Photo Finish

Jet lag owns me at the moment.  It can take me down anytime it pleases and keep me asleep for as little or as long as it likes.  My soul and body are finding it hard to be completely in Seattle, though they are no longer in India, as well.  I seem to exist in two realms, and if I had to name those realms they would simply be "Awake" and "Asleep."

I've been forced to do stuff today.  Responsible stuff like dealing with the bank and getting my car and it's dead engine towed.  The last two boxes that I shipped from India arrived and I unpacked them and felt like, "This is it.  I'm all here.  All arrived.  My adventure is over.  Tied up. Concluded.  The End."  I left everything out on tables for the day, though, so that I can process longer, leave the door ajar till I'm ready to close it for good and all.

I've also been uploading all my photos....or at least a grand amount of them.  There are still some areas that might be flushed out a little more when I have the energy to sort through the thousands of pictures I took.  As it is, I'm afraid, should you choose to peruse, you might also find yourself hunting a bit for the gems.  I don't have it in me to go through and label who is who and all, just now.  But if you've been following along, I suspect it might be a little like a scavenger hunt and you might just be able to put names to faces and illustrations to events.

So, I'm just gonna make a list of links here to galleries.  I hope you enjoy them.  I don't know if this is the last chapter, or just the last one for a few days, a week, what have you.  But I am giving myself permission to step away and linger in the moments of reconnection here in Seattle.

Once again, your company has been invaluable.  Each comment and private message sent has been cherished and made each step of this journey more rich.  So, thank you, thank you, thank you!

Now...The pictures:

Mumbai

Fort Cochin

Keralan Hill Stations

Lucky and Lakshmi

The Backwaters

Santiniketan

Hindu Village

Holi

Darjeeling

Varanasi

Jaipur and Agra (The Taj Mahal)

Leaving Home

Sunday

I'm just finishing up my last full day here in Fort Cochin, my last full day in Southern India.  Tomorrow I head up to Kolkata, for less than 12 hours, then I'll settle 2 hours farther north in Santiniketan, a little town that centers around a University founded by India's Nobel Prize winning poet, Radindranath Tagore.

A poetry fiend, I'd like to say that I'd heard of Tagore before last week, but I'd be lying if I said as much.  When Eva and Barbara, the two German ladies I met at Leelu's on my previous stay here, told me about Tagore and I said, "who?" they just about melted from shock.  Apparently he's big news.

Eva has been volunteering at a grade school in Santiniketan for several years.  She fell in love with it her first time there so she went home to Germany and started a non-profit to support the students' educations.  They have an emphasis on storytelling in that part of the world, it being Tagore country, and when I said that I was a storyteller (aren't actors and writers storytellers?), Eva lit up and said, "You should come with us!"

I'd had no intention of going anywhere near Kolkata, but something clicked and I knew I wanted to go and should go.  The fact that everything fell so easily into place, just makes it more synchronistic.  I'm not sure what I'll be doing there, but the volunteer coordinator has been emailing me about workshops for teachers and kids from several different schools.  I guess I'll have to come up with something when I get there.

I'm rather melancholy about leaving the South.  I've come to feel quite at home here.  Happy and settled. It feels like I've been here a lifetime.  I walk down the street in Fort Cochin and tuk's no longer hound me, shopkeepers say hello to me as if I'm an old friend, even the ones I haven't bought anything from.  One young waiter from the restaurant I ate in my first night in Fort Cochin stopped me on the street tonight to tell me again how beautiful I looked in my Sari....last week.

"You looked very young.  So young in that sari.  How old are you?"

"41."

"You looked so young, like a young girl.  A girl I like, she wears traditional sari like this that you wore.  It like this very much.  I like her very much.  But another boy also likes her."

"Oh.  That's bad."

"Yes.  Very bad."

Last night I watched the birds at sunset from Leelu's roof.  I think the yoga must have grounded me even more than I realized because the birds were flying so close I thought they might think I was a tree and land on me.  Eagles and kites soared feet above my head, bright yellow and green swallow-like birds called Blue-Tailed Bee-Eaters zipped and zoomed and dove and stopped short right in front of my face.  It was spectacular.

Tonight, after doing yoga on my own, I went to see my last Arabian Sea sunset, well, my last for the foreseeable future.

I watched Jeleel, a street artist, put up his weekly masterpieces.

Walking the Fort Cochin boardwalk on a busy evening has become a sort of litmus test.  The first time stressed me out, the second time I was wearing my Indian clothes and noticing the difference, this third time I could just stroll.  I was simply me, sometimes a little awkward, often smiling too much, especially when an Indian woman or child would smile at me.  I had a conversation with one little girl.

"Hello," I said.

"Hello.  How are you?" she replied.

"I am fine.  How are you?"

"I am fine."

"Have a nice evening."

"Have a nice evening.  Ok."

"Ok."

It's like manna from Heaven these interactions.  What the simple words cannot convey is the glow that emanated from that little girl's face.  Or the pride her mother showed for her bold, English speaking daughter.

I sometimes wonder what it is they see when they talk to me, or any of the tourists that they choose to practice their English on.  Unlike the street vendors and Tuk's who so often see travelers as walking dollar signs, the children rarely want anything from a conversation other than to make a connection, or maybe a pen.  Does it mean anything to them at the end of the day?  Will they remember the funny American lady who took their picture?  Or is it just me who finds their friendliness priceless.

I realized as I sat on the beach wall that I no longer saw all the trash, only the people and the water and the sun dipping into the sea.  Maybe that's why it's so hard for the Indian's to care about the garbage, they are mesmerized by the beauty of each other.

After dinner I strolled home down Princess Street, the main drag of Fort Cochin.  All the signs were lit up lending a festive atmosphere to the evening.  It was a fairly quiet Sunday night.  I stopped to sit and chat with Majeed, a shop guy I'd made friends with.

"You are going North?" Majeed Asks.

"Yes."

"You must come see me at my house in Kashmir.  I will be there at the end of the season."

"You are from Kashmir?"

Astonished: "OF COURSE.  Can't you tell?"

"How would I know you are from Kashmir?"

"Look at my face."  He takes off his glasses.  He looks only slightly less South Indian this way.  But when I look closer, I can see that the shape of his face is different, rounder, softer.  His eyes are lighter.  Maybe this is how a Kashmiri is different from a Keralite.

"I don't think it's safe for me to go to Kashmir."

"Paw.  Of course it's safe.  You come straight to my house.  You stay in my house.  One week.  Two week.  Safe."

Hmmmm.  Safe from other Kashmiris....from Majeed, I'm not sure.

Majeed is actually very sweet, thoughtful. By his own admission he is not very educated ("Only grade nine.)  But he is interested in the people who come to visit.  He asks questions.  He's learned a little bit of French, Italian, German, and quite a bit of English.  He makes jewelry to pass the time in his shop.  It's quite good.  I'd guess he's about 32.  He was very interested in my marital status and asked me what I was looking for in a man.

"The right man."

"Yes. But when God puts a man next to you it is for Him to know if it is the right man."

"Hmmm."

"Do you think it takes a long time to know."

"I think it takes a long time to get to know someone."

"But it does not take a long time to know.  Only God has to Know.  I think it can happen very quickly."

While we talked, one of the hundreds of stray dogs announced himself by leaning on my leg.  He then laid down on my foot and went to sleep.  I was officially one of the Fort Cochin pack.

