Now the word “Kumbha” means “pot” in Hindi. Not that you would want to
smoke pot here, although seemingly that’s what attracted scores of hippy
dippers from California to attend the event widely dubbed “Woodstock
East” by its proponents.

I saw these Californians arriving at my hotel in nearby Varanasi. They
were incredible, fresh off the bus, backpacks, tie dies and fresh,
uncreased Lonely Planet guides under their arms. I heard one girl say
“Wow, India is, like, really different!” and her friend said “I know,
it’s, like, so poor, but did you hear, Madonna is supposedly here….?”

To which I say, “kewl”.

Rumor had i that one of the girls from our hotel had taken off all her
clothes on the banks of the Ganges in a moment of uninhibited bliss,
covered herself in mud and raised her arms to the heavens in joy.
Moments later, she was dragged off by the stick weilding “morality”
police for a rough interrogation and banished from the festival.
Woodstock it isn’t.

Further, luxury tents set up by various tour companies for the Patagonia
set, and rented for $250 a night, were atacked by the mobs of mystics as
a violation of the sanctity of their festival, and a court order was
issued to have them removed. Ironically, it resulted in the eviction of
several hundred BBC and CNN reporters who had come to cover the
festival, but couldn’t bear to live in the mud and grime with millions
of pilgrims. As a “budget” journalist never able to afford a “luxury
tent” with flush toilets, I noted their eviction with a certain degree
of undisguised glee.

But the reality of the Kumbha Mehla must come as a shock to almost every
Westerner, including these nice innocent Granola munching 60′s holdouts
from Santa Cruz and Venice Beach. The festival is actually attended
mostly by sadhus – Hindu mystics, fakirs and holy men who come here to
participate in huge, superstitious rushes into the river at exact
moments when the planets align to benefit them. Some of these men, the
nagas, are an ascetic sect who walk to the festival and live completely
naked, carrying spears and devil-like pitchforks as they rush headlong
into the waters.

Many of the sadhus are complete fakes, others seemed to be possessed of
some sort of magic, albiet often very dark and off putting. I suppose
there must be some genuine spirituality around too, but rumor had it
that it was hard to find.

On the whole, the event resembled some kind of wacked out “messiah”
convention from Biblical times along the banks of the River Jordan, with
all the magic and bogusness that image can evoke.

For the Western journalist, the event can be exciting and scary. Some of
the nagas and mystics invite photography, such as the man who can eat
glass or who can wrap his penis entirely around a tree branch and tie it
off. Others react very violently and without warning to the presence of
a camera, tearing it off the person and smashing it to the ground
without warning.

Now add, 300 million rural Hindu pilgrims, and 30,000 foreigners to the
mix (but not Madonna – the spectacle was not thought to be secure enough
for her to attend after the eviction of the luxury tenters…) and you
have what I call the Kumbha Melee.

It was to attend the Kumba Mehla that I drove from the quiet, erotic
bliss of Khajaraho to a train station at Jhansi to take a night
passenger train to Allahabad.

I had bought this ticket as an insurance policy months earlier, and now
I needed it. Originally the plan had been to drive into Allahabad, which
was what my assistant and the Government of India Tourist Board handlers
were now doing – on the far-easier to manage Grand Trunk Road. But two
cancelled Indian Airlines flights later – and two days wasted in waiting
- and now my schedule had telescoped enough to make traveling into this
huge gathering by train my only alternative.

I dropped a friend off on the platform for the fast, shiny new Shatabdi
Express to Delhi, and silently wished I was on it. I watched the
attendants efficiently loadshiny tiffin trays of four course meals and
bottles of mineral water onto the Delhi express and knew intuitively
that the same would not be offered on my train.

In India, a “passenger train” is what you do not want. Notoriously
dirty, crowded and slow, passenger trains stop not only at every station
(sometimes for hours), but whenever someone pulls an emergency cord
conveniently located above each seat. Predominantly taken by rural
Indians, passenger trains are occupied by listless looking people
squeezed into every square inch of space, with expressions that speak
only of a Hindu style acceptance of boredom, discomfort and
contortionism.

The single redeeming factor of Indian passenger trains is that they have
“open” windows, which expresses and first class “air con” coaches do
not. On the rare occasions when the train actually reaches a speed worth
mentioning, these open windows provide enough air flow to keep the
passengers reasonably cooled during the hot monsoon months. In North
India’s surprisingly cold winters, the cars feature glass windows which
slide down to retain a bare minimum of warmth inside.

Food is served by vendors who gather from nowhere anytime the train
stops. The only safe food and drink is widely known to be the tea and
coffee provided in tiny earthenware disposable clay cups which can be
discarded along the tracks and home roasted peanuts in recycled plastic
bags. Anything else you may purchase trackside can be considered risky
at best and may well have you facing the only prospect worse than being
squeezed into the upright position in an Indian game of Twister, railway
style; you may be squatting over the disgusting one hole toilet at
either end of the train, just over the tracks.

But I had noted that my travel agent back in Delhi had booked me into a
“First Class” compartment on the “passenger train” from Jhansi to
Allahabad – something I considered a contradiction in terms.

My handlers from the local tourist board in Jhansi were two shady
looking characters who had no real interest in my well being and far
more interest in returning to their info stand to continue a card game I
had interrupted. Seeing with considerable shock that I had not boarded
the gleaming sleek express to Delhi and instead were waiting for the
delayed passenger train to Allahabad, their interest in me dimmed
considerably, and they took me to the first class railway waiting room,
and informed an illiterate looking woman there to “look after me”. She
took little or no interest in me, except to demand a tip from me when I
eventually left the area.

On my own, I surveyed the track where my train was about to arrive. It
was not a pretty site – the platform literally crowded to overflowing
with thousands of pilgrims – robed, threadbare, and sitting on piles of
what looked like their worldly possessions. To make matters worse, the
crowd was growing larger by the moment, and it was still three hours
before departure. The crowd was layered and thick up to the platform.
The pull of the Kumba Mehla was strong, even hundreds of miles away.

In the rat infested waiting room, the speakers produced an occassional
“ding dong ding”  followed by totally unintelligible announcements about
the trains arriving and departing. How anyone could hear it was beyond
me, but people seemed to obey mystical cues to rise and leave the room
with their bags whenever their train was called.

I resolved to try to make a friend who could tell me when to be alert
for departure. I chose a nice looking couple in the corner of the
waiting room, he an Indian Paul Dooley and she an elderly Indian Jackie
Onassis. I felt they might speak English based on the Nike tennis shoes
he was wearing – and my instinct proved correct.

Now, I have a rule about approaching people and being approached in
India. As a rule, 90% of the time you are approached by Indians, you
should be suspect. To many in India, or for that matter, in Asia, you
are nothing more than a symbol – an icon of impossible to achieve wealth
and sophistication – and for those who break their traditional Indian
reserve to approach you, the motivation is often to have access to that
wealth and prestige.

The only other reason an Indian will overcome his built-in shyness to
approach a stranger is out of sheer curiosity, and this happens often in
the rural, non touristed areas.

However, if you approach an Indian, chances are 90% that he/she can be
trusted. Indians are, as a rule, extremely helpful, and will go out of
their way to give directions, even if they don’t have the vaguest idea
where you are going.

As it turned out, my choice was a good one. Alok and his wife Shira were
the essence of kind and friendly, were booked on the same train as I
was, and promised to listen for any announcements and updates from the
station master and keep me informed of developments.

I returned to my seat, and got a derisive, scornful look from my
“keeper” (my moving about made her have to Œdo her job’ which consisted
of watching me for a tip and she clearly resented it and hated me), and
as I sat down, I noted that 2 rats had become bold enough to ascend to
the top of my bags for a better look at the first white devil ever to
inhabit their waiting room domain. I scattered them with my hand and
looked around at this disgusting, urine smelling station with newfound
loathing.

It seemed hours before my friends jumped up and told me to follow them
to the platform. I t felt good to be on the move, and as I passed my
warden, she put out her hand for a tip. I gave her one of her own
scornful and disgusted looks and felt perfectly grand about it. She got
nothing from me.

On the platform, my optimism quickly faded to deep consternation. The
station was now so crowded with pilgrims that it seemed impossible to
even get near the train. They were sitting everywhere, smoking bidi
cigarettes through their cupped hands, and waiting. They were surrounded
by day packs and other luggage which provided them a small barricade
against the milling crowds. Some had the courage to be asleep and to
dare the crowd to trample them to death. But when the train pulled in,
their demeanor changed instantly from passively waiting to complete
aggression. All hell broke loose.

