Travels: Thailand/India 1997

Travel Letter #4

Frustrations

Before I continue, I just have to get some frustrations out. After we arrived in Varanasi, down on the Ganges plain again after two weeks in the cool and relaxed Himalayas, I almost had enough.

Enough of temperatures around 37 degrees, the air filled with dust, smoke, and stank from cows, rotting garbage, human urine etc.

Enough of hassling salesmen offering us anything we _don't_ want: Moneychanging, silk, bus-tickets, hostels, hashish, rickshaw-rides, boat-rides, camel-rides etc.

Enough of beggars and street children with elephant feet, skin-and-bone feet, no feet, leprosy or swollen eyes. Beggars who not even accept a donation but start bargaining on the prize of your donation!

Enough of the machoculture which is so much easier to recognize when I travel with Anne Anita. Not only macho, but utterly infantile and stupid. Most mens humour havn't developed since the age of 10, it seems. This frustration has nothing to do with lack of cultural tolerance, I think. I just don't think any culture, in the name of humanity, has the right to treat women the way Indian society does. This and next month is the wedding high season in India. We have seen several wedding processions with young bridegrooms but even much younger brides (maybe 11-12 years old) crying in utter desperation when they are brought away from their families.

Enough also of corrupt and unprofessional political management, resulting in the most horrible pollution (a whole area of the sea outside Mumbai is completely dead due to the pollution that seeps into it from the city), dirt and garbage everywhere (the media reports that the country is already drowning in untreated garbage, and this is still expected to double over the next 3 years) and poverty. In fact, international institutions like the World Bank, has now categorized the Indian subcontinent (including Pakistan and Bangladesh) as the poorest and most underdeveloped region in the world - worse even than sub-Sahara. 800 millions people here are living in 'absolute poverty'! But the really crazy thing is that a cut in military spending of 5 % every year over the next 15 years could completely eradicate the causes of these unworthy living conditions.

At a point in every Indian traveler's diary, there comes a point when the perception of the country as exotic, colourful and exciting changes to a materialized image of hell. And the next person who laughs at you or runs into you in order to get you into his rickshaw runs a very high risk of having his face smashed. And all you want is to get out of here, back to normality. Anne Anita was even longing for "ordinary" alcoholic beggars and the smell of 6 months old dogshit under the melting snow of Birkelunden (a park outside our home in Norway). How far can we sink? Well, it has to be said that so far this has mainly been my problem for some peculiar reason. Anne is still in the mood of "always look at the bright side of life".

At the moment she is having the ultimate weight-loosing diet, lying in bed with a diarrhea on the fifth day. (A type of diarrhea I labeled "open-tap-syndrome" last time I had it myself - I'm actually quite proud of this invention to the English language, maybe I should patent it?) When she recovers, we will be heading north again to the Western part of the Himalayas, to the HQ of Tibetans in exile - Dharamsala. This was my favorite place last time in India: Beautiful landscape at 1800 m with the mountains in your back with a splendid view over the Ganges plain in front, few Indians and more Tibetans who are always smiling and joyous, and a fascinating place for study and practicing of Buddhism. With a week or two there, maybe all are frustrations are blown away with the swift pre-monsoon winds?

There are also other methods to cope with this kind of frustrations. One is to develop a very solid type of cynicism, so that one is able to walk straight ahead through the streets and completely ignore any attempt made by passerby's to catch your attention. The other is to plan dinnerparties for at least a week or two when you get home: Create a menu with all the dishes (with fish and meat in every single one) and make a list of who to invite. Expect your invitations!