Peeing in Typewriters

Back in Cairo safe and sound, and slightly afraid of all the things I will have done (or failed to do) before leaving near the end of June, but happy that each thing I cross off my list, at this point, is once clear step closer to getting me home.

As you all know, I'm currently phone-less, and I am thinking that I will need to just wait until I come back to the US for a phone, and take advantage of the huge discounts you get on nice phones when you subscribe to a new cell plan (which I'll have to do, anyway). The problem is that the US cell phone market is PATHETIC (example: I've already now had, and lost, two Motorola V3 Razr phones -- one original, and one V3c; there is now the v3m AND the v3x, but if you look on the US mobile sites, they are still selling the V3c like it's the latest thing...SO been there done that lost it lol).

Daydreaming about giving the Razr ONE last chance (I didn't like my second one, anyway, because of the internal design that comes with the black handset, which is nowhere near as gorgeous as my original silver one), I have been researching the V3x, and I found the most INSANE website! You have to see this. This website, Mobile-Review, is written with unbelievably bad English and unbelievable good information...I mean it walks you through ALL the phone menus (showing them to you), all the camera options (with multiple test shots), and even disects the MATERIAL that the screen is made out of and the way the keypad is assembled. I was blown away. I think it's really useful, too, when they add comments, about things like the software, and reveal that in certain aspects the developers were rushed and couldn’t work out solutions to certain problems in the development of the programs being used in the phone (how did I become such a mobile phone nerd?).

I also found this REALLY good website, called ConsumerSearch, that has great info and links about mobile phone plans in the US. I think that, since I don't want the limitations of a phone that will only work in the US (otherwise Verizon is great, I know), T-Mobile is the best option.

For laughs, check out this comment on the new V3x by one of the Engaget readers:

"The new V3X has a built in litho-nomylar plubium helix. Its great for those rare moments when you need a quantum tetranose boost. The only draw back is the unusually large quantity of fiscodiamium soft peed that it leaks during alpha phase 1. Never the less, studies have shown that most test subjects do not notice the cortical rot that this might induce until near end of life term. Have fun in any case."

Wouldn't it be funny (except not) if we discovered that the reason I keep losing cell phones is that I have experienced so much brain damage from talking on the phone all the time that I'm physically incapable or remembering where my phones are, so with each new mobile I'm increasing the chances of rotting my brain more and losing it again?

IT'S A CONSPIRACY!

On a kind of unrelated note, so many people I've met have commented to me, when they saw one of my Razrs, that "Motorola is SO American," which I think is ridiculous since, as I've just said, the US doesn't even HAVE the latest Motorola phones, and everyone knows Americans are whores for Nokia (as are Egyptians, incidentally).

The subject line for this blog entry, though, is actually meant to reflect (very briefly) on why it is that I might lose my phones. In India, although not totally sober, Desi accused me of having a psychosis related to mobile phones that, he says, is also connected to me being destructive and anti-gay (his words).

I have been thinking about why it is that I lose phones, and while I think that the solution is actually pretty simple and non-Freudian: I am absent-minded and lose WHATEVER is in my hands (Dr. Juicy was the one who solved this problem, as I think I may have blogged about, before, by mandating that I was not allowed to carry ANYTHING, a requirement that she facilitated by buying me a nice Tumi messenger bag [note: I then didn't lose any more wallets or phones for the next several months in NYC *and* my first 6 months in Cairo, until the bag was stolen out of a friend's car on my birthday!].

That said, a search for deeper meaning has led me back to the second grade when I, as a seven year-old (maybe six) received the present of a very nice, new typewriter from my mother. Things were NOT easy, financially, and I knew that for a long time she'd wanted to get me one. It had greater meaning for her, too, because she always wanted a typewriter as a kid (a candy apple one, if I recall the story I was told seventeen years ago, correctly) and was told she could only get one when she passed Algebra, which she went to summer school and did. My mother has ALWAYS been unwilling to think of money well-spent on a child as a "waste," and was never the type to think that buying a set of books, or language tapes, or computers etc. would be wasted on a child who couldn't fully appreciate them, and it was in the same spirit that she bought her seven year-old a typewriter (which I, to this day, think was a great idea...remember, of course, that people didn't really have home computers, in those days, although it rapidly changed and by the time I was 10 I had one of those, too!).

I really enjoyed the typewriter, for a few days, and I remember using the white-out and italics features with such delight, typing all kinds of simple declarations -- the kind you type when you sit down at a new computer that's off and let your fingers take-off: "My name is VC and I'm happy and my mother is so elegant but Cairo sucks." Just stream-of-consciousness stuff. I remember surprising myself, even, with some nice words for my brother who I generally considered to be too abrasive to deserve the same accolades as my sister and mother.

The reason I bring up the typewriter, though, is (as you can imagine from the title of the blog entry) that I peed in it.

Now, those of you who know me (even Desi has given me grief for this) know that I am NOT someone who is very public about bodily functions, and yes I DO close the door in my bathroom at home when I pee and I used to even lock the door (some kind of metaphysical containment of the taboo, I suppose), so you can imagine that, especially at the height of my perfectionism (up to, say, the age of 11 or 12...or 18 lol) for me to urinate, in my bedroom, was something that was VERY against my nature. It was against my nature (and still is) to be destructive and disrespectful of things in general.

So why did I do it?

I remember feeling, and I remember telling my ANGEL of an understanding mother this (people, today, would call her "permissive," but there is a difference between blind permissiveness and properly-directed, almost miraculous empathy, and to this day I think she understands me almost totally when I tell her how I feel about something or why I'm doing something, as she did then), that I liked the typewriter, but I had the urge to do it, and I didn't really know why, but I remember feeling like, for some reason, it had to be destroyed...maybe not destroyed, but tarnished. I think, perhaps because I knew the sacredness placed on it by the financial burden it represented (it was important because it was costly, or so the equation tends to go), and because I was so resistant to that kind of sacredness (even at a very young age, and I remember my mother telling me about my attitude, in this regard, towards money, when she and my father were divorcing: "I hate money," said the five year-old), I needed to reassert our control over it.

I remember my first pair of Prada shoes. I bought them two days after, in crisis and alone during Christmas my last year at Columbia, I buzzed all my hair off (well first it was: cut your own hair so that it's so badly mangled you HAVE to buzz it off...you know you'll have to), so I went to Saks and bought a GORGEOUS black pair of Prada sneakers (funky, at the time, for their Velcro, but since much-copied). I really loved those shoes (I even brought them to Cairo, before, a few months ago, giving them to the maid to give to one of her sons...the leather was getting faded and rubbishy, but the soles and everything were still in near-perfect condition), but I remember the surprise of a colleague, at Columbia, who, walking back from class with me in the middle of a small blizzard, looked down and said: "You're wearing your Prada sneakers through the snowstorm!?" Now, he had a few pair of his own, but he would never put them at RISK by exposing them to the elements. They were for sunny days where you could be seen with clarity, as far as he was concerned. I remember thinking, then, and I feel this way, now: do not buy something you cannot afford to lose or ruin.

I think that when, as a young child, you are constantly (and it is CONSTANT) subject to/aware of financial stress, you see how things that should mean so little (buying a bus pass, or a new jacket) acquire such importance because they are irreplaceable in their expensiveness: You have ONE bus pass for the entire semester (or year, if you could afford to pay that much up front, which we, back then, couldn't), and you have ONE backpack, and while my mother was never one of these types to tell you how much these things mattered (there were no desperate searches, when it got cold, for the heavy sweatshirt that thank God I didn't lose), I could sense it, and I could also sense that these material things should not be as valuable as we make them.

Fast-forward to a time of more comfort, and while people think that my losing things (and not crying about it) represents me not knowing what things are worth (well when he loses that camera he'll be sorry, and THEN he'll stop losing things), I think, on the contrary, I know exactly what things are worth, and most things are worthless (compared to people, I mean). I can be upset by the inconvenience of something (eg: my computer being broken and me not being sure if, preparing for law school, I have the money right now to buy a new one), but I am incapable of being UPSET over it. I would also resist criticism that this is about me asserting financial dominance over these objects, and by losing things and buying new ones I’m confirming for myself that we’re not as poor as we were when I was seven, because that would imply a feeling of continued financial insecurity which I no longer have. I think that part of maturing and understanding what financial security means, and learning when to be afraid (of grownups, of men, of money…) is a process of being realistic, and so while I can’t afford to lose 50 phones, I can know (and don’t need proof if it by doing it over and over) that I can lose a phone once in a while and know that I’m ok, and everything is still ok.

I loved those Prada shoes, thought they'd come through the snow ok (and they did!), and knew that if they didn't, my enjoyment of them would be curtailed, but it would be no tragedy. If one pair of Prada shoes means SO much to you that you can't afford (be it financially or emotionally) to have them lost or ruined, then it's not a responsible decision to buy them in the first place.

Back to the typewriter: I don't think that by losing these phones I'm continuing to pee in that typewriter (and I also don't think you can make it about me cutting people, numbers, etc. out of my life), but I do think that my response to my absent-mindedness (placid acceptance, combined with concerted, but failing, efforts to be more focused on what's in my hands) demonstrates a HEALTHY understanding of what things in my life actually have worth and what things don't, and I think that understanding was worked out, albeit in an act that was irresponsible and destructive (physically, not emotionally) in my early childhood.

This is not to say that we should NEVER respect the value placed upon certain things, even when that value is VERY out of synch with what it SHOULD be worth (according to our "people are valuable and Prada is not" understanding of the world), and I think, for example, that the fact that I never did lose my bus pass, or that, at 10 (and needing a computer for the ridiculous presentations that were the obsession of Orange County public schools, which I SHOULD blog about another time) I made SURE that my computer and printer were well-taken care of (even if people shouldn't, under other circumstances, necessarily have anxiety over such things), but I think that it's important to recognize when to give-in to anxiety over material things, and when not to. I will not be a prisoner to my watch, worrying if it’s been scratched, or to my phone, worrying if it’s in my sight at every moment – I will try not to scratch my watch, because I like it, and will try not to lose my mobile, because it’s terribly inconvenient and represents a real opportunity cost (eg: a plane ticket to Lebanon), but I will not walk on eggshells because of my possessions!

That said, I'm going to try very, very hard to not lose whatever phone I buy, and I'm quite happy that I've made it through Afghanistan, Dubai/Sharjah, Pakistan, Turkey (ok, I didn't take it to Turkey, because, not realizing that I just needed to charge the battery, I thought for about 5 months that it was broken), Israel/Palestine, India, AND the rest of Egypt without losing my current camera.

Without any plans to pee-in or lose "valued" electronic devices anytime soon,

VC

On The Road Again

Ok well it's my last night in Delhi, so I'd better get to updating!

Working backward, I've spent a scandalously-relaxing last day in Delhi. It was one of those mornings where I let myself sleep and sleep, to the point where I was convinced that when I looked at the clock it would be like noon or 1PM, but as it turns out it was 10AM sharp when I finally got out of bed! NICE! :)

My only goal for the day was to buy people's presents, and I have to confess that I've failed miserably. The basic problem is that my requests (other than the one for a white elephant...I'm still hopeful...) were for fabric or jewelry, and you really CAN'T be a stupid guy who knows nothing about fabric OR jewelry shopping for these things alone in India. I kept thinking how much I needed my mother here to look at the fabrics (she's one of those touchy shoppers), and Birthday Girl Juicy MD for the jewelry (I have been to jewelry shops with her in Manhattan, and either the girl knows her stuff, or she says "no" with confidence lol).

