“slightly weirded out emotional feelings”– I have no comment on this one.

“hotdogs are good with ketchup slang phrase” — I have written about food, and a little about foreign languages, but I’m hard pressed to figure out where this comes from.

“how do i say thali?” – this one warms my heart ‘cuz I know I’ve helped another confused soul– I used to be this person. It’s the name of a typical Indian dish.

“backpacker salvation army mumbai surf — pure poetry, if you ask me. more stuff from my India entries

“booby pillows” I used this name for the clouds in my Manila installation, I think.

My entry on dirty words in Tagalog has brought quite a few fantastic search terms that aren’t exactly for the faint of heart:

“dirty words in tagalog”- cut to the chase, already
“tagalog tingle”- sounds like a jingle
“filipino words are flexible”
“boy brotsa”– wha?
and the unimaginable search term: “vagina smegma” Um, hi dad.

Unpredictably, I also get a lot of search term mileage from a passage I wrote about a gay man coming on to me in an Indian train station and another advance at a park in Ahmedabad, Gujarat– I mean, how was I to know that I was using popular nomenclature from the Indian Gay Underground? Go ahead and Google “Ahmedabad homosex” and remember this is a city of 4.2 million people-

“ahmedabad sex guide / ahmedabad night life” sorry, you’ve come to the wrong place folks!
“ahmedabad homo sex”, or if you please “homo sex in ahmedabad”
“gals homosex”
“ahmedabad park gay”– hey, I know where that is!
“gay ahmedabad”– fyi, homosexuality is illegal in the Subcontinent.

Having a name like mine makes a high placement on a search page a tough row to hoe– I have, however, moved up mightily since the article in the Statesman was published– next to some CS professor in Colorado with the sci-fi inspired “Timothy X. Brown,” the only Tim Brown on the internet who can hold a candle to yours truly is a Former Heisman Trophy Winner and Football Hall of Fame Alum. I like the clarity of the search terms that found my site. It’s something I’m not bold enough to carve out for myself most of the time:

“tim brown cartoonist”
“tim brown – art”
“timothy brown social worker texas”
“tim brown sculptor”
“tim brown portraits austin”
“artwork by tim brown”
“strong senders and tim brown”
and the weirdly awesome “tiny tim brown”

Alas, all good things must end:

“you re long time dead”

When I first started thinking about the trip to The Philippines and began doing research on it’s history, I pretty quickly came up with two themes that I would keep in my mind throughout the trip, and then they could reveal themselves in any way. It is, of course, the title of this entry.

Piracy and The Philippines seems to be a natural fit: The archipelago of over 7700 islands would provide the kind of safe haven for any kind of skallywag,

As far as the gold, I had heard a couple of stories, but the most compelling and often told is that of the gold caches that were hidden under the orders of

Also, Quiapo is a place where there have been plenty of schemes planted, and al Queda involvement is a widely-speculated theory by natives

I’ve been to Quiapo twice now, and the adjacent area of Recto, and it seems to affirm the fact that impermanence is the only constant in Manila– after we bombed the shit out of the vast majority of what could be considered cultural landmarks in Manila during WWII, it could be safe to say that Manila has never recovered from it. Newness and rebuilding have seemed to be a permanent fixture in the story of the Philippines anyway.

Quiapo is the essence of this spirit– it is an evershifting city with no way of knowing how to get something unless you have a guide, piracy abounds, with cds at 50 cents and Criterion dvds at 2 dollars, massive amounts of money are pouring into the area, an area which, if you believe the projection of locals, will be burned down in the next year because the buisinesses squat in large buildings, two to three stories high, windowless and air-conditioned, muslim filipinas squarfed and taking money and requests for new titles– stacks and stacks and stacks of product, done with slimline cd holders and cheap printout covers, with all the latest in pop, modern rock, and cheesy bossanova versions of everything under the sun.

In no particular order:

Tara– slang for “Let’s go”
Jeprox– this is slang for government project housing, or as said in the Black Community, “The PJs.” This word takes the PJ slang and reverses the letters and creates a word from that. I’ve found that Filipinos love the pun, and that wordplay is rampant– Tagalog is a very flexible language like English, but it has the extra advantage that English can also be used at will, in a mashup of the languages known as Taglish.
Putang ina mo– simply put, motherfucker– spanish derivative
Chupa- blowjob– more spanish, eh?
baduy- used a lot by friends, it refers to a cheesiness found in 70′s era things– disco cheese, if you will.
jolog– same cheese, different era– this one being like 90′s cheese, think of the husky voice that stupid singer from the band Creed has and you get an idea of the essence of jolog.
pogi rock– sucky pretty-boy rock bands that have taken over Filipino popular music. Definitely derrogatory term.
supot– being uncircumsized– to say someone is supot is offensive unless you are friends, then it kind of means you think they are a scrub
TNT or Tago ny Tago– literally it means “hide and hide,” it is a phrase for Filipinos living and working abroad illegally, specifically in the United States.
Malupit- slang for really good, in a way that the object of praise shows a command of something.
Astig- very good, it appeals to my sensibilities
Brocha- going down on a woman– also means a used up paint brush!
Brotsa- same as above
bilat- vagina
kupal- the notorious counterpart to smegma, or dickcheese.
tinggil- clitoris, pronounced “tingle” (!)
tuli- circumcized
madumi– means dirty in a sexual way
nangamatis– literally means “swollen tomatoes,” the counterpart to blue balls.

