Let go, sister

Varkala Beach, Kerala

Coffee cup in hand, his baritone voice steals the breath of morning as he spirals into a disordered rant of feeling conflicted, confused, maybe a bit angry amidst the postcard beauty of the turquoise tide of Varkala Beach in south India. That swallows the plastic, paper and putrid rubbish generated by this billboard happy tourist paradise. I do not feel alarmed. The calm of morning meditation and a barefoot walk in the first-light stillness rises up easy as cloud-vapor and fills my lungs with patience. Yesterday it was me who was tumbling off the edge as Madonna's Greatest Hits on loudspeaker repeat induced a wrestling match with my conscience and we we battled our way through fabricated beach paradise in search of the real India. A patient ear to listen is all a friend can offer. The rage will subside, as all feelings do, once the heavy heart pauses long enough to recognize the futility of its dizzying angst.

I want to get out of here. (When hard rain falls, we all go chasing the sun. Grass must be greener over there.) I want to go to the real India. (It does feel strange to lounge on the manicured boardwalk crammed with restaurants and textile shops and cafe lattes.) Where is the stench of urine and rubbish that was becoming so familiar? (But whose to say what the real India might look like? To ask the street-sweeper who lives in Shadipur slum? Or the CEO of Barclay's Bank? Or the French ex-pat who makes a living pushing drugs North to South and beyond? Which way to the real India?)

Maybe this is not the right question. Maybe feeling uncomfortable in the seaside tourist hub, complete with mood music and Continental Breakfast, only takes a traveler further into the blindness of unsatisfied eyes.

"What is it you want to see!?" screams an anonymous voice as the broken leg beggar who walks like a two-legged spider makes his daily rounds. "He is holding his hand out -- there: right in front of your big blue eyes! Real enough for you, sister? Or must you join the trash-pickers on their daily hunt for savory scraps in the rubbish heaps by the river?"

"I didn't mean to be so arrogant," I try in my meekest voice. "It is wrong of me to arrive here with eyes glazed by expectation and folklore. How to un-stitch the seams that make my mind so thin-lipped? I just thought, you know, marigolds and smiling sadhus; bangles and bright-eyes; poverty turned to plenty by the strength of the human spirit: the immortal bass-drum heartbeat of the human will to survive. I just thought...temple bells and bindis and a spiritual strength unparalleled and...God, I must sound so ignorant. Spiraling downward like a hawk's last flight.

Sideways head-nod. The tailor looks up from his foot-powered sewing machine, acknowledges my feigned attempt at redemtion and offers a soft smile anyway. "You understand, sister. India not possible without a smile. Without at love. So many people. So much poor. Sun rise again today. Foot still working the sew machine. No heavy heart. India no easy. Ask that man. Selling postcards all time but not selling. Just smile him when he ask you again and again. So many eyes only looking downward. Heart weary. Smile like a small coin in the cup."

Real? Not Real? Authentic? Fake? I have invented these concepts on the basis of my expectations. On the colorful illustrations that arise from storybooks and films and daydreams. Of romanticized jungles and rivers and sadhus and snake-people and bodhi trees and prayer-beads; imagination fixed on classical tabla, orange marigolds, turquoise saris and ash-covered ascetics, eyes as bright as the flames of morning pujas on The Ganges. Kingfisher beer and Madonna's Greatest Hits did not make it into the picture; nor did rubbish-covered cliffs and espresso coffee. How arrogant of me that by seeking the real India I am seeking my own preconceptions as if life should have frozen when I first heard the sitar or read Siddhartha or saw footage of the ghats at Varanasi. Frozen in time just for me: waiting for my arrival. Can I do anything but laugh at myself and feel the earth beneath my feet? Wave at the jovial fisherman who have enough sense not to be concerned by what is real and unreal and instead allow their bare feet to adjust from sandy shores to pavement with ease. The very act of "looking for something" is dust in the eyes of what is. Blinding. Itchy. Disappointing.

"Let go, sister. Beauty here. Maybe no business, but sunshines and jokes and tea. Real or not real? What is this? Today is. Tomorrow, not yet. Fishermen fish. Tailors sew. Mother feed child. Father smoke cigar. Bird play on wind. Same, same but different.

Chuckle. Foot-pedal starts drumming; fish nets are cast; babies are tied to shady trees in safe bed-sheet cocoons; restaurant hosts sing the same hopeful jingle to each light-eyed passerby. Would it be better if I were jumping rope in the slum with the beggar children whose smiles make me laugh and weep? Would I be better? The question is un-useful and self-centered. Why ask it? Where I am is here. Who I am is me: a tiny grain of sand on the shore of the Arabian Sea, no better and no worse for touring slums or vacations destinations. Just me. A young woman not fit to decide what is Real or Unreal. Whose days are better lived barefoot and quiet, listening to the steady ease of the tailor's foot-pedal machine stitch-stitching the familiar patterns that make up the beautiful fabric of a humble, seaside life.