Anyway, I feel a LITTLE less guilty, since I bought everyone things in Afghanistan, but it is disappointing that when you do these flash tours of countries, with one tiny bag, it's hard to buy all the things you want for people (it looks like I'll leave both India and Israel/Palestine virtually giftless). I keep my eyes open for things for my nieces, or magnets for my sister, and I'm a constant necklace hunter for Shakira and my sister and mother, but in the end I'm sort of clueless, without very much free time (apart from today), and VERY space-restricted.

Sorry.

SO, yesterday was one of those 110+ degree days (YAY!), and what I've realized is that I am VERY affected by humidity, and not that affected by actual heat. For me, 112 and 90 feel pretty much the same, but 90 with humidity is WAY worse than 112 and dry (and Delhi is pretty dry). This allowed me to be an insanely-efficient tourist, yesterday, despite the heat, and because I didn't stop for food or drink ALL day until dinner at 8:30PM (minus ONE bottle of watter when I was done with it all at 5:30 and went back to the guesthouse to await dinner plans), I was able to check three important sites off my list:

First, I went to the totally-disappointing Masjid Jama. It was one of the last things built by Shah Jahan, and really, it was a letdown. I have to admit that my attitude was coloured by the guys at the door who tried to scam me 50 rupees for taking my shoes, but when I started yelling at them about how this is a mosque and they should be ashamed and they probably aren't even Muslim (as if I'm so much better just because I can make out the "Mohammed" carved on the wall in Arabic...or Persian as the case may be...) they were pretty apologetic. I don't have a lot to say about it, except that it was SO underwhelming that I didn't even bother to climb the minaret for the city view (and those of you who have toured places with me know that I'm TOTALLY the type who climbs into and up and through EVERYTHING...I can think of more than a few adventures with Curie in Spain and Portugal where I managed to climb into places I shouldn't have really been!). There isn't really any great tilework, painting, or calligraphy to speak of, and I'd say that the mosque at Fatehpour Sikri, as god-awful as that city is, was MUCH better (although at least in this one I wasn't harassed into buying mini chess sets where all the pieces are these nubby nondescript pawns!).

Knowing that I needed to calm down, and confident that I could find respite with the Sikhs, I then went to the Gudjwara Bangla Sahib, which although nothing compared to Amritsar's Golden Temple, was still quite nice (I'm such a sucker for good singing and huge pools filled with dirty, miracle-inducing water!).

The thing about Sikh sites, and my dinner companions last night agrees, is that you are really taken care of. No one is harassing you, no one is begging, and no one is trying to screw you for your shoes. In stark contrast to the Masjid Jama shoe extortion incident, the Sikhs *of course* took my shoes for free, and even blessed them before handing them back to me when I left! I just sat for a long time and listened and thought, and even gave a donation because I so much wanted to encourage the kind of environment I was enjoying, and I decided that if I were: 1. Capable of believing in any kind of doctrinal religious law (which I'm not), and 2. Capable of growing my hair and beard out and wearing a turban (which I'm not), then I'd totally be Sikh, because I really like them :) [ok and yes they are kind hot lol...in fact the most striking women I've seen in India have all been Sikh, and I think I've gushed enough about the men...or did I not yet talk about Chandigarh? lol]

After the Sikh temple, I went to the Indira Ghandi memorial. I wasn't originally going to go, but after having seen the Nehru family home in Allahabad, and having sort of been immersed almost as much in the history of that family as I have been in the Mughal line, since coming to India, I decided I should pay the spot of her assassination a visit (to be gruesomely honest, the fact that her bloody sari is on display, there, and you can see the path where she took her last steps before being shot by her, um, Sikh bodyguards, had a huge appeal!). It didn't have the same serenity as the home in Allahabad, but I still really enjoyed it, and it was EXTREMELY well-curated. When you walk in the door, you immediately hit a class display column in which there is a photo of Indira Ghandi in her later years watching a young child standing in the doorway; what you then realize is that you are standing in the same spot as the child, and although you are here to watch Indira, she is really watching you -- really good curating.

Since I'm SO time-limited (I have less than another hour to tell you all about the things I haven't, so far!) I won't go into my thoughts on the fact that none (ZERO) of her personal letters (and I knew this from seeing them in Allahabad, as well) are written in anything but English (with some French, mostly to be cute, when she wrote home to her father), and while I agree with people who talk about the adoption of English as an INDIAN language, and ... wait ... I just said I'm not going to talk about all this. Well fine, if you want to know my thoughts on languages in India and the tense space that English occupies, then call me in Egypt and ask me, or invite me to lunch when I'm back in the US and ask me, there :) And while you're at it, you can ALSO ask me what I think about these political dynasties that are so often set up by neo-Communist elites, who write endlessly in non-native tongues from their country estates about the need to reclaim national sovereignty, shed the colonial yoke, and promote an equitable distribution of resources.

I had dinner at my favourite-ish restaurant (the one with the amazing garlic bread in Saket, Azurao) with the friend and his boyfriend Desi introduced me to, and the date who was assigned to me, a Parsi puppeter (a rare find in both senses!) who is apparently from a really old family now living in Pune. From Degas to the Parsi puppeter, it's always the ones who are inheriting who feel the need (ie: have the freedom) to be artists...anyway, he's apparently one of the top puppeters in India, and is always jetting around to do shows ranging from HIV/AIDS awareness themes in slum areas to Indian classics in Singapore, and I think that it's pretty cool. That said, the dinner was TOTALLY unromantic, and when he asked me when he was driving me home if we were going to my place or to his, I had to politely explain to him that I don't transition that easily from absolute non-romantic mode to "ok, your place," and he understood (although he did try to sneak a kiss that came off very awkwardly outside my guesthouse). In all, and nice guy, and we might all have dinner again, tonight, but not the Indian romance I was looking for (poor Pookie probably has fingers crossed on every trip I go on that I will set my sites on someone else! lol).

Speaking of romance, I guess I should take us all back to my cliffhanger about the Punjabis in Chandigarh. Well despite my mother's slightly disturbing email wishing me "sweet nights" (ewww!), I'm afraid that despite Desi and my obvious popularity amongst the Punjabis, we still slept alone in in our hotel in Chandigarh lol (sorry for the multi-day cliffhanger). After we toured the Corbusier-designed high court (I think I wrote about that?...yes because I told you about the Sikh desk attendant) we went to a "fantasy rock garden" (I think I also wrote about that? Desi's compulsive indexing of each of the equally non-fantastic humanoid rock formations?), and then to the lake. As much as I don't consider myself a water person, a nice waterfront REALLY does make a place so much more peaceful. We strolled up and down, were accosted by Punjabis galore, and witnessed (and then fought over our interpretations of) an interesting mixture of family relaxation (swan-shaped peddle-boats, ice cream vendors, etc.) and mischievous youth cruising ground. After having dinner at a restaurant that I fell in love with while Desi was using the toilet, there, earlier in the day (and then, not realizing the name of it, read about it in Lonely Planet to Desi and said: "Ok, well if we don't go back to that one earlier, then I want to go to Picadilly's Blue Ice -- it sounds really cool, and a lot like the place we saw earlier" Desi was like: "That WAS the place we were at, earlier.").

The dinner was sort of interesting, because there was a couples-only policy for eating upstairs, which was weird because it only made the cruisey-eye of gay-friendly clientele all the more efficient in its search downstairs! Things got a bit out of hand when the manager/owner/something (we have the same in Egypt -- groups of mid-20s boys whose families have too much money and so they engage in the entrepreneurial pursuit of opening a poorly-managed, but still chic and cool for the location, club/bar/restaurant) came over to us (after having already drunkely wandered by, once, on his way to the restroom, telling the waiters to "give us the best shit") and encouraged us to come to some rave in a hill station, somewhere, where, he bragged, there would be people on crystal meth, ecstasy, "liquid pot" lol...one pretty awkward moment occurred when, after having brazenly commented to his friend about how they would split up the chics upstairs, one of whom, he told us, was from Chicago, OR just share the Chicago one in a 3some, we were asking his friend where there was to go at night for fun, and this guy BENDS OVER, and, pointing to his rear, tells his friend that "that's the only fun he's going to get tonight"!). I can't stand these drunk, aggressive, homophobic closet-cases (aka: all of Egypt's upper-middle class and elite male youth).

AH! My account is running out! Despite having more than 30 minutes left, an annoying message keeps coming up every minute or two warning me that I have "approximately 15 minutes left" and I need to recharge. Um, no.

Anyway, the dinner ended with multiple people taking our photos, getting our contact info, etc. (bordering on what Desi calls "critical pundi," where the pundi -- or cruiseyness -- of a place gets near explosion) and as the chaos mounted and became a bit awkward, we left for a lakeside walk. We ended up meeting a score of university students eager to tell us all about the different sports they specialized in (I have to tell you: it didn't show), and after being bitten by about 100 mosquitoes while with them by the lake, and narrowly avoiding what would have no-doubt been an unwise invitation to spend the night in the dorm, Desi and I walked ALL THE WAY across Chandigarh to get back to our hotel.

Well I'd better go, but when I get back to Egypt I promise to tell you about Amritsar (not much to tell, but I really enjoyed it there!), my thoughts on the book I'm reading (City of Djinns...about Delhi), and give you my list of rail station offices (I copied them down, before coming back from Allahabad, because I didn't think you'd believe me about how absurd they are!). Here's to wishing everyone a happy blog read, and I'll be in touch probably on 7 May, when I'll be back at AUC (booo!).

Wanting nothing more than to be done with Egypt and on a plane to the US to see my Moo,

VC

Happy International Birthday, Juicy!

Ok everyone, I know I said I was done for the night (it's almost 9:30PM and I have had a bag of chips and a hash brown to hold me for the past 30 hours!), but before I disappear into the night in Allahabad, I want to wish Juicy, MD a really special birthday.

Now, as everyone who reads this knows, I'm terrible with birthdays, so true to form, I totally missed hers (TOTALLY meaning by 3 days), and while I did email her NINE days early, in anticipation that I would, on the occasion and delusional from Indian heat (and probably dysentery), forget, I now remember that I've forgotten (how is THAT for post-modern!?), and want to belatedly, and repeatedly, wish her a happy birthday.

In the Pizza Hut's in India (at least the one Desi and I went to in Amritsar and the one I went to, um, TWICE in Agra) they have two very important traditions: 1. You ring a silver bell on the way out of you had a good time; 2. You do an elaborate birthday song while the birthday kid stands on a chair and you clap and refer to the person as "Miss" or "Sir" and sing both the American version and the Indian version (which is weird, because it's in English and is about God blessing you...or something).

