the God-loving Atheist

There's this "eye game" I play with babas, sadhus, devotees, and other "holy" men.  I call it a game, but  it's the realest, purest thing I know.

What I do is make eye contact with passing holy men and see what happens.  If their eyes pass over mine without any contact, I find myself making an instant judgement about them - that although they may have all the trappings of holy men, their hearts are cold and closed.

Who am I to judge, you may ask yourselves.  And quite honestly I ask myself the same question. But my heart tells me that I know.  And that if you look, really look, into the eyes of someone, you'll know too.  And I am driven to know.

But sometimes, something amazing transpires.

For example, last night, in the Haridwar Bazaar, on the way back from the arti at HarKi Pairi ghat on the Ganges, I looked, really looked into the eyes of a passing baba.  He was dressed in a ragged, course faded sarong that might have once been saffron.  His hair was shoulder length.  A dirty turban was wrapped around his stringy hair.  His momentum propelled him two steps past me. Then he stopped, turned around, and met my gaze.

And how do I describe what happened next?  If I search my consciousness, I can only say that as I looked into his eyes there was an inner mantra chanting: "The God within me salutes the God within you."

Now what's really strange about this, is that I'm an atheist.  I don't believe in God.  I mean, look at all the horrors in this world.  If there were an omnipotent, all-powerful God, would s/he allow such atrocities to take place?  I don't think so.  But what are all people but composites of contradiction.  I am an atheist who dances for God.  I am an atheist who greets holy men by a connection that joins us together in a God I don't believe in.

So, let me tell you what happened next...

We stood there, in the midst of the chaos, in the midst of the men and women and children pouring through the bazaar.  We stood there gazing into each others eyes as families purchased religious trinkets, paintings of deities, soft thick-piled blankets, and milk sweets.  We stood there, riveted, smiling at each other. Smile building to grin. Grin blooming to an ear-to-ear, tooth-revealing beam. Our delight blossoming to joy. Holding eye contact, connecting on some incredibly deep place. A place of pure love. Standing there like in a scene from a film where two people fall in love in the middle of some crazy swirling blur of activity.  The two of us stood there and gazed into each others eyes smiling like fools. And laughing. About what it's hard to say, but there we stood and smiled and laughed, as the rush of people in the bazaar swarmed around and past us.

And then this morning...

I had stopped at the bathing ghat along the Ganges for a glimpse of the river, when my eyes glanced over at one of the sadhus sitting on the steps begging.  This time it was my eyes that passed over his face. This time it was I who started away but then looked back.  Something pulling me back to his face. And he held my eyes.  And I gazed back and met love pouring from his heart, out his eyes with all the love in my heart.  And we started smiling - connecting beyond words, beyond intellect, beyond religion and tradition, and politics and paradigms.  We connected soul to soul, heart to heart.  His eyes like a bubbling fountain of joy.  And then we started to laugh and laugh and laugh.

And then my laughter turned to tears.

I wanted to sob. I wanted to sob so hard I shook off all the pettiness from my bones. Sob so hard I shook off all my arrogance and judgements.  Sob so hard I shook off all traces of stinginess and greed and competition and vanity.

I wanted to sob so hard my tears washed away all my transgressions; washed away my skin, my separateness. That my heart might merge with the heart of all.

But all I could do was let the tears fall, gaze with love at my new soul mate, bring my hands together at chin level and whisper the word Nameste.

He mirrored my gesture and word.
I turned and walked away.  I knew I needed to sit in a cool place by the Ganga and write - write to try and catch the swirl of emotion-packed words bursting from my mind; try to make some literal sense of of what was happening to me, try to move from the ephemeral sphere of light I had zoomed off to and come back to earth.  Ground myself in the black written words on a solid page of a earthy yellow and orange journal.

Passing the Ganesh Temple Ghat, I stopped to pay my respects to that cute little chubby elephant deity whose responsibility it is to eradicate obstacles.

Standing there I gazed down at the shady steps that led to the Ganges and knew it was where I wanted to sit.  I entered the gate, looked at the first saffron-draped bearded man, and through body language indicated I wanted to enter and sit at the bottom of the steps.

