August 2015 – Laurens Traveling

Kuzhur (/’Kulur’) – A hidden side of India

Undeservingly, randomly given this opportunity, to live in, experience and explore a true local village in India: Kuzhur.

Brought by an Indian poet -Kuzhur Wilson- that I had come to meet in Varkala;
Once I heard we were taking the same train to Kochi and requested him to travel together, I simply got invited to his house. In the West, this sort of invitation occurs once in a lifetime, so I gladly accepted the invitation in surprised fashion.

Wilson and a river. Stopped the car on a bridge.

The village

It was the house of his parents, and it -together with many things in the village- reminded me of my grandparents and a few memories I have from long ago – remnants of the life from a few generations before me.
How my parents grew up as a child must have been similar in many ways to this village.

The people knew each other. I could vividly see the roots of the Indian non-individual culture.

Here in India, so vastly different from the Western world, you can just start talking to someone (from our perspective ‘out of nowhere’) and they will reply.
Conversations do not have beginnings and endings, they just happen everywhere at random – ‘Streets alive’.

Talking to someone, asking someone something, is not a personal offense, will not be answered with a frustrated look, will not be regarded as privacy attack. More than that, it is possible, as people are not hiding themselves from existence in their houses or cars. Are humans really capable of this? Apparently so.

Every day in Kuhzur, I got introduced to 10-20 people, and the usual Indian questions popped up every time: Where am I from, what do I do, what is my family status like?

Quite funny to explain this in the ‘Inglish’ (a very simplified form of English, lacking verb conjugations and mostly sentence subjects), and hearing it go around in Malayalam (the language of this province) while I am literally still standing there.
After a while in India I can understand the conversations from only the occasional words I need to understand (‘Bell-gee-um’).

I don’t know if it’s a good thing that I’ve got used to people having an obvious conversation about me while I am right next to them?

Me and Rameshbabu - an awesome guy ready to cheer anyone up — Me and Rameshbabu – an awesome guy ready to cheer anyone up

So I got to be a little bit of a local celebrity, as every time mr. Wilson took me to some place, we made at least 10 stops to make sure every single person that he knew in the village got to meet me.

Now, I got to experience the local village life, the life that very much still exists in a great part of India, though hidden from tourist eyes.

We even visited a sort of ‘tribe’, an even smaller village where people of a very old bloodline lived – sort of ‘aboriginals’ of India. The real ones.

A proud family of an old bloodline - ever so friendly — A proud family of an old bloodline – ever so friendly

Wilson took me to some really amazing places.
The middle of nowhere, surrounded by nature, grass fields, coconut trees, big rivers, and orchestras of crickets every night.

Wilson's daughter at an amazing scenery — Wilson’s daughter at an amazing scenery

People invited me without hesitation into their house, and presented me food and/or tea with great joy. Some ran to their garden to get me a fresh piece of fruit.
Their hospitality was out of this world.

Every single family was so generous and friendly, and pulled out their best Inglish to get to know me. It’s like I was some kind of mystery.

Coming to a shop of one of Wilson’s friends, he proudly presented me delicious samosa’s and a cup of chai, just like that! Try that at your local Starbucks…

He fought against the government and planted lots of trees.

I stayed in the village for 5 or 6 days, and could just stay in Wilson’s house free of charge.

“East & West”

The Western world can take a few lessons from this.
This is the kind of thing we lost a long time ago, and India is also losing, in pursuit of the Western materialism.
It’s like the rich culture of India, thousands of years old, just can’t go together with the modern material world.

Young people in the big Indian cities wearing jeans and making business calls with iPhones rushing by, and here I am, away from that place they desire, in a hand made cotton shirt doing ancient yoga practices, fleeing from that mentally cracked material individualistic world.

It was a great opportunity to experience the village life. A chance not given to most foreigners or tourists.
I got to look into these people’s lives, I got to see their aspirations, their thoughts, their problems.
I got to look back in time, to compare two worlds of a different era.

What one had, the other was missing.
Where one thrived, the other faltered.

The reader has heard the story, but he hasn’t seen it.
We’ve heard it from far away, but it remains a story that happens to have the ‘is real’ checkmark attached to it. But what do we care?
We would not go back to this.
But we could learn from it. There is much that we have forgotten.

