From Bundi

After a good night-and-day of travel, I find myself in Bundi, a magical, isolated city in Southern Rajastan. It's fantastically beautiful, and dominated by a huge fort on the hill above--but it is so intricate you think that the fort is the hill, and there is no hill underneath it. Kipling lived here for a while to write; it's certainly the place I would come to write a book. By Indian standards, this place is amazingly peaceful, and very friendly (the indian standard for peace is low and for friendship high). There is some tourist traffic through here, enough so that people are not surprised to see me, but not enough to create a real tourist economy here. I haven't seen any other forgeiners in my first gamble around the town. I got here via Kota, which is a small city in southern rajastan; I saw the old Maharaja palace, which was gorgeous and took way too many pictures. Then I made a 2.5 km trek through town with my big bag in the midday heat, and it made me feel like a badass. I appriciated that no one hassled me in Kota, nor here in Bundi, for that matter.

Thanks to my dad for this Kipling quote about the places I'm going:

"Jeypore Palace may be called the Versailles of India; Udaipur's House of State is dwarfed by the hills round it and the spread of the Pichola Lake; Jodhpur's House of strife, gray towers on red rock, is the work of giants, but the Palace of Bundi, even in broad daylight, is such a palace as men build for themselves in uneasy dreams-- the work of goblins rather than of men."--Kipling (By Jeypore he must have ment what we spell Jaipur)

So I'm hitting all of that besides Udaipur, which I hear is beautiful but I'm missing it anyway.

From here, I want to go to Jodhpur (on tuesday?) and then to Jaipur, then back to Delhi to begin my north India trip.

The internet is slow, so I will not try to post any pictures from here. If you haven't figured it out, you have to copy and paste the addresses I posted yesterday into the address bar. I put descriptions on photobucket, but I don't think they came through, so here they are: me and host family in McLeod Ganj, Madhav Shukla-ji and wife, R. Ramu Pandit on tabla, Goh Swami-Ji on sitar, and Pushkar lake. Not necessarily in that order.

The guy from the internet cafe is going to take me to see the lake soon.

Visuality

Photos!

Click:
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e197/jedbickman/100_0351.jpg
(my tabla teacher and my favorite sitar player playing music in Banaras)
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e197/jedbickman/100_0354.jpg
(shuklaji and wife)
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e197/jedbickman/100_0483.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e197/jedbickman/100_0451.jpg

as I wait for more photos to upload, I have time to write. Trying so hard to get these uploaded makes me think about how important visuality has become to me over my time in India. It's a visually spactacular place, and meaning often lies right on the surface. You look at something, and you know it's as old as time, you know it's a deeply spiritual place, something people have been worshipping for as long as humans have built places to worship. My camera is my best travel buddy; whenever I see something and have the impulse to share it with someone, I photograph it. Really that means that you all are my best travel buddy because I'm photographing it to share with you when I get home. India has the most vivid colors, and they never clash in this part of the world.

The important thing about India, and probably the whole world, is that whatever is there is there, and nothing else. Each place is only what it is, and can offer only so much. This is what I mean by meaning lying on the surface; if you try to dig deeper, often you'll just end up making things up. Nowhere is this seen better than in the traditional narratives of this place; in each hindu myth, one can understand the meaning or the lesson of each sentance within the actual story. There's pleanty of room for interpretation, but not for analysis, it is only what it is. This teaches me to see the world as it is as a transcendantly beautiful place, to see the divine energy of reality in reality, and not in some far away fanciful place, not in heaven, earth is heaven.

This is also true of the people; they survive, work, and worship and that is their body and mind, and that is why they are beautiful. Work has been so deeply engraned in the entire structure of society for so long that it appears on people's faces, in their genetic make up. The caste system is as old as time, and it is going strong. Brahmins often have soft faces, doughy hands. Their teeth are stained bright red with pan. some of them are a little heavy, though few indians are actually fat. Workers are hard, dark, have high cheekbones, are hardened and beautiful, the men and the women. They are often in traditional dress, dhotis on the men and saris on the women. Those who make their living praying on tourists, mostly brahmins, actually look slimy. I make a million instintaneous judgements about people every day, which ones to stop and talk to, which ones to ignore. i don't mean to brag about it, but my intuition has become pretty good, if a little too suspicious. But the point is, people are what they are here.

I still beleive in the fundamental injustice of the caste system, and it makes me angry when brahmins use their status as holy men as a reason why I (and everyone else) am obligated to give them money. As a large generalization, i notice that lower caste people tend to be more genuinely spiritual. The bramhmins might sit in temples because it's their job, but the people who are really getting meaning out of worshipping are lower caste. This is obviously an unfair generalization, there are many genuine brahmins who are scholars, who spend their lives devoted to the holy texts of hinduism, and who condemn the commercialism that has taken over the religion. Most significant of these genuine brahmins to me is my guruji Shukla-ji, who although he was a brahmin, taught me to be suspicious of brahmins, and not assume they are spiritual just because of their caste. I'm going to try to post a picture of him.

