India in Slow Motion

LOL! I just found myself tapping my foot along to the evening Puja song! Well, at least ONE of them... They still play for 3 FREAKING hours every evening! It just shows how much this, and this place, has really grown on me. The filthy, yet magical Ganga; The scores of colorful pilgrims + sadhus; Freaky sights; The dozen or more shopowners on busy Bengali Tola alley that greet us with a big smile every day; Our evening beers on the roof terrace; Learning how to make fresh cheese from a guy whose family has been doing it for generations and whose family name, Yadav, actually MEANS cheesemaker; Our homemade picnic dinners; Boat rides on the Ganga and appreciating how hard those guys work for a few rupee; Finally finding a cook that makes REALLY GOOD Indian Food; Mornings in the Temple with our new friend Claudia, doing yoga while gazing out at the river... And these are just the things I'm going to miss about VARANASI!

By going in slow motion, you're able to get past the initial overwhelming assault on the senses and see more deeply. You begin to understand the people and how they interact. You observe the details of the rituals and begin to wonder at their meaning. You stop taking your camera out and snapping away, but instead sit and be more present. You do yoga, meditate, gaze at rivers, learn a classical instrument, some hindi, how to make Malai Kofta... You invest yourself. And these people, the Indians, make it easy. They encourage you. They're happy that you care!

And then it happens, the things that you once despised, that made it so hard, become a game or an intrigue. The touts that never leave you alone are silenced by laughter, or confusion at your silly or absurd responses. You notice that THIS pile of garbage contained a bag of the red powder-dye pilgrims dot their foreheads with, and that a cow has tried to eat it and COMPLETELY covered it's face and neck in the stuff. You begin to wonder if the reason Indians smile + laugh so much is because they're aware enough to see the comedy amidst the tedium in everyday life. Maybe they're just trying to maintain their sanity amidst the chaos. Maybe that's why they've cultivated a carnival-like atmosphere with colors, deities, freaks + music everywhere! If I asked someone the secret, could they tell me?

Maybe WE need to take a big lesson from them and smile more during the course of our days. To seek out the oddities + pleasures around us for our amusement + sanity. To not be in such a hurry. Take a different route to work. Walk and ride a bike more often. The U.S. REALLY went wrong when we began city planning around the automobile. With wide avenues and everything spread out it became impracticle to use your body to get around. Here, and in many European cities, you still find lots of winding alleys that are actually FUN to walk or cycle through. A city plan like this creates intimacy, forces you to communicate with people and helps to build strong, local communities. I know we'll have more opportunity to experience much of the above as we now continue on our way into Nepal, then Tibet through the end of the year. It's with a fond farewell + longing to return though that I depart now from India.

Also, we finally finished posting picks from our big Architectural Appreciation Spree. You can check the "link" for photos.