Snot and Stories

I have a snot flinger for a host grandma.  We sit on the balcony together while I read and she flings visible amounts of mucus off of the second story of our complex with one swift motion with the back of her hand.  The leftovers she wipes underneath the chair without shame.  She is an eighty something year traditional Tibetan woman with unusually large pupils, long wire-like hair, and has facial features oriented not unlike a Picasso portrait.  I speak no Tibetan.  She speaks no English.  The barrier is so blatant it feels physical sometimes, reminding me that India, like all of us really, seem to be both defined and divided by religion and language.  

Our language setback does not discourage her from trying to communicate in some way or another.  The first week I was here she came walking into my room with a pair of woolen mittens.  She tossed them on the chair, looked up and appeared in shock that I was actually in the room, and backed out.  That was all.  The next week my host sister removed the mysterious mittens from my room.  

The next morning she stuck a bracelet on my arm, her wrinkly hands shaking as she tried to tie it securely on my wrist.  I did not know what to say.  I didn’t even know if it was actually for me or not.  I tried to show my appreciation with an awkward side hug, and that was probably the beginning of our relationship, because later that afternoon she felt free to tell me to move to a seat farther away from her because she was expecting a family friend within the hour.  

This woman walked across the Himalayas to escape Tibet, but now she cannot walk down the congested street without waving her cane at oncoming traffic in a futile effort to get them to stop.  I want to talk to her, but no one translates.  She is a walking coffin of untold stories.  Probably a bit senile too, but there is still something about her that makes me want to sit near her and soak in her narrative.

For now, we are just balcony friends.  Me with my books and half formed thoughts.  Her with her snot and silent stories. 

Virginia

Aurm and Palm Reading

I met a gem of an informant last week.  He fits nowhere in the skeleton plan I had for my travel essays, but somehow gets his own category as an “unforeseen character.”  His name is Aurm, and he is a local shopkeeper from Nepal who sells traditional flutes to tourists.  Don’t tell him that though.  He hates being labeled as a “tourist hassle.”  

In fact, Aurm hates most things.  The ever rising pollution and symphony of horns from constant traffic, people who don’t care to hear his music that he actually writes and cares about, McLeod Ganj and his situation in life in general, the visa process, his ex wife, the litter in abundance, and particularly books and movies, which he sees as necessary for stupid people who need to have “a way to dumb down reality.”  From there he will motion to the street, “See this?  You have all the drama you’ll ever need right here.”  

There is something savory about his bitterness—a man better than his circumstances who is keenly aware of it.  Aurm seems nothing short of brilliant.  He speaks ten languages, writes music inspired by peoples voices, carves his own flutes, has great one liners, and enjoys reading palms in his spare time.

This is what mine says.  Apparently.

The first thing he noted was a freckle on my right palm.  “You will inherit a fortune,” he says.  I laughed.  I’d love to know where that is coming from, because I don’t foresee it.

“You are like water.”

“Like what?”

“Water.  Your feelings are like water.  Always on the move.  Restless and sneaky, going from one place and relationship to the next whenever it gets difficult.”

“Hmm… okay.  Go on.”