Varkala, Operation Aussie-Go-Home, and a change of plans

As I write this post, Joel and Anita have likely already landed somwhere in the general vicinity of the east coast of Australia. Characteristic of Indian pre-paid cell phone plans, our last phone conversation before they left was abruptly cut off mid-sentence as one or both (you can never be quite sure) of our phone minutes ran out. With no warning. I can only assume that they successfully made it through their overnight train voyage to Chennai and their afternoon-long stay in the city, and that they boarded their plane and arrived home safely without a hitch. Given my affinity for dark humour (largely involving me cracking compassionless and fatalistic jokes about others’ probability of death at any given moment), and Anita’s distaste for just that kind of humour, I am torn… but mostly I am eagerly awaiting my first ever phone call from Australia!

[ed. note: would Joel and Anita kindly announce their safe arrival home. The only thing to do here to cope with my anticipation is drink sweet lassi upon sweet lassi...]

We spent our last week together in Varkala. After our many bouts with sickness and head colds in Varnasi and the cold weather we had to stick out in the North, I think we were all craving some good, hot sun. Bangalore was a beautiful introduction, with its warm air and beautiful breeze, but we wanted ocean. We decided to head south to the coast. As you have no doubt come to learn, in India things happen fast. At least decisions happen fast – actually getting things done is another story… But in this case, the whole thing was shockingly fast and easy. Our semi-sleeper, air-conditioned Volvo bus left Bangalore at around 6:30pm, and by 7am the next morning we were hopping off one bus and onto another, catching a rickshaw, signing our names in a guest house log, and before we knew it we were lying on the beach on fresh new beach towels in the morning sun. I have to say, in my memory the experience feels like a dream. It was so seamless and fast, it’s as if I blinked my eyes in one place and opened them to find myself in another. The air was deliciously humid, and much like our arrival in Rishikesh after a long haul in dirty Varanasi, this was a thoroughly cleansing experience. And thus began a week of fighting with myself to relax.

While Joel and Anita live their day-to-day lives with an ocean next door, I grew up in a city – with no ocean. In cities, we spend a lot of time on ‘projects’ of various kinds… school projects, art projects, gardening projects, mowing the lawn, making elaborate meals with friends, plucking our eyebrows, going for a haircut. My life in the city has always seemed laden with “things to do next”, or “plans for the weekend”. And when I’m in the city, I revel in it all. It’s not that I’m a workaholic… anyone who knows me would probably agree that I tend to procrastinate more than most. It’s more that I love having a goal, or at least a theme around which to organize my daily life. Sometimes, to be fair, the theme of the day is “sit in bed and watch movies”, but days like those are numbered and occasional – they break up the projects and the goals (often the stresses) of the rest of the week, month or year.

And so I have always had trouble with the idea of the “vacation”. In a book I’m reading at the moment (Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert) the author points out that in America our vacations must be sold to us. We grow up with a cultural guilt complex that makes us constantly question our entitlement to any kind of pleasure… why on earth would we possibly deserve it? Like many Americans (in this case, I’m throwing Canadians into the mix too), I have always had a hard time throwing away all of those goals and projects of everyday city life to simply endulge in the pleasure of the moment. And I have always felt strong and secure in that discomfort, having experienced just the guilt mentioned above. I’ll tack on that I have an additional academic distaste for the notion that people should need a vacation from life (shouldn’t life always be fulfilling, despite its hardships?)… but you get the idea. But here I was, on a beautiful beach in India, with two wonderful friends, and I was fighting with myself to try and enjoy it.

To give you a sense of what the place was like, the best thing I can say is that it was full of tourists. And I mean full. In India it is sometimes possible, and often likely, that you will go for several days in a place and not come across a single other westerner. You will be the only white person in a sea of smiling Indians, and this will in turn make you feel like perhaps you are the only westerner in the country… and if you’re really feeling overwhelmed, you may experience the fleeting thought that the rest of the westerners that you once knew have somehow disappeared into oblivion… It’s a little bit funny, really – sometimes the entire universe can exist only in our minds. But sooner or later you will be reminded that there are others out there like you because you will spot a blond tuft of hair sticking out from behind a restaurant booth, or you will hear some whispered words of French pass you by as you nudge your way through a crowded bazaar. Or you will land yourself in Varkala, and you will momentarily forget you are in India altogether.

