Way to Up

The wailing winds of Purgatory fly the best kites.

In four days from now, I get back on that very long airplane ride and head home for a time, ending my days in purgatory and year of the psychodramatic. I plan fill my little home with plants and have dinner parties and buy a little dog (preferably a Boston Terrier), write new songs and most importantly live quietly for a time. I have had my adventures and my thrills and my devastations and now I just want stillness. I guess you could say that I am going to build myself a little cocoon wherein I can finally complete my transition into some sort of quiet and somewhat strange man. 

It is going to be hard to say goodbye to India, who has provided me with incredible friends, real life courage, a keener understanding of humanity and a purpose that has been lacking for most of my adult life, but I have reached the end, emotionally and mentally.

When you begin writing a story, common logic dictates that you do not disclose the topic in which you are writing in order to keep your focus and momentum but I am going to defy this law. My goal for 2012 is to write a long twisted account of this year and about the Purgatory that India can be for a certain type of expat that comes here. You see, almost all my closest friends in India, myself included, have come here somewhat lost, seeking answers to a unexpected and often heartbreaking life. We came here with a large void and instead of filling it, we have instead immersed ourself in the vast unknown. Some of the people I have met have completely let go and have blossomed here, filling the void with a new comprehension of life and their respected positions in it. Some of the people have fought against it and have aged and become bitter, allowing India to conquer them. There is no fighting India, it will win every time. 

When I came to India, I was the most lost I have ever been. Lost and tired from years of struggle, persistence and in that final year, stark and heartbreaking disappointment. I came to India with little expectation and in the first few months it showed to me all the ghosts that I had circling around my head. The ghosts that I created that did not have to be ghosts at all. When I got off the airplane the very first time, I arrived here alone. Me against the world. I found myself a taxi, vulnerable by my absolute incomprehensible ignorance of this culture, paid altogether way too much and was taken to a guesthouse not built for westerners. I very quickly had to adapt to a world that I knew very little about and as difficult as it was at first, it contributed to saving my life. And when I finally got over my overwhelming culture shock and could leave my home and when I learned how to navigate the streets by Autorickshaw, and when I faced the fear of being lost in a small winding neighborhood that I had no business being in, and when I finally got over my claustrophobia by visiting the Old City during Ramadan which was so entirely packed with people that it became impossible to see the world around, when  all of these things happened, it contributed to saving my life and helped me build the foundation for a startling new existence. Most importantly, when I learned to drop my guard just a little bit and feel a new kind of love and embrace a new kind of humanity and open up (just a little) and to accept myself for who I am, a thoroughly flawed human being with a dossier of issues to overcome, when I learned to love that person, this crazy country and my place within it became a little more comprehensible. 

Maybe because In my former life, I thought I could master just about anything. Maybe I have never learned how to let go in a life time of constant struggle. Maybe I just plainly thought too much of myself. But India very quickly helped me see the futility in this. It taught me how small and insignificant I truly am. Further more, it taught me how little this matters. 

India also built a new and unexpected passion for my professional life. The team that I work with here is inspirational and brilliant. The team of designers that I found are so completely impressive and unique. The shift and progress that we have made is full of such uncharted potential that the future shimmers with excitement and possibility. We are at the frontier of a brand new India and I am so fortunate to have been cast in a small role in it.

I am hoping that this will be the year that I dismantle my wall and find peace with my strange social insecurities. I want to build myself a shrine where I can work to conquer my fear of giving myself up and release my inability to express myself in the moments when it matters the most. Where I can finally find some resolution to my extreme and ancient frustrations with life and where I can finally have some peace.

So the story I write will begin with man who has fought too many fights and tried to hold all the strings of a chaotic life, who has lost his sense of self and the love that mattered the most to him, as he arrives in Hyderabad. It will chronicle his adventures with similar lost souls wading through the chaos of an overwhelming abundance of life, where preconceived notions can create undesirable situations. I hope that some of my friendly webland denizens will keep prodding me on to complete this as life is busy and I don’t have the best track record for finishing personal projects these days.

The book will begin in chaos and it will end in kites, which I will tell you about now. Spoiler alert.

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This is my last weekend in Hyderabad before heading back to America and after the exhaustion and renewed heartbreak that occurred over the last few weeks, I am ready for the peace and tranquility of creating my own little domicile. My final Sunday played out as usual, meeting Stacy and Jason for a delicious all day long brunch at one of Hyderabad’s posh hotels. It is our weekly sanity ritual and I always look forward to it. This week, Barbara and Jason joined and we had a wonderful time talking and laughing at various anecdotes and eating many plates of international food and drinking mojitos. 

Recently, the chaos of India has started to wear on me a bit. I am finding myself being too bossy and at times increasingly intolerant, especially to a certain clan of American expats who amazingly have the most stereotypical American accents and a sense of entitlement that is nauseating. Little East Coast prats who wear India garb while keeping themselves distinctly separated from Indian culture. They remind me of characters from a Bret Easton Ellis novel. Let’s call them Less Than Zerowallahs. 

Yes, it is most likely time for me to go. 

