Hot walks in the afternoon

The ceiling fan swirls around my head and the red, yellow and green sticker with handwritten Jah! in black letters that some traveler before me has left as their mark of passage flashes as i close and open my eyes. If you turn off the light and let the muted sunshine in through the slats above my door it looks like a disco dream with the hypnotic flashes of the swirling contraption doing its own new age dance in the air. I want to get out of bed. It's too hot to move. Occasionally i get up to drink water or brush my teeth. If I ever wash my clothes or take a shower the bathroom becomes so warm from the concentrated moisture that I can't tell if I'm wet or sweating again. I turn on the TV, fashion TV is like my visual bible and I've seen all the programming for the past two weeks now it's on repeat. The sound sometimes doesn't work or the image goes to miniature wide screen for whatever reason. Sometimes I wish i didn't have that TV hanging over my bed with the dusty wires that loop over and around themselves in the dusty corner enticing me to waste the hours watching some government programming. I take a bath in my orange bucket as usual and dry myself under the fan with the pastel striped towel that was gifted to me on one of my better days. What should I do here? I can go to my favorite coffee shop that has the interior of a marble castle with random staircases, one of those incredible black and white patterned floors like a huge chess board, painted pillars that are supposed to be reminiscent of wood. The bar has modular stools that clash with the luxe renaissance feeling and the owner Pushpa always makes something overpriced and delicious. I could take me usual table and draw for hours drinking coffee and eating baguettes while dreaming up something fabulous. I could walk down my street and go to the main dried up canal just to entertain myself searching for two liter aquafina water bottles and walk and walk until my shirt is wet. If I go out I'll pass the government hospital, the foreigners will cruise by me on mopeds, a school will be letting out for the day and herds of students will take their bikes and stop traffic. I can drink some fresh juice, check my e-mails or go to the grocery store and try to find foreign products like peanut butter and pay way too much to drink soy milk. Or I can lie in my room and look at the ceiling fan roll over and press my face into a folded up Indian Air blanket and ignore all the missed calls and text messages that vibrate my phone on the table. If i go outside I guess sometime I already know what I have to deal with. Some sketch man following me around, getting so hot and gulping water down on the side of the road, auto drivers incessantly asking me if i want a rickshaw, and trying to just cross the road without walking into a motorcycle or small lorry. I know what will happen if i stay inside too. Voices murmur as they pass my open windows, glasses and silverware clang in the kitchen, I'll order an omelet or some toast, maybe if i feel like it I'll change my dress and wash my clothes in that same orange bucket. I'm not looking for excitement, i can get by living here with all the good and bad that come with the commitment I've made. It's a different world and some days i just don't want to get out of bed.

