My first missed flight of 2011

Missed my 7:20pm Southwest flight out of BWI due to traffic and rain. My first miss of 2011, hopefully my last. 

I have missed one flight per year in 2009, 2010, and 2011. 

Southwest put me on a flight to HOU, Houston Hobby. Arrived to find mostly booked hotels, spent the night at the airport La Quinta, a first. No restaurant or way to order food, so  the manager gave me some delicious cold pizza. 

Today: HOU->DAL: Dallas Love, where I discovered but did not sample meat-topped Breakfast Pizza  

DAL ->SAT: sat next to a Sports Agent who had served in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. 

SAT->ATL: Amazing Pulled Pork Sandwich and entertaining Gingrich interview on CNN

ATL-> DCA.... 

We hit terrible turbulence from ATL->DCA, flying directly into a thunderstorm. The plane bounced around and the pilot repeatedly loudspeakered with soothing comments. His landing was brilliant but we sat on the tarmac for what seemed like 30 minutes.  

Six airports in the last 24 hours. There's no place like home.  

comings, goings, lizards, bridges.

New York for September 11th. In and out of JFK on Delta. Hiked down an empty West side highway for the memorial at Stuyvesant High School. Downtown Manhattan was mobbed that afternoon, with police barricade, cameras, unscheduled public art displays. Frenetic, emotional, even political energies.  Taxi to Park Slope for a musical memorial at Congregation Beth Elohim. As always, Brooklyn was an oasis of calm and tranquility.

Poughkeepsie by way of White Plains. Setting sun, Hudson River, mid-September.

Twenty-four hours in Pittsburgh. Rainy, quiet, right-wing taxi drivers. Had an awesome sandwich downtown, and saw old family friends recently relocated from New York. They don't miss the subway.

Bonita Springs, Florida. Somewhere between Naples and Fort Myers, on the Southwestern coast of Florida. Lizards, humidity, golf courses, everglades. Quick thunderstorms, a warm sun above.

Jacksonsville, Florida. Bridges. Ran two of them on an early morning jog with a colleague, getting lost in between. Delicious chocolate-covered popcorn. Passed a luxury building on the riverfront advertising a two bedroom for $1400 a month.   Escargot for dinner at a French Restaurant in San Marco, which seems to be the cool neighborhood, or one of them.

Scattering

The Stuyvesant Spectator (my high school newspaper), asked me for reflections for the 10-year anniversary of September 11th.   Reprinted without permission. 

***

The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.

-John Updike

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

I’m not kidding. Like many of my classmates, I no longer live in New York. We’ve traded in our metrocards, discovered wider boulevards, and learned to stop casually ordering Pizza or Bagels. It’s a different world down here. The pace is slower, the buildings lower, and Stuyvesant is a half-street in Upper Chevy Chase. 

I run into other alumni frequently, randomly, and purposefully. They stand on line in the old Marine Terminal at LaGuardia the Saturday after Thanksgiving, hurry outside a law library in Foggy Bottom, even meander on my rooftop. When I find myself in San Francisco or Raleigh-Durham I seek them out as if they were prelates of a secret order.  We examine our expatriate existences, trade updates on our classmates with a combination of pride and competitive interest, and mutter about quality of life.

Sometimes we talk about that day and how it impacted, impacts, might still impact us. Often it hangs perceptibly in the air and we inhale silent, unseen particles of the past. While we have no scientific basis for comparison, there is a theory that our class is special, somehow chosen. We are sown, we scatter. We re-root, we return.

I keep a metrocard in my nightstand

After the Rain

It rained. Torrents. Buckets. A white storm. I saw a flock of small brown birds floating in the wind like leaves on a fall day. A taste of the apocalypse, remarks a older and wiser colleague.

Attended a dinner in Georgetown with a Middle Eastern diplomat. When I emerged, the rain had stopped.

Walked up Wisconsin Avenue, which was ablaze for a DC fashion night. An artist asked me to engage one of the models in a shop window dressed as a boxer.

Got a ride home in one of the event pedicabs driven by a young Turk from Istanbul planning to study minerological engineering at Virginia Tech. 

DC is not without a certain charm.

Happenings

Friday night. Amtrak. Soho. West Village. Friends. Cocktails. Pizza. Water.

Saturday heat. Brunch. Brooklyn. Lincoln Center. Horse puppets.

Sunday rain. Beginners.  Happy. Dinner out.

