Reflexive Contradictions

Yesterday I spoke vaguely of the many contradictions I've observed in India. Today I hiked up to Pothamedu; since it was Sunday I was able to hike through a tea and cardamom plantation. I stopped near the top at a tea station and spent some time talking with folks. On my way back I reflected on the contradictions inherent in my own being here.



I am traveling through places considered by Western standards to be quite underdeveloped, but I am in many ways sponsored on this trip by a system based on the continual economic and militaristic exploitation of such lands and peoples to ensure its own comfort,

Entrenched in Munnar

I have developed a kind of aural spatial perception of traffic over the last few weeks, enabling me to give just enough room for a rickshaw or car to pass without looking, or to know when to dive into the muck or off a cliff in the event of an approaching bus. Sometimes, however, the buses have deceptively high-pitched horns, leading one to believe a mere motorbike is encroaching. Both Sarina and I have had the occasion to look behind us casually only to behold the monstrous visage of "BABY JESUS" lettering the top of a hellbent deluxe-AC bus barrelling down on us. Needless to say this has scarred our psyches in ways unfathomable to the imperial proletariat.



The bus ride up the mountains to Munnar lasted approximately 4.5 hours, careening up through innumerable switchbacks and narrowly missing downward-bound traffic with remarkable accuracy. Regarding the ordeal with enormous levity, I began to question my sanity when I noticed the nervous terror etched into the miens of the local passengers, who numbered fewer and fewer the higher we climbed. One old woman seated directly in front of me leaned out to spew chunks; Sarina was listening to her IPod behind me and no doubt thought the spray to be a refreshing monsoon sprinkle. If I ever require extensive knowledge of momentum, inertia, topography, or surface tension, I will immediately seek a Keralan bus driver over say, a physicist or engineer. It is no wonder that the state provides a plurality of drivers to the rest of India, as well as to various Middle Eastern countries. I suspect that roller-coasters will be rather hum-drum from now on.



I saw my first wild monkey on a tree branch during the trip up.



I now much more fully appreciate the class in Collins' Ethnographic Field Methods in which we covered methodology informing theory and theory informing methodology. And studying anthropology has overall given me a subtle awareness of commonality and difference,

Malabar Blues

Some final thoughts before setting off to Munnar. Keep all limbs inside the vehicle at all times, if you want to keep them at all. There is a copy of The Fountainhead mocking me from the bookshelf in the internet cafe, nestled between two Noam Chomsky books; Dawkins looms above them. I saw a North Indian intellectual yesterday or the day before wearing a blue scarf and red Chomsky shirt. At Cherai Beach a giant hammer and sickle was chalked across the road, next to a giant lotus flower. Scores of men young and old come there to stare and call out to Western women in their bathing suits.

Asharof helped me out again last night, when I left my camera's memory card at the internet cafe. After introducing me to more of his family he drove me back in his piece of junk rickshaw, wiping the rain off with some dirty newspaper (was he a little drunk?). He didn't charge me, but told me instead that "God knows what is in your heart." He is currently jobless, not for lack of willingness (his programming skills can't compete with youth), but because Kerala is communist he has a roof over his head and food to eat. We gave each other our most profound wishes and parted ways; he will send me a Christmas card.

When we went south to the backwaters the other day, I saw some petrol tankers labeled "Highly Inflammable."

How did I end up in India? How did I end up studying Indian philosophy, religion, culture, and history? How did I end up at Towson University? Where the hell do I go from here? How will I ever think again that comfort is worth the theft of natural resources and the mass murder of millions? How could I ever believe again that war is anything but war against children? How can I ever again be confused about who the real enemy is?

The whole financial collapse thing was going on right before I left the U.S. I've been trying to keep up with it from overseas... It seems that we are nationalizing our banking system. How many times does history need to repeat itself? Don't people realize what's really going on? It's not like we didn't see this coming, but... Maybe soon it will be enough to mobilize the angry middle class, i.e. to make the guards realize that they're expendable and on the same side as the prisoners, as Howard Zinn put it.

The British and Germans Are the Worst

Ventured out of Kochi yesterday through the backwaters not far to the south. Saw a kingfisher but was moving too fast to get a decent photo. Leaving Tuesday for Munnar and some wildlife preserves. Che is big among much of the youth in Kerala, especially in the smaller villages. A North Indian about my age bemoaned this fact to me after we were talking to some locals about it, denouncing Che as a butcher who killed whoever he wanted. I found out from a woman working in Kollam I've been speaking with online that the timed blackouts are occuring because the first monsoon was a "soft" one, and therefore did not provide enough hydroelectric power at the dams. Not much in the mood for description, but I'll leave you all with some pictures.

No Name, No Slogan

Yesterday I met two Belgians on holiday; actually Carol was originally from Germany and Susan is a Flemmish Belgian. We swapped tales of our adventures, talked film and philosophy, exchanged some useful information, and had dinner.



