How to Take a Bath Without Taking Off Your Clothes

Any time of the day I can step outside my cabin and see people bathing. I never thought something so mundane could be so interesting. The boat I'm on is docked next to a ghat, steps that lead down the bank of the Hooghly River in India. People wash their clothes, swim, play and pray on the ghat. But mostly they come to bathe in the brown waters. Only very small children get naked for their baths. Men wear their underwear (aka "vestments"), shorts or lungis which are knee length sarongs. Women wear their saris. They are covered at all times but manage to take a thorough bath. They are expert at it.

This morning I had tea and watched as a dark skinned old man rubbed and rubbed, and scrubbed and scrubbed, turning himself white with lather. It is a vigorous operation, part ablution part exercise. Repeated face splashing, dunking, submerging. Finally cleansed, he stood waist deep in the water facing east, his hands together in prayer over his heart.

A young, well-muscled, nicely built man walked into the river, his black and red checked lungi tightly wrapped around his hips. Okay, so I noticed these things. The very thin cotton lungi became diaphanous. With his back toward me I noticed he was well muscled elsewhere. (Sorry ladies, I didn't have my camera with me.)

Feeling a little bit like a voyeur I continued to watch him lather up and wash. When he finished, he put his shorts on under the lungi. It reminded me of the surfers in California taking off their wetsuits with a towel wrapped around them.  The lungi turned out to have multiple uses. It was a sort-of cover-up in the river. It became a towel after a good wringing. After oiling his body and hair, he tied it around his head, the tail of the lungi trailing down his back. Finished, he took off on his motorcycle. I wondered if he bathed there everyday.

Now I turned my attention to a group of ladies in their colorful saris. Soaking wet, the voluminous saris clung to their curves. They wear no foundations beneath them. A young woman in a blue print sari was waist deep in the water. She took the sold blue petticoat worn underneath it and slipped it off. Then, gold bangles flashing on her wrists, she wriggled into the petticoat and transformed it into a strapless dress. The 6 meters of sari cloth came off and she washed it in the river. Next, she re-wrapped the sari underneath the petticoat and returned the petticoat to its rightful place beneath the sari. She plunged into the water, her long black hair floating on the surface. She shampooed her hair then rinsed and rinsed and rinsed it.

There is something very peaceful and calming about watching this simple daily ritual. After three days here I know I'll miss this ghat when we start upstream.

Indian T-shirts—Say What?

Young Indian men love their "slogan" T-shirts and I love reading them. These fashion statements are informative, insightful, humorous, and sometimes provocative. However, often they're a confusing collection of words, inexplicable single words, missing words, malapropisms, and incomplete thoughts. They are a source of  great amusement for me. On this trip, some of my favorites include:

õ     "Straight" This was on the back of a bicycle rickshaw driver. He was transporting my friend, who is gay.

õ     "Play Boy" This T is very popular.

õ     "Knock Yourself"  I'm guessing this meant to say "Knock Yourself Out" but I don't really know.

õ     "Wacky"

õ     "Girlfriends are like medicine. They come with expiry dates."  Usually worn by an unattractive man.

õ     "My Sexy T-shirt" Worn by a guy with a sexy smile.

õ     "Power Pack"  This was accompanied by an image of a screaming face.

õ     "Bad News in New York"

õ     "King of Air"  Did it mean to say King of THE Air: Of Air waves? King of the sky?

õ     "Jesus Engineered Shirt"  Huh?

*       "Sometimes when I'm alone I google myself"

*       "If you're reading this then you are not sleeping"

õ     "Dear Santa All want for Christmas is a list of all the naughty girls." The reverse side: "Survive"

A Day in the Shop & Substitute Guru



Me and the Substitute Guru



A typical day at the jewelry shop I'm working in starts at 11am. I take a tuk tuk to the shop. The "boys" open the shop and give Ganesh, the elephant god his marigold and rose garlands, and say prayers. Then we have chai. We do a little work. Then the holy man comes in offering more prayers for Ganesh. For 10 rupees (about 22 cents) he smears red powder on my forehead and then presses a few grains of rice into the paste on my head. It is not very flattering. It looks like I'm walking around all day with a bleeding gash on my head with maggots in it. The rice falls off at the most inopportune moments throughout the day.

 Sometimes a guru comes in after the holy man. He pulls up a chair and talks to Ganesh. One day he turned to me and said I have a brilliant mind and would buy a house in India. After all the mandatory prayers we work a little and have more tea then lunch. Lunch is wrapped in newspaper and tied with string. It's pretty much the same every day—dahl with a lot of oil, vegetables in a lot of gravy and oil, and buttered naan. We eat, go back to work then have tea. The day ends about 8pm. 

Today there was a substitute guru in the shop. He had a long white/gray beard, long slicked back white/gray hair, thick spectacles, and a forehead full of saffron colored powder and a big round red tilak (prayer mark) on his third eye--the spot just between his eyes, the seat of intuition. He was 76 years old, the same age as my father. I just bought some special raisins and almonds for my upcoming trip on the Ganges River. I offered some to him and we talked. He told me after December I would be successful and that I would buy a house in India, just as the regular guru did.  

Oddly enough, I have heard this from several soothsayers, holy men and gurus here and in the United States. Either they're all reading out of the same astrology book or they know something I don't. He told me to pray to Ganesh every day before I write and pray to Durga every morning. I like the energy of this god and goddess and what they represent. Ganesh is the Remover of Obstacles and Durga is a strong and brave female warrior who kicks ass. I thanked him, put the raisins and almonds in a baggie for him and he left.

My Morning Commute

I have been working in a jewelry store here in Jaipur for the past few weeks. Unfortunately, or fortunately, my hotel is across town. In the morning it's maybe a 20-minute ride. In the evening it can take up to one hour when traffic is at its worst. I ride through the old town of Jaipur, also known as the Pink City since the walls are painted a terra cotta color(not sure where the "Pink" came from.)

My driver, Ali, picks me up in his tuk tuk (motorized auto rickshaw). I slip into the pink vinyl seat with big hearts stitched on the back rest. It seats two, comfortably, three squeezed tight and seven or eight if you're Indian. Ali wears a cap, presumably because he's bald, and black eyeliner because it wards off the evil eye. He speaks good English and knows the city well. He overcharges me about 20 rupees.

We share the road with every conceivable mode of transport including camel carts, elephants, horse drawn tongas, donkeys, bicycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws, cars, and motorbikes. A menagerie of animals including the above mentioned, vie for space. Dogs, pigs and piglets, speckled goats, monkeys and of course cows weave in and out of traffic or simply stand there in the case of the cows. One evening we were stopped in traffic. I was eye to eye with a cow's anus. He/she was standing on the median. I'll spare you the details of what happened next. Damn this jam.

Some of the other things I've seen:

õ      Eunuchs beating drums, dancing, singing, and generally making a ruckus in front of businesses. They go away only after they're paid.

õ      Carts of street food, including some electric yellow noodles that looked radioactive.

õ      Women dressed in brightly colored saris embellished with sparkles. Every morning I see women cobblers (rare) squatting with the tools of their trade. They are so beautiful polishing and repairing shoes in their pink, red, turquoise, and green saris that look like evening gowns and prom dresses gone wild. Their wrists are heavy with bangles.

õ      Piggies and piglets dining on the remains of the previous day, immensely enjoying their discarded fruit peels, old vegetables, plastic biscuit wrappers, and garden variety garbage.

õ      A dirty cream colored donkey painted with orange spots and orange stripes, presumably for identification.

This morning, I saw a completely naked old man standing on the roadside. Ali didn't even blink an evil eye. I doubt anyone else did either.