Sandy Does The Subcontinent

Bodhgaya continued its lessons in acceptance when I was feeling a little nervous to walk to the travel agent’s to get my seating assignment confirmed last night…and halfway there, the power went out, so I was stranded in the dark, unable to see my way forward or back. Generator backup lighting eventually came on – luckily before I had a heart attack – so with that and candlelight from the small vendors I was able to find my way and the agent called to confirm my reservation and get my seating assignment.

Then when I got on the Doon Express to Varanasi this morning – the 5:15am train, might I add – my name wasn’t on the list posted on the coach to which I had been assigned and someone was in the seat. Since the TT (took me forever to figure out they were talking about the ‘ticket taker’) was “no available” – head wiggle, head wiggle – pretty much every single person on the entire coach took a look at my ticket and had long discussions in Hindi about what should be done. Finally, they just pointed me to an empty seat, spoke at me in Hindi and wiggled their heads. I wiggled my head and sat down, and everyone was satisfied. Some time passed before they all started gabbling about TT and pointing, so I followed the man who had just passed, and told him my predicament. Much discussion, inspecting of ticket and shuffling through passenger lists ensued, until a conclusion was reached: my seat had not been confirmed.

Now, this might have bothered me like, a week ago, but since I’m all India philosophical rad now, I just accepted it. The TT assigned me to an empty space a couple of coaches down, which turned out to be a top bunk sleeper so close to the ceiling I couldn’t even sit up, in another non-AC coach.

Oh wait, have I mentioned that I’m in the middle of a heat wave significant enough to make it onto CNN…in summer…in India? Yeah. Let’s just say that by 6am it was hotter than it’s ever been in San Francisco.

I spent the next six hours taking advantage of my newly resurrected ipod, to find the perfect soundtrack to a hot, crowded Indian train. Here are my findings:

* Justin Timberlake, Justified – Totally groove irresistible and therefore not advised unless you are fully committed to turning your trip into a Bollywood film. Which would be so amazing and if you actually did that I would be your best friend forever and ever.

* Wire, On Returning – A solid choice. I’ve rarely been so pleased as when Strange came on. “There’s something going on that’s not quite right,” indeed.

* The Postal Service, Give Up – The combination of calming and engaging makes this album a fine soundtrack, plus the rainy day romanticism lends itself well to gazing out a train window (assuming you’re not squished up in the top bunk of a non-AC sleeper coach, that is).

* Public Image Ltd, The Greatest Hits, So Far – Way, way too aggro. By the time This Is Not A Love Song came on, I was hyper aware of the heat and smells and how much I suddenly hated everyone around me.

* Paul Williams, Songs For The Family Of Man – This instantly took the edge off my PIL anxiety. Plus, the ridiculous juxtaposition of 70s AM hits and Indian trains is too great to miss.

* Neil Young, Harvest – Soothing and lends itself well to super hot weather. However, even though I love this album, it didn’t work out so well because it made me feel like I was just in a really bizarro Los Angeles. That freaked me out.

And the winner of the contest for Very Best Album To Listen To While Riding The Rails In India is…. Paul Williams!!!

Mary coined the phrase “India philosophical rad”; I think it was on the flight from Delhi to Cochin when one of the crew apologized over the PA for the inconvenience of a delay, then followed with something like, “But these things happen and there is nothing that can be done. They are out of our control so we must simply accept them.” Yep, that guy was totally India philosophical rad.

On the first pages of my journal for this trip, I wrote out a quote from “Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita” by Ram Dass: “[Arjuna is] still attached to all his old values, his old definitions of himself. They are in conflict with the new understanding that is beginning to unfold for him, but they’re deeply ingrained, and he isn’t free just to drop them at will…And even more important, we have come to recognize that the choices facing Arjuna are the same choices facing us: How ripe are we to let go? How free of our egos are we ready to be? How willing are we to surrender to the mystery of God’s plan? Those are the questions confronting Arjuna. That’s the battle we face.” I thought a lot about this before the trip but then, since I have the mental focus of your average house pet, I promptly forgot about it in the fun, shiny distraction of India.

Last night it hit me – maybe this awful smackdown of the past few days is an opportunity I’m being given, to let go of my old ego models and to be released into the sea of life. It played out in a series of scenes since Monday: when I needed my ipod, it promptly stopped working; when I needed to feel physically strong and capable, I fell down and hurt myself; when I needed the kindness of strangers, I was met for the first time with cold indifference; when I needed to feel safe and nourished, I got food poisoning; when I needed the comfort of voices speaking English, the cable immediately went out. Everything I thought I wanted or needed – every attachment – was forcibly broken.

At first my response was the same as on my last big trip, which was precipitated by a similar domino effect – “I hate this! Things aren’t going how I want them to be, so I’m unhappy.” But if I’m only going to be happy when things are ‘good’, then I’ve completely wasted the past year of my life on a spiritual quest for freedom and balance that instead led right back to where I started. I saw that the only way to be that evolution was to put my mind where my mouth is, because I can talk about non-attachment and surrender until I’m blue in the face but if I still mentally qualify an experience as good or bad according to how closely it meets my expectations and desires, then those are just empty words.

Some part of my internal construct fell apart when I realized all this. Something shifted and I finally felt – really felt and not just thought – that it didn’t matter, any of it. I finally didn’t care – didn’t feel like I wanted or needed any certain thing. Healthy, sick, weak, hot, cold, what job I have, what city I live in, who I’m dating or if I’m not dating anyone at all, if there are people around or not, whether or not anyone helps me when I’m in trouble…it’s all the same, and the only thing I can do is be there in it and act with kindness.

Honestly, if this feeling lasts for even a day or two, then this whole trip will have been totally worth it.

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As a postscript: after I went through all of that last night, I woke up feeling healthy, not sore or ill. The cable was on. At breakfast, the waiter brought me a bottle of water that was ice cold (something I’d unsuccessfully tried to find for days) and, with no explanation, an English-language newspaper. After breakfast, the hotel manager came up and knocked on my door because he hadn’t seen me in the morning and wanted to make sure that I was okay, “because if you were still feeling difficult, I would call a doctor to come.” And yes, after checking my ipod 43278 times since I got here, I thought I’d be crazy and dig it out of my bad to check it one last time… and it worked.

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