Back to the Remedy.

Things are not what they appear to be: nor are they otherwise.

Surangama Sutra

This old man probably close to sixty years of age comes up to me after I get off the ferry at Fort Kochi. He's dressed in a long skirt and a piece of cloth pinned across his chest, exposing a large portion of his bare torso. He has a big beard and his chops (teeth) are in good shape. He speaks english well and when I tell him I'm a philosophy student, he tells me he is a professor of philosophy here on a conference…hmm…

I believe his story for about two more minutes. I quickly realize he's full of shit in whatever he's trying to tell me but he seems harmless so I figure I'll humor him and go a long with his story as a philosophy professor from Karantaka, near Hampi. I have nothing better to do and could use some social interaction so whatever. His constant reactive defensiveness (for really no reason other that his perception of my emotional responses) sort of exposed him early on.

"I'm listening to what your saying, what are you so worried about?"

He offers to go have a beer with me and discuss philosophy, acting as if he has some sort of coveted wisdom to share with me. Like I said, I have nothing better to do since I'm stuck in Kochi for the rest of the day so whatever...I buy both of us a kingfisher and close to, perhaps longer than a hour he explains to me the basics of Hinduism. My friend Carl got scammed in Turkey in this way: some guy offered to go have drinks with him and a bunch of girls and when they get there the dude orders up $400 worth of alcohol, they get drunk, and when the time comes to cash the bill, the dude, who promised to pay, is nowhere to be seen. Two large bouncers then walked Carl's drunk ass to the ATM where he forked over $400 cash out of fear of being servely beaten...that sucks.

So I was vigilant as to what was going on around me...However, he never tried to pull anything and I was aware up front I was paying for the beer..so whats the catch here?

I tell him I'm going to Kathmandu in a few weeks. He then claims he is also an Ayurvedic specialist (I have a hard time believing this because he is drinking beer and smoking cigarettes) and he does a half-assed diagnosis of my eating habits, pulse, weight, and parent's physique (in order to predict my future blood pressure and such). He writes me a "prescription", meaning some semi-legible note for me to give to some doctor (who he never tells me the name of or how to contact said person) in Kathmandu for the medicine (which he told me nothing about)...not a good scam...He tells me the medicine will be free, a gift from him, when it usually costs 1000 rupees and in exchange I am to give him 100 rupees now as a service charge. No medicine costs 1000 rupees here. Medicine is 1/10 of what it costs in the states because in America you have to pay for the research behind the pills or whatever your getting, jacking up the price. In India, because it's a third world country, you only pay for the physical elements that go into the medicine so it costs practically nothing...I think I posted something about this a few months back but whatever.

So this guy wants me to pay him..

I just felt kind of bad for him and I almost gave him the two dollars just out of pity...but then I realized I bought this dude a beer, listened to his entire story and he obviously wasn't a bum...I don't know what the fuck he did for a living for the record...but he's obviously not a professor...

It was funny, he sort of just talked to me for like an hour and I guess I have a high tolerance for bullshit. I kind of see my interactions with other people as practice to achieve a clearer state of mind. There were a lot of times where I wanted to just be an asshole to him or something along those lines but I stuck it out patiently after thinking about how the Dalai Lama explains that one's enemy is one's best teacher, we should welcome them into our lives. They test your ability to remain conscious and mindful by pushing your buttons so to speak. The enemy gives you a chance to work with negative emotions which pays off a lot in the long run I've found. So I enjoyed our conversation enjoyable in that respect. Also, I did learn a thing or two about Hinduism and that was cool since the religion confuses the fuck out of me. 300 million gods is 299,999,999 too many...

So I just kind of let this guy wear himself out and it was actually funny because it was obvious I hadn't believed anything he told me and at the end I was just like...alright, are you done now? I didn't do anything, he defeated himself it seemed. Not reacting to people has some sort of power in that the person you aren't reacting to has nothing to feed off and they just wind up making an ass out of themselves or at the very least are forced to give up out of exhaustion...this works with beggars as well, but they tend to be more grabby, which is directly related to my misanthropic psychoticism.

When he asked for the money I just go with a smile, "I'm not paying you anything" shook his hand and then went on my way laughing over the dude's scam...I gave him my e-mail though, I figured maybe he'd want to stay in touch...

I pass a man struggling to walk because his right leg has been severely affected by elephantiasis.

"you can say as much with a whisper as you can in a scream"

The next day I catch a bus to Madurai to go see this crazy South Indian temple in Tamil Nadu. I see a Tata bus that has flipped over onto its side and several puzzled bearded indian men in skirts wondering just what it is they are to do next....aw nutz...

The next day I saw the temple. The best view of it is actually not inside but from the roof of my hotel..Its a huge complex consisting of several massive candy colored extravagantly detailed entrance ways (gopuras in hindi)...The temple inside is less cool but I got some good pictures and they will make you temporarily forget the hollowness of your own existence for a moment or to, two, 2...tutu...you realize you're the one making the difference, right? Its all the same shit.