Although I find my self comfy and cosy here near middle class digs around Ateneo University in a very safe part of town, Wild Tales of the Nitty Gritty still come up in conversations here– they are both sensationalistic and also a reflection of the bloody past Filipinos have endured from the beginning of their written history.

One of the most compelling subjects I have heard about, through anecdotes and historical reference, is that of the Mystic Warrior, people who fight beyond the level of mere mortals through worship and using amulets imbued with the power to protect the warrior from death.

The islands of Mindanao and the Jolo island chain have always been a wild frontier in the minds of Filipinos, containing some of the most biologically diverse jungles and unspoiled nature as well as rambo-like warriors who have withstood attacks from several generations of assailants with much greater resources at their disposal, including the United States. To this day, for a Westerner to travel to parts of Western Mindanao or the Jolos is the best way to come back home headless in a body bag.

Jeremy, one of my many hosts here in Manila, served as vice-mayor during one of the more unstable times in the Lanao Province on the island of Mindanao, and was the only Christian politician in a Muslim area. He, of course, needed to win of the trust of Muslims in his area, and he was successful in this, fighting for the rights of the Muslim population by acting as a liaison who moderated skirmishes between rebels and the Feds. As a result of his deeds, he had what seems to be unparalleled access to rebel units living in the jungles around Lake Lanao– he had actually accompanied an international reporter as she covered a MNLF unit, living with them for a month.

Mindanao, an area that for anyone who knows anything about Filipino politics knows is a region of great strife between the Muslim population and the Christian settlers who were given premium lowland acreage for farming in the Western half of the island. This appropriation of land forced farmers into the surrounding hills and jungles to form guerilla fighting units that coalesced into political entity currently known as the as the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front), a splinter group from the late sixties formed MNLF (Muslim National Liberation Front) that through the years have had an on-again, off-again peace/war with Federal troups, depending upon the whims and political favor that could be gained by sitting presidents.

The US government claims ties between MILF and Al-Quaida, and this seems to more reality than illusion.

From our first conversation, Jeremy has known my interest in Mindanao, and he’s shared many anecdotes of that time with me, a couple of which relate to this idea of the mystical warrior– he’s a believer who is also an eye witness to this kind of Crusader:

Jeremy was walking the main drag of a small town in Lanao with a Muslim bodyguard from the MNLF and they were ambushed by a would-be Christian assassin– Jeremy explained the scenario in what seemed to be a very populated center of town– he hit the ground when he heard gunshots, and turned to see his Christian assailant empty a magazine of bullets into his bodyguard, literally blowing him away into a nearby vendor stand. After a moment of lying apparently dead, the Muslim bodyguard rose from the ground and approached the assassin who had left him for dead– he in turn emptied a magazine into the assassin, felling him. Incredibly, and Jeremy swears up and down on this point, the assassin then opened his eyes after being shot, scrambled to his feet and ran from the scene!

The other was an initiation ritual that he witnessed while living with a MNLF rebel unit- to prove their imperviousness to injury, an initiate put his bared arm out on a large table, surrounded by unit leaders. One of the members, armed with a bolo knife, would approach the initiate and with a mighty plunge, would strike him across the arm hard enough to spill mugs on the table– instead of a gaping wound or amputation, the arm would only the signs of a pressure line on the arm, you know that kind of white line and indentation that you would get if you would, say tie a rubber band around your arm when you were a kid. Nothing else. How this was possible, or how a human could prepare themself for this is still unknown to Jeremy, and me for that matter.

I’ve actually been in Manila for a week now, but because of the hectic scheduling I’ve subjected myself to this week (nobody can paint themself into a corner better than a painter), I have been up on scaffolding, stuffing booby pillows, painting tiny little half-circles and staring at a table almost my entire time here. Feels like home.

We have had a little time to go downtown to visit the carazay shopping district Divisoria (imagine miles of five and a half foot underground caverns made of tiny cheap lead painted toys from China), and eat some fantastic seafood and more– for the record, in the Philippines I have not been able to make vegetarianism work– it’s just too hard to find true vegetarian food given the work schedule I’ve had. Other than that, work work work until today. I’ve got to format the photos from Green Papaya gallery that I took at our opening last night, so bear with me until tomorrow.

Heyd and I have been staying in Quezon City, in a section called Cubao, which is close to Araneta Stadium, the venue for the famous “Thrilla in Manila” fight between Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier in 1975. In fact, there is a mall next door to the arena that seems to memorialize the victor, calling it the “AliMall.” Had the decision gone the other way, the result would have been “FrazierMall” or even better, Mall of Frazier, which would bear a striking resemblence in title to the recently completed “Mall of Asia,” which I’ve only seen coming from the airport and it looks as big as a damn country. People in Manila are waaaay into their malls– it’s the a.c., you see– because even here now, in what they call the cool season, the humidity is punishing and the temperatures in the afternoon still get up into the mid-eighties. Tired people who look tired walk around aimlessly in these superdelux facilities with names like “Gateway” and “S.M.” and look at each other and eat bread that sometimes looks like it has carpet on it and ride the escalators up and down in a kind of mindless procession that Romero captured so awesomely in “Dawn of the Dead.”

