Verbal Incontinence in the Indian Subcontinent

Actually, my title is misleading. Delhi was extremely nice. Seeing Liv again rocked, as did meeting up with Pratap, his parents and his friend Jimmy, Liv's friends Kriti and Gagan, as well as Peter and Debby, who were in town for a couple of days. I got myself two suits fitted and roamed around most happily. The last night, though, was spent sleeplessly, fighting off mosquitos and whatnot, and the six o'clock start to Rishikesh was pretty difficult. So when I arrived, I spent the day wandering around, not responding to anything in particular, and feeling lonely for the first time this trip. Even when travelling alone, I've met people within a couple of hours, but not here. This was mostly due to me being tired and useless, but also because of this place. There is almost nothing to do and see in a normal touristy sense here. The town is mostly made up of ashrams and almost everyone who comes here does a course in yoga or scriptures or something, as this is the 'home of yoga'. So all the conversations I've been half a part of (by sitting at the same table and pretending to read my book) have been about chakras, meditation and yoga teachers.

I almost caved in by setting my alarm for 6am this morning, intending to go and see a yogi who would teach me stuff. Instead, I got an excellent night's sleep, went on some long walks, and read a lot. At the moment, it's 'Jesus Lived In India', a fairly famous book on the backpacker trail. While of course it makes a lot of assumptions because there really is no evidence either way, it's pretty interesting on the links between Buddhism and early Christianity, which don't require any wild re-imagining of history. At any rate, the author reckons Jesus' tomb is in Srinagar, in Kashmir, so I'll go visit that and report any vibes I get.

Other news, I went swimming properly in the Ganga up here, which was absolutely beautiful. I had forgotten how nice swimming in rivers can be, especially holy ones, I suppose. After my swim, I tried out some of the yoga positions in my book, fell over a few times, and am now feeling perfect. The start of a new life, perhaps. It's not enough to make me stay with all these fuzzy-thinking fools, though. I'm off back to Dharamshala tomorrow, there to make my home for a while. Hurrah!

Our trip up north was fairly chilled, as most things are when Tibetans are involved, I feel. The drive up there was on the most beautiful road I have ever been on. Alien landscape followed alien landscape, all backed by massive snowy peaks. There was a sea of rhododendrons, yak pastures, sodden fields, ancient, dripping rainforest and various scorched areas that looked like the elephant graveyard from the Lion King, or blackened Fangorn.

The road itself was quite amusing; signs all along the way either offered Indian-humourous safe driving slogans, or praise for the men of the Border Roads Organisation: "BRO can build a road anywhere but the sky." "Who defied death to build you these roads? The BRO" and my favourite, "BRO, flag-bearer of prosperity and civilisation." It was all a little Big Brother for my liking, especially when combined with the army checkpoints all along the road. You are not allowed into Sikkim without a permit, and to go north requires yet more. This is ostensibly because of the threat from China, which has coveted the state ever since the revolution. As we entered the northernmost area, another sign proudly declared, "Welcome to northern border region, the last outpost against the Red Dragon!", along with a picture of an evil Chinese soldier (or perhaps a friendly Sikkimese, the artist wasn't great). I'm not sure the soldiers would be much good if China did decide it felt like a war. The army camps we passed were all made of corrugated iron huts, painted in camouflage patterns. But the colours were not the greens and browns of the valley, but a jolly pallette of red, yellow, orange and blue. You could probably see them from Tibet. The Assam Rifles are reputed to be a hardcore unit, but their presence is made super-visible by lots more signs pointing to their facilities - firing ranges, ammunitions dumps kitchens and the Daffodils beauty parlour (I'm not kidding).

