Author: laurenne

  • We’re gonna party like it’s 900.

    At one point I said ‘no more temples.’ I admit it. I said it because I think I’ve now seen 40 million and it’s hotter than a boiling cauldron of curry out here.

    Alas, I decided to hit up one more before leaving the mysterious land of religious monuments. And after a 26-hour train, a 4-hour bus, and a shared jeep I arrived in Khajuraho to spend three days bicycling around and taking in monuments. These particular temples were saved from the Mughals, who destroyed so many Hindu beauties when they took power. Jerks! The temples had been hidden in a strange part of the country (which takes a train and a bus and a shared jeep to find), plus the forest covered them completely, obscuring them more. It wasn’t until the British took over that they were brought to the government’s attention and made into a tourist attraction.

    They illustrate exactly what life was like for Indians back before India was India… and they’re also quite erotic (which is the reason most people come see them.) Porn from the year 900! It looks as though nothing much has changed in the porn industry since 900. Apparently the upside-down-girl-on-girl-slam-and-go was popular then too!

    Of course the temples show more than just sex. But even the daily activities carved into the temple walls appear to have been sexier in the year 900. India has sure transformed during the past 1100 years. I bet that if these temples didn’t have a religious significance (each is dedicated to a different Hindu deity), they’d have been banned. Or someone would have had to have carved clothes and scarves for all the women.

    Were all the women this sexy in 900? What if the stars of these temples had to pose for the sculptors? How strenuous. What were they saying back then?

    “Bashir, you carve the cooking scene. Chaitan, you get the laundry scene. And I’ll do the group orgy.”
    “But, sire, I would much rather do the group orgy. Orgies are my specialty. You know that.”
    “ I know, young man. I’ll never forget two Wednesdays ago. Your wife is a bullet! We have to do that again some time.”
    “Thank you sir. She has spoken highly of you and your wife as well. So can I carve the orgy?”
    “You get the orgy on the next temple, son.”
    “But, sire, that is only a threesome. How banal.”
    “All right. You take this five-some, but then I get the threesome AND the bestiality.”
    “Deal! Thank you, sire. I feel an erection approaching already.”

    “Pushpinder, that woman you carved looks nothing like me. Who is she?”
    “That is you, my darling. The one with her face in my balls. Can’t you tell the hair is yours?”
    “I can’t believe you carved me with my face in your balls! Tourists in 2009 will only see my butt; my face will never be famous.”
    “Darling, your behind is already talked of throughout the land. It is what should be famous.”
    “Oh all right. But on the next temple, can you please carve my face? Do a side-view with me looking outward. And then you slamming me from behind. That way, tourists in 2009 will see both my face and my booty.”
    “Yes, darling.”

    “Man, Gajender, why don’t we ever get invited to do fun stuff like that?”
    “We shouldn’t have cut our penises off.”

    Nowadays these outfits only make appearances on Western girls in music videos.

    Even the pigs in this town have big sexy boobs.

    Wow. This girl is holding herself up with one arm and remains completely stone-faced.
    This is me on the long, sweaty bus ride.

    These are all the boys staring at me on the long, sweaty bus ride.
  • One newborn burrito. Hold the oil.

    Nine months will have passed by the time I come home. Some of my gossipy aunts are positive I’ve really been holed up in some Arizona ranch for unwed mothers who want to pop out a bastard anonymously. It’s not true. If I’d have gotten pregnant in LA, I would have had the baby and immediately thrust it into the arms of a heartless manager who would exploit its cute little fat face in every way possible so that I could earn all its model wages and take monthly trips to Cancun where I would get bad highlights, eat shrimp cocktails, and float around in those shiny blue pool chairs with drink holders that would support a variety of umbrella-bearing cocktails.

    Sigh… Perhaps one day that dream will come true.

    For now, I have only Olive, an Indian donkey who thinks I am her mother. She was a newborn when a car or pack of stray dogs attacked her. The villagers put motor oil on all of her invasive wounds to stop them from bleeding. Animal Aid, an organization in Udaipur run by a cheery ex-pat family from Seattle, was quick to come to her rescue. The vets were able to give her antibiotics and a bottle, but they needed a volunteer to give her some love. She’s a newborn!

    I heard Olive’s cry and flew to the rescue. My assignment was to simply love her all day long. I bathed her, which took hours. Motor oil and fur can’t get enough of each other. I hugged her. I kissed her. I told her tales of her future as the best concrete carrier in all of Udaipur. I could actually see her demeanor improving throughout the day. Love helps! It’s also a battlefield.

    She’d wobble around, venture out a few steps on her own, and then come back to touch her soft forehead to mine ever so gently. It was true love on both sides. If my future daughter is born a donkey, I might not exploit her so much.

    I am grateful to have met Olive, the donkey of my eye. The previous day, my assignment was to love and walk dogs all day long, and I left feeling like a heartless bitch. Dogs with mange and ticks only got a one-finger petting action from me, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty. Mange is gross!