I noticed this in Pushkar, when I walked up the four hundred steps to the Savatri temple. Pushkar is holy because it is the only temple to brahma in the world--the temple is large and gorgeous and right on the lake. It is teeming with tourists and brahmins who show you around the temple in exchange for twenty ruppees. It's a nice temple, and I liked it. Outside of town, on the top of a big hill rising out of the desert is the temple to his wife, Savitri. The place really fits her personality--she is lonely and sad because her husband Brahma has insulted her, and she sits on the mountain alone looking over him, and looking over all creation as her child. She is the primordial mother goddess. As one walks up the four hundred steps, you are supposed to meditate on your own mother, to think of all she has done for you and her tolerance and generousity. I did so, and by the top I was profoundly moved; if all of my water wasn't already leaving my body in the form of sweat, maybe I would have cried. The place has such genuine spiritual energy; no one is asking for money, everyone is making the journey as a way to worship their mother and the Cosmic Mother, it is devotion. I saw no one on the way up, but at the top just before the temple, there was a man sitting there. He was one of the nicest people I've met in India; he patiently and beautifully told me the story of Savitri and Brahma, and talked about his own mother who had died. Then he said, "I don't know the real story, I'm not brahmin, you understand" and so we talked about Pushkar, and how the brahmins treat the tourists. He revealed he was from the goldsmithing caste, and he makes the jewelry sold to tourists like me. He said "there's a lot of bullshit down there. (the first time I have heard a swearword in India). They do no work, they sit there and wait for the tourists to give them money." On the way down, I bent to touch his feet. He said no, and forcefully stopped me, I am worker only, you can't touch my feet, I am not pure. And I tried to tell him that he was the most pure of any man I had met in pushkar, and I wanted to touch his feet. he eventually sheepishly let me, and it was good.

Ok pictures are up.

Photos!

So I got a reservation on a train from Mumbai to Kota tomorrow that leaves at 7:00, arrives at 8:40. I'm really glad to be going back to rajastan--I would have felt like I had done the state an injustice if I had only gone to Pushkar. Kota is a city with only one thing interesting in it: an old palace. But the real destination is 56 KM away, Bundi, which has an old decaying fort. and a lake. and probably lots of camels, and sand, and heat. But both places are completely untouristed (I mean, there are guest houses, but there's no separate market for tourists and locals). Kipling lived there for a time to write a book, I don't know which one. So if I'm going to be an Orientalist writer, I have to go there, right?

Some pictures. It was hard to choose which one I waited to upload, because it's really slow. I have many scenic pictures of beautiful India, the beautifulist place on the planet, but I'm just not going to post any of them, you'll have to see them when I get home.


This is my perfect picture of steriotypical India--it's exactly the image that people have in their mind when they think of Indians. Or maybe I just think that cuase I've been here a while. This was taken while I was still in Varanasi; I took a side trip to the other side of the river to see an ancient Durga temple. These people were outside.



OK for some reason it just stopped working. I think maybe the internet went down. shit. it did. now how am I going to publish this post? fuck. that was a waste of an hours internet time.

Bollywood

So last night I was recruited off the street to be an extra in a bollywood movie. It was a really fun but also tedious and tiring experience, am highly glad I did it. Bollywood movies are absolutely rediculous, and I learned that the people who are involved in making them are also pretty rediculous. The studios here churn out mind-blowing numbers of movies in a short amount of time, like the lonely planet says, like gunfire.

So they collected twenty or so forgeiners off the streets of downtown bombay, got us all to their ramshackle studio, and stuck us in a room together for like three hours. It was good to get to know all the people who were with me, my first travel buddies! They gave us beer and chai, and there we were. They dressed some of the women up in these rediculous hooker costumes with neon wigs. I was still in my desert clothes, had not bathed all day, and had not really slept in like 36 hours, I had gotten off the train that morning. But no matter. So the scene they were shooting was a dance number that was supposed to take place in a strip club in Amsterdam. My job was to join the crowd around the couch as the main character did coke off the thighs of strippers, and then to participate in the dance number; I was part of the crowd around the stage in the "strip club" and I had to dance. But you'd only dance for 10 or 20 seconds at a time, have to start suddenly and then stop suddenly, it was hard to get in the groove of it. I couldn't tell from looking at the camera angles whether I was actually even in any shots. If i was, it will look wierd having a random unshaven guy dressed in all white, wearing an Indian corta in an amsterdam strip club. But not like the bollywood directors care about details like that. The whole thing lasted until like 2:30 in the morning, and everyone was shocked that the director packed it in early, usually it goes until 5:00 am. I couldn't have made it, I was dying of exhaustion by the end. They paid us 500 rupees and sent us on our way.

Anyway, the whole bollywood thing is highly entertaining. Unlike hollywood, bollywood has no pretentions of actually making good movies; every bollywood has exactly the same plot, the obligatory dance numbers, actors from the same pool of about 20 actors and dancers. The one I'm in was called Dil Diya Hai, and i don't know if it will be released and when.

I like hindi pop, bollywood music much more than American pop. Not saying that it's good, it's just less annyoing.

What can I say. It was a strange experience overall. I wasn't allowed to take pictures, unfortionatly.

I'm going to go back to Rajastan sometime at the end of the week.
peace
jed

Orientalism and Me

In planning this segment of the trip, I have completley ignored my values, my sense of history and politics, and my own personal dharma. I have allowed my background, my cultural identity, and skin to control my actions in the world. But it's not too late, I just have to change my travel plans, and do what needs to be done. In proposing a whirlwind tour of all the best tourist destinations accross north and south india, I am perpetuating the idea that India is an object to be seen, consumed, and left. It comes from the history of my skin. India is fetishized by travellers who skip across it photographing it, buying it. It comes in the age after colonialism, in some ways the same thing that is happening all over the world, but in some ways very unique to India.

I took a fantastic class before I came to India called Orientalism and the Place of Literature, that explained how the idealization and fetishization of India was the cultural backdrop that enabled British colonialism here. By seeing India as a feminized storehouse of riches, we give ourselves the right to consume it. For me personally, I have seen it and presented it on this blog not as a storehouse of riches, but of spirituality and goodness. Same thing. I want to talk more about this blog in a second.