As the cars passed, the train still in motion, it’s vomit stained
windows presenting view after view of crushed passengers, I made a
distinct and unpleasant realization. This train was not originating in
Jhansi, and to make matters worse, it was already totally full.

I had little time to contemplate this. My friends from Bombay were
already on the move. “Come, come” Alok said, and began to disappear into
a sea of people who were moving now in every different direction. “We
must be quick”.

I had little choice. The crowd was pushing and moving in two streams in
different directions, depending on where rumor would allow one more
square inch of humanity in the car. To my amazement, there was a first
class carriage, in the middle of the train. As the train stopped,
humanity tried to swarm onto it.

What was not immediately obvious is that some people wanted to get off
the train from the car, and they were thrown back by the crowd and
battered against the back of the car. Fortunately, a small and wiry
conducter with a stick whacked the first few trespassers and drove them
back with some loud and angry Hindu verbiage. The people moved back and
a few harried individuals departed the train in a flash.

Alok and I took this moment to fortify our position. Alok raised his
hand in the air in the sea of turbans to show me that somehow he had
made it to the front of the crowd. I pushed ahead with my shoulder bag
and camera equipment, and taking advantage of the momentary response
when a rural Indian sees a white man and freezes, I was able to scoot
through the tumult and get right up next to Alok.

“The moment you can, go in”, he said, and then he climbed up the car and
was in. The crowd surged. This was to be my only chance. Another tiny
man who could never have afforded a first class ticket was climbing
ahead of me, I pushed him to the side and took hold of the side rails of
the door to the carriage. But my two bags were still wedged in the
heaving, shouting, pushing crowd behind me! With what I can only
consider superhuman effort, I pulled the bags out from the masses and
got a foothold on the first step.

A man behind me grabbed me and tried to pull me back, as he tried
jockeying past me for position. Now here is where playing YMCA football
in grade school came back to serve me well. All indians are as small
bodied as field goalers, and I quickly and surgically removed him from
my back with a well placed elbow. He fell back into the masses with the
resignation of a victim of the Titanic.

I pulled myself up onto the car, but found it hard to do. Arms had
attached themselves around my legs and were trying to pull me back. I
did the only thing I knew how, I kicked whoever was grabbing me around
my legs with all the force I could muster. I looked back only to see it
was a very elderly lady, and immediately felt awful, but I was in and
kept moving forward.

Alok met his wife, who had somehow managed to get on at the other end of
the railway car, and they noted, to their delight, that they had been
randomly assigned a cabin for 2. I, however, was further down, in a
cabin for 4.

I had two tickets, one for myself and one for my assistant Elaine Furst,
who was not with me. So I took some happiness in knowing I would only
share my compartment with 2 other people. But upon entering the booth, I
found 9 people traveling on my ticket and 9 on Elaine Furst’s, plus two
more men. 20 people on 4 bunk beds. No one looked pleased to see me.

The imposters were a family, apparently from grandma down to tiny child,
all crushed into the space which was supposed to be my bed. I hoped for
a moment I was in the wrong place, but a quick check confimed that I was
where I was supposed to be and the family was not.

Seeing that I was the only foreigner on the train, the conductor quickly
asked the 18 people occupying my bed space for their tickets. They could
not produce them. A long conversation ensued in Hindi, during which time
I started to feel more and more guilty. It became clear that he
conductor would evict these people, who were now fixing me with lost and
hopeless looks to add salt to my sorrow. Who was I, after all, to deny
these people their holy bath? I was not going to do it, that was for
sure, and I was just taking up space on a train they clearly needed.

The conductor began to insist that they leave, and sheepishly, they
gathered their things and began to depart.

I found myself defending them against my will.

I asked one of the two men remaining if a small bribe wouldn’t help
their situation.

“This is India. Bribe always help, boss”, said one of the remaining men,
a stocky and well built man in his mid 50′s.  “But these people, they
are not willing to pay”.

I watched them shuffle out of the cabin. And I felt bad for them, for a
moment at least. The children were sullen, but the grandmother was near
to crying. I felt that maybe this ploy to get on board the train was the
last chance for her, and they could never be reseated anywhere else. My
pity was momentary, however, as I reflected that I did, in fact, pay for
this seat and did have a right to be there. (India destroys your ability
to feel long term pity – pitiful situations come at you too close
together for long periods of contemplation).

“He should know” said the other man, pointing to “the boss”, “He is my
uncle. Police chief of Gwalior.”

“Oh” I said, with a mixture of relief and apprehension, “nice to meet
you”. In India, knowing the police can be a blessing or a curse, as
India’s police are notorious for their corruption.

The police chief was not too conversational, and seemingly unfriendly. I
gave him the benefit of the doubt and passed it off as unfamiliarity
with English and police training.

The conductor scrutinized my two tickets, and ascertaining that there
was no Elaine Furst present, he disappeared.

“He is going to sell that other seat of yours”, said the more
conversational of my compatriots. “Watch how fast he sells it”

It was beyond me to object. After the guilt of evicting 18 people from
my cabin, I could hardly hold one more seat for someone who did not
exist. That would have been…welll, too American of me.

“He will probably get $200 for it”, I conjectured.

“At least”, said the cousin of the police chief.

So for a few moments, we waited. I imagined the raucious crowd outside
and who would emerge as the highest bidder.

“It’s illegal what he’s doing” said the police inspector, “If he brings
someone we don’t like, we can make troubles for him”.

I smiled. We all smiled. In that moment, we bonded, and not a moment too
soon. The conductor brought an Indian man to the door who we all
instantly disliked. He was slick, wearing a polo sweater, with a
decidedly leering air. The police chief rose and addressed the conductor
in a low tone. The only words I heard were “police” said several times.
The conductor disappeared again with the tennis star in tow. I felt we
were now interviewing for a privileged position in our first class air
con compartment. Going to the Kumba Mehla, and playing God in the
process, I rfeflected ruefully.

The next candidate was un-rejectable. An old frail woman, who hobbled
in, paid the conductor an enormous sum, filled in enough paperwork to
fill another Pullman, then smartly produced a neatly stack dabbah-wallah
tiffin filled with a 5 course dinner.

A word about tiffin – it is the Indian equivalent of Tupperware. Neatly
fitting stainless steel bowls, which stack into each other and fasten
with a handle for portability. A savvy traveler can easily produce a 5
or 6 course meal out of the stack, steaming hot, as our silent wonder
woman did, a meal which included chocolate cake for dessert!

Offering the food to all of us, and finding mute refusal from the
indians and wide eyed amazement and a decline from me as well, I came to
conclude that this woman was nothing less than a Saint. How this tiny
woman fought her way through unruly crowds, got past the guards on the
first class car, found our compartment, negotiated a first class ticket
and produced a first class dinner is one of those miracles of India
which I will never understand for the rest of my life.

I was to learn that not only did this train not serve food, the promised
pillows and blankets would not be offered either. “They have all been
stolen” said the guard without a hint of regret.

Everyone settled into their routine. The men, who introduced themselves
as Anil and Zushi, played cards and the woman ate with great precision
and dignity. I climbed up into my upper bunk, made a pillow out of a
couple of sweatshirts, and fell asleep.

Sometime later, I was jolted awake. It was night. The cabin was utterly
dark and the train was stopped. Outside, the sound of loud and angry
crowds immediately made me feel nervous. There was an incessant pounding
on the train, seeming to move over the top of us like a ghost, and I had
an immediate vision that I was not in a railway car, but in a submarine
which had just struck something on the surface.

Anil and the police chief had pulled steel shutters over the windows,
and the cabin was completely dark. Suddenly the pounding crossed above
us again, and I realized that people were running across the top of the
train. It was very cold, both inside and outside, and I doubted they
could survive riding on top for long. Outside, what sounded like
thousands of people in an angry crowd were shouting and yelling.

Then people began to pound on the doors of the carriage. The pounding
was incessant and angry. Finding no answer, they began to go the length
of our car, pounding the steel shutters.

I sat up. Anil, in the upper bunk, across from me, spoke.

“They want to get into our car, but the conductor has locked it”

“Why?”, i asked. “Why our car?”