But there I was, finding everything that I needed in the malls for my installation because you can find everything in the malls here, and it really does make sense to do it that because the bad traffic in Manila is hellish beyond any Western comprehension of bad traffic. Traffic signs are merely suggestions, the tricycle daredevils and cutoffs and sheer volume of vehicles in this city of 16 million is truely mindblowing and exhausting. But in all of this, I’ve finally figured out the way they get by– everyone constantly yields to one another in traffic, and nobody, except in a rare case of a major traffic light, feels like they have total right-of-way. Yes, it is less efficient, and makes the traffic more of a morass than it should be, but there’s something to this code of conduct that every Westerner could learn a lesson from– there is a more steady, measured flow to the way traffic moves, and unless you are at a standstill, people don’t seem to get as hoppin’ mad here as they do in the states. The white people sense of entitlement is missing. Filipinos share the road in the truest sense of the word.

Well, here’s the inaugural entry– more laters to y’all.

Monday, December 20, 2004

Hey Everyone,

It’s good to be back on the grid, I guess, and back in my home away from home– Mumbai. It’s weird, I think I could live in this massive city, where I can do anything at any time, find anything I want, utilize public transportation– hell, I even got a job here! I could probably do this big city, I suppose. But I miss my peoples back in the states, and I’m really looking forward to getting back with all my goodicious gifts to shower upon them.

The job I’m referring to is voiceover work for a studio here that specializes in animated movies and other more industrial projects, as well as translating into Hindi most American television programs. Leela, the Director of the program, is a former Bollywood singer and recording artist, and keeps an impressive office and recording studio in a northern area of Mumbai called Andheri West, which is fairly close to Film City, where the Bollywood magic happens. I went in for a voice test on Saturday, and they wanted me to play the part of Monkey God Hanuman in a feature length picture about Vishnu; boy, that totally had my Planet of the Apes psyche psyched. Alas, it is probably not to be, simply because I’m leaving tonight. I’ll probably end up doing something less glamorous, like some voiceover work for an online tutorial about Help Desks and Call Centers (holy outsourcing!) that will be used here. Apparently, having an American accent in India is a pretty hot commodity– at the very least, my work will pay for room, board and all the food I eat in Mumbai this weekend. Needless to say, the trip has exceeded my expectations in every possible way.

Well, like it says in the title, this is the real time end of the trip, but I will start adding posts when I get back in the states, in particular a Tim’s Trip Index that reads like Harper’s, and hopefully, with the help of Bri, I can include these and other writings along with an expanded photo gallery on the website I will be launching in 2005– timlandia.net!

Well gosh, it’s been a great one, and I’m glad I took you along for the ride. I hope you caught a little of the rush I was feeling– at times, it felt great to just spew it out– I even like the misspellings and run ons and messed up grammar– it seems straight out of my consciousness to you at times, no filter– and isn’t that what blogs are about?

Thanks for my caregivers back in Austin, in more ways than one, Brian and Melissa, for making me feel like home was being looked after (uh, no mayo, please– I think that was a momentary lapse of Pink Floyd, or something like that); Nina and Rajiv for good advice about Konkan and Eunuchs, Dad and Ann for being around almost every time I called, same for Laura; Werner for Kingfishers and “the flipping of the switch,” Toyo for the brilliant insight connecting Thali and macrobiotic food; Kuma and Wolfgang for chillums, Jalendra and Pappu for the Palitana, Mr Jain for the excellent Thalis and dinner conversations, Amma for restoring my groove, Sebin Vaddakkan for breaking down the South Indian Thali in Ernakulum, Bhavesh for being a friend in Diu– you have a great future I’m sure– knock ‘em dead in Pune; Josh Goodman for the excellent Argentine music info and Shiva Moon tip, Mr Balloo, for the mad dash to the cigarette stand during that stop in Tamil Nadu, Manoj Bhatt at the phone booth-sized Graffitty Cyber Cafe in the Fort area of Mumbai, for taking care of my thousand-plus photos and offering pretty kick-ass surfing speed consistently; and for all the people I didn’t mention– I’m sure you’ll get into this offering at some point, as I plan to write in more detail about this epic journey.

I leave for Amsterdam tonight at 1:30– wish me luck, and I see you soon!

Namaste,

Tim

There I was, sitting by myself at the Kailash Parbat restaurant and sweets store in the Colaba district of Mumbai, floating in a blissful state, anticipating the moment I had been dreaming of since I had touched down on the subcontinent a month before– my perfect Thali dinner experience. The open air restaurant, still steamy from the enveloping heat of the day, was perched on a street aglow with the festive oil lanterns of Diwali, the Hindu New Years celebration. Across the crowded street, the sweets store was bustling with families buying sweets for the holidays. Through the tinny restaurant stereo came a steady stream of Bollywood hits, ragas, and popular favorites. The soaring soprano of Asha Bhosle floated out of the speakers like the voice of god.

