Nashika Bus Angel
Picture this: you’re traveling in rural India as a white-ass, pink-nosed Westerner in a sea of tan-ass faces; some dark as coal – and it’s getting close to dusk. Problem # 1: you’ve gotta get from Nashik back to Igatpuri, and the only cabbies left this time of day are sharks – those shysters only too happy to quote you a 400 rupee price for the same ride that would cost 35 in the daytime.
Problem #2: your sweetheart/spouse is at your side. This normally wouldn’t pose difficulties, but she ain’t got no saree or baby in her arms. Worse, her hair is stylishly close-cropped, making her out to be some kind of heathen.
In addition, she’s out there looking somewhat independent, thinking for herself: strike three. Hey, it’s India. The worst they could do is stare; not that they ain’t starin’ at the relative high luminance of your light complexions already.
The upshot is, aside from your obvious fears of being so goddamn foreign, is that, statistically, you’re much less likely to get mugged here than in the states – but it sure doesn’t feel that way.
So the two of ya start walkin’.
Soon, there’s a bus stop over yonder packed with those tanks they call busses – colossal, box-shaped, virtual rolling battering-rams crammed with cackling passengers. Your hopes start to sink, however, as soon as you begin attempting to decipher the hieroglyphics inscribed on the front and sides of each bus. Everywhere you look, the same baffling array of symbols is slopped on –with yucky paint – in bizarre patterns, but no English or anything even remotely resembling it can be found. Even the signs in the grungy parking lot sport the same nonsense. And once again, you’re front and center; you can feel the searing heat of the gawkers’ unrelenting starin’.You’re stuck, screwed....
Ouch! – better think about hoofin’ it, dude!
Suddenly, a bright young gentleman pops out of a scrum of idle passerby.
“You are from which country?” he asks politely. Immediate relief floods your body/mind as you get to talkin’. His English is impeccable, as can be expected from a senior in Indian college – while he explains the drill: in this area, only Marathi is spoken; many don’t even speak Hindi. English is, for the most part, or rather, the ALL part, “out of question.” On that note, he adds, with that trademark Indian nod of the neck: “no one is going to help you.” Implicit in this is that even if they could, they wouldn’t.
At that, he immediately turns and pokes his head into each bus, hammering away at the crew in fluent Marathi, sussing out, in short order, the proper tank-bus going to Igatpuri.
Our Angel had arrived, seemingly out of nowhere, and gone out of his way to help, with an abundant sweetness that bubbled over as we continued to talk.
We mentioned Dhammagiri, the Dhamma in general, and wished we’d had some pamphlets! He and a few listeners nearby seemed genuinely interested, their glassy eyes fixed on us and him as he translated what we said.
That hellishly noisy bus ride cost 25 rupees each. Pink-ass Westerners win round one.
Game over!
Oh, well, not quite. The bus driver, who spoke perhaps three words of English, including, but perhaps not limited to “twenty five”, and “rupees” let us off in Igatpuri proper, but well away from that market-laced part we all know so well, so we were left with a fair bit of walkin', but no matter.
Hey, this was ‘uptown’; still fairly rural, reasonably impoverished, eerily lit and mysterious. What the heck – a little sightseein’ wasn’t so bad after all.
Strolling without eyes downcast, we became awash in smoke that wafted from some partyin’ that was goin’ on in plain view – and this was indeed ‘dancin’ in the street’ – I mean, these dudes were circling a bonfire of scrap and who-knows-what else, jumpin’, chanting, singing and waving their arms wildly.
Who cares if they were chanting mantras?
The sheer joy they seemed to be experiencing – while engaging in the sensual pleasure of their choice – filled the night air and made us feel safer somehow.
We were still a bit uptight, of course, though closer to ‘home’, and this time, there wasn’t as much gawking; our glaring whiteness seemed to blend in, or at least not be as noticeable to the natives. Whew!
Best of all, there was a deep feeling of satisfaction at having told some possibly ripe individuals about the Dhamma, along with the hope that it took.
We can never forget that dude – a very special being in a burly, geeky-student fleshsack; a Deva or Brahma reborn to spread his wealth of metta and panna around on earth once again.
Perhaps a Maha Acharya who was awaiting the proper time to get that push, that tiny tweak, that would enable him to return within this Sasana to teach with gusto any and all waiting Devas, rupa-Brahmas and human beings – even pink ones.
May he get the Dhamma!
