Men In Maroon & the Man In Black

Hey hey we're the Monk-ees

It was a maroon-robed exodus today as many monks piled onto the buses headed for Gaya, Mussoorie, Shimla, Mundgod and all other Buddhist outposts following the conclusion of the Dalai Lama's teachings. I sat in McLlo's window taking photos that had that magical afternoon glow, watching the monks tie their packages atop the rooftop luggage racks, shake hands through the windows and trade numbers on their cell phones. It felt like the last day of school. When a whole busload of monks waved goodbye like schoolkids on an expedition I waved from the restaurant window. They all waved back delightedly.

A few Hindu holy men walked around half naked with dreadlock beards and tridents, looking out of place like Shriners who'd missed the exit and ended up at the wrong convention. Varanasi is thattaway, Baba!

Monks are the quasi-celebrities of the town; everyone wants to take photos with them and they obligingly provide near-constant photo opportunities for tourists. Somehow having a monk in a photo automatically makes it cool. Refreshjngly unlike the Hindu holy men, they never ask for money in exchange for this public service.

Then I trotted down the rocky hillside trail beyond Om Hotel, stopping to play with Tashi, the resident Lhasa Apso, to see the Tse Chokling monastery. I had heard that even outsiders can rent rooms there. I like the monastic vibe but am too fond of late-night writing hours to make it in before the gates close.

Don't take your monks to town, son....
After all this holiness it was time for some pop culture entertainment. Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic, was playing downstairs at the OOFCSS DVD Theatre (Out of Focus, Crappy Sound System). What do you want for thirty rupees? (less than $1.00).

My fervent devotion to The Man in Black is well known. Walk the Line was not at all earth-moving, but takes place primarily in Tennessee and of course, features some of the best songs ever written, unfortunately sung anew by the stars (bad idea, who could possibly step-to?) instead of lipsynched to the originals. I think I scared the New England blue-state Teva-sporting dharma babies by knowing all the words to "Jackson" and "Folsom Prison Blues."

Well you asked me if I'll forget my baby I guess I will, someday,
I don't like it
But I guess things happen that way

The only problem with this movie, in my situation, is that is makes me want to hear the original music loud and clear, and I'm nowhere near a place to buy or hear it. The scenes on the lake in Hendersonville made me homesick for a land where people don't pee on the street, and they actually put screens on the windows to keep out mosquitos. (Don't ask. For some reason, this is a new concept in India....or at least a rare one. Instead, there are open windows with bars to keep out intruders, but no glass and no screens. How is it that we have no malaria in the States, yet plenty ways to keep out mosquitos, and the reverse is true here?)

This movie is required viewing for Indian friends who don't understand why I don't understand the way they relate to their families. It features good old have-it-out, door-slammin', back-talkin,' plate-throwin', Southern Baptist families complete with disapproving stern father figure. Thank God Johnny didn't pay him no never-mind.

Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad From a worn-out picture that my mother'd had, And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye. He was big and bent and gray and old, And I looked at him and my blood ran cold And I said: "My name is 'Sue!' how do you do!
Now you gonna die!"

If Mick Jagger had been Indian, he'd have stayed in the London School of Economics and become an accountant.

Spilled tea

Another Country
McLeod Ganj, Himachal Pradesh

I know it's not an original observation - I'm certainly not the first to make it - but I can never get over the contrast between the energy of the Tibetans and the majority of lowland Indians. (The locals seem to have a bit of that spritely hill energy, like the Nepalis.) For one thing, the "Tiptons" (as my Andhra friends pronounced it) seem to constantly smile at strangers as though they were truly happy to see you, although they are not trying to sell you anything and don't speak enough English to grill you with personal questions. And even when they do (speak English), they don't (grill you). You can often tell they've been in India a while when they stop smiling at strangers.

The Dalai Lama's annual Indian teachings are always crowded, so we sit on ledges and stairways tripping over one another constantly - mostly Tibetans, quite a few Westerners (in India, Japanese, Korean and Chinese are Westerners) and the occasional Indian.