He nodded consent, smiled, and pointed to my shoes, which I took off and left.

I walked down a few cement steps, sat down, and leaned my back against the cool wall.

There were six babas. One combed out his waist-length hair, wet from his ritual dip in the river.  One stoked the fire which burned at the bottom of the steps.  One lit incense.  One bathed in the river.  One lay under a ratty saffron blanket.  One sat and stared at the Ganges. I scribbled siren-song notes in my cheap journal.

When the words had climaxed and ceased to flow.  When I had spent myself, my passion cooled, I closed my book, put it in my red, purple and black hand-made bag from Thailand, and stood up.  When I got to the top of the steps, I turned and looked down at the babas.

"Nameste," I called out to them.

All six heads pivoted and turned to me, smiling.

"Where are you from?" one called up to me in English.

"I am from the same place as you," I answered.  "We are all from God," said the atheist.

He laughed and translated to the rest of the babas.  They all stood at the bottom of the steps smiling up at me, laughing, and waving good-bye.

the eye game in Haridwar

There's this "eye game" I play with babas, sadhus, devotees, and other "holy" men.  I call it a game, but  it's the realest, purest thing I know.

What I do is make eye contact with passing holy men and see what happens.  If their eyes pass over mine without any contact, I find myself making an instant judgement about them - that although they may have all the trappings of holy men, their hearts are cold and closed.

Who am I to judge, you may ask yourselves.  And quite honestly I ask myself the same question. But my heart tells me that I know.  And that if you look, really look, into the eyes of someone, you'll know too.  And I am driven to know.

But sometimes, something amazing transpires.

For example, last night, in the Haridwar Bazaar, on the way back from the arti at HarKi Pairi ghat on the Ganges, I looked, really looked into the eyes of a passing baba.  He was dressed in a ragged, course faded sarong that might have once been saffron.  His hair was shoulder length.  A dirty turban was wrapped around his stringy hair.  His momentum propelled him two steps past me. Then he stopped, turned around, and met my gaze.

And how do I describe what happened next?  If I search my consciousness, I can only say that as I looked into his eyes there was an inner mantra chanting: "The God within me salutes the God within you."

Now what's really strange about this, is that I'm an atheist.  I don't believe in God.  I mean, look at all the horrors in this world.  If there were an omnipotent, all-powerful God, would s/he allow such atrocities to take place?  I don't think so.  But what are all people but composites of contradiction.  I am an atheist who dances for God.  I am an atheist who greets holy men by a connection that joins us together in a God I don't believe in.

So, let me tell you what happened next...

We stood there, in the midst of the chaos, in the midst of the men and women and children pouring through the bazaar.  We stood there gazing into each others eyes as families purchased religious trinkets, paintings of deities, soft thick-piled blankets, and milk sweets.  We stood there, riveted, smiling at each other. Smile building to grin. Grin blooming to an ear-to-ear, tooth-revealing beam. Our delight blossoming to joy. Holding eye contact, connecting on some incredibly deep place. A place of pure love. Standing there like in a scene from a film where two people fall in love in the middle of some crazy swirling blur of activity.  The two of us stood there and gazed into each others eyes smiling like fools. And laughing. About what it's hard to say, but there we stood and smiled and laughed, as the rush of people in the bazaar swarmed around and past us.

And then this morning...

I had stopped at the bathing ghat along the Ganges for a glimpse of the river, when my eyes glanced over at one of the sadhus sitting on the steps begging.  This time it was my eyes that passed over his face. This time it was I who started away but then looked back.  Something pulling me back to his face. And he held my eyes.  And I gazed back and met love pouring from his heart, out his eyes with all the love in my heart.  And we started smiling - connecting beyond words, beyond intellect, beyond religion and tradition, and politics and paradigms.  We connected soul to soul, heart to heart.  His eyes like a bubbling fountain of joy.  And then we started to laugh and laugh and laugh. 

And then my laughter turned to tears.

