Rock of the Eagle

As in I am in Eagle Rock, at jocaob's. back at pomona tomorrow.

Mother BEEEEEP

Calcutta is one of the scariest things I have ever done. But I guess I have quite a bit to update, so here we go...

Last I wrote I think was monday or tuesday, maybe earlier, as I went from darjeeling to KPG. Well, KPG was GREAT! as always. I got almost nothing done. The one person I had to meet for my last interview canceled on me the last minute.

Every day I went and hung out with Naveen daaju and Rudra bhaai. I was quite sad as Subaas bhaai went to Nimbong, where his home is and did not come back before I left. I really like that guy alot, and we get along really well. It sucks I didn't get to see him again before I left, especially since we didn't really get to hang out while I was there. Just means I have to make a point of it next time.

I convinced Naveen's aamaa that I was going on a picnic to the Relli Kohla by myself, which prompted her to suggest I take all of the guys along (Rura's idea) and on thursday we headed off on yet another river expedition, on a much steeper climb down and no prospect of a car back. My sprained right leg was feeling up to it so I forged through along with Naveen dai, Rudra bhaai, Bikaas daaju, his daaju from Delhi, some kid, and "the other" arjun daaju. Oh and Bookie of course, one of the best dogs ever.

It was amazingly fun, and then rushy old overcomfident me, went and tripped on a rock and sprainmy other foot! Yes, I know... I am a clumsy fool. Except this time it sent me head over heels off of the path and down to my spiraling and ultimate death!

At least that is what everyone else thought as they rushed towards me. The path curved towards where I fell SO i only fell a few feet but it felt like forever, much worse was the feeling they had of my death or the feeling I had for a good 2 minutes that I oculd no longer move my legs. I tried and tried but to no avail. That was a horrifying moment in life. but I was laughing, of course, how else do i deal with things like this? Does anyone remember when I jammed the giant khukuri blade into my hand, and while everyone freaked out at cuts and blood I was jiggling my skin going you can see the bone! and laughing as if I were watching charlie chaplin. I somehow have an overconfident belief in an early, but not too early death, a sense that I know nothing will be wrong when it won't and that it will when it will... and it hasn't failed me yet. It is bad though.

Anyway, I stood and they checked me for cuts and things. I was fine, my hands are pretty cut up bt I didn't hit any rocks, if I had hit my head I probably would be dead... or retarded... but I am fine. Except for the addition of sprained ankle number 2.

So with my penguin like waddle walk exaggerated to its fullest potential, we triumphed down to the river and ate dhaal bhaat and swam for hours and hours. Every time I thought we had stopped swimming, we swam again! It was incredibly fun, and tiring. And watching naveen daaju trying to swim was hilarious. There was a point he got stuck in the current and he ended up in my arms running away from it. It was all good fun. I also tried to teach Rudra bhaai how to float, but none of them seemed to really get it. I remember how hard it was when I was a kid though and people had to hold me up all the time until i got it.

Then naveen suggested the best worst idea ever... me, him, and bikaas' daaju from delhi would walk to bikaas' daaju from delhi's friend who came from delhi's house and spend the night there. word was sent back home with "other" arjun daaju and off we went...

we SHOULD HAVE... walked along the river for about an hour and uphill for about 1 or 2 hours and conclude dour journey in a warm, well fed, over drunken state.

Instead we walked up and down hill, over and past river, through fields, and sheds, and unknown people's homes... from 3pm to 7/7:30 PM... making it officially the first time i ever saw a nepali say he was eexhausted from walking. I thought i might die again, of exhaustion... a full days walk and no water... when we finally came upon a house in the middle of fields at 5 or 6 I drank a full 2 glasses of chiso (cold non boiled) paani (water) and thanked god that i did not have a weak american stomach, that i have been drinking fresh semi dirty bacteria filled third world country water most of my life and it doesn't get me sick except on the rare occasion. I in fact, am still quite healthy. I knew it wouldn't suck to drink it since I had drakn jaar made from river water a little earlier, and if you've been to KPG, you know that is much grosser, but at least it has alcohol. I am not John Dawa who drank plain ol' river water...

Then we trudged our way up and around and found some other friend of bikaas' daaju's daaju from delhi's house and ate and stayed there. i felt ready to keel over and say my last words, and naveen was falling asleep.

It was a great trip! the next day we walked down to the river again, a good 45 min downhill walk and took a jeep back.

