One Month Down

Well even though 2 days ago was officially 30 days for me here in India, Today is the end of my first month. Due to abnormal time fluctuations I find myself feeling like it has been somewhere between one week, and one year since I last saw the United States.

I postulate that only one of 2 things can be true about my experiences with these feelings.

1) My perception of time is messed up due to heat, slow village life, brief periods of frenzied activity, calling people who are in another part of the day than I am, and general lack of interest in knowing what time it is.

-or-

2) Someone has created a machine that controls time and is hiding it in a small village in the middle-of-nowhere India.

I find one to be as likely as the other.

It's All Greek To Me

Preparations are truly underway for the construction of the new staff quarters here. Every day tractors bring loads of dirt and sand to the large field in front of the school. Soon brick workers will be busy making bricks by hand. Five to six thousand per day! It is going to be my job to send occasional reports to Michael and the people who donated the money for this project. Things are starting to get busier here. That means that I am starting to have more energy. It is amazing how working will actually give you more energy.

I do however have a slight problem. I can’t turn my head to the left, or look up. I think this stiff neck was caused by the trip back from Puri io Juanga. The road is filled with bumps, holes, and even ditches. These ditches are large enough to have to drive a car into them, then out the other side. I am taking some medicine for my neck, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. It should be fine in a day or two.

There is another problem. I am reaching an impasse with Oriya. I have taken to start actually writing some of what I learn down, and when I ask for help in the spelling of certain words, 5 people tell me to spell it 6 different ways. The only solution I can see is that I must learn how to read and write in the Oriya alphabet. Learning a language is one thing, but a different alphabet… I am finding it difficult. They have many more letters and letter sounds than we do. It appears there are over 40 characters in their alphabet. I suppose I should just be happy it isn’t Chinese or Ancient Egyptian.

What was I thinking about?

I jump topics too much in my blog. I always start out writing one thing, but by the end of a post, I am somewhere completely different from where I started. It all makes sense as I write, but whenever I read my posts, I wonder what the hell I was thinking.

It is because my brain wanders, and I allow it to do so. Every thought I have leads to something I think is related, and then that thought leads to something else until my original thought was about rice for lunch, and I end up thinking about The Stand by Steven King. It all makes sense when I am thinking it, and even writing it. When I read it, however, I find myself barely able to remember how or why I went from one topic to another. Even now it is taking all my concentration to remain on the topic of going off topic.

I will now demonstrate a moment in the mind of William:

William: My foot is asleep.
Will: Remember when your foot was asleep and you fell into grandma’s pool?
William: Yeah, I remember.
Will: Remember when grandma’s didn’t have a pool?
William: Yeah… seems like a while ago.
Will: Remember the sassafras tree in the backyard, and the swing set?
William: Yeah, of course I remember that!
Will: Remember how you used to swing on the swings and jump off and see how far you could get?
William: I remember that.
Will: Remember when you twisted you ankle doing that?
William: Kinda.
Will: What about when you tore you ACL dancing?
William: I have the scar to remind me.
Will: Pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory is forever. What is that from?
William: Keanu Reeves as Shane Falco in the movie The Replacements.
Will: Yeah… can you imagine Johnny Fav directed Iron Man?
William: He did a good job, I think Robert Downey Jr. was a fantastic choice for Tony Stark.
Will: Stark means strong in German.
William: I really like German.
Will: What is your favorite German word?
William: Entshuldigung. It means excuse me. I just like the way it sounds.
Will: No one here in India says excuse me… ever.
William: I know! But its not like they are doing it to be rude, they just don’t have that concept in their every day life.
Will: It’s hot.
William: Well I am in India, during their summer. What did you expect?

In case you were wondering… every time my brain wanders here in India, I am guaranteed to ALWAYS come back to “It’s hot.” I hope my dialogue with myself has entertained you as much as it always entertains me.

Indian Cell Phone

For those of you who wanted my Indian Cell Phone number... I finally have it!!!

To call from the United States you need to dial as follows:

011 91 977 766 0706

I suggest getting one of those calling cards you can buy at most corner stores and using it to call me. It is much cheaper.

The other option is to use skype, which can be found at www.skype.com. You need to have a microphone and a highspeed internet connection to use it, but it is hands down the cheapest way to call me.

One Night in Puri and the World's Your Turtle

Today I finally made it to Puri to get some time with the internet. What I have been doing is writing my posts every day, and now I am posting them! I find that I enjoy writing more and more every day. I only wish I had something interesting to say.

Puri is a small city on the Bay of Bengal. It is filled with Hari Krishnas. This is one of their high holy cities because of the Jagganath Temple. This is a temple dedicated to a facet of Lord Krishna. So everywhere you look there is some weird white dude with his head shaved except a little pony tail singing Hari Krishna.

I am staying in a hotel called the Pink House, and no it is not called that because it is a place of debauchery and sin. It is called that because it is pink. It is right on the beach, and my room opens to sand and waves. It is really nice... especially for $4 a night.

