पानी /pani/water

Swim in it:


Don't drink it.

Rewalsar Lake

I decompressed from my month in Tibetan exile land with two days in Rewalsar, a holy lake half-way from Dharamsala to Delhi. I stayed at a monastery, climbed a mountain, and had my first coffee in two weeks.


Primary observation: you know it's winter in India when everyone in Himachal is huddled around fire pits made out of old ghee containers.

Still, the statue of Padmasambhava continues...


This 12-foot high spiritual monolith is intended to be gold when complete. I hear it's quite sunny in Rewalsar in the summer, so may logic grant it to be matte.



In circling the lake (monkeys, prayer flags, dogs); you pass temples of three distinct religions, like little points on a triangle: Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist. I vote for the red goompa.


The mighty climb up the mountain (loose the lake landmark, use the rice patty landmark, regain the lake) leads to a the cave where Padmasambhava meditated - remove your shoes.


...mind the spiderweb of prayer flags.


Yar.

Ramblin' Man

Contrary to my initial belief, India's ubiquitous 'STD' signage has nothing to do with sexual awareness. Instead, it signifies a booth that enables one to make national phone calls...I'm still working on the acronym.

This linoleum number is my favourite one yet.


A deduction: if India is the center of the world, which it is in more ways that one, 'STD' slammed everywhere could very well by a Freudian slip for the nation's general sexual repression.

Har.

In otherworldly considerations: assistance is welcomed in regards to this tricky puzzle; as initiated by the song's inclusion amid another stunning playlist put forth by my iPod (on) shuffle.

Ahem...my incomplete attempt at mapping out Ramblin' Man by Lemon Jelly:

Paris
Tibet
Sydney
Naxos
Rangoon
Rotterdam
Runcton
Cayman Islands
Malawi
(_)
Haight-Ashbury
Patagonia
Kingston
(_)
(_)
Ko Samui
(_)
(_)
Valmorel
North Pole
Brixton
Antwerp
Gujarat
(_)
(_)
Uganda
Sheddington
Sudbury
Sri Lanka
Ecuador
Edinburgh
Stockholm
Abu Dhabi
Lexington
(_)
Tokyo
Harlem
Ipa Lima [? - epilimnion*]
Nikaseer [?]
(_)
San Jose
Damascus
Mandalay
San Francisco
Atlantis
Adelaide
(_)
(_)
Amsterdam
Munich
Rwanda
Kyoto
Manchester
Toronto
Prague
...

Judging by the inclusion of countries, cities, islands, neighborhoods, states and intersections...the boundaries seem to be limited to places that are proper nouns and not establishments. Fallen empires are not excluded. I am unaware to the geographical locations of the places with question marks, should they exist at all. There was simply a point where I couldn't ignore the phonetic clarity.

In traveling alone there's a lot of time to be disposed of in rooms or floating transport bubbles, all without available internet connections.

-Tara

*potentially 'the water layer overlying the thermocline of a lake', though this defies the proper noun theory

Imminent Departure

I'm still in McLeod. This is my last (self-concluded) week of teaching, and as was bound to develop on a long enough timeline, I have split feelings about departure. Exclusive of my rather enjoyable grammatical debates with my intermediate class of monks, I've gained some sort of relationship with the students, and that led me to accessing games at the basketball court (in India!), so now I'm all happy eating momos.


My two most chummy students, Dorjee (left) and Sanjay (right). This photo does a pretty epic job of spelling out the essence of their polar personalities:


I was waiting for Dorjee(1-above) from my beginner's class at the bus stop while talking to Dorjee(2), a student from my advanced class. While I was waiting for Dorjee (1) at the basketball courts, I asked to share a ball with an anonymous character, who I discovered was named Dorjee (3). There are about ten names in Tibet. A third of them are Tenzin (the mame of the current Dalai Lama), while the reminder are generally divided among: Sonam, Jigme, Tashi and Tsering. There is a minority group. Sanjay stands alone so far. Though bills posted for "Sangy's Kitchen" abound.

Bok choy is the ubiquitous vegetable. It's kind of like a symbol in the fresh produce caste system. Exclusive bok soy sellers are the untouchables. If you have oranges (a seasonal speciality), you can bring in the flocks - and it means you're probably selling everything else too. Buying vegetables is way cheaper than they cost prepared in soup, but I can boil water about as efficiently as I am able to have hot showers:


There are few cows and cars that mark this town's narrow streets (though I did see a cow eating prayer flags while walking khora last week - the celestial forces of Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism at war!) The roads are essentially designed for a single vehicle to pass with the exclusion of pedestrain consideration. Of course, this becomes problematic when one motor vehicle becomes two:



With the stealth of approaching from behind, I got this picture and gave the man five rupees before he "namaste"ed me. Ha!


On the eastern elderly: crossing the Himalayas, the 100 valley steps by daybreak...what ever happened to an afternoon with The Young and the Restless?


The flock here is thinning. It's time for paint jobs and renos. The air has become pinchingly close to home, with the mountains scattered with their first snowy dust.


Soon, the move south (east).


Yar.

Teach me English

If you can still call this little mountain town India, that is not a cow.


But today, a lesson on English grammar.

Up until two weeks ago, my English was operational on a level far from conscious, as is usually is with native speakers of any language. Well. Allow me to shed some light on its world of grammatical complications. I'll be using sentences that utilize "there is" and "there are" for examples.

HERE GOES!

1) You can only use "there are" and "there is" when you are saying "where" something is. For people, you use "this" and "that". You use "these" if there is more than one thing, and "those" if these things are out of reach.

ex.
"Is that your family sitting at the table?"
not "Is there your family sitting at the table?"

"There are many monks in McLeod Ganj."
"Where?"
"In McLeod Ganj."