After brunch, we made our way to Stacy’s house. Harry and Baba arrived and all of us went to the roof to fly kites. This weekend is Makar Sankranti, a holiday that celebrates the transition of the sun into Capricorn. It is celebrated by flying kites and the sky is full of them. Little diamonds peacefully populate the sky. Sometimes these diamonds have strings laced with glass and tails wielding razor blades and the lurk the sky seeking the destruction of their brethren kites.

We all stand on the roof and watch as Harry and Baba lift their kite further and further i until the kite looks like a shining rip in the sky, hard to see but inspiring when you find it. 

What a perfect final weekend this is. I look at this day as the end of my year. The year of chaos and fear. The year of death and rebirth and redeath and rerebirth. The year of finding oneself lost and found and lost again and okay being lost. Below the roof is chaos and darkness and beauty. It is loud and scary from time to time. It is easy to be adrift in its irratic and oppressive waves. It is a constant struggle that acts as a blatant metaphor for the constant struggle of life. 

But up here, the wind is calm and in the sky, the kites float peacefully. I could sit here all day looking at Harry and Baba’s kite going higher and higher into the peaceful blue abyss until it cannot be seen at all, only felt, like the reminder of calmer times. Like faith and love. Maybe next time I find myself wading in the chaos, be it in India or America, where the winds of psychodrama threaten to set me sailing in the seas of frightening uncertainty, maybe all I need to do is look up and think about the kite that flew away and maybe if I squint my eyes I will see that shimmery diamond shape that looks like a rip in the sky and maybe I will know that everything in the end will be okay as long as I believe that the kite is there.

I would love to end it there. What a beautiful, somewhat sappy ending that would be. But there’s more.

When the sun goes down, we go to Stacy’s veranda and eat cake. Harry and Baba go on into the night. Most likely to have some crazy adventure and the rest of travel up to a temple on top of the hill near Stacy’s house. The road up is jagged and bumpy as we approach the lovely white temple. Stacy’s driver stops the car way too close to the temple, which is awkward. We all get out of the car and go our own ways, walking about the small plateau. I walk towards the giant lit sign that can be seen from the valley below. I turn around and walk towards the temple. I take my shoes off and enter. One by one, we all enter. It’s me and Stacy, the two Jasons, Barbara and Stacy’s baby, Indigo. We enter this small room that ends in a beautiful shrine. We stand in a line and the Holy man blesses us. First having us give a prayer, then giving us a perfumed water to drink, than having us touch flowers that he then sprinkles in our hair, then another prayer and finally an offering of sweet rice. 

I wanted to have my story be religion free as I wanted this tale to be about finding oneself within the white noise. But at some point during the ceremony, I got a little misty eyed. It was sometime when the flower is sprinkled in my hair that I felt a new kind of love. A peaceful and quiet love. For a moment, I understood it. Through all cynicism, I understood the value of faith. I feel I might have been looking in the wrong place previously. 

In Hussain Sagar, the gigantic lake where Buddha resides, the water is oily and thick, filled with years of pollution and dangerous mysteries. But in those foul waters, beautiful thick plants grow. I am starting to believe that love is the same as these plants. The world is chaotic and unexpected, but from the murky and cruel soil comes love and faith and it grows strong and impervious and it belongs to everyone and to God, but it cannot be owned to any one person. That sentences love to death by malnourishment.

It is not enough to live for love. One must live underneath it.

The miniature building blocks of a fulfilled life.

I am sitting at Hyderabad Airport, at The Coffee Bean, drinking what is perhaps the worst espresso I have ever had.

No, that is a terrible way to start. Much too negative. Already complaining, jeez Adam.

So I am sitting at the airport, drinking coffee, about to get on a flight to Goa to attend a Global Design Conference. I have to repeat this sentence to myself a couple of times.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am somewhat of a pessimistic person. A curmudgeon, a complainer. I can find the negative aspects of almost anything which makes me funny to be around, in small doses. But as I repeat this sentence, “I am going to Goa to attend a Global Design Conference.” It occurs to me how many of my life dreams and goals have been fulfilled. Which is crazy, because in the shit storm that I am constantly bringing down upon myself I don’t think I have ever really truly recognized that.

So this is my cynical-free paragraph. 

I am thirty three years old. I have had a fairly successful band, created amazing music, spent my twenties touring the country playing my songs. I have had two great loves both of whom taught me amazing things about people, art and myself and believed in me truly. I am surrounded by amazing intelligent people from all over the world,  who are always thinking, creating and challenging, and most importantly, loving. I have my dream job designing and challenging and creating, surrounded by geniuses. I sometimes feel that my job is some strange symposium, which is exactly what I want out of life. I have met my goal of not only visiting but living in India, not just India but Goa, which I have yearned to visit my entire adolescent to adult life. I have the most amazing son in the world, who is wickedly smart and going to challenge me just as brutally as I challenged my own parents. He teaches me constantly. 

I have a terrible habit of living too often in my head and taking for granted the beautiful and amazing things that happen around me everyday. If there is anything that I need to learn while living in India, it is to let that go.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about Happiness and how happiness is not a longstanding emotion. But contentment is, and despite my own objections, I have accomplished that.

