The streets I pass by look like the aftermath of a warzone...crumbling infrastructure, empty roads, small fires with cold poverty huddled around wrapped in blankets and scarfs sucking in their chilly faces...The temperature drops and no one beyond seven meters of them cares...
It's funny because I'm sitting here complaining over how nothing takes me to myself--only farther apart and the black beady honey combed electrical sonic plugs pump the insides of my skull into oblivion--or peace, either one...Its all show boating anyway...
Alright, let me see if I can't keep this post concrete...I'm always slipping into the abstract and no one wants to read that...If you do, let me know because I can ramble for days...You should look at the 150 or so posts I haven't placed on here...Writing is something of a release for me so I have alot of inner statements plastered onto my digital screen...
I've been trying to open the blinds to the window and I didn't realize the person above me shares the same blinds and I kept opening them and wondering why they kept closing...my bad dude...
I've had a life long love for long car/bus/train/plane rides. I was raised on long car rides. It was one of the few places I could be where no one would ever bother me. The only place I ever feel truly at peace is on a long ride in a closed off compartment. I'm free to just sit, listen to music, not talk to anyone while looking out the window and just let my mind run--free. release it all..
Think about it. All the stress, worry, and concern over "what should I be doing? Who should I be?" is eliminated. You can't do anything even if you wanted to--just be...As a result, you don't need to be anyone...You can let your mind drift off into fantasy and fascination while the world outside of you passes by. Long car rides in my youth--and beyond--are why I am who I am...or at least a big reason...I rarely get bored of thinking...Its generally the discomfort that leads me to shut it off...
Long car rides are like doing something without doing anything...
"do all without doing..."
No one can get on your shit because you are closed off, comfortable, and safe....India is my dream come true. Every ride is something like 12 hours. I love it. Hop on a bus, get comfy, put the ipod in and the thing that makes India awesome is every two feet there's something interesting to look at--cows, people shitting, pissing, fighting, spitting, running, screaming, farming, littering, and just general mayhem while the buildings are falling apart...Landscapes that take your breath away and displace your mind in another psychic dimension...Not to mention the chaos of the road--people driving on both sides of the street, animals from mongooses to monkeys darting in an out of the lanes while motorcycles come within inches of running over women carrying giant bundles of plant matter on their heads while holding a baby wrapped in a sari...I must also point out that the wondrous invention of novelty horns (the ones that make the goofy carnival clown noises when you honk them) are abundant in India and every vehicle from massive hauling trucks to beat up spray painted rickshaws utilize them...India's sense of humor runs unparalleled...
Fuck T.V., I have a window seat.
Man, I don't even need my ipod half the time...I don't know, there something about rides that take your state of being to a calmer place...Friends have told this to me in indirect ways about rickshaws...You don't have to worry, think, or anything. You can shut your mind off and go into space cadet mode while the society that seemingly operates like its run by speed freaks implodes into an ocean of color and chaos...Inner calm remains untouched...When you get out of the car its like, "shit, I gotta worry about my body now, lame" and like, here, you actually do...Walking in Ahmdebad I had to work and work hard not to get run over or step in fresh piles of shit...Speaking of which I stepped in the most putrid of puddles last night...feltbadman...A thick slime formulated on the sole of my shoe for quite sometime...
The car ride is the ultimate detachment from reality...You're in it all but you really aren't...Passenger watching the trip role on by...
Change of direction: In India, there are really only Indian people...I realized this a few months ago. If you notice, in America there all kinds of people! Look at all them, brown, white, red, black....
but here...man every single one of these motherfuckers is Indian! So you stand out like (insert clever analogy) and you instantly get stamped onto the most wanted list. When we were in Amritsar (9 or so of us) a flock of Indian gawkers descended upon us in utter awe of our alien appearance...I dipped out and watched from afar while my friends were visually molested by a crowd of punjabis...Thats another thing, Indians have no reservations when it comes to staring at you. They analyze you like a math problem and it can get old....
