The cab, uncharacteristically, is right on time.  For a culture that admits that punctuality is not high on the agenda, this is a really punctual cab company.  We’re heading to Aksherdahm Temple, which is about a two hour drive, and the driver speaks no English.  While this is a fairly straight-forward trip, this doesn’t make things easy—we do a lot of hand-gesturing, and I’ve been instructed that if and when we get confused, I am to call Mr. Pal, Abhishek, or Shubhendu, tell them what I need, and then give the phone to whomever I’m interacting with and they will explain.  That’s pretty sad, pretty helpless, and pretty optimistic that someone who has a phone put in his hand by a foreigner doesn’t just bolt.  But what the hell.

We begin our drive and there isn’t much to speak about due to the language barrier, but the driver does occasionally point at things, mention something in heavily accented English, and then ask me to repeat when I’ve repeated what he has said several times as I myself try to decipher was has been said.  This happens with every interaction, and we actually get pretty good at starting our tet a tet of repetition a good 4 minutes before a decision needs to be made so that we can reach an understanding and a decision by the time it’s necessary.  We’re doing pretty well.

We drive through Delhi and I never stop being amazed at the number of people, the scope of business, and how much my cultural preconceptions have hindered my ability to understand this place.  I know that most Americans work, have a job, get some kind of paycheck, go back to a domicile of some kind in the evening, and live their lives in a fairly general pattern.  Here, I have no idea what’s going on.

Streets are covered with countless venders selling peanuts every hundred feet, or chunks of sugar, roots, roasted this and stewed that.  Does the average Indian have this much disposable income to support all these places?  Can you actually support your life on selling peanuts in a poor city?  What about where these people sleep?  I’ve seen people sleeping all over the place, and they don’t look homeless.  Can you just crash in a field somewhere?  Does this happen?  And even if there were such a field, how do they decide who has ownership?  With the litigiousness of American society, nothing happens without someone approving or disapproving it; we have vacant lots that are managed by landlords—what about the lots I see here?  People have built shacks and shanties on them—is this legal?  If it weren’t, what would be done?  Do you just set up camp wherever you feel like and just roll with it?  I guess I just have a hard time understanding the scope of humanity here—this place is packed with people, and I just don’t understand how they make it work.

The drive takes about 90 minutes as we had anticipated, and is punctuated halfway through by another exchange over the word ‘temple’. I think we are here early, but then I see what’s going on when the driver pulls over—Lotus temple.  You’ve seen Lotus temple before.  It’s an enormous white temple with angular pedals that reach up to the sky like a metal flower opening.  To describe it in nerd terms, I’d say it looks like a cross between elvin décor and Klingon architecture.  Yeah, enjoy that one.

I snap a picture and we press on; before long the driver starts pointing, which we both understand; Aksherdahm Temple is off in the distance, and we’ll be there soon.  We get to the carpark and I have to get out of the car, go through a bomb checkpoint, which has become beyond second nature, and meet the driver inside.  We exchange numbers, and I put off in my mind the ridiculous idea of us communicating over the phone without the help of hand gestures.  We’ll tackle that issue when we come to it.

I enter the pre-security checkpoint for Aksherdahm.  While a center for Indian culture and the peaceful religion of Hindu, Aksherdahm is not without a troubling past.  About 5 years ago it was seized by terrorists for about a week, and this has left everyone a bit jumpy, which is far from not understandable.  The security measures, however, and nothing if not extremely, extremely thorough.  It’s easier to fly than it is to get into Aksherdahm, and I’m really not joking.  As I am removing the batteries to my mobile and my camera (neither are allowed on the grounds), I catch sight of a prohibited items list.  It easily contains 50 or so items, and they get very specific.  There are the standard bans on flammable liquids, weapons, and drugs, but then things get a little more interesting.  Here are some of my favorites:

• Pen drives
• Flash lights
• Magnets
• Utensils
• Soap
• Shampoo
• Notebook
• Diary
• Umbrella
• Calculator
• Chocolate
• Newspapers
• And last but not least, Drunkards

I can understand the mobile phone and technology, but a great number of these seem a little too specific to be worth the effort of mentioning them.  Is smuggling shampoo into the compound that large of an epidemic?

The line to check my electronics isn’t long, but it’s very slow moving and rather…Indian.  With the lack of personal space in the country, people’s line-standing etiquette is just different.  It’s not uncommon to push, keep your hands on the back of the guy in front of you, and shove and push your way in front.  And I’m alone now, and it really feels that way.  I don’t like acting meek but I am—I can only rely on the kindness and English skills of the officers working, and while they do an excellent job of taking care of me and getting me through the lines, it feels a little like I’m the teacher’s pet and all the other pupils look at me, annoyed at the privileges I get because of my nationality.

Security checking actually consists of looking through everything, including shoes, and patting me down with an explosive scanner.  There is also a good old-fashioned hand frisk which consists of a delightful yet unexpected juggle of the nuts.  That’s some customer service.

The monument itself is something to behold.  The first thing that stands out besides the size of the compound is the intricacy of the carving.  In the center is the temple itself, made of white stone that I would assume is marble, and every inch of it is ornately carved.  It looks like a mini figurine that someone has spent years perfecting.  At the base of the monument are symbolic carvings of elephants—often with multiple trunks, or with many elephants seemingly paying homage to one large central one.  Surrounding the temple on all sides is a shallow pool of water which is fed by 108 brass cow-head spigots that send water cascading from their mouths.  The number, I hear, is symbolic of the number of rivers that feed the region.

Unfortunately, the temple itself is closed, which is news to me.  But there are other things to see here, and I follow along the perimeter, which consists of carved sandstone and encompasses the entirety of the enclosure.  Eventually I come to a point where there is a momento picture being taken.  Normally, this would not be attractive to me in the least, but given that my camera and my shampoo have both been confiscated, I decide to go for it, and at the reasonable price of 100rps, what the hell.

As I am waiting my turn, two girls jump up in front of me, one of them wearing a yellow siri with a blue scarf.  The man taking the pictures tells her she has cut the meek western dude standing off to the side awkwardly, and she asks me if this is ok.  Never one to offend (which just means weak-willed and not in a real hurry to take a picture by myself) I tell her to go for it.  She thanks me, takes her picture with her friend, introduces herself to me, and as I am in the process of forgetting her name, the camera guy signals that it is my turn.  Ok, let’s do this.

After some positioning he gets ready to frame the shot and I stand there, good and uncomfortable.  Not only am I now taking a picture alone, but I’ve had to get off the step everyone else stands on because I’m too tall, and beyond that, I’m not quite sure what to do.  The last three families I’ve seen up here looked incredibly stern—not a smile in sight.  Should I smile?  Would that cheapen the reverence of this holy place?  Then again, we’re talking about a holy place that sells souvenir photos.  I go with the compromise that almost never works well; I will smile lightly with my mouth closed.  This never works because when I’m smiling politely my eyes give away the fact that I’m not really into it; I look bored or angry.  And my mouth always ends up looking a little lopsided and I exude a general air of discomfort.  It’s not pretty and it makes me—and I fully appreciate the offensiveness of this—look a little more special needs than I’d like.

Making things even better is the fact that the White Western guy who doesn’t like a lot of attention has attracted quite an audience.  Dwarfing my usual entourage of onlookers, I now have a solid 15 people wondering what the dopey American is doing having a picture taken by himself with such a “out without my walking helmet” look on his face.  And my new friend, let’s call her Bindaya (because that sounds something close to what she said) has now amassed a group of her girl friends who are watching intently and giggling.  Basically all I need is for a swami to come up behind me and pants me and we’re looking at my nightmare scenario for social awkwardness.  Click.  Thank fucking god.

As I leave the line and continue walking the perimeter I round a corner and run into Bindaya and her friends.  It would seem they’ve been waiting.  Bindaya introduces herself to me again and the other girls begin to chime in—about 8 in total.  Where am I from?  What’s my name?  What am I doing here?  They appear to be in college (Bindaya says she is a lecturer at a local college), and every response I give elicits a round of giggles.  The all introduce themselves, and since I don’t know if they’re really strict Hindu’s, I’m not sure if it would be inappropriate to offer my hand, particularly in a temple, so I just nod awkwardly as I meet each one.  It feels incredibly incomplete to meet someone and not seal the interaction with a handshake.

After a few more questions they say goodbye and walk on slowly, and I walk slower, linger behind a corner, and then find a lookout over the temple and contemplate life for a while to give them some distance.  I swear sometimes my social awkwardness is a disability.

Walking on I pass the Lotus Garden, which is 7 pedals sunken into the landscape with stone with each pedal inscribed with plaques in Hindu and English of peaceful quotes about man’s relationship with God.  I can’t think of anything else to do, so I walk down the steps from the bridge that crosses over the middle of the garden and begin reading.  I do this for about 3 minutes when I hear my name.

“Hi Bryan!”  It’s Bindaya and her friends, crossing the bridge, waving and giggling.  I give a sheepish wave and go back to reading the plaques, ignoring the other people on the bridge watching me now.  I make it to the 3^rd pedal when I see a flash of yellow and look up to the bridge and the same girls are walking back over, waving to me again.  This happens 2 more times.

I’m uncomfortable.  I mean, it’s flattering, and I would actually not mind talking with the girls and getting to know more about where we are and what they do, but I’m really not in that place, and the language barrier is really exhausting at times.  They speak very, very good English, but sometimes just decoding the accent is tiring enough.  And on top of that, I don’t want to make a faux pas at the temple, as I already feel like I stick out.  There are other tourists here, but our number is dwarfed by the hundreds and hundreds of school children.

I only have about an hour left so I buy a ticket for a ‘boat ride’, which is in a building just past an enormous fountain which is also closed for maintenance.  I wait in line with about 200 school children and practice balancing looking comfortable traveling alone, but not aloof.  It’s harder than you’d think.  After being led into several different rooms where we reform lines I meet up with two other Americans—Raj and Dana—and get into the large boat of the English speaking tour.  We’re the only ones on the boat.
The tour is about the advanced nature of the Vedic society that predated what we now know to be India.  I find the level of advancement of such societies to be incredibly interesting, but towards the end, this starts to sound more like an India pep rally than a historical presentation.  India was the first democracy.  India had the first colleges.  India beat Pythagoras to the theorem by 300 years.  Indian surgeons were performing plastic surgery and doing nose jobs 3000 years ago (seriously.  There were mannequins holding chisels up to the noses of other mannequins lying prostrate.  India had the first astronomers.  India had this. India had that.  And this always harkens back to my first question with most of these societies—why did it stop?  If the Vedic society was already one that would seem to be as advanced as ours, why did it stop some time ago?  Why didn’t it continue to advance us past the point where the west started if the western forces were busy herding sheep and mastering fire while this society was knocking out nosejobs and besting Pythagoras by three centuries?

I have to turn down Raj and Dana’s invitation to go on to the next show as it’s time for me to leave; I’m already going to be late by the time I collect my things from the security room, and I still have to pack for the weekend back in Gurgaon.  Security goes well, and I exit the complex, am only asked for money once, and call the driver.  He says something.  I say something back.  He hangs up.  I call back.

He says something more frantically.  I think he says ‘front’.  I have no idea.  He does say ak minat, and I know that means “one minute”.  So I wait out in front and pretend not to hear the guard with the assault rifle tell me to move along.  I smile at him and give the thumbs up, playing the stupid foreigner card to buy some time.  I don’t want to leave this place because it’s the best shot of finding the cab and I’m surely going to end up being harassed if I take a side street in such a tourist-popular area.

The cab then whips around the corner and the driver honks to me, motioning for me to get into the car before we are both lost in a hail of bullets.  I get in and we drive back to Gurgaon.

*                                                                        *                                                                        *

Due to laziness or a sense of irony I order Papa John’s for dinner tonight.  I’m in a flurry of packing, which is me being dramatic.  I pack jeans, a pair of shorts, and a couple of tshirts and call it a done deal.  But I have calls to make, and don’t feel like navigating another takeout place. I order a cheese pizza and am thankful that I’ve ordered a medium.  It has 6 pieces and is about the size of an American small.  But I’m not that hungry anyway.

Shubh calls at about 6 to confirm plans, and after a quick stop at the ATM to take out 10,000rps for the road (sounds impressive, doesn’t it?), we head out for the Pushkar Fair out in the desert state of Rajistan.  Because night driving is slower, the roads are worse, and the driver doesn’t really know the area, it’s going to take at least 6 hours of driving.  We should reach the camp at about 2am with stops.

To make the journey even more exciting, we don’t really have a place to stay, which seems to not bother Shubh.  The beautiful thing about traveling and having a marginal ability to write is that situations like this threaten to be horribly uncomfortable, but such hardships will pay off 10-fold when it comes to having a story to tell.  We could bed down with a herd of camels for all I care.

The actual plan is that we will stay in a canvas tent in Pushkar Fort, which have been specially resurrected for the camel fair.  The contact says he doesn’t have room, but Shubh is confident he can make room, and on top, we have a reference from a guy at work who was there this last weekend—a fact that Shubh will use in the negotiation.

The car we rent this weekend is a larger model by the region’s standards-about the size of a Ford Focus—and I am grateful for the extra legroom.  The initial driving goes well, or as well as can be expected for driving in India on a Friday night.  The driver is, in fact, a cab driver, though a slightly more conservative one, and he does not speak English either.  Shubh and I talk for a while, then stare out at the landscape whizzing by, and eventually nod off.  Before long the driver is tapping my leg—there’s a toll ahead, so I give him money.  Since the state of Haryana and Rajistan have different taxation and fees for commercial vehicles, I end up reaching in my pocket quite a bit over the course of the drive.

At the suggestion of the driver we stop for dinner at a roadside hotel just beyond the border of Rajistan.  The place makes me think of restaurants in the Indiana Jones movies.  The dining room is a barren place with white walls and dark wooden chairs and tables.  Locals sit around eating and talking beneath the slowly rotating ceiling fans and look up for a moment when I walk into the room.  Then they resume, uninterested.  I don’t think we’re the first tourists the cab driver has brought in here.

We order a dinner of chicken kabobs, a masala, and roti.  It’s very good, and we’re doing the best we can to hedge our bets and eat only the things least likely to get me sick.  The last thing I need on a 6-8hr car ride is Delhi Belly.  But the food appears good, is reasonably priced, and is filling.

Back in the cab it takes us a matter of 30 minutes of driving before Shubh and I both completely pass out, which is a difficult thing to do as a passenger here.  Driving in America, the people I’ve spoken to say, is funny to them.  The idea that one can space out is a completely foreign concept, as are the concepts of staying in your lane or smooth roads.  The driving here is hectic and loud.  Even on the highway there is a lot of swerving, and since it’s night in a more rural area, the usual incessant honking has actually gotten louder as most of the vehicles we’re moving between are large trucks carrying grain, marble, or gasoline.  Driving requires absolute attention and begets constant feedback.

