Guru Gem Scam : Part One

Tonight makes the first time I've missed a yoga class since my trip to India. Sitting here at my desk feels unnatural. I should be twisted into some compromising and awkward position, alternating between wiping off sweat and pulling up my shirt. (Can't give away the milk for free when he doesn't want to buy the cow...) To put it mildly, I really fucked up my back last week riding my bike. The twenty minutes of exhilaration pedaling around the neighborhood was great. The damage the original 1960s seat (and shot springs) did to my lumbar spine was not. I've been trying to work it out with extra restorative yoga and I thought the pain and problem were diminishing, but last night's back-to-back lessons were a terrible idea. I can barely sit. I can barely move. What. Have. I. Done.

On the bright side, my night unexpectedly cleared up and I have no excuse not to write! In honor of yoga's motherland, and my cruel lover/bicycle, Krishna, I think it's finally time to reflect on India.

From everything I've observed at work, there are three grossly generalized types of people usually traveling to The Subcontinent.

1. Expats returning home with suitcases full of American/Western gadgets and clothes and money.

2. Rich, middle-aged people taking pricy tours with all comforts included, five star hotels, and private cars.

3. Younger budget backpackers who are interested in Indian religions, yoga, "spirituality," etc. Usually they're on the grungier, more adventurous side. Deodorant is optional - as is leg hair.

When Laura suggested last November that we meet up in Southeast Asia in the Spring to volunteer at Elephant Nature Park and then head over to India, a place we've both said we've always wanted to go, I thought "Great idea! It'll never happen in a million years, but great idea!" I wasn't skeptical of Laura's will to get there. I was skeptical of my ability to follow through with that very remote-seeming dream.

India has been a force of nature in my life since I was a little girl. As most of you probably know, my mom is a (now retired) cultural anthropologist and religions professor. Her specialty is India. Our house resembles more of a sparse Hindu and Buddhist artifact museum than it does a comfortable living space. Some kids were read Berenstain Bears books when they were wee. I was too, but my mom also chucked in the Bhagavad Gita, Dalai Lama speeches, and bits of the Upanishads. I'm sure she thought it was a good idea at the time, but despite being surrounded by Hindu iconography, I didn't really take to most of it. My mom went on a sabbatical when I was six and spent the entire month of February traveling to Northern India and Nepal, and it was a very hard time for me. Regardless of her many promises, I remained unconvinced she would return. And my dad refused to peel our carrots or potatoes. (And no, it wasn't because he knew that was where all the vitamins and minerals are. Dude's just a lazy bastard.) It was a long four weeks, and I'm sure it poisoned me against embracing India as heartily as others might've. I remember looking at the dozens of rolls of film my mom brought back. Seeing the saffron robes of people in boats on the Ganges in Varanasi. Innumerable monks in red. Beards. It didn't seem real. Everything she brought back for us smelled weird, looked weird, and felt weird. India couldn't have been farther away.

 

My mom's "Eastern" onslaught was - and is - endless, though. She just doesn't quit. In the twenty-two years that have intervened since she's been there, her interest and research and passion for the place have started seeping into me. I started watching Bollywood films in high school, listening to Hindi language music (provided by my friend Ekta,) and reading a lot about Buddhism and Hinduism. I think I probably know more about both than I do about either Judaism or Catholicism, the religions my parents were born into. Going to India seemed like a natural challenge - and one that I thought I would eventually, in the far far future, take.

I was baking a batch of cookies and listening to U2's "One" when it dawned on me that I had no reason not to make the journey with Laura. Bizarre, right? Too cheesy to be true? It hit me like a ton of bricks. I had jack shit going on in my life, save for the nurturing of my intense depression, and a weekly yoga class that gave me equal amounts of pain, humiliation, and ninety minutes of relief from said depression. I was withering away. What better way was there to make a really fucking huge change? What better way was there to slap myself back into life than to visit the most jarring place in the world? I made the commitment then and there, shaking.

One love, one life, when it's one need in the night
One love, we get to share it, leaves you baby if you don't care for it...

Yep. I really am that person.

The stars didn't just align when I made my plan. (Or maybe they did, and this is a very long term game for them.) I spent several weeks reading through Lonely Planet India at work and consulting with my coworker Julia, who incidentally is the guide my mom went with all those years ago. Julia drew up two versions of an itinerary in quite literally five minutes, and sprinkled me with advice while my mom at home drew up her own lists of things I needed to see and bring with me. I asked customers for words of wisdom whenever I could. Eventually, I also met my future friend and yoga teacher Oren to talk about his experience at an ashram in Rishikesh. From these many sources I consistently gathered two things:

-Beware of the monkeys! (Absolutely the FIRST thing Oren ever told me about India/anything)
-Beware of the scams!

Seriously. Monkeys?

They're like babies, but cuter and smarter - and potentially more rabid.

The scams, though, seemed a little less cute. I couldn't make it through more than a few pages of LP India without reading about yet another, craftier way people had of lifting money off of foreigners. Whether it was men approaching tourists at the New Delhi train station and lying to them about the foreign ticket office being closed, or dodgy taxi drivers, recycled Coca Cola bottles, shady hotel owners, fake marble, perverse yoga instructors, or even escaped convicts dressing up as sadhus, India seemed like a minefield of trickery and financial hazard. It also seemed like a place where I could get really physically sick. I started feeling like I should be bracing myself - like I should just be waiting for trouble.

Planning our itinerary was a new level of difficult. India is called "The Subcontinent" for a reason - it's massive. I knew I wanted to see three things for sure: Varanasi and the Ganges, the Taj Mahal, and lots of food. Rajasthan would be a plus. Khajuraho would be a sexually explicit plus. Anything else I could take or leave, even the stint at Oren's ashram I thought could be a vague possibility. And then I started reading about India's trains. Though the distance between cities might not be unreasonable, corresponding times for those journeys are. And then there was the flight from Bangkok to New Delhi. And then there was this. And then there was that. Nothing seemed easy or straightforward - and we hadn't even left American soil. I overheard Julia telling a customer that no first timer in India should try to do it herself. I looked at her, wondering why she hadn't told me that a month or two ago. The panic set in.

I had no idea what I was in for.
Guru Gem Scam : Part Two COMING SOON!