2) You can only use "many" with "are". If you are using "is", you must use "a lot".

ex.
"There is a lot of rain today."
not "There is many rain today."

"There are many students in the class."
You can also use "a lot" with many.
"There are a lot of students in the class."

3) If the noun changes its spelling in the plural, you must use "are", even if there is no "s" at the end of the noun. If the spelling stays the same, use "is".

ex.
"There are many women selling momos on the street today."
"There are many children at school today."

4) When using "there aren't" (negative), do not use "some". Use "any" to say there are "none" or "many" to say there are only a few.

"There aren't many vegetables at my house." (There are only a few).
"There aren't any vegetables at my house." (There aren't any).
not "There aren't some vegetables at my house."

5) Only use "something" with "is", because "something" means not a lot or not very many.

ex.
"Is there something in the paper about Tibet?"
not "Are there something in the paper about Tibet?"

Conclusively:
Is English convoluted and full of loopholes? Yes, it is.

ex.
"There is a lot of fish on the menu." (adheres to point 3)
"There are many fish in the sea." (defies point 3)

Otherwise inconclusive bonus question:

Why do we say:
"Sorry I couldn't meet you yesterday."
not "Sorry I couldn't met you yesterday?"

The comments box is waiting.


A goat, perhaps?

-Tara

Home on the Range

So I'm hibernating in the small mountain town of McLeod Ganj for a month, teaching English to Tibetans.


It's a place that really tapers in tourists this time of year, resulting in some sort of pseduo-isolationist experience outside the classroom. On top of that, I'm staying on a little terrace landing upwards of a rocky hill.


The sun sets early this time of year, which means getting home before the dogs. In a nutshell, they are tortured souls destined to bark at each other all night in defense of getting attacked by their co-patriots as they all collectively reign the streets by night. It really tests your will when you find yourself awake and regergitating at 1:30 in the morning. This means a smooth, stealhly operation from bedroom to bathroom, out in the night through the world of (prospectively) rabid dogs and monkeys.

But by day, it's merely a quaint, benevolent animal farm:



Also, the family is inquiring. I offer a photographic update on living standards:



Potentially erronenous regergitation reflections: I realized that the take-out bag of my Tibetan brown bread was some wax-foil packaging of veterinary medicine for sick farm animals. One potential clue in the puzzle to why I woke up three hours later dispersing of stomach bile. This was also the night after I decided to essentially fast in order to equivacate my budget and still give money to the lepers. Convoluted logic - oh it's me.

Yar.

Dalai Lama gets props from the US

Just last week, US Congress awarded the Dalai Lama the top civilian award of the United States: the Congressional Medal of Honor. This means that the Dalai Lama was standing behind a podium next to George Bush. Ahem. Besides really carving out the axis and the allies for World War III (the Chinese Ambassador left the US once the news was out), lets just say it sure took me be surprise.

Meanwhile, his re-arrival back in Dharamsala was pretty fantastic. People were out marking the streets with Buddhist symbols from the morning of, thus building a red carpet out of chalk.


I stood in the lines for over two hours. The last hour was the real threshold. False alarms brought the shaggy lion costume back to full suit while converting social interaction into bowed heads bearing incense.



The streets were adorned tenfold by the Tibetan flag and all its inherent rainbows.


Those few seconds when he drove by in his SUV were greeted with all the compassion in the world.

-Tara

McLeod Ganj; a little tiered piece of Tibet

I'm in McLeod Ganj (upper Dharamsala), the little mountain capital of the Tibetan Government in Exile. As the home of the Dalai Lama, it's as much Tibetan as it is a backpacker strip, though the Tibet part keeps it in check. I start teaching English on Monday, so on this little mountain stoop I will be awhile yet.

The stairs by the bus stand in lower Dharamsala:


The gentle struggle of properly affixing balloons to a stationary object, for the cliff below bares its own invitation.


It began a humble story, where the child ran and the donkeys stayed.


From the roof of my guest house:



The top view of the Chorten (prayer wheel pagoda):


The stairs into the valley, filled with school children, snaking water pipes, and abandoned water bottles:


Khora:

Khora is the mountain path that circles the main temple and the Dalai Lama's abode, oriented in a clockwise direction so they are always on your right.


The elderly Tibetans hobble through with their prayer beads in hand, mumbling "om mani padme hum", a ritual they seem to take a lot more seriously thank the cell-phone savvy monks who more often than not seem to be on coffee breaks.



-Tara

Amritsar: the Golden Temple

My knowledge of Sikhism doesn't extend far past the unanimous turbans worn by the men. Though I walked through the temple museum, I only retained it as a mass portraiture of blood and massacre - their story seems a bloody one. So I can't give you much history, nor could I really be bothered to. It was pretty much the Sikh's generous hospitality in conjunction with a few grains predisposed awe that brought me to Amritsar; to the Golden Temple, to the attached dorms for pilgrims and visitors, and to the kitchen serving 40,000 people a day. Waking to instinctively follow the long white esplanade to the temple became the first trip each day, of many.


While in Amritsar, you just go to the temple. And then you go again, then again...and again...





Your shoes stay shoved under your dorm bed, retrieved occassionally to accomodate wandering to the bathrooms at the back of the sleeping quarters. Somehow I felt more at-par here than anywhere else in India, washing my feet and peeing in the squat toilets of the by-donation guesthouse of their holiest temple. Or eating in their massive dining hall that winds people in and out like a snake.

Prep:


Dishes:



The mantras and live music that waft nineteen hours still resonated as I waited for the train per my departure. Sitting by the barred windows as the carriage rocked back and forth before concluding its northerly course, I realized I didn't really do anything else in Amritsar.


-Tara