The Underbelly I don't want to give you the false impression that it's all shiny sci-fi over here. When I remember to leave the marble-clad campus where I'm studying, I'm immediately swept along, along with the wave of unceasing movement and color and smell that is India. This is a bit of the not-always-so-glamorous version of this story...

There is the use of buckets. Splashing cold water, with one's hand, onto one's butt. Yes. Need I say more? There are the insects. Flies. Mosquitos. Unidentifiable flying black bugs. Spiders. Ants, big ones, even on white marble. In Kodai, giving into late-night hunger pangs, I would sometimes stumble into the kitchen through the dark and, upon switching on the light, be greeted by a constellation of scurrying red ants, rustling across the stale, stained newspaper covering the countertop... There is the smell of body odor and Indian air that accumulates in the stitching under the arms of shirts worn thin. There are the toilets that won't flush and taps that don't produce water. There was the month of bathing once a week with a bucket and a cup for a shower. The hikes through the rainforest, the afternoon spent smoking a joint and admiring a chunk of meteorite with two middle-aged Indian hippies. There are the men who gape at women eating alone in restaurants and the teenage boys who can't stop asking questions. Then there are the questions that must be asked thirty times. There was the baby who cried all night long on the train. The smell of urine in the city rivers. The men—rich, poor, clean, dirty—pissing on the side of the road—any and every road. There are the families of five, sitting serenely on a single motorcycle in the midst of chaotic traffic. There were the cooking lessons, and the coconut chutney vomit in the bushes. There was that day I woke up, brushed my teeth, and discovered my spit was brown. When I looked in the mirror I saw my tongue was greenish-black. There was the lizard that pooped in my hair, the monkeys that stole my peanuts (and saved me from tsunami!), the 8-foot snake that slithered by ten feet away. The countless wild dogs I almost stepped on, and the two that chased me. The puppy I shared breakfast with for a few weeks. The shit and tsunami rubble on the beach, and the perfect seashell lying amongst it all.  ¶ 4:58 AM 1 comments

  This is where I am, and it is real imagine this:

It's the 1960's and you are making a movie. Your film is set in the year 2005... your futuristic vision includes white marble floors, enormous banquet halls with strange echoes and electric hums, soundproofing, and banks and banks of fluorescent lighting, a conference center with plush blue seats and microphones every two feet: an entire institution built with the purpose of accommodating and providing all of the needs of large groups of International Yoga Students of The 21st Century. In order to welcome these esteemed travelers-- for they are, after all, the Healers of the Future-- you arrange dozens of red roses, and assemble a highly dedicated and capable staff to cater to their every whim and need. Because the Students are in such a state of receptivity, you bring into their unsuspecting midst the wisest and most capable Indian yoga teachers on the subcontinent. And these teachers will teach them...

It's pure genius, I tell you. And a total time warp. I feel dizzy and blessed.  ¶ 7:28 PM 0 comments