Back In Bagsu

I left Vashisht for Bagsu, which is about 2 km from Macloed Ganj, the seat of the Tibetan Gov't in Exile, hmm... well, must be about 3 weeks ago. I took the overnight bus and we arrived in Dharamshala at 4am.. a bit earlier than I hoped, but an Isreali couple asked if I wanted to share a taxi to Bagsu and they led me to the guest house where they've been coming for eight years.. a small family place on the edge of the village of Bagsu which is over run with guesthouses.

I stayed 3 nights... long enough to rendevous with a friend from San Francisco who's been in India 8 months. Then we journeyed to Delhi together to meet a couple of other friends from San Francisco who are on a 6 week round the world trip. They had only five days in Delhi before heading to Bhutan for a 2 week trek. We enjoyed a couple of days of touring about Delhi together.

I spent another 5 days or so in Delhi enjoying the madness of the multitudes there. Then I got picked up by a "talent scout" looking for extras for a Hollywood film, "Love, Pray, Eat" with Julia Roberts which was being filmed about 1.5 hours south of Delhi.

It was a nice break from the chaos to visit the ashram where a scene was being filmed. The scene was in an ashram temple with a group of people chanting. After passing through wardrobe and being left in the clothes I wore... see, I do have good tastes! (and an odd moment where an Indian "extra" came up to me and asked if my beard was real and if he could touch it), we waited a few hours before being seated in the ashram for the scene. They apparently didn't want anyone to upstage Julia Roberts, and so I and about 8 others got pulled out. So I ended up getting paid (1000Rs) and fed for a day for nothing.

The buffet meals were delicious, though I would later pay the price. The relatively smooth day, which started at 4 am when the scout buzzed me in the hotel room, ended up turning into a bit of subcontinent madness, which one would normally expect. First the filming crew didn't release us until later than expected. Then they apparently ran out of cash and so our jeepfull of nine foreign extras had to meet the payor at an ATM. Our driver was an idiot. Traffic was horrible, and it took us 2.5 hours to get home to the Paharaganj. The windows were down and the driver was drinking and gargling with water, which he spit out the front window and it came in the back window. The Canadian next to me, who got the free shower luckily broke out into laughter. We then determined that this was not Julia Robert's driver. The Canadian monitored the driver's drinking with his hand on the window handle... ready to roll up or hold depending on whether the driver spit or swallowed.

The driver was on his phone screaming in a cell phone voice trying to get directions to the ATM, and then our talent scout got someone "in the know" on his cell phone and made me hand his phone to the driver, who took it with his other hand, leaving no hands on the steering wheel and our jeep of now screaming people drifting to the side of the road.

Luckily this was in India where such things happen in the 6 lanes of traffic packed into 2 lanes of road and no harm came to us. We eventually got to the ATM and got our money. A Russian couple who had been promised by the driver that they would be back "home" by 7:30 pm now started screaming at our talent scout. It was really beyond his control. But somehow they wanted blood. Their angry outbursts would pop up occasionally on the remaining 1.25 hours of our journey.

The driver still didn't know his way or where he was, but managed to get us 2 metro stops from our destination.... I knew because here the Metro was overhead and I had been hear a couple days prior with our San Francisco entourage. I breathed a sigh of relief and thought "we'll be home in a few minutes". The next thing I know we are no where near the overhead metro tracks and the driver is stopping to ask for directions. He gets directions from a motorcyclist, then doesn't follow them, drives a kilometer, and asks someone else. He asks four different people directions that he doesn't follow before we end up near the Lakshmi Temple, a place I recognize and had walked to. He gets back to the Metro tracks where by now the whole carload of us recognize as the place to "turn right"... and he starts to balk and wonder which way to go. It takes the whole carload of us screaming "turn right" to get him to do it and we finally reach "home" a few minutes later.

Me and the Canadian fellow are slaphappy in hysterics over the sublime humor in it all. This is India, and if you have an ego, it will be dashed to shreds. Anything that can happen to ruin your expectations, will. That is part of the thrill of it. The poor Russian couple was having their egos smashed. And when we arrived, they let into our talent scout again. He even gave them each an extra 200rs for being late.

The next day the second "mishap" in the otherwise perfect day on the Hollywood set, occurred. "Delhi Belly" hit me. Funny after all the local water I've drank with no ill effect, it was the apparently pristine food in the buffet that got me. Charcoal tablets and curd got me well enough for the overnight train/bus ride back to Bagsu. In fact I thought I was over it, until I got hit again once I got here. I had two rough days, then turned around yesterday thanks to Reiki, Ayurvedic medicine, curd and enough rice to clog a sewer pipe.

The village here has been in full harvest and I helped a bit digging potatoes, until my left hand blistered... I realized that it was too soft from the foot cream I apply with my left hand to my feet. Today I helped plant garlic. The small terraced "fields" were turned by oxen and a one shovel plow. The rest of the work is done by heavy hoe/mattock and sickle. No shovels, forks, or other tools... it's a lot of hand work done by husband, wife, and grandmother at an easy pace with lots of chatting. Manure was distributed by the basket full, perched on top of the head. Then the piles distributed by bare hand. Furrows for garlic, coriander, and spinach were made by mattock, the seeds planted, then the furrows broken by hand to cover the seeds. The toddler "helping" us grew tired of it all, wanting his papa who had wandered off back... and so the toddler took full belly dives to cover the crops instead of using his hands!

Corn and beans lay drying on the patio of the house. Shocks of corn stalks adorn the fields. Today we planted garlic, coriander, spinach, and fava beans. The garlic will be harvested in May. So I guess the winter is short here... Jan -March ... even though we are in the foothills of the Himalaya at 2000 m elevation.