As the night gets later I wake up to the sign of more noise than usual and am startled to see a number of large headlights moving towards us.  With about 15’ to spare, the driver slips next to another truck in our lane and shoots the gab between the two truck heading in opposite directions.  I decide it’s better if I sleep though this.  I also wish there were seatbelts in the back.

We stop at a truck stop and get out to stretch.  This is my first (of many) introduction to this type of structure.  Here there are numerous tables, cots, and snackfoods—it appears to be an Indian take on a truck stop, as there are several drivers parked there.  What’s most interesting to me is the fact that there is no real shelter from the elements here; storefronts lack a front wall.  Structures like this are comprised of the other three walls (with a small back wall) and a roof.  Men sit around a campfire in front, wrapped in blankets and sporting colorful turbans.

The look of the people here has changed.  What I think is just an instance of rural vs. city is actually a real change between the states.  Rajistani men, Shubh tells me, wear colorful turbans (where as Sikhs are the only habitual head wrap-wearers in the city), sport bushy curled mustaches (which I had been admiring), and have ear and top rings in both ears.  On top of that, this is a very Muslin state, so the conservative influences are stronger in this region, and restrictions on alcohol are almost absolute.

We drive on and Shubh continues sleeping, and I occasionally try to catch some shut eye myself, but there’s really no point.  Each time I drift off the horns wake me up, and when they don’t, the tapping on my leg signifying a toll does.  We eek along towards Pushkar and eventually reach the down around 2 in the morning.

The problem we now face is the fact that we don’t know where the fort we are staying at is, and no one seems to be able to tell us.  We drive around the streets, which are absolutely littered with sleeping people.  It looks like a college campout, if students wore turbans and traded camels.  We drive from building to building, and finally into the center of town where people are sleeping so packed together than their sleeping blankets look like carpeting.  To make things more difficult, there are cows all over the road, and our cab driver lays on the horn constantly.  I feel badly, but the lumps under the blankets don’t move.

Eventually we make it to the fort at about 3am.  Our contact guy leads us to our tent and bids us goodnight.  To call it a tent is a bit of a dressdown—it’s a house with canvas walls.  Covering an area of about 20’X30’, the tent has two twin beds, several sitting chairs, and indoor plumbing and a washroom behind a second canvas wall.  Behind the wall, I see, is a full porcelain western toilet.  This is hardly roughing it, but I’m too enamored with the idea of a tent with indoor plumbing.  With barely a thought left in my head, it hits the pillow and I am unconscious in less than a minute.

Today the honeymoon was over.  It’s been an adventure this entire trip; though I’ve had to work, the exotic location and the cultural differences have kept things interesting—but today I started to get used to this.  The more time I spend in this culture, the more I realize that, while the people may speak a different language and adopt different customs, we’re very similar.

After breakfast and driving to the office, I sit in a work station that I’ve adopted for the past few days.  It’s adorned with the usual woman’s decorations, including a printout of some of those Lifetime Channel-esque sayings that have to do with the general frustrations of being a woman.  Gems such as:

• If it has testicles or tires, it’s going to give you trouble!
• A 14 diet is a great way to lose-I’ve lost 7 days already!
• Sometimes you just need a night out with the girls!  And some drinks!

This kind of stuff, as is pretty obvious, is really not my cup of tea.  And anything that accentuates every sentence with an exclamation point is almost always the type of humor that makes me want to stab people, which is to say, it’s just obvious office humor.  Someone has a case of the Mondays!  Take an obvious joke and throw and exclamation point on there, and it’s the literary version of slapstick.  Isn’t that wacky—BaZOW!  So it’s funny to see that the humor I find so universally annoying is, in fact, universal.

The other thing that I now notice that the process has become somewhat commonplace is that, which I crave routines, as soon as I establish one, I’m bored with it.  I now sit at the desk and am working—honestly working—and I’m falling asleep at my cube.  Despite the fact that I’m in India, the fact that I’m in charge of this training, and the fact that these people drink tea more frequently than the Queen Mother, I can’t seem to keep my eyes open.  And I start playing on Facebook and placing harassing phone calls.  Erik gets one.  Wylie gets one.  Regis gets several.

Even the lunch gets a little commonplace (lentils and roti again??).  No, I still enjoy lunch, but it’s fallen into habit now; I don’t have to think about what to do, where to go, and what foods to avoid.  It’s all programmed.

I end up working fairly late, and actually stay until about 7:30 planning some of my weekend activities.  The plan has changed literally a half-dozen times, though the targets don’t.  I’m working on making my way to the Pushkar Camel Fair, where camels and traders meet annually (well, the camels don’t do much negotiating , but rather just have the decency to show up), the Taj Mahal, which need no introduction, and something to do on Friday.  Originally the plan had been for me to head to Agra and the Taj by myself on Friday until someone had the good foresight to check and see if this temple, which has strong Muslim influence (as well as the entire surrounding town) would be open on Friday.  It would not be. The plan was then actually reversed and finalized; I would head to Aksherdahn temple tomorrow, then come back, pack, and leave for the weekend with Shubh, who would act as my companion and interpreter once we hit the more rural regions of the country.  And this is one more reason I like SHubh—he’s an adventurer.  A lot of Indian’s tend to be content spending time with family, but once Shubh has done this he heads out into the mountains.  He likes trips; this will be fun.

I finally get home a little before 8, get ready to order some dinner, and see that I still hadn’t eaten the dinner Surender had made for me yesterday; I attack this while drinking Coke on the couch and watching a DVD performance of Russel Peters, who is an Indian comic that Alam finds very funny.  And he is really funny.  Once I eat my food, make a call or two, I fall asleep.  The cab will be here at 10am tomorrow, and I intend to sleep as long as I can until then.

One of the most difficult things for me on this trip has been the loss of my anonymity.  When I travel I always spend at least some time alone; I like to lose myself in where I am, maybe talk to some locals, or at least just walk around by myself without talking—just watching and listening.  And I take pictures—as anyone knows—lots of them.  I take pictures obsessively; they are the window to my past, and I document places and events in specific details.  Items I use every day, local animals and plants, the front door of the place I stay—all these things, as inconsequential as they may seem to a normal person—are very important and get documented.

But I am self-conscious about this process.  I find that I can only do this well in a moment by myself—when traveling companions are busy with something else, or when I am off alone.  When I take the picture—as strange as this seems—it’s a moment of vulnerability for me.  It’s me showing my desires, and my thoughts, and to have a stranger or even a friend see that is very uncomfortable for me.  When people see my pictures they often comments on their style—and frequently add something like “I didn’t even see you taking these!”  That’s not by mistake.

India is by far the hardest assignment for me yet.  I can’t find a moment alone here; there is always someone watching.  There is always someone watching because there are more people than the US in 1/3 of the space.  There is always someone watching because I don’t have the ability to go off alone as I don’t speak the language.  And there is always someone watching because I am, despite my best efforts, on display.  I look different, I speak differently, and I’m very tall (by comparison)—everyone watches me when I go somewhere, and it is in those spaces I would like to take photos.

Another reason that I have difficulty taking pictures is that I don’t really photograph people all that well—it feels invasive, even though few feel that way about it.  But I feel voyeuristic and when someone notices I’ve been taking pictures of them and smiles, I feel as though I’ve been caught doing something inappropriate.  On one level, I feel like by treating these people as props I’m marginalizing them; it’s like they’re a backdrop for my cultural exploration; a novelty item to snap a shot of before I head back to my rich life in Seattle.  Oh look, a shanty with children playing in the dirt—click—what a marvelous specimen of the Indian poor.  It feels wrong.

And the other problem I feel is that it separates me from the experience.  I’ve always been aware of the fact that I, in a sense, miss things because I’m so busy trying to capture moments on camera.  It’s the trade off of photography, and it’s something I struggle with; but it’s especially prevalent here in a culture where everyone seems connected.  The bonds between these people are so strong and so genuine, that to step out of the moment to take out your camera and snap a picture of some part of it really cheapens the whole thing.  Not only that, but it throws up this other wall between us; the lens is a reminder that I’m a visitor to this land, and that this is still a novelty for me—and I worry that it cheapens the bond I’m working to make with people in this country.  In this relationship-based culture, it feels like I am removing myself from the connectedness of the collective situation, and it ostracizes me even more.

So this is the struggle that I deal with every day I am in India and my shutter finger twitches.  I would love to take pictures of so many things but I don’t. The one exception, however, are on the drives.  On the drives—like the one to work this morning—I snap shot after shot of the cows, pigs, donkeys, drivers, riders, and walkers that make up the morning rat race, and that’s what I’m up to this morning.

Time at the office has lost a bit of its thrill because I’m actually working—really hard, and very late.  It’s exhausting.  I’m doing all the hard parts of teaching again with all the long hours of my current job.  I first felt like I was getting a sweet deal with this trip—and I clearly am—but I really have to work hard to play hard.

The steady flow of tea and coffee is welcomed, and I’m starting to enjoy the schedule here.  First thing in the morning Surender or Mukresh bring around chai.  Then there’s another round at noon.  Then lunch at about 1:30.  Another round at 4 or so, and then a last one around 6.  It starts to make a little more sense why people run so late here—no wonder dinner isn’t until 9 or 10 at night.  I’m usually so jacked up after work I feel like jogging home.

So I’m very much ready when Shubh asks me if I’d like to go out after work; absolutely!  Let’s do this!  Let me do some jumping jacks first though.

Shubh suggests we get some traditional Indian food—in fact, from the very place that I hadn’t been ready for at the beginning of the week.  I’m ready, and my stomach’s been a little angry today anyway, so what do I have to lose?

I am dropped off and given a 45-minute window during which I can relax and change before Shubh will come back for me.

I change, but relaxing is currently not possible.  After answering emails and calling the Seattle office to check in, I spend the rest of the time searching for medications for my cough.  I’ve been living with this lung problem since I got to India, and I’m waiting for it to explode.  Whenever I take a deep breathe I hear a rumble in my chest—a low gurgle that let’s me know that if it weren’t so dry here, I’d probably be drowning with filled lungs.  So I’ve been diligent about taking my meds.  Up until now.

When Shubh comes back I go downstairs and get into his car.  “In America you are not used to such small cars?”  He asks me.  No, I tell him, this is a small car for Americans, but not that small.   And it’s actually remarkably well—suited for Indian driving—these people wedge and weave into spaces that still shock me, and even though I’ve been here for a while now, I flinch a few times we Shubh makes a u-turn around the road divider, cuts off three lanes of traffic, and zips through a space between a large truck and a rickshaw that I might have, after some internal debate, considered walking through.

Shubh’s son, Sushmidt hops around in the back seat as we drive.   Shubh has, on more than one occasion, laughed and reminded me that putting on a seatbelt isn’t necessary in the back seat.  It’s only compulsory in the front seat—it’s perfectly safe in the back, and he tends to smile at me when my arm instinctively reaches for the shoulder strap.  I wonder if whiplash or bruises are common when driving here—I mean, it doesn’t take much to get hurt traveling at even a low speed in the car, and as I’m considering this, Shubh hits the breaks as a car cuts him off and I feel Sushmidt fly sideways into the back of my chair.  Whomp. He’s falls partially down to the floor, collects himself, and then carries on playing whatever game he’s been amusing himself with.

We go back to Shubh’s place, which is in a different compound or “colony”, as I’ve heard it referred to, which I think it kind of fitting.  Much of the time it feels as though these are pockets of safety in the middle of the desert—it looks a little Mad Maxish out here at times, though The Road Warrior would learn a thing or two about aggressive driving from this area.

I earn points with Shubh when I walk into his house and ask if I should take my shoes off—this takes him aback and he asks if I’ve read this somewhere.  In truth I have—I’ve finally finished the Hindu culture book I’d purchased back in Seattle and it’s apparently fairly accurate.

There’s a very traditionally dressed woman moving about the house, and she hides from me, but I can occasionally catch her sneaking glances at me.  This is not, in fact, Shubh’s wife, and I’m glad I don’t make the mistake of trying to shake her hand (and the only reason I don’t is because the All-Knowing Book tells me not to unless she gestures first).  She is, in fact, a domestic servant for Shubh and his wife, since they both work—she’s like a live-in nanny for Shushmidt.  “She thinks you’re very interesting,” says Shubh “She’s never heard someone who sounds like you do.”  What he means is that this woman, as most in this position, are from very poor, very rural areas of India, and her interaction with foreigners is practically nonexistent.

Shubh opens a couple of Kingfishers and in a while Shushmidt’s nanny brings out a tray of kabobs, so we sit and eat while Shushmidt sits on the couch next to me and studies his homework.

He’s very dedicated, I say to Shubh.

“Yes, says Shubh “he’s very disciplined about his studies.”

I find Shubh really easy to talk to, and again, he makes things easy on me because he wants to know as much about how I grew up as I do about him.  Around 8:30PM there is commotion at the door, and in walks a shorter woman with a broad smile, and a very kind, round face—this is Shubh’s wife Ishria. She welcomes me to the house and sits and joins us for some kabobs and drinks.  She, like Shubh, is very kind and very interested in my history—as the book mentions, this is apparently very important in Indian culture—where you’re from and your family.  I find myself feeling incredibly comfortable here, and I’m happy for the two of them—they seem very content, and I can tell that Shubh is excited that things are going smoothly.

We head off to the restaurant and I’m surprised to see that it’s actually the place that Vandana and Rhea and I had been to the other night.  While the downstairs is a festive and brightly colored sweet shop, the upstairs is more Indian food, and this is where we go and where Shubh and Ishria deposit me at a table.  The place is Indian Chuck E. Cheese.  Around us are brightly colored walls, whole families, and a bank of games in the middle of the eating space to where Shushmidt immediately makes a bee-line.

After buying food tickets and waiting for the meals, my two hosts come back and lay out our meal.  Ishria takes the time—which is something I really love about this place—people take the time to explain each food item, to me—and this is something that Ishria really seems to like.  I’m very much interested, and as she tells me about what I’m eating, I ask questions about how it’s prepared and the like.  She likes my technique with the roti and tells me this—which makes me happy.  I’ve been working very hard to make a lot of customs second nature to me, and one is always eating with your right hand.  While I’ve always tried to do this, I most recently figured out how to tear the roti for the meal with one hand.  This, Ishria tells me, takes some skill.  I’m feeling pretty good about this.

After dinner Shubh gets some kulfi, though it’s different that the stuff I had the other night.  While it does have the ice cream, it also comes in a bowl that—for lack of a knowledgeable description—looks like it’s been covered in spaghetti.  The noodles are sweet, but not overly so, but I can’t get over the feeling a bit like I’m in the movie Elf when Will Farrell covers his sphaghetti-and-candy concoction with maple syrup.  It makes me realize how texture-and-taste are so closely intertwined in my memory—though it’s pretty good, I’m a little freaked out by the sweet flavor I get when I pop a coil into my mouth and expect to taste garlic.