The Story of Adam and the Dog (Zoo Story, Carnatic Edition)

I fell asleep in my clothes last night after an extremely productive and exciting (albiet long) day at work and woke up this morning buried in several shades of confusion. It happens sometime. Even still, I will wake up and have no idea where I am, the pratfalls of an adjustable life. 

When I first got here, I wrote this journal entry about a walk to find coffee, a wild dog and a pandit of Hanuman, and for some reason I never added it to my blog. 

This post is dedicated to the numerous dogs of Hyderabad. The rough and tumbled gang of malnourished survivors who roam the streets in a mix matched pack. 

Cue the Intro music and wavy effects of a sitcom flashback.

                                         The Story of Adam and the Dog

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July 11th 2011

I wake up at six most every morning. It is a natural trigger, there are no routinely loud early morning sounds that occur, no damnable rays of sunlight. I wake up and it is peaceful. Most mornings I wake up forgetting where I am. When I wake, I start warming up the shower, drink a glass of water and respond to whatever emails may have come in from back home. Then I will shower (as long as the hot water will hold), brush my hair, shave, clip my nails, take a probiotic and a malaria pill, go outside and smoke a cigarette.  

I am a creature of routine. I don’t function well without them and India has utterly annihilated my previous sense of it. So last night I decided that this morning I was going to get up, do all these things I just discussed, go get coffee, read a chapter of my book, talk to some housing agents and go to work.  

Upon waking, I went through the list and left my guest house for the intrepid walk to find coffee. For the moment, I walk everywhere, which can be somewhat terrifying. Cars, Auto Rickshaws, Scooters and Motorcycles are everywhere. There are very few difference between sidewalk and street, so often I am left walking head long into oncoming traffic. I am not alone, this is the way it happens. I am part of a crowd walking into oncoming traffic like an army of Luddites futilely taking on the great machines. At 7am, however it is not so bad.

Most coffee shops open around 9 or 10, which for a raving caffeine abuser is murderous. The one place I found to be supposedly open is 2km in the opposite direction of my work. Needs are needs, however, so off I go.

As I said, 7am is pretty quiet and my home street, Rd 45 is quiet enough. A handful of street vendors have begun setting up their carts, which are typically fashioned on bicycle wheels covered with bamboo and tarp (at least on this road). The streets are relatively barren, not yet the crazy sight that they will be by noon. The air is cool and smells of burning chestnuts.

Across the street, a pack of wild dogs roam slowly from a ramshackle tent.  All yellow and lean, most likely brothers ( as foretold by the large bellowing testicles.) They walked together slowly until one of them, the leanest of the brothers, breaks away from the pack, he crossed the not yet treacherous street and joins me as companion. At first I try to shoo him away, wholly regretting my decision to ignore suggestions of the rabies vaccination, but he stays by my side, walking nonchalantly, panting and smiling. He is clearly more at ease with this arrangement than I am, but I go with it, not wanting to disrupt the natural order, or piss him off and alarm his brothers. I can see this going very badly. Design wallah torn to bits by hungry dogs badly, so for the moment, I am his accommodating hostage

The dog and I turn on to a residential street and the smell of chestnuts transitions slowly into Chaampa. More vendors set up their carts of bamboo and blue tarp in front and beside opulent homes with extravagant fences, often tagged with the image of Karingannu to ward off the evil eye.  The Dog and I get an equal amount of stares. as we quietly walk towards the next busy intersection. Some of the vendors attempt to shoo the dog away, but he just looks up at me and continues forth. 

Suddenly, the Dog sits down in the middle of the street before we reach the next significantly busier road. For a moment, I feel slightly rejected. I’d like to think of him as some sort of romantic metaphor for the chaotic solitude of this journey. I kind of thought of the dog as a relationship between two outsiders, the frowned upon mutt and the tattooed white boy that can’t speak a word of Hindi. In actuality, he is most likely waiting for me to feed him and has given up. 

Rd. 36 is next and by this time it is extremely busy. Autos of all sorts zip by, nearly colliding into each other and pedestrians alike. Motorcycles hop up on the curb to pass cars. The car horn is continuous and the sounds of the street are rolled together into a tight little ball of white noise. Rd. 36 is cosmopolitan, all Levi and Diesel outlets, gigantic fashion billboards, bars and fancy restaurants and Media Mega stores. Buses pass by packed frighteningly tight with people, begging for someone to fall out of the open side doorway. Trucks painted vibrant with wards and prayers mosey slowishly by. I walk down 36, snapping pictures with my smartphone, like some damn fool tourist. I almost get mowed down by a motorcycle at least twice. I come to a cigarette wallah and buy a pack of Gold Flake. 

As I continue on I see men dressed in brightly colorful red and green gowns walking up the street. Their mustaches are painted vibrant red and their faces are painted white. Their beards are green and as they get closer I notice that they are dressed up to resemble colorful monkeys. They are pandits and the are dressed as the god Hanuman. The approach and surround me in a semi circle, holding out their hands for donations. I walk through and onward. I regret this a little bit. This is one of those instances where perhaps I should have given some money. Being a silly westerner, I am always unsure. Not to mention, I so desperately want to take their picture and this would have been my way to do it. 