Our one full day in the north was over fairly quickly. We woke early and drove out to the Yumthang valley. Compared to the scenery along the way, the valley itself was mildly disappointing. Some yak were grazing on pastures spotted with purple primulas and a small river bubbled alongside. It had hidden delights, though. Debby announced that because she was Dutch, she would build a dam. Peter, a Canadian steeplejack, and I were foolish enough to follow her lead. At first the construction was just finding big rocks and chucking them in semi-systematically at the side of the river. As the dam grew, though, and Debby used her native knowledge to plug the gaps with smaller stones, the limits of our throwing arms were reached. A new, more committed method was required. Peter and I took off our socks, rolled up our trousers, and waded out into the icy stream, freshly melted from the glaciers. It was hard at first, but as our legs became more and more numb, a kind of frenzy overtook us both as we took off our shirts and got stuck in. The current was getting stronger as the dam reached further into the river, and behind the section we built, the water level had risen about a foot. Soon we were working on hands and knees against the current, uprooting boulders the size of televisions from the riverbed and rolling them into place. It was frantic, lunatic work, and notonce did we ask why. Just as we dumped the largest rock yet into place, the current became too strong to stand and our feet too numb and we hobbled ungracefully out to the side to sit until we could feel our toes again. My jeans were soaked and I spent the rest of the day dressed like a Tibetan woman, using my wooly shawl as a skirt. The dam only got halfway across, but it was most satisfying nonetheless to leave our mark on the landscape. I like to think it will survive the monsoon in a month's time, but not much does.

I have mostly spent the last few days in Sikkim being damp. We're above 2,000m, I think, and the capital, Gangtok, has spent most of the last few days wrapped in clouds. The main attraction being the views, this has been somewhat of a disaster, but we have managed to fit in a yak ride, some orchid hunting and spent a lot of time in a very good bar drinking very cheap booze. Which is good. The general grimness is accentuated by the frequent power cuts and yesterday's hailstorm which chucked pieces of ice the size of ping-pong balls sideways at you. I am still bruised. Because of our friendly guardian cloud cover, nothing is ever dry or warm. My super quick dry towel, which usually takes about ten seconds of waving it around to shake off any water, has been damp ever since we arrived here. But in spite of all this, I'm having a really good time. I think it is mostly the booze, but when the clouds finally cleared after yesterday's hailstorm and the peaks of Kanchendzonga, the 3rd highest mountain in the world, came into view, it really was awesome. Today, we go north, almost to the border with Tibet. Hurrah.

This might be a good time to mention some people we encountered on Indian train platforms between Varanasi and here in Sikkim. At Varanasi station, our train was delayed by three hours, and we just sat on the platform and tried not to fall asleep due to tourist paranoia about all the precious flip flops in our luggage. Indians have no such issues, though, and whichever train station you go to from around 5pm onwards will have hundreds of people laid out on mats, sleeping on their meagre luggage, confident that they will wake when their train arrives. It's quite a weird sight in the early evening, but perfectly justifiable at 3am, when we found this chap. He was, like every other body on the platform, lying perfectly still, except for his right hand, which was down his lunghi and moving furiously. He had no blanket and no shame, and carried on for about five minutes before removing his hand. Two minutes later, he started scratching his butt. Was the first movement a scratch or a shuffle? We will never know.

The second was one of a crowd of people who gathered around us while we sat on the platform playing cards at Patna station in Bihar. Backpackers always attract gawpers, and Biharis seem to be worse than most, but Debby being blonde is just the cherry on top. Indian men stare without any notion that it's annoying. When you meet their gaze, they just keep on staring, and if you make some kind of rude or dismissive gesture, they just raise their eyebrows and smirk. So the only thing to do is to ignore it. However, one man in our posse was hard to ignore. He looked like he had recently escaped from the asylum. Unshaven, his belly stuck out a little thanks to bad posture rather than fat. He wore a white dhoti-type arrangement and clearly visible was his catheter bag, slowly filling up, poking out from under his clothes. It was about two feet from Debby's head, and we both cracked up, but he didn't seem to notice and just carried on staring.

The third guy was actually really nice, just stoopid. I was really bored on the train, so I asked one of my fellow passengers if he wanted a game of chess. He looked in his early fifties, respectable and middle class. He was most enthusiastic and we settled down. Within about three moves, though, it became clear he had no idea what he was doing, as he moved every one of his pawns up a single square, starting at the outsides. Then he started moving them sideways and I knew this was going to be long. When I told him that he wasn't playing by the rules, he was very obliging, and would say that he had forgotten, or that it had been a long time, and laugh a lot. I tried to help, reminding him of the moves of every piece every time he got it wrong, but the information never seemed to stick. He really had no idea whatsoever, but kept playing regardless, until I moved my knight illegally halfway across the board and checkmated him. He didn't bat an eyelid and graciously accepted defeat.

