Exhausting India

Calcutta is a loud, hectic, and dirty place. People are everywhere, men primarily though. I'd guss I see at least 4 men to every woman, and they all stare at me. I forgot how exhausting it can be. And here in India, making eye contact is basically an open invitation to approach, so by yesterday afternoon, I walked through the city with my eyes glued to the pavement. I stayed with Anubhav, a couchsurfer and lawyer, which was nice, but that too was exhausting. He is one of the most intellectual people I have ever met and also one of the most talkative. Last night all I wanted to do was go to bed, but he just kept talking. I felt my eyes getting heavy, the yawns becoming deeper, and my lack of concentration on his stories, economic theories, and political views intensify. I sat nodding, throwing in the occasional, really? That's interesting, just so I didn't seem totally bored. Then he started showing me pictures on his laptop of places in India he'd been. But they weren't pictures of interesting people, or beautiful places, or even of exciting adventures, but of forts. I think I did an entire tour of Indian forts last night. Boring, I really don't care! is what I wanted so desperately to tell him, but felt obligated to humor my host. And to make it even worse, 75% of his pictures were blurry. Blurry to the point that I had to keep checking to make sure my contacts were still in. And his commentary was endless, it was that intellectual, academic babbling too, history, important people, war time theories, etc. It was painful. He was a nice guy, but a little smothering and intense.

So now, I'm sitting in a restaurant at Howrah train station, enjoying a cup of coffee. Every time I look up from my journal, there are eyes staring at me. When I meet their intent gaze, they don't flinch, they just continue staring. There's no shame here. At 2:30pm I'm boarding a train headed for Jabalpur, a town in the state of Madhya Pradesh, smack dab in the middle of India. I was planning of going down to the Sundarbans National Park first, but it was becoming too difficult to secure the necessary permits on my own, so I nixed that plan. Instead, I am going to head west and then south. I'd really like to see Southern India and in a few months its just going to be too hot. Aside from the heat, civil unrest has taken a strong hold on Nepal and its surrounding borders, and I've been advised to steer clear of the north for a while.

Nepal's king is considered a tyrant by the majority of Nepalese people and as such, they have scheduled elections for April in hopes of ousting their current leader. The king however doesn't want to lose his power and is going to great lengths to ensure that the elections don't happen. Currently, he is paying civilians to start rioting and fighting in the streets, creating enough civil unrest and chaos to prevent an election in April. Many of the Nepal-India borders have become inaccessible, and I've heard reports from other travellers of people getting stranded in Nepal, unable to get out. So, I think its best to avoid Nepal for a while. Its so unfortunate that so many countries seem to be collapsing before our very, falling victim to the corruption and greed that money and power create. And why do they have to be the countries that I was hoping to visit? Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kenya...who's next?

So after Kanha National Park, I'll probably head to the south, Chennai, Pondicherry, Kerala, etc. There's an Ashram in Kerala that comes highly recommended from a fellow Californian so I might give yoga and meditation a shot for a week or two. Originally I was thinking of volunteering somewhere for a while, but right now I really just feel like exploring and seeing as much of India as I can!