Honey: Selected Journals from the Years Away
Book IV: In Ponda
1.29.17 to 4.2.17: Varanasi, India
The train arrived in the early morning. The old lady was banging her fist against the window. At first I thought she was trying to wake me. She was actually waving to someone on the platform. She rose and collected her bags. Then she exited silently, leaving me there with spittle drying in my beard.
The old lady had traveled with me from Mumbai. We’d been alone in the aisle, save for a fat man who’d come abroad between Narsinghpur and Jabalpur, quietly reciting prayers from a tiny chapbook. She’d appeared with two companions, one of whom identified himself as her son. The non-son wore a dark-green quarter-zip, and started shoving my shit around to make room.
The son asked where I was from. I said America. He said he’d been to New Orleans. He pulled out his phone to show me photos. They were mostly just of him in sunglasses. Nothing I’d describe as specific to New Orleans. He said: “Take care of my mother.” I said: Okay.
The old lady wore a very crisp, expensive sari. I couldn’t imagine it being comfortable on a thirty-hour journey. She spent most of the trip speaking on her phone in hushed tones. This is something high-caste women like to do. I was on the top bunk, and anytime I leaned against the metal panel I’d receive an electrical shock. When the old lady departed she left behind a pillow caked with foundation and rouge. It looked like a mutilated face frowning up at the train car.
It was 5:00AM, and the last thing I wanted to do was get off the train. I knew the score. Hawkers were already peering through the window. I had to shut the blinds to change into pants. Mornings in Northern India were cold, both physically and emotionally. When I finally did get down they descended, calling me friend, saying: “Where you want to go?” Where I really wanted to go was somewhere else – because hawkers were never trustworthy, not those loitering on the platform at these hours. I ambled along in no particular direction, the crowd gesticulating wildly. One man, wrapped in several shawls, indicated the exit with an outstretched arm. I took a ramp toward the station. The drivers spiraled off, back to the incoming trains.
One didn’t, though. He was young, with a full face, wearing a green fleece zipped to the chin. He followed at a distance, across a bridge and into the station. He wasn’t offering anything. He just hovered, watching me while I moved. We picked our way through the hall, stepping over sleeping families and piles of luggage. I stopped, pretending to check my phone. He waited. No matter how many times I waved him off he wouldn’t budge. He stood there, hands in his pockets. I could feel him eyeing me. I didn’t like it. He shadowed me out into the dark parking lot, the sky awash with cheap orange light.
What these guys want is to drive you to your guesthouse at an inflated rate. Normally I’d walk. But the guesthouse was 2.5km away, and after two days on a train I needed to crawl into bed. Which meant I needed one of them to give me a lift. But I knew I’d rather sleep on the side of the road than let it be this guy.
Halfway across the parking lot I turned back. I approached him. I said: “I don’t like being followed.” I spoke with a firmness I tried to believe in. “I don’t want you.” He stood there. Then he gestured to himself and the other drivers. As if to say: “What’s the difference? Him, me – it’s all the same in your eyes. What does it matter to you?” I didn’t have an answer. He walked back into the station. I felt ashamed. The several-shawled hawker was standing nearby, arms crossed, spitting paan into the ground. I went to him and said: Teerth Guest House.
We drove down the deserted streets. Wind echoed in my bones. He left me at the entrance to some black cavern. I had to go the rest of the way on foot. Vehicles weren’t allowed in the Old City. The road was full of dark shadows, towering structures, trash and debris, pissing dogs and shitting cows, soldiers with machine guns, untamed fires, shifty men, beggars asleep on the curb. Even the liveliest cities turn to pure nightmare in their unknown hours.
I entered the cave. The Old City was a vivid dream in itself: a labyrinth of dim alleyways, impossible to find one’s way. Vendors were preparing for the day. I tried to gage trustworthiness based on faces. One called: “What are you looking for?” in a steely cackle. I ran. He yelled after me: “I don’t want you money, man! I just want to help!” My shame grew as I slipped further into that maze. I’d lost my foothold on the line between kindness and deceit. Maybe there was never a line to begin with.