Monday sun. Barbecue. Hot Dogs. Hamburgers. Watermelon. US Airways. DCA. Fireworks from the Metro.  

The North American Way

I'm back. Easy flight to Washington, though there were no border agents on duty when we landed sometime after midnight. When I finally got placed in line to see an agent, I almost thanked him in Spanish. Got home sometime after 1am. Fascinating Indian taxi driver whose father has worked for Indian Airlines and had thus traveled a lot as a kid.

Trying to resist the urge to see my surroundings as normal.

Panamanian Purgatory

Tocumen International Airport, Panama. Air Margaritaville Bar and Grille. Sara Bareilles playing in the background. Have emerged into the airport terminal to forage for food while spending the day in the COPA/Continental Presidents Club, a vacationing purgatory.  The lounge apparently won some sort of award in 2010, which makes one wonder about the qualifications of lounge judges. Since 11am I have:

• Watched the end of a Wimbledon match
• Fallen asleep to professional golf
• Tried to fall asleep to two middle-aged Americans playing cards.
• Consumed the vast majority of the New York Times Film Section online. 
• Chatted with a former roommate who is traveling in India. 
• Explored the vast annals of Wikipedia.  

How did I get here?

My 7am COPA flight from Lima landed sometime after ten, and I disembarked to discover a frenetic Panana airport beehive, with no mention of my upcoming flight  on the departure screens. After hiking over to the terminal on my boarding pass, it became clear that
a. my flight to Cancun (enroute to Dulles) was delayed, likely due to El Nino.
b. most of the Panamanian airport staff speak no more than ten words of English
c. the above staff had a relaxed atitude to getting me back to DC.
d. I had lounge access.

After my first two hours in the lounge, I was called to the front desk by a suited man, who provided a $10.00 voucher to the food court and told me that they were working on rerouting my ticket. Twenty minutes later, I was put on a direct evening flight to Washington. After some quick googling, I decided not to chance a visit to the Canal.

My flight to DC boards in two hours.

Macchu Picchu and Back again

Resting in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, next to the Urubamba River. Totally exhausted from yesterday's adventures. Some highlights:

• Seeing Macchu Piccu. An amazingly intact ruined city discovered almost exactly 100 year ago by Hiram Bingham, a Yale professor and later Governor and Senator. Great tour guide, a 29 year-old named Carlos. Our tour group was called Chaquis, the Quecha (Incan) word for runner.  The Incans were a pretty fascinating people. They had a labor tax on the peoples ruled, were good farmers, ate/used a lot of coca, and built a bunch of sturdy stone structures. There's still a great of mystery around Macchu Piccu: the name and purpose of the city are unknown. 

The Chasqui

• Climbing the actual mountain for which the site is named, which towers 2000 feet above the site. Hard hike up mountain steps, which at times were almost vertical and without safety rails. We ran into an archeologist who studies Easter Island and is convinced that the Macchu Piccu site is primarily religious. We summited after two grueling hours. The mountain top was cold and beautiful. 
• Crazy costumed dancer in on train back to Ollanta. Then the train crew a did fashion show of the merchandise, catwalk style. The performer participated.  They served a very tasty pasta salad. There was no differance between the Vistadome and Autowagon train services. 
• The taxi driver who picked us from the Ollanta train station brought his two little kids along for the ride. Cute and hyper, neither spoke a word of english. Key lesson: regardless of culture, kids like the iPad. 

Hot water

We're in Aguas Calientes, a town at the base of Macchu Picchu. We left Cusco by minibus this morning, stopping in Pisac, a town of 900 that is famous only for its market and an exquisite set of ruins that hang in the mountains above.

We spent hours hiking around the archeological site, a collection of a few ruined settlements, sets of Incan farming steps, stone pathways, and a small tunnel in the side of mountain. The Incans clearly were expert masons: much of the stonework seemed like it had been built in the past hundred years.

We taxied through the Sacred Valley to Ollanta (full spelling involves the word Tambo and a y) and boarded a cute two-car train to Aguas Calientes. Comfy seats, half-windowed viewing ceiling, and a little snack and drink served in a colorful straw basket. The ride from Ollanta is less than two hours and is punctuated by recorded announcements that frequently mention that this is an unforgettable journey.

