My TV Debut

The last time I posted was a few weeks back, I know, and I'm sorry, but internet service has been terrible around these parts. I've gotten to know the customer service lady, whose name I think is "Shweater", at Spearhead Communications quite well.

But around that time, a few weeks ago, I had just gotten back from 10 days working down south in Madurai. I hadn't shaved since the Rickshaw Run and I (still) haven't cut my hair since about August, and when I walked into the office, Won Pai, this Bengali guy who works in the adjoining office, and I were introduced, and he had to be convinced, repeatedly that I was American, and not Israeli. Indeed, with Mags and Dad in Pushkar, we got greeted on the street with the occasional "boker tov". I was getting used to being thought of as an Israeli. I even wear a hippie head band sometimes to encourage people.

So imagine my continued surprise when my friend Chris called me last week and told me that he had a friend who was looking for "typically Australian-looking" people to star in a TV commercial, and that I fit the bill. The gig paid Rs. 5,000 (about $120) for a day's work, and it was a bank holiday, so I took the train over to a sports club in Chembur and signed in with the producer at the set.

They dressed me up like an Australian cricket fan:



There was a hair-dresser and everything. She was called the "hair-walla," much like the "tea-walla" or the "daba-walla," which I thought was cute. She's putting pigtails on this russian chick who told me she was a model, but I didn't believe her, because she was covered in atrocious tattoos.



This is our setting: a cricket stadium during the cricket World Cup, which begins sometime soon in the "West Indies," which is actually also one of the participating competitor countries. We all cheer wildly, then yell, "Match On, Tho Videocon!", which means, "Match On!, so Videocon!", which refers to a TV manufacturer called Videocon, on whose TV's you should watch the Cricket World Cup, I say.

That's me in the cricket helmet in the middle.



Some more lairy fans... The guy on the left is an Indian-born, Australian-bred Hare Krishna who speaks Hindi, so he's a full-time b-list Bollywood actor. The other guy is a Brit who has been living in Colombia for 20 years writing books about South American politics. You meet really awesome people at commercial shoots.



The coolest thing about the shoot was how the director, cameraman, and crew filmed us through this really strange hole in a curtain, so while they were making a film that people would watch of us, on a small square in an electronic box, it sort of looked like they were the ones in a box, being observed by us. Hard to explain what I mean, but here's what it looked like, with our producer, "G", in the green shirt in the front.



Here's just the hole...



So that's it. I'm gonna be seen by 400 million people in India during the Cricket World Cup, pretending I'm an Australian cricket fan.

Match on tho Videocon!

The Fight For the Road

A lot of my readers have been asking me, "Robbie, what was it like out there on the road? Was it hard to drive?"

Actually, no one has asked me that. Such a question would be ridiculous, because everyone knows I'm the best driver, of any vehicle, in the world. Everyone knows.

What has been happening, however, is that my boss Vana has been explaining to lots of Indian folks, sort of as a way of bragging, that I did the Rickshaw Run, only he usually says I went from Kerala to Kashmir, which is technically geographically inaccurate (I think he like the alliteration) as I went from Hyderabad to Darjeeling. But the question remains. What were the perils? The pitfalls? The threats of bodily harm? The blunders, blips, and obstacles?

One was, we often got lost:



Rogier, the superstitious Dutchman, used to say I was a jinx to the Run, because the first day I joined the Run, we lost our best map. I'll not comment on that affair, but I will say that I was responsible for discovering what turned out to be the smoothest, fastest road of the whole trip, the Parama-Moregram highway, which was not on any map we found (we bought two replacements) and which we took after Bishnupur one hundred percent on confidence from a stranger in the road, in whom we should have, by all rights, had no confidence at all. It went between an oil refinery and an airforce base and took us straight through the middle of Bengal to Highway 31, which rode all the way to Darjeeling (see upcoming posts)

We also had to deal with MASSIVE F*%$ING TRUCKS like this one, loaded way beyond capacity with god knows what. Ground nuts, probably. Or sleeveless t-shirts with Bollywood stars screen-printed on them. Indians love them some sleeveless t-shirts...



This is the ingenious method by which these sundries were fastened to these looming, off-kilter trucks. Good old reliable rope...



Sometimes these were loaded with hay, and totally impossible to see around...



Other times it was sticks, which led me to envision horrible, yet hilarious accidents that were remiscent of certain episodes of Looney Tunes in which various animals throw logs in the paths of other animals, who run in place on the logs, comically...



Near cities, there was terrible traffic. This guy is saying, "*sigh* Now I'll never make it to Swami Vishnukamnadamurthi's house in time... Alas!"

Or at least, that's what his face is saying...



Often, Benji stalled out, and we had to carry his incompetent ass...



Usually, the traffic jam was caused by something stupid like a guy with a massive cart of bananas. So it goes in the Subcontinent.



So momma, be glad. We didn't end up looking like this...



In a gruesome wreck like this one...

Terra Cotta Pyramids

The new "non-beta" version of blogger really sucks because it shows all of your photos in HTML rather than showing you the actual photos themselves. So I have no idea how the below photos are going to align, but this is a temple in Bishnupur, West Bengal, where we had another sight-seeing pitsop along the Rickshaw Run route. It was a very cool, off the beaten track town.

I'm in Madurai right now, where internet collections are slow but dosas are plentiful. I will update soon about my adventures here.