The store starts closing, and it’s already fairly late, so we walk to the car, past the camel that gives children rides, though I wouldn’t think of a lesser-suited animal.  It’s sitting down and as I approach it looks at me with those big, skeptical eyes.  What the hell do you want, they ask.

Hey buddy, I say.

And the thing lunges at me.  Now, I can’t say it went for the jugular or anything, but I was standing on the opposite side of a small fence and snaked its head over towards my face, and made a chomping sound with its teeth.  I turn and look at Shubh.

“Oh no,” he says “camels don’t bite.”

I’m pretty sure they do Shubh.

“No no, they don’t.”

I move my hand in a circular motion in the place that the camel has just gnashed its teeth and raise my eyebrows, but Shubh will not be dissuaded.  “No,” he says “they don’t bite.”

Shubh’s family drops me off at home and I say goodbye to Shushmidt, who Shubh is teaching to shake hands.  When I am saying goodbye to Ishria it finally hits; I won’t be seeing them again this trip.  I leave Friday morning for travel, and I’m actually saddened because I don’t make friends particularly easily and I feel like I have.  But I literally live on the other side of the world.  For the first time, the gravity of where I am and the choices I make becomes clear—while it may now only be a long plane ride, and while we are connected as a world through electronics, India remains a distant land.  It may be easy to call here, but it truly is a long, long way away.

Surender is back, and so are the cheese omelets!  Though I ask him how he is feeling and wish him better, our interaction is still limited.  But I got a smile, so that’s something.

This morning has consisted of calls. I made a work call to check in and see how things were going back in the department in the US, called my parents briefly to check in, and then spent the better part of the morning typing up work materials and talking to Regis.  While the telephone is pretty pervasive here, I find that Skype has much better voice quality, and what’s better is that the other end has a webcam, so I can actually see the face that Regis is making when I say something characteristically stupid.  That and she ain’t hard on the eyes.  It’s the little familiar comforts that help when you’re away.

But it feels good to see her, and while Surender comes in to make breakfast we switch to typing so that he doesn’t think I’m talking to myself.  I have a disconnected feeling here; I still can’t get my head around the interconnectedness of the world through travel and electronic information exchange.  I guess I’m still somewhat primitive in that I assume that since I’m talking to and hearing someone, they must be close by.  Though the plane ride was long, actually holding the idea in my head of being on the other side of the world is too difficult.  Add in the fact that I can call anyone at anytime, or talk to Regis in realtime, and my mind and feelings start a tug of war.  People’s words are close, but physically they are not—it seems incredibly simple for everyone but me.

Abhishek picks me up to drive me to the office and I’m pleased to see that his crisp business attire has been replaced with jeans and a polo, which looks a little more in line with my polo and linen pants.  The range of dress at the office is interesting—from graphic tees to starched white shirts, though unlike the US, no one seems to judge, and clothes are not necessarily indicative or rank.  Revise that; they are not. 

Today is the commuter’s Day of the Cow.  Cows are in the road all over the place, and Abhishek doesn’t break his speed, but rather weaves in and out of them like a slalom racer, giving each cow the traditional Indian 3” of clearance.  The first couple of times this scares me because I am convinced that the cows would spook and run like the ones in the states.  The don’t so much as look at us.  They just stand there, staring ahead, as little wheeled metal boxes accommodate their casual lifestyles. 

The cows have very much the same attitude as the culture here; they seem less concerned with events and conflicts and have more of a relaxed attitude and look at the big picture (well, bovine metaphysical questions probably aren’t at the forefront, but you get the idea).  I can’t place my finger on why exactly this culture is so different—because it is—but a lot I think has to do with a lack of this need to constantly build and achieve for progress’ sake.  That’s not to say that Indian’s aren’t hard workers or ambitious—not at all—but they do this for different reasons than in my culture.  It seems like much of the time we achieve and build because we are scared an opportunity will be lost, or because we are terrified of being left behind, not being as good as the guy next door, or not having the nicest lawn on the block.  We are more concerned with realizing that we may one day wake up discontent than actually seeing if we feel that way presently.  I haven’t yet seen that side of Indian culture, and though it may exist, it isn’t nearly as obvious as it is in America.

Work today is good.  I’m feeling more comfortable with where I want to take this process, and I feel more at ease in the office, though I never really felt uneasy.  I start today working in the cubicles, which I like.  It still amazes me how silent the workspace is, even though there are well over 30 people working in one room.  Throughout the day different people trade places, moving from Alam’s office to the conference room, and back, and I never hear a harsh word exchanged.  No one appears frustrated, and no one seems to be having a tough day—even Surender, who apparently still has a mild fever—is going about his day as though the world is as it’s always been. 

We have to move to an office after about 40 minutes since Shubhendu is constantly inundated by requests for attention in his other work responsibilities.  We move into a small glass room and work opposite each other on a single desk.  Abhishek opts to stay at his station, and both periodically ask me questions.  At about 1:30 we break for lunch, which I am ready for, and we grab our trays and eat in the office. 

I’ve really started to enjoy eating Indian food not only for the taste, but for the communal aspect of eating together.  I like that they cater one thing and we all eat it, and I like that we readily share food with one another.  Abhishek has brought some food from home and shares it with me—it’s extremely good.  “Lady fingers”, which I think are okra, and a potato/cauliflower dish that’s even better.  I’ve even gotten better at tearing my bread one-handed, which is harder than you’d think to do fluidly. 

We work until about 6:30 or so that evening, and are periodically brought chai by Surender.  Then it comes time to start thinking about a ride home, Abhishek offers me one later on around 7, which is fine.  I don’t mind working in the office a little later, because it’s either that or work alone at home, and I enjoy seeing other people milling around.  More amusing still is the fact that with fewer people in the office some people start playing light music and there’s a more festive feel to the place. 

“Would you like to go to a bar or get a bite?” Asks Shubhendu after popping his head back into the office. 

Sure, I tell him, that would be nice. 

“Alam wants to know.”  Absolutely, I say. 

I always look forward to a chance to spend time with Alam or his family—they create a comfort that’s very soothing, and frankly I really like listening to Alam speak.  He has a very melodic intonation, and his voice is very smooth and relaxed; it calms you, and on top of that, he’s really, really funny.  His wife Vandana is also funny and so incredibly kind, and it’s amusing to hear them debate things—she usual approaches issues with a sense of practicality and assesses the risk, he adopts a more ‘oh, it’ll be fine’ stance.  They’re just a pleasure to spend time with, and I’m genuinely excited to go out with them this evening.

Shubh takes me to Alam’s office where he is trying to figure out how to work his new Blackberry.  Reinforcements are called in, and Mr. Pal, his assistant, a technical support guy, and I try to figure out how to silence the thing.  Then he offers me a seat and checks some emails—and here is a perfect example of another thing that I find very interesting.  Alam shares his space with me.  We’re in his office, and I’m just sitting there while he works on his computer.  He’s clearly finishing something up, but there doesn’t appear to be this need to continually interact with me as there would be if I were in my Seattle boss’ office.  Once we were done communicating, she’d tell me to go, and that would be that; we only occupy the same space when there’s a need.  This is different for me, and I like it.  The people in this country are used to sharing space for no particular purpose because there isn’t a lot of it.  Or I could just be reading too reading too far into it and Alam wants to make sure I’m not stealing office supplies.  Who knows. 

After picking Rhea up from school Alam drives us to a South Indian restaurant which he says is very good and I’m excited for—if dinner is anything like breakfast, this is going to be great.  Upon walking in I notice a delicate smell of incense, as well as several men in rough-stitched black dinner jackets who take us to a table. 

Alam orders for the table—a seafood starter, a vegetarian dish, and a hot chicken dish.  Also, we order beer.  Happy hour in Gurgaon is always the same—before 8pm, you get a “one plus one” deal—when you buy a beer, you get another one free.  This also makes me realize, since the emptiness of the restaurant hadn’t tipped me off, that they have been kind enough to have—for the area—a very early dinner. 

I had been a little concerned when the food came that I would have to push through it—traditionally I rarely eat seafood and was a little concerned when Alam ordered it as an appetizer—but the spice-rubbed fish was actually very good.  I would easily order everything again, especially the rice dough bowl that came as my bread.  Comprised of fermented rice flour, this bread comes in the shape of a porous, thin bowl, and sits on a plate to your left.  As I work my way down, tearing away pieces to eat with the meal, I find that the bottom is somewhat thicker and softer than the crispy top, and that all of it is a complete pleasure to eat.

After the restaurant we drive down the road to a local sweet shop for dessert.  Inside the first level of the building is all manner of Indian sweets.  I recognize the gulab jamun—which look like little donut holes soaked in sugar water (and essentially are)—from the first day, the jalebi—batter and homemade cheese deep friend in a pretzel shape and soaked in syrup—which was the one item I could safely eat in from the shops in old Delhi, and a whole host of new and exciting looking confections.  Our objective tonight, however, is kulfi, or Indian ice cream, which is ice cream flavored with jasmine, saffron, or similar spices. 

Vandana gets our tickets at the counter and we go wait at one of the counters in the brightly lit store.  All around us men with mops swoop, constantly wiping the floors, which is probably necessary given the incredible syrup content of some of these sweets.  My kulfi comes frozen in a little clay pot with a plastic spoon and a small cloth tied around the top.  As I dig in with the spoon I worry for a moment—I am supposed to stay away from dairy specifically, but after Vandana explains the creation of the snack—and offhandedly mentions the magic word (boil)—I decide this is an ok risk.  On top of that, I’d already eaten yogurt and cream at lunch today, and have slowly been getting tired of the restricted diet that I’ve imposed on myself.  I’ll have to work more diligently on deciding exactly what my cut-off point is, though after taking my first taste, I’m glad it isn’t before kulfi.

The flavor is not what I expected and it strikes me at first.  This is saffron flavored, and the herbiness of the spice coupled with the texture that for my entire life has been associated with sweetness is confusing.  I can’t decide how I feel about it until the creamy finish fills out the experience and the verdict is in—this is really good.  And this is something I would have never tried in the states—not because I wouldn’t like it, but because I’d be too distracted by the tried-and-true flavors and by comparison wouldn’t have been able to appreciate this because of its depart from the norm.  But here it fits perfectly; a full-circle finish to a wonderful meal.

Vandana offers me a piece of her and Rhea’s jalebi, which I gladly accept.  Completely fresh, it burns my fingers with its hot syrup.  It is, again, wonderful.

As we drive back to the complex we pass a camel walking down the road—giving a ride to some children, which was a joke Alam and Vandana had been talking about when we went to the sweet shop: that I would get a camel ride to warm me up for the Pushkar fair.  Passing the animal I can’t help but admire it—it’s such a unique animal, and looks much more at home in this setting than the other fairs and festivals in which I’ve seen them in the states.  He looks well cared for, exercised, and dark. 

Alam is leaving for a trip in the morning and has forgotten a gift that he wished to bring in the guest house, so I offer to walk it over to him.  As he and the family head off toward their tower and I to mine, I review the numbers he has given me in my head; I don’t need to have another confusing interaction with the guards, and I know I’m going to have to sign in to get into his building. 

I get the gift and walk back to Alam’s tower and begin the festivities.  The guard sees me and straightens up instead of waving; this is going to go by the book.  I hold up the gift, recite Alam’s suite number, and who I am seeing; the wish is that western-looking businessmen come to see Alam often and I will be waved up.  No, I think as he opens the sign-in book, not this time.  The problem with the sign in book is that there are a dozen columns, each of which is in Hindi, and they get really specific.  As I sign my name, I begin pointing to columns in the hope that he will know the English to them.

I point to one.

“Ah-dress.”

Ok.  Next.

“Phun.”

Alright, going good so far.  Next.

He falters, so I look at the previous entries—purpose of business!—ok, a little personal, but what the heck.  I write down “personal”.  Next.

He is stumped and says a word to me.  I stare back into his eyes, my mind churning.  Nothing; I have no idea what he’s said.  He says the word again, popping his head in a ‘c’mon, get it’ way.  Still nothing.  His fellow guard leans in and repeats the word, and they both stare at me and I back at them. 

I’m sorry, I say, I only understand English.  English?

They repeat the word I and realize we are going nowhere.  It’s difficult to be on the other side, and it makes me sympathize with immigrants to America.  I’m not abnormally thick, but to these guys, I’m an idiot.  They’re not thinking that I’m foreign and that I don’t know the language—they’re thinking “I’m saying the word right to this guy and he still doesn’t get it”.  And they’ve slowed down their articulation exactly the same way that we do when we’re talking to a non-speaker.  The speed makes little difference, but people always try to slow it down to the point where comprehension will happen.  Never works.

The second guard repeats the word and makes a motion with his hands—riding a bike?  I repeat the same motion and move my legs in a pedaling fashion, making the situation look even better for an outside observer, of which we now have a few.  Nope, they shake their heads, but throw a couple more pedals into my bike because it feels like the chain is sticking.  The second driver makes the same motion again and taps the center of the circle.  “Doop,” he says, tapping the horn “doop doop.”  Car!  License plate number! 

No, I say, I walked.

Nothing.

I live over there, I point.

The first guard taps the box.

Like this, I say, strolling casually for a few steps, then turn and come back, a little too much like a model, I realize too late. 

The second guard has gone back to his cigarette and is watching me with fading interest, and if nothing else, it is becoming clear that I’m not a threat to anyone but myself.  How can there be this many columns left?  What could they possibly need?  Stock holdings?  The first guard shakes his head dismissively and skips to the last box and taps—signature.  That much I can do.

The experience is humbling, and while I don’t think I’ve ever been hostile to a foreigner in my country, it makes me appreciate how intimidating the whole situation can be even when the locals are kind and understanding.

I’ve got to get up early because I don’t want Surender to see what I’ve done to the kitchen.  I had had big plans to make some calls to the US, but these don’t get made; while my circadian rhythm may be off, my sense of time management (or lack thereof) is right on the money.  I feel rushed for my first day at the office. 

As it turns out, Surender is still sick, so I make myself breakfast after housing several granola bars first and making some tea.  I hadn’t really felt like making anything as my stomach is starting to feel lousy, but when my timer went off I realized I’d be late in taking my malaria pill, so I forced down some eggs.

Sometime later I received a call from Abhishek asking what my plans were for the day and how I was getting to the office.  Playing off my usual complete and total cluelessness as simple accommodation, I told him I was ready to do whatever and that I would work around his schedule, which turns out required my presence in about an hour.  After killing another hour preparing some materials I go downstairs to meet Abhishek and drive to the office. 

I’ve come to appreciate several things about this area of India, and the first I notice very clearly today.  Gurgaon smells like smoke.  Not bad smoke, but the air itself has a very distinct, smoky flavor.  I had thought it was incense for the longest time, but this is not the case—it really is the air.  It smells like burning wood, but a very dry kind of wood.  Old.  But there’s a sweetness to it too, and you can’t help but find yourself enjoying it. 

The other thing I notice is how comfortable I’m getting with the area and how much I am coming to figure out where I am.  As we drive to the office I’m finally understanding what streets we will turn down before we do, which really means something in a place this hectic. 

I finally, after three days here, get to see the office.  After Abhishek tries to get the thumb-recognition lock to let him in a dozen times.  “This thing,” he say “never works for me.” 

The office is very different from the Seattle one.  While even someone as relatively low on the totem pole as me gets an office there (in a city with some pretty expensive real estate), here only Alam has his own office, which he seems to offer up to others with some regularity.  There are cubicles filling the place, but they are crisp and clean and uncluttered, fitting well with the professionals who are working at them.  People work busily, and it shocks me.  It’s very quiet.  Even though there are over 40 people in this office, it’s about as quiet as a library, and certainly more quiet that my legal department, which is ¼ the size with each person equipped with an office bearing a large wooden door. 

The collaborative and uncluttered nature of this culture really impresses me.  I get a real sense that they’re in this together, and while they do have some personal items on their desks, they keep things clean and tidy.  I can only think of the money we waste on cubicle decorations, team building, and conflict resolution.  This office has far fewer luxuries, but makes far fewer complaints, I am sure.

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

After breaking at 1:30 for a catered cafeteria-style lunch, which I am very excited to have because it’s true Indian food, we finish up the day’s work and I head back to the apartment.  I’m fairly wired as I’ve been drinking chai all day, and this lends itself well to feeling adventurous. 

I’d heard from one of the company guys who travels here a lot that I should just order out a cheese pizza, and when I read the guest house literature, I saw a number for the Gurgaon Papa John’s. 

Fuckers can’t deliver from the U-District in Seattle, but India’s no problem. 

So I’d been excited to do this, and tonight seemed like the perfect night if for no other reason than to complete the picture of the traveling personnel trainer ordering takeout to eat in his room alone.  But then I started feeling guilty that, while it would certainly be funny to order Papa John’s while in India, it would be too lame a cop-out; I should be availing myself of all the culinary opportunities I could during my stay.  So I checked out listings for Indian takeout.

I’d been interested in trying something spicy ever since people had been ‘taking it easy’ on me.  I’d always felt I held my own pretty well in the hot spice department (take from that what you will), and this was a great way, I thought, to test the waters to see if things would be alright for me if I decided to tell my colleagues to bring on the pain.  If it was a mistake, only I would be forced to live with my shame and humiliation, which would be par for the course.

So after spending some time examining the online menu and googling several words, I felt I had a pretty solid order, so I dialed up. 

10 or so minutes and 14 tries later I had actually figured out how to correctly dial and began the process of ordering.  3 attempts later I was finally given to an English-speaking person, and began placing my order.  2 questions in, things started to get a little hairy.

“1 or *garble* chicken kalhai?”

I didn’t get that.

“Chicken kalhai?”

Yes, one.

“One?”

Yes, I say, one. 

The total comes to 398rupees, which is about $8.65, which is pretty high by Indian standards, but hey…it’s takeout.  I settle in to write a little and wait for the call from the guard to tell me my food’s here.

The call comes about 40 minutes later.

“Kalik?”

The food’s here?

“Kal-lik?”

Delivery?

“Kalik!”

Alright, I’m coming down.

I grab my money and take the elevator to the lobby.  There, the guard is conversing with a friend, who I, being a food-centered, uncouth moron, assume is the delivery guy and walk up with a wad of bills and step right into their conversation. 

Delivery?

They stare at me. 

Ah, food, I ask?  Delivery guy?  I gesture around me indicating…I have no idea what.

They just stare at me.  “No,” they say, and after he receives a look from his guard friend the other guys gets it—this is the magic word to make the crazy white man go away.  “No,” he says, shaking his head back and forth. “No no.”

He must be way down at the main gate!  I decide I’d better start walking—so I hoof it through the playground I had walked through earlier in the evening, though there are fewer children playing and all but a few older kids playing basketball remain, and slowly approach what I think is the bend to the guard tower.  No, I realize after rounding it, the tower is still over a quarter mile away.  This doesn’t make sense—he has my address and the guard should have let him in.  What if they’re calling the house?  Why didn’t I give them my mobile?  I turn around—I’ll wait back in the house.

I smile and wave at the guard and his friend making sure to act the part convincingly so that they are aware that clearly someone who looked like me has interrupted their conversation with a wad of bills and an imprompteau game of charades, and take the elevator back to the top floor.  The delivery guy is there and smiles to me.

Inside the house I quickly learn what the confusion was about.  The number one.  While I had assumed that “1” would mean, chicken enough for one, the girl taking the order meant something else—one chicken.  So in addition to the naan, parantha, and janeer, I now have a full kalhai chicken in a plastic container the size of a large movie popcorn bucket.  This could easily feed a family.

What would normally be a not-great situation is compounded by the fact that I don’t really know what to do with this stuff.  Firstly, after trying a little, I find that my adventure has not really paid off—I don’t love it.  Secondly, I don’t have a lot of room in my small refrigerator to store this enormous bucket of chicken, and thirdly, I can’t really throw it away.  The trash in the apartment has been growing in volume over the last couple of days, and I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do with it.  The cleaning woman doesn’t take it out, I can’t find any dumpsters, and as the days heat up and the bananas on the counter get warmer and softer, I know I’m sitting on a time bomb as it is.  Really, I have nowhere to logically put this enormous chicken, and I can already see the look of disapproval on Surender’s face. 

I briefly consider leaving it outside on the roof and hoping for one of the roving bands of monkeys that occasionally frequent the towers, but I doubt very much they are carnivorous, and if they are, it’s best not to bring them around an apartment housing guy who periodically walks onto the balcony to enjoy the view with half his dinner on his shirt.  In the end I eat as much as I can and jam the rest into the fridge hoping that in the morning it will shrink, bones and all, into something that doesn’t quite so clearly manifest my ineptitudes.

The only reason to wake up this morning is the possibility of Surender having gotten better or the cleaning woman, and neither of those things happens until 8:30 at the earliest, which is still a little early since our activities last night ran until 1am. 

But nonetheless I do what I can to be prepared, and by 9:45 I deem it safe to assume that Surender isn’t coming and that I can make myself breakfast once again.  I really worry about making him mad, so I’ll be damn sure to clean up after myself when I’m done.  Maybe he will think the eggs have just disappeared. 

The eggs themselves are a bit of an ordeal.  There’s only one left in the fridge, so I take one from the dozen in the pantry and hope like hell there isn’t something really wrong with them, or that they aren’t months old.  Breakfast, I decide at the end of my meal, is a success.

I work on some work stuff for a bit, attempt to place some calls, unpack, and randomly step outside on occasion.  It’s a slow morning, but I again allow for this since I’m still not feeling entirely well, and it was a late night last night.  At 11 I proudly take a shower, having mastered the art of turning on the switch for the hot water heater.  As I am finishing the doorbell rings and I know it’s the cleaning woman.  Always when you’re in the shower.

I leave it be since there’s no way I can get to her in time.  Then I dress, make some tea, and take a call from Alam.  Alam invites me out to brunch, which I eagerly accept.  I genuinely enjoy Alam’s company—he’s got a great sense of humor, and aura of calm, and a full understanding of how confusing this culture shock is the first time around.  His sympathy is clear when he asks in the car whether Shubh and I had had continental or Indian last night.  “I figured you wouldn’t want either in a row,” he explains.  I opt for south Indian, since I am, in fact, in India and feel like I’ve been a little wimpy so far. 

Alam converses with Rhea, who jumps about in the back seat.  She eagerly replies back, and I catch bits and pieces of the conversation.  It’s either that some Hindi words are the same in English, or they’re inter-dispersing English words—I can’t tell, but it’s a bit like catching words and phrases as one tunes a radio. 

“Ok,” he tells me “I just had to get the decision from you and the confirmation from back there.  Let’s do south Indian.”

The restaurant is impressive.  Wood walls surround an army of staff, all dressed in traditional south Indian garb with long white khortas with colored sashes.  We sit and Alam immediately shoos away the waiter bringing water in glasses and requests mineral water for us (read: me)—he’s extremely mindful.  He takes the time to explain the menu and order us all food.  The waiter then brings what I hear is ‘coconut milk’, but this is not the case; it is a variation of real milk, but looks clearer and has some white particles floating in it.  “It’s like a milk without the cream; they take that out,” says Alam as he finishes off the cup that Rhea has refused. 

I look at the cup for a moment, knowing that I am supposed to stay away from dairy, but frankly I’m getting a little sick of it.  In a country where cows are sacred, it would seem stupid to not at least try something from such a revered animal.  And on top of that, I’m really getting tired of looking rude by refusing food.  I take a drink.

It’s strange—there is a distinct tang on the front of the tongue, almost like the acid of sour milk, but the sour sensation never comes.  It just fades.  I take another sip and set it aside; there’s no point in going crazy unless I absolutely love it.

Before long the food comes, and Alam and I pause our conversation on the previous day’s activities so that he can give me a tutorial.  My meal consists of what is basically a large crepe stuffed with spiced potato with a number of different sauces, one of which he removes since it contains raw vegetables.  His meal consists of large puffy roti and an array of colorful liquids that range from stews to custards; he invites me to try some of his as well. 

All of the food is very good, actually, very delicious, and vegetarian.  I make a mental note to myself; I like Indian food, but I really like south Indian food.  I’ll have to see if I can find a place like this back in Seattle somewhere. 

Alam and Shubh have arranged to pass the Bryan Baton outside the office, so it’s to that point that we move.  We leave the restaurant, which is tucked away on the second floor of what feels like an office building on the weekend, and drive down roads that look as though they have been bombed—we have to drive around a number of the potholes.  Abutting both sides of the road are large mounds of dry earth, stone walls, and shanties with brightly colored clothing hanging from strings surrounding them.  Dogs walk in the street and children climb the dirt mounds, occasionally stopping to look at us as we drive by.  Then we take a right, drive 100’, and are at the office.  It’s that close.

The Parcel is handed away smoothly and is taken down the way to the National Museum.  Shubh and I joke about the night before and talk about my feelings towards old Delhi.  We both agree that I would have been in a bad place had I tried to tackle the spot on my own.  As we round the block to get to our destination, a small red car passes us without a sound on the left, cuts us off by squeezing between the ours and the car in front—which was already a ludicrously small space—passes the other car on the left, and speeds off.  All with no honk, which is a shock that is dwarfed only by the cabbie’s comment—“Wow.  Crazy driver.” 

The museum is home of some of the oldest artifacts I have ever seen.  Spanning back to the earliest known civilizations in India, the collection houses stunningly intricate statues and carvings that date back more than 5,000 years.  While I can only truly appreciate those pieces of Indian history that I have some degree of familiarity with, Shubh does a good job of giving me a jump start on the rest.  I learn many of the gods, Vishnu, his parents (whose names I have already forgotten), Vishnu’s transportation/protector (name also forgotten), Ganesha, Krishna, and of course the Buddha. 

The journey of the Buddha is the most interesting thing I learn about this trip, as I’ve never really paid much attention to the mythology.  Frankly, none of this mythology has interested me before, and that may have been because it was so outlandish and so foreign to me.  As I learn more about it however, and discover the interconnectedness for myself, there’s a spark of interest that ignites within me.  For the first time, I really want to delve into this culture.  But back to the Buddha. 

Firstly, I’ve come to appreciate the correct pronunciation of the name—it sounds more like “but-ha”, with the ‘u’ sounding like the ‘ou’ in ‘would’.  It sounds so much different than the way I’ve been saying it my whole life.  Boooda.  Look at that Boooda-belly.  And this is the next thing—

The Buddha has many incarnations (the pot-bellied one is called the ‘laughing’ Buddha—and this is an Indonesian or asian concoction—there is no mention of it in Indian mythology…and Shubh ‘doesn’t get it’). 

As anyone knows, I am as far as you can get from an art buff—It’d be like calling a coal miner a diamond expert because he works with the raw materials.  So take what I say with a grain of salt and a lot of fact checking.  BUT, I find the tracing of the buddha’s artistic depiction really interesting, so much so that I plan to learn more.  Early on, the Buddha was depicted merely symbolically—as a bundle of swaddling—which represented the idea that he existed, or at least, the concept, but he was not given any physical form.  Fast forward an era and you have an age where people wanted deities depicted and you have the first Buddha—dressed in what appears to be a roman toga—which is due to the roman influence at the time (this apparently was during the early years of the growing Roman empire).  Then the Buddha makes a change to the garb we are most familiar with, which is South Indian, and then at some point I started battling with my eyelids to stay open and felt helpless as residual jetlag took me energy away.  I lost the rest.

I was fortunate enough to find a chair and once I sat down I began to appreciate where I was.  I had stumbled into a room with a number of statues from a dynasty that dated back 2000 years.  And I was alone.  It’s strange to find oneself alone at all in a place like India, but to open your eyes in the India National Museum and find yourself surrounded by artifacts that have seen the fall of Caesar, the birth of your country, the defeat of the British empire, the moon landing, and the invention of the Snuggie is something truly special.  For a while I sat, doing my best not to think.  Understated though it may have been, it might be my favorite memory yet.

We decide that we may have to wait a day on the Great Religion Tour.  I have made my goal and skip going to see Krishna at the temple.  Instead, I opt for a brief detour into the land of material things at the government-run handicraft store.  There I find all manner of handicrafts in gold, silver, wood, camel bone, and marble.  It’s a nice place, but I’m really not in the mood to shop, and before long I find myself very tired and more interested in leaving than buying a $2,000 statue of Ganesha, though I think it’s quite cool. 

Shubh, ever the wonderful guide, suggests we get some dinner at a spot that Alam has recommended, so we get dropped off at a plaza full of young people and climb a set of stairs between a Sbarros and a Subway, across the street from a Ruby Tuesday’s.  Western influence is not lacking here with the young.  The restaurant is nice, and trendy, and not open, but this does not stop Shub from taking a table and ordering us drinks.  The choice actually suits the both of us well, as we are both avid people watchers and the spot is a perfect vantage point for the square. 

After dinner and a few drinks we walk the square some more and stop at a small cart “Do you mind if I have an after dinner fag?” asks Shubh, using the cigarette term that never ceases to startle me.  He walks off to the cart, then excitedly calls me—“Bryan!  Look, come here—these are the leaves I was telling you about!”  He points to a few small bundles of what appear to be cut up banana leaves, but are in fact bedel leaves, a leaf that many people of the region chew after dinner like tobacco.  I’m intrigued, and before I can turn, the shopkeeper, a man a few years younger than me, whips one up between his fingers, covers it in a thick yellow syrup, and hands it to me, gesturing for me to take it.  He says something to Shubh while I try to decide if I raw leaf constitutes a raw vegetable and if this is going to be the item that will do me in. 

“He says that you are a guest in our country and that you always offer a guest a bedel leaf.  In our custom, a guest is like a god, so he’s offering this to you because you are a god as long as you are a visitor to our country.”  My mouth drops a little I’m so touched by the kindness, which is amplified by the look of goodwill that emanates from the young man’s face.  This is a gesture of friendship.  I pop it into my mouth without another thought.

And it is different.  The leaf itself feels like a big rough leaf—no surprise, but the flavor is much stronger than I had been ready for.  The syrup gave a tangy, sweet, almost musky smell while the leaf—once I bit down—tasted very strongly like menthol.  All at once it felt like I was chewing mouthwash tobacco. 

Do I swallow this, mumble, doing my best not to drool in front of my smiling new friend.

“Yes, you can,” assures Shubh “or you can spit it out.  Whatever you like,” he laughs, taking a drag off his cigarette and turning away to walk toward the cab.

I start to follow, then turn back to the man at the stand, press my hands together at the top of my chest, bring my head down until my fingertips touch my chin, and nod slightly.  He reciprocates, though he looks much more graceful that I do.  A genuine human connection—without a word exchanged.  I don’t feel quite so isolated anymore.

I am deceived.  I wake this morning after a solid 8 hours of sleep and feel pretty good.  Until I step out of bed, that is.  It was like the end of a long scuba dive—you feel good in the water—but the party’s over when you climb up onto land.  This is what it feels like when I get out of bed.

Everything still aches, and the fullness of my weight is immediately realized by every cell in my body; even my hair hurts.  And I feel start to feel sick again. 

As I walk downstairs I realize how much I’ve come to love the floors here; I’ve been reading an Indian culture book in bits and pieces and have now learned that it’s common to not wear shoes in the house, so I’ve taken to walking around barefoot.  The feeling of feet on extremely smooth, clean marble is really nice.  I’ll have to remember to reenact Risky Business later, sans prostitutes. 

I check my work email and eat a granola bar and water (which I have now started to drink from the reverse osmosis filter on the tap, with no horrifying results yet) until shrieking outside on the balcony catches my attention.  Monkeys?!  Will I once and for all be able to settle Mike’s query about the use of large guard monkeys to keep the pesky little ones away?  But I know that rabies is rampant and deadly here, and to open the door would be a remarkably stupid risk.

After I open the door and step outside, I am attacked by three or 4 vicious monkeys that bite my neck and take my Mastercard.  No, that’s a lie; I have a Visa.  Ba-dum.  I actually walk out onto the balcony to the screeching of wild parrots, which are a noisy but welcome replacement to the gentle cooing pigeons who’ve been waking me every morning with occasional cage matches on the air conditioner (get it?  Bird? Cage?  This is gold).  And if you’ve never seen two pigeons fight, you’re missing out; it’s like watching two guys in fat suits try to kickbox.  But the parrots—these guys are rockstars, screeching and darting zooming through the archways on the top of the balcony roof.  As soon as I get the camera, however, they blast over to the next high rise. 

After a while Alam calls me to let me know that Surender has come down with a fever and won’t be able to cook for me this morning, which is fine, and I give my wishes that he feel better soon.  On a selfish level, this gives me a reprieve.  I think Surender is a wonderful cook, but between being taken out by both Abhishek and Shubh and then by Alam, I did not have the chance to eat the chicken dish he had made for me, and god knows I don’t need another strike with him.  I still feel like I’m on thin ice for refusing tea my first night.

So I set about making my own food, and I think I do a pretty good job mimicking what had been made for me the day before; I’m just extra careful to cook everything as thoroughly as possible and use filtered water for everything. 

After I’ve completed my breakfast the doorbell rings, I open the door, and in darts the tiny cleaning woman.  She looks down and quickly sets to work, and I do my best to stay out of her way and not bother her.  The only interaction we really have is when she comes in to say “Done” and waits for me to signal that she can leave.  It’s a very strange interaction for me.

After lying down for a little (malaria pills again), I get up to work and there is another knock at the door.  I go to it and open it.  Another small woman is there in a sari and says something to me in Hindi.  I smile and shake my head—“English?”  She says something in Hindi longer and faster.  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”  She turns to her coworkers to say something and they begin to talk amongst themselves.  I take the opportunity to gently close the door.  I’ve got to stop answering the thing if I’m not ready to deal with people.

That’s not a fair rule, but I hate feeling like an idiot and not knowing a language in a country (which is not an unimaginable situation in a country with over 23 of them). 

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

Shubh shows up at around 2:30 with a rented cab and we make our way to Delhi.  I’m feeling bad about waiting in the apartment this long, but do my best to remind myself that I’m here to work, believe it or not, and the rest will be good in overcoming my illness and my jetlag.  Also, I don’t really know how to navigate this country very well yet.

English is the language that connects this country; this is what everyone says, but it is misleading.  It is true that English is the common language that connects groups that otherwise speak different languages from different regions, but this does not mean that everyone speaks it by any means.  Actually, relatively few people speak English, a fact exemplified by the cab driver who doesn’t speak a word of it.  Fear, however, is universal, and I experience this full-on as he is driving.

While my first experiences as a passenger in a Delhi car have been exciting, the cab takes it up a notch—just the same as a US cabbie would drive recklessly compared to a regular driver in the states, this driver takes us from unnerving to insane in 3 seconds flat. 

There really are no traffic laws.  Lanes are on the road, but the more I watch the drivers, the more I see that they aren’t even considered.  Vehicles squeeze past, 2, 3, 4 a lane.  At several points, we are on what appears to be an eight-lane highway as the driver drives—not passes—in the oncoming lane, drifting back into our lane only when the blaring horn and oncoming light are within about 10 feet of us.  And we are not traveling slowly. 

When the lanes are too crowded, we take exciting detours onto the sidewalk, or otherwise through ditches—at one point I’m positive he driver is going to shoot us through an impossibly small space between a stone wall and a large tree, but he refrains.  He was thinking about it, though. 

Besides the speed, the disregard for anything that might be considered a traffic law, or the lack of safety belts (which Shubh proudly tells me we aren’t compelled to wear), is the belief that no space is too small to squeeze through, and if it is, speed will fix the problem.  Even on open road the driver has a desire to practice his skills and buzz oncoming cars and pedestrians on the side of the road terrifyingly close.  Inches, literally.  We come so close to walkers that should they move 2” to the right, they’d be spilling over our hood.

Our first destination is to the tallest minar (which is a tower with intricate carvings) in Delhi.  After parking we cross the street, and Shubh takes me by the hand, which I don’t protest as 1) this is common in India, and 2) I don’t feel like being run down.  Male friends are often seen walking arm in arm or hand in hand, which I think is a nice gesture, and certainly more understandable in a country without the luxury of a concept such as personal space.  When crossing, there is no waiting for a signal, nor even waiting for a break in traffic—it’s a game of chicken.  You start across, hold your ground, and look to the next driver you are crossing and do you best to will him to stop.  If he falters and starts to slow, you step out in from of him because you know he sees you and likely doesn’t want to deal with the hassle of hitting you—but you remain ready to step back, which in itself poses a problem because those cars in the line you just came from are now blasting past you with a few inches of space between you. 

Once we are inside the monument area I am again on display as much as the minars.  People look very curiously at me, particularly children.  It’s friendly curiosity and I reciprocate with a smile or a nod, which invariably causes the looker to smile and cast his or her eyes down politely.  If I were a part of this culture, I’d be looking at me too; I look very different with western clothes, looks, and mannerisms.  Also, I also forget that I am much larger than most of these people—I tower over the women and children, and many of the men come only to my shoulders.  But there is an air of harmony, and equal time is spent looking at the minar and the large, goofy Westerner as he glances up at the array of beautiful clothing and friendly people that surround him.

The carvings of the minar are incredible, as is its size, which is probably about as tall as my apartment building—add in the fact that this particular minar is over 700 years old and one gets a real appreciation for the ingenuity and work put into this structure.  The rest of the compound consists of temples, parts of temples, and an unfinished minar that was suppose to dwarf the one I’d just spent several minutes marveling at.  The number of unfinished or destroyed projects in just this region of the country dwarfs the entire number of accomplishments of my own. 

Shubh makes the call that we are to head to Red Fort now, which is near old Delhi; here we will see one of the forts of the old dynasty and see a light show this evening that will explain its history.  The driver darts down narrow streets lined with shops that peddle colorful snackfoods in bags, pots, cookwares, carvings, and all manner of jewelry.  Before long we are we stop at an intersection that isn’t; it’s a morass of cars converging from 5 different directions with barely considered traffic signals.  “Let’s go,” says Shubh and steps out into the maelstrom.  I follow, and we begin our game of high-stakes Frogger.  We are parked in something like a lane, but isn’t, and we make our way through the cars that jump and nudge forward, the rickshaws that zip by in between, and the mopeds and motorcycles that shoot through open spaces with inches on either side.  “Hold on to your camera,” Shubh tells me “Someone will pick it.”

We now stand in the middle of the road as the cars honk, then see a break by Delhi standards, which would be suicide in Washington.  We step and continue to walk across as three lanes speed toward us, assuming that since they must see us, they will stop.  They do not stop.  We run, jump, and land on top of the median bisecting the roadway just as one of the cars catches my right heel as is speeds by.  “Now you have the flavor of Delhi!” cries Shubh.

Crossing the rest of the street is easier since it abuts the monument equipped with a hefty number of guards at gun turrets instead of a raucous market.  Even though he has addressed the issue for me several times before, Shubh takes to time to explain to me that this is for protection against terrorism, as India is not as secure as the US.  I understand it, but am at a loss as to what they are really expecting.  Every corner of the fort has three guards station with machine guns and assault rifles behind 6’ high piles of sandbags.  They look ready for an invading army, which is highly unlikely as any aggressors would likely be killed crossing the road.

The Red Fort reminds me of the Kremlin—it has large red towers and looming walls that extend for a remarkable distance around the compound, which is encircled with a moat that, in the day, Shubh tells me, was filled with crocodiles.  The overkill nature of the fort seems justified when the literature indicates that due to it’s location, Delhi is a great center of opulence, but since there were no geographical barriers to protect the plain-centered city, it was frequently raided.  In fact, Delhi is so large because it actually consists of 7 cities—a new one was adjacently build every time its successor was raided and destroyed.  You can’t blame a city for fortifying itself after it’s been razed 7 times over.

Inside the compound are a number of structures—mostly courts—in which citizens would appeal for rulings from the monarch.  A red one was for commoners, a white one for special audience, and another for the most privileged.  These courts represented the highest laws in the kingdom, and during the last ruling monarch in the 1800s, after Delhi had been raided again and before British rule would monopolize the next 90 years, the then-monarch soberly admitted to two arguing citizens that he could not rule on their dispute since the riverbank in question was out of his jurisdiction.  It was a quarter mile away. 

After purchasing our tickets for the light show we again cross the Intersection of Doom and head into old Delhi to kill the next two hours.  Shubh tells me this is a very busy area of the country—the most densely populated yet, and that I should be ready for this.  Don’t worry, I tell him.  I’m ready.

I am not ready.  Crowds—I have experienced, but this is not a crowd.  This is a colony.  A crowd implies a group of individuals, but immediately upon entering the market place there is a feeling that you have become one of something larger.  Personal space ceases to exist, and people move in the streets as one organism.  We are not a group; we are one entity; we are blood moving through the veins of Delhi.  People move with an interconnectedness I have never seen.  We move through and around each other with touches and arm motions, but the aggression that would exist in an American crowd is not there.  Shubh later finds it strange that I have seen it this way—he saw much frustration—but I think the fact that people were able to move so smoothly because there was no cultural taboo of invading someone’s personal space.  Men and women brush right past me, but it’s not that they are brushing past me—they are simply navigating where to where they need to go.  People walk in the middle of the streets and rickshaws and motorcycles move along the sidewalks.  Overhead there are birds nests of electrical cabling, glowing signs, and believe it or not, apartment buildings.  It’s by far the most confining space I’ve ever been in—a space that would make me panic normally—but I’m at ease.  I feel privileged to be a part of something so raw, human, and interpersonal.  Then someone goes for my wallet.

I’d been expecting this, and had my hand strategically clasping where it was.  I grab the hand, which is just making its way into my pocket and shoo it away.  These people are poor, I’m a whiteface—this is how it goes.  I take it as more of a “just checking to see if you were looking after that” gesture.

Inconceivably, we hang a left down a side alley; we’ve been on the main road, the wide road.  The alley is suffocating; smoke from engines and cooking hand in the air, floating past the tangles of electrical wire criss-crossing the walkway 10’ above.  On both sides people sell local foods from boiling pans on the ground, in shops, or from carts. 

Restaurants are the sizes of closets.  People sit over each other to eat, and the Western idea of uniformity is beyond a world away.  One restaurant is about the size of my old dorm room (9’x11’).  In front a man boils roti in an enormous cauldron—inside, the patrons sit wherever there is room.  Some sit up high on plumbing, plastered structures that were the result of hasty repairs, or countertops.  Others sit on the floors, their arms and legs inter-tangled—but floor is a misnomer.  There is no floor—all there is relative surface here; some higher up, some down lower, none of it uniform.  I have the hardest time contextualizing this place. 

To get an idea of what this is like, image a wide hallway in your house.  Now picture both walls actually being stores and restaurants packed with people similar to the ones just described.  Now imagine that on one end of the hallway, there is a concert letting out with people streaming out.  From the other, there is a line of people streaming in waiting, say, for a restroom.  Both groups, thousands strong, are interested in looking in the shops and buying things.  Above, slanting in, are crooked buildings covered in advertisements, neon lights that block out the night sky, and a web of wires and cable so thick that a human would not be able to pass through them.  It is extremely loud, the air is filled with smoke, humidity, and the suffocating expelled breath of this collective humanity.  In the midst of this, given the width of the hallway and the people, imagine there are now rickshaws carrying enormous bundles of fabric one way, while motorcycles pulling carts of fruits and vegetables come from the opposite direction.  The only thing more impossible that this scenario is the fact that it exists, and that these people make it work. 

I am saddened that I am not able to take many pictures, but it is nearly impossible; attention must be given to everything and at all times.  More than once, even though I am taking great care, Shubh pulls me out of the way of an oncoming rickshaw or moped.  Every niche is occupied; if there is an open spot on the ground, it is occupied by a man with a pile of beans sitting on a bamboo disc.  Open ground is a place for a cart.  Nothing is wasted; everything is used.