“First class boss. All the other cars are completely filled. There is no
chance for them. They see a first class car, and they know there is
room.”

As he said it something hit the train and shattered. Bottles. Then
another, then sharp reports of rocks hitting en mass. Inside, in our tin
can, the sound was magnified many times over. It was like being inside a
metal speaker, with me and the men the woofers and our old lady friend
the tweeter. Suddenly I felt in danger, and vulnerable. The pounding
continued.

“Is this dangerous? Are we safe?” I asked.

“In India, the most dangerous thing is mob psychology, boss. Indians do
not take initiative, they are very good as individuals, very bad as a
crowd. These are simple, country people. Ok, one on one. In big group,
very dangerous. ”

I gulped. Anil continued. “I think they only want to get in. If they can
get in, I do not think they will make trouble”

“We might be crushed”, I speculated, remembering my experience boarding.

“Yes” said Anil, laughing. “We might. Anyway, we won’t have much sleep
tonight. That is for sure.”

The crowd outside had grown more incessant. They began pounding on every
square inch of the train. And all together, they began to rock the car.
Inside, we rolled like a cocktail shaker.

“Why doesn’t the engineer just leave the station and get away from
this?” I asked.

“He cannot. He is blasting the whistle for help. Can you hear it?”

I listened. Indeed the horn was honking 3 times in succession over and
over.

“Beep. Beep. Beep. It is the signal for help. Either someone has pulled
the emergency cord, or perhaps the crowd has taken over the engine…”

“WHAT? You’re kidding!” I said. “Could they drive the train?”

“No. But they can attack it and make enough trouble. Listen, I will tell
you what they are saying”

The reporter in me fumbled through the dark for some paper and a pen.
Meanwhile the banging seemed to come from all sides and the train rocked
like a major earthquake.

“Outside they are saying that it is not fair that we rich people have
all the space when they need it. They are saying to open the doors or
there will be trouble.”

At this very moment, the tiny, wiry train conductor came into our cabin
and said something in Hindi, and disappeared. Outside he yelled at the
crowd in a voice far larger than his frame. This only seemed to incite
people, and the activity became more animated.

“Oh this is bad boss. The crowd is threatening to cut the air hoses of
the train unless the first class is opened.”

Meanwhile the banging had increased. More people ran across the top of
the train, right over my head, and began smashing the top with something
heavy. It was deafening, and very very frightening.

Meanwhile, the police chief remained silent on his bed. I could not see
the old woman directly in the bed beneath me. I somehow felt that seeing
her scared would not help my own condition.

I attacked the situation with humor. I looked down at Zuschi and said,
facetiously, “So, do you have a gun?”

He looked squarely at me with an icy expression. “No need gun. India no
need guns”.

For at least 30 minutes, the animated activity took place outside the
train. People continued to bang angrily at the steel shuttered doors,
and directly on our closed metal window. The banging was virtually
incessant, the people were angry.

After awhile we heard the crowd noise stiffen, and the sound change from
the pounding of fists on the side of the train to the gunshot report of
rocks hitting the side of the carriage repeatedly. This went on for some
time, then sound of rioting began. Soon we were being pelted with
anything people could find. Clearly, given the shattering of small glass
objects, it was mostly bottles and rocks. I felt like I was inside a
steamer trunk left on a dock during a hailstorm.

Then the sound of police whistles, and the attack abated for the moment.
The conductor came into our cabin and he and the policemen exchanged
nervous words. For some reason, the conductor seemed to wince in pain.

After what might have been 2 minutes or 20, I can’t tell, the noise of
the group ourside surged again. People ran by the side of the train
outside, speaking in blistering, rapid staccato Hindi.

“Oh dear me”, said Anil, calling the play by play, “They are ripping up
posts around the station, and they are going to batter the train.”

“Jesus”, I said, just as a huge impact hit the side of the train.

All three of us said “Wow” in unison. Moments later, another huge
impact. Clearly the mob had a plan and would not give up.

The third hit, somewhere down our car, caved in the metal shutters and
smashed the glass of the window. We could hear it flying and excited
voices. I hoped it was not my Bombay friends in the two bed compartment.
There was no way to know.

“They are succeeding in breaking the windows now” from Anil.

Another hit, directly on the window of our compartment. “Shit,” I
thought, did I lock the window earlier when I opened it?” Fortunately
Zuschi was already checking. The window, in fact, did not go down 100%
and was slightly raised in the up position where someone could,
theoretically, raise it. But our steel barrier was holding, for the time
being.

Another blow, and another shattering of glass seemingly in the
compartment next to us. We all sat in the darkness, pitch black.

I thought for a second what would happen to the woman below if her
window shattered, so I leaned over to have a look at her. To my
amazement, she appeared to be sound asleep!  I considered what could be
done about her and then our window shattered unmercifully.

Almost immediately hands appeared under our window barrier. Black,
withered, dirty, desperate hands. Reaching through and trying to get in.
And the increased noise of an angry and despertate crowd.

Anil and Zuschi flew into action just like the policemen they were. Both
began to shut the window in unison, which involved a clever latching
system which was confusing and inconvenient. But together they managed
to start to move the steel barrier down on top of the reaching,
clamoring hands. Those hands that would not retract, were unmercifully
kicked by our cabin crew.

Once the steel curtain was latched back into place, the crowd outside
got noisier and more angry (if such a thing was possible). Sitting in
the darkness for what seemed an eternity, I grew thoroughly angry at the
mob and the lack of security to prevent what was happening. This being
India, I suspected, the response would be thoroughly knee-jerk and very
late.

“Now they are saying they will burn the train”, said Anil. “They are
going to get torches”.

A few moments later, the eerie shadow cast through the metal louvers of
our cell indicated that people were running around the train with
torches, flaming torches. The thought of being roasted inside a barbeque
pit known as an Indian first class rail carriage flashed though my mind.
How absurd that they could not see me and I could not see them. How
amazingly irrational human behavior in a crowd. And for what? To get to
some river to wash off ones sins at some astrologically propitious
moment, and thereby assure lifetimes more of stupidity, violence and
misery???

Again, police whistles blew and, seemingly just in the nick of time, the
crowd was dispersed with their fires. I heard the sound of the
ubiquitous police batons being banged on the pavement of the station
platform.

Then, with equal miraculous force, the train stuttered and started! We
began to roll away. As this happened, there was a brief crescendo of
anger from outside, and quite a few more rocks scattered off the car.
But we were delirious! We were moving!!! It had been at least 3 hours
parked in the station.

Anil looked at me with a straight face.

“Only sixteen more stations to go before the Kumba Mehla”.

I was later to learn that the town we were trapped in was called
Manikpur, which I think was well named, since it was, in fact, Manic and
Poor.

Later in the evening something happened which rivals all that had come
before. The conductor, who up until this point had been holding his own
with great courage against the crowds outside, and had basically made
sure that we were all safe throughout the night, suddenly appeared in
our carriage. His face had gone from concerned to something resembling
pain.

With great agony, he pointed to his back tooth. It was apparent he had a
very bad toothache.

“His tooth is very bad infected”, said Anil, “and he has heard that the
police chief here has very strong powers of healing, so he has come here
to see if there is cure…”

I looked at Zuschi. He was staring at me with a kind of hypnotic glare
which at once made me feel that perhaps he was more than just a big,
silent enforcer type.

“Now he will heal this man”, said Anil confidently.

“You will?”, I asked Zuschi, but as usual he maintained his silence and
just went to work.

He took the conductors hand and held it for a moment. Then, after
looking at his watch, he sat the man down next to him and simply placed
his fist, with index and middle finger extended, against the side of the
man’s face.

For several minutes we all sat in silence. Zuschi only looked down at
the floor, concentrating all his powers through his fingers, and looking
away. The conductor was expressionless and appeared to be in a trance.
The train provided a steady, dramatic rhythm.

Then, just as suddenly as he had begun, Zushi pulled his hand away. In a
snap. The conductor looked startled, then relieved, then amazed. He
bobbed his head, smiled widely, and they exchanged a few words of Hindi,
and he left.

“He is healed”, Anil muttered, “No pain”

“Wow”, I said, but of course was thoroughly doubting this Œmiracle’. I
looked at Zuschi and he was looking at me deeply.

My Western mind was intent on doubting all of this, but the next day I
saw the conductor again, and he re-affirmed that the pain had not
returned.

“What gives you this power?” I asked Zuschi.

