Brouhaha

Dearest XYZ,

I am writing to ask for your advice concerning a dilemma which I have been faced with here in Florence: I am having difficulty choosing among three lovers (it is true, what they say of this city and her seductive alleys, to which I have fallen prey).

Unintentionally, I have fallen in love in different corners of the city, my senses seduced by the passion, brilliance, and poetry of its streets. Though this "lovefest" might first strike you as peculiar, I am hoping that you will find it worthy of your time. You see, my first lover (whose distant cousins I have met in the past) always leaves a sweet taste in my mouth, and though I sometimes have him two to three times a day, it is never enough; this attraction, fueled by his mastery over my senses, has left me powerless of my … let’s say, “desires.” The second lover blows my mind with his ideas and words; he speaks of a certain saper vedere, of visions and discovery and flight, and leaves me captivated with his genius. The third, charming and gentle, serenades me into late hours of the night.

Always offering a variety of flavorful delight, I will never get bored with Gelato- but you see, though he is spirited and eccentric in character, leaving me lustful for his presence at every conscious moment of the day, he does not sway my mind the way DaVinci does. Oh, DaVinci, the most mindful of my lovers; an inventor, designer and pioneer, a true explorer of the heart. In the mornings he whispers in my ear of Moderator Bands (the first cause of our strange and beating heart!) and Great Operators (the “invisible” moving spirit whose power he believes runs the cosmos), acquainting me with ideas and notions that fall onto the plate of my mind like the most delectable of delicacies. His talents breathe into my pores and find their way to my bed on rainy afternoons. Still, I hear the sigh of my third lover and I am reminded that DaVinci is not the only puppeteer of my heartstrings. In fact, my third lover, Music, towards whom I move in walking daylight, nights, and dreams, relaxes me into nothingness, makes me forget the scrolling time and where I am, frees me from the latches of existence. I unthinkingly unfasten from myself, and become a cloud hovering through the cracks of these cobbled streets, trailing towards this stranger’s hushing sounds.

So here I am, in a city that is home to Italian art, a city that has artfully received my addictions, mind, and affections. I must admit that this letter is not truly a call for answers; it is rather a confession of the pleasures this city has offered, which my unabashed delight has resolved to enjoy without sorting. Throughout his entire life, DaVinci’s work treaded around his obsession with Flight, which he saw as the only release for man from the all the “fighting for ground”- but though his genius exceeds all wonder and fame, my three Florentine lovers have confided in me a secret which I would have loved to share with him: our earthly love affairs and explorations can be the essence of our Flight. And if you think about it, we’ll never have to settle for one; the canvas of our life is broad and thirsty for color.

Reading about Katz’ bird poopy moment in Paris (from Bill Bryson’s Neither here Nor there) reminded me of my own shitty moments abroad- literally. (Where the streets have no name), I always end up stumbling upon some "poopoo." Though we’ve been close since the day I was born, poopoo never stops earning its title as the maverick of natural wonders.

Here are my top 3 poop encounters:

