Gokarna & Hampi

Hi again everybody. A lot has happened since my last update, but rather than relate everything, I've decided to concentrate on the highlights: specifically, the interesting people we have met and the uniquely Indian experiences that we have encountered.

For a frame of reference, we spent a week in Gokarna, a beach town in northwestern Karnataka with a quaint little market, a handful of important Hindu temples, and a string of beautiful sandy beaches, some miles long, others tucked into little coves. The first few mornings I took to walking along one of the long beaches, where fishermen would use mango-wood canoes to set shore nets. Then children would haul in the nets, sort the fish, and take them to market. It was such a beautiful, simple way of living, and I wondered for how many centuries of mornings they had been doing it.



Gokarna is also a very holy place, and many Indians were quite fond of bathing in the ocean. For Hindus, water is the ultimate purifier, and bathing in the ocean combined with a Pooja at the temple is a great way to wash away your sins. The men generally go in their shorts, whereas the women go fully clothed (for decency). You can imagine the Indians' surprise, therefore, at seeing white women suntanning in bikinis. This occasionally causes problems, as young Indian boys frequently find themselves wandering up and down the beaches.

On one day we took a walk to two more remote beaches, which are only accessible by a narrow trail that winds along the coastal cliffs. At the farthest of these beaches we found a small homemade sailboat. Naturally I was extremely excited by this find, and bent to inspect the craft. She had a mango hull like the fishing boats, but it had been enhanced by the addition of six-inch gunwales, painted red. These seemed to be somehow sewn and glued to the main hull. The boat also had two outriggers, also painted red, and a red centerboard that fit through a hole in the bottom of the boat. To prevent the boat from sinking, a box had been built around this hole, which when sailing would fill up with water to the level of the water outside the boat. I don't have a picture of the craft, but check Kyle's blog as he might post one.

About this time we heard an angry shout from a hut farther up the beach, and when I approached I was greeted by Gur, the young suntanned long-haired Israeli first-mate, and Wolfgang, the quiet middle-aged Austrian captain. They were engaged in carving a diggeridoo, but paused long enough to answer my questions about the sailboat. As it turned out, Wolfgang was a carpenter who spent his winters in Gokarna, and he had decided to construct the craft with no previous knowledge of boat-building and no reference to any books. Amazing.

Well, we spent a few more lazy days in Gokarna and then we caught a "sleeper" bus to Hampi. I say "sleeper" because without intravenous anesthetic it is laughable to think you could sleep on any vehicle moving along Indian roads. Maybe, just maybe with the help of sleeping pills and earplugs and some calm music you'd find yourself dozing off, and then you'd have this overwhelming sensation that you were falling and you'd open your eyes and guess what? You WERE falling! Because the bus had hit a bump and now you're in the air and WHAM! you hit the bed and oh well, so much for sleeping.

Hampi, anyway, is the most beautiful place in India that I've been so far. Imagine the landscape of Joshua Tree, but with a beautiful river running through it, and the banks of the river occupied by rice-paddies, banana plantations, coconut palms, and ancient Hindu ruins. It's magical - like walking through the Ramayana. And as it turns out, this place is part of the Ramayana; it is Kiskinda, the monkey kingdom, from whence Hanuman and Sugreeva came. And it is also the former capital of a great Hindu empire (sometime around the 1500's), that was eventually destroyed by the a nearby Muslim empire (religious wars are not news, after all).

So on the second day in Kiskinda I had a little adventure. I decided to set out on my own, to see what I might see. First I climbed up some granite boulders, where I saw this view. Then I noticed this lizard and decided to stalk it as slowly and quietly as I possibly could. Well, I got this close before it ran away.



Then I went down into the next valley and attempted to cross the river but was thwarted by these guards.


