Coffee and Cardamom

Outside Madikeri-

Werner is the major player here, the guy that runs the joint, ex-late hippie, 1980 hippie, came to Goa/Bombay first time back then, dropped acid, chilled in opium dens where there’s one large long pipe for four users on bamboo mats, sharing the smoke with little wooden headrests, but no smoke no stay, This is not a flophouse, and it’s bad shit says Werner, never again, and then the power snaps back on again in his living room and his eyes are red, moustache twitching, he looks ten years older in the electric light, he’s telling us in his Germano accent about these electric times on LSD, the planning and preparation, agreeing on the music and the mood beforehand, valium at the ready in case of a bad trip, how he had such a bad trip one time he took all his valium to get off it- lucky he had only three left, and the smoke is being passed around, rolled from his giant Medusa-head looking growth and he’s telling us how it’s lonely living alone but it’s hard to find someone who’d adapt to this plantation lifestyle, out here on the retreat amongst the crickets and the tea leaves and coffee leaves and cardamom and giant tadpoles and little poisonous green snakes that coil up in balls when something’s coming and bite something if it steps on it so you gotta carry a torch at night on the paths to see your way, don’t step on those little guys, no way.

Crickets or cicadas, rice paddies and tea plantations, stillness and peace- it’s a different kind of India miles out here, my body is still vibrating from twenty hours of bumpy, spine-busting bus-riding, my neck is practically in traction. We got to Madikeri, but didn’t last long there- dust and noise and scummy hotels and “rooftop garden restaurants” which are dining room attics attached to open urinals. We made a few calls and came out to the Silver Mist Retreat, quaint cabins overlooking rice paddies frequented by elderly British couples. Whatever. K’s not well enough to go trekking for three days like we planned, and the Tibetan village we wanted to see now requires a permit, and we definitely weren’t staying in Madikeri. It’s beautiful serenity here- how I imagined Kerala, actually. Too bad I was so starving and all they had left to eat was toast. And cheese though. Smiley.
Our overnight bus stopped in Hubli for the half-hour break. I clambered down from my sleeper to look for a pisser and a friendly Indian man, late thirties, skinny, went to temple today, asked me, What country?.. We started talking, I was in a friendly mood and I knew he wasn’t trying to sell me anything, he was just on my bus. We found a piss alley, then he offered to buy me a beer from the standing bar. He took a tiny bottle of whiskey with some water and threw back the whole thing in one shot. Then we went around the corner to scrounge out some food. He told me how he worked in mining, managerial business side, traveled lots, and told me that it was an ancient volcano that gave Hampi its crazy Flintstone rock formations. He bought me some gobi and rice too, refused to take any money and threw back another of those tiny whiskeys. Now his eyes were red, and I can see why he likes to travel for his job. I tell him how all the Indians I’ve met in the past while have been trying to sell me something and it’s so wonderful to experience this amazing hospitality again, and he starts to go on about humanity and how it’s the only thing that matters, and he’s not really making sense any more, but who cares. I’m smiling. This is why I like Indian people. I remember again.