Category Archives: India
The End of India
I’d not been neglectful towards my good fortune. Nearly three months into India, travelling with cash, computer, electronics, cell phone, and other valuables, and I’d not lost a thing. Knocking on wood many times, surely I was doing something right.
My luck ran out while passing through Dehli. In a span of fifteen minutes, I was hit twice by a pickpocket. First on the uber-packed city metro train. He got my wallet. Exiting the station I felt the sudden peculiar lightness in my pocket and became an instant maniac, checking everywhere, each pocket two or three times. “HOLY SHIT!” A crowd of old Indian men gathered around me, shaking their heads and smirking. “You’ve got to be more careful,” one of them said. At the time, the comment struck me as unforgivably rude. “I don’t need to hear that right now.” “It’s happened to all of us,” he returned. “This place is known for pickpockets.”
At least I still had my camera, relieved to find It still caribeened to my belt loop. I’d just arrived back in Dehli from the north. It was almost 10pm, and I didn’t have a hotel room booked for the night. After I recovered from the shock of being stolen from, I determined my first priority would be to get my credit and debit cards cancelled. Outside the metro terminal, I attempted to explain my predicament to the swarm of largely non-English-speaking rigshaw drivers who were already at my throat for business. I had a pocketful of change, 25 rupees I think. I did my best to explain and pantomime my lack of funds. I was in a rush to get to the rail station, because I needed to find a power supply for my laptop. I could use my phone to connect to the internet and start cancelling credit cards. Negotiating with the Rigshaw drivers went poorly. Shame on me, I lost my temper a few times, sad and weak moments. I paid dearly for it too. After finally securing a ride, we were halfway to the rail station, I realized my camera was now suddenly missing as well. Had I been smart and taken it off my belt and put it in my bag? No.
At the train station, the only place I could find power was at the little police depot, which was unfortunate, because after explaining what had happened and why I urgently needed to get online to cancel credit cards, they made me fill out a waste-of-space police report, which entailed my writing on a blank sheet of paper, as instructed verbatim—“My camera and wallet were stolen at the Dehli Metro station. Please return to me my camera and wallet.” I didn’t ask questions I just wrote and signed.
After writing the “report,” I was finally given access to a power outlet and proceeded with the business of cancelling my cards. It took about an hour total. Afterwards, when I attempted to walk out of the station, one of the officers demanded money from me. “You do realize I just lost my wallet!” He responded by pointing to my suitcase. I responded by walking out. He followed. He called me over and we argued near one of the police vans. He then attempted to explain to me that I had to go to another station and fill out another “report.” He opened the back door to one of the vans and told me to get in. The back of the van looked dingy and hopeless. I weighed my options: go get extorted for cash at 11pm after just having lost my wallet and camera, or, walk off and see if I got arrested. I chose the latter. I was screamed at but never touched.
This was definitely a low point. A falling out of sorts that confirmed that it was near time for me to say farewell to the subcontinent. Nonetheless, as the shrewd officer suspected, I had a solid cash-reserve scattered throughout my suitcase and was thus able to fund my final week in India. I spent my last nights in Mumbai catching up with a good friend in Colaba, a most amazing time and an appropriate farewell. On my last night, we slept outside by the waterfront, near the Gateway to India, surrounded by the many desperate and impoverished for whom such sleeping habits were a nightly norm. The Gateway to India. It had been the very first landmark I’d seen upon my arrival in the country. A fitting end that it would tower over me as I dreamed my final dreams.
Changes
Bangalore, India. We were running, myself, Lloyd, Aleister, and we even had a porter under our employ as well— an old straw-thin Indian man hustling the last of our luggage with us to platform three. The three of us, all but the porter, were just in time to jump on the final car of the moving train, luggage-in-hand, but our poor fourth was left bent and wheezing under what in retrospect was a disproportionate share of our total luggage weight. In the rush to catch our train, we’d loaded him up too heavy, a callousness that cost us our ride to Nepal.
An unfortunate circumstance but a telling one. Missing the train ended up feeling to me like a summoning of sorts. While Lloyd and Aleister are rerouting to Nepal— a Tuesday bus from Bangalore to Delhi and a flight to Kathmandu—I’ve decided to break away and return for a time to the solitude that marked my arrival in this country. I’ve put my own itinerary together this evening, seven amazing destinations throughout India. I’ll be heading out tomorrow, quite certain of this new path’s integrity, equally certain that I’ll be missing my friends before I even breach Bangalore city limits.
From the Mind of A True Artist
“Susannie,” pronounced Sue-Xany. That’s the name of Lawrence’s dog. We met up for a visit earlier today to take Susannie to the beach for a bath.
Then tonight I’m working with Lloyd and Aleister, hawking cool shit at the famous Saturday Night Market. I really need to get some video of the SNM. It’s basically Wall-Street meets Woodstock meets Smiley’s Flea Market, that with a dash of Ibiza-style club scene and a scattering of fly-by-night britishy football pubs.