I'm glad I'm here at dhamma giri,a safe refuge. Total immersion at this stage might be a bit much. Igot to my hotel in mumbai at about midnight after a nervous, smelly, chaotictaxi ride. on Sunday morning went straight to Victoria station and gota unreserved ticket for Igatpuri at 4.30pm. So I had a day to kill. Ididn't anticipate doing muc except loking at my watch constantly andmaybe nervously trying a popular backpacker restaurant from lonelyplanet. I strolled over to Marine drive to look at the bay. This 16year old youth called viki came up and offered to shine my trainers.We got talking and he started to teach me a bit of hindi. He's fromJaipur. His father shines shoes there trying in vain to pay off debts.Viki, his mother and two sisters live god knows where in Mumbai, vikitrying to shine shoes and the others begging on the street. He saidwhat he wanted was a shoeshine box, which comes with a licence toshine shoes at stations and so on… he was angling for money, but veryopen and friendly about it. He pointed across the bay to a hilly,foresty bit with tall buildings. He said there was a jain festival anda good park and he would show me, plenty of time before 4.30, so wetook a taxi. A nice part of town, gated, guarded apartment buildings,but with a woman collecting warm poo from a cow's anus outside,children playing cricket in a dusty square, a man walking a monkey.Viki was chewing paan and spitting red. He made an excuse while Ilooked at the jain temple and dodged next door to make a deal with asouvenir shop owner to bring me in. He then came back and persuaded meto look…I was obviously not buying and the salesman lost interest inme almost instantly. Viki explained quite openly what he'd done. Wesat I a park and practiced more hindi. He brought up the box again.900rupee. It would allow him to support his mother and sisters. Allthe advice I'd had went through my head: don,t, whatever you do givemoney. The worst mistake I made was giving money. You'll just make itharder for all the other foreigners. You'll push up prices. But Ifound myself asking more questions about this box. Maybe I am naïve,maybe I find it hard to say no, maybe I want the story to have a happyending. Where can you get the box? There was no way I was just goingto give the youth money. Ok, so let's go to the box-seller, justenough time to get there and back before 4.30. We took a taxi toMumbai central. Massive rusty warehouse of girders and struts, suncoming in through dust and smoke, crowds, smells and noise. Got onto apacked train with no doors, youths hanging out, past concretebuildings that had never been painted and never would be, out atBhandra, through the crowds and goats, into a tuktuk, out and into alabyrinth of alleys and gutters, women and children, families visiblethrough open doors, the sky a kinked strip overhead, up a rusty ladderanto a carpeted room where half naked children slept as India playedsrilanka at cricket on an 80s TV. The box-vendors: two brothers notmuch older than viki. They wanted 1600rupee. No way. Menga he. 800 mycounter offer. 1050. I take out a 1000 note. They smell money and takeit. Viki has the box. He's pleased. He says I've done him an honour.There's time to eat so we dip into a veg thali place In a bhandraalleyway. My first real meal in India. Not bad. Another tuktuk, thisone with a cd player and huge speakers, the driver in his nid-teens.Deep, mysterious Indian trance music almost drowning out the horns andengines. Viki sorts me out with a train direct to Victoria. We don'twait to buy tickets. It's a waste of time, he says, nobody will check,Nobody does. I get to Victoria and catch my train. I wish Viki well.It was a lot of money. It could even have been an elaborate scam, himin cahoots with the brothers, I don't know. 
Hello everyone from India... Where to begin? I've been here only a week or so and I have to say I find it hard to believe that the outside world there is still existing as I left it. It's funny, you come here to see something exotic, something spiritual, to see people living their lives in different fashions than we know in the West or in the modern world, to see how people can live and even be happy without the very basic necessities... and then there's times when you just feel like forget that, maybe we've lost our relationship with nature but give me clean streets, comfortable beds, safe food, ventilated rooms... what times are these? Like when you're on a train crammed with too many Indian men than the uncomfortable cusions should allow, smoke all in your face and they're spitting betel and tobacco over me out the window, or on the floor... this is on a 20 hour trip that took 26 hours mind you, with just fans to help us and sleep only comes when exhaustion all but rocks you into a deep-rooted fatigue. Recovering from a bad case of heatstroke, no food, and a half liter of water left but the Indian next to me keeps swiping my bottle and takes generous sips. I took a walkman with me but have tried to use it as little as possible; I see music as an escape and would rather delve right into the atmoshphere and soak it all up, good or bad. But with my stomach in knots and throat dry, it is all too much, so I blast out some Tupac and try to take myself away from it.... when a man comes down the aisle hobbling, a bum asking for change, this is nothing uncommon because we are stopped at a train station. But when he is next to me he pulls up his pant leg and I see his skin eaten away at the shin, the flesh and bone open... Oh God how can this be? As if it can't get worse.... and traveling alone there is no Western friend around to share a sympathetic or even horrified glance, I just wanted to yell profanities out the window at having taken in such a reality. Or walking through the slums of Calcutta and Varanasi, the luckier families not on the pavement living 15 to a room-- a 'room' can we call it that? A hovel thrown together with brick and straw and you can see it before your eyes disintegrating, slime all over the floor... the streets filled with trash, animal and human waste, the stench totally and completely indescribable... and amognst all this children running around barefoot, food venders selling some greasy paste wrapped in day old newspaper, beggars and lepers, goats, cows, sick looking dogs, need I go on? I'll be damned if you don't feel the tears welling up to your eyes the first few days of this. I would go back to my hotel room (costing a whopping $2 for a single with shower/toilet per night) and collapse on my bed, and when I regained the energy I went back out to face this all again.