I’m taking a sip off a Kingfisher, tapping my foot to the beat and waiting for the main event: one of their well-known and inexpensive Thali dinners. It arrives on a large stainless steel tray filled with several small carafts called katoris; in each katori, the essential ingredients of my meal– the raita, dahl, and papad are super fresh, the rice and subji not too overcooked. Even the galub jamun ball is in piping hot rosewater syrup. I bobble my head to and fro to let my dapper waiter know that it all looks great. He smiles and bobbles back and disappears into the kitchen, probably to comb his hair again. Ah, alone at last with my meal…

You have to understand that for me, a good Thali is a religious experience, an epiphany, if you will. The moment I start eating, something comes over me that could only be described as a trance: separated from my body, I float above the meal, my hands working their way around the tray without verbal thought. I watch my hands as they are dipping and folding and grabbing and combining this with that, much like a painter mixing hues on a palette. I hear gutteral noises emanating from my head that might be mistaken for the old hot handball, if you know what I mean. Suddenly, a singeing wave of pain registers in my mouth. Oh shit, that little bead of chutney was like habanero hot, man. I reach for the hanky in my pocket, and wipe my numbed lips just in case there is food on them I can’t feel. “Oh yeah, this is what it’s all about” I mutter to myself crazily.

Mr Perfect Hair emerges from the kitchen with several stainless steel pails to refill the carafts I have decimated. Bobble, Bobble. More water, please. No, just bring the pitcher. And more rice. Yeah, more subji too. In fact, more everything, please. He smiles while he ladles in more of everything. I adjust the way I’m sitting to accommodate another round of food and smile. If Death by Consumption could be like this, put me at the front of the line.

In my revelry, I take nary a notice that my private moment had attracted an audience. Two young boys, probably brothers, sit a few tables away with their father. The boy facing me is leaning over the table saying something to his younger brother with lowered eyes that let me know that he has copped on to my scene. His brother gives me the playin’ it off glance and quickly turns back around. They laughed quietly in unison. Then it occurs to me: in my heightened reality, that chutney had done more than dealt my tongue twenty-four hit points worth of damage—it has caused me to start sweating; and when I say sweat, I’m not talking about raised beads on the upper lip, children. I’m talking about a ring of sweat soaking a quarter inch into my T-shirt. Four Alarm sweat. Heroic sweat. Sweat that a child (or adult for that matter) might just confuse for gastronomic distress or a ruined meal.

If only I could explain it to them. They just don’t understand, you see.

I like it that way.

Thalis (say tal-ees) are the life of Indian cuisine. When one invites the Thali to their table, they also invite a sense of adventure, discovery, and trust in the karmic forces of the universe. For when you order the Thali, which comes from a Hindi word that means indentions in a bowl, you are asking for whatever is fresh for the day. Anything made in the kitchen, warm at the moment, available now, can be thrown into the mix for perhaps what is the world’s most sumptuous all-you-can-eat dinner. It can be said, at least in my limited experience, that the thali, like Mahatma Gandhi, is the Great Unifier of Indian Society: In my travels around the western side of India, I had Thalis everywhere—roadside stops and palacial restaurants, standing up around small circular tables with workers and sitting at banquets with road-weary pilgrims; using sterling and a silk napkin, and bare handing it on the floor of an ashram. In tucked away alley restaurants, in makeshift tents, on a boat, with the banana leaf as a plate, in engraved sterling tray with matching carafts. Everywhere you go, there it is. So you better start eating it.

But where to start? Below, I’ve got the baby-basics of knowing your thali dinner. This should only be taken as a starter guide, because the thali is as rich and vast as India itself. We’ll start with basic ingredients, and move on to good advice for the thali practitioner

Rice: Call it the quicker picker upper at the end of your meal, and. You can have it plain (didn’t see any brown rice in India), biryani with vegetables

Dal: This lentil based soup is at the heart of any Thali. You will invariably find some kind of dal in the mix. In some regions, such as Rajasthan, the dal takes on a sweet taste.

Curried Vegetables, or subji: In typical Hindu dishes, these will be prepared with a spicy masala which is usually a mixture of peppers, cardamom, garlic, onions, turmeric, and whatever secret weapon or regional variation the cook is using.. It is mostly a discretionary and artistic process of finding the magic balance of elements to make a perfect masala. It is simply a matter of pride.

Raita: The all-important yogurt (or buttermilk) mixed cucumbers and onions is an essential digestive aid for making that burning firestorm of a meal go down without the pesky threat of gastrointestinal revolt. Mixing a little basic raita with the rest of the meal makes for a happier digestive tract, all things told.

Bread: the staples of the Thali bread universe are the chappati, which can be roasted, fried, with or without butter, garlic, and many other things. There is also naan, which is leavened, “puffy” bread, that many times can be taken with garlic and butter. Papad is a crispy bread is usually eaten at the very end of the meal, which I’ve been told serves a double purpose: to absorb the ghee (clarified butter) you may have just eaten, and to signal the waiter that you are ready for your bill.

