from Thiruvannamalai to Pondicherry India

Hawkers enter the public bus displaying their goods, shouting out the name of their edibles: samosas, bagged sweets, deep fried lentil puffs; urging the passengers to buy trinkets or charms of one of the 330 million Hindu deities.  I'm the only non-Indian in the bus. Many eyes scan me with curiosity. 

As I turn to see what all the hawkers are yelling about, a young man whose face and upper body are painted with red and white circles enters the bus.  A thin stick seems to magically protrude vertically in front of him.  But how?

Then I see. The stick (about four feet long)goes through the middle of his tongue. He moves his swollen tongue and the stick moves slightly forward and back.

The bus driver and and the first row of passengers (all male) watch me watching this man.  They laugh and look back and forth from me to the boy.  I'm sitting in the very front seat: a single seat on the opposite side of the engine from the driver.  Suitcases, bags of grain, luggage, wrapped parcels lean against the engine creating an island of goods separating me from the rest of the bus.  Stick-tongue boy moves toward me, but can't reach me.  The driver and first row of men yell to him.  He walks out of the bus and stands outside my window thrusting a gold-wrapped box toward me. 

I sort through my wallet, find a 5 rupee coin, reach through the horizontal metal slats of the window and drop the coin through the slot in the top of his box. The bus driver and front row men smile, nod, laugh.


The driver starts the engine and we begin the three hour ride.

Villages, rice fields, hills made up of boulders stacked one upon the other zoom past.  Rice fields of life-screaming-affirmation yellow-green. Yaks pulling carts stacked with cotton bags stuffed with goods.  Trucks piled with loads of twigs and branches strapped down and fanning out over their sides. 

A motorbike man almost eclipsed by the panoply of multi-colored plastic goods tied onto his bike put-puts by.

The bus rattles and bounces along the pot-holed two-lane blacktop road.  My head swirls with ecstatic prose: rhapsodies to the beauty of India's countryside and people.  My pulse beats to the rhythm of the engine. I sing a song of silent words in praise of life.

Arunachaleswar Temple, Thiruvannamalai, India

I walk along the dusty main street into town, dodging cows and calves, side-stepping cow patties, weaving my way around rickshaws, and arrive at the Arunachaleswar Temple.  Four large gopurams occupy four cardinal points in this complex.  Hindu pilgrims come here to worship Lord Shiva, who appeared as a column of fire atop Mount Arunachala which rises  behind the temples highest gopuram.

Darshan (ritual prayers) are underway when I arrive.  A group of about forty bare-chested men clang finger cymbals, tambourines and beat drums as they chant.  Their upper bodies gleam with coconut oil.  Intense jade-green sarongs are wrapped around their waists.  Sandalwood beads strung around their necks. Framing them on either side are groups of female pilgrims dressed in flaming-red saris, garlands of flowers--jasmine, marigolds and roses woven into their thick black braids. 

Other pilgrims are dressed all in white.  Some men with shaven heads anointed in a yellow paste. 

At noon bells clang, drums beat, voices raise in a repetitive, two-syllable cry as the faithful offer their prayers to Shiva.

Some red-clothed children in the serpentine line to enter the temple spot me as I sit and write on the marble steps of the sheltered arcade opposite.  I smile and wave.  They cover their mouths and giggle, wave back.  I wave again and they wave harder.  A group of the youngest skip in my direction, then scurry away in a fit of shyness.s  They make more tentative forays and retreats waving and grinning.  Finally a mother and six children all attired in flaming red walk over to me, the littlest children hiding behind the mother's sari.


"Thank you, hello," they say. giggling.
"Hello, thank you," I return.
We continue about five rounds of this.
The mother says, "I mother," points to man now walking towards us, "He husband."
I shake the soft Indian hand shake with all of them.
"This my son, my daughter," the husband says.  "Other - my brother's children.  We are two families."
"Nice to meet you," I say.
"Nice to meet you," echo all the family members.
"What is your good name, Madame," asks the father.
"Diane," I answer.
"Diane. Diane. Diane." echo the family.
"We take photo?" The husband points to family and me.
"Oh," I say, "I thought no photos were allowed in the temple.
"Yes.  Yes.  Sorry.  You are correct.  I forgot.," he says.