“1986″ was all he said.

“1986?”

“Yes”, Anil said, “In 1986 he had a big experience in his life, and
since then, he has always had the power. Everyone in villages comes to
him. He is very important man. Did you just think he was a policeman??”

The night drifted on. There were more stations (“there are procedures to
be followed…this is a scheduled stop…”), and more crowds and more
banging and smashing, but nothing as bad as Manicpur. I actually managed
to drift off into troubled sleep in which I imagined myself in a land
based remake of Das Boot. I was injured by the periscope retracting
directly on my head, and when I awoke, an Indian guru was doing Three
Stooges therapy on my bald pate. It wasn’t a restful night.

All day the train stopped and our arrival time grew more and more
distant. Thousands of people at each station tried to crowd onto the
cars. Many rode in the dangerous area between cars, on the couplers and
joints of the carriages. Others were dying of suffocation.

I continued to chat pleasantly with the police chief and his friend.
Every now and then I would say something to which the old lady in the
seat across would suddenly guffaw. But it seemed she spoke no English.
As we continued on, and night became day, vigilance over the railway car
slackened, and at each railway station, we fought battles to keep our
compartment free of people. At one point I simply had to get to the
restroom, crawling over bodies in the hallway, and when I returned, my
seat and every other in the compartment had been taken by a group of
fat, ugly Indian men.

That was about it. I lost my temper. With particular anger I told them
to “get the fuck out of this car” in about 15 different ways. Once they
had left, one of them accompanied by my fist grabbing his jacket, I
returned to my seat in a murderous mood. The old woman guffawed.

At one point we sat in a remote country station for 2 1/2 hours -
already 8 hours late. Another slow, jammed train pulled into the station
beside ours. As our train began to leave, everyone jumped off this other
train, ran onto ours and pulled the emergency brake cables. Our traion
stopped for another 1 1/2 hours. With our train now stuck, everyone ran
over to the other, slow train, and it left. I tried to board it, but it
was hopelessly jammed. When I returned to my own, crippled train, I
found Anil and Zuschi gone – without a word.

I would never see them again. The old woman guffawed.

The train arrived in Allahabad at 8 pm, 14 hours late. The station
platforms were so crowded with pilgrims bearing their loads that it was
virtually impossible to even walk on the platforms. Off to the side,
police stood and blew whistles, but offered no instruction, organization
or help. The crowds surged and moved in ways that could not be
controlled.

As if in trance, country bumpkins rushed to and fro, as if there was no
one else around, pushing you from behind, elbowing you from the side and
grabbing your clothing. My bags with the camera gear were getting
crushed and many times I grabbed people and gave them stern lectures
about pushing and shoving.

I wandered through the station looking for any sign of my assistant and
the Indian government crew. But it was like looking for pebbles on a
beach. The entire time I was pushed and shoved, hassled, bumbed and
tugged. Outside, people were climbing over dfences by the thousands and
the sea ebbed and flowed like an ocean into the night.

I had had enough. I realized that the one thing you do not want to do in
India is the Kumba Mehla, trendy or not. Don’t get between Australians
and their vegemite, South Americans and their soccer and Indians and
their rivers. Further, I have realized that one does not find
enlightenment bathing with 70 million other people.

I’m reminded of a man I met in New Zealand once who lived on an island
manning a lighthouse. No one else lived there and his only companionship
was a twice weekly mail and milk boat which came from the distant
mainland. I asked him if he ever got lonely.

“Lonely people don’t live in lonely places”, he said.

“Lonely people live with hundreds, maybe thousands, or millions of other
lonely people”.

I have never felt lonelier than I felt in those crowds of Indians. The
whole spectacle was, well, to be honest, truly awful in every way. In
fact, I would say the Kumba Mehla is the single worst thing in India.

At least those were my thoughts at the time. I made a sudden, rash
decision. I wanted as far away from that river as possible.

Enlightenment is found in forests and glades, under Bodhi trees and in
quiet spaces. When our planet becomes like the anthill of the Kumba, our
fate is sealed. There will be no more magic on earth when we are all
fighting for the last solitary square inch of space on our rivers.

I made a decision. I found the first bicycle rickshaw I could, and told
him to get me the hell away from there. He seemed incredulous. I wanted
to go away from the Kumba?

Yes, I said, as far as possible, the next city, the next station…just
get me away.

And he started pedalling. As we past the long lines of people moving
towards their destiny, I noted the identical, zombie-like expressions on
their faces. All religions seem to do this to their followers, and
suddenly I felt immense relief to me moving in the opposite direction.
It was somehow liberating.

- RR

This little story comes from our week in Syria, and I thought it might
be a nice one. You may wish to decide if it is suitable for certain
eyes.

Aleppo is a city in Northern Syria, not too far from the Turkish border,
and it is considered one of the most authentically ancient Middle
Eastern cities still in existence.

The city feels slightly European, but at its core it is deeply Eastern.
Directly in the center of this hot desert city is a huge hill, looking
distinctly like the caldera of a volcano, upon which rests a huge
fortress called the citadel. Built by Saladin to defend his city against
the ravages of the Crusaders, it is a typical Arab fortress – stronger
looking and more appealing to the eye than actually strong and durable.

Radiating out from the Citadel are the souks of the city. Souk is Arabic
for “market”, and the markets of Aleppo are considered the most exotic
in the Middle East, if not the world. One enters a dark cavernous world
under the hot desert sun, and suddenly is thrust into the ancient past -
a cool world of Bedouins, donkeys, turbanned men smoking aromatic
cigarettes, the smell of cardomen and spice, acres of stalls selling
everything from sheep guts to wedding dresses.

And what a world! Wandering amongst the women fully draped in black,
only pairs of brown eyes peering out from behind the full black chador
veil. There are few tourists here. Everything you take pictures of
conforms to your stereotype of what a Middle Eastern bazaar should look
like. Because so few tourists ever come here, camera toting
photographers are a rarity and usually not objected to.

Near the souks is the old Baron Hotel built by an Armenian family in
1909. For atmosphere and legend, it is hard to beat the Baron Hotel. It
is solid and French looking, and was once the most glamorous hotel in
Syria. But when it was nationalized by the Syrian government, it fell on
extremely hard times, and today it is still run in desultory fashion by
the descendants of Mazmoulian family that built it.

In its heyday, it was the only hotel in the region to offer European
standards of hospitality and cleanliness. It hosted guests like Agatha
Cristie, who wrote Murder On The Orient Express in Room 221. Christie
married archeologist Max Mallowan in 1930. Mallowan’s work took him
repeatedly to Syria, and their story together in Syria and at the Baron
Hotel is told in Christie’s book “Come Tell Us How You Live”. They made
the Baron Hotel their home. Poirot lived here too.

Behind these louvred shutters, the guests included Charles DeGaulle,
Theodore Roosevelt, and Charles Lindbergh. They ate caviar and wild boar
from the Euphrates River Valley. They sat on the back porch and shot
wild duck in the neighboring swamp (today it’s a taxi stand – wish
they’d continue shooting).

To the Baron came spies, smugglers and traders. Kim Philby, a high
ranking British diplomat stayed here for decades, and although he drank
himself into a near stupor every night, he never betrayed the fact that
he was a Soviet spy and had been for 20 years! “He was a charming man,
and had quiet playful eyes”, says Coco Mazmoulian who runs the hotel
today.

“Agatha Cristie”, he says, “had a deeply perceptive face. When she
stared at you, it felt like she had X ray eyes. Her look went right
through you.”

But the most famous guest at the Baron, who stayed for years and wrote
endlessly of his travels, and whose receipt for bar bill and room are
still posted behind the check in counter, was T.E. Lawrence – yes,
Lawrence of Arabia.

Lawrence checked into the Baron Hotel on September 6, 1909. He had just
walked 1800 miles across Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Syria,
visiting every Crusader Castle except one. He was 21 years old.

The boy dreamed of being a Crusader, even when first riding his bicycle
around Europe, visiting each and every castle. He should have lived in
the Middle Ages.

In his book, “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom” he writes, “Mecca was to lead
to Damascus, Damascus to Anatolia, and afterwards to Baghdad;then there
was Yemen. Fantasies, these will seem, to such as are able to call my
beginning an ordinary effort. All men dream, but not equally. Those who
dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds will wake in the day
to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous
men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, as if to make them
possible. This I did.”