Eventually I outwitted them and continued on through peanut fields and banana plantations, where (of all places) I was approached by a man a bag who was selling home-made cakes. Well, naturally I couldn't refused and ended up with one banana and one coconut. I made my way towards the Hanuman temple, which is perched on a ridge at the top of many stairs. I enjoyed the view for awhile, then found a nice overhanging boulder to crawl under and read in the shade while the midday sun passed overhead. As I was about to continue wandering I heard some voices...underneath me! Well, I thought this deserved some investigation, so I hopped down a bit and lo-and-behold - caves! Thus began an underground exploration, the highlight of which was the formation pictured below.






When I reached the bottom of the stairs I decided to cross the river to explore some ruins I had seen from the Hanuman temple. Summoning my vast knowledge of river crossing, I chose a spot where the channel was wide and fast (and thus shallow). Well, I soon learned that shallow doesn't matter much when the rocks are slippery. This isn't the best picture, but maybe you can tell that my left pant-leg is shredded, and that my clothes are soaked up to mid-torso. Thankfully, my bag didn't get wet, and I finished the crossing with it on my head.


On the other side I found some interesting river formations (remember, this is hard granite), and the ancient ruins I was seeking. I also found a sari that someone probably lost while doing laundry, which I fashioned into a turban to keep the sun out of my eyes. It almost worked.




Evening time was spent exploring and photographing the ruins, and I made it back to our lodge just as night fell and the sliver moon came out of hiding. It was a wonderful day.


The next day was also wonderful, but I've told enough stories for now. Anyway, I'm sure that Kyle will tell of it in his blog, so check there.

Love,
Josh

Kyle's Blog & The Coorg

Hi again everyone -

I'm in Mangalore now, on the western coast of India in the southern
part of Karnataka state. The past twelve days have been extremely
eventful, with so many sights, sounds, and thoughts that the task of
summarizing them for you is quite daunting. Luckily, my friend Kyle
is keeping a very detailed weblog of our experiences, which you can
read at http://indiainkyle.blogspot.com/

In addition to that account, I can provide you with a few of my
reflections from the last twelve days. We spent three days trekking
in the Western Ghats, the details of which you can find in Kyle's
blog. I would just like to comment on the village in which we stayed
during that trek. Imagine a landscape much like the Santa Lucia
mountains near Stanford. Now replace the oak-madrone forest with a
jungle full of big-leafed, buttress-rooted trees, wrapped in vines,
buzzing with the deafening hiss of cicadas. Along the valley bottoms,
imagine rice paddies interspersed with small gardens, bordered by
footpaths, bisected by a small creek. Above the paddies: small cement
houses, painted white with red tile roofs, surrounded by banana trees,
coffee and cardamom plants. Inside the houses: small families, no
cars. What I am trying to say is that this villiage was the most
sustainable community I have ever visited. It was not perfect, of
course - and I got only a three-day impression. But if any of you are
interested in self-reliant, sustainable communities, I highly
recommend the villiage of Cherangalla, Karnataka, in the Western
Ghats.

Other thoughts: I'm very interested in solar cookers. I think they
could do a lot for India in terms of preventing deforestation and
reducing particulate polution. I need to do further research.

This week in reading:
The Ramayana (translated by R.K. Narayan): the great Indian hero
story: a triumph of honor and strength.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (Tom Wolfe): the story of Ken Kesey's
Merry Pranksters and their experiments with LSD, set in a very
familiar location: Stanford, La Honda, San Francisco. How many times
did I bicycle through those towns, never suspecting what once went on?

India wears on you. People here look older than they actually are.
I'm learning a lot from this experience, but sometimes it's tough.
Other times it's exhilirating. I think every citizen of the developed
world should spend some time in a developing country - to learn how
most of the world lives.

Okay, that's all for now. Take care everybody.
-Josh

LAFTI

Why hello again folks! Double time no write. Because, you see, I
have been hangin' out with this Gandhian non-profit down in rural
Tamil Nadu, where email is far, far away. But now I'm on my way back
north, to meet Kyle in Bangalore (yay!).

