A monkey needs to dance and so do I

My brain’s not completely on my side. I dreamt about sandwhiches and coffee, silly me. I think I derive from some nocturnal creature, no matter how tired I never feel like sleeping.
I feel like being artsy. Write some poetry, some lyrics perhaps. Finish my short story. Play the ukulele, not that I can (but it’s so much more useless than guitar, hence more art(?)). Take some photos, not that I could.

Oh well. I miss my music. And I miss making it. And most of all I miss making it mine. I’m seriously considering going down to the shop next to my house tomorrow and buy the guitar that’s hanging there, mocking my fingers. There’s a swastika on it so I’d better give it back before I head back north though…

And what’s more, I never thought I’d miss nature so much! I was browsing through old photos and was stunned by the beauty we pass each and every day without thinking about it. Truly spoiled, that is what we are. I love it here, don’t mistake my words, but god DANG Sweden is pretty. The first thing I’ll do when I get home (once the mandatory hugging is over with) is go out in the woods and scream my lungs out at the beauty of it.

Anyway, this is sort of a travelling blog, now isn’t it? Sure enough. I travelled the whole way to cantonment and Hotel Surya today to have a wee celebration with the Bhawan Boys, now that we’re all here again. Me, Fred and Emin had a few cold ones at the pool, but were tossed out since there was going to be a wedding. We went to the bar instead. At about 1 pm. Not the brightest idea of our lives, but it felt great at the time. My stomach doesn’t agree at the moment, and neither does my head, but it was well deserved. I think.

 

 

Quote of the day: I just met a woman. She’s a dwarf, she’s only been here for four months and she’s already got her own mushroom to live in! Now to tell me that’s wrong!

 

Made by this fine fellow

 

Gleiche um dir ecke i min Enslighet. I love the taste of words.

I tend to roll them on my tongue, savouring the taste

What is it that makes it all worth it? I hardly know… more than that you’re a part of it. Plural form.

Favourite word of the day: Oblique… Or possibly Onomatopoeia (sometimes I wonder how feelings sound like)

I think hunger sounds like feet on gravel

Anger sounds like grinding teeth

And I bet that friendship tastes like ice cream

But most of all I bet that I’m way too tired to post nonsensical gibberish on a blog.

I just broke my knuckles against the wall in an attempt to dim the light.

Somehow that makes most of it alright.

G’night

Organized Chaos? Chaotic Organization? Back at the Bhawan

Haven’t been able to update the blog for a wee bit, so bear with me.

         11^th Nov. The latest week have been spent together with the family, mum times two plus my fair lady. We’ve been through Banaras where I lead them through my favorite shops, alleys and restaurants, saying hi to dear friends along the way. We walked along the Ghats of Ganga, sidled through alleys in Goudolia and drank way too much chai tea. At the moment we’re in Agra, my least favorite part of India, but seeing the Taj is a must. We went there yesterday, the 10^th of November, and we couldn’t have picked a worse day for it. The place milled with people, guards were required to keep them in check, and I paid way too much to skip the queue. But oh well, now they’ve seen it. Today we spent some time at Agra Fort, which we skipped when I was in Agra with the group. It was quite neat, not for the buildings, but for the monkeys stealing soda cans from the tourists, teehee.

         It’s quite fun to revisit the places I’ve been to before, they are the same yet drastically different. And it’s always fun to go by train in India, not once have they gone from the right platform at the scheduled time haha, quite adventurous indeed. In total we’ll travel about 1380 kms on Indian railways, in all classes there is. The train ride from Banaras to Agra took about 13 hours and was quite alright, was the same route I’d travelled before; cozy huts with bunk beds. After Agra we’re going by train to Sawai Madhopur and from there to Ranthambore National Park. Hope we get to see a tiger. Rawr.

         18^th Nov. Home (away from home) again in Banaras. It was a weird feeling leaving the family behind at the airport once again. A part of me wished to go back to Sweden, yet I looked forward to going back to Banaras and the boys at Amar Bhawan. This time I skipped the train and took the plane, took me about an hour’s worth of travel to go back from Delhi, wopdidoo. Anyhow, I’ve already started, but let me tell you about the past few weeks.

         The train ride from Agra to Sawai Madhopur was less enjoyable. For starters the train left too early, and from the wrong platform. Our seats were full of Indian people having lunch, so we nicely waited for them to finish. After a while I tried asking them about swapping our beds around so that we could get to sleep, but linguistic barriers obstructed me from getting the message across, which instead led them to annoyingly lower the bunk beds so that we could get some sleep… of course with open windows so that we all were freezing. Anyhow, once we were in Sawai Madhopur things went smoothly, a jeep picked us up at the station and we were tucked into a hotel which was superb. Too bad we only had a day to spend there, but I think one day was plenty enough; we ate well, had a nice pool and went on a jeep safari in the national park. Never got to see a tiger, but a whole range of other creatures.

