Cafe Coffee Day

This is Café Coffee Day.

I have no idea how a joint like this got into Rishikesh, but it’s far too sleek and clean for India.  They play terrible pop music.  There’s even a flat screen on the wall where you can watch the incredibly choreographed dancing of the music video.  They’re constantly mopping here.  And pushing in chairs.  As you can see, the dude behind the counter has on a uniform.  They have a cash register and they’re selling coffee makers.  It’s a little too much like Starbucks and the spotless glass front door is really kind of freaking me out.  The whole place makes me uncomfortable.  Unfortunately it’s the only place in town with heat and a decent cup of coffee.  It’s so strange to sit in this glass bubble of Westernism and look out into Rishikesh.  Outside people pass by.  The normal Rishikesh street scene.  I can see into the little shop across the street selling shawls and little trinket-y things.

This is India.  The juxtaposition of old and new.  Spiritual and modern.  Bollywood and bathing in the Ganges.

Home Sweet Home

Although it quite cold in Rishikesh currently and I would like to constantly complain about that fact, it’s also become my home.  I’ve hung a calendar on my wall.  Radha and Krishna.  I bought little moon Christmas ornaments in Rajasthan.  They’re hand painted with lovely gold swirls and flowers.  I put the ornaments in my window.   I light candles each night (this helps with the cold).  It’s kind of inviting in here…  I walk down the road, I’m getting to know the shop keepers.  I especially like the guy that says, “Everything is possible!!  Fantastico!” when I walk past his shop.  I have a routine here.  I know the regulars who hang out at the Pyramid café and the Devraj Coffee House.   There’s the beggar woman with the flaming red hair who no matter how many times I give her my change is shouting at me, “Excuse me.  Madam.  Madam!!”  It’s such a small place, it would be hard to not get to know these faces.  I watch the Westerners come and go.  I get to know them, they stay a couple days and then they move on.  It’s strange to think of myself as the weird Westerner hanging around Rishikesh for too long.  The first time I came here I met an American guy who had been living in Rishikesh for the past 20 years.  He had this far away, glazed over look in his eyes.  He spoke about his guru.  Am I that to the other Westerners that come here??  They ask me how long I’ve been here, “Whoa!  Two weeks.”  Ha, it makes me laugh.
What is it to know a place?  What is it to call a place home?

Jingle Jangle the soft feet of the Rajasthani women

The women in Rajasthan are absolutely beautiful.  They wear elaborate saris with sequins and inlayed mirrors.  They walk past you they reflect the sun and sparkle.  It’s like flying through a constellation of stars.  They’re covered in jewels.  Anklets that jingle.  Bangles over their thin wrists up to their forearms.  Nose rings, earrings, necklaces.   They have big, light colored eyes.  They are romantic, mysterious women.  Bewitching.  They walk past you and cover their beautiful face with their shawl.  You catch a glimpse of a coy smirk just before it disappears.  A knowing smile.  What is their private World!?  Their internal Universe.  They walk softly.  Glance quickly.  They are draped in deeply pigmented color.  Deep purple with gold, orange and yellow.  Oh what it must be to be adorned in such color each day!  To walk with music under your feet.

The Lonesome Traveler

Rishikesh has a more somber melancholic tone to it.  I don’t know if it’s me or the weather.
The wind rips through in the morning rattling my screen door.  I’ve taken to listening to Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.  I’m nostalgic about the United States.  Not for a current picture of the States.  I’m longing for a Beat Poet, Andy Warhol, Charlie Parker kind of America.  One that has raw creative power and howl’s at the moon.  Did I mention that I’m reading Jack Kerouac?  Yeah.  Yeah, you thought so.
The men here stand around small fires they’ve built in the streets.  I’ll close my eyes and pretend I’m in Soho…  the Lower East Side…

When I get out of my head.  When I leisurely walk across the bridge over the Ganges just about sunset time, that’s when you can really take it in.  There’s barely any tourists here.  I can actually walk across the bridge.  I look out to the setting sun and see the Ganges sparkle.  Along the river people are doing their evening prayers and offerings.  You can hear a chorus of ringing of bells.  I can hear them louder this time.  More amplified.  It’s like people have to shout over the cold.
This time I feel the Ganges.  Her power.

She’s the one that glitters with light and makes the wind cry in the morning.

Sputnik Sweetheart

I’ve been reading a lot of Haruki Murakami recently.  There are certain authors that always seem to be available in the bookshops here.  Murakami, Coelho, Hesse…  Good.  A few of my favorites.  They all capture that certain spirit of travel.  They all employ magic.  Murakami in particular balances this line of reality and dreams.  By the end the dream/parallel universe is so muddled with reality your not sure which is which.  For all that I didn’t understand, I think I fully understand.  Being inexplicable pulled to people.  Guided.  Trusting a plan.  I’ve been feeling that way about my own life recently.
Maybe that’s all this life really is, just memories and dreams.

