At 7:30AM yesterday, I got an invite from Steffanie to join her for breakfast before we set out on yet another sightseeing adventure with our fearless captain Mohan, and new recruit Shannon. Wanting to capture every sweet second of sleep possible, I declined the invite and rolled over in my bed, contemplating the possibility of falling back into sleep and foregoing the trip entirely, but 30 minutes later, I was awake, showered, fed, and ready to start my first journey outside of Bangalore, and discover the mysteries of Karnataka.
The roads were congested, as expected, but we slowly squeezed our way out of the concrete cask, and made our first stop in Udaipur (I think), a small highway-side village that offers a variety of hand-carved tchotchkes. We picked up a few things, like a spiky massage ball and a hear/see/speak no evil ornament (of which an alternate version existed that included a fourth monkey holding his groin in an obvious attempt to further abstain from evil), as well as some ice cream bars from a small shop further down the highway, and continued on our way.
The air outside the city was refreshingly clean, breathable. Cows, goats, sheep, and donkeys were out in full force. So far, it was an appreciated change of overwhelming pace of the city.
I talked with Mohan about motorcycles, and quickly settled on the idea of buying a Royal Enfield for my stay in Bangalore. I’ve previously struggled with the idea of getting a vehicle, mainly because I’d rather avoid drafting my will at the age of 24. Mother, if you’re reading this, fear not — this idea quickly dissipated by the end of the day.
We continued south, eventually ending up on dirt roads that took us through more small farming villages (potatoes and sugar cane, I believe, one of which was named “New York”), until we eventually lost our way and had to start asking for directions. I soon learned that map of India can just as easily be replaced with a crayon drawing from a five year old. We finally made it to the Shivanasamudra Falls, located in what I believe was a town or region called Shimshapura.
The falls were nice, but the real highlight was the group of monkeys that were rummaging around. It’s funny the way monkeys move similarly to humans. I can’t exactly remember, as I have difficultly sieving through childhood memories, but this could have been the first time I’d seen a monkey outside of a zoo. Whatever the truth, this was definitely the closest I had ever been to a monkey. Within arm’s reach.
One monkey in particular, with a hairdo all too similar to a human’s, climbed over the fence and sat before an Indian man on the stairs. The man held out a little bit of food (not sure what), and the monkey stood on its hind legs, grabbed the food, and went off into the shade to chow down, granting me a great opportunity to snap some portraits.
After admiring the falls for a moment, we climbed back up from the outlook area, and had coconut juice in the shade. There’s a coconut guy on the corner of Brunton and MG, but I never really wanted coconut juice, so I never stopped. But now, in the sweltering heat, dripping with sweat (as usual), it seemed like a nice way to cool down.
Unfortunately, I’m still finding my place in the world of photography, and am encumbered by timidity when it comes to taking shots of people, mainly because I don’t want to offend them (a fear which will later be excised and shortly after re-realized). I mention this because the physical prowess involved in carving a coconut with a sickle is something everyone should see. In between three fell swings, the coconut is spun around in order to set up the next slice, and done so with seemingly perfect precision. I wonder how many coconut vendors have lost a finger to their trade.
Once the juice was gone, the coconut guy chopped it open to make a little bowl, carved out the meat, and then fashioned a utensil from the shell. The meat’s texture reminded me of squid, being all gooey and amorphous, but it tasted quite delicious.
Yes, I am amazed and amused by the smallest things.
We hopped back in the car and traced our tracks backwards, eventually stopping at a small bar in one of then nearby villages. Now, when I say bar, I don’t mean bar in any sense you’d recognize. By bar, I mean a building on the side of the road with a Kingfisher sign on the ground beside it, and “BAR” written amongst other characters that I am incapable of reading.
Inside the bar was a small counter, two men, and a lamb. There was no sense fawning over the lamb because in two hours she would be in someone’s oven. There was a back room, but I didn’t bother taking a peek. A man came out of it at one point, slammed a few rupees on the counter, and disappeared. My curiosity was peaked, however I was slightly weary of what I might find.
We grabbed a few warm beers, snapped some photos, and continued our search for somewhere to stage a small picnic, which we ultimately found just off the side of the road, under the shade of small tree in the middle of an abandoned field.
The waiter at the Brunton Aster, Gururaj, I believe, packed us a lunch of cheese sandwiches, bananas (which were soiled by spilled ketchup), hara bhara kebabs, apples, and water. Everyone recounted horror stories of childhood discipline, and I found myself quite thankful for the way I was raised. For my misbehavior, I’d much prefer swift slaps across the face than bare-bottom spanking or a reed-whipping. Although, in today’s America, all three of those options sound like potential lawsuits, and familial catastrophes.