Aguas Calientes is a small riverside town in the middle of the jungle. There are no cars and tons of hotels, hostels, restaurants, massage parlours, and shops. We're staying a place called Rupawasi ecolodge, which is not unlike staying in a treehouse with art-laden walls. The hotel's restaurant is magnificent: a cozy, well-lit culinary temple.

Tomorrow we wake before dawn to see a wonder of the world. Tonight we'll fall asleep to the rushing of Urubamba river.

Tomorrow, we

orogenesis and its discontents

The air is thin and the sun is strong.  When it starts setting at 5pm, the air gets chilly. There's a small blanket pressing down on my brain and I'm strangely congested.  I'm in Cusco, a town of 300,000 Peruvians, 11,000 feet above sea level in the Central Andes mountain range.


Easy flight from Toronto to Lima, with a free seat next to me. Met two Peruvian-Canadians on the plane, a professional skateboarder from Vancouver and a friendly woman from Montreal. I met the former while boarding, during which he offered a treatise on the women of Colombia and promptly to take me around Lima. The latter sat in my row and seemed not speak english, so we ended up in French. She warned me to be careful in Lima, which she said was very dangerous. 


Watched Limitless (of limited cinematic value) and the new Gulliver's Travels with Jack Black (of no cinematic value at all). We landed at 12:35am, and the passengers applauded, which reminded me of landing in Tel Aviv on my first adult flight on El Al. 


Lima is not pretty at night. From what I saw the next morning on the way back to the airport, it's not pretty in the morning, either. Lots of police, some of whom appear to be paramilitary. I checked into my hotel, slept for six hours, ran a mile in the gym, and eat a breakfast that includes miso soup and gyoza.


The LAN flight to Cusco is full, but I get an emergency exit row seat with another free one beside me. They serve a cute paper snack box with an enormous chocolate, a slice of cake, and some strange crackers. I try Inka Cola, which is the color of mountain dew and tastes like bubble gum.


My brother (Y) meets me at the airport. I'm lucky to have him as a traveling partner for the week, particularly since he speaks spanish and is spending the summer in Peru. He's arrived the day before, after spending a week in Lima. It's good to see him. 

The South American Way

Toronto Pearson Airport, maple leaf lounge. Hanging out in the lounge for a three hour layover on the way to Peru.

The lounge is packed but still pleasant. Canadian television is focused on grilling the Canucks coach and the death of someone who is referred to as Canada's greatest national hero. Never heard of the guy.

A seven hour flight to Lima awaits me, followed by a midnight arrival in one of the least popular capitols in the developing world.

Five Years Later

I was told that the five-year college reunion is the good one: few people are married with children and there's high turnout. Everyone's in the mood to party, whatever that means. By the ten-year, the children have arrived and fewer people show up.


With this in mind, I went to my five-year college reunion at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

Took a packed 9:15pm US Airways flight out of DCA to BDL. I'd hoped to split a cab to Middletown, but no dice at 10:30pm. 


Arrived on campus sometime after 11pm. Dropping off my bags in the dorm (where reunion alums can stay), ran into an excited group of folks from my year. Spent the rest of the night enthusiastically running into old friends while an alumnus band played perfectly chosen covers. A wonderful, friendly energy prevailed. In the words of one of my classmates "everyone just needed a break from their lives."

Saturday's main event for the class of 2006 was a reception and dinner in a private tent. More reconnecting, albeit with less enthusiasm. Lots of people are teaching, with grad school as the runner-up. Five years seemed to have a positive effect, interactions were noticeably less awkward, people considerably more secure, and a social generosity seemed to prevails. A larger all-class tent party followed.   


Wesleyan does a nice job of combining reunion and commencement into one weekend, with Sunday for the latter. As the designated speaker, Paul Farmer did a nice job of mixing humor with personal anecdotes from his work in Haiti. One got the sense that Farmer is cut from the same cloth as Wesleyan graduates: irreverent, critical, globally oriented, and focused on improving the world. 

After the ceremony, got Indian food at Udupi Bhavan with L, S ('06 alums) and S' father + grandfather (also alums).   By the time L and I got back to campus at 3ish, it was totally deserted. 


A lifeless and empty college campus is a sad place to wander, particularly after you've spent a weekend wandering its walkways with hundreds of friends and acquaintances. I felt enormous relief when the taxi pulled up to take us to the airport.


Our driver was wearing a tee-shirt from Nicholson, the dorm where L and I spent our first year of college. The 2002-2003 version, our year at Nicholson. 