Bells clang.
They all turn to see where the rest of their family is in the queue, then turn back to me, raise their hands to their faces, say: "Nameste," and scurry off.

I lean back against the pillar, appreciate the cool breeze, and study the reliefs of melon-breasted women, flowers and elephants etched into the columns.

from Hippie Heaven to Guru Junction, Thiruvannamalai, India

They come here in pain.  Seeking relief.  Seeking truth.  Seeking something they suspect exists but cannot name; something they once glimpsed out of the corner of their eyes on one bright spring day.

For some the pain is emotional.  Pain from the past that has fouled their vision like a polluted pond.  For some the pain is mental.  A stabbing diatribe like a sharp stone in your shoe on a never-ending hike up a steep mountain.  For some it's grief or loss.  For others it's the pain of inadequacy.

Some feel lost.  All are searching for a path to the light.

"I just woke up one day and nothing made sense anymore.  All the things I'd worked for.  The things I'd accumulated.  Suddenly none of it meant anything to me.  I just felt empty." A healthy-looking, gray-haired man of about sixty tells the two people sharing the table at the German Bakery.

The "German Bakery" is run by Tibetans.  You walk up one flight of stairs, take off your shoes, and enter to the sounds of gentle Indian music.  One song - one chant repeated to the end of the song.  All the customers sit in multi-colored plastic chairs facing the "holy" mountain.  Mount Arunachala. The mountain outside Thiruvannamalai where Ramana Maharshi sat meditating in a cave for seventeen years.  Needless to say, when he finally exited, he had rid himself of all the excess mental and emotional garbage most mortals carry around with them.  He was "enlightened."

People come to the German Bakery for their fruit salads, mueslis, or whole grain toast and herbal tea before they set off to "Satsang."  "Satsang" is the practice of sitting with a teacher or "guru" as individuals come forward to ask questions and receive clues to wake them out of their dark slumbers.

I come curious.  I come open.  I come skeptical but interested.  After all, life is about new and different experiences.  Isn't it?

Mooji enters the silent hall.  Four hundred seekers sit cross-legged on the floor.  He takes the chair on the stage.  He is short and squat.  Caribbean with massive dreadlocks pulled into a mound at the back of his head, a few straggler dreads hanging down his back, a salt and pepper beard and mustache and an unflappable demeanor.

He wraps his microphone around his head, adjust it and looks out into the crowd.  When he makes eye contact he bursts into a smile that starts in his eyes and radiates to his lips.  He has a contagious chuckle.  Within seconds I find myself totally loving this guy.

"I am all the time suffering pain," one Russian man tells Mooji when he comes forward to the stage.
"I don't feel like I belong anywhere," a German woman shares.
"I reach moments  where I experience the "now" but then I'm back in my thoughts," an Australian man says.

Unpretentious, a great story-teller, with a great sense of humor and no-nonsense words that strike the bull's eye of human existence, Mooji looks at the person sharing with total acceptance and love.  He asks questions  that lead them on a path of discovery.  He invites them to let go of the thoughts that keep them prisoners.  He provokes each to a greater experience of expanded consciousness.

There is no fee for sitting "Satsang."  Mooji asks for nothing.  I f you like you can purchase a book or CD when you leave. Nobody tries to sell you anything.  No one tries to convince you of anything.  Mooji simply invites you to partake of the freedom of higher consciousness.

Mooji isn't the only one, although he's the main attraction.  There's also Unmani, a woman who cuts through people's ego like a Samaurai warrier.  There's Vanna from Switzerland.  Lisa from Australia.  Shanti and Cesar.  All hold satsang sessions.  Some twice a day.

The town is a veritable smorgasbord of spiritual teachers.  In every cafe, every restaurant, every chai shop--the conversation focuses on "enlightenment."

