January 2024: Wolf Moon

Stranger in a Strange Land (January 25, 2024)

written by Mark

For months before leaving, all anyone could tell us was you’re going to get sick. Don’t drink the water. Don’t eat the fruit. Don’t eat the vegetables. Don’t drink juice. Don’t drink drinks with ice in them. Don’t eat street food. You know what, maybe just don’t eat. We were told by a medical doctor the shortest possible intervals between maximum pepto bismol dosages before we would presumably OD on the pink stuff. With the best possible intentions, we were told, time and time again, that our bodies would not be able to handle India. It is a funny line of advice - simultaneously the simplest someone can give, as well as among the most fundamental. Eating seems to be 95% of the reason why anyone travels these days, and we were told quite bluntly not to do it. Eating is also what we become, what we require to stay alive, and the cultural barometer through which many modern travelers experience a place. We were told that in India, we literally wouldn’t be able to stomach it. I’ve thought about that a lot during our month traveling through this country, if this omnipresent warning of tummy danger is actually something more fundamental to journeying through strange lands. When you don’t look like the people, don’t talk like the people, and have little formal education on the history of the people, maybe all you can say is you’re going to get sick. You won’t be able to digest it.

For a lot of our time in India, it felt like it was all true. It wasn’t tummy problems, though. We went from a six week road trip backpacking through the southwest US, to three weeks at a cabin in the woods, to Delhi. Delhi. We’d sure flung ourselves face first into this. There is a lot to say about India, more than I could possibly write in this post, but one thing is certain - it feels immediately, intensely different. There are very obvious differences - the roads are positively bonkers and you’ll see a truck and a car and a tuk tuk and a motorbike and a bicycle and a cow and a pedestrian and a dog moving along like frogger within a single lane of horn-filled traffic. There are throngs and throngs of people, and even the seemingly remote places feel densely packed. There are smoldering fires everywhere. There is a lot of trash. Before your brain can adjust to India, your senses are overwhelmed by the intake.

There are smaller differences, too. The things you have to look for a bit, once your brain acclimates. The ubiquitous Indian head wiggle is one that stumped us from the very beginning - it could mean OK with fervor, or it could mean OK with disdain or it could mean OK whatever I’m very easygoing and chill or it could mean OK I’m SO happy to see you. We never quite figured it out, though we did secretly practice it in the mirror alone with each other.

You feel like a stranger, and the feeling is intensified because you are also so completely treated as one. You wear strangeness on your skin in India. We had people, so so many people, stop to ask us where we’re from. Ask if they could take a picture with us. 15 million photos now exist of Abigail and/or me posing awkwardly next to a group of 17 year old Indian boys.

All these differences made the advice we’d heard for months feel real. Maybe our stomachs were doing alright, but we would never understand what India is and who its people are. It wasn’t digesting. We were forever strangers in a strange land.

I thought a lot over the course of the month about what it means to travel to a place, to be in it but outside of it at the same time. What did canceling our visit to the Taj Mahal and missing out on the I did India photo mean? How, in a country so big and vast and varied, should we know where to go? One night, we met and dined with Rafael and Giovanni, two Italians we’d met on the beaches of the southern Indian state of Kerala. Two old vagabonds, Rafael travels five months every year and Giovanni now lives at an Ashram just south of where we were. Over dinner at their guesthouse, in a desparate attempt to gain clarity on my nagging travel existentialism, I asked them what it means to not just travel, but travel well. There must be a difference between snapping the all too famous I went to India photo, and actually, well, Going to India. After a bit of back and forth and Italian hand gesturing (not, come to think of it, that dissimilar and intricate as Indian head wiggling), their answer — Travel is to return to your youth. Return to seeing things with youthful eyes. Return to making friends after simply asking the question Where are you from. Return to the discomfort of not always being in control, of not always being part of the conversation. Of not always stomaching it. Maybe being a stranger in a strange land is the whole point - you’ll never understand it all, but isn’t there beauty in that? As adults, we think we have such a firm grasp on it all. Comprehension becomes culture, our very sense of identity. Along the way - somewhere north of helpless childhood cries and down the street from regular adult monotony, our sense of intaking the world becomes habit. Who we are, where we’re from, the normal going ons of our day - it engulfs our consciousness to become the One and Only Real Thing. Travel shatters that. It makes you a kid again. It forces you back to the drawing board of the basic set of circumstances that life is built upon. Ask yourself, what did that man mean with the head wiggle just there? How the hell is my tuk tuk driver chirping away on his cell phone while coming within 6 inches of a mule-led rickshaw? Is that another pair of boys asking Abby for a selfie with them? Why are all these orange flags waving on every street corner of Mumbai? Travel is to question your big and small assumptions in innumerable ways and come out - sometimes blissfully, sometimes frustratingly - without a single intelligible answer.

Travel, much like youth, is often not as romantic as it seems. You’ll be told no. You’ll be told don’t. You’ll ask questions with answers that people don’t want to or know how to tell you. And you’ll get sick. But even an attempt to understand is not an attempt in vain. It is, much like youth, a process necessary to growing up.

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Golgappa Moments (January 25, 2024)

written by Abby

In every city we visited we saw men with their street carts selling one particular street food. It has different names and variations in each region, but it was easy for me to spot the street carts everywhere for two reasons- the crowds of people surrounding the carts and the large bag/basket/net of puffs waiting to be filled. 

