Kris' Kronicles

-My friend Kris has been living in Varanasi (the city I'll be moving to in India), since last October. In the updates that he's sent during that time, he has done a beautiful job of capturing the wonders and the struggles of culture shock, language study, and the day to day chaos that is India. Reading about his experiences will give you a good picture of the sort of life I will have during my first 6 months in India.

"Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun" - Indian saying

What a crazy month this has been. I know it's been a long time since the last update, I even know it's been too long because of the numerous emails asking if I'm still alive. Well, rest assured, I'm still alive and kicking. The last month has been difficult. As I recall, it started about a month ago when I had really bad diarrhea again. I lost almost 10 lbs in one day. It took me about 5 days to recover from that. The temperature has been climbing steadily higher and highs lately are around 100, lows around 70. As it turns out, I'm just as heat tolerant as any other westerner except when it comes to sleeping. I've had far far too little sleep lately, usually not falling asleep until some time between 3 and 5 when my room finally cools down enough. Two days ago there was an amusing variation on the sleeping difficulties. Across the street from my apartment is a very wealthy family. There are many stories surrounding this family all of which involve the grandfather being kidnapped, the police unable to find him, and the family then turning to the mafia for justice. Regardless of the truths about their past, they now live rather above the law and seem to have all kinds of shady but powerful people as well as a steady stream of police continually coming to their house. It's well known here that the police and the mafia are practically the same thing anyway. So, two nights ago they had a party of some kind. There were maybe 8 guests that came to this party, and maybe 15 police officers to guard the outside. But none of that was unusual. What was unusual is that they started the music at 10:30pm and then continued to play that music until 5am. And I don't mean normal party volume, I mean they brought in rock concert sized speakers for the event. From anywhere within my apartment, you had to scream to talk to someone. So, for that night, 200 people didn't sleep for the sake of those 8 people having a good time.

I've definitely passed through the "honeymoon phase" where I can absorb the difficulties here as all part of the adventure. Right now I feel like I'm saturated with the difficulties and can't handle new ones very well. This, of course, is all very normal. I've heard that many people go through some culture shock again at around 4 months, which proved true for me. A few weeks ago it was really bad. It took all my strength to leave my apartment, and then all of the sensory overload that typifies this place would just make my head spin while I was outside. This was happening during the 3 or so weeks of spring before the heat came in so I'm attributing some of these culture shocks to spring fever. You are familiar with the symptoms of spring fever, however here in India most of the expectations that go with spring fever never happen. There is no running bare foot in fresh cut grass, there are no delicate spring flowers pushing through soft soil wet from melted snow, there are no family barbeques, etc. The result was that I was dealing with some strong feelings of discontent. I just wanted to be back home and I missed all those comfortable things that coincide with spring. Of course, the truth is that home was still getting pelted with snow and ice and looked nothing like the image I had conjured up in my head and was missing so much.

In the midst of all of these strong feeling I had one particular dream that I'll share with you. I've had a lot of dreams lately, that's part of disturbed sleep. At the peak of when I was thinking I wanted to be back home in "perfect" America and away from "miserable" India I had a dream where I was back home. In this dream I had all of the things that I was missing, it was perfect weather, everyone looked beautiful and smiling, all my friends were together at some kind of cookout. And yet, in the midst of this, the very thing I'd been longing for, I keep being reminded of India, and it became more and more difficult to hold back the tears. Finally, in the dream I greeted someone by saying, "Namaste," and that was the last straw. I began to weep and weep because I was in America and I missed India so much. I woke up immediately afterwards and thought... woah....that was weird.

But of course I know that'll be closer to the truth, even as I used that analogy of being saturated with difficulties, the truth is that being in India is to be saturated. That's why India is known for being a life changing place, it gets into you and you are never quite the same. There are good things and bad things which can seep into you, and of course part of the challenge of living here is to figure out how to adapt to India, how to allow the good things in and keep the bad things out. Some things have pluses and minuses. For example, the longer I've been here the more I've been able to feel and experience things from the spiritual realm. This is something I wish wasn't true when I go past a temple and catch a glimpse of the god at the center, that rotten core of what otherwise looks to be beautiful, and it causes me to be dizzy. I can feel that god sitting there with a smug look on his face, feel him laughing at me. Sometimes it's so strong I physically shake and feel nauseous. I'd prefer to be able to go past that idol as I used to be able to do and look at it as simply a piece of carved stone. However, on the other side of things, Jesus presence is also more tangible. I can't begin to imagine how I'd survive here if I didn't know Him. He is alive and He is at work here. I've seen Him heal body and soul. I've seen Him take the broken and hopeless and restore them to how they were created to be, I've seen Jesus in the faces of those who love Him. I know He does all of these things all over the world but here in this darkest of places is where I've also seen His light shining the brightest.