At first I felt irritated.  Non-conformist that I am, I wanted to don a black leather jacket, a studded dog collar and talk about sex, drugs and rock 'n roll.  But after 10 - 12:30 satsang with Mooji I beam at the people around me and almost skip out of the hall and along the field on my way to meet two friends for a lunch of thalis cooked and served in an Indian woman's home. 
                      

to and from the town of Gokarna

On the road to town jungle blossoms honey the air with their jungle perfume.  A sun-blackened, twig-thin man carries a load of groceries on his head hauling them from town to one of the beach cafes.  As he paces steadily uphill with his load, his eyes go to my face as I pick my way downhill over the rocks. "Hello Momma!" He beams a smile at me.  And I beam back.

In Gokarna town, The Shree Shakti Restaurant is full.  At one table a single man sits.  Opposite him there is an empty space.  "May I sit?" I ask.  "Avec plaisir," he responds.
Seated, I take in this person as he eats his masala dosa.
A pale pink Puma cap, delicate pearl and garnet earrings, a brazenly red bra--straps and bodice top peek-a-booing from under a hot pink stretch tank top, Rory, as he introduces himself, is a transvestite.
His midriff is bare.  A tight, short, peach-colored skirt reveals a pair of long hairless legs.  Purple bracelet on one wrist, imitation pearls around the other.
"I'm from Ireland," he says.  "And I'm a transvestite, in case you haven't noticed."
Rory's eyes are pale blue and smiling.  His black hair curls around the edges of his Puma cap.  Behind his left ear a slightly faded fragipani flower wilts.  Tucked into the center of his/her nominal bosum, a pale pink rose blossoms out of his flaming red bra.
"Fragipani is my favorite scent," I say.
"Here you go my dear," he says. He hands me a second blossom lying on the table.
"I love Thailand most, he says.  "They're so comfortable with lady boys there.  And the lady boys are so feminine and lovely.  Often if I just go up to one she'll take me under her wing.  I just love it."
Rory is maybe forty years old with a think Irish accent.
We sit opposite each other, eat our dosa and pass the afternoon.

Pacing myself as I carefully choose my steps in the loose rock on my way back down to the beach, a group of 8 Indian men pass me.  the last cavorts in what looks like Monty Python's "Bureau of Silly Walks" antics.
"Special jogging I do," he tells me laughing.  I start to laugh too.  He exaggerates his already bizarre jog, laughs some more and catches up to his group. 

I continue down to the beach to catch sunset.

Kudle Beach,Gokarna, Karnataka,India

Hippie Heaven

Maybe it was the three hour conversation last night. 
The electricity out for an hour I asked to sit opposite the man reading under the single, energy-saver lightbulb fueled by a small generator.  He graciously motioned for me to share the light.
His hair cascaded down past his shoulders.  Shirtless, his well-muscled body gleamed like well-polished mahogany.  The scent of coconut oil wafted off his skin.
Italian, from Northern Italy, he told me he's been coming to India for thirty years.  "Every year learning more lessons.".
"Nobody taught me," he said leaning forward across the table, brushing his hair off his face with his fingers,"I was carrying a stone.  And it was only me that could remove it so I could be free."
Without even knowing one another's names we launched into communication without barriers.  Intimate, deep, passionate.

Maybe it's the place: a cove in the Arabian Sea.  Blue sea.  Clean, silky sand.  A beach fringed by palms and jungle.  Not a single beach chair or umbrella in sight.  Only a couple handful of people strolling along or lying on Indian sarongs.

Maybe it's the people: hippies--old, young, neo-hippies, rasta hippies.  Bare-naked babies.  Bare-chested men in Ali Baba pants or with saffron sarongs draped around their waists.  Hair in top knots.  Old men with white beards and flowing white hair.  Girls and women in long flowing Indian fabric skirts, tank tops, amulates, beads, shawls wrapped around their shoulders or hips or turban-like around their heads.  Bangles and ankle bracelets and bells.

Maybe it's getting up, sipping masala chai while gazing at the sea.  Listening to the waves breaking on the shore.  Doing my exercsies and yoga on the beach.  (All along the beach people do yoga or tai chi or mediate.)