Any case, I really didn’t plan on posting today, but I just read the best interview I’ve read this year. It’s Gary Amdahl, author of the short-story collection, “visigoth.”
The interview was so damn amusing, I had to share it immediately. If any among my swarming armies of readers* has any interest in art or creative writing, or interesting people in general, you will certainly enjoy this.
A few of my favorite excerpts:
“I’m more articulate then I was when I was nine, but I don’t know anything new. Don’t know anything at all. Still, it’s part of the public relations campaign that artists have always been waging: we are pioneers of consciousness! We are the Enterprise, boldly going wherever, for the sake of mankind, so please give us big grants, so we can jack off with an easy mind. Like I said, I have wanted to stop boldly going many many times. I can’t.”
“That the Internet and the World Wide Web are effectively magic, and in some cases quite black, is only just registering with me.”
“I had pretty much signed off on the literary press in this country when Jonathan Raban iced the cake with a big squirt of poop.”
Full interview here.
*Orcs, I was running some analytics in my WordPress suite, and it turns out my readers are something like 70% Orcs. Apparently very popular in that demographic.
Heading to Nepal
Not sure if this taking a break from writing is all that great of an idea. I finished a big section of my book and figured I’d wait a week or two to resume work. In the meantime I’ve been focused on improving my diet, rest, and physical activity, bought a juicer, been doing a bit of calisthenics, — amazing yogurt in India, really nice to eat on curry dishes and mixed into juice.
In addition to getting healthy physically, I’ve taken sick with some ironically positioned depression and become something of an awful person to be around, irritable, dazed, self-absorbed, inaccessible, wanting to be alone, wishing for my little, secluded garret back in Saint Louis, where I’d be writing in my journal, promising myself that what I write will be kept forever private and extolling the purity of such writing.
Back to BRAT today. Why is it so damn horrifying returning to work? The book is so big and menacing — so many words and sentences– and getting back into that world is never exactly “fun” at first. Nonetheless, this is clearly what I’m meant to be doing, and it’s the only known cure for my particular depression and social awkwardness. To borrow from Neal Stephenson- four to five hours of fiction-writing every day is what’s required in order to make me fit for most human company.
Marijuana can help too, but it’s quite temporary, and, in an effort to preserve the intensity/efficacy of the accompanying paranoia distillation and expulsion, my current herbal rX is twice weekly, Wednesdays and Saturdays, always with enough time elapsed so that my nerves remain a bit taut and anxious; I need to be a little afraid to smoke. I want to bring my fears to life and challenge them to staring contests, but I don’t want to lose my capacity to fear altogether, which, as best I can tell, would make me a burnout or an official “stoner,” and that’s fine, but it’s not what I’m after. The other night I told some stoned Indians about this paranoia-as-spice philosopy, hoping to relate. They didn’t know me, and I was high and paranoid and this made them paranoid too, but they appreciated my company all the same, even though I made them a bit uncomfortable, and we ended up relating well in the end, so much better than we would have had I been just “chill.” Fuck being chill. Yes, twice a week is cheaper, and probably better on the lungs as well.
I’ve been reading, finished two Neal Stephenson books, and just finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon, and I read an old-timey Tin-Tin comic today called “Prisoners of the Sun.” Reading books really is one of the best fucking things about life. I don’t know why more people don’t get into it. It will change your life in ways quite similar to extended travel in developing countries, it’s cheaper too, and easier on the lungs.
Why is it that whenever I get sloppy and lazy in my life, friends and family seem to come out of the woodwork to bring me back up, as if they’re rewarding me for slacking off and being a pain in their asses. I don’t know that I deserve this but I’m grateful for it. My friends and family inspire me. They make me want to be a good person, a great person! …a better person at least.
Speaking of, I’m following my friends, Lloyd and Aleister, to Bangalore, then to Nepal for a couple weeks, where they’ve rented a booth at a body-art/modification convention. Should be an extraordinary trip! I hear internet is plentiful in Nepal, so hopefully I’ll be able to post a couple blog updates. Cheers ! =)
Off-Season Obituaries
Goa’s “busy season” is winding down, which means that many of the friends I’ve made here have begun behaving very strangely. They’re getting on airplanes and going home, returning to this peculiar thing they call Real Life.
First to depart this week, my darling Swiss friends, Ramona and Maria. We met at Lloyd’s book-release party. The four of us soon grew to be inseparable, running around from flea market to dance party, killing off late night hours in
Ramona, Me, Maria, LuLu
the distinctly Goan makeshift beach cafes, where sari-clad Indian women prepare chai and delicious omelettes, their portable griddles set up on mats over the sand and the ocean humming a few feet away. Sounds pretty, but I insist, it’s not really an easy experience to describe.
Though Ramona and Maria spoke decent English, my normal style of speaking was very difficult for them to understand. It took a few days for me to master the art of clear, slow, simple, and essential English, but my efforts paid off in spades. One evening, I was asked to explain my book, Brat. Having already settled into that nice, simple, and essential communication groove with my Swiss friends,the true elevator pitch for Brat was born. It just came out, slow and clear: “It’s about a program that trains children to become Interdimensional Ambassadors. It’s X-Men meets Blair Witch Project meets The Wonder Years.” So simple, so tactical, I don’t think I’ve ever explained the book any better. Maria left weekend before last and Ramona this past Saturday. I miss them a great deal and wish them all the best.
