The Indian reality becomes memory

In a split second
as soon as I sat on the airplane
India went from being
my reality
to being
a memory.
A good memory.

Developing perceptions

Not only am I maturing as a traveler,
my perceptions of India are also developing.
naturally.

Every two weeks I’m in Delhi.
And every time I precieve the capital city differently.
My preception has proved to be a good Inda-meter.

I have come to Delhi four times now
I flew to Delhi
I sent Sine off from Delhi
I came to Delhi to meet Sharad the comics man before the Comics Workshop.
And I leave from Delhi

First everything was new and exotic.
I did not understand what was going on around me.
It was like being in the theatre.
So different.
Different from the familiar.
Different from home.
I thought Delhi was as much India as it got.
I must admit, it was overwhelming.
Scary.

On my first return,
I was a bit more at ease.
Alone for the first time,
I was ok with dealing with rickshaw drivers,
but that was about it.
I was excited,I knew that India was full of adventures,
but I was nervous.
All my movements were movements of stress.

Last time I was here I only stopped for a night.
I felt important,
familiar,
going to ‘a meeting in Delhi’.
I was not a tourist!
I felt like a big shot.

Now, two days before I leave India,
I have a slight feeling of being home.
Things are familiar.
And Delhi is a Metropolitan city,
as cosmopolitan as it gets.
I am at ease.
I know where to go.
I know how to get there.
I understand what the people do and why.
I feel that I understand the people somewhat.
I feel that I understand the city somewhat.
I feel that I understand the country somewhat.

This is the reason I came to India.
To get to understand some of her culture.
I think that I have accomplished.

tourists & travelers

Coming to the end of my travels in India
I have learnt a few things
one of them is how to travel
Or, my israeli friend, tought me a few of them.

I have learnt to stay as far away from the Lonely Planet
Instead I talk to people
they are the best information
I get a detailed map
they are full of little villages
I read the local newspapers
for all the local events worth seeing at each time
I follow up on the news
it makes every experience more vivid
I read books about the local culture
as I told you before, Sashi Tahoor’s book has proved to be very good
I get different travel books, focused on small areas
they are full of gems untouched by the avarage tourist.
But first and foremost,
trust your instinct,
you are always right.

So now
at the end of my travels
I am taking the Lonely Planet to the bookshop
getting rid of it
too late
but better late than never.
Now you can learn from my mistakes.

on story out of plenty

Mumbai
Bombai
the city of plenty
Colonial Bombay
The most Indians
The richest Indians
The poorest Indians
The capital of Bollywood Bombay

Bollywood
only in India could a film cause the havoc that MY NAME IS KHAN caused in Bombay and other cities.
Shah Rukh Kahn
the brightest star of them all
got Shiv Sena, a political group up against him
for being muslim
making a film about muslims
Shiv Sena wants India to be hindu

24/7 reportage
there was police
there was security
there was almost no opening
it was the word on the street
it was crazy
I could not miss it
and i did not miss it

and i loved the film

There is plenty to say about Bombay
but this is the I choose story of the city of plenty.

The modern Goa

I was going to stay 4 days in Goa, the tourist state that was originally on the NO NO list for my travels in India. But there I was ready for a Party. This party was optimisim in the highest volume. Some of you might have heard that the ledgendary Goa-party died in 1993 (or there about). There is now a stricht rule that clubs may not be open after midnight and many of the world famous Goa-clubs have been closed down. What remains is a Russian and Israeli colony of tourists, with a few English here and there. This is the modern Goa.

The Festival that I had planed to go to was adverticed as an ecological party, the Chakra View festival. Naive me believed that and decided to go to meet people from my yoga class. This party was in reality a rave. a trans party. drugs. music. party.  This I found out after I met Or, the smily Israeli, on the local bus to the beach. I had not suspected anything.  The media was a bit more clever and up to beat and suspected something and got the police to investigate the hole organisation. The goverment agreed and banned the party until they had proof against their assumption. While the party was cancelled, moved, canceled again, moved to another state, then again to a beach in north Goa, canceled again, changed to a small party, cancelled again… in three days, we were in limbo. Or, who came specially all the way from the southern most end of India to attend this awesome rave, did not rest. I however was calm and easy (happy that the rave would not happen). Me and Or shared in a little beach hut right by the ocean. I enjoyed swimming in the sea, running at sunrice and sunset, having homemade breakfast on the padio – kurd and fruight and musli… mmmm…. eating and drinking King and Kingfisher bear. But Goa travels are not complete without a party – And the most interesting option was a went to a silent party. A headphone party. Before we knew it we had spent 6 days in Goa. It is extreamly touristy. Even more so than Rishikesh. There is hardly any Indian food to be found. But somehow it was easy to enjoy the simplicity of life and relax by the beach.  This truly was a holiday from traveling.