My morning routine is cruelly shot down when I get to the cafe and find that it is closed. I am heart broken. So I slouch my shoulders like a proper mumble-core should, sigh slightly and press on back to my Guest House slightly annoyed and on the verge of a caffeine headache. I shall have to find myself a new routine it would appear. 

I walk back the way I came, now not only being the only peculiar tattooed westerner within miles, but a very indecisive and slightly unstable westerner at that. One who paces back and forth, or at least that is how I imagine it looks. I return to the quiet residential street and there in the same place that he sat down, is the honorable wild dog. 

I greet my friend with a cautious hand and press on. My companion follows. It is almost time for school and the children in the neighborhood wait outside their houses for the bus. The boys wear white shirts and maroon paints and ties. The girls were pink dresses. The dog and I pass a pink house with little girls in matching pink school dresses. We  get some wild stares. Stray dogs are not highly respected and tattooed westerners are just funny looking. The smell of the air is transitioning, champa is giving way to exhaust.  We reach Rd 45 and head back in the direction whence we came. We pass the ramshackle dwelling where the wild dog and I met. He looks up at me for a moment, caring or pensive or annoyed that I haven’t fed him and runs back across the road, breaking up our odd companionship. 

I return to my room and throw myself down on the bed. If I cannot have coffee before work, then let me have a little more rest.

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After work, I look at my future home and meet my future flatmate/landlord. Mr. D- is from Bombay and I suspect he has a most interesting history, but we haven’t gotten to a level where he would divulge such things to me. I decide to walk back to my guest house (which is about 10km from the flat). It is a long walk and the air is now solid smog. I walk by the impressive Jagganath temple and see what is t be the first of many festivals and hear what is to be the first of many celebratory ragas. As I stand at the gates of temple, I am flooded by the most beautiful music and such an incredible array of color that I cannot move. That I must watch. 

After a while I move on, past the craziest round-about I have ever witnessed, on the side on the state park where I will begin a new routine of a morning walk and back in the direction of my guest house. To many more days of traffic and chaos and splendor. And the heartbreakingly difficult task of setting up a structured life.

Daily Soundtrack to an Adjustable Life (an intermission after a very long break)

The entire month of Ramadan has come and gone and my promise to myself to keep constant updates on this blog has been totally disregarded. I am currently sitting on my floor attempting a daily routine of getting up by 6:30, taking my daily Hindi class (via the internet and with varying degrees of success, aka not so much). I have a handful of photos that I need to upload somewhere. 

We have moved directly from Ramadan into Ganesh Chaturthi, which means the city is covered in festive lights and Pandals which house gigantic colorful statues of Lord Ganesh. The nights are filled with music and celebration. The festival ends this weekend with the statues being paraded down to the river and immersed, bringing with them the misfortunes of the followers.

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I find the mornings lovely, sitting on my mat, in the quiet, listening to the birds and the hyperactive ceiling fan and the traces of Carnatic music blowing in from the valley below. 

Life is so musical here. During Ramadan, the call of prayer became more and more intense as the month went on. During the last week, I would wake up at 4 to the sounds of morning prayer (the beginning of the daily fast). Up into this daily routine, I would take my shower around 7:30 and listen to this beautiful Hindu Raga coming from some nearby temple. 

My daily walk to the Auto Rickshaws start off so very quiet in my somewhat posh Mithila Nagar Colony, but as soon as I pass the gates I enter the land of vendor stands, autos and the orange and white striped temple of Hanuman.

There is one Driver who has familiarized himself with my schedule and predictably as soon as I reach the temple he comes zipping by to get me, which is nice, no more daily negotiations, me and the driver, we both know what to expect. 

I guess you could say that I have adjusted to life here. I have made a group of friends, whom I admire greatly. We generally spend one evening over the weekends together. Recently I discovered that most of them will be departing India in October, which is kind of sad. This includes a German fellow who I intend to play music with and inspired me to make an attempt at cooking Indian food ( I have to humbly pat myself on the back for this one, it came out pretty alright.) 

There are things that I will ever get used to; such as being the third man on the back of a motorcycle (this scares the living hell out of me), and the horde of wild dogs that hang out outside the gates of the colony (and me without my rabie shots, smart Adam, real smart).

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One of my tasks at work has been incredibly inspiring to improving myself as a designer and to actively seek out my philosophy in design. I reread “The Medium is the Massage” and was blown away by exactly how much it relates to the new mobile technology, truly, I think an artist interested in moving in the direction of mobile (or any new technology for that matter) should read it. 

Additionally, I joined an internet group called The Center for Internet Research which has become a daily lesson in philosophy and social media and creation. Especially interesting is Howard Reinhold’s talk on “Way New Collaboration”

What I am doing in India is causing me to explore art and design in a way that I never have before; thinking about the differences between the regional and the global, about the personal and the corporate, about it’s dubious history and vital future. Furthermore it has caused me to reevaluate myself as a designer. To focus my eyes a bit better and accept my failures a bit more honestly. I have been formulating my theory on Design in India, and I am in no position to publicly write about that yet, but it has become somewhat of an obsession of mine. 