The "Dalai Lama Temple" is a sort of overgrown government-issue generic blocky building made of reinforced concrete and painted a faded yellow. It was built long ago - looks like the 1960s - before the world took so much notice of Tibetan Buddhism, and followers have long since outgrown the grounds. Monks and jean-clad young assistants scurry at tea intervals, stepping over and through the devotees seated on the ground like a Buddhist picnic, pouring endless cups of the salty Tibetan brew.

Tao Tea-Chings
Today the family next to me kicked over a cup onto the concrete flooring and the hot liquid went everywhere. Surely this happens many times during such a crowded event. What amazed me, after so many years in Indian India, was that no one got upset, no one clucked their tongue or tsked or scolded anyone, they just kind of picked up their stuff and moved over. It just struck me as being so different from the recrimination I now expect from most Indians in such situations. Everything is drama, nothing is ever okay, or just what happens - when you make a mistake there has to be some kind of reprimand and shame. Above all, there has to be judgment. And someone must pay, for god's sake!

And there's no undoing damage - it is beneath them to fix things. The spilled tea is an unforgiveable sin and shows how sloppy, rude and selfish you are.

So you spilled some tea. It was clumsy. It can't be unspilled, but it's not the end of the world. The Tibetans, like the Nepalis, just kind of pick up and keep going. The Indians are more like the stereotype of the Arabs. Unforgiving, and unhappy until you're suitably miserable as well. God forbid you ever step even part of the way on an Indian foot - it's a grave offense, so I quickly internalized all the proper apologetic mimetic gestures. Now I do them reflexively, and the Tibetans look at me like, hey, what's the big deal? You just stepped on my foot. You're human. It's just a foot. I'll get over it. After all, there are a billion of us in this crazy country, so relax. Feet happen.

The Daily Lama
During teachings, it's too crowded to get a glimpse of His Holiness, so I waited on the concrete staircase for him to pass on his way out to the jeep. I had to stand on tiptoes on the slippery edge of the stairs and clutch the iron railing, pulling myself up to peer over like a little kid.

First the dour Meninkhaki - that is, Indian police, heavily armed and in dun-coloured sweaters and berets, trudged down the stairs with rifles and one machine gun. They looked resentful, as though they'd been assigned the crappiest duty imaginable rather than their actual job, bodyguards to a living Buddha. To be fair, their bushy moustaches make them look extra foreboding and lend a downward turn to their faces. Also, to be fair, His Holiness receives his share of death threats, and these guys are not there to soak up the shakti but must be vigilant. I wish I had photos for you, but I had to check my camera with the female security at the foot of the stairs in order to come into this area.

Senior monks then followed, one in a splendid yellow hat that made him resemble an exotic tropical bird. An elderly rinpoche was getting into one of the jeep fleet and caught my excited eye. We shared secret smiles, like kids spying on Santa on Christmas eve.

Then, with no fanfare at all, His Holiness came, only about 10 feet away and above me on the stairs. His gait was slow and deliberate, as always holding his robes over his left arm like a bride's train, with his ever-present bemused and loving patient half-smile. Everyone silently pranamed (holding hands in prayer position) as he got into the car. There was no pushing to speak of - again, these devotees compared very favourably to those I'm accustomed to at umpteen local melas, pujas and temple festivals.

As his benign gaze swept the heads of those waiting, I realized the pain in my jaws was an involuntary ear-splitting grin. Then I burst into tears of happiness.

The glow stayed with me as a flurry of monks and laypersons hotfooted it down the slick stairs, past the now-redundant metal detectors and out into the street to get a glimpse of the passing Holy Jeep. The narrow street was a river of maroon robes as we crowded the blue-tarped tea stalls trying to get out of the sprinkling rain, but still receive the holy darshan.

Although every one of us wanted the same thing - to be as close as possible to His Holiness - and there was no way we would all get it, the feeling was so markedly non-frenetic. No one pushed. No one yelled. No one elbowed. Elderly Tibetans, longhaired rock n roll Tib Teens, dreadlocked hippies, middle aged Germans all had beaming smiles on their faces as we huddled together waiting for the jeeps to pass.