Sugarloaf For Passover

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Easter Sunday, middle of Passover. Time for a hike on Sugarloaf Mountain, in Maryland.

The hike began uneventfully, a quiet walk up a small mountain on a hot April afternoon. Nice rocks, trees, the usual.

After stopping for lunch a mile or so in, it began to rain gently. We continued.

Within minutes, we were sitting in the middle of full-blown thunderstorm, with flashes of nearby lightning.

We squatted under/near large rocks to avoid lightning strikes and tried to wait out the storm. The downpour accelerated.

We eventually decided to keep hiking in the rain, after being completely soaked. The rain stopped after a few minutes on the trail.

We hiked back to the car in the cool quiet, appreciating the clarity that follows a spring rainstorm in the forest. 

New York and Back Again

Thursday night Acela. Friday wandering Soho and the East Village in the cold rain. Tokyo 7 has moved, and I found a completed building in the former parking lot next to my old apartment on 9th and C. New espresso machine at the 9th Street Espresso. The sandwich from Barnyard didn't taste as crisp.

Found a cool sock shop in Soho where they gave me a glass of scotch for free. Saw Win-Win at the Angelika.

Drinks at the Pegu Club, modeled after a colonial watering hole of the same name in British Burma. Dinner at a French restaurant on Houston. Stopped a by a friend's newly-purchased apartment in a coop, a first for friends in New York.

Saturday was sunny, warmer, and devoted to Brooklyn. Dinner on Smith Street. 

Notes On the Middle West/Upper South

The 1:15pm Delta flight from DCA->CVG left at 2:50pm. My first Delta flight of 2011 and my first with Silver Medallion status. Delta offered an alternative flight through the web, with one segment in First Class. Turned out to be a mechanical problem, which is never reassuring.

CVG  is entirely different as a final destination, rather than as a transfer-point.  I wonder how many cities get more transfer-only visitors (who never actually visit a city) than actual visitors. I've passed through but never visited Dallas, Detroit, and Chicago.

We get into Cincinatti around 5pm. The city is grey, industrial, and very mid-western. My colleague remarks that it looks just like downtown Minneapolis. Do mid-western cities look the same?

There is a large Teacher's union demonstration in Fountain square when we arrive. The speeches boom into my hotel room on the thirteenth floor, the cheers and chanting of the crowd. They seem energized, something about pensions.   Is there is something particularly nasty about the attack on public sector workers in the mid-west?  One envisions 1950's and '60's Cincinnati: prosperous, orderly, friendly, a well-respected public sector. The height of American Power.  Expectations and changing economics, oy.

We eat at a wonderful new French restaurant that I find on yelp. The food is excellent.  I'm impressed.

***

It's raining in Kentucky. We pass fields, cows, horses, and strip-malls. We labor to and successfully find a Starbucks, the great American constant.

After the meeting we drive back to CVG, eat some chili (apparently Cincinatti is famous for Chili), and buy Kentucky-themed souvenirs. Our flight to BWI is delayed and I talk Delta into putting us on the flight to DCA.  I narrowly miss getting upgraded.

Monkey Business

5:40am. Awake.
7:15am US Airways Shuttle: DCA to LGA.
8:55am Starbucks, 29th and Park Avenue. Dancing crazy woman. Jazz. Delicious Energy.
-Work-
1:19pm hail taxi slightly south of Canal Street.
~1:47pm Sprinting from the security line, I hear the my name on final call for US Airways Shuttle back to DC. I am the last passenger to board.
8:30pm: Tales of life in Saudi Arabia from an ex-consultant over Sushi.
11:25pm: I finish reading The CEO and the Monk: One Company's Journey to Profit and Purpose
11:40pm: Roommate opens package to find stuffed monkey in a ziplock bag with attached thanksgiving card.  

Playing and Watching At War

Went ice skating on Tuesday night in the sculpture garden, paintballing on Saturday somewhere in Virginia. My first time paintballing, intense and wonderfully separate the rest of my existence.  Pumping adrenaline, the fear of being shot by a small orange pellet, a simulation of warfare. Exhilarating moments of victory and teamwork.

Have been watching a Battlestar Galactica, another simulation of warfare. It's a a remarkably satisfying and complex show that plays with morality, humanity, Need to buy a DVD player, and have heard this site is good for LCD TV stands. 


All is Quiet on most other fronts. 

Nice comes a long way

Caught the 8pm US Airways shuttle, last flight to LGA from BOS.  A mostly empty plane,  fell asleep before we left the ground. Got into LGA around 9:20.  I miss Delta. 

Stayed in Times Square at the new Element on 39th street. Studio-style apartments, recently opened. $119 a night, no major complaints. Had late night tea with A, a high school buddy working in finance. As a result of working A LOT, A has taken a liking to celebrating shabbat. Potential topic for doctoral dissertation: relationship between career, aging, and religious observance. 

Slept like a baby, had an early midtown breakfast with N, an old and dear friend. Decided that I like turkey bacon. 

Midtown New York morning traffic/hustle is totally insane. I don't miss it at all. 

Work Work Work.  Only in new york does a meeting end two hours early. 

Took a frozen walk from Union Square to Soho, where I had coffee/dinner at Aroma on Houston. New York has changed a great deal since 2009, for the better. More smaller stores, boutiques, and experimental chains/shops. Energy of recovery/renaissance.

Inadvertently split a taxi with a snowboarding economic consultant whose father grew up in Brooklyn. 

Punjabi cab driver was very amused/confused by the split cab incident, prompting a long conversation that included Indian and German political history, airline industry gossip, and values: he loves Jet Blue/Air India/Lufthansa, was relieved at the assassination of Indira Gandhi, had only recently heard about Adolf Hitler (while on a layover in Frankfurt?) and told me that he's become more religious and less materialistic as he gets older. See above bolded comment.  

Talked the US Airways gate agent into bumping me onto the early flight back to DC without the $50 fee, after an unsuccessful attempt at check-in.  In the words of the TSA agent: nice comes a long way. 

New England Buddha

Our 6:30pm flight from DCA to BOS got cancelled and we plugged ourselves onto the 5:30 flight. US Airways was surprisingly palatable, though I sat in the middle seat.

Spent the evening in the Sheraton Framingham, a pleasant hotel with a remarkable germanic brick facade. Slow elevators, nice staff, and well-booked. Dinner at Samba, a fantastic japanese seafood/steak joint with Argentinian  influences. Some of the best-tasting sushi i'd had in a while.  Remarkable Buddhas, one depicted below.

Young and Resting in New England

Returning to the hotel, got tea with b in the buzzing restaurant. Distant piano music, obscure Sinatra tune. Investigating, I find balding salesman playing "Angel Eyes." He welcomes the accompaniment and we exchange pitches before I head off to sleep. 

What comes down will probably go up again...

Slowly bouncing on the DC trampoline: dinner party (UP), 127 hours (DOWN), work day trip to philadelphia pre-snow on the Acela (UP UP UP), running on a treadmill (UP), phone calls (bounce onto back), walks through georgetown (up/down), warm snaps in February (slowing down), To Have and to Have Not.

Flying to Boston on Tuesday night.

Sudden Outbreak of Snow

Flash snowstorm starting in the late afternoon.

The people at work freaked out and started leaving faster than the crowd at Yankee Stadium before the bottom of the ninth inning. Rumors about the metro failing and terrible traffic.

I got a ride home from a co-worker. It took a few more minutes than usual.

Snow in DC demands True Grit.

Winter of my Content

Still floating from a wonderful weekend. Highlights:

-L2 on Friday night. Think meatpacking district in a georgetown cavern, smaller, hidden, and sans ibankers.

-ben's chili bowl at 3am. Think chili dog at 3am.

-"True Grit" on Saturday night with B. Terrific. The best movie I've seen since Roman Polanski's Ghost Writer. Better, even. Those Coen brothers know what they are doing...

-sunday phonecalls with israel, botswana, and brooklyn. Oh, skype.

-monday post-work showing of "the way back" by Peter Weir (directed Witness, year of living dangerously, etc). Intense and hard to watch, numbing. Apparently Stalinism was extremely bad. Who knew?

-watched State of the Union with N and R and ate dumplings and french bread. Enjoyed the dumplings.

Seven Days Later: Happenings, reflections, misc.

It's my one week anniversary of being back in the United States. Here's what's happening:

-going out to Japanese food in Dupont Circle with V = incredibly comforting. Horde of Japanese tourists/ex-pats engaged in some sort of congratulatory ceremony with applause and flowers = endearing.