Sweets- wouldn’t be India without the serious sweets, now would it? A perennial favorite and a common choice for a sweet at the end is Galub Jamun, a deep-fried ball of curd dipped in a hot syrup, the hotter the better I’ve found.

Rule number one- for krishna’s sake, wash your hands! India, despite it’s profound beauty, is filthy filthy place, and faster than you can say Shiva, you’ll have a grimy patina coating your hands with a bevy of unmentionable microbes. There’s usually a little wash basin or maybe a bathroom to scrape the shit off your mitts and get yourself right off to the side of the main dining area. Do it. Oh, and bring a hanky too.

Rule number two—Go in hungry, leave Buddha-fied. These gut-busting delights will kill unless you have at least skipped the last meal or gone light. And take it easy on the liquids during the meal. Go slow and don’t let the server bully you into taking more than you can eat. Taking more than you eat is considered offensive by Indian standards.

Rule number three—make like a little kid wit’ those fingers, yo. You might consider me a little off, and you certainly wouldn’t be alone in this assumption, but I think using utensils is highly overrated practice anyway. Gimme a little chapatti, a mound of rice, and I can eat my body weight in mixed veggie subji using only the good ol’ pincer grasp. Bare hand it if you like—you’ll notice that most people are doing it that way too, although utensil appropriateness rises in the big cities.

Rule number four– Knowing where to start on your plate and what to do and sequencing and all that stuff is difficult and makes for a very self-conscious eating experience, but like my friend said in Mumbai, “Look around you—does anybody seem to care? In India, NOBODY CARES!” Take those words to the bank, my friend.

That being said, at the beginning of the meal, it might not be a bad idea if you get a little dahl and rice in your gullet to form a neutral base in your stomach before the firestorm begins. We’re dealing with world-class hellified chow here—best to coat soothe and relax before drinking from the lake of fire.

Rule number five: Get to know your digestive aids. India has many things that, and I suggest you book ‘em. Rice, dahl (lentils) betel seeds, paan (without nicotine), and a watered-down buttermilk called raita all help the me

Rule number six— make like a newspaper report and scoop the meal, and not just with the trusty pincer maneuver, either. Ask many questions of your server – they’ll be be pleased as Pushan to answer your questions and even provide a little regional background if you’re lucky. That’s how my little illustration of the Parsi Thali came to be, actually. Treat the meal like you might be tested on it later, and take notes on what they are saying. Eventually, like a foreign language, it will start to seep in and in no time you’ll be ordering people around like a Raj. Strike that—nobody likes an Ugly American.

On my journey, I pretended to be a journalist, writing an article on Thali cuisine for a magazine (Ok, well maybe I wasn’t pretending too much on that account), and from this simple interest came many wonderful conversations, some of which had nothing to do with the meal. Meals are a time of togetherness for Indians—if you travel alone, you might end up part of a feast.

Tuesday, December 14th, 2004

Well, just a bit of an update while before I get a boat to Paradise Beach. I took a grueling 26 hour bus trip from Ernakulum to Mangalore to Gokarna last night without any sleep and a very wasted constitution. I am now in the last state I will visit here, my days being in the single digit count now. The state name is Karnataka, by the way, and this is beach area outside the main town and beach named Gokarna — the progressively less-commercialized Om, Half-Moon, and Paradise to the south, and the northward “secret” Honey beach, which is probably the place to be, but I’m already too far south to go back now. Besides, I’ve located an out-of-the-way place with less rave listenin’, bong hittin’, dour lookin’ groups of Israelis and more friendly people in a place just past the jagged rocks of Half-Moon beach. Appropriately, it is called Paradise Beach. I plan on being here for a couple of days, and then making my final return to Mumbai for a shopping extravagrancy before I’m back in the U.S.S.A. If you want something in particular here, now’s the time to tell me, people.

Until then, I’ll be living outside the grid, thankfully. I will get back with all you sometime Saturday when I get back after another punishing bus experience from Mangalore to Mumbai for the final Hurrah and Closing of the Circle for my trip. A little caveat on the bus ride directed to Rajiv: I should have listened to your advice and planned my Konkan train ride a month ago– the Goan visitor scene, which is ragin’ for Christmas season and definitely worth avoiding, has caused every single train trip from Ernakulum to Mumbai to be booked — bummer –with a waiting list of up to one hundred in some cases– double bummer. Guess I won’t be taking the train anymore. I’m gonna kinda miss that side-to-side swishing motion.

Well, if traveling by bus and train makes you a little more Indian each time you do it, I reckon I’m about 75% pure Indian now. But I would have liked to have earned that distinction in some other, less kinetic ways I’m sure.
I took a great trek this morning with a horrible choice of footwear (flip-flops, what was I thinking?) up the craggy terrain of the small jutting cliffs that overlook the ocean and ended up far away from the scene of overtoursity Om beach, and at last a place where only real effort or knowlege from the locals would get you there. Paradise even. I should really get out there and start doing nothing, so I’ll talk to you soon.