They did, silently, and no one tried to touch or grab them. They just stood reverentially with heads semi-bowed and hands in Anjali mudra. After the Sacred SUVs were well up the hill, on their way to HH's residence some 7 kms away in Siddhbari, we turned our attention to steaming spinach momos and butter tea from the sidewalk stalls. These are people who've lost everything, their country, their sacred relics, their political and cultural autonomy, and yet they don't feel the need to push or compete for one of the only things left to them. Maybe all kinds of stupid competition and pettiness goes on behind the scenes, but there's none of the public grabbiness I've become accustomed to.

My friend The Wizard described the Tibetan monks as "a military outfit from outer space." So disciplined, so well organized, so one-pointed - as though they had come down from their home planet, the Planet Dharma, to promote peace on earth and the welfare of all sentient beings. The more I look at the Amaravati, Boudha and Sanchi stupas, the more they resemble spaceships. The mandalas are maps of their galaxy.

They had to come to India - it's the birthplace of the Dharma. They came to bring it back.
When they go, will they take me with them? I want to go where they're going.

The rain turns to a hailstorm as old Tibetan ladies and monks scurry for high ground, grinning all the way as though getting caught in heavy precipitation is a fun game. Ice pellets drum on the blue tarps overhead.

The salty buttered tea blends well with the taste of my tears.

Phayul's interview with the Dalai Lama

from Phayul Tibetan News, October 2005.

Question: What are your thoughts on the Iraq War?

The Dalai Lama: When September 11 happened, the next day I wrote a letter to President Bush as a friend—because I know him personally. I wrote this letter and expressed, besides my condolences and sadness, a countermeasure to this tragedy: a nonviolent response because that would have been more effective. So this is my stance. And then just before the Iraq crisis started, millions of people from countries like Australia and America expressed their opposition to violence. I really admired and appreciated this.

When the war started, some people immediately asked me if it was justified or not, whether it was right or wrong. In principle, any resort to violence is wrong.

read the full interview here.

Paint it black

Holiday in Karbala
New Delhi

During my recent luxrious entrapment in the suburbs of Delhi, I did manage one afternoon of urban freedom in order to see Jantar Mantar, the 17th century open-air observatory, which made for some very cool photos. On the way I saw some real live naked Jain saints marching down MG Road. There are 2 main schools of Jainism, the Swetambar (white-clad) and Digambar (sky-clad) and this procession featured both. I was disappointed that the only Digambar seem to be wrinkly old men carrying peacock feather fans. (Where are all the young, good-looking naked Jain saints?) All the ladies were swathed in white. They continued on their non-violent way toward a Jain temple in Green Park neighborhood.

Coming out of Jantar Mantar at around 6.30 I got the opposite end of the spectrum of religious observance. There was a noisy procession down Janpath, with marchers, banners and truckbeds full of participants. I asked the policeman, and it turned out to be a parade of Shi'a Muslims. It was the final day of Moharram (commemoration of a Shia martyr, Hossain, in Karbala, Iraq some 1500 years ago) and they were all headed for the Dargah in order to whip themselves bloody with knives. How could I possibly resist? So I jumped into the back of a truck, making sure it was one carrying women and children, and rode with them to the Dargah.

How to describe the difference between Hindu and Muslim India? first of all, you realize, something is missing. The colour. Everyone is wearing black. It's like a black and white movie of Hindu India, or like The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy is still in Kansas. Everything is kind of a pale reflection. The flowers in the place of worship are dried up, the tableaux are drab colours, and even the prasad is dry and flavourless, like they can't allow themselves to enjoy anything. There seems to be little rejoicing (all their holidays are about celebrating someone's martyrdom - they even re-enact the funerals, carry in the coffin and so on).

What else is missing? The women. Sure, traditional Hindu women don't exactly live a liberated lifestyle but their exuberant beauty is there, peeping out at you from beneath heavy jewellry or little peeks between the sari folds and blouses; shy smiles, long luxurious braids and tinkling bangles. And they can express themselves with colour, and flowers in their hair. Muslim women do have a certain elegant dignity in their black burquas. But...something is missing. Like, their hair, their bodies and their faces. (I know that in Malaysia the Muslim women wear colourful burqas.)