I defeated the pigeons in my little war. I cleaned out their nest before they decided to start a family, and bricked up the air vent so they could not build another one. It was my nuke option, because it means that the air flowing through that vent is now decreased. In war, sacrifices must be made.

I think that writing this is helping me keep up the practice of using proper english. Most of the time over here I must speak in deliberate and short sentences. Saying words slowly so that people who do speak english understand me. For instance instead of saying:

"Hey! How about you and I go for a walk around the fields?"

I need to say:

"Want to walk?"

After a while, the way I tailor my speech becomes habit, one that I must break before returning to the western world, where people would think I was just plain slow.

All Around Me Are Familiar Faces Part Two

Babu is 19. He was unofficially adopted by the hospital when he showed up on the front steps with a broken leg that was not healing properly. He does have surviving family, but they let him live and stay at the hospital and go the the school that Citta sponsors because it is a better life for him. He is sly, and likes chasing the girls. He has an excellent frisbee arm, and is never far from his Bicycle. Lately he has started to grow a moustache, which just looks odd on him. He is an excellent spades partner.

Tapan is Babu's brother. He is about 12 years old. He recently came to the hospital and begged Govinda to let him stay there with his brother, and go to the school. He desperately wants to learn to read. Govinda of course agreed to it. He is great at cards, and is my favorite spades partner. He is helping with my Oriya lessons.

Utkal is Govinda's right hand man. He is in charge of the office and clerks. He is retired Air Force. He was a radar technician. His english is absolutely perfect, and is always quick with a joke. He has a wife and 2 children. Both are in college now, and both have very promising futures.

There are more people I hang out with, but if you want to know about them, ask me in person, I am tired of writing short biographies for now.

All Around Me are Familiar Faces

I realize that there is only so much I can write about how hot it is here. I do want to stress the point, however, that it is not just hot... it is very hot, and very humid.

I took a nice long walk today with Biku and Babu. For those of you wondering who all these people I mention are, I realize I have been a bad host. I have neglected to actually introduce you to any of the people I interact with here on a daily basis.

Govinda is the managing trustee of the hospital and school, and is the top of the chain of command here. It is his responsibility to make sure everything is running smoothly. He is in his 50's and has 3 sons. His wife died many years ago. He likes Bob Marley music, singing songs he made up himself, and worrying. He is a smart man who hates corruption with a passion. He works hard to ensure that the hospital serves the community, and always looks out for those less fortunate than himself.

Biku is Govinda's eldest son. He is 19 years old and will soon be studying to be a doctor. He plans to become a doctor and work at the hospital in Juanga. He is smart and kind. People in the USA are raising funds to put him through medical college. He has already passed the entrance exam, now he is just waiting on the funding. He is alot like his father in many ways. He speaks english very well, and is an excellent Oriya teacher. He is a good friend.

More on the people here tomorrow.

When Pigeons Attack

Day seven of my battle against the pigeons. I seem to be loosing this war. Every day the pigeons stranglehold on my room grows stronger. They have build a base in a vacant air vent in my room. This gives them a place to rest and regroup before going on more raids.

Making noise no longer scares them. I was foolish for making threats without immediately backign them up. They now think I am weak and unwilling to do what must be done to ensure victory in this war. I have begun sleeping with a weapon. I keep some five rupee coins in my bed with me to throw at them when they attack. I use the coins more as flak, something to discourage their bombing runs. If I fail to hold them off much longer, I will need to take extreme measures.

Yesterday during one of their raids they foolishly attacked my ceiling fan. There were feathers everywhere, but the pigeon somehow managed to get away. They coo ever so softly at me from the air vent above my desk, mocking me. I have tried shutting my windows, but all that does is make my room unbearably hot. They know I cannot keep the windows closed forever. So they sit, and they wait.

Every day, every hour brings me closer to attacking their base of operations. I have checked, so far no innocents would be harmed if I destroyed their construction project, but how long will that be true? If I wait too long, there will be "collateral damage," and I can't have that. I need to find a way to cut off their supply lines, or maybe block access to their base. I may be forced to call in a specialist on this one.

Shhh, I am Narrating.

I think I have a problem, but I am not sure. I have begun to narrate. I am naratting my life. Plain and simple. Everything I do I begin to hear my own voice describing it to me. For instance, this morning as I sat and ate breakfast, I found myself describing in disturbing detail everything that I was experiencing. This narration has become common enough of an experience that I have noticed it.

On top of it all, I do not like my narrative style. I find myself noticing and describing things that I find boring and unnecessary. I have heard of "finding your voice" as a writer, but the voice that seems to be finding me is one I think I would not like to read. I will say this for my narrator, he is getting better slowly. The way I think is slowly coming around to the way I think I think. If that makes any sense to you, please help me make some sense of it.

Maybe it is because so little is happening at any given time here. I find myself with so much time to just sit and think, that I have begun to fill those moments in my own mind. Is it possible that I am internalizing my experiences? What am I getting from this practice of narration? I have no clue. All I know is this, my own personal story teller has a long way to go before I pick up any book he has written.

