March 7, 2023
Friends, meet Shiva, patron deity of Varanasi, one of the Big Guys and Gals of the Hindu pantheon, a real heavy hitter. You might have heard of him via the Shiva quote Robert Oppenheimer, inventor of the atomic bomb, invoked upon on witnessing the first nuclear explosion "I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.” Don't mess with this One....
Shiva, you win. I am rightfully humbled, beautifully defeated. I bow down to you and your victory over me on your hometown turf. Like many before me, I'm outta here and not a day too soon. Thank you for letting me stay, thank you for letting me leave. If I ever return, I'll enter your city with full reverence and respect, on my knees.
So... This next bit I was hesitant to record and publish but my loving and experienced writer wife assures me that this is all part of being "transparent" and "my whole self", and it's not like you could just hit select all and copy, and then paste this somewhere on the internet so that people could forever find this and I could potentially be buried alive in an avalanche of embarrassment. Also, you might not want to read this during a meal....
India is oozing out of me in every direction. I've been sick the past couple days. Examining the source, one could point to germs. My intuition (backed by an AI inquiry) says I've encountered a bajillion unfamiliar virusi and bacterianomosities since arriving and there's a 147% chance that many of these could be the culprit.
But I don't believe that's it.
Then there's the water. Hinduism allows for, even encourages, the worship of multiple gods and one we've adopted on this trip is Bisleri. In addition to a deity from whom I daily request blessings, it's also the bestselling bottled water brand in the country.
Actually, it might only be a brand and not an actual god but I'm not taking my chances. However, as deep as this devotee's devotion may run, there are many chances to accidentally ingest malevolent water demons in the form of vegetables washed in or ice cubes made from less "holy" water.
I don't think it's this either.
I think that what has made me sick is INTENSITY. India, and Varanasi in particular, have an energy - in type and volume - that my system cannot handle in its usual ways. (Denial, avoidance and muscling through being some of my favored tactics. But hey! Don't let decades of hard evidence of their inefficacy keep me from continuing to hopelessly rely on these strategies!). Erin has helpfully attested that she and many she knows have experienced this in Varanasi. People arrive with plans to stay days or even weeks and within days, or even hours, are plotting their way out or simply hightailing it to the train station, to go anywhere, Anywhere Else.
Being here is like an acid trip (based on what others have told me...) where you carefully and skillfully measure and ingest what you believe to be the perfect dose and as it gradually comes on you think "wow, I nailed it, I really have this dialed in, this is gonna be an awesome trip, good job me" and then it keeps coming on and you pass that happy, hopeful point and it becomes slowly and terrifyingly clear that you have completely misjudged the situation and in fact this trip OWNS your sweet A** and the galactic roller coaster car you suddenly find yourself straight-jacketed into plunges off an infinitely high hill, jumping the shattered tracks and spiraling off into another universe like Darth Vader's pod at the end of the first Star Wars movie except it's not at all clear that you will be back for the sequel.
Welcome to the first week in India.
So, what are the symptoms of this illness you ask? (Why would you ask such a thing? You could have been spared.)
Sniffling. Blowing my nose a lot. Expelling metric tons of dust and dirt and ashes (of what we don't linger on). Decongestants are helping. Fever. Burning up with the goddess Kali in her transforming flames, letting go into one's own personal pyre. Sweatiness. Detoxing through the skin. Spices help here, releasing what has to go.
And then there is, well, you can guess. This last "divine challenge" made itself known the other night during a casual stroll thru the back alleys in search of a well-known German bakery, in hopeful search of something actually resembling a salad. A few hundred meters away, I said to Erin "I'm gonna need a restroom soon" which she, the experienced traveler, knowingly acknowledged. I thought we could make it. I tried, I really tried. But a hundred meters later, when it was clear that we couldn't really tell which of the trails in the rabbit warren led to our destination, and even more so I received an urgent telegram from my body, I told Erin, "I need a restroom NOW. We're going to that Korean backpacker restaurant we just passed."
Apparently, the look on my face was a combination of stern command and desperate plea. Erin turned on 5 peisa rupee coin and blazed trail through the crowds. I stormed the establishment, bee-lining for you-know-what. And like the exciting climax to my favorite action flicks, this hero successfully "rescued the damsel in distress" at the last possible moment, except there was no damsel and visually and for this hero it didn't seem anything like the movies at all.
In the fervent hope of avoiding similar such emergencies in the future, I worked out and presented to Erin an early warning system (based on a favorite 80s movie for both of us, War Games. Matthew Broderick would be proud!)
DEFCON 1 - All quiet on the Western front
DEFCON 2 - The enemy is mobilizing its missile systems.
DEFCON 3 - Activate neutralization plan "Operation Porcelain Throne.” (Ideally, we don't move past this level of threat, but if we do...)
DEFCON 4 - Abandon all prior plans, immediately, I mean immediately, seek strategic resolution to avoid any (any!) further escalation (see two nights ago)
DEFCON 5 - Missiles are in the air, I repeat, missiles are in the air and warheads have been released. (At this point, with launch already passed, we're just dealing with the fallout, trying to minimize radiation poisoning in the immediate vicinity)
I am happy to report that threat levels have since reverted to low, with ongoing and diligent observation of the border crossing, and that we are cautiously optimistic we have reached a sustainable ceasefire. Tune your radios to the emergency news network for updates moving forward.