Monday Morning

Its becoming quite customary for me to get up at the crack of dawn.  Pre-crack, really.  So, today I thought I'd see what the sea wall was like at sunrise.  I'd been told there might be dolphins playing off shore, but there weren't.  Instead the seawall was populated with lots of men doing yoga, running, or swimming.  A few women were also taking their morning constitutional.

Several folks offered their "Good Mornings."  The day felt clean and fresh.  Men asked me where I was from and if I liked photography, which is kind of a silly question to ask someone snapping photographs.  Their smiles were somehow more open and friendly than the smiles of men in the evening-time.  Maybe it's because their wives were not with them, though I felt nothing shady or inappropriate was going on.

I ran into Barbara, one of the the ladies I'll be working with up North.  She was taking a brisk walk before heading to the airport.  It was comforting to know that there will be people I know waiting for me when I land in Calcutta.  Calcutta seems particularly daunting.  I know I switched spellings there.  It's very Indian, I think, to be torn about the spellings of places.  Most Indians still call Mumbai "Bombay".   

So many people have told me that the North of India is going to be drastically different than the South, harsher, faster, ruder.  I feel remarkably calm about the transition, tho.

Leaving Kerala feels a lot like leaving Mathew's.  The morning I left the hills, Mathew, Ash, Katie and Mathew's friend Thea who'd arrived from Denmark, all came outside to wave me off.  We'd enjoyed our last meal together, laughing and snapping photos.  

Mathew, Thea, Ash and Katie

I haven't said much about Ash and Katie, but they were rather wonderful.  Unlike some couples, they fit perfectly.  They were funny in a way I find hard to translate here, so I haven't even tried.  They were also immensely kind and warm and had deep pools of compassion.  Thea was pretty darn nifty, too, a searcher, like me.  Dr. Kumar would definitely peg her as "Peculiar".  In a way, that table of folks felt like my tribe.  I'd found my India tribe which was astounding and comfortable and grounding.  Yet, I had to move onto Fort Cochin and the sea.  It was time.  But I think once you find members of your tribe, they are always members of your tribe.  We are all stronger now for the discovery of each other.

Like I had to leave my tribe, I have to move onto the north.  Kerala has become like a home to me, and now that I know it is here, I can move away from it, enriched and strengthened by it's existence.

I can always come back.

Getting Lucky

After we struck out with the wild elephants, Ash, Katie and I set off for a restorative lunch followed by a trip to see some domesticated elephants at Lord's Elephant Park.

I didn't know what an elephant park would be like.  Turns out it is a clearing in some woods where elephants are kept for tourists to interact with.  After not seeing any wild elephants, we just about jumped out of the moving car when we drove up to a clearing and there were three elephants just hanging out, calm as could be.  We stumbled up to the ticket hut, gawking and marvelling at the sheer size of the beauties.  It was hard not to wonder what it would have been like to actually see elephants in the jungle, unsupervised, perhaps easily spooked.  It might just have been a good thing that we weren't lucky enough to see them.

Elephants are huge.  I know you all know this.  You've seen elephants at the zoo and the circus, I know.  But seriously, I need you to understand that up close and personal elephants are GINORMOUS, HUGANTIC, MASSIVELY MASSERIFIC.  And they were right there waiting for us.

But first we had to decide how we wanted to interact with the elephants and pay the corresponding fee.  Turns out its kind of expensive to hang out with an elephant.  Maybe Gigi, our trekking guide at Periyar Tiger Sanctuary that morning and Lord's Elephant Park have a deal.....she takes tourists out to look for elephants in the wild, getting them good and hungry for some elephant hang time, then she deliberately steers clear of the behemoths so that the elephant-deprived tourists will fork out any amount of money just to be near one.

I don't care.

I was about to meet my first elephant.  After looking over the elephant play-date menu, Ash and Katie went for the hour long program where-in they would bathe an elephant, watch the elephant pull logs and follow commands, then finish up with an elephant showering them.  I went for all that PLUS I wanted a ride on my elephant, for a full hour.

Now, all the elephants at the park had heavy sorts of blankets on them with bars for setting your feet on and other bars for holding onto.  I was having none of that.  I told the park people, "If I'm gonna shell out this kind of dough for an elephant ride, I'd gonna ride that elephant like God intended."  And I insisted that they take off the blanket.  I was told later that very few people request to ride the elephant bare back.  I'm not sure who's smarter, them or me.  Knowing what I know now, it could be a toss-up.

Ash and Katie went off for their adventure and I was led to a stairway that climbed to a platform that put me at the right height to climb on the back of my elephant.

I waited with baited breath.  Soon, the most massively massive of the three beasts at the park was guided up beside me.

I bent down to look him in the eye.  I wanted to meet him properly if he was gonna carry me around for the next hour.  

He had a beautiful eye.  He had two actually, but when you are right next to the head of an elephant in profile, you can only see one eye.  "Hi", I said.  I mean really, what else could I say.

"What's his name?"  I asked Park Boy, the young kid who'd brought me to the platform.

"Lucky."

"Lucky?  Really?"

"Yes."

Gigi upon entering the jungle had said, "If you are lucky, you will see wild animals."

Here I was, getting Lucky.  Lucky wasn't wild.  But he was good enough for me!

Without ceremony, I was told to take my chapels (sandals) off and climb aboard.  I aimed for Lucky's front shoulders.  For anyone who has ever ridden a horse, but not an elephant, imagine trying to straddle two and a half horses at the same time and you would almost have the right width of an elephant.  As soon as I was on Lucky's back, I was told to scoot up, closer to the neck.  Around his neck, Lucky had a rope.  I was told to hold onto that rope for balance.  Lucky's Mahout, or trainer, would walk beside us in case there were any problem and to tell Lucky where to go.  That was only slightly reassuring.  If I were to lose my balance, the ground was almost a story below me and the mahout wasn't gonna be able to catch me.

I patted Lucky on the head and told him I trusted him.  His skin was rough and populated with several long course hairs, but wonderful to feel, none-the-less.  I could also feel his skin with my feet and, obviously, sitting right on top, I was aware of all of the movements of his front legs.

Lucky was very gentle with me.  He plodded along, maneuvering with grace and ease around pothole size foot-prints left on past excursions down the elephant trail.  I found that as long as we were on even ground or moving up hill I could hold onto the rope with one hand and pet Lucky with the other hand.  If we went down-hill I had to hold onto the rope very tightly while I ever so slightly held my breath hoping I wouldn't fall off.  This took a lot of core strength and I thanked my lucky stars and Matthew for the yoga lessons.

It was absolutely thrilling walking with Lucky.  Beyond compare.  I've loved elephants since I was teeny tiny.  I have all sorts of elephant trinkets around my house.  And there I was ON AN ELEPHANT.  An elephant named LUCKY.  Come on.  Forget about it.  I was over the moon.

Lucky was a great teacher of No Motion.  He moved so slowly, so deliberately.  I was immensely grateful.   Like Lucky, I had to move slowly and deliberately to shift my focus up or left or right or forward.

Since the ride was a whole hour, I had enough time to get over the shock of being ON AN ELEPHANT that I was able to start really taking the experience in.  I was eventually able to sit up straight, relaxing into Lucky's back, and to look around.  The view from the top of an elephant is pretty darn great.  I was at bird's eye view.  All sorts of parrots and exotic birds whizzed past my head.  I was astounded to find myself comfortable enough on Lucky to be able to watch the surroundings with clarity.