Learn Your Own Language First, Then Try Something Different

My lessons with Biku are going well. I have learned more Oriya in the last week than I did the entire time I was here the last two trips. He has a solid understanding of English grammar, which makes it easy for him to describe Oriya grammar in a way I can understand.

I have always held the belief that the stronger you are in your native language, the easier it is to learn another. My knowledge of the parts of speech in english has made the transition to Oriya much easier than I could have hoped for If I had to learn the essentials of grammar AND another language.

I am still upset at Oriya for not having a form of "to be." I think it not having "to be" just means the language was too lazy to develop it. One of the other difficult parts of Oriya is conjugating the verbs. I suppose that is difficult in any language, but I am slowly learning the rhyme and reason to this language's particular ways. If only humans only existed in the here and now, without a concept of past and future, language would be alot easier.

To Be, or No To Be

I am have discovered my problem with Oriya. Something about the language always frightened me, and now I know what. They do not have a verb that means to be. For those of you who love language as I do, I will repeat that for emphasis. In Oriya, there is no form of to be. That means there is no I am, we are, or they are not. They simply do not have a way to relate existence as a verb. No To Be.

I discovered this during my daily lesson with Biku. I was asking him to teach me the pronouns in Oriya, figuring I would start where I learned any other language I speak. I would start with the simple phrase "I am." He said he couldn't teach me that. After aa few minutes of discussion I he came to realize what I was asking and told me there simply is no to be in Oriya.

Now that I understand that small little fact about this language, everything else is coming quickly. I am learning the forms of verbs, and how to properly make sentences. It appears that my biggest roadblock was simple existence, but now that that is gone, I am ready to learn more!

Getting Busy

I got busy today.

I spent a few hours in the office with the clerks seeing how things were going with the financial work that they were supposedly working on the 2 months I was gone. Turns out Quickbooks stopped working 2 weeks after I left last time. So absolutely nothing was happening. I checked on the calendar they were going to be using to keep track of important dates. Dates when information was supposed to be sent and the such. The calendar had never even been used. Oh well. back to the beginning.

In the afternoon I played frisbee with Chandu, Babu's younger brother, Biku, and some of the other village boys. It was bloody hot, and everyone was drenched with sweat by the end of our session. Maybe someday next week I can actually gather enough of them to play a game of ultimate frisbee. We will see.

I spent the evening talking to Manu about stories. about writing them, reading them, telling them, and any other kind of thing one does with stories. I truly love stories. The idea of it gives me pleasure. I like to listen to them as much as I love to tell them, and most of you know that I do love to tell stories.

I will hopefully have some interesting stories to tell when I return home.

Oriya Lessons

My first day at the hospital was... uneventful as far as accomplishing any real work is concerned. I spent most of the day with Biku, Govinda's eldest son. We have decided that we can be of advantage to each other. Every day we will spend any hour teaching eachother our native languages. He will teach me Oriya, and I will teach him how to butcher the english language.

I also spent today going around saying hello to all the people here. I have a great many people here who I consider good friends. It is odd, but even though most of them speak not a word of english, and I speak only a few words of Oriya, we have cultivated a relationship.

There is Chandu. He runs the pharmacy that is next to the hospital. He speak english very well, and is adept at frisbee. these two things are easy ways to win my friendship it turns out. He is 27 and single and likes it that way. He is a devout Hindu, and does his Puja every day. His real name is Rohit, and he is from a village about 4 kilometers away. He is obsessed with Cricket and in school he was an excellent bowler. I know all this because he can tell me. Most of the other people who I know here, I am forced to extrapolate their stories from other people, or just plain guess as to their history.

That sickness I was suffering from turned out to be a sore throat, and I am recovering nicely due to some Ayurvedic losenges given to me by Chandu at the pharmacy. They taste awful, but do the trick. For that I am very thankful. They feel like sandpaper in your mouth, tast like old gym socks, and do not even feel soothing while they are in your mouth, but they make it easier to swallow.

I have settled into my room and I am waiting a day or so to start working. It is difficult to just jump into work in this village. People here want to take their time, and move at their own pace. If I immediately went to work trying to get them to help me accomplsh all that Michael has set out for me to do, I think they will stop thinking I understand their way of life. Which I don't. Here everything is done so slowly. I suppose it is the heat. Which by the way is HOT. I mean like 100 degrees in the shade. The humidity is through the roof. So I am now in the sauna portion of my time here in India.

Thank You For Flying Indian Airlines

Today I travelled.

Traveling is a wondergul way to meet interesting people, people you would never meet in your everyday life. People you would never have a desire to meet in your everyday life. The woman sitting next to me on the plane did not stop talking. Ever. She is a dancer it turns out, in a classic religious style called Odessi. She is coming from Delhi for a dance festival in Bhubhaneswar. That is all I will tell you of her, no reason for you to hear 2 hours worth of life story from me.

This is how people in India travel, I have found out. People make friends on trains, planes, and busses. A very differnt style of travel from what I am used to in the US. There people tend to keep to themselves more often than not. Things are different here.

