All Vicki, All the Time

The second day in Delhi we came across a roadside fortuneteller. Speaking in only Hindi, he proceeded to tell Vicki her fortune. I tried to translate, but made many hilarious mistakes. He told Vicki: “Don’t get married in the month on December” – which I translated as: “December is a good time to get married.” He had a booklet with him, with astrological charts showing Jupiter in the Seventh House and so on, and he also had a caged parakeet that, for a fee, would waltz out of the cage and select your fortune from a stack of fortunes. We skipped that part because of the unethical treatment of animals. While Vicki got her fortune read, a mass of passers-by formed around us. The pundit tried to disperse the crowd – being gawked at lessens the esoteric nature of his trade, he said – but nobody budged. It was a good experience, and from it Vicki met her first boyfriend, the strapping youth named Gopal, an amateur astrologer himself, seen in the picture crouching in his faded designer jeans and knock-off Converse shoes, as per Indian style.

Vicki looking ridiculous wearing a compulsory muumuu at the Mecca Mosque in Delhi. Her t-shirt was too revealing for Islamic sensibility, although Indian women wearing provocative saris did not have to wear the florid-patterned scarlet letter.

Vicki posing in front of the things she dare not eat (unless it’s been artificially preserved and sold in a cardboard box for $5.99).

From the first night in India, Vicki was talking about drinking yak butter tea. Apparently some foreigners on the plane told her how delicious it was, and that she could procure it in Ladakh. Now I’ve had yak butter tea before. I drink it only when it’s compulsory, and even then I’ll try to dump it out a window if the chance permits. It’s an ungodly mix of a hunk of butter, a mound of salt and milk brought to a seething boil – in Hindi, it’s called “namumkin chai” – salt tea. But instead of telling Vicki this, I led her to believe that it was a soothing drink, sweet as honey. In this picture Vicki is taking her first sip. She didn’t spit it out like I thought she would; instead, clearly confused, her mind torn between her expectations and an unappetizing reality, she grabbed a spoon and stirred the evil potion, hoping a crystallized lump of sugar was at the bottom of the glass, or a dollop of honey – anything to make salt taste unsalty. After the cognitive dissonance cleared from her mind, I said: “You’ve been punked!” and took this picture.

Vicki about to use the treacherous bathroom alley in the ancient Leh Palace. The allocated spaces to do the deed were cavernous and dubiously constructed from adobe, and they dropped down a good ten feet.

Our campsite at the base of Thiksey Gonpa.

Walking from Thiksey Gonpa (Monastery) to Hemis, the Gonpa that Jesus allegedly studied at during his “lost years” (according to an ancient manuscript found in the Hemis library in the 18th century, now locked up forever, and the subject of the Penguin publication Jesus Lived in India.). Accompanying Vicki on the walk is Ram, a dog I befriended who became our rearguard.

Vicki with poor Yorick.

Vicki’s new life motto, just one healthy effect of traveling.

Vicki appearing apprehensive.

Somehow I got Vicki to walk with me along the shifty goat path that led to nowhere. She was bubbly until she had to turn around; then she became more aware of the precipice below, vertigo set in, and her instincts, her sheer will to live, honed her mind into quite, brooding meditation on the task. She survived.

While visiting Shargol Gonpa, which is built into the face of a cliff similar to Canyon de Chelly or Chaco Canyon in the USA, we heard about a local yatra (pilgrimage) to Padmasambhava’s cave. Mr P, called by Ladakhis Guru Rimpoche, is the maverick Buddhist scholar who was commissioned by Trisong Detsen in the eighth century to temporarily suspend his Buddhism 101 class at the famed Nalanda University, at that time the Harvard of India, and to travel to Tibet to subdue the fierce Bon deities. He did, and eventually Buddhism became the soup-de-jour of Tibet. In this picture, Vicki is playing Shoots-and-Ladders amid a torrent of snow run-off.

Vicki posing outside the cave entrance.

Here we are, inside the cave where Mr P spent a decade in solitary mediation. For all the hard work getting there, Vicki, being of the fairer sex, was permitted in most, but not every, room. The best part was for men only: a kind of tunnel that curved from the wall through the ceiling and back, which was described to me in Hindi as representing (or actually being) one of Mr P’s fingers.

Posing with prayer flags.

Vicki posing with another paramour at the majestic Pangong Lake. Pranjeet won Vick’s affection by quoting Rand at great length, and by extolling the business model put forth in the movie The Boiler Room (as a sales manager, he requires his minions to watch the movie and imitate Ed Norton.). And if this wasn’t enough to woo Vicki, he put forward his sophistic theory that vegetarianism is bad for animals, because if we don’t eat them then butchers won’t kill them, and they’ll overpopulate and inevitably kill themselves.