Our next destination was the Keshava Temple in Somnathpur, which was as equally difficult to find as our first destination. Mohan stopped every few minutes to ask someone for directions, and explained that even if someone doesn’t know where something is, they’ll still give you directions. The idea was that if you can ask five people, and find three or four that agree, you might be going in the right direction. Miraculously, I was able to map our route on my blackberry, but, just like a paper map, a digital map of India is slightly useless, as it only indicates the major roads. It was comforting to know that we were still in India, at the very least.
Once we finally settled on our route, the roads transformed from semi-paved tributaries to unkempt nightmares. I will never again complain of potholes in America, as I’m not fully aware of the alternate options.
We passed through a small village called Bannur, and eventually arrived at Somnathpur, and the Keshava Temple.
Like all temples, Keshava was intricately designed, with small dioramas of elephants, people, and other things that I don’t quite understand. I sometimes value the will and techné of craftsmen more than the purposiveness of their artwork, and in situations where I find myself before something so sublime, I wonder if the subjective universality of anything can truly exist, mostly because the intention of the craftsmen is intrinsic to the final product, and forcing disinterest sheds not only prejudice, but human nature. If art is anything, it’s human.
Total disinterest is the lazy man’s way of viewing art. I’m sorry Kant, but I think it’s about time we broke up.
I sat on the stairway inside the temple and watched an Indian family walk around. Their little girl, maybe the same age as Abi, was doing exactly what Abi would have been doing — running off on her own, skipping around, rolling across the concrete courtyard, and attempting to perform was looked like cartwheels. (At least there is some universality in childhood, no matter the culture.)
Her brother, maybe six or so, came and sat next to me, and every time I tried to take a picture, he sprung up to get in it. Like I said, I usually never take pictures of strangers (something which I would like to do), but he seemed to enjoy it, and his father didn’t mind, so I snapped a few, and showed him the finished product. He didn’t say much, but he certainly smiled.
After a few minutes, his sister, probably dizzy from rolling, made her way over to the stairs, and I took a few pictures of her as well. She was the most adorable child I’d ever seen, and outshone the centuries-old temple surrounding us. The few pictures I was able to get of her and her brother made the entire trip an absolute delight, even in light of what was soon to come.
It started to rain, so we skedaddled back to the car, being assaulted along the way by an ever-persistent Indian boy who continuously chirped, “Hello. Hello. Hello,” while holding his hand out for charity. While we didn’t give him any money, we did give him and his little brother (presumably) an apple, but even this wouldn’t satisfy them. Even as we drove away, we could hear, “Hello. Hello. Hello,” until it was drowned out by the tintinnabulation of the rain tinkling on the rooftop.
And so, our adventure was seemingly coming to an end. We were back on the dirt roads, making our way towards Bannur, when the consciousness of everyone in the car slipped away, each of us lost in our own doings, and the car itself drifted sideways, directly into an oncoming motorcyclist.
I still can’t remember exactly how it happened. The shot of adrenaline immediately afterward scattered the details, and they’re now too far behind and too vague to sort out properly. I was putting my camera away, or doing something that involved my looking at the floor, and just as lifted my head, I saw the headlights of the bike connect with the front corner of Mohan’s car with a sickening crunch.
We hit the brakes and turned around to find the biker sprawled out on the ground, cursing up a storm. We all got out of the car and rushed over to him to find that a piece of leg was literally missing. It was just gone, like someone had scooped it away as if he were a jello mold. Before it started bleeding, I’m pretty sure I saw his shin bone. I’m sure I did, actually, because I was forced to look away and grab my throat.
Within minutes, we were surrounded by locals. The man we hit, whose name I still don’t know, was unbelievably composed. Not a tear, a cringe, or a grimace. He was just sitting there, most likely in shock, but even by the end of the night, he remained a stone.
I gave up my bandana to tie his wound, and the locals soon told us to take him to the doctor in Bannur. The man avoided every bit of medical insight we shared, like lying down, elevating his foot, and not walking on his injured leg. After about fifteen minutes, we managed to get him into the car, and headed to Bannur.
It was Friday night, so the village was pretty busy. Getting to the hospital was a task of its own, because the roads were filled with people, bikes, farm animals.
Kanthraj Hospital was no more than an al fresco building with a few beds, a few nurses, and a pharmacy. There was no doubt in my mind that this place was unsanitary as a toilet bowl, but it was the only hospital available. The nurses swabbed his leg, and we were left to sit in a dingy waiting room, which was just the entrance vestibule between the outside and the inside. I was bitten by several mosquitoes, and realized I had forgotten to take my malaria medicine. I wanted to take pictures of all of this, but it was clearly inappropriate.
The doctor eventually showed, cleaned and dressed the wound, and suggested we take him to the hospital at Mysore, a larger city to the west, where he could be properly sutured by a surgeon. Obviously, we were going to do this.