Eventually someone did help. Navigating the Old City myself had never been an option. The layout was mathematically illogical. Even after a week I was still lost in that endless web. Teerth Guest House sat at the end of a narrow lane, marked by a wooden door in the omnipresent cement. I knocked. The sleeping attendant rose from the office floor. The place was an open-air atrium. Darkened doors lined the perimeter, drawing the eye upward to a square of homogenous sky. We climbed, and I watched the space fade to light blue. Outlined birds circled in threatening arcs. The attendant took my passport and let me into the room. We both went back to sleep.
~~~
Varanasi is world-renowned for its ghats. These are massive concrete steps that lead down to the sacred Ganges. During the monsoon, the river rises to the precipice of the Old City. It overtakes the stairs, knocking against the coastal buildings: temples, hotels, restaurants, shops, monuments. Now, though, the water level was so low that even the eroding bottom steps were visible. Waves lapped against the severely stained blocks.
There, the people lived. They bathed. They washed clothes. They flew kites. They played cricket. They took meals. They gossiped. They prayed. They did all of this publicly, as we would privately. Thus, we would never understand the river’s importance. Nothing in our lives married practicality with spiritualism. For them, the Ganges could be so much more.
The most famous ghat, at least to foreigners, was Manikarnika Ghat. It sat on the northern tip of the expanse: a series of fires that burned indefinitely. Garbage and ash wrecked the shore, matted down over centuries. People milled about aimlessly. It was unclear if they knew the deceased, or were simply observers. Occasionally, a procession came trembling down the stairs after its pilgrimage through the Old City. They carried a wooden stretcher, the body covered in a white or orange sheet, the pallbearers adorned with flowers and vestments. I expected onlookers to stop when they passed, as with a funeral’s motorcade. They only bustled on. The congregation chanted through the alleyways. Maybe such occurrences were so commonplace that locals didn’t bother paying tribute. Maybe it wasn’t the sort of thing you paid tribute to.
That evening I followed one such procession. The river sat black beneath the pale moon. The flames burned orange, illuminating the surrounding faces. Dogs and cows wandered by, as if nothing serious was happening.
They placed the body away from the water, in a pre-prepared pyre of interlocking wood. Others were burned directly at the water’s edge, a corpse lying atop a pile of thin branches. They covered the body with lumber. They added hard clumps of what looked to be dried manure. They dribbled ghee across the surface. Then a fat man wrapped in a white cloth approached. His head was entirely shaved but for a small tuft at its apex. Accompanying him was a guy in a jersey with the number 69on the back. The two began murmuring rituals, removing clay spheres from a pot they carried. After each recitation the bald guy put a sphere on the body. He did this five times. When he was through the two men went away. I thought they weren’t burning the body after all.
They returned with lit kindling. They circled the fire around the dead man’s head before stuffing it into a hole at the pyre’s base. They kept doing this until things really got going. I was preparing myself to see this body burn. That’s why we were here. But there wasn’t much to see. It was rather tasteful – or as tasteful as such a thing can be. There was the dead man’s head, his white hair visible in the smoke. There were his feet sticking out from the base, but they remained unharmed even when the sheet slipped off. The smoke created such obstruction that you couldn’t see the smoldering flesh. This appeared to be purposeful.
The jersey guy wasn’t doing much. I was thinking he probably knew the dead man – his grandfather perhaps. Families often sent the deceased cross-country to be laid to rest in the river. Maybe he was the emissary, traveling via overnight train with the body, counting down the hours until this was over. At one point he tried to pull the sheet back over the feet, but the fire was too strong. He touched the exposed toes, placed his fingers to his lips, and backed off. After finishing the rituals he started taking photos. They were on his phone. He was using the flash. He walked around the body taking a video. I wanted to ask: “Who was this man to you? How do you feel?” I didn’t have the courage. Smoke enveloped the night. These red orbs of death drifted out toward elsewhere. He reached the base of the pyre and took a selfie with the dead man. I didn’t stay to see the ashes dispersed in the river.