To make sarah and some part of myself happy i did purchase some laamaa lugaa. I will now go with priti didi and get me some dhaal bhaat in pasadena. although she'll probably make me shave my head.
Now I am in calcutta. which is radically different, amazingly huge, and for the moment, uttelry terrifying to be in alone. Though i just met a nice german girl.

to be continued.

No body reads blogs

OK, just for a little bit of aircleaning. I have to point something out... how many times has anyone ever sat around to read a person they do not know's blogs... hopefully never, or else I fear for your level of boredom. AND say you have, you were probably that bored, and don't really care what it was about. So, simply because I am too lazy to write individual emails, and because I have little time and it is hard to type on this Samsung keyboard from 1810, I have to point out that no one reads these, and people who do don't really care what they say. I also know exactly who, from where, and how long every person that reads this is from... if I were anally retentive enough to look I am sure I would be amused by the low number.

Today, spurred by this moment, I would like to rant about opinions. In one's life one has opinions, some help, some hinder you along the way, and in the end, everyone else just has to suck them up. They form your htoughts, and therefore they change with time, which is why opinions should be taken both very seriously and not seriously at all simultaneously. This is hard for most people to do. So we pick and choose when we should do each, but really we should be doing both at once. Anyway, since what one believes and opines is in fact all that one has to share with others outside of practical skills, jokes, and really good sex, one should in fact share them, to hide them, or to pretend not to have them, or pretend to have other ones... would be to Lie, and Lying is bad. Its a commandment, and no one can break them. It would be among hte most decievious of things to do so, because it would make people think you are someone you are not, love, trust, or even just slightly enjoy the company of someone who does not exist, and then when The Day comes, and one's Real Thoughts emerge, the others are hit with the Terror. The Fear. What happened to him/her? Why did they change so suddenly? It is so unfortunate when people "change" so quickly. Though it rarly occurs to people that they didn't actually change at all. You just never really knew who they were because they didn't want to tell you.

Hmm..

Awkward?

SO, I must stick to commandment 11, which is be honest. Sometimes that will you help you along the way, sometimes it will hinder you. Such is life. Its not like pretend, "more acceptable" opinions will only always help you, they will hinder you too... it all depends on what you want to do and where you want to go. I fear little from people. Scandal helps if you manage it, hatred and love always come had in hand and that makes you live forever, and masses are easily deviated from bad thoughts, and I as a member of the masses am easily ocnvinced of the common idiotic thought.

In the end, I don't so much dislike people whose opinions are stated which I think are wrong or evil or just plain intellectually defficient. I dislike middle grounds, teeter totterers. Doubt is good. Doubt fuels passion, imagination, journeys. Jesus doubted, God doubted, Krishna doubted, even the prophet Muhammad doubted, Shakiyamuni the Buddha, my parents, the little sperm that headed towards my little egg, the guy who droe me 3 hours in the dark to get to a hotel, the lady that has to decide whether or not my bags should be searched, me stripped naked, and my anus looked in for crack that always (Thank God) smiles and says have a nice day sure that I am a good person, the guy who stole my Nalgene bottle, all doubted. BUT, the poin of doubt it TO GET OVER IT... to pass through the valley of the friggin' shadow of death.. not to wallow in it like a melancholy half-retarded mule unwilling to move forward. Eventually you have ot make up your mind.. that is THE POINT.. now this could tkae years or minutes... but people these days live their entire lives on the middleground, waiting for some universal truth like life after death, god, whether or not gay people are evil spawn, and whther dog are btter than cats or cats are better than dogs, even if tuna or cheese causes cancer to reveal itself by itself. It is not your job to make a decision... just let the universe do it for you. GET OFF YOUR ASS, STOP WATCHING TV, and GO MAKE IT YOURSELF! I dislike life long agnostics these days. Simple as that. I am one right now..on some things. but I am looking actively to change that, not sitting around until I die to have something make my mind up for me.

Live with no regrets, be yourself, make up our mind on things, and do whatever the fuck you want, don't let anyone tell you you can't and then you can. Sometimes you will fail... thats part of the game. Doesn't mean you don't get it in the long run, and if you don't look around maybe you got something better.

Don't be a pessimist, but don'tbe an optimist.
Don't get for christmas a bicycle whose wheels are all wrong, a toy who is just the wrong one, or a ticket to the wrong location. But don't get a room full of horse shit and dig in it for a pony.