The key is when a though arises you are to ask yourself, "who is it that is thinking this thought" and that reflects awareness back onto itself. You are not your thoughts. You are not your feeling or emotions. You are only awareness and everything else is a temporary illusion. When this self-reflection occurs you center the mind in its original location, the heart and then the true nature of self becomes revealed (gradually)...

I left Madauri. At the bus station I see what looks to be some dude probably a little older than me sleeping on the dusty ground near some people who are seated on a bench. However, this dude is covered in what looks to be five hundred pulsating flies. They are covering his eye lids, cheeks, and lips. I think you either have to be horribly fucked up on drugs or dead to have that happen to you. I really don't think there is any room for middle ground. He didn't appear to be breathing. However, I didn't get to look long because I got distracted by the influx of Indian travel agents fighting over my potential business.

When I saw how the flies were swarming on his lips, nearly covering them, I felt this lurching, sinking feeling suck real deep down inside my chest like--well--like I had just seen a dead body being eaten alive by flies...no need for complex metaphors here...plain sight seems to working just fine...

I didn't like that but something about it fascinated me and I still want to know what the hell the story behind it was...If this dude is dead, why the fuck is his body just sitting here being decomposed at the very much alive bus stand...If he isn't dead, why the fuck isn't someone getting rid of those flies...Actually, even if he is dead someone should get those flies off him...I noticed that the people (a family, I might add with little kids) sitting within three feet of him on the bench weren't even looking at the dude and were calmly and nonchalantly doing their own thing as if this scene within arms distance wasn't even occurring.

Like I said, I got bum rushed by guys trying to get money out of me for a bus ticket and I half-choked on my words when I asked if that kid was alright and no one heard me...I also suspected maybe they didn't want me to see that...but that was just a vibe I caught and honestly, I don't think that in this country of all places they would have a problem with me seeing that...After all, this is the country that publicly cremates bodies in a river where they bathe not more than 100 yards downstream...I mean, I was talking to one guy while his dad's corpse was being burned five feet away from us (this is in Varanasi).

The world keeps spinning & no one gives a fuck--especially not me as I inhabit a realm of psychological cruelty. Thats possibly the most untrue thing I have ever written but the word "cruelty" holds some good meat to it so I felt like using it...I'm rambling...sorry...

The cycle of life and death is not behind closed doors here like it is in America. It is very much in your face and covered with flies.

Under the skin I can feel them crawling. Something inside breaks through, makes us shutter. Wake them up when its over. We can't hear you because the T.V. is up too loud, I think that new reality series that got good reviews is supposed to come on, what channel was it ? The only thing I ever hear anymore is myself think these thoughts...Often times people complain about it being the other way around...gee whizz I can't hear myself think!...They say..

Tearing through the cave's boundaries, clearing the smoke from eyelids all the while wondering how people who don't wear shoes in India avoid stepping in the piles of shit and piss that litter the streets--oh right, they don't. You can't always look whats going on below you, sometimes you need to just rise above it all, even when it squishes between your feet and you just know a parasitic worm is lodged right under your big toenail, anxiously waiting to sell you a pair of knock off sunglasses for three hundred rupees....

Its all coming to a volatile conclusion but you can't be around to watch it happen because I don't exist. I'm only passing through to speed up the process...

I arrive in Valakala beach...Things don't go as planned but they never do so its all...part...of…the…plan...Nevermind...

I check in and walk around...Up and down the white and pure black-sanded beach. Stepping into secluded beaches and then the land of tourists...happy to be in the isolated region...I'm coming back around towards my place and the sun begins to set. Flame ball. Two Indian dudes each around 30 years of age (as they later tell me) sitting under some plam trees invite me over to have some rum and watch the sunset

Some Indian guy walking by took the photo for me.

The two guys were brothers. The guy in the middle was a cook at one of the cliff side resorts…notice the scars on his arms, I will touch on that later…The guy to the right was a fisherman…The guy in the middle was the only one of the two who could speak English and I think he may have been a little crazy to be honest. He didn’t really seem all the way there when I talked to him. He had a twisted look in his eyes when he spoke to me and seemed to slur a lot of his words…We hung out for about two hours, speaking in broken English, drinking rum, and watching the sun go down.

I probably shouldn’t tell this upcoming story in full account…might prevent me from getting a real job later down the road…but lets be honest with ourselves for a moment…Do you really see me being a contributing member of the social work force…Yeah, neither do I, so fuck it. I'll get job laying bricks in Delhi, manning the boat Jetty in Fort Kochi, or filling up water bottles with diluted petrol for hippies on scooters in Goa...Sounds like a career if I ever heard of one...