Show some disrespect

Another eventful adventure occurred two days prior. Not a good adventure to say the least, but something to be noted. I have to say Aquafina brand water is quite scarce in the white town of Pondicherry and in my many hot walks of torture I have come across that rare gem of a shop selling the most sought after two liter bottles, noted it as such and promised to return there when in need. Aquafina is possibly the cleanest water actually abiding by the ISI standards of water purification. Don't accept any imitation or your stomach will tell you something quite uncomfortable. One location having such resources in near the bus stand crossing the lovely wine and bazaar district of Anna Nagar, some high traffic areas, and the street stealing hindu temple, because literally when you cross the street there, the hindu temple takes up about half of the road and busses of course don't care if you or a pigeon are walking they'll hit you anyway. So i took a different route this evening expecting to happen upon a random Aquafina shop on the way, but no such luck, so off to the shop selling bad ice cream that will give you a cold that promises two liter bottles. Before the Hindu temple right after the treacherous road crossing and after passing two women and a white shrited man he likened his speed to mine and started talking some nonsense or trying to talk something to me. He said he was a driver and gave tours around Auroville and i should note his number, so since he had idly slid up next to me and was walking like we were dear friends (without the hand holding at this point) i typed his number into my phone. Unfortunately he gave the wrong number, hesitated, literally forgot his number and gave me some other number instructing me to save it. I walked along playing with my phone trying to ignore him as he kept talking some nonsense half tamil, a quarter english and a quarter mumble. He asked me if i was married and had a family both questions I answered with a yes. Then he proceeded to say he wasn't married and at this departure I began determining that he was mentally impaired, somehow deciphering the signs I was aware of this. He put his arm around my shoulders and i pushed it off. He walked a bit faster with me and grabbed my hip in an attempt to pull me toward him. My body froze and my hand raised in the air. By this point I was freaking out yelling at him in my correctional way with ideas about: what are you thinking, don't ever touch a woman, have some respect etc with mild obscenities mixed in. Then i slapped his upper arm as hard as my right hand could but in hindsight i should have went right for his face. He closed up, didn't look at me slowed down, was unresponsive. I scurried along and he disappeared into the background, or so i thought. I turned back shouting every few steps until his presence was absent. I made it to my shop shortly afterwards and didn't see my glorious two liter aquafina bottles. I hesitated walked past a couple shops to calm down as I was visibly tense and sweaty. I circled back for the water, made my request, so then the clerk went to another shop picked up my bottles and i paid him. When i turned around to check my bearings the white shirted character from before was passing some bikes just across from me. He looked at me and looked down. I flew after him with four liters of water in tow. "You are sick! you are a criminal! I should go to the police! Your shameful, what disrespect you have! See that man, he tried to touch me and i beat him! He's a disgrace!" I was yelling like anything surrounded by about 30 men watching, just watching. One skinny man with a blue checked lunghi had told the shop owner about the sleezy man he witnesses me berade and slowly followed the man until he passed me and i went in the other direction. I thought he was helping me by making sure no one was bothering me. I was irate, breathing deeply, talking to myself, sweating, heart beating and walking back to my place. After a few minutes i called my mother, my source of relaxation, therapy and soothing words. I turned around at a fruit stand and the bue checked lunghi was still following me. I stopped at another fruit stand still talking on the phone and he stopped too. At this point I was on guard and fierce. He started telling me his was a Christian and that he wanted to put a tally on my neck. This was beyond ridiculous at this point. He asked repeatedly, "Are you married?" "Yes!" I sad over and over. Still he said he had to take me to his house and put the tally, the Indian marriage string. I told him to get away from me, to walk, to go and stay away. He walked ahead, crossed the road, and hid behind an autorickshaw infront of a liquor shop. I walked until i was parallel to his hiding place waiting for his next move when one auto stopped and asked me if I wanted a ride. I thought for a second and realized it was time to make my escape. I jumped in and told him to take me toward the beach. The u-turn that followed took about a minute as the motorcycles zoomed passed and the cars rotated their wheels to curve around us. Finally we were free, turning toward the beach and toward the blue checked lunghi hiding behind the auto. As we approached he jumped out waving, with both arms, for the auto to stop. I said to my driver don't stop get away from him. As we approached the red light i said, we can't stop here, keep going... he veered into a clear lane and speedily made another u-turn down the main road to the beach. I escaped. I was thinking to myself, there is no way that skinny man has rupees for an auto, and there is no way he could catch up fast enough to get to me. But what was he going to do. Catch up with me and try to marry me? I had the auto drop me at the canal street and did some extreme negotiating for the one dollar ride that got me back to safety. I know i paid too much, but in the time of need jumping in an auto was the best solution. I walked the 5 minutes back to my hotel glad for the locked gate and boys who would watch out for me if something strange happened. I locked my door turned on the fan and took a bath with my orange bucket. I let the water drip through my matted hair and thought about the psychological state of so many I have met in this adventure. Those who are tossed out of society. Those who need some medical examination. Those who could be helped if someone took the time to care. But who is going to help them if they keep pursuing the stereotypes of other nationalities, if they keep following the myth of the white skin? Who will care for the poor minds and downtrodden?

Another Ashram another rupee

So, as an unofficial resident of Pondicherry, yes, that is the correct name for the year 2009, but previously it was officially known as Puducherry. This is no longer correct. I have been walking around, trying to find inspiration, whatever that means and enjoying the 'white town' as the locals call it. If you stray from the white town, there are dangers of the unknown that may make you sweaty, so beware whether venturing to the bus stand or Reddiarpalyam the unknown awaits you. Actually what awaits you is the Indian Pondicherry that isn't as infested as the one with foreigners looking for a bit of their own countries flair in developing India. Needless to say living here is not as great as touring here, but at least I have my own place... where I have to be respectful of other visitors whom I may disturb as I was informed of last night and retreated to my room instead of the passageway which is the hall on my second floor hideout. Then be sure to close your door as not to disturb those eating at the restaurant on the third floor, whom apparently I also disturbed last night too. So much for solitary freedom. At least my roof doesn't leak. So I've been doing a lot of walking, which I can say besides the rise in my body temperature I thoroughly enjoy this. Still my attempts to run on the beach at 6am have failed, for 6 days straight. There are some roads where you can even walk without any disturbances of motorcycles, beggars, or auto drivers asking to pick you up or play carrom. I have one great English speaking beggar on my street who continuously asks me for money and one shop owner whom I told I had a friend who was interested in pashmina shawls and every time I pass he asks when I'm coming in. I avoid both of these people using shortcuts on the route to the main road. I run into the same people over and over again and get annoyed by German girls explaining stereotypes to Jain guys at foreign hangouts and pretending to know about their religion. I am shocked by the foreign overpriced goods and hotels, but tend to enjoy baguettes and brownies that are no where close to the real thing on occasion. I get offered drugs when i look like a hippie and liquor from random people in cars whom I pass by walking. I get snubbed by Indian french speakers whom i obstruct their path when i cross theirs. I listen to rap music at the Internet shop, but at least it is still really hot and smelly. I'm glad there are some places I can just go and draw, drinking ice tea under a batik printed canopy with handmade wooden chairs. But for all the random street conversations I've had about how corrupt ashrams are, or how people here are genuinely interested to show hospitality without and sexual intentions i think I could do without them. To know a stranger will always sit with me to talk about an NGO or a party and to have some getting to know you talks, I'm definitely having a different kind of experience. Last night walking to buy some fruit the Hindu celebration of Vinayagar/Ganesh was still going on for the third or fourth day and every lorry full of kids that passed yelled something attention getting. I did my best not to look. Hope I'm not becoming jaded.