Day 26: No Easy Fix

Everything hurts. My body needs rest. And I’m in just the place for it. We cycled 30km on the easy paved road to Padum and found a hotel. Just that felt like excruciatingly painful in my current state. My right knee has decided to start hurting in addition to the left and the saddle sore on my left rump cheek has entered the contentious fight for the spotlight as well. It’s good to relax. I haven’t been sleeping well in the homestays and I know a real mattress with pillows and a good duvet will do the trick and restore some vitality. In positive news, no more prostatitis, that thing is over and done with thanks to my seat being level. So, hey, little victories. We met another cyclist in the market. A retired lawyer from Mumbai, he’s been cycling India for 2.5 years and he loves to go slow. He started In Mumbai and has made his way through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Kashmir, Ladakh, and Himachal. He’s in no rush, and wanders whichever way he wants, going off the beaten trail and connecting with the locals. It’s much easier for him to do so given his fluency in Hindi and a few other languages. His bike is extremely heavy, I tried to lift it and couldn’t. He has everything he needs: a full cook set with plenty of food, a tent and sleeping bag, and tons of other stuff. He’s riding a Surly Disc Trucker, a bike I had debated using but the cost of swapping out the drop handlebars restrained me.  He actually did swap them for flat bars and kind of frankensteined his way into a similarly tall stem. It’s inelegant aesthetically but it gets the job done. His set up is pretty cool and he uses a stick as his kickstand which I love. He also seems really really happy. It’s something you see often with these multi-year traveling types. They just have this smile, and it’s almost a half-crazy smile like they’ve seen something beautiful on the other side and they can’t ever go back now, but it’s genuine. The man has found some answers, and he has an unabashed confidence in the greater power that watches over him. He tearfully gave us an allegory of someone who walked through life with always two sets of footprints, but at the hardest part of their life there was only one set. This person asks the divine power why they’d abandoned them, and the divine power responds they were carrying them. Kind of cheesy, but hey, also kind of powerful. And he really believes it, and I love that. He’s a ballsy and hardcore guy, but covers it up with loads of modesty. He’s been sleeping out on the side of the road, wherever he feels like without fear. He said he got tired of setting up the tent and just goes al fresco in the sleeping bag, despite the frigid temperatures. You just get used to it, he says. And he really thinks nothing of it. And he’s fine going slow. He did the umla pass, the highest motorable pass in the world, and it took him two full days. And he looks good. I mean he’s a really handsome guy, well groomed, well put together. He doesn’t wear sporty cycling clothes, but semi-casual cotton, button up shirt and pants. He takes care of himself. He kind of laughed at us for being in what he calls an expensive hotel (we’re paying 1000 rupees each which is pretty decent), he somehow found a room for just 500 rupees, and he told us we should do our laundry ourselves which we hadn’t even thought of so now there’s a bucket sitting in our room filled with water, clothes, and the detergent I bought during the shirt incident. He told me I was upper class because I had been asking the hotels and hostels to do my laundry. And maybe I am. I certainly can’t afford to be for much longer. I’m 4 weeks in and still recovering emotionally and budgetarily from the Dehi/Srinagar scams, so it’s time to start imposing austerity measures and stop being a fool. I’m still trying to find a sleeping bag and pad for Adam so we can stop throwing money away at homestays but I don’t think I’ll have much luck.  Anyway, I look in that guys eyes and I see that he’s really had the time of his life, he’s changed and grown and become confident, and all in the autumn of his life as a retiree. That gives me a lot of hope for the potential of an exciting life going forward, especially if I can sort out all my stupid little body issues. 