Tourism is good for the Indian economy, but it hinges upon the same social dynamics taht were built by the British. But now, it is the time for the economic and moral reveng of India--now, the tourists are powerless but rich, they become the victims of the very lessons of greed that the British taught here. In tourist destinations, the population (especially the Brahmins) make a highly lucrative life out of pulling as much money out of the pockets of white peopel as the can, and they are good at it. I'm not complaining about the money they took from me, I figured I only gave away 240 ruppees in Pushkar that I didn't use to buy something, about seven dollars. But that's the very point--by Indian standards, it's enough to eat for a family for a week. But that's probably not what the money went to. But anyway, the exchange rate makes me a rich man, and money means little to me in of itself. But every interaction is tinged with greed, and my every word is partly spoken from fear. And they know that the best way to do it is to assume the same subservient, sycophantic attitude that they had as the subject of a colonial power.

Some amount of this dynamic is inherant in my trip here, and I will not escape it while in India. But I can minimize it, and also get more out of my time here, for myself by taking my time more seriously, drastically slowing my pace and limiting the ground I cover. I fell in love with North India and it's people, even though they are all insane (because they are all insane?) when I was in Banaras; my teachers, my host family, the rich intellectual and spiritual life. And there's a lot more where that came from, and I can get it in North India. I'm sure that south India is beautiful, and it is a personal goal of mine to come back to India and do south India right, explore the hill stations in the western ghats, the abandoned beaches, Madurai and Trichy, Ramnapuram. But not this trip.
I reccomend the book "the god of small things" by arundhati roy, which I read before I came here. It takes place in Kerela, and discusses the rise of the tourist industry there, the resorts of the "backwaters" wthat have become so popular with Westerners. They grew up in the same cultural space, the same economic space, that was left vacant by the departure of the british. And if I spent my time flying past South India, I must occupy these tourist-places, albeit the budget end of them. Whatever.

Anyway, I am in Mumbai now, and although I previously [planned to spend little time in big cities, I realize now that my cultural and family background has taught me to love big beautiful cities with lots of art and culture, and Mumbai is certainly the center of all of it, past and present, in India. So I'll stay here a few days, maybe even a week, and I don't know what I'm doing yet, I'll post about that later.

But it's really important for me to talk about the Orientalist nature of this blog, right now. It's been in the back of my head this whole time, but I haven't been explicit about it. This is the first time in my life I have felt like people have been reading my words, even if it's just my parents, this is the first time I have had a regular audience. Why do you read this blog, when you did not read the other blog that John Paul and I maintained together, poetic terrorism? because you are interested in what I am doing now because I am in an exotic place, a place with all this cultural baggage and intrigue. And I've been feeding this, in fact, I've been the cause of this, by presenting India as a mystical storehouse of knowledge, a place where I have learned life changing lessons that I could not have learned at home. By idolizing hinduism and even buddhism. By talking about how beautiful the cows are. All of it feeds into this dynamic. I have been objectfying india with my experiences, and then packaging it up (commodifying it) and selling it to you in exchange for your attention, which I crave. How can I escape this orientalist point of view? I cannot. But being aware of it is the first step, and I would appriciate it if you, as my readers, could take that step with me.

I know this wasn't very articulate, but I'm tired and strung out from a lot of travel, a lot of train.
best
jed

Streets

Because sometimes it's nice just to sit in an internet cafe and just write. if you want to know where I am and what I'm doing, scroll past this entry.

I think the biggest culture shock I will have when I go back to America is the streets. What they are used for, road etiquitte, the cowshit. All different. In America, we take it for granted that if you go in the street, you will be killed immediatly by blind unthinking machines zooming past at unsafe speeds. if you have to get across, you go when the machine-light tells you, to keep your body intact while the waiting iron beasts grumble behind the gate of the white line. In India, life is lived on the street, together, everyone always in each other's way, people, bicicles, rickshaws, thupthups, and all manner of animals. The street is the only center of commerce, the only malls. They are the home of all the cows, all the goats, pigs, camels, a lot of dogs, monkeys above the street, everything. And all jumbled together without laws or order; you walk in the middle of the street, and when a car or a bike wants to go around you, they honk at you and then drive around you. It leads for a lot of honking, and a different attitude towards it. In america it's considered rude, a gesture of aggression, to honk. Here it is the safe and polite thing to do; it's much be better to be honked at than mowed over, and if it's a motorcycle, it can be hair raising ot be zoomed around by a bike with no warning. Anyway, this way And this way the community sees itself, lives with itself, instead of separating itself into little private bubbles. If it's a small city like pushkar or even a medium sized (for india by western standars, is huge) you begin to recognize the faces of everyone who is living in your urban space--you won't know them all, it's too many, but people will begin to look familiar, unavoidably. Because when they are not in their rooms, they are on the street.

This is also why you get the opportunity to develop real connections with the environment around you, mostly the animals. All indians have only one best friend, who they keep completely secret and never talk about: the cows. Because when you're walking down the street, and you see a cow, a little part of you unavoidably is happy. They are beautiful beings with a beautiful spirit, and you can see it in their eyes, and in their mouths when they chew and slobber. And they are completely unaware of absolutely everything around them, they are always in a daze. the traffic steers around the cows, because they would never move for a car, it's just not in their nature. It's a state of complete being, just simply existing. they eat trash and give us milk and eat more trash. They have to do surgery on all the cows once a year to remove all the plastic they eat. That is why we have to stop using plastic right now. and that's why we love the cows, because they are here, on our streets, living with us, instead of sequestered into fenced-off pastures. It makes it difficult to eat beef, I don't know if I will be able to when I get back to america. The other animals here are just as good as the cows in their own way. The goats are great because they all look insane and eat everything. The monkeys are so much like little people, except they are little bastard theives and passive-aggressive as hell. They will steal your food and jsut sit there, just out of reach, on a branch, and just eat it right in front of you, just to make you more angry. The dogs are scary because they're all underfed and have mange and maybe rabies, but the ones that are healthy adn nice are awesome, as nice dogs always are.