Twice Lucky had to stop to relieve himself.  It wasn't as bad as it sounds.  Sitting on top of an elephants shoulders actually put me at quite a distance from the, ummm, shall we say, smelly end of the elephant.

I was happy for the brief intermissions in walking.  Apparently, elephants have to stand still to go potty.  While Lucky took care of business I just sat without needing to constantly balance.  Lucky would flap his giant ears and sometimes the sunlight would hit them in just the right way and the red freckles on his ears would glow.  In the stillness I was also able to turn around and see his tail swish.  When he would finish, he'd raise his trunk up and I could see it crest the top of his head for a few brief seconds.  Awesome.

Only once did Lucky scare me.  Towards the end of our ride, Lucky got hungry and started to veer off the path and down a rather steep hill.  I thought I was about to tumble head first into the moving path of a hungry elephant.  But the mahout corrected course and we headed back to homebase without bodily injury.  This resulted in much patting of Lucky's head on my part and me saying, "Thank you Lucky, thank you thank you thank you!"

When we returned, pictures were taken.

Then I climbed off of Lucky, bent down and kissed him on the top of his head.  Through the slight gap between his shoulder and the platform, Lucky reached up with is trunk.  I instinctively put my hand down to shake it.  He wrapped his trunk around my arm and pulled down just hard enough to startle me a little.  He let go and I realized that I'd been hugged by an elephant.

Next I got to feed cucumbers to Lucky.  I came down and stood on the ground.  I didn't know where to put the food.  I thought maybe I would put them to his trunk and he would grab them, but no.  I put them right into his mouth.  Between cucumbers, Lucky would put his trunk down and I would pat him on the head, then he'd put his trunk up and I'd feed him again.  When he was done eating, I stood there with him waiting to go for a bath.  I put my forehead to his forehead and we just communed.

Suddenly, Lucky was being led away from me and I was being told to go in another direction.  I was not going to bathe Lucky, but Lakshmi, the elephant Ash and Katie had just bathed and played with.  I was really upset.  I wanted to wash Lucky, to thank him for giving me the ride of a lifetime.  But they said I couldn't. 

"At least let me say goodbye to him then!"

I was led over to Lucky's bed where they were putting his blanket back on him.  He'd sat down, so I was able to easily get face to face with him.  I just started thanking him over and over again and kissing him on his forehead.  I was a little afraid that I might cry.  His mahout told me that one man from England had ridden an elephant at Lord's Elephant Park and the man had fallen so in love with the Elephant that he bought him on the spot and had him shipped back to England.

"I'm sorry Lucky.  I don't have a house big enough for you back home.  But I love you that much anyway."

It's heartbreaking to leave an elephant.

But Lakshmi tended my broken heart and fluttered her very long eyelashes at me and let me know that all would be well.

As promised, she did tricks and pulled logs and did whatever her mahout told her to do.  

Park Boy narrated for me, "Now I have to tell you this, this elephant knows 77 different words.  It's true what I'm telling you.  The mahout does not speak these commands.  He will climb up on that elephant.  You don't know how he will climb up.  Your friends, they know this secret.  But you don't.  The mahout will climb up and he will tell this elephant what to do with just his feet."

The mahout stepped on Lakshmi's front foot, she lifted her foot and he climbed up onto her back.

"Now I know the secret of how he gets up on the elephant."

"Yes.  But soon you will get washed by the elephant.  Your friends did not climb on the elephant.  But I think this will not be true for you. I think you will climb on the elephant.  Then you will be very wet."

When Lakshmi had finished showing off her skills with the log, the mahout brought her over to the bathing spot.  He gave the command for her to lie down.  She lifted one of her rear feet and kind of dangled it, but she didn't appear to be interested in following orders.

Ash said, "I think she's tired of having baths.  We just gave her one."

Park Boy said, "She is being a little mischievous."  I must have looked worried because he added, "when she goes to work she will work, she will no longer be mischievous."

After several minutes of letting us all know who was really boss, Lakshmi decided to play nice and she laid down on her left side.  The mahout started pouring buckets of water on her.  Park Boy put a scrub brush in my hand and I started scrubbing.  Lakshmi started to make happy noises.  I think Lakshmi was just playing hard to get, cuz she seemed pretty okay with having her second bath of the day.

Katie said, "You're gonna be there a long time."

I had to scrub that elephant's ears, trunk, right side, rump.  When I was done with her right side, the mahout had Lakshmi sit up so that I could do a bit of her left side.

When I was done cleaning Lakshmi it was my turn for a bath.  Park Boy was not wrong.  I climbed right up on Lakshmi's back, elephant riding style.  The mahout had filled a large tub of water.  Lakshmi took a big gulp, raised her trunk, and shot the water over her head and all over me.  I was drenched.  I was also laughing so hard I could barely breath.  Lakshmi went for more water.  Five, six, seven times...I lost count.  Each time she sprayed me, I just squealed with laughter.  I was soaked to the bone.  My modest Indian dress was clinging to my body.  Ash and Katie were snapping photos and laughing at me.

I was in Heaven.

When the shower was over I leaned forward and gave Lakshmi a big hug.  I'd always wanted to lie down on top of an elephant and give one a hug.  Dreams were coming true left and right.

Park Boy brought me a towel to dry off which was a little bit like bringing a tissue to mop up a geyser.  Every bit of my clothes was sopping wet.  But I didn't care.  Park Boy then made a pass at me which I actually found charming under the circumstances....he was about 17, I smelled like an elephant and looked like a wet rat, well, a wet rat with really nice breasts which happened to be prominently featured in my tight wet clothes.

Driving home, I was on cloud nine.  Who needs wild elephants when you can get Lucky (and Lakshmi) all to yourself?

Trekking

It’s Friday morning and I am sitting on Mathew’s veranda looking out at the trees which have been swaying wildly in the wind for the past 12 hours. The electricity has been out for most of that time. In the middle of the night it was so dark here in the hills of India that when I rearranged my blanket on the bed bright sparks of static electricity would light up the room like sparklers on the Fourth of July.


Yesterday, my day of No Motion, was actually full of movement. I ventured further up into the hills with a British couple, Katie and Ash, who are now also staying at Mathew’s. We went Trekking in the Periyar Tiger Reserve hoping to see wild elephants. As there are only 36 tigers left in the area, we were pretty sure they were gonna stay hidden.

Our guide was a lovely woman named Gigi. Gigi is about 35, tallish, slender, with the perfect posture that so many Indian women have. She walked softly and with a quiet strength that I imagine all good animal trackers have. She listened actively and I knew that she was prepared for anything that might happen.

We started our journey in a little tribal village where folks still live in houses made out of thatch. They speak their own tribal language and even to this non-Indian, they seemed extra exotic, with faces that spoke of generations stretching back to the beginning of time.

When we had reached the jungle, Gigi said, “These roads are not manmade. Only elephant and bison make these trails. If you are lucky you will see animals.” She said this last bit, the bit about being lucky, with a little added twinkle in her eye. I don’t know what she meant by her twinkle, but I interpreted it as meaning, “Can you handle the next three hours of jungle walking with the possibility that you won’t see any animals?”

You wouldn’t believe how narrow the trails were. It was very difficult to imagine that mighty giant elephants navigated through walkways no wider than a foot. But they’d left plenty of evidence to prove Gigi right; elephants had walked where we were walking.