Anyway, I'm putting Juicy on a figurative chair, singing her happy birthday, and ringing ma bell (in the words of Donna Summer...which I think was a dual reference to picking someone up/visiting for a date AND clitoral stimulation...but we're forgetting that and co-opting it for a birthday).

UGH, her other gay friend in med school is SO making ground on me with this one! I hope he sucks at remembering birthdays, too!

More importantly: I hope she has had a wonderful birthday (and rocked all her exams).

Effusively and with birthday cheer,

VC

From Varanasi to Allahabad

I'll start with my haiku for Varanasi:

Salvation no more
Shiva shamed in Ganges ghats
Sandalwood wasted

To get you to speed: Varanasi is SUPER holy, the city of Shiva (the god who is both destroyer, in this firm, and creator), and place where people come to cleanse themselves in the Ganges (cleanse in the spiritual sense -- no one is getting any cleaner in there, since the river contains 3,000 times too much fecal bacteria to be considered safe to bathe in, if you crunch the numbers in Lonely Planet), and also cleanse the bodies of their dead relatives before setting them on fire in the river. You can read about the rituals and their significance yourself, but what you can expect of the city is that it's holy, hot, contested (Muslim mosques built atop Hindu temples, and vice versa), filthy, and contains a good many burning corpses.

Because a few temples of greatest interest me are totally closed to the public, I followed my brief (not THAT brief) episode of being lost downtown (the auto-rickshaws are not allowed to go all the way to the water) with a long walk along the entire length of the Ganges ghat (think: dock for cleansing people) area (a couple miles).

I don't have a lot to say. It's beautiful, and I was lucky to go when there weren't any crowds at all, even at the most famous cremation ghat, and it was a nice walk (even though I was so sweaty it was like I was in the shower). The problem, and the problem with Agra and Fatehpour Sikri, as well, is that you are under SUCH constant assault from people offering their services (in Varanasi they are offering to take you on a boat ride or to a guest house) and they are SO aggressive that it's quite miserable. I mean, in Agra you have 5 year old girls chasing you SCREAMING, as you are entering the ticket line for the Taj, the price of admission...like you didn't know, or couldn't figure it out, and like screaming un-needed information at someone, repeatedly, while chasing them down the street is a form of employment or deserves compensation. My problem is not being watched...in Afghanistan I was VERY much watched...my problem is having someone else in my face constantly...it makes me an unpleasant person.

I actually got in a bit of a fight with a guy at the Manikarnika Ghat (according to LP: "The most auspicious places for a Hindu to be cremated") because I was watching, from afar (like from quite a ways away) and when I kept refusing to let him take me to the family's ceremony (people DO watch, but it's considered rude to take photos) and I told him in Hindi, with a definite mixture of dismissiveness and aggression, to "go," he said that I had no business talking to him disrespectfully in "his palace." I told him that this wasn't his palace, that it was every one's palace, and that I wanted to THINK (this has being something I had to repeatedly tell people in Agra -- I want to THINK, and I don't want some one's endless chatter or nonsense...some of the places we are at are HOLY SITES, and I want to be CONTEMPLATIVE when I am in them!), and that HE was disrespectful to break my silence. Oh! That reminds me -- I also got a "fuck you, man" from a guy who tried to harass me on the street. Story as old as time...or at least as old as India (which is to day: about six decades): I was walking on the street, ignored him when he stepped in my path and asked me where I was going, where I was staying, did I need a guest house, a boat, good price, hello, hello, hey sir, good discount, the temple is that way, the ocean is that way (it's not even an ocean!), etc. and I told him "no" and to "go" and he continued, unrelenting, so I steadily pressed his chest away from me (which Desi has observed is quite effective -- you are walking, and someone is rushing next to you, and without a word or a look, you just push them calmly back), but he grabbed by arm, and I said to him: "Do NOT touch me," and he said "don't touch ME" and followed up with his f-wish. Oh well!

Long story short: I did the ghat tour of Varanasi and more or less avoided the contested temples (there are only two), although I did observe the Alamgir mosque, which I was drawn to by some weird school (I got a photo) above the Panchganga Ghat (the ghat where five rivers, which ones I don't know, supposedly meet) which seemed to be some kind of an exercise facility for muscles and scantily-clad half-Hindu/half-Buddhist monks...I mean it was really weird. I was standing there, above the river (or five) and there was just like FLOODS of men coming from this white metal cage of a building...I hiked the steps (and they are so steep and it is SO hot, and there is SO much fecal matter and urine in the air that even I thought I might be compromised, in terms of my normally-hardy spirit) towards it and ended up, to my left, at Aurangzeb's mosque.
North India monument rundown: everything is built by Akbar, as well as his son, Jehangir, and HIS son, Shah Jahan, who was killed by HIS son, Aurangzeb. You actually sort of start to feel for the personalities involved: Akbar's religious tollerance, Shah Jahan's love for Mumtaz (for whom he built the Taj)...you start to think about his gentle love of white marble and Aurangzeb's greed...

ANYWAY! I got on the bus to Allahabad, which only took 30 minutes longer than Lonely Planet said it would, and after an initially negative encounter with SWARMS of rickshaw drivers (all cycles, unfortunately), I finally got my bearings (the bus, of course, dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, NOT at the actual bus station, but I knew we were within walking distance of the Hotel Milan Palace...no hot Italian men staying in it, for those of you who are wondering, and the bell boy does not wear Prada) and made it to the hotel. I'm pleasantly surprised by the room.
UGH my blog stamina is decreasing really rapidly.

Ok finish Allahabad -->

I forced myself out of my room, even though I have not been THIS dirty and exhausted in a really REALLY long time (I just ache, and by the time I checked-in to the hotel and went to my bathroom, I physically had dirt SMEARED on my face, like I looked like a chimney sweep!), and went to one of the most enjoyable things I've seen on the trip (thereby making Allahabad worth it), which is the Anand Bhavan -- the home of Motilal Nehru (Congress Party guy who worked with Ghandi as the first Prime Minister of India and who, against Ghandi's wishes, moved for partition and the formation of the separate state of Pakistan)...he's the father of Indira Ghandi (not related to the GOOD Ghandi lol), which is the one you read about in Mistry's "Fine Balance," and who, herself both tyrannical and revolutionary, gave birth to two sons, one of whom scandalized himself by continuing HER forced sterilization campaigns, and who was assassinated, and the other of whom innocently married an Italian woman (Sonia) while he was an Air India pilot in Italy, and who, when his brother was assassinated, reluctantly took charge (he was ALSO assassinated, and it was his wife, Sonia, who was famously declined the Congress Party's push to make her PM, because the BJP and other Hindu nationalists threatened riots and self-immolation if she, a foreigner, became PM...she's fascinating, but I don't know much about her).

ANYWAY, it was such a great place to visit, not only because you get to see the bookshelves and personal belongings of these people that are so much more vivid to me, since coming to India, but also because it's this really relaxed, beautiful, tourist spot for families looking into the history of their nation. It was just so family-oriented (in a non-annoying way) and peaceful, I was really enjoying it.

Things got a BIT stressed, but also, in the end, pleasant, I guess, when an Indian tourist, maybe 17 or 18, approached me and asked me to take a photo with him. He then INSISTED that I give him my email AND phone number! Because I was SO frustrated by scammers, I guess I was heartened by his kind of naive engagement with "the foreigner," so I played along. We ended up going to the on-site photo exhibit together, and then he came with me to the Allahabad library (this gorgeous late 19th century structure). He confessed that he had NEVER spoken to a foreigner before (and had seen only a few in his life EVER) and that this was his first trip outside his village, 60km away, in celebration of the completion of his 12th class exams. I knew where it would go (ie: he'd cling), but I let it take it's course, which meant NOT dodging him when he asked if he could see what a "nice" hotel looks like, and not shaking him off when we asked if we could go to McDonald's. Well it was a day of firsts for him (NO GIGGLES! You know I don't like younger guys, and EWWW I'd so NEVER do that!), as I also learned that it was ALSO his first time to ride in a lift (he was SO enthused by the elevator in the hotel, even though it only goes up three floors!), and his first time seeing, let alone eating-in, a McDonald's. I got him a McVeggie with Cheese and a coke, and we parted with promises to email each other the photos we took. I made a feeble attempt to be generous, warm, pro-education, anti-caste (it's hard to impart all these things on a youth in a few hours!), etc. and I think, or at least I hope, that he left motivated to really work hard for his CAT exam (their general university admission exam which he told me he'll take THREE YEARS after graduation to prepare for), and understanding that while I'm nice, not everyone is, and it's possible that even nice foreigners he tries to talk to will be so warn down by India that they might prefer privacy.

So ends my day in Allahabad!

I owe you: the rest of Chandigarh, Amritsar, our return to Delhi, and my time in Fatehpour Sikri and Agra....

Gosh the to-do list is mounting!

XO

VC

VC's 36-Hour Day

Well I'm in Allahabad, and rather than going ALL the way back to the Punjab to pick up my blog in Chandigarh where I left off, I'm going to give you a taste of the disorientation and exhaustion that I'm feeling by jumping around, backwards, from city to city, starting where I am now and ending up at Chandigarh.

The past 36 or so hours have been very, very difficult.

In general, I haven't had the easiest time since parting with Desi (and the poor bab has been experiencing drowning and teeth falling out nightmares, and was vomiting the day I left Delhi...although not in a tragic Greek sort of way...he had just had too much to drink the night before lol, but still -- it's hasn't been an easy 2 days for either of us).

I think I already hinted that Fatehpour Sikri and Agra were not easy places to be in, but WOW did the difficulties only START, there.

I may have mentioned, before, that when Desi and I went to the office in Delhi to book the train tickets for the rest of my stay in India, I couldn't get the ticket from Agra to Varanasi that I wanted. The train booking guy told me that the ONLY train I could take, overnight, to get from the corner of UP (Uttar Pradesh -- formerly "United Provinces," under the British, the initials saved in spirit of India's LOVE for acronyms!) where I was in Agra to the total opposite corner, where Varanasi is, was on a train from a place about 30km East of Agra called Tundla. According to him, many tourists leave from there, and it's not a problem to get there.

RIGHT.

I should start by saying that it's not even easy to figure out, when you are in Agra, how to get to Tundla. Although they are connected by a rail line, I learned from the station guy in Agra the night that I arrived (who at first refused to even speak to me, because they were no longer SELLING tickets, they were only EXCHANGING tickets) that I needed to take a bus from the Agra Fort bus station (it's interesting, in India, that it doesn't matter how many times you tell a rickshaw driver which specific bus station you want, he will insist on knowing what city you are continuing on to to make sure that you aren't an idiot and going from the wrong station...a nice service, I guess, but I'm not sure I trust the rickshaw drivers to have the departures of every station committed to memory!).