1. 2008, Me and Bridget’s Senior year trip to Paris/London, somewhere near the Louvre. We had just feasted on a delicious lunch of Croque Monsieurs and Madames (the only difference being that the Madame contains a fried egg in addition to the toast, butter, ham, and gruyere), when Bridget belatedly informs me that I have just stepped in French horseshit. Thanks B.
2. At the Old Delhi Railway station, I had misread the train itinerary and arrived two hours earlier than schedule. I finally find a bench to sit on surrounded by a decent amount of non-sketchy males and close to my predicted cart, and I feel very satisfied. Book in hand, I begin to read about the wonders of India. Suddenly, poop- some white liquid splashes my bag and trickles to my shirt. I look up, and there they were, two pigeons either having a loud and exciting sexy time or laughing their ass off at me. The poop doesn't touch my skin, so I get a napkin out of my bag and wipe off the mush, eventually giving in to a smile. "Maybe it was just a splash of good luck,” I naively think to myself and go back to reading "Marvelous stories from India." And again, the pigeons strike- ploop. This time, it lands on my shoulders and splashes my face. I look up, not at the sky, but at the two pigeons standing on the glossy blue pole connecting the ground to the ceiling. They start their hysteria again (and I begin to understand the dislike some people have for pigeons). The man sitting two seats away laughs. I move to the empty seat next to me, slyly thinking that I outfoxed the pigeons and got my foot out of the booby trap- “Take that dumb and dumber," I strike back. And then, strike three- this time, the poop slobbers all over my arms and into my shirt, poop poopidoop boob. Instead of looking up to see how (and why the hell) the pigeons had moved to cordially escort my shift (and give them the opportunity to release more poopoo on my face), I grabbed my three thousand bags and proceeded to buy a bag of chips from the chibs wallah.
3. Chandni Chowk, one of India’s busiest streets, first day of me and Cortney’s heritage walks in Delhi. After Cortney had stepped on a bed of muddy grass outside the Chandni Chowk subway station, there we were, standing in front of the “Moonlit Square”, under the shade of a tree when- PLOOP; once on her hair, and then another on her shoes. She had gotten unlucky (or very lucky, depending on how you want to look at it) and her eyes were boiling with fury. I couldn’t help but laugh until my tummy began to cramp and Cortney’s face gave way to the look (trust me, you want to do your best in life to avoid the look). A moonlit moment, indeed.

We’ve all had our shitty moments. If we can each remember three, on the shittiest of days, maybe we can give way to a self-earned giggle. Plus, they might serve as a good ice-breaker… in times of desperation.

p.s Here is a wonderful picture from our croque Monsieurs and Madames in Pariiii (pre-poopoo entertainment). A paper-bag dare: we all know the sanctity that dares carry in a world that risks boredom.

We’ve heard all it before that a writer's goal is to dig in for truth, and maybe I'm just behind with the thinking, but it only just occurred to me why exactly that is; not because truth is glamorous (in fact, it’s often a brute), but because it is often ignored as we choose to focus rather on simpler layers, often illusions- sort of like being afraid to knock on an egg's shell because you never know how gooey the inside will be. But truth, the accurate portrayal of reality, is the only means to avoid deception: once "you got it," nothing anyone can do or say can disappoint you because you will always be a step ahead. The more immune we are, even partially, (as difficult as it may be) to disappointment, the happier we will be. Coincidentally, we all reach in and reach out for truths, for an understanding of ourselves and of the world we live in so that we not only place ourselves within it, but also so that we understand where we're going (nobody wants to be floating in an endless void). In a physical sense, we study our features and our walk and our talk to see how same and how different we are from those who surround us, we travel to see if geographical borders draw distinctions between what is true to human existence, we look at mirrors to see what reality looks like. In a more spiritual sense, we try to understand what it is that keeps us going.

Standing in the world’s largest, oldest, continuous civilization, I was given the opportunity to tackle any topic of my choice within India’s borders for my Independent Study Project, or ISP, in April, and decided to set off on a pilgrimage to the source of the Ganga River with my friends Alex and Eliza (Alex was tracing the footsteps of 19th century British photographer Samuel Bourne and Eliza was exploring a more environmental skin of the route). This pilgrimage towards a physical source turned out to be more of a "trip" than I ever expected.

During this month of independent study, I spent time in India’s holiest city, met a cannibal and saw bodies being cremated, took the “ropeways to the gods” to visit hill-top temples (and meet priests who didn’t think twice before beating my backbone with a wooden bat, in the name of Hanuman, the monkey god), drifted through Rishikesh’s wild rapids, hiked down a mountain with the help of nothing but the light reflecting off snowy mountaintops, listened to Sigur Ros in the darkness of a Himalayan night… and met the Indian version of the one and only George Whitman- the kind of man whose kindness and unconditional hospitality exceeds every good in this world. Though I was focused on the academic backing of my pilgrimage, I roved and I roamed like only a pilgrim can rove and roam, aligning two seemingly opposite worlds into one reality; the world of story-telling and mythology, and that of science and facts.