But whatever the reason--I am electrified.

I traveled here - to Gokarna - by four local buses and one rickshaw.  My taveling companions a young neo-hippy couple from Amsterdam. Squatters.  Yop - a part-time social worker involved with incarcerated prisoners.  Wies - an after-school art teacher who wants to write a children's book.  She could easily grace the cover of any beauty magazine.  Yop is blue-eyed with a mane of twisting writhing curls. Both sweet gentle spirits who invited me to join them.

We were the only non-Indians on all four buses.  Yop shared his bag of cookies with all the passengers and everyone smiled with delight.

I sit at the "Look Sea Cafe" next to my room.  A small stream separates us from the rest of the beach.  I sip ginger honey lemon tea.  Watch the slow procession of people walk the beach - each one a testament to individuality and originality in dress and hair design.  All of them happy, relaxed, beaming good health and joy.

From the far side of the beach comes a procession of nine India women carrying cardboard boxes on their heads.  As they get closer I can see that the cartons contain bottles of drinking water.

This beach exists out of time.  Out of place.  This is not India.  This is not 2012.  It's a spot on earth filled with smiling people with radiant eyes saying "Hello," or "Nameste." Co-existing like people from a utopian fantasy.  From Italy, Amsterdam, Germany, France, Spain, Turkey, Israel, England, and America.  At sunset they gather on the beach.  Watch the sun turn into a glowing crimson globe.  The sky streaked with yellow,  gold,         vermillion, scarlet, purple.  And when the sun finally sinks into the sea they all cheer and clap.  Here none of life's daily miracles is taken for granted. Then we form a circle.  Dig a hole in the middle.  Place a candle and light it.  Musicians play drums and flutes and guitars and violins while I dance before the dancing sea.   

  

city of contrasts

Istanbul is a city of sharp contrast. 

The end of summer, bright sunlight streaming in streaks from between apartment buildings, two women in traditional dress, bend over hunks of cotton wadding, pulling them apart to air out .  The cotton is from their winter duvets.  By the end of the year the cotton tends to clump in large patches and sometimes starts to mildew.

Two large sheets are spread on the ground next to the solo “fart tree,” branches reaching desperately up in a vain attempt to capture a ray or two of sunshine.  The women wear flowered shalwar (low-crotched, baggy trousers), head scarves, and vests.  The scene looks like one that takes place regularly in villages all over Anatolia.

But here, in Tepebasi, we’re three minutes from the Pera Palace Hotel, where last week paparazzi took photos of Istanbul’s elite: movie stars, entertainers, journalists, all dressed in the latest western fashions.  Slim femme fatales in rocket-high-heels, mini-skirts, breast-revealing-bodices. Men in stone-washed jeans with hand-made rips, Prada sunglasses. Hip hop, trip hop blaring from speakers.

And I remember watching a mustachioed man seated on a low-to-the-ground, thatch stool in one of Istanbul’s old stone hans.  Hunched over a pair of jeans, holding a one-sided razor, he scraped away at the thigh of the jeans, creating a carefully crafted rip.  Next to him, on the floor, a pile of neatly folded, razor-ripped jeans lay stacked.  On the other side, a black plastic bag filled with un-scarred jeans.  A slim young boy with a silver tray filled with tiny tulip-shaped glasses of strong bitter black tea slid past, placed a fresh glass of tea next to the jean-slasher, picked up the used glass with the traces of tea leaves at the bottom, put it on his tray and scuttled away.

Inside our apartment, my house-mate Nefle and I stop talking.  Voices like the serenade of angels come from outside.  We rush to the doors of the tiny balcony, pull them open, and see two traditionally-built (like oblong bowling balls) long, tan-coated women in headscarves walking through the street singing and raising their hands up to the people who look down on them from their windows, listening.  The singers evoke the name of “Allah” and ask for donations.  Turkish paper liras flutter down to the street from balconies.  Coins hit the cobblestones and bounce. They finish their song, bend and pick up the money.  Continue on their way singing.

