～Tales from the abyss, part trois～
Wow. I'm not even really sure about where I should start. This isn't necessarily because my trip to the native country was a particularly eventful one, mind you - it's just that I've had some variation of the Indian Death Flu eating up my brains for the last week, so thinking has proven to be a little more challenging than I would have liked. That said though, I'm not particularly surprised that I came down with something. Traveling through India is, for the lack of a better description, like taking a walk on the wrong side of a shooting gallery. It's not a matter of "if" you're going to get hit with something - really, it's just a matter of when. And how many times.
I spent about the third of my trip on the road, going from one nameless locale to another. A quick aside before I continue: I don't dub these locales "nameless" because I don't know what they're called. I did. Two weeks ago. However, given that India is a land full of people with entirely too much time on their hands, renaming streets, building, cities, national monuments, and even states every two weeks is *THE* thing to do. The only rule here is that each name should be even more Indian than the last, so, if the name isn't more confusing, it's not going to fly. Take the city of Trivandrum, for example. Somebody decided that "Trivandrum" was far too simple to say, so they changed the city's name to "Thiruvananthapuram". During my stay there, "they" decided "Thiruvananthapuram" is far too simple, and I started to hear rumblings to change its name to "Thuryadivoortherampustaporuwithm". Given that nobody can spell or pronounce it properly however, the project appears poised to die in its infancy. Pity.
Anyway, the fun thing about spending large amounts of time on an Indian road is that there's lots of jolts, screaming, and almost dying. Add my family and their endless amounts of baggage to this mix, and you've got lots of swearing and flying baggage to this lovely combination of factors. Oh, it was a complete blast. Sarcasm aside though, the little road trip was a wonderful excuse to get away from my extended family at large. While I've got very little in the way of good things to say about traveling with my direct family, I do, at the very least, get the chance to see things like this:
While seeing monuments like the Taj Mahal proved to be a really nifty experience, I dreaded the idea of actually going to them. To backtrack a little, if you ever talk to my father about India sometime, he'll usually more than happy to go on about how superior Indian culture is to your own (even if you're Indian - there's no escaping this), and how the rest of the world can learn much about the nature of the universe if they blindly emulate Indian culture. This mindset seems to dramatically shift when my family actually arrives in India. Upon arriving in the country that they love so fiercely, my parents are suddenly shocked by how not-wonderful it really is, and quickly start bemoaning the lack of drinkable water, vociferously complaining about the shifty-looking people all over the place, and most importantly, just how dirty and smelly everything is. This transformation is, needless to say, extremely hilarious, despite the fact that it happens every time. I just wish that I didn't have to go along to see it. Heh.
Try as they might, my parents have an extremely hard time not coming off as tourists in their own country. The hawkers, the pickpockets, and the starving homeless were all extremely mindful of this, and consistently rushed my parents every time we got off the car at a tourist destination. Realizing that they'd have to give money to *SOMEONE* in order to not get stabbed, kidnapped, or stolen from, my parents devised an idea that they deemed to be positively genius - "HAVE FUN! Giving money away should be like a contest! Here, 'Blash! Have some money! Find the most unfortunate, disfigured looking people on the streets, and toss money at them! Go to town!"
For the duration of the trip, my parents profiled the needy at every turn - "Did you have all your limbs? Yes? Get a job. Starving child? Pity. Go to school. One legged man? You should invest in a walking stick. Deaf mute? Pass. Deaf *BLIND* Mute? Fine. Here's a Rupee (the equivalent of -$12.45 USD). Three legged man with no arms? Psh. Sell your third leg to science. Starving mother? You should have invested in birth control. Next?"
I wish I was making this up.
The requests for my parents' money didn't stop when we got back to Kerala. Despite the fact that we'd left all the beggars and pickpockets behind, we now had to deal with something far worse - our family. Since I had a cousin who was about to get married, two things were of extreme importance:
1. My parents needed to donate lots and lots and lots of money. Preferably in gold, because well, paper money is *SO* twentieth century.
2. There needs to be drinking. Lots of drinking. Everybody was invited. Except my parents, who are apparently seen as downers, even on that side of the world.
BONUS!. There also needed to be rioting, raping, and pillaging. It didn't really matter what the reason was. Find something - Kashmir, Communism, whatever. Shut down the state! We're going to party and rape! AND DRINK! LET'S DRINK! EVERYBODY DRINK! AND EAT! YOU NEED FOOD AFTER THAT WEED, SON!
Due to some sort of weird contractual obligation that my parents entered into at the time of my birth, my sister and I were sent over to this giant party because my parents were apparently not cool enough to represent themselves. Given that my sister wholeheartedly embraced the debauchery that ensued, her memory of the two days we spent over at this giant riot are not so good. Can't say I blame her.
On the other hand, since I tend to take after my parents in this regard, I stayed away from the tobacco, the weed, and the alcohol. Well, most of the alcohol. My relatives repeatedly (and with waning patience) requested that I drink something, or bad things were going to happen. I compromised and drank my body weight in fermented coconut water. And took of few shots of...something. Upon taking my shots, my cousins burst into celebration, and proudly declared that I was "one of the family" now. This is a great honor, because I now had the privilege of peeing against the back wall if I ever got the urge. Granted people were going to pee on this wall regardless, but the fact that I had official permission to do so greatly solidified my standing in the family ranks.
Gods, my family is *SO* weird.