Because my train from Tundla to Varanasi was not scheduled to leave until almost 9PM, when I went to the Agra Fort bus station yesterday morning *before* visiting the Fort or the Taj, I was expecting to be told something like "You pay X amount and it takes Y hours, and you'll catch the bus at Z time right over there." Instead, it was more of a woman behind the counter NOT speaking English and being TOTALLY shouted over by scheming rickshaw driver/bus ticketer/khiladi (see former blog in Pakistan/Afghanistan for the meaning of Khiladi!) THINGS who had the attitude that, although they were not the ones in the information booth, because they were men and because they were hustling, they knew better than I or she what I needed to do. I think it surprises people when I say things to them like: "I am not TALKING to you. You don't WORK here. I'm talking to HER. SHE has the job. You don't" etc., but things were eventually under control and she managed to tell me (when it turned out that she did speak English so long as she felt like it) that I needed to return to the bus station at 5:30 or 6:30, stand in the dirt(y) lot, should the name "Tundla," and then be whisked away to the city for an unknown price and with an unknown arrival time. Fine. This was WELL within my range of expectations, so I could cope.

You'll get to hear about my day in Agra and the Taj later (we are working backward, kind of, remember?), but let's just say that while my getting ON the bus to Tundla was not problematic, everything else since checking in to my hotel in Allahabad has been.

The bus ride, again, was unpleasant but well withing my expectations; meaning: I was taken to by a boy in his late teens/early twenties who decided to sit next to me/on me and make conversation with me (I use the word "conversation" generously). I was direct enough, when there were still open seats on the bus, to ask him to not sit RIGHT next to me, because it was too hot to have bodies touching (see! neurotic type A's can TOTALLY survive in India!), but when the bus filled up (as they all quickly do...and don't worry...you will stop at EVERY fruit stand and beverage shack along the road until you pick up enough people to fill the seats) he persuaded the guy sitting next to me to trade with him and thereby cement our friendship.
They dropped us off in Tundla LITERALLY in the side of an unmarked highway, but I was not YET too upset, as I had more than 2 hours before my train, and knew that if I wandered around long enough I'd find a rickshaw who, even price-gouging me, wouldn't not get more than a dollar or two to take me to the rail station.

Let the hell begin.

Ok, so the rail station was what I predicted, but what I did not predict was having to wait there for 5 hours under constant assault.

I had seen other rail stations, and I have pretty realistic expectations about facilities, here (in fact I've been more pleasantly surprised by our hotels, for example, than disappointed, my hotel in Allahabad included), but my ability to cope is VERY contingent on how long I need to exist in certain environments. In other words: an hour or two in the train station would have been fine...three was unpleasant but I hadn't cracked...FIVE HOURS and I was going mad.

The main problem was that I didn't not feel physically safe in the station. Not because of thieves and assaulters (whose photos are posted outside the Chief Inspector's office...one should do a study of the strange offices you find in Indian rail stations, and EVERY station, no matter how small, it seems, has these offices, each with clearly-bureaucratic but functionally-empty names like "Chief Ticket Inspector" and "Deputy Assistant Rail Manager"), but because of the bugs, rodents, and other things constantly threatening attack.

Of the things which tried to variously defecate on me, suck my blood, eat me, or in some other way make me want to throw myself on the tracks were: stray dogs, THOUSANDS (no exaggeration) of well-fed pigeons, grasshoppers (I have NEVER seen so many!), moths, flies, mosquitoes, roaches (the tiny fast kind and the HUGE fast kind), and lizards. Seeing respite in the First Class Lounge, I quickly learned that all that keeps out are the dogs and pigeons, and the rest are given free entry.

It was puzzling to me how people in that lounge (think: Orange County beach restroom with wooden benches and odd colonial-style paintings of the Indian countryside) could sleep with roaches, moths, flies, mosquitoes, and grasshoppers ON THEIR BODIES. I was totally unable to concentrate, for the most part, on Toni Morrison's "Love" because I had to track: "Lizard has moved behind third bench on the left, while moth remains steady on foot stool, and roaches alpha and beta divide and conquer painting area." I left the lounge in frustration, once, but returned after one of the screaming birds managed a bulls eye on my book (it would turn out that the book would get MUCH more on it than that). I wanted to make a video with my camera, but it would have eaten too much memory (and since the card I bought in Delhi had a fake 1GB ticker when it was really only 50% of that, I didn't have memory to spare!), but these birds were INSANE. I mean it was so loud in the station that the echoes of their chirps made it virtually impossible to hear the announcer or other people (only in the respite of the "lounge" could you hear someone talk). I was finally forced out of the lounge a second time when one of the largest roaches I've ever seen landed on my sweater, so, while eagerly watched by a little girl and her brother (and everyone else in the room) I swatted it off the Donna Karen with my book, both fell to the floor, and everyone proceeded to laugh (the girl giggled for about 5 minutes, and I was happy to bring them some levity, but in the end there were too many bugs in the lounge, and I thought I'd do better outside).

So while my train is running three hours late, the station power is cutting in and out (pros and cons: when the lights went out, and it was PITCH BLACK, the birds would shut up, but then the bugs would seek hot things rather than bright things, and their taxis was directed RIGHT at me). EVERYONE was confused about the train (would it STILL arrive on Platform 3?), and even the mother of the lounge (she really is that...this old woman in a bright blue saree who doesn't inspect people's tickets, but just questions you about where you're going, sizing you up as first class material or not, and waking you up to run to your train -- or what she believes is your train -- when she hears it coming).

I'll skip the disturbing homosocial space of the lounge, the guy who I think tried to pick me up, and the boy (I say "boy" but he was at least college age) who I am convinced was more or less masturbating in public (he and his friend were making all kinds of jokes and joined each other, legs entwined, to cuddle on the bench before one of them got a little TOO excited).

I found a straight line on the platform that had little enough light so as to not reflect TOO much on my book and thereby attract bugs, was pigeon free (although it was like walking a balance beam!), and where, if I kept pacing, I was too much a moving target for a grasshopper. I paced along that line, about 4 meters in length, for nearly 3 hours, in and out of darkness and without food or drink (like I want samosas cooked with bird crap for sauce, and the beverage guy didn't have change and wasn't interested in the lost business by not getting any), covered in sweat, with my stuff, before the trains came. Finally, at almost 11PM, some trains started to come, their presence announced BEFORE a horn or light by the HUGE amounts of dirt and trash that swirled around the platform before they rolled-in.

It was a truly awful few hours. I actually borded the wrong train because TWO different TRAIN ATTENDANTS told me it was going to Varanasi, but then I found a guy who told me the NAME of the train (since, although they all have numbers, the key is the name), and I got off in time to not end up...not here. I knew inside that, no matter how late a train was, it was likely to always come on the platform it's supposed to, because a track switch would probably require a lot of paperwork, stamps, and the faxing of the ministries of transportation and of the interior.

When I got on the train, three hours late, the cabin was already closed and I assumed my lower-berth sleeper in half-light, while the two guys up and across from me (there were two sets of bunks in my little mini-compartment) negotiated with the ticket inspector to let them sleep together, meaning: not give a shit about the other three of us sleeping and talk all night. It was not SUCH a problem, their talking, because as soon as I sat down a roach crawled across the fold-away table next to my pillow, and so I knew I was on bug-patrol. By the end of "breakfast" in the morning (you aren't served food, like on the nicer, faster, on-time and bug-free trains Desi and I took, so breakfast is whatever food you decide to buy from the people walking the aisles with tea, hashbrowns, or samosas...) I had killed 4 roaches next to my pillow or on the wall next to my bed, and was thankful that Toni Morrison not only wrote a great book, but also chose a soft back print with an easy-to-wipe cover!

[For future blogging: I read Kundera's "Ignorance" and, as an ironic match in terms of title, Morrison's "Love" on this trip, and really should give my thoughts on both, if I ever get the chance]

It was a relief to get off the train in Varanasi, even though I knew that THIS was the city so many people (including Desi) described as being one of the worst they'd ever visited in their lives, and once I was resolved to carry ALL my stuff rather than try to stow something at the train station and waste time, having to come back to pick it up before going to the bus station to go to Allahabad, I was on the road and ready to see the city.

VC

Cliffhanger in Chandigarh

Post-draft edit: HA! SO you'll hear about us meeting Punjabis, but you'll have to wait to hear what happened!

*********************

Now that I've writen those haikus, I'm going to try to touch on some of the important things thus far in the trip.

Shimla is GORGEOUS, but I'm not sure if it's worth NINE HOURS on the train to get there. Our hotel was beautiful (did I say this already?), The Commbermere, and Shimla was odd in the sense that it's essentially a vacation town, but at the same time it's not "touristy" in the same way that Connaught Place in Delhi, or Agra and Fatehpour Sikri are.

We really didn't see a ton in Shimla, mostly because we were taking our relaxation stop seriously, and also because we are both scared of rabid monkeys, which, since one of the major tourist attractions in Shimla is a monkey temple, meant that certain key attractions were off limits. We have fun playing amateur photographers in the Christ Church, and it's interesting to see some of the bereavement plaques in these places -- "In honorable memory of Gen. Thomas Hood, b. London and served in Rajasthan, the Punjab, d. in United Provinces; he worshiped with his wife humbly and regularly in this spot." Ok that's a bad example, but stuff like that...in some ways I feel like India has so much overpowerd whatever colonial infrastructure was left (ENGLISH is not a colonial language, but an Indian language, and colonial properties, rails, etc. are all essentially Indian in their feel, to me at least, and go beyond feeling organically-incorporated -- they feel totally recoded by the post-colonial Indian state), but in some ways, like those plaques, you can really see the colonial focus.

I should say, to be fair, that Desi whooped me in three straight rounds of ping-pong, our last night, there, but to my credit (and to the amazement of those who know me well), I didn't even have the URGE to cry!

When you go from Delhi to Shimla, you take a train to Kolka and then transfer to a single gauge "toy train" that SHOULD NOT have the naive tourist thinking "shiny painted steam engine with whistle." Think instead: really small, bad, slow train. We were both disappointed by the fact that it was so NOT a toy train (I should note that when you visit the Grotto north of Beirut, you take a REAL toy train, although only for a few hundred meters...but that's what I was picturing!), and when we had to take the super-express an {OH MY GOD! SOME HUGE GRASSHOPER DEADLY MOTH MUTATION JUST LANDED ON MY THIGH...AND THERE WAS A DEAD ONE LYING ON IT'S BACK IN MY HOTEL ROOM, TOO -- I HATE AGRA!} d super-luxurious "Volvo bus" (cf: Hunday bus in Pakistan) we weren't TOO heartbroken (it was only 5 hours and would get us all the way to Chandigarh, which is well into the Punjab and way past Kolka).

Ok, well, I don't know if Desi would agree with me if I were to rank the awfulness of the buses we took together, but this was awful because the BLARING Bollywood film that we watched (plot line: Boy loves girl visiting from states but everyone things she's just in his imagination until they meet WHILE DRIVING FROM DELHI TO SHIMLA (!), he saves her life, they fall in love, never declare it, she gets accepted to do post-grad work at Harvard (of course), and finally at the airport he tells her (after they are both zombies at his sisters wedding) that he loves her) was supplemented by the PROJECTILE VOMITING of the people around us. I didn't believe Desi, at first, when he told me that they were handing out barf bags (I thought they MUST be used for something else!) but let me tell you -- the weak Indian stomach combined with the swerving descent from the mountains made for MASS vomiting. The seats were also oddly reclined (like force-reclined) and I kept feeling like I was in the stirrups at a gyno's office, even though I've onviously never been in that position. Bad movie, projectile vomiting (note their eagerness to SCARF down the cheesy snacks we wer handed out MINUTES before the descent began!), stirrups. That sums it up.