I don't take showers once of twice a week.
I like the taste of Chinese food after its sat overnight inthe fridge and without warming it.
I would prefer to ride a horse, then a motorcycle, than a car, than wakl, and I can't ride a bike adn don't care learning.
I've grown to like cats.
I have loved and been loved.
I have loved and lost.
I have pretended to care about people.
I have damaged a soul.
I have left scars.
I can't eat the outer rougher part of Brie.
I actually like the taste of carrots, but always say I don't and refuse to eat anything with them in it.
I think celery is quite disgusting without dressing.
I wish I could fly every day.
I am too old for my age.
I am too childish for my age.
I am too petulant for any age.
I never want to fully be an adult, and never will be, even if I have to.
That will get me in trouble.
I held a huge snake once while I was drunk and really high.
Yes I was high.
Grow up, it is not that big a deal.
Every day worse and better things in the world happen than the small things in my life.
Every day things happen in my life worse and better than the big things in the world.
Jesus tolerates everything but intolerance which is not a paradox or an illogical statement, so if you don't like someone for generally irrational reasons...Jesus does in fact hate you.
Change of get over it.
2+2=4 not 5 not 3 not 238974637364873, so an answer can be right.
I think the next professor that tells me or someone lse that an answer is good but not good enough, right but not right enough, or that was just ok or nice.. will get a little mini lecture in return, where i will say I was WRONG, and that I will not grow up to kill people, eat babies or tyranically overrule a 3rd world country if they tell me so.

Today.
end.

Find the Courage to Say, "Mommy, help me"

The world is small, and I go off on many a rant about many a thing. I realized this morning though that I have not made a New Year's Resolution. Which I am generally good at keeping. This years is :
drrrrrrrummmmroooollllllll
I will not take the easy road, and revert to everything I was before I learned new things. Its is so easy to do. Its sickening.
I will keep all my other resolutions. I make alot. Its time there is a reason I make a lot of them for.
I will choose to believe NOT the simplest explination for things. As it doesn't necessarily mean the right answer if its simpler any more than the none simple one does, and its more worth believing.
Finally, Me and God will be slightly more friendly.

I partied it up with some aussies last night. It was a lot of fun. I like coming from drinking cultures. For the most part, barring the occasional Thanksgiving, I know how much to drink and I have quite a bit of fun. I don't do it often, its lost its mystique after turning 21, it really has, but here i have to sort of fake hide it again like in high school and its so much fun!, maybe I just like breaking rules.

Ok I have work to do, and home to go to. Off and away, dear sirs, off and away.

this project is so fake!

This project is fake and I don't care!

It is going to be pretty half assed. But in the end I just wanted to be here, I virtually simply all out lied about acuatlly coming to do any work. So my endeavor was successfull and the people who need not know that its all fake will never know. They willa we at my "findings."

A large group of british christian children in their gap year just moved into andy's. They scare me, and I don't want to hang out with kids. i miss real tourists in their 20's of early 30's. These children are silly, loud, and much like small rodents pests.

I am gladly leaving tomorrow. I have little to do here with no NGOs open. I will go to happy valley in the morning and then rush back to KPG like I was struck my a dart in the ass.

Monday I will go to Kuersang and to Castleton tea plantation to get a factory tour. Then I wll be in KPG, I'll hit up the ATREE NGO which does all the marketing and do some stuff on christians in India all week while I do nothing. I'll buy lots of rock music and try to find the scraps of fiction that exist in the area. Maybe I'll do something on the khukuri for a few hours. Goal: ue up all the tape and make up a documentary. Accomplished: easily.

I also plan to get footage of all the families for everyone. just a few minutes each.

Goodbye Darjeeling, hello Home, and very very soon... goodbye all of it. I really hate leaving so bad. It still sucks. I'm glad I finally feel something leaving somewhere though. I never really have felt sad or happy or anything leaving anywhere. It's just a fact of life, change, moving, growing, etc. I jsut deal with it. its not a big deal it just is. But this is a big deal, and I thought that was a weakness.. it probably is... but its a weakness I like to have.

Free my path of obstacles, dear Lord Ganesha

I have to say I strongly believe that fear is by far the worst of humanity's enemies. What we do out of fear is amazing, usually we do not even acknowledge it is fear that drives us to do it. Instead we frame it as we "need" things. If we "need" something, it cannot be bad, it is a basic human survival trait is it not? to seek what we need. It is required for a happy life, and what does anyone want but happiness? Yes. But, if we really take a look at what we tell ourselves we "need" we quickly realize we don't need any of it. Well, most of it. In fact is is only fear that dictates we do.