There is one major attraction in Varkala, and that is a cliff that overlooks a beautiful beach. Here, along the top edge of the cliff, there is a single pathway lined with quaint shops and restaurants owned and run by both local Indians and those from other parts that follow the tourists around the country depending on the season. There are two stairways down to the beach which are generously laden with the last week’s worth of trash – the only way, it seems, that the locals have found of keeping the beach clean is to hoard all the garbage in one place. On the average day in Varkala, Joel, Anita and I would wake up with the sun, head down to the beach for a morning dip, and then make our way to our favourite Italian (yes, Italian) cafe for some fresh fruit and museli, and a big pot of milk tea. On our way we would see only foreigners. Then we would while away the hottest hours of the day playing cards, reading and drinking cold juice – again, only in the presence of foreigners. The only Indians in this area of Varkala seemed to be the shop owners and restaurant workers, both of which have joined to create quite a close-knit community of friends and co-workers that help eachother work the massive inflow of tourists so that everyone benefits as much as they can. Somehow the place just seems to work. And people love it.

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I had a hard time with it all, and by day three I was feeling the itch to get moving again. It wasn’t that there was anything particular that I was dying to see or do, but the idleness, the expensive food, and the “packaged vacation” feel of it all was eating at me. We put the options on the table, and two third’s of us were happy to stay put and not push things in the last week we had together, so againt my body’s vote of protest, we stayed put. We had a wonderful week together (and I have to thank Joel and Anita almost entirely for that), but it was hard at first. Really hard. I found things – vows I could make to myself – to keep myself grounded. I vowed one day that I would do no more shopping in Varkala. The next day I vowed to try and spend under 300 rupees per day on food (that one only lasted until dinner that night when something delicious presented itself on the dessert menu). Another day I woke up and did yoga on the beach instead of going for a swim, and I told myself I would keep this practice up for the rest of the week we were there (this didn’t last either). And slowly, as I made promise after promise to myself, I found that the promises were becoming less and less important and I was actually feeling more at peace with myself. I found that I was actually enjoying the simple, straightforward routine of doing nothing. The promises I was making were helping me to simplify, to clear my mind of the responsibilty I felt I had to suck every last bit of juice out of my travels (which is an exhausting responsibility to put on yourself). I spent less time lamenting the lack of authenticity of the place I was in, and more time appreciating it for what it was and appreciating that I could let my mind be in whatever state I wanted regardless. And I’ve since spent a lot of time re-thinking why I’m here in the first place. And I’ve since bought myself a ticket to Israel.

I leave for Tel-Aviv on Thursday.

Last week, sitting on a beach in the afternoon, I had a moment of clarity where I realized that at this particular point in my life I’m looking to do some growing of a particular kind (though I can’t really put a name to it). In that moment on the beach I admitted to myself that India is just not feeding my soul the way I had hoped. I don’t mean to say that I haven’t been learning, growing, exploring, experiencing, questioning, forming beautiful relationships, and becoming more in touch with myself the entire time I’ve been here – because I have been doing all of those things. More importantly, they have been happening to me. More accurately I might say that my travels in this strange and altering place have been just what I needed to find clarity and a bit of direction, and perhaps have fittingly given me a sense of personal strength that I know I will need to re-enter the intensity of Israel (last time I visited the Holy Land, she and I parted on not such great terms, and I’m keen to have another go…). India has been brilliant but, after two and a half months of internally exploring my Jewish self against a backdrop of Hinduism and Indian pop-culture, I’ve decided to listen to that nudge I’ve been feeling and take a leap across the Arabian Sea.

At the moment I am in Bangalore, with Eliot and Gudiya and their beautiful daughter. I’ll spend the next few days here relaxing with family and trying to process my last few months in India, and then I’ll be on a plane to Tel-Aviv to spend the next and last weeks of my trip in Israel visiting with dear friends and doing a little learning and soul-searching.

I can’t wait

Ad machar u-be’ahavah,
(Until tomorrow and with love)
Hava