Third trimester: Arrived in India (Part 1)

Lord Ganesha at the Gate

I've been in India for about three weeks now. It took time to adjust. Now I'm going to try and write... Let's see what happens!

I don't know exactly why this one is in English, but I don't need to know. This much I'm figuring out. This is actually what this trip has taught me. I realize it's what I've wanted to learn. Not knowing is okay.

Case in point.  Last night I went to my first ''Butoh jam'' at the Subbody School - there where I've been taking daily classes for the past 3 weeks. I didn't know what a Butoh jam was, but I assumed it was similar to what we do everyday: dancing the question mark. 
Got there first.  Hmm.  Laid down on the wooden floor, since I've come to discover that this - a wooden floor - might be my favorite place to be. There, I observed my breath, my limbs resting on the ground, my desire to move. And as I've been doing daily for the past 3 weeks, I listened to the fine line between will and impulse. What are my patterns of movement? How can I open up a new relationship with my body? Moving not from the limbs but from the spine, sacrum or cervical bone, like an ocean wave or a breath, listening to the necessary transformation created by any movement or impulse, I slowly began to dance...

More people started to show up and sat around the studio. New faces - expats or tourists from up the hill I suppose. I had made my way from the periphery to the center of the room, gently stretching and moving to the watery qualia - defined by my teacher, Rhizome Lee, as ''anything Life feels'' - I got from the music. After a while, a classmate actually invited everyone to dance, because there were only few of us on the floor. Some guy said, ''It's just not really what I expected from the invitation I got.'' I was next to him so I answered: 
''It's my first time too. I don't actually know what I'm doing.'' 
''But you look like you're a professional'', he said. 
Ego flattered, I confess, though most naturally I answered:
''A professional not-knower of what I'm doing, maybe!'' And that was it. I had put words to what's been going on.

Tibetan prayer flags in Upper Bhagsu. Helps us see the wind.

Because everyday my monkey-mind leads me to the future with its clichés: What will you do after this is all over? How will you make a living? How can you continue healing yourself and shaping a life with enough freedom to attend to your life force? How will it all be received back home? Where is home? And on and on...

These thoughts are natural and are probably never going to stop popping up. Of course life needs a bit of planning and intention. But this need for security cannot become so constricting that I need to ingest anxiety meds everyday. The future is undetermined. That's the beauty of it. 

Friendly reminder

Coming to India has put me through an interesting emotional curve.

 As one would expect, the arrival in Delhi - in the middle of the night - was unsettling. But I had preemptively organized everything: I had a private taxi-driver pick me up at the airport. He would prove his identity with a special password, and bring me straight to my hostel. Well, I shouldn't say ''straight'', because nobody drives straight in India!

Arrived in Paharganj neighborhood, I found out my hostel hid in some smelly alley off the main bazar. Lots of stray dogs. My first sacred cow. Everything was dusty, smelly, trashy.

Main bazar, Paharganj, Delhi

Next morning, jet-lagged, I went out for a stroll in the bazar to start soaking in the ambiance. Too much for the eyes and brain to take in. A lot for the ears. Watch out where you step. No, I don't want to buy this, thank you. The men husteling and bustling; women keeping to themselves. I found that I could only go out for short amounts of time before returning for short breaks in my room to rest.

3 days to spend in Delhi. I rode in tuk-tuks, took the metro, visited the Lotus Temple, and bought a few small things. I got totally ripped off by a nicely-knit, multiple-person scheme that took me from the bazar to some fake (?) governmental tourist office to a shop where they charged me triple the price of a salwar kameez - indian long shirt with pants and scarf. Oh well! A relatively painless initiatory experience after all.

I then took the train heading to Pathankot, which is about 2-3 hours from Dharamsala. Nervous about morning traffic and finding my way around Old Delhi's Station, I arrived there 2 hours early. Had some chaï, sat outside with my book in front of the departure board. 20 minutes before my departure time, I went inside the station and stood in front of the board there. But something was strange : my train was not showing. When I asked a girl about it she said I could go ask for information outside. Adrenalin suddenly rising up, I grabbed by backpack and went back outside. A swarm of men were trying to talk to the inquiry person. Then luckily I noticed a white board with hand-writing on it : train numbers... platform... my train! Platform 20! Run!

Just like in the movies I ran and up the stairs I saw my train starting to move forward. 
Run! Run! Grabbed the handle of the last wagon and climbed on it in extremis. Thank Shiva!  Though it wasn't the wagon I had reserved online, at least I had made it.

I gathered myself and looked around: people were sitting on the floor, a sikh man with a boy, a shoeless hindu monk, some kids with their mom in the corner. I felt I was taking up a lot of space with my big bags and my white skin. When I walked to the door to go through to the next wagon, I found it only led to the ... how do you call those sqatty latrine-type holes in the floor? Stopped breathing for a split-second before I chose to accept and enjoy. So I put my rucksack down and sat on it, my back against the thin wall of that shitty stall, and did like those men were doing: enjoy the wind on my face as I stared out at the landscape passing before our eyes through the open door. 

We arrived in Pathankot an hour and 30 minutes late. I was starting to feel queezy inside and hoped there would be cabs available to drive me to Dharamsala after dark.

I might have paid more than needed, but my driver, Munna, turned out to be very sweet. My stomach, on the other hand, was not giving such a pleasing sensation. I was getting increasingly uncomfortable and I was very tired. We were but a few curvy kilometers away when I urgently asked Munna to pull over : hello food poisoning. I shall spare you the details of what happened next. Let's just say that for the next few days, I always knew where I could find the bathroom.

I thereby had my first experience of turista, or as it is called in these parts of the world: delhi belly. With unpredictable bowels for only company, abandoned by my usually faithful appetite, I found my arrival in this new environment difficult. I thank my girlfriend who helped me through it diligently and patiently, connecting to video chat with me several times a day. Even though I knew it would pass, I needed someone I could cry in front of.

And the people I spoke to were nice too. They had empathy and advice for me: eat some papaya seeds, bananas, rice... and if I was still sick after 6-7 days, I should probably go get tested to put a name on this intestinal invader and get the right antibiotic. So I did that... and abracadabra! 
What I've learned in this : my friends, if it ever happens to you, getting tested is so worth it! 

This again is becoming a looooong blog post.  So why don't I leave it at this and let you go to the next post for another piece of adventure? 

For Part2, click here!