So let's see...last time I emailed you was from Bombay before my
flight to Madurai. That went normal Indian-beauracratic-delay style,
then I stayed in Madurai for a day and visited Meenakshi temple, a
huge ancinet complex with lots of towers covered in brightly-painted
many-armed Hindu gods and godesses. And beneath these deities walked
black-skirted bare-chested (male) devotees who had come for the
Thanksgiving-like festival of Pongal! And there were rainbow mandalas
on the ceilings and temple elephants whose faces were painted.
Altogether quite beautiful.


The next day I caught a bus to Gandhigram and met Krishnammal and
Jaganathan, the leaders of the Gandhian organization Land for Tillers
Freedom for whom I have taught English for the last two weeks.
Gandhigram is also the site of a Rural Development University - which
teaches such practical skills as well-digging, cloth-weaving,
sanitary-engineering, etc. Gandhigram was also a great place to just
walk about in the mornings and evenings, enjoying the relatively cool
tropical air, beautiful sunsets, and friendily-staring people, some of
which invited me into their house for a snack and a cultureal
exchange!


But soon it was off to Kuther, a tiny village in Nagapattinam
district, to teach English to the hostel students. The train ride
there was CROWDED, and for the first bit I had to sit in the luggage
rack, gasping for air. But then I had an idea. Indians, with their
dark skin, don't like to sit in the sun...so they had left empty the
sunny-side doorway of the train car (whereas the shady-side doorway
was packed with people hanging out of the train). So I plopped myself
down in the doorway, lathered up with sunscreen, whipped out my CD
player and started listening to some bluegrass. The train goin'
chuga-chuga-choo-choo and the banjo goin' twangidy-twang-twang and the
harmonica goin' whoaw-whoaw and the rice-paddies flowin' by with the
mountains in the background and the wind whippin' through my hair --
my face lit up with such a smile that it confused the hell out of all
of my fellow travelers packed like sardines. After the train were two
buses and then a motorbike and by the time I finally got to Kuther and
was exhaustedly writing in my beautiful journal I realized -- hey-
it's my birthday!


The folks at Kuther were kind, but they didn't speak very good
English, and the children were in school most of the time, so it was
quite lonely and boring at times. I continued walking in the mornings
and the evenings and during the day I just read and read and read - I
finished three books and then had to start reading one all over again.
But one of the books I read was called "The Color of Freedom" and it
was the story of the lives of Krishnammal and Jagannathan.

Krishnammal came from an untouchable family but still managed to get a
college education (unheard of for any untouchable, let alone a woman).
She basically just won't quit, and she's guided by such a faith in
God that just talking to her makes me want to believe. In fact,
everybody here has a similar (if not as powerful) faith. And I want
to believe! I want to be taken by storm by an irresistably powerful
force of direction. But as yet it has failed to happen - my
personality tending, as always, towards cool-headed skepticism. Which
is okay by me - if God's so great he'll find a way to convince even
me. And in the meanwhile I am content to explore, enjoy, and try to
help others where I can.

Anyway, Jagannathan came from a more fortunate family, but abandoned
all of his worldly posessions in college and joined the Gandhian
movement. He lived in ashrams, taught poor children, joined in
non-violent protests, wore home-spun clothing...and eventually, became
a leader. Krishnammal and Jagannathan met each other and Gandhi when
he came to Madurai. After independence and Gandhi's death they joined
Vinoba Bhave, a deeply spiritual man who walked the length and breadth
of the country asking rich landlords to simply give their land to poor
people - and amazinly, beset by Gandhi's politics and Vinoba's
spirituality, they did! Only in India.

Anyway, the idea behind Vinoba's and LAFTI's efforts is that, because
India is basically an agricultural nation, land distribution is the
key to social equality. But, being Gandhians, they would also like to
see India abandon the Western idea of progress in favor of simple
employment and village self-rule, etc. That, I'm afraid, is not going
to happen. India is modernizing at a ludicrous speed, causing all
sorts of environmental and social problems. If we believe classic
economics, in the end this will produce a better life for all - but
being here has made me aware that classic economics is based on the
glorification of greed, instead of on the higher morals that people
like Mahatma Gandhi challenged us all to embrace. Classic economics
assumes that people will choose what's best for them - but Gandhi
showed us that sometimes they get confused and need a little push in
the right direction.

