Hey All!

Alright, so first is first. We met my dad in Kolkata, I'm gladder than rain he's here. It's already a little easier to move through the markets. After having one last crazy hectic meal with the family, we pushed off for Varanasi. WOO! What a trip, I guess Zaman already said it all. In Varanasi, we took some pictures with the new camera my dad brought, so I can finally show you what all this is like. Well, not all, because there's some sensitive information that Zaman and Kian want to hide, so there you go.

I tell you, monkeys are the best people in India. Me and Ryan ended up bringing tons of peanuts down to Tulsi Ghat, where the monkeys hang, and feeding them. You generally have to be careful because they will go into your pockets if they see where you keep the peanuts. When I brought some biscuits, they even jumped onto my legs and hung off my pants.

We tried all sorts of tricks with them- Ryan found a clay chai cup, which are thrown away like plastic wrappers in India, and showed a monkey a peanut, put it on the ground and put the chai cup over it. After a few tries, a monkey went over to it, lifted it up and stuffed the peanut in his mouth. But that wasn't enough for Ryan, he had to get two more cups and shuffle them around and try and get them to find out which cup had the peanut in it, step right up and try your luck. I'm not kidding you, this guy plays the shell game with monkeys. Of course as soon as he started moving around the cups they figured it was just another of those crazy things humans do and ran off to fight each other.




Ryan also put peanuts on the end of his guitar and held it out to them, why I don't know.


We did have one promising moment, where Ryan showed two monkeys and their kid a pencil and paper, made marks on the paper, and then gave it to the little monkey. He held it for a moment, squinted at it, went "ee" and started nibbling on it. Eventually Ryan managed to get it back, by distracting him with peanuts. He's probably going to frame it or something.

Anyways, I could probably write about monkeys forever but I wouldn't get to the point, which is... hmm. Well, never mind anyways. I can't talk more about what we did in Varanasi because some of the stuff we did was secret, although all will be made clear when we come back.

Although I can tell you about this great art-student named Sanjoy we met on the 26th. He was 12 years old and talked like the stereotype cute kid out of a cartoon, although probably not deliberately. But his painting.. man, it was great. We met him doing the usual thing Varanasi art-students do, which is sit on the ghats and sketch everything, which let me tell you doesn't get boring fast. You've got to be there to appreciate the variety of people you can find sitting on the steps. Anyways, his stuff was really amazing. Watercolour, pencils, collages, anything, and we watched him doing it too.



Eventually a bunch of flower-sellers came along, to do whatever flower-sellers do when they're not shoving baskets of flowers in your face and urging you to buy one so you can put in the river with a candle in a little leaf boat and make a prayer. They're usually around 10 or younger. They saw Ryan's guitar and made a big old clamouring, so he dragged it out and let them all strum. After that we decided to go, and Sanjoy asked us to take one of his drawings, so we chose a watercolour, and Ryan chose one, and we promised that if he emailed us we'd email him. So it goes.

The next morning we all piled our stuff into a big jeep and rode off to find Isis, or to go to Khajuraho, a town west of Varanasi and east of Delhi, famed for its.. wait for it.. Erotic Temples. The shop sellers won't let you forget this fact, going to the point of shoving obscene little metal mechanical toys in your face and showing you how it works and saying "see, see, want to buy?" Makes ya sick.

Mind you you can't really say that the temples are not "obscene" either. All you could say is that the carvings are incredible. Really incredible, we're talking dragons fighting warriors in deep relief carved out of a single piece of stone. Strangely, the carvings reminded me of Celtic designs more than anything else. There's a four-pointed flower that's a common theme, and a sort of swirling vines pattern that could be straight out of illustrations for "The Faerie Queen".

On the other hand, Khajuraho is very much a tourist town. There's oodles of souvenir emporiums, bicycle rentals, tours, kids trying to invite you to just look at their shop, they don't want you to BUY things goodness no, just have a little cup of tea and look around, etcetera.