But, getting back to the point, all of these animals are in the street, with all the rest of the humans and also tourists, who are part human and part borg.

Some of you may remember that about two years ago (really two years already? holy crap.) I was arrested for standing in the middle of the street in San Francisco. The assumed reason that we were standing in the middle of the street was that we were protesting the biotech convention taking place--that's what was going on that was worth protesting, so everyone figured that was what we were protesting, without asking us. But the protest against the biotech companies had taken place that morning, people had already been arrested for that. We were part of another movement, called Reclaiming the Streets, an idea which has the radical idea that the streets should be real public space, a place to build a community, a place to live. So they block traffic. Only to create a merely symbolic public space on the street. At the time, I wrote a small essay about how strongly I beleived in that idea, and I wanted people to know that that was why I had chosen to be a part of that mob dancing down market street in San Francisco. Maybe it's in the archives on my other blog, I think it is, I don't know if you can find it. Sure I don't have the balls to make a mob by myself and just stand in the middle of the street alone, I need to be enabled by social circumstances, I need to be part of the herd. But that doesn't mean I didn't believe in the idea that the streets are the only veins that run through our cities, and the only way to build a meaningful community and overcome the hate and fear that controls our lives is to go out on the street, to have a real physical public sphere, to always be in each other's faces.

more later.

Pushkar

Second day in pushkar, I appriciate this place and the spirit here; it's small and there are tourists, but like Banaras, it has the genuine feel of a spiritual place, a holy place, and everyone except the Isrealis is respectful and humbled by it. The holy lake of pushkar is supposed to be the site where Brahma arose out of a lotus flower out of Vishnu's navel, or variously where Brahma dropped a flower to begin the process of creation. Once when Brahma perfomed a Yagaya (sacrafice) his wife I forget her name didn't show up. In retaliation for this slight, Brahma took another wife. In her anger over this, his wife cursed him that he should only be worshipped in Pushkar, no where else. I haven't actually worshipped at the brahma temple, even though it is fifty feet from my hotel, maybe I'll do that after I write this entry. I have done puja in the holy lake, and wished for the well being of all of you who I could think of, family and friends and family friends, you have all been well wished for, Indian style.

i didn't mean to insult isrealis above. But they have sort of a bad reputation in India, because there are such huge heards of them--all Isrealis come to India or maybe Thailand after they finish their mandatory military service. Because it's just sort of expected and cheap that they travel, they don't really do it for the right reasons, and just sort of stick together and smoke hash. But, in there defense, imagine if there was a similar cultural construct in America where we all went to India to party--it would be so much uglier than the isrealis, we would be drunken and violent. Sort of like what we've done to some places in Mexico, cancun etc.

Anyway, there's that, maybe sort of an unnecessary moment on the blog. Anyway, I got a ticket to ride a train from Ajmer (near here) to Mumbai tomorrow morning, will get to Mumbai tuesday morning.

From Pushkar

hello all

so I'm in Pushkar, Rajastan, which is a good place and I'm glad I'm here. It took much travelling to get here--Indian busses are quite inefficient. But it was a good lesson in travelling alone in India, I will learn patienceand flexability. I spent last night in Ajmer, which is the nearist biggish city, and that was surprisingly cool. I saw a very pretty Jain temple and the lake there. Pushkar is a smallish tourist destination with a holy lake and the only brahma temple in India. I've become quite secure with the fact that I am a tourist and my destinations are mostly tourist destinations. It's not like I can escape being in India--everyone here is Indian still with a few travellers mixed in, and the travellers are good people in themselves. India is hard travelling. But in a very real sense, India is amazingly easy travelling because I don't have to figure it out. It's not like I have to learn the geography of any place where I find myself, I can just tell the rickshaw walla where I want to go. If I am confused, I can ask any Indian man around me, and they usually speak English. Their mentality is so helpful and open and happy; each one considers it his duty to help tourists. I'll get ripped off by ten or twenty ruppees here and there, and that's just how it is. They're poor people, it's OK.

I still feel good about my decision to travel alone, despite moments of self doubt that I will have to learn to deal with in the coming weeks. One thing that I like about being alone is that thought becomes action immediatly, without having to be debated, miscommunicated with another person. It also means that I have to trust myself completely, and once I make a decision, to go with it to the fullest and be happy about it. That will be good for me to learn.

So I haven't yet set up my transport out of here, maybe I will do that right now, but my plan is to travel to Mumbai on monday or tuesday, spend a few days there, and then hit Gokarna, perhaps by way of Goa, on the way to Kerela.

Email me, call me, do whatever you have to do.
much love and respect
jed

Parting Ways

Since I was in Banaras, I have been thinking very hard about how I can make the best use of my time in India. This is extremely precious time for me, it took work and sacrifice to get here on the part of many people in my life, and this is the only time I will take off from college. In fact, it's the only large chunk of time I have had away from school since before I entered preschool. And I'm sure I will continue feeling the concequenses of this decision during my last semester at Brown after all my class has graduated and I'll be alone in my room writing a thesis.

So I have decided to part ways with the Dragons program after the end of our homestay here in Mcloed Ganj, which is this next wednesday, the 19th. I am missing two major components of the program: the meditation retriet and the Trek in the mountains of Manali. Both of these are going to be intense, beautiful experiences for the participants, which will probably be some of the highlights of the trip. However, I have thought hard about my intentions and goals in being in this place and taking this time off from school, and I realized that a major part of that was my desire to usher in some sense of adulthood through autonomous independant action in the world, to learn myself through going on a journey which has immense meaning to me and will challenge me in ways that I cannot presently imagine. Also, I just have the raw desire to see more of India, which I feel would not be fufilled by a meditation retreit and a trek.