Vicki bounding over alluvial run-off. In this endeavor she was successful; however, in another instance (of which there is not accurate photographic evidence), she ended up tap dancing in the river, and I watched from the opposite shore, laughing so hard that I was rendered unable to assist her.

Vicki being Vicki, sleeping well past sunrise.

After Ladakh we did a short trip to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. In this picture Vicki is exorcising her shopping demons by buying every bangle that shines as bright as a comet.

I convinced Vicki to pose next to a three ton bull who wanted to give her an affection head rub.

All good things must come to an end. Us in a rickshaw towards the end of our trip. I will try to post more pictures next week, less Vicki-centric and more about the general contours of our trip. I think Vicki’s been roasted well enough. I should mention that I gave Vicki every chance to participate in my blog, but she refused. So feel no pity. She doesn’t blog. Well, I do.

Summer in the City of Champions

In June, as many of you know, the Penguins won the Stanley Cup! The whole city was incredibly excited, and an estimated 375,000 turned out for the victory parade - that's more than the population of the city! After missing the Super Bowl parade last February I wasn't going to miss this one. I met my friend Bryna downtown on parade day. After the motorcade of VIPs passed by, we decided it would be fun to walk in the street behind it, and we crossed over a barricade and started walking next to one of the high school marching bands. Nobody seemed to mind and people even cheered and high-fived us as we passed by. We marched all the way down to the end of the parade route and the stage was in sight. Another sneaky maneuver and we had made it all the way to the media and VIP section right in front of the stage! Luckily no one seemed to notice that we were the only ones without special passes around our necks. We only had cell phone cameras so the pics aren't great, but the content makes up for it. Above is us with Iceburgh, the Penguins mascot. I love the people standing on roofs in the background.


Here's us with the stage and big screen in back of us. It was great to be so close to the action.

It's a little hard to see but that's Evgeni Malkin on the video screen, pouring champagne into the Stanley Cup. Right after this his parents joined him in drinking from it. Mr. and Mrs. Malkin, nicknamed "The Genos" by Pittsburghers, became local celebrities after attending lots of games during their several months visiting from Russia. Mrs. Malkin's homemade soup is thought to have been responsible for much of her son's late-season success.

Mario at the podium, and that looks like Staal next to him.

Crosby.

The Cup!

Love this picture - from the front page of the Pitt News with the headline City of Champyinz. It has everything you could want in a Stanley Cup celebration photo: Lemieux jersey, homemade tinfoil Cup, excited girl cheering with her arms in the air, and... the guy who just couldn't wait to eat his Cheetos. And that's no snak-pak folks, that's a full-sizer.

The Steelers received their Super Bowl XLIII rings in a ceremony before game 6 of the Cup Finals. Now that's a ring! Some of the Steelers players even left the celebration early to attend the Pens game, and maybe they brought the championship vibe with them!

And, for those of you who are interested, here are the places I photographed for Stephen's birthday blog - I know, it's been two months! But still. The first photo I used was of this huge sculpture - it's by Richard Serra, in front of the Carnegie Museum - and I took the original pic from inside of it, looking up. The inside is like a cathedral of steel and rust open to the sky. Unfortunately, some see it instead as merely a convenient urinal.

The next pic was of some paint-splattered pebbles - I've loved to visit them since I was little. They are under a big fence on the CMU campus, and above is me leaning against it. It's a tradition at CMU that various campus organizations paint and repaint the fence every week or so, with different colors according to their preference. This has been going on for as long as I can remember, and as a result the stones underneath have become intricately multicolored - beautiful.

Another pic was of me in the Allegheny Cemetery, near where we lived in Bloomfield last year. A great place for walks, complete with Egyptian tombs, huge obelisks, duck ponds, deer, geese, woodchucks, the occasional bird of prey to stare us down from a tree branch, and even two resident cats. One cat is black and one white, and they each have their own little shelter that someone made for them, to keep them warm and dry.

The nighttime cityscape pic was of the view from the Panther Hollow Bridge, facing the Carnegie Library in Oakland. Here is a view from the bridge during the day - with Michael Chabon's famous Cloud Factory in the background. As I was walking across, I came upon this strange string creation woven into the chain-link fence. I'm not really sure why it is there - whether a public arts project sponsored by the city or just something an inventive passerby decided to do. It has an unofficial, unsanctioned feel to it, like someone secretly made it in the dark of night. The phrase vigilante macrame came to mind as I looked at it, although it isn't technically macrame. I just like the sound of it.

