I've been in Canada for four months now, Tonight we were talking about India, and I thought that I want to write more about it, simply because I remember so much more about it.

I met a woman in an internet stop (Sify. What kind of a name is Sify, says Canadian Bashu, as opposed to Indian Bashu who just accepted it), and this woman was the quintessential Varanasi visitor.

I was sitting at a computer, probably writing in this blog. There were two computers in that shop, and it was tiny. If you walked out the door, first you would walk back in because you forgot to pay, then you would walk back out and be on a street which goes straight down to Asi Ghat. You can see the river.

Of course you wouldn't know it when you're inside because it's kept hygienically dark. It's a refuge. Honestly, the internet was a refuge for us when we were in India.

So a beautiful woman in a deep blue salwar kameez suit walks into an internet stop and talks in a Spanish accent to the Indian proprietor. He asks me if I'm going to use the computer much longer, I say yes. So he turns on the other one, and she sits down. I don't really know what she was doing, although I'll say that it was always hard to not see what the guy next to you is doing at an internet cafe. It's as if you're thirsty for authentic Western activities. You feel good when you look over and catch someone on Myspace.

And here I am, and this (I assume) Spanish woman asks me why I am in Varanasi. I mull it over for a while. Why am I in Varanasi. Why am I in Varanasi. Why. Am I.....

I finally answer: "Music." She accepts it.

I ask her: What about you?

She says: "Music." I accept it.

"And the lord Shiva."

That's the sort of person who gravitates to Varanasi. It's a pretty groovy place. To tell the truth, as I was thinking about that tonight, I felt this ache to go back to the city, to tell that woman that she embodied all that was quirky about the tourists of Varanasi, just to walk in those incredibly shoved streets, to give up and head east until you hit the river, and to just walk along relatively incredibly empty stairs and plazas, from one end of the city to the other. To give a monkey a peanut. To ask someone why they are in Varanasi, to be asked Why Am I In Varanasi, to be asked, what country I am from to be asked, rickshaw sir.

To have a suit made! And feel good because no matter what happens, I have a suit and it will meet me back home.

To feel the peace. I didn't notice it when I was there. All I noticed was this wanting-to-stay. We can skip a few days of Khajuraho, a few days of Delhi, for some more sweet Varanasi. People know about the shanti, they identify it, they don't feel embarrassed or amused that they're coming back for their seventh time because they know why. There is a strange peace that you can't avoid. I only grokked it just sitting in Canada.

To sit at an internet cafe, to pour my nervous fingers into words that I have been composing all day long. I think I was desensitised in India. I would watch a man strike a dog with a stick and I would want to scream, but instead write words about it in my head.

And watch my mother scream at the man instead.

Desensitised not just to violence either. I would sit in a rickshaw on the wrong street, I know it's the wrong street and I've known it for a while but didn't know I knew it, three people on a two-person rickshaw and nobody said anything, and as we turned around I would watch the driver's beaten up calves pumping and try not to see the expression on his face, and I would write words about it in my head.

I have more to write, I know I do. I just don't have the inclination. I'll be tilted more and it will all come falling out, you'll see.

-Bashu

This is the final log of the expedition, because we're home and frankly loving it.

Indian Feature: Going Home. I have to say that this is hands down the best thing about India. I have come home from several places in my life, but this return beats them hollow, as far as I can remember. If you ever go to India, I seriously recommend this as a way to round off your trip.

Peace, and thanks for reading

-Bashu

WE'RE GOING HOOOOOME

All these songs keep running through my head- as follows-

Greenday - Homecoming
Rocky Horror Picture Show - I'm Going Home
Smashmouth - Home
Weezer - My Name Is Jonas

Right now we're in Dubai, but that will speedily be remedied by the careful application of plane tickets and jetfuel to plop us into Zurich, Switzerland, where I will buy some Magic cards in German, then apply a second treatment to have us bouncing across the ocean to Toronto and bouncing from there to Vancouver, to Vancouver Island which I love so well.

I'll see you all on the 31st

-Bashu

I've worn my shoes once in the last three days.

Hohoho...

So....

We're in Goa... and..err...

I feel very ....

very "..."...

Sorry for all the ....

but it's sort of like that here. You sit on the beach in the crunchy sunny sand which incidentally is exactly like cookie-batter before you put in the milk, and you sit there and say something or scratch your nose and then a wave crashes in the sun and the water slides back over the sand and it's just ".....".....

well I find it hard to feel bad about anything at all right now, or care much about anything. I think somebody is going to sell us pineapples tomorrow and we will buy pineapples and sit on the sand in shorts and sunshine and they will slice it and we will scarf it and see some seaside circus and all will be sossegarde, which is Portuguese words meaning care-free.

Or maybe careless

I find it hard to tell the difference between everything right now. I'll make sure to tell you everything as soon as my brain works properly. I don't think I shall ever be cold again, never ever.

Sossegarde

-Bashu

So here we are, in Delhi again. Happy day!

We started out with the Taj Mahal. Not much I can say about that. Maybe I'll show you some pictures when I can.

After Agra, we zoomed off to Delhi, where Zaman posted the below post. We're staying in the apartment of a friend of a friend who we met in Delhi here who runs a place called Manzil House, an after-school thing where a bunch of Indian teenagers gather and play music/learn. Their jams are legendary- we'll definitely show you some stuff we recorded. There Kian and my dad went off to Sri Lanka. The Fellowship is already breaking up. But we'll see them at the end of the month in Delhi.

After that Delhi stay, we took a train to Udaipur in Rajasthan. I would have to say that Rajasthan and Sikkim are sort of on the same level for beauty- probably the two most beautiful provinces I've seen in India, although completely different- Rajasthan is desert, Sikkim, mountains. We stayed with, of all the people you might meet in India, homeschoolers. They ran a place called Shik Shantar, which would not look out of place in Errington- learning, homeschooling, recycling, organic food, lots of subversive literature, and solar energy. I gather they're pretty rare people in India. I do know that everybody else we talked to about homeschooling listened to it as if we were talking about splitting the atom, and then said it was a wonderful idea but it would never come to India ever.

I think Indian education works something like this:

Prior to six years old: If you have the means, you dip your kid into five different flavours of prep/pre-school.
Elementary/Middle: You wear a uniform, you get taught by the British system, you go to assemblies where someone pounds a drum and your principal screams "left right left" into a microphone and you all march in a circle, I'm not kidding about this last part by the way. I don't know what private schools are like but I've seen two public schools where they do this.
High School: More of the same(?)
Post-Secondary: You BUST your behind to get a decent piece of paper to show, and hope you get in line before the guy whose uncle is a manager.

I might be wrong about all of this. Ignorance is bliss, as usual.

Anyhow, in Udaipur we climbed another mountain, watched some monkeys, lolled around the lake looking at the white mansion hotel sitting in the middle on an island, and relaxed. Zaman might have something to say on that point. Reminder: a plastic oil jug makes an EXCELLENT bass drum.

After three days of that, we trained off to Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan, where we did all that touristy stuff. Amber Fort, which is almost surreal in its passages and stairways.. think of it as a desert castle on a cliff if you like. Jantar Mantar Observatory, made by a Rajasthan king, measures time/position of sun/month/inclination of earth through the clever use of stones. Forget Stonehenge, think two-second accuracy.

And now here we are in Delhi. Ryan, that lucky son of a monkey, has planed off to Portugal where he'll do exciting things such as not being in India. I do sort of envy him - ever since I took off from Canada I've felt like there's a muscle near my spine that clenched up and won't let go until I step onto Vancouver Island again.

Next? Who knows. Possibly the south, to a former French colony called Pondicheri, where it's not so cold at night.

Indian Feature: Staring. Too, too many people stare in India. It's not spectating, it's just staring. If you're cleaning your fingernails, someone's staring at you. If you're doing your banking, no kidding, someone's leaning on the counter next to you and staring straight at you (this actually happened). If you're just sitting and eating, someone is sure as heck staring at you. It's unnerving.

-Bashu

Soooo.. I guess it's the New Year.

What a party last night. My parents won a set of cocktail glasses for being the best dancing couple. Everybody danced. The DJ didn't play any song for more than a few seconds. The guy got up on stage too late for the countdown and ended up saying "tennineeightsevensixfive FOUR.. THREE.. TWOO... ONEHAPPYNEWYEAR!"


Happy New Year anyways.


Resolutions:

1. Not to shave until I get back to Canada
2. To fold 1000 origami cranes in one year
3. To be really cool.

-Bashu