Way to Up

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

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

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.

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

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.

1. recklesschants liked this
2. edireson reblogged this from adamglasseye and added:

   simply must write...story Mr. Beckley shared...first days...

3. tracyvanity said: Did you see any festivals for Ganesh last week? I live on a Hindu street so there was a loud colorful parade outside my apartment. Sounds like your next album is going to be fucking amazing. You’re right where you should be.
4. tracyvanity liked this
5. adamglasseye posted this