Where we’ve landed…
‘We were in a thatched hut in Goa off the coast of the Arabian Sea when I got the call…’
Well the ‘call’ was really a message on Skype. A New York agency made me an offer I couldn’t refuse and I was due back in 21 days for the start of a new global campaign for chocolate. Suddenly our meandering travels through India would take on the the frenzied pace of one of those all-inclusive romps through Europe that your parents fancy.
Early morning, Goa
Heading back to the States early was a financial decision; a commitment to earn another pile of money to fund future ganderlusting. Friends - including my best one, an expectant mother soon to drop - rejoiced at our early return, but speculated about a backstory. Unrelenting travel can worry a partnership like a bad tooth.
Imagine seeing the most beautiful things you’ve ever encountered with someone who — you’ve convinced yourself while glaring across your 500th bowl of rice and lentils — is out to get you. Heat, dodgy hotels and dysentary will do that to a person.
Said tundra
By the end of our trip, we were worn out and headed to different parts of the planet. One of us returned to the frozen tundra of the Czech countryside. The other returned to a way-too-wintery-for-spring East Village. We missed each other like mad for about four weeks, fought bitterly via Skype and reunited at JFK in late April.
So, what’s next for Ganderlust? We’d like to reflect a bit on our travels in future posts; imagine being captive to your slightly dotty spinster Aunt Trudy and her traveling companion Harriet as they regale you with their four hour slideshow of Niagara Falls.
It’ll be something like that.
Where the wild things are
Part of the thrill of India is interacting with wild animals without the usual western contingency plan. At the temple services in Kochi, there were no guns or tranquilizers just the bull elephant’s lone caretaker, a 55 kg Tamil man armed with a bamboo stick. Had the elephant decided, in protest perhaps to the unending heat and an overcurious American to trample me, I’d have only myself to blame. Instead I fed him a sugarcane treat for politely suffering my fascination. His skin! Prehistoric. His lashes! Thick blue-black. His feet! Is there anything cooler or more improbable than an elephant’s foot?
Early 20th Century Bokhara rug with elephant foot pattern
So naturally when I saw the black bull on the way to the Madurai train station I thought here stands yet another peaceful member of India’s vast menagerie. To my relatives reading this, I apologize. Any Texas girl knows that bulls are best observed behind barbed wire or at the stockyards
Here, like some doomed wildlife reporter I have the bull’s full attention, but don’t know it.
My only crime: Approaching an angry bull in broad daylight dressed like a rodeo clown.
Bazi took the above pic moments before the incident. A local man suggested I get closer and walked up to the bull casually like it was some overgrown black lab. Ignoring common sense or, say, the unmistakable stink eye of a 1,000 lb beast, I too approached.
Before I could say ‘Holla Senor Guapo’, the bull lowered his head and knocked me into the dirt in front of Bazi and several horrified locals. In my complete surprise instinct took over - I guess natural selection doesn’t kill off fools after all - and I managed to cover my face taking the full brunt of his right horn on my left elbow. It was like being rudely shoved by a Volkswagon bus. Unfortunately Bazi fearing for my life, failed to get the shot.
The best part? I’ve now lived through several Texas idioms at once:
When you tangle with the bull you get the horns.
Sometimes you ride the bull; sometimes the bull rides you.
And so on…..Feel free to add your own.
Thy will be done…
Inside the Yeni Camii.
I envy my sister many things: her endless southern charm that seduces curmudgeons, cantankerous children and reclusive misanthropes alike, her 19th century apothecary cupboard and, most of all, I envy her relationship with God.
Not as cool as my sister’s.
My sister can be described as a loyal member of the Christian Right. Although we were raised by the same rainy day Methodists who adopted me - a biracial heroin baby - before it was cool, Melody was inherently conservative from pigtails to oxfords. Her faith has fully shaped her life in the same way a search for meaning has shaped mine.
She was also an expert baton twirler something that, as I write it now, I also envy.
The world famous Apache Bells of Tyler Junior College predate the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. My sister ruled the astroturf from ‘68-‘70.
She graduated from high school in 1968 without seeming to noticing that the world was on fire. She never tried drugs, free love, radical politics or any of the other late 60’s come-ons that I tried to represent in the summer of ‘84 with my hideous oversized peace sign necklace and round violent-tinted sunglasses. (Thank God goth killed my nascent hippydom.)
Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens) was, like my sister, a stone cold fox!
So now, with my treatment over on the eve of travels through India to find myself (cue elephants, Julia Roberts and a dreamy Spaniard) I wonder how she always knew her path in life. Where does that unshakable faith in the order of things come from? And, can heretics have it too?
My treatment room at the clinic.
If anyone is out there reading, I’d love to know: What is your purpose in life and how and when did you find it?
The Queen’s Biscuit
In the early nineteenth century, most folks lived in the country. They went to the closest town, however humble, to shop, socialize or worship. We’ve used the idiom ‘go to town’ before, but never really meant it. We’ve ‘gone to town’, for example, on any number of things: a bone-in rib chop (me), pu-erh tea (Baz) .
After 18 days cooped up with sacred cows, wild dogs, territorial geckos and an extremely vocal murder of crows, we are granted temporary leave to the bustling burg of Coimbatore.
Known as the Manchester of India, this textile hub has saris, kurtis, and salwar kameez for sale on every corner. It’s also home to Krishna Sweets, a ghee-scented den of inequity passing as a South Indian bakery. I’ve already discussed ladoo and hope my NYC friends in proximity to Jackson Heights (O, to be near the 7 train!) will try some immediately. But I digress…This is our homage to ‘going to town’ in all its glorious hustle and bustle - not just sweets, but death-defying tuk-tuks, beautiful clothes, buttery dosa and the ancient art of haggling.
By day 18 Bazi is hanging by a wire. Talented photographer, my partner in crime and known Cookie Monster, she’s never gone this long without a fix. So there we are in the Big Bazaar (the name fits perfectly) when she spots a ramshackle display of McVitie’s Digestive Cookies. To put it mildly, McVitie’s make the best cookies on the planet. Hobnobs?! Are you kidding me? Keebler, with respect, can suck it. Baz makes a small noise between a childlike whimper and a primordial cry of rage and I know we must have them.
Trouble is; these cookies are promotional only. To qualify for 4 packages we’d have to buy 4 kilos of oats. I’m a seasoned haggler; knock-off Chloe bags on Pell St., bootleg CS 3 in Bangkok, but Big Bazaar is an actual store with a multitiered management hierarchy that would put ad agencies to shame. We talk to everyone in the chain of command and somehow walk away with 4 packages of British digestive cookies.
God Save the Queen! (We mean it, man.)