I wanted to sob. I wanted to sob so hard I shook off all the pettiness from my bones. Sob so hard I shook off all my arrogance and judgements.  Sob so hard I shook off all traces of stinginess and greed and competition and vanity.

I wanted to sob so hard my tears washed away all my transgressions; washed away my skin, my separateness. That my heart might merge with the heart of all.

But all I could do was let the tears fall, gaze with love at my new soul mate, bring my hands together at chin level and whisper the word Nameste.

He mirrored my gesture and word.

I turned and walked away.  I knew I needed to sit in a cool place by the Ganga and write - write to try and catch the swirl of emotion-packed words bursting from my mind; try to make some literal sense of of what was happening to me, try to move from the ephemeral sphere of light I had zoomed off to and come back to earth.  Ground myself in the black written words on a solid page of a earthy yellow and orange journal.

Passing the Ganesh Temple Ghat, I stopped to pay my respects to that cute little chubby elephant deity whose responsibility it is to eradicate obstacles.

Standing there I gazed down at the shady steps that led to the Ganges and knew it was where I wanted to sit.  I entered the gate, looked at the first saffron-draped bearded man, and through body language indicated I wanted to enter and sit at the bottom of the steps.

He nodded consent, smiled, and pointed to my shoes, which I took off and left.

I walked down a few cement steps, sat down, and leaned my back against the cool wall.

There were six babas. One combed out his waist-length hair, wet from his ritual dip in the river.  One stoked the fire which burned at the bottom of the steps.  One lit incense.  One bathed in the river.  One lay under a ratty saffron blanket.  One sat and stared at the Ganges. I scribbled siren-song notes in my cheap journal.

When the words had climaxed and ceased to flow.  When I had spent myself, my passion cooled, I closed my book, put it in my red, purple and black hand-made bag from Thailand, and stood up.  When I got to the top of the steps, I turned and looked down at the babas.

"Nameste," I called out to them.

All six heads pivoted and turned to me, smiling.

"Where are you from?" one called up to me in English.

"I am from the same place as you," I answered.  "We are all from God," said the atheist.

He laughed and translated to the rest of the babas.  They all stood at the bottom of the steps smiling up at me, laughing, and waving good-bye.

Sicilian Rose

Sometimes you can know somebody for just part of a day and yet be so touched that when you part you feel vectors tugging from you heart to theirs.

That's how it was with Sicilian Rose.

We had met at the Brown Bread Bakery and decided to spend an afternoon being tourists together the next day.

We hailed an auto rickshaw to Jama Majid, the huge Muslim mosque crowning the hill of Old Delhi.  Stalled in Delhi traffic we began to share our lives, our stories.  She - so young and vulnerable, of Sicilian decent, but raised in London - just finding her way.  Me - a crazy old trouper.

As the rickshaw inched along past the Sikh temple, the Shiva Temple, Muslim mosques, the hardware bazaars, second-hand bazaars, spice bazaars, she opened up one sentence at a time.  One tale at a time.  One memory at a time.  Testing the ground.  With each step a new revelation. With each inch of progression on our route, a step closer to each other.

From the Jama Majid, we walked to the Red Fort.  Then mounted a bicycle rickshaw.  The short, skinny rider leaning into the pedals, pushing with all his slight weight and strength, turning around to announce the price of every monument, the goods sold in every passed bazaar, the derivation of each temple. 

Our bums aching from the pounding we took each time we hit a pothole and slammed down against the barely padded seat, we talked of this and that.  Laughing.  Revealing our lives to each other.

The bicycle rickshaw rider finally dropped us off at the New Delhi Railway Station.  We staggered out of the rickshaw.  Stopping strangers to get our bearings.  Crossing back to Pahar Ganj.

I led her up the stairs to the Everest Rooftop Restaurant.  Introduced her to momos.

And when we climbed down and began our goodbyes, tears filled our eyes.

"Thank you for sharing the day with me," I said.  "And thank you for sharing your self."

"Thank you," she said.

We hugged, holding each other tenderly.  Then she turned into the internet cafe.  I turned the corner to my hotel feeling so fortunate to have shared such of lovely day with such a lovely young woman.

Dog Bite!!!