So now I must make my daily walk past the quiet solitude of Mithila Nagar into the chaotic thoroughfare of the morning commute, past the dogs and the donkeys and the temple of Hanuman and into the backseat of the gracious and hospitable auto.

With love, your fans in Israel.

Creature Comfort Culture Shock

It’s Friday night and I am at home, sitting on a couch, drinking mango juice. The French doors to the balcony are open and I am listening to the last wave of the monsoon rain mix gently with Leonard Cohen’s Song of Isaac. My shoes are off and my feet are up. If I were still in Austin, I wouldn’t be home, I would be out, but here I need more time to decompress. Not decompress, really, but reflect. I need time reflect. I have barely picked up my guitar. I imagine that I will, probably soon, but for the moment, I exist only as a pair of eyes, observing the world around me. My eyes burn with fresh new notions and street pollution.

That is not to say that I haven’t been thinking about songs. I have been thinking about so many songs, but I don’t know where to begin quite yet. I don’t have many answers right now, so I lack many of the necessary words. Before I can begin writing I need to properly put together the pieces of a life that brought me to this moment right now. I am busy placing dog ears in the best and worst moments of a life that just took a monumental turn in another direction.
 

“I can’t pretend I feel very much like singing as they carried the bodies away,” sings Leonard. How appropriate.
 

 The rain is beginning to lighten. The prayer has recently ended. Soon I will watch a movie or read a book and go to bed. Tomorrow I have some work I have to catch up on. I owe some very special CDs to a couple of people (Sorry Bethany, I’m on it. I promise…)
 

I am here now. In every way and I am beginning to process like a normal human being again. My friend and coworker and I go and have some street food after work. I have been leery of street food, as I have been told that it can be a sort of Russian Roulette that can result in a very uncomfortable evening. Thankfully he knows the good places. After we eat, he has tea and I have pineapple juice and we talked about religion and smoke cigarettes. This weekend he is going to take me to an Islamic restaurant to have some proper Halal meat and test my will against feverishly hot food. He is also acting as my advisor in buying a scooter. God help me, the driving in this city is terrifying but it has to happen. So it goes.
 

I am catching up on journal entries and tonight I need to complete the beginning.

7/6/11

It is 4pm and I am sitting in a sports bar in the New Delhi Airport, though really, it could be an airport bar anywhere. The low lights add to the “bar” ambience. The employees wear sporty outfits. I sit on a stool, my elbows resting on the bar, drinking a thick aluminum can of Kingfisher. There is cricket on the TV and Arcade Fire on the stereo. I am so incredibly tired from the extremely long flight that harbored no night. We flew over the globe, from Chicago over Greenland, down across Russia, On top of Afghanistan, above Pakistan and finally into India. We flew in perpetual day, leaving the land where night exists right before it came, entering the land of endless day, and reentering into the land where night had already passed. The day was 18 hours long and it is only 4pm. That does a number on one’s constitution. I slept on the plane, but my body, being in between time, does not feel rested and the beer is only adding to the delirious sick feeling.  
 

The New Delhi Airport is modern and at this time of day, it is quiet. I finish my beer and sit near the gate. I sprawl out on a couple of benches and stare at a giant golden deva that lives in the middle of the terminal. I drift into a sleep a little bit and sharply wake myself with an enormous snore. I board the plane and sit next to the same elderly couple that I sat next to on the flight from Chicago. They went on a road trip across Texas and were returning home to Hyderabad. When I inquire about the city. He tells me it is good. 

“There are good people and there are bad people,” he says

The plane is fairly empty, so before we take off, I find an empty row, lay my body down and fall into a glorious unconsciousness that withstands the entirety of the flight. I jolt awake as the wheels hit the runway. 
 

It is 8pm and I am so extremely excited to get off this plane and into the city that will act as my home for a time. I walk quickly through the airport which is remarkably empty. I could be anywhere in the world. I grab my luggage, open my guitar case to make sure it is intact and with more excitement than I have felt in a very long time, leap towards the door of the airport and out into these brand new world.
 

And into the arms of disorientation and the kick to the teeth of culture shock. 
 

The first thing I notice the noise. Everything is so loud that it is hot white. There is a cordon that separates the passage from the airport doors from the impossible crowd of people that stand on either side. So many people, so much motion. I don’t know which way to go, I walk around the outside like a damn nutter, carting my overstuffed suitcase and guitar case, like the unprepared buffoon tourist in so many slapstick comedies. I wave off porters and navigate through the tight nest of human beings. I head down to the lower level, which is laid out like an extremely narrow mall, fast food joints and merchandise stands erected on all sides. I find a radio cab driver and we settle on a price for him to take me to my guest house. I run to the ATM and take out a good surplus of cash watching a lizard as big as my face perch on top of the machine. I meet up with the cab driver who has picked up an additional passenger and the three of us and all of our combined luggage squeeze into his tiny cab. 
 

