Thursday, November 19, 2009

Get Down In My Thumpin' Auto Rickshaw

This ain't just another rickshaw ride...
This is one tricked-out, boomin' and thumpin' vehicle.

And these ain't ordinary streets...
This is Varanasi, with all the requisite beauty and freak!

Turn up the bass, kick up to 'Full Screen'
and enjoy
as my didi and I take a ride and simply
cruise ...

xoxoxo
Bindi

P.S. If you're receiving this via email and can't see the video,
you have to click here to go to the site and view, OK? :)


video


Special thanks to Padma Jeanne Jennings of San Francisco,
who SO generously sent me a new camera this Diwali
so that I could continue to enliven the Bindi Blog...

Thank you, Padma!


Monday, October 05, 2009

Leave 'em Alone, Leave 'em Home

Hello intrepid traveling friends!
If you're preparing for an off-the-beaten-path autumn or winter escape... you may appreciate these "Do Not Pack" Packing Tips...
I wrote these about six months ago and the draft just resurfaced, so I thought I'd post them now, in case they come in handy for anyone about to take off for the Great Unknown!
All love,
Erin
LEAVE 'EM ALONE
Bindi's Number 1 "No-Go" goes to...
1. Steri-Pen LED Water Purifier

Sorry, Steri-Pen, but I can't endorse your product! – the approx. $90 "light pen" used to sterilize water on the road. After contemplating it for several years, I finally bought one last year (I am adamant about not buying plastic water on the road, causing less stress on the environment and the pocketbook), and I am disappointed.

First, the batteries are expensive and fancy photo-types, and they seem to lose power quickly.

Second, the "indicator light" constantly fails, never making it clear whether the water is actually purified or not.

Third, well… I can't think of a third, except that I was disappointed (due to high hopes!) and can't say I recommend the Steri-Pen after all.

So... how do I insure fresh water on the road and avoid contributing to plastic pollution?

1. Drink from known, safe springs and wells; if the locals are chugging the water in the restaurant, it's probably safe.

2. Get your immune system stronger over time (avoid antibiotics; eats lots of curd aka yogurt).

3. Do not live in fear.

4. Buy water if necessary in dodgy areas, or on ships to the Andamans...

And the Number 2 "No-Go" goes to...

2. Overpriced "Travel Shoes"

I don't care if they're top of the line, or if the brand name IS Mephisto, Teva, Birkenstock, Chaco or Keen: WEAR your travel shoes for at least two weeks, regularly, before you take off!

This has been, by far, the hardest item for me to pin down over the years. If you're like me with hard-to-fit feet, it can be infuriating if you've invested a pretty penny in footwear, only to have your feet scream in agony after a week ("Gee, I thought they fit well on that walk through Golden Gate Park…") and you're in a nation NOT known for quality shoes… well, it can make the whole trip a mighty test on the tootsies' patience.

Lumbini, Nepal

LEAVE 'EM HOME

1. Books

Unless you prefer to read in a rarer language like Slovakian, Polish, Finnish, etc., you'll be able to find more books than you know what to do with in India... AND, they are cheap.

I recommend bringing only one (non-guide) book on the plane: the one you are reading. You can then sell it, trade it, give it away, and top up for your next literary indulgence. (This is an area where I say, "Do as I say, not as I do." I am carrying around 4 books right now… and looking to hire a sherpa, simply to carry my tomes.)

2. Towel

Do you really need to feel the lushness of Terrycloth or Egyptian cotton for a few months? A towel can be heavy or bulky, AND it can take more time to dry, insuring a perennial musty smell during wet or humid seasons. I recommend buying a Rs 75 lungi (sarong) - that's about $1.50) when you first arrive in India. They're perfect towels, dry quickly, and can double as beachwear.

3. Laptop

OK, I know I travel with mine (it's currently in the shop and might stay there), but it's sort of a professional necessity – plus, I do live over here now. Yet, I tell you – If you are coming over here to travel, even extended travel, please do not bring your laptop!

Is it really, really necessary? Having a laptop sounds cool, and liberating, and convenient – and maybe it would be for you. But have a good talk with yourself and see if it's really necessary, because it's a MAJOR HASSLE carrying this valuable item through India. Every time you get on a train or bus (if you're moving around a lot), you've got this precious baby to mind. It defeats the whole idea of "getting lost." For years, I worked from net cafes only, using email to store files. Then, I graduated to the gateway drug, the USB pin drive – and I should have stopped there. But due to my profession (a traveling writer), I do need a laptop.