It had started out such a good morning - the day after Holi.  The sky clear and blue.  A fresh cool morning breeze.

I exercised, took a cool-water bucket shower, ate half a papaya, and then headed to the clock tower.  At the chai wallah's, I sat on a narrow wooden bench with the locals and sipped my sweet, milky tea.

Being early in the day, the streets were unusually clear.  An hour or so later, they would become bedlam.  Auto rickshaws, bicycles, trucks and taxis sounding their horns, swerving, darting, hucksters screaming at passers by to purchase their goods, shopkeepers keeping up a mind-numbing stream of "Yes, Mam.  Please come, Mam.:" Children yelling, mothers scolding, aunties and sisters chattering, cows lowing. But now the street was blinking in the morning sun, stretching and langorously yawning.  Men slowly setting up stands.  Women, slowly laying blankets on the ground. 

Enjoying the openness, I strode happily along the main avenue on my way to the Railway Booking Office to take advantage of the Special Tourist Quota.

Then, as I walked past the Hotel City Palace Restaurant (in India, a "hotel" is usually just a restaurant), a large tan dog ran out from where it had been lying on the cool steps of the restaurant, came charging at me, and before I could take in what was happening, sunk its teeth deep into my right calf.  Then ran off.

I felt pain, but denial is so pervasive, I hoped it was just superficial.  Pulling up my pants leg, I stared in panic as blood ran from four huge fang punctures.

Men gathered around me in a circle and stared.  Black eyes, furrowed eyebrows.  Blood running down my leg.  Four fang punctures. A moment in timelessness.

Finally, words broke through my tight locked lips. 

"Hospital.  Hospital," I stammered.

A well-dressed man broke through the circle of men surrounding me - the manager of the Hotel City Palace.

"Not my dog!  Not my dog!" he repeated.  He commandeered a rickshaw and gave instructions to the driver.

"Driver take you to hospital.  You pay him 40 rupees, Madame.

The young driver pulled out into the street and before I could think or speak, we were off.

I stared down at my leg in horror and morbid fascination. My main fear wasn't death by rabies, although from accounts I've read, it certainly wouldn't be my first choice of how to go - a horrifying two weeks of excruciating pain and insanity - but for me, the fear was: will the puncture wound affect my calf muscle and impede  my dancing?

At the first clinic my driver stopped at, an old man cleaning the floor with a dirty old rag, waved us away and we darted off again.

The driver pulled up to the Government Hospital and turned off the engine.  He helped me out of the rickshaw and ushered me into the dark emergency entrance.  He explained what had happened to me to various curious people, maybe hospital staff, maybe not, I had no idea  Finally one young man in cheap jeans and a navy blue polo short dotted with the tiny white lint balls that form on cheap polyesther fabric came over and listened intently to my driver.  Since he had a stethyscope dangling around his neck, I assumed he was a doctor.  He ushered me into an examination room and told me to sit on a metal stool.

"Ok, Madame?" my driver asked.  You want I wait?"

"No.  No, thank you," I said and dug through my purse for his 40 rupees.

He took it from me with the typical waggle of the head, but his eyes returned to mine.

"Ok, Madame?" I felt his reluctance to leave me, his ward, his injured passenger.

"Yes.  Yes.  It's okay.  You can go."

"Okay, Madame."  He smiled weakly, turned and left.

The lint ball doctor's face was more Chinese than Indian- Round, his skin color very light.  He spoke good English.

"Okay, Madame, you will have to wait a bit.  Main doctor coming soon. Please just sit and relax."  He spoke gently and slowly, with sweetness and compassion while just outside the doorless opening to the room a cluster of dark-skinned people stared at me.  When I turned my head toward them, I met the black eyes of twelve black faces that studied me, expressionlessly.

"Excuse me," I said to the Chinese-looking doctor, "is it possible to clean the wound with some antisceptic while I'm waiting for the doctor?"

"Oh, yes.  Please follow me, Man."

We parted the lake of waiting patients and he led me to the next room where two tiny yellow-saried nurses with white nurses caps were busily sorting through some stacks.