Once we’d settled into the hotel, Adam really wanted to check out the “bar” in town so we did. What a sad place! It was all men who were clearly exhausted from intense physical labor and it seemed more a place of despair than one of celebration. Kind of a 2PM crowd at the Irish bar down the street vibe. Of course that didn’t bother us. I allowed Adam to pour me just the tiniest bit of Godfather 8% beer (it’s all they have). I had given up drinking this Summer because it kept triggering IBS and I was worried I had some kind of chronic gut condition like SIBO. I drank it. Ugh. I liked it. Adam gave me more. We shared one can, then another and another. Adam told me more about his life and his family. We did the thing men do where they drink alcohol and then they open up and they get into philosophical arguments about things that can’t really be resolved and you hit all those brick walls that you’ve hit countless times before. It felt all too familiar. I can’t say I didn’t find it enjoyable, but it definitely reminded me of the nothingness and going nowhereness and repetitiveness of drinking with friends in New York, where we always shuffled through those same old topics, allowing ourselves to dream big and at the same time letting the despair of the world and our own lives to gently settle onto our furrowed brows like the first flurries of snow. Those conversations that are like mazes that can span all the things in life but which always lead to the same sad sigh and “well what can you do? Still gotta pay the bills”. We talked about marriage and kids and money and all that. We talk about the idea of settling down in general, the stigma of the 45 year old man who if wealth and status permit him to could just continue sleeping with women in their early 20s much the way Leonardo DiCaprio does. And what of it? Do we imagine Leonardo DiCaprio as sad or happy? Which is it? Is it any of our business anyway? Society, in its monogamous moral righteousness, tells us he must be sad, he has to be, there must be a hole in his heart if he hasn’t yet found someone to love and would rather just date models aimlessly. But the well observed dead souls of so many married men tell us, maybe Leo is happy, or at least, Leo is free, and spared from a potentially worse fate even if there is some abyss in his heart. I like Adam, he’s a great guy. He has this British non-anxiety that pairs really well with my Jewish neurosis. He just feels at ease floating around and doesn’t seem to be scared of much of anything. I think this “let’s crack on then shall we?” attitude is how the British conquered the world, and conversely why the Jews can barely sort out a piece of land the size of New Jersey, which funny enough they begged the British to give them. Then we talked a little bit about my world. I explained to him what the writers strike is about, the democratization of media and how Tik Tok is disrupting the worlds of advertising and entertainment, the encroachment of AI and rotten streaming deals. It all comes back to the cold inarguable logic of capitalism. If corporations can find a way to spend less, hire less, and make more, they will. And why shouldn’t they? He mentioned the Harare book, Homo Deus, which I haven’t read, but that theorizes a sort of basic income in the future for all the folks who are left behind. And there will be many. The future seems to be one wherein decent work is ever more scarce. And the inequality that’s currently ripping us apart will only grow. And the rich will be these unrecognizable cyborg things, having basically risen to the status of gods with the help of AI and other enhancements, while the poor rot away in their unevolved ignorance. And once we really have robots doing everything, and the rich become immortal, what need will we even have for the poorer classes? And do you believe that there are poorer classes and richer classes who have been separated genealogically for so long that it’s pretty much baked in to the DNA now? Is that some sort of biological classism? I mean we talk about racism all the time but what about castes and classes? Certainly we agree that Beagles are different from German Shepherds despite being the same species. In India, this idea is part and parcel of the fabric of society and few bother to challenge it. People sort of just accept their caste and that’s life. Maybe it’s even comforting to know that you don’t need to aspire for anything greater. The Hindu religion justifies it and quells any would-be dissenters, karma will take care of it in the end. Every society tacitly accepts and believes in class as an inherent law of nature, whether or not they care to admit it. America has a strong caste system, less visible, less obvious, but very much present. Instead of using karma, we justify it through our culture of individualism which says you’re rich or poor because of how hard you worked and everyone has a fair shot in the USA. But this isn’t so true, is it? America doesn’t have nearly as much economic mobility as it would like to think it does or as it makes us think it does. There was a time when immigrants came here as low caste in their countries of origin and made it to the higher tiers, and we celebrate that time. It does still happen today even. But in recent times, most Americans have stayed where they are or even slide in the opposite direction. The poor typically stay poor for generations and the rich do the same. But we like to tell a different story. Every now and then we let a poor person become rich and we point all the TV cameras at that person and it helps keep the narrative alive that you DESERVE your poverty or you DESERVE your wealth because that person made it happen and if they can you can too and they themselves are even convinced that they made their own luck and it wasn’t some chance event taking place in spite of an overly unfair system and that’s how we keep everyone complacent. Is that really so different or better than the biological inheritance caste system in India kept in place by karma and hinduism? I say it’s far more insidious because it masquerades itself as some sort of freedom. It is an insulting lie. But I digress. Back to the AI Gods. If this world comes to be, what will become of these “lesser” castes? These reservoirs of cheap labor that are kept servile and obedient like cattle, of what use will they be when their labor is no longer needed? And which camp do we belong to? Are we the rich or the poor? How will it be determined who gets to board the Titanic life boat of AI-powered apotheosis? Of course, all humans deserve to have good lives, that is an undeniable moral fact we should all be on the same page about. But we currently have way too many humans on the planet to fairly distribute a good life to all without exacerbating the devastating ecological collapse that’s already in progress. And how do we peacefully reduce this number? Is immigration good because it temporarily helps stabilize the economies of first world countries with falling birthrates, or is it bad because it disrupts the cultural authenticity and integrity of a place and robs the third world of its most ambitious and intelligent people? Paris will never be Paris again. Once a place is multicultural it basically just becomes America, it becomes New York. Should the world just become America? What will it mean to kill the cultural diversity of the world and blend it all into this post modern bisque? All these problems, juggling around in the minds of two men drinking 8% beers in the Ladakhi equivalent of a ramshackle bar in the outskirts of an old Pennsylvania coal town pub at 2PM with sad seniors and folks on disability drowning their sorrows. What a thing to be alive in this day, in this place, with these complexities, with far more questions than answers. 