After graduating from Oxford, Lawrence returned to the Middle East to
walk everywhere, appearing in villages as “the first European they have
ever seen”. From the Baron Hotel, he wrote to his principal at Jesus
College, “I have had a most delightful tour…on foot and alone all the
time, so that I have, perhaps, living as an Arab with the Arabs, got a
better insight into the daily life of the people than those who travel
with caravan and dragomen.”

The Baron Hotel still serves lunch in it’s high ceilinged ballroom, an
ancient French waiter places food on empty brown oak tables in ritual
fashion, but almost no one arrives for the two hour lunch period. Slow
and deliberately, he removes the food at the end of lunch. A small
anteroom looks just as it must have in Lawrence’s time, except for the
unpleasant addition of a TV which blares ridiculous Syrian TV programs.
The atmospheric bar, with the same coasters, the same posters, the same
1905 beer glasses, looks like a museum piece, but you can sit in its
dusty interior and actually have a drink.

The rooms, inelegant today, still have hand cranked dusty black phones.
The shower spigot is the same one that was used in 1917. Step out on the
balcony and watch horse carts, donkey carts, Arabian sultans walking
with 4 or 5 black robed wives, covered head to toe in the blazing 95
degree desert heat. Old Chevys and Studebakers share the road with
innumerable taxis and pedestrians.

This is it, you think, this is the real middle east. On the balcony next
door Winston Churchill once stood. But hotel has really fallen to
pieces. Still, there is something wonderfully romantic in its total
un-selfconsciousness. In Singapore this place would have been made into
a self-celebrating tourist attraction with rooms at $500 per night and
parking for tour busses. In the USA, a Lawrence of Arabia theme park
would be built next door. Here, an old waiter in a smudged, dirty black
vest and bow tie, hands me a “welcoming drink” with wrinkled hands (what
is it? I still don’t know!) and then he waits for a small tip.

In the lobby, thug like Syrians with shady eyes wait to “change money”
on the black market – to bring you anything imagineable from the souk,
from exotic fruit to a bowl of hashish. They are completely corrupt and
untrustworthy, but I didn’t care. They somehow add to the seedy,
decaying atmosphere of the place.

This is the essence of what the Raffles Hotel, E and O or Strand Hotel
would be if they were never fixed up. The hotel is completely fading in
the torporific sun, and I loved the place. Just sitting out on the
elevated terrace above the street was like moving in a time machine to
another era. The waiter then delivers you a beautiful argileh – a hubble
bubble water pipe standing fully 3 feet tall. Through a long pipe you
slowly suck in an apple flavored concoction (no drugs in it!) from a
large bowl with pieces of charcoal resting atop punctured tin foil. It
is the perfect antidote to Syria’s corruption and confusion. Sweet and
mellow. And after about an hour of smoking the argileh, you feel
infinitely at peace with yourself, and all the confusion, duplicity and
dirt of Syria fade away in the smoky haze of wonderment and appreciation
that a place like this could still exist and you’d be the only person
sitting here enjoying it.

After a few beers and two hours of the hubble bubble pipe, the
atmosphere of Aleppo looks pretty outstanding. Here you are in a country
no one visits, staying in a hotel once visited by some of the most
famous people in the world.

It was in this atmosphere of romantic wonder that Yves and I found
ourselves. Unable to bear the sad ritual of dinner at the Baron, we
retired to a more modern and flashy rooftop restaurant nearby where we
had simply the best meal of fried chicken, hummous, salad, and french
fries, washed down with dented silver cans of frosty Eastern European
beer.

While sitting at the table, we were approached by a kindly looking old
gentleman who introduced himself and asked us if we knew that Lawrence
of Arabia had stayed at the hotel next door. “Indeed, he used the
bathhouse which I own”.

“Really?” we said.

“Yes, it is a hammam – a bathhouse from the 15th century in the old
city. Lawrence of Arabia used to take his sauna there and steam bath,
then get a massage after his long walks across the Syrian desert
visiting castles. Even after he came back from Oxford, he came to my
bathhouse. Then my father was the masseuse there. He massaged Lawrence
of Arabia.”

“Really”, we said.

“Yes, please be my guest tonight. There will be many people there. You
can have a smoke of the hubble bubble, then a steam bath. In the Old
City, near the souk. I’ll meet you by the clock tower at 11 pm.”

Well, who could resist having a steam bath in the same bathhouse as
Lawrence of Arabia? Even though we had to shoot the next morning at 4:30
AM, we headed for the clocktower at 11 pm. There our friend met us and
led us into the old city souks.

What had once, by day, been a crowded, bustling and chaotic scene was
entirely different by night. No one was about, except for the occasional
sad stray dog. Our footsteps echoed on the large Roman cobblestones of
the market, all the shops closed and shuttered by huge metal doors,
locked by padlocks. Suddenly, almost like a ghost, an ancient character
might appear in the darkness – a turbanned man pushing a wooden handcart
or a Bedouin riding a donkey slowly, almost mystically across the closed
night market, a scene that could hardly have changed in the last 2000
years.

The hammam – the bath, was just a promised, ancient. Turning in off the
street through a high Mameluke stone archway, we were suddenly in
another world. A huge open space of couches raised to different
elevations, comfortable pillows strewn about and a faint awareness of
hot steam from distant rooms.

However, at this late hour, no one was around. “A tour group from
Germany will be arriving soon” our host told us. He took our valuables
and locked them in a tall wooden locker. “For safekeeping” he said and
winked.

Well, I’ve never been in a bathhouse, let alone an ancient one where
Lawrence of Arabia bathed. So I just followed along and hoped for the
best.

Our host spoke mostly French and addressed Yves mainly. He called me
“the professor”, for reasons I never actually determined. Probably not
because he’s been watching Gilligan’s Island episodes. He hopped on one
of the raised couches, and began to undress, handing us sarongs. We
followed suit.

Once we were completely naked, we wrapped the sarongs around ourselves
and our host led us into the hot bath. It was not as steamy as I would
have hoped, but we were instructed to lie down on hot hot Roman stones
in the middle of the bath. The heat was coming from beneath the stones
and they were just about hot enough to lie down on without pain.

He retired to another room, we could hear splashing water. I laid on my
back and contemplated the ancient ceiling of this bath. It was a rounded
stone dome. I had heard that they built these domes because of a lack of
good wood with which to roof houses. Mark Twain though the cupolas were
ugly “as the boltheads on a prison door” when viewed from the rooftops.
In the domed ceiling were triangular vents to allow the steam to escape.
I meditated on their bizarre and yet simplistic pattern.

Before I could get too caught up in this reverie, my name was called and
I headed for the “bathing area”. This was a small, private room just off
a rounded anteroom. Our host was sitting on the floor naked. I noticed,
for the first time, that he was covered with tattoos, which made me just
slightly uneasy.

Anyway, I took off my sarong, and proceeded to lie flat on my back in
the “washing room”. My host took pailfuls of water, alternatingly hot
and cold and splashed them all over me, scrubbing me with a hard sponge
and occasionally delivering a hard slap to the back or arms, and a pull
of the fingers.

Suddenly, and unexpectedly, he announced, “Let me show you what Lawrence
liked”. He shifted his weight, and accidently sat on my hand.

When he didn’t move at all, I was confronted by the uncomfortable
realization that his move might not have been unintentional. And I had
the sudden and uncommon realization (for most men) that another mans
genitalia were resting directly in my hand.

This was a first. My instinct was to try to move my hand as fast as
possible, but I detected a slight stiffening of his body to prevent such
an occurrence. He smiled and looked down at me “don’t you trust me?” he
said, “Lawrence did”. And quite suddenly I was filled with a loathsome
feeling about his man, and this situation.

But unlike TV movies of the week, I didn’t scream, panic, fight or
freak. I just moved my hand a little and waited for the next thing.

Inveterate travelers have a kind of resignation to their fate. If they
don’t, they are no better than “tourists”. You figure, “I’ll either die
(which might be a relief), or I’ll have a helluva story to tell”. Which
in fact, I thought, I will.

Now Lawrence’s masseuse started to vigorously soap my body, but it
seemed he was paying less attention to areas that might actually be
exposed and dirty, given this is a Muslim country. Instead, he focused
only on areas that might only be exposed to one’s loved one only on
their wedding night, given this is a Muslim country.

