letters from the edge 5.

letters from the edge 5.
home-sick.

i'll end this series of postings pretty much as i began: winching and whining like a spoiled little kid. i apologize in advance if my complaining offends anyone, but i do come from a long line of pretty spoiled brats and, just like after my journey to india, i have been a little fugged up upon my return to canada.

my day of departure from kullu was a heavy rain day with thick clouds that hung low in the sky. the plane might not fly even on much better days. so i was not shocked to see the 'indian-airlines' official approaching. he offered me a hot cup of chai while informing me the flight was cancelled. i rejected the first taxi, as i sipped the sweet chai, that was brought for me. it was a tiny little vehicle. one of my best friends had died on these roads a few years ago in just such a car on just such a day on the exact same journey down the mountains. eventually, i jumped into a larger mini-van type jalopy with a driver who seemed nice enough at first glance.
   
anybody who has ever been in a car in india knows it ain't the most organized of procedures. and i actually had an indian license for some years, have driven all over north india. i can assure you that one faces an onslaught of all manner of transports, from bullock carts lumbering along with oversized loads of hay to mercedes busses catapulting through at beak-neck speeds, literally and figuratively, all not necessarily staying on their 'correct' side of the road. you get used to it. on this particular occasion, there was the added challenge of rain-slick and, for large stretches, chewed-up and deeply pot-holed pavement.

a few ground-rules had to be established. i respectfully asked the driver to stop using his cell-phone while driving. these guys get pretty constant calls, everything from employers arranging next assignments to wives demanding they bring milk back, and it really was dangerous conditions. also, i had to keep an eye on his speed. otherwise, he was a good driver and proved to be a nice guy. at one point, however, we had a close call when the car ahead inexplicably stopped in the middle of the busy road. as usual, the two drivers quickly got out and began to go at each other. the proverbial crowd began to gather as the jostling and yelling ramped up. i got out and inserted myself in-between the two jerks, pushed my guy back into our car and demanded he drive on. he kept on ranting about the idiocy of stopping a car like that. there was no sense in me pointing out that, while he was berating the guy, both cars were sitting in the middle of the busy road. i just commiserated.

the drive took the usual seven uncomfortable hours to chandigarh, which meant i'd been already on my way, or waiting to be on my way, for about ten hours, having left kullu for the airport at 6:00 a.m. i took a chance that i would be able to hop a plane to delhi quickly, so i asked the driver to drop me at the chandigarh airport. it would've taken another six or so treacherous hours of driving otherwise. there was a point, however, when i wondered if that wouldn't have been easier or even quicker. there was so much paperwork, the check-in was slow-as-molasses, along with waits and delays. even the taxiing into position for take-off seemed to go on for an inordinate length of time. nevertheless, i arrived in delhi at 8:00 p.m. you do the math. but, while you're at it, add on an hour that it took me to get from the airport to my hotel in stop-and-go-and-stop-again delhi traffic.

in my fancy hotel room, i was immediately faced with the task of figuring out how to use the lights. simple on/off switches are, of course, out of the question nowadays in a hotel of this calibre.  nowadays, modern technology is fully employed to make life easier and more pleasant, only it doesn't. the whole room was like an idiot test which i failed miserably. one needed an engineering degree to figure out the shower, the air-conditioning felt like the arctic vortex and there were no windows that opened. i could go on and on, but i'm concentrating on the actual traveling. once i began channeling my mother, opened that mausoleum of negativity, so to speak, i realized i had to focus on just one area of the journey or this last 'letter from the edge' would go over the edge, if it hasn't already.    

so... safety instructions on the large plane out of delhi included a video presentation describing the various procedures. in it, there were happy, perfectly good-looking passengers, along with their happy, perfectly good-looking kids, placing oxygen masks and then life-jackets on, seemingly without a care in the world, as though they were getting ready to go on a picnic rather than flail around in the frigid, shark-infested mid-atlantic, assuming they even survived the crash. also, i'm sure you know, perhaps directly, that people generally are not so perfectly good-looking as all that. i am, but most people aren't.

