[ Saturday, February 07, 2004 ]
Hindu temple facade in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
Hey friends, comrades, and fellow travelers! I finally broke the code on Indian photo shop and CD writing technology, with the kind help of a certain Krishna back in Hampi - so here is the first photo-edition of my India travels. Hope everyone is well.
Mumbai, Maharashtra. World Social Forum. After the Kite Festival fun we book a return train back down to Mumbai, to meet Floss and Stoph for the World Social Forum. This will be the 4th such Forum (the first 3 were all in Porto Allegre, Brazil), and more than 75,000 people are expected to attend. The WSF is part leftie pep rally and part organizing/strategizing event for activists on all kinds of issues, most of which are at least loosely related to some aspect of "globalization" (i.e., food security, fair trade, debt issues, indigenous peoples' rights, etc.).
Yessica and Uncle Floss at the WSF, getting ready to smash imperialism.
We spend 5 days attending seminars, workshops, and hearing speakers on a vast range of topics. The number of events going on at any given time each day is staggering. There are probably 40 or 50 different seminars in every time slot, not to mention a concurrent film festival, music and theater on five different stages, so it's really almost frustrating to miss so much good stuff every day. 
WSF.
Here's the list of what I attended, to give you an idea of what the WSF was all about:
JAN. 16
Opening Ceremonies with a fun radical rock band from Pakistan, some South African drumming and dancing performance group, and speeches by Arhundatai Roy and other leftie luminaries.
JAN. 17
1 p.m. "Defeat Bush 2004 Common Action" strategy meeting. Waldon Bello is one of the speakers at this meeting organized by Korean activists.
JAN. 18
9 a.m. "Media, Culture and Knowledge" seminar.
1 p.m. "Art as a Currency of Social Activism" workshop.
5 p.m. "How Radical Should We Be?" meeting on the future of the anti-globalization movement.
JAN. 19
9 a.m. "Globalization, Economic & Social Security" seminar. Speakers included Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and development theorist Samir Amin. Wow.
1 p.m. "Afghanistan: War on Terror" seminar. An update on the current situation in Afghanistan with a speaker from RAWA.
5 p.m. "Dalits: Struggles & Assertion". Theater and testimonials from untouchables from rural India.
JAN. 20
1 p.m. "Developing a Toolkit for the Anti-Corporate Activist" seminar.
5 p.m. "Human Rights Situation in Tibet 2003" seminar and testimony.
WSF/Land First Mela rally.
All in all, the WSF is tremendously inspiring and educational. I feel re-energized to go out and change the world 'n shit, and full of optimism about social change, as well. These 5 days have been the highlight of my India travel, thus far, no doubt. I am interviewed by an Indian AP reporter on the last day of the Forum, and make sure to list "Black Rock City, NV" as my hometown, in case the story makes it to the AP wire.
Vagator, Goa. Floss and Yessica take one for the team and skip part of the last day of the Forum to go to the Victoria Terminus and arrange train reservations for the 4 of us down to Goa for some unwinding and decompressing and reflecting after the WSF. Sure, it seems kind of decadent, and is, in fact, sort of an odd and sudden change of atmosphere - but after 5 days in Mumbai doing anything at all, the beach sounds inviting.
Sharing the beach with holy cows in Goa.
Goa is the unofficial capital of European hippie burnout and trance-head culture, and while the full moon party beach scene anything-goes-naked-bodies-and-cheap-dope days are definitely waning here, there is still plenty of good clean sand and psy trance blasting from every cafe and hippie fruit pancake mob hangout here. We stay in Vagator, trance-head ground zero. It's sort of astounding how many Israelis, Europeans, etc. live here on an extended basis, even owning or running shops and restaurants.
We find reasonably clean rooms for Rs. 500 a night (expensive for India, but not bad for Goa, we figure). It's around 12 bucks a night. The only drawback to the room is the fact that the toilet is also home to a massive ant colony, which makes actually approaching the toilet, let alone touching it, nearly unthinkable.
Black light everywhere, cows on the beach. A nearly constant stream of beach hawker hassle that becomes very tiring after a few days. Incredible beaches, though. Clean. Did I mention the incredible beaches? It is disorienting and decadent feeling after the WSF. We all try to process this fact and make some sense of it.
In fact, every time I am accosted by a mutilated or disfigured beggar, or even just small kids begging, I am a little bit overwhelmed and stunned and challenged in a way that doesn't quite happen so often in the states, in my ordinary life. I resolve, more or less, to not give money, chocolate, or school pens to kids on the street, but to periodically give money to crippled/disfigured people, which may seem like an arbitrary distinction, but has some rationale underlying it, I think . . .
Hampi, Karnataka. After a few days in raver-burnout-beach-world, it's time to go and see some history. Conveniently, the former capital of the Vijayanagar Empire (in Hampi) is a short 10 hour train ride away, and the line passes through some of India's most stunning scenery.
View of Hampi bazaar and Virupaksha Temple.
The Vijayanagars built an incredibly sophisticated and ornate city in Hampi, most of which was destroyed in the mid-16th century during warfare with Muslim invaders. The remnants are, nonetheless, quite spectacular. This is the most incredible setting I've seen so far: monkeys scampering around the ruins, amazingly ornate Hindu temple complexes, friezes depicting the pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses (Hanuman, the monkey god, in particular), the elephant stables, the city walls.