Today I met Asharof, a Muslim who helped me buy a few small items in my neighborhood. We spoke a long while about the various religions of India and of Indian religious character in general. He took me to his home and introduced me to his extended family. There we spoke more, about Ayurvedic remedies, Malayalam and Urdu, the Qur'an, Mother Theresa and Gandhi, Western and Keralan culture, and family. Later he took me around the island and showed me all the temples, churches, mosques, and synagogues, as well as the spice factories.

Fumez-Vous?

A French family just came to our homestay, with a little girl, and we also happened to eat next to them at a restaurant last night before the blackout. I forgot to mention, the commies here like to conserve energy, so there are mandatory blackouts for a half-hour each night. Each district is designated a different half-hour block, but everyone is prepared and life goes on just fine without the juice. There are also random blackouts now and again due to weather or grid strain, but these generally only last five to fifteen minutes.

I was delighted to speak a bit of French with the little girl, who couldn't keep to her seat at dinner. We chatted a while, but the cutest was at one moment she lept over to me shouting "regardez!" One of her top front teeth was missing, and she was inserting a toothpick in and out of the gap. When they first arrived the girl was wearing Western clothes, but by then her parents had found her some jungle-hippy threads. Then she asked me for a smoke.

Lungi, Not Dr. Murungi

I decided I really wanted a lungi, the long skirt-like articles of clothing worn by many of the men here in Kerala, because they look really comfortable in the heat and humidity. My first mistake was trying to get one in the more touristy Fort Kochi; my second mistake was asking right off the bat if the tailor had any. All of my previous haggling experiences had been fun and successful because I pretended to not be very interested in what I was buying. He started me off at about six and a half times the going rate for a lungi, and wouldn't budge much lower than six times. I should have just walked out, like I had done a few times before to get the prices I had wanted, but I was absolutely sick of jeans. I think maybe he was also worried that if he cut the price too much for me in front of the two annoying women from Maine that were in the shop, he wouldn't be able to get much out of them; they looked ready to spend quite a bit, too.



But it was certainly worth it; the lungi was my golden ticket into the hearts of Keralans.

Where have all the chaiwallas gone?

I'm frequently amazed at the arrogance and condescension the Western tourists here display toward the Malayalees. And they seem to hate one another, as if each other Westerner represents to them the inauthenticity of their retreat into tropical paradise. I even saw a woman who had just arrived in Fort Kochi outright glaring at a small child. There's plenty of yelling, as in that whole volume = understanding idea. The Americans are the absolute worst.



Sarina and I are here for different reasons, obviously, but recently it has become more pronounced. She likes going to places in the tour guide, I use the guide to get an idea of reasonable prices and go elsewhere. She likes travel by autorickshaw, I like walking. I memorize maps in a couple minutes, she frequently goes off on her own and gets lost.

Chai...Chai...Coffee...Coffee...Mirindapepsiwater...Waterwatercoldandsweet...

So it's been a while since I've gone to an Internet Cafe...

First off, I'm in Fort Kochi right now, in Kerala, the only state of India to have democratically voted to be communist. For inspiration I read the second half of Al's essay A Man, which is devoted to a second person rendition of Che's life and death. But let me backtrack a bit.

The day after exploring the markets in Old Rajender Nagar (also spelled Rajinder) we went to Connaught Place, a gargantuan three-tiered traffic circle saddled between Old and New Delhi. I could barely breathe in this choking spiral of unregulated fuel emissions, open sewers, and soul-crushing poverty. Sarina was looking for some specific items in Janpath market,

Delhi Belly

Our first night in Delhi was an unfortunate introduction. I had not slept for two nights in a row, and our hotel did not send our driver, forcing us to use a prepaid taxi. A word of advice: don't give anyone your taxi voucher until you've arrived at your intended destination. Our driver was in fact a tout, taking us instead to a "tourist info" center where we were told that there was a "mistake" in our hotel reservation and that without our reservation number we were screwed. But we had already called at the airport to confirm our booking, convincing me that although I watched the guy dial the hotel's number we were in fact talking to someone in a back room. I let the man think we were desperate and willing to do anything, accepting his sales pitch on a tour of the Golden Triangle (Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur) while I considered our actual options. Once he started using underhanded sales (manipulation) techniques, trying to make us afraid and such, I got pissed and walked out.

But at this point, after an exhausting plane ride and the run-around through Pahar Ganj, my fear/paranoia level was indeed rising. I was done with taxis and autorickshaws, so we walked up the next street and found a decent cheap hotel. I wouldn't let my travel partner, our baggage, or our passports out of my sight at this point, so they were completely bewildered by my behavior. In a back alley I insisted walking on foot with one of the hotel workers so that he could photocopy our passports. On the way I explained what had happened and profusely apologized if I had offended in any way. He apologized even more that that was my first impression of India, and did not come across as a smooth operator.