I really want to emphasize that this decision did not arise out of dissatisfaction with the program as it has been so far. The experience that I had in Varanasi was valuable and profoundly life-changing, and there is no way that it would have been possible without the knowledge and structure of the Dragons program. I think it was vital for me to stay in one place in India for such a long time, enough to actually consider it a place to live. And the opportunities that were provided for me in Varanasi by the dragons program were amazing. The homestay experience was loving and beautiful and changed the way I think about family life in general, and gave me a fantastic introduction to the worldviews and culture that are prevalant in this part of the world. They also connected me with the best Tabla teacher in the world, which I probably did not deserve given my lack of musical talent. MOst importantly, they introduced me to Shukla-ji and provided a structure in which I could receive teachings and stories from him. He drastically changed the way I conceive of narrative, religion, morality, everything. None of this would have been possible without the dragons program, and I love them for it. Also, they have provided me with more amazing opportunities here in McLeod Ganj, including another amazing homestay who I love even more than the first.

I also really grew to like the people on the program and the leaders, and I will miss their companionship and guidance. I also deeply appriciative to the leaders for being so accomodating and supportive in me making this decision, and understanding that this decision came from a place of love and respect.

Although I made this decision in order to follow my own spirit and desires, I would be foolish and delusional to think that I was actually doing this under my own power. It's really important for me to express my gratitude to the people who are making this possible for me and supporting me through it. Primarily, this is my family. For those of you who know my parents, you know well that it is not easy for them to have their son travelling alone in India for a long time. Their decision to support me in this represents a profound trust in me, naive though I may be. I could never do this without their support, because I trust them with my life; if they did not think I could do this, I would certainly not be able to do it. Their love for me allows me to stand strong and secure in myself in the world, and I don't think I realized the full extent of this until I came here. So I will be keeping in close touch with them throughout the trip, hopefully. I will do my best.

Also, I think it's important to publicly awknoledge that I am one of the most blessed and priviliged people on the planet to be in a position where I have an opportunity to come to India, and then to do exactly what I want to do while i am here. Most people are much more confined by their economic and social position. I am in a place in my own life when I have probably the most freedom and capability to follow my own spirit. I am lucky to be a young man right now, in my body and position. I did not earn this privilige, I was born into it; in some very real ways I owe it to my parents and their parents, but I also just owe it to luck. So I will take advantage of this opportunity with mindfullness and gratitude for the privilige that it means.

So now I am facing one of the most awe-inspiring and indimidating opportunities of my life: six and a half weeks of solo travel through India. What can I say about it? I'm thrilled and excited. Here's a basic outline of what I am planning to do, but this will change. A lot. In unexpected ways. But there are some foundational concrete dates which I can give:

May 19: Take night bus to delhi
spend one night maximum (maybe not even that) in Delhi, and go to Jaipur. Spend a day or two there, probably only one, then go to Puskhar. Go from Pushkar to Mumbai, where I will spend as short a time as possible until I can get to Gokarna (perhaps via goa, but if I can avoid that maybe I will. Or maybe I'll go to Goa and have a good time for a day). From there to Cochin (Kochi) in Kerela. Maybe a trip on the backwaters of Kerela, but I didn't really plan on it; I think i'll just explore Cochin and surroundings. From there to Madurai, from Madurai to Trichy, from Trichy to Chennai, a side trip to Mamallapuram. I have a definate reservation on the Grand Trunk Express from Chennai to Delhi on April 17. Again, I will stop in Delhi for as little time as possible, and then go to Haridwar. From either Haridwar or Rishikesh I will set out for Gangotri, the head of the Ganga, which is an important goal/destination of my trip. Perhaps I will take a short guided trek to Gomouk, which is the glacier which is the headwaters of the ganga. Then back to Delhi with hopefully enough time for a daytrip to Agra, because there's some sort of obligation I have to see the Taj Mahal. I will fly back to LA on June 2, and then back to Colorado on June 3. So if anyone wants to put me up for a night in LA, you are certainly welcome. Anyway, get out a good map of India if you want, and figure out what I just said--I don't expect you actually to know all those places. I didn't know about them when I was in America.

Again, I will be carrying a cell phone the whole time, so keep in touch with me. 9816579414 Hopefully I will be able to continue blogging--I certainly will try and do it whenever I possibly can. But there will be longer stretches of emptyness than there has been in the past--I'll be on a lot of trains and busses. If you have a taste for a specific object from India, let me know--I'm willing to carry things back, and things are relatively cheap here.

Anyway, thank you all for your interest in this blog and my life, and I'm thrilled for this next stage of the adventure.
much love and respekt
jed

In Praise of Buddhism

So I feel like it might be easy this blog as anti-buddhist because I've only written negative things about buddhism. This was a huge mistake on my part, because it's only one side of what I feel about the matter. I sort of took it for granted that everyone would just understand that I was aware of how beautiful and intelligent buddhist philosophy is, and that my criticisms really come from a place of respect for the fundamental ideals of buddhism. I just feel like many westerners need a reality check that the Buddhist religion comes with all the political and social problems that come with all organized religion, and to inform you specifically what those problems are. I really still loathe organized religion, and I have felt that buddhism becomes idealized in the west as the religion of the true spirit, as if westerners have finally found the pure cult that they have been looking for.

