Sublimity…

So contrary to the indications on this website (complete lack of input from me for the past way to long…) I’m not dead. In fact, the reason for the lack of input is that I am currently extremely alive – and thus to busy/unable to sit down and write stuff for here. Given my current plans, this state appears as though it will last until into early November – the time that I finally call an end to this year+ adventure and make it back to good old NS.

For the curious, here’s a quick outline of what I’ve been up to:

• Mid June – Called it quits at PSI 2 weeks early. I’ve meant to summarize the PSI experience, but there’s so much to it that I don’t think it will happen. Let’s just say that I was glad I did it, but also very glad to have it over. I learned a lot (no such thing as bad experience) but it was often not what I wanted/expected to learn, and it was not always learned in a positive environment/way. Guess that’s life though. I wouldn’t go back and change my decision to join PSI. Big thanks to the team I worked with on CP (Sunil, Sapna, Bimla and Bendari) for the wonderful 6 months I spent with them. I won’t forget it!
• Late June – Jeevan Vidya: Went for a week-long workshop up in Mussoorie on this philosophy called Jeevan Vidya (Hindi for Philosophy of Life) knowing only its name and that it was supposed to be really cool. I finished the extremely intensive week closer than I have ever been before to calling myself a “believer/follower” of any religion/philosophy (but still a way from it), with a whole lot of questions in my mind about life, its purpose, and how to go about this process that we all mostly take for granted, and with a larg group of new friends I had grown very close to over the course of exploring ourselves (nice to have some similarly aged, similarly minded, similarly orientated friends in this country – a first for me so far). I won’t describe “Vidya” here – it takes the full 7 days to get a fair taste of it – but may try to introduce some of the concepts/questions here later. It’s something that I’m planning on exploring more, once I get the time/headspace/environment needed for this kind of thing.
• Early July – kicked around Mussoorie for a few days after the workshop to relax and enjoy the mountains, and then jumped a bus and headed out to Gangotri (the souce of the Ganga – the holy river of India). Hiked out the 19km from the roadhead temple to the glacier that marks the true source, and spent a wonderful day sitting on the glacier contemplating life and trying to absorb everything that has happened lately. The natural beauty of the inner Himalaya (a valley surrounded by snow-capped peaks, sitting on a glacier at 4100m in the monsoon mist) was pretty magical. By the end of the day, I felt like a snow-leopard guarding my den (a rock shelter I found and inhabited). Coming back to civilization was strange…
• July – Friends!! Jamie and Sam landed in Delhi and I spent three amazing weeks with them traveling around northern India. While we spent most of our time in Ladakh (you have to go – though in some ways you really shouldn’t) I toured them through the experience that is Old Delhi, and we also touched the hill resorts of Shimla and Manali. What a world. It was so nice to have some good old friends around (ones you have a history with, and fee completely comfortable with), a nice change after 9 months of solo traveling.
• Early August – Jamie and Sam left me in Ladakh, but I stayed on for a few days to enjoy the region and continue my escape from the Indian monsoon. Met a photographer on a truip to a gorgeous lake in Ladakh and befriended him, so in addition to getting yet another place I can stay in Delhi, I was pushed/drawn to really focus on my budding hobby of photography – with some impressive results (which I will display later – soory, but you have to wait until I have the time/computer to process them). Then it was back to Delhi (and the resulting culture shock) on Aug 2nd.
• Early August, Cont. – Had some time to spare so I decided to go out and visit Varanasi (especially now that I was full of photographic desires). Wandered around the old city (which now replaces Old Delhi as the place where sterotypical “Old India” is best experienced) and then crasehd with a friend out at nearby Sarnath. Going from Tibetan Buddhism in Ladakh to the Tibetan University in Sarnath was a bit strange, but nothing exceptional for me these days.

So now I’m in Sarnath – trying to recover a bit. I’m back to Delhi tomorrow to pick up my family (parents and broher are coming to visit!!!) and then we’re all goign back to Ladakh again – I can’t wait. Two weeks of trekking and enjoying the scenery there will be followed by a week in Dehradun reacquainting them with the city we used to live in, and then they’re back to Canada for work and school. I on the other hand head down around southern India (see previous post) before my visa runs out at the end of Sept. An expiring visa means my time in India is done, and my trip back to Canada starts on Sept. 28th when I fly to Japan. I’m spending 2 weeks there exploring that crazy country with friends before I arrive on the far coast of Canada on Oct. 10th. From there, the idea is to slowly make my way across our wonderful country (something I’ve never done) and catch up with everyone I know who are now scattered everywhere. Current plans suggest I’ll be in Vancouver around Oct 10th, Kelowna Oct 15th, Calgary Oct 20th, Saskatchewan (the only province/territory I’ve never been in) around Oct 24th, GTA around the 28th, Kingston around Nov 1st, Montreal shortly after, and then finally arrive home in the first or second week of November. This is your advance warning – if you want to see me, all you need to do is let me nkow where you are, and what your availablility is like around the time I’m planning on passing through your neck-of-the-woods (and with a trip like this, there are very few places in Canada that I’ll be too far from to find you, so I want to hear from everyone!) and I’ll make it happen.