We arrived in Chandigarh -- "India's only planned city" (planned by Le Corbusier!) on THE hottest day, thus far (it was published in the newspaper the next day, and Chandigarh was listed as the hottest city in the Punjab that day, topping 42 C (so around 108 F), and we spent a fair part of it either pounding the pavement with NO shield from the sun (yes I even wore a HAT it was so extreme!) or in a cycle rickshaw peddled by an 80yo man for about 5 kilometers (I paid him 90 rupees which then ride would have been about 25, basically because I was convinced that we almost killed him) [I will spare you my feelings of both obesity and exploitation of slave-labour when in a cycle rickshaw, coupled with Desi's insistence that we take them so I'll get over it, and my recognition that they DO have their imporant niche amongst consumers].

I should say that I really like Chandigarh. It's not really beautiful, although the lake really hit a soft spot with me, I loved the restaurant that we went to, and the people wer VERY warm (and Punjabis have such a bad rep!), but overally I liked it (I think it shows on the relaxation and warmth of the people that it's the richest city within an already relatively rich state). We went from our underwhelming hotel (Desi was using a lonely planet that had not been updated since pre-partition, so, despite his best efforts, hotels were hit and miss) to the High Court, where {AH! THEW GRASSHOPPER JUST TRIED TO GO UP MY PANTLEG...I HATE IT HERE!} we got an interesting glimpse of INdian bureaucracy. We wanted passes to enter the building, so we were sent by security to some kind of regulatory office, who sent us to a registrar's office, who sent us back...eventually they had to use a form to type ridulcous and useless facts about us that was made in triplicate and faxed and signed by us, which we then showed to security (I tried to get it back, at the end, and was molested by the Sikh guard in the process, but ended up with no paper! [and by molested I just mean that he toom my hand at his desk and was sort of peting it lovingly with this knowing look...]. When you sit in these over-crowded offices amongst shelves upon shelves of MILLIONS of pages of yellowed paper, and you see the CONTINUED insistence on this machine, you wonder where India can go with this whole South Asian tiger/emergent world power THING.

I am AGAIN compelled to rush, because the guy in this AWFUL grasshopped-filled excuse for a hotel in Agra who I asked SEVERAL times what time they were closing (and he even said 11, 12, whatever you want) has now told me I need to leave in 15 minutes at 10:45, so I'll finish up Chandigarh and {THE ELECTRICITY JUST WENT OUT!} you will get Amritsar and Fatehpour-Skiri and Amritsar tomorrow after I see the Taj.

We visited a "fantasy" rock garden and a lake and met Punjabis and went to a great restaurant and I have to cut this short because this place is GROSS and is creeping me out!

On the run in Agra,

VC

India Haiku Update

OK I have no idea where I left off, and I think that when I intended to talk about us conquering Delhi and Shimla, I may have only discussed (and even that, not at length) our time in Delhi.

In case I don't have time to write propper blogs about any of the past 5 days (which would include Shimla, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Delhi encore, and Fatehpour Sikri/Agra), I'm going to briefly compose haikus for each city and THEN expand with a fuller narrative ;)

SHIMLA

Toy train deceptive
Mountain men with no summits
Relaxing beauty

CHANDIGARH

Corbusier heat stroke
Lake forest of hide and Sikh
Heart of the Punjab

AMRITSAR

Nationalism
Golden Temple wet
Super-fast rickshaw

FATEHPOUR-SIKRI

Work mis-directed
Thirsty commercialism
Akbar forgotten

VC

VC & Desi Conquer: Delhi & Shimla

Warning: This draft blog entry was written 5 days ago and was emailed from a bad browser that didn't include gmail's spell check feature or gmail's address book, so when I was unable (do to browser limitations) to add it to my blog, I emailed it to the few email addresses I could remember (2/5 I typed wrong, anyway) and now I want to cut and paste this and give you my updates for the past five days, however I don't have THAT much time, and the formatting is TOTALLY messed up...so sorry for not fixing it:

