Culturally Shifting

From the land of Bolllywood to the land of the kwaito dancing brave.  Eish!

Every time the migratory pattern of the Greatest Hits Tour has come up, people have followed the logic of my movements easily until I mention the last leg:  Delhi, India to Gaborone, Botswana.  Though seemingly impractical financially and geographically, this move could not have made more sense to me.  Firstly, Saudia Arabia Airlines was offering an unreal fare to Johannesburg.  More importantly, I couldn't imagine a more appropriate end to my trip -- finishing in the place where my love affair with overseas life began, making an illogical turn to the place where I learned to rethink the term logical.  And, how cool is this -- I cut off my dreads at my first stop on this trip, and my last stop is the place where I created them.  

Indeed, being back 'this side' is fantastic.  I hitched a ride with a dude from Botswana and three Zimbabaweans to Windhoek from the middle of nowhere near the Bots border.  As the car cruised over the Namibian border, with the driver joking about paying lobola (bride price) of 20 cows to my parents, I felt this beautiful sense of contentment:  "I'm back in Namibia.  All is right in the world."  

Still, it has been about the weirdest transition ever.  Or, perhaps entering or departing India is shocking regardless of the preceeding/following locale.  

When I arrived at the Bangkok airport to catch my flight to Calcutta, I witnessed a cultural shift before I even landed on Indian soil.  I was totally fascinated by the scene at the check-in counter:  87 Indian men gathered around -- with barely any regard for lines -- discussing/arguing loudly and passionately about matters of luggage (I think...) with each other and with the very sweet, classically gentle and quiet Thai female airline staff.  I was still technically in Thailand, but this airport hubbub gave me a clear idea of the intensity into which I was heading.  Indeed, Calcutta was beautifully full-on (that Bangkok ticket counter only just scratched the surface), and it took me at least three days to settle into its fascinating chaos.  

Going from Bangkok's bustling population of 8 million to the intensity of Calcutta is nothing compared to the transition of heading from India's dense population to utter sparseness of Botswana and Namibia.  Rishikesh is not a very big place, but it still has the essence of the Indian bustle -- the congestion of people on foot, on motorbikes, and in overflowing auto-rickshaws mixed with meandering cows, hungry monkeys, street cart sellers, and discombobulated tourists.  In fact, Gaborone, Botswana has a larger population than Rishikesh according to my dear friend, Wikipedia.  But, Gaborone is shrouded in the silence of the Kalahari desert.  The city sprawls over a large area, making it seemingly almost as car dependent as the metro-D.  The roads are very well maintained.  Modern shopping malls are the source of entertainment.  There is not the constant noise of horns beeping and devotional chanting. And, it's flat and brown.  

Indeed, it was quite clear when I completed my very long series of taxi, plane, train, and bus connections that I certainly was not in the Indian foothills of the Himalayas any longer.  

I have so enjoyed observing this stark contrast (sing with me here the Namibian national anthem:  '...contrasting, beautiful Na-mib-i-a...').  I have been amazed at how it is possible to equally love two places that are seemingly so at odds.  I absolutely loved my 100% vegetarian diet in Rishikesh, but I also absolutely love street kapana (barbecued beef strips).  I loved the beautiful saris and the modesty, but I also love the tight tops, plunging cleavage, and short skirts even on Namibia's most unlikely female bodies.  I was fascinated by the firmness of gender roles and the scandal elicited by simply giving a man a hug, and I am equally fascinated by the fact that taxi drivers feel that it is fully appropriate to ask to date me/sleep with me/marry me in the space of three minutes.  I was in a dreamland of yoga practice and spiritual talk, and now I am in a dreamland of Windhoek Lager and kwaito music.  One of my favorite moments in India was slipping into a hall full of people that were chanting an entire holy book over the course of nine days.  One of my favorite moments in Namibia has been singing along with everyone in the bar: "she got that million dollar...million dollar oooh oooh oooh".  

On Saturday morning, I hit the defining moment of the contrast of my Rishikesh experience and my Walvis Bay experience.  I went to sleep (after many, many hours of dancing to Southern African house music) at 5:30am -- my old wake-up time in Rishikesh.  There was no yoga or fruit salad that day.  Instead, when I got out of bed around noon, I had a coke and a bag of Simba chips for breakfast.

So, here I am, still bobbling my head as a form of communication while also naturally re-integrating the "oooooh aye ayes" and "eish-es" of Southern Africa.  And, I feel even more in love with the bigness and wideness and weirdness of this world than ever before.  

     

  

Rishikesh Randoms, Part 3

In my first glorious week in Rishikesh when I was being charmed by shit-talking jewellers and American-passport-holding 78-year-old Indian men, I met an assortment of other characters that became fundamental to my experience in the foothills of the Himalayas.  