The food looks so exotic and exciting that I opt to try some; this is what travel is for—to eat the real food and see the real lives of the people who live in a place.  No, says Shubh.  “This food will make you very sick,” he says “very, very sick.  Not safe.”  He can tell I’m disappointed, so he takes me to a sweet shop where he orders me what looks like a small orange pretzel.  “Try this,” he says “dry sweets are safe.”  It’s delicious—a homemade cheese that’s been fried in sugar water.  Amazing.

Just the same it’s hard to feel safe eating it; when you come from a hyper-sterile society that washes hands before even putting on gloves, to eat something given to you by a man with dirty bare hands in one of the dirtiest alleys you’ve ever been means taking a bit of a risk.  It’s hard to not be on complete guard in this place; anything, even touching the wrong thing, could make me very sick.  There are water outlets everywhere, and people drink and bathe, and it’s hard to imagine that if I did the same I’d be in a very bad place very quickly without the help of medication.

There are also several very large places of worship in the market, though they are completed camouflaged as they are enshrouded with peddlers and carts.  I pass a Sikh gurdwara and see a man at a podium speaking.  There are also several mosques, and a number of Hindu temples.  I’d like to go inside, but I’m already overwhelmed and fear that I might commit some egregious faux pas in my befuddled state.  Perhaps later in my trip.

As it turns out, I will not have to wait long for some religious exposure; as soon as we cross the street again there is a wave of commotion; a parade.  “This is for Krishnu,” Shubh tells me.  The streets become even more crowded as waves of people move through with floats of Krishnu, illuminated dances, stages with singers, and children throwing packets of what appear to be crystals.  A truck full of them notice me, I turn and smile, then whip my hand up and snatch out of the night air the bag they have thrown to me.  This makes them very happy, and the small man next to me presses his hands together and nods to me “Namaskar,” he says, and I reciprocate and offer him the bag, which he refuses.  Shubh tells me this is a bag of sugar crystals to be eaten.

I’m very thankful to have him here; without him, I would have long ago been lost, likely pick-pocketed, or generally distressed beyond cognizance.  We walk on, down a cramped alleyway, and something—someone—brushes my left leg.  Strange.  Then a hand runs up my left arm.  I glance back to see a tall boy in a sweater vest and pants with no shoes.  Startled and confused, I turn to Shubh.  

Shubh, what does it mean when they touch your leg and your arm?

“What do you mean?” 

When they touch your leg and your arm. 

“Oh no,” he says shaking his head “that’s not good.  Not good.”

Shit.  I hadn’t reacted because I wasn’t sure if this was a gesture of kindness—a blessing?  Was it a curse?  It hadn’t been aggressive, so how could this be problem?

“Who did this to you?” Shubh asks.

Well, I say, glancing back, feeling like a child tattling on a bully, the guy right behind me. 

“Right there?” Shubh points with his chin.

Yes, I say. 

And right then, the Shubh I have known ceases to be and Shubhendu the Enforcer breaks out of his cocoon.  Pushing his shoulders up and forward, Shubh rounds on the kid, who quickly scampers out of the way as Shubh steps in front of me with a swiftness that surprises me.  There is an exchange of words, Shubh makes dismissive gestures, and all I can think as I stand there like a big helpless infant is how much this looks like an animal fight.  Shubh is extremely kind, polite, and gentle—in look and nature—but he is a man, not a boy, and that really has pull in this situation; even though the boy is about the same size as Shubh, he is clearly intimidated by him.  After a further exchange the boy leaves.  “He wanted money,” Shubh informs me, shrinking back down to Bruce Banner size.    

We again cross the huge intersection and walk back to the Red Fort, which is not nearly as intimidating now—in that it seems possible that it could be done—but it still remains a difficult feat to accomplish unscathed.  But this time I make it by without Shubh holding my hand; the Great White Baby is growing up a little.

Back at the Fort we get tickets for the light show, which amounts to a retelling of the history of the former fortress through pre-recorded voices and strategic lighting of monuments to signify where this happened.  It’s a good way to gain an understanding of exactly how old this place is; and it’s also a great way to get Malaria. 

As we sit I swat at a bug and Shubh makes a sound of distress.  “That is what I forgot,” he admits “Alam told me to bring bug spray for the mosquitoes.”  This is alright, I say, as I have some, and pull it from my bag.  I’m grateful he said something; the mosquitoes that have been after us are much smaller than I am used to, and don’t make any noise.  While the chances that they would carry Malaria are somewhat less in an urban area, it probably wouldn’t have been wise to sit and be bitten for an hour.  Sheer numbers suggest that might not end well for me in a few weeks.

We go to a restaurant after dinner and talk more about what I’ve learned and my impressions of Indian culture.  The nice thing about Shubh is that he seems just as interested in learning about my culture as I am about learning his.  Every time one of us asks a question to the other, that same question is asked back.  Is there a weekend?  How long to people go to school for?  What do families look like, and what happens to elders in your society?

It’s very true that Indians are centered on family culture—it’s a topic that I repeatedly discuss with each person I meet.  It seems like a nice way to stay grounded; perhaps that’s why this culture is so patient and understanding in nature—the focus is the family, rather than individual paths to happiness.

The restaurant is continental, which is a nice break, though I’m still not hungry.  When it comes time to eat, I feel the pull of hunger fully, but the idea of eating makes me feel sick.  It’s hard for someone who’s used to housing anything put in front of him with savage vigor. 

The restaurant is for a younger crowd; is has louder music, low lighting, and a very modern feel.  On a small stage by the bar is a couple singing karoke, but I learn this really isn’t the case—they are the night’s performers.  Apparently they input songs into a machine and sing along to the music—a bit of a strange concept, but nice just the same.

On a trip to the washroom I make a few friends and get a better feel of the divide between old and new India.  There’s a line for the restroom, which consists of one toilet.  I wait behind two New Delhi kids who, after scaring out the previous occupant with slaps on the door, go in together and commence about their business with the door open.  It’s then that I am joined in the hallway by three other young guys from Gurgaon who work as mechanical engineers for Suzuki, India’s biggest car manufacturer.  We all shake hands, exchange names, and laugh when we learn we are staying in the same town.  When they ask about the restroom, I tell them there are two people in there, and as one of my new associates peeks in, he shakes his head when he sees the legs on the toilet through the open door.  He gives a “these people…” sigh and laughs.

Back at the table Shubh and I collect our things and exit outside, and I step around a very small woman in a red sari.  I know what’s coming, so I try to use Shubh as a shield as we walk, but I feel her hands brush my arm.  I say no and shake my head, but she persists.  And again.  Her voice is a deep rasp, and I’m more than a little freaked out by it.

Shubh, I ask, what am I supposed to do here?

And The Enforcer is back.  He steps between us, and immediately starts firing questions at her, gesturing with his hands.  She tries to step around him, but he moves and makes a tsh tsh tsh sound and attempts to shoo her away.  Her growling has become a little louder now.

We try to keep walking, and she follows; I can feel her eyes behind me and it’s creepy knowing she’s following in the night.  The other beggar was young and lively—there’s something very dark about this one, and I wish she’d go away.  All at once, she’s between us, holding my arm, stroking it.  She does it so quickly and slickly that Shubh doesn’t even see her, but when he does, his eyes flare.

Wedging himself between, he takes his leg and forcefully brushes her backwards, then takes his index finger and holds it up in front of her, sternly telling her to back off.  She does not like this, and this is big business because I know that pointing is considered very rude.  She begins shouting—or presenting her discourse—very loudly, in her rasp.  We walk away and don’t talk about it.

Waiting for the cab we run in to my washroom friends and I introduce them to Shubh.  They all joke about work, and I see how much title and position matter in professional life here; it’s the first line of questioning aside from family.  Who do you work for?  What do you do?  Where is that?

When we finally rouse the driver (who has been sleeping in the car), we ride back through Delhi and back to Gurgaon.  The roads have become a little more amusing than intimidating.  We talk amidst the honking of horns the shouts of a group as we pass a car fire, which causes a bit of a commotion.  They drop me off back at my place and I walk in, greet the night guard, saying namaskar.  In the elevator I feel good about the experience today.  I think I’m getting a good feel for the country, and a lot of my fears are melting away, and as I enjoy the new feeling of empowerment, the electricity goes off, but I’m just as empowered when the elevator comes back on and I get to my apartment 5 minutes later.

This morning does not go well.  I slept out of pure exhaustion rather than comfort, which isn’t to say that the accommodations weren’t comfortable—the mattress is hard, which I like, the room is cool, which I also like, but my main problem is the discomfort I am in from sickness/jet lag/sleep depravation.  I slept hard, but around 4am local time started waking up periodically because I was in so much discomfort, and would then drift back off to sleep.  The noise outside kept tricking me into believing there were people in the apartment; at worst, they would kill; at best, I was late and Surender was already here making breakfast.  I feel very safe here with the guards and the gates, but just the same it’s hard to believe that those burly latches across the doors are a decoration. 

The other sounds—pigeons cooing and cows mooing—cause me to wake and wonder where the heck I am periodically.  Sometime around 5:30am local time I give up and just get up.  And I feel terrible.  I can’t breathe and have pretty bad lung congestion.  Stuffy nose, headache, queasiness.  You name it.  I take a bunch of medicine and drain the rest of the water I have, then set out exploring the apartment. 

One of the things I did not notice last night: that every large window here leads onto a balcony—and I explore these at length today.  The red sun is peaking through the haze as I step outside onto the overlook, scaring several pigeons away.  I’m sure the pollution isn’t helping things with me either; the smog is thick.  Directly below me is a lot of construction—most of Gurgoan (or at least the business district) is 3 years old or younger.  There is a lot of building going on around here.

The cars and trucks honk busily below, and become louder as the day gets older.  I decide that I should go back inside and take a shower, which ends up being cold as I can’t figure out how to work the hot water tank until afterwards, and don’t bother waiting for it to heat up. 

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

So far today we’ve lost power three times, and it isn’t even lunch yet.  I’ll be heading out with Abhishek and Shubhendu for lunch today, which will be a nice follow up to breakfast.  Surender showed up right then he said he would and asked me what I’d like for breakfast, offered a suggestion, and set to work as I began answering emails.  Surender is a wonderful cook, and as much as I dislike being waited on, his presentation was worth it.

Before long he came out with a cheese omelet, tea, and toast with sour cream and chive dressing (and only after which did I really remember that I should be avoiding the unpasteurized dairy).  Then when I thought we were done he came back with a bowl of fruit, which made me nervous.  I knew I was supposed to stay away from raw vegetables, but I couldn’t remember about fruit; on top of that, I was pretty sure I was seeing palmegranite, which I’d never had before.  Well, I’m bound to get sick sometime, and I’m not about to insult Surender after all he’s done.  I dig into my bowl of pears, bananas, and pomegranate (which looks like a pile of red corn kernels). 

As I finish my tea, hoping the heat has killed whatever was in the milk, Surender shows me he has made me a lunch of noodles and chicken, and that I should pop it in the microwave when I’m ready for it.  It’s funny how helpless I am here.

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

The doorbell rings around 10 and I get up from the laptop to answer it.  When I open it, and diminutive woman in a vibrant green and blue sari darts into the apartment, makes brief eye contact, and disappears behind a corner.  This must be one of the cleaning women Surender was talking about.  Either that or I’m about to get robbed.  I set back to work.

As I respond to emails I hear her (and occasionally see her) bustle around the apartment.  She sweeps the floor with several different brooms—brooms made of twigs and branches—and wipes the floors.  She doesn’t seem interested in interaction, so I leave her be. 

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

At about 1:30pm the doorbell to the guest house rings and I am greeted by Abhishek and Shubhendu, two friendly and charming coworkers from the India office.  They’ve offered to take me out to lunch to introduce me to some Indian food and culture (“a little at a time”, says Abhishek).  Immediately after leaving the apartment compound the disparity in wealth becomes apparent.  There are shanties and makeshift houses all around—I see a large wild pig on the side of the road nudge a stray dog, which bares its teeth and snaps at the pig’s snout.  The pig jumps back and jaunts away.  Shubhendu drives as Abhishek gives him directions from the back seat.  We head back onto the highway, and I take the opportunity to actually ask the two of them about the honking-is it really a warning?  “People honk,” says Abhishek, “when they have a fight with their wife.”  And he and Shubh laugh.  “Really it is a courtesy; you honk to let them know you are there.  If I am going to squeeze through the lane, I honk to let them know I’m coming.  If I don’t and I hit them, they would be like ‘why didn’t you honk’?”

We pull into a large plaza that by western standards looks like an abandoned lot.  Cars are jammed in in all manners on the dirt and rock parking lot—we walk into what looks like an abandoned building, which I find strange until Abhishek explains to me that it’s actually the opposite—these abandoned buildings are actually all in the process of being built, as Gurgaon is constantly growing.  Thin layer of dust on everything gives the place a deceptively old look.

Because I still have my Indian food training wheels on, the guys take me to restaurant that’s not totally traditional.  “That place,” Abhishek says, pointing to the restaurant across the way “has traditional food.  You’re not ready for that yet.  Hot.” He waves his hand in front of my mouth to illustrate what I’m in store for.  “Maybe at the end of your trip.”

Once we are seated Abhishek orders us the buffet, which with a Hindi accents sounds amusingly like “boofay”.  We start with Kabobs and are then let loose on the buffet itself.  I work very hard to not let my instincts take over—I avoid all uncooked dairy and all salads; unless it’s steaming, I don’t touch it.  I’m worries I’m a bit annoying about it, but Abhishek assures me that “it’s safe”, even after I ask if the sugarwater that dessert is sitting in has been boiled.  It has.  We make small talk as we eat; I learn about Shubh and Abhishek’s work and life histories, and I get a crash course in Indian family traditions—there is much less personal time in India; unlike Americans, Indians as a culture spend much more time with their families and thus have fewer individual activities, I am told.  It’s also one reason they don’t mind working late, Shubh pipes in.  This is something interesting about the culture; the entire workday is pushed back.  People show up for work about 10am (sometimes 10:30), have lunch around 1:30, work til 6-7:30, then go have dinner between 9-10pm.  “It’s just how it goes,” says Abhishek “I don’t really know why.”

Throughout the meal I am given instructions on what—and what no—to eat.  Abhishek warns me about the hot foods, which I take in moderation.  I surprise them when we talk food preparation and I know what a tandoor is, and I know a few dishes.  They know I’ve had Indian food in America, but I don’t dare say I know what I’m doing or that I can handle the hotness—because I am sure there’s a very sharp learning curve, and I have no desire to test it this early in the trip.