The road leading out of the airport are fine enough. Black and white checkered stones line the road and barricade finely placed palm trees. But this doesn’t last long. The cab is birthed from the relative safety of the airport roads and into a bedlam that is practically indescribable. Cars weave in every direction, often driving the wrong way down the road. I don’t feel as though I am in a moving vehicle, I feel like I am in a New York subway station and every car is a person running to catch a train that is about to depart. Cars cut off other cars, threaten to run into each other. Yellow three wheeled Auto Rickshaws (that would later become my tormentors), navigate the hectic streets like little demonic insects. Everything is everywhere. It is a flash mob of vehicular homicide. 

The air is heavy with exhaust and we speed along the main road. Packs of wild dogs stroll triumphantly on the side of the road, unafraid and apathetic to the people around them. I’ve never seen a wild dog before, not to mention a pack of them. They are an indiscriminate mix match of breeds all marching along on a unified mission, most likely for food. We pass roadside temples, all brightly painted with little shrines and statues and devas designated to a hundred different gods. There is a wildness here that I have never experienced, and through the mad streets and sensory overload, there is a holiness.

Lush greenways and opulent estates give way to ruined buildings and tarp cities with open fires burning close to the road. This transitions into a vast metropolis with enormous movie posters and advertisements and buildings on top of buildings and people everywhere and street vendors and storefronts with garage doors. I give the cab driver a cigarette. He tells me that he is dropping the other passenger off first. And we drive over roads and under roads through the tight corridors of this chaotic city. The cab loops around heading back the way we came and unto a narrow street overstuffed with motorbikes. The passenger makes a phone call and passes it to the cab driver. They speak Telugu and I gleam that the person on the other end is giving directions. We slip down into a dark winding narrow street with people sleeping next to a damp looking stone wall and head into an alley. Dogs scurry out of the way and we stop in front of a large compound where the passenger exits the vehicle, pays the driver and enters the large metal gates.  We back out of the Alley and onto the small street and towards Jubilee Hills where my bed is waiting.

“Do you think my English is good?” The cabby asks.

“Yes, very much so,” I respond. 

“Are you visiting?”

“I am here for six months, most likely”

“Do you have a family?”

“A son, I miss him very much”

We are quiet for a moment. I pass him another cigarette. This time I take one as well. 

“Are you from Hyderabad?” I ask.

“Yes,” He says.

“Are you married?” He returns to his line of questioning.

“Recently Separated” I say.

“Are you lonely”

“Not at the moment, how can I be? This is my first time here.”

“In Hyderabad?”

“Yeah”

“In India?”

“Yeah, I have always wanted to come here”

“If you are lonely I can find you a woman for the night.”

“No thank you, I’m really not lonely.”

“Okay.”

The abundance of cars slip away and the road becomes calm and dark. The burning exhaust scent fades as well, into the sweet smelling post monsoon rain scent.

“Take my number” The cab driver says and gives me a card.

“If you need anything, just call. I’ll take you out. Whatever you need.”

“Thank you, I will.”

 We turn on the scantly occupied Road Number 45 and quickly come to my guest house. The attendant is not expecting me but after a conversation with the cab driver where the only word I can make out is the name of my job, The attendant takes my bags from the back of the car. I pay the cab driver and he shakes my hand.

“Call me anytime you need” he repeats.

We say our goodbyes and I follow the attendant to my room. It is decent size with a marble floor and huge windows. The bathroom, thankfully, has a western styled toilet, for now I am safe. 

I slowly unpack and fold my clothes. I set my belongings orderly and claim this room as my own. I take out a large portrait of my son, Reeves, and place it on the bedside table and cry a little bit. The amount that I miss him is excruciating and I begin to question my decisions and hope that I didn’t do harm. He moved to Boston, and the moment I said goodbye to him (for the time being) was one of the hardest moments of my life. This year hasn’t been the easiest for a myriad of reason, but his departure was by far the most difficult and painful moment. This year has been the year that I have been kicked from the cocoon, so to speak, and told to fly.

I kiss the photo and unpack the rest of my trinkets; A painted dinosaur that he made on the day that me and his mother decided to split up, a painting of the silhouette of my second wife which acts as a reminder of a religious devotion to love, regardless of the consequences, and a picture of a person who is very dear to me, who I miss greatly, a reminder that the heart wants to love. I set these up carefully as my holy trinity of a wonderful and very full life filled with, well, love.

I walk across the street to the Number 45 bar and drink a large beer. I overtip due to my exhaustion and inability to quickly calculate exchange rates. I walk across the still street and back into my guesthouse where I go to bed, hopefully for a good long time.

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It is just after midnight and I am sitting on my floor, finishing this entry. I am trying to find something profound to write to conclude this, but it isn’t coming. Not to say that there isn’t anything profound going on, but more that I am incapable of communicating it at the moment. India is beautiful and this adventure is a wonderful isolation. When I left, many of those dear to me gave me the blessing, “I hope you find what you are looking for.” 

In a small way, I have. 

