From Khadjuraho---January 13

We’re on a narrow street in the town of Bhadohi, 350 miles east of New Delhi. We’re stuffed into the back seat of a tiny Mazda Maduri, alongside a member of the Ascari family, our hosts for the WBUR/Landry and Arcari-sponsored early days of our trip. Driving as fast as the law of physics allows is Aslam Ascari, one of three partners in the family rug-producing business. Joe, in the middle of the back seat, has a dead-on view out the windshield at the scene hurtling by: pedestrians by the dozens, rickshaws, bikes, scooters, rattletrap buses, clouds of dust, wandering cows, tractors tugging carts piled high with bundles of died wool---maroon, deep blue, blue-black, mustard-colored. As we lurch this way and that, crashing over the potholes, horn blaring, Joe says to me, “Look at that! I always knew India was for me.”
He meant in part that he is a glutton for overstimulation---nobody with ADD will ever be disappointed in India. He also meant that for anybody who gets up in the morning dying to find out what the great unfolding saga of the human race has to offer next, India is sure to provide surprises, texture, narrative tension, meaning. And it just keeps coming at you. You spend the entire day---and in your dreams on top of that---considering, puzzling, gawking, coping, ducking. I have rarely seen Joe happier.
The other day we fell into the clutches of a holy man. We were in Varanasi---formerly Banaras, originally Kashi, the Hindu “City of Life”---and as we meandered through the byways behind the decaying palaces that line the Ganges, we stuck our noses into a Hindu temple. “Come, come!” cried a small man with betal-stained teeth and a grey stubble of beard. We knew we were in for it; nearly everything that happens to tourists in Varanasi is part of a hustle. But we needed guidance---including what to do with the garland of marigolds a kid sold us on the way in---and there was always the chance that this little man in his threadbare tunic and Nehru hat was more interested in our spiritual lives than our wallets. (Today, outside a temple in Khadjuraho, a man engaged us in casual conversation, wished us happy travels, and then left us. We felt wonderful.)
The temple the small man in Varanasi led us into was a mess. It smelled and the lights didn’t work. We were led from dank stone alcove to dank stone alcove. The man discoursed in an incomprehensible mix of Hindi and English on the images of Shiva we could barely make out in the barred and padlocked recesses. Shiva, the deity with a snake around his neck, is the Hindu god of death and rebirth and is said to have resided in Varanasi. Soon we came to an altar where we were directed to place our necklace atop others and pray to Shiva. We struck meditative poses. Indian men and women, walked in, offered brief prayers and left. In another alcove we were instructed to place our open palms above the flowers on the altar and repeat after the holy man a prayer to Shiva. As we cast our eyes downward, our mentor shut his eyes and began to utter short phrases in Hindi with the rhythms of an incantation. After each phrase, he waited while we mimicked his words. This went on a good deal longer than expected. Joe did not look at me, but I glanced at him once. I saw him staring hard at the altar and sounds were coming out of his mouth. After a while, I coughed. The praying went on---Joe didn’t miss a beat, and his pronunciation seemed to me good---and I picked up where I had left off.
Joe and I are as spiritual as the average cheeseburger. (I once said this to a friend who is in frequent touch with other realms, and she replied, “But a cheeseburger can be VERY spiritual.”) A New York Times science piece last year reported that a researcher had found a “spiritual” center of the human brain---except some people don’t have one. That’s us. In Southeast Asia last year, we developed a warm and respectful feeling for Buddhism, even though we do not share its central beliefs, such as reincarnation. The same may happen with us and Hinduism, though not yet.
Jawaharlal Nehru believed most of India’s 9 million or so wandering ascetics---you see them everywhere in Varanasi, bug-eyed and bearded, in cotton outfits in many shades of orange---were crackpots and scam artists. For all we knew, the little man in the temple may have been sincere in his effort to connect Joe and me with the life-giving spirit of Shiva. Either way, when his praying wound down, he did ask for a donation. When proffered one, he requested a larger amount. On the way out, he asked for a personal donation, which we politely declined to cough up. He also asked me for my ballpoint pen---one of the Paper-Mate cheap jobs I carry everywhere---and when I handed it over, the man asked, wasn’t there a cap that went with it?
For other Westerners, the spiritual pull of India remains great. We see them, in groups or individually, gotten up in the loose cotton traditional local garb, with dabs of paint on their foreheads. It’s not for me to deny or presume to begin to fathom anybody else’s spiritual quests, but there’s something not quite convincing about all this. At least superficially, it’s as if thousands of Indians showed up in Lancaster County, PA and went around dressed up like the Amish. (Yesterday when Joe gave a coin to a beggar, someone rushed up to him and dabbed and orange slash on his forehead. He looked as if he’d just had a run-in with Jesse James.)
If we haven’t gotten with the spiritual program, our connection with secular India has been thoroughgoing. The practical difficulties are considerable---a Swedish backpacker we met on a bus tour of Delhi the day after we arrived in India told us he had given up exploring Delhi’s sights on his own; it was just too time-consuming. The whole place just barely functions. For a nuclear power, India’s infrastructure is surprisingly reminiscent of Cambodia’s. Even our “first class AC sleeper” for the 16-hour rail journey from Delhi to Bhadohi, with its three-tiered open compartments, left us feeling less like passengers and more like cartons of toilet paper racked up at Costco. (Anybody remember the 1940s novelty tune “His Feet’s Too Big for de Bed”?)
And yet…. The people, by and large, are polite and often warmly hospitable. We’ll try to get a blog posting up soon on our amazing three days with the Ascaris, a fascinating family who treated us splendidly. (For a variety of practical reasons, we are now off on our own.) Varanasi was unforgettable. It’s where Hindus wish to die, if they can, cremated on the “burning ghats” along the purifying Ganges. We witnessed this ritual. We’ll try to report on both the Ascaris and Varanasi soon. We’ll also report on the erotic temple sculptures here in Khadjuraho. As our cheerful guide put it this morning, “People see it and then they go and do like that.”
Tomorrow we head to Agra and the Taj Mahal, then to Jaipur, the “pink city.” We’ll be back in Delhi for several days January 29 and will try to get some of Joe’s amazing pictures onto the blog.
We get bits of news from the U.S. After New Hampshire, The Times of India said Hillary was “gasping for breath.” Yesterday, India TV news reported that Bush had “invaded Pakistan.” We’ll have to ask around about that.