Fair Enough, Varanasi

It is amazing the difference that one person can make sometimes. My experience of Varanasi has taken on so many twists and turns now with Hapiz and he has shown me an entirely different city. He is a kind man and helps others constantly during our little city excursions and he has taken me to parts of the city I would have never gone alone, much less known they existed. Because of him, Varanasi has emerged for me, through the filth, the grime, the pollution and the incredible amount of people packed into a very small space.

Today, the highlights that I have pictures of below were Pilgrim's Bookstore which had an amazing selection of Sanskrit and Buddhist texts that I was able to find some real gems at next to nothing. For me, that's geeking pretty hard, and it was great.

We also went into the Moghul Muslim neighborhood, which was yet another interminable maze of side streets that Hapiz went bobbing ahead of me as I was tripping over myself (and cows, kids, goats, scooters, chickens...) to keep up with him.

Here, the entire process of the world-famous Varanasi silk brocade work is done, from boiling the silk to punching out unique design templates to the weaving and dyeing itself. The whole quarter was echoing with the clanging of the looms, sounding very much like a chorus of old-fashioned printing presses, which is what I thought the noise was when we first came upon them. And, of course, the showroom, which I then got to see the "private" collection as these prints are not exported, only sold in Varanasi.

And, later, to end the day, I went back with Hapiz to the evening Pooja celebration on the banks of the Ganges. This time from the front and not the boat's viewpoint. Each evening, every day of the year, they say good night to the Ganges with an elaborate display of fire, incense, and of course, noise. Lots of noise. Bells, horns, conches, tablas, chanting, and just general background noise create a surreal ceremony to the great River Goddess Ganga transforming the smelly muddy waters into an incense-filled delight of sights, sounds, and smells. Again, India responds.

Enjoy.

vanakam, en peeru Robert

Greetings, my name (is) Robert.

On August 22nd I will be boarding a plane in Brussels to fly overnight into Mumbai's Chatrapati Shivaji airport. From there, I plan to visit the caves of Elephanta for a day trip, and then back to the airport to fly southwards.

Madurai, Tamil Nadu, is my ultimate destination for this journey and the primary language is Tamil. Tamil is a Dravidian language, and is one of the oldest languages continuously spoken on the planet. The populations of the sub-continent of India are often divided by two major language groups: Dravidian and Indo-European-Aryan. The latter were the result of the proto-Sanskrit, mostly likely equestrian Aryans, who presumably descended from the Caucasian Steppes some time around 1500 BCE, bringing with them the religion of the Vedas and a dominant language, which became Sanskrit.

From the Sanskrit language, the principle languages of Hindi, Urdu, and Farsi evolved as modern languages spoken today in India. The main Dravidian languages are found in the southern part of the sub-continent, specifically Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Shri Lanka where Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu are the primary languges respectively. These language are not related to Sanskrit, however, but they have incorporated both Sanskrit-based words as well as English words from the British Empire. Tamil, for the most part, however, has resisted this assimilation the greatest.

Tamil and Hindi will be the 10th and 11th languages that I have either formally or informally studied, beginning with Spanish in the second grade at Wilder Elementary school in Louisville, Kentucky. India will be the fourth country (US, Belgium, and Italy) that I have lived in. The first time that I was conscious of a place called "India" was in fact, in the second grade at Wilder Elementary school in Louisville, Kentucky.

There was a young Indian girl named Shagufta B. (I will withhold the name on privacy) who was a shy girl, though always had a smile on her face. Being ignorant and immature young American boys who had never met someone from India, much less with a "funny" name like Shagufta, we did what kids do, we mocked her. I was a rather sensitive kid, guess still am on some levels, and I felt really bad about this, and tried to disuade it, so I had "Shagufta Cooties" to the derisive delight of my fellow classmates. Shagufta not only had "girl cooties," she had "Indian-girl-with-'funny'-name cooties." As we all know, kids can be cruel. Yet, I always like to add, that is often learned behavior. This was the period in which Louisville was also the first major city to implement non-segregated busing amongst schools, and that lead to pointing out differences in skin color. And, although Shagufta was not African-American (Blacks was the term used in the 70s), she did stand out for her skin color.

We had a couple of students from other countries in the class, and our teacher, Ms. Rose, had these students present on their "homeland." I can still vividly see the map of India and how it was pointed out that it was entirely, literally, on the other side of the globe from Louisville, Kentucky. That, for all intents and purposes, blew my 7 year-old mind.

I was in Wilder for a few years, but then we moved to the arid Panhandle of Texas, seemingly as far away from the grassy meadows of Kentucky as India. I am not sure what happened to those other kids, where they ended up. Although I am no longer on Facebook, I re-activated it the other day and tracked down Shagufta as she still has her maiden name, along with an anglo surname. She is a very striking woman now with a very confident look on her face. She seems to have survived the immaturity of her male peers from Wilder. I sent her a note to let her know that that seemingly innocuous presentation stayed with me. India has never really left my mind, for what it's worth. I stayed on FB for a couple of days, though did not receive a note back, but I hope that she is indeed doing well.

Thanks Shagufta.


namaste