Bodh Gaya was strange. At the station, we met Michael, a quiet, long-haired Frenchman who rode with us to the town and spent the next day with us as a kind of observer. In 45 degree heat, we wandered around, misled by guidebooks, until we finally checked in at the Bhutanese monastery. The town is mostly made up of monasteries from various Buddhist countries, varying from the Bangladeshi one, which seems to be an empty field, to the Thai one, which is a stupefying array of scarlet and gold bits flying off in crazy directions. All of them offer rooms to tourists, and none, as far as I could tell, had any monks in them. After a short rest, we went off to eat something and look at the main attraction, the Mahabodhi temple, the holiest site in Buddhism. It's quite impressive because it was built in 300BC ish but is in much better state than the Colosseum. It has been restored a few times, especially by the good old Brits but it also got knocked down by those dastardly Muslims a couple of times and covered in mud for 500 years. The heat made me extremely lethargic, and my arse-tap was turned on, so I didn't take too much in. As far as I could make out, Prince Gautama spent six weeks wandering about an area of forest the size of two Trafalgar Squares. He would sit in a different area for a few days at a time and meditate. During one of these meditations, he fed some fish. Another time, he walked up and down. The most important was when he sat down under the Bodhi tree, a descendant of which still stands on the same spot. When he got up again, he had achieved enlightenment and became Lord Buddha. I toddled off home early after this, and passed out. We left the next day for Sikkim.

PS When I met Mike the musician in Varanasi, I was extremely jealous. He keeps a weblog of his musical odyssey in India, but he gets responses to it from fans. Fans! I seethed for a few days, but now, with great fanfare, I would like to report my first fan (OK, not really a fan, rather someone who reads this but has never met me). It's a bit of a cheat, as he is Roo (as in Kanga?), Debby's boyf, but pleasing nonetheless. Hurrah for Roo!

When Metten left, I realised that most of my time in Varanasi had been spent sitting in the terrace restaurant of our guesthouse, observing the other backpackers and making spurious and fanciful judgements about their character. It really was fun, even if we barely met anyone because we were too busy taking the piss. Last night I was at it again with Karen, a Canadian woman of 35 who has been travelling for three years and hates many things amusingly. Once you learn to enjoy this essentially negative activity, the fresh cast each night (and the constant Israeli chorus with their chillums) can keep you entertained for weeks and weeks. So I am leaving tonight before I become bitter and twisted. Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment, is the destination, so in case I go missing in the wilds of Bihar, you know where to start looking.

Other than looking for corpses, the last few days have been rather civilised. The monkey temple is holding a festival for a few days of Indian classical music, so we went along to that. The performers really were world class, you could tell, and some of it was quite beautiful. My favourite, though was a great singer whose voice wavered and warbled through minute scales just like on the TV. But it was his performance that was truly special. While the rest of the band were almost static, even silent in the case of the sitars, he was bouncing around on his crossed legs like a nodding dog. His hands would make obscene gestures as his voice soared, and his facial expressions, which were clearly central to his meaning (as you couldn't hear any consonants) were those of a tired London wino. I couldn't stop giggling, and even though everyone else was swaying along respectfully, I'm sure I caught a few sly chortles. We got back to the hostel quite late and went down to the burning ghat, as Debby hadn't seen it properly yet. It's very spooky at night, and tourists are allowed much closer, as you can melt into the shadows very easily. We saw a pregnant woman's body being tied to a stone taken from a pile for that purpose and thrown into the river. An Israeli couple asked us if we knew the person being cremated.

Another day, another cultural excursion. Debby had a contact with a Dutch priest who runs Shanti ashram outside the city. We went slowly, by boat, cycle and auto rickshaw, and got there as the sun was setting. The ashram was quite interesting, an education centre-cum-commune where people can go and work for money which in turn helps expand the ashram. Although it's only 5 years old, everything is well-thought out and organised, with sustainable farming, solar power and local building materials. The contrast with the city could not be more marked. It's on the banks of the Ganga, about 15km from the city. Father Francis reckoned that within 15 years, the behemoth of Benares would be at their doorstep, but they will keep buying land until then, making the whole place like a city farm, to remind people of what they have lost.