Alright, my time quota has run out, so that’s it for now I guess. If you want to get in touch with me for the next 3 months, email is a much better bet. I should even be able to tell you more about what’s happened/going to happen as the personal connection makes it much easier to write stuff. In the meantime, hope everything is going well for all, and I’ll try to update this when possible (unlikely, but who knows…). Til then, keep on living and make the most out of it!

While India may be one country politically, in geography it is often referred to as a sub-continent, and there’s no shortage of reasons why this terminology is appropriate. First off, the land area is huge (not much smaller than the “continent” of Oceania which is basically Australia) and contains a huge diversity of natural environments (everything from deltas to deserts and jungles to alpine peaks). However, I think that the fact that the region is essentially isolated from its neighbours by nearly impenetrable desert, mountains and ocean along its entire border is what really grants it sub-continent status (and the geologist in me has to point out that not that long ago – only a few million years – it was its own continent, drifting alone in the Indian Ocean).

Given that every single other habited continent has multiple countries on it, it seems odd that this one has only one (true, technically there are 4 others, but they don’t have the size or diversity, and are all are on the edge of the sub-continent, so I think I can justifiably say that they are insignificant in comparison – the sub-continent is called India after all…). Despite the range of environmental diversity, the social and cultural diversity of the country is much larger – hundreds of languages, thousands of cultures and millions of different lifestyles. Given all this, and the way chaos reigns here, it’s absolutely astounding that this country manages to stay together, most everyone would agree that in many ways it makes more sense to have several separate countries.

If India was ever going to be majorly split (ignoring all the constant border spats with Pakistan and China – as sensitive as the issues are, the areas in question are relatively small), it would likely split in half, north and south. The north you have the mountains and great plains, where the ginormous population mostly speaks (or at least understands) Hindi, where the people are mostly Hindu – but with major Muslim influences. Compare this with the southern part, lush tropical coastlines and dry inland plateaus, inhabited by people who speak languages completely unintelligible to a Hindi speaker (which is why English is the only truly national language of the country, it’s the only way South Indians and North Indians can communicate) and whose culture is still Hindu, but different than in the north, much more influenced by Christianity than Islam. There isn’t really a sharp line separating these two regions, over the millennia there has been substantial intermixing, but somewhere in the 2200km between Delhi and Chennai (likely around the MP/Maharastra border), you start to feel like you’ve entered another world.

However, my impressions of “India” are almost entirely based on North India. Between the 11 months I lived in this country 10 years ago and the 9 months I’ve been here so far this time, I’ve spent a total of 3 weeks in the south. To make up for this, ever since arriving in October I’ve been wanting to go back and explore around more, but given the size of it (distances between places, and size of area to explore) and climate considerations (it’s too hot most of the year, and also wet for a significant portion), I haven’t done it yet. However with work commitments now done, I’ve got 3.5 months before I leave to explore, and while the first part of that is still likely to be hot and wet, I figure that by the time my parents leave near the end of August, it’ll be pleasant enough to make the trip down. Plus, if I leave it any later, it’s just not going to happen due to lack of time, so it’s September or bust.

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Having spent nearly 8 months in this country (yikes!) and particularly the majority of the last 5 out in remote villages, I’ve gotten quite accustomed to hearing Hindi, and despite a complete lack of effort (I haven’t opened any of my material from the Language school since I left there in Dec, and haven’t even asked for translations most of the time when I don’t understand things), I’m starting to feel perfectly comfortable speaking and understanding Hindi. While my vocabulary is still limited (the fact that Hindi has about 5 commonly used synonyms for every single word doesn’t help), what I do know I know fluently. As long as I’m talking about what I’m doing, going to do, the weather, food, and several other common subjects (or at least common for me, eg. crop production or livelihoods), I don’t have to think about what I want to say – it just comes. In fact, I’ve found that (thankfully) I don’t try to translate things in my head anymore (though I never really did a lot of it, Hindi and English are so different that it is very hard to do the mental gymnastics required for constantly translating everything back and forth), I either understand/speak the thought in Hindi or it just doesn’t process at all. There’s even times now when I speak Hindi with people who are fluent in English – it just feels right doing it that way, and honestly, it’s often what comes to mind first (Hindi is just better adapted for working in India, the nuances and subtleties in meaning that are needed to describe India are so much easier in the native language). I took French in school from Grade 4 straight through to Grade 12 (and even took Social Studies in French whenever possible), but I can honestly say that I feel much more comfortable in Hindi now than I ever did in French. Even from an academic perspective, I think I know Hindi grammar better than French grammar – and even English grammar for that matter, seeing as I’ve as of yet never formally learned english grammar. It’s amazing how our minds work, and a perfect example of how experiential learning (and being in situations where you have no other choice but to learn) is such a more effective method than sitting in a classroom. So while I’m still a long way from completely fluent, I’d say I’m fully functional and know enough to get by on my own now, and if I had the desire/need, I could pick up the remaining parts very quickly now.