I visited the Purdah house along with my new friend Fatima, a physics lecturer at Jamiah Millaid University here in Delhi. Fatima brought along her 2 children, Maryam and 6 month old infant Ibrahim, and their elderly maid who was looking after Ibrahim. Fatima's husband Abbas is a merchant of hiking and sporting gear; he sells things like parasails for adventure sports. Upon finding that I was from the US, Abbas assured me that Shias, unlike Sunnis, do not believe in Jihad, or as he put it, Jihad is only with the tongue and the pen, not with the sword. I would like to know more about this particular aspect. They were surprised that I had heard of Sunni and Shi'as and the 2 different caliphs. I told them that not only had I learned of it in Asian history class, but it's all in the news now.

Purdah house is where all the women go to hang out with each other and the kids, and get away from the men. Strangely there were a couple men in the purdah house and I wondered why they were the exception. (they didnj't look like eunuchs!) There was a big padded mat on the floor where everyone just rolled around with their kids chatting. One of the only English expressions I understood was "short skirt!" with definite disapproval. I asked if they were discussing their kids' school uniforms. No, they said, they were just disapproving of the general clothes girls wore these days in public.

It turned out Fatima's girl Maryam goes to Jesus and Mary Convent school along with some of the other Muslim kids. "Convent educated" has long been a synonym for well-educated here in India, but I wondered how this worked as Muslims. The Muslim and other non Christian kids are not required to do Bible studies or prayer there; when it's scripture study time instead they get a general "moral training" class.

Also missing are the lively visuals. Most of India (not just Hindu but Christian, Buddhist, Sikh etc) is just dripping with iconography, flowers, and all manner of doo dads. All this was missing from the cars, rooms, and places of worship I saw. but it didn't feel austere and elegant in a minimalist sense, but like...something is missing. It's missing the usual feeling of celebration, festivity and general life-enhancing energy that Asian festivals normally have.

There were at least 100,000 people there, every single one (with 2 or 3 very visible exceptions) dressed fully in black. People were gathered in the courtyard as a preacher screamed a sermon through a loudspeaker (and I mean, he was yelling himself hoarse constantly, for at least an hour). A big banner hung outside reading, in English,"We know that US forces are behind destruction of the Iraqi shrine." I was genuinely curious about this because I don't put it past my govt. to do such things. Another banner read "live like Hossain, die like Ali." I realized this was what the little kids in the truck had been yelling to passersby in Arabic (or maybe in Urdu). it seemed like a weird thing for little girls and boys to enjoy yelling. They were yelling it the same way we would yell "Hixson, Hixson!" on the way to our high school football games.

Whip It Good
When the screaming preacher finally stopped (maybe from laryngitis) the funeral of Hossain was reenacted, with men carrying a mock coffin draped in black with gold decor into the Dargah itself where it was lain in state just like a normal funeral. Then the chest-beating began. At first I thought it was drumming, the beating was so loud and consistent. It was the men beating their left chest with their right fists in unison. Once they set up a rhythm they began chanting to it. The chanting was not necessarily mournful sounding, but more military.

Then the women began ritual weeping for the martyr's death (they also performed a modified chest beating). I felt kind of guilty just being there to observe them, sort of like going to a funeral for someone you don't know and ogling everyone's grief, so I covered my head with my dupatta and tried to look depressed and sorrowful.

One lady seated next to me on the crowded marble steps explained a few things to me in English. Then the younger men came out of the inner dargah and into the courtyard (because blood can't be shed in the building itself), took off their shirts and started whipping themselves with the knives on chains. I got some video of this and at one point my hands and camera were coverd in blood splatters - it was that bloody. Blood was flying! The woman explained to me, "because we were not there, we now are sharing in his bloodshed. Because his blood was shed now we share in the suffering." Of course this is not unique to Islam, some Christians and Hindus do self-mortification too. The Hindus seem to have a lot more fun with it and I have never seen the Kavadi shed blood (not even when they pierce their tongue with the vel, or ritual spear). Don't know about the Christians....I know they do crucifixion re-enactments in the Philippines, for instance. Maybe one difference is the martyrdom aspect: in the Hindu instances there is no martyrdom to re-enact, they are just offering their energy and effort toward accumulating merit. But what would a crucifixion (or other martyrdom) be without actual bloodshed?