And suddenly, as his hands really began to probe areas which one’s loved
one might not see on their wedding night, I had two sudden and drastic
realizations. The first was that his tattoo came suddenly into focus and
I realized it said “Tenderloin, San Francisco” on it, and the second was
a scene from the film “Lawrence Of Arabia”.

Wasn’t there a scene in the film where Peter O’Toole is stripped and
beaten to a pulp after refusing the homosexual advances of Jose Ferrer?
Wait a minute, wasn’t Lawrence of Arabia gay, after all? Didn’t he write
about his excitement, in discovering in the Arabian desert, that he was
homosexual? And didn’t he describe how he craved sadistic sexual
encounters…..IN BATHHOUSES!!!! UH OH.

WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THIS BEFORE? WHY WAS I HERE WITH LAWRENCE OF
ARABIA’S MASSEUSE, THEN? And suddenly, I stood up, and said “thank you,
that’s enough. It’s really been fun, and we’ll have to do it again
sometime, but….”

At which point, Mr. Tenderloin doused me with a pail of cold water. He
said with disgust, “you are not like Lawrence of Arabia at all, you are
a wimp professor. Go.” and ushered me out.

Later, after Yves bath (I think he had the same experience, but also
handled it rather well before it got out of hand), our masseuse told us
that he had worked in California. In Los Angeles, on Hollywood
Boulevard, and in San Francisco, but had “lost his license”. He said he
loved Los Angeles best because, “the people understand me”.

Later, I read this passage from “Seven Pillarsd Of Wisdom” by T.E.
Lawrence. It describes a struggle he had with a soldier in a deserted
building in Deraa, the very scene from which Peter O’Toole’s scene was
taken:

“He took off his slipper and hit me repeatedly with it in the face. He
leaned forward and fixed his teeth in my neck and bit till the blood
came. Then he kissed me. Afterwards he drew one of the men’s bayonets. I
thought he was going to kill me, and was sorry: but he only pulled up a
fold of flesh over my ribs, worked the point through, after considerable
trouble, and gave the blade a half turn…then they splashed cold water
on my face, wiped off some of the filth, and lifted me between them,
retching and sobbing for mercy, to where he lay: but HE REJECTED ME!, as
a thing too torn and bloody for his bed that night. In Deraa that night,
at the citadel, my integrity had been irrevocably lost….”

His dedication in his book reads, “I loved you, so I drew these tides of
men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars, To earn
your freedom, the seven pillared worthy house, that your eyes might be
shining for me.”

Well, I’ll just have to learn to dream a little less wakefully, thank
you very much, Larry.

When we last saw Lawrence of Arabia’s masseuse, it was after midnight.
He was running after a small group of Dutch tourists who had just
alighted from a local bus. We wanted to warn them, but how could we. His
scam worked. And would continue to work long after we’d left town.

Returning to the Baron Hotel, we were asked to sign the guestbook, a
long standing tradition there. Under comments, I simply wrote “Loved
Lawrence, but his masseuse is all hands”

Heading out of Aleppo for the Euphrates, we had a choice between the bus
or train. I prefer train travel, but when a man came up on the platform,
we opted for the bus.

He smiled, I saw no tattoo.

“Would you like to ride in the Agathie Christie Pullman?”

- Rick

My experience of customs took me days to get over. First the experience
of Canada3000 insisting that they could NOT let me on the flight w/o a
passport – BULLSHIT – since NAFTA Americans and Canadians can cross
each other’s borders with drivers license and second ID, same with
Mexico my friends – but the lovely people at Canada3000 said they would
not let me on the flight unless I paid THEM (and their notary) $40 for
an affadavit guaranteeing I was an American citizen. For the record, on
my departure from Canada, I asked the friendly US customs officer about
this and he told me that Canada is pulling a total sham on unsuspecting
US citizens – charging for notaries, etc. at the border when absolutely
no visa, passport or birth certificate is required. I should have
insisted and not paid and sued them. Lord knows, if Canadians had a few
more lawyers, their parochial third reich of an immigration and customs
department would not treat them the way they do. But I get ahead of
myself.

This awful airline (Canada3000) has made a point of studying every
disgusting trait of US airlines and amalgamating them all into one
hideous, rule-oriented, tight assed charter. Get this – they MEASURE
each carry-on with a tape measure and then reject it if it is just
slightly larger than a toaster! This in spite of the fact that the
single file line to check into the flight snaked around the airport
like a bread line in the former Soviet Union. People celebrated their
birthdays, graduated from college and drew Da Vinci like doodlings on
the back of napkins while the check in clerk argued inches vs. meters,
diameter vs. height and all other manners of calculus over what were
essentially ladies purses and cosmetic cases. The MD-80 was huge and
half full in the end, and there was nothing in the overhead bins where
one could easily have stashed the body of a well proportioned but high
maintenance check in clerk, had one been so inclined.

Not only that, if you already have checked your 2 generous allowed
pieces of luggage (American airlines allow 3), then they CHARGE you for
checking the one they confiscate – at $70 per bag. They are in the
moneymaking business before you even get on the plane. Very bad image
for Canada, this airline…and needless to say, everyone was in a
baaaaad mood once they all got to their seats.

At customs, the officer asked me my name, my destination and it was all
simple and straighforward, or so I thought – but in Canada profiling is
legal (not in California, by the way, you cannot pre-judge a person
because he is black, asian, single male or any other reason, you must
have a legally justifiable reason to suspect or search someone). I
thought I was done, but when I handed my card to the customs officer
she said, “sir – into the side room please”. And this is where Canada
and Canadians get distinctly MUCH less friendly than their happy
surface reputations.

I found myself in a room exclusively with blacks and Asians being
verbally harassed and meticulously searched. I gulped. One Cambodian
couple was literally being set upon by drug sniffing dogs and quite
abused by a fat and ugly Canadian customs officer who looked like he
masterbated every twenty minutes in a side room and, anyway, was
covered in pimples.

I got one portly female officer, who immediately asked me for my
wallet, and took out every single card, business card, credit card,
calling card, etc. She asked me what I did for a living. I told her I
was the president of an “imaging and licensing company”. She said
“what’s that?” I said “I shoot films and video clips and license them
to productions that need them”. She sniffed at me, and said “yeah
right”.

She looked at me and said “you’re no president of anything. Look at
this!” she thrust my wallet in my face. “No president of a company has
a wallet like this!” (I don’t know, I bought it Robinsons! It’s a nice
black wallet, leather and it cost about $50) I asked her what was wrong
with it. She said the plastic liners were tattered. No president of a
company would keep it like that, she said.

She took out my Super-8 motel advantage card (how embarrassing!). She
said “you stay in hotels like these?” I said, “sometimes”. She said,
“see, these are cheap hotels! You’re no president of a company – now
you’re going to tell me the truth – who are you and what do you do?”

I thought about this for awhile. Who am I really? Good question. What a
time for an epiphany!

I told her “well really, I’m an artist, I suppose. I mean, I love to
make films and I’m kind of tired of working in the office. That’s why
I’m coming to the Canadian Rockies, to get away from it for awhile…”
I said, hating these words as they came out of my mouth as they sounded
so trite and inherently suspicious.

She wasn’t impressed either. “Canada doesn’t admit ARTISTS without work
permits”, she said, “do you have permission to work as an artist in
Canada???”

Now, I have gone through customs in Syria, Burma, Lebanon, Cambodia and
Borneo – to name just a few – and never had I been told that any
country in the known world that I’m not allowed in because I’m an
artist! Imagine Bali not allowing artists without a permit!! The new
Canadian slogan “We cannot allow artists into this country. They are
primarily responsible for, well, art! And you know, art is not a good
way to make money. You should always have something to fall back on.
Like hockey. Hockey is wonderful, art is the root of all evil. Art
decays children’s brains. Artists make lousy tourists, they are cheap
and make cynical comments about our artificial moose display in
Toronto. Artists are ruining everything, the ozone layer, mad cow
disease, cheyrnoble, tooth decay — all caused by ARTISTS!

“No”, I told her. “I am not here to work. I am on vacation, not on
assignment. I carry my film camera with me because I enjoy filming. But
I only have 6 rolls of film, and they run for 3 minutes each, so
clearly I’m not here to make a long documentary”. I liked that sentence
much better. She didn’t.

“Number one.” she said, “I DO THE LECTURING around here.”