Sunil, my guardian angel, was from the far North of India.

"You don't look Indian," I said.

 "In the North everybody look like me.  Chinese type face.  Near Tibet. I"m a medical student here."

He had just completed his all night shift in the emergency ward when I walked in ashen-faced and bleeding from four fang punctures.

He engaged in intense conversation with the two nurses.  The more aggressive of the two turned to me and in very pidgeon English said; "You eat? Morning."  She pointed vigorously to the floor.  "Morning?  You eat?"

"Half a papaya and chai," I answered when I could finally figure out what she was asking me.

How this figured into the treatment for a dog bite - the possibility of rabies and infection - I couldn't imagine, but she was adamant about the need for me to eat something.

After wetting tiny wisps of cotton with some liquid and bare-handed dabbing at the fang holes and wiping the blood spilling down my legs, he simply tossed the bloody bits of cotton on the dull gray cement floor, and rubbed his hands together, spreading my blood evenly over them before finding a tissue to wipe them with.

The tiny vociferous nurse kept up a diatribe and when he led me out of the room, he told me I must go out and get something to eat.

"But I can't walk," I said in a pitiable whine as I hobbled out of the room.

"Okay Mam.  You sit on this tool and wait here. I'll be right back with something for you." And he grabbed a motorcycle helmet and disappeared out the back door of the hospital.

He was back in just a few minutes and handed me two packages of orange-creme-filled biscuits.

The idea of eating anything seed repugnant, but I forced myself to eat three, afraid of the fierce nurse, and drank some water.

"Okay, Mam, main doctor come now," said Sunil and he ushered me back into the first room.

A tall doctor in jeans and a blue shirt looked superciliously down at my leg as Sunil explained my situation to him.

'Please step on the scale to be weighed," Sunil said.

"Forty-seven k," he announced to the doctor, who made some notes on a piece of paper and waved me out of the office.

So once again, Sunil walked, as I limped into the room with the two nurses.

Thank God, the tough nurse was a good stick.  One injection in my right upper arm.  One injection in my left upper arm.  One injection in my hip.  And one injection at the spot in my calf in the middle of the teeth bites.

Sunil led me out, told me to lean against the wall and went up to the dispensary.  He returned with a packet of antibiotics to fight the infection.  A tube of iodine ointment.  And a packet of paracetymol for the pain.  He patiently explained how I should go home, wash well with soap and water and the schedule for the remaining four more anti-rabies shots.

"How you go home, Madame?" he asked.

"Rickshaw," I said.

"Come Madame.  Please," he said. "My shift finished.  I take you your guest house."

I climbed onto the back of this saint's motorbike and he took me to where I was staying.

"Thank you so much," I stammered tears flooding my eyes.

"It's alright," he said looking down at the ground.  No problem."

And this dear saint drove off.

I stand watching him turn the corner and feel like Blanche Dubois.  "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

.
    

The Special Tourist's Holi, Jodhpur

It will probably take a week to completely get rid of all the clots of powdered color and wads of flower petals lodged in every crease of my skin and entwined in every strand of my techno color hair.

Each time I rinsed my hair and ran my fingers from my scalp outward, new bits of petals clung to my face and neck.


"All tourists sit down!" yells the stout fascist woman facilitating this special 'Tourist's Holi Festival.'

We sit as local notables are announced, stand, place their hands over their hearts, palms together, and bow.

"All tourists come forward to be welcomed," Saffron, as she later introduces herself to me, furrows her brows and indicates that Indian photographers should step to the back.

We continue to sit, not understanding what it is she requires of us.  She strides over to us and starts yanking us to our feet and pushing us toward the line up of brightly turbaned dignitaries waiting to place garlands of yellow, orange, and rust-colored marigold around our necks.

As the first garland is placed around the neck of blond-haired, blue-eyed young woman, the drumming starts.

Five young men surround one large flat circular drum.  One beats with a padded tom tom, others beat with sticks - the same primal beat that 's been pounding all through the narrow lanes of Brahmin-blue houses and havelies since yesterday.

Needless to say for those of you who know me , as soon as the drumming starts, my body responds, follows the impetus, and I start dancing.