Father Francis himself was quite an experience. He looked like Doc from Back to the Future but with Donald Sutherland's charisma. He rambled beautifully, as the best priests always do. He has been in Benares for 25 years, and had some horrific stories to tell about dowry burnings, mothers killing their own children for inter-caste sex, nun rape and other charming topics. His future looks threatened, though, as the Hindu nationalist ideology taking over all areas of Indian life is not just anti-Muslim, but hates Christians, too (hence nun rapes and monk beatings). His visa was linked to research he was carrying out at Benares university. The oldest Hindu university in the world is full of RSS (allies of the ruling BJP) types and his association with them has been terminated. While the Dutch embassy are threatening to withhold aid if he and some other priests are not allowed to stay, the Delhi government is so adamant in its anti-Christian fervour that they are not shifting. As soon as someone is branded a missionary, their time in India is numbered. He claims that his ashram is not a mission, and he is more interested in development than converting locals, but no-one seems to be listening.

That evening, we went with some of the families from the ashram (Father Francis was busy writing a report about his case before he left for Delhi) to an Easter service at the huge Catholic cathedral of St Mary with a thousand or so people. Apparently, Hindus and Muslims all come to Easter services, because any religious experience is a good one for Indians. The church was beautiful, as was the service - everyone was given a candle which were lit spreading outwards from the same central sacred fire, so the church slowly filled with light from every congregant. The service was in Hindi, but the only other obviously Indian aspect (apart from the complexions of the worshippers) were the two huge candles outlined in fairy lights next to the central crucifix on the altar wall. Under Jesus sat the bishop on a throne, flanked by his clergy. I was slightly disturbed to note that the bishop, who I initially thought was a Westerner, was the palest of the robed people on stage. His closest assistants to either side were next palest and so on out to the Adivasi-looking vergers on the fringes. The service went on from 10pm until 1.10am, and was utterly exhausting. It was nice to find that even a massive service with pumping drumbeats and gorgeous singing won't change the soporific effect that churches have on me generally.

Before Metten handed on the baton of cool Dutch person to Debby and left for Agra, we took a boat to the other side of the river. The contrast is striking. Because the Ganga rises about five metres during the monsoon, while on one side of the river, there are ghats, bustling with life, you look across and there is nothing but sandy emptiness. It really does feel like you're on the edge of the world. It wasn't to get some peace that we went out there, though. We had heard that the other side was where the bodies that are thrown in the Ganga (see below) wash up and get eaten by the dogs. We wanted to take pictures.

I have been there twice, now, once with Metten, who is quite clearly twisted, and once with a group of Canadians, Dutch, English and Americans, all fairly well-adjusted. Once they saw the photos I had taken, everyone wanted to come see the decomposing sadhus, and no-one was sick, or even particularly shocked. Some blame travelling for desensitising us, I blame TV. Either way, we were all snapping happily away at the partial skeletons, dogs gnawing on skulls and rotting buffalo. Happy speculation on the age of the bodies and their life stories was accompanied by laughter and general delight.

I was more disturbed by the little fairground-type affair that had established itself barely thirty metres downstream from an unhappy-looking water buffalo body. While of course, bathing in the Ganga at any point is fairly disgusting, the brazen proximity of these happy families to this smelly pile of flesh was quite surprising. I asked an Indian man about it, and he theorised that despite appearances, the currents were magic and would ensure the safety of the bathers. You can't argue with that.

The last few days have mostly been spent wandering aimlessly around the city. It hasn't been totally pointless - I have fit a few temples, museums and shops into the general activities of the flneur. There are many amazing aspects to this city but one abiding theme concerns something that some of my readers might find distasteful. I am sensitive to your stomachs (and indeed to my own), but it is so central to an experience of this city that it deserves documentation. I have, while here, become something of a master in this field, an expert in excrement, a conoisseur of coprology, a veritable Shah of shit. My nose can distinguish between the aromas of cow, goat, canine and human remains and the relationshit I have with my own bowels grows ever more intimate. India really is amazingly advanced in this regard. The frankness and openness of society's attitudes to evacuation can only be lauded. Indeed I see it as a logical extension of Westerners' increasing willingness to talk about our emotions, fears, frailties and proverbial dirty laundry.