If you are ever going through a spell where you are struggling to stay in the moment, I highly recommend tracking elephants, well, tracking anything would probably work. But if you are nuts for elephants the way I am nuts about elephants, then elephant tracking might be best. Each step was a step closer to discovery, every bend held the anticipation of bliss, but in order to ensure that a sighting had the best possible chance of happening each step had to be executed as quietly and deliberately as possible.

Because Ashe and Katie had a slightly slower pace than I did, I followed pretty closely on Gigi’s heals and I soon became aware of how her breathing and footfalls changed when she sensed an animal might be close by. Gigi would slow; I would slow. Gigi would stop; I would stop. She would listen; I would listen.

Sometimes, Gigi would hang back to make sure Ash and Katie were okay and I would venture a few feet forward on my own. What exhilaration. There I was in the jungles of India, carefully moving through bamboo and bush, listening with every fiber of my being for any indication that a herd of elephants was somewhere close by.

Several times Gigi would stop to whisper that an elephant had been at the spot we were standing two days ago. She’d point out droppings left by baby elephants (BABY elephants!!!). Ash and I both took pictures of the giant elephant print recently left in a puddle. At one bamboo grove, Gigi informed us that only the day before she’d seen 7 elephants feeding there. Obviously, they’d now moved on.

About an hour and a half into our three hour trek, Gigi admitted that it was sort of late in the morning to see any animals, they were all hiding in deep shade to keep out of the heat, she reckoned. I’d begun to suspect as much myself.

But that didn’t ease the sense of anticipation. I silently chanted to my friend Ganesha, hoping he’d create a clearing in the brush so that we could be blessed with an elephant siting, even though it was against the odds.

Suddenly, Gigi got very still, very very still. I stopped. Ash and Gigi stopped

We all listened.

I was looking down the valley into the brush. Gigi was looking up. Slowly she pointed. In a tree, quite a ways away, were two giant squirrels. From our vantage point, they looked, to me, a little like black and yellow panda bears with long tails. The squirrels got wind of us rather quickly and darted off.

Another time, Gigi stopped to point out giant hornbills. These gray birds have huge beaks, like stunted Toucan beaks. They make q bit of a racket, a bit like a kookaburra.

Ash and I stopped when Gigi found a spectacular pair of red bugs, mating.

It was looking like no elephants were going to make an appearance, despite the fact that there was evidence of their existence everywhere we went. So, I let go of the idea that I was going to meet a wild elephant and I just focused on the forest, the vines, the sweeping views of India (INDIA!) that appeared through breaks in the trees. I listened to the wind that would whip up every once in a while, delivering a welcome breeze to cool our increasingly weary and overheated bones. I watched leaves flutter down to the ground, looking and feeling like little missives dropped from the heavens, each saying, “Look at this moment, look how beautiful this moment is, and this, and this, and this.”

Just before we reached the valley floor, all four of us heard what sounded like the movement of a large animal just to our right. We all became very very VERY still, except for the silent smiles and expectant looks we passed around. Gigi moved forward, then went off the trail, taking us, her ducklings, close behind her. The expectation, the hope, was almost unbearable. Surely elephants were only a few feet away.

Gigi stopped. We stopped. She listened. We listened. Slowly it dawned on all of us that there was, in fact…….nothing there.

So…… we kept moving.

Soon we reached the valley floor where the paths opened up into small meadows, encircled by creeks and bamboo. I knew, now, that the elephants were not to be found. We were nearing civilization. Car horns and human voices were drifting closer and closer.

The meadow, though, touched me and offered a sort of satisfaction. I was struck by the uniqueness of that meadow; it was unlike any other, an Indian meadow. After climbing and scrambling and hoping and living in each deliciously agonizing moment of our trek through jungle hillsides, we were being held in the loving embrace of the valley. There was no need to scramble or even to yearn for an elephant siting. All we needed to do was relax.

Walking out of the jungle, I realized that I’d come to a decision about my weekend’s itinerary. I knew that I didn’t actually want, or need, to go to Amma’s. My reasons for going were suddenly blatantly superficial. I wasn’t deeply interested or invested in the spiritual aspects of visiting the ashram; I wanted to go more as an anthropologist, to study it from the outside in and not from the inside out.

Nor did I want to stay at Mathew’s all weekend. Instead, I could see quite clearly that I wanted another day and night at Mathew’s, but then I wanted to go back to Leelu’s, to Fort Cochin, to the sea. I wanted a few days to be on my own, catching up on correspondence, calling my mom and doing yoga by myself and for myself before I head to what I’ve been told is a completely different country, Northern India.

That was the morning of No Motion. Tomorrow I will tell you about the afternoon. When I have wifi and picture uploading ability.

No Motion

I had a teacher in college who told me that going on stage was like flying in a plane, once the curtain goes up, you have no choice but to stick it out to the end. Just like taking off in an airplane, where the captain is in charge, an actor really has very little control, it could be a bumpy ride, it could be a smooth landing, all you can do is be present and aware each minute of the journey.


The same teacher was a great fan of Viola Spolin who created a series of acting exercises called “No Motion.” The object of No Motion was to become aware of every movement and sound that you make in a scene. To do this, we would move and speak so slowly it was if we weren’t moving at all, making sure that every movement was vital and executed deliberately.

No Motion is easier to grasp if you picture a flipbook where someone has drawn a character doing something, let’s say a magician is pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Each page has a minor adjustment in action, dozens of tiny details articulated one by one, a page at a time; when the book is flipped quickly, it looks as if the character has come to life. Detail is key. If our magician is pulling a rabbit out of a hat it isn’t very interesting to look at the first page, magician and hat, and then cut to the last page, Magician, hat, Rabbit with puzzled look on his face. We want the whole story, the how, the why of the puzzled look, we want every nuance colored in and fleshed out.

No Motion is meant to teach actors that if they are completely mindful, they will have no choice but to live each moment of a scene. There’s no chance to take shortcuts, to omit important emotional storytelling elements. The actor is more present and the audience is never left out in the cold wondering how or why the magician pulled the rabbit out of the hat.

No Motion is rather terrifying. It’s scary being on stage and living every moment fully, acknowledging each tenderness, exposing every fault.

Mindfulness Yoga brings up the same awareness, only instead of being able to hide behind a character, it’s my own psyche and vulnerabilities that come to the surface. By focusing on each and every action of the body and breath, a person has no choice but to be present. I have done this kind of yoga before but maybe because I’m in India or because I’m older, this time is different. Instead of being intimidated by the process, I’m really understanding what a gift it is to slow down and complete each moment before moving onto the next.

That said, today has been a little challenging.

Mathew’s home is a sanctuary. I feel like I’m in a cocoon learning to fly differently. Mathew is fast becoming one of my favorite counselors. When I am struggling with something or feeling a little lazy, he invites me to participate more fully rather than berating me for holding back. At meals we have developed a boisterous camaraderie. Inside of a week we have running jokes. When it comes time for yoga, we get still and with each class I get closer to understating what “meditating on the movement” means. In between asanas, we discuss bliss and letting go of the ego. We compare notes on living outside the boundaries of more conventional society. Mathew views me as his teacher while he reminds me to stay present and to observe without judgment and expectation.

On top of that I went back to see Mary Kotti again. She massaged and bathed me. I tried to be present, to feel only her hands carefully wiping away my stress and cares. I was successful about 55% percent of the time. I’m not used to being taken care of and exposed so completely. We humans give that up as adults, that childlike ability to be nurtured and tended to without reservation.