We talk business for a bit, finish our beers (Kingfisher is the most popular beer in India), and head back to my apartment so I can get back to work.  The guys say they’ll get in touch with me later to plan out what I’ll get to see this weekend. 

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

At about 6 I get a call from Alam’s assistant; am I tired or would I be up for Alam taking me around for a drive tonight?  Oh no, I say, I’m fine; I’d love to join him.  In truth, the phone had woken me on the couch where I’d fallen asleep with the laptop on my chest.  But I’d like to meet Alam, and I need to stay away for a little longer.

I meet Alam outside and get into his silver Honda.  We zip around the complex, wave to the guards, and pull up on the side of the road.  “We’ll just wait here for my wife and little one,” he explains.  Before long a smiling woman a child climb into the back seat, and I am introduced to Alam’s wife, Vandala, and their daughter Rhea.  They are an attractive family; Alam has soft features, and an air of fun about him; he loves to tell stories and give me interesting facts about the area.  Vandala is extremely warm and caring, teases Alam occasionally, and frequently asks me if there’s anything I need.  Rhea, one can plainly see, is extremely smart for her age, and is very curious. 

After driving a ways Alam pulls us into a large complex—one of Gurgaon’s many malls—to go to a beer garden there that he enjoys.  This particular mall is five levels and boasts—wait for it—1km per level.  That’s over three miles of shopping.

After opening the trunk for inspection and walking through an explosives detector we take an elevator up to the third level.  Vandala and Rhea head off to Fun City, an indoor amusement park, while Alam and I head off to the beer garden.  It’s not what I expected; it’s a German place.  I suppose given the size of India and the pervasiveness of the German tourist, this should be of no surprise, but I hadn’t ever imagined I’d be drinking weiss beer in India while trying to decide if I’d like bratwurst or chicken curry.

Alam is a very smart man, and it’s a pleasure to talk with him.  He jokes often and does his best to explain cricket to me (which I baited him for in asking if he understood America sports).  He also talks a lot about Indian culture, and why the workday starts so late (likely because no one wants to eat dinner at 6pm when it can still be close to 110 degrees).  He also goes into the labor cheapness and explains that this is why India has top hotels and an excellent service industry; the cost of labor is extremely inexpensive.  When we had driven in to the parking garage, there was an attendant there to press the automated button to dispense the parking ticket and hand it to the driver; this was so the driver wouldn’t have to stretch or open the car door.   

After our second beer, some fries, and some chicken Kabobs, we go to meet his family at a Punjabi restaurant on a lower level.  I’m very full, and am feeling a little queasy, but know I should eat and want to spend some more time with this wonderfully interesting family.  I am beginning to see how travelers can get sick eating this food, however; it’s not that it’s bad—it’s actually very, very good.  It’s the fact that it’s different, and it’s rare than when you order Indian takeout in America that you’d have it for every meal for a week straight.  The spices can be a little tough on you when you’re used to inter-dispersing relatively bland meals.

We order duck, which Alam makes a joke about to the waiter punning on the less-benign 4-letter rhyming work.  “Everyone likes a good duck!” he says as Vandala shakes her head.  “Did you hear what I said?” He asks her “do you think he got it?” Vandala nods “yes, I think so.”  This family is awesome.  I’m amazed how quickly they’ve made me feel comfortable—I feel very much at ease, which is difficult when you’re meeting new people from a different culture in a land that puts you completely out of your element.  Alam affectionately calls Rhea ‘punk’.  “Hey Punk,” he says “you filling out the comment card?”  Rhea loves to fill out the comment cards.  So much so that, Alam tells me “that people know my name in restaurants because of how many times she’s filled them out.  They just started calling me by my name one day.”  Rhea decides, with some help from Alam, that the rating of the duck was “yummy yummy”, and that everything was excellent.

We stop for a cigarette on the way home at a place that sells them in singles for 5rp, which is something like $.12, and slightly less than half of my idiotic tip to the driver the first night.  Vandala also advises me that, while there’s never any real danger in India for me, because I have a ‘whiteface’, people will assume I am rich and try to sell me things.  I find this term interesting; I’ve heard it before, and find that it’s used more as a noun than an adjective and a noun.  I am a ‘whiteface’, and ‘whitefaces’ buy stuff.

Once we are back at the complex we enjoy the night and look at the leftover Diwali lights that are still hanging from some of the apartments.  As some of the lights flicker, Vandala asks me if I had expected this level of rolling blackout.  It’s not bad, I tell her, I was told that you guys don’t even blink when it happens anymore.  They don’t, but if it stays off, she tells me, call the guards.  No bijli, I tell her, which means “no power” in Hindi and takes her aback slightly.  “You did some research before!” she tells me, but I let her know that it’s on the apartment cheat sheet.  “You must have had some time in the apartment then, she says.  Yes, a little bit.

The far off music lets us know that there’s a wedding going on, and I half debate walking out of the complex and having a stroll around, but it’s late.  Aside from that, there are rabid dogs, wild pigs, and a population I haven’t really interacted with yet, and jumping in the deep end at 10pm doesn’t seem like the best idea.  It’s a safe country, but I can imagine the comments I’d get—“did you think the guards were a decoration?  I hope that wild pig enjoys your left pinky.”  It’s probably best if I turn in.

In an effort to wind down I call Regis, who isn’t there, then my parents and my brother.  It’s hard not being able to hear familiar voices before you go to sleep, and while the apartment is big and beautiful, it seems larger and more vacant in the night time.  It feels like I am living in seclusion, and given what I’ve learned of Indian culture today, I pretty much am.  I have, however, been waiting for this moment since I woke up this morning, and as my head hits the pillow I have just enough time to set my alarm before I slip off into a deep sleep.

I am unprepared to fly today, though the adrenaline of waking up this morning jets me out of bed.  I’m leaving for New Delhi in 6 hours and I have yet to pack.  I tend to be a procrastinator—scratch that, I’m a huge procrastinator, it’s just that putting off the inevitable packing frenzy usually means I forget something like toothpaste when I’m traveling to the East Coast for the weekend.  Such forgetfulness does not make for a good trip when traveling to an underdeveloped country on the other side of the world.  As it is I already feel like I’m bringing too much superfluous crap.

Sitting on the plane writing this, I am currently packing 5 books, several sets of “work clothes”, travel clothes, any toiletries I may need for the next month, and a portable pharmacy that would impress Hunter S. Thompson.  The main reason, as anyone who’s heard anything about India, is that I’m fully prepared to get very, very sick.

Historically I don’t have the strongest stomach, so traveling to a country known for spicy food, waterborne illness, and general intestinal disease probably wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I go where the company points me.

So when I awoke this morning I set out to obtain every imaginable precaution against the inevitable.  The Oracle says you’re going to kill your father and marry your mother?  Not if I run away!  So I head into Safeway to cheat fate.  Once there, I shop at a sprint (since I have 90 minutes to pack before I leave), run up to the express checkout, and drop my provisions on the counter.  They include: a maximum strength bottle of Tums, a bottle of Pepto Bismol, Airborne, Robotussin for the annoying couch I inconveniently developed last night, a box of granola bars, and enough Immodium to ensure that I won’t need a restroom until August.  Alone this is a distressing grocery order, but when thrown onto a conveyor belt by an agitated man who is obviously in a big hurry, you can’t fault the checkout guy for taking a step back and looking alarmed.

The next step is to get to the pharmacy.   In addition to the recommended gastrointestinal salvage items for India travels is the somewhat menacing recommendation that travelers bring their own syringes should they need an injection during their visit.  Given the rampant disease in the country, this doesn’t seem unlikely.  This time, however, I decide to wait outside the store for a minute before approaching the pharmacy counter in the sweaty, anxious, wide-eyed state I am in to inquire about getting syringes. 

When I finally do calm down enough to go in, I find that this is no big deal, and that syringes are remarkably cheap ($.69!  Why NOT have a few lying around!).  They seem to have come down in price since my days of reefkeeping when I could purchase them in order to kill invasive Aptasia anemones in my aquarium by injecting them with boiling water and lemon juice.  Yeah, I’m a nerd, what of it?

The casual reaction went much better than my previous experience at the pharmacy.  I had waited in a long line at lunch time to fill my prescriptions for malaria and travelers “stomach”, as it was being called, and when it came time for the consult, the helpful checkout girl reminded in a voice that might as well have been calling for a cleanup on aisle three that the pharmacist would “give me a consult on how to deal with my infectious diarrhea.” 

After getting home and haphazardly packing, I set on the road with Willis, who is kind enough to lend his taxiing services once again.  I always get sad leaving home; not emotionally sad, just a feeling of true despair and a little panic in my gut.  I love to travel, but the thought of leaving all that’s familiar and the people I care about has always upset me.  It’s hard being a homebody with a wanderlust. 

I don’t need to look over at Willis’ knuckles to see that they are white.  As I careen down Rt-99 in the rain I rail against Washington drivers who like to settle into the passing lane and putz along.  “Well, the speed limit IS 40,” says Willis, hinting that my 60mph might be a little too ambitious.  That’s for people who don’t have a plane to catch, I say.  And you have airbags, so quit your whining.

Because I don’t know where I’m going, or if I’m supposed to go to an international terminal or something similar, Willis graciously waits in the cell phone parking lot as I check in, lest I need to be whisked somewhere else for my flight that now leaves in 60 minutes.  No worries, I’m at the right place.  I send him home and continue my journey.

Flying has become second nature in the last few months, and security is a breeze.  Before long I’m at my terminal, double back for a sandwich, and make calls to say final goodbyes between bites before I leave.  Mom, Dad, Kevin, Stephen, and Regis are on the list, as are several harassing emails to other friends.  Before long I’m loaded onto the plane in the middle seat, which is made much better by the kindness of Cindy McLean, the wonderful ticket counter associate who switched my seat assignment to an exit row one.  God bless that woman.

But all is not cupcakes and roses.  After I complete my traditional 1-hour-mouth-agape pass-out, I find myself in an armchair power struggle with the man to my left.  In my defense, he strikes me as a jerk.  Since I tend to be overly gracious when people wait on me, I’m extremely aware of how others treat those same people.  Most of what I get from Mr. Starchcollar is that he’s used to business class.  He does not gather his own trash, he does not say thank you, and he has little quips, like the one he used when getting his second cup of coffee : “let’s see if you pour better than the last one.”  I bristle. 

So when it comes to the arm rest, I’m on a battle for all the little guys.  He acts as though he owns by birthright, and though I usually shy away from confrontation of any kind, I’m about to sit scrunch-shouldered for the next three hours because I’m worried about upsetting my overly-entitled seatmate. 

So I creep in the edge, wedge my elbow in behind him, and slowly and progressively move inward.  In fairness, this armrest DOES have my seat number on it, and at the very least, we should share.  The interesting thing is that I find myself in a fiercely passive-aggressive struggle.  He doesn’t yield but instead leans back into me, and now that my bluff is being called, I’m not about to back down.  I lean back in on him.

And this is how it does for the next three hours.  When I reach into my bag for a candy bar, his arm rolls in like an invading army.  And I’m not subtle when I get my fucking Twix, sit back, and push him right back where he belongs.  We keep our eyes forward, we are tense, and truthfully, we are really leaning into each other—this is not a simple instance of contact—this is war, but more like a war between glaciers.

As we land there are a couple of hard pushes that I think I was supposed to assume was the turbulence, but it makes no difference as I don’t budge.  He might as well be pushing a wall.  I’ll teach you to be rude to the flight attendants.  What a wonderful thing it is to see from two grown men.

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

There is very little time from when I get off the plane to make it to my connecting flight for Delhi.  Worse, there are a calls that need to be made, which I do as I huff and puff down the terminal.  I call Dad, then talk with Mom, then Stephen, Regis, and simultaneously manage to acquire a pork burrito and seizure-inducing quantity of candy from a Hudson News.  When I get to my gate they have already begun boarding, and I realize, though I don’t really care, that I have missed one of the perks of my first time flying business class—boarding first.  Unconcerned, I dig into my burrito, then quicken my pace as I realize that the plane is boarding and that I am eating a sacred animal (according to reputable sources, both cows AND pigs are sacred in India).  I wolf down my dinner in a manner that draws actual stares from the elderly couple sitting across from me and then get in line, feeling good about my savvy cultural sensitivity.  “You’re still in America fool,” texts Regis as I relay my harrowing tail of self-sacrifice.  She is not impressed.

I however, am impressed with the plane.  While the first class section remains mystical and out of reach, I marvel at the luxury of the business class section, and as the plane sits delayed on the runway, I snap pictures and upload them to Facebook for 1) Lack of something better to do and 2) hope that others might join me in this journey of privilege.  It’s hard not to sound arrogant, but this is the first, and likely the last time I will fly anything other than coach.  I’m not rich, nor do I ever realistically plan to be rich enough to triple my plane price ticket for the sake of hot towels and ice cream on demand (which is NOT to say that I have any problem letting my company pay for it, and NOT so say that it isn’t WONDERFUL).

I check out my little seat area, and it unnervingly reminds me of the chairs the human ride around in in the movie Walle.  Do we really need such decadence?  It this really necessary to get from one place to another?  No.  But I am ok with it, and this becomes clear as I rifle through the goodies I have been given like a fat kid on a Hostess tour.  A fully reclining chair with more commands and controls than my car, a bag of amenities and toiletries, a pair of Bose headphones, my own TV with movies on demand (which I accidentally set to Dutch for half the flight, but it was wonderful all the same), and flight attendants constantly asking me if I’d like a pre-flight drink.  I opt for water, but my seatmates start in early on the scotch.

Even before we’ve taken off I have a dinner menu in hand.  A dinner menu?  This is so beyond what I’m used to, but it’s fun.  Wine with dinner?  Why not.  More naan?  What the heck.  It’s not like it’s anything life changing, but when you’re used to being herded like cattle, it can shock the system a little when you’re asked “What can I get for you, sir,” rather than “Yeah?”

The downside to traveling business class is that it’s full of business men.  The suited men to my left are content to down scotch and have a dick measuring contest about their business prowess until they fall asleep after dinner (and by fall asleep, I mean pass out), but they at least seem to have picked up on the fact that the guy next to them in Sambas and a Sounders Supporter t-shirt has little networking worth and probably won’t sympathize with their wishes that their children have the same “mathematical gift” that they do. 

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

It’s now 10:10pm my time, though I don’t know what time I should try to sleep, nor could I if I tried.  Coffee after dinner always seems like such a wonderful idea, and I suppose it would be if I ate dinner at 2pm.  So here I sit, clicking away as the rest of the cabin sleeps.  Movie watching is too mentally slow right now, and I’ve almost completed the first of three books that I’ve purchased for this trip.  It seems foolish to not take advantage of the fully reclining seat, which is a god send as far as I’m concerned, but some things you can’t force. 