I didn’t believe any of it. I didn’t feel particularly moved to. I believed, in some dark part of myself, that when we were gone we were gone. We didn’t return to anything. We didn’t come back from anywhere. Even in my midnight wanderings I couldn’t trust my rudimentary desire for it all to have meaning. A fear of the unknown wasn’t enough to establish life beyond death. And regardless, if anything did happen it certainly wasn’t happening here, on the river, in that instant when flame met flesh. If the spirit went somewhere, it’d left long before the physical form had arrived in Varanasi.
Still, I envied what I’d envied in Hampi. To hold something with more reverence than the personal, to give oneself over to that belief – this was what it truly meant to exist in communion with others. It made the prospect of the burning pyre, and the dissemination of one’s ashes in the Ganges, eminently desirable. If nothing meant anything, at the very least we could belong.
The next morning I left Teerth Guest House for Stops Hostel. The Teerth employees said I was nice boy. They asked me to write a review on TripAdvisor. Stops was 2.5km to the south. I was hell-bent on walking, especially after I’d presumably been burnt on my ride from the station.
Even in daytime, the Old City was incessantly confusing. I followed the throngs, hauling my shit to the cave’s entrance. Light had transformed the road. Soldiers still carried their guns, but the street was alive with commotion. Traffic plodded forward at a glacial pace. Horns blared. Cycle-powered rickshaws swerved onto the sidewalk. At a phone stall I asked for directions to Bhelpur Crossing. The attendant drew a map. I walked through the grueling heat, dust billowing in my eyes, feet in constant peril from unwieldy drivers.
Bhelpur Crossing was a convoluted roundabout. Its entrances and exits were in constant conflict with each other. Stops lay two blocks west, surrounded by a cement wall. It was a hostel in the purest sense: posters offering tours and attractions, colorful walls painted by past guests, great wi-fi, environmental consciousness, overly chipper staff. I told myself I’d moved because I wanted to see a different part of the city. In reality, I probably just wanted to meet people. Stops was clearly the place to do it. Two Australian girls were sitting outside, arguing with a man from the bus company. They were trying to book a ticket for Agra. The price had increased from the previous day. “It’s not fair,” they kept repeating. “It’s not fair.” The busman pointed at the ticket.
After I’d checked in I went to the roof for a shower. There were stalls with water heaters, tents, cots. Barbed wire encircled in perimeter, keeping out devious monkeys. The hot water only lasted a minute. I realized I should’ve gone with a bucket. I stepped out to dry off and comb my hair. The sun was on its way down, turning the city to deep sepia. Suddenly, a chanting erupted from Varanasi. First one, then several. Some recorded, others live. The surrounding mosques and Muslims were participating in evening prayer. Along with the never-ending horns, these sounds melded together into a monotonous hum – as if one voice was reaching up to the sky, calling for something more. The outcome was majestic, otherworldly. I had the succinct impression that this was it: the vision I’d wanted for myself, drifting into the loosening sun. The feeling arrives from time to time. It binds me back toward further proof: that to belong will always be fleeting, and that may be why we run. I stand there combing, and the light comes down.
~~~
The next day there were no boats on the river. There were conflicting reports as to why this was. Sabu, Stops’ chipperest employee, claimed they were cleaning the Ganges. I saw no evidence of this. If anything, I saw the opposite: women in neon vests swept trash into the water. Contrarily, a sign on the hostel gate said the boatmen were on strike until that night. I couldn’t imagine why they were striking, considering they set their own exorbitant prices. And if they were on strike, it wasn’t clear what a one-day strike would achieve.
Regardless, the river was eerily silent as I walked south toward Assi Ghat. In the distance sat a half-constructed bridge, gliding high above. A man approached in tatters. He had one thinly visible eye, the other overtaken by a baseball-sized growth from his brow. He was moaning, his hand outstretched. There were white flecks in his disheveled hair. I continued, past the ghats to a grassy embankment beside the village. Garbage sprinkled the land. A woman beat her laundry at the water’s edge, while a man squatted to shit beside her. A child in underwear washed himself with a bar of soap. A dozen emotionless cows drifted by in the current. Further along, next to the partially completed bridge, was another crossing: wooden planks on iron barrels, able to rise and fall with the water level. The thing thumped and shook as motorbikes heaved across. Thick wires provided something akin to guardrails. On the other side I could see an aged castle, fading away in the polluted air.
