humans are funny

Author: laurenne

  • But will they hold your purse when you’re in the bathroom?


    Shimla, a Himalayan town created by the British when their white asses couldn’t stand the Indian heat, is all about honeymooners or rich Indian vacationers. Despite the mirrors on the hotel ceilings, I loved this town so much so that I ditched several other plans and stayed ten days.

    First because it’s in the Himalayas! I mean, who gets to wake up in the Himalayas for ten days? When I first learned of the ridges who own the highest peak in the world some time in the eighties, they seemed so mythical and far away. And then, after a painful journey of 7 hours in a local bus squeezed between a sweaty man with big thighs in a pink shirt and a skinny man with hairy ears drinking brown water, I was IN THE HIMALAYAS! I felt so cool. I just wanted to call someone and say, “Hey, what are you up to? Oh you just got out of work? That’s cool. So… where are you? Oh, you’re at the supermarket buying eggs? That sounds nice. Oh, where am I? I’m… actually I’m IN THE HIMALAYAS.” But I didn’t make any calls because that would have been rude.

    I loved to sit on a hillside and watch the porters. They can carry 5 grizzly bears up a mountain all at once. Or two refrigerators and ten horse jockeys in the fetal position (small ones). Or twenty bars of pure gold and fifty satchels of satchels of fish tank marbles. They carry these loads up and down THE HIMALAYAS! And they’re all so skinny. It must be in their Kashmiri blood.

    Kashmir, in case you didn’t know, is not just the fuzzy sweater Aunt Charlotte always wears. It’s a piece of land that must hold some buried treasures because everybody wants it. India, Pakistan and even China have divided it up, but neither are satisfied. I say they draw straws, but instead they fight and fight over it. You can even go to the Indo-Pak border and watch the patrolmen make faces at each other. They say it’s safe, but there’s a lot of patrolling by the police and the army. And the police and the army get so sick of policing and arming that they rape young girls (at least they did while I was here.) Anyway, many Kashmiris booked it to Shimla, a few mountain tops away, to lug grizzly bears up hills! And they do it with a smile and a wink from their Kashmiri blue eyes. I watched them from a bench every morning since I was not about to go walking up and down all day. Those hills are really steep, and the porters refused to carry me after a few days. They hated that I kept saying, ‘Oh my god! We’re in the himalayas.’ I guess porters don’t like repitition. Whatever.

    A porter carrying six bottlenose dolphins, three panini makers, and several button collections.

    THE HIMALAYAS!

    Aaahhh…ceiling mirrors! My backpack and I had a wild time.

    A true mountain woman. You think her scarf is from Prada?

    How cute is this place? It looks like a movie set. Hey… am I on a TV show and everyone knows who I am and soon I will drive a boat into a paper sky?

  • Mustache love.


    Can a 43-year-old man be my new best friend? It’s possible. We wouldn’t really talk about hairstyles and bikini waxing, but we could still, say, crash a few weddings together. Or ride bikes. Or share creamy shakes filled with almonds. Or do yoga. Or fly kites. Or try nasty liquor made from cardamom. Or have philosophical conversations late into the night. Or disagree on Bollywood movies which are clearly horrible but he doesn’t see. Or smoke a few beedies (hidden from the wife, of course.). Or spend hours in the bookstore together. Or read the newspaper over tea. Or go to the mall. Or debate the necessity of curd and coffeemakers.

    Yes, it’s all very possible. And so it is. Arvind G is my new Indian best friend. An ex Army Lieutenant he decided to retire early and open a guest house in the Indian desert. What he lacks in stature, he makes up for in mustache. And he dreams of beer and sweets just like Homer. In fact, he is a real life Indian Homer Simpson, and he will undoubtedly be my favorite memory from India.

    Shoulder stands on Arvind’s rooftop. Indians really do yoga and pranayama every morning. The hippies weren’t lying.

    We crashed two weddings. And even took advantage of the free libations. The streets were filled with anxious grooms on the special auspicious day in July when astrologists suggested weddings should take place. They all strode into their ceremonies on horseback led by a parade of guests and lantern holders, a generator and stereo pumping from behind.

    Another good friend I met in Jaipur. He was nice too, but when we invited him to the veranda he ate 20 mangoes and didn’t save any for us. Pretty douchey if you ask me.

    Indian weddings are so decorated and elaborate. Horses aren’t even allowed in without proper manicures.

    The view from Arvind’s roof and the location of several conversations about important things like life and nasal jewelry.

  • I ate the Taj. Sorry.


    Photo courtesy of my new friend Pete.

