Note to self

Inquiry: Social security as a socially responsible, and potentially cost effective, means to economic nationalism.

What is partial rationalization of space? How much would be enough? What sections of local knowledge would be required, could be incorporated? Logical circle complete.

Why did I write this here? Because I know I will look at it again. I would have done it one a white board back home, but here I am.

"A Successful Indian Businessman"

Taken from "Games Indians Play" by V. Raghaunathan. (Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, pg. 32-33)

A city boy, Ram, moved to the countryside and bought a goat from an old farmer for Rs 1000. The farmer agreed to deliver the goat the next day. But the next morning the farmer went Ram and said, 'Sorry son, but I have some bad news. The goat died last night.'

Ram replied, 'Well then, just give me back my money.'

The farmer said, 'Can't do that. I have spent it already.'

Ram said, 'OK then, just unload the goat.'

The farmer asked, 'What are you going to do with a dead goat?'

Ram: 'I'm going to raffle him off.'

Farmer: 'You can't raffle off a dead goat!'

Ram: 'Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he's dead.'

A month later the farmer met Ram and asked, 'What did you do with that dead goat?'

Ram: 'I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at Rs 10 apiece and made a profit of Rs 3990, net of the Rs 1000 I paid you.'

Farmer: 'Didn't anyone complain?'

Ram: ' Just the guy who won. So I gave him back his Rs 10.'

Ram grew up and eventually became a successful Indian businessman.

The Holy Man

I'm still in Delhi until Monday. I will be traveling after that. I have a lot to do in the next twenty four days; I'll keep you posted. But, I only want to write about the last day or so. They have been fantastic hours.

I am currently writing a short story. Some of you already know this. Will it be good? Who knows. Will you like it? I have no idea. Am I enjoying writing it? More than you can know.

I had a whole section on the short story, and how it feels, etc. I've cut it though. I'll just give it to you, and see what you think. It doesn't have anything to do with India, other than I wrote it here.

On a different note, I went to the Lotus Temple yesterday. It's the South Asian equivalent of the Baha'i temple in Evanston, IL. It was beautiful, free, and quiet.

Read the enscription in the next photo. Who doesn't like this? The Baha'i don't ask for donations. They do not prosletize. Their monuments to God are built by beneficiaries and believers that want to give back. Their temples are places of silent meditation, where only religious texts can be read. Reading as the way to God! The written word.



Here is the view from just above that plaque.


And here are a few more pictures:


I had to take off my shoes.


Awkward.


Better.


This is the face I make when the person taking the picture looks like he wants to steal my shit.

As I have told you, I have spent a lot of time without speaking. I spend most doused in what I would call city silence - where your tiny world is quiet, but you can intermitantly hear the noise of the thousands around you. It influences the serenity more than disturbs it. Most of those who will be reading this know what I mean. The traction of a car driving past drifts through your Chicago window. A vegetable wala yells his presence to doors and people from the street below. City silence.

Sometimes it is perfect, but - when you are as alone as I have been - at times it can also be troublesome. You want it to stop or include you. But because I don't fit in, don't speak the most common language, and if none of my friends are free at the moment I am forced to listen alone.

The inside of this temple is as geometrically inspiring as the outside. The center atrium rises to the with interior butresses criss-crossed at lower levels, and the lights shining towards the top of the blossom are positioned to cast perfect shadows. And, no matter where you sit the lights make three shining points on the eight-corn gold star above you all. There are benches that are radially on a given point in front of all of them. But where you expect an altar... There isn't one. It was the first place where the silence around me was one and the same with the silence within. I was welcome. I sat there and stared around. I was happy. I was at peace. I stayed as long as the sensations lasted, and didn't force any more time upon myself.


The building was beautiful. It was a product of love that was meant to encourage love. It was amazing. In there, in its own little way - it worked. I wasn't just the white man. They were not just the Indians. The Tamil. The Punjabi. The Baha'i. The Christians. The atheists. I was just there by myself, and with them at the same time.

