Significance of the unexpected

If you take an autorickshaw, the majority of people feel that driver is there to serve them and don't see any reason to give respect or even say thank you. In reality that auto rickshaw spends the days driving around a lawn mower type of vehicle just to earn a living to support his family. The psyche of that driver means daily battles with the reckless and dangers of Indian roads. Always you'll find an confidence that does nothing to diminish any fear i have of road rage or accidents. There is an ease about them. A control. They know all the routes and hot spots and if they desire they can help you out directionally when questioned. For all this they are not given respect. A customer will work hard to negotiate the lowest fare even if it means little or no profit when paying for petrol. They will bark directions or not know the exact place and like me I have passed my cell phone to the drivers to help me find the way. They will always give you respect for a tip or to lessen an argument, but a simple thank you is like talking in a foreign language. My friend was traveling in an auto last week as she usually does with some students who have been locally sponsored for their college education. She took that extra second to say thank you and to her shock it meant more than could have been expected. Everyone is in such a rush these days it is more meaningful just to give a sincere smile or say thanks in appreciation for a job. That smile or two words goes a long way in making a happy impact in your personal customer service efforts.

Life on a two wheeler in time with the hem of a pant

The disposable society. Without sustainability, without a future plan how much is the value of one life? Most people can obtain a two wheeler and most families can fit symbiotically on that bike. Most people drive recklessly at one instance or another. If they are not purposefully reckless then they are in a rush to attend to an ill relative or reach a marriage function. In that instance an entire family can be eliminated. If you are riding a bicycle and your pedal is an inch or two out into the road easily clipped by any car or two wheeler passing by that instance you maneuver that bike past the point of no return, your life is in the balance. The same rules that apply to the people and their value of life itself can be said for the quality of the objects that surround that life. In five minutes a tailor can hem your pants to the appropriate length for 10 or 20 rupees. If you don't have that amount then your pant will continually caress the ground you walk on until the dirty threads hang over the back of your ankle. That new pant which will most likely be some blend of cotton and polyester was not designed with climate in mind. For all the ways to reduce your bodies heat, by drinking rye seed water or not eating chicken people will go around wearing corduroy pants and polyester sarees. The quality of sandals here may be mediocre but for the lifestyle the wear and tear factor means that sandal should be durable. The sandals here come in so many colors and styles, but i can guarantee if you walk down any street you can count ordinary middle class people with completely broken or worn out sandals. If you ask someone about my sandal being held together by a safety pin they'll tell you no one would fashion that pin, rather they would throw out the sandal in lieu of a replacement, but i think the reality is they would just wear the broken sandal. At least more people are wearing shoes, whether it is because of fashion of health awareness only young village students seem to be lacking the education about the importance of sandals. Since there are very few organized landfills, and even sanitation works are barely functioning people have learned to burn their waste or just throw it out. If any road has aqueduct like water ways on either side, you can be sure of a green grey scum and trash items littering its path. If everything functions in a non permanent way then how can we create any change in social standing and customs? If any problem occurs in your house you can just move in with a relative. You can eat leaves from wild trees growing along the highway. Sometimes the country feels like a free for all. Take what you can get and don't care so much about the lives of others, but the important notion remains that while people remain selfish they are showing off and living for others. The gossip chain will continue to link itself to the people until they can feel there is something more important to give them fulfillment.

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.

A directional traversal

Since it's been so long since I've had anything to say there is a some desire to explain myself. I could be that careless and just desert the idea of blogging at all, but somehow I tend to think in a few years when i am doing something entirely different I will randomly happen on the Lead Forward blog and just take a minute to remember. Since we last left off it was my 26th birthday, did i mention that my real age is 21, but you know how much more respect you get when you are older. If this doesn't explain anything we can deduce that I had a mild crisis as usual during birthday time. By this age I should be a multi-millionaire running a web design firm, I should have invented the new energy efficient time machine, or discovered the boat that sank the day after the titanic that no one knew about because it was lost in all the hype of the titanic. Since none of these things have happened at milestones like birthdays, departures from countries, or changes in life plans I tend to do some thinking. Regardless I hopped off to another continent for a work related purpose. I think everyone knows of my desire to join fashion design and social work in a humanitarian effort to change mankind and at this phase in the experimental life plan the ideas are just taking shape. So I embarked on the luxurious and affluent Indian Airlines journey to Frankfurt, Germany to design some awesome shizz. Which it was and as a reward, and a yearly ritual, i enjoyed a Greek Woostafarian family vacation, complete with ketchup chips and feta. Then back to India. I met one friend in Mumbai, enjoyed the tourism, taxi service, nightlife, falafel and walking. Plus on the return I got to take a 2 1/2 day train ride where I got awakened and questioned for possible drug possession and use. I proceeded to tell the conductor that drugs were bad. After returning to Chennai an aunties death led me to an excursion in Kerala, which was beyond my dreamy dreams! Needless to say I was in the company of my favorite inspirational activist Sherin and a talented fashion design student. We saw some natural places, ate some local herby foods, visited cardamon factories, drank tons of black coffee with masala spices and took so many photographs. After staying a couple day in Chennai I was back with Mathew in Chengelpattu trying to figure out the next plan for our program and my time here. I developed a speech for our college and graduate students meeting last week which was a success in terms of attendance and more motivational ideas. I only stayed to give the speech and greet everyone. A father turned advocated named Jose gave a nice lecture on how to plan for your future and achieve your dreams and then Mathew conducted some exercises with the LF members while I went on my way to Cuddalore on a government bus. I met with my friend Pastor Peter Paul Thomas who is doing well and as usual we discussed some life philosophies and I recruited him to help me find a new place to live in Pondicherry, the french colony with it's bistros, rues and other inspirational characteristics. I had accepted a job to develop a lead product for a top secret exciting new global brand making it's way in the fashion industry so I wanted to go into seclusion to do the best possible job. Thus I have moved, taken a break from social work and relish to give more details in the next post!

Suprise Party at Preem