When Madame Nazi Organizer spies me twirling my hands and hips Rajasthani gypsy style, she immediately rushes over, grabs my wrist, and pulls me in front of the dignitaries. She then extols the rest of the foreigners to "Come and dance!  All tourists come here and dance!"

The four young women from the Uk that I had met earlier in the day and agreed to meet at this happening, stand, and looking from one to the other, slowly make their way over to join me. The rest of the tourists follow suit.

After ten minutes the drumming stops and tourists are told once again: "All tourists sit down!"

A large group of Indian children scramble in front of the tourists and sit.  This seems to arouse the rancor of Saffron.  She yells at them and motions for them to move behind the tourists.  When they fail to respond, she starts grabbing them by their tiny arms, and to the horror of many of the young, new-aged Europeans, yanking them to the back. A group of Rajasthani gypsies appear, their musicians drumming on bendirs and tefs, one man playing a reed instrument similar to a zorna, and two women and two drummers singing. A slight adolescent boy takes center stage and performs an amazing belly dance - the coin belt around his slim hips jingling and janglih every which way. 

He's followed by a stout woman in yards of wide black skirt covered with mirrors and sequins and bright embroidery.  She performs back bends, picking up a one hundred rupee note in her teeth, then shakes and shimmies and twirls - her skirt flaring out around her.  Another woman - younger and slimmer, dressed in the same dazzling outfit joins the first and then of course, Madame Organizer once again rushes over to me, grabs me and pushes me to join them.

To the amazement of both women, I follow every move they do, and soon we're performing as a threesome.

"All tourists, stand, come forward, and dance!" announces Saffron.

When the area in front of the stage is filled with tourists, one man feeds piles of rose, marigold and daisy petals into the gaping mouth of a reverse vacuum cleaner, while another man points the hose upward. A shower of flower petals rain down on us: red, rust, orange, yellow, and white.  I raise my palms and face into the fragrant flower shower.

"Happy Holi!" yells Saffron into the mike.

The children grab fistfuls of petals from the ground and hurl them at one another and the tourists.

"Happy Holi," trumpets Saffron.  "It's color time!"

Instead of flower petals, bags of powdered, colored dye are poured into the blowing machine and it's raining pink, yellow, green, orange, blue and purple.  The air is filled with the perfumed dust of color.  Streams of color create rainbow arcs in the air.

The children go berserk.  They run to the bags of color, dig their hands in, and annoint the faces of everyone they can.  They take handfuls of brilliant powder and hurl it at each other and everyone around. 

Before my eyes people are transformed into a different species - a technicolor tribe of dancing, yelling, frolicking people.  Faces of purple and orange or green and pink.  Bodies splattered with blazes of color.  Hair thick with dayglow swabs.

The drumming grows more frenzied.  Color flies.

"Happy Holi!  Happy Holi!" everyone yells.

And all over India, people celebrate the vanquishing of the evil Holikar.  The world made safe for humans. 

Jodhpur Twilight

Dusk turns the Brahmin-blue buildings a deeper shade of blue.

Pale as morning sky in the harsh mid-day sun, at twilight the buildings and homes seem to suck the last indigo rays of the darkening sky, blazing radiant for a brief moment before night shadows the world and the spotlights are turned on the Mehrangarh Fort.

I"m the only person seated at this rooftop restaurant enjoying the spectacle of light and shade and sound.  And I"m perfectly at peace.  And thrilled.

I remember the sad, anxious, neurotic young woman I used to be, terrified to be alone.  Now I've learned to savor my aloneness.   I sit in luxuriant equanimity, my past left behind in the States.  I think about one of the things I've read about sadhus.  You cannot ask them about their past.

From below me, children beat drums throughout the warrens of narrow lanes.  Their excitement grows as Holi approaches. Already they leap and hop through the lanes, chattering and laughing as they practice with empty magnum water guns for that day when their guns will be filled with paint.

The aroma of mustard seeds crackling in hot oil rises up from the kitchens below.

My waiter and cook emerges from the steps. His name is Sunil.  He stands staring out at the fort as he shares his story with me.  