This year, the Hindu holiday of Holi is the same time as Good Friday. Holi is celebrated by burning huge bonfires in the streets, by getting very drunk, by getting high, and most famously by throwing colored powder at each other. In many places I'm told that this is a friendly holiday that can be a lot of fun (drunkenness and drugs excluded of course). However, here in Varanasi, it's taken a violent turn. Part of the celebration of Holi could be described as "opposite day" where a high caste Brahmin can lift up an untouchable street sweeper and carry him on his shoulders through the streets. However, here in Varanasi, it would be better described as "anarchy day" where anything goes--women are stripped of their clothing, punches are thrown at strangers, and any other of a wide variety of common sense unacceptable behavior. Naturally, it's most dangerous for westerners, and particularly women. The smartest thing to do is just to stay inside and watch from your balcony. This is a darker than normal time for the city and already there is a feeling something like a suppressed frenzy that runs like a shiver through the streets. This holiday is a perfect illustration that Hinduism is not the harmless soft passive religion it is so often described. It is a hopeless and scary religion full of angry or apathetic gods. Even the catch phase heard so often here said for the smallest and largest difficulty, "What to do?" is reference to the believe that man is no match for the wicked whims of the gods.

In other news, I've stopped taking Hindi lessons. Learning a new language is extremely difficult for anyone, and I'm either worse than average at learning it or I have a lower than average tolerance for dealing with the difficulties. I'm willing to admit to either one. Regardless, my 4.5 hours of Hindi lessons and the study time between them was sucking the entirety of my energy and leaving me frustrated, tired and in general rather useless. However, I'm very pleased to say that since I've stopped taking the formal lessons, I've continued to learn Hindi at about the same rate (albeit that is a very slow one) as when I was taking the lessons. In conversation, my Hindi has actually improved dramatically and some of my Hindi speaking friends have complimented me on how much better I can speak than the last time I saw them. I haven't bothered to try to explain that it's because I stopped taking lessons. No doubt this unexpected outcome is because I now have the energy to commit myself while talking in real-life conversation.

Experiences from the Far Side

"Have you ever felt like your life is a comic book? Like the events are
too dramatic, comical, ironic, or unbelievable to be happening to you?
That's what life is usually like here. And yet, there is an equally
unbelievable sense of normalcy that settles in. So many things that would be shocking, revolting, or hysterical in any other context passes by here without a second glance. The other day our house cleaner came out to our balcony where we were working on re-potting our house plants. She grabbed a handful of dirt and started to scrub our dishes with it. Brian and I didn't even give this a second thought. Just yesterday, while doing the same project of re-potting we found a human bone in the dirt (we know it was a human bone because we got it from a site at the Ashram where the king used to bury the bodies of the people he killed). Rather than horror, this brought only a few light-hearted comments and then the bone went right into the pot along with the plant."

"A week ago I went on a LONG walk. How long does a walk have to be
before it's a hike? Or is it only a hike if you are wearing boots? No one has explained this to me. Anyway, we walked north down the length of the oldest and most holy part of the city, that being the ancient part that runs down the shore of the Ganges. From there we crossed over the river on a bridge, then walked back south on the far side of the river. The banks on this side have never had people living on them and it remains completely undeveloped as it is considered unlucky. As we walked down these banks, with the city in full view, it was still like walking in a completely different city. Here you can see parts of Varanasi life that you'd never see on the auspicious side of the river. The banks are full of fields of melons and cucumbers, farmed mostly by the other-wise unemployed boat men. As we walked, we stopped several times to ask the farmer if he had a melon for us. Let me tell you, squatting in the sand under a burlap awning only 2 feet off the ground to escape the 100 degree heat, slurping fresh picked carbooja (cantaloupe) with an Indian family squatting next to you watching you with big toothy or tooth-less smiles, with the Varanasi skyline in view is not a thing to be missed! And yet, here among the greens, fish, birds, frogs and friendly farmers, was a pervasive reminder of the dark truths that overshadow the city. During the course of our walk, I'd conservatively say we saw 20 human bodies, in various states of decay lying un-ceremoniously on the sand. While most bodies are burned here, there are 5 types that are thrown into the river: those with skin disease, children, pregnant women, "holy" men, and those who died of a snake bite. On this uninhabited side of the river, the bodies just pile up. In one case, there was a complete human skeleton lying on the sand then about 20 feet away was a pile of clothes and then 20 feet beyond that was an Indian couple going for a swim. Such is the pervasiveness of death in this city. If it isn't a body being paraded through the streets, or the smell of burning flesh in the air, or a corpse floating down the river, there is an even stronger sense of spiritual death that smothers all like a thick blanket. It can be seen at times in hollow eyes of a sadu (hindu spiritual seeker), in the absence of peace in an old woman, or in the painted smile of an idol. And, of course, the truth is that these are the kinds of death that matter. After a physical death, what does it matter if the body is burned, buried, or bloated? And yet, to see so many bodies was a strong reminder that the time is short, people are dying every day. Lord, what would you have me do? Finally, we crossed over the pontoon bridge on the far south end of the city and returned to the very place where we had been 8 hours earlier and with 12.5 miles less on our sandals. This was a significant day for me, full of new experiences and it left me with a better understanding of life (and death) here."