That afternoon I went back to the station to buy a ticket to Kolkata. All they had available was Sleeper Class at Rs. 365. This was fine. I felt stupid for paying Rs. 2300 to spend two days with a made-up old lady. The Booking Office was in a separate building: three long lines, and a walled-off area with a tiny door that read Tourist Quota. Inside, a mustachioed man sat stationed behind a bulky computer. Foreigners sat around on leather couches, looking over papers. He was currently helping four Australians purchase tickets to Agra, saying things like: “You could take this train on this day, or this train on that day.” It was as if they were refinancing their home, and he wanted them to think through this decision. They asked if they could have a few minutes to discuss. He said that was fine. They moved to a couch to deliberate. I thought it was fucked up that foreigners received such treatment, let alone a deliberation couch. But I wasn’t complaining. The man helped me book a train for Saturday – a train that didn’t originate in Varanasi, which I hadn’t thought possible with the Tourist Quota. The whole process was so quick and easy that I didn’t even get to sit on one of the couches.
When I returned to Stops, Sabu was talking with a traveler who’d walked in off the street. Sabu asked if he had a reservation. The guy said he didn’t do that. He was wearing camouflage pants and black military boots, and had an Australian accent and a haircut that appeared to have edges. His name was Aron. He said: “I want a bed.” Sabu said it would be Rs. 400. Aron said: “I think you’re ripping me off, mate.” Sabu just stared. It was starting to seem like all Australians thought they were being ripped off.
Aron and I ended up on the same evening ghat tour, led by the affable Sabu. Joining us was an Australian couple – maybe brother and sister, maybe boyfriend and girlfriend. They were acting sick of each other in a way that could’ve indicated either. The guy was deathly thin, with severely crooked teeth, chain-smoking cigarettes. The girl looked slightly inflated, like someone had stuck a bike pump in her. She was currently showing off a rip in her yoga pants where a cow had rammed her in the ass.
We were about to leave when two girls came bursting through the gate, panting heavily. They seemed agitated. They’d had a hell of a time reaching Stops, for whatever reason. The story came out in short gasps that I couldn’t follow. The older of the two had a pointed, freckled face, and straw-like brown hair. The younger was blonde, with blue eyes and flushed cheeks, covered in scarves and shawls despite the relative heat. She was already turning my stomach in a way that made me want to talk to her, or at least photograph her. They were Australian as well. Everyone began discussing Perth and Sydney and Brissy. Sabu and I stood there foolishly. Then Aron said: “We’re about to shove off for a ghat tour, if you’re interested.” They said they were, if we’d only wait for them to set their bags down. I was willing to wait. We loitered on the patio while they went inside. Sabu asked me: “Where are you from?” I said America. “The greatest country in the world,” he replied. He was beaming. I felt uncomfortable.
Sabu was short and curly-haired, and clearly eager to please. He had a lot of pre-prepared jokes that no one laughed at. He kept them coming anyway. We walked toward the river, through the Old City to the edge of the ghats. At the top of the stairs was what Sabu identified as a school for children who’d chosen to dedicate their lives to Hinduism, and the rituals of the Ganges. The kids were dressed in orange and white robes, their heads shaved except for a small bit – the same as the man at the funeral pyre. They ran up and down the steps, laughing, tossing cricket balls to each other. I asked Sabu if the kids had chosen this life of religious devotion. He said of course, no one was forced – the children decided. I didn’t believe him. Most likely the parents decided. When I was a kid I wouldn’t have dedicated my life to anything, except maybe Star Wars. I felt like I had to take Sabu’s facts with a grain of salt, especially after his assertion that cleaning was responsible for the boat-free Ganges that morning. I got the sense that his goal was to paint India sympathetically. He was trying to present his homeland in the best possible light.
