Why haven’t I been doing this? My friend Victor creates this beautiful website and keeps it running every time I cry of technological crisis and I’m not putting out at least once a month?

Monthly Mood: India Continues To Prove That I Don’t Know Shit About Life

My signature posts used to be what happened where, with pointers on accommodation and budgeting. Every day of my trips were covered. Then my blog moved towards food posts and lately, embracing India through a pandemic.

Before I know it nearly half of my current trip has been set in this Greatest Country On Earth.

Not a day here can pass without first-class entertainment. An everyday sight that makes me pause and ask myself,

“Am I seeing things or am I seeing things?”

The other day it was a man scaling up the back of a bus from the outside, perhaps trying to enter through the back window, before a policeman whistled him away. Or was it a man feeding monkeys who stood up to take his treats.

Or was it me trying to flee the few hundred thousand/ 10 million/ 35 million people, depending on your rumor, congregated not far from me for Kumha Mela¹, only for my Royal Enfield chariot to sputter out of gas before I could make it across the Ganges. Continued below.

Day 1163

16 April 2021

Bhagsu Nag, Himachal Pradesh

Today the sun is out and this alone is my everything and a half.

I sit at 1,852 meters in elevation on some cushions in Bhagsu Nag. This is a village that rises up above Dharmashala, residence of the Dalai Lama and hundreds of beautiful bird species. The plastic table I write from was salvaged from a stack of neglected furniture and scrubbed, by yours truly, three times over. Its surface sports blotches where it has been partially melted.

Pounding lemon ginger infusions stirred with heaped spoons of Himalayan honey help me combat this new altitude. For the last three days my dinners have been raw cashews. Kaju from Mangalore’s latest harvest. The half-kilo I picked up on Monday has been successfully depleted.

Spring spreads over the Kangra Valley as I consider what I am trying to harvest from this new chapter.

It is my first time in Dharamshala. I know there is every type of yoga and healing, all the Tibetan and Italian and Israeli dining to be had. Bakeries and smoothies and salads for all the chakras. But is there more to a traveling life than going to cafes? Than some jam sessions and raw energy balls?

For one, there’s birds. I have been in India for more than 400 days, and for each of those days which were mostly spent in villages, India has shown me a bird that I have never seen before. Or a few of them. I know this because I remember every bird I have ever seen.

I usually dedicate the next hour, or weeks, to scrolling obsessively through Wikipedia and eBird trying to identify my newest crush. This ties into why I wear the same clothes every day: to make space for a hefty pair of binoculars.

Today’s gems include the yellow-breasted greenfinch and the russet sparrow, or cinnamon sparrow. I discovered them over coffee and oatmeal.

The sparrow looks like the most common of sparrows. The small birds (House sparrows) that sit in the nooks of every building in the world. But something about this male sparrow’s chestnut cap and soul patch vibe were stirring up more curiosity than usual this morning.

As it turns out, the cinnamon sparrow’s habitat range doesn’t even start till Afghanistan and Pakistan. In India, it’s only found in the far north and the northeast.

Which means until arriving a couple days ago, I had not seen this bird before (okay maybe when I was in Himachal last autumn but I didn’t pay attention). How about that!

Another hopeful about Dharamshala is the Vipassana center. I spent yesterday morning repeatedly refreshing the schedule page before managing to slide my application through. I got waitlisted last time when I applied half an hour later than this time.

Finally, there’s this. Writing. On and off the blog. I now understand that if I have no kitchen, I write better. If I have no partner, I write better. If I have a desk and something to sit on at complementing heights, I write.

I’ve taken inspiration from the great Priyanka Gupta behind On My Canvas, who has published numerous posts on writing well and protecting your creativity.

◊

As I make the final edits to this post, I suddenly remember the earthquake. Last night. During my slumber.

An earthquake! My first one!

Two tremors. First rumbling. The mountains vibrate like there’s thunder. Then my building–my bedroom–shudders. Shudder-shudder. Over before I can let out the breath that I accidentally started holding in.