Sorry but I can't add this to my blog due to the slow connection andmy lack of time!XOXOWell I'm sorry that I wasn't able to tell you all about my last days on myIsrael-Palestine trip, but I'll get to them soon enough :) [preview: meetingwith Hamas, charged-but-fruitless body search with cute Georgian securityguard in Tel Aviv airport, meeting a cool and mysterious friend from thepast]More pressing blog update: I'M IN INDIA! :)Nearing the end of my third full day in Delhi [note: this was draftertwo days ago, and I'm actually now 24 hours into my stay in Shimla,which you'll read about, below], and feeling a bit exhausted (I amsuffering from a terrible head cold that set in during the three daysI had in Cairo between Israel and India, and I *definitely* don'tthink traveling helped the congestion. I'm not completely deaf, but Iam still quite congested, have patchy hearing, and am coughing upthings that are best not described with too much detail on this blog(speaking of not much detail: I have a LOT to say, but right now Ineed to rush through some recaps before I see too many things toremember, so this blog will be more like bullet points of my vacationwith most of the thoughts, tangents, analysis saved for when I getback to Egypt...sorry!).ANYWAY, this is our last night in Delhi, for a while, ("we" meaning me andDesi -- I was originally to visit him in Bombay, but he's grown quitefrustrated with the sewage-filled construction zone and wanted usto stay in the North), and so I can recap some of the things I've seen.I have to say that you might find the richness of my India blogging to bedisappointing, mostly because I don't have any strong impressions of theplace. I think that when we travel alone, we are more contemplative, andalso enrichen the space around us with our own impressions (we fill in the
have a guide (as I do in Desi) then I think you don\'t do as much thinkingabout the things you are seeing. I also think (and I am not regretful ofthis) that it\'s as much a trip (if not more) about us then about India, andI find myself enjoying talking to him more than I am seeing monuments that,to quote Glam (see my former blog entries about this friend in Cairo) leaveme just "whelmed" (neither over- nor under-).I arrived with little hassle (minus my deafness) at almost 5AM at our rathercrap hotel (La Sagarita, in Sunder Nagar, for all of you future Indiatravelers), and although I was quite disappointed by Gulf Air (we actuallyalmost took off from Bahrain with a woman holding her chicken-pock COVEREDscreaming child in the seat behind me until the passenger next to her and Iboth chimed in...I told them that I\'d never had chicken pocks [I reallyhaven\'t] and the stewardess said that she was aware that they could be verydangerous to adults.Our first day by neither ambitious nor lazy. We had breakfast at what isour CURRENT hotel (just for one night -- and then two more when we are backon the 28th and 29th), a guest house in a large complex called the HabitatCentre (or Habitat World), that is a multipurpose kind of complex thatincludes a lot of NGO offices, conference centers, and an American-stylediner that is...whelming lol.We first went to the Lodi Gardens, which really were beautiful, and it\'swhen an eeriness about our time in Delhi first became apparent: it\'s notthat hot, not that crowded, and things are oddly quiet and empty. Eventoday, in the Old City, it was chaotic in a way that was predictable (and Ithink quite managable), but I\'d say that there have been many times whereboth of us have looked around (especially he, having lived here and having",1]
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blanks of interactions, looks, places we don't really understand). When youhave a guide (as I do in Desi) then I think you don't do as much thinkingabout the things you are seeing. I also think (and I am not regretful ofthis) that it's as much a trip (if not more) about us then about India, andI find myself enjoying talking to him more than I am seeing monuments that,to quote Glam (see my former blog entries about this friend in Cairo) leaveme just "whelmed" (neither over- nor under-).I arrived with little hassle (minus my deafness) at almost 5AM at our rathercrap hotel (La Sagarita, in Sunder Nagar, for all of you future Indiatravelers), and although I was quite disappointed by Gulf Air (we actuallyalmost took off from Bahrain with a woman holding her chicken-pock COVEREDscreaming child in the seat behind me until the passenger next to her and Iboth chimed in...I told them that I'd never had chicken pocks [I reallyhaven't] and the stewardess said that she was aware that they could be verydangerous to adults.Our first day by neither ambitious nor lazy. We had breakfast at what isour CURRENT hotel (just for one night -- and then two more when we are backon the 28th and 29th), a guest house in a large complex called the HabitatCentre (or Habitat World), that is a multipurpose kind of complex thatincludes a lot of NGO offices, conference centers, and an American-stylediner that is...whelming lol.We first went to the Lodi Gardens, which really were beautiful, and it'swhen an eeriness about our time in Delhi first became apparent: it's notthat hot, not that crowded, and things are oddly quiet and empty. Eventoday, in the Old City, it was chaotic in a way that was predictable (and Ithink quite managable), but I'd say that there have been many times whereboth of us have looked around (especially he, having lived here and having
city) and just thought that it was oddly calm...or not calm: subdued.What I\'ll say about the garden/tomb sights that we\'ve seen, in general, isthat what\'s so nice about them (at least when we were there) is that you arein a beautifully-green setting (but sort of simple: nice, sewerwater-fortified grass, with not too much jungle-like business elsewhere)amongst the ruins of kind of no-longer-remarkable tombs/monuments to formerLodi and Mughal leaders that combine to just be really peaceful and unique(in the way that I imagine the combination of the ruins of Angkor Wat in thejungle of Cambodia being a nice combination).We went from the Lodi Gardens to the Purana Qila (word to the wise: becareful when walking down the stairs in YOUR home library, or else you mightend up like poor Sher Shah!) and then Humayun\'s Tomb, which, like mostthings re-done with Agha Khan money, was quite well-kept and beautiful, evenas it started to rain.We drove south to a place called South Extension ("South Ex") and (like inLahore) another Defence Colony ("Def-Con"), where I had to buy like amillion hours in this cyber cafe (where they have ads for "ethical hacking"lol), and then we had dinner with Desi and a friend of his from years ago,who ran into friends of HIS (a gay India guy and his boyfriend, and hislesbian sister and her partner from London -- who was TOTALLY wasted lol) ata restaurant called Aqua (it wanted to be a chic 5-star restaurant hotel,but it was more like 5-star hotel airport lounge confused by the stylisticdirections in which it was being pulled). We attempted to go out afterdinner, but by 1AM everything was closed-down!Yesterday, both because he is a much less intense traveler and because Ithink he genuinely wanted me to rest my cold, we spent a lazy day bouncing",1]
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had quite a negative experience with the generally monstrous nature of thecity) and just thought that it was oddly calm...or not calm: subdued.What I'll say about the garden/tomb sights that we've seen, in general, isthat what's so nice about them (at least when we were there) is that you arein a beautifully-green setting (but sort of simple: nice, sewerwater-fortified grass, with not too much jungle-like business elsewhere)amongst the ruins of kind of no-longer-remarkable tombs/monuments to formerLodi and Mughal leaders that combine to just be really peaceful and unique(in the way that I imagine the combination of the ruins of Angkor Wat in thejungle of Cambodia being a nice combination).We went from the Lodi Gardens to the Purana Qila (word to the wise: becareful when walking down the stairs in YOUR home library, or else you mightend up like poor Sher Shah!) and then Humayun's Tomb, which, like mostthings re-done with Agha Khan money, was quite well-kept and beautiful, evenas it started to rain.We drove south to a place called South Extension ("South Ex") and (like inLahore) another Defence Colony ("Def-Con"), where I had to buy like amillion hours in this cyber cafe (where they have ads for "ethical hacking"lol), and then we had dinner with Desi and a friend of his from years ago,who ran into friends of HIS (a gay India guy and his boyfriend, and hislesbian sister and her partner from London -- who was TOTALLY wasted lol) ata restaurant called Aqua (it wanted to be a chic 5-star restaurant hotel,but it was more like 5-star hotel airport lounge confused by the stylisticdirections in which it was being pulled). We attempted to go out afterdinner, but by 1AM everything was closed-down!Yesterday, both because he is a much less intense traveler and because Ithink he genuinely wanted me to rest my cold, we spent a lazy day bouncing
(althuogh I *hate* buying jeans that don\'t fit perfectly). I justrealized that people (like me) are so silly, because when we try onclothes we basically look at ourselves in a million different angles:"No. No. Fat. No. YESSSS! I\'ll take them!" and when we hit onthat magic angle then we think: "Ok, now these TOTALLY work!" which isso stupid, because in reality you can\'t, like, scoot into a roomdisplaying yourself to onlookers at that ONE angle that makes you looklike John Abraham (google him -- hot Bollywood it-guy). The jeanswere in Connaught Place, and while we were there we met with anice-but-unfortunate-looking boy Desi had been chatting with online.I thought that we should give him at least an hour ofcoffee/conversation/polite goodbyes, but Desi thought that, especiallysince he was 15 minutes late, 15 minutes was enough and we had ourquick goodbyes. We also bought a new memory card for my camera (Desiengaged in some skillful bargaining that I want to blog about more ifI had time), and then went to a colony called GK-1 ("colonies" areneighbourhoods, often with a gated entrace, and self-sufficient inintent in the way the blocks in Islamabad are) where I bought someIndian clothes in a place called FabIndia! :) We had dinner at aSouth Indian place (and were basically the ONLY foreigners there) andthen went out to a bar/club that is gay on Saturdays that I don\'tremember the name of!(transition to short discussion of that, which is as unsatisfying tome in terms of how I have to rush through it as the rest of thisblog...I really think when I go back to Delhi at the end of my tripI\'ll do proper updates and narrate some of these things better)We met Desi's friend from the night prior with his boyfriend at a",1]
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around mostly doing things for me. I bought a new pair of jeans(althuogh I *hate* buying jeans that don't fit perfectly). I justrealized that people (like me) are so silly, because when we try onclothes we basically look at ourselves in a million different angles:"No. No. Fat. No. YESSSS! I'll take them!" and when we hit onthat magic angle then we think: "Ok, now these TOTALLY work!" which isso stupid, because in reality you can't, like, scoot into a roomdisplaying yourself to onlookers at that ONE angle that makes you looklike John Abraham (google him -- hot Bollywood it-guy). The jeanswere in Connaught Place, and while we were there we met with anice-but-unfortunate-looking boy Desi had been chatting with online.I thought that we should give him at least an hour ofcoffee/conversation/polite goodbyes, but Desi thought that, especiallysince he was 15 minutes late, 15 minutes was enough and we had ourquick goodbyes. We also bought a new memory card for my camera (Desiengaged in some skillful bargaining that I want to blog about more ifI had time), and then went to a colony called GK-1 ("colonies" areneighbourhoods, often with a gated entrace, and self-sufficient inintent in the way the blocks in Islamabad are) where I bought someIndian clothes in a place called FabIndia! :) We had dinner at aSouth Indian place (and were basically the ONLY foreigners there) andthen went out to a bar/club that is gay on Saturdays that I don'tremember the name of!(transition to short discussion of that, which is as unsatisfying tome in terms of how I have to rush through it as the rest of thisblog...I really think when I go back to Delhi at the end of my tripI'll do proper updates and narrate some of these things better)We met Desi's friend from the night prior with his boyfriend at a
went to the bar which was very "down market" as far as most Indianswould be concerned), and as soon as we walked up the stairs I saw akind of handsome (although way too young/fresh-faced, and skinny) guychecking us out with his friends, and I made eye contact. Desi and Iwent over to them, and as it turns out he had met Desi at a party afew weeks ago when he was in Delhi; I sort of thought his friend wascute, but we found out that the place was JUST about to close. We(read: me ... but Desi could have totally done it for us, so I can\'tclaim to be the transportation hero) got them to take us to an"underground" party in a market nearby, and as we were leaving (minusa brief interlude with a supposedly well-known fashion designer fromBombay who was interested in...everyone...and made a weird referenceto going to Cornell) a guy who ALSO met Desi, as the original had, atthe same place a few weeks ago, chatted him up and got directions forhis friends to go to the party.We proceeded to the next party, where we were surprised to find theboyfriend of our friend from the past two nights (he was also at thefirst bar), and mostly the same people as the first place (\'tis alwaysthe case with supposedly "secret" or "private" parties lol). The onlyguy there, other than the one who was the friend of the one weorignially saw (who disqualified himself by being a bit too drunk anda bit too unclear in the directions of his ambitions for the evening:me, the designer, n\'importe qui?), who I thought was hot was a guy wefound out was Muslim (not sure why I think that\'s relevant) who Ithought looked really Iranian (except with blue eyes). I was GOING togo say hello, but then this UGLY guy literally walked up to him, spokea few words with him, and they started MAKING OUT! I was kind of",1]
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restaurant near the bar, sat with them for a few minutes, and thenwent to the bar which was very "down market" as far as most Indianswould be concerned), and as soon as we walked up the stairs I saw akind of handsome (although way too young/fresh-faced, and skinny) guychecking us out with his friends, and I made eye contact. Desi and Iwent over to them, and as it turns out he had met Desi at a party afew weeks ago when he was in Delhi; I sort of thought his friend wascute, but we found out that the place was JUST about to close. We(read: me ... but Desi could have totally done it for us, so I can'tclaim to be the transportation hero) got them to take us to an"underground" party in a market nearby, and as we were leaving (minusa brief interlude with a supposedly well-known fashion designer fromBombay who was interested in...everyone...and made a weird referenceto going to Cornell) a guy who ALSO met Desi, as the original had, atthe same place a few weeks ago, chatted him up and got directions forhis friends to go to the party.We proceeded to the next party, where we were surprised to find theboyfriend of our friend from the past two nights (he was also at thefirst bar), and mostly the same people as the first place ('tis alwaysthe case with supposedly "secret" or "private" parties lol). The onlyguy there, other than the one who was the friend of the one weorignially saw (who disqualified himself by being a bit too drunk anda bit too unclear in the directions of his ambitions for the evening:me, the designer, n'importe qui?), who I thought was hot was a guy wefound out was Muslim (not sure why I think that's relevant) who Ithought looked really Iranian (except with blue eyes). I was GOING togo say hello, but then this UGLY guy literally walked up to him, spokea few words with him, and they started MAKING OUT! I was kind of
the Muslim guy, and THEN (I need to comment on this whole eveningmore) my guy\'s totally dirty dancing with a crossed-dressed thing,fake bra strap and all. I later went up to him and told him I thoughthe was gorgeous but had bad taste (which didn\'t stop him from TOTALLYgiving me the stare down when we were leaving -- when tends to be a"get what you can before you walk out the door" kind of speed-dating,I\'ve found out), and I basically spent the evening there REALLYenjoying myself dancing with the two original guys and their friend(they are kind of a trio) and our friend\'s boyfriend. It was a bitawkward in the sense that there were DEFINITELY competing designs(that they even joked about in front of me), but what was even weirderwas that, in the end, everyone was happy as long as they gotSOMETHING. I felt bad for Desi that I wasn\'t interested in going homewith them, and we had a good discussion back at the hotel about whyand what that means -- I should talk more about that, later, but as apreview that doesn\'t represent my point of view with any sort ofcompleteness: being with someone for only one night is fine, but thenI want my night with that person to be might night with that person,and I require a certain exclusivity in their "gaze." I don\'t want tobe what they go home with because I\'m decent enough and the closestperson to where they are standing when it\'s time to go home, and inthe same way that I expect people talking to me to make eye contactand not be looking all over the place, I feel the same way if someonewants to be romantically/sexually/whateverly involved with me, nomatter how short the lenghth of time. In sum: I found it tacky andoff-putting and sad (not for me, but for them) that Desi could makeout with one guy at the bar while two guys teased each other about",1]
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grossed out, especially at the wild ass-grabbing of the ugly dude tothe Muslim guy, and THEN (I need to comment on this whole eveningmore) my guy's totally dirty dancing with a crossed-dressed thing,fake bra strap and all. I later went up to him and told him I thoughthe was gorgeous but had bad taste (which didn't stop him from TOTALLYgiving me the stare down when we were leaving -- when tends to be a"get what you can before you walk out the door" kind of speed-dating,I've found out), and I basically spent the evening there REALLYenjoying myself dancing with the two original guys and their friend(they are kind of a trio) and our friend's boyfriend. It was a bitawkward in the sense that there were DEFINITELY competing designs(that they even joked about in front of me), but what was even weirderwas that, in the end, everyone was happy as long as they gotSOMETHING. I felt bad for Desi that I wasn't interested in going homewith them, and we had a good discussion back at the hotel about whyand what that means -- I should talk more about that, later, but as apreview that doesn't represent my point of view with any sort ofcompleteness: being with someone for only one night is fine, but thenI want my night with that person to be might night with that person,and I require a certain exclusivity in their "gaze." I don't want tobe what they go home with because I'm decent enough and the closestperson to where they are standing when it's time to go home, and inthe same way that I expect people talking to me to make eye contactand not be looking all over the place, I feel the same way if someonewants to be romantically/sexually/whateverly involved with me, nomatter how short the lenghth of time. In sum: I found it tacky andoff-putting and sad (not for me, but for them) that Desi could makeout with one guy at the bar while two guys teased each other about
then be TOTALLY willing to go with me in the end, and then Desi andone of the two guys who were my potential matches could make out whilethe other one turned to me with a "so I guess that means it\'s you andme" kind of attitude. I\'m not the Virgin Mary, and I don\'t expect amarriage declaration the first night (or ever) but even "fun" for mehas certain boundaries.ANYWAY, the next day we moved to the Habitat Centre from La Sagaraita(where we\'ll also be staying when we get back), got my train tickets,saw the Old Fort, attempted to see a Jains temple (but were toogrossed out at having to take our shoes off outside ont he streetamongst running raw sewage and live [we think] fowl), and had dinnerat the Italian place where we\'d met the couple the night before(Azurao?), where I had the best garlic bread of my life and a nicedesert wine while waiting out a rain storm.Our trip the next day (yesterday) to our current hilltown locationnorth of Delhi was as painless as 9+ hours on trains can be, andalthough the "toy train" that takes you from your Delhi-Shimlatransfer point at Kolka was TOTALLY over-rated, Shimla is REALLYbeautiful and I think out hotel (the Hotel Commbermere) is asteal...I\'m so prone to judge cities based on my hotel! lol We havebeen taking it easy (things close REALLY early) and although it\'s ahuge tourism center, most are Indian, so we are enjoying strollingaround without being harassed and without having to rush from onemonument to another. Other than a run-in with two officers and abitchy advocate, today, at the High Court (Simla is the capital of thestate of Himchal Pradesh), things have been really relaxed, and I\'mquite happy (especially since I\'m better, although only very slightlyand I\'m mostly joking, since I know he\'ll read this, than Desi at",1]
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their fight over me, the Muslim guy could make out with two people andthen be TOTALLY willing to go with me in the end, and then Desi andone of the two guys who were my potential matches could make out whilethe other one turned to me with a "so I guess that means it's you andme" kind of attitude. I'm not the Virgin Mary, and I don't expect amarriage declaration the first night (or ever) but even "fun" for mehas certain boundaries.ANYWAY, the next day we moved to the Habitat Centre from La Sagaraita(where we'll also be staying when we get back), got my train tickets,saw the Old Fort, attempted to see a Jains temple (but were toogrossed out at having to take our shoes off outside ont he streetamongst running raw sewage and live [we think] fowl), and had dinnerat the Italian place where we'd met the couple the night before(Azurao?), where I had the best garlic bread of my life and a nicedesert wine while waiting out a rain storm.Our trip the next day (yesterday) to our current hilltown locationnorth of Delhi was as painless as 9+ hours on trains can be, andalthough the "toy train" that takes you from your Delhi-Shimlatransfer point at Kolka was TOTALLY over-rated, Shimla is REALLYbeautiful and I think out hotel (the Hotel Commbermere) is asteal...I'm so prone to judge cities based on my hotel! lol We havebeen taking it easy (things close REALLY early) and although it's ahuge tourism center, most are Indian, so we are enjoying strollingaround without being harassed and without having to rush from onemonument to another. Other than a run-in with two officers and abitchy advocate, today, at the High Court (Simla is the capital of thestate of Himchal Pradesh), things have been really relaxed, and I'mquite happy (especially since I'm better, although only very slightlyand I'm mostly joking, since I know he'll read this, than Desi at
For those of you wondering about I\'m faring, gastronomically, sinceyou know I love Indian food, I am sad to say that I\'ve only hadsamosas ONCE (although I\'ve had 3 or 4 daal-enriched meals), and amnot even getting the chai masala that I love so much! As is my cursein Egypt (with my taste for felafel), and in Afghanistan (with somemilk/wheat/rice kind of dishes) I tend to like the simple food that isbasically street food (or peasant food, as some have jokingly toldme), which means that a lot of nice restaurants don\'t serve samosas :( We found a pretty chic place to go to tonight, though (relatively,speaking -- ARE in a hill town 9 hours outside Delhi!) so I\'moptimistic about dinner tonight, though :)I\'m sorry to race through all this, and want to put on the back-burner:1. More on the night at the bar2. More on how Desi and I navigated Delhi (from beggars to bargaining)3. More on what I think about the historical sites we\'ve seenXO to you allVCPS: Desi has told me (and I have gotten similar feedback from 1 or 2more of you, which constitutes about a third of my total blogreadership, lol) that the name "Veiled Chunk" grosses him out. Is"Gelatinous Fun" better? CAST YOUR VOTES! :)PPS: Waitlisted at Stanford, and totally don\'t care (except thatPookie is hilarious in his congratulatory tone...I think we\'ll need totell our non-couples counselor in NYC that he doesn\'t ALWYAYS have tobe silver-lining oriented with my life lol)PPPS: I can\'t use gmail\'s spellcheck feature on this browser. Sorry!",0]
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ping-pong, which we have played in the rec center in our hotel.For those of you wondering about I'm faring, gastronomically, sinceyou know I love Indian food, I am sad to say that I've only hadsamosas ONCE (although I've had 3 or 4 daal-enriched meals), and amnot even getting the chai masala that I love so much! As is my cursein Egypt (with my taste for felafel), and in Afghanistan (with somemilk/wheat/rice kind of dishes) I tend to like the simple food that isbasically street food (or peasant food, as some have jokingly toldme), which means that a lot of nice restaurants don't serve samosas :( We found a pretty chic place to go to tonight, though (relatively,speaking -- ARE in a hill town 9 hours outside Delhi!) so I'moptimistic about dinner tonight, though :)I'm sorry to race through all this, and want to put on the back-burner:1. More on the night at the bar2. More on how Desi and I navigated Delhi (from beggars to bargaining)3. More on what I think about the historical sites we've seenXO to you allVCPS: Desi has told me (and I have gotten similar feedback from 1 or 2more of you, which constitutes about a third of my total blogreadership, lol) that the name "Veiled Chunk" grosses him out. Is"Gelatinous Fun" better? CAST YOUR VOTES! :)PPS: Waitlisted at Stanford, and totally don't care (except thatPookie is hilarious in his congratulatory tone...I think we'll need totell our non-couples counselor in NYC that he doesn't ALWYAYS have tobe silver-lining oriented with my life lol)PPPS: I can't use gmail's spellcheck feature on this browser. Sorry!