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Ok, a flash forward to the present- from my northern travels I had taken off on a massive 37 hour marathon trip starting from Mumbai that would take me through the Western Ghats, Andral Pradesh (the heartland of India, which reminded me of Kansas, with thousand upon thousands of sunflowers in brilliant golden bloom), near Chennai (Madras), through Tamil Nadu, and eventually drop me off in the town of Ernakulum-Kochi, which is in slightly southern Kerala. I had a great time, befriending several people (let’s face it, we had plenty of time to get to know each other), and learning what to do on the train stops—when to get off for a short while, which stops had delicious stalls, and how to keep some sunlight in your life while being held in the cooled-incubator atmosphere of the berths. One old banker, who called himself Baloo, remarked towards the end of the trip, “Tim, you have become a little more Indian.” It was music to my ears, as you could probably imagine.

We touched down in Ernakulum, and I took an autorickshaw over to Fort Cochin, across the harbor from the mainland. The town was quaint, but I had been in a poopy mood, as evidenced by earlier entries, and India tends to reflect your state of mind, so I found it draining and remarkably perfunctory tourist experience. I decided to go as quickly as possible to the place I had been dreaming about since I had started reading about India- the backwaters. These backwaters, stretching along the coast of Kerala for 100 kms or so, were a endless maze of fresh and salt water canals which had maintained a pristine ancient fishing culture that was one of the crown jewels of the Indian Tourist experience. It attracted visitors from India and around the globe, and rightly so, because the relatively unspoiled area would make any photographer salivate: miles of shoreside villages, ashrams, and cathedrals, fishing enclaves untouched by time, pinafores of cocoanut groves spinning ad infinitim.

I had picked up a local bus, with the typical pushing old ladies and shoving hapless children to secure my sacred space, at 6am in Ernakulum and in three hours I was rolling into Kollam with a slightly upset stomach and a serious jones for a breakfast dhosa. After tanking up and getting water for the trip, I boarded the tourist-laden Ferry boat tour sponsored by the state. This was not a particular disappointment, because my trusty Lonely Planet had warned me thusly; the plan was to check it out, and if it seemed a worthy endeavor, I would hire a smaller rice boat to do more indepth adventuring from the town of Allapy, about 80km away.

Well, like most of my plans, this was not to be. The first part of the cruise was gorgeous and pleasant, offering everything I had expected it to be—the mood was mellow, and even the most persnickety travelers ( man, imagine a control freak in this country!) were happy for the moment. Then the moment of Destiny hit me—perhaps one that changed my life forever.

Our tour guide, who was very informative and English friendly, did a great job of explaining all of the points of interest along the way. But it was one that jumped out at me and made my synapses fire with the possibilities. We were closing on what would turn out to be a delicious Southern Thali lunch, he said it: “After lunch, we will be passing the ashram of Mata Amrunthanandamayi, and it just so happens that she is at the ashram currently.” I lit up and asked him, “Is this the hugging saint?” He nodded, and said that she was not usually here, but traveled to other countries eight months out of the year. I was instantly drawn to it, to see the ashram, to experience. I had a little head/heart tug-of-war, but just after lunch I let him know that I wanted to be dropped of there. The bonus was that the ferries always dropped by there, and that I could pick one up at any later date for no extra cost. My fate was sealed, and I jumped off the boat, walking with purpose towards the massive complex.

Saint Mata Amrunthanandamayi, also known as Amma, or simply mother, is a highly esteemed being in India and a towering world-known humanitarian. She is revered because of her unrelenting love and compassion for everyone with whom she came into contact. She has been around the world several times, hugging and consoling an estimated 21 million people over the last thirty years. In India, she is thought to be an incarnation of God on earth, a person with equal billing with Jesus, Gotama, and Mohammed. Some would say that she is what sent those Bodhisattvas to us in the first place.

It was no small affair indeed. Before I knew it, I was in the Central Courtyard in a sea of thousands of devotees, both Indian families and what I would consider the typical Western New Age goofballs, with more of the aforementioned doodoo dreadlocks and prayer beads. Most people had on pristine white dhotis, saris, and shirts. Some stuck with the typical Indian Sunday clothes, which would be the dress shirt and slacks. I decided to go with that, because I was getting the strong weird cult vibe from the westerners, and that’s just not my style. Besides, if Amma were the Real Thing, what I was wearing wouldn’t matter anyway. She would accept me as I was.

After doing all the necessary registration, retrieval of bedding, and getting my pack up to the thirteenth floor of the largest central highrise, I chilled out for a second; the energy there was palpable, and I had a hard time adjusting to all of the thousands of people milling about in the small city of an ashram. I learned later that it was indeed her home ashram—in fact, her parents still lived at the family home on the grounds, and her first temple, which had been converted thirty years before from the stable house. Over the years, adjoining buildings and canteens had been built in a seeming haphazard fashion to accommodate virtually any need of a devotee: library, laundry, general store, hospital, juice bar, Internet Café, bookstore, Aruyvedic massage, and other emenity. All from it’s simple genesis of several small huts along the ocean. There seemed to be something about it, no doubt.