The floor of the white marble courtyard was red with the blood. Some of them whipped their left shoulders while holding the knives with their right hands; others had a more advanced 2-fisted technique whereby they lashed from left to right shoulder. These were no ordinary knives, it was obviously an apparatus made just for this purpose (imagine the thought process, "let's see, we need a good strong handle, and chains just long enough to reach over our shoulders..."). The handle is a sort of wooden grip with four or five chains extending several feet to the curved knives dangling from the other end.

Some of the guys had backsfull of raised scars from years of doing this. Several people explained to me the 'miracle' - that no one ever gets infected and they use no medication or disinfectant the following day. They did rinse it off with water, a guy came around with a hose pipe and another with a water bottle.

I was then invited to go into the dargah and see the coffin. I had to take off my shoes and really, really did not want to walk barefoot through all the fresh blood so I found the one foot-wide pathway that led beyond the blood and tiptoed in.

Inside the dimly lit hall my mind struggled to find comparisons. I realized it was like nothing so much as a funeral parlour - which, basically, it is. Low lighting, weird smell of dead flowers, grimy offerings, people in black weeping and a coffin people touched lovingly at one end. Some women had hymnbooks and began chanting in small groups toward the door. Really, I was almost surprised they didn't completely re-enact the martyrdom and choose one lucky fellow to be the new Hossain, be slain and have the honour of lying in the coffin.

I was very glad to have experienced this phenomenon but somewhat glad when it was over. Again, unlike any other religious celebration I've been to (and you knoooowwww I've damn-near seen it all, from Southern Baptist dunkings to the Tamil Nadu Hindus piercing their skin with hooks) - the vibe was not welcoming, though no one was rude to me at all. Next time I would wear a burqa, because no one would be able to differentiate me then till I open my mouth.

After three years in Asia, you somehow develop a radar for isolating English speakers.My radar led me to Ali, a tall young man in mod clothes with the Nordic features and hazel eyes of a Kashmiri. Bingo - he turned out to be a Kashimiri student here learning engineering. Ali spoke English well and guided me to the nearest payphone so I could call my worried Indian chaperones (note: there is no other sort of Indian chaperone. They come in 2 speeds - worried and hysterically melodramatic), but we were delayed by Ali's stopping to flirt with one young lady in a black and white bandhani print headscarf (after a very discreet chat, which was mostly nuanced eye contact, he slipped her his phone number). I had to admit that despite the headscarf you could see this young lady was a real looker - tall and slim with razorsharp cheekbones. In fact the headscarf gave her a bit of mystique. So behind all the ritualized mourning, everyone is socializing and flirting as at any community function.

The Martaam (self flagellation) continued outside the mosque with groups of men proceeding down the street lashing themselves in a frenzy, then stopping for a breather after a minute or 2. Then they'd move on and start up again.

Good Grief
In a way, Moharram was just another version of the classic Indian guilt trip. I (and a number of foreign fellow travellers) am still wondering what is derived from this game, which awaited me upon return from my field work ("where were you?" or better yet, "I was waiting for you," which has become a humourous refrain in the foreign community). Multicultural certainly, but nothing we can't get from any Jewish mother worth her matzohs. I did get the feeling my host would have felt justified in lashing me (or my lashing myself) with knives and chains in retaltiation for the unforgiveable sin of not planning my every move a day in advance. I got away with 48 hours of the silent treatment, which, by that time, was fine with me.

The most fun was really drinking rum with Uncle Jeet and watching the news every night. Uncle Jeet is a 65-year-old retired Indian Air Force navigator. Recently widowed, he says "time hangs on" him unless he keeps busy by driving his baby-blue 1960 Austin Minor to the golf course ever day for a few rounds with his ex-military buddies. Then he comes home and naps till it's time for the news. From 7pm till 11pm (dinner time) we drank Ballantine's XXX Rum cocktails and made cynical comments about BBC, CNN-IBN, NDTV and Travel & Lifestyle channel. I loved it.

Hello Little Egypt!

Welcome to my first Egyptian viewer. I don't even know how they found me. But according to the SiteMeter, they read for 30 minutes and even went into archives. Sorry, all those childhood years of National Geographic magazine (back before we had cable TV like you whippersnappers) made a definite impression on me.

Egypt, cooool!!!