It seemed like everyone in the town was gathered around, trying to figure out what was going on. If Bannur had a gossip column in its local newspaper, if it even had a local newspaper, this would have been plastered all over it. A car accident is probably pretty exciting news, but then you throw two white people into the mix? I could see the headline: “White People Run Over Local Rice Mechanic,” right above “Manesh’s Prize Cow Births Healthy Calf.”
Our total time spent in Bannur was about and hour and a half, and for about an hour and twenty eight minutes, I felt like I was in Deliverance.
We relocated our crash victim into the front seat of the car, and this is when things got a little crazy. Please note that Indian cars are by no means roomy. We’re not rolling around in some oversized SUV, or even a spacious sedan. We’re in an Indian car, which is equitable to the size of Smart Car.
Steff, Shannon, and I were crammed into the back, with Mohan and Biker Man (I still don’t know his name), in the front. Biker Guy didn’t want to drive to Mysore alone, because it’s about 45 minutes away. He was a little frightened to be left alone with four strangers, as he probably thought we would try to skirt our responsibilities and abandon him roadside, or toss his body in a ditch somewhere and go on with our lives. He must have seen a lot of American gangster movies.
So, in order to rectify this, he invites his friend into the car. Not only into the car, but into his lap. Yes, that’s right. Another full grown man piles into the car, and sits on the lap of a man with a gash in his leg the size of a banana. Like it’s nothing.
This lasts about five minutes. The second guy gets out, and we start heading to Mysore, but before we can leave Bannur, Leggy starts making calls on his cell phone, trying to find someone else to join us. Within a few minutes, he finds another laptop companion, and we finally set out on our way to Mysore.
It’s a bumpy ride. There are no street lights. With every oncoming car, I close my eyes and mutter a silent prayer. Miraculously, we make it, unscathed.
The Cauvery Hospital is dressed up for the upcoming holidays (I only have three days of work next week), and actually looks like a legitimate medical facility. This was somewhat comforting, as it was more likely Lieutenant Dan would get the treatment he needed, and be able to hang onto that leg of his well into the twilight of his life.
We take Tiny Tim inside, and get him to see a doctor. Mohan is going in and out of the triage like the nervous father-to-be, although he’s not nervous, but like Leggy, completely contained and calm, which is something I find absolutely astounding. Had I hit someone, or had been hit, composure would have been thrown to the wind, and I would react to everything by primordial instinct, with a complete lack of modern conscience.
The next four or five hours trickled by slowly. Hunger and delirium were setting in. Much like I feel after a 12+ hour day at work, my inhibitions were faltering, and I found myself more prone to doing things I wouldn’t usually do, so I struck up a conversation with Mary, the nurse superintendent.
We talked about her American friend Tony who visits her family in India, compared the Indian and American school systems in respect to holiday schedules, my family, her family, work, Mysore, the onset of the festivals, and a whole bunch of other topics I can’t quite remember. She was very nice, and I was happy to have a chat with a local.
At some point, two other Bannur locals showed up, one being the brother-in-law of Legs, and the other, an above-average-sized Indian in a yellow shirt who was easily identified as the muscle, who came along just to make sure things went smoothly.
And by that, I mean, to make sure that we were fleeced for every penny, with as little resistance as possible. Unfortunately for him, he was still a few inches shorter than me, and probably thirty pounds lighter, so maybe he should have stayed at home.
As it ends up, the locals weren’t the only ones trying to fleece. The hospital was trying to get Rs. 10000 in order to put Evel Knievel up for a few days, but that ended up going south as well.
In the end, there was only an exchange of money between Mohan and the Bannur henchmen, who subsequently signed a waiver saying that the accident was not a hit and run, in order to nullify any future potential lawsuits. I won’t say how much money was exchanged, but I will say that from an American perspective, hopefully with as little haughtiness as possible, it was a very small amount.
In America, an accident like this would have turned into a lawsuit between Mohan and Ghost Rider, then between Mohan and his insurance company, and then three countersuits just to make everyone’s lives extra miserable. The settlement would have been in five or six figures, depending on the parties involved. It would have gone on for weeks, or months. Subsequent lawsuits would be filed years later for residual pains from the accident. Someone would be paying medical bills for decades.
In India, the accident was wrapped up in 10 hours — said and done, clean hands and clean conscience. An exchange of cash, and everyone was on their way.
By this time, everyone was starving, so we stopped and got gas, and beer, and found a restaurant called Poojar’s Fish Land, which served us some delicious neer dosa, curries, and rice. Recharged, we continued toward Banaglore, some 130 kilometers northeast. It was about midnight by the time we finished eating.
The ride back was surprisingly energetic and cheerful, which is what we all needed. We bleated 80’s power ballads for a few hours, stopped at a coffee shop where I was able to chat up a few more locals and learn some of the rules of cricket, and finally crept our way into a sleeping Bangalore at 3AM.
I was exhausted. Everyone was exhausted. Even the concierge at the Brunton Aster was asleep in his chair.
Last night, I slept like a baby.