But unfortunately, Gandhi is gone. And greed is (and always will be)
with us. So "progress" continues. And by no means am I above it. As
someone once told Gandhi, and as my own beloved Mother once told me,
"It takes many people working very hard to keep your life simple."
Who, after all, cultivates the food that I eat, makes the clothes that
I wear, flies the airplanes that spirit me away to Alaska and India?
And for now, I am unwilling to give it all up and go live in the
woods.

So what does LAFTI do? They receive donations from foreigners and the
Indian government, use them to buy land, distribute the land among the
landless poor, build brick houses to replace mud huts, run hostels so
poor children can attend school, and combat the environmentally and
socially devastating multi-national prawn-farming industry. That
industry buys up land from poor farmers, excavates it, fills it with
briny, chemical-laced water, cultivates prawns for five years during
which water is constantly pumped from the local aquifer through the
tank (where it picks up toxins and prawn-waste) and out to sea where
it kills fish and mangroves. After five years the land is an
abandoned, unusable for decades, the aquifer depleted. As a prawn
farm the land employs 1/40 the the people as it did as a rice paddy.
Most of the prawn money goes into western pockets, and all of the
prawns end up on western tables. If you could see what that industry
has done to these people, you would never eat a farmed prawn again.
Words do it no justice. This is an economic externality of the worst
scale, but because of India's beureaucratic corruption the laws
against it are not enforced. So people like Krishnammal and
Jagannathan fight, using non-violent protests, getting beaten and
arrested, until they are aged 80 and 95 respectively. As we enter an
age devoid of the contemporaries of Mahatma Gandhi, I wonder if this
work will continue. Perhaps I will try to continue it myself...but
for now the cultural and language barriers are too great...and God's
directive is still elusive. What I (and you too) can do: don't eat
farmed prawns (or for that matter, any farmed fish). Tell your
friends to do the same, and check out the LAFTI newsletter, which I
will forward.

Well, I taught the children all the English I could (given that I
speak no Tamil, and thus could only teach using actions). Eventually,
boredom got the better of me, so I decided to head up to Bangalore to
meet Kyle. And now I am stopped over in Trichy to do laundry and
visit the Rock Fort.



Thank you all for your kind replies to these emails.

Namaskaar,
Josh

Mumbai & Matheran

Hi again everyone. Before I forget, if there is anybody who would not
like to be on this email list, please let me know. No offense taken -
I know you all have busy lives. Also, if there is anyone who I am
missing, please send me their email address or forward this email to
them and tell them to reply.

Okay, now down to business. As a disclaimer, it's very hot and
crowded in this internet cafe right now so we'll see how long I can
last.

When I left you last I was in Jaipur after Vishal's wedding trying to
figure out what the hell I'd be doing next. Well, that afternoon I
ended up on an overnight train with Britter and Shannon to Mumbai
(Indian name) / Bombay (Portugese/British name). The train was a bit
cramped but nicely air conditioned and the bed was comfortable. In
Mumbai we stayed at Vishal's dad's sports club, a very nice facility
with badmitton, cricket, and other britishy sports - plus a swimming
pool where I was approached by an Indian after a short swim and asked
whether I was a professional swimmer.

Anyway, pride aside, I spent three days in Mumbai sightseeing - we
went to the tomb of Haji Ali which is connected to the mainland by a
concrete causeway covered in street vendors and beggars all of whom
have to get off quick when the tide comes up. We also went to the
Gateway of India, an Arc-de-Triumph sort of monument erected in honor
of the british royalty, and ironically the same point through which
the last biritsh troops passed in 1947.