Which brings me neatly on to my recent formal initiation into the Indian philosophy of poo. Yesterday, I was purified by the waters of Mother Ganga. A lovely boat trip at sunset was rounded off by a slip on the ghat and a no-longer clean pair of white trousers. The water only came up to my waist, mercifully sparing my camera and mouth, but I still take some comfort that from the waist down, I am free of my accumulated karma. A jog back to the hostel and a swift and thorough shower followed a cursory check for open wounds, and medical consultation concluded I should live to see many more successful and satisfying bowel movements. I was pleased.

Varanasi is incredible. So many words have been written about it, but I can't help it. Sorry if you've heard it all before. The city is the closest I have found to the idea of "India" I had when I left Europe. There is poo everywhere, as well as puja - the city is the holiest in Hinduism and there is a shrine or lingam (phallic symbol of Shiva) on every corner. Although it is mentioned in travellers' accounts dating back to the time of Babylon and Nineveh, none of the buildings are that old. Nothing looks like it would last that long, and everything is falling down. It lies on the Ganga river, and the reason why it's so holy, or perhaps a consequence of that holiness, is that if you die here, your soul is liberated from the wheel of suffering, the eternal cycle of rebirth, and you attain Nirvana. Sounds suspiciously like an easy get-out clause to me, but the results are mind-blowing. All along the river are ghats, like piers, where pilgrims come to bathe in the holy water. It is quite tempting in the midday heat (35 degrees), but we all know that the Ganges is filthy. For these people, though, it's purer than pure, and they are splashing about merrily, washing away their sins in what my medical student companion assures me is chemically indistinguishable from pure poo.

One ghat in particular is very important, and the reason why so many tourists come here. When you die, you have to be cremated at the burning ghats. These are the centre of an industry of death (and death tourism) that sustains this town. The first thing you see are huge piles of firewood stacked up around the ghat, to be sold to the families of the dead. Apparently it takes 200kg of firewood to burn a body. Pyres are lined up along the burning areas, with slightly separate sections for 'high class' corpses. At any one time, there will be around five or six fires going or about to go within an area of about two tennis courts. The bodies themselves are around, wrapped in brightly coloured cloth before their initial dip in the Ganga and then wrapped in white. The untouchables who operate the burning ghats (Doms) handle the bodies with little care or dignity, and I saw necks snapping round at weird angles and bodies being chucked, basically, onto the pyres. The families don't seem to complain, though, possibly because their relative is about to achieve the ultimate dignity.

Once the corpse is on the pyre, the closest male relative takes the sacred fire from the nearby temple of Shiva which has apparently been burning for 7000 years non-stop and walks around the body five times before lighting the feet. This relative has a shaven head and white dhoti and cuts a Gandhian figure. The pyre lights quickly and the family retreat to a comfortable distance to wait out the burning. It usually takes 2-3 hours. Once the top layer of wood had burned off, we could see from our vantage point exactly what a body in the process of combustion looks like. The outer surface charred, with white cracks which could be bone or fat, the shape is still clearly visible. The limbs burn quickest, and after a while all that will be visible on the pyre is a blackened mass which could be a piece of wood in the shape of a head and torso. The Doms tend to the fire all the way through, poking it with long sticks due to the intense heat. At this stage, too, the bodies are treated with little respect. My stomach turned when I saw one Dom lift a woman whose limbs had burned away out of the fire by her neck and flip her over onto her front. At one point I thought the head would become detached and roll, burning, off the ghat and into the Ganga. It didn't. The smell is not unlike a barbeque, and not as unpleasant as I had thought, but while medic humour compelled my Dutch friend to complain that it was making him hungry, it's not exactly nice. I've been inhaling bits of cadaver since I arrived.