People think New York is in your face, man, India makes New York look like Granville, Ohio...Every twenty yards some Indian person was yelling at me, trying to shake my hand, have me take their picture, asking me where I was from, or even grabbing me when I was in Ahemdebad...Not to mention the beggars who, unlike in NYC, aren't passively chilling on the corner in an opiate/alcohol daze...No, these people come up to you, tug at your sleeves, jabber in your face, whine in front of you, shove their naked grime covered baby in your face while spit dribbles down onto your feet and pants leg...You walk away, they chase after you...
The sense of boundaries here is radically different than it is in the states--probably anywhere for that matter--for one, there really aren't any boundaries here...No one's really in charge its like an organized mob rule that runs the place...No real rules, just unspoken ones...You know, like, don't kill people unless of course there is an accident, in which case people will rush to the accident in a violent frenzy and tear to shreds the guilty driver and his passengers...This actually happens here, I haven't seen it and I don't want to...Well, a part of me does, but that part stays in the basement locked in his cage...I let him out for sex and intoxication every now and then but thats generally it...enough heavy metal and he stays content in the basement...
But boundaries when it comes to social interaction...People, everyone, starts talking to you like they want to be your best friend. I feel it every fucking time to man. Its like they reach deep down with the emotions attached to their voice and grab ahold of whatever part I don't want them to touch right in my chest and when they want something it fucking eats me to say no...A co-dependents worst nightmare...You live and learn...A loud "NO!" the second you hear that classic Indian accented, "Heyyylloo, Heyyllooo" and it tends to ricochet their bullshit back to them...I, do, however, try and remain open to everyone as you never know when people are going to help you out or genuinely have something to offer...I've been mistaken a lot of the time so I keep myself open but always ready to break the bond when the vibrations go bad...
If India will do one thing it will make you leave your bullshit at the door and jolt your patience with a shock equivalent to that of a cattle prod.
ooooohhhh man I'm just fuming thinking about some of this shit...The little head trips people play with you here...Slowly digging my misanthropic characteristics out of my chest like their dragging up an anchor from the depths of the ocean...You don't wanna open that box...
For instance: I arrive at Jaislamer. The woman wakes me up for my stop and she has to pound on my leg because I'm so wiped out from the earlier bus riding...I'm drooling all over my pillow...This kid has come onto the train and tells me he will take me to a hotel for a real cheap price and I agree...So we're walking out of the station and we get bum rushed by like five dudes who see me and want to take me to their hotel...Goddamnit...The kid told me the hotel he's taking me to isn't in the fort (where its dangerous and shitty to stay in) and now all of the sudden these dudes are YELLING in my face (I'm fucking exhausted btw) about how this kid is lying and is going to take me to the fort...Now, this kid gets all defensive and starts yelling at them and when I start the "he said you said she said we said" deciphering of the situation they start grabbing at me and my bags like a bunch of paranoid schizoids...
I lost it. I push them back and shut them all up by vocally flaring my former football aggression and the kid tells me he isn't lying so I'm like fine. I'm going with you. We get on the rickshaw and one of the dudes refuses to give up and has jumped on the side of the rickshaw and is hanging onto the door yelling in my face and shoving a flyer of his hotel towards me...The man eventually jumps off as the rickshaw driver swings his arm towards the babbling Indian hotel-wallah...The kid looks at me as I take my shirt off to change and goes while laughing and holding his fists up in a boxing style , "oh you ready to fight back there!?"
....you have no idea...
sidenote: a lot of Indian men dress like its still the 1970s...Bell bottoms, full jean outfits with embroidery, and slick backed hair ...Men are really flamboyant here...It throws us all off...us and them? me and them? you and me? americans, Indians, myself?...Its all merging and I'm getting lost in a fluid stream of people, holding onto something that was never really me...It's all circling the drain so better to let go of the dead weight and speed up the process...
second sidenote: I met these guys when I was in Kushinagar on my pilgrimage. They sat down next to me on the steps of the nirvana temple. They were poor but not so poor that they were in rags or anything. Two sat down on either side of me, which made me uncomfortable and four more sat behind without saying anything....odd...