I enjoyed that I couldn't speak. I enjoyed that I couldn't take pictures. I enjoyed thinking about the sacrosanctity of rules, the variability of rituals, and the pleasures of community.

I enjoyed that I couldn't take pictures. I enjoyed that if you wanted to know anything about what I was talking about, then you would have to visit yourself.

It made me remember Elementary Forms of Religious Life, a secular bible, and how I didn't care about my secularism all at the same time.

I don't want you to laugh at me, but you can if you want. For a while I was thinking these things, both while in the temple and after I left.

I am the holy man for he knows the majesty of belief. I am the holy man for he has seen the serenity of God.

That's what that silence, and inclusivity did for me. I'll never forget it.

I walked out slowly. My legs were relaxed. It was a like a stroll, but it didn't encorporate the looking. They handed me an informational booklet in English, but asked what language I would prefer because they didn't want to assume. I asked them if they had one in Spanish. "Gracias," yo dije.

But I overheard some Spanish speaking tourists as I was getting my shoes. Their Indian guide's Spanish wasn't very good. "¿Hablantes?" I asked. They said yes. I explained what it was and gave them my booklet. "Tengan un buen día," I told them, and they all smiled. They wished me the same. I think they were from Columbia. They seemed to be a progressive family. You can ask me how I would guess such things if you like. They seemed very nice. I think that matters most.

This is the view from just outside the temple, opposite of where the creepy man took my picture.



I met a nice old man, Mr. Singh, who invited me to join him and his grandchildren at Humayun's Tomb. I got to sit in a van with three wonderfully rambunctious British children. I asked them if they wanted to go to Cambridge or Oxford. The two boys both said Cambridge, but the little girl hadn't made up her mind yet. She was only six. I asked them all which college the wanted to go to, but they didn't know. I recommended Queens and Sydney Sussex for my time there, but who knows where they'll end up.

I don't know why the British accent has been wonderfully immortalized, but it has. These kids shot twinges around the car as fast and as loudly as they could. The grandfather couldn't see me, but I must have looked like the Cheshire cat.

The tomb had just closed when we got there, so we didn't get to go in. I'll got back soon.

The family's driver dropped me off at a series of North Indian restaurants that my host recommended. I took an auto to my favorite bar after that, Cafe Morrison. I had a couple beers, aranged to celebrate the start of Ramadan in Old Delhi with Saad and his friends. He's going to lend me his 35mm for the occasion, so I have to get some film by Friday.

We also made tenative plans to go to Agra to see the Taj on Sunday. Saad is older than I am, and I asked if his daughter had ever seen it. It's a three hour drive, and I want to split the gas with him. I'll let you know if we go.

The last part of yesterday as important a highlight as the Lotus Temple though.

Who got to drive an auto-rickshaw in Delhi? Sam got to drive an auto-rickshaw in Delhi.

Examples of the ubiquitous Delhi auto-rickshaw.

The clutch was a little tricky. I'll get it down next time. I was smiling like a dumb ass. It was 2 AM. Another auto drove by, and all three of the Indian men in the back seat stuck their heads out to look. We got to a police checkpoint, and I asked whether me driving would be a problem. Jeetandar said, "You America. No problem." I got out and screamed, and smiled. I giggled like a gaggle of gallivanting girls. That's how it was.

It made me fall asleep feeling silly. Thinking:

There is good and evil in this world. And only when you are steeped in one - like ripening tea - can you speak about the qualities of one or the other, or of their products, with absolute impunity and traces of truth.

I spat something equally silly about how happiness and melancholy are infectious over the phone to a friend.

I went to sleep feeling so happy.

As soon as I start writing...

I've neglected this blog for a while now. I know though, that as soon as I start writing something, I am going to want to write more. This is a short post, but I have more, more, more to say.

Short post.

Here it goes.

STOP STARING AT ME!