Emergency Update

Well I'm sad to announce that I have broken my own record and lost ANOTHER phone.

It's the oldest story in the book: boy is wearing tight jeans and doesn't want to look weird with his phone stuffed in his pocket, boy goes to secret underground gay part in a Delhi marketplace (Gk-2), boy sets phone on bar and walks away, phone is stolen.

SO -- you can't call me until 6 May *at the earliest* and I think 7 May is much more realistic.

I've drafted a begining update to my blog about India (sorry that I had to skip the end of my Israel-Palestine trip and my return to Egypt, but I promise to get back to it), but I don't have time to add everything I want to, now!

I'm in Delhi tonight and then Desi and I are traveling to Shimla (Simla) for 2 night and then Chandigarh for a night, at which point we'll be back in Delhi for two more nights and I'll update you, then.

Be patient (and get together a drive for a new phone for me, maybe -- I totally cannot support this habit!).

XO

VC

VC Speaks Out: Unhealthy Israel

As I was sitting in the Haifa train station (having just made the flop joke about how I was the only civilian), I started to think about the setting before and what it said about the healthy Israel I was borderline-enchanted with.

Now, I don't think I need to blog about what lies beneath when it comes to Israel's health and how it's bound-up in the occupation of Palestinian territory. When you're talking about water, for example, and the health of Israeli agriculture, and related health of the Israeli economy (that subsidized health care...the chain reaction continues), and the sources of that water (to use but one example of resource theft), then I think it's clear that the health of Israel is built upon some pretty unhealthy behaviour.

That's not what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about Israeli people -- parents, and children. When these kids go home, in their army fatigues and with their rifles, and their parents welcome them home for passover, what do they say? What do they think? I'm sure that there are a range of opinions, ranging from uneasy resignation to a mandatory-enlistment system in a country that does need to be deterringly-strong in the face of hostility from regional neighbours, to pride and encouragement of the youth's brave defense of an expansive Jewish state. Personally, I have a hard time thinking that my mother would be proud when she saw me in the fatigues and with that rifle. I'm sure she'd be thankful that we could live safely and worship freely, and would be proud of my attempts at responsible decision-making in a context that is posing really difficult challenges to young soldiers, but would she think: "I am proud to see every son and daughter of Israel be trained in the use of automatic weaponry" -- I don't think so.

I have made jokes in emails (if not on this blog) about how mandatory military service has done a body good in Israel. I think that it changes the whole character of the society, though. The Israeli's that I've talked to surprised me with their fear and orienalization of Palestinians. I was expecting, amongst upper middle class youth, a kind of international, progressive understanding of the situation, and have been instead repeatedly treated to "you can't trust them" and "they all want to kill us" and "there can never be peace" warnings from most of the people I've spoken to.

You'll notice, in Israel, that everyone has really good posture. I mean it's striking. I imagine your average, undisciplined, whiny, chubby boy going off to the army in Egypt and what he comes back as -- a more angered, slightly less-chubby, still-undisciplined, still-whiny boy. In Israel, the same boy comes back a fit, tall-standing, disciplined soldier. It didn't occur to me until I was walking home from the train station a few days ago that the mandatory military service in Israel is unlike any other because of the nature of Israel and the Israeli army. There is mandatory military service in Switzerland, Egypt, and a host of countries across the globe, but Israel is totally different.

Every Israeli youth can guarantee that he or she NOT ONLY enlist in one of the most powerful, sophisticated, and historically-successful armies in the world (on par with, or exceeding -- when scaled for size, history, resources etc. -- even the US army), and that person can also guarantee that his enlistment will take place during a time of war (or occupation, or whatever you want to call this).

Israel is a place with happy dogs and fit people, a thriving art scene and amazing food, but it's also a place where all of its citizens take a physical stake in the defense of their way of life, and, I might add, in 60 years have not managed to secure that way of life to a degree that slouchy fat people can sleep easy knowing they are safe.

Maybe my point isn't making sense, but what I mean to say is that a lot of the health that I see in Israel comes from what I consider to be the unhealthy (or in the very least: concerning) militarization of the society. It's eerie to me when I see all these gorgeous 25yos to think, first: "Wow she is REALLY fit! He has GREAT posture! I bet their parents were, like, escaped Jewish Soviet Olympic swimmers, lol" and then I think: "No, wait. These are not inherited bodies. These are TRAINED bodies, and they are trained to fight."

I know it sounds a bit severe, but that's what's so odd about being here...even crossing through the checkpionts...the violence here, even the oppression of Palestinians, is somehow muted...subtle...and therefore able to survive decade after decade. It's organic to the society, now, in a way that I don't know if it can be disincorporated as holistically as it was incorporated in the first place. That's what worries me about this situation -- this is how things in Israel WORK.

VC

VC Speaks Out: Healthy Israel

There is something distinctly healthy about Israel and it's people.

Public spaces are manicured, men are manicured, even DOGS are manicured. The food seems to always be fresh, the weather good, and the people, pets, and parks, just healthy in general.

To start: the food. There is nothing striking about Israeli cuisine -- it's not unique in any way, from what I've observed. It's not like going to France or Italy where you have distinct and intricate national cuisines. What makes the food here so good is that whatever it is you ARE getting, it will be VERY fresh and well-done. You can taste it in things as simple as the breads and cheeses, but like I said in my blog entry about Big Mama's, I saw it with the pasta as well, the food here is just GOOD.

Connecting food and people: NO ONE HERE IS FAT. I mean, no one. Like -- not a single person. I looked around at Big Mama's, which was PACKED, and out of maybe 100 people ranging in age from 19 to 60, NO ONE was the least bit out of shape (let alone fat or obese).

Imagine the carefree and healthy glow of Mediterranean people, like in Italy, combined with Soviet Union Olympic everything genetics, and that's what Israel is. I always knew Israeli's were hot, because we had so many at Columbia, but I feel like all my friends (eh-HEM, Dr. Juicy!) looking unsuccessfully for Mr. Jewish USA should drop it and just come to Israel. I have to say that the people, although perfectly-formed, all have a bit of a hard edge to their look (there is a severity to their features, bodies, AND style -- with dreadlocks and kind of grunge/funk being particularly in...all with a military aftertaste) which makes the men particularly hot and the women a tad masculine (I know you thank me for my generalizations lol), so for all you men looking for cute Jewish girls in NYC -- stick to NYC (I heard Park Slope has at least one really hot one), but SERIOUSLY Israeli men are hot. I can't even rave about it enough lol.