-party-hopping on Friday and Saturday night. Party #1 is international, bubbling, and diverse. I spend most of the time chatting up World Bank staff and a public sector consultant from L.A. V meets a lobbyist who represents fraternities: apparently the last three American Presidents were brothers. Trying to curry favor with the Washington insiders, I approach and note that some of my best friends have been in frats. He thinks I am saying lobbyist and asks which firm. Ensuing chaos.

-Chili Cook-off at the Raven at Mount Pleasant. No lobbyists here, but I do meet an incredibly friendly CNN producer who tells me I should consider a career in public speaking. Exchange pleasantries with a familiar hill staffer (Senate side) about the productiveness of the recent lame duck session and talk to a guy I know in Commerce about an upcoming trip to one of the Stans. Sample some chili. Encounter another New Yorker-in-exile.

-Birthday party at an uber-minimalist bar somewhere downtown. I spend thirty minutes talking to a skeptical bureaucrat about the philosophical/psychological underpinnings of boredom. Apparently Heidegger wrote 100 pages on the subject.

-Co-worker's black-light party in Adams Morgan. We are the oldest people in the room, possibly by three-five years. I talk to an affable but improperly attired med student of Southern origin and a hilarious financial consultant who lives with his parents in Westchester. There is a guy screaming unintelligibly at the top of his lungs. We stay for roughly thirty minutes. Extremely entertaining.

Am still jet-lagged and dehydrated, although the culture-shock is wearing off. Uh-oh.

Soundtrack for the Subcontinent

For navigating the fast maze that is the Frankfurt airport, Amy does it best. "You know I'm no good," Amy Winehouse.

"Hey Bulldog" by the Beatles for running in Mumbai.

When in Bangalore, try "Hip to be Square" by Huey Lewis and the News.

Ray Charles and Johnny Cash work well in Kerala. Makes a lot of sense, if you think about it.

Kovalam is a good place to read a book quietly.

For Gurgaon, Bono. "Stuck in a moment you can't get out of," U2.

Varanasi has its own soundtrack. Just listen*

Counting Crows' "Goodnight L.A." or "One Fine Day" by David Byrne + Brian Eno as the fields of Uttar Pradesh roll by on a January afternoon.

Music is not allowed at the Taj Mahal.

Indian Bus rides call for Nina Simone: "Sinnerman" from the Thomas Crowne Affair soundtrack. Particularly appropriate as you get leveled by a speed bump while attempting to move out of the way when fellow passengers move an elephantine sack over your leg. Where ya gonna run to?

John Mayer is soothing when recovering from stomach ailment and dehydration in the Reston Emergency Room. "Waiting for the World to Change."

*whistling the ewok victory song by John Williams is strangely satisfying after visiting the burning ghats. 

End of the Line

Made it to Delhi after a harrowing five-hour bus ride from Agra. Bus cost 150 rupees, which is roughly three dollars. Sat next to an IT student who interrogated me about the US/India/my marital situation until I told him I'd like to rest. Also met a lab consultant at a fertility bank, the interrogator's brother-in-law: took me a while to figure out that the word he was saying wasn't cement. Some nice banking students sat behind us and were very helpful. They asked me to come back to India soon.

From the bus station, my tuk-tuk driver took an hour to find the hotel in near-freezing weather, stopping three times to ask for direction. He then asked for more money. While I try not to show anger while in Asia (in Cambodia and Laos, this is unacceptable culturally and causes both parties shame), I find it's very effective in India when someone asks for something that is unreasonable.

My hotel is in the diplomatic enclave, on the outskirts of the city. It reminds me of Paris.

Journey to the West

Two intuitively impressive Austrians and I are driven to Mughal Serai at 10:30pm, a journey that takes us onto a proper indian highway, which is not dissimilar to some of the scenes in Tron: Legacy. I fear for my life at numerous points, although the Austrians seem relaxed.

I am fearful of missing my train, which has been delayed an hour. As we approach the station, I get ready to run to the platform. The driver, in defiance of a previous agreement, begins to mutter something about 50 extra rupees for parking. He actually chases me onto the platform to remind me about the bogus charge. Fearing I'll miss the train, I pay him and ask for help carrying my bag. He walks away and the train is delayed by another hour. I watch some homely Irish play cards and finish reading Hermann Hesse's "journey to the east, " which the guest house has presented me with as a parting gift/loan.

The Magadh Express comes two hours late, ostensibly due to fog. The first class car is roomy, grimy, and wonderful. My cabin-mate is a young Delhi-based lawyer who pleasantly lectures me for an hour.