         The next day we got to Delhi, this time the train ride went just fine and the pick-up turned to shite instead. There had been some misunderstanding and to make a long story short we spent around 3 hours at the station before we found our driver and could get to the Hotel. While in Delhi we made up for our lack of tigers and went to the zoo; went on a shopping spree in Connaught Place, Dilli Haat, Underground Market and Central Cottage Industries Emporium; and lastly ate superb food at Pind Balluchi and Tao Restaurant.

         After I got home I unpacked, tidied up my room, nibbled on some thin crisps and read a book I had bought at the airport; The Ritual by Adam Nevill. Found it quite fun since it’s a psychological horror novel taking place deep down in the Swedish woods. I was all alone in the house and the book made me jitterish so I went down to Open Hand to buy meself some food and coffee. At the café they were playing the soundtrack to Aladdin, which put me in the best of moods. And to sum it all up: now, while walking back from Open Hand, I couldn’t walk straight to my door since the alley was blocked by a horde of buffalos (got to luv India ❤). Spending some time with the family soothed my mind, and now I’ll finish my coffee and catch a film. It’s all weekdays again, and somehow it’s quite welcome. Now, why don’t you enjoy some pics?

Over and out,

Gorge

A potpourri of feelings

Sadness. Joy. Anxiety. Boredom. Pride.

Somehow it’s hard to describe what’s going on in my head here in India. Recent events have left me in quite a turbulence.

What’s really inspiring is people’s sense of loyalty here, although sometimes I feel like it’s on the verge of lunacy when speaking of Ashish. He has helped me out enormously, and I begged him to take a day off, he had been feverish and yet he went to work diligently in the morning. He wouldn’t hear of it of course. The same with Omji, coming to work every day even though he was evidently ill. It’s inspiring is all I say.

This morning I had an interview with a man working at a centre for education. After the interview was finished and I had turned off the dictaphone he turned to me and said it was his turn to ask me a few questions. I was a bit taken aback by this, but of course I said it was OK; it had been fun talking to him. I was a bit anxious since his tone was rather harsh, I wondered if I had done something wrong (never easy to know the myriad of faux pas possible in a different milieu). Anyhow, he turned to me and said: “I really hope you can change some of the things you say about my religion in your country.” I don’t know what I’m able to accomplish with my simple C thesis in Religion, but I felt pride that he considered my thesis an important one, and at the same time I felt a bit ashamed of what he thought was being said in Swedish schools. All in all, it had me thinking…

He stated that every single person in the universe is connected to each other. His God is the same as any other God, but God has given mankind the ability to divide, something he wasn’t too sure if it was a good idea or not.

And I concur. I detest the divisions, segregations, preconceptions, the labeling of people; the cultures, sub cultures, faiths, traditions, experiences merged. Cannot a man simply be a man – without all these clusters? But I digress… what I really meant to say was that language really is a barrier, not impossible to overcome, but it’s a tough hill to climb. There really is something about the tower of babel.

Sometimes I curse my sense of logic. I might be a sensitive person, but I find it hard to put my faith in a supernatural force. And logically, since my faith in technology and universal rules are there without the basis of evidence (who am I to prove theories of Einstein and Newton, who am I to argue with the likes of Aristotle, Locke, Sartre and Freud?), I should be able to support the notion of a God. But there is something in me resisting, for better or for worse. It’s depressing sometimes, to be able only to put faith in yourself and your loved ones. I might be a bitter, cynical sod sometimes, but I try to be a loving kind of guy.

My raving stops here, but please don’t misjudge, alright?

Cheers

Fuck you, Fungi

It’s been a bit moist in our room since the roof is leaking… water dripping on the fans, spreading a nice arc of wet all over the place. Not that I mind of course. That is, until I noticed that there are actual mushrooms growing in my bookshelf. And no, I don’t mean like small ones, here, take a look.

When I was transcribing yesterday’s interview (which was a hassle by the way), Ashish came running in, shouting at me to come. Since he seemed rather panicked I left all my things and ran along. What I faced down on the street was not really what I expected. On the street there was a congregation of girls (and boys, although dressed up like girls with neat make up and wigs to match) marching around with drums and banners. In the middle of it all there was a girl on horseback, holding a sword and shield. Apparently some local woman freedom fighter was born right next to Ashish café, and today they celebrated her birthday. Was fun to see lil’ boys dressed up like Brits, marching with swords in their backs, haha.

Me and the boys went to I:ba to eat today, that place is a haven from chaos. I ordered chicken momo, Thai coconut wook, sticky rice, mineral water, cabbage & carrot salad, a tiny pudding and spring rolls; for about 60 SEK… yummy much?

Back home Ashish came running yet again; this time with a packet in his fond embrace – a packet full of gunpowder. Or well, firecrackers. The guy is a complete lunatic; he tossed around explosives like a well-bred pyromania. Looking somewhat like this:

Feeling India First Hand

Couldn’t post yesterday so here goes.

