A Walk With Anil & Altriusm

Tonight, at 11:35pm, we board the Amritsar Express, thereby commencing a forty-two hour train oddessey along a circuitous and unfortunately indirect route that will span most of Northern India. But—as the name implies—it will get us to Amritsar, and from there Dharamsala is only a five hour bus ride away. 

For me, personally, this is something of a momentus occasion. Not that arriving in Dharamsala will somehow magically bestow upon me sensational powers of karmic transcendence (though I shamelessly admit that I continue to entertain such fantasies purely for dramatic flare). Rather, it's the getting there at all that matters. Just under two years ago I made a decision to do it, to get to Dharamsala. To be exact, I made up my mind to meet the Dalai Lama. And, like getting to Dharamsala, neither will achieving that task solve any particular crisis or decisively unlock any previously untapped potential. It's just that once you make up your mind to do a thing—and it can be an altogether arbitrary sort of task—it's the getting it done that matters. I could just as easily have chosen the task of building a model of the Eiffel Tower entirely out of toothpicks; it's correlating ambition with results that registers in memory and thus in identity.

For me, personally, it's part of breaking with a historical tradition of aiming for things that are definitively out of reach, or else aiming for things that are in reach and then setting about discreetly sabotaging the process of actually getting hold of them. Either way, the moral of the story is that I, card-carrying member of the human race that I am, have tended to exemplify that undignified and unfortunate habit of the species: disappointing ourselves. It's hard to believe in a future of possibilities if you're heading their from a past composed from almosts and could-have-beens. So, I am perched with a certain distant curiosity upon the edge of a moment that, in retrospect, I suspect I'll regard as having been a rather significant one. The sensation is strangely fearful; whether one dreams big or small or somewhere in between, seeing your dream come true and knowing that you were the central agent of its realization is an ironic juxtaposition of 'too good to be true' and perfectly real that's hard to trust. It's usually around this point that the carpet I didn't know I was standing gets yanked out from beneath me (as often as not by my own hand). Whether or not the sensation holds, and to what extent it evolves when I actually reach the place remains to be seen. So that's what's coming. As to what's been happening...

We've been back in Mumbai for a few days now, and I've had the opportunity to experience a tiny fraction of what I've realized must be a horrifying position to be in: being, in the broad sense, trapped. I mentioned last time that getting train tickets has been incredibly hard, lately, thanks to Diwali. If you've wanted to take a train any distance in less time than about a week's notice, you simply can't. Ninotchka and I have been increasingly desperate to get on with our trip; our ambitions here all revolve around long-term commitments to learning and volunteering, so our stalemate with transit has been both boring and disheartening. In a fit of ambitious resolve to get out of Mumbai, we decided to up our budget for travel significantly to see what other possibilities emerged. To tell the story in detail would be gruellingly boring, but in brief it goes something like this: Over a period of roughly six hours, wherein Ninotchka sat on the phone with travel agencies and bus companies, whilst I scoured the internet through dozens of airlines, travel agencies and automated travel-planning websites, we uncovered numerous alternatives to train travel, precisely none of which were actually viable. Between websites being entirely unable to process payments, my provoking spontaneous and inexplicable errors in forms, fields and information of all varieties, and navigating the impossible maze of Indian policy, we found ourselves stonewalled at every turn. All at once, it dawned on me that I could not leave the city I was in. I was stuck. I began to think about the enormous number of accounts I've heard about immigration attempts, being a refugee, or simply living in a less 'developed' nation, and what powerlessness must really feel like. And I'm not making any claim to having had an experience which in any way rivals those I've mentioned; it's just I've gained an appreciation of just how accustomed I am to freedom. It was not ok with me at all that I couldn't exit Mumbai exactly how and when I wanted to, and I was enormously frustrated by it. I can't begin to imagine what it would be like to introduce, say, military violence to the equation, knowing that the world around you is suddenly vastly more life-threatening than previously it was and that you can't just leave. I'm not sure I can properly convey the sensation, but it's just one of many small shifts in perception that have been penetrating the dense psychic blubber of a North American upbringing since I arrived.

Now, I have been quite irresponsible about properly blogging, and as such have more to tell than I ought to attempt to squeeze into the space of a single entry. So, I'll limit myself to one more anecdote, which is by all accounts a quintessential example of the Indian hospitality I have expounded upon before. Two days hence I decided to visit the local mall in pursuit of some serial fiction with which to dull the impending boredom of forty-two hours on a three-by-six bunk. The mall is some distance away, but it's also on the main traffic artery so I didn't anticipate having any trouble finding it. But, I failed to account for one tiny detail, which was whether I needed to turn right or to turn left upon reaching said highway. I asked for directions, and was promptly misinformed, a fact I was not to ascertain for some time to come. On foot, I set out.