A moment of vocabulary distinctions. I want to make a differentiation between the ideas behind a religion and the material reality of a religion, that is, the philisophical teachings and the social reality that is a result not only of that philosophy but also the economic and political context in which the religion is practiced. I will call the ideas "idealogical" and the other the "material." Also, I am amongst Tibetan buddhists now, and now know much more about Tibetan buddhism than zen or any of the other sects, so let's just say that I'm talking about that. OK?

I probably don't have to describe to my readers why ideological buddhism is beautiful and accurate; if you don't know about it, start reading a book about it. All of the buddhist ideas can be found in much older Hindu texts; I would argue that the entire massive tradition of the two religions--even all religions of the world--have their foundation in the Vedas. However, the ideological beauty of these texts were highly corrupted by material hinduism, which has so many problems I can't even begin to talk about them all (maybe in another post soon). But all of these ideas which were in the Vedas and the Gita and the Upanishads, etc., were only available to a highly educated elite, and even to those it was difficult because they are spread out in such a vast ocean of text, it would take many many lifetimes to understand the ideas as a cohesive whole.

Buddhism's streingth is in how true it stays to its ideological roots, and makes it's ideological foundation accessible to the masses who practice buddhism. Earlier, I said that the four noble truths offend me because they are presented in list form which I felt was oversimplified. Now I realize the wisdom of such teachings which make it easy to understand the fundamental tenants of the religion in one sitting. The fact that the huge majority of buddhists understand the ideological foundation of their religion is pretty unique to buddhism. In my experience, this makes Tibetan people some of the kindest, strongest people I have ever known, and that's a huge generalization, but they are amazing. Buddhism really directly enlightens their personalities, and makes them very thoughtful and happy. You have to live with a Tibetan family in a single tiny room to fully understand this, maybe. My hostfather isn't even religious, or so he claims, but still every day he goes on an hour long walk around the Temple (which takes him through some spactacular mountain scenery), and during this walk he focuses soley on the well-being and happyness of all sentient beings. If his mind strays from this, he'll walk more until he is satisfied that he has adiquatly meditated on the happyness of life. That is the way to make yourself a good person.

But because buddhism seems to rest so transparantly on its idological foundation makes many westerners beleive that it is without material reality, and to overlook the material reality of buddhism. Just as Hinduism fostered an educated elite, the actual practice of buddhism creates a social structure in which only people who have the luxury to devote a large part of their daily lives to meditation and philisophical study can actually hope to reach enlightenment, and thus political and social power tends to do remain firmly at the top. And Tibetan society is a theocracy, which gives the people no space to question their leaders at all. Tibetan people have given their complete trust and faith to the Dalai Lama, and now in my opinion he has lead them down the wrong path. He rules with the same divine mandate that gave the mideaval european monarchs the right to rule. However, now this is changing. The Dalai Lama is conciously urging his people to practice democracy; he is pushing the Tibetan people to accept more and more the idea of self determination. there is now an elected parlaiment and prime minister-in-exile. There is a high possibility that when he dies, he will 'decide' not to reincarnate himself and force the Tibetan people to vote on a new leader. But the unwavering faith of the Tibetan people in him makes this a difficult battle.

So since I recognize these good things about buddhism, why do I personally turn my back on it? My mind likes the maze of symbolism and representation that Hinduism presents. I feel that I have reached much a much more complex understanding of the same truths of buddhism through untangeling the riddles of the Bhagavat-Gita, the great Indian Epics the Mahabarata and the Ramayana, and the Srimad Bhavata. When I finally get the courage to attack the Vedas, which I will do in my life, I am sure that I will find those much more confusing and then after study enlighetening. In short, my literary and academic mind gets off on Hinduism. What can I say. More mental masterbation.

BUt the material reality of Hinduism is pretty bad, especially compared with buddhism. Hindu temples are chaotic and greedy, you have to shove your way to the front where you have to part with money to get a momentary darshan and a tikka. This is in contrast with silent meditation in gorgeous natural settings of buddhism. But as I said earlier, I like that Hinduism gives people lattitude to form their own relationship with their own choice of the manifestation of the Supreme--it gives people more of a sense of identity and belonging to worship their personal or family gods and still understand that everyone in the world is worshipping the same god.

This is not an ending place, but I am tired of writing.
peace
jed

Some musings

I don't think I've mentioned this on the blog, and I don't know why. At the end of my time in Varanasi, my guru, Modov Shukla-ji gave me a very ancient and sacred mantra. In exchange, I gave him my honest oath that I would meditate with it every day for the rest of my life. He had me hold ganga water and swear that I would do it. It was perhaps the best decision I've made up to this point in my life; there's no way I would have started a regular meditation practice without that kind of earnest committment. So every morning (or, when I'm travelling, whenever), I sit with my Rudrach (A garlnad of beads sacred to Siva) and I say my mantra over and over to myself. I started saying it 11 times every time, now I'm up to 21, next I will go up to 54, and the final goal is to do it 108 times every day.

I think that engaging in this meditation has already begun to change my personality and my worldview. Specifically, I feel myself distancing from the idea that I am a doer in the world. I don't quite mean this in the strictist Hindu sense, but it is an ideal of Yoga; to realize that you are not actually an actor in the world, that you are only an instrument of god or fate, that everything that will happen already has happened already. This is the central problem of the Bhagavat-Gita; Arjuna feel that it is a sin to slaughter his cousins and uncles on the battle field, but Krishna says "I have already killed them" (not a direct quote). Do the way to Karma-Yoga is to act morally in the world, to do your duty fully, while not actually personally feeling that you are the actor, and recognizing that you are only an instrument of the eternal supreme way. The modification I personally make to this is only to emphasize that I know that I am god and that is all I know--I do not know any external, paternalistic god, I only know myself. So, in this way, I know that I am not actually an actor, that I am only an instrument of dharma. But at the same time, I know that I have ultimate and supreme control over what happens in my world, and all things in my life are a consequence of my own actions. It's hard to express this in words--verbally, it seems like a fundamental contradiction that I am ultimatly in control of every small peice in my life and also that I am not the autonomous doer, that I am only an instrument of Myself. Think about it like this: sometimes my spirit speaks up and tells me what I want to do, and I know I must obey it. For example, my spirit has told me that I need to have the next six weeks travelling independantly in India in order to gain wisdom and knowledge of the world and myself. I cannot disobey that--I could, but I won't.