Mathew is trying to get me to stay here in the hills until Monday when I go to Bengal to teach at the school I told you about (Yay!!!). Here’s where the challenge comes in. Instead of staying in the present, I’ve been obsessing on where to go next.

I am scheduled to go to Amma’s ashram on Friday. Mathew thinks Amma is nothing but hype. Like many gurus before her and after her, he feels any spiritual gifts she has have been consumed by her brand. I have been in the same room with Amma and felt genuine spiritual vibrations. I suspect her ashram, even if it is hectic and more of a business than a spiritual center will be a unique, once in a lifetime experience.

On the other hand, if I stay here I will continue to have one on one yoga classes with Mathew, twice a day.

The trees, those wise beings I often look to for guidance, have been sparkling and rustling their leaves all day; it feels like they are trying to get my attention. Maybe they are telling me to root myself where I stand, to trust that there is great strength in learning to be still and quiet. Maybe I don’t need to go immerse myself in Amma’s pageantry to find my center, to be connected to spirit. As Mathew would say, “Bliss is found within. If you connect to your true self, the self that is pure consciousness without judgment or expectation, you will be happy. From that place you will be able to truly connect and to have deeper relationships, relationships with synthesis.”

But I must admit that I’m inclined to go to Amma’s. My curiosity is quite keen to see what being in a space occupied by thousands of devotees of the Hugging Saint feels like, looks like, sounds like. I can see Amma in Seattle, but back home there aren’t elephants and salmon colored dormitories, or 3,000 people chanting in unison.

But at some point I have to leave this cocoon, I have to fly again on my own. What if this sanctuary is turning into my own Shangri-la. Am I getting stuck here?

This is the seesaw I’ve been on all day, sitting on one end of one plank, jumping off, running to the other end and jumping on that tangent.

As I was doing yoga tonight it occurred to me that by running all these possibilities in my head that I’m trying to get off the plane too early, I’m not coloring in all the details. Mathew doesn’t need to know if I’m staying or going till tomorrow night. That means the next scene is still quite a ways away. I’ve been spending so much energy today trying to get to the last page, to know if the magician pulls the rabbit out of the hat, instead of really taking in all the luxurious breathtaking moments of this day here and now.

So, I’m going to be brave, live in the now. I’m not going to decide if I’m going to Amma’s until tomorrow night when I would need to hire a car to get down to the plains on Friday. I’m going to see if I can slow down and become aware of all the tiny steps it really takes to get from one day to the next, one town to the next, one honest heart-felt decision to the next.

The Peculiar Kind

Hill stations are the places people come to in the sweltering Indian summers to cool down. Right now I am something like 3,500 feet above sea level. There is a mist in the air. I suspect it is about 72 degrees. The hills spell relief, and easing of tensions created by the heat and dust and unceasing movement of the big cities down below and all their inherent problems.


A man named Joy brought me up to the mountains. Joy is married to a woman named Dancing. I’m not sure there’s a better omen than that.

I’ve come to stay with a man named Mathew who has a beautiful new house built in the old Portuguese style with vaulted ceilings, tile roof, pointed eaves. Despite the beautiful house, when my car first pulled up to Mathew’s homestay I was, once again, slightly defeated. For some reason I’d imagined a home on the edge of the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, which is really an hour away. My room looks out onto a lovely ravine filled with plants that aren’t yet at maturity. In another few years this property will be a verdant organic spice garden, reminiscent of the plantations of old. At the moment, though, the garden is in its late adolescence, not quite awkward anymore, but not oozing self-confidence. There are two large college dorms next door and a busy road that rings the top of this budding canyon oasis.

My host had lunch waiting for me. Mathew grew up a few towns away, but has traveled much of the world. He moved to New Zealand for a girl once. Currently he is in the throes of young love with a woman who lives in Madrid. Mathew has a very studious face; his John Lennon wire-rimmed glasses enhance the perception. His manner is somewhat quiet, always respectful. He apologizes if his pinky ever so slightly encounters a part of my hand when we exchange plates at the table. This doesn’t surprise me, as he signed his emails “Peace and Love, Mathew,” when I was making my reservation.

Mathew offers a haven dedicated to mindful living. The décor is simple and elegant He teaches mindfulness yoga twice a day as part of the room plan, along with three simple but delicious vegetarian meals. For my first two and half days I am the only guest, so I am getting private yoga lessons and one on one conversation at the dining table. We talk about travel and spirituality and forging singular paths in a world where so many are trampling over other souls to be successful in more conventional ways.

Outside, birds and frogs chirp and sing and in just a few days I’ve come to hear the calls of the wild much more clearly than the whine of bus motors climbing up to Periyar. Occasionally a cow somewhere in the distance kicks up a ruckus. Mongooses scurry across the lawn. I sit in my window overlooking the ravine watching magnificently blue kingfishers and jet-black cormorants dance in the trees; I am no longer even a bit defeated.

I wanted to come to Mathew’s early last week when I was struggling with all the noise without and within that permeates the days here in India. Not even on the houseboat was it quiet. Honking horns, cell phones, animals, cricket matches, the thwack thwack thwack of laundry being smacked on a rock, and people talking, yelling, working, fills every minute of every waking hour everywhere I’ve been.

Inside, too, the noise continues, though it is not so urgent. My mind copes with the masses, the cultural differences, the trash, the smells, the beggars, the heat. It works frantically to adjust rupees to dollars, my American time clock to Indian time, which means going to eat an hour before I will actually be hungry since service is invariably slow. My brain marvels at strange languages and tries to identify all the marvelous birds that appear out of nowhere. It processes my desire to pet all the feral animals that lurk in the streets and reminds me that they might have strange diseases and are unsafe to get close to. It runs over possible itineraries, worries about future lodging, fixates on whether train travel is better than hiring a car or is hiring a car worth the extra expense.

Here at Mathew’s I am invited to leave all those thoughts behind and to “Be Here Now” and “Bring my mind to Stillness.” In class, Mathew even sings these incantations repeatedly, his melodic voice reverberating against the arched ceilings and down into my body. I am doing my best to be here now. I’m fighting the urge to worry about what comes next and to replay scenes from the past week or month over in my mind.

Today I went to see an ayurvedic doctor about some shoulder pain and a slight headache that has been with me for the last couple of days. His name was Dr. Kumar, which was delightful as it’s impossible to be in a hill station in India and not think of Jewel in the Crown and Hari Kumar. After a strange examination of my pulses and examining my back muscles and the way they related to the muscles in my chest, which involved more touching of my breast than seemed absolutely necessary, but surprising not at all sketchy, he prescribed several exercises for my neck pain. To make sure I would remember what to do, he drew several stick figure drawings out on a prescription pad, which I found utterly charming.

When I asked about my headaches, Dr. Kumar asked, “Do you think a lot?”

I said, “Yes, I guess so.”

“That’s the problem.”

“Thinking?”

“Yes. You are always thinking, I think. You are the most peculiar kind. I think you look around and you see everything, things other people don’t see. Observation is good. But you are the most peculiar because you always make a question of it, I think.” And here he drew a question mark on his prescription pad. “You make a question of everything you see and want to understand it. This is the problem. You must learn to take it in and let it go. Instead, I am thinking, you see things and you think on it and little things become sometimes bigger than they are. This is the problem.”

He took my pulse again and looked at me for a moment before continuing. “You also, I think, don’t like to share your problems. You smile and want everyone to think you are ok, but in your eyes there are worries. This is also a problem. You must share your worries with your friends.”

I couldn’t help but smile at this.