After I took a little nap, I started wandering around the grounds. When I was checking in, the American with kind eyes told me that Amma would be giving darshan, or blessings, to the public all day. He told me that if I wanted to check it out, that going to the entry point was in the back of the temple. Intrigued, I set out towards the temple and witness what was happening. I was clueless as to the ways of the ashram, other than some general rules, so I started up a spiral staircase at the back side, not noticing any other entrances. I topped the spiral staircase, my flipflops left behind in respect for the sacredness of the temple, and found myself on the female side of it ( Hindu for Dummies—temples are divided between men and woman so there are less distractions from your spiritual striving) with a couple of white clad nuns staring at me—I quickly passed over to the men’s side using a back corridor, and came in on the main room in which Amma was giving darshan to thousands of people. I realized only later that I had completely bumrushed the show by doing this, although it was unintentional. In hindsight, I think it was for a reason. A monitor approached me kindly. I said “What do I do?” I had no idea. He said, “Wait here just a second,” And left me to watch her. I stood transfixed by the throng of followers and devotees crowed around her at her pedestal. She sat in the middle of it all, happy, smiling, and laughing, administering hug after hug to men and women coming from their respective lines. Some people got hugs and kisses, some, a stern talking to, some, a gentle whisper. Others received blessed apples and oranges, called Prasad, or garlands of flowers. Every person seemed to be treated differently. She obviously commanded great respect and love from everyone there, and I became enchanted by the whole experience. The monitor came back to me. “Well, Westerners receive darshan after all the Indians here get it. Since we don’t know how long that will take, I have a hard time telling you when and if you’ll receive it. But you are welcome to sit here for as long as you like.” It was three thirty in the afternoon, and I would be going for orientation at five in another part of the temple. I thought I would stay around until it was time to go there.

I felt a little disheartened to find that I might not get to meet her at that day, or ever, since my stay was a brief one, but at that point a strange peace came over me. I immediately decided that if I was meant to meet her, I would. If not, at least I would see what was going on. I sat on the floor and watched with more and more interest. There was live music being played, and the crowd would clap and sing when the tempo would quicken and intensify. After an unmeasured amount of time, I felt my neck getting sore. I looked at my watch. Four forty-five. God, had I been watching her unmoving for an hour and fifteen minutes? It seemed like five minutes had passed. I was weirded out by the spell that had come over me. Why was I feeling this way? Dazed, I decided to check out and go to orientation.

The orientation was the typical video and speech about the Ashram, Amma’s history, and her many accomplishments. I won’t go into details now, but you can check it out on her link at the end of this entry. We had to go out of the Temple because the guide was having a hard time speaking over the music. She spoke to our group of five for several minutes, and showed us some of the major sites on the premises. Then she turned to all of us and said, “Have you met Amma before?” Everyone else was clamoring that they hadn’t and wanted to, but I decided to stay silent. She finally asked me directly, and I said no. She said, “Well, I will get you into see her, because I think it is really important that you all meet her if you haven’t. Man, people were really freaked out and uptight about doing it, and at that point I realized that many people waited and waited but weren’t able to, and Amma’s presence at that particular ashram was short-lived, possibly for only a few days more. It was a valued experience, but I refused to be caught up in it. I knew that if I was destined to be there, it would happen.

The guide took us through the gated entrance on the men’s side of the temple (which I had earlier circumnavigated out of ignorance), and into the central room once again. She instructed one of the monitors to let us in when the Westerners started coming through. I was with two other men, one being an American who kept wanting me to respond to his pithy, somewhat cynical comments. He wanted to receive darshan, he wanted to receive darshan, but he didn’t trust the monitor. Did I trust the monitor? I nodded yes, and ignored him. e got up and headed down to find a place in line. I sat crosslegged on the floor and stared at Amma. Many followers would crowd around her and jockey for places evercloser to her pedestal, just to be near her. Two attendants took gifts she had received, read questions posed on paper, and adjusted her veil when it came off of her after a particularly passionate hug. It was a really amazing scene, to say the least. Unlike anything I had experienced.

I started thinking while there on the floor, about Mom. For those who don’t know, she died five years ago at a relatively early age from a brain tumor. It is surely something that I’m dealing with, and being in the presence of this Divine Mother made me think about my own Ma. I became emotional thinking about her, and thoughts of our relationship and what I missed about not having her love any more permeated my thoughts. I was lost in this when a hand gently touched my shoulder. It was another monitor.
“Are you one of those people in the orientation group who wanted to receive darshan for the first time?” I nodded and he motioned for me to get up. I did, and he asked if there were any others from the group in my vicinity. I didn’t see any, and told him that I thought they had gone to stand in line. He said, “Well, just step in line here. I looked at a group of Westerners, who looked a little miffed that I was cutting in—they were unwelcoming of me. I looked back at the monitor, and he realized he needed to be more specific. He approached the line and said, “Step in here.” And the line parted and I was inserted. The whole time, I knew that it was meant to be.

I was now twenty feet from her, and I became nervous. I started studying what everyone was doing so that I would keep the line flowing and not embarrass myself. As I approached the pedestal, one of the assistants took my glasses and instructed me to get on my knees and asked my language preference. As I scooted forward, and was three people away from her, he asked, “American?” and smiled. I think he was trying to assure me that everything was cool. Another assistant took my hand and placed it on the arm of her seat. She was round and seemingly enormous, and was administering darshan to the female opposite of me.