And still every evening, every night the blind singer and baglama player sits on his plastic stool somewhere on Istiklal.  His patient son sits next to him holding a microphone.  The son has sat like this for the last 8 years.  From a small boy to an adolescent with first traces of upper lip stubble.  He sits next to his singing, strumming father in summer and winter.  At the end of the day, they each pick up their plastic stools and the son leads his blind father home. 

Fifteen minutes from here there is a bar called “Kooperativ.”  Every Wednesday evening musicians from Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, Iran, France, all over Europe meet and jam.  Dreadlocks and beards.  Earrings and nose rings.  Klezmer music.  Persian music. A gathering without nationalism or religion.

Above French Street, one of the most fashionable and trendy places to drink an overpriced cocktail, an exhibition takes place in an art gallery.  The exhibition was created by a South African woman.  It’s about the trans-gender people of Istanbul.

And last month the air filled with waving red flags.  Turkish flags.  A small star and a large sickle blazing against a background of blood red. Istiklal Cadessi a sea of fluttering red flags.  Voices chanting over and over.  Voices shrieking against the PKK. 

As the sun sets the two women in shalwar gather up the cotton, sit together on the sheets laid on the ground next to the “fart tree,” and stuff cotton back into their winter sheaths, preparing for the inevitable Istanbul winter.  From the building next door comes the drone of an old Turkish folk song.  From the building on the other side a teenager blasts heavy metal. 

Cultural Differences

My new friend M. is Kurdish.  He was born in a small village outside of Diyarbakir in the Southwest of Turkey.  An area of Turkey in constant turmoil.  Filled with Turkish army, police and security forces whose job it is to wipe out all Kurdish resistance.  Inhabited with people who are Kurdish.  Whose first language is Kurdish.  Whose dreams are for their own country: Kurdistan.

“I don’t understand Americans,” M. said as we sipped sweet bitter black tea in tiny tulip-shaped glasses.

We were seated outside in an old Istanbul courtyard surrounded by crumbling buildings. Modern young Turks filled the area, perched on tiny woven-topped stools at low tables.  Tables and chairs that looked more appropriate for kindergarten children than adults.

“This one American woman who is a musicologist asked me to translate some things from Kurdish to English for her,” M said.  “Then she asked me if I had a little time to talk. ‘Of course,’ I said.  So she asked me if I knew about the Alevis in Kurdistan.  I told her I knew a little.  And she asked if I minded if she turned on her tape recorder.  I told her ‘No, it’s not a problem for me.’"

M. sipped tea from his tiny glass as waiters passed balancing silver trays filled with tiny glasses of the reddish-bronze national beverage.

“So I told her what I knew.  When I finished she turned off the recorder, looked at her watch, and said: ‘That was forty-eight minutes.’ Then she pulled ten Turkish Lira from her purse and handed it to me.”

M. looked at me with an expression of complete dismay.  “Can you believe it?” he asked me.  “She asked me if I wanted to talk.  I told her ‘yes,’ and then she tried to pay me.  What is this?” he asked me.

“I asked her, ‘What is this money for?’ And she said—it’s for your time.  In America—time is money.’  I told her this is not America.  It is insulting to try and give me money for something I offered in friendship.  Here people are what is important.  And relationships.

M. shook his head in disbelief.

Around us Turks smoked and sipped tea and chatted about the world.  Packs of cigarettes were placed on the brown wooden tables for friends to share.  People picked up the bill and payed for their friends’ tea.

Hospitality and generosity still fill the hearts and souls of my Kurdish and Turkish friends here.

When I stood to leave M. and I kissed on both cheeks, hugged, and he insisted that he pay for my tea.

“I don’t want to start our friendship with an argument,” he smiled.  “I pay.”

I looked into his smiling black eyes and smiled back.  “Next time benden (from me),” I said.

I picked my way gingerly over the uneven cobblestones as I continue to try and pick my way over the uneven path of different cultures, struggling, and hopefully learning to live as a better human being.