“Into this furnace, I ask you now to venture, You I cannot betray”

The Search for Breakfast. The Call for Prayer.

I have been here for about two weeks and have written down so many different impressions and inspirations in various notebooks and upon multiple computers. Every time I sit down write a blog entry I get hung up on a new detail. So I am going to start with this last weekend, because It is fresh in mind and when I get a chance I will back track to previous events. Just like Lost.

To make it clear for now, I will date entries. Maybe if I want to be sweeping and epic and all that jazz, I will rearrange at some point. I don’t know. We’ll see. 

Sunday, June 17th, 2011

It is 5pm and I am laying down for a nap. I spent more than half the day navigating through Hyderabad and at the moment, that is all my body can take before tuckering out. I woke up this morning with several purposes, all obtainable, that I was going to accomplish today. The first being breakfast, the second being Buddha, the third being Charminar

I moved Yesterday into a flat in an area of town called Banjara Hills. I live in the upscale Mithila Nagar Colony behind the crazy-by-my-standards-but-still-relatively-tame-in -the-grander-scheme-of-things Rd. No. 12. To get to my neighborhood, you must pass an ornate gate or Kaman, which is a great landmark for giving directions, unless you have no clue what a Kaman is, as I didn’t when the overly patient landlord was trying to give me directions for the first time.

The Banjara Kaman

In front of the Kaman, merchants set up selling fruits and curry and wallets, makeup, flashlights, religious card, you name it. Today I got screamed at by a fruit merchant about how fresh his fruit was. I wanted to give him some pointers on salesmanship, such as “don’t appear angry” and “you are not making me comfortable enough to buy your fruit”, but I refrained and just nodded my hands vehemently, giving him the big time no.

                                                   ******** ********

I wake up very early here, between 5:30 and 6 everyday. I shower, groom, clean my room, go for a walk etc. Morning things.

This morning, I desperately wanted breakfast. Eggs Breakfast. Coffee Breakfast. Bread other than Paratha Breakfast. I looked online for a place that opened early and served breakfast-like things and fortunately found one not so far from where I live that opened at 8am. I smoked a cigarette on the balcony and went to find an auto rickshaw. 

I’ve passed this restaurant a couple of times, but didn’t have an address or a landmark to tell  the driver, and of course being the asshole tourist, I can speak maybe five words in Hindi… maybe. You can forget about Telugu or Urdu.  At the moment I am getting by by smiling and nodding my head sheepishly (in the wrong direction no less. Here, an affirmative head nod looks life a negative head nod at home, so it probably just looks as though I have some sort of weird head tick), or drastically swinging my hands. 

I need to learn Hindi. At least the basics. 

The rickshaw driver needed an address to take me to the restaurant, so I made one up near Film Nagar and away we went. As we got close to the restaurant, I waved my hands for him to stop, paid him well for the annoying circumstance I had just provided and was well on my way to eating eggs and drinking coffee. 

When I reached the restaurant I found that it was in fact closed. That the web, as it often does, had lied to me. Three boys stood around crates of vegetables and broke the news to me. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I responded by rubbing my belly and saying “so very hungry”. The sweet boys tried to hide their smiles at the Idiot trying to talk his way into a closed restaurant. I turned around and walked to the nearest coffee shop and nibbled on a brownie. I may have been muttering to myself. It’s entirely possible.

Here, I find that most actions must be carved out, at least as a newcomer. There is such an overwhelming amount of activity that careen and swim down curving and unpredictable streets. There is such an abundance of chaos, that it can only be maneuvered through determined action. This is the most free spirited home I have ever known and it makes traveling across the city an extreme sport.

India consumes all the senses, so much so that I often feel like child  again in a very very new world. There have been several times that my purpose for travel here has been waylaid by the unpredictable but very possible unknown circumstances. There is very little success in whimsical travel. Maybe some day I will figure that one out, but for the moment I must have determination where I go.

And will. I am utterly convinced that India runs on will (more on that later, that is at least a whole blog).

After coffee, I hail a rickshaw to take me to the Hussain Sagar, so that I may have my tourist moment checking out the extremely large Buddha that resides in the middle of the lake. The first driver doesn’t understand me, most likely because of my pronunciation and he hails another driver, who is unwilling to drive me there. They hail down a yellow cab who of course hails another rickshaw driver and suddenly I am surrounded by four rickshaws and a cab in a perfect semi circle, trying to figure out exactly what it is that I want. The last rickshaw driver finally nods in agreement, but for a high cost. Since clearly no one wants to take me there, he has leverage. I acquiesce. 

The Hussain Sagar is a giant man made lake in the center of the city built in the 16th century as a reservoir to meet Hyderabad’s water needs. Hyderabad came into existence due to water needs. 

Object in Picture may be way larger than it appears

To get to the Buddha, one must take a boat across the lake which costs a mere Rs 45 ($1) I pay the fee, get on the boat which fills very quickly and away we go. 