for example, the lady who flowed into the next seat was a morbidly obese lady who i am convinced has dedicated her adult life to watching me, ready to spring into action as soon as she finds out that i have bought an airline ticket. i'm always seated beside her, on every flight i've ever taken. i realize now that the people who pay the extra $150 dollars for 'economy plus' seating, for a bit of extra leg-room, are usually mothers with screaming kids or oversized folks. i got lucky on the way over. although there was a large indian lady with a totally outta-control kid in the next seat, she was eventually moved to where she could have a basonette. i was not so fortunate on the way back. suffice it to say, it was a long fourteen hours.

from newark to ottawa, the safety instructions included a curious suggestion. apparently, if we found ourselves falling out of the downed plane into lake champlain or the st. lawrence, in the unlikely chance that we were at all lucid, we were supposed to take the seats with us(?) i initially wondered if i had heard that correctly. apparently, we could use them as flotation devices. i would've preferred actual flotation devices, but i suppose that was just one more service eliminated in order to make the business more cost-effective. whatever might be the reason, out of curiosity i checked the empty seat beside me and it was, in fact, quite easily separated from its frame.

in the end, i'm home, and sick as a wounded banshee warrior. i have no idea what that means, but i liked the sound of it. after all, i'm sick. the good news is i'm home. at least i'm no longer home-sick.







       

Letters From The Edge 4.

letters from the edge  4.
it's the life worth missing.

the moon is pretty full tonight, bright, reflecting light over the valley that stretches below this balcony. it's just past midnight on my last day here. it's amusing that i arrived here on a major indian festival, holi, and am returning to canada on easter. i wandered into kullu yesterday, wanted to take a bunch of pics, but not of any more hill scenes or the landscapes. i wanted the markets, the shops, the town to show you. i've posted a few at the bottom of the page. really, i should try to sleep. i'm meeting with guruji in the morning for tea. but, i have all sorts of weird thoughts, all about prostate issues, eye-wear, ear-cleaning and heart-strings. i may be up for a while.

you know, according to my old dad, diapers don't always work which, i'm told, ruins the whole peeing in your sleep experience. i have yet to actually test them out myself but, unless i receive some decent medical guidance for the issue, it won't be long. the good news is that, in case of that eventuality, there will be an in-depth posting here all about the matter, including product analysis and a well-developed and well-researched grading system. i promise.

the urologist in gatineau that i visited hates his job. he actually told me that. he certainly did not want to get up close and personal, just asked me a few questions, basically swiped the card and told me not to drink water before bed-time. fortunately, amazingly, there's a clinic way up here in the himalayan bad-lands. the urologist was not shy at all, also performed an ultrasound and even did a 'psa' test. i presume the 'psa' test results were mine, although one wonders, but there wasn't enough time here to consider my options anyway.

buying eye glasses in india is amazing, in so far as it's super quick and costs a fraction of what it would in canada. it may be a little difficult to find a style that doesn't make you look like a cuban band-leader from the 1970s, but it's a search well worth undertaking. i was skeptical that the prescription would be correct, but it's a chance well worth taking. once i chose the frames, the salesman morphed into a technician, sat down in an adjoining cubicle to cut, grind and polish the lenses. the whole process, from the time i chose the frames to the finished product, took forty-five minutes, cost the equivalent of $17.50 and i love them. the last pair i ordered, from a well-appointed optometrists in hull, took two weeks, cost $325.00 on sale and are just alright.

i had my ears cleaned while here, in a little office behind a chemist shop. enough wax came out that could've made up a pair of candles. once i went out to the market-place, the difference was so remarkable that i re-entered the chemist's and asked the guy to put the wax back in. yes, of course i was joking.

there are three types of dental offices. you can sit with a guy on the street. he has a blanket stretched out on the sidewalk with medieval-looking tools and a large sign with a disembodied, smiling, toothy mouth. the next level up is a dentist in a wooden shack of a clinic with bold, colorful signage and rudimentary but relatively up-to-date equipment. lastly, in the larger centers, there are chic, western quality clinics. all three offices might well be called 'the gandhi dental clinic' and i've frequented the second and third type many, many times over my years in india.