Not to condemn the Western world though.
If anything is to be condemned it is our carelessness and how we take it for granted and even suffer it.
People getting so lost in their own madness, living in the greatest comfort anyone in the history of human kind has ever known, and yet suffering it.

We made great sacrifices to shape the world around us like this, basically killing the planet, how disrespectful can we be by not even enjoying it!

That river again - but how could you get enough of it? — That river again – but how could you get enough of it?

A lot of people

Now, for my intuitions on understanding the different culture:
In general, the basis of India is its massive population, things are quite optimized around that.
Personal space, physically and mentally, as well as privacy of your thoughts and emotions, these things are just not so vibrant here, it’s basically not possible to have them to the extent that we have in the West.

For most people that makes India a tough country to visit, and I won’t deny I haven’t had a few tough moments myself.
However, being forced out of my physical comfort zone, back to basics, being forced out of my mental comfort zone, will definitely have its impact, and if I may guess it will be for the better. Most people in the West actually just suffer this anyway.

Here, if you have a need, we will look how to fix it. Anyone around you will help you fix it, and if it’s fixed it’s fixed. No need to make a drama out of it.

Also, there’s no point in wanting things that are way out of reach. People take their responsibility and seem to have a much more clear perspective on their lives.
Things like the caste system and the importance of family are simply logical if you look at the context.
The person in the position to (only) sell mango’s for all is life, will gladly do so and take his responsibility for it.

A taste of a different world.
An insight to the roots of today.

People taking the time to sit and speak, offering fruits and tea or whatever they can, praying for their loved ones, living in touch with nature, working hard, knowing each other, being proud of their accomplishments, humble and inviting, yet exuberant in the games, some enjoying it while it lasts, some feeling stuck and longing for advancement, some have seen enough, some are hungry for more, this experience was something else, another book of wisdom shoved in my face, another checkmarked story that became a reality, that cannot be unseen or unexperienced, another memory and rewiring of things that I thought I knew: Kuzhur.

British Airways – The Rant

Unfortunately, I got to be the pet toy of a big company called British Airways, which royally and effortlessly screwed me over with joy from their mighty big company throne.

The incompetence and greed of this company cost me over 600 euros, 6+ hours of call time, and an optimism that those big companies were ‘not that bad’.

After all, they should have plenty of money for courses to train their people, and they should have plenty of research done how to optimize their service, one would think.
Being able to change the date of my ticket -after specifically having requested so on purchase (from the British Airways desk at the airport, mind you)- should be a possibility within one of the possible future worlds, I hoped.

Whether changing the ticket was possible or not seemed to fluctuate by the day, if not by the hour. One employee said it was possible, the next one said it was not.
Canceling the ticket, even worse. Not only was it possible and impossible depending on the employee I got on the phone, the way in which I would cancel was even more random.

I kept coming up with new ideas, new plans, my mind was peaking to explore and think about any good solution. I wanted to go home earlier, and more importantly, could save 600 euros.
To their great sadism, for every theoretically perfect plan I came up with, they jokingly threw new problems at me. I could have never imagined how many things they made up to obstruct me from simply changing or canceling my ticket.

I persisted and kept thinking and planning and trying and calling and trying and calling and calling and calling …
If you let people wait for that long, make your waiting tune of better quality, and a bit longer, please. I know it by heart now.

The joke? All failed.
All of the 10-20 different things I could come up with for all the various problems they threw at me, were not possible. I could not gain the 600 euros, I could not change the date of my ticket, I could not cancel, and I could not change the place of it.

I would have raged if I wasn't doing yoga — I would have raged if I wasn’t doing yoga

At one point I was talking to a random person, who was willing to help me out, to make the payment since my card didn’t work and the card I could use from my mother wasn’t allowed because it was on her name (so? I can pay ..), getting back with them on the phone after a 4 hour call earlier where they confirmed that I could change the flight – with date, airplane number, exact fee amount and all, ensuring me that multiple seats were still available – simple to laugh at me those 30 minutes later that it would now cost me 400 euros instead of 50 to change.

Just to give an idea of the mess it was! And that was just one thing.
But I’m sure I’ll laugh about it at some point.

In the meantime, please don’t fly with British Airways if you can – You would do me and the world a great favor.

Happy reading
– A poor me.

@Varkala – A mini paradise

Varkala.