From there we caught a ferry
to Elephanta island, where the native Hindu fisherman many hundreds of
years ago had carved a series of caves and statues into the volcanic
rock. I hired a young local guide there who taught me many
interesting things, the best of which was the origin of Ganesh's
elephant head.

Basically, Ganesh was the son of Shiva (the destroyer) and Parvati,
and one day Parvati was in the bathroom and told Ganesh to guard the
door, which he did. Well, along came Shiva and said "Out-of-my-way!"
and Ganesh said "No, Mommy's in there!" so Shiva naturally cut off his
son's head. Well, Mommy wasn't very pleased so she sent Ganesh into
the forest and told him to come back with the head of any animal, and
he came back with an elephant head and she fixed it on his neck.

The next day we walked around some Victorian style buildings in
downtown Bombay. The story of Bombay's pretty interesting, as it used
to be a series of seven islands that have since been merged into one
long peninsula by the use of thousands upon thousands of concrete
tetrapods chucked into the ocean. Anyway, Britter and Shannon left
shortly thereafter and I perused the Rough Guide for awhile and
decided to head for Matheran, a nearby hill station that has the
remarkable feature of having banned cars from its premises (quite a
difference from Bombay, although with just as much air pollution
unfortunately). Anyhow, Matheran is atop a plateau in the Western
Ghats - the surrounding countryside looks akin to the Colorado plateau
/ canyonlands area except there's more bottomland than topland and
there's moonsoon forest instead of desert, if that makes any sense. I
stayed at Hope Hall Hotel, a wonderful establishment run by a gracious
Christian lady and her long-haired punk-rocker close-lipped
big-bellied possibly-homicidal brother (no joke). There I tried to
sleep while Monkeys gambuled across my roof and stray dogs howled at
the moon. By day I walked around the plateau or chatted with
Europeans about various strange things including $20,000 music boxes
made during 4 months of winter in the Alps and how Gandhi was a
womanizer (more later, hopefully). I also read a lot of Salman
Rushdie's Midnight's Children which combined with the heat is why I'm
writing like this.


Anyway, I am now back in Bombay and tomorrow I catch a plane to Tamil
Nadu, where I will meet with Krishnammal and the rest of LAFTI, this
organization I'm volunteering for to help untouchables get land,
shelter, and an education. I think I'll be mostly teaching English.
My health is good and I am getting less lonely than before, although I
still eagerly await Kyle's arrival.

I've been thinking lots about how to help all these poverty-stricken
people I see around. The thing is sometimes I think I might do more
harm than good by introducing my idea of "progress" into their lives.
But there's a few people who really need help, and that's the ones
that've left their villages to come to Bombay to make money and have
ended up in a slum. I think I'm gonna give this guy I met today $15
to buy a box on which to polish shoes. He came from a town in Jaipur
to Bombay in order to make money to repay the loans he took out when
his father got cancer. I quizzed him a bunch on his history and what
he plans to do with the shoe-polish box - everything I could think of
- and I don't think it's a scam. So we'll see - I'm gonna tell him to
write me a postcard every month for a year to tell me about how his
shoe-polishing is going - and if he does it then I'll know I've helped
someone and if he doesn't then I'll know I got scammed.

God it's hot. What else? I don't know....I think that's the
highlights. Goodbye for now, good friends, I'll write you again in a
week.

-Josh

Vishal's Wedding

Dear friends and family,

Greetings from India. I have just finished attending three days of
Vishal's wedding functions, and boy were they grand. Full of flowers,
food, music, dancing, diamonds, colorful clothing, palaces and so much
more.


Jaipur is a bustling mass of people and cars and scooters all going
every which way, honking horns, selling wares. I am quite
overwhelmed, but hopefully time with help with that. The Hindi that I
learned before coming has been quite useful, if only to serve as a
small commonality between me and the locals.

Forgive me for not telling more details but I am quite tired as the
wedding ceremony last night did not end until 3am. I am also trying
to figure out what I'll be doing for the next month or so.

So far my health is good, thank God.

More later.
-Josh