I am not a museum piece. This goes out to all those people who grope me with their eyes, and all those merchants whose 'white tax' is a little to high. I am part of the last group on earth to know objectification as existential. I am an educated, upper-middle class, white, American male. I am not a woman. I am not colored. At home, I am not excoticized. For millions all over the globe, what I say is cool becomes cool - singularly because someone like me said it.

Put me here, and I know. Put me here and let a person I was trying to befriend stop me to say, "Listen Caucasian boy..." Put me here and let little children look at me like they don't trust me. Put me here and let men and women alike look at me like I am nothing like the fabric of the life I have been leading for two months. Let them look.

I am still a man. I am still rich by any Indian standard. I am still American with all the pros that come with it. I am still safe. So it is easier to bear for me.

But now I know, and I will punch any person that tells me I don't. Do you not think I am affected? Do you think I do not think I understand what singularity feels like in a sea of people? Do you not think I cherish the sense of community, or at least anonymity, that denotatively exists in opposition to it? I do.

Not knowing where to turn breeds a despair that I didn't even think I was allowed to feel before.

I am still able to take it, now. I know the feeling now. I'm telling you, right now, that I'm going to use what I've learned. Let them look.

Facebook Blogging

Facebook Blogging

All of these were written as Facebook status updates. They were ‘shared’ in succession, and were posted as rapidly as they could be finished and proofread. They are a skeleton sketch of what last Tuesday was like for me, and how I felt about it on Wednesday.

I woke up incredibly early and was dehydrated to such a degree that I wanted to cry. It was too early and no where was open except for a juice stand off the main market. I asked for paani. He poured me a glass of unfiltered water, and I just stared at it for 10 seconds before I said, '[omitted].' I finished it in one gulp and asked for another. I laid down on my mat and realized that it was so hot that I may not know if I have a fever.

I was in an auto driving to Gurgaon from Delhi. I understood that Delhi auto drivers won't cross the Haryana boarder, but he never fully explained his intentions. It's 13km to Gurgaon. He drives 10, and dropped me under a banyan tree. A police officer pointed to a speeding bus. He spoke as though I wanted that bus. He walked away after that. I walked along the side of the road, and stopped to admire a goat.

A stranger picked me up almost immediately after I parted company with the goat. It didn't take long for someone to spot me in full business attire 3km from anywhere. He dropped me off somewhere where I could catch a rickshaw. I rode behind a man on a bike for a mile. I reached my destination and had a meeting. Then another.

Then no one could help me find a cab so I walked the mile to where they all thought I could catch one. It was here, on semi deserted streets, in a city that I knew nothing about, going to meetings in which my entire modus is to duplicitously bully my way through to get information, that I found articulation for a question I had been meaning to ask: "How did I get lost in South Asia?"

I then got stuck in that city for another 10 hours. It cost me way too much to get home when I finally did. That said, I played pool with a Nepalese bar tender and ate the best chicken lollipops of my life. It made my night. That was all yesterday.

This is what I wrote when I was done.

“I'm outta here. I'm getting a milkshake.”

8/5/09

As annoying a breach in standard operating procedures as it might have been, I really enjoyed using Facebook in a way that it normally isn't. I don't recommend it for everyone and all occasions, but I say that having a hand in flexing the boundaries of one electronic medium with the information usually associated with another was fun for me. A small scale synthesis that got positive results. And this time it involved goats.

Loneliness – It’s not always what you think

Loneliness – It’s not always what you think

I have been basically alone for a month. I told you that I have spent entire days without having a conversation. I was unable to be alone before I got here. I was wrought with anxiety - so wrought that I like the images of shirtless men wielding hammers and flame to my not so ferrous frame. So wrought that I feel more akin to my father’s spiral staircase than I have ever been. “Walk over me!” It’s funny to know that I never said such a thing, but I could have. It would have been faster.

I have been physically alone for a month. The people next to me are often not that next to me. The people with me fleet. For need and cause I have taken up my pen and drawn in the walls of city silence, my most consistent compatriot. It would be errant to not recognize my brother in arms. I have taken up my pen and used it as a child’s sword to draw upon these walls. It would be unwise to not try to make this friendship mine.