I can pretty much guarantee that unless you HAVE to work regularly from the road and need some fancy programs that Microsoft hasn't made, you can leave your laptop home – and have a much better time. (Remember all those books you said you wanted to read? And that foreign culture and exotic adventure you were looking for? You can wait til you get back home to do Photoshop, believe me.)

If you haven't already, I recommend you spin through the original article, "Don't Leave Home Without It." I stand by all the items on there, still – especially Rescue Remedy and Earplugs from home! You may wish to read "A Few of My Favorite Travel Things," SANS the endorsement for CROCS. (Ed. note 5 October 2009 - I have had to come to the realization that I truly do hate Crocs for everything but the monsoon... ;-) for which plastic shoes with holes come in handy for built-in irrigation.)

HAPPY TRAVELS!


Sunday, August 23, 2009

Now That's My Kind of Devotion

Today is a very special day here in south India.

Today, August 23, 2009 kicks off the great Ganesha Chaturthi, the annual festival celebrating the divine remover of obstacles, the beloved and enchanting elephant-headed god – patron deity to travelers, writers, and travel writers! And supreme god of prosperity, good fortune, and wisdom!

Lord Ganesh is the son, the result, of union between Shiva and Shakti (Purusha and Prakriti), the archetypal, original parents of the manifest universe. Ganesha, also known as Ganapati, is always paid respects before beginning any new venture, rite or ritual. And he is, quite simply, exquisite and beautiful to behold. (Click here to hear a short Ganapati mantra!)

Yes, it’s Ganesha Chaturthi – and the love and lights and flowers and fruits and clanging bells and cannons and crackers of fire, drums and dressed-up deities abound. Every home or community temple has adorned their very own statue, painting and primping and garnishing and ogling before the god. The sounds of "Om Namah Shivaya" and "Aum Gum Ganapathaya Namaha" spill out from loudspeakers round the clock, and all the shops are shut for a proper holiday…

I thought I’d burst into tears last night from sheer happiness: I was scurrying home from a friend’s house, dodging the raindrops as the second wave of monsoon – the receding monsoon – has come to town to quench our thirsts. Out the corner of my eye through a village family’s doorway I spotted a curious happening, one that I hadn't had a chance to witness before. The family – likely a joint family – had acquired two solid white Ganapatis, about a meter high each, and relatives of all ages sat around enjoying the good vibrations while the children mixed up their paints and turned the blank statues into colorful creatures – now they were transformed into gods that were alive! The double Ganapatis were pink elephants, of course, dressed in blues and reds and gems and jewels. I stood at the doorway watching the child artists, reminiscing on some of the American traditions of Christmas gatherings, such as decorating the tree and the hearth. It was just like that. As we say in Asia: same same, but different.

For five days, each family LOVES their personal Ganapati like there’s no tomorrow. Every morning and evening, the deity will be offered fresh fruit, flowers, prayers, songs and meditation. At the end of the five days, all that love is bequeathed to the void, the nothingness, the everlasting Divine: each statue will be taken to the nearest body of water – the sea, the lake, the holy bathing tank, the river – and submerged; some will remain for eternity, some will return to the home.

Today, I followed the beat of the drum like the beat of my own heart, walking to the main market area of the village. Bah-BOOM, bah-BOOM-BOOM, Bah-BOOM, bah-BOOM-BOOM. The thunderous rhythm of myriad morning Ganesha pujas pealed through the streets. I gingerly poked my head inside one home to see a large Brahmin family going to town in honor of the god: I could barely see Ganesha’s sweet little elephant eyes for the garlands piled so abundantly round his neck – but there he was, pink skin and painted trunk and broken tusk and sweet, small, wise pachyderm eyes peeking out just glimpsed above the floral wreaths.

The older Brahmins priests sat to the side of the altar in white lungis or loincloths, aging skin like an elephants hanging off from thin bones, while the children danced exuberantly around, banging their drums discordantly. The main priest, perched cross-legged before Ganesh, chanted prayers non-stop, his left hand ringing his large brass bell with perfect rhythm, his right hand circling a flaming candelabra round the deity. His wife, seated on a mat to his right, kept one hand on her husband’s arm the entire time, touching him lightly, tracking his action with her fingertips while he worked and prayed and gave it up for Ganapati. I got the message: the Shakti was in contact with the Shiva, the two are one, inseparable, for eternity.