Some time later, this repeats.

I don’t know how a quaking of the earth ought to feel, but when I felt this entirely new sensation, my drowsy brain simply went, “earthquake.”

Who have I become, that I can wake alone at 3am gripped by that amount of fear, clutch my pillow a little tighter, and proceed right on with sleep?

current obsessions:
rosefinches
greenfinches
bullfinches
shea butter
Kailas jeevan
aloo parantha
north indian thali
small-business bakery rusk
croissants
espresso
small-batch peanut butter
agnistambhasana
phone calls

current revulsions:
the prevalence of cesarean sections in India (if she hurts, C-sec her)
plastic litter
alcoholism
Asian hate crimes
the Burmese military
the West African chocolate industry

So now that we’ve obtained some clarity, let us re-examine the intimate anecdote of my escapades across at least three state borders:

Day 1160

13 April 2021

Laxman Jhula → Rishikesh → Dehradun → Chandigarh

In the middle of gorging down a family-sized tiramisu out of a perfectly circular glass bowl, the girls I am to share a taxi with call in sick. By the time I’m scraping out the last of the cream stuck to the sides of the bowl, it is clear that I must bail on my companions.

I run home and side-step the poo and trash that have been generously left in the guesthouse corridor by some local monkeys. I shower and pack like it’s my life calling. I try to get myself to stop shaking.

The guesthouse boys say there is no bike and then they say 10 minutes but it is actually one minute and they want a lot.

Never mind prices never mind that I reminded them every time I saw them for the last 24 hours.

The chosen boy and I don’t make it to the new bridge before his Royal Enfield runs dry. 40mL of extremely shitty petrol in a Bisleri water bottle, seemingly conjured out of thin air, saves us. Off to the gas station.

Rishikesh Bus Stand

I plop my things in front of the police and visit the empty restrooms.

I come back. They tell me to sit with them.

I sit on the bench with my things and politely decline their chai offer.

Maybe it’s my hat.
Maybe it’s me.

One policeman escorts me to the bus I need.

When I get a 10-rupee kulfi that tastes like powder, one of the ice cream sticks all the men are yelling and selling so fast they don’t even put them in the packaging boxes, I finally feel like I’m a part of Kumbh.

Now I write in my Notes app from the exit row of my rickety government bus and ask myself why I didn’t bathe yesterday, when I still lived smack on the Ganges River. Yesterday and tomorrow are the most important days out of twelve years to go Ganga dipping, but I guess I was too busy breaking hearts and plotting my flee.

My thoughts return to my treatment from the police.

How I love and hate my foreigner privilege² so much.

^Before I finish typing that sentence, a very serious woman boards the bus and stops directly before me. Her attire indicates she’s working one of the many Covid-19 rapid PCR testing booths dotted throughout Rishikesh and Haridwar.

“Can I speak to you?”

“Yes, you can.”

Ready for her to jab my brains out with a cotton swab, feeling like a Himalayan lamb before it’s sacrifice to the gods, she continues loudly,

“Do you want to go with the police now to Dehradun? They have a bike and it will be safe for you.”

“Umm. I’m okay here.”

“Do feel comfortable here? Are you sure? It will be safe for you to go with them. They are just about to go. I think it’s better for you.”

“Yes I am comfortable here. I feel safe. Thank you.”

◊

The bus moves and the sun sets. The Keralan boy next to me tells me that Kumha Mela was incredible and no one was keeping track of Covid among the hundreds of thousands/ millions of people congregated. Whatever the rules say about needing a negative PCR test, no one was checking. Everyone was having a blast.

He asks for my contact and I say I don’t give it out. He keeps asking, and asking why not. He just wants to say he has a friend from “America.” I tell him that we don’t know each other and that there is more than one America. He tells me he thinks I don’t believe in the Indian people.