After arriving in Bhubhaneswar I was collected by Govinda and Utkal. We had lunch at a local restaraunt. Even the restarautns here serve Tali. Tali is what most people here eat every meal of every day of their entire lives. Rice, Dahl, and some other vegetable. The other vegetable is more often than not potato, especially this time of year. Here in Orissa their diets are not governed by taste, instead it is governed by the season. Some seasons Gobi (cauliflower) is the "other" vegetable. However during the spring and summer months, it is almost always potato. I will probably eat enouth potatoes in the next few months to turn even this irishman's stomach from them for a short while.

After lunch we stopped to do some shopping. I needed to pick up some essentials that would not be available in the village. Soap, shampoo, mosquito cream, mosquito coil, toilet paper, and water were the items on my list. With them safely in my possession we started for Juanga.

A few kilometers outside of Bhubhaneswar we hit traffic. I am talking Holland Tunnel traffic. Cars stretched before us for kilometers ahead. I settled in for what was going to be a long trip. The heat of the air mixed with the hot exhaust from the cars and busses surrounding us, making breathing unpleasant. I turned to Govinda and Utkal wondering if they had any idea as to how far the traffic stretched out in front of us, or how long we would be held captive in the belly of the monstrous snake composed of cars, busses, and motorbikes. their guess was as good as mine, so I sat in my seat quietly and remembered what someone once told me.

"Why stand when you can sit? Why sit when you can lay down? Why lay down when you can sleep?"

So I tried to sleep. Did not succeed, but I tried.

After a few hours of traffic, and a few hours of dusty broken village roads, we arrived at my destination at last. The Michael A. Daube Charitable Trust and Hospital greeted me with it's dull fading yellow in the hot sunset. I was shown to my room, on the second floor above the main entrance of the hospital. The room I always stay in when I am here. I am finally to my home away from home.

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

So my Debit Card finally arrived this morning and I have booked a flight for tomorrow at noon. This would be great news, if I did not feel like I was coming down with something. Not a stomach thing either, this feels like aches, and dizziness.

Out of the frying pan into the fire I believe is the old expression. Well thankfully I am going to be staying and working at a hospital, so I won't have to travel far to see a doctor if it gets any worse than what it is right now.

My throat is sore too. Maybe it is just allergies? I will take something tonight to try to knock it out of my system.

Anyway, I am finally actually and really on my way! Govinda has taken to calling me, late and often, recently. He cannot wait to see me, and wants me to do many good works for him at the hospital. He is such an emotional person sometimes, that I just can't help but love him.

I will be getting a cellphone number down in Orissa. I will put the number in a post and for those of you who actually go to my blog to read it, it will be on the left hand side of the page. Be careful when calling me, if you do because phone charges from the US to India can be a bit expensive. Going to a corner store and purchasing one of those international calling cards is the best way to go about using a normal land line. Skype is my preferred method for making international calls. But it requires you having a microphone for your computer, and internet access.

Now begins the fun/hard part of my trip. I am comfortable enough in Orissa to go there and do what needs to be done, but am I capable enough to do it? Last few times I have accomplished some goals, and failed others. I do not expect this time to be any different. It will be a challenge. A challenge I look forward to!

Subway

So Today I went to Connaught Place to pick up some more books. I am chewing through them due to an acute case of cabin fever. I have cabin fever in a city that covers approximately 90 square kilometers.

I walked the outer circle of CP today for something different, and to my surprise I found a Subway restaurant. I decided to give it a try as I had yet to have lunch and to tell you the truth I was oddly fascinated by the prospect of a Subway in India.

The differences were obvious from the start. There are 2 lines of people ordering sandwiches; One is labeled Veg. the Non Veg. I quickly stepped into the Non Veg. line because I was never one to pass up a chance to eat the flesh of a dead animal (Except veal and foi gras... a man needs to have moral standards after all). I decided on what I always get at Subway back home. An Italian B.M.T. For those who are uneducated in the ways of Subway lingo, B.M.T. is Big. Meaty. Tasty. One difference here in India however. The M. in B.M.T. has been replaced by Lamb Salami and Lamb Pepperoni. However after all my travels here I did not even blink at the difference. This is where the differences between American Subways and Indian Subways end.

The similarities are much more fun to point out. Just like in the US there is a Baskin Robbins attached or directly next to the Subway Restaurant. Just like in the US the Subway is staffed primarily by Indians. Just like in the US the sandwiches never live up to the expectations of anyone who has had a REAL Italian Sub.

Guest

So Here I am, still in Delhi 2 weeks after I arrived, and 1 week after I thought I would be in Orissa. I fear I am abusing the hospitality of Shashi and Shammi, and I feel awful for that. One of my biggest pet peeves is being rude, and I find one of the most rude things anyone can do is abuse hospitality. I should be a week gone already. But Shashi and Shammi feel bad for me due to my stolen wallet, and they are truly good people.