Wonderful Simon was a friend gateway to one of the most legendary of the Rishikesh nuggets.  Simon is a 48-year-old Englishman -- a bit of an addiction-prone wildman, full of heart and humor, on a quest for spiritual enlightenment (or, at least some creative inspiration for the writing of his screenplay).  We met at Oasis Cafe, the Grand Central Anna Skinner of my Rishikesh neighborhood.  I very luckily ended up sitting directly across from him on the outskirts of the socializing of folks from my yoga course.  We somehow plunged head first into life topics of magnitude and depth, making each other laugh outrageously despite some of the seriousness of our statements.  He was full of great stories, having spent the first good chunk of his adult life playing the role of Jesus in various stage plays around the UK and the other good chunk of adult life existing in the madness of India.  

A few days later, our paths luckily -- yet somewhat predictably according to the laws of Rishikesh -- crossed again.  This time not only did I get to enjoy Simon's company but also that of his new sidekick, Silent Baba.  Silent Baba looked more like he belonged on a surf beach than in a holy city.  He was topless, with a mass of chains/malas around his neck (my favorite being the necklace of white skull beads).  He had shoulder-length slightly sun-kissed hair that appeared to have the volume and wild matted-ness that only repeated dips in the sea could create.  He sat cross-legged just barely maintaining his decency by precariously arranging his sarong/skirt in a manner that prevented any scandalous exposure.  He smiled brightly as he smoked his marijuana pipe (with unique sound effects) in the middle of Oasis.  And, as his title suggests, the man did not speak.  He explained in written form and by way of the special translation skills of Simon that he had taken a 12 year vow of silence at a Kumba Mela about one year before.

Indeed, a word never left Silent Baba's mouth but all sorts of other grunts, hisses, and shushes did.  He wrote on anything within reach -- napkins, other people's journals, promotional leaflets, his hand, your hand, etc.  His vow of silence did not prevent or reduce his communication in any way.  The inability to speak was more of a communication challenge to which Baba was always always always able to rise. 

Our first half-silent conversation began with his special book of acquaintances.  Every time Baba met someone new, he asked him/her to fill out a brief questionnaire.  The form looked something like this:

Name:

Age:

Birthday:

Email:

Life Purpose:

So, we all sat and drank chai, discussing our basic backgrounds and life purposes as Baba shushed and hissed and scribbled his way into the conversation, usually silently interrupting with non-sequiturs about his main benefactors, Sherry and Deja from America.  

Perhaps it goes without saying that in addition to my skepticism of his silence, I do not believe him to be an enlightenment seeking baba/sadhu.  There are not any rules to being a holy man living a simple spiritual life, but I'm pretty sure that the general populace would agree that there is not much holiness in chain smoking spliffs and tagging along with foreigners in hopes of getting a free meal.  Silent Baba was certainly living on the fringes of society, but his path seemed more like the gravy train than the God train.  

Even still, I was fully fascinated and entertained with Simon's new friend, and I was very impressed with Simon's ability to speak Silent Baba's language.  He understood the nuances of the grunts and Baba's tailor-made form of sign language (my favorite movement was akin to screwing in a lightbulb).  I had no idea then that I would soon be fluent in Silent Baba speak, too.  Simon had to ease on down the road a few days later, but Baba wasn't going anywhere.  After that first meeting, Baba became very comfortable in Oasis and even more comfortable with my Rishikesh partner-in-crime, Sally -- a lovely ball of light and love from Ireland.  There was no hanky panky involved in their relationship, but Sally had a heart big enough to patiently tolerate his nonsense at length.  She was so wrapped up in the Baba spiderweb that she had her own sign language symbol for her name -- a sort of side sweep stroke of the hair.

For the next few weeks, Baba became well-known not just by "Baba's Babes" (a term brilliantly coined to describe me, Sally, and our other Irish girlfriend, Erica) but by all of the Oasis regulars.  Everyone was familiar with his standard order of one chai and two chapatis by means of special grunt.  And, it was difficult for anyone to escape the billowing smoke from his unique style of cigarette smoking or to evade his annoying manner of demanding the center of conversational attention despite his silence.  

Then, as quickly as he appeared in our lives, he disappeared.  Sally and I went away to an ashram for a week, where we practiced actual vows of silence for seven mornings.  We had no access to the internet or cell service.  We explained to Baba at length that we would be away for a week without any way to communicate.  However, due to the combination of his slightly unhinged mental state and the extreme amount of marijuana he smokes, he did not seem to comprehend or remember these explanations.  Erica met him on the street while we were away, and he was apparently in a state of distress over not having seen or heard from Sally for days.  When we returned, he tracked her down at Oasis that first evening, but then he fell off the face of the earth.  He continues to call Sally, hissing and shushing into the phone, but, despite her strong grasp of his unique language, even she cannot make sense of his bizarre cachophony of non-words.    

Like so many things about Silent Baba's existence, his disappearance is a complete mystery.  What is very clear, however, is that life became a lot more silent when the silent man disappeared.