    Animal Aid helps cows, goats, donkeys, pigs, turtles, really any Indian animal in need. If you’re sick and tired of helping all those boring humans in need, send them a donation or get over to Udaipur: Animal Aid

    This is Olive before Hydroxycut.

    Olive during her long bath.

    This is Olive after. You won’t get these results from other baths.



    This woman is a saint. She patiently picked off dog ticks and broke each in half with her nail. No complaints.

    I really really really tried to love this dog as much as I loved Olive.
    This vet sticks his hand up a cow’s butt daily. Maybe advertising isn’t so bad.
    One day I will stop thinking animal balls are funny. One day.

  • Now there’s only cow in the dark.

    I, along with several astronomy enthusiasts, made sure to be in the holy city for the eclipse.

    Paul from England, who grows weed for a living, invited me to his balcony overlooking the Ganges. At 5am Pete from San Diego and I headed to the action. Men were already staining their teeth with paan. Women already had bowls out to beg for rice. Fires were already boiling water for chai. The Ganges was already awash with colorful bathers.

    On the balcony, we met up with Mairead and Caroline from Ireland, a guy who says he’s famous in Sweden, a German redhead, and her boyfriend from Bolivia. From there we could see the bathers, the ghats drenched in fresh sunlight, and the cows and goats hiding in corners; they sensed something was wrong with the world. Something was! The sun was about to disappear. One cow hid in a public bathroom and wouldn’t budge.

    With special sunglasses, we watched. We waited. We saw the moon inching its way to steal the show from the sun. Leetle by leetle. It reminded me of the time in fifth grade when Corrin and I got in a fight over our choreography for the talent show. We both wanted to be in front, but I was of course much pushier. I knew I was an amazing dancer (let me remind you again). Janet Jackson’s ‘Escapade’ was in absolute awe once I kicked Corrin to the curb and took to the stage alone in my hot pink spandex.

    The moon finally weaseled its way in front of the sun. Completely. The Ganges immediately turned black. The sky too, save for the glowing ring emanating from behind that attention-whore of a moon. We knew it was going to happen; we’d been watching it inch along. Yet it took us all by surprise. There was a collective gasp as the day turned to night so suddenly. Then… silence.

    It was the first time I’d heard silence in India. Nary a horn squealed in the distance. After three minutes and a few seconds, the moon shifted again, illuminating the sky, the bathers, the beggars, the cows, the river, and all of us huddled on the balcony. The whole city exhaled in unison, clapped, and let out gleeful cheers. It sounded like all of India was rejoicing.

    Yes, we all know there is a scientific explanation for a solar eclipse. But in the holy city of India it seemed like magic. As if Shiva had turned off the lights for a few minutes just to bring us all together.

    Caroline takes care against burning her retinas. Retinas smell worse than hair when burned.

    from 6:24 to 6:27am on July 22nd, 2009

    The balcony crew at 6:45am. We immediately fell asleep after this was taken.

    The cloak begins to cover the holy city.

    Covered!

    PS Speaking of eclipses, Bonnie Tyler is back! She’s 58 now and redoing ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart.’ Everything I prayed for in India has come true!

    PPS All but one of these photos were shot by my friend Pete. He’s just a damn good photographer. Here’s his website again.

    PSS Made you look.

  • All employees must wear hair nets and remove genitalia.

    I feel horrible.
    I previously reported here that I ate the Taj Mahal.
    I did. It needed salt.

    But I didn’t report on anything else about the Taj, and I feel remiss.

    Please note that:

    + Emperor Shah Jahan built the Taj to honor his third and ‘favorite’ wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

    +She died during the birth of their 14th child. Let’s think about this… it was 1632! They didn’t have epidurals or lamaze. He should have stopped stuffing her with sperm. That’s what the other wives and harem were for.

    +That’s right. Dude had a harem. Of 1000 women. All virgins.

    +According to my tour guide, the emperor would never ‘use’ one of the harem women more than once. Immediately after her ‘usage,’ she would usually be married off to another powerful man.

    + He of course needed wranglers to help him organize all the women and sex (The guide said lots of sex was necessary since there wasn’t any TV… duh). If you wanted to work as a wrangler of harem women for the emperor, you would have had to cut off your member. The emperor wanted to ensure that the women were indeed virgins.

    +Of the four first sons with Mumtaz, Aurangzeb wanted to rule the throne the most (no idea if it was for the virgins or the conquering). He killed off his other brothers and confined his father to house arrest so that he could rule.

    +Shah Jahan finished building the Taj in 1648, but spent the last eight years of his life confined to a fort a few kilometers away. He was forced by his own son to never visit his wife’s grave.

    +Everything about the Taj was symmetrical, Mumtaz’s coffin smack dab in the center. Then, the mean son threw Shah Jahan’s coffin in there too, upsetting the balance. He wasn’t the most compassionate guy.

    That Taj sure was beautiful. Too bad I ate it.

    I also spun it like a top…

    practiced cheerleading with it…

    and knocked it down with my brute force.

