Two nights before I left Varanasi, I got chak (a delicious potato cake with a spicy sauce of some sort) from a street vendor for dinner. It gets so dusty on the streets in Varanasi that often I have to breathe through my scarf. I watched him wipe the metal plate off with a very soiled rag and then serve my food on it. I felt within, silently asking my question. It felt safe. I ate.
The first 3 hours of the overnight train from Varanasi, I had the compartment to myself. Then a very loud extended family moved in and brought a picnic dinner. I watched the younger of the two children, a boy of 10, play with all the Styrofoam plates before they were used. He used his hands to draw imaginary figures on them. He lay the spoons down on the seat. This is the same train that I watched a mouse run down the aisle only an hour earlier. Of course, they offered me food. It’s what is done here. Of course, I accepted. It’s extremely rude not to. I inwardly cringed as I watched her scoop the dal and rice onto one of the plates her son had played with and handed me a spoon that had touched the seat. I felt within, silently asking my question. It felt safe. I ate.
My fingernails have perma crud under them. No matter how often I clean them, it’s black under there. I’ve cut them as short as I can stand, still black. I have a favourite local eatery here in Rishikesh. I am always the only Westerner in there. As I watched the flies buzzing around and the various surfaces in the place, I chuckled and realized that they must not have such a thing as a health department in India.
I watched a baby last night, perhaps 18 months old, playing in the chai bin. The same chai bin I watched a woman scoop the dry tea out of to make the cup of chai I was sipping. The baby put the scoop in, pulled the scoop out, put the scoop down on the filthy concrete “floor”, picked the scoop back up, put the scoop back in, pulled the scoop back out, put the scoop to its mouth and then started the cycle all over again. It was dark, but it was clear the place was very dirty. It’s on the side of the road on the sie of a mountain and doesn’t have any walls. Dinner was being cooked above a wood fire in a metal frame sitting on the ground. All of a sudden, my heart melted. This is Life. This is Love made manifest.
We have so many rules in the West. We try to sanitize everything. Sure, the rules were made with the best of intentions. Health is definitely important, but I think we go overboard and it’s spiraling out of control. It’s clear to me that our bodies are miraculous in adapting to conditions and keeping us safe. I think we’re obsessed with rules and it’s contributing in a big way to our culture of fear. I think living here is good for me. It’s allowing me to relax and trust Divine Wisdom and Order. There is no other way, really. It’s either relax, or explode. I prefer relaxing.
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