There was a boat waiting for us at the river. It was manned by a guy with massive biceps, completely disproportionate to the rest of his body. He looked like Popeye. We climbed aboard, and Popeye rowed us upstream while Sabu discussed the various ghats. Every ghat had a purpose and an associated temple, and was named after either a god or the wealthy patron that owned it. There was a ghat for the god of cricket, a ghat for the god of laundry, a ghat for the god of news reporting. At each ghat was where you did that specific activity. I’d thought it all to be random – people doing laundry wherever they wanted. But there appeared to be a network of underlying reason. There was a ghat that was bad luck for couples – its namesake gods had fought there and gotten divorced – and another where, if submerged at its bank, one was forgiven for their sins. At the threshold you could see the bobbing heads of pilgrims, smiling in their newfound purity.
During a lull in information I asked Sabu about something I’d experienced at the burning ghat. The few times I’d been it’d seemed like I was constantly getting harassed – but in an oddly specific way that hit close to home. I’d be standing there when some guy would come over. He’d tap me on the shoulder. He’d motion for me to remove my headphones. I’d do so. He’d say: “No headphones here. Listen and learn. This is our culture and religion, and you need to respect that.”
This is the fear of the guilt-ridden traveler. You’re offending something revered without your knowledge. It’s a rabbit hole of shame that you’d prefer not to enter. And now you’re being pushed down it.
But then something happens. After you’ve removed your headphones, and been publicly accosted, the guy says something like: “Also no photos.” You say: “Of course, I wouldn’t dream of taking photos.” He says: “Yeah, we get a lot of professionals and journalists here, and we can probably arrange something if you’d like to take photos.” Insinuating that, for a price, you’d be allowed to document the ritual.
It’s another form of hawking – the same old tricks. But this one I hadn’t seen before. I’d wrestled with it each time. At first I was mad. I couldn’t believe they were pulling a grift so close to something sacred. It’d be like selling tissues outside a funeral home. As a foreigner, I expected to get the runaround. But this seemed to cross a boundary we’d all implicitly agreed upon.
When I thought about it, though, I realized that my anger was rooted in a deeper feeling. They were right. Or at least inadvertently right. Whatever the motives, there was a shard of truth reflecting back. Wasn’t our voyeurism of third-world countries inherently disrespectful? Was it possible to experience their way of life without viewing it through our condescending lens? And moreover, weren’t the hawkers reactionary? Weren’t they just responding to our arrival? If there was anything wicked growing here, hadn’t we been the ones to plant the seeds?
I suppose what I really wanted, in my heart, was for Sabu to tell me it was okay. I wanted to know the truth, but more than anything I wanted know that I hadn’t done anything wrong. We hadn’t done anything wrong. We were all okay. It wasn’t our fault.
Sabu said essentially this. There was no rule against wearing headphones at the burning ghat. Taking photos without permission was probably a bad idea. I said: “Of course, I wouldn’t dream of taking photos.” He turned back to the shore. Our discussion was over. Unsurprisingly, his assurance didn’t make me feel any better.
Our boat had arrived at Manikarnika Ghat. Sabu said it was okay to snap photos from the river. The sun had set. The ghat swam in fiery globes of the infinite. Sabu recited numerous facts as we looked on. The robed and shaved man was the eldest son or relative of the deceased. White sheets covered male corpses; orange sheets covered female. The bodies closest to the water were of a lower caste; the ascending castes sat back on higher ground. Women weren’t allowed at the ghat, for fear that their emotion and tears – their “soft hearts,” as Sabu put it – would prevent the spirit from leaving the physical plane. We watched as a leg fell out from a riverside pyre. A thin boy picked it up and tossed it back in the fire. The flushed blonde girl had her scarf pulled over her nose and mouth. It wasn’t until then that I realized we were inhaling the smoke of the bodies.