Once the body is completely burned (bits of the pelvis and ribcage usually remain and are disposed of in the Ganga), the same shaven headed relative must take a cup and throw Ganga water on the embers four times. The fifth time, he throws it over his left shoulder, cup and all, and walks away without a backward glance. I saw a boy of seven or so with a shaven head being helped through this. He looked back. Oops. The shaven one is also then not allowed to touch anyone for 13 days until he is free of the pollution of death. Poor kid.

The ashes are then put onto a pile next to the river where they are slowly allowed to merge with its waters, but not before they have received the attentions of another Dom who stands waist deep in the river with a bowl, as though he was panning for gold. He is looking for nose studs and other jewellery that was left on the corpses and should be saved before the ashes float away. I suppose there are only so many diamonds in the world and the market would suffer, but my namby-pamby western mindset found this a little distasteful. Weirder still was the apparent absence of emotion from the families, who mostly disappeared after the fire was lit. I found out that this was for the same reason as women are not allowed to come to the funerals - tears will disturb the soul as it attempts to shuffle off this mortal coil. So everyone has to remain businesslike and unfussed. As did we as we left the Doms to their 24-hour task of booting souls off to Nirvana.

My stay in Delhi this time was rather short - just one night. Liv and I had a fairly slow day, just lazing around and one trip into town to pick up things. In the evening, we went to the house of Liv's beautiful co-curator, Kriti, for dinner. She has a really nice flat, which was apparently the scene of some famous filmmaker's 3-in-a-bed antics with her husband and her assistant before Kriti moved in. As with my previous return to Delhi, I wasn't feeling too great, and at one point I went off in search of the loo. There were two, and neither had any paper in it, Indians preferring to use water, somehow. I asked Kriti for some "loo roll" as my need grew slowly more urgent. I'm not sure that she understood, but she gamely pretended to look for something, all the while asking questions: "Is it too wet in there?" "Er... not really." "Oh, is it to wash your hands?" "Sort of..." but she didn't get the idea and finally she was forced to ask, "So what do you need it for?" To which the only possible reply was a frank, "To wipe my arse." She found it within seconds and handed it to me without a word. Smooth, real smooth.

Back in Delhi, very tired after yet another overnight coach ride. The last day in Dharamshala was very lovely. I bought myself a funky silver neckband which may or may not be intended for female Tibetans. The shopkeeper's odd smile gave nothing away. I spent most of the afternoon playing chess against a baba. He looked just like Samuel L Jackson with a long straggly beard, and his name in those parts was Full Power Baba. I was watching his game with another Brit and baba seemed to be playing very charitably - he would fork a rook and a queen and end up taking neither. I later found out that this was their third game and the Brit had lost his queen in both the previous games, so baba was being nice. When we played, he seemed to play more out of some aesthetic joy rather than to win, often eschewing an obvious take in favour of building up complex and subtle checkmates which didn't quite work out. In the first game, I was on my knees with just a rook to his bishop, two knights and a rook, and he seemed to lose concentration entirely and I ended up shafting him. Then we were kicked out of the cafe, apparently because baba had spent the whole day playing chess there and not buying anything. We went out to a concrete rooftop with a fantastic view and sat in the sun. Until I beat him again, we didn't talk about anything but chess. Then he tired of the game and started telling me about the ashram he had had in Glastonbury for four years, apparently to the delight of the local community, with council grants etc. Sadly a group of Israeli fundamentalist nudists spoiled its reputation and baba was forced to wander England, the USA and Australia before returning to Dharamshala, where he had been since he ran away from Brahmin boarding school at the age of 14.

He told me more about Malana, as well. Apparently, because of its remoteness, the Brits had never bothered to conquer it, and the only visitors were babas looking for charas. When the hippies came with their dollars looking for the highest high, some babas took them up there, and so began its slow modernisation. The dam and the road are just the last steps in a forty year old process. The people there only wash when their spirits tell them to, which can be as frequently as twice a day, or as seldom as every couple of years. It seems to happen communally, as well, and perhaps half the village's spirits will come to them on one day and there will be a frenzy of washing bodies, houses, streets and animals while the other half look on, filthily, waiting for their time to come.