Even though they tell me they do not mind, I can feel that I am disrupting their lives. I wish there was some way I could repay them for their kindness. I try to be helpful, but there is little to be helpful with. I try to stay out of their way as much as possible, but they each have busy lives to stay busy with, so I am not interfering with that at least. They go to work, and I either sit down to read a book, or head out to the streets for a walk. Someday I go to Connaught Place, some days I go somewhere else, others I just walk around the nieghborhood.

It is not a nice feeling, feeling as though you are unwillingly taking advantage of someone's kindness. Even if they do not feel I am taking advantage of them, I still feel like I am. I do not want to encroach on their lives a day longer than I must, and unfortunately it seems like I will remain their guest until Monday the earliest.

I Go Walking, Close to Midnight, in the Moonlight

Every night Shammi and I go for a brisk walk around the neighborhood. He leads me through the twists and turns of Delhi's streets, and we talk. Every night the conversation is different, and always interesting. Some nights we tell jokes, some nights we talk politics, other nights sports. In all it is part of my day I greatly look forward to.

The streets at night are almost no different from the streets during the day. There are still plenty of people and plenty of cars and motorbikes. More often than not we pass a Hindi wedding. Except tonight. Tonight, there was not a single wedding happening. I asked Shammi about this and he said that today was a bad day for weddings.

I laughed and said it seemed that way. He then corrected himself. He said it was an inauspicious day for weddings.

Turns out Hindu culture is very, very superstitious. More so than I had thought. There are days of the year where not a single Hindu will get married. Simply because that day has been deemed inauspicious. Prime ministers will delay their inaugurations so that they take place on auspicious days. Government buildings have openings to the "4 directions." I am painting a very broad picture, but it is like feng shue to the extreme.

I want to finish with a joke Shammi told me. It is offensive... I think.

A man runs up to a Sikh and says "Hey!!! There is a house on fire!!!"
The Sikh shakes his head and replies, "Get the hell outta here, it is none of my business."
The man say "But it is YOUR house that is on fire!"
The Sikh replies, "Get the hell outta here, it is none of your business."

Holi-Day and Rememberances of the Water Wars

Today was an Indian celebration of the arrival of spring. The festival is called Holi. And it is a festival of colors. And boy are there colors.

Families gather together and throw small packets of what they simply call "color" on each other. This color, from what I can tell, is just dehydrated dyes and pigments. They smear it all over their siblings, parents, cousins, and distant relatives faces. Their apparent joy is fun to watch, but more fun to participate in.

Yup I got colored today. Pictures will be posted. A good time was had by all.

The other element of Holi is water. Packs of children armed with water guns and water balloons roam the streets. They stalk building to building like well trained combatants dousing all those in their path. Ambush points are set up for the unwary street walker, and balloons filled with water rain down from rooftops accompanied by the sound of children's laughter.

Personally I had 5 water balloons thrown at me. And none of them hit. Seriously? I am a LARGE target here in India. Not a one found it's mark. The balloons exploded behind and in front of me, but none of their aqua ballistics found their mark. I began to become disappointed. Did these children know nothing of leading their target? Biding their time till you were sure your strike would land true? A pity they did not receive the same training I had as a 5 year old boy on the streets of my grandmother's house.

It is a lifetime and a world away, but I remember the water wars as if it was only yesterday. It was soak or be soaked back then. And even if you did soak the other guy first, he would probably soak you anyway. They were tough times. I didn't know who to trust. Alliances were made and broken in instants when water was involved. The only thing you could hope for was being better or faster than the other kids. Water fights are hell.

Anyway. I had a wonderful time with Shashi and Shammi's family. Took some pictures, and I will post them soon.

Hard to Write, Because I am Reading

This post is hard to write.

Not because of any hardships I am suffering while traveling. Simply because nothing happened today. Me, Shashi, and Shammi stayed in all day watching TV, reading, and making idle chit chat.

I am currently reading 4 books simultaneously. I find it is the only way I know how to read at a pace where books will last a substantial time for me over here in India. I have hours a day where I am able to do just about whatever I want, and because i have none of the normal distractions of home, I spend those hours reading.

At every opportunity I put down the book to socialize with whomever and whatever I can, however over here there are just stretches of time when I am simply alone. Sometimes I write (mostly these posts), sometimes I play an old SNES game on my computer, sometimes I just sit and think, but mostly I read. Anything and everything I can get my hands on. Here is a list of the books I am currently reading:

The Hero With A Thousand Faces By Joseph Campbell
Le Mort de Arthur by Sir Thomas Malorey
The Wheel of Time By Robert Jordan
The Silmarillion Composited by Christopher Tolkien

The nice thing about bing over here is I have easy access to many other books, and I will keep you posted on what I am reading whenever something changes.

Confidence

I have lost my confidence.

It is amazing how that can happen. One moment I was on the move, ready to attempt new challenges and solve new problems, the next moment my world stopped turning. It only stopped for a heartbeat, but it was long enough. I am different now.

Today I boarded the Metro heading for Connaught Place. The train ride felt different. My awareness had shifted from calm curiosity of my surroundings to vigilance. I felt as though I was guarding myself. Even as this was happening I was aware of it. I knew that the only thing that has changed in this world is me. The pickpockets had always been there, somewhere distant in my mind. They were always a threat lurking somewhere else. Today on the metro they were all around me. I hated it.