Comics Power

The one thing I wanted to do the most while I was here in India was to join a workshop of the World Comics India (see link on the side). World Comics India is cheafly run by an amazing man, whom I respect and can learn many thins from: Sharad Sharma. This non-govermental, non-profit organisation (NGO) uses comis as their way of communicating and sending relevant messages to people. The reason I say ‘relevant’ messages is because World Comics India does not preach any messages themselves, but they work with other NGO’s on a small scale on matters that are important to that group specifically. The participants of the workshop are asked to find the issue they want to approach, and then are tought how they can translate the message into a comics poster. It is simple - Everyone can draw comics: litterate and non literate, the rich and the poor, the artists and the person that up until now thought they had no talent for drawing. In this way the messages reach a broader audience, and the audience relates directly to it, since the main character might well be your next door neighbour. It brings the issue closer to you. There is no middle man, there is nobody preaching from above. It the people telling the people.

The workshop I got go participate in was in Chennai (previously Madras), in Tamil Nadu. Unfortunatelly Tamil Nadu has the highest rate for HIV/AIDS in India – Second highest world wide. My workshop was run in co-operation with the Positive Women Network (PWN) and UNICEF, who sponsored the workshop. Me and Dipti, a law graduate from Goa, were to teach the children of HIV positive women how to make comics … although we got the mothers to draw with us as well. 

In Tamil Nadu they speak their own language, Tamil, and are not well spoken in English, besides them being too young to know english anyway. Dipti speaks Hindi… And me no Hindi – no Tamil. Language was therefor a barrier although we had a translator, but only in the beginning as we found a good way to comunicate via body language… and comics. It worked wonders.

These children had never seen anything like me before -  white as a naan, blond hair, and blue eys! The first day they dared not to speak to me. They only looked. The second day was better but on the third day I was dancing with them, laughing and getting lessons in how to eat with my hands! We had a very good time.

It was therefore difficult for me to fully connect them to their situation. These kids sure do not call everything their grandmother. Their stories are almost unbelievable, and I wish they were.  Being HIV positive in India is probably the worst label you can have. The general uneducated rural Indian believes connects HIV with horedom, prostitues, homosexuality and other taboos. However, they also believe that they can themselves catch the virus by everyday contact with a positive person. This situation leeds to a total exclution for the positive individual. Parents denay their children, siblings do the same. The religion denyes them access to the tembles and other religios function – which is a big thing in such a religios society. They do not get work anywhere and the children are often banned from their schools. The worst and most important is that  they are refused of puplic health care, many hospitals refuse to treat positive women. This causes many of the women to commit suicide.  These are the situations these children grow up with, and many have lost their parents, one or both. 

PWN is an important part of their lives, socially and physically.  That was the purpose of the workshop  – to create a campaign for the PWN. The stories involved these bad situations and how PWN came into their lives. These simple, ture and honest stories made powerful posters and it felt so good to go out on the streets and hang them. They were proud of themselves, and I was also proud of them. And not only was I proud, I respect these children.

I learnt valuable things from this workshop. In exchange to a simple lesson in how to draw and make comics I now have a better insight into the lives of the less fortunate who are HIV positive and how important it is to keep up your spirit in tough situations. I also see how important it is to seek advice and the power of organisations like the PWN. If it wasn’t for them many of the participants of the workshop would not be alive today.

After this workshop I know the power of comics!

The Varanasi Project

After two and a half weeks in  Rishikesh I felt as if I was leaving home. The place is full of love and the people there made my stay there forever memorable. With a smile on my face, and a little happy-tear slowly going down my cheak, I continued my journey through India to the holy city of Varanasi.

My plan was to meet the incredible people of the Sankat Mochan Foundation (see link on the site).  Despite continually increasing pollution of the holy river, these people keep  fighting for a clean Ganga. Unfortunately my timing was bad, and they were very busy finishing an important report and therefore could not accept any help. I did however have  good conversations with these good people. This was very enlightening.

A tragic fact about the pollution is that 95 % of it is due to the work of informed and educated people, that is the industries and savage systems. Another is that there is an easy solution to the problem, however the government has little real interest in the project. All they want is the public goodwill… and they can easily get that by stating wonderful – but unrealistic – facts in the media.

Another huge problem, counting the other 5% of the pollution,  is the mentality of the people of India. The River is the Mother of India, mother of life, and is the destination for millions of Hindu pilgrims every year who travel great distances to take a bath in the holy river. But this does not mean that they respect the river – their mother. They treat it severely bad. Rubbish is floating by every ghat (bathing place), the cows shit in it, the aches from the burning ghats go into the river, and dead children and others that cannot be burned are thrown into it. It is difficult to imagine it being holy, or cleansing, let alone seeing any life thriving well in such an environment.

Talking to the people of Varanasi it seems that they take the rivers severe condition as an unavoidable fact. They do not see that they can prevent this. They do not see what they are doing wrong. They do not know the concept of respect for nature and the environment and hygiene. That I thought was hard to deal with.