But I met a sadhu (one who basically renounces his earthly life to seek out God) in Varanasi who told me money and happiness have absolutely nothing to do with each other. And it's true. Once you get away from your Western stomach and nose, you see the smiles on the childrens' faces, and the love of families, their togetherness.... life more at the roots. Even one's waste and death are there right for everyone to see... how many people did I see squatting in rice patties from the train, I lose count! We live lives of such material fullness that when something God forbid comes to make a small dent we grimace and grumble and curse everything... I see people living here and just accepting, not like fatalitism, call it a trust in life, or God, or whatever... like when a sleeping man dribbled tobacco juice all over the clothes of another, who just shook his head in a smile. Or another who went to the bathroom and when he came back his seat was taken, there were none other and it was a crowded long trip, but he just stood by the window and watched the scenery go by, not a look of bitterness in his face... such incidents would trouble each of us a little, some of us quite a bit!
From my oh so limited experience up to presence, this is a country of spirit. I have met Indians in which neither of us says a single word, we just look at each other for a minute or so smiling. This coming from a land where we don't think that life can be expressed in ways other than words! It's amazing the signs of faith I've already seen here among the people. Too many to describe....
Indians are very curious, and being the only white person among hundreds at times I feel many eyes on me, and when I return the gaze they don't look away embarrassed but instead keep on staring like I am an animal in the zoo. But instead of letting this affect me I simply look them back in the eyes with a wide pure smile, and they break into one too, and laugh, sometimes a conversation starts up, sometimes no. A fat greasy policeman sat down beside me on the train who only spoke Hindi, but he kept breaking into racuous laughter and shaking my hand. (though was he ever confused why I didn't accept his tobacco-- which I probably would have done just for courtesy if my stomach wasn't waging a war to the end with me)
But the world is changing, and high away up in the mountains I am checking my email... an act which, by the way, I am not so happy with, but I skipped taking my malaria pills for four days due to my stomach, so I wanted to see where malaria wasn't in India. Yeah, at the ghats on the sacred Ganges where they burn the bodies of their loved ones, painted on the walls of cement by the water are advertisments for hotels, internet, book stores, etc. Gotta love the exportation of good ol' American capitalism. The world is changing, and fast. A seven day hike up the Himalays and you can still buy a coke, thanks to porters paid a buck day to lug up crates of it. Some Indians see you just as a dollar sign and try to make as much from you as they can, they've already caught the 'me-first' virus. Capitalism is making these 'backwards' cultures see that they should leave their ways behind and follow ours, so rest assured in a few decades you'll be able to bite into a Mickey D's burger and stay at a Holiday Inn the world over. So better get out here while you still can!
I guess this letter is running a little long, and it's a little strange to write. Besides a few conversations here and there with some Israelis or Europeans (the bulk of travelers I meet here) I'm just looking at things, digging them myself and letting them be.... I brought a journal but for the first time am not using it-- I feel we lose too much when we believe that we can capture it in words. If you truly want to understand anything, let it be, don't grasp it...
For now I'm escaping the heat and humidity down below by staying up north near the Himalayas, though it's still hot, damn hot. I'm in a town called Rishikesh, which was actually where the Beatles followed their guru. Unfortunately the weather is too hot to do all that much in a day, and travel really takes it out of you. At the end of the month I head back for Tokyo, with a couple days in Bangkok so the shock isn't too much. Hope all is well for everyone else out there, hope I haven't taken too much of your good time to read my ramblings....
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