[JPM Travel Journals]
INDIA and NEPAL 01
Intro to India
Holi Holy Vrindaban
The Sadhu in Taj's Shadow
Pushkar's Respite
A Sitar & a Vespa in Udaipur
The Clean-Bombing of Mumbai
Goa Beach Hippie Sighting Tours
Unequal Vision in Benares
Everest, Out the Window
Into Their Thin Air
Anna Purr Now
Within You Without You
Rishikesh Part 2
Amritsar: Bold, Gold
His Holiness of Dangerous Liasons
Delhi Visit #5
New Delhi Turns to New York
[ PHOTO ARCHIVE ]
04 July 01
New York City, NY.
East Village.
Last Chapter, The Return.
The flight from Vienna was virtually painless. Vienna itself was a short bliss. Two nights, not enough, but I'll return some day. (The Klimt and Schiele paintings I saw there, and some other museums, exhibits, streets, faces, and moments only further reinforced my need to live in this culture.) But now the focus is on returning to America, preparing for my brother's recently announced wedding in Maine, in a few weeks. I wasn't quite expecting to leave the east yet, flying out of Delhi in early July, but this is the way it will go now. Berlin will wait a few additional weeks, and now I can also see some places, people back home-- if they forgive and remember me.
I land in JFK International airport in the late afternoon, New York City. Despite carrying enough baggage to make me look very curious (most of which a sitar, which the Austrian Airlines darlings allowed me to carry right onto the plane and put in an overhead bin) and a passport stamp collection to raise eyebrows and invite zipper-happy custom officials, but my customs clearance consists of "Anything to declare? No? Welcome back to the United States, Justin." I couldn't have been more surprised if they shook my hand and gave me a complimentary chocolate bar.
Sam meets me. We load the sitar, dusty rucksack, canvas sack of eastern paperbacks, and my daypack shoulder bag into his '71 Dodge Dart. Fears of holiday traffic, the influx for Independence Day fireworks in the city; unsubstantial. We fly down the asphalt, the mega-lanes. The city skyline breaks out-- and in twenty-five minutes time we're parking outside his apartment building between First and Second Ave, just off from St. Mark's.
We get a slice of pizza at the little place up the street. We stand at the counter next to a cluster of NYPD cops, the blue-suited boys with the shiny badges, crisp hats, guns at their side, stocky arms and rounded bellies. Girls wearing almost nothing, the summertime threads, strolling in, by and around. The officers' wide eyes follow, sauce and soda nearly dripping from their lips.
Switch samosas for slices and Thums Up cola for coca cola and almost nothing's changed from my daily lessons of Indian shameless men and culture. Except now I can understand (linguistically, not psychologically) the comments. I almost expect them to be discussing bosoms and bottoms in Hindi, not English; not that I would catch much of it.
Outside, the sun is bright, but the breeze is light and kind. Despite the concrete jungle, everything seems so green, trees waving. It's not the colors of Rajasthan, but everyone pretending its the 1980's again, well, the streets are alight with bright colors and ironic t-shirts. (The moustaches are next, then it would be truly like India.) Yet, where are the cows, the obnoxious monkeys, the hanging wires, the open sewers, the little men squatting to piss on the curbside, the rickshaws buzzing by anxious to whisk me and my wallet to some void?
Hours later and I'm on the roof of a Brooklyn commercial-gone-residential building. Watching the fireworks, but the low cloud cover muffles the most of the visuals, sometimes making it glow even more like flares in drifting smoke. I'm particularly confused by the many assorted faces, features, and nationalities-- all speaking clear English! I can understand everyone and when I start to talk I find myself able to speak in full grammatical sentences without fear of comprehension; It's a perplexing reality.
- - -
It's midday, and I'm on the 6, uptown subway, get off at 77th street and walk a few blocks west to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Remembering eight years back, first being awestruck standing before the Buddhist mandala and thangka paintings in an crisp, spot-lit air-conditioned room, all alone, thinking "One day I'll find out what these mean, but for now, they're just -so- fucking meticulous and gorgeous." After Dharamsala and the monasteries in Nepal, the books, the talking to painting monks, I have a better idea what they are about, and returning, I've got to see these ones that launched my curiosity as a nineteen year old art student.
Downstairs, I try to visit the Asmat (New Guinea) islander collection, but it's closed off. I can only glimpse it this time through the enormous metal gratings locking off Oceania from Modernity. Back out to the streets, and back to the subway. More exposed skin everywhere, yellow cabs in fleets flying down the broad unidirectional streetlight punctuated avenues, strollers and cellulars and hue tinted shades. Hot Dog vendors, then Park Ave glam. Movie posters and adverts for things that make me feel like I am in the 21st century. Wait. Yes, okay. (Smiles to self.)
On the subway two young men are conducting a ten minute conversation on what color extrawide shoelaces should be put into his suede Puma (not Pooma or Pumah or Pumya) sneakers, which he keeps pointing to. They are transfixed by the possibilities, the potential styles. I'm inclined to interrupt to ask them which is best, Palak Paneer or Palak Aloo? I mean, personally I usually prefer cheese cubes in my sauteed spinach, to sliced potatoes, but well, I think the zip factor is probably equal on account of the garlic, even more stylish if I eat it with my hands or some Nan bread. But I like my teeth where they are, so I reserve my comments. Besides, it would be an odd site to see a lad like myself in his snug, black Dalai Lama t-shirt getting jumped by two 18 year old bridge-and-tunnel (North Jersey) kids on the NY subway.
- - -
Back at the apartment. My host goes out to meet some friends for a few hours. Earlier, I'd cooked us a simple potato curry and zeera rice dish, a little hotter than I'd predicted, but this is the first time I'm working with my Paharganj Delhi spice collection. The yoghurt and fruit softens the blow. Some Galub Jamun sweets would be nice, and despite their availability at any number of Indian grocers a few blocks walk, I realize I need a few weeks to stabilize before I can fathom paying two dollars for a treat I've been paying fifteen cents for.
Dhauligiri, Nilgiri loom. (Nepal)
I'm drinking seltzer water and listening to Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, and then Red House Painters, Mark Kozelek. Sitting at the kitchen table alone, very alone. The window is open to the East Village street noise, the fan is on medium. Thirty hours after unboarding, it starts sinking in, bites me sharp-- The Journey to the East is done. Siddhartha's back to the city, The Razor's Edge revealed, walked upon, and then withdrawn. My fingers are quivering as I write, my lips trembling... the voice on the speakers such a deep reminder where I am, where I'm not, and nothing of where I am going... only what I am feeling.
The salt tears slip out, slide down my coarse cheek, trace my jawline... drip to the grain of the tabletop. I softly place my head down to my suntanned, copper-stained, red-thread wrapped, sanskrit-scrawled wrist, clench my aching eyes closed; thinking, then writing...
I don't want to be here.
I don't belong here.
Not now.
I have to leave again.
It's inside me, it won't go, so I must.
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©2001 JPM. All photography and writing copyrighted.