you can purchase adequate sneakers for ten dollars, sandals for the equivalent of a toonie or patch your old ones for pennies. a shawl or a shirt'll set you back a few bucks. there are cloth bags, plastic pails, stainless steel utensils and books all for a song over here. the food, candy, even ice-cream is virtually free while the wine, i'm told, is dirt cheap, but may cause blindness.

none of that means a thing to me. it's my old guruji, my friends and the satsang worth missing, and i know i will. i always do. on this beautiful moon-lit himalayan evening, a day before my departure, once again i'm faced with leaving this life and these people behind. i'm not sad. i'm not conflicted. i'm just grateful. the other day, guruji said that the heart is not that which has a pulse. i totally got that. and my heart feels as full as the moon this evening.

Letters From The Edge 3.

shrinkage.

as i write this i feel as though i am merely a living organism, an amoeba, a slug, at most a mollusk. i've been lying in my room unable to eat much, sleeping and meditating most of the day, listening to a bit of music, playing a bit of ipad scrabble. perhaps when your world shrinks like this, or like a dying person, when you really can't look past the day, the moment, a bit of morning sunlight flooding your room, a breath or two, is experienced fully and fully appreciated. perhaps you're truly free. perhaps, as strange as this may sound, you're truly living, truly alive.

early this morning, i staggered up the hill and nearly passed out on the upper path. my friend made me drink some electrolytes, we sat for a bit before taking a look at some puppies in a nearby small cave. there are five, black and white, eyes barely open. we had saved one of them the other night during a torrential downpour when it had fallen out, yelping and hollering for all the world to hear it's ernest desire to live. there was something appropriate about playing with those new-born creatures, feeding the mother, as i struggled to get my legs to hold me up. the cycle of life. i am over-dramatizing, of course, but you get my point.

it was not less than a year ago that, sitting in my favorite wakefield cafe, i looked to my right and saw my old uncle morris. that was odd considering he was actually 'no longer with us.' upon a second glance i realized it was not him. it was me, reflected in a mirror on the wall. that was somewhat unsettling. to be directly faced with the fact that i am turning into my uncle was a wee bit of a shock.

i once helped old uncle morris out of a taxi and he handed me a dollar. when i asked what that was for, he said it was a tip and it was all i deserved because i wasn't such a great driver. i told him i was not the taxi driver but his nephew. he looked at me hard and then demanded the dollar back. later on, up in my parents' apartment, he kept looking over at me rather severely. i suspect he was wondering why the driver was still there. anyway, what was disturbing about seeing myself in him, in that wakefield cafe mirror, had less to do with all that and much more to do with his physical appearance, but that's another story.

the truth is, we're not gonna escape father time. we're not gonna escape mother nature. a guy came running up to me last week, hugged me tightly, gushed about how great it was to see me again and i had no idea who he was. not at all. it was only after he was walking back to his car that i realized it was a fellow i used to play basketball with. he had aged so much since last i saw him. i leaned into the car to tell his two kids how good a bballer their dad had been, just to reinforce the erroneous assumption that i remembered. time waits for nobody.

what i'm experiencing right now is merely an episode, a canadian body falling prey to a very different india. upon my arrival, i guess i thought i was still indian, ate and drank whatever i used to with little or no care. following twenty-three years here i kept catching the flu in canada, a few times each of those first two winters. so i shuffled on down to the wakefield clinic early that third winter and asked for a flu shot, was told i wasn't old enough, that i had to pay for it. i asked the price tag, was told it cost a whopping ten bucks. so i said: "ok, but if i get the flu this winter do i get a refund?" as usual, my attempt at sick flu-like humor was met with a blank stare.

the good news is, nadia, i have not been bitten by a monkey, head-butted by a bull or fallen down any holes, yet, not this time. and i've been really enjoying the morning sunlight flooding in through the windows today. would but that we could live each moment of each day like this, appreciating every puppy, every person, every thought, every sensation that comes our way, even as we plan for a bright future, before our world shrinks.  

.