So I made a decision. I decided to control how I was going to change. I made the decision to not feel like a victim. I need my confidence. It is what allows me to travel and not feel overburdened. It helps me sleep in cheap motels with cheap fluorescent lights. It lets me hop into a taxi with a driver I do not know who speaks a language I do not know going to a place I have never been. I love my confidence.

So I am going to keep it. And I am going to make keeping it one of my daily decisions. I am going to wake up every day and remind myself to keep my cool, and remain confident until I don't have to remember it anymore. Soon it will just become a part of me. This incident will be a distant memory, just one more lesson I have learned while traveling. And as with everything else that happens to me, it is going to be one of my stories. Those stories I love to tell so much.

Today I Lost a Friend

My wallet was stolen today.

It was 2 PM local time and I was in Rajiv Chowk Metro Station underneath Connaught Place waiting to board the yellow line with Shammi. Shammi was taking me to see the "real Delhi" before I left for Orissa. The crowds were oppressive and people pressed in on us from every side. My wallet was foolishly in my back pocket, a mistake I have never made in the past while traveling.

We boarded the train and there was one of those automated announcements that they play all the time on the Delhi Metro...

"Pick-pocketers have been identified in the stations and on the trains, please be careful of your personal belongings."

I reach my hand back and give my pocket a half-hearted pat. It is empty. All of a sudden I am hit with feelings of panic and disbelief. My heart races and I check my other pockets. Did I not have it in my back pocket? Did I leave it at Shashi's house? When did I have it last?

I experience what can only be called a poor-choice-by-the-director-flashback. Standing on the metro platform only 5 minutes ago I had reached back and patted my wallet in the pocket.

Being brought back to the present I turn to Shammi and tell him the news. He asks what I had in the wallet, and what I think we should do. I take a mental inventory of my wallet:

2,000 Rupees
My Drivers License
Insurance Card
Photocopy of Passport
Barnes and Noble Membership card
3 credit cards
1 debit card
1 emergency $20 dollar bill hidden in one of the compartments

We get off at the next stop and find an internet cafe. I proceed to call my bank and credit card company and cancel all the cards. Turns out the person who stole my wallet had tried to buy in total $5,000 dollars worth of stuff with my cards. Thankfully none of my credit cards work over here without me calling to authorize them. He did however manage to wrangle $400 bucks from my debit card. All this happened within 20 minutes.

I loved that wallet. I have had it for 7 years. I have lost it 2 times, and both times it has come back to me. It was my friend, and a companion that has traveled the world with me. The worst part of all of this is I never realized how much I cared for that wallet until it was gone. I never told it how I felt, how much it meant to me. And now I don't think I will ever get the chance.

Friday Night

Today I started out by heading to a Barista. Barista is the Indian version of Starbucks. What this means is that their coffee is bitter and overpriced. However, it is the ONLY real coffee to be found in India. Ahh the things I will suffer for a cup of java every so often.

After Barista I met up with Shashi and we went to McDonalds. McDonalds is the Indian version of McDonalds. The menu is different, however you are still greeted by the same underpaid teenagers with English as a second language. I had the chicken sandwich and Shashi had some weird veggie burger. They have normal veggie burgers as well, but the one Shashi had was called some odd name that was a cross between western advertisement language and Hindi. My ears decided to block out the name of it because my gentle brain is not ready to behold the horrors of advertisement speak in another language.

After McDonalds, we saw Slumdog Millionaire. The movie was good and I recommend it to everyone. Good story, good music (no line dancing till the end credits), and good acting. It does show a darker side of India, but that is just context.

Gotta run, getting ready to leave tomorrow.

Leave me a voicemail!

So I got my Skype number working again. It is a local NJ number that has voice mail that I can check every so often. If you want to call and harass me, entertain me, mock me, say hi to me, or simple prank call me I would appreciate it! The number is located over on the left.

I look forward to your calls!

I think someone is watching me....

I am having troubles starting this post. I have decided to write about my physical appearance in relation to my location. I am a large white man in a country of small brown folk. That is about as boiled down a description of my situation in India that I can make.

Growing up in New Jersey and specifically Hudson County, I quickly grew accustomed to seeing people of all sizes, shapes, and colors. As a young child my best friend was a kid across the street of middle eastern ethnicity named Allah. Throughout grammar school my best friend was an odd mix of Irish and Guyanese. I grew up in a town where the majority of the population is Hispanic. I went to high school in a city where no one ethnic group can claim a majority. And I lived next to the most racially diverse city in the world.

I am not making the argument that India lacks diversity. There are dozens of ethnic groups located in India, and they are all represented in Delhi. It just so happens that none of those groups looks like me.

Everywhere I go I feel eyes on me. I cannot just blend in with the crowd or step to the background and fade away. As I walk down the street almost every single person will stop and look at me, at least for a second. Some children are so afraid of me they run away. Many people are very friendly and will walk right up to me, say something I cannot understand, and shake my hand. Every moment I am out in public feels like a moment I am on display.