En route, I explored Ganga’s mythological reality in contrast to more scientific “truths”, only to find that they echoed each other almost flawlessly. For example, while it is believed, in Hindu myth, that Ganga sprang from Vishnu’s toe (as he melted while listening to Shiva’s divine music), I came across recent articles that pointed towards “sound” being the source of all existence - which modern astronomers call the “music of creation.” Similarly, in the Vedic tradition, it is believed that the sound of Om is at the root of all sound, motion, and energy in the existing universe. These discoveries, mirroring the sameness of painted fluff, came hand in hand with my pilgrimage, and reached their summit upon my arrival at Gangotri.

Arrival [An edited passage from the conclusion of my ISP Project]

We reached Gangotri, the source, the small town hinged around a pure white temple dedicated to goddess Ganga and laying more than ten thousand feet above sea level, only to find the temple’s doors padlocked and sealed. We walked around, and then down to the riverbank, where we spotted the sacred stone where King Bhagirathi is believed to have begged for Ganga’s descent from the heavens (the Ganga River is believed to have fallen from from the Swarga, the abode of the gods). The water was a glacial light blue and frigid, still carrying the icing of its actual source, the Gaumukh Glacier eighteen kilometers further north. Across from the temple was a mythological set-up of figures; King Bhagirathi praying on his knees, Shiva with arms wide open towards the heavens, Nandi (the white bull Shiva rides) at his feet, a trident by one side, and Parvati by the other- and Ganga riding a wave above them all. This set-up, along with a bearded man walking the grounds in a worn out green coat, were the only presence in sight.

The bearded man turned out to be the caretaker of the grounds, and lived in a little hut by the temple. His home was little other than a room furnished with a mattress spread on the floor, a tea set, and a locked chest. I was working on sketches outside when I noticed that my friends had disappeared, so walked into the hut, where I found them seated around a fire pit on which the man was heating Chai.

We tried to communicate basic words but soon realized that the man was deaf, and that there was little room for verbal exchange. We sipped on the tea in silence. Then, Eliza and I tried singing You are my Sunshine to see if he would react, but alas, he was opening his locked trunk and didn’t even flinch. After we were done with the Chai, he unlocked his trunk, got some ropes out, and began to entertain us with magic tricks. We were perplexed by his knotting expertise, and he laughed like a child at our astonished looks. Then, plugging his nose with his right hand while making gestures with his other hand, he communicated that he bathed in the Ganga every morning, regardless of the weather.

Though there was little mingling of sound, a peaceful tone resonated in the small room, and a gust of wind swirled ashes from the pit around the room and then allowed them to settle on the ground like snowfall. My spiritual craving, fulfilled by the presence of such stillness, was soothed into a calmness of mind. This man, whose name we later learned was Naren, had been living on his own for the past forty years, caring for the Gangotri temple, which welcomes thousands of pilgrims every year. He was the source I was looking for.

After his magic tricks, we switched eyeglasses in my attempt to see how different our eyesight was, only to discover that it was almost identical. After returning my eyeglasses to me, he pointed to his mattress, arranged his body in a meditate pose, and then relayed a smile that expressed artless contentment; I presumed he was trying to tell us that he needed little other than this simple life to be happy. My pilgrimage towards the source, towards finding connections regarding man’s relationship to the totality of nature and the sacred, had led me to this one man that embodied it all. Naren personified the role of spirituality in any pilgrimage: a glimpse of truth, of reality in its purest form.