As we headed back downstream, Aron asked Sabu about the pollution. He probably said something like: “This river is quite polluted, eh mate?” Sabu was unwilling to say so. It was hard to believe him, especially as we moved through a dense patch of balled-up cow shit. The river was full of people and animals and trash and death – lots and lots of death. Oftentimes, if a head didn’t fully burn, they’d just toss it in the water. And if the deceased was a pregnant woman, or a priest, or a child, they didn’t burn the body – they submerged them whole, weighed down with rocks, and let them decompose of the river’s floor. What I’d seen beneath the surface in Hampi had been horrific. What was down here had to be worse.
We arrived at Dashashwamedh Ghat, where a ceremony was being held in observance of the Ganges’ magical powers. Sabu explained it as an enlightening counterpart to the moroseness of the burning pyres. There were five platforms, where five old priests rotated lit candelabras in slow circles. A sixth old priest murmured a monotone prayer into a microphone. The steps were crammed with onlookers of all colors and credence. The river was filled with thin canoes like our own, anchored to watch the proceedings. Popeye fit our boat into the puzzle of rafts, then began flirting with the blonde girl in a high-pitched, reedy voice that she seemed to find amusing. Sabu saw me watching, and sidled up. “He’s a Casanova,” he said, smiling. I said: Yeah.
The ceremony was performed daily, morning and night. The fires never stopped burning. It was impossible to know how long such things had existed. It was impossible to know a time before all this – a time before pollution and ritual, before hawkers and tourists, before meaning and lack thereof. A time when land and water met at ambivalent banks – a time before us, and a time before them. The ceremony provoked an acceptance of that unknowing. This was how we lived now – together, even if united by a belief of our own creation.
The boats were interlocked in such a way that the herd served as a floating harbor. Now kids were traversing the planks, selling tea and candles, stepping gingerly from port to starboard. We purchased both. We drank our tea. We set our candles adrift. We left before the ceremony had concluded, presumably to beat the evening rush.
~~~
The following evening we were having dinner at Kerala Café: Aron, Liz, Lily, Chaz, and myself. Kerala Café was a local joint near Stops that provided cheap South Indian food. Its interior was a dimly lit array of worn plastic booths. Dosas were served on dented tin trays, no frills.
Chaz’s real name wasn’t Chaz. I didn’t know his real name. I called him Chaz because he looked like Chazwick Bundick of Toro y Moi. He was one of those people from all over: Indian descent, raised in Sweden, spent two years in China, now resided in England. He was currently working as a DJ, and maybe did something in the film industry. The way he talked made it seem like everybody knew everybody in London, and your real profession wasn’t as important if you were in the scene.
Lily, the blonde girl, also worked in film – in the department that got foreign production companies to shoot their movies in Australia. Right now the big project was the new Thor. She’d recently quit her job, though, because her boss was a “total bitch,” and set off for a year of travel. It sounded like Liz, the pointy-faced older girl, had done something similar. The only story we didn’t know was Aron’s, but that seemed like the type of story you didn’t want to know.
At this point I started to get down on myself. All these people were about my age. They’d worked jobs, and lived in apartments, and made a conscious decision to start traveling. And what had I done? I’d graduated college, gone to India, left in disgrace, worked six months at shit jobs, and shipped myself back. What did I have to show for myself? Experiences, maybe, and dreams of writing – but nothing concrete. I was 24. I hadn’t done anything.
But then I started thinking that maybe these guys felt the same way. Maybe everyone felt some kind of internal despair about where they were at, and where they were headed. Maybe my parents felt it too, and world leaders, and celebrities. Maybe everybody felt it all the time, and we just weren’t telling each other.
That night there was a concert at the International Music Centre Ashram. It was classical, which I normally didn’t dig. But Lily asked if I was going, so I said sure. After sunset we hailed a rickshaw. Chaz spoke decent Hindi, and directed the driver to the Old City. Soon we were back in that labyrinth, with a toothless old man descending upon us to offer up his services. He led us through the alleyways with a withered hand, even though Chaz had Google Maps and told him we weren’t paying. When we reached the ashram he said: “Tickets? You all have tickets?” as if he was some self-appointed caretaker. Chaz had to repeat that he was getting no money from us before the old man finally wandered off to find other tourists.
