There’s no getting around it: piglets are hilarious.
They’re funny in much the same way kittens are, though without the
soft cuteness. They take themselves so seriously, but are as
inherently comical as Richard Nixon wearing a sari. The way they
scatter explosively as I approach them indicates how delicious they
must be to a hungry dog, but knowing that doesn’t make the chaos any
less amusing.
We are surrounded by animals here: pigs, crows, rats and dogs being
the main characters. Each night, we are serenaded by the howling dogs.
We have a local mutt who doesn’t bark or howl like the rest, he
croons. His howl starts off like any other dog’s, but it then becomes
a drawn-out artistic expression of dog sadness and loss. A single howl
from this guy can last over a minute, depending on his mood.
And there’s plenty to howl about in Arambol. The dogs here are
probably the most charming I’ve known. Their relations with humans are
cordial and unassuming. They gather around when we are eating, and
watch us. But they don’t whine, beg, or try to steal food. They simply
wait, patiently and politely. If no food is forthcoming, they hold no
grudge, and wander off as if they weren’t hungry anyway. Walking down
the beach at night, you are likely to find yourself with a couple of
them trotting along beside you, as if you’d been best friends forever.
Strange that it can take weeks of daily training to get a dog to heel
back home, while here the dogs love nothing better than to accompany
you, as far as you’re going. No questions are asked, no commitment is
expected. I think they just want someone to belong to, even if only
for a while. A little care from a human sponsor can go a long way in
India – can be the difference between life and death when the monsoon
comes. In a strange and very sad way, they make me think of Thai
bar-girls.
Their relations with each other couldn’t be more different: they
are vicious. They seem to have formed territorial packs. A few times,
one of the dogs trotting along beside us up the beach has made the
mistake of following us home, only to be set upon by half a dozen
snarling gang-bangers once he enters their (our) neighborhood. We are
told that during the monsoon, when there are no tourists here to feed
them, they attack and eat each other.
A few nights ago, we were walking along the beach at sunset when we
saw one of our favorites – a white puppy about a year old – digging
ferociously in the sand. He looked so comically intent, sending the
sand flying through his hind legs. We grabbed him and wrestled a bit
asking "what are you digging up, funny guy?" When I looked into the
hole he’d dug, I saw the corpse of another dog, a half-eaten leg
jutting up from the bottom.
There is a flowering tree just opposite a tiny white church along
the path to our house. I say that it is flowering because it produces
a cloud of scent at night as beautiful as anything I’ve ever smelled.
We’ve never identified which tree, though we’ve asked local people and
gone to investigate in daylight. But every night, the lovely cloud is
there and we pause for a few moments to draw deep breaths. Or we used
to. A week or so back, as we reluctantly stepped out of the perfumed
air, still inhaling deeply to get the last of it, we found ourselves
with our lungs full of death. Something had died or been carelessly
buried there. We’ve been using a different path since, but I miss the
old one.
If you’ve been to India, you’ll know why I’ve chosen these images
to write about. If not, I can only tell you that there is no other
place I’ve ever been that is so full of extreme contrast, even in Goa,
which is the softest part of India I’ve seen.
Casi has been having troubles with the rats. First, they stole all
our soap. Then they started eating her underwear, leaving big holes in
brand new panties. Then they started stealing entire items of
clothing, taking them who-knows-where. For some reason, they haven’t
taken or destroyed anything of mine. Perhaps it’s a question of taste.
For some reason, the ceiling fan seems to keep them at bay, so even
though the nights are too cold for mosquitoes, we keep it spinning all
night and huddle under coats and hammocks on the bed, trying to ignore
the rustling in the kitchen.
Interestingly, there was no mention of the Super Bowl in the local
newspaper, despite the fact that the last two pages are devoted to
sports every day. Not even a score. Nothing. If Janet Jackson’s breast
hadn’t made its appearance, the entire event would have gone unnoticed
by the 800,000,000 people here.
I treated myself to a paragliding course for my birthday. This is a
great place to learn, with a steady sea breeze drifting up the slopes
of the hills north of the beach. It’s not a place you’d want to have
an accident given the medical facilities, but the chances of having
one are probably significantly lower than most places.
After a day of theory and beach handling, we set up the hill to
have our first flights. Ewe (Oovay), the teacher, goes over the flight
plan first: once you manage to run off the edge of the cliff (about 60
meters high), you fly out over the sea toward some rocks. Depending
upon how much height you lose, you turn toward the beach at some point
a few hundred meters out over the Arabian Sea, then circle back over
the lake and land on the beach. From terrified take-off to freaked-out
landing should take about 2 minutes. Of course, Ewe tapes a radio into
my ear so he can guide me along the route and remind me to face into
the wind when I land, not to lock my knees, to slow down, avoid the
tanning Israeli girls on the beach, and so on. After getting the sail
up and inflated for my first flight, I ran off the edge of the cliff
and found myself soaring out over the sea. After nervously registering
the delicious sense of flight, which I knew I would savor at some
point in the future when I wasn’t fearing for my life, I noticed the
silence. Not the calming silence of motorless flight, but the
terrifying silence in my right ear, where Ewe’s voice should have
been. I touched my ear and found a piece of surgical tape hanging off
my earlobe, but no earphone, no voice, no guidance, no Ewe. "Well Mr.
Adventure, here’s your moment of truth," I thought. I could barely
hear Ewe screaming from the cliff-top, but I quickly decided that my
best chance of survival lay in ignoring him and concentrating on
trying to follow the path Eliot, my co-student, had taken just before
me. I executed the turns and gratefully found myself drifting toward
the beach at more or less the right height for a good landing. As I
approached the beach, a dog came charging toward me, barking madly.
For a brief moment, I thought, "how ironic," but the dog took off as I
drifted in closer. Within about 10 seconds of my perfect landing, as I
stood there with my knees shaking, thrilled to be alive, an Indian man
was trying to sell me cold water or a pineapple.