Magic was in the house.

One small boy in the family was wailing loudly: the drums and clanging and hoo-ha were too much for his sensitive ears, so he cried away the puja throwing a tantrum on the floor. Not one person paid him any attention. He’d have to learn to enjoy the chaos like the rest of us.

Above the Ganapati idol, the family had created an arbor of abundance above his head. Bowers of fruit – apples, lemons, pineapples, jackfruit, oranges, pomegranates and mangos – and holy leaves, chunks of whole trees, huge clusters of coconuts and showers of streaming flowers strung up to protect, feed, nourish and honor the god. Now that’s adornment, I thought. Nature’s finest.

To Ganesha’s right – perched just before the priest’s wife – was a smaller deity, made of the same substance and design and also decorated to the hilt – gold wreaths and fragrant garlands. I immediately recognized her as Parvati: Shakti incarnate as Shiva’s own wife and consort, and mother to Ganesh. Devi, the goddess, was here in a physical form, for it is the Shakti as Maya who appears as a manifestation of consciousness: the female – mata, mother, matter – is seen so that she can be experienced, an object. In contrast, Lord Shiva (Ganesha’s father) is forever in absentia – the crux of Shiva is that He is the 'consciousness at rest' aspect of duality, which no form could ever encompass. Always, there are indicators and clear reminders of Shiva’s presence: the sacred lingam, the mala of rudraksh (108 beads known also as Shiva tears), even a visual depiction of Shiva’s incarnation as a yogi and man. But, at the end of the day, Shiva is Shiva is Shiva – beyond comprehension, beyond conceptualizing.

Shiva, Shakti (Parvati), and their child, Ganesha. These are the mysteries, the mythological realities of Hindu tradition that fuel this land, India. These are the stories that help a people, a person to understand, to grasp the nature of Truth.

From my self-taken perch in the back of the family prayer room, I watched, absorbed, experienced, and loved along with the rest of the tribe. A girl of about ten, dressed in a brightly-colored salwaar kameez for the festival, pounded on her own drum with passion – whether or not she was banging boldly for love of the god or for the sheer enjoyment of condoned ruckus I knew not, until she surprised me by suddenly sitting herself down quietly, closing her eyes and entering her own meditation alongside her elderly relatives and pious parents – a girl of ten! I was reminded of my own self at her age, entranced with sheer love for the Divine, always up for chance to dance and make loud, good music.

Now that’s my kind of devotion.

Yes, today, August 23, 2009 is a very special day for lovable Ganesh – and for ME!

Today marks One Full Year that I've remained solely in India (the longest stint prior, from 2007-08, was nine months). I finally did it! Instead of returning back to the U.S. for summer as usual, I met my aim of one full revolution around the Sun in the land I call OM.

Yes, it finally happened! I survived – barely – through the entire Hot Season, long-delayed rains building up the pressure so intensely that I though my brain would implode. Concerned for my sanity but never one to back down from a challenge, I experimented to see how much heat a-body could handle.

And, since the salvation of late June’s cloudbursts bringing the first floods, I've been blessed with the completely unexpected beauty of my very first Monsoon… a gift in the most unforeseeable of ways – torrents of sheer natural power, unearthing treasures hidden down deep, in the dark and the difficult.

It is through the pummeling power of Mother Nature that I myself have evolved. The sweetness has sprung from the Source – like lovable Lord Ganesha – to manifest on the earth.

Yes, good things come in threes: the festival, the one-year anniversary, and… it is through these relentless weeks of rain that the bounty, the babe which has been so carefully nourished and hidden in my very own heart for the past seven years has, in fact, come down to earth in the very real form of a fully finished BOOK…!

My heart is happy, the baby is born!!!

Now, let’s see what happens when the words start walking and talking, toddling like precocious children to the desks of publishers, editors, reviewers!

And, I wanted you to be the first to know.

After all, my friends: this book’s for you!


TO BE CONTINUED




Erin Reese
Ganesha Chaturthi
South India
August 23, 2009