Just as the river absorbs the pilgrim’s physical remains as he or she bathes in her waters, allowing him to “become part of an eternal current that constantly renews itself”, upon arrival at the pilgrim’s port of call, the pilgrim is renewed through a sacred encounter. My own sacred encounter, in turn, was of the simplest yet most illuminating kind. In spite of the fact that I did not reach the Gaumuck glacier, or experience Gangotri in its bustling pilgrimage season, there is no question that I reached a source, an undisturbed simplicity from which one may say that all the complexity of “modern” life springs. There was, in that ghost-town in the middle of the Himalayas, little other than fresh air to feed the lungs, fire to heat the tea, water to cleanse the body and soul, and earth to both ground us to its back and link us to the sky by way of mountains. A fifth component, which marks the wholeness of this basic existence, is the connection that exists between these elements and us. Whether we link ourselves through metaphor and myth, I realized, or through scientific truth, the ultimate reality of this existence remains the same.

I knew there was a reason behind our stay at a dingy hostel named "5 Elements" in Uttarkashi on our way up to Gangotri.

___

Whether it's through the vocabulary of “how?”, of scientific scrutiny, or that of “why?”, of mythology and religion, there seems to be a common truth behind the décor of words and human renditions.

The Indian flag has three horizontal bands of color: saffron for courage and sacrifice, white for truth and peace, and green for faith, fertility, and chivalry. This pattern, topped with the Buddhist dharma chakra, or wheel of life, is exactly what India drew onto the pages of my semester’s recollections: courage to set off on a pilgrimage into the Himalayas, sacrificing most comforts and luxuries in exchange for a taste of truth and peace and lastly, it fueled my faith in existence, reminding me that there actually may be “truth” at the center of all these illusions. The earth shook (not really). If there is a truth to the universe, then there is a truth to humanity. Say I called it soul- say I said that what I discovered in India is that there is a soul, atman. Would you believe me? Places like Naren’s hut in the middle of Himalayas and George Whitman’s bookstore in the heart of Paris, for me at least, exist like a melting pot of the human reality. These are the places in which “soul” loses its clichéd meaning and melts into the essence of existence like snow.

So where's the goo in all of this? Well, when so little is needed to stay alive, we can begin to question how much of what we have is unnecessary. I'm no Peter Singer, and my thought train does not want to end on the "give till you have nothing" rock because we all appreciate the comforts of our lives- but if we just let that thought cross our mind, that we could live, happily, with so much less, and begin to give so much more, we could detect the goo and transform it into good.

Though it may be a platitude to say that I was transformed in India’s arms, the interesting thing about platitudes is that they often stand true in the face of time and space and the rolling of dice and the moving of players and the heart beats and the flow of blood from generation to generation. It feels like I’ve stepped out of some sunken ship, remnant of a lifetime of self-contained searching for the marvelous. This is not to say that India doesn't hold its share of uncomfortable beds, mosquitoes, and scary news stories (like one of a teenage boy being stabbed to death a few blocks away from my home in New Delhi); it's just that these traces of inconvenience end up being overshadowed by the richness of it all.

The first step of my return involved a two-day pit stop at my grandparent’s house in Amman, Jordan. Sitting in their garden, amidst blankets of flowers and chirping birds, that world of pilgrimage and mythology seemed so far away, yet so close. Varanasi’s ghats seemed like a memory tucked light-years away- but time travel wasn’t necessary to touch the flesh of an ancient world.

I close my eyes and picture the Himalayas and the Ganga and the fires of India burning as they have been for the past thousands of years- and sometimes even picture myself sitting somewhere, under a tree, or up on a mountain, engulfed in the beauty of it all. To top it off, there’s that smell of sandalwood incense, which I brought home with me, a perfume to jog my memories when I'll need a puja refresher. This past life of a semester in India is still taking its toll through walks and contemplation here in the jungles of upstate New York, and has, more than anything, left me wondering. This wild trip (and which pilgrim doesn’t love a mind-boggling trip?) let me see that every hullabaloo can be hushed into silence- and if India's hullabaloo can be hushed, then so can mine, and yours.