I have mixed feeling about all the attention I get. On one hand their interest in me interests me. I take it as an opportunity to interact with people in a way I do not get to back home. I keep a smile on my face and wave to the people staring at me. I play a game with myself trying to keep count of all the people that wave back. Many people do wave back and most of them return my smile with one of their own. It is an odd and distant interaction, but I enjoy it.

On the other hand sometimes I just want to blend in. Sometimes I just want to be able to walk from point A to point B without people staring at me or whispering to each other. A perfect example of a time I wish I could just blend is on the Metro. The train is crowded and you are surrounded on all sides by people. It would be nice to just be one body amongst many. However the Metro is no safe haven. People are still staring and whispering.

It isn't really all that bad. It is just something that is always present. I have gotten used to it.

My plane leaves for Orissa on Saturday. Posts may come a little more sporadically after that as I am not sure when or where I will have internet access. When I get my cell phone number down in Orissa I will post it for people to call me. I would suggest using Skype to call me as international calling rates from the US are unnaturally high.

I am William Purcell

So I am me again! Well my bank thinks I am me again, which is all that counts when you are trying to get your debit card to work overseas. I called my bank again today and this time they were able to verify that I am in fact William Purcell.

I fell asleep rather early yesterday. What I thought was only going to be a quick nap ended up with me waking up at 3 AM local time. I did not want to undo all my hard work of adjusting to the time difference by being up that early in the morning so I reached into my bag and cheated myself to sleep with a Benedryl. I passed out and woke up around 7 AM. I really needed the sleep it turns out.

Over the past few days there has been some de-construction going on in Shashi's neighborhood. 3 men with sledgehammers have completely reduced a 3 story building to rubble. 3 men. 3 sledgehammers. 3 story building. 3 days. Personally, I liked the idea of it. There is something satisfactory in watching something slowly crumble. I suppose it is because I subscribe to the boom-boom theory.

This theory (loosely) states that one of the reasons that we enjoy watching things destroyed or taken apart is because as humans there is part of us that resents living in an ordered and rule filled society. Man made structures are physical representations of the constraints that society places on us. When we see them destroyed it feels exhilarating and liberating because we associate these buildings and possessions as enslaving us in some way. It gives us hope to know that society can be deconstructed.

I finished a book today. Neil Gaimen's American Gods. This book is about all the gods we have imported, created, and forgotten over the years in America. According to the mythology of the book gods are created, and maintained by our belief in them. The Internet, Odin, and Johnny Appleseed are just some of the gods that this book deals with.

The idea that gods are man-made and man-sustained is a theme that is common in many writers I find myself drawn to. Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaimen, and Tom Robbins are just a few of my favorite authors that seem to share this approach to the divine. While I do not necessarily agree with them, I cannot help but see that people actually do create, worship, and abandon their own gods all the time. These authors simply take the human condition a step beyond the believable and manifest the things that we worship as actual gods.

I suppose I like to read these kinds of books because it reminds me to examine the gods I have created in my own life. Ironically enough one of those gods is books themselves. I have an addiction to reading. I will go on month long book binges where I will read everything I can get my hands on. Then I will get bored and not pick up a book for a month or two.

My trips to India have always been book binge times. Here I have a lot of free time, and none of the same distractions I have at home. I suppose it is a way in which I insulate myself from my surroundings, choosing to enter a world in my mind instead of dealing with the new world surrounding me.

I dunno.

Banks 1 William 0

Today I was trying to book a plane or train down to Orissa. I had found some really great rates, had booked the flight, and was ready to pay. Easy as pie, right? Wrong.

My debit card was declined. I checked the account balance. Plenty of money to pay for the flight. So I figured there was some issue. I tried my credit card. Declined. My final option was my reserve credit card. That was also declined. At this point I am extremely frustrated. So I log into Skype and I am going to call my bank. My Skype account is empty. I try to use my debit card to top off the Skype balance. Declined. So I attempt to call my bank using my cell phone. Call failed. At this point I am out of options.

So I borrowed Shashi's cell phone and called my bank. Went through all the automated options and finally reached a customer service representative (an Indian lady). I told her my problem and she said she would help me fix it. But before she could she was going to need to ask me a few questions about myself.

Turns out. I don't know me. I discovered that I am merely someone who thinks he is William Purcell. She said that she would be unable to help me because I failed to answer the questions correctly. So with my new identity crisis I hung up the phone and began pondering how I was going to sort things out. Deciding that worrying about it was only paying interest to trouble I resigned myself to trying again tomorrow.

I spent the rest of the day getting everything else I needed ready for my trip down to Orissa.

At around 4pm Shashi came home and we both got into her car and headed out for lunch. The next part of this story would be fairly boring if not for the fact that I am in India.

We went to a Pizza Hut that was located in a mall.