Amusingly, I’ve become something of a pet for the flight attendants here, who now have few objects to bestow their considerable hospitality on.  I think they’re amused by me because it’s pretty clear that I don’t really belong here and I’m very much a fish out of water.  I thank them for everything, pick up after myself, and try to be as accommodating as possible.  I mean, why make someone’s job harder?  This thought process is not shared by my seat mates, who are very similar to my last one, but unfortunately we have far to much elbow room for me to adequately teach them a lesson through my leanings.  But for whatever reason I’m constantly offered an array of snacks and beverages, of which I only take bottled water.  I can feel the plane sucking the water out of me.  Nothing like getting good and dehydrated before heading to the desert.

*                                                                     *                                                                      *

It’s now later, and I’ve still been reading and writing.  I’ve also been looping a song called Clearwater, North Dakota on my iPhone as I write.  It fills me with sadness and happiness at the same time.  I’m somewhat better hydrated now, so my screaming headache has subsided, but I have just taken my first malaria pill, so I will soon see if the acid-trippy dreams everyone mentions are true.  Since they’re hard on the stomach, I chased it with a 4-pack of peanut butter twix because, you know, I had to.

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

Captain’s log; things are getting ugly here in 9G.  Stomach is in knots, mind is beyond gone, and I’ve been up the entire time.  I’ve completed The Hangover, which did not live up to the hype for me, and The Proposal after reading my book within the last 80 pages of the end.  Apparently the malaria pills needed to be taken with something more than a king-sized Twix, because I am feeling terrible and out of my mind.  Saw my face in the restroom mirror and scared the living shit out of myself.  Eyes are complete pink with streaks of red.  Everyone is sleeping; I can’t.  I don’t get it either, because I continually check the flight path because I’m freaking out that I’m landing at 8am, but it really does say 8pm.  Do these people plan to sleep for 18 hours?  Maybe I should check again.

We’re currently passing over Yekaterinburg, south of the Ural mountains.  Know where that is?  Me neither.  Keep fucking up my seat; press a button that I think will take me down and doooooot…I start going up.  I’m WAY higher than the sleeping people and in my freaked-out state feel really embarrassed about it, panic, press a bunch of buttons, panic some more, and hold a preset button to get me back to something similar to everyone else.  For some reason I am obsessed with conformity right now.

Plowing through as much water as they’ll bring me.  I’m nervous about getting to the apartment, more nervous about being let loose on the city; I’m not scared of it, but I’m feeling pretty off my rocker right now and we land in 4 hours.  Should I try to sleep?  No, I have to tough it out for another 6 hours or so.  I don’t know that I have the strength.

And my cough is still shitty and everyone is freaking out about H1N1—apparently I’ll be walking past an infared camera on my way in through customs to check for a fever.  Would I be deported?  Sent right back on a plane for another 15 hours?  I just want to sleep.  It’s 3 in the morning right now.  I might get to sleep around 9am my time. 

Someone just opened the window and freaked me out.  It’s daylight out there, big time.  The shades and blankets and reading light (mine, only) make you think night, but nope—it’s full on bluebird singing daytime out there!  Why is everyone sleeping?  I need more water.

I waved off breakfast and now wish I hadn’t-the malaria pills are not being kind and I’m

Hungry.  I haven’t even looked at my work materials right now; what would I do with them? You, you mapped out the middle.  Pretty comfortable in my assessment that I’m going a little nuts on this plane.  I’ve never really gotten as much sleep as I was supposed to, so maybe I have that much less in reserve for times when I skip it.  Clearwater, North Dakota.  Yeah, I’m definitely breaking a little here.  I think I’m going to try to get some sleep.  Just a little bit.

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I slept for about two hours, but it’s really doing little more than making me feel sick.  I’m up in time for breakfast, which is an asparagus omlette, some strange potato cakes, and a biscut.  I figure I’d better chow down on all the good (bland, but safe) food while I can.

Before long we are making our final descent into New Delhi; I’m exhausted and the thought of attempting to pack up my little nest of things is not appealing.  Just the same I do, and I get ready to go through customs when I get off the plane.  I had had it in my head that I would be able to stay up this time, then eventually hop off the plane and into bed, which is all I can think about.  I hadn’t really anticipated the travel to the guest house, or, more importantly, customs.  This was going to take a lot longer than I’d thought. 

When I get off the plane I make my way towards customs.  The airport is made completely of marble—marble everything, with palm trees.  The air is warm and moist—and easier on my lungs than the dry airplane air.  Immediately I am confronted with the fact that I am a foreigner and I look like it; people stare as I walk by—not rudely, but with a curiosity that makes me feel like I’m on display.  Look at the tall white man!  And the soldiers are there—with berets, bandanas, and assault rifles. 

I have problems at customs because I don’t know where I’m staying.  I have a letter of intent, but no address for my company, and I’m not firing on all cylinders so I can’t really think of what to in terms of rectifying this.  I smile and try to look jovial with the people I deal with, but they just stare at me.  They are all business, and they look pissed.  On top of that, if I were even to have the address, I’d have no idea how to format it for the form; there are names of cities, what I assume are states or providences, but then other larger cities—I’m clueless.

I first walk up to the health check, where people with surgical masks ask me a series of questions about the state of my health, and I do my best to mask the fact that I feel god awful and would probably call in sick to work if I knew how to do that where I was going.  They take my paperwork and give me a once-over with a thermal camera that would indicate if I had a fever.  Apparently I don’t, so I’m allowed to move on to the next phase.  Here we run into the problem with the address, and the problematic theme that will continue throughout my trip—the language.  The Indian inclination, I have learned, is to say ‘yes’ to whatever you ask.  This can make things difficult. 

The guy who checks my passport is another glarer.  He just stares at me, circles the areas that I haven’t filled out, and hands the immigration card back to me.  I do my best to explain my situation—I don’t have the address of my company, but I have a business visa.  He stares at me for another moment, moves his pen towards me slowly, and taps the card on the areas that haven’t been filled out, and slowly recoils his hand, all unblinkingly.  So I whip out my laptop, make up my best guess at an address, and write it down, hoping he won’t see me sweat.  He studies the card, gives me a long stare, throws two stamps on it, and nods his head to the right with a little smirk.  I’m through.

I’m supposed to meet my driver somewhere between here and the outside, and I’m doing my best to scour each area before going to the next, as the guards manning the doors are probably not going to be too understanding about me flitting back and forth between the security corridors.  When I leave the secured area I come into a large open room through a set of doors that is flanked on both sides by about 100 men holding signs with names on them.  Hindi names, Asian names, a few English names.  And they all stare at me, wondering if I’m the guy they’re picking up.  It’s like trying to find a seat at lunch as the new kid in high school.  I slowly walk up one side and down the other, reading each of the signs, fully aware that I’m really tired and could easily overlook my own name.  I look at the signs, but I feel all the eyes on me; it’s surreal, but not as uncomfortable as you would think.  The only uncomfortable part was when I strayed to close to a soldier and he gently directed me along with the barrel of his assault rifle.  But he looked friendly enough while he was doing it.  My ride isn’t here, so I start weighing my options, go get a bottle of water, and check back—then I see my name, and meet my driver. 

We wade out of the airport into a sea of humanity, honking cars, and stray dogs.  It’s very foreign, but at the same time familiar.  Cab drivers sit on the ground waiting to be hired; bearded men sit around in groups—it’s an air of waiting, killing time, or not being in a rush.  These men aren’t not busy—but they’re not obsessed with the Western culture of time.  At least that’s what I see.

We get to the car, load up the bags, and head off into my first experience of Delhi driving.  It’s not as scary as one would think.  There’s a LOT of honking, but not angry honking—more like “hey, I’m here!” honking.  But the story about the “just going for it” style of driving is 100% true.  When the driver decides he’s going to do something—that’s it.  A few honks and hang on.  And the pedestrians are exactly the same.  We’re cruising down the highway and groups of pedestrians just…walk across.  They don’t even wait for a clear break in traffic—as soon as one lane is free they star out, then wait in between lanes (if they wait at all) before walking out in front of our car.  At several points I almost yell out, but I resign to pinching my leg really, really hard.

The driver and I attempt to make small talk, but it’s difficult.  I’m tired and having trouble understanding him, and I seem to be making little sense to him either.  I mostly laugh and agree with whatever he says, which seems to make him happy; then I’ll not understand something and he seems to get upset.  Or maybe I’m out of my mind, things are fine, and I’m just tired.

We head down the highway toward Jaipur, pull off at Gurgaon, and head to the guest house.  It’s the top floor of an apartment complex, and after I sign in with the guards I am greeted by Surender, a smaller, well dressed man who shows me around the apartment and tells me he will come by at about 8:30am in the morning to make me breakfast and arrange for a driver to take me to the office at 9am. 

I’m feeling very out of sorts right now, and the cultural differences are not helping.  I’d be having trouble getting my point across in my own house right now, much less in a foreign country at a guest house with someone whose language I don’t speak.  Surender seems very nice, I just feel like I’m offending him when I ask him to repeat himself, or when I give him an answer that I don’t think he’s been expecting.  He asks me if I need anything and I tell him I’m fine.  Food?  No, just sleep.  Tea?  Coffee?  No, thank you.  He throws his arms out to the sides, palms up, and shrugs.  Is he exasperated with me?  Was I supposed to accept the tea?  Have I made some kind of cultural faux pas?  Surender tells me he’ll see me in the morning and leaves. 

I inspect the house.  The lower level has a TV area with a few couches, a dining room area, and a kitchen.  Up a set of marble stairs is my room and bathroom, and a desk in an open area by the banister.  The décor is sparse, and just…different.  The knick-knacks and hyper cleanliness of the west is absent, and it’s strange and refreshing.  Strange because it’s something I’m not used to; refreshing in that I know we don’t need half the crap we have in the West. 

I unpack my stuff and do my best to organize, but I need to sleep.  After screwing with the internet for a while I’m able to email everyone to let them know I’m here alright.  I finish the rest of my bottled water and begin googling everything I find in the kitchen for traveler safety; milk is a no go, as is the orange juice.  I don’t know if the Coke is OK, and I know the beer is.  There are a few containers of water from the reverse osmosis filter they have, and I’m sure this is for their western guests, but after some dubious reviews of the effectiveness of this sterilization process, I opt for drinking the sealed bottle of club soda I find (afterwards reading that the main ingredient is “pure spring water” which sends me into another panic).  This is going to be much harder than I though.

Admittedly, the day ended much better than it had begun, singing Johnny Cash songs with Dono as we drove back from visiting Pasay, who was just back from Iraq, and his wife Edney, another close friend.  After a great night of making hot dogs, drinking a few beers, hanging out, playing with Pasay and Edney’s big beautiful lab Trot, and almost singeing Pasay’s eyelashes shut with an exploding lighter, we’d decided it was time to head home when half of us had fallen asleep on the couch watching “Destroyed in Seconds”, which is exactly the type of show it sounds like.

The morning left room for improvement.  I was running late, throwing things into a backpack in a vain attempt to catch the last express bus to work when I heard Willis wake up and start shuffling around.  As I came around the doorway I saw him standing in the kitchen “What up, picklesmoocher?” I said matter-of-factly.  It was more of a statement than a question, but Willis just kind of stared at me.  And he kept staring—I thought he was trying to think of a comeback, then was just spacing out, but after a solid 5 second pause I could tell something wasn’t right.  “What’s going on?” I asked. 

“Have you looked outside yet today man?”

I hadn’t.  So I walked over to the back door and looked out into the yard, which was covered in a thick layer of feathers.  Following the trail across the yard my eyes stopped at the heap of blonde feathers by the picnic table.  Glenn.

“Goddammit,” I said, opening the door.  I stepped onto the porch and stood there for a minute taking the scene in.  It was strange to look over the lawn at Glenn’s body.  I knew it was him, but with the goofy personality gone, it just seemed like a clump of meat.  I half-expected the real Glenn to step out of the coop and peck the odd object in curiosity.

“Goddammit!”  I said again, slamming my fist on the railing, immediately bringing Glenn back to life and not bruising my knuckle.  I walked down the back steps and through the garden to inspect the damage and check on the larger and stronger Dougie Fresh who was probably traumatized in the coop.

“I’m sorry dude,” said Willis, who was looking somber “any sign of Dougie Fresh?”.  I walked through the gate and took a scan of the yard, then came to a stop on a large brown mass by the corner of the fence—Dougie Fresh.  Dead.  “Got him,” I say.

Willis went inside and I, most likely because I had started watching Dexter a little too intently, reconstructed the crime scene.  The lack of any decay or insects indicated this was fresh, probably only a few hours old, and the severity of the attack on Glenn indicated that he was first.  Probably grabbed from the coop, and certainly mangled across the yard, along the fence, and over to the picnic table where he lay.  A chair was knocked over there, which meant it was a larger animal.  Given the way he was chewed up, I was pretty certain it was a raccoon.  Dougie Fresh appeared to be largely untouched with the exception of some neck damage; he probably went second.

I called into work to let them know I’d be working from home today; I wasn’t particularly upset, but I knew the neighbor kids liked to throw the chickens raspberries when they came out to play in the late morning, and this scene was the last thing I wanted them to see.  The chickens got sent to a farm in Aberdeen.  If they ask, that’s what you tell them.

I set about the task of taking care of the bodies impressed with my own callousness.  For some reason I really felt no connection with these lifeless hunks of meat, though I had raised them from eggs.  With their distinct personalities long absent from the bodies, there was nothing remarkable about them.  They were just…things to be taken care of.

I set about digging a hole, which took longer than expected in the rocky soil.  When I had finally made it big enough, I retrieved Glenn and placed him on the bottom right.  Then I went and got Dougie Fresh and placed him on the left side.  The thing that I did notice were the feet.  It was so strange to see them, bent at awkward angles and lifeless; those feet had been perched on my finger countless times when they were chicks.  Had walked up and down my legs when they were growing up, had grown from tiny little feet into large, scaled claws that tore apart the lawn in search of food.  Now they were still, but I really still felt nothing.

As I did a few sweeps of the yard I couldn’t silence the morbid Rivard humor that was already swirling with in me.  “What’s funny?” asked Willis, who had come back outside.  “I’m searching for Glenn’s head,” I said as I scoured the ground carrying my shovel.  For some reason, this was borderline hilarious to me.  Then I got down to business.

I spread some dirt on them, then some more, covering them.  Patting the mound with the shovel I walked back onto the porch.  Their absence was already apparent; though not noisy, they’d always been there inspecting something idiotically, running towards the back door when it opened, or clucking excitedly after laying a new egg.  Little movements that let you know there was some blip of life in the back yard.  Now the cold early morning was still, and the only indication that the yard had once housed chickens was the presence of piles of cold, wet feathers strewn about the lawn.