We were half an hour early, so we went around the corner for a tea. Chaz chatted with the merchants. I watched a man climb up to an electrical box, a bamboo ladder bending precariously under his weight. The vendors offered paan. Liz and Lily declined. They watched as Chaz, Aron, and I chewed down the leaves. Chaz produced a joint. He said to me: “Are you a 420 bro?” I said sure, I guess. I don’t know why I always said yes to people offering drugs. That’s the opposite of what you’re supposed to do.
The weed was good, smooth – didn’t do much, but enough. Chaz and I finished the joint, and we headed into the ashram: a small marble cell that glimmered with fluorescent light. We sat on the floor before a carpeted platform. There was a tabla player, dressed in white, with a mullet and a thick mustache; and a sitar player, dressed in orange, chubbier with a bit of stubble. They spent thirty minutes tuning up. The tabla player was using a tiny hammer to knock at the wooden blocks on his drum’s outer rim. The sitar player was twisting at his knobs, holding an ear to the strings. When they were through they started a song without anyone noticing. This lasted another thirty minutes. One patron was talking to the girl he was with. The tabla player shushed him. The entire audience was white, except for Chaz, and a guy in a hoodie who kept leaning over me to take pictures. First with a Canon, then with a disposable camera, then with a phone, then with a GoPro. It didn’t seem possible for one person to have so many cameras.
And maybe it was the weed, but soon I felt the music enter some part of me that I hadn’t anticipated. I looked over and saw Aron on his phone – texting nameless faces, sending videos to unidentified groups. I’d heard him earlier on a call, lying in bed, quietly and concisely recounting his day. Who were these people? What did they expect of him? Where had my people gone?
I realized then that he was answering to the world in a way I’d never allowed for myself. I’d purposefully erased all threads of the communal. I’d been swallowed up so meticulously that now there was nothing left. I didn’t know why I’d done that. It wasn’t the first time I’d realized it. But there was something about my proximity to Aron, and yet the vastness of the gulf between us, that was now crystalizing in concurrence with the music.
And then there was the music. I was aware, on some basic level, that although I couldn’t understand the technical feat occurring, I could recognize it as a triumph nearing genius. Part of the reason my generation finds classical music – or Shakespeare, or any antiquated work of art – so boring is because we don’t have the lexicon to comprehend it. The medium responds to a time and a culture outside our purview. It may as well be a different language. And yet, aided by the weed, I could latch onto the specificity of what was being performed. I could value the brilliance, even if I couldn’t find a beat, or a rhythm, or any of the other signposts I’d look for in music.
A sitar has twenty strings, unlike a guitar’s six. Also unlike a guitar, the strings are pulled perpendicular to the neck, creating a tautness that changes the pitch of the note. This essentially creates an endless number of possible notes, and requires a level of precision from the musician that is practically unheard of. Likewise, the tabla – which looks to be two rudimentary drums – is played by pressing one’s palm on the skin to change the pitch of the drumhead, thus also creating endless options when struck. Both players are doing this quickly and methodically, to the point where it’s almost anxiety producing.
This is the technical, however, which despite my fascination was not what spoke to me. It was the connection these musicians shared: their ability to communicate, wordlessly, in order to produce a mutual artistry. You see this in gifted players. You witness their sonic exchange, eyes speaking what words cannot – watching them, together, reach transcendence. Because what is it if not that? I viewed the sitar player, laboring against intricate chord progressions, his body tense as the fervor rose – and then his head would fall back, the tension released, his eyes rolling up in pure pleasure. It’s the ecstasy of that transcendence, for both performer and listener. These notes hold weight, power – you can feel them, you can feel the Other World. How do we explain such a phenomenon, created in isolation, appearing on opposite ends of the earth? We cannot. This is something of the beyond.
And then the lights cut out. They continue to play through darkness, with no sense but sound, perfectly linked in their elation. The moment reeks of the infinite.
Outside, a man on a bamboo ladder rushes us back toward civilization.
Peter M. Raffel 