“Also, I think you can be very nervous.”

“Nervous? I don’t think I’m nervous.”

“I think you are a little nervous. Little things become big things. You don’t sleep well and this is a problem.”

Hmmm. Maybe he had a point. Last night I slept terribly; I was overcome with a strange feeling of disquiet that some might call nervousness. This man had known me less than an hour and he was more direct and diagnostically astute than any shrink I’d ever been too. He didn’t really have a cure though for my ailments except to get more sleep and to stop thinking so much. For that he gave me some kind of ayurvedic relaxing pills and prescribed two massages to accompany my yoga at Mathew’s.

Mary Kotti was the young girl assigned to do my massage. A shy little wisp of a thing, she sat me down and poured oil on my head and face and gently began to massage my stress away. After the sitting part, I laid down and she went to work on my achy shoulder and found other knots with her expert hands. Surprisingly, though she was the youngest and smallest of the three women who have given me ayurvedic massages, she was the strongest and most specific. I began to feel quiet and still in her care.

Ayurvedic massage uses a large quantity of herb infused oil and so much is left on your body that a post-massage shower is mandatory. Unlike my other masseuses, Mary Kotti actually bathed me herself with a gritty yellow turmeric scrub. Even though I am a full foot taller than Mary Kotti, I felt like a small child, tender. There were no questions running through my head, no worries to sort out, just the sublime gift of being cared for, tended to. For a few moments I was completely in the now, my mind utterly still.

I have struggled a bit with being mindful, getting quiet, with letting the world whizz and whir around me while I learn to meditate and do yoga and get massaged. Doctor Kumar is right, I have been nervous about letting the outside world go. But I suspect if I can learn how to get quiet enough here I will be happier when I return to the hustle and bustle of the plains on Friday, especially if I take the yoga practice Mathew is gently drilling into my body with me after I leave.

One thing I won’t be able to take with me is the rain. The last two afternoons, showers have drenched the ground, and me, for a handful of wonderful minutes. I had begun to think I would never know rain while I was in India, since I leave a month or so before the monsoon season. But India has blessed me with a taste of fog and damp, I can hear crickets singing in the wet grass. The air smells clean, fresh. It’s like getting to know a new friend better because they allow themselves to let down their guard, to be moody with you. That’s a skill Dr. Kumar would like me to learn, letting down my guard, being a little more moody with my friends.

I will try to let that directive sit next to me without making too much of it. I will try to observe without questioning. That’s a difficult thing to do when thinking too much is your problem.

Floating Thru Time

It may be that the backwaters of Kerala are indescribable.  Certainly the question of "How do you describe this to someone who has never been here" came up repeatedly over the weekend.

My traveling companions for the trip were my friend from The Theatre School, Gary Mills, of Bookwallah fame here on the blog, and Nicole who lucked out with a bed since Gary’s friend and co-worker fell ill and had to bail out on the trip at the last minute.

Keralan houseboats originated as rice barges. They are fairly low slung affairs, flat bottomed, with beautiful curved bows. Most have open deck living rooms in the front behind where the captain sits on the most forward deck steering by a largish wheel. Behind the living room are a series of bedrooms, anywhere from one to four. All have bathrooms attached. In the back is a galley that borders the aft of the boat where the crew hangs their laundry and cleans up. Some boats, not ours, have roof top decks, or even another row of bedrooms on a second story deck. All the boats are covered with palm thatch roofs, beautifully woven. The thatch also covers the sides, so one feels like they are in a sort of river basket turned upside down.

The backwaters themselves are a series of canals and riverlets weaving through rice paddies. Edging the crimson green patties are narrow strips of solid ground usually no wider than one room and a sidewalk created by centuries of foot traffic, on which rows of houses are built. Imagine a city neighborhood where the houses were fronted by water and where the alley would be is a vast expanse of bright green rice grass. On the far side of the patty field is another strip of land. Palm trees highlight all the land bits.

Upon occasion canals open into voluptuous lakes, with little islands of plants and purple flowers that give purchase for small egrets and herons to rest on when they aren’t dancing in flying formation down the center of the river or taking up residence in the trees.

What makes the backwaters baffling to relate is the way that humans interact with them. There are whole villages spread out in little rows, one room thick.

Homes nestle next to shops, which keep company with churches or Hindu temples. People live and work and pray shoulder to shoulder to shoulder to shoulder. In the morning you can see lines of women walking single file past houses, aluminum lunch pails in hand, to work in the rice fields. Children ride bikes on precariously thin dirt trails. Groups of men or women gossip on the edge of the water.

People don’t stay on the land, of course. They commute by boat. They carry goods like sacks of grain, kerosene, even cement for building houses, via long canoes.

Some attend floating churches in the evening. This is an extravagant affair. First comes a small boat that sets off intermittent fireworks. Second is the boat carrying the creche adorned with marigold colored fairy lights. Last comes the boat blasting devotional music sung in Malayalam, also adorned in bright lights.

People fish from the shore, from boats, even from round bamboo or palm leaf woven disks that are big enough for two people to sit in. Husbands and wives work together throwing nets from the disk and systematically pulling it in. The way they toss the net and the way they gather it in pulls them around and around wily nily, but it also allows them a way to get back to shore. The first bit of net is thrown out near the land then slowly laid down, much like breadcrumbs through a forest of underwater underbrush, so when they want to go in for the evening they simply retrace their steps pulling in the net, thereby drawing themselves to dry land.

Not that the backwater folks are afraid of the water or getting wet. They do all their washing at the water’s edge: clothes, bodies, teeth, hair, dishes all get soaped up and scrubbed out in the brown watered canals. I began to feel a little bit like the aliens in Slaughterhouse Five who watched Billy Pilgrim go through his daily ablutions in the extra-terrestrial zoo on Trafalmador. I took loads of pictures of people washing up on the riverbanks because it was so breathtakingly beautiful, but I also felt guilty. Would I want strangers watching and documenting me as I lathered up and rinsed off, as I washed my hair, bathed my baby? These are such intimate, sensual, quietly held experiences in a person’s daily life, but for those in the backwaters they are shared with a host of foreigners who float by, a constant stream of prying eyes.

For the most part, the people on shore seemed oblivious to our intrusion. One time, however, I saw a woman bathing her baby. I started to take a picture and the woman caught sight of me and she picked up her baby and ran inside. Another time, a young girl walking with an umbrella home from school, noticed me noticing her and she shifted her umbrella so that it blocked her face.

We weren’t merely observers, however. On the Friday evening we stopped at an ayurvedic center to get massages. Touching down, setting foot in that strange land, despite the fact that we were there to be pampered, was somewhat exhilarating. I played peek-a-boo with a young girl in a house and walked as far as I was allowed down a narrow path, trying to get a feel for what it must be like to live in a place where you must always walk forward to get to where you are going, because if you veer to the right or left you are apt to end up in the drink or in someone else’s front yard.

On Saturday morning we went for a longer walk. At one break in the houses we were able to watch women work in the rice patties behind the narrow strip of land. Nicole, who is a cook back home is fascinated with rice and how it’s grown so she decided to go into the bog and talk to the women.

Pretty soon she had Gary and I trudging into the mud and muck and carrying bundles of rice stalks for the ladies. We were helping to redistribute plants that were getting too clumped up, much like you might thin out irises once a year and redistribute the bulbs to empty patches in your garden.

In another village we met Vishnu, a young engineer. Calling out over his garden wall for us to stop, Vishnu wanted us to see his house and to meet his family. Pictures were taken.

