Dirty flip flops

I stepped in shit yesterday. While wearing flip flops. It could have been from a cow, a pig, perhaps a donkey or a horse, maybe even a camel – all animals that wander the streets of Jaipur. I did that awkward drag-your-foot-across-the-ground shuffle until most of it was off, except for that bit on my toe. Eww. A trio of women laughed at me, which I can’t be upset about because I would have done the same thing. Had this happened to me back home (although it would have assuredly been dog excrement – not too many camels roam Brooklyn), I would have let loose a litany of f-bombs. Mothers from a two-mile radius would have had to cover their children’s ears. Here I just shrugged. With animals an integral part of urban life in Jaipur, it happens. Why let a little poo ruin a perfectly good day?

Jaipur has been great. With over 4 million people living here, a small city it is not; yet, it’s calmer, friendlier, a touch slower. The chaos is still here, of course, but it’s toned down, like Delhi on a tired Sunday afternoon. Maybe it’s the overwhelming summer heat – a climatic repression I have never experienced before, not even in Arizona. This, too, you just sort of accept. So the crotch of my pants is wet with sweat. So I have tan lines which are bound for ridicule when I come home. Big deal. There are men on bike rickshaws who survive with a smile on their glistening faces, so I can handle some sweaty underwear.

After a bus ride from Fatehpur Sikri (an adventure in and of itself), I got here Friday afternoon. I happened to see an ad for a new Bollywood movie, Milenge Milenge, opening that evening, and as coincidence would have it, Jaipur has the largest Bollywood cinema in all of India. Duh. Of course I wanted to go.

I had an hour to kill after buying my ticket. A sign for ice cream lured me across the street, and within moments I was alternating between sipping a chocolate shake (traditional Indian snack, right?) and holding the cup against my forehead. Damn, it was hot. My pants were spotted with sweat. I pretty much forgot about that, though, as the two young men next to me struck up a conversation.

“How do you find India?” Shocking he didn’t think I was from here.

“It’s amazing, actually. I’m really enjoying it.”

“Where do you come from?” Only the one next to me was talking. He was muscular with curly hair, fair-skinned. He didn’t appear to be from India, but I couldn’t place his accent. His friend, a bit scrawnier, longer-haired, didn’t say anything. I presumed it was a question of language.

“The US. I live in New York. What about you?”

There was a pause. The curly-haired one tilted his head to the side a bit, a small smile appearing. It wasn’t an expression of joy or humor, rather one of hesitation, the result of pairing a grin with somewhat saddened eyes. “We’re from Afghanistan.”

There was a silent second after his response that screamed with the current tensions between the two countries. How do I respond? Do I say, “Hi. I’m from the US and we have a huge military presence in your country. What do you think about that? Sorry about all those dead civilians, by the way.” Of course not. The second of silence seemed to have already said that.
I said the only thing that came to mind. “Hi, I’m Joe. It’s so nice to meet you.” I extended my hand. He took it, smiling.

“I’m Haji Mohammad and this is Abdul Mosaver.” They were absolutely lovely and we talked for an hour. Haji and Abdul were working for their families who exported lapis lazuli from Afghanistan to Jaipur. Apart from explaining to me the details of that endeavor, we talked about Islam. It’s shocking how little I know about one of the world’s major religions, so they were happy to fill me in. Our chat floated to linguistic differences, and before I knew it I was practicing how to write both Joseph and Yusuf in Arabic. I had the precision of a mule. My attempts looked like ink regurgitations next to Haji’s beautiful script. After exchanging email addresses, we bid adieu.

I ran across the street to the Raj Mandir, the famed movie palace. As I breezed into the lobby, I stopped. It looked like a giant art deco birthday cake at a Barbie-themed party. The pink mirrored walls seemed to belong in Sydney’s bedroom, not a Bollywood movie house. The theater itself was a swath of buttercream frosting dotted with red exit signs instead of edible silver balls. Its grandeur wasn’t lost on the rest of the patrons as the dimness was punctuated with flashes from their cameras. Sadly, I’d left mine at the hotel.

Oh – and the movie? A pretty bad story, from what I understood, but those choreographed numbers that unabashedly used a massive fan for flowing hair and unbuttoned shirts more than made up for it.

The two days since then have been filled with all sorts of Rajhastani fun, from the marble elephants of the City Palace to the real ones outside the Amber Fort. There was a delightful chat with the caretaker of a Hindu temple who showed me countless photos of his guru. There was the unbelievably bizarre trip to Chokhi Dahni, a dining destination cum theme park that is the love child of Disney, Renaissance Fairs, and the entire Indian state of Rajhastan. There was the visit to Jantar Mantar, a series of sculptural tools built in the 1700s to track celestial movements and time. It’s amazing how beautiful manifestations of numbers and astronomy can be. Math teachers: Jantar Mantar is your dream field trip.

As I think about my trip to Galta tomorrow, better known as the Monkey Palace because of its number one inhabitant, I keep returning to the prevalence of animal life here. I just read a short piece of nonfiction called “Moby Duck” where the author posits that animals, once central to our existence and an inherent part of our everyday lives, have been marginalized. We animate them, turn them funny colors (Pluto? A yellow dog?), and transform them into non-biodegradable plastic toys. Is that the case here, though? Cows roam freely, some donning celebratory ribbons and fabrics. Elephants are honored in a yearly festival. Camels walk next to buses. Maybe this is just the modernized version of Noah’s ark. No matter the genus, two by two we walk along. Some of us just end up with a dirty flip flop.