Here are several more of the creations, with a view of the Cathedral of Learning. Going in the other direction across this bridge takes you to my new house... But more about that next time. And no more cell phone pics - I finally got a new camera.

Part II

Meenu, my neighbor. We would practice Hindi and English with each other. Right now she's reading The Little Prince, one of my favorite stories.

Reena, her elder sister. Reena's husband is in Germany cooking in an Indian restaurant. Reena cooks wonderful bindi and dal rajma, and is always giving me chai and cookies. Overall, Indian neighbors are extremely friendly.

While the men protest, the women wait.

Or they make a female-only pooja service.

Uncha Vala in his iconic pose, with my neighbors onlooking.

PS: Vicki arrived Saturday night; it's Monday afternoon now. We've done a lot already, and Vicki loves it. She went back to the hotel to sleep - the jetlag hits us all about 3pm. And it's quite hot, 107' and sunny. But we have still done so much - today we went to the Mecca Masjid and rode the subway to Delhi University, in the neighborhood of where my apartment will be. Yesterday we went to the Kalkaji Mandir, and to a Sikh Guruwara, and saw the Ba'hai Lotus Mandir, and walked around Pahar Ganj. We're having fun - can't wait to go to the mountains tomorrow morning.

Water Protests, and an Update on the State of My Affairs in Delhi, in Which I Recall Many Prosaic Facts

Unfortunately, there were more pictures and a more detailed write-up, but it's trapped on my misfiring laptop. I'll have to post just these five pictures. Right now it's 5:00pm. I'm in Delhi. I arrived this morning. I visited the branch of Delhi University that I'll be affiliated with, the Center for the Study of Developing Societies, and then I went apartment hunting. I found one, not good by any means, but acceptable. I'll probably rent it, just because it's exhausting and unproductive to waste time looking - and anyway, with Vicki coming and us going to Ladakh, there won't be any time.

Today was a first. I rode on the expanding Metro, Delhi's subway. It runs from the train station Vicki and I are staying nearby. It's almost fantastical to see a subway in Delhi. Soon it will connect all the way to the airport, but for now it's pretty local. It's nice; it could be a subway anywhere in the world. If I take this apartment, I'll be riding it to school.

Here are some pictures from a hartal, or protest, that happened outside my apartment in Mussoorie. There's not been water for about a week. There were only private grumblings until the water-workers went on strike for higher pay. Then the hartals broke out. Some people were protesting the lack of water; other people were protesting the pay increase. This strike coincided perfectly with the street-sweepers' strike. A few minutes away from my apartment is a Mount Kalash of trash sitting in the road. Each night the dogs will make a pilgrimage there and see if Shiva's in a generous mood.

Slogan yelling.

The problem's the water. It may look like delicious apple cider, but I assure you it's not. It's the dregs of dry water taps.

Atticus Finch speaking reason to the mob.

Two men in peaceful disagreement.

The scene of crisis. For contrast, I also had pictures of the women, who were mostly absent from the street protests. You could find them down the road, lined up in a queue at a government water truck with hundreds of water containers. Two buckets per woman.

Well, keep checking the blog. Adrienne will be posting. I'll be traveling with my sister in the remote regions of Zanskar and Ladakh for the next month. As I write this, I am monitoring Vicki's location on the airline website. She's currently over Pakistan, looks like Waziristan. I hear it's a beautiful place. Maybe we'll go there instead.

A joke. We'll be safe.

I'm excited to see Vicki, but if I'm being honest with myself, I'm equally excited to see (and eat) the mint brownies that she baked at 5:00 on the morning of her flight. Back in Delhi, it's so hot, you lost your appetite. But this afternoon I ate the most delicious tandoori naan ever made.

I'll leave you with a quote from when you exit the subway car: Mind the gap! Ponder its deep meaning.

Nothing in Particular, Written in Haste

Chang O and I at the local aquarium.

There's not been water lately. A political matter. In this picture, a gaggle of men have blocked the main intersection and are debating how best to get water.

A local graveyard, full of the ghosts of British imperialism.

Jasvinder Singh, my go-to shopkeep.

After my classes I spend the afternoons with my neighbors. They are gravalis, tribal locals from Uttarakhand. They are wonderful neighbors, and bring me yummy ladhus.

A little neighbor that I've named "Swatantrata Senani" - Freedom Fighter. He likes to destroy half-finished chess games that I'm playing with my 15-year-old neighbor.

Uncha Vala comes to my apartment at 2pm and sleeps until 8pm when I kick him out.

Theresa left yesterday for her Indian wedding. Her cards were mixed.