Then she grabbed me and took me to her right shoulder. I noticed the gray smear on her robe where thousands of people had been placed before me. She grabbed me tight and whispered to me in a soothing tone. “My son, son-na-na-na-na-na-na and rocked me back and forth in her arms. I felt consoled and loved by her, and it was a feeling that I hadn’t felt since my own Mom had done it for me. It felt like my Mom, but it was Amma—it was a very powerful feeling that didn’t leave me for days, as it turns out.

I stumbled away from the pedestal, reeling from the experience- I tried to walk away from the room, when the monitor stopped me to give me back my glasses! I went back into the room and sat for awhile and watched. It was amazing: she had totally tapped into what I had been thinking, and gave we what I had needed most—the reassurance that everything was going to be fine from mom. I realize now that this was the most important thing missing from my life, and somehow Amma had given it to me. It was a precious gift that I can’t stop thinking about.

The last day at the ashram, I knew it was time to go. The social cliques of all the spiritualists was definitely not my scene, and I knew I had gotten all I needed to from the trip. An experience like that is not something I need to be any place for. It stays with me wherever I go, and that’s not spiritual mumbo-jumbo either.

You may think I’ve really lost it, but I’m certainly the same me, just with a new spark. It sounds a little like a dream to me as I look back on it, but it really happened to me. I’m so glad it did.

I will write more on some of the more humorous aspect of ashram living in later entries, but I gotta catch a bus taking me to Mangalore. From there, the beach paradise of Gokarna for my last week in the Magic Land. Also, not much editing for this one since it took so long to write. Will catch typos and misspellings later. See you soon.

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Promises Promises– I will resume the chronological narrative tomorrow– today, I’m feeling a little sorry for myself, so please indulge me in this week’s edition of Tim’s Travel Corner. You can all collect your five cents when you see me next– just remind me to pay you.

The thing that I have become most attuned to while traveling India is what it takes to make me feel normal and happy in a paradigm-shifted reality. When India’s brutal realities finally permeate that aforementioned protective shell I have constructed, I have to take a break from it somehow, and there’s not always a beach or remote town in which to retreat. It ends up being small things that make the difference between sanity and less-than-sanity: sometimes it means watching an English-speaking movie, (uh, any English speaking movie. I actually shed a tear after watching the joyful happy ending of “Around the World in Eighty Days” with Jackie Chan. Perhaps it was because they had made it back home, or something. Anyway, I obviously needed to have my buttons pushed) sometimes it means camping out at the Internet Cafe for two or three hours (I do this every chance I get), sometimes finding a good cup of Cappucino at Coffee Day or Barista (yep, evil chain stores), sometimes anything with air-conditioning will do. Some times, a twelve-hour sleep with make the world a crisper, happier place. Most of the time, a western meal will do me right. And it’s usually junk food.

When I got here, I had a hard time eating well because everything happened a little later than I was used to– breakfast gets started around 10, lunch at 1 or 2, dinner at 8 or 9; breakfasts were rather light if at all, and I was skipping meals left and right– I still haven’t gotten used to eating a massive masala dhosa for breakfast, as much as I’d like to. Throw in blistering heat and humidity, and walking at least 10 km a day, and it equals a ten pound weight loss in my first ten days. And,despite the schooling I have gotten in spicy cuisines and their equally important digestive aids, sometime the intensity of the food still rocks my system. So you gotta go with what you know in those times of need, and for me, I needs mayonnaise.

It’s not easy to come by around here, and I know that some of you find it disgusting, but for me, that little condiment is a tangible taste of creamy heaven. Glorious Mayo in all it’s forms– in an egg-salad sandwich (be still my fluttering heart), or better yet, a potato salad sandwich; even Mr M by his lonesome on a spoon (ok, that’s just comedy) totally replenishes my constitution on a cellular level, and brings harmony to the plasma bag known as Tim. Good ol’ Mayo, I hope you forgive me– I slap you on without a second thought in the states, perhaps I even eschew you altogether, but here, you are as revered as the Holy Cow to me.

Ok, maybe I have gone insane. But I have to admit mayonnaise helps. When I haven’t had access to fresh leafy greens in what seems forever, I just have to turn to my animal nature. Just for a prison fantasy scenario, I’ll let you in on fantasy first meal upon arrive to the US: A big-ass bowl of spinach and romaine lettuce with fresh tomatoes, avocados, grated carrots and (oh yes!) alfalfa sprouts. With some oil and vinegar type of dressing. Maybe some fresh baked bread. Gosh, I’m getting hungry. I should probably end this soon and go wolf down a Thali somewhere here in Ernakulum.

I have to add that it raises my spirits when I log in to this blog and read encouraging comments from my friends or get an email or two telling me to keep it up. It turns out that this very activity has been a lifeline to home, and I think that accounts for my intense output since I’ve been here. Writing for myself is one thing, but writing for you, my loved ones and intentional family members, has been a total joy. Bwahhh!