My British friend, Niles, was next to go. His plane took off Sunday morning. Niles is one of those internet geniuses nipping on the heels of his first million at age 29. Good with search engine optimization, not so good with cows:
When I met Niles, he was on a terrific bender, all booze-filled and obnoxious, searching for whatever it is people search for after conquering money. It was the first and last time I saw Niles drink. He had some kind of realization after that night—alcohol wasn’t doing much good in his life. Niles studied art at university. He even attempted a novel once, soon progressing (regressing?) from novelist to copy-writer, and from copy-writer to capitalist. For the next couple of weeks, Niles and I hung out regularly: motorcycling, checking out concerts and beaches, and brain storming on art and business. We even stopped in at my old guest house for a game of Carrom with Lawrence. It’s quite shocking how not drinking sort of forces you into more interesting and gratifying activities.
Also saying farewell on Saturday was Christopher, a very interesting and whip-smart British journalist, whom Niles and I met last week, shortly after the cow incident. Niles and Christopher discovered that they were booked on the same return flight, perhaps destined to remain “mates” stateside.
Christopher and me
I’ve been doing a great deal of planning and analysis over the last few days. I’m quite pleased to report that
Ramona's last night, left to right - me, Ramona, Aliester, Lloyd, Niles (note his new staple, lime soda, on his right)
I’ve managed to spend very little since arriving in India and could conceivably survive for several more months. That said, I think I’m a bit tired of whittling down my bank account while lacking any real income.
Lloyd and Aliester, the two artists whom I’m residing with, continue to inspire me with their intelligence and industriousness. Like me, they’ve been pursuing professionalism in their crafts for about four years now. Though our mediums differ, our development and maturity as artists feel strangely similar. Working together, I think we may be able to sustain a practical existence for ourselves and our art here in Goa during the off season. Too early to tell for sure, but I’m optimistic and drawing plans.
An Open Letter to Non-Russian Kate
Kate,
Since I’m running behind schedule I’m going to double up and send you an email that will double as a blog post. I realize this represents some departure from our traditional privacies, and I think I might enjoy making a nice inside joke out of the whole thing. Perhaps I shall make this a very odd email, thereby giving it the impression as the norm of our correspondence. And who’s to say it’s not?
I’ve been worrying lately about the prospect of turning into a goat or some other field creature. Let me begin this story near its end. When I was running around the Goa “party” scene, doing my most solid night’s partying since parting ways with the US, I came across five or so Italian men on the roof of a beach-side dance club. 24 hours earlier, in the heat of a nightmare stoning session, I’d succumbed to vast and over-complicated fantasies of old magiks and voodoos being practiced in the wildernesses of Hindustan. Conspiracies and covens, that whole thing, evolved for the modern era, and headquartered in a place called Goa, where the unspoken T at the end, stands for Tourist, and the rituals are most gruesome.
Back to my Italian friends— five young men, lady’s men, all muscles and gonohrrea, looked and acted as if the Jersey Shore cast were their interdimensionally removed descendants. Brain still pained by the fantasies of past moon, I couldn’t help but notice that each of the five Italians had rings running through their septums. And, poor diplomat that I am, I couldn’t help but allow said septum rings to cold-launch me into a conversation about my previous night’s musings on animal transmutations, the kind I speculated was being practiced in Goa(T). And I followed it all up, wearing sudden bright-eyed alarm, by noting how peculiar it was that we were visitors in a land where the cows roam free, without the obligation of certain non-conformist fashion statements (meaning their septums were kept intact). Still not meaning to be rude, I began talking about the Italian debt crisis via free and crude associations…
It was unfortunate, and I must confess, to feeling a tad guilty for doing so, but at one point I seemed to create a five-wide ripple of fine worry through their stoned minds. Reading it on their faces, I think we’ve got a Situation here.
Here’s the beauty, I departed the Italians amidst many laughs and few judgments, on well terms and in perfect spirit. Perhaps this pleasant ending can be attributed to the outright supremacy of these most bizarre communication methods, or perhaps due to the resilience and strength of my dashing American charisma (strangeness, I must say, tends to look good on me), but most likely, I suspect, it was due to the persistent phenomenon of basic human goodness and chemical intoxication. I would see them, the Italians, later in the evening and proceed, by conscious obligation, to alight and craft with them new conversation of a kind enjoyable as the last, but driven, by careful design, through polite and normal channels of topic. I fancy this proferred recovery package to be recognized and admired, and my hope is that both the Italians and myself will depart our travels bearing better refined notions of responsibility, humility, and service, lessons we can take, not just from each other, but from the noble beasts that here roam free through field and street.
Other news, book is going well… growing in all directions, beastly and bold as an Akira-style curse.
Write back soon =-)
Bryan