    This guy was so impressed with my abilities that he invited me to be his sixtieth wife. I said yes. I’m registered at Crate & Camel.
  • Varanasi is a Six Flags for dead people.

    It is THE place to die in India since, according to Hindus, dying in or near the Ganges pretty much obliterates all those pesky rounds of reincarnation.
    If you die in Varanasi, you ride a roller coaster to enlightenment.

    Somewhere on the outskirts of the city, a man with a booming voice says, “Keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle.” The dead person’s family takes that pretty literally. They tuck him into a stretcher made of bamboo. Then they wrap the corpse in several decorative garments and, depending on how much money they have, add several layers of ornamentation.

    The same loud man says, “Enjoy your ride and the rest of the day at Six Flags.”

    The corpse is then on its bumpy journey, carried above the heads of his dear family members. He careens down the crowded labyrinth of streets, Godly chants in his ears. He accelerates as the family pulses downhill. He streams past restaurants and tourists and sitars and astrologers and yogis and goats and sadhus and men selling tins and samosas and tea and spices. He stops short to avoid a cow and rises above the stampede of religious pilgrims pushing pushing pushing. His cart bumps bops bumps to the rhythm of his marching stretcher bearers and takes on one last downhill slope until gliding to a stop.

    This ride offers the choose-as-you-go ending, so not all corpses land at the same destination. The unwritten Varanasi law does the choosing for the corpse depending on wealth, status, cause of death, and whether or not he was pregnant when he passed.

    This particular corpse was a regular stand-up guy who owned a copy-making/faxing business in Bihar, the next state over. He had a wife and two daughters, but they aren’t with him on the ride. Women aren’t allowed to accompany their loved ones because, according to the boat driver on the Ganges, “they might cry.” Fortunately, he had a son and some cousins, so they are with him to make sure he gets the royal treatment.

    He is. He had 8000 rupees ($160 US), and so he is fortunate to be burned with real fire wood. His stretcher lowers to a pile of wood, and the sweaty employees pile more on top of him. One of them puts on a tenth layer, but another takes it off after realizing the 8000 rupees only covers 9 layers of wood. If they want a tenth, they’ll have to pay.

    The man with the booming voice shouts, “Hope you enjoyed your stay. Please come again.”
    The cousins cringe because they hope their cousin never has to come again. That’s the reason they drove him all the way up to the Ganges and missed their cricket match.

    After a while, the man from Bihar is burnt; the cousins chant a mantra and slip his ashes into the lukewarm river.

    The man with the booming voice leaves. He has an appointment just down the road. The ride has abruptly ended for an orphan who fell off her bike and was trampled by a horse-drawn carriage. She has some girlfriends, but again they aren’t allowed to accompany her on her ride. Tears might put out the fire. The orphanage director had no time to come either, but he instructed the employees to do her right, and slipped them 500 rupees ($10 US). This is an electrical facility so they put her body on a sort of stove for humans. Since no one is there to watch, one employee shuts off the hot stove, pockets the money, and slips her body into the river. Whole.

    The man with the booming voice shouts, “Hope you enjoyed your stay. Please come again.”
    Her body will later wash up on the other bank of the Ganges, a dog will eat at her neck, and some tourists on a boat will take a picture. It will be their seventh dead body sighting that day.
    Kids, pregnant women, and men who died from cobra bites will also be thrown into the Ganges whole. Their rides end as they are swathed in white and thrown in with a plop. Even if they are chewed up by dogs or fish, it’s just the continuation of life. And at least it’s all happening in the Ganges, the holiest river on Earth.

    The Varanasi Six Flags is home to several employees who live right in the park and work to ensure the corpses’ families and the constant religious pilgrims who come each year to bathe away their sins have a place to stay, eat, pray, and buy scarves that say things about God. These employees along with the pilgrims bathe in the river daily. Many also wash their clothes, do their duty, brush their teeth, bathe their water buffalo, swim, cut their hair, and pray right in the river– among the bobbing bodies and trash that is hosed into the Ganges from the streets every afternoon! It’s a holy river. It can handle anything.

    Varanasi is a Six Flags that never closes. One million pilgrims pass through each year, and the burning of bodies goes round-the-clock. It’s even hard to get an appointment and some corpses wait in a long line. Longer than the line at the Superman Ride.

    Some say the Ganges is disgusting. Some say it’s miraculous. I personally thought it was pretty comfortable. The temperature was bath-like, and it was nice to bathe with a bunch of other people. If I hadn’t had already seen a man pooping next to a girl brushing her teeth and a few floating bodies, I would have stayed in longer. I lasted about two minutes.

    This Indian guy turned white! There’s something strange in that water.

    These guys are on hand to sew the crotch of any pants in Varanasi. Many pilgrims get excited in the Ganges and do the splits.

    Air conditioning for water buffalo.

    “Aw damn. I dropped my toothbrush, and I picked up a finger instead.”


    -Grammy, that tourist is taking a picture of our bath time. -Yeah, white people are weird.

    Three of these photos were shot by my friend, Pete.
    If you want to see more about the cremation tradition, this site has great photos and explanations.