Temples, Churches, Gurudwaras

The experiences are piling up and I am haven't been writing much since my friend, Ben Teller, arrived. I have been taking some pictures, but I haven't yet figured out how to transfer them from my computer to the blog. I'm still working on getting wi fi, but it is not simple. I need a permanent address in India. Since this is India, there is a way around this but I haven't figured it out yet. Also, the data cards aren't available right now. They are due any minute, but so far they haven't arrived. I am still without my own wireless. We are traveling less than I thought we would, so I might do without a data card this trip. I need an official reason for being here. Perhaps by my next trip, I will have figured one out.

Sacred Space

Without getting too spooky about it, I think all India is sacred space. I also think Los Angeles is a sacred space. All space is sacred. In this context by "sacred," I mean a sense that one is in the presence of the invisible, unknowable other. On the one hand, I am an unrepentant materialist and do not believe in an unknowable other. On the other hand, I frequently feel as if I am in its presence. So there is the greater sacred space, and then there are the spaces that people have set aside and identified in one way or another as sacred.

Before I get to the sacred space itinerary, I have a couple of reports to make. One is a great party Ben and I went to Sunday afternoon, and the other is about the difficulties of traveling with some one. Let's take the last one first.

So far I have visited a mosque, a Hindu temple, a Jain temple, a Sikh gurudwara and two Christian churches. Tonight Ben and I are probably going to add at least one Hindu temple to the list. There is a Hanuman temple near the hotel -- Hanuman is the monkey god who helped rescue Sita, Rama's wife, when she was kidnapped by the demon and carried to Sri Lanka. This is the story told in the Ramayana. We might also go to a Shiva temple that is a short metro ride away in Old Delhi. I like visiting temples and other sacred spaces in India. I usually feel welcomed and at worst ignored. I have yet to have a hostile experience. The Hindu temple we visited is dedicated to Ayappa. When Vishnu was churning the ocean (one of the many times he has saved the world), he took the form of an attractive woman. Shiva fell in love with him and they had a son called Ayappa.Thirty-three years of traveling together and we are still working it out.

After the party, Ben and I went to the India Habitat Center for a concert of snake charmers. This was put on by a wildlife protection organization that is working with snake charmers, training them to do educational work about snakes with school children, wild life experts and others. This is to keep them from removing snakes from the wild and using them as a means to make money. Traditionally, the snake charmers play a reed instrument I think is called something like "pungi," but was called something else here in Delhi. The instrument has a gourd attached to the pipe about halfway down and then another pipe extends below the gourd. The gourd chamber enables to the player, with the help of circular breathing to create a sustained sound like a bagpipe. In fact, a pungi sounds very much like the melody pipe of a bagpipe and on some songs, some of the players played a single note drone, while the others played the melody in unison and it sounded very much like a bagpipe. The snake charmers dress in shades of yellow, orange and orange-red with one or two in black or white. They were very energetic performers accompanied by variable pitch drums (which sound something like African talking drums). The concert was outside and was very exciting. Unfortunately, afterwards we had a taxi driver who did not take instruction very well and at the end of the ride he went left instead of going straight ahead. Ben and I different ideas on how to handle this. I prevailed and after we stopped, I talked the driver out of the ten rupee tip he wanted. I thought I did well and my feelings were hurt when I found out Ben was angry with not only the driver but me as well. I quickly lost any semblance of rationality but had the good sense to tell Ben I had to get away and eat by myself. I didn't handle it very skillfully, but we did avoid screaming at each other on the street as we have in the past. We talked it over the next morning and I think we are going to be o.k. on this trip. Most of the time we have a great time together, but after knowing each other for 35 years and travelling together for 33, we can push each other's buttons. However, I am most impressed about how much we care for each other. I couldn't see this when I was younger, but I can now, and that trumps the times when I find Ben to be the most annoying person on the planet.

A Great Party

I arrived in India with an introduction to Veronica Magar from my upstairs neighbor and long-time friend, Tim Wright. Veronica is a public health consultant specializing in women's rights and other sexual rights issues, including issues associated with AIDS. She has just returned from Croatia and graciously agreed to meet her and accompany her to a party that afternoon. She lives in Nizamuddin West which is centrally located and right in the middle of a lot of tombs and other monuments. The party was near by and was attended by other people working in a variety of areas under the umbrella of sexual rights -- women's issues, gay issue's, AIDS, and so on. They were mostly young, very bright, very charming, very engaged and Ben and I had a great time. There were so many interesting people to talk to and they were so open, that it was overwhelming, and I didn't take the advantage of it that I would have liked but I talked to many people about many interesting things. I also met a woman visiting from Brighton who runs a bisexual group there and so I will attend her meeting when I am in the U.K. because I will be staying in Brighton for part of the time. The party was outside on a balcony underneath trees. The sky was blue, cheeti -- a kind of small crow were flying overhead, the food was good, there were children underfoot and I felt very privileged to see a part of India I would never have seen except for my friend Tim and his old, my new, friend Veronica.

The Wild Goose Chase

Saturday night, Ben and I decided to find a gay discussion group. For a variety of reasons, we hadn't phoned the group but trusted the information from the Internet. Fortunately, we had my favorite three-wheeler driver driving us who has helped us before. He took us to the address we had in South Delhi for the NAZ office where the meeting was to be held, but unfortunately, the NAZ office had moved. After talking to the current resident of the space with the help of the three-wheeler driver, he gave us the number of the current office. We called that on my cell phone and headed over there. There a woman showed up and said that the meeting was not there but somewhere else and that it was over now. [Make all this sound as complicated as it really was -- phone calls to Veronica, etc.]

The Best Meal Yet

Chronology is failing me, but I have to write about our meal at . After the wild goose chase, we were very hungry. I found a restaurant close by in a market. When the three-wheeler driver learned we were hungry, he suggested we go to a place nearby which turned out to be where I wanted to go, and when I told him the name of the restaurant he smiled and said it was good. He was born in the area and knew it well. We had shrimp grilled in the tandoori oven that were sweet, succulent, and well-spiced. We also had a lamb birranyi, basically a pilaf, that was delicious. It was the best rice I have had so far in India. Finally, we had a paneer dish that had green peppers in it -- an unusual ingredient in India -- that was the best of all. For dessert, Ben had more paneer, this time cooked in a sugar syrup that was terrific. Not nearly as sweet as it usually is. And I had firni, a pudding made from rice flour and flavored with a lot of saffron that was also great. We were very happy with the meal.