"I'm from Pokhara, in Nepal," he tells me.  "Not like India there.  Green. Beautiful.  Now it's three years I am in India.  But end of this month I go back for a visit. I miss my family."

He tells me he has six sisters and one little brother who is five-years-old.  "I come here to work. Here I can make money for my family. In Nepal.  No work.  No money."

He invites to come to his home in Pokhara.  "You will like it Madame.  Everyone there very friendly.  Very nice.  You stay with my family."

I thank him for his generous invitation, but explain it's not possible.


"Okay," he says.  "Maybe next time."

road repair in Jodhpur

The morning I arrived in Jodhpur there was a tall stack of rubble and two overturned wheelbarrows blocking the newly paved street to my guesthouse.  The still wet cement was decorated by an array of dog prints, hoof prints and bird-foot prints, like an intricate tribal wood-cut design.

Adding my own marks, I stepped lightly in the pre-dawn dark, making my way to my next stay.

Later that afternoon, one man was filling one of the wheel barrows that had blocked the road at dawn with sand and pouring it atop the now dry cement, creating a street not unlike one long sand box.

Early evening I literally gasped as I turned the corner of the street on my way back to my guest house.

A young man with a hose was turning the entire street into a gloppy river of mud. There wasn't one inch dry enough to walk on without the mud sloshing over the top and sides of my sandals and oozing between my toes.  Adding to the muck was cow piss and shit, otherwise somewhat avoidable, but now ingredients of this street soup.

"What are you doing?" I asked the man with the hose as he continued to add more water to the mess.

"Road repair, Madame," he answered as he sprayed.

By the next morning I sighed a sigh of relief.  The gop had dried and once again there was terra firma. I happily made my way to the clock tower to sip masala chai with the guys on the tiny narrow wooden benches.

But evening brought a new wave of incredulity.

Once again the young man was hosing the street and again turning it into a mass muck of mud.

"What are you doing?" I asked, my mouth gaping open in horror and disbelief.

"Road repair, Madame," he answered without averting his eyes from his task.

All day, tourists and locals alike sloshed through the river of mud and cow piss, searching in vain for spots of dry land.

By the third day of this cycle, I stopped asking.  I knew what he was doing - street repair Jodhpur style.

I've left Jodhpur but can't help but wonder if he's still at it.

road repair in Jodhpur

The morning I arrived in Jodhpur there was a tall stack of rubble and two overturned wheelbarrows blocking the newly paved street to my guesthouse.  The still wet cement was decorated by an array of dog prints, hoof prints and bird-foot prints, like an intricate tribal wood-cut design.

Adding my own marks, I stepped lightly in the pre-dawn dark, making my way to my next stay.

Later that afternoon, one man was filling one of the wheel barrows that had blocked the road at dawn with sand and pouring it atop the now dry cement, creating a street not unlike one long sand box.

Early evening I literally gasped as I turned the corner of the street on my way back to my guest house.

A young man with a hose was turning the entire street into a gloppy river of mud. There wasn't one inch dry enough to walk on without the mud sloshing over the top and sides of my sandals and oozing between my toes.  Adding to the muck was cow piss and shit, otherwise somewhat avoidable, but now ingredients of this street soup.

"What are you doing?" I asked the man with the hose as he continued to add more water to the mess.

"Road repair, Madame," he answered as he sprayed.

By the next morning I sighed a sigh of relief.  The gop had dried and once again there was terra firma. I happily made by way to the clock tower to sip masala chai with the guys on the tiny narrow wooden benches.

But evening brought a new wave of incredulity.

Once again the young man was hosing the street and again turning it into a mass muck of mud.

"What are you doing?" I asked, my mouth gaping open in horror and disbelief.

"Road repair, Madame," he answered without averting his eyes from his task.

All day, tourists and locals alike sloshed through the river of mud and cow piss, searching in vain for spots of dry land.

By the third day of this cycle, I stopped asking.  I knew what he was doing - street repair Jodhpur style.

I've left Jodhpur but can't help but wonder if he's still at it.