Well, by now enough time has passed that so many interesting
things are happening in RIO that I’d rather talk about that than the India
trip. Which is a shame. Hm, ok, a couple of paragraphs on India!
We spent the first three days in Varanasi – a one of the
oldest cities in the world, and the religious capital of all Hindus . It
sprawls on the banks of the Ganga river and every devout Hindu wants to go
there to bathe in the river before they die. Another goal is to actually die there because apparently
that will ensure eternal peace of the soul (called moksha) and no more
irksome reincarnation. Thus, quite a few people who feel it is their time to
die soon, say their goodbyes to the world and move to Varanasi to stay in a “liberation
house” and wait to die. Sometimes they come with family, often – alone. When
they die, they get burned on a funeral pyre on the banks of the river and that
is that.
As you can imagine, all that means that Varanasi is quite
the unique city. The access to the river is through the so-called “ghats” or
piers, of which there are about 100, all built next to each other by various
former rulers, politicians and other VIPs. Almost all are “bathing” ghats,
where Hindus go at daybreak to bathe ritualistically and pray before they start
their day. On the same ghats, at sunset, they come to perform or to listen to
the night prayer as well. There are many priests who perform the ornate prayer
ceremonies, but some of the ghats feature especially spectacular night prayer
(the night aarati, also known as the light ceremony). Only 2 of the ghats, Raja
Harishchandra Ghat and the Manikarnika Ghat, are authorized to have funeral
pyres, and the fancier of the two, Manikarnika, is controlled by the wealthy Dom
family. The Doms belong to the lowest of the Hindu casts, the “untouchables,” and
they perform the cremations and care for the grim business of dying on the
banks of the Ganga. The current head of the Dom family, the “Dom Raja” is a
multimillionaire because it seems that his family charges quite a pretty penny
to have you burned at their ghat. In exchange, he will provide you with the 5
starter logs of mango tree to start the pyre that will grant the soul of the
departed the coveted moksha. The ghat is indeed a grisly sight. During a
lovely leisurely walk along the river, watching the sunset, being watched by
the local peddlers, the Diplomat, Mom and I stumbled upon the Harishchandra
Ghat quite unexpectedly. So much so that I practically stepped on the listless,
rather dead arm of a burning body on a pyre. You see, I always thought that the
whole funeral pyre thing was supposed to be this elevated, beautiful, ethereal
affair. Rather, the dead body is brought on a bamboo stretcher, put on the
ground on the bank of the river, a bunch of wood logs are stacked on top and
lit on fire. For some reason the pyre does not include the protruding limbs and
head, which are later on pushed under the smoldering body. There are anywhere
from 10 to 25 pyres on each ghat at any given time of the day. There is nothing
elevated or ethereal about it. It just is.
The next morning, desirous to observe the sacred bathing
rituals at dawn, Mom and I rented a rowboat for what turned out to be an excruciating
2-hour slow, breezy float up and down the river at 5 am, at 5 degrees Celsius
(40 Fahrenheit), while wearing a t-shirt and a sweater for me, and a light
jacket for her. It was still pitch black outside, the ghats were completely
deserted save for the occasional local bather (see, December isn’t exactly the
tourist bathing season in Varanasi given the intense cold) and, to enhance the
effect, there was thick fog spreading over the river. It was absolutely
fantastic, despite the fact that my fingers got frostbite and Mom slipped on
the ghat steps when we were leaving the boat since her legs were so stiff from
the cold that she was unable to lift them up the stairs of the ghat. We still
managed to see quite a few devotees bathing gamely in the freezing waters,
dipping fully inside and then brushing their teeth with Colgate toothpaste, all
with river water. I was impressed – just looking at them made me feel even
colder.
From freezing Varanasi, we went back to freezing Delhi where
we took Mom to the spice market and Karim’s
for lunch, while Son was terrorizing the InLaws in the hotel. We also managed
to squeeze in the Diplomat’s 20th college reunion which fortuitously
was happening right when we were in Delhi, and a brief wedding reception hosted
by a couple of our best friends from Dhaka for a family member, again fortuitously
happening while we were visiting.
From the freezing north, we finally flew into the enveloping
warmth of the gorgeous Kerala state. While the InLaws went straight back to
Chennai, the Diplomat, Mom, Son and I spent three wonderfully warm days in
Kochi and its surroundings. One of the things to do there is to spend the night
on a houseboat, and I was hell bent on doing just that. It all sounded just so
romantic – to sail on a regal-looking houseboat through the peaceful, verdant
tributaries of the Kerala backwaters, having food cooked fresh on the boat, and
then sleeping to the sound of splashing waves. My ever obliging Father-in-Law
promptly arranged a boat for us, and so on the morning of our second to last
day in Kerala, all four of us piled up on the lovely boat, and soon were gently
rolling through the backwaters. So were 93 other boathouses as well. Turns out,
there are about 3000 such boats in the backwaters, and they all take more or
less the same route. At the same time. The net result is that wherever you turn
your head as you lazily stretch on the rattan sofa on the front veranda of the
boat, there inevitably will be another boat with another tourist lazily spread
on just the same rattan sofa, staring all the same at you. Determined to keep the romance of the
situation alive, Mom and I succumbed to the upselling of the boat captain, and
stopped to take a one-hour canoe ride on a side tributary. The canoe guy mist
have been about 112 years old, and rowed like his life depended on it. It was
actually delightful to be able to explore life on the small river, and to
glimpse into the simple, rural life in the houses strung along the river banks.