  • I got twigs in my hair.

    I don’t care if I ever see a temple again. Or a cave. Or a palace, tomb, monument, famous street, museum, library, statue or obelisk. Even the charred car that was set aflame by the protesting monk while he was inside. DONE. Don’t care. Over it.

    Maybe it’s the heat. Or the newly-acquired aversion to guidebook maps. Or maybe I’m stuck in the 7th-month stretch. My feet just refuse to carry me to another museum. Even if someone tells them there’s a bathroom with toilet paper and a Pinkberry inside.

    What interests me most are the Indian people, their lives, their mentality. It’s all so different from mine, and it’s hard work to understand it. If I could sit on a corner and watch the shoeless taxi men chewing red tobacco and the cart-pushing men who hock everything from colored combs to bananas to spare bicycle parts, I would stay all day. Alas, it is not possible because the moment you step onto an Indian street, you are no longer an observer. Within two minutes you’re flanked by a teenager who wants to sell you on his family’s silk shop or a man who is dying to tell you about his daughter who lives in the UK, which he believes to be a part of California (This is actually one of my favorite parts of India, but I’ll get to that later).

    In Jaipur I found the perfect observatory, a nest of sorts. The Explorer’s Nest, home to Arvind and Shoma, was the answer to my 7-month stretch blues. Arvind took me under his proverbial wing, gave me a comfy spot in his nest, brought me worms, tea, and my favorite: explanations. Spending at least 4 hours a day on his leafy veranda, I finally got to see Indian life go by.

    In the very early part of the morning, after yoga and breathing exercises of course, India gets rolling, setting forth a series of visitors.

    First, the scrap man comes and collects anything that can be reused. You’ll know he’s arrived by his low-pitched yell. Indians are quite resourceful and can easily re-purpose the metal of a refrigerator or an old bunch of cardboard. This man could make a fortune in my mother’s garage, but when I told him to go there he said something about the stupid government not giving him a passport. Whoops. I opened a can of worms. But at least I gave it back to him to reuse.

    Then the garbage man wanders by, his trash bin a single wheelbarrow. Indians don’t waste so many things, and they have much less packaging. Either that’s why they have less trash or it is because it’s been strewn about in the streets.

    Next, the milk man comes. Milk is ‘dude’ in hindi, so I thought I was hilarious by calling him the Dude Man. He arrives on his bicycle with milk straight from the cow. Fresh! Every morning. The homeowners themselves then boil the milk to take away the bacteria. Then, he or she adds an enzyme and leaves some of the milk at room temperature to make curd. Half of me thinks it’s amazing that such freshness exists and that people are not too lazy to make their own products. The other half of me doesn’t like the idea of growing lumps in your milk. But you gotta have curd with every meal to counteract the spicy and aid digestion, says Arvind.

    Next the fruit man and vegetable man push their carts on by, at which time the women of the street emerge and participate in their own sort of Haggling Olympics. The Bread man rides up next on his bicycle, loaves and cookies and baguettes hanging in sacks off his seat. At some point, the neighbor lady will walk her 2-yr-old around the block as well. And if we stay in the nest long enough, we’ll catch the neighborhood cow who makes her rounds about 6pm every day, stopping at the usual houses. She knows who gives the best food. I found her quite underwhelmed by my offering of 2 slices of white bread.

    In a country with a population of over a billion, the Indians really have their systems organized. This life of deliveries omits the need to wait for a slow cashier, makes money for the people and not the corporations, and allows commerce to unfold from a seat on the veranda. I call it genius.

    The network is so complex, in fact, that if a man (an Indian one who won’t be hassled to buy a puppet or a postcard) stands on the street corner all day long, everything he needs will come his way. I’ve seen carts filled with underwear, mirrors, myriad food and water, smoothies, tea, even kitchen cabinet handles. While we Westerners are fussing with what we call, ‘running errands’, the Indians have tricked all the errands into coming to them. Some love the idea so much that they actually do decide to stay on the street all day. Some take it too far and sleep on the streets. Maybe they’re waiting for houses to come by on a cart.

    Bee bop boo bata bop. He’s a scrap man, scrap man.

    Arvind in action.

    Rita the cow pissed after my shitty white bread offering.


    Note: If you want to experience the nest for yourself, here’s the link: http://www.jaipurbedbreakfast.com/

  • Pardon my dust.

    Please excuse the delay in posts. It’s not surprising the computers still take floppies and don’t know how to upload photos in a country where teenagers are still clamoring for the newest hit cassette tape. So… stayed tuned. Funny Indians to come.