About an hour and a half later I began to seriously suspect that something was awry, having long allowed to elapse what I believed was a reasonable amount of time in which to discover the mall. I asked, again, for directions and was, again, misinformed. I should note that I doubt very much anyone intentionally led me astray; it's far more likely that they thought they were telling the truth. Indeed, in reflection it occurs to me that in my narcissism I asked the advice of two people whose economic priorities probably seldom, if ever, involved megalithic shopping centers like the one I was seeking. Long story short, I found myself what I would later discover was eight kilometers from homein entirely the wrong direction. Of course at the time I still believed that I had travelled in the right direction and had simply walked past the mall, or been mistaken about which street it was on. So, one last time I sought direction. The fellow I asked—Anil, he would later turn out to be—spoke about as much English as I spoke Hindi, which is approximately none. He found someone who could answer my questions, and I was informed that it was impossible to walk to InOrbit (the mall) and that I would quite obviously be a fool to make the attempt. Attempting foolish things is familiar territory with me, you understand, and I was in the mood for a walk, so I insisted that I was happy to make the journey on foot. Two others had stopped to help, and some knowing grins accompanied by a modest respect passed between them. As an aside, I have come to believe that, after a certain age, watching younger people make what are clearly obvious but ultimately harmless mistakes becomes a source of enduring and private amusement to those who have bothered to learn from their own foibles, and I regard this as a perceptual line, drawn in the sands of maturity, that I am woefully anxious to cross. But, I digress.

Anil, understanding none of the exchange, contributed nothing either. In the end, the English-speaking man and Anil had a brief exchange, whereupon I was told that Anil was walking in the direction I needed to go and that he could put me on the right path.

For those concerned about how safe was my decision to follow him was, understand that it was broad daylight in a safe, up-scale neighbourhood and that at any moment I was free to get into a rickshaw and be taken immediately home. I wasn't properly lost; I was simply bent on walking.

The first twenty minutes with Anil were awkward, as we tried more or less fruitlessly to exchange conversation. The picture you should be having is of myself and an Indian businessman, roughly fortyish, walking side by side through Mumbai traffic with virtually no capacity whatsoever to communicate. It was, to be honest, weird. But by the end of the first hour, we'd grown comfortable with each other and begun to invent ways of communicating with hand gestures, finger pointing, snippets of Hinglesh and my iPod (pictures, it turns out, truly are worth their thousands of words). It is amazing to what extent laughter is a universal and surprisingly subtle language; we had, actually, quite a lot of fun. Yet, it occurred to me that it was a remarkable coincedence that Anil's path precisely overlapped my own, and it seemed odd that a man in a business suit, briefcase in tow, would be walking this distance. A battery of attempts to communicate as much finally succeeded, and Anil confessed that he was walking rather than bussing his usual route to make sure I didn't get lost again. Another half hour passed, and I began to wonder when we would reach his home. I asked him; he pointed over his shoulder, back the way we had come, and it became clear that Anil had no intention of parting my company until I was safely at my destination. I protested at length, trying to communicate that I wasn't lost any more, and that only my stubborn belligerence was keeping me from taking a rickshaw. I was immediately defeated by my inability to communicate any of this. Indeed, all that I could do to spare him travelling still further from home was simply to get in a rickshaw and drive away, but, as I woud be unable to explain why I was suddenly doing so, I was terribly afraid I would offend him. In short, there was nothing to do but keep walking and to allow this man to ensure I arrived safely. I insisted, at least, on him allowing me to buy us each a soda. He protested at length, but I insisted, and he conceded at last. He didn't open his drink, though, and I thought that I must have purchased a kind he didn't enjoy. Another thirty minutes elapsed, and I finished mine. The moment I did he immediately offered me the one he hadn't yet opened, as if he had simply been holding onto it for me, standing ready to quench my thirst. Only after I declined several times did he finally open it and have some for himself, a gesture that was small but incredibly selfless and which embarrassingly reminded me of how far I have yet to go in developing a proper consideration of others.

Just before our journey reached three hours, we reached a neighbourhood that I knew quite well, and I very suddenly realized that the mall had been in other direction all along; it was an enormously embarrassing moment, and I treated myself to a facepalm of appropriate magnitude. I explained with some effort that I was home, that I knew where I was, that Ninotchka's family were very close by (in fact, I just said 'Uncle, wife, uncle' and pointed a lot, but Anil pieced it together). He was worried that I was going to try to get to the mall on my own (I think), but at last I put his mind to rest, and we parted ways with a handshake and his staunch refusal to allow me to put him in a rickshaw.

When I got home, I Google-Earth'ed the journey; of my sixteen kilometer adventure, Anil had walked six of them out of his way just to make sure I would safely find my way to the mall on foot. To put this in perspective (for all the Haligonians reading), imagine bumping into a completely non-English speaking stranger at the rotary and having them ask for directions to Dartmouth.  To equal Anil's effort, you would have towalk them the entire length of Quinpool, then all of Cogswell, down Barrington and across the bridge, stopping at the bus station; and you'd have to do it on a whim. And what can I say about that? It's just not the sort of thing we do in Canada, period. We might get them on a bus, we might help out with cab fare—maybe. But walk? To actually put in the time and biological effort of helping a complete stranger on a whim, and to such an extent? It's given me a lot to think about, because there is no chance at all that I would have made the same decision, and I find myself faced with the question: why not? Or, more over, what do I think about that fact, and what ought I to do about it? It's not weighing on me heavily, but it's certainly worthy of some reflection.

Harrowing Failure to Catch a Train

Three weeks of silence! Explanations, please...

The simplest reason is that we've beed quite dreadfully bored for a great deal of it. Due to some poor scheduling and unfortunatey circumstances we found ourselves in Mumbai for two weeks longer than expected, and with very little to do (that wasn't shopping or otherwise financially depleting). But quite beyond having little to do, there's also the problem of free time, and what it's like to have altogether too much of it. When you've been pushed and pulled into every moment of your life by school, work and whatever other myriad committments and obligations you've had for years on end, suddenly having a vast expanse of time to do with whatever you wish leaves you strangely faced with the question of what, exactly, that is.

So, we're quickly discovering the value of discipline in organizing and structuring time. We became rather depressed and more than a little isolated at the end of our unplanned two weeks in Mumbai. We did fill that time with a few things, mind you; I've learned to cook a few Indian dishes (and have made a comfortable art of making my own marinara sauce!). We also took in a play, and it was hands-down one of the better bits of theater I've ever seen (not that I'm particularly travelled in the thespian circuit). It was a comedy, and in general a meditation on the infiltration of India by Western economics, 'culture' and lifestyle. The plot: an Indian business man convinces an American suicide-watch help line to outsource their call center to India. Sadly I cannot possibly do justice to the brilliance demonstrated in both the script and the acting, but it was truly funny, which Ninotchka and I both felt was a rare treat after so many years watching Western cinema's reductionist slapstick (a comedic mode equally popular here, I should note, just not on this occasion). We visited a few other people, collected a few more recipes, and then finally left Mumbai, a leave-taking which became significantly more dramatic than we'd intended. We had decided to make for Goa, to complete our visiting tour and to soak up some sun on its famed beaches. But to get to Goa one first needs to succesfully board to a train headed there as well.

I've written at length about Mumbai traffic, and yet the stories there to tell are endless; this one concerns traffic jams, and the hair-raising adventure of getting through them quickly, and on a deadline no less. We had about two hours to catch our train, but these were two hours as passed through the lens of Mumbai's rush-hour traffic; hours bent through such a prism emerge as minutes. What might have been a twenty minute journey at midnight—perhaps, thirty kilometers—fell in the late morning cacaphony just short of the two hours we'd budgeted. Babloo, our driver and a man who I'm certain could park an SUV in a mailbox, clearly recognized time and Mumbai traffic both as old foes in need of yet another vanquishing. Careering through back alleys, tangential highways, and between stagnant flows of competing traffic, there was a Darwinian quality to Babloo's tactical nagivation. Punctuality, here, is only for the fittest.

Yet despite his best efforts (which nearly killed at least a dozen people, but actually injured none), we arrived eight minutes after our train had left. Babloo took this quite grievously to heart, as though it had been a deep and unsettling character flaw of his that had cost us our train instead of an infrastructural chaos remiscent of twenty-million salmon, recently intent on spawning upstream, having quite suddenly and unamimously lost all sense of time and direction. We reassured him as much, and then went to see what could be done about getting another train. It's a maddening story and not one worth telling in detail, but suffice it to say that anything vaguely reminsicent of bureaucracy is to be avoided in India, at almost any cost, or else one should at least expect to pay a hefty toll in the currency of sanity beyond any other fees for services rendered. Not that alternatives abound, and not that these were much better; there were options available from either illicit or at least private-sector means, but neither of these fell within our price bracket, especially since we had just purchased a train to nowhere and were not being refunded for it. It is worth noting that Diwali, the Hindu New Year, and a holiday of a magnitude akin to Christmas, was at this time only a week away, significantly reducing one's impromptu travel options due to millions upon millions of people exercising their's well. We ended up with the lowest-fare, lowest-class seating one can get, which is, it turns out, not in fact even a guarantee of seating. "Non-AC, third-tier unconfirmed" is code for "stuffy metal compartment full of more people than can fit without assigned seats". It is incredibly economical (a ten hour train ride cost us, together, about $9), but very uncomfortable, and you are likely to share your seat (or rather, your bit of the bench) with four or five others. Ninotchka was small enough to sneak into the overhead luggage rack for a quick nap, but I had no such luck. Such trains are only possible in a country that is as civilized as India; in the West, these trains would be an intolerable failure. The sharing, hospitality and consideration given to each other occupants of this train was quite moving; a marvelous (if necessary) display of teamwork and cooperation, making the trip bearable. It was a beautiful way to see the Indian country side, but the next time we travel we will most certainly spring for guaranteed seating (especially since our next train is likely to be on the order of thirty hours, not ten!). 

We arrived, safe if weary, at 1:30am and were greeted by Ninotchka's Uncle Pierre and his partner Natasha, a Russian woman who moved to India five years ago. I'll write again in a couple of days and bring this thing up to date, so as not to gloss too quickly over the details of Goa, because aside from being the first bit of actual 'travelling' we've done since arriving, it's also been a pretty interesting experience. As promised, I have another round of pictures, which will be followed by a third round as soon as I can locate some bandwidth!