The interesting realization that has come from all of this: I have begun more conciously reading my own life as a text, using the tools I have to make meaning out of narratives to understand my past actions and events. Becuase I am not a doer in the world, everything happens exactly as it has to happen, as the karmic or even direct consequence of the action that preceeded it. Therefore, I can now justify making meaning out events just as I do of art. The events are whatever they are, just as the text on a page is just inkstains. But we feel justified in interpreting and giving meaning to those inkstains, and now I feel newly justified in making meaning out of what happens in my reality. I could give many examples, and I will later when I'm less lazy about it. Thanks for wading all the way through this.
peace
jed

ps. In response to anonymous comment: I can insult the Dalai Lama because I'm not buddhist, and because I have spent hours talking with Tibetan freedom-fighters and activists who feel totally betrayed by his political stance. He has taken away their reason for fighting, their reason for being alive, and most importantly, any hope of ever returning to their homeland. But they would never insult the Dalai Lama, because he has the same mandate from heaven that entitled the European monarchs total control over their population. He's good at talking the spiritual talk, and he was a great leader of the tibetan people in the past, and we should respect him for all that.

Free Tibet Pt 2

So there's a tibetan guy reading this, so I'm kind of shy about hating on the HH tha' DL, which is the Dalai Lama's rapper name. MC to tha HH to tha DL on the mic.

I've continued thinking more about the tibet situation. We had a lecture from this man who runs a bookshop here, and i have also had a couple conversations with him in his bookshop. Losang Tsang-la. Basically, he is a broken, hopeless old man because he actually cares about Tibetan Independance. He wants to fight the revolution against China, but there's no revolution to fight, because it seems like everyone, especially Tibetans, are content to simply watch the cultural and political idea of Tibet die out. Even though the cause is somewhat trendy with white liberals in America, it will be impossible to start a movement for the independance of Tibet until the Tibetan people--lead by the Dalai Lama--take a stand against injustice and fight for their country.

Engaging with this issue has effected my personal worldview, or at least clarified it. I never realized how convinced I am of the duty of human beings to fight injustice, even where nonviolent tactics will be useless. It offends me on an almost personal level that there is only one man in this town who will oppose the Dalai Lama's position, and he is labeled an impossible radical, and made an outcast of the community. This is his analogy: if a mouse is about to be eaten by a lion, it is going to die. If it does nothing and cowers in front of the lion, he may buy a tenth of a second. But if he sucks up his courage, bites the lion in the toe and then runs away, he has a small chance of succseeding--his only chance at life. But more than that, it is the only way he can regain his dignity and humanity; to take strong autonomous action instead of allowing yourself to be manhandled and manipulated. However, the Dalai Lama has been put under pressure not only by the irrisistable force of China's might, but also the even stronger behind-the-scenes political pressure by Western leaders who are despirate to remain economically involved with China.

One aspect of the Tibetan situation that is not widely known about but should be: China has started a massive program of Uranium in Tibet; not only do they use slave labor to mine cheap uranium to sell to the rest of the world at a discount, included in the price of the uranium is the understanding that the forgein buyers of the uranium can give China the radioactive waste created by the nuclear processing. So China has become the custodian of vast amounts of highly toxic radioactive waste, which they have buried in the Tibetan plateau with very little consideration for international safety codes or security. The Tibetan plateau is still very seismically active, and it is also the source of all the major rivers of Asia. If any one of those rivers were to become contaminated due to an earthquake in Tibet, it would directly effect about a solid third or more of the world's population who rely on those rivers as their primary water supply. That sounds like the asian apocalypse to me.

It is really good for me to be reminded of the passion and emotion that lies within me about political injustices like this at this point in the trip. It reminds me to think about my own political struggles in America, and raises the dilemma that I feel about my political life in America. I feel a moral obligation to spend my life fighting injustice, specifically the unspoken injustice of the American system of Incarceration in america. But to dedicate my life to such a cause would be a serious compromise of my personal aspirations and also my happiness and well being--to fight an unwinnable fight takes so much out of a man. I am scared that I would end up like Losang-la in my old age, bitter and broken. Also, it's just not the background I have given myself up to this point--I have really dedicated myself to literature and the ideological systems that lie behind it, and I feel that I have a lot to offer in that area, that my life's work lies in narratives. So I have to find a way to integrate the two, because I cannot turn my back on my moral obligation to fight the growing injustice of oppression in America. I could become a writer who talks about incarceration and it's impacts, to raise awareness either in the academic community or in pop culture about the problem and it's implications. But to do so, I will have to sort of focus my writings on the negative aspects of life in a human body, but my philisophical and aesthetic worldview relies on the beauty of life and narrative, how we can make meaning out of a meaningless world through language and beyond. This is increasingly true while I am here in India--life is too good to overlook. So, at some point I will have to reconcile all these competing emotions, duties and aspirations. I don't want to compartimentalize my life--I don't want to have to say, "this is my day job. It is _______. This is my passion, it is writing/it is fighting against prison." Such things are not hobbies. Playing tabla drums is a hobby. Maybe writing poetry is a hobby. But neither fighting the prison system nor changing the intellectual climate of america is a hobby.
But, I know that it will work out as it works out, and I know that I will look back on my life's work as an old man with pride.