Roads and family aside, there was one more notable thing about this trip - the aforementioned death flu. I've had it for about two weeks, and it's still refusing to die. Ugh. I really, really, dislike sounding like someone who has smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for the last twenty years. I really hope this goes away soon.
;.;
I spent about the third of my trip on the road, going from one nameless locale to another. A quick aside before I continue: I don't dub these locales "nameless" because I don't know what they're called. I did. Two weeks ago. However, given that India is a land full of people with entirely too much time on their hands, renaming streets, building, cities, national monuments, and even states every two weeks is *THE* thing to do. The only rule here is that each name should be even more Indian than the last, so, if the name isn't more confusing, it's not going to fly. Take the city of Trivandrum, for example. Somebody decided that "Trivandrum" was far too simple to say, so they changed the city's name to "Thiruvananthapuram". During my stay there, "they" decided "Thiruvananthapuram" is far too simple, and I started to hear rumblings to change its name to "Thuryadivoortherampustaporuwithm". Given that nobody can spell or pronounce it properly however, the project appears poised to die in its infancy. Pity.
Anyway, the fun thing about spending large amounts of time on an Indian road is that there's lots of jolts, screaming, and almost dying. Add my family and their endless amounts of baggage to this mix, and you've got lots of swearing and flying baggage to this lovely combination of factors. Oh, it was a complete blast. Sarcasm aside though, the little road trip was a wonderful excuse to get away from my extended family at large. While I've got very little in the way of good things to say about traveling with my direct family, I do, at the very least, get the chance to see things like this:
While seeing monuments like the Taj Mahal proved to be a really nifty experience, I dreaded the idea of actually going to them. To backtrack a little, if you ever talk to my father about India sometime, he'll usually more than happy to go on about how superior Indian culture is to your own (even if you're Indian - there's no escaping this), and how the rest of the world can learn much about the nature of the universe if they blindly emulate Indian culture. This mindset seems to dramatically shift when my family actually arrives in India. Upon arriving in the country that they love so fiercely, my parents are suddenly shocked by how not-wonderful it really is, and quickly start bemoaning the lack of drinkable water, vociferously complaining about the shifty-looking people all over the place, and most importantly, just how dirty and smelly everything is. This transformation is, needless to say, extremely hilarious, despite the fact that it happens every time. I just wish that I didn't have to go along to see it. Heh.
Try as they might, my parents have an extremely hard time not coming off as tourists in their own country. The hawkers, the pickpockets, and the starving homeless were all extremely mindful of this, and consistently rushed my parents every time we got off the car at a tourist destination. Realizing that they'd have to give money to *SOMEONE* in order to not get stabbed, kidnapped, or stolen from, my parents devised an idea that they deemed to be positively genius - "HAVE FUN! Giving money away should be like a contest! Here, 'Blash! Have some money! Find the most unfortunate, disfigured looking people on the streets, and toss money at them! Go to town!"
For the duration of the trip, my parents profiled the needy at every turn - "Did you have all your limbs? Yes? Get a job. Starving child? Pity. Go to school. One legged man? You should invest in a walking stick. Deaf mute? Pass. Deaf *BLIND* Mute? Fine. Here's a Rupee (the equivalent of -$12.45 USD). Three legged man with no arms? Psh. Sell your third leg to science. Starving mother? You should have invested in birth control. Next?"
I wish I was making this up.
The requests for my parents' money didn't stop when we got back to Kerala. Despite the fact that we'd left all the beggars and pickpockets behind, we now had to deal with something far worse - our family. Since I had a cousin who was about to get married, two things were of extreme importance:
1. My parents needed to donate lots and lots and lots of money. Preferably in gold, because well, paper money is *SO* twentieth century.
2. There needs to be drinking. Lots of drinking. Everybody was invited. Except my parents, who are apparently seen as downers, even on that side of the world.
BONUS!. There also needed to be rioting, raping, and pillaging. It didn't really matter what the reason was. Find something - Kashmir, Communism, whatever. Shut down the state! We're going to party and rape! AND DRINK! LET'S DRINK! EVERYBODY DRINK! AND EAT! YOU NEED FOOD AFTER THAT WEED, SON!
Due to some sort of weird contractual obligation that my parents entered into at the time of my birth, my sister and I were sent over to this giant party because my parents were apparently not cool enough to represent themselves. Given that my sister wholeheartedly embraced the debauchery that ensued, her memory of the two days we spent over at this giant riot are not so good. Can't say I blame her.
On the other hand, since I tend to take after my parents in this regard, I stayed away from the tobacco, the weed, and the alcohol. Well, most of the alcohol. My relatives repeatedly (and with waning patience) requested that I drink something, or bad things were going to happen. I compromised and drank my body weight in fermented coconut water. And took of few shots of...something. Upon taking my shots, my cousins burst into celebration, and proudly declared that I was "one of the family" now. This is a great honor, because I now had the privilege of peeing against the back wall if I ever got the urge. Granted people were going to pee on this wall regardless, but the fact that I had official permission to do so greatly solidified my standing in the family ranks.
Gods, my family is *SO* weird.
Roads and family aside, there was one more notable thing about this trip - the aforementioned death flu. I've had it for about two weeks, and it's still refusing to die. Ugh. I really, really, dislike sounding like someone who has smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for the last twenty years. I really hope this goes away soon.
;.;