I need to be popular: fear of being alone, fear of not being accepted, fear of not fitting in, fear of being different, fear of standing out, fear of not being loved.

I need a new car, not one that gets me where I need to go but one that looks good and requires more than I can afford to purchase: Fear of not being cool, fear of no longer being the best, fear of not looking manly enough, fear of being thought of as less, fear of not being able to buy whatever one wants, fear of others' opinion.

I need to get good grades: fear of being rejected by one's parents, fear of being rejected by one's friends, fear of not being smart enough, fear of not getting money in the future, fear of inadequacy, fear of not being loved.

I need, I need, I need, I need... and finally we realize it was but fear that motivated our need when we accomplished our goal and were left unsatisfied. Instead we crave more, for our fear lives longer than we do, its life force is our denial, its food is our hunger to satisfy it, its air is what we term obsession, its excrement is our failure. It is the reason there are so many successful people who feel unsatisfied, who feel inadequate, who feel they need more.

We need to get rid of/kill/discredit/outcast those who are "immoral"/"inhuman"/"different": fear of being wrong, fear of the unknown, fear of being the same as somehting one has been taught and trained to loath, fear that one and those like one are not superior, fear of not being special.

Love drives a different sort of passion. A passion of constant contentment, or risks and equal if not greater amounts of driving force, energy, persistance, and labour intensive struggle to accomplish. Yet, it smiles and learns from misfortune, it thrives of growth, it feeds us as we feed it, it is simbiotic and not parasitic, and so we are satisfied with our successes small and large, and not driven to misery by our occasional downturns. When we reach a goal we feel satisfied and we do not hunger for more without a greater purpose. We find happiness in the small things. In the pride of one's parents, with teh realization that is is easily won, with the smile of children, with the whispers of winds, with the phone calls of dear friends, with the hugs of loved ones, with the playfulness of dogs, with the pride of cats, with the brilliance of a morning sun, with the squaking of birds, with routine and with spontinaity, with the blessing of life each day. It is a different passion that drives love and is driven by it. And it is the only weapon against fear, corny and sappy as it may be. Sadly, it is usually the rarest of individuals who has experienced real love, for we build walls to it, we hide from it, we are indifferent to it, we are sarcastic at the thought of it, it is not cool to love. It is cool to not care.

I picked the tea thing back up. I went to the "guy who knows everything and anything about tea" who is literally the teacher of almost everyone in this city, and holds their contact information even though the NGO's are closed. I just went to his house, I told him who I was, and he invited me in and we had a long chat. I have an interview tomorrow and he will tell me who else to contact. As I only need a total of 4 or 5 hour long interviews to make this work I am more relaxed.
I will probably still pick another topic and head into KPG and do it too. But that will be extra plan B. Always have a plan B, if plan A fails you are good, if plan A does not fail you are extraordinary.

I purchased a Lord Ganesha out of Yak bone for about 7 dollars and placed him in the center of the room.

I trust the the elephant headed god shall ride his rat and remove my obstacles.

First signs of all marbles Being, for all intents and puposes, haraaeko chaan (lost)

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UCK

So I finished the laborer interviews, and i Head to the NGOs... but they are all closed! without them i have NOTHING... do you understand... NOOOOTHING!

Phew... ok freak out over. So I'm gonna go what can only be identified as buckwild for the next 2 days hunting down anyone and anything that can slavage this project, but its about 80-90% a total waste of time. So, tomorrow night after I collect all the material and realize I have nothing worthwhile, I will develop a new topic, one to film in Kalimpong and I have a week to film it! I'll start on Monday and be doen by Thursday (yes, that is my definition of a week, and if you've ever been in Kalimpong you know that actually means like a month) So I am not worried about time... Khukuris, the agitation, topics abound... I just have to do it. So Am I freaking out? YES.
am I genuinely all that worried? NO.

