Okay, actually, though.

If you can only eat tandoori chicken once, eat it here.

Everyone keeps telling us not to worry about the political insurgencies that are going on across Meghalaya and the rest of the Northeast, but then they say things like, “They probably won’t throw rocks at us” and “This one time, I went to visit my friend who is in the forest service, but I had to leave early, and then ten minutes later the forest station blew up.”

The Chief Minister’s secretary is supposed to come speak to the class today, but he doesn’t show up, and Rakhal is livid. “I will walk up to the Raj Bhawan (the Chief Minister’s house) myself if I have to,” he says. “I cannot believe this rudeness. He is giving such a bad impression of Indians.”

 I sort of like the casual attitude that people in India have towards time. Driving back from Agra at one in the morning, the drivers pulled over to a dhaba, a rest stop, and had a full meal while we sat in the car and waited. “We’ll get there eventually,” said Rakhal. Rakhal’s solution to everything is to stop what we’re doing and have some tea. Or we eat. In Delhi we would eat six meals a day because we would be traveling at these tourist sites, and Rakhal would get hot and frustrated, and he would say, “Well, let’s have some tea and chaat, then.” A lot of people complained about always having to pause, but I liked it. We spend too much time in America rushing from here to there without stopping and relaxing once in a while. People in India have much lower blood pressure.

 People in India are also so concerned about what we think of them. In hotels, in restaurants, even in the classroom—the phrase I have heard the most while I have been here is “Is it all right, madam?” And when you say it is, they shake their head and say, “No, no. It is not good.” More affluent people, especially, seem ashamed of things that are less Western. When we wanted to go to the Bara wholesale market in Shillong, where the tribal people in the state come to sell things, they said, “No, no, it’s dirty. And it smells like dried fish.”

 “We don’t care.”

 “Yes, you do. Or you would, if you saw it.”

 On things like “We shouldn’t go to the areas where there are Maoist rebels” or “It might not be a good idea to hike on the side of a 1000-foot cliff,” I am happy to defer to the locals. But it saddens me that the Americans they have come in contact with have given off the impression that we’re all a bunch of prissy divas who can’t handle mud or foreign accents or people not showing up when they’re supposed to. I actually didn’t care that the Chief Minister’s secretary didn’t show—we walked into town and had tea (of course) and did some shopping, and it was perfect. Although the motto of this trip for me has been Pace Yourself, I don’t mind getting dirty every once in a while.

 The Chief Minister’s secretary never showed up, by the way. When we asked if he would come the next day, Rakhal said, “I certainly hope not.”

A bunch of people decide they want to do yoga so Rakhal calls a yoga teacher who claims to help people with asthma (we have all been fainting from the altitude). She arrives in a spotless white salwar, wearing a sparkly diamond bindi, and she immediately begins to praise the virtues of her Guruji, who, she claims, is responsible for everything from removing the toxins of daily living to creating peace with Pakistan. “Guruji says that whatever you do, you must do with one hundred percent love in your heart,” she says. “And that means that in this class, we smile at all times.”

Going through the poses, doing the breathing exercises—I wouldn’t mind all this if it weren’t at 6:00 in the morning and she didn’t insist on keeping us until 8:45, long after breakfast. And there’s frankly something weird and cultish about the whole thing—the white clothing, the insistence that positive thinking and intention hyperventilation removes “toxins” from the body, the fact that, when I’m tired and pissed off that I let myself get roped into this, the lady comes up to me and says, “Butterflies are far more beautiful when they smile.” If this were America I would be walking out two minutes in, but because it’s India it feels more legit, and even though the teacher is getting on my nerves, I decide to at least give it a try.

 At the end of the second day, as we’re lying burnt-out on the floor, she says, “You have removed about fifty percent of the toxins from your body. It could have been one hundred percent, but you were not doing it with one hundred percent dedication and love in your heart. You must come again tomorrow and we will go longer.”

 Fuck it, I think, I’m an American. I live with toxins every day. And frankly, I just do not find Guruji that compelling. So on the third day, today, another girl and I decide not to go.

 The teacher is apparently livid. She calls Rakhal and demands that he wake us up. “They still have fifty percent of toxins inside of them. Their insides will rot. They can sleep here, but they must be present in the aura. They must come.”

 “They are asleep in their beds, madamji. This class is not mandatory for them.”

 “Do you have their mobile numbers? I will call them.”

 “…They don’t have mobiles, madamji.”

 Perhaps Americans do not have the kind of discipline required for Guruji’s program, because two other girls walk out halfway through the class, and, as a result, we are forever banned from yoga class.