A writing event under a full moon that shines perhaps as bright as the sun.
Even though the mere reflection appears to be a very source of light, the potence and power of it hangs there, in all its glory.

Shades of coconut tree leaves wave and dance in front of my eyes,
a strange light aura surrounds the mighty hanger.

Looking into many eyes that submit into acceptance of the already near goodbye,
an inescapable reformation of the inner while going through doors of unknown, with keys thrown from the sky the previous day.

Mild footsteps don’t care about the destination.
A wavering mind takes its occasional distance, bends into new possibilities.
The persistance of the scenery that forces its way to be seen, forces a flexibility, a freshness, a youth in a mind and body slowly turning rigid.
When any resistance is given up, when the now is entered and fully responsibly accepted and entered, something invisible happens…

–

Varkala is a touristy place.
And even though last year I’ve hung touristy places up there, ready to eat the fire of my wall of criticism, this time it’s coming more than welcome, if not only as a temporary escape from a madness most Westerners would immediately succumb to.

Due to off-season, the prices for rooms are extremely backpacker and low-budget friendly.
This comes in quite useful, as when throwing the monthly look at my account, I’m chanting mantras for all the Indian deities that I’ve remembered the name of, 3-4 out of maybe infinity.

Shiva Garden Home Stay - Proudly waiting until my laundry is dry — Shiva Garden Home Stay – Proudly waiting until my laundry is dry

But even if the rooms are quite cheap at the moment, the meals are high-season price (even though half the menu is ‘no possible’), a sundering 2 to 5 times the local price, which is a price I’m extremely willing to pay, giving it includes amazing sights, rest, and only a few minutes of being hassled per day (hell, I was prepared for a ton more).

Rented a scooter for 3 days to just enjoy touring around. The landscape at any random place around here is just something you would pay for. A scenery of green, clear blue skies, the wild waves a free orchestra with theater in the background. Just driving the scooter to nowhere was an absolute joy, and on top of that finding some strange places and deserted beaches, awesome.

Still, my daily adventures are slowly decreasing in count, as I’m staying longer in this paradise like place.
Today I did laundry and left a pants at the tailor.
Schedule for tomorrow: Check on that pants at the tailor.
Daily schedule: Do that yoga they learned at the ashram. Eat something tasty.

Maybe it’s getting time to move.

I met a bunch of Frenchies which were very interesting, but perhaps it’s for the best that they already left yesterday, since today I busted myself thinking in French – the danger zone.
Now all silliness aside, I’ve had quite the great time with them.
Meeting all sorts of people is quite the experience. Being vastly open for any way a human can be, seeing all these faces, hearing all the stories, it’s life teaching directly, without nonsense. It leaves impressions, it pushes intelligence in you.
No book can do the same, noone can tell you this.

–

Yoga.

Still don't know if I want to buy this one — Still don’t know if I want to buy this one

It’s something weird.
It feels pointless to talk about it, since it has given me such unique experiences, barely anyone has a clue what I’m trying to say and it can make me feel silly.
But nonetheless the experiences happened to me and I cannot deny them, whether I would want to or not.

So I’m going to be a good and crazy boy and do my practice 2 times per day just as I have been doing.
It’s been a pleasure to do anyway, and it even begins to feel necessary.

Life lessons in the yoga roof at Shiva Garden Home Stay

–

After a ton of rupees on data plan and abusing all Varkala’s wifi routers in every restaurant and guest house, I’ve regained the key pieces of my music collection.
As this writing is occuring, I’m listening and drifting away in some amazing pieces I’ve had to miss for a few weeks.

Not out of attachment, but when unconsciously sliding out of the habits of what used to give enormous joy, certain things just regain their value.
Certain things truly become new once you just let them slip to the back of the head. Yes, there they still are, maybe they still develop there, but when it comes back into experience it’s like something new yet familiar, a home coming in some house one always imagined.

–

Next stop: Cochin.
Perhaps I can take the train with a magnificent poet I’ve met, whose poems just were the words I never expected to read, but always hoped for. Something truly inspiring and comforting in it.

An expression as grand as possible, not only through words, but bending style and grammar, not attached to anything particular, just to nuance and precisely point to that meaning otherwise inexpressible. Yeah, that’s how it should be.
Not pretending to understand them, I sometimes might, and my fiery reading gives a comfort also for my own writing.

Let’s go.