down the Ganges.
I walked up the stairs and into the exact fucking scene I'd been craving all day. Cool looking people relaxing in hammocks and on futons and chairs, playing games, smoking joints, and, conversing with ease. Still feeling slightly awkward, I stood out like a horse's dick as I tried to find an empty seat. Seeing my futility, a girl about my own age came up and introduced herself.
"Can I join you guys?" I asked, trying to keep the hope out of my voice. She smiled and gestured welcomingly. I sat on the futon and made introductions with the group, all of whom were staying in the same guest house and hanging out on the roof together often. It turns out that if I had indeed let them clean my room before I moved in, I would've found it to be a very decent place. Many of the others' rooms were clean and spacious. The wonderful prices are, I think due to the proximity to the Burning Ghat, which I suppose makes some travelers uneasy. I made a lot of friends that night, and went to bed immensely satisfied and more than ready to celebrate Holi.
Holi, for those of you who don't know, is India's Festival of Colors. Most popular in the north, it's when the whole country comes together to raid the streets armed with colored powder and dyes which they throw on any and all who pass. It's a chaotic, exuberant, fantastic affair loaded with catcalls and whoops of joy. It is also a time when India's strict social norms are loosened, and the citizens roam the streets drinking alcohol in view of the police and embracing openly, which is normally at the height of impropriety. The darker side to Holi is to be found in the drinking; old feuds are revenged or renewed, fights break out, and clothing is torn aggressively off locals and tourists by packs of stumbling, yelling young men.
It's definitely the best Holiday ever. I can't believe some people's favorite is, like, Christmas or some shit. Seriously, where in Christianity are you allowed to chuck water balloons at people watching funerals, or at temples, or even at complete strangers? Let alone water balloons filled with dye so strong it doesn't wash off for days. The whole town gets decorated in splashes of blue, red, orange and purple.
Now that I was hanging out with the communal group on the roof, I got the full script about the dangers of Holi from the family who run the place.
"Don't go by yourself. Don't go out before noon. Stay near the hotels. Don't exit Old Varanasi. Stay with other tourists." Et cetera. I'd purchased tons of dye powder which I'd used to fill 6 big-ass water bottles, and my backpack was full and ready for a fight. When they saw me going out with my backpack, they got worried. "Don't take your backpack. Many thieves. Leave your camera. It will be damaged."
"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry. My backpack - look! - only for Holi. Camera no problem. Waterproof. See?" I smilingly poured some water onto my video camera. "And, y'know, even if it gets stolen, that'll suck, but it's ok. I got rid of everything I own before I left America." I said with a smile. Still, they wouldn't let me out of the guest house. It was only when I insisted and became irritable that they consented to open the padlock and let me out, cautioning me all the while not to leave Old Varanasi. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah...' I thought.
Twelve feet from the front door and a huge wave of pink doused me from head to tow. I looked up to see some kids giggling from the roof of the adjacent building. "Good shot!" I yelled approvingly, and pulled out a bottle of dye. I was ready.
I spent about an hour and a half running around, dousing and being doused by mainly kids. I think most of the adults were, at that point, on the main street that's big enough for even rickshaws to go down, drinking and being rowdy. I wanted to find them but got lost navigating the back streets and found myself back by my guesthouse. By that time, I was freezing cold and dripping wet, so I decided to take a break. I called out until they unlocked the gate, and learned that the communal group was having like a tourist-Holi on the roof, so I went up and joined them.
If all the travelers I'd met hadn't been such lovely people, you can bet your ass I would've risked my clothing, camera and dignity to venture out to the main streets, but as it was, I was having a blast with them. We formed a platoon and started accumulating ammunition. After we had tons of bottles of dye and water balloons, we hit the streets. It totally felt like playing Call of Duty or something, running around these winding, mazelike alleyways, getting bombed from the rooftops and squirted from doorways. It was fucking awesome, and we traipsed around yelling "Happy Holi" to everyone before covering them in color. The folk from our hotel were guiding us like sheepdogs, and made sure to steer us clear of any dangerous zones, although Alex from France did indeed get his wifebeater ripped halfway off before yelling Indians berated the drunk kid who did it and chased him off. Before too long, our guides hustled us back to the guest house. It was definitely a sheltered side of Holi, which I hadn't been planning on participating in, but the exhilaration of running through the alleys like a scene from a (very colorful) war film amongst friends more than made up for it. We were all exhausted when we returned, and collapsed on the futons to smoke, eat, drink, and make merry for the remainder of the night.
