Kedarnath Jossi Home

Heather/John
c/o Jossi
N. 1/225
Nagwa, Varanasi-221005
Uttar Pradesh, India

We've just moved into our flat. It is enormous for the two of us who have little more than the clothing on our backs, and are loathe to accumulate much before we have to abandon it and return to our homeland. It is owned by a jolly and strange professor of astrology. He had me flip a coin to decide whether we would pay a deposit for the flat: heads, we won. Last night, after I asked for a hammer and his son ran and found me a very imposing rock, he told me, "You have conical nose--it means you have good mind. Your nose like father or mother? Father? Accha... it means you take after your father." John is now scheming to become a professor of astrology as well.

We have spent two days cleaning the cobwebs and dust off of shelves, windowsills, door tops. I've stuffed metal screen in each of the holes in the wall, in hope that the rat droppings will stop accumulating inside of the kitchen cupboards. It's not the first time I've shared kitchen space with a rat. Not even the third time. But you don't get used to verminous circumstances--you just become acutely aware. No one wants even the faintest smell of rat poop hanging about their cooking.

I find comfort in the mango tree that shades our balcony, and in the papaya that dangles its green fruit just beyond arm's reach. This afternoon, we will take chai with our landlady and -lord, both more generous than I could have hoped. Already they have loaned us a stove, a sewing machine, a bed. They've offered a TV, a fridge, a table, a computer. Tonight we will cook our first meal here in Varanasi. Slowly-slowly, this space will become ours. This coming week I will start writing a lesson plan that incorporates my favorite arts with learning the English language. And I will start collecting fabric for my quilting-circle-to-be. And I will meet weavers, finally. And we will make this place our home.

Drums

My custom tabla have been built and delivered. They are beautiful and they sing richly and quickly and sweetly. Bonding with objects is something I'd forgotten about; I used to rub new pens in hopes that we would bond and I wouldn't lose them as quickly. But bonding with tabla is probably a matter of spending thousands of hours practicing...

I found a set of marching drums that I'm contemplating turning into a western-style drum kit. Giant bass drum and several snare drums of assorted sizes. They're ANCIENT and pretty janky, but they harbor serious warmth of tone and phenomenal character. The skins are all, well, real skins and the snares are made out of sinew. Mark Kaylor would go nuts. The problem is the guy wants 9,000 Rupees for the set ($225) which makes them like the most expensive things in all of India. He must have read the excitement on my face. I'm exploring some other channels to see if I can find an actual drum kit, but if not I'm hoping the marching drums are available for rent as the drumming jones are getting serious.

Oh, and we got a flat. It's big so come-on over. And bring a bass drum pedal and some quality chocolate while you're at it.

Blog Notices

- Note the list of links at the top/right. There are many more India photos under the Heather's Photos link.

- Send us the URL's for links you'd like added to our list. If they belong here, we'll add them. Thanks.

- I apologize to readers who have been unsuccessfully trying to post comments for the last couple of days. I have fixed the problem.

Varanasi, Benares, Banaras, Kashi--

Sitting of the banks of the Ganga on a cement bench, under a cement umbrella, the sun sets behind us. This crook of river flows North, before setting out East again. The water is high from rains in the mountains, and the water laps gently halfway up the walls of the bathrooms set into its banks.

The city stretches out North and South like the hollow of a crescent moon. It rises up behind us in sandstone and brick, pungent, earnest, seedy. Electric lines run in lazy droops from one nasty snarl to the next. There is a cockroach for every crevice, and a ficus for every shrine or temple. the alleyways traverse the city like some mad spider's web, barely wide enough for the cows, nevermind the pilgrims, bicycles, motorcycles and -scooters, beggars, hawkers, idle bystanders.

Swifts circle overhead. A devotee, shaved head, bathes in the river, standing on the steps and sumerging himself completely three times in each direction South, West, North, East. Muddy water. A smell wafts up from the water that smells of rot--I remember the bloated-blue body of a goat we saw, caught among the boat lines two days ago--but mostly I smell charcoal burning somewhere else.

The swifts careen helix-style in to roost. A man collects his laundry from where it was drying today, on the top of a neighboring cement umbrella and held in place with bricks. The swifts trill dominates the air.