It is here that I confess to all everyone that India is not actually a strange and beautiful land inhabited by a people whose culture is rich and vastly different from our own. The Pizza Hut was located in the food court of the mall. This food court also contained a Subway, a McDonalds, and a KFC. To top things off the mall was filled with teenagers. All the stores you expect to be in a mall were there. I had traveled 13 hours by plane and ended up in Garden State Plaza.

I would go off on a rant about how the world is becoming homogenized, except my brain has stopped functioning.

Came back from the mall and began writing this post. Right now I think the jet lag is finally really catching up with me. I am going to try to take a quick nap before dinner to see if that helps.

Alone In Delhi

Today after breakfast I hopped on the Metro and went to the center of New Delhi. Shashi and Shammi both had work so I was, for the first time, alone in Delhi. At first I thought nothing of it. However after about an hour of wandering through Connaught Place it dawned on me that this was the first time I had wandered the streets of Delhi by myself. I liked it. A lot. Usually when I am here I am with familiar people all the time, and on some kind of schedule. Today, however, I was alone and had time to kill. So I wandered, meandered, and strolled through the center of Delhi like I had absolutely no purpose. I browsed bookstores, handicraft shops, and any other shop that caught my fancy. I took the time to stop and talk to the people who were trying to sell me something I did not want or would not buy. I sat and read a book in the City Center Park.

Connaught Place is the center of Delhi's ongoing commercialization and gentrification. It is here where you will find Levi's stores, a Sony shop, and even a KFC. Because it is such a high traffic area, there are many people on the streets trying to sell random junk. Maps of India, travel chess sets, and plastic bracelets are the most common items being forced on the heaps of tourists that frequent Connaught Place. The many tourists (and middle class Indians) have also encouraged a large population of beggars to take up their posts in Connaught Place.

I use the term beggar because that is what their profession is. They are not homeless like we are used to in the US. The people here are not exactly homeless. They may not have a roof over their head, but wherever they live IS their home. People here live in crude shacks or on the street, but even the people who live on the streets live in a constant place that almost, if not actually, belongs to them in some way or another. They may not have a lease or a deed, but they know where they live, and so do other people. I suppose that there are cases like that in America, but the difference is how the rest of the society views it. Here, it is perfectly acceptable for a man running a news stand to sleep on a cot next to the news stand. but that is enough about that.

Today I was approached by an Indian man with an Australian accent. He wanted me to come with him to see his gallery. I happened to have plenty of time, and plenty of patience, so I decided to allow him to drag me through Delhi and try to sell me something. It turns out he works in a carpet gallery. I told them right up front that I was not interested in buying anything, but they insisted that I at least sit down and look at what they had to offer. They assured me that once I saw their wares I would not be able to live without them. So I spent the next hour learning about different qualities, materials, and patterns of oriental carpets. I must say that I was impressed by the quality of some of the carpets this gentleman showed me. some of them were absolutely beautiful. In spite of their beauty I declined to purchase any of their carpets, we said our goodbyes, and I was on my way.

By this time I was ready for lunch. I was near a place that I had been before and decided that it was as good a spot as any to sit down, have a drink, eat some lunch, and read a book. So I went to Rodeo. Rodeo is a wild west themed restaurant in Delhi. The waiters and waitresses all wear cowboy outfits with order pads in gun holsters. The bar has saddles for seats. And old time country music is always playing. I absolutely love this place. I suppose I love it because they aren't trying to mock cowboy culture as we do with similarly themed restaurants back home. This restaurant is a genuine homage to the cowboy.

That was all the exciting or notable stuff that happened to me today.

Oooo. A bird pooped on my head. That was also notable. Just thought you should know.

Fun with a Family

Today was spent with Shashi and Shammi at their Aunt's house. It was a family get together, and I was invited. For the most part I sat there and listened to their conversations. Well that is not true. I listened to their words, but had little to no understanding of their conversations. I did however take this as an opportunity to practice listening.

It is not that I think I am a bad listener. What I was practicing was being able to listen to individual words that are spoken in Hindi. See, I am learning Hindi right now. And I thought I was doing fairly well learning it. I was wrong. Simple sentences spoken by native Hindi speakers eluded me. This was because I was not used to listening to it.

I have had a similar experience in my own native language. When in the southern USA sometimes I can not understand a damn word some of the people claiming to speak a language of which I was fairly sure I had a solid grasp. So I spent today learning to listen to Hindi. I will get back to you when I have actually made progress.

In the evening We all piled into cars and went to see India gate. It is a huge monument similar to the Arch de Triumph in France. It commemorates all the Indian soldiers who lost their lives in the first world war. Surrounding this impressively large arch are wide open fields, where many citizens of Delhi gather in the evenings to sit and picnic. It was very pleasant to walk around the arch and see all the people just lounging around, sitting, chatting, and having fun. Very peaceful.

After India Gate we headed over to a canteen for dinner. This particular canteen was known for its excellent quality of food. What was not made known to me (immediately) was that it was also famous for being incredibly spicy food. Over the years I have developed a (mostly) respectable tolerance for spicy food. This place, however, made my eyes water and my nose run. That being said, the food really was excellent.

Came home, blogged, went to bed.