the ice-cream truck man

We just barely squeeze into the narrow and dusty alleyways, honking at the cyclists, pedestrians and goats that skirt past us. The side view mirror is permanently pushed inward -- unusable, but it won’t get knocked off, and the alley is simply too narrow to accommodate. At the next opening, our truck finally lurches to a stop. We are in Godhna, a farming community about an hour outside of Varanasi, India. Kids of all ages hear our arrival and hurry towards us like magnets.

“Uncle ji,” they cry out, “what did you bring this time?”

Our pied piper, driver, and leader grins under his mustache as he opens the back of his truck, crawling in. He unlatches a side window and unfolds a makeshift counter. The vehicle now resembles an ice cream truck.

Inside the locked cabinets are the goods the kids have been salivating for since his last visit.

A crowd of about 50 has circled around him.

Uttam Shivhare, or Uncle ji, as he is affectionately referred to, slowly starts laying out his wares.

Picture books, dictionaries, novels and comics. Books about foreign countries, world history, and religion. Books in Hindi, as well as English.

The sticky little hands start grabbing immediately. They soak in the pictures, and slide their fingers over glossy pages. Many bring their books to nearby trees or stoops to silently read. Some read aloud to smaller children.

World Literacy Canada (WLC)'s mobile library is stationed in Varanasi. Shivhare visits 11 communities a week, driving home the right to read to nearly 600 people who wouldn't otherwise have access to books -- giving some children their first exposure to reading.

A day in the life of Shivhare in the mobile library means stopping in the middle of a highway to praise the report card of a teenage girl and library frequenter who's passing by. Taking the longer, rockier route to check on the health of a sickly 80-year-old man who likes to borrow novels about gods and goddesses.

Honking all the way into the village to mark the arrival of books.

indian heatwave

delhi.amritsar.


dharmashala.

Varanasi is broken

“CHAI?”

“ BANANA FRY?”

“ BOAT, MADAM?”

India is not the kind of place that lets you forget where you are.

Unless you’re in Goa.

Dragging your heels across sandy beaches and sipping Coke by the resort pool washes away all the stinging memories of squatter toilets and wall-dwelling lizards.

It was on the beaches of Goa where I met Stephan the German, who declared his disdain for my current home, Varanasi.

Stephan knew hardly a lick of English, and succumbed to silently smiling and nodding agreeably to most things: cashew liquor, King Fisher beer and butter fried prawns.

But Varanasi – there was something to be said about Varanasi.

“Varanasi!” He sputtered, searching for his next words. “Varanasi…kaputt.”

I looked at him blankly. He whipped out his pocket German-English dictionary to look up the word.

“Broken. So broken. I don’t like Varanasi.”

It makes sense that the land of Lord Shiva – the god of destruction -- is broken. Crumbling century-old buildings line the gullies, uneven steps walk down the ghats and rickety boats float along the Ganges river.

And on most days, fires burn brightly on the ghats, deteriorating dead bodies in public cremations.

But while death and destruction is so unapologetically on display, so is the city’s undeniable life and energy.

It’s half past five on a Sunday morning. I popped two Tylenols before rolling out of bed to combat a migraine and cold. I’m annoyed at my friends who dragged me out for a boat ride over the sunrise, and at myself, for agreeing to it. We have diyas --small candles surrounded by marigolds in a leaf cup. Once lit, you make a wish and float it in the river. My candle won’t stay lit, and our boatman has to stop paddling to light it for me. I release it in the river with my left hand, cursing myself later upon remembering that it is only sacred with the right.

As the sun crawled out of a dusty slumber, so did hundreds, maybe thousands of Varanasians, who emerged to bathe in the Ganges. Washing in India’s most sacred river is supposed to wash away your sins and cure your ailments.

“What country, Miss?”

The waters were crowded with shirtless young men, swimming, splashing and teasing tourists in boats. Older women, swathed in soaked, vibrant saris, scrubbed away aches and pains, faces tattooed with disgruntled expressions. A children