[As a post note, I posted some new photographs on my website, which you access by clicking on this. There are a few additions to each section, but I haven't added titles yet (and if you haven't been on it for a while, there are also some photographs from thailand). And here is the short video I made to accompany my project]

Jaisalmer , “the city at the very end of the world-" a yellow city standing right on the route of an ancient trading caravan that went from Egypt, Arabia, Persia, and Central Asia, carrying spices, silks, and dried fruits to Delhi. A city with a government-approved Bhang shop, selling "lemonade" and "lassies" and super magic cookies... A guaranteed pleasant stay- but before that, here's a bit about the city's tragic history, which seems to be well concealed beneath its present spot as a tour de force on a traveler's map.

Unfortunately, Jaisalmer is a beautiful city that was once betrayed by its riches to a tragic history of plunders and raids. While one of its sackings lead to the death of 24,000 of the city's women, who performed jauhar by leaping into flames in order to avoid a fate of servitude or death by the enemy’s hands, the last of its attempted wax strips, which happened in the 16th century, may have been the city’s most tragic. After a neighboring Patina chief played a Trojan horse trick on Jaisalmer by sending an entourage of palanquins (supposedly said to carry the ladies of his court but that were actually filled with armed warriors), a battle broke out. Certain of the city’s demise, the Raj decided to kill all the womenfolk of the city with his own sword- but all this was in vain because reinforcements arrived (a little late) and the attackers were wiped out. Lesson learned from history? When in doubt, don’t kill people. History has a weird way of playing irony.

During our first day in Jaisalmer, I was keen on finding the mysterious "lake" mentioned in all the guidebooks. After a walk down towards what looked like desert lands, we found the lake, seething with hungry catfish, and surrounded by an embracive circle of golden Chattris of passed Rajas. They looked ancient and were clearly abandoned since there was nobody in sight. I wasn't the only one to wonder why nobody had used these Chattris as shelter and as I later discovered, this was the hot hangout spot for the sadhus, or wandering ascetics, in town. Since sadhus have existed all throughout India's history, I imagined them hanging out by the lake, smoking some bhang, as the city met its many plunders.

We stayed at a Hotel called “Nachana Haveli,” one of the many “Havelis,” or mansions, built by Jaisalmer’s wealthy merchants in the 19th century. In a town whose fort was built in 1156, these structures are relatively new, but their exquisitely carved sandstone facades (among the most intricate I have ever seen) point towards older times. Patwon-Ji Ki Haveli, the largest and most elaborate of these Havelis in Jaisalmer, had been preserved to reflect exactly what its insides would have looked like when Guman Chand Patwa had built it in 1805; with miniature paintings, entertainment rooms, dressing rooms, and a whole lifetime of collected and necessary objects from around the world (like an opium-weighing device) left intact and in place. Not only was this a fascinating show room, but like a trip through Versailles' halls, it seemed to be a serviceable time-machine for all those looking to travel a couple of centuries back in Rajasthani history.

Although our hotel had a strange 10:30 curfew, it wasn’t too hard to bribe en employee to let us in “after bed time.” From the completely deserted streets occupied by nothing but cows and dogs, we quickly realized there was a reason for this curfew, or rather, there was a "no reason" reason: everything and everyone was asleep. With some friends we’d met the night before, we walked up passed the big gates and into the deserted fort (whose entrance is usually carpeted by gypsies selling ankle bracelets and jewelry), and sat by a Jaisalmer-rendition of Rome’s Piazza di Spagna.
Next to us on the walls were sati stone prints; handprints of women who performed sati hundreds of years ago, immolating themselves on their husband’s funeral pyres.

Though the streets were empty, a couple of pre-holi wanderers were roaming the streets in color-stained shirts. One man, who approached us dressed in white with a freshly stained bandana covering his hair and a vibrant red splashed on his shirt, began to talk about religion, asserting that he was not Hindu although he was celebrating Holi. “My religion is humanity,” he said. Later, a French man popped out of nowhere as well, joined the little midnight gathering. It was his first time out of France; an artist making his board by painting the walls of local guesthouses. He was also one of the most attractive men I have ever met; a little scruffy and ragged (just enough to please the eyes), but with features so perfectly placed they could have been carved into Greek stone. Unfortunately, this beautiful man adhered to the “I have a stick up my butt” French attitude and when the time came to split, we walked into our Haveli and he disappeared. His name was David.