We depart into the night.

Another Shabbat

Cold. Fog. No power. Israelis. Kabbalat Shabbat. Candlelight. Hummus. Sitar. Varanasi. Sublime. Warmth.

What's the North/Varanasi like?

-Cold and foggy. I was in four layers yesterday, am in three today. Slept with a space heater on, inside a sleeping bag with a blanket covering me.

-Dirtier/Poorer/less educated/developed: people speak less english here, the internet is slower, there are fewer modern technological accouterments, and the poverty has a more severe feeling to it. There are tons of people trying to extract money from me, who are not particularly charming or inventive. It is easier to bargain and I get lower prices.

-Religiously tense and possibly less diverse/pluralistic. I meet no one who isn't a hindu. There was a terrorist attack a month ago in one of the main public areas along the river, the trauma is evident. There are soldiers all around the main temple, although they seem bored. The closest analogy to walking the streets of Varanasi is wandering around the old city in Jerusalem.

-More culturally foreign. The backpackers and tourists I meet here feel like strangers in a strange landers. I have a nice dinner with a french pair of artists, am interviewed by a wandering Dutch journalist, and meet two friendly Austrians.

Still Waters Run Deep

In of one of the final scenes of Return of the Jedi , Luke Skywalker burns the body of Anakin Skywalker, his father. This always seemed strange to me: most Jedis fade away when they die or fade away, but there is clearly something symbolic for in the burning, particularly since the helmet of Darth Vader is shown amidst the flames.

After two days in the Holy city of Varanasi, I have begun to understand the significance of the burning scene. The draw in Varanasi is the mighty Ganges river, which flows still and deep by a packed and dirty city in Uttar Pradesh state, in the northeastern central of India. Hindus come to Varanasi from all over India (from all over the world?) to observe a ritual of death. The body of a dead family member (father or mother, I think) is washed in the river and then placed on wood to burn, surrounded by the family.

Varanasi is a serious and tense place, not unlike the old city in Jerusalem. It's hard to tell if the Hindus and Muslims get along here and one senses that place and space are contested. Cows, goats, and dogs roam freely, even next to the burning bodies.

Gurgaon

Flew up to Delhi from Cochin on a Spicejet flight. One of the worst flights i've been on in my life, terrible service and worth avoiding.

Landing in Delhi from Cochin is like traveling from Southern Spain to Warsaw. It's cold and foggy and no one is smiling or relaxed in the airport. My attempt at conversation with backpacking Norwegians sputters out. Geography seems to be destiny. I change my clothing and refrain from making further small talk.

My taxi driver reminds me of an unpleasant cartoon character, Ren/Stimpy mixed with Beavis or Butthead. He tries to swindle me out of 10 rupees for a toll i've already paid for and I resist. He laughs viciously and turns the music up all the way, so that my eardrums are pounded. I smile and feign dancing. Then he gets pulled over by the police and they write him a ticket for not wearing a seat belt. He has no idea where the hotel is and I end up directing him by sight/intuition.

Am staying in Gurgaon, which is bizarre and reminds me of a dirtier and less developed version of Kuala Lumpur.

I have dinner with two friendly Americans, one of whom works for a renewables start-up here in Delhi. The dinner is heavy, full of meat, and finished with a delicious dessert called Kheer (sp?).

Notes on Kerala

After a few days in Cochin, Ernakulam, and Kovalam, a few points on the State of Kerala.

-While less developed than Mumbai, Bangalore, or Mysore, the population is clearly better educated. This translates to more and better conversations with locals, more intense negotiations over goods and services, and a persistent sense of being evaluated carefully by people. People immediately ask perceptive questions which build on each other.

-Common questions include: where are you from? what do you do for a living? What's your religion (in Cochin)? Are you married? What's the economy like in the United States? When will it get better? I've rarely had such consistent in-depth conversations with working-class people in other developing countries.

-the educational level is way beyond economic growth. I suspect that's an oppurtunity for foreign direct investment in outsourcing and other knowledge sectors, though the problem may be that wages are too high compared to other parts of India. There must be some compromise, using higher-skilled labor.

-The relgiousity of the place is staggering. Cochin appears to be full of highly observant muslims, christans (catholic, pentacostals, syrian orthodox), and hindus. What's remarkable/wonderful is that "ordinary people" of one religion seem interested and even knowledgable ofn the beliefs and practices of other religions.