 Sorry, Guruji. You win some and you lose some. 

The Prime Minister of India and the Prime Minister of Pakistan meet for peace talks, and they get into an argument. Their aides rush and press their ears against the door to make sure nothing too bad is going on. But they are all surprised to hear the Prime Minister of Pakistan cry, “I tell you, friend, we are as committed to fighting terrorism as you are to fighting corruption!” 

Rakhal decides to take us to this limestone cave in rural Meghalaya, but he won’t go in himself. “My wife forced me to go in once,” he says, “and I never did it again.” We decide to go through while he and Professor Rao sit outside on the benches and smoke cigarettes. Rakhal looks like a badass in his aviator glasses with his big gold ring. If he can’t go through the caves it would probably be okay for me not to go either, but I’m committed to making the best out of this day trip through the countryside, and I’ve already sat by the side of the road while the rest of the group clambered down a terrifyingly steep set of steps to see a waterfall (a good decision on my part, as it turns out, since one of the girls had an asthma attack halfway back up and ended up dry-heaving for half an hour). So I climb into the cave with everyone else and prepare a descent to the bottom.

 In my Literatures of Conflict class my freshman year, we read A Passage to India, where two  characters have a revelation while in a cave in South India. My professor always said that it meant they had sex in the cave, though he was a bit of a perv. I kind of expect to have a similar kind of experience while in these caves, though all I end up doing is having a panic attack when I’m expected to squeeze through a narrow passageway (spoiler alert: my ass really didn’t fit) and I have to walk back through a three-inch deep puddle that is allegedly full of leeches to get back to the parking lot. The American professor (who, you may remember, I have a special bond with ever since I overheard him macking on his wife) helps me over the puddle. “Are you going to be okay?” he asks, but I don’t answer, because I’m already booking it back down the steps to where Rakhal and Professor Rao are waiting. They look at me with understanding. “I got stuck in there once,” says Professor Rao, “and I cried.” Claustrophobia, our brother.

A Chief Minister goes to get his hair cut, and the barber asks him, “Please, sir, tell me, what is ‘black money?’” The Chief Minister immediately jumps up and says, “You stupid idiot, you fool, you pariah,” and he runs out of the shop. The next day, the barber gets a visit from the revenue service.

 The next week, another Chief Minister comes and gets a haircut, and the barber says, “Excuse me, sir, please tell me, what is a Swiss bank account?” Again the Chief Minister unleashes a torrent of abuse, and again, the barber is audited.

 Some time later, the barber met with a friend, and the friend said, “Why are you always in trouble with the government, bhai? Why do you always talk about things that make all the ministers so angry?”

 “Because,” says the barber, “when I talk about them, their hair stands on end, and it is the only way I can cut it close!”

Because the American professor is so useless with logistics, it is Rakhal who takes control of most of our trips. He is a gentlemanly Bengali with a two-pack-a-day habit and a pair of aviators that he wears constantly. Nominally he is a professor of political science, but he seems all at once a secret agent, Papa Bear, and tour guide.

 Whatever you need, Rakhal can get for you. He knows everyone and everyone knows Rakhal. India seems to be a country where it’s more about who you know than what you know or how much you make, and Rakhal is an expert at this system. On the street he shakes hands with hundreds of people, and whatever he asks for, he gets.

 Rakhal lives in the professor’s colony at St. Anthony’s, with his wife, Subrata (who is nice but forceful, as it seems many people are here), his mother and mother-in-law, and his eleven-year-son Rahul, a cricket fanatic who keeps failing math tests. They bicker in Bengali (a lot) but they seem happy. The modesty of his family life is a sharp contrast to how he is on the street, when he practically struts down the street. It must be nice to be locally famous.

Rakhal is perpetually loaded with cash—and he won’t let anyone pay for anything. Foreigners are regularly cheated out of their money here and so he acts as our bodyguard in the bazaars, screaming at the vendors, “2700 rupees for this kurta? Ridiculous. Criminal. It should be 2500.” And somehow he gets it for you for 2100, and when you reach into your purse he waves it away and says, “No, no. Pay me back.”

 Even in India, it’s nice to have a dad.

They say there’s no pollution in Shillong, but my black snot begs to differ.

“We know that you did not like George Bush in America,” says Professor Rao, “but what about Barack Obama?”

 “I like him,” I say, “but he’s less popular now than he was when he was first elected. People get frustrated, you know? They like him more abroad, I think.”

 “Is it true,” says Professor Rao, “that he is going in for gay marriage?”

 “Yes…”

 “And are people for or against it?”

 “Well,” I say, “mostly for it.”

 “Hmm,” says Professor Rao.