Another upsell included a one-hour Ayurveda massage at a different
stop for only $25. I can always stop for a good massage so we agreed.
Apparently, so had the customers of another 35 boats. What was supposed to be
an idyllic, holistic massage in a small village (a business apparently owned by
the brother of the boat captain), turned out to be a regular tourist circus. It
was in a village alright, and the massage parlor premises were in a small,
one-story building. Business wasn’t apparently too good since the building wasn’t
even painted. In the somewhat dingy inside, several Indian ladies of
respectable age were sitting on cement benches, probably waiting for their
turn. Outside, a posse of urgent-looking middle-aged men was standing around
the front door seemingly without any particular function save for staring at
the waiting women. Right next to the parlor was a rabbit coup with several cute
bunnies. Which, while very cute, also smelled a bit. After a brief family
discussion, we politely but firmly declined the massages. In the evening, the
captain moored the boat for the night right next to the village mosque, and the
imam entertained us with his evening call to prayer at 7 and 9, and then at
4.30 am as well. The food on the boat was delicious indeed, and included fish
with every meal, appropriately spiced. We were sent to bed at 10 pm. Overall, I
would recommend the boat ride but the overnight part is perhaps overrated.
From Kochi, we flew to our final destination Chennai to spend
a few days with the Diplomat’s family. I have always loved his Uncle’s family
and we had a blast there as usual. It also happened that we were going to spend
the New Year’s Eve in Chennai as well and so the Diplomat and I decided to leave
parents and child behind and spend the festive night at a good party in a fancy
hotel. After some perfunctory research, we chose the Taj Vivanta
Connemara where we were promised a banging party by the pool. We were by
the pool alright, except that the party was inside and if we heard a song we wanted
to dance to, we had to ditch everything and run inside to catch its last few
tunes. I was the only white person there, and every time I made an appearance on
the dance floor, I was closely monitored by a large gaggle of teenagers who
erupted in unbridled laughter whenever I tried to bust a Bollywood move.
Needless to say, I was discouraged. I was even more so discouraged when the
party ended at 12.30 am. Apparently, no establishment in the city can party
(officially) after that. Happy New Year, party poopers! I flew back to Brazil
the following day by myself (the Diplomat and Son stayed an extra week and Mom
went back to Bulgaria) and spent a week doing a juice cleanse and binge
watching Downton Abbey. A week later, a very jet-legged Diplomat and Son
returned and life was soon back to normal. Another epic Indian journey was
over.
I am happy to report that social life in Rio has actually
picked up palpably. These past few weeks have been a considerable madness. Among
the more exciting events were the opening of a new burger restaurant in Leblon,
the OMG Burger Lounge by a fellow Indian American (spectacular burgers, home-brewed
beer(!)); a fabulous at-home “surprise” dinner
cooked by a gourmet Canadian chef (the idea is that you go to his house and he
cooks a surprise 5-course meal for a group of 6, we were happy to be some of
the chef’s test bunnies as he works on the concept); an incredible rooftop
party for some of the sponsors of the Olympic Games; a goodbye dinner at our
house for a departing colleague (homemade mushroom soup, made from scratch pappardelle
with lamb ragu, decadent homemade tiramisu – yup, I can cook too!); an
all-night Carnaval dress rehearsal for a Samba school with a bunch of
colleagues; a classy reception by the British Consulate and an afternoon BBQ on
yet another rooftop terrace. In the midst of all this it turned out that I had
managed to pick up a parasite who lived happily in my belly for some time,
causing me to eat massive quantities of food and no little amount of pain. So,
for about a week, I survived on anti-nausea pills and parasite medication. My
spirits, however, were not dampened!
As of this past week, we are officially in Carnaval mode, which
means countless organized street parties, aka blocos, festive mood and, of
course, Carnaval itself. A bloco is in essence an organized street madness with
a defined route of 3-4 streets, a medium-sized float made up of a truck and a
bunch of VERY happy people on top of it, a theme and booming music from the top
of the float, anywhere from 10,000 to 200,000 people following the float drunkenly
around the streets (median age is 23), and a lot of foul-smelling Port-a-Potties.
The level of excitement is incredible and the point of the bloco seems to be to
drink for the sake of, well, drinking, hanging out with friends,and possibly
even listening to the music. Some of the blocos are famous (for example, today
we have the Sgt. Pepper-themed bloco featuring Beatles’ songs) and are attended
by hundreds of thousands of people who drink, sing, dance and are generally
super merry. Almost everyone is in costume of some sort and about 98% of all
men are shirtless. It is common practice for a guy to suddenly grab a girl (randomly
met in the crowd) and French-kiss her while his buddies are screamingly delightedly
“beijo, beijo, beijo!!” (which means “kiss” in case that wasn’t obvious). Yup,
there is a lot of love in a bloco. There is also an extraordinary amount of
beer.
I have been incredibly impressed with the city of Rio, who
obviously have this Carnaval/bloco thing down to a science. As you can imagine,
the amount of trash generated by such happy party-goers is staggering.
Completely undaunted, the city has trash trucks and a small army of street
cleaners following the end of each bloco, and most of the time, a mere hour
after it is over, there isn’t a trace of it on the streets save for the streamers
up in the tree tops.
I will tell you one thing though - it has been an interesting experience going to work in this environment. All the blocos mean that half of the city streets are closed off, and my uusal 40 min commute to and back from work turns into a 2-hour one. Woo-hoo! But Carnaval or not, folks want their visas and so work we must!
Tonight, however, off to the Sambodromo for night 1 of Rio Carnaval
2015!