Started with my interviews for the C paper today, and it was quite a thrilling experience. The First fellow turned out to be of the wrong caste, the second one got up and left after 10 minutes, apparently he was in a hurry. The third interview finally got some results going. However, it’ll be hard to transcribe it since it was held on a bench in the middle of a highly trafficed road. And of Course there were some people arguing with the interviewee about the ‘korrekt’ answers.
Ashish just showed up, eyes gleaming like a child’s. He’s been off buying fireworks for dewali, a festival taking place on wednesday. I haven’t seen him that happy ever, ‘s kind of cute.
Anyway, I’m bored silly and out of good series to watch so I’ll be heading for the bed soon. Yawn. Cheerio.

Kabaddikabaddikabaddikabaddikabaddikabaddikabaddi…

…kabaddikabaddikabaddikabaddi is yet another thing I’ve missed out on due to my god awful cold. Bah. Hopefully I’ll get another chance to be tackled by Indian blokes on the banks of Ganga. For those of you with no idea what Kabaddi is about, it’s one of the biggest sports in India, along with cricket – and it looks something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96ZzVeCgUVY

It’s basically a game of tag, with tackling involved, and a part of it involves shouting kabaddikabaddikabaddikabaddi and not run out of breath. Sounds like fun, no?

At 6:30 this morning Emil left for a game of Kabaddi along with some Canadians and Americans. They were meeting the staff at Open Hand Café, and I wanted to join so bad but lay home coughing instead. I’m just thankful I’m ill now so I’ll probably be healthy when the mum & missus come to visit. Most of the guys have gone to Clarks to have a swim, I’m holding out ’til I’ve got a hotel room of my own. Going to be sweet to take a break from Ganga Mahal. A rat had gnawed holes in my tooth paste tube, so when I squeezed on it I managed to get white goo all over my pants, neat.

Now I’m just waiting for Ashish to come up and continue with last day’s work, we’re currently translating textbook paragraphs from English to Hindi, and since he can’t write in Devanagari on his computer he has to do it by hand, poor bloke.

Anyhow, it’s high time for me to stop reading nonsense philosophy. I ran out of books so I had to go buy a stack from a guy down the street, managed to get a hold of a semi-fictional book by Stephen Hawkings, a book on cognition and language by Umberto Eco and some Japanese novel, Umibe no Kafuka. All in all, I miss my low-brow fantasy and other books I can plow through… Last night I dreamt I was a guy philosophizing with a cat on the roof. Albeit the dream was a rather pleasant one, I think India is messing with my brain.

I beg pardon for the lack of pictures, but I’m getting used to India and can’t be bothered to drag my phone around with me.

However, here’s something you should see. Somehow I feel that the security aspects are neglected.

Alfredo launches counter attacks, Danger, Danger

Song of choice: Danger, Danger – Sonic Boom Six.
Haven’t been able to sleep for fuck all tonight… Bloody rat infestation in my room. My cupboard, my shelf, my freaking bed. Imagine my level of distress. What’s more, I caught a cold in the midst of the shit. Now I’m sweating, freezing and snoring my way through breakfast, then I’ll go blankly stare at my screen for a while

Let’s try this out shall we?

Right, so I’m trying to type this blog entry on my phone and one thing is for sure, it’s not making my fingers cramp less.
The translation of my textbook paragraphs for the c paper is taking longer than expected, so I’m finding myself doing all sorts of other things instead of studying… Anyway, Ashish gave me various tips on how to forge some interview results in the meantime. Silly man.
I’ve booked some decent hotels now at least, Think I’ve got rid of all the planning, finally. Got the train tickets in my locker, and the Hotel confirmations on my computer, neato.
What’s more, I think I managed to piss off some poor employee at Ranthambore national park WHO were forced to answer my umpteenth mail. Last mail I sent was “one last question, it’s getting a bit much now, haha” and I got the answer “yeah, I noted the same thing.”
Anywho, food’s ready! Cheerio!

iila laget?!

I’ve got cramping fingers from writing on my thesis in various weird positions, ever heard of chairs..? And what’s more, I’m starting to get calloused hands from tabla playing.
It’s frustrating to be bored and stressed out at the same time, Ashish is apparently going to be our field assistant – that’s for 12 people, all conducting interviews. And everyone wants to do it simultaneously, I pity him. But as he told me before – gilla läget! (well, actually he said iila laget!) That’s one useful phrase I taught him.
One simple question might take a day or two to get answered, I know Marc does his best but it’s stressing nevertheless. And I’m waiting for my train tickets. And I’m waiting to get the textbook translation made in Hindi Devanagari script. Sense the theme here? It’s called waiting – India’s favourite passtime.

Enough whining!
Yesterday we met an Indian guy who claimed he had a sister in Åmål. Fucking Åmål was his favourite film as well, jolly good fun that! Made my day.
Now it’s time for some Vatica Apple pie! Yum!