Discipleship

You wouldn't believe my Guruji. I am only allowed to call him Guruji or else the relationship is over. I can only point my feet in certain directions in his room. I must be absolutely punctual in my visits and phone calls. He has monkey friends. He speaks with them, dances with them, feeds them chickpeas. He takes care of everything for us, what we eat, where we live, what I'm wearing on my back right now... Heather and I have spent many hours with him already, mostly in silence, in his incredible, dark, ancient room. A room that was once utterly luxurious and ornate but seems to have been mouldering for millenia, seems to have housed a great conflagration stoked by fragrant, sooty logs, epochs ago. He hums to himself constantly, hangs his head askew (as if listening to something speaking to him from within his clavicle), and frequently nods "mmmm"s and "um-hmmm"s to himself. Heather: "Do you think he's just constantly hearing and responding to music going on in his head?" Somehow, we both trust him, and like him, very much.

I have only touched the tabla once, the first day, after he said, "I must see your hands." I am waiting for my own drums to be built, under Guruji's supervision: "I feel, just 5-6 days, mmm?" He has appointed us a "boy", a sort of fixer or handler, who is a 45-year-old man named Gopal. Gopal's wife cooks for us and accepts no money. Gopal speaks almost no English but still insists we call his mobile every day. Gopal forces food on us with more vigor than my Ukrainian grandmother.

We were led to Guruji the first day by one of his servants. Guruji was perched, sitting lotus-position, in a neck-height niche in a wall along a ridiculously narrow alley. His mouth distended and redolent with Paan (betelnut), he was dressed in an amazing, skin-like silk kurta that awed Heather. He was surrounded by disciples. He has servants, admirers, disciples everywhere. He is like some wiry Indian Godfather. Every day, when I'm with him, I feel like it's hundreds of years ago. This teaching method, the intense Indian Guru/Disciple method, is nearly dead. Only the old masters still teach this way.


Oh, and on the menu at a restaurant last night: "Chili con Polio"

Persistance, Rationality, Logic

In Dehra Dun, we walk past a line of repairmen, all seated neatly one after the next along the sidewalk. One man is the umbrella repairman. He sits with a paintbucket full of salvaged umbrella parts, patiently working at the ribs of a frail umbrella--one that will break again next week. One that cost at most $1.50, new.

In Mussoorie, I am alone. The entrance to the Hotel Laxmi Palace is grand: marble floors and sparkle and high ceilings, and the whole thing juts off the edge of a cliff. My room is tiny, smudged. A constellation of cigarette burns decorates the wall. The four-inch gap between the bed and the wall is littered with cigarette butts, matts of hair, greasy plastic bags. I turn back the blanket to find a cockroach in its death throes. I fall asleep to the sound of the leaky faucet, tightly cocooned in the sheet I so thankfully brought with me to India. I am already missing John.

I came to Mussoorie to see the mountains--I emerge the next morning into cloud. A man helps me to find an ATM. He then decides that he was my friend, although he can't speak English worth a damn. He does not ask my name; I never ask his--so for simplicity's sake, I'll call him Stupid. Excerpts from our conversation:

"I am married!" I am brandishing my (faux) wedding ring.

"I married too." Pause. "You no married.... please, one coffee?"

"I am married! And no!"

"You no like coffee?"

"I like coffee! I don't like you!"

"No smoke, no coffee, no chai.... you are confused?"

"Not confused! I am angry!"

"You confused? I go back?"

"Not confused! Yes, you go back!"

He brightens. "Not confused? I go bus stand, then I go back."

"No! You go back now!" I stop walking, start gesticulating wildly in the direction I am not headed. I am drawing stares. "Go now! I don't like you!"

"You like me? I like you."

It is impossible.

Walking with fury I cover the mile and a half in record time. Stupid tails me. He boards the bus with me. I do not make room for him to sit next to me. Ridiculously, he buys my bus ticket. I am pleading with the conductor not to accept the money, but I am slower with my wallet, and the man is confused. I am nearly in tears. The man in the seat ahead of me, observing the drama, asks me if I know Stupid. I say no. He asks if I want help--I say yes. He says that if something happens more, he will help.

Calm comes slowly. I think to myself: I do not know my stalker; he does not know me. Better--Stupid does not exist. I do nothing more to acknowledge his existence.

Amazingly, Stupid stays on the bus. He will go to Dehra Dun--a direct, 1-hour bus ride from Mussoorie. By this new route, it will be 8 hours and 3 buses before he arrives. My protector sits in front of me. And I got a free bus ticket. Stupid is taking a dusty, 8-hour journey to be pressed into oblivion by a foreign woman whose name he has not bothered to ask.