I cross paths with these two guys the next day as I’m walking back from breakfast at 2 p.m. They are sitting in more or less the same spot and have with them another bottle of rum and a tin of grilled rock mussels they offer to share with me. I bought a chillum earlier because I suck at rolling joints and break it out along with some weed from Goa and toke up with the cook who speaks English. The other dude doesn’t smoke weed, only cigarettes to go along with a hefty amount of rum.

I usually don’t smoke weed, that’s me being honest. But it was suggested to me from an Italian dude I “smoke through” whatever anxiety I experience…and I figured what better situation to confront social paranoia than with two drunken Indians—one who is probably half-insane and the other who can’t speak a word of English…What could go wrong?

As we pour drinks and hit the chillum, the brother who can’t speak English sets off to go climb a palm tree to fetch us some fresh coconuts. Now, there is an obvious language barrier between me and the cook…It takes him several repetitions of a sentence to explain to me a simple concept like, “that is where I live”, which sounds to me like something completely incoherent…Now keep in mind this is when I’m sober…Add in the Goa ganja and I’m staring at this guy for probably a solid five minutes as he repeats the same sentence over and over and over again…My mind blanks out or runs off into some delusional insanity that has nothing to do with the situation and I’m sitting there attempting to configure the enigma that is the broken English flowing from this man’s lips…and there I am…just staring at this guy, for literally 5-7 minutes (really, that long, not exaggerating) and by the time I snap out of it I self-consciously reflect and jesus…I’m stoned…I laugh, what the hell is going on…The language barrier just became a impenetrable fort…This will be interesting…

This continues for pretty much another hour. It can be pretty ridiculous trying to understand these guys when your clear headed and with the pot my thoughts stop flowing every 15 seconds and then its just this crazy man jabbering incoherent English…half of me is trying not to explode into laughter, the other half is trying to interpret him…Its not going over well…

At one point, another situation of me, clueless, staring into the riddle pouring from this man…He starts to try and get me to mimic his hand motions in hopes of me understanding him better…I feel like I’ve reverted back to the primal ape stage and I’m relearning how to process hand gestures into conceptual thought…feelsfuckingweirdman…He starts going to me (while touching his hand to his chest, then pointing out into the distance) “I AM!” and I start to do this and say it out loud…I’m sort of drunk and stoned keep in mind…So I’m sitting on the beach, red eyed and squinted yelling “I am!” louder than necessary and staring off out towards the water…

We’re in a secluded area but a person here and there walks by occasionally…Some old white dude probably about 60 years old walks by and it took me about seven repetitions of yelling “I AM!” at him while motioning with my hand to my chest and staring this guy directly in the eyes that I realize…well…I’m probably freaking this guy the fuck out and should stop yelling at him like a lunatic…I break out in laughter after realizing I’m literally yelling, “I AM!” at this guy and try to reassure him that I don’t mean anything by it (by yelling at him in maniacal laughter)…but he just gave me this bewildered look that suggests to me I should just stop digging myself into a hole here by explaining…The insane chef who I smoked with realizes what I was just doing and also bursts out laughing….We’re all mad here…

I feel like I’ve dropped off the face of the Earth and back in time…really..crazy man…

The non-English speaking dude comes back after 15 minutes with about 5 coconuts he climbed a tree for in hand. With the use of my pocket knife he splits them open and uses the fresh coconut water as an admixture to the rum.

At this point, I’m ripped from the pot and I’m also fighting paranoia…I’ve learned to do it well but it still gets to me…I don’t totally know how much I can trust these guys and having this silent Indian slicing coconuts two inches away from me while we’re tucked away behind these giant red volcanic rocks on a secluded beach…Shit seems sketchy man…He easily could kill me…Every conspiracy oriented plot runs through my head but at the end he just hands me a coconut to sip on with a friendly smile and I realize I’m just completely fucking insane…that’s always a fun realization…its only bad if you don’t realize it…crazy people always think they’re sane…so I’m alright for the time being…

Its an interesting experience though…To be sitting there and genuinely wondering to yourself…”Is this guy going to stab me…” I didn’t enjoy that one floating through my head to say the least… I was just sitting there visualizing myself being stupid enough to get stabbed by some crazy Indians….genuinelly scared the shit out of myself… I would stand up when he started cutting the coconuts out of fear he was going to jolt the steel blade into my crotch or something…I was preparing to run like hell if he made any sudden movements…Like I said, I’m just insane…

I go swimming to ease the paranoia and the chef joins me. He’s wearing just underwear which in my opinion, is really too tight and makes Europeans look modest...He climbs up on this rock covered with mussels while smoking a cigarette and pretends like he’s surfing or something…What the hell am I doing?

