See gressa grow

10 days into my India travels, I’m sitting in an Alice in Wonderland themed cafe called Morgan’s Place in Dharamkot; a small hippie town near Dharamshala with a gorgeous view of the Kangra Valley and the snow capped Dhauladhar mountains. Monkeys teeter on the skimpiest of branches, and just when I’m sure they’re going to fall they gracefully swoop to another. Yellow-billed Blue Magpie’s soar across the mountain ranges displaying their freakishly long tails that flutter and flap behind them like blue splattered wedding gown trails. I’m watching all of this from a cushion on the floor with a steaming cup of chai and a whole pizza on the table in front of me. (Not very Indian of me but I finally got my appetite back after an episode of Delhi belly). The power keeps going on and off and so does the space heater, which is a shame because it’s cold up here in these mountains and I’m having all of my jackets washed by a local Indian woman who offered to do it for 50 rupees. The ceiling here is a painted universe with splattered white stars and multicolored planets. The signs that led me to the cafe were cute wooden boards painted with sentences like “follow this sign if you’re mad” and “go on til the end: then stop,” which is also an accurate example of Indian directions I’ve come to find the hard way. 

Dharamshala is an entirely different planet from Rajasthan, which is where I’ve been traveling for the past week with my friend Shannon. Rajasthan is hot, bustling, and exhausting. It is a region rich with royalty and romantic history. In Jodhpur we spent a day at the Mehrangarh Fort, one of the largest forts in India, with unashamedly touristy big black headphones listening to a cheaper version of a tour guide and dodging families wanting selfies (a selfie with each member of the family and then one all together). At first I felt tickled but after the 30th request I started to understand how it feels like to be a famous person always running from the paparazzi. (Apparently Nick Jonas and Fiance Priyanka Chopra were there a week after us and I’m sure they had a mighty fun time running from the actual paparazzi).

In the short and rare moments I had to myself in the fort I would stand in the six hundred year old rooms imagining the royal men and women lounging in their brightly colored flowing clothing; chatting, arguing, laughing, feasting, loving, and fighting. Rudyard Kipling, poet and author of The Jungle Book, upon visiting the fort poetically described it as “(a) Palace that might have been built by Titans and colored by the morning sun.” Needless to say, there is magic built into the bricks and the stones that make up the fort as well as the small blue city that surrounds its walls.

On our last day in Jodhpur we ventured out into the market. I was sucked over to the first woman who started shouting at me about her dupatta’s (traditional Indian shawls), and like the amatuer I am I bought 3 before I knew what was happening for a price I didn’t even try to bargain for. Afterwards, we walked around with dupatta’s wrapped around our heads, shoulders and mouths, mostly to keep the  sun and dust out and attempt to lessen the stares, but also because, well, they’re pretty. As the Rajasthani sun was at the highest point in the day, Shannon and I found ourselves panting in line at the closest chance of relief we could find; a lassi stand. While in line we struck a conversation with an older Indian gentleman sitting under an umbrella  supervising his younger colleagues. The longer we talked the more it became evident that this man who had never been to a day of school in his life had succeeded in attaining the wisdom of the whole universe. He said that he learned everything he knew from the tourists all while sitting in this very chair by the lassi stand. Among his impressive English and a handful of other languages, his areas of speciality included world history, philosophy,  politics, and celebrity gossip. While it was pressing on our minds, we decided to ask him what he thought about us, as westerners, wearing traditional clothing. His response was similar to the responses that we would get from more locals in the days that followed; and that response was generally that as long as we were in India, wearing traditional clothing was appropriate for not only showing interest in and respect for the culture, but also for lessening the stares from men and for accommodating to the weather.

For myself, as a privileged westerner who’s heritage is responsible for wide spread colonialism, cultural appropriation lies heavy in my heart and in the front of my mind. It has so far become clear to me that the difference between cultural appreciation and appropriation is between being consensually given a cultural gift from a local, and non-consensually taking something from a culture because we think it looks pretty, we like it, and because we’ve been socialized to believe we have the right to take whatever we want.  And this leads me to the whole reason I am spending this cold day shivering over a chai in a drafty cafe in Dharamkot; to write about an experience Shannon and I had a few days ago of cultural appreciation. An experience that, in a political climate ripe with nationalism and intensified border control, is the very reason why more of us with resources and privilege must travel beyond the confines of our cultural bubbles. I digress. 

On the morning of our first full day in Jaisalmer Shannon and I were leaving an ATM when we noticed we were being followed by a woman in a red and yellow sari. As you might imagine, we clutched out fanny packs closer and exchanged looks, thinking that this must be the moment when our friends and relatives back home get to say “I told you so” for the rest of eternity. Regardless, we slowed down to  confront our fate, and then she did something that neither Shannon or I could have ever anticipated; she invited us to lunch with her family.

She ushered us into her small brick and clay two room home, cooled by a small overhead fan and warmed by the charming smiles of her four children. Upon our arrival all of the residents got to work on making sure our visit was five stars. Her oldest daughter made us papad’s with hot curry stuffed peppers and her younger daughters got to work on decorating out forearms and palms with henna. Her son and his friend sat in a corner watching television, requesting from time to time to have their picture taken as they posed in various poses. Although financially this family seemed to be hurting, they showered us in gifts, entertainment, laughter, and, for me at least and I think I can say this for Shannon as well, restoration of faith in humanity. Among these gifts varying from small handmade cloth animals and marionette dolls they sold at the market, my favorite was a ring that I complimented on one of the daughters’ hands and before I knew what was happening was being escorted onto my finger. In return I gave her a ring of my own, finding myself wanting nothing more than to give her everything I had with me and more. Shannon gifted them with some of her ointments and creams that she’d made, which was received with appreciation from one of the boys who had a small rash on his chest. Although we could have stayed there all day, we said our goodbyes in the early afternoon as we had booked a camel safari at 3pm. Banasi insisted on walking us most of the way to our hostel, switching from smiling up at us sweetly to turning around and clucking at her children who were mischievously trailing behind us, not wanting to see us leave. Before she left us she looked back between both of us, placed a hand over her chest and touched the other to our shoulders and repeated, “My sister my heart, my sister my heart.”

That evening we rode camels into the desert and drank large Kingfisher beers from a mysterious beer man: a villager who rode his motorcycle through the desert to our camp like a godsend carrying the large box of goods on the back of his bike. We sat on a sand dune watching the sunset and the almost full moon rise, sharing travel stories between our small group of adventurers; all wild spirits from Ireland, Israel, Germany, and South Africa. That night I drifted to sleep on a cot beneath the dazzling desert stars, waking up only once to watch in disorienting dream state as a Bengal fox tried to sneak into our camp and a guide shot up to promptly chase him away.

A bumpy camel ride back through the desert, a jostling 14 hour train ride and chaotic dash through the Delhi airport later, we found ourselves soaring into Dharamshala with a front row view of the Himalayan mountain range; home to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, countless beautiful and bizarre species of Himalayan wildlife, and, for this next month, me. 

Stay tuned to see what life is like at a zero-waste Buddhist nunnery, and my impressions of a 3 day teaching by Dalai Lama himself.