We descend through the mountains, passing through white pine, hemlock, weeping willows, apple--rain and fog and dappled sunlight. We pass a construction sight where four men have taken refuge from the rain inside the mouth of a bulldozer.

I disembark alone into Rishikesh dusk. My spirits are high. Cars careen blaringly by. Om sweet Om, as they say.....

Character

Uffe, the Dane, is maybe 50 years old, over 2 meters tall, blonde and blue-eyed, as a good scandinavian should be.

Uffe: I got cut in Delhi and I ALWAYS ask for a new blade but that time, that ONE time, I didn't [points to scar at corner of mouth], so I'll have to be tested when I get home, I mean I could have The AIDS, you never know, the foremost buddhist in america, [he gives unintelligibly murmured name]-

Heather: Who?

Uffe: You know, [unintelligibly murmured name], died of The AIDS but not before infecting 30 of his disciples, 30 of his OWN disciples, like satan he knew he was going down and had to take everyone down with him!

John: I don't think the barber tried to give you The, er, AIDS. You shouldn't think like that about people.

Uffe: No, no, he didn't try to, but his ignorance, in India it's their ignorance, that did. It's like in Africa, millions of orphans, millions, because, you know, they, there they all ... in the huts together and what have you. But it's very much possible I am now sick. Oh, in Thailand and Vietnam the buddhist monks shaving their heads every day, sharing blades, a big problem there. I know about the transmission of these things, you know, my degree, I have a degree in, uh, in, um, well, you know, er, doesn't matter. Ok, I won't talk anymore. I never talk, not even to myself, ha, it's like an over-stuffed closet, you know, it's like a soup in my head sometimes.

Surendra (owner of the guest house): What? You are making a juice?

Uffe: No, not juice, SOUP! Soup, you know, we're all in this soup together, we've all got our finger in the pie...

Good Swim

We swam in the Ganges. We are still alive (and now, purportedly, without sin).

Tomorrow we head to the mindtrip that is Varanasi.

My Guru-to-be and The Monsoon Oven

The level of Heather's compulsion to create baked goods became clear to me when, last week, she built a solar oven (there are no standard ovens here). Hers is a delightful contraption of dark wool, yellow foam, glass, and mirror that I step upon and break sometimes.
Unfortunately, it is the monsoon season and hasn't been all that sunny as of late...

Lachchu (or Lachu, or Lachhu) Maharaj Ji (Right)
Last night, after a wonderful classical Indian music concert, I was talking to one of the amazing musicians and when I mentioned that I will study with Lachhu Maharaj in Varanasi he froze, said "whoa", and then said "Good luck, man."
My teacher for the next week here in Rishikesh is Pankaj Kumar. Pankaj studied with the famous master Kishan Maharaj until "falling in love" with Lachhu after seeing him perform. Pankaj is a magnificent person, a phenomenal musician, technician, and teacher and is known as Lachhu's best-ever student.
Lachhu, however, is 70 years old and, despite flying under the tabla-fame radar, is regarded as the finest tabla player of his generation. I asked Pankaj who else is of Lachhu's caliber and he said no-one. Then he said, "perhaps Zakir Hussain." I trust Pankaj's assessment because he's studied with the likes of Kishan and because I've seen video of Lachhu performing and was utterly undone by his musicianship, facility, and ENERGY. Furthermore, Gopal, our handler in Varanasi, said that when Zakir saw Lachhu play, he ritually degraded himself before Lachhu and addressed him as Guruji.

For Seth

An insect. Bigger than he looks right here. With a really lovely snout.

Coconut Chutney

Take 1/3 c. peanuts (or don't, if allergic... maybe sub in almonds?). If they are not already roasted, you can do so in a dry pan over medium heat. Stir every minute or so. They should begin to crackle, and you can turn the heat down to low--it should take about 15 minutes. Set them aside to cool, and once cool, you can remove the skins.

Roughly chop 1/2 of a fresh coconut (how do you open them in the States? here they just use a little wooden mallet, give the coconut a few sharp raps around the middle, and voi-la), 3 small (very hot!) green chilis, and 1 1/2 inches of ginger. Place peanuts/other nuts, coconut, chilis, and ginger in a blender or food processor. Add the juice of one lemon, 1/2 cup water, and about a teaspoon of salt. Blend. Add water to reach chutney consistency.

In a small small saucepan or large cooking spoon, heat 1 T. oil, 1 dried red chili, and 1 t. dark brown mustard seed. Roast until mustard seeds pop. Add to the chutney.

It will be very spicy, and very good.