Phew... Ok. Slight problem number 2: I've been walking on the sprained ankle from the river trip. I heard that was really bad, which is probably why it has not stopped hurting. Oh well. Nothing much more I can do eh? I'll take it ot he docotr when I get back so he or she can tightly wrap it and tell me that afer I'm 60 its gonna hurt like a motherfucker all the time and its all my fault that I am going to have an old age full of pain and suffering. I will gladly respond, and reassure him or her that I am not worried for I will not have an old age as I do not wish to have one, and one I have accomplished my career goals, raised my children, and traveled the world, once I begin to live uncomfortably with no home of recovery and only home of slow decay and misery, I have no moral, spiritual, social, or personal qualms with deciding that I have lived enough and I can depart calmly under the influence of a mild poison which I will give myself after writing a nice will, leaivng everything to the people I care about and leaving a few assholes with only my poop in a bag. I will donate my organs to charity, and I will be burned ritualistically so as to rejoin the earth very literally. And that will be the end of my consciousness for after we die there is nothing left of what I think of as "me" so I have nothing to fear. Nor will I feel bad or good about anything on earth, because there will be no me to feel anything. That wil simply be it. Hard to imagine yet comforting in many ways.

So it is ok. He or she will walk off silently with a look of utter bewilderment of with a new sense of self, more free from artificially created worries, and I shall sit there, happy with my wrapped foot, and maybe with a funny stick I have to lean on for a while and hop around on like a bunny or an injured dog.
Such is life.

Problem number 3: I was recently thinking about my plans for the future. They all seem really nice, drive across america, live in rome, volunteer and suffer for humanity in Kathmandu, probably travel through Asia then as well on free time times, return to america hopeful and ready for film school which i will pay for through loans and slave labor. Then off to seel my soul to the devil and make bad movies? good right? well I was just thinking about one small detail. The only small detail that is uniquely my problem and does not affect anyone I know. I have nothing but me in america... if my entire family moves to a different country, the small logicistical probelm of where the fuck do I put al my shit arises. Because across the years I have managed to amass quite a bit of shit, and while I could sell it all or give it to charity, that would mean that when i return I would have absolutely nothing, so that does not sound liek a good idea. For all intents and purposes the ideal would be to put it all into boxes, ship it home, put all the stuff at home that is mine into boxes, then store it in a closet where people can foget it exists til I come back and take it away 2 years later. When there is no place to do that to.. what does one do? I can't rent a storage space for 2 years... stuff would most likely be stolen and or break and be dmaaged beyond repair leaving me not with nothing but with a bunch of smelly rotten junk. You ask yourself, what do you have that is so important? I say nothing, but I say think about the closet of an apartment I will get myself when I return... the prospect of it being full of a hundreds of books, a small tv and some clothes, maybe a desk, a bookshelf and a computer... is a nice thought.. plus some bedsheets to sleep on with the lack of a bed or a matress... the thought of it being filled with, well... just me... and my potential rommates' stuff ... sad really.

Problem number 4: When your family lives in another country that is hard to call and get in contact with an things have to be done slowly because they arent in the smae place... SUCKS! just the simple mater of getting one's mail, or tlaking to one's parents, or pretty much anything simple or complex sucks. Its the same as having no one for the most part.

Problem number 5: I really have no desire to work in one job for 40 years, live in one place, have a family, a career, a a dog, and boring stability. I would probably drown myself out of bordom, or fake my own death and become a vagabond or a multimillionaire seraial killer spy for the government of a middle eastern/ southeast asian/ or in some feat of desperation even micronesian country. Hell i'd be a vatican spy or a spooky mystic for a while, just to aliviate the bordom. SImply I think I have 2 options, be really successful in film so I can fill the tedium with money and travel, or work in Europe every year for 6 months and travel til my money runs out and work again and do this until I am shipwrecked or taken away by alien lifeforms to see beauty of unknown and unimaginable nature.

Problem number 6: My greatest desire is to go to space, but my parents gacve me the recesses of the genes they had, and therefore I am not only not perfect enough to ever be an astronaut, I am probably too defecient biologically to be considered for plain pedestrain intergalactic travel. Plus it will probably take up to the time I am too old to go for it to be a normla practice. SO I have concluded that if someone invents a secret or illegal device to transfer one's consciousness to another body.. I am willing to sacrifice one of my children to a rapid death by switching my consciousness with theirs, thus grating them short years (very shosrt as so they don't talk I'll probbaly have to kill them) in my body, and me a whole new lifetime in their body. BRILLIANT!
Now we jjust need a mad scientist to perform the inventive part of the plan.

In Asia Monkey's Fly

I gave in and got a heater for the room. Its only 100 RPS extra a night and I'm bakc in Darjeeling so its cold all the time again. I'm gonna crack down on work for 4 days and then go and relax in KPG and do nothing til I head back to school. This is so much more a vacation than a research journey.

