NOV 20 / DON’T BOGART THAT BOTTLE!

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 20TH

DON’T BOGART THAT BOTTLE!

I’m typing on the bus during a seven hour ride from Udaipur to Jodhpur. It’s a good thing I’m looking down at my lap because for the first time during the trip we are having a hair-raising ride. We’ll pull up behind a huge vehicle that’s impossible to see around, honk the horn and then just PULL OUT into the other lane. Somehow by the grace of Ganesha we haven’t hit anything yet. It this blog gets posted it will mean we made it safely. This is the kind of driving that Elizabeth Cohen warned me about but until today I haven’t encountered it.

We drove for a few hours and then stopped at a magnificent Jain Temple that was built it 1439. The Jains are an offshoot sect from the Hindu religion. They reject many of the traditional principles of Hinduism such as the caste system and having priests and many other things. But somehow over the centuries the Jains, who are supposed to have no possessions, have become important members of the merchant class. It guess there’s some kind of technicality there because you sort of don’t own anything and apparently nobody said there was anything wrong with selling… it’s a squirrelly business that I don’t really understand. But the Jain Temple – called RANAKPUR – gets a five star, “worth a detour” rating from me. The temple has 1444 pillars, all carved completely differently. What I really liked was that when you enter the temple you stand on a round piece of marble and by doing so it is supposed to rid you of “envy, greed and resentment”. I stood for a long time. Hopefully it will work.

The title of today’s blog refers to the fact that certain drugs that are illegal in the US are apparently no so in India. So somehow or other – I won’t name and names here – a certain substance was procured yesterday at the market call “benghlasi” and few a people tried it today on the bus. It looks like a completely disgusting blob of green goo and you put it in your bottle of water and drink it. Given that we’re on a seven hour bus ride with few pit stops and given that I didn’t know what this goo would do to me, I passed. But certain other fun individuals in the group were game and they seem to be doing quite well. No emergency stops have been required and they seem to be in good humor. I may have to try it if I ever get another chance.

It is now 6pm and we are finally arriving in Jodhpur. We have a group dinner this evening which we will somehow rally for!