One afternoon I am exploring the Royal Center area and my sort of involuntary "guide" takes me down a set of stairs to the underground secret meeting room where the royalty went to smoke ganja, illuminating our path with a flaming torch of rolled newspaper. For the first time in India, I feel like I'm actually in an Indiana Jones movie.
Stoph getting ready for bed one night after a long day of smashing imperialism back in Mumbai.
We explore the main functioning temple complex, where I am blessed by the temple elephant, which has been trained to suck 10 rupee notes out of tourists' hands with its snout, hand the money to its trainer, and then confer its blessing by laying its huge hairy snout on top of your head.
We are also "blessed" at several of the various shrines inside, and drink a little taste of the priest's Hindu holy water, (which turns out to have been possibly somewhat of a mistake, given the state of my health the next day).
Mysore, Karnataka. After a 10 hour sleeper train to Bangalore, we switch trains and travel another 3 hours down the line to Mysore. By the time we arrive I have a definite second case of food-borne illness, waterborne illness, India food worm, or something else, perhaps the mefloquine-blues-syndrome, that gives me a combination of carsickness, misanthropy, and tummy problems. Another day lying in bed in the hotel.
Waiting for a bus in Murud, back in early January, having given up trying to read signs in Marathi.
The next morning I'm feeling better, but Floss is still down with the Floss Flu, which has taken a slight turn for the worse, so Jessica and I set out for the Maharajah's Palace. The Maharajah's Palace is a garish hodge-podge of mismatching architectural ideas that was completed in 1912, and is (or just was) the home of the local Hindu dynasty, the Wodeyars. (They are appealing in the Supreme Court the Indian Government's decision in the late 1990s to appropriate the palace for state uses). It's pretty at night, at least, when every Sunday evening it is illuminated with 97,000 light bulbs. It looks like Disneyland. Indian families and tourists come out for the evening to listen to music and stroll around the palace grounds.
Nearly everything in India looks better at night, actually - the restaurants, the cows, the streets, the hotel rooms. Indians love blinky lights and all manner of illumination, which I noticed again in Mysore when I stumbled upon a Hindu religious procession, complete with chariot, drummers, and priests handing out candy and orange slices and bits of coconut. Resting high up on the 20m chariot - it's so big that a special team of men with huge wooden poles walks ahead of it lifting up the power lines at each intersection - is the Goddess Chamundi, a local favorite. Her eyes are two huge red light bulbs.
Kochin, Kerala. We take the night bus down to the coast, to Kerala. It's a terrifying 10 hour ride through scary narrow highways filled with no-passing-zone-passing-close-calls, and lots of honking by our driver (who no doubt is a firm believer in reincarnation) at oncoming vehicles that are obviously being driven by people who also believe in reincarnation. I actually witness none of this terror, as I have had the foresight to swallow 40mg of Ativan before even boarding the bus, but the night's events are related to me the next morning by others in our party who experienced the ride sober.
Street food seller in Crawford Market back up in Mumbai.
Kochin is a cool coastal town with an active arts scene. Yessica and I tour several galleries and have a tea and chat with some local artists and a friendly Spaniard working with them. They want me to mail them anti-war posters and other materials for their gallery, which I agree to accomplish when I get back to the states.
The State of Kerala had the first freely-elected communist government in the world (in 1957), and the Communist Party is still a very strong presence in the state's politics. Kerala is still governed by a leftist-Congress Party coalition. By the looks of the place, they did (and are doing pretty well). Kerala has a higher standard of living and literacy rate than most of the rest of India, and civil society seems to function pretty well, as far as we can tell. Kerala also looks a lot more prosperous than other parts of India we've seen.
The Backwaters (near Allhepy, Kerala). The 5 of us (Floss met a friendly fellow traveler and San Franciscan in Kochi who joined us) rent a houseboat for a really enjoyable tour through the canals and waterways of coastal Kerala. We spend a night on the boat, sleeping anchored in a river somewhere, under a nearly full moon. Kids in canoes approach us asking for school pens. It's a nice diversion from riding the train all over India.
Varkala, Kerala. After the backwaters tour, it's another bus + train + auto-rickshaw journey even farther down the Keralan coast to Varkala, home to even more European hippie burnouts and a thriving "traveler's scene," which all of us have mixed feelings about. It's definitely nice to get off the beaten path (i.e. to places that aren't prominently described in the "Bible" i.e. the Lonely Planet), but it can be really hard work to actually travel to and be in places that are to far of the beaten path. Since the WSF in Mumbai, we've definitely been on the traveler's circuit. Oh, well. There's sometimes a good reason that some places are heavily touristed/traveled and others aren't.
Taxi dashboard in Mumbai.
It's been really good to travel with Floss and with Yessica's friend Stoph, and we've made a pretty good team. We seem to take turns being sick with something, which is, I guess, better logistically for us than all of us being sick at once.
Scrabble Developments. We play our first 2 against 2 team game, in which Team Flossica narrowly edges out a victory over the Ph.D.s. In the regular ongoing tournament, Fruit Pancake (aka Yessica) is even with her archrival Kaju Draksha (akak Mikita). We have, as well, branched out into the occassional game of chess and backgammon.
As of Feb. 6, we said our goodbyes to Stoph (aka "Stuph") who had to fly home to Cambridge. Hi Stoph! And the next day (yesterday) Floss flew to Delhi to see some of North India. We'll meet up with him again in a week to spend a few days together in Rajasthan.
Miss all y'all a lot. Let me know how you're doing over there.
Reading List: Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie [2/7/2004]
PAY ATTENTION BLACK ROCK CITY