A porter carrying a fridge through the bazaar.

Traditional dress.

The local library - empty.

Magic, Monkeys, Momos & Matches

Thanks to all my family and friends who posted on the blog (and of course to Adrienne for thinking up such a great idea), from the local fortune teller’s robot. Notice the technological sophistication of the robot’s head, which is taped onto its body with some old duck tape. For a mere ten rupees, try on a headset and listen if you dare. The sign indicates that all payments should be made before the fortune is dispensed.

Us foreigners (plus Rani, my language tutor) together for a birthday dinner. Soon after the picture was taken, a fierce hailstorm knocked out the power and threatened to blow away the restaurant. Moving clockwise from me: Chang O (Korean), Katarina (Italian), Hyo Jung (Korean), Rani (Indian), Essha (Japanese) and Theresa (German). For my birthday, Hyo Jung made me a card (written in Hindi for me to struggle over) and Chang O bought me a florid-patterned, pink and baby blue silk scarf. When I wore it the next day, I got a lot of sideways glances from locals, which affirmed my suspicion that my shawl is perhaps exclusively a female fashion.

Chang O and I at Khalsangs Tibetan Restaurant. Their cheese potato momos (dumplings) have a city-wide reputation. One funny anecdote from lunch: I ordered a Tom Yum soup for us (Thai, not Tibetan). When Chang O tried his first bite he was clearly disgusted by the lemongrass spice. But instead of having me lose face for ordering something unappetizing, he put down his spoon and said: “I am really full. I don’t think I can eat another bite!” Asian-style indirect communication in action.

A box of matches. Some deconstructionist could have a field day with the box art: a Caucasian midget wearing a prison uniform and Gandhi’s spectacles, lighting a cigarette under a traditional Hindu parasol while floating in outer space like the cosmic embryo in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Some local Tibetan students giving a new coat of paint to the neighborhood Stupa (reliquary mound). They lashed some wood into an approximation of a scaffold, and then laid rickety window shutters over top as a platform.

This immigrant boy and his Mataji have just arrived in the Manhattan harbor on a steamer from Czechoslovakia. They will change their names from Suddha and Ashok Aggarwal to Sally and Bob Johnston, and then head straight to the election booth to vote five times for the party machine (no worry that Bob is but 11). After being awarded citizenship, they will take an apprenticeship in the paper factory.

Bhalu, or Bear. In the morning, I sit on the same green bench for four hours studying Hindi, and he will sleep on the grass besides me. If anyone comes too close, he will give a dreamy growl. In the far background you can see the chaukiedar, or watchman, in a coolie-red shirt. His job is to slingshot rocks at the monkeys, dogs, donkeys and occasional cows that stray onto church property. His salary is $50 a month. At first he was against Bhalu joining me on the church bench, but he relented after I told him in broken Hindi that I couldn’t understand his request. Still, he will look at me helplessly when Bhalu growls at the chubby Indian tourists and sends them running for sanctuary inside the church, taking refuge in whatever god is most accessible at that moment, as is the Hindu way.

The cleanest cat in all of India, on the hunt in a spice patch.

A family of monkeys perched atop the mountain canopy. I threw the mother a banana, but it missed the mark and tumbled down the mountainside. In this picture, you can see her wishing that I had better aim, and wondering if it’s worth it to attack me.

After lunch I am met on the road by Uncha Vala, or the Tall One. A few times a week he’ll come back to my apartment and sleep from mid-afternoon until seven or eight. He is nursing a wicked neck wound (on his other side, no doubt from Bhalu or some other gangster dog), and before he leaves and roams for the night I’ll disinfect it with warm soapy water. There are no veterinarians in Mussoorie, and most dogs have easily treatable but often neglected health conditions.

Papu, my cook, wearing a WWF t-shirt and chopping up bland cabbage and tasteless carrots for my Tibetan lunch (Thantuk, or flat noodles). He is 19; the other servant (“Nauker” in Hindi) is 12. They were both plucked from Bihar, a nearby state with low literacy and high criminality, and taken into the service of the Tibetan family, where they have been for three years. They are both illiterate and work long hours (7am to 10pm, 7 days a week). Their salary is $15 a month, free rent and new clothes when necessary. But through all his tribulations, which have no counterpart in the US or the developed world, he manages to be happy pretty much all the time. Unless he’s the White Tiger (written by Aravind Adiga, and winner of the Booker Prize last year – has anyone read it?), and he’s plotting to visit his master's throat with a broken whisky bottle and then start a new life in Bangalore. Sometimes it’s hard to know where one's affections should lie.