“Okay”

“I TELL YOU when to answer questions, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

“Yes ma’am”

“Don’t go telling me you are president of a company one minute, and an
artist the next. Don’t lecture me about films. These rolls of film
could run 10 hours as far as I know….now, prove to me you are NOT
here to make a film”

Wow. This was getting more and more like the Ethiopian police station I
was detained in, or the Syrian Fundamentalist Muslim Interrogation
room. Guilty until proven innocent in Canada apparently. And what if I
actually (gasp) TOOK SOME FILMS OF THE CANADIAN ROCKIES and sold them?
Would this presage the end of Canada? Start a nuclear incident? Would
this be the last secret signal for the French to declare independence?
Would Nova Scotia suddenly wake up one morning with every man dressed
in a tunic carrying a hockey stick and muttering “fuck dem
mounties….Rick Ray took some shots of dose mountains, eh?”

“You married?” she asked

“Yes and I have two smart and beautiful kids”, I said

She smiled a wan smile. “Why aren’t they with you?”

“They have camp, and a girl scout meeting this weekend, plus it is
expensive to bring the wife and kids along you know…”

“I thought you were the president of a company”…she said “You should
be able to afford to bring your whole family along, especially with the
favorable exchange rate….”

She squinted at me and tried to fix me with a stare. “Go ahead”, she
said, slightly intimately, “tell me who you really are…”

And with that I started to crack. First just a hairline fracture, which
for me is considerable open real estate. Then I could feel the pieces
falling away. “You’re right”, I said, “I don’t know who I am. I really
don’t. I’m a FRAUD. I’m not who I say I am, that’s for sure. I’m not a
president of a company really, not an artist really, not a real good
dad, not a real good man…(I could feel the tears welling)…I should
not be let into this country where everyone apparently knows exactly
who they are..and is capable of being so WHITE and so goddam
friendly…I’m a cynic….I’m a loser….a drunk….a liar…the truth
is…..

,,,,I’ve simply always wanted to be a writer……” I said, sobbing and
collapsed in her arms, weeping heartily upon her military style
shoulder patch.

The above section is merely paraphrased, and the wording may not be
exactly correct, in fact it might not have happened this way at all,
but I assure you that in my mind at that moment and in the long days of
self doubt amongst the tour busses in the Rockies, I had many a thought
like this.

She had moved on. Curious Georgina, meter maid. She found my sinus
pills. “What are these?” “Sine-offs” I said, “I suffer headaches”.

Well she must have been prepared for this. She immediately called the
dogs. The dogs proceeded to sniff all my “Sine offs” as well as a
bottle of Tylenol, leaving lovely scented drobs of drool all over them.
While the officer managed the dog, the customs woman prepared to
fingerprint me.

She took my fingerprint and then leaned over to me and said, “Now, stop
lying to us and tell us the truth….have you ever been convicted of a
felony? I’m going to find out in just a second, and when I do…if
you’ve been lying to me, the penalties are going to be MUCH MUCH
worse…”

I just kind of scoffed as respectfully as possible. “I have never even
been convicted of j-walking or speeding” I said, thinking “Oh my God,
should I admit to my earlier escapade in Winnipeg (those of you who
don’t know this story, trust me it is a doozy, best not told here, but
again involved me doing very little wrong and the Candian customs
completely overreacting to it)???”

She disappeared telling me touch nothing and not to move as I was on
hidden camera, and anything I said or did could and would be used
against me in a court of law…..Jesus! Have you ever heard of such a
thing? I tried to stay perfectly still and just swivel my head around
to watch the activity around me.

I got to watch the customs officer next to me REALLY abusing a poor
west African man for having “too much cutlery” in his luggage. Perhaps
I should explain, he opened a big black duffel bag and it was virtually
FULL of restaurant-style spoons, forks and blunt knives. The customs
officer smiled like he had just found the mother lode of smack and
crack and heroin all rolled into one big hallucinogenic opium ball.
“Now…..” he said with a most evil grin,, “what EXACTLY are you doing
with all these forks and knives??????…..”

A question which had occurred to me, and I was glad he asked first. The
poor man was so nervous, he could barely speak. “Our Canadian cutlery
not good enough for you???” the customs officer snarled. “Do you know
about the Canadian laws governing the import of restaurant
products????” he barked. “Jeez” I thought, these people have nothing
better to do in life than specifying how many utensils one can bring
into Canada? Give these people some REAL CRIME to worry about! Oh to
whip out an automatic weapon and pull a “Falling Down” scene on them.
Thank God these people weren’t put in charge of canonical law, it would
be 700,000 pages instead of just 70,000 and who knows, ownership of a
soup ladle or twenty might just get you excommunicated.

I never did get to find out why this man had all of this in his luggage
because my interrogator had returned.

“I’m going to search every inch of your luggage”, she said, “and I want
you to tell me right now….” she leaned in to me so I could smell the
Tim Hortons faux cappucino triple latte and cigarettes on her
breath…… “have you ever smoked marijuana???”

WHAT??? I couldn’t believe this!!!!

It was like a scene from the McCarthy hearings or worse….I felt a
little bit Jewish in a big world of Germans. A stoner amongst the born
agains. Now, what to do? Take the presidential oath? I never inhaled??

“No! Of course not”, I lied, thinking, “what if I said, ‘hasn’t
everyone?’” I suppose admitting that you have smoked the dreaded weed
would get me instantly kicked out of the country. I resented this woman
for making me lie, for knowing I was lying, for caring whether or not I
had ever smoked pot, and further for delaying my entry into Canada – my
connecting flight to Calgary was a half hour away.

The interview went on and on – I won’t bore you with the intimidating
and humiliating details. Finally, it had been a full hour of abuse. She
began into digging through my luggage, opening every single toiletry. I
asked her “Do you really think that I am some kind of danger to the
sanctity of Canada?”

“Do you want more questions from me?”, she snarled, “I ask the
questions, you answer. Don’t make me tell you again, or you are going
right back across the border”, she said, digging through my silk
boxers, I suspected with a secret relish.

Now I don’t want you, dearest trusted reader, to think for a moment
that everything about this experience was unpleasant. Quite the
contrary. Compared to such everyday activities as root canal, rabies
treatment or showing up in Brooklyn dressed as John Rocker, this little
interrogation had been mighty pleasant.

“Ok” the woman said suddenly, “we’re done”.

HUH! WHAT?

I looked at my undies, my credit cards, my shoes and ruffled clothing,
my lens caps and light meter, my Sine oFFs spread and scattered across
the search table.

DONE? I said.

YUP. she said, “NEXT???” she yelled to a terrified tiny group of
elderly Asian refugees in the corner (what exactly are you doing with
these Mah Jong tablets – you’re no president of a comapny!!)

“Could you help me re-pack all this”, I asked a little brusquely.

“Don’t do cleanup. Not my job.” she said, rolled off her rubber gloves
and walked away to have a smoke, making the refugees wait in great
visible fear.

Now, forgive me for speculating, but perhaps if the tourist board of
Canada took a good look at the numbers (which are down) and correlated
them to the friendly politburo they have posited at the end of their
“whites only” ethnic profiling greeting line in Vancouver, they might
come away from it having learned that increasing tourism does not
necessarily mean making more pamphlets and smiling more, if you have
Pol Pots daughter running things down there at the airport. There’s
nothing like fresh mountain air and friendly people who let you in in
traffic to cure that feeling of having been recently raped and butt
humped by a uniformed cretin. Just a thought, for what it’s worth, and
as usual, no one asked me for it.

The American customs officer sat there and listened to my story. “Hard
assed, and they are getting worse”, he confided. “Welcome home” he
said.

I really did have a great time in the Rockies. Really, I did. Really!
Lots of beer is a good cure for anything.

But I think, as far as customs and immigration are concerned, I’ll be
heading for Iran next, just for a little r+r.

I remain, your savvy traveler,

r+r

Just so you all know, I was in the tornado in Oklahoma. I had a show in
Tulsa, was in the middle of “Lost Worlds” (ironically the destruction of
Beirut sequences) when a stage hand told me quietly that a tornado was
bearing down on the auditorium and I was not to tell the audience or
panic anyone, but to be aware that if the lights went out or the place
imploded, it wasn’t his (the technician’s) fault. You know these stage
hands, always blaming management.