The food is called panipuri, or golgappa, or puchka, and it goes by other names as well. It is a deep-fried sphere that gets filled with potatoes, onions, or chickpeas, spiced with tamarind chutney, chili powder, or mint chutney. On the street, it is commonly dipped into a tangy liquid like lemon or tomato water, sometimes mint. There are sweet varieties that use fruit juices or spicy ones with jalapeño or green chili water (Shout out to Dan and Chris who told us all about it before we arrived).

However, it was hard for us to try the delectable street food as it was impossible to know if the water being used was filtered or not. When I asked a few of the sellers, the language barrier struck down, making it hard for me to know if the special snack would ruin my stomach, and I didn’t want to risk it. But we did get to try it twice. Once at a restaurant the waiter waggled his head excitedly as he showed Mark how to break the sphere by sticking your finger into the puff then filling it with chickpeas, onions, and chutney, finally pouring in lime-mint water. It’s such a special combination of sweet, salty, sour, and spice, and it bursts in your mouth! The second time, we ordered it at a cafe in the mall. It came pre-filled, with so many chutneys and sauces, crispy noodle things on the top and pomegranate seeds. I had a hard time stuffing each puff into my mouth in one bite, making a huge mess each time. The family seated next to me smiled and laughed along with me.

As Mark and I explored each city in our favorite mode of transportation - walking - we saw so many types of people stopping at all times of day to eat a few puffs. When walking you have that luxury to stop and observe. Women, couples, children, groups of friends stopping in front of a cart, waiting for the filled puff to be handed to them over a small paper plate, then quickly gulping it in one bite as it arrived. You would see them hand back the plate asking for another, only paying once they were satisfied before continuing on their way. 

I loved that it wasn’t just men stopping for a bite. In the cities we explored, especially in the north - Delhi, Jaipur, Chandigarh - it was so common to see groups of men walking around together- young teenagers or middle-aged men, with a hand around each other’s shoulders, chatting away. We saw few women out walking in comparison, but I started to notice that at the golgappa stalls, it was common to see girlfriends or schoolgirls together. Laughing and chatting and smiling as they held onto their paper plates waiting for another puff. Taking a moment in the busy street to stop and have a tangy, refreshing snack that seemed nostalgic or comforting. That small moment of joy.

In cities that were jam-packed with people, with buses and motorbikes and cars and tuk tuks, with chickens and cows and dogs, with honking and yelling, with century-old temples and mosques and shrines, with so many people coming and going, it took Mark and I some time to take in the small moments and notice the small pleasures in life happening all around us. The golgappa moments. 

Even though we often couldn’t join in on the golgappas themselves, we had our own golgappa moments. I started writing them down in my journal, and the list quickly grew long. 

The woman in the train station who came back to tell me our train was assigned to a new track after I had asked her for help 20 minutes earlier, waggling her head back at me as I smiled and thanked her with my own head waggle; The kids flying kites on the hillsides in Jaipur as the sun sets; The ice cream sandwiches we ordered in a throng of people on a warm Colaba evening, waving money and yelling out 'chococherry' loudly so the man behind the freezer chest could hear; The woman I met while walking into an arts festival in Colaba, who lives in Mountain View and was flying back that evening; Trying all kinds of breads (roti, chapati, puri, paratha, naan, appam, dosa, papadum) each one better than the last to sop up delicious curries and chutneys; Meeting people from all over the world who were having their own small moments in this rich country; The monkeys in Deer Park in Delhi; The Ganesha shrine I saw lit up in the dark night as we crossed the south coast via train, speeding quickly through the fields; The big fluffy dog named Sultan who lived at our homestay in the mountains; Seeing the bright murals in Delhi’s Lodhi district as children kick a soccer ball down the sidewalk; Chopping onions and chilis with our host Sajan at our homestay in Kerala as he showed me how to make his biryani recipe; Successfully haggling with a seller to lower the price of linen pants I desperately needed in the heat of Mumbai; Meeting up with a friend of a friend who led us to his favorite local spot for butter chicken, quickly jumping up the stairs through a labyrinth of different rooms to find his favorite quiet booth in the back; Sitting in a very old synagogue in Kochi watching so many tourists walk on the hand painted tiles barefoot; Zooming in a tuk tuk around a cow to get into the old city of Jaipur; Watching a food stall seller toast chickpea flour in a big wok to make samosa chaat.

We have a few more days at the beach before we fly out to a whole new country to explore, Spain. I am still processing all that we experienced here in India, and will probably do so for a long time. As we watch the full moon rise from Marari Beach in Kerala, I can’t help but wonder if my golgappa moments will stay with me this whole year. I hope they do, and that I can keep journaling about them. They just might transform into tapas moments for February.

Highlights for this full moon:

• We visited seven different cities in India, ranging from the Himalayan mountains in the north to the beaches in Kerala in the south (see the map for locations and photos! password = Mabby)

• We swam in the Arabian Sea for the first time! Soaking up the sun on black sand beaches. 

• We drank fresh coconuts in almost every city, the best one from a woman named Krita on Marari Beach (pictured above with Abby and her daughter)

• We met up with Abby's friend Ash from college, and our friend Ben's friend Mansher for a wonderful night out in Mumbai that included delicious butter chicken and walking out on a secret jetty to see the city in lights and our moon shadows

• The best thing that Abby ate was red snapper in a banana leaf with delicious curry, samosa chaat on the streets of Jaipur, and deliciously thin dosas with coconut chutney.

• The best thing that Mark ate was the buffet lunch at Gulati in Delhi- the butter chicken, the paneer tikka masala, and 10 other dishes that we will never know the names of but will dream about for awhile. Oh and the fresh coconuts :)

• Abby read all of Shantaram! Very fun to read a book that is set in Mumbai while you're in Mumbai :)

• Mark read a plethora of books too :)

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