…I’m drinking rum with pure coconut water at a secluded spot in Varkala beach, stoned and paranoid while a blood red sun sets over the Arabian sea…I don’t understand why I’m experiencing this…but it sure is interesting to say the least…

We run out of rum and the cook reluctantly asks me for 150 rupees (3 dollars) for a new bottle…I say no problem and he looks at me stunned and asks me (with about a 15 minute window needed for my intoxicated interpretation of his statements) “are you not disturbed?” as if I should be since he explains that 150 rupees is a lot of money and he is amazed that I trust his brother to go buy a bottle and not run off with the cash…

So he comes back a little while later on the motorcycle with a new bottle of rum and a bunch more coconuts…The green coconuts are for water, the brown ones are for eating and I munched down on the insides of probably six brown coconuts…deliciousness…AND hydration….

The chef dude shows me some scars…some really fucking gnarly scars…All up and down various parts of his legs and arms it looks like someone dropped palm sized splotches of battery acid on him…This one on his thigh looked like the remnants of leprosy or something..Turns out an explosion on his motorcycle sprayed his body with molten hot engine oil…Fuck….looks like it hurts, still….He then shows me where some chicken nugget sized chunks are missing out of his arm and chest and tells me this is where he got hit by a car a few years back….Side swiped him…

He then shows me both his forearms which look like he took a razor blade to them…however, he tells me, this is from his pet Eagle which dug its talons into his arms, scarring him pretty intensely….I wouldn’t have guessed that right away …He also tells me he used to have a pet monkey but it died….that makes as much sense as everything else we’ve talked about today I suppose…

I can tell by the tone and stress levels in his voice he’s telling the truth…He then asks me and, for the record, I don’t totally know if this is what he meant…but I’m pretty sure he asked me if I wanted to get a prostitute for later tonight…He asked me something about bringing a lady back to my room, later, you want?! I assume that’s more or less what he meant…I told him, “nah, maybe some other time…”

This guy, for the record, was the one who cooks food for rich Indians and white people at a five star resort...Here he is, getting stoned, drunk on the beach and telling me stories of his pet eagle and previously alive monkey while considering the idea of getting a hooker…

However, he was married and had several kids. He was 32 years old and his oldest daughter was 12…So I’m actually closer to her age than I am to his…He tells me, later, that I am a true friend and he was surprised at how I trusted him to buy the bottle of rum, I could tell it meant a lot to him…He said we’re like brothers now…

We kill the bottle of rum and the coconut climbing tree brother snags us seven more coconuts…I don’t know how he was so good at climbing the trees…I never actually saw him do it because he had to go somewhere else off the beach but I didn’t complain…We pack the chillum bowl with some hash and beadie tobacco and enjoy a smoke under the beach moonlight, listening to the waves crash onto the shore…The cook offers to drive me home (like 100 yards away) on the motorbike…but instead of taking me home he drives me into town to go the local Indian bar…Now, this isn’t the tourist bar in India. This is the Indian bar…This is like, the authentic place where all the lower caste Indians come to drink…I step in and its something out of a movie …Every dude in there is wearing a skirt style dress and the bar looks like a saloon, something out of a western movie…like literally out of a movie…There appears to be some kind of hotel that encapsulates the sitting area…However, there is no roof, and no floor…Open air and sand plus concrete…It was like a horse shoe with rooms surrounding the sandy sitting area…Everyone there is over thirty…I come in with a Bassnectar t-shirt, a bandana pulling my hair back, gortex sandals, still stoned, sort of drunk and definitely a little nervous about all this…I catch a lot of stares—nothing negative…Just real confused looks as to what the hell I’m doing here…But I’m with my buddy, the chef, whose name I definitely forgot…So its all good and I have this goofy ass grin on my face and I’m thinking about, “jesus, I need to tell this story haha”

I buy a round of drinks for the two of us and his one friend who sits down with us. The actual where the drinks are served is a fucking trip in itself. The shelves behind are loaded with probably close to 500 bottles of rum—all the same brand—as if its like a stocked shelf at a place where you can buy bulk materials…And then the other rack, with just as many bottles is all Kingfisher…We buy two glasses of rum and a kingfisher as a chaser for some crazy reason…The chef’s friend thinks I’m 28 years old and laughs his ass off when he finds out I’m twenty.

After a good amount of time, my ability to conceptualize time has been lost at this point, the chef tries to drive me home but I realize he’s completely wasted and this is a terrible idea. He’s all over the place just trying to get ten feet to pick me up…I tell him no and he cries out like, “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! No its okay! You and me!” and I’m like, “fuck no man, you’re wasted!” and then after a while of arguing he eventually realizes he doesn’t even remember how to get back to my hotel so I wish him goodnight, thanks for a bizarre time and grab a rickshaw. I come back to the hotel, eat too much pasta, violently throw up, and go to bed. I wake up and realize I need to seriously re-analyze my existence on Earth…At least I'm only twenty, hope isn't lost...