Devendra Banhart - Pumpkin Seeds

Oh
There's a lot of love
But not the kind I need
Have you ever made soup-out-of pumpkin seeds
There's a lot of skin and flesh i never should have seen
There's too many half-ways-in-betweens

There's a lot of stays
I think i wish i'd done
There's a lot of leaves my true love gave to me

There's a lot of stays
I think i wish i'd done
There's a lot of leaves my true love gave to me

There's a lot of birds
That people like to draw
There's a lot of sees
I wish i never saw.

There's a lot of birds
That people like to draw
There's a lot of sees
I wish i never saw.

If in the men's room of our favorite restaurant
while blissfully pissing riserva spumante
I punch the wall because I am so old,
I promise not to punch too carelessly.

Our friend Franco cooks all night and day
to transform blood and bones to osso buco.
He shouldn't have to clean them off his wall
or worry that a customer gone cuckoo

has mashed his knuckles like a slugger
whose steroid dosage needs a little tweaking.
My life with you has been beyond beyond
and there's nothing beyond it I'm seeking.

I just don't want to leave it, and I am
with every silken bite of tiramisu.
I wouldn't mind being dead
if I could still be with you.

"WHY INDIA"

by Brad Choyt, India Semester Director


What is so fascinating about India that you must visit it nine times?" the bank clerk asked. A delicate woman in her 40’s, she sat dwarfed by her large wooden desk covered with forms in triplicate, neatly piled scraps of carbon paper, pink, yellow and white receipts under a glass paper weight and large registers displaying columns filled with beautifully written numbers. It had been the morning’s achievement to find this desk at the State Bank of India in a crowded market neighborhood in Mumbai. This was the third bank in which I’d tried to change money. It was only after someone led me through a half-closed metal door, up dusty wooden stairs worn into waves from years of contact with sandals or bare feet, and into a crowded room that looked like a factory space which had been converted into an accounting office, that I told money changing was, in fact, possible. As I had come to expect, I was pointed toward one desk, then another, a third, and finally, to this thin women in a pink sari and black sandals. The usual panoply of forms that followed required my name, date of birth, nationality, passport number, visa number, validity of visa, date of entry, duration of stay, home address, previous destination, hotel name, next destination, and lastly, the number of visits I had made to India. But her next question, "why?" had caught me by surprise. She looked at me through her glasses. It was obvious this question was not on her form. She just wanted to know. Without thinking, I gave her my standard answer: "The people are wonderful," I said. She fingered through my passport, obviously not convinced, and slid it back to me on the desk. "And there is so much to see," I added.


She toyed with her calculator, still nestled in its Styrofoam packaging. As if the next question had magically formed from the digits on her screen, she asked, "Are there not also things to see in other countries?" Again, she waited for a satisfactory response. But I was too eager to get my money and go. After all, it was my last day in India and there was still much I wanted to do and see. I gave her another short answer and brought the second copy of the form over to a man converting dollars to rupees on the far side of the room. There I was given a token and told

to wait in line by another window.


It wasn’t until after I had received my money and descended the old stairway that I could put into words what I had felt and had been feeling for most of my ninth trip to the country: India was so appealing, so attractive, so worth revisiting precisely because of its desks overflowing with forms, its curious clerks, its tricky pathways through banks, sprawling markets, and the floors of train stations studded with families sleeping on scraps of cardboard. Each of these places holds its own rhythms. Without realizing it, I had become drawn to the discovery of the secrets these rhythms suggest, looking for them everywhere I traveled. Missing them the moment I returned home.


India reveals itself slowly, in totally unpredictable ways. A chance turn on a street reveals a funeral procession, the corpse wrapped in a white cloth bouncing with the strides of six men. A walk through a fish market lets you experience the sights and smells of piles of yellow, blue or red-striped fish, sharks, eels and sting rays carried in straw baskets on the heads of hustling women before they are loaded into ice-packed trucks. Or a simple meal of rice, vegetables, and dal with a man and his family allows you to hear their story of how his father, an illiterate farmer, helped start the only school in the area twenty-five years ago so he and his younger brother could learn to read and write.


The country is constantly revealing itself, in whispers and screams, to the point where it is more than one can possibly absorb. The women at the bank also had her story, her reason for being behind that desk and her reason for asking "why.". I was caught by the moment’s outcome and not its process. I felt short on time, impatient, ready to do other things. And then the rhythm of that encounter was gone. Another transaction, another line in the book of columns.


Yes, India has its wonderful people and its fascinating sites. But what India offers travelers, if we’re receptive, is something much more subtle. It is the chaotic yet graceful movement of people and cows in the street or market, it is being passed a stranger’s baby to hold on the crowded bus, it is discussing politics or religion and philosophy with people at a tea stall before dawn. It is all these things and many more happening consecutively and at once. And if we can stay in the moment long enough to listen, see, smell and taste, then India lets us join in its rhythms so that we will want to come back time and again.

"It is necessary to point out that the astral bodies of animals and their nervous systems are quite well organized and therefore the capacity to feel pleasure or pain is fairly well developed. For this reason any injury inflicted on the physical body is felt acutely by the animal though it may not be able to express its feelings. Those who inflict pain on animals or cause it to be inflicted, either to obtain food or in the field of sport, should make a note of this. Suffering inflicted on others recoils inevitably on the wrong-doer, sooner or later, and the all-embracing law of Karma does not cease to function in the case of those who are ignorant or who try to find plausible excuses for their wrong doing. If people only knew what terrible suffering they are piling upon themselves by their callousness and cruelty inflicted upon animals they would be less inclined to dismiss these unpleasant subjects with a shrug of the shoulders and continue in their evil ways in an utterly irresponsible manner."

~Taimni

i have returned to the holy city. leaving the velvety green landscapes, decadent Himalayans, and visible (quickened) breath of Kausani, Uttaranchal, for intensely-hot-Varanasi. it's 40 degrees. sweat is profuse, unceasingly. but i knew what i was getting myself into, though i was under the (mistaken) notion that morning and night would be cool as per my westcoast bias, but it's a monotemperature. not to mention the power (aka fan!) conveniently goes out from 10am - 2pm and during the night...

i've never experienced heat like this in my life! yet i'm surprised that it isn't causing an equal aggrigation to sweat ratio. i am calm, and (almost) fearless (?).

i left last time with a bitter taste, last memories of fear mingled with panic and tears (night stalkers, one in particular who triggered a deep panic).

i am so glad to return, to see (with a fresh spirit) this place that is truly remarkable and unique, and which is deemed to be a second home of sorts ;).

it's amazing, how culture absorbs you, or you it. there is no need to try even, just time. i found myself yesterday, at 2 pm. in the heat of the afternoon, sitting on a cement block with some Indian men, having a chai. when i walk through the streets, my eyes periodically glancing down for feces-precaution, hopping over cow patties (or splatterings), dog dung, and monkey pellets every so feet; occasionally being blocked by a cow in the thin alleyway, or being smooshed in between a crowd of people, cow, rickshaw, garbage heap, etc. it's just a normal day, and i think nothing of it.

~

how strange it will be to return home! i'm arriving on the 15th, and cannot wait to have a long, long, long bath. a glass (or several) ;) of red wine. and fall asleep in clean, soft sheets. and to reconnect with incredible family/friends :)...

until then,
Thank-you from the depths of my heart for being interested in reading...
NAMASTE.