Vishnu’s grandmother didn’t seem pleased at the intrusion. I asked her if I might take her picture. Surprisingly she said yes.

When I showed her the picture, her scowl turned into a bright, beautiful smile. She laughed and grabbed my arm, much the way Randa had done back in Fort Cochin. Once again I was reminded of the overwhelming beauty in an Indian smile.

All through the villages, we met kids who wanted pens; if we didn’t have pens they wanted rupies. One group of girls wanted to try out taking pictures with my camera.

I had a conversation with a lady gutting a fish on the edge of the canal. She told me how much she liked Barack Obama. She had watched him on the TV when he visited Mumbai and she had been impressed with his dancing. Imagine a young Indian woman kneeling in the water, a large knife in one hand, a fish head on the step in front of her, a fresh filet in the other hand, and she is doing an impersonation with her head and shoulders of Barack Obama dancing. Priceless.

Gary and I talked to a group of kids playing cricket.

When their ball fell in the canal they calmly started gathering rocks to throw into the water just past the ball. The ripples created by the rocks sent the ball back towards shore. It was a humbling moment. I would have jumped frantically into the water, making a fool of myself, if it had been my ball that had gone AWOL from the shore.

Of course, our small forays onto solid land were just larks, small moments of connection. For the most part we sat in our little floating haven of luxury with a private cook and captain, a.c., and flushing toilets watching the mysterious world of backwater Kerala float by, marveling at a way of life that seems be stoically trying to preserve it’s integrity while being flooded with gawkers and interlopers who are watching them like organisms under a microscope.

At one point, Koshi, our captain, pointed out a man up ahead of our boat who seemed to be fishing in a large mass of water vegetation. Koshi indicated, by waving his elbows, wing-like and quacking that the man was doing something with a duck. As we got closer, Gary, Nicole and I realized that what we thought were plants were actually thousands of ducks. The man was herding them, like a sheepherder would corral sheep: one man in a canoe with one paddle, making thousands of ducks go where he wanted them to go.

We certainly weren’t the only ones doing the observing. Its not like we were hidden behind a mirrored glass window. One time a young girl of 5 or 6 caught sight of me and started waving. She and I happened to be wearing the same color, a deep pink that was almost purple; it felt a little like two parts of the same whole reaching out across the water. As my boat sped along the girl decided to run to try and keep up with me, waving the whole way. At one point I lost her when she stopped at a bridge to wait for her mother. Soon, though, she appeared over the bridge, yelling and waving. We kept up like that for several minutes until she finally had to turn off into a yard.

During the two days Gary, Nicole and I were on the houseboat, it was if we floated between the veils of time. It was easy to imagine the days of the Raj as we lounged in our high-back Victorian armchairs drinking Lime sodas brought by the cook. We looked out on a way of life that is, by more western standards, from a bygone, simpler era. If I hadn’t seen so many satellite dishes, and heard so many cell phones ringing, it would be easy to visualize people living exactly the same way in the Backwaters 100 years ago as they do now.

Gary and I, too, were stretching across time. There was a moment when we caught each other’s eyes, I don’t’ remember why, but I could palpably feel each of the 22 years we’ve known each other bridging our gaze like a ladder through time and we existed both here in India in 2011 and simultaneously in a rehearsal room in Chicago in 1989. Much like Billy Pilgrim living all the moments of his life concurrently.

All these years Gary and I have been in our own round bamboo boats, laying down nets, catching our dreams, letting others slip through, the current buoying us hither and thither. We bump into each other from time to time. We have drifted apart when we needed to fish somewhere else.

Nicole has been bobbing too, her raft finding us a few days ago, floating off only a few days after that. Then there’s Koshi, our captain, Minosh, the cook, each in their rafts, traveling together for work, bumping into us for a few days. On the shore of the backwaters, bob hundreds of souls in their bamboo rafts, creating ripples that shift the trajectory of our rafts.

All of you reading this also float, cast nets, catch dreams, bob and weave, twist and turn through time.

It’s difficult, sometimes, making peace with how the water and the wake of other rafts and bigger boats can send our raft spinning when we want to stay still, but I’m making peace with the current. I’m learning to trust that if I take care of my net and grasp it gently in my hands, what I need to hold onto will be hauled into my raft and what I need to let go of will flow on through. If I want to try and change course, it’s as easy as throwing rocks just past my boat to push me in the right direction. And if I’m lucky, I’ll get a few moments of stillness, before eventually making it back to shore.

"You Look Good in Indian Dress."

"You look good in Indian Dress."  That's what one waiter said to me yesterday.  He wasn't the first to comment on it. It's amazing what a difference wearing my Kurta's and long pants and dupatta (the scarf) actually make.  Everyone comments on it. Indian's, non-Indians, former Indians who now live in the US or England.  Seriously, people stop me on the street to tell me how well the clothes suit me.  Apparently I look as if I've been wearing them my whole life.

I suspect that I'm really starting to wear India more naturally.  I noticed a shift even in Mumbai.  But it was so tenuous that I didn't want to mention it for fear of jinxing the inner evolution.  Last week I had whole hours where I felt more in India than out of it.

After just two weeks in the country, I find washing my clothes in a bucket in the bathroom common place.  I consider cold showers and hard beds normal.  Did I really ever sleep on a soft mattress?  Are pillows flexible?  I can't remember.

Energetically, I seem to be shifting as well.  I have moments when time gets hazy.  I sense that I've always been here.  Or at least lived whole lives here.  I can almost remember the days when rickshaws were powered by human strength.  I feel if I just concentrated hard enough I could recall which birds migrated through Kerala at this time of year, because it feels as if I've always known it.  The other day when I was walking to the ferry, my lower back started screaming at me. I was soon passing by a small spice shop.  I walked right up to a basket filled with gorgeous large pods of some kind.  I picked up several of them.  Nothing else in the shop even came into focus. A woman walked up and explained that I was holding a kokka.  If I drop the pod in boiling water and crack it open, I was told,  I would find a large white seed.  Eating that seed, she explained, cures lower back pain.

I returned last evening to the boardwalk to watch the sunset.  It was Sunday so it was almost as crowded as Republic Day last week.  Remember when I went to the sea to find some balance and almost had a nervous breakdown because I felt so outcast and downcast and cast away?

This time, sitting there in my Indian suit, parents practically forced their children to speak to me.  When I went out to sit on a rock to get a better view, a lovely older Indian woman and her daughter navigated the unsteady and craggy path out to where I was just because the older woman wanted to tell me how lovely I looked in my outfit.  That, and she thought I probably had a great vantage point.

The mother's name was Indira.  She was born and raised in Kenya, actually.  Her daughter, Yogini, was also born in Africa.  They now live in London.  They had the most lovely and posh accents, Indian and African and English all mixed together which created this extra resounding trilled"r"~Delicious.

Yogini and I found we shared a love of trees and we vied for the best shot of the setting sun behind a craggy tree.

When dark descended the three of us shared a stroll back toward town and Indira offered to treat us all to coconut water served fresh from the coconut because, "It makes the ur-een come.  It ees very gut for dis cli-mat.  I am always drinkeng many coconuts when I am herrrre."

I only slightly protested her generosity.  But she said, "No. Got has made us all to meet herrrrre. So, we will celebrate."