While on the language subject, I’ve always been amazed at home people here intermix Hindi and English when speaking here (often several times in a sentence) despite the fact that the languages have completely different grammar/structure and are almost completely unrelated. However, the longer I stay here, the simpler it seems, and it’s now gotten to the point where I find myself doing it. Almost anything you want to say can be broken up into bits comprising of nouns (and their associated adjectives) and verbs (along with the grammatical glue – conjunctions etc.). It’s hard to switch languages within fragments, but you can easily switch languages between fragments. The resulting mishmash (often termed “Hinglish”) ends up sounding quite funny, but it’s remarkably easy to process if you can understand the two languages. It’s typical Indian for you, do whatever works best (easiest), most often resulting in something so chaotic that it’s somehow ordered…

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That’s right folks, it’s back to my favorite topic – the weather… Coming out of the mountains has meant that I’ve left the freakishly cool and wet (and therefore pleasant) weather patterns that are lingering over the Himalaya and have descended into more typical Indian summer weather. While my first day back in Dehradun was thankfully cool (seems some of the mountain weather followed us down), since then I’ve been exposed to what summer is really all about here in India – HOT!

The worst part of the heat is that there is no escaping it, it is everywhere, all the time (nights are worst, I can’t sleep if it’s hot). Despite all the advances in technology and affluence, air-conditioning is still a rare thing here, there’s no air-conditioner at the office or the guesthouse, and even air-conditioned shops/public places are few and far between. The second option – fans – are abundant, but they don’t cool you off, they just create a breeze which changes the situation from hot to tolerable. In fact, if you consider them thermodynamically, they actually make it hotter by losing electricity to heat in the process of turning the blades – but we won’t go there. Regardless, the second the power dies (a rare, but occurring phenomenon), you instantly feel your temperature starting to rise as the breeze disappears. Additionally, the constant whirring of all the fans is annoying. I like my peace and quiet, and in the omnipresent cacophony that is India, the one retreat I had – my room – has now been invaded by the constant whirring of the fan. At least it doesn’t click and wobble like the one above my bed did back in our old house in Dehradun 10 years ago – that damn fan gave me constant nightmares to the point I would sleep teetering on the edge of bed for fear it would fall on me in the night. I’ve since learned that those fears may have at least partially due to the malaria medication we were taking (good old Larium and the hallucinations it induces), but regardless, nights weren’t fun.

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I’ve survived my 6 week adventure in the mountains, and am happy to say that yesterday I arrived safely back in Dehradun. It’s been quite a trip in so many ways, I’ve learned lots (mostly things I wasn’t expecting), had some wonderful times, but also had (more than) my share of frustration and challenges. I’ve written a few things (see older posts) and have half-written several others (hopefully coming soon), but there’s a lot of stuff that I think will end up uncatalogued this time around – sorry.

Future plans are up in the air, I’ll be here in Dehradun until at least June 15th working with PSI (maybe up until June 30th), but am hoping to go to Mussoorie for a cool workshop on June 18-25, and then maybe go explore the mountains (I’ve spent nearly 3.5 months in the mountains so far, but it’s all been in one small watershed – there’s a lot more to see!

Things get exciting here in July when the visitors start arriving – first Sam & Jamie on July 5th and shortly after our three week adventure is done, my parents and brother are coming. It’s going to be great to see some familiar faces again and get to share some of these wild experiences with people I really know…

After my parents go, I’ve got a month to explore South India (trip in the planning stages) and then I’m out of here, back home to Canada (on or before Sept. 30th when my visa expires). From there – who knows…

So back to catching up with the world, I’ve enjoyed Mayali and in many ways like it better than Dehradun, but after awhile the feelings of isolation get to me, and so it’s nice to be connected again.

Hi everyone!