After a week of intensive Rajasthani folk music workshops, a private sunset music performance on sand dunes and gypsy dancers, camel-riding and strolling between Jaisalmer's medieval alleys, we were back in Delhi in time for Holi, the best religious festival in the history of human civilization, also known as the festival of color. It is a large-scale Hindu event in which everyone (women and men, poor and rich, young and old) gets together to splash one another with color, drink some bhang, and hug and dance and throw water balloons into the sky. It was among the most beautiful experiences I have ever partaken in. My host-dad’s father, who stays in a nursing home, told us that they played Holi with rose petals.

Holi festivities

With two heritage walks, this week's share of wonder has been generous. For our first Delhi exploration, Swapna took us through a “backdoor” walk of the Sufi Dargah (“venerated tomb”) at Nizamuudin (mentioned in an earlier post as one of the more fierce spaces in Delhi, both for its red carpet of the most destitute and its overpowering energy, colors, and smells). Instead of taking us to the popular Nizamuddin Dargah complex where the tombs of Nizamuddin Auliya (A famous Sufi saint), Amir Khusro (An Indian musician, scholar, and poet, regarded as the “father of Qawwali”), and Jehan Ara Begum (Daughter of the Mughal emperor, Shah Jehan) lay, we sauntered through back allies, exploring the more residential areas of this Sufi neighborhood, as well as one of the most beautiful tombs I have ever seen.

While most of Delhi’s tombs stand as the city’s oldest relics, this more contemporary Dargah of Hazrat Inayat, dating about a century back, affected me the most. Unlike all the other Dargahs I’ve seen in Delhi and Agra, this one did not appear to be a commercial enterprise. There were no tourists, no merchants, no beggars. In fact, we were the only visitors there. And unlike other tombs (especially Akhbar's gloomy cell), this tomb was ablaze with sunlight from all sides, and a large hole in the white ceiling through which a tree has been making its way up towards the sky, along with the airy walls, welcomes fragrances from surrounding flower bushes into the space. Gardens surrounded the walls, while poetry carpeted them with beautiful Sufi words of "religious intoxication." Hazrat seems to have achieved the kind of immortality that the ancient pharaohs, emperors, and kings could only dream of; I could not imagine a more peaceful and everlasting resting place. The contrast of this space with the billowing crowds of beggars and sickly mortals on the other end of the neighborhood was reflective of Delhi's polar dials; it masquerades, the onion layers that stood in random order, which reveal the presence of heavens and hells on earth.

In addition to the serene and meditative atmosphere of the Dargah (as, I suppose, Dargahs were intended to be), Hazrat Inayat had left behind a social organization that still lives today, engaged in activities that focus on the development and welfare of the people in the neighborhood; running a school, health care, and even a bakery for women from conservative families to earn some income. As we walked through the streets behind the Dargah, piles of kid shoes waited by the entrance of buildings, and I could hear the hubbub of enthusiastic children reciting Quranic verses inside. Like the tree living within the walls of Hazrat’s memorial, walking through these lanes and witnessing the outcome of a social welfare system that had developed out of this religious hub reminded me that religion is not always the source of conflict and destruction. This scene drew a more graceful illustration of the ways in which a religious community may provide the framework necessary for social development. It embodied the true spirit of a "sacred space."