Anyway, Tibet is a hopeless situation in the most profound sense--the HHDL will never take a stronger stand on this issue, and China will never conduct meaningful negotiations because there's nothing in it for them either politically or economically. So, Tibetans are waiting to die silently and slowly, both in the country and in exile.

Phone Number

If you're just checking the blog to see my most recent post, read the one below because I wrote it this morning. So it may seem rediculous to some of you readers, but I got a cell phone which will work in India. Although I was so releived to leave my cell phone in America, it became clear that in order for me to travel independantly in India I need the flexability/freedom of a cell phone to still keep in touch with my family and anyone else who desires. So give me a call anytime if you want, except during the middle of the day your time which is the middle of the night my time. It'll be expensive for you and sort of cheap for me, but that's just because I bit the bullet and paid for a cell phone. And now you can hear my voice for the low low price of three dollars a minute or something.

Here is my number, and you can call it:

9816579414

Free Tibet

Sorry I've been remiss in my blogging. I got to Daramshala (actually, it's Mcloed Ganj--Don't know why everyone says that they are going to Daramshala when no one goes there) on Tuesday. The train ride was long but enjoyable. Breif background on this place: this is the home of the Tibetan government in exile (the Dalai Lama and his cohort), and most of the people who live here are Tibetans in exile, who escaped from China's oppressive rule in Tibet. Most of them walked on foot across the himalayas with minimal supplies to get here. And then when they got here, they found the biggest tourist hotspot in India; the street is full of tourists and whote people. This is because Buddhism has become (tragically) trendy in the west, and this is the only place in India where people are actually buddhist. I feel that many western tourists come to India to find buddhist-style spiritual enlightenment, and are sort of surprised that no Indians are buddhist, and so they all flock to this place, where the buddhists make a good buisness out of selling themselves and their sacred traditions to them.

Spent the first night here in a mountain retreit place, slept under the stars and had a campfire. Last night was the second night in my brand new homestay. My host family here is really amazing--it's a young couple of Tibetan refugees, who have been in India living in exile since around '95. They have a five year old son who is a huge spaz--I've never seen a kid with such unstoppable energy. They live in a room that's about the size of a conservative dorm room single, with a tiny kitchenette attached. they really don't have enough room for me, much less all my crap. We all live and eat and sleep together--there are two small cots at right angles to each other which convert to couches during the day, and I get one of them and the man and son get the other one, with our heads almost touching. The wife gets the floor. I tried to sleep on the floor last night but they wouldn't let me. I'm lucky I'm short or else I wouldn't fit at all. But they are amazingly nice, open people. I also like that some of the customs of India which make me uncomfortable aren't present in this family; we all eat together, including the wife (she's not stuck in the kitchen providing the men with hot roti). I really like tibetan people in general.

This is the first time I have bothered to educate myself about the Tibet situation, and I am seriously disturbed by what I have learned. China's blatantly imperialistic colonization of Tibet is one of the biggest crimes against human dignity and the right to soveriegnty and self rule of our time. The international community is completely silent about it because China is in such a position of economic and political power. But to me, the truly tragic part of it is the response of the Dalai Lama and his government. They have adopted a "middle way" policy which is basically a policy of giving China as many consessions as possible until they feel inclined to negotiate. However, there is no reason for China to negotate with them; there is almost no international pressure on China, no accountability. They have stopped asking for Tibetan independance ten years ago. These are the Dalai Lama's demands of China:
"Without seeking independance for Tibet, the Central Tibetan Administration strives for the creation of a political entity comprising the three traditional procinces of tibet....Until the time Tibet is transormed into a zone of peace and non-violence, the Chineese governmetn can keep armed forces in Tibet for it's protection" etc, etc.

This weakness of the Dalai Lama is seriously ill conceived. China has no imputus to negotiate. They have no compassion, no ideology of individual freedom to uphold, and no international pressure to improve their human rights. Non violence does not mean submission and cooperation, it means an aggressive fight against injustice. However, any civil disobediance by Tibetans will simply result in their swift execution. Meanwhile, China is flooding tibet with an influx of China's populaition. In a matter of years, the issue will be a moot point because there will be so few tibetans in tibet compared to the number of chinesse. The entire noble tradition and culture of Tibet will move into exile, where it will simply wither and die out. And then that is the end of that. Time is running out in a really serious way. However, the Dalai Lama commands the absolute and unquestioning respect of most Tibetans--he really has the power in his hands to either challenge the Chinesse or continue to be submissive and let his people die out either at the brutal hands of the Chinese or to be assimilated into western culture in exile. Although there is a growing youth movement which is demanding independance, in order to actually launch the movement, the Dalai Lama must grow a spine. He is using non-violence as a mask for cowardace and weakness. I know that sounds strong, but it is the real situation, and it is so obvious that even after 48 hours here, it becomes blatantly clear. Everyone can see it, and the Tibetan people are just waiting to die.
peace
jed

to Daramshala

So at 2:30 in the morning I will be leaving Varanasai to go to Daramshala, Himachel Pradesh. I'm really glad to be moving on--it's getting really hot and intense here. I have gotten an amazing amount out of my time here, a lot of knowledge and wisdom both, good perspective and spirituality. This place is the most insane place in the world, with it's own completely unique energy and spirit. That spirit will never leave me, and it will probably draw me back here in my life. But I am glad to be leaving it for the time being.

So the train ride will be between 20-30 hours. I should arrive Daramshala sometime Tuesday morning. So that's that. moving on with the experience, happily on my merry way, wasting time until the train.
peace
jed