We stumbled out of the bar and peed out on the desolate street as the late evening wind whipped at us. It felt like late November in New York. We could see the gargantuan snow capped mountains looming over us in the hazy light of dusk. I felt drunkenly gay and we joked and teased each other as we made our way towards the “town center” where we could eat at one of the three restaurants that were open. It had become a running joke with us, as a motivator to arrive at these obscure towns we saw on the map, to imagine the towns as these bustling metropolises that held everything a man could ever want. We had visions of brothels where the women are beautiful and motherly and wipe our brow as we sit on the toilet and spoon feed us chicken biryani. I don’t know, I guess this is just what men will joke about when they’re alone in the wild on bicycles making strenuous efforts.  After passing by a few empty restaurants, we found the one in town that teemed with life. Run by Indians from Uttarakhand, this place was bustling and you knew the food was good. We had samosas with chutney and devoured some chicken curry and tea and then more samosas. The man who worked there told me his Visa request was denied for America, Adam told him not to waste his time and to try for Britain, I took down his number and told him I’d be in touch with Joe Biden about it. Unfortunately I don’t remember his name or Joe Biden’s number for that matter. I was still hungry and I wanted chocolate. We started harassing all the local little stores looking for sweets and cigarettes and we found them and it was actually very fun and no one minded our rowdiness in fact I think it was quite welcome.

Adam wanted to go back to the bar but it was closed so we found ourselves back at the hotel. The power was out and all the hotel patrons were serving themselves dinner with flashlights. It was around 7:30 or 8:00 PM, the night was quite young. We sat in the lobby and Adam ordered some beers. We were soon joined by two Indian travelers we’d met earlier that day, Suraj and Siddarth. They were pretty high. And when drunk people meet high people, good conversation happens. I paired up with Suraj while Adam and Siddarth chatted. Suraj was from Haryana. He worked for the past 7 years in Gujurat in customs at a big port. He quit last year and has been traveling since. He’s eerily similar to me in his intentions, but I suppose most long term travelers have just about the same general story. He told me he felt that he was living the same day over and over, that his purpose had become just to make money and spend it, and he was trying to escape that world of money but finding it impossible to escape. Of course he was high and sometimes he’d take an awful long time to think about something he wanted to say or he’d laugh at something way more than it deserved to be laughed at, but he was a bright man and good to speak with. He asked me what the purpose of my trip was, where I wanted to go? I told him I was still working that all out. I didn’t want to go to Agra or Varanasi or Goa, because I’m far more intrigued by middle of nowhere India where time has stood still and the people see me more as a fascinating novelty than an ATM machine. He asked me what I was looking for. I told him I’m looking for what humanity looks like without money. He told me everyone who travels is running away from something. I told him sure, that may be true, but I also like to think I’m running towards truth. He liked that. We somehow got on the subject of marriage and family, which often happens with Indians. They always ask me if I’m married or where my girlfriend is. Suraj is not married, and that is why he is free, he says. Traditional society, in order to preserve itself, thrusts marriage and children on us at such a young age so that we buy in and invest in society before we even have the clarity or freedom to question it, this is how the cycle keeps going. Suraj, enveloped in a philosophical marijuana delirium, articulated a parable to me of a fox that has no tail and that claimed to all the other foxes that it had reached enlightenment. The foxes wanted to experience this enlightenment too and so they, too, cut off their tails. They found that absolutely nothing changed after the severing of their tails, except that now they had no tails. And that, Suraj said, is what starting a family is. The culture tells us we must do it to reach some kind of greater understanding of the purpose of life, and those who are already under the bondage of their own families would like to convince you to do the same so they do not suffer alone, and so everyone cuts their tails and finds that nothing has changed but now they have no tails. The tail is, of course, freedom. Here, it’s important to note that Suraj is talking about family from a very Indian perspective, where there is heavy familial pressure to start one and you’re often coerced into marrying someone you’ve never met before. Obviously I’m a big proponent of family in general, but it’s difficult to embrace getting married before you feel ready and know yourself and to someone you’ve never met on top of it all. Suraj got so high that we couldn’t really have a coherent conversation anymore so I joined Adam and Siddarth. Siddarth is an economics professor in Delhi. He’s smart and funny and we talked at great length about Indian politics and economics. He told us about the ethnic cleansing going on in Manipur between the Meiteis and Kukis and how the Meitei majority leader was friends with Modi so there’d been little to no government intervention. I was drunk and made some jokes about how that’s why I always keep the Kuki jar well out of reach or something to that effect and it garnered laughs but then I felt kind of bad because I was making a joke about an ethnic cleansing happening some kilometers away. He talked about how India is basically little pieces of California surrounded by large swaths of sub-saharan Africa and how even though he’s just a professor he’s in the top 2% of earners in a country where the per cap GDP is around $2,200. He invited us to visit him in the city and that he’d show us the spots and maybe I will, even if I hate Delhi. It could be a cathartic retribution to have a good time in that city. Eventually it was time to sleep. I had already finished Crime and Punishment and was some pages into Great Expectations. It’s my first Dickens book, and it’s hilarious so far. I think I’ll enjoy this one. Adam turned out the lights and said “night bud” as he slipped on his headphones to listen to his fantasy football (soccer) podcast.