autos and right relation

[song – young galaxy, searchlight, Sophie Ellis Bextor, and Les Breastfeeders]
[drink – Kingfisher strong. Decided to bring back the leftover duty free. Too much Glenlivet to drink in eight days]
[picture - Emperor Ashoka renouncing violence at the feet of the Buddha]

My hands smell like chlorine, and my nose is itchy from Delhi in general and the henna chemicals specifically. It’s warm and close, and for some reason there are no international lines available on Airtel. You’d think in the age of outsourcing a message like ‘all circuits are busy’ would be no more. On second thought, perhaps that’s why there are no lines out at 2:30 pm EDT.

With just a week to go I’m loosing patience frequently. I don’t appreciate auto drivers who say they know where they are going, only to start asking direction as soon as I’ve sat down. An auto driver had asked for 1.5 times what we’d agreed on, and wouldn’t let me close the gate. He came up to the door and said he was going to call the police. I had made the mistake of telling him that no one was at home. The school across the street was dark for the night, and the lot beside was under construction. I put my Rs 70 ($1.75) back in my bag and said I wasn’t going to pay him anything, and tried to close the gate again. He motioned ‘fine, give me the money’. I gave him Rs. 50, then Rs. 20 more. He grabbed the strap of my bag and plucked it towards him. All the blood left my brain. I stepped back, spread my arms wide, and yelled ‘Eh! Come on!’ He was a good five inches shorter, dark and balding, but round in the middle, and still inside the gate. A flicker of fear crossed his eyes. He took a step backward into the shadows. My shoulders square, feeling taller and taller, I had beaten him in my mind. Facing him down, not breathing, I saw him already out the gate and me beginning to feel it.

Just the day before a friend had sent me a note from the Hopi Elders about being in right relation, among other things. I had been very short with some rickshaw drivers when I didn’t trust directions like ‘Ali Aska Rd – its’ parallel to Cunningham Rd’ or ‘Do you see a green truck coming down the street?’ At the time I thought I hadn’t done anything worse than be rude and selfish in my demand for information in a familiar way, in compass bearings and intersections. That night I sat down on the toilet and cried. How was I supposed to be in right relation with people grabbing at my bag? Was it weak that I had to threaten to fight, and believe it, in order to get inside my home?

16 days to go

Obligations of those who are about to leave the country. You shall gratuitously mousturize, and dine on good gin and fine chocolate.

• alcohol to drink: 0.5 L Havana Club white rum, 0.9 L 15 yr old Glenlivet single malt, 0.9 L Bombay Blue
• mustard oil cooked: 0.8 L
• hair oil applied: 1 L
• length of hair growth, in inches: 6, at least
• spices used: 200 – 500g each, minus a bit
• raisins consumed: 1.2 kg
• opportunity cost of seven months, in cans of black beans: 150
• cost of most expensive meal, in days at median Indian wage: 25
• cost of soy latte, in days at median Indian wage: 2.5
• ratio of toilet rolls purchased to toilet rolls procured by some other means: 2:1
• number of bird eggs disposed of: 2
• signs stolen: 1
• months without a mirror: 3
• days exiting apartment with large black mark of mascara on cheekbone: 1
• mosquitoes that have died of old age or cold in apartment: 2
• number of propositions in streets: 4
• number of times followed home: 2
• momo wallahs within a ten minute walk: 7
• age of oldest fridge item, in months: 7
• gratuitous pairs of underwear purchased: 3

New Years again

Today is Balinese New Year
5th New Year in recent months
for me. A few more inches of hair,
some freckles, what must soon be
called a scar from nighttime
fight with closet door.
It takes a lot to
remove freckles.

In Bali it is customary
to observe the New Year
in Seclusion.
Other religions stay
indoors in respect. A man
from Eritrea once told me
the goats they would share
on Muslim feast days, a man
from an old Christian sect
who ate to keep talking.

He gave me coffee his
mother had picked from
before they fled.
Eating keeps us talking.

summertime in delhi

[drink - youngberry Ceres juice and gin]
[song - Amy Millan, Honey from the Tombs]

March 5, 2008

I hear today that it is quite likely that there will still be snow in Toronto when I come back in three weeks. There is another 15 cm due today, which will soon turn to freezing rain. Meanwhile in Delhi, I’ve turned on my fan for the first time in months. It only starts spinning at the highest speed. At slower speeds, it goes for a while, then petters out. The fan probably knows I detest it, and is being purposefully difficult. Right now it is taunting me to stand up and turn it on again. Instead it started again on its own, at full blast, as I stared at it. Papers are flying and the ceiling mount swings like a metronome.

I can’t sleep under fans or air conditioners or any noise at all really. I blame it on camping as a child. The fan on my face feels like a hole in a tent, the sound like a rainstorm approaching through the trees. I lay there nursing adrenaline, wanting to get up and put bags under tarps. I’ve seen men in India sleeping cross-legged on the back flap of a truck moving at full speed. Three women shared a nap on a commuter train in Mumbai last Thursday, as I lost track of my knees and a woman clutched a single cauliflower in her hand above the crowd. Maybe I’m genetically mal-adapted in more than just melanin.

Summer has come to Delhi. It’s 33 C in the day, bright hot and dusty. Clouds of little flies have hatched in the mandir lane, and we’ve all been sick. Two weekends ago we wore scarves gratuitously because we knew it was the last time we’d be able to do so. My computer is hot on my lap, and probably deserves a break after toiling through an entire CBC Ideas podcast. Utopias are misplaced and ignorant, I’ve learned, and the pot of lentils is finished, cooling in the kitchen. Perhaps the true sign of summer is that I’ve splurged on the youngberry from South Africa and moved onto gin and juice from absurdly expensive whiskey (a product of an exhaustion-induced Euro-dollar miscalculation in Paris, luckily for my pride not denominated in rupees on my credit card bill).

I’m listening to the fan come and go, iTunes on shuffle, and wondering if I can fall asleep. In the new warmth the street dogs wake up angry. At 6 am today the street was fiercely noisy. I see the mornings for the next three weeks, sitting in a suggestion of clothes in the wicker chair, reading or wondering whether I’ve done anything useful in seven long months.