To make it mine. To make it mine. I have had some of my most contented moments under the sweat stained shroud my loneliness has draped over me. I stared without a sound at the rotors above me while at home today. I was lying, and thinking about my luck. Thoughts did not jump in my head like cheap Mexican tricks; it was not like it usually is. Dreams and thoughts were dolled out. “Gruel for you Sam Chereskin? Yes, please I would love some more.” It was a moment that Dickens would not drain to write, but would love to live. Cool, refreshing, and perfectly controlled – my mind was like a garden hose in summer with free flowing gems that were perfectly controlled in the summer heat. I felt like I understood myself. I felt like I have learned enough things about myself—things that are hard to learn—to be contented for a day. I later set to work without reservation. I ate lunch by myself as always. I sat down on my roof and tanned my feet as I once again read about Mr. Darcy and Ms. Bennett. I got to page 120 that day.

But walking down the street. But realizing that you have not worn clean clothes in a month. Upon taking pictures of yourself just as photographic record of how within thirty seconds of putting on clothing that your expensive shirt and your appearance have become irreversibly transparent. Upon realizing that I have not peed in three days even though you drink between two and four liters of water a day. Upon realizing that you had not even missed it, and that you cannot fully recall the sensation. Upon realizing that it is undoubtedly caused by how much you sweat. Upon realizing that you want convenience again. That you want to tell someone about all the things you learned from your days alone, and from your days with millions upon millions of other people who your friends will never see… upon doing all these things the sweat stained shroud of loneliness simply becomes your sheet. It simply is that disgusting looking floral print sheet from the department store you never liked. It is simply dirty. It is simply sticky. It is simply nothing to you emotionally, and everything to you physically as you recall it is your only barrier from the even dirtier mat you call a bed. It is in these moments when the shroud is a coffin. Simple. Unimpressive. Probably made of cheap oak and open for everyone to see – like that funeral I saw three weeks ago. It is simply outside of your ability to control.

That is the loneliness that I settle into sometimes. It is physical, and is not mine. My mind is mine. My body sometimes feels like it isn’t.

I am settling in, and I will find the pillow once more. I will see the next sunrise through my window, and I will dance again.

I just wonder how it is that in a place where I have so many revelations, how it is that I cannot be sure whether I am slipping into sanity or out of it.

Bring yourself to ask, “How is it that so many things happen at once?”

All I want to do right now is go back to Jane Austin.




I have since gotten my clothes washed. I found a great café. I’ve started to catch up at work. I am almost done with Pride and Prejudice. I’m going to Gourgon tomorrow- I get to see something new which always excites me. My cousin said she would help me try to get into the classroom. I will have background information and at least 6 letters of recommendation when I take it to uncle and the CPS system. I’m happy today. I wanted to share this post because this is one of the few places I spell out what bad days feel like. We all have them, but we don’t always talk about them. They are downers. Even those delivered by friends are hard to deal with too often. I share it because living without air conditioning in a place that ranges from lows of 90 to highs of 115 has defined part of my time in Delhi. It has defined how I sit in rickshaws; how I handle my cell phone (so sweat doesn’t run it)… it effects how and whether I am affected. Good days and bad.

I think the constancy is interesting.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about Photography and Rain, why my father suggested I hide my camera in a box of cigarettes, the Delhi intersection I like the most, and how my meetings have gone.

I’ll leave saying that I saw an 8-year-old girl making roti the other day. She lives five minutes walk from me place in a row of tents on an undeveloped lot. She was wearing a pink dress. She sat low on the sidewalk, and tended to the bread and open kerosene flame. At the moment I saw her she wasn’t paying attention to the bread though. Her hand was still working, but she was looking up and smiling at her friend. Her teeth matched the whites of her eyes. You’ll have to trust me. It was a beautiful smile.

A small note on a book

It's very hard to find books on ballet in Delhi.