I have nothing to say and I look out the window and think about my Indian friends. One lives in San Francisco, one in Dubai, one in Goa. I believe in them more than I believe in most “Americans.”

We talk about how I’m lucky to be doing this. How his sister had to be married and have babies. He tells me I must come from a rich family. A lot of people like to tell me things about me, and this line is particularly popular. I tell him I don’t receive support from my family.

He asks me theoretically, after the bus ride, if he asked for a selfie, what would I say? I said I’d say sure. I proceed to explain why some foreigners might decline (from being asked too much, from the way they are approached) in case his feelings may be hurt in the future.

He never asked me for that selfie.

◊

Dehradun-Chandigarh HRTC bus

The second you think you might just kinda sorta have a grasp on India, it shows you.

This bus stops and the bus driver jumps out of his seat. He charges down the aisle and starts beating the shit out of this sleeping guy. Except I can’t even call it beating. Slapping the shit out of this sleeping chap. Hits on the head and a full body assault. I still don’t know why.

An hour later a man gets on and sits in the row behind me. Soon enough he is talking to me in Hindi and I am on my phone ignoring him. He must be half drunk and I don’t fully realize he is actually speaking to the one person on the bus who does not speak Hindi.

He inches closer. Then a tap on my shoulder. I swing around and started yelling at him.

“DON’T TOUCH ME. I don’t know what you’re saying man just DON’T. TOUCH. ME. What do you want kya chaiye?”

He doesn’t sit back and just keeps going with his slurring speech. His arms remain on the back of my seat.

I feel the eyes of the other passengers on me. A father and daughter tell me to sit with them and I do and for me it’s done. The next thing you know the ticket collector slaps the wrong guy so hard across the face—the guy who was already bitch slapped by the driver.

And I’m like nonononononono.

The father had said something to the ticket guy.

Hearing our protests and realizing his mistake, without apologizing, the ticket guy whips around and starts slapping the shit out of the creep, the “right guy,” my guy, and tears him out of his seat with a war cry. The offender is thrown off the bus and there’s a scene outside.

And the whole time I’m like nonononono. Nonononono.

My hands fly to my face and then back down to my lap. The father who helped me motions his hands to tell me to not resist, like it’s all okay, like this is just how it is.

The ticket guy. The ticket guy who was so respectful and patient with me when he told me the bus timings and the route that’s best for me. The ticket guy whose eyes and way of talking reminded me of my dear friend Shiv. The ticket guy whose affirmation to me asking if he was Himachali, gave me a wave of relief.

The daughter I’ve moved next to speaks English. I explain to her that it was my shoulder, that we solved the problem, that it’s okay.

The poor guy who was wrongly slapped on my behalf has blood on his face and the whole bus is scared of me.

It’s not even 10pm.

On one hand everyone will think twice before ever being creepy.

On the other hand I start to wonder what happens if the wives of the driver and ticket guy ever piss them off.

The violence was very unnecessary.

Very.

Like yes, this creep only targeted me because I was alone and I was a woman. I reacted strongly because I remember when I wasn’t watching my back side on the ghats of Varanasi and because I remember stories of friends having their inner thighs brushed for an entire bus ride.

But I also know this creep suffers. He never knew real love. He was beat as a boy, as a young man, and as a middle-aged man. He lives in a society with fucked up gender roles and sexual suppression. Violence is never the answer.

Anyhow.

I always say this, but it’s official.

I officially feel safe in India.

I am officially not scared of molesters

I officially feel like I’m in a movie.

Loving the mosquitoes landing on my hands and sucking through my clothes rn, as a side note.

1. A festival of holy bathing dates in the Ganges held every 12 years, usually reaching hundreds of millions of attendees over the course of two months, and that only Hinduism would put on during a global coronavirus emergency.

2. It’s not white P, it’s not American P because they don’t see my passport. But what is it with this sort of first world Privilege? Or is it hospitality? Why can’t we treat Indians and Chinese with the same courtesy in the EE.UU. or EU?