India Diaries: Preparing

September 2005
by Linda McGrath

San Jose, one week before the trip
I had thought of myself as a traveler seasoned in exotic locales, having spent weeks in Northern Brazil and Morocco, so when I first signed up for the teacher training with Shiva Rea in the Southern Indian State of Kerala, I thought: the birthplace of yoga, magnificent temples, tropical beaches, fresh fruit and fish every day, beautiful sarees to buy, I must go! Through the weeks that followed however, the only reaction I got from people who had come close to India was a fit of warnings, so by now, I'd come to expect a place where death awaits at every corner, or at least diarrhea, in the best case scenario. Raj, one of the students from our studio was nice enough to even send me an email: “NO MEAT! PERIOD! NO DAIRY, PERIOD! NO SEAFOOD, PERIOD! NOTHING RAW, PERIOD! ONLY FRUIT YOU CAN PEEL! NO WATER, PERIOD! Drink coke instead”.

Not too excited about living off bananas and coke for three weeks, I thought I'd get reassurance from my doctor. Three shots later and already under malaria medication (which may cause psychosis among other things), the doctor asked:

“Have you had rabies immunization?”

“No”, I said “but I won't be around animals…”

“No, no” she interrupted, “it doesn't matter. This is India . There are dogs and bats and rats everywhere… I'll hold off on the shot because it has some nasty side effects (I guess psychosis is no biggie) but when you get bitten, just assume you have rabies and go and get treated.”

Arriving in Trivandrum (or Trivanantanapuram to be PC)

I won't tell you about the 22 hour flight from LAX to Bombay behind 2 infants, which was delayed to stay true to the Air India custom. I was lucky enough to have booked a room in Bombay so I had 2 showers and 4 hours of lay down before the domestic flight to Kerala. I spotted 3 girls at the domestic airport as yoga looking people and went to introduce myself. We didn't talk very much but we all appreciated the element of having identified someone in a foreign place after the psychological experiment of now close to 30 hours of flying and waiting at airports.

The Trivandrum airport was small. The heat and humidity felt really good. We had three drivers waiting for us from the resort. They were a little taken aback by the amount of our luggage and started to animately discuss the problem amongst themselves. I want to say “hindi”, but it may have been some other dialect just as well. Two other cars eventually appeared. The drivers took turns shifting the bags from one trunk to the next, still debating what is best without a word from us. Twenty minutes later, once every single piece of luggage had been moved at least twice, we were on our way.

My cab looked like the white hybrid between a London cab and an old VW bug. The back boasted a plate that said “power steering”! The entire inside was upholstered in a maroon and brown synthetic velvet and the windows were tinted a dark blue that was peeling at the edges. The sound of a motor (but not much else) came from a pink plastic mini-fan somehow affixed to the dashboard. To its left were two stickers. One was the traditional day-glo colored icon of Vishnu, recognizable by his blue skin meant to represent the vastness of the sky and ocean. Next to him, in the same magenta clothes and blue skin was no other than Jesus, thorny crown and all.
“Are you Christian or Hindu?” I asked.
“Huh?"
“Your god, is it Jesus or Vishnu?”
‘Oh, no”, he said, pointing to the Jesus sticker, “this for customers…”
I love that! If only other religions were that laid back…

But back to the road. Many countries have driving habits that makes us anglo-saxon types break a sweat at every turn but where for example in Italy, this is largely driven by the latin machismo-my 2-cylinder-Lancia-will-school-your-2-cylinder-Fiat, in India, it's more about making the best out of what they've got: lawnmower engines that defy the laws of physics at every little hill and a serious shortage of buses judging by the number of people overflowing from the windows and doors. The motorized rickshaws are everywhere: picture a moped with a second back wheel so that it can support a bed and a family of 12 standing up and holding on for their dear life. The concept of lanes never really took off over here so all these vehicles swerve in and out and around each other at the highest speed and biggest gear they've got. I instinctively reached my left hand to the back corner and grasping air several times, I turned back for my eyes to confirm, in horror, that the car did not come with seatbelts. Power steering was all I had going for me. That and the horn: if they are about to pass a car, once they've done passing, if they're about to merge into traffic or when they cross an intersection or just for the hell of it, they honk. The most impressive feature though took me by surprise when the driver signaled as we swerved into a right turn in fourth gear: a cheerful siren heard by every living being within the 10 mile radius came on to ensure our safety.

In the middle of all this noise, I still managed to detect a very loud music coming from the distance. It got loud and louder and I could now decipher a voice talking until we finally got to the source of it. It was a tiny van painted bright pink, going 5mph through the neighborhood. On its back door I could read in English the name they were mentioning with pictures of various gold jewelry. The people around us were just going on about their business, fixing tires and selling fish (in the same store, and when I say store, I mean three crumbling walls covered by a tarp). For a moment, I tried to imagine a van driving through the backstreets of Los Gatos blaring: “This Valentines' day, say I love you with a diamond from Shane Company…” to the tune of the Macarena. How many seconds before they were evicted and sued for all they're worth?