We rented a couple of bicycles and biked a little ways out of town to see a "stone castle" which my dad saw from a rooftop restaurant. Turned out to be an elevated plaza surrounded by shrines, of which we counted 64. Later found out that this was the Chausathi Yogini temple, believed to be used by a cult in the sixteenth century, and devoted to the 64 Yoginis or female servants of Kali.

Nearby on a little elevation we found blackened granite blocks lying around, not very many. Looked closer and they were carved with the same patterns as in the still-standing tall temples. There's nothing left of the ruined ones except blocks, not even foundations. Really blows your mind.

Returning the bikes to the rental place, I was called over by two Indian guys leaning up against the railing looking over the lake. Usually if somebody calls you over they say something like "come look at my shop" or "hey pretty man, you want to come here?" or anything that they think will get your attention. This guy said "Hey, can I talk to you for a little?" and I thought I might as well give them a chance. They talked to me for about an hour, but for the life of me I can't remember anything except little snippets of philosophy and staring into the setting sun behind their heads and nodding. Parts I remember:

"Indian Guy 1: My name is Kumar, okay?
Indian Guy 2: My name is Baba.
Bashu: Really? But.. er.. what is your good name?
Baba: Well, nobody says my good name but my family, everyone says Baba. Okay?
Bashu: Yes, okay, but what's your real name?
Baba: Haha everyone calls me Baba, okay?
Bashu: Okay."

"Kumar: Yes, I have a Canadian girlfriend actually, she's from Montreal, you know, French. She's in France now, in Par-ee. I'm flying to see her soon, but haha you know I also go to.. well, I have three-four girlfriends in Europe, you know, Czech Republic?

Baba: Haha, you know I have no girlfriend, so I am not near. Near, you know? When I have a girl, I am near, but when I have no girlfriend I am far. Haha?"

"Baba: What does your father do?
Bashu: He's a psychologist.
Baba: Ah, you know I am a psychologist too but I don't read psychology, I know people's feelings, I look at them and see them and...
Bashu: *stares into the sun
(a little later)
Baba: Trees.
Bashu: Huh? What?
Kumar: You came to India to see trees, right?
Bashu: Yes, sure.
Baba: No, no, people are like trees. They have branches, and maybe they have a lot of birds in them. That is how you can tell feelings. You look at the tree and say, it is good, it is bad, and you move on, you know?
Bashu: Yes. *stares into the sun again*"

Crazy guys, extremely babbleful. All I remember besides that is them talking about yoga, and the bike guy seeing me talking and taking the bike from my hands and saying "thank you, bye", then I guess eventually I managed to tear myself free, promising I'd try to come back with my brothers and friend if I could.

I guess I should mention at this point we're staying in Khajuraho courtesy of Mr. Gautam, who knew my mother last time she came to Khajuraho 23 years ago. He used to be one of the kids hawking on the street with his three brothers, and eventually started up a store called the Chandela Emporium which grew huge. After that he started the Holiday Inn in Khajuraho, and etc etc now everybody in Khajuraho knows his name. A crazy story, to be sure, and probably would be better told by my mother.. http://www.journey-to-india.blogspot.com

I have to say, living in India is somehow much more intense than living in Canada. In Canada you can buy things online, without having to deal with anyone in person, and even buying something from the supermarket is a quiet, uneventful task. Ridiculous! In India you would have nine people offering to take you to their shop and give you the best prices you'd ever heard, and then letting you battle your way through pricing, picking through, and dealing with five kinds of bull.

Anyways, we went to the Eastern Temples today and lounged around in the sun. I did, at least. I get the idea that the others were hard at work sketching the carvings, etc. I just laid in the bright-hot sunny lawn and played with the puppies that were staggering around the place, bought some chapatis soaked in milk for them, read a thick old fantasy book and shut down my mind. I said "I feel sort of like Jesse Easter must feel all the time", but no-one was listening. That's okay.

Fwoof. Well, until next time (possibly next year) I'm Bashu signing out.

-Bashu