Time lasts so long here though, and I feel so great all the time that I am not too worried. The Bengali tourists are gone and its real chill now. But I still can't wait to get back to KPG and hang out with the family and stuff. Its alot more better... hehe, bad grammer. OK I'm tired and I have a long day of talking about tea ahead of me so That's all I can and want to say.

MTV is but THE Bible of American Pop Culture

Wierd weekend... crazy even.I loved it. I don't really want to go work for the next few days.

Saturday was rather uneventful. I just kind of went home and ended up going to bed at like 9 PM. I tried to stay up later but it was just too darn hard and rather pointless. Anyway, Sunday, the first day of the new year, I woke up at 5 AM with the belief I was going to "play picnic" with my daaju at 5:30 AM but we weren't leaving until 7, so I stayed outside, in front of the house, lookig out onto the himalayan foothills and watched the sunrise. It was really nice, listening to music and watching the first sunrise of the new year over such beautiful scenery.
You can't help but feel God. The more I live each day the more beautiful God seems and the more utterly utilitarian religion becomes. I love religion in all its rituals, colors, sounds and words. I love its communion with the divine and its community with the living. I hate the totalitarianism that creates chasms in human relationships but paradoxically it cannot exist without. One day maybe, everyone can be what they want and simultaneously acknowledge how everyone is slightly right and slightly wrong, how if there is only ONE kingdom of heaven, then it is logical that ALL passports are the same, and all gian entry in similar ways, just having to make different queues at the check-in post. Maybe that is too idealistic of me. But I would rather believe in an all loving God that give his children many paths and suffer in eternity for putting love above all things, than live in eternal bliss happily ignorant of my own self-righteousness and mass exculsivity. But I will not defend "god", as if Ultimate Truth and Love Beyond Human Comprehension needed defending, any battle to defend good is mine own, with others I can only defend the here and now, the things in this world that need defending, I cannot defend what is more powerful than myself, nor feign to think I can.

Then we went on a long but really easy hike down to the Relli River and we killed a chicken, and swam, and drank alot of rum, and ate good food, and made jaar and drank some of that, and then sobered up and lost our way back. We finally realized it was along a road we had walked a few times, and the bridge to cross the Tista River was wahed out in the monsoon and never rebuilt. So we had to cross on a pulley like ropeway. You sit, it allows gravity to get you 3/4 of the way across and then you pull on a rope until you can hook into the other side. Amazingly fun and utterly terrifying. We had lost 2 of our party to drunkenness, but the pulley children assured us they had gone across before us. This made sense since we had lost our way for so long. We winded up to the road at "27th Mile" and ot a car back. My daaju was freking out since we said we would return at 4PM and it was now close to 6. Then about 10 minutes into the journey we get hit by a car. Smacked in the back, but one of the party new the offending driver so we rushed into that car and after they fought out a fee for 20 minuted or so we were on our way again.

It was pretty amazingly fun. I am definatly happy I am not a woman (no offense) because I am more of an adventurous fun type than a little picnic on the lawn type, and this culture allows that much more of men. Scaling around on hillsides and falling down trenches is much more my style. I sure did scale and fall and slide and slip and get wet and it was great!

Unfortuantely it turned out the lost 2 were not in front of us, and when they hadn't turned up yesterday morning, we were in for a questioning. Gladly they did soon turn up, having gotten to the ropeway too late, they slept out in the jungle and made it back in the morning.

Yesterday was also generally uneventful. I hung out and had fun. I gave Andy's letter to his family and they made me read it. Mainly, I think, to watch me suffer over the Devanagari as I slowly tried to remember what all the characters meant. Oy!

My baba had to be sent to Siliguri this morning, because his back has been hurting wildly and has terrible insomnia and no one can tell him what is wrong. The KPG doctor just sent him off and if they say the same in Siliguri then its off to Bangalore. According to them they suck just about as much in Calcutta so its worth skipping over. I can't say I have a high opinion of American medical systems at all. In fact I think they are elitist and generally inaccecible to anyone that really needs it, also greedy, money seeking, misleading, and you have just as ad a chance of getting misdiagnosed, over medicated, and aimlessly put into surgery as anywhere else in the world, if not more for monetary gain on a corporate level. BUT, at least there, generally, they can tell you you the name of what you have so you can run off to the internet and self medicate and malpratice on yourself. Here you just have to sit around for hours to let others malpractice on you.

I hope that turns out all right.