To expand on the idea of a healthy society, though, I tried to think about why it is that I wasn't annoyed by the children in the art museum's Kadishman exhibition, why I didn't feel a tinge of annoyance when the waiters at Riff Raff smoke and talk loudly in a language I don't understand, and why even last night I wasn't annoyed/threatened by the masses of Israeli (and other) youth, and I think that it's because there is a placidity here, and a kind of ease of social interaction (that comes with the logical observance of basic social norms -- eg: respect to others and their personal space, pleasantness in customer service, etc.) that is totally lacking in Egypt. In Egypt, children aren't as well-behaved, the waiters talking loudly are not talking with a cadence that indicates calm or jovial conversation, but rather argument/frustration/complaint, and the youth are not free, they are aggressive. I felt a similar thing in Afghanistan: for all the supposed fierceness of a constantly-warring nation, there is NOTHING aggressive about the way people deal with each other in normal social interactions, and while the argument could be made that in Egypt, I'm the aggressive one, it's because I'm responding to a palpable aggressivity in the society that has everyone scrambling over each other for recognition/service/entry, etc.

I also decided that you can judge the health of a society, in part, by its stance on pets (correcting for cultural differences, of course): all the dogs when they are being walked (and EVERYONE seems to have dogs!) in Israel always have a smile, and I feel like I can really see why so many people came here to build (as they continue to do) a really well-functioning society.

Now, I'm functioning only on the healthy, and the unhealthy deserves a LOT of attention, too (I plan to blog about that next), but for now this is what I was thinking. It's similar to the feeling Curie and I had in Carthage, which is that you can go to Israel and be just sort of middle class and lead a PERFECTLY happy, relaxed, dignified, and comparatively worry-free life -- the same CANNOT be said of Manhattan, or Cairo. I think I crave a place where people can just relax into their lives and just live and interact in a kind of easy and non-defensive or survival-oriented way (ironic, since this state was BUILT upon the notion that they had to defend themselves and survive or face extermination...again).

VC

VC Speaks Out: Palestine and Palestinian Men

Ok I'll start with sort of jokey comments about my time so far in Palestine and then, hopefully later, say some serious things about my time in Israel.

I have to say that my experience in Palestine, so far, has been (as I expected) that we are dealing with a rather boxed-in but still educated and cosmopolitan in many ways people. I think it really says something that your average street person, here (and I have spoken with many...because as some of you know, I get lost easily...and I don't mean like tourist-guide kind of people who interact with foreigners a lot) speaks MUCH (MUCH MUCH MUCH) better English than your average Cairo Grand Hyatt or AUC employee...I mean you can't even compare.

I also have to say, to my great disappointment, that Palestinian men are perhaps the most straight men I've ever seen...which is say because they really are hot. I don't know why it is they tend to gay-ify when the emigrate outside the occupied territories (I mean the ones in Jordan and Egypt usually trip the gaydar) -- maybe they are just too angry, here, to be interested -- but I have not really gotten vibes or glances or even passing curiosity from ANY of them. I mean it's more straight than...well...like I said, anywhere I've ever been.

Earlier this evening, when I was walking to the cyber cafe after dinner, a huge SUV pulled-up onto the sidewalk in front of me and I saw some hot men in it. I immediately flashed back to Afghanistan, in which case the situation would have meant: "Wow! Panjshiris -- Abdul, should we talk to them? We KNOW they want to talk to us!" (and they WOULD!), but in this case they not only paid NO attention, but horrified me by having a woman, WITH HER FACE SHOWING, sitting with them in back.

{This whole section is tongue-in-cheek, of course}

I don't know about my readers, but I find societies that allow women to appear in public with their faces showing to be TOTALLY barbaric...so inconsiderate to the dominance of homosocial space that we come to depend on in the Middle East. To make matters worse, women walk around here totally uncovered (although mostly in black), wearing fashionable and even tight outfits (unaccompanied by men!). I don't know what happened to all of the zeon-pink nylon higabs and frumpy denim skirts that characterize Cairo, but also missing are the corresponding cat-calls. Odd: a society in which women are enfranchised and NOT protected from the "gaze" of men is ALSO one in which men are resultantly more respectful of women as people who have the right to walk, unharassed, in the street? VERY INTERESTING.

So, yes, I have a crush on a gas station guy, everyone here is straight, and if it weren't a bit boring (I don't even see coffee shops, anywhere!), I'd probably really like it here.

VC

VC Acoids Lactating, Sees Bethlehem

So, after making my way home, indulging in Riff Raff for a second and second-to-last time, resting, and talking to the Moo, I decided (since it had been more than 3 hours since my late lunch) to have dinner. True to form, Lonely Planet was wrong about the location of ALL the restaurants I was interested in, but I did manage to find the pasta joint I was craving, called Spaghettim, and have a really nice three-cheese ravioli with, compared to what they had at Big Mama's in Tel Aviv, a pathetic excuse for focaccia. Since it was the end of Passover, there were Jews EVERYWHERE drunk off their asses (literally -- I saw a boy tending to his father COLLAPSED on a rock outside the Jaffa Gate). I have to say that the New York City JAP factor (and the equally-annoying male counterpart acronym) was kept to a minimum, and I was treated to seeing Jerusalem just really alive and booming (personally I liked it quiet with everyone inside hiding from yeast, but I can appreciate a dynamic city when I see one!). The streets were packed, my restaurant was stylish but nicely not crowded, and I had a nice night.

This morning, I checked out of my hotel and made my way to East Jerusalem's Arab bus station, where I got on a bus for Bethlehem (where I am now) and made the official (well, sort of official) cross into Palestine. OOPS! I forgot to say: I woke up, went to Riff Raff one last time *VC sheds a tear* and THEN got on the bus for Bethlehem lol.

I checked into the group's hotel (after all, I'm meeting 40+ AUC students led by Shakira tonight), Paradise Hotel, and proceeded to sight see!

First, the checkpoint: No. FIRST first: The wall.

I'd been waiting to see the ICJ-declared-illegal "security fence" for a long time, and I was also eager to see post-checkpoint Palestine, because even "Palestinian" East Jerusalem is still very much Israeli (Israeli police, no checkpoint, Hebrew everywhere, etc.).

The wall, which really does cut Bethlehem (picture gorgeous farmland and olive trees and then the people who work on that land divided by a really grey, and not in a good minimalist way, HUGE wall), and our hotel, on the very beginning of Manger Street (the name is awful, I know), is JUST beyond the wall. Unfortunately, this does not make it JUST beyond the checkpoint, and after a hassle-free rush through the checkpoint -- they didn't even look at my passport since they don't really care what goes IN to Palestine, so much as they care about what comes OUT into Israel -- I had to struggle a bit to find the hotel (vent about Sharkira's organizational execution elsewhere).

The hotel was a pleasant surprise, and I think Shakira and the crazy fez-wearing Japanese friend we'll be tripling with until I leave Sunday morning (they will stay for 5 days), will get along well. I hereby name crazy fez-wearing Japanese girl: Feziko.

Since they group isn't arriving until 9PM (and I actually just got a message from Shakira that they are stuck at the boarder -- with Egypt? But they left at 6:30AM and should have crossed 8 hours ago and been at the sea all day!?...I don't get it), and since we are supposed to be in government meetings tomorrow in Ramallah (yes: I came all the way from gorgeous Jerusalem south to poor Bethlehem just so that, in the morning, I could turn around and go back north THROUGH Jerusalem to Ramallah), and since Shakira couldn't give me, as of last night, any clear idea about what is happening, I decided to do the Bethlehem thing on my own.

Of course I first went to the Church of the Nativity (a LONG walk from the beginning of Manger Street, let me tell you!, I don't know how Mary did it with Jesus inside her...actually I should read the Bible on that one, because maybe they wheeled her in a cart or something), which was...I hate to say it (see later blog entry comparing paintings and holy sites) a BIT disappointing. Ok, so this is where Jesus was BORN. The most spiritual thing that I felt was the confusion I had when, for the second time on this trip, a weird light was flashing IN the LCD of my camera that, neither time, would show in the photo. This one lasted so long that I could physically track it with the LCD and see where the borders of its origin and termination were (it looked like a laser beam, steadily projecting across the room, with a clear stream in it). I will say this about the church: the columns are gorgeous, as they are actually painted (I don't think I've seen this directly on a column in that way, before). There is a really funny thing, though, where there is cross of finger impressions (five) in one of the columns that of course EVERYONE has to kiss and put their hands in and pray. What I found so humorous was that no one could quite figure out which finger when in which hole (you think about it! 4 points and one in the center and see how you'd put your fingers), and pushy believers would show other people how it was done, and then themselves struggle in their demonstrations (I got a photo of a poor guy being instructed by like 3 people how to stick his fingers in the holes). Personally, I have a hard time believing that a faith premised on the birth of a child without Joseph sticking anything anywhere would be SO focused on the technicality of where people should put their fingers.

I then took a bus from the Church of the Nativity (skipping the spot where Mary first lactated, scared that I might, myself, be so overcome with religiosity that I might lactate, too! and can you imagine all the Catholics who would try to kiss the miracle! YIKES!) to a nearby town called Beit Sahur, where I visited the Shepard's Fields (I don't know what shephards, though! I know Joshua was one!) and a really odd church with some pretty good mosaics.

All in all, Lonely Planet was right on when it described Bethlehem which is, unfortunately, a bit of a pit. I mean this is Palestine, so this is what I expected -- you can see why people compare this to apartheid...in fact that brings me back to the wall: the graffiti on the wall once you get to the Palestinian side is really interesting, mostly people from different cities saying: "We from City X support the Palestinians!" Two noteworthy comments (both of which I'd seen in photos before) were: "Jesus shed tears for Jerusalem...we shed tears for Palestine" and "End apartheid!" There were also a TON of slogans about walls vs. bridges to peace.

I'll skip-over my many cute encounters with people (needing to be given directions here or there or whatever) and just say that I was ENORMOUSLY helped by the bus driver to and from Beit Sahur, as well as a gas station guy (who is TO DIE FOR in terms of looks) near the wall, who helped me navigate and find my cyber cafe, tourist spots, etc. After coming back from Beit Sahur and attempting (but failing -- due to the Jewish holiday, as it's on the other side of the wall) to visit Rachel's Tomb (which I kept calling Rebekkah's Tomb, and which, as you would imagine, made no sense to anyone), I had dinner at a pretty nice Arabic restaurant across from my gas station lover (lol such a joke...I got ZERO vibe from him...which I'll blog about shortly, I hope...resisting all temptations to make jokes about the pump, of course), and had tahina (unfortunately with green things EVERYWHERE in it!) and then came here to this cafe.

Ok I'm hoping, depending on how my blog stamina is, to write about things I've thought about and not just update you about where I've been, so let's see how that goes...

VC