-The region seems to be experiencing a boom in tourism. "More and more, each year."

The Beach Outpost at the end of the Subcontinent

Seething ocean, crowded sand.
Sickly humidity. Storm clouds.
The British Avionics engineer has sent me to Kovalam.
Arrival in setting sun, after hours in an air-conditioned car.
Feels like Bangkok on the water, though I've never been to Bangkok.
Strange Overtones in the way people walk. Dead walk/dead eyes/the party had been over for some time.

Something's coming. Maybe the tide?

Shabbat

Inspired by the religious experience of friday evening, I spent saturday resting at the hotel. Generally uneventful, with a few exceptions:

-encountered a pair of honeymooning seeded from stockholm. He's forty-two and an account manager for a small investment bank. They seemed happy. I predict a successful marriage.

-A Polish man from Warsaw wished me a happy new year and hugged me in the hotel bathroom. Very odd, but I think he meant no harm by it.

-Passed young girl wearing a google (staff) t-shirt. Upon commenting, she said her father works there. Light blue shirt, not sure if he works for Indian office.

-Reencountered the British woman, this time with her husband (the avionics engineer). He gave me some advice and recommended a driver. Very solid people.

-Read interviews with David Axelrod and Aung San Suu Kyi. She definitely has a tougher job than he does.

-Met a charismatic (Indian) catholic just back from a religious conference of 22,000 people. He told me he'd prayed for forty days before asking for vacation leave over new years. Wonderful emotional/spiritual energy.

-Dinner in Ernakulam at the Grand Hotel. Ordered chicken borscht and chicken curry, with rice. Soup was tasty, but not borscht. Chicken curry was eh. Smart concierge on duty named Vishnu, whose dream is to work for an airline. I suggested Lufthansa.

The End

It's roughly 7pm on December 31st and I'm at Shabbat services at the Pardesi Synagogue, a four-hundred-year-old building tucked into the corner of Jew Town, in Cochin, Kerala. As the Canadian leading services begins aleinu, the international group of 30-40 Jews join in, somewhat discordantly. Neatly dressed Swiss (white polo, red sweater) sit behind me, a San Franciscan couple to my right, seemingly unobservant israelis to my left, a moscovite management consultant in the corner, a quiet resident of tenleytown, a lean and soft a spoken chabad rabbi conducting silently from behind, a newark-born woman from the east village (10th and 4th!), and a warm Indian man who says he is a friend of the synagogue and has a shammas-like status.

How did this happen? I'd planned to spend a quiet evening at my hotel.

I woke to a call from Brooklyn, and ran on the treadmill in a wood-floored gym with a view of the backwaters and jungle. The hotel has granted me access to the Royal Club room, and I eat a sumptuous continental breakfast of cheese (four types!), cut fruit, doughnuts, cappuccino, watermelon juice, and yogurt.

Over the longest cup of coffee I've had all year, I chat with an affable middle-aged British hospital secretary from the midlands who prefers Northern India. Her husband has been consulting for the Indian Military for a number of years and I get the sense she's lonely and ready for these trips to end. Speaking with her, I have this memory of Orwell's description of the memsahib (colonial wife) in Burmese days... she speaks of the Indians in warm but thoroughly colonial terms: "give an inch and they'll..." I wonder if the British aren't merely a bit distanced (observers) from all peoples, even themselves. No man is an island, but what about a people?

Does observation necessarily create separation and distance?

There has been a bombing in Athens and the subject turns to terror- what if the media didn't report terrorist incidents? She somewhat predictably laments the war in Afghanistan, Tony Blair's tragic alliance with George W. Bush, and the current National Health Service scandal. I offer unsolicited advice on how she can make her house more energy efficient and she tells me she's trying to convince her husband to install solar panels.

She is easily kinder, more affable, and less patronizing than any female character in Orwell's novel. I can tell the Indian staff likes her, whatever that means.

I go for a swim and then into town, where I wander, souvenir shop, and drop off shirts to be modified. The Tailor's name is Jude and his younger son is named Sampson. Keralans are turning out to be some of the nicest people I've met.

I make my way to Jew Town, where I learn the synagogue is closed for friday. Standing outside, I run into a group of Americans who feel familiar. I politely inquiry about a dinner invitation and before we know it the Chabad Rabbi has shown up, we've got a minyan (non-egalitarian seating. :(

I'm unexpectedly home.