The coconut vendor stands at a table piled high with coconuts.  He chops a tiny bit off the top with a big machete, barely missing his coconut holding hand every time.  Then he takes a divet out of the top and sticks a straw into the nut, a bendy straw.  It's always a bendy straw in India.  We were all handed coconuts and then, in the dark at the edge of the Arabian Sea, we clinked coconuts and said, "Cheers."

When I got back to the house there was an American girl there, Nicole.  She had just arrived in India the day before.  She is a very seasoned traveler and a New Yorker and she exudes this kind of tough, take no shit attitude from the second she introduces herself.  We were fast friends in a sort of yin and yang way.  We went to dinner and made plans to spend today going to the spice market.

Nicole: "I won't take a tuk.  Or if I do, I'm not letting him follow us around.  I won't stand for that.  He's taking us right there and we are getting out. And he will be done."

Me: "Awesome."  I wouldn't have to worry about betraying Sandosh or about negotiating with another Tuk, Nicole could be responsible.  I could just walk around charming people with my Indian dress and my scant Malayalam vocabulary.

I went to bed feeling truly relaxed for the first time, feeling more at home and holding the prospect of an on again off again traveling partner since Nicole and I discovered that she leaves India only one day before I do and we have almost the exact same list of must see places.

I woke up rested and self-assured.  I went downstairs and sat on the stoop petting Marshall, the giant Golden Retriever.  Leelu was across the street and she wandered over to me and announced that I had to move.  Just like that.  An internet booking had been re-confirmed and they had no room for me for at least one night if not the rest of my stay.  She said Roy had made her give me the bad news.  Roy said later that Leelu was very angry with him for missing the internet booking.  My Indian family was falling apart and it was all my fault.  My mood sunk like a stone in the sea.  On top of moving, I still didn't know if my bank card had broken or if I was cut off from my money.

"Why can't anything be simple here", I wailed...... in my head.

Nicole, who is in the Leelu Homestay annex a few blocks away, showed up and we had coffee.  We laughed about how plans are so fluid in India, its impossible to count on things happening the way they are "supposed" to.

But we are Americans, and we had a plan of our own.  I would go to the bank.  We would meet in an hour or so, after I moved and then we would go sightseeing to the spice market and "Jew Town."  As we talked about our day's plans, I started to make peace with my change in accommodations, even though I didn't know where I was headed.  I went to pack up my bag and Nicole used my computer to check her email.

Then Nicole ran into my room and said, "The plans are changing, the plans are changing."

Her Indian friend Raj, who lives in New York, had written that he was in Cochin visiting his mom, so she needed to cancel the spice market trip to hang out with him before he leaves tomorrow.

Huh.  Ok, so, no room, no money, and now, no friend.

Holy Ganesha.  What a morning.

"One thing at a time, Morgan.  One thing at a time."

That's all I could say to myself.

First, Roy moved me around the corner to a nice enough hotel.  Then I went off in search of the bank to speak to the manager to find out if he could give me a cash advance on my debit card since it wasn't working in the atm.

The Canara bank in Cochin is like some kind of dusty, clap-trap, rambling version of the Bailey Savings and Loan in It's a Wonderful Life.  If you made George Bailey Indian and 20 years older, you'd have the bank manager.  I waited dutifully in the amoeba shaped "line"of people clustered around the manager while important looking papers were exchanged and stuffed in drawers that looked more like the "catch everything" drawer at my house rather than a place where Very Important Documents should be stuffed.  When it came my turn, a young Indian man tried to cut in front, but the bank manager very quietly, but firmly, shooed him away and insisted that I take a seat and tell him the problem.  I did.  He couldn't help.  But he told me to go to the "Credit Extent" down the street could.

"The extent?  Is that an extension of the bank?"

"Ex---tent," he over enunciated, as if he was making himself clearer.

Only after I found the "Currency EXCHANGE" did I make sense of what he'd said.

The "Ex-tent" was excellent and solved all my money problems and I wandered back thru town.

When I got back my new BFF was waiting for me.  I was being invited, in an "I'm kid-napping you for the day" way, to join her and Raj for the afternoon.  I thought about saying, "no" because I'd had enough of being moved around and guided by Roy and Leelu and Sandosh.  I wanted to regain control, say "no" and stay in town and write.

Thank Ganesha I didn't.  Raj took us to a fancy hotel restaurant in Ernakulum for a real Keralan feast.  Even though Raj is Indian by birth, he is a New Yorker by personality; he is out-going and funny and not shocked by women being feisty and talking sass.  Plus, I felt that I could be totally myself without worry that Raj was going to try and hit on me just because I am such a smiley personality.  The restaurant had a bar and, since we were far from the judging eyes of anyone I might know in Fort Cochin, I had a margarita which was the first drink I'd had in weeks.  The three of us laughed and made jokes at each other's expense and there was an easy-to-be-me feeling I hadn't realized I'd lost because I've been working so hard to be culturally respectful and to fit in .  At one point, Raj had to get up to go clean his shirt which had gotten food on it, a major source of ribbing, and left Nicole and I at the table in stitches.  Nicole said, "Isn't it great to be able to poke fun and talk shit with someone?"  And I said, almost sobbing I was laughing so hard, "OH MY GOD, it's such a RELIEF."

Nicole and I pose Japanese style

After food, we went to meet Raj's mother and her young live-in helper, two charming ladies who chattered with us and graciously put up with we three giggly folks who'd invaded the house.  I showed off my Malayalam and received an invite to come back for lunch or dinner anytime.

"As usual, everybody wants to adopt Morgan." Nicole good-naturadely teased.

Raj and his Mum

Earlier in the day, when Roy was moving me, I rode in the car with Nicole and Randa, the cleaning lady, over to the annex.  Randa insisted I sit next to her and she talked to me in Malayalam and held my hand the whole way over, like a grand-mother might.  She was sad, I think, that I might not be staying anymore at Leelu's.

I'm not great with the holding hand thing, especially when I don't know someone well.  I can be a little physically self protective.  But this hand-holding was so natural, so very right.  This woman I've only met is part of my heart now.  It was part of my heart holding my hand.

Like India.  India is becoming, quickly, a part of my heart.  Or maybe, like it has taught Rajiv, India is teaching me to think with my heart.  The hastles of dealing with ancient banking systems and the Indian tendency to say "Yes" to everything (any person who asks for a room, for instance), when really the answer needs to be "No", ("No we don't have a room for you because it's already pre-booked," as an example) are fast becoming secondary to holding hands with the beautiful woman who cleans the floors and laughing with friends I only just met.

Nicole had a moment where she stopped and said, "Oh my god, I just realized I'M IN INDIA!"  I know that feeling. I've had that feeling....in Rome standing in the Colosseum, in Cornwall walking Queen Morgaine's coast.  But I've not had that feeling in India.  India feels natural, like an old coat.  Despite the drastic adjustment to dirt and begging and staring men and disapproving women, it fits.  I have always been here.  In some lifetime, or several lifetimes.

I just had to remember how to dress.

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Addendum:  The internet has been uncooperative for the last few days, so I'm a day behind.  Today, I moved back to Leelus.  Nicole and I went to Jew Town.  And, I bought a sari.

Leelu, Me and Roy

If you are a gal and you ever want to feel like a rockstar in Kerala, buy a traditional Keralan sari.  First, 10 beautiful Keralan girls dress you and put kohl under your eyes and fuss over you like they might a favorite doll.  Then when you walk down the street, you might as well be an Indian princess.  The men were staring, the women were giving me the ok sign and waving, and the respect factor went through the roof!