Since I did not get the change to work with the SMF I decided to do my own little project. I got three disposable cameras and ten packages of biscuits and head down to the river one afternoon. I got some children with me and asked them what they thought of the situation. I then tried my best to explain to them that the Ganga should not have to be like this, and asked how they thought it could be better. After a little chat we all walked together as they took photos of the dirty Ganga. After a good hour of photoshooting we sat down for a long-awaited-biscuit brake.

It was interesting to see the childrens approach and I am excited to see the results. I know that it needs further development, but this project is something I think could become something more. Now in Delhi, I look forward to going to Chennai (Madras) for the World Comics Workshop, where I will get a change to work with children again. I am sure I will learn alot from that.

The Yoga Themepark : Rishikesh

Rishikesh titles itself  ‘The yoga capital of the world’. No more – no less. This seemed like the perfect place for me to come to get to know the magic world of yoga and get accustomed to travel the country of billions on my own. Rishikesh is different from everything else I have experienced in India so far. In many ways the town resembles a theme park, similar to Walt Disney World in Florida. The atmosphere is different, the menus are different, the people is different. Sure, the cows are still eating plastic wrapped cookies, and the sadhus bathe in the Ganga. I´m not saying this thempark is not in India. But the otherwise unavoidable crowds are nowhere to be seen. There are more pasta and hummus dishes to chose from than Indian curries. Here I feel that I can safely walk around after dark.

In Rishikesh there are Yoga Ashrams on every corner.
Between the yoga ashram there are yoga shops.
In the shops you can get yoga trousers, yoga mats, yoga meditation music, yoga books and curious yoga equipment of various sorts.

In this yoga town, this yoga theme park, I have learnt that yoga is not just yoga. Yoga is a lifestyle, yoga is a religion.  Here, yoga is more than stretching, breathing, meditating. The philosophy of yoga is that the universe is all one big system and everything we do affects our physical body.
Our teachers preach for vegitarianism, or veganism, daily. We get lectures on materialism. And healing. And yesterday I decided to follow there advice and saw an Ayurvedic Doctor.

But Yoga is not as innocent as it seems for the uneducated eye, as myself. Yoga also means (I advice sensitive people to skip the rest of this paragraph) … pouring water up your nose every morning -  drinking your own urine -  drinking liters and liters of water before jumping up and down and through it up again … or getting it out from the other side – ect. ect. ect.

All of this is very appealing to me. I believe that this is what the modern world needs.The so called ‘developed contries’ can learn alot for the ancient Indian yoga and ayurveda science. Im not saying that I will do all of this on a daily bases. You can relax, I will not be offering you warm urin instead of the normal chai when you come over. But this is what I hoped to find in my jurney to India. This brings us closer to nature, closer to humanity.

There is no need for wealth,  modern medicine should not be used for every aliment we have. Better yet, we should  be able to live much healthier lifestyles than we do up in the wild wild west.

a few things that are going through my mind

cultureshoks:  I have still not had ‘the culture shock’ and I think I never will. Things are different. There is bacteria. There is pollution. There are rules. There are castes. There is the bad bad smell. And there is the extreame poverty. Different languages. I am different. 

The reasons I have not had ‘my cultureshok’ are many. First, i think it is the fact that I acknowledge that I am different here, not the surroundings. Other facts include globalization. There is always something similar around me to damper the shock. Familiar weahter here in Rishikesh – Backstreetboys tunes on the train – cafes. India is not quite as different to the western world as I had imagined. I have indeed had some beers here and even a dram of (very bad very illigal wiskey) in Gujarat (the dry state).

me and weather: I have always thought of myself as not depended on weahter. Not so true.  Now i am starting to plan my trip according to weather… and guess what! Yes… im heading to the south for the sun! The thing is, that i want to get the best out of my stay in india. naturally. and right now South of India is the place to go. The fog here up norht doesnt only affect activities being less available, it also blockes the sights to the marvelous mountains.  So I learn from my dearest colleegs at ITM:  follow the sun. Perhaps that will be my no.1 advice when i come back… in stead of my normal: ‘there is no such thing as bad weather, only wrong clothing’.

indian food: I love Indian food. I even think I can say that I have aquired the tastebuds for it. I want my food spycy! But … after I got sick, 4 days ago, i cannot even think about rice. I just want water and a banana. Please tell me this is temporary!

internetcafes: It is too easy to spend time in places like this. I will go now.

the better guidebook to india

Lonley Planet is good for certain things… finding a place to stay and how to get there. “The Elephant, The Tiger, and the Cell Phone: Reflections on INDIA – The Emerging 21st-Century Power” by Sashi Tharoor (currently the Indian Minister of State for External Affairs)  is another kind of book on India. I feel that I know so much about the hole subcontinent after reading it that it feels like I have been here for years.

I recomand it to anyone traveling to the country of billions.