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.