I know that my life would be none the poorer had I not seen the Taj Mahal, but had I never experienced the music of Cat Stevens, I do believe that I would be deficit in my Soul.
I love all music, I believe that much is clear from this blog. There are very few types that I do not like. Being in India I have been exposed to a whole new world of music, whether it be the videos of Bollywood or the music of the horns on the busy streets.
Music is so crucial to my life, that I cannot imagine a world without it. It would not be life for me.
Wherever I go, Cat is always there in the background, bouncing off the walls of my head. Sitting here in my hotel room in Varanasi, preparing to pack and to take the cab to the airport, Cat is on my mind.
I am miles from nowhere. I am literally half the way around the world from where I was born, where I was surrounded by another group of “Indians” at the Indian Hospital in New Mexico, where there too, I was the only white baby, not too easy to swap kids that day.
I am miles away from my daughter, whom I will see in 48 hours or so, a thought that I have kept at bay as to not be overwhelmed in the meantime. I am miles away from friends and family.
And, yet, I am not. I have also re-connected with some of the most important people in my life while here, via these blogs and email, and have made new friends, and solidified existing friendships. So, although I am indeed “miles from nowhere,” I have never been closer to many in my life, and for that I am grateful.
The Four Noble Truths of the Buddha paraphrased, state:
1. Suffering is a integral part of Life
2. Suffering is caused by the attachment to Desire
3. Suffering ceases when this attachment to Desire ceases
4. The Eight-fold Path of right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration is the means to the end of Suffering.
Maxi Jazz, a Soka Gakkai Buddhist, and frontman of the band Faithless, has taught me a great deal over the years through his lyrics.
Not quite what Estelle had in mind when she sang about an "American Boy," but it is in essence who I am at the heart of the matter.
There have been times that I have wished perhaps this was not true, but over the years, and with the more travel that I do, there could be worse things to be, much worse.
Being in Varanasi, formerly known as Benares to the Americans and British, I am staying in a hotel that is adjacent to the Varanasi Mall, sporting the first Pizza Hut and the second McDonald's that I have seen in India, the first being on the road from New Dehli to Agra, go figure.
As the mall is a bit out, I did not feel like taking a rickshaw to the center for lunch, so was hoping to find a general store in the mall. Not opting for Pizza Hut nor McDonald's I entered the mall, only to hear Estelle and Kanye West booming down on me from the loudspeaker. I have almost ceased to be amazed at the timing, irony, and wonder of coincidences in India, but this one did make me smile.
I have enjoyed this song since it came out a few years ago, notwithstanding that I find Estelle smoking in this video, and looking rather Indian with her eye make-up, but this timing was quite funny. It was the first time that I have stepped into a "western" type establishment in India. Perhaps the only thing more awkward that white people trying to look Indian in India is Indians trying to be completely western. In the first place, nothing is finished in India, and the mall was no exception as half of the top two stories were not and probably never will be finished. All of the ceiling lights were out or broken, or never installed. Indians in traditional dress were hanging out being "mall rats." As I said, awkward. Americans know how to do malls and how to walk the walk in them.
Having finished a surprisingly good shahi paneer and dal, I was reminded of Dobie Mall in Austin, Texas, where I used to eat surprisingly good Indian food for lunch often during one of my several jobs at the University of Texas and during graduate school.
I am using Varanasi as a bit of a weigh station, a buffer zone between the India of my past couple of months and the Belgium that I will be heading back to as an American. The mall seemed to do just that.
Woke up this morning in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, having visited the Taj Mahal yesterday. I could see the Taj from the balcony of the hotel's breakfast veranda. And, yes, that is smog, not my camera. The amount of added pollution from the fireworks for Diwali is staggering.
I will save my comments for a full posting on the Taj Mahal for tomorrow with many more pictures, but I was reminded of the other Taj Mahal, namely the amazing guitarist, who along with John Lee Hooker and Miles Davis scored the soundtrack for Dennis Hopper's film noiresque "The Hot Spot".
I already miss the South of India for many reasons. There is an attitude down there and a feeling of life that is not found here in the North, or at least, I have yet to feel it.
Like the movie, it is a different pace (frenetic as well, but differently), a different style, something different. Can't put a finger on it yet, but the wheels are turning...
In the meantime, my favorite piece from the soundtrack...
Growing up in the mid-80’s as a decently educated white male in America, it is not too surprising that Rush would have come across my radar screen to some extent. For a while, at least, I was the self-proclaimed “biggest fan” in Amarillo, listening endlessly to Moving Pictures, Hemispheres, Permanent Waves, and 2112, Anthology, and Exit, Stage Leftdown in my basement room on my dad’s old record player that he had left many years before. Geddy, Alex, and Neil were my solace. Like the narrator of 2112, I had found this strange, new thing that gave music, and for a Time, that discovery, which would define a great deal of my teenage musical inclinations, was Rush.
Perhaps the most important to me, however, was A Farewell To Kings. And, for all intents and purposes, it still is. Yet, it is with bittersweet fondness and regret that I listen to the title track. It is a memory of losing my greatest childhood friend. By losing, I don’t mean that she died, but that we lost track of each other during a transitional phase in each of our lives, and unfortunately, the thread was never regained, despite my attempted efforts to do so.
Teresita and I never lived in the same city or town, never dated, never even kissed, but there was a deep love and respect for each other’s plight in the sea of teenage angst. We wrote hundreds of letters over the years, having met at a swim meet in Odessa when I was 13, and she 15. For about a decade, we shared every triumph and every defeat in our lives, each dream and hope, whether fantasies in life to be unrequited, or sincere desires or expectations to be fulfilled.
Our common joke was that should life got too tough and “the dragons grow too mighty, to slay with pen or sword,” we would go start a pineapple farm on some deserted tropical island. Life did get pretty tough for me at times, and I often thought about that pineapple farm and whether Teresita had found her respite in the turmoil that our lives can throw at us. I know that she had some very difficult times, and for many of them, I was her only ear willing to listen, if only per letters, or by phone when possible. This, of course, was pre-cell phone and regular email contact, and a phone call used to take concerted planning and was a thing of expectation, rather than mere commonplace. It was the means to a deep, caring conversation that we held for those many formative years.
I am saddened at writing this, in all honesty, for of all my life, I believe that over the years, in spite of hardships and difficult times, I have been able to recover or at least make the attempt to redeem lost friendships of those whom I had valued so dearly, except for Teresita, a dear and respected friend.
Thinking of “Kings,” it was not unexpected to me that the memory of her came to my mind, and this song.
Given this, I can say that this is one of my one regrets in life, that I let this friendship slip away...and, throwing it out to the cosmos, I have learned the hard way not to take such precious gifts of friendship for granted.