Here’s a bit of Murakami for you:

“…Like you’re on a train traveling across some vast plain, and you catch a glimpse of a tiny light in the window of a farmhouse.  In an instant it’s sucked into the darkness behind and vanishes.  But if you close your eyes that point of light stays with you, just barely, for a few moments.”
~Sputnik Sweetheart

A little Mataji wisdom

I'm trying to keep these things in mind.
From Mataji's mouth to your ears...


“Open your inner eye.  There is peace and liberation.”

“When you feel frustration, loneliness, doubt, fear, anger; just om.  It purifies.”

“Make yourself a big light.  Bring happiness wherever you go.”

“Enjoy the World, but don’t become attached to it.”

“Knowledge is more important than practice.  We must know what we are practicing.”

Ode to the Traveler

To my wanderers; travelers of the depths.
To those who are not content to sit still.
Those who feel the stirring of the wind; a change in direction.
The ones who follow the sky.  Led by and internal compass, an astral North Star.
I have found you in the subcontinent of the soul.  Beyond the honey colored sand.  Beneath the starlit pines.
You are the explorers of the edge.  The seekers of within.
You know that your home is your heart.
To the journeyers that dare to look inside.
This is to you.  This is to you.

Sandcastle City

Way out West in the Thar Desert near the Pakistani border lies Jaisalmer.
All of the buildings in Jaisalmer are built from sandstone.  The town blends in with the surrounding desert and everything has a golden glow.  Above the town lies the original fort where 3,000 people still live.
I feel that I’ve been shrunken down to doll size and I’m living in a sandcastle world.  The fort in the distance literally looks like a kid took buckets and built it, really!
The man who runs the guesthouse I’m staying in, The Peacock Hotel, calls me the Desert Princess.   I’d like to think Sandcastle Princess.
Dusk falls on the Sandcastle City.  Motorbikes and scooters honk below.  Children are playing in the street.  I sit on my sandcastle balcony.  I hear from across the street and little voice saying, “Hello!  Hello!”.  Out from a tiny window peeks a little boy!  I have neighbors!  His mom pokes her head out the window and smiles.  I wave.  Charming.

Camel Safari

After a little coaxing, I’ve decided to do a camel safari.  We’re picked up by a young guy on his motorbike.  We ride “India style” (three people on the back of the motorbike) to what looks like some sort of fairgrounds where our camels are waiting.  There are two young boys there to help us on to our camels.  My camel’s name is Ganesh and he recently won the camel race in the Pushkar camel fair.  I’m not bragging or anything, but that’s quite impressive.  Oliver’s camel is Jimmy.  Again, I’m not bragging, but I got the better camel of the two.  Ha!

We walk along a little bit and I’m completely astonished when the youngest of the boys climbs up and gets on the camel I’m riding!
He is Vikram.  He ten years old and he is my camel guide.  Vikram is my man.
He chats along to his brother in Hindi and it sounds like he’s making up elaborate stories.   He busts up in giggles and I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about, but it’s funny.

We walk through the Pushkar countryside out of the city and the noise.  We walk past farms and homes.  Families and children.  There’s a field of marigolds.  Little puffballs of orange.

During quiet moments on the camel Vikram asks me, “Good camel?”
“Yes.  Good camel.”
“You good?” he asks me.
“Yes.”
He says to me, “Me good”.

We arrive at the boys family home just around dusk.  We’re greeted by the entire family and they could not be more hospitable.  We sit and have some chai while the mother makes us dinner.  She brings out far too much food.  Vikram has been making my camel trot all afternoon and my stomach isn’t quite ready for dinner.  The meal is amazing, of course.  Chapati made from the wheat in their field.  Vegetables from their garden.  Oliver says this is the best chapati he’s had… and believe me, we’ve had a lot.
After dinner we’re shown to where we’ll be sleeping~ up on the roof of the family’s home!  They set up a bed for us and Vikram and his little brother entertain us by jumping and playing on the bed and dancing.

We sleep under the desert stars, wake early in the morning, have an amazing breakfast, and the camels return us to Pushkar.

Pushkarrrr!

Coming to Pushkar it either feels that I’m now truly in India or that I’ve come home.  It looks like I’m in the middle of Nevada.  Rather than cheesy casinos there are beautiful whitewashed plaster buildings.  The streets are very narrow here.  More like alleys.  As I walk through the narrow whitewashed passageways it feels like I’ve gone back a hundred years.  Every doorway is a glimpse into someone’s world.  I look into a doorway of a small shop and see three men rapidly sewing away on their sewing machines.  Another doorway leads to someone’s home.  There’s a cow in the front courtyard!  Women are preparing dinner.  There’s a man lounging in a lounge chair.  There’s amazing color beyond these doorways.  Purple, turquoise, lime green!