They made me really uncomfortable as they were talking to me sort of slowly as if to draw something out of me...They wanted me to help them with their english and check their hand writing...I read a letter written by one of them which was inquiring about getting a job as they were unemployed and needed work...They also just wanted to practice english with me but I was getting really weird vibes (I also hadn't slept or eaten in like 36 hours) and so I had to tell them to leave me alone in a polite but awkward way...
I went back to my room later that night and thought about what happened and realizing how these people just wanted my help and how they saw me as some kind of opportunity for a better life and how I was too scared to be patient with them I just started crying and just felt like pure fucking anger towards myself and every other fucked up thing in the world and I recall the single thought that kept going through my head was just, "what the fuck, why the fuck is at all like this?"
My friend Cat was talking in class one day about this man who works at the gate where she was living in Delhi and how he's never able to leave and is stuck in this miserable existence getting paid shit for long hours in grueling weather and she just burst into tears over how badly life was fucking him over.
and when its like you see this, you feel that, I don't know what to do man. What am I supposed to do? If someone has a fucking manual on all this that would be great but everywhere I look all I see is my own fear preventing me from making a real change in any of this. This whole fucking thing remains a enigma to me and I would like for it to really stop but I have no clue how or what we're or I'm supposed to do. I'm trying to open myself up but something doesn't want me to...Fuck, the world doesn't want me to, people just want to live behind closed doors...even if those closed doors are internal...and just deny the state of the world and the conditions people are living in...
Yeah so let's just keep doing what we're doing. Vote Obama into office and give him the nobel peace prize while he drops bombs in the Middle East...stand in line, consume, and all that other rational behavior...
Like I said before...Its time to wake up...No ones in charge, no ones doing this to us, we're doing it to ourselves! Ah, the cosmic joke revealed...and I'm as much a part of it as everyone else...The nature of a fractal universe is that the total sum is located in each minute fragment..
"I am you and you are me and we are all together now..."
I've come to the personal conclusion that nothing I do makes any goddamn sense. I'm on a bus to Mumbai right now. Why? I have literally no reason. I heard its sensory overload of a city so I'm going to go walk around and take pictures and then tell you all what happened in between. Never-ending people pleaser. I need to feel something from someone cause i can't get it from myself.. It keeps me moving. buutttt...Theres no real reason behind this or really anything I've ever done in my life when I actually look at it. Its just been a series of jumbled experiences I've accumulated and clumped together, creating an identity to speak out of...I mean like, yeah you do this to learn and grow and blah blah but I have to die. and when I die all that shit gets left behind..I'm getting too nihilistic here and thats not my point...
I just wish to point out the everyday futility of our actions and how we're always trying to attach ourselves to something to avoid the inevitable suffering of life...so what should we do?
I don't feel like explaining my reasons for it but I have personally found that the only thing worth doing is cultivating as much peace, tolerance, understanding, and acceptance of whatever is as possible...but it defeats the act of doing and im confused ...again...for the 400th time today...
NEXT DAY: I arrive in Mumbai. It only took at 21 hour bus ride. Fortuntely, I rode on sleeper a.c. bus were it was really relaxed...I also now realize when you pay for these upper class rides they stop at nice places which are deisgnated bus stops (fast food, toilets, whoa even..wow! garbage cans! you mean no trash fire here? hey man--far out!) ...when you ride the shit buses they stop in rural India which, I actually prefer because its like being in real India but I needed a break from that...
So, the first thing I notice about Mumbai while I'm coasting down a freeway listening to sublime observing the slums, coconut dwelling palm trees, and cluttered streets...was...This is place is pretty mellow...
Compared to Ahmedabad this place is quiet and almost like an American city...I'm surprised..I heard it was crazy and wild--its really not...at least not in the spots I've been thus far...I mean, dude, a bentley just passed me and those cost what 200,000 + dollars? Not the same as those guys driving tractors or riding camels down the street, know what I'm saying?
So, whatever, its a nice change of pace from the insanity I've found in the rest of the country...I'm going to go venture out and find some wild shit tomorrow during day light..
"Lets fight terrorism together!" - Mumbai Police blockade sign
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