Golden West Bengal

Aji Bangladesher hridoy hotey kokhon aponey
tumi aei aporoop roopey bahir holey janoni.
O-Go Maa, tomai daykhe daykhe ankhi na pherey.

You, the epitome of beauty,
When you emerged from the Heart of Bengal!
Maa, I look at you in spellbound wonder.

- Rabindranath Tagore, "Sonar Tori"

We entered West Bengal, the final state of our journey, on January 9th. The state is known for being full of people who are fiercely proud and defensive of their culture. When, in the 19th century, there emerged what came to be known as a "Bengali Renaissance" in literature, led by the above-quoted poet Tagore, it became a legacy that no one is going to forget anytime soon. The other two things that define the Bengali psyche, a friend recently told me, are an outspoken political leftism (West Bengal, along with Kerala, is one of two states in Indian controlled by the Indian communist party, CPI-M) and an obsession with soccer. Apparently, during the last world cup, the city was in mourning when both Brazil and Argentina (for some reason their teams of choice) got eliminated.



There were some important things to see in Bengal. We passed by Kenduli just a few days after the countries largest Baul festival. The Bauls are a sect of religious mystic wandering minstrels who wander Bengal and Bangladesh singing songs, begging, and seeking enlightenment. I saw one of the most famous and accessible Baul singers, a dreadlocked chanteuse called Parvathy Baul at Banyan Tree Entertainment's Ruhaniyat festival back in October. Baul singing is incredible -- it reminds me vaguely of the unaccompanied Irish Sean-Nos style of singing, but you can also hear a bit of the fatalism in the singers that can only come from hard living and homeless wandering.

So yeah, we missed the festival, incidentally. But we did to some other important things, like crossing the Ganges after Suti (and almost got arrested for flagrantly violating the "No Photographs" policy, which is clearly marked, by hanging out of the rickshaw with a large SLR camera and taking pictures facing East, directly into Bangladesh, which is exactly why the "No Photographs" policy exists -- because of the porous border with Bangladesh...), but we don't have pictures of it. Instead, we have pictures of Rogier being stared at, pitilessly, by a bunch of Bengalis...



At this roadside thali, not so far from Calcutta, apparently...



Where you eat sitting or reclining (or uncomfortably straddling) on wicker mattresses...



I found the dal excellent, and gobbled it without utensils...



Then, we passed through Market Day somewhere outside of Bankura...





Somebody, at least, found an excellent buy. This kid is rocking the "It's an unfair life: So many girls, So little time" t-shirt.



Along the road, later on we found a whole string of lotus ponds, which were really just too picturesque. I took a few snaps I'm proud of, given the high crapometer reading on my Sony Cybershot. The landscape:



The art shot:



Benji's shot of me and Rogier, taking the art shot, which is, in itself, a meta-art shot, and also retribution for many long days of Rogier referring to Benji as an "arty f**k" for taking pictures of rocks and pieces of strings and random scraps of cloth, kinda like that kid from "American Beauty".

Gives you a sense of the place, though, don't it?





On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying,
and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.

Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my
dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind.

That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to
me that is was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion.

I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that this
perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart.

- Tagore, "Lotus"

Sunrise Chai

Most days on the Rickshaw Run, we said we would wake up at 5 and start driving straightaways. Most nights, Rogier and I would split 3 entrees (usually two types of biriyani and butter chicken), several starters, and four 650-ml Kingfishers, which would put to rest (quite literally) any questions about getting up early.

But 6:30 was early enough, because the Indian workday doesn't start until about 9:30 at the earliest, the roads were clear, the air crisp, and we would do what any normal Indian does in the early hours of the day: drink chai, smoke cigarettes, and read newspapers. Well, not the newspapers part, because Rogier's illiterate and the newspaper doesn't come out before 8 am, but Sunrise Chai was definitely the high point of the morning.

Everyone is wrapped in blankets...



Sally waits for us, like a loyal fillie...



The chai-making gear...



The tea shop...



The nice chai-walli...



The back room of the tea shop...



Sunrise chai on the road to Sikkim...



Complete with greasy Tibetan snacks...

What's a Ghat, Anyway?

For a while, I thought it was one of these...



Turns out it's actually also one of these...



Wikipedia told me it's city in Libya.

Dictionary.com says this: ghat 1.a wide set of steps descending to a river, esp. a river used for bathing, 2. a mountain pass, or 3. a mountain range or escarpment.

My only point is, when a Westerner comes to India, it's sort of assumed that we know what a "Ghat" is, but I had never heard the word before. There are two main "ghats" in India, when you're talking about mountain ranges. The Boondogglers crossed both of them, the Western Ghats between Goa and Hyderabad, and after I joined up, the Eastern Ghats in Orissa. They're very pretty, and look a lot like the southern Appalachians, in West Virginia and places like that.

Around this time, the weather started getting pretty cold. Especially in the mornings. Here's Rogier and Benji bundled up. Notice Benji's absurd get-up. He was usually in a sleeping bag, too.





Also, I was thinking about the song that I mentioned in my previous post, Charles & Eddie's "Look into My Eyes," in my opinion the best song on Rogier's iPod and undoubtedly my personal Rickshaw Run anthem. I recently saw this, the music video for the same song, and it's amazing. Especially when the white guy with all the hair products (is he Charles? or Eddie???) whirls around and shouts "Oh yeah!" into the camera around 2:10. Watch this video, and you'll understand the Rickshaw Run. Or look at these photos of Rogier dancing to "Look Into My Eyes," and you'll get the same sensation: