Excerpted from India
I’ll try to post a few spiral notebook entries before I come home.
Dated: January 8, 2009 3:00AM
Yesterday was another day without particular goals. We ran our errands and went down to an instrument shop by the beach and were sold on a flute too expensive, followed by a much more pleasant shopping experience buying sandals for my feet along with a brief flute lesson and second-purchasing session in front of that sandal stand. We bought two flutes of a much higher quality sound and explained its usage by an elder with a missing fingertip. While we later realized the flutes were painted PVC pipes, they did sound much better and, for the price (two of them for less than the original shrink-wrapped import), the experience was unparalleled, especially compared to the first shop whose attendant explained he knew nothing of playing the instruments he was showing off. The question of worth here is fascinating.
Though I believe the order of events is wrong we met an American woman named Heather who just returned to South India after an eleven-month stint in the North and a visit back home. Marked by many healing mosquito bites on her face, and entirely swatch-ed in patterned fabrics, she reminded me of a Disneyesque Arabian fugitive. She explained everything I assumed happened with an American becoming acclimated here: learning the real price of everything, knowing what to trust and not knowing what day of the week it was. [How long are you here for? We’re going to Madurai on Saturday. Oh … what day is today? Awesome.] She was a massage therapist outside of San Francisco who completed college, but remained a self-described directionless person. Heather was entirely pleasant and as we tried to pay for the street dosa and dhal we had just eaten together, she instinctively tried to beat back the meals-wallah on the price on our behalf.
We wandered to the tourist center to find one of the free maps, which unfortunately was only worth its price. I haven’t really come across any comprehensive maps here; most just complement each other with the streets that they do record. Ignoring the map we pocketed, Rebecca and I intentionally lost ourselves down some streets we hadn’t yet seen and saw a larger Christian presence than had been noticed before. A compound containing a day school, a medical center and a small chapel by the name of St. Mary’s - all decorated with more fierce defenses (glass shard walls and barbed wire) than any other structure in town.
Down another street, we stepped under the awning of a small food stand run by a calm woman cooking up bhaji (spicy vegetable fritters) and chai. Both were utterly delicious and we were shortly bolstered on our sides by elderly women exchanging their own gossip. The woman cooking spoke no English and, when we couldn’t reach comprehension on the price, tilted her head to the side with a smile and gave us change out of our hundred-note. I wanted another bhaji to go and she communicated the individual price by holding up a one-rupee coin. Two pennies for those fried balls has by far been the best deal. They’ll usually be several times more expensive if a man is cooking/tending the money. I’ve found women care less about raising prices for Westerners.
Some paces further was a well-lit sweets shop with buttery pastries and sugar confections. Our display case ogling was halted by an excited “businessman” who told us of his redemption in becoming a born-again Pentecostal Christian. He cited some important selling points such as that there were too many gods to pray to with his native Hinduism, “but with Christianity there is just Jesus Christ and praying to just him will heal me.” To Emmanuel (his shiny, new Christian name), I became a Catholic with a doctor for a father and a housewife mother simply by choosing from among the answers he was verbalizing to his questions about my background. [What does your father do? Doctor? Yes.] Rebecca became a heathen of a Jew who might some day see the truth if she starts having real faith. He asked for an email address which I happily wrote down for him so that he could send me information about a Jewish priest that might be able to fix Rebecca. Seeing as it’s a personalized email coming from an Indian address all about Jesus, I will excitedly monitor my spam folder in the coming weeks for results.