Talk about blowing the roof off the place with a performance. It was a
little hard to concentrate after that, knowing that any moment I might
be responsible for 600 people’s safety. But I didn’t panic. I just went
on with the show and at the very end, I warned them to be careful as I
didn’t want their homes to end up looking like the latest in Beirut real
estate. And in spite of the emminent disaster approaching, they all
lined up and bought videos like good little homeless people.

When I went out of the auditorium, it was 10pm and there was this eerie
stillness. No one out in the city at all, just a little wisp of wind and
a greenish dark sky. And a heavy feeling like water vapor in the air.
Something really spooky, an animal instinct told me.

The city was silent. But in the distance I could see flashes of light,
every 1 or 2 seconds, like Ethiopian lightning – an approaching storm.
The effect was more like a distant, harmless war going on across some
international border than anything really threatening (I’ve been doing
too much traveling in the Middle East obviously).

By the time I got to my hotel, there was a restless milling going on
amongst the guests. People sitting in their pickups trying to decide
whether to run for it or not. I tuned in CNN and saw the devastation at
OK city and saw the same storm was heading right up the interstate
towards, not only Tulsa, but my hotel! No kidding, the weathermen were
standing there with pointers, looking at detailed maps of Tulsa, and no
kidding if they weren’t pointing directly at the intersection where I
was. I half expected them to pull up a closer map and see the words
“RICK” and a red arrow right at me, Room 221.

It was a little unnerving. I sized up the hotel – a 3 story pre-fab kind
of motel thingy. I was facing west – the least desirable direction. And
to make matters worse, there was a huge highway billboard looming right
over the hotel which, ironically, said “WEATHER REPORTS EVERY 15 MINUTES
WITH THE CHANNEL 6 NEWS TEAM”. I appreciated their dedication, but then
again, if that sucker crashed into my hotel room, it was the kind of “in
your face” weather reporting I felt we should do without in our
sensationalist, violent and liberal biased media.

By now the thunder had turned from a distant rumble to a closer snap
crackle and boom. A few big fat drops of rain began spotting the
pavement. The TV was spouting off reports from news people in the field
from cel phones yelling unsettling things like “WHOAH, HOLY CATS! IT
JUST PICKED UP THE WHOLE BOWLING ALLEY! AND NOW IT’S GONE! JUST PLAIN
GONE!” I pictured myself like Dorothy in the middle of a funnel cloud of
bowling balls and the thought was somewhat unsettling, for one thing I
can’t bowl worth a damn on solid ground, let alone up in the sky
somewhere. I can only hope getting into heaven doesn’t in some way
involve bowling, I thought….just as some marble sized hail starting
hitting the ground. I looked across the street and there was a big, huge
hotel there – an Embassy Suites. It looked big and sturdy and, not only
that, if it came down to lawsuits, it looked like they had more money
for a settlement than my poverty stricken, East Indian managed, current
abode. I made a dash for it.

In the Embassy Suites, a higher classe of clientele than those at my
previous hotel had gathered in the lobby to watch reports on a big
screen TV.  The tornado had apparently taken the interstate between the
usual visits to trailer parks. It was still taking dead aim at us.

The management of the place was very organized and efficient, the
manager bore the same competent but slightly discombobulated manner as
the actor who played the captain in “Titanic”, which, I thought with a
start, was also a bit unsettling. It was a big luxurious hotel, with a
huge lobby and plants and fountains. If I am going to die, I thought, I
want to die with rich people in a pseudo Midwest
Garden-of-Eden-by-Marriot like this one than in my budget lodge where
the only accessory of note had been a stained and somewhat forlorn
ironing board on which I might, I imagined, surf to Oz.

Some people came in from a nearby restaurant. The management had made
everyone stop eating and told them they would have to get into the meat
locker. Only those with heavy clothing were allowed into the meat
locker. The rest were given the option of slightly frozen or slightly
windblown? Must have made a nice variation on “medium well?”, “well
done” or “rare”? I thought it would be perfect to survive the tornado
only to be discovered all frosted and cryogenically preserved in a
permanently frozen state of defecation for all to see.

We gathered in the bar to watch the news. The tornado was across the
river, about 10 miles away, tearing up alot of real estate. I found
myself inexplicably drawn outside, to a bench, watching the torrential
downpour, intense electrical activity and booms to put Yugoslavians on
edge….after my experiences in Ethiopia, I felt like yelling “you call
this a storm????? I’ll show you a storm!!!!!” I was, for some
inexplicable reason, as calm as the eye of the very monster that was
glowering at us.

Still I started to not like it so well when a sudden and unexpected gust
blew many trees directly over so their tips bent near to the ground and
some big pieces of garbage – some large palettes and crates blew by like
so many matchboxes in a breeze. I thought, “ok, I think I’ll go in now”.

Inside, people were more worried than I expected. Some were praying,
some crying, some joking nervously and many just somber, with a sense of
expectation and dread.

The storm had crossed the river and was between 2 and 3 miles away. I
looked out the door and the rain was horizontal and in sheets and the
trees just bent over, and a green-black sky with layers and sheets of
blackness, like a sickly chocolate layer cake, with arms reaching down
out of the clouds to embrace the land. The arms didn’t quite touch the
ground, when they did, I knew, they would form funnels. The constant
lightning illuminated the spectacle like a fireworks display. It was
weather I had never seen before in my life. I was fascinated.

I went back into the large ballroom where the crowd of about 300 hotel
guests had gathered. The manager came in and said the front of the storm
was about 2 miles away. I looked around at the people. Adults, children,
old folks, businessmen in suits and ties, blacks, whites, hispanics, and
I thought “I’m not dying with these strangers and they are not dying
either”. I knew this as firmly as I have every known anything and it
gave me great confidence. I looked at a scared little boy and a weeping
black woman and I thought “these people are NOT going to die!”

I told everyone in earshot that I had been to a whole lot of countries
and seen a whole lot of situations and believe me, afterwards you have a
helluva story to tell. That’s the joy of being in extraordinary
circumstances. Some one said “Its a great story, if you survive”, and I
said “I am buying anyone who survives a drink – a …. “hurricane” and
this got a huge laugh. Feeling the attention shift from the TV reports
of imminent doom over to me, I added “and could we change this station
to Ally McBeal, pleeease? this is depressing” Another big laugh. Someone
said “I think a rerun of the Wizard of Oz is on” – another laugh. Pretty
soon, the whole group was cracking jokes! That’s the best way to die!
Mock the odds! Laugh in the face of it! And we did. We bonded as a group
right there. When we went silent for a moment, I started to whistle the
Wicked Witch of the West theme, and everyone laughed again.

Within just a few moments, the front of the storm had passed over us -
the building didn’t even shudder. A tornado had set down within a mile
and a half, and the whole thing moved north, slowly shuffling it’s feet
and meting out its destruction whimsically across Oklahoma. We were in
the clear. As if on cue, our group broke up, dispersed, shuffled off to
bed, up the elevators, strangers united in relief. People who would
never unite again, or ever know each other or anything about each other
really, only having shared a random moment staring into the face of
panic.

I felt a sense of disappointment – that was ALL? While I was well aware
of the fate of hundreds around me and the utter devastation of the
event, in other parts of the city and state, still I somehow wanted
more. Typical travelogue artist – the show was over and I was still
energized, but the audience was …well, sleepy. I wanted to step out now
and challenge myself in a part of the world (Tulsa) where intellectual
and physical challenges are at a premium. But it was not to be.

What had united us had moved on, and now there was just polite
conversation and slight embarrassment at having shown your deepest fears
in public. That was it.

The rain and storms and intense weather continued for 2 whole days after
that. I returned to my little motel and looked at the faces of the
weathermen on the big billboard outside my room. “WEATHER EVERY 15
MINUTES WITH THE CHANNEL 6 NEWS TEAM”.

I was reminded of the old and hackneyed saying which every country and
every tourist brochure quotes to somehow explain away their bad weather
“If you don’t like the weather just wait 5 minutes”. It occurred to me
that the Channel 6 news team was waiting too long.

And, if these citizens of Tulsa really work at it, with help from the
Chamber of Commerce and a slight tax increase, I’ll bet they could get
that wait for the weather down to less than 5 minutes. If they really
try.

Ah well, back to the hurricane of my everyday life.

Best regards to you, and nice to see you again, with or without my new
toupee…..just remember, in life, “the answer, my friends, is blowin’
in the wind, the answer is blowin’ in the wind….”

- RR