Chapter 12 Baby Elephant Part 5 Baby Elephant      Not wishing to push my impaired stomach, I had a simple lunch of rice, hard-boiled eggs and toasted bread. Just to be on the safe side, I went back to the hotel -and its toilet- to see if anything bad happened. It didn’t, so I took [...]

Chapter 12 Baby Elephant Part 4 A Clinic And a Suit      Room five was white and square. Along the white walls were hard plastic white chairs, a white door opposite, and no windows or art on the walls to break up the monotony. There was not even that little frosted sliding window a secretary [...]

Chapter 12 Baby Elephant Part 3 The Taj Mahal, and a Hospital      A week in Varanasi quickly came and went. In the later part of the week, as I slowly felt better, and could be away from the toilet for extended periods of time, I visited Deer Park, where Buddha gave his first speech. [...]

Chapter 12 Baby Elephant Part 2 Varanasi, The Ganges, and an Angry Used Car Salesman      My stomach went bad in Khajuraho three days after Chenni. It went bad after a night of drinking moonshine with some young men and their hopeful translation of U.S.A. At first I assumed it was the moonshine, but when [...]

The streets of Mumbai: With water being delivered by hand, Homeless families eating breakfast where they slept, Homeless lady waking up next to parked taxis, and a woman and her cow. Continue reading ‘Travels in India and Nepal’ here: Travels in India and Nepal: Chapter 12 [Part 2]

Chapter 12 Baby Elephant Part 1 Ice      “You want baby Elephant?”      I could hear Jenna bouncing up and down in my head, “Yes! Yes! Bring me home a baby elephant!”      Contemplating out loud, I said, “I don’t think it would fit in my carry on luggage…”      The two young -baby-elephant-offering- men [...]

Chapter 11 On The Bus Part 2 A God      Finally, the bus left the dusty station and headed out of Khajuraho. The landscape was summer dry, with brown grasses and green trees and bushes. We passed over and next to the slow river that meandered over the wide plain where sat Khajuraho. To the [...]

Chapter 11 On The Bus Part 1 The Front      “Chelo! Chelo! Chelo!” Cried the riders as the bus driver stared blankly out the front window. Translation: “Let’s Go! Let’s Go! Let’s Go!” they said, in intermittent bursts, as the bus continued to sit in the dusty bus station, late as usual.      I felt [...]

     I was told, by the young men who got me drunk on moonshine, that the Karma Sutra was not written for the reason westerners think it was written. And once they told me the theory, it made sense, despite not knowing if it was true, or if they were just pulling the leg of [...]

Chapter 10 Words Part 2 Chelo      One night, waiting for a train on a darkened platform, I met a man. The platform was unusually quiet, with only a few scattered people about. I read ‘A Suitable Boy’ by Veckram Seth on a bench, underneath a lamp. I highly recommend the book, it’s about intertwined [...]

Chapter 10 Words Part 1 USA      Sometime, back in elementary school, when my parents decided to expand my education, they placed me in Spanish class. The different teachers searched for ways to remove my apathy. There were the gold stars, and ‘bueno, bueno,’ but one of their lines stuck, partly because I have heard [...]

Chapter 9 Shit Part 2 Keeping the Dust Down, and an Idyllic Beach      In the desert town of Hampii, where I sat underneath a The Mango Tree, found the stars, and soaked my foot, the river was smooth and beautiful and clean. It was good to be in a small semi-abandoned town. This desert [...]