Another site we visited this week was Haus Kauz (translates to “Royal Reservoir”), an ancient complex housing an Islamic seminary, or Madrasa, a mosque, and Feroh Shah’z tomb- all tracing back to the 14th century of Delhi’s Sultanate reign. To our surprise, these beautiful remnants, particularly the Madrasa, with ancient stones nesting green peroquets and Kingfisher birds, turned out to be a hot spot for Delhi’s lovers. I climbed into the ruins (literally, climbed: holding, grappling, awkward butt position, falling, trying once again, and finally succeeding), only to realize that the abandoned “student cells,” the old chambers of the seminary’s students, were now housing couples and young teenagers making-out and smoking hash. A worn condom I noticed by the Munda Gumbad (“Headless Dome”), a stone structure that overlooks the entire complex (including the mosquito-infested water reservoir), made it clear that there was more than kissing and smoking hash that lived up these ancient grounds. As we strolled around the ruins, we were approached by a strange middle-aged man with stone rings covering eight of his ten fingers, who had paused his jog, and began to talk to us: "I will tell you a secret," he said. "You live only in the present. Don't think too much about the history." These Indian youngins seemed to agree with him.

A paradox of old seminaries turned into sex grounds, Sufi quarters functioning as a system social welfare, and the overarching wonder that has accompanied it since prehistoric times, in my book, religion fills the blank for unknown answers. In his book “The Art of Pilgrimage," Phil Cousineau writes, “We speak of gods and geniuses and heroes and sacred sites, but these are only names for the ineffable mystery of the force behind something our souls long to be in touch with.” Which brings me to my Independent Study Project. The time has finally come and I have chosen the subject that I will be studying: Pilgrimage, the traveler's ultimate search for this "force."

Intrigued by Cousineau’s book, and wanting to skedaddle on an adventure, I, along with two or three other friends, will be journeying on the Chota Char Dham, an important pilgrimage circuit in the Indian Himalayas, each with a project topic to tackle. Storm-Ji, the academic director whom I have come to love and hate all at once, has agreed for me to submit an academically based travelogue of this journey, along with a short video project. If our projects are officially approved, we will be starting from Varanasi, the city of death that I had mentioned in my previous post (also regarded by Hindus as the center of the earth), taking overnight trains around that area to explore neighboring religious centers, then renting a car and journeying up the Himalayas towards the four sacred spaces of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, and Yamnotri, and finally retiring to put our work together in Mussoorie, a hill town situated in the foothills of the Himalaya ranges. Prof. Rana Singh, a Pilgrimage Studies connoisseur based in Varanasi who has published over 190 research papers and 63 books (is that even possible??) has agreed to be my advisor. If all goes according to plan, we will set off on our pilgrimage around April 1st.

__________

A bit on a tangent here, but today, I realized that bucket showers are my favorite tastes of "honey in the hive." Now that temperatures have gone up and showering has become feasible after dark, I’ve overcome my need to “sunset shower,” and realized that walking out into the darkness of a rooftop terrace is one of the greatest feelings in the world. Although the defective roof-terrace bulb decides on which days it wants to glimmer and on which to just sleep in, walking out into a darkened balcony overlooking Delhi in nothing but a towel has proven to be such a liberating experience. After actively cleaning my body, a work-out which consists of bucket filling and bucket pouring, scrubbing skin and washing hair, I pour what's left of the green bucket overhead, wrap a towel around myself, and walk out onto the pitch-black terrace, under the sky, under the stars, under a phosphorescent crescent in the sky (non-metaphorically looking like it's smiling down); a scene fit for a dream. In line with the findings of popular astrologists, the wedding season has been ignited, and fireworks blast from every corner of the sky. The beeps of Delhi’s immortal traffic still buzzes in the distance, but not in the oppressive way they used to. Now, they've become a hum, a distant echo, a reminder of city's sleepless breath. Bon Iver was a perfect accompaniment to this night (“Roslyn,” maybe?). Or, better yet, Our house is a very very nice house. After going through our host-parents' wedding albums (which, alongside the beautiful garments and jewels, basically consisted of hundreds of photos of guests stuffing food down the newly-weds' mouths, no joke, no exaggeration), Rachel and I discovered that we'll be going to a wedding on the 27th.

A tsunami swallows Japan’s coast, an earthquake kills 25 in China, and music plays in the deserts of India. The earth shrugs its shoulders, and a folk music workshop in Jaisalmer sounds like a great reminder that life goes on. Leaving Sunday, gone for a week.