The Buddha is pretty amazing, gigantic and intricately carved. He sits on a base of smaller just as intricately carved Buddhas which is surrounded by a small moat. In front of him is manicured grass cropped into a checkered pattern. I take a few pictures like a good tourist should and to my disappointment, am hailed back to the boat after a mere five minutes. 

Upon arriving at the docks, I am instantly approached by a Rickshaw driver offering to take me where I want to go for Rs 80. 

“I don’t know where I want to go.” I tell him

“Fine. Fine.” He says. “Shopping?”

“Eating”

“Fine. Fine”

My “This-is-not-going-to-work-out-like-you-want” sense screams at me to say no, to walk away. But against my better judgement, I say yes. 

I get on the rickshaw and he takes me to his buddy’s jewelry store.

“Food?”, I ask

“After.” he says.

I am so desperately hungry at this point that I try to strike a deal. 

“Two Hundred Rupees to take me to Taj Krishna,” I say recalling the first place in town I can think of with an abundance of restaurants. He claims this is too far and wouldn’t I like to look at some jewelry instead? We are, remember in the City of Pearls. We go back and forth. Unless those jewels are edible balls of paneer, I want nothing to do with them.

He says he will take me there for Rs 400. I talk him down to Rs 250, realizing in full that I am getting ripped off. I don’t care. I just want to eat.

He takes me to Rd. No 1, which is an active hive of gigantic supermalls, fancy hotels and murderous traffic. There are so many various noises. They are indecipherable in number and ultimately create a mass wall of white. I fetch myself some butter chicken and a Kingfisher and sit in the quiet air conditioned mall attached restaurant, watching hundreds of traffic accidents nearly happen. 

After lunch, I catch a rickshaw home and proceed in passing out.

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Writing personal blogs makes me anxious. I find myself getting caught up in a unnecessary and still unnerving cycle of over-analyzing and self doubt. I keep asking myself,  ”Am I merely relaying details or am I giving a personalized account?” and “Is it funny enough, is it witty?”, as though that means anything at all. And don’t get me started on the whole, “I am now and forever more informing everybody on the entire Internet just how terrible my grammar is.” 

Oh well, these observations must be reported. This fear must be overcome. Pithy, self reflection comes to a close. Let’s continue…

                                           ***********         ***********

It is 5pm and I have been laying down when the call for prayer begins. The house I am living in is on a hill and there are Mosques on either side. So more accurately, I should say, call for prayers. They are similar enough in tone and melody but still so entirely different. Together, the two calls combine in a way so incredibly beautiful that I can no longer stay lying down. The calls echo through their respective neighborhoods and meet on my balcony. I head out to stand and listen. The call from the north is a bit more wordy, the call from the south is more harmonic. I stand there, frozen, listening to the most beautiful and perhaps unintentional song I have heard. I watch large black birds fly around the half finished skeleton of what is most likely to be luxury flat.  I close me eyes and listen. It is monsoon season, so the wind whips through the melody as a soft undercurrent hush adding dynamics to this already perfect song. I listen and think I may cry. 

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I feel that I can almost hear the call from a third Mosque somewhere in the distance chiming in like another celestial instrument. I sit down on the marble slab and just listen until the prayer finishes. The two or three calls end pretty much at the same time and I am left with the hush of the wind. The hush of the wind and the din of the nearby chaotic street.

I would be lying if I were to say that India didn’t frighten me in some ways, but I love it dearly. This country is godly and human, for better and worse.

I have often felt that I live in a culture that fears it’s own humanity, that would rather put a pretty veneer on a chaotic jumble of shit and say that everything is ok than stick its hands in that shit to figure out what makes it stink. I have witnessed so many people that I know, myself included, push aside the parts of ourselves that make us whole human beings and have refused the parts of ourselves that are ugly and terrible in order to create this facade of happiness.  

God does reside in India to the extent that all aspects of humanity; the beautiful, the delicate, the frightening, the ugly, the sadness and the joy coexist in every single moment and are laid bare for the world to see, as long as you keep your eyes open. 

And avoid getting mowed down by an Auto Rickshaw.

wayfarin--stranger asked: Rev. Glasseye is one of the best, most underappreciated bands I've ever heard. Ever since I ran into Midnight Cabaret on Youtube I've ordered all of your albums and I've been spreading the word amongst all my friends. Shame the band's run into trouble, but I'll always be a great fan of your work.

Thank you for your comment. 

Reverend Glasseye hasn’t run into trouble par se, it is just in a more dormant form. I am decent at writing songs and it has always been my passion, but I am terrible at self promotion. I have never been good at it. It makes me uncomfortable and I generally end up wanting to run away from it. The we were under appreciated, but mainly that was my fault.

That being said, I have continued to write Reverend Glasseye songs and I am proud of them. The music has grown with me and perhaps the entire world will never hear it, but I am elated that it exists.

Currently my life has steered more in the direction of design and that has created some amazing opportunities, such as being able to move to India for a spell. This journey is something that I need to help renew my philosophy on life and creation and will most likely do wonders for my music. When I return,  I hope to release what I have been working on these last years and I can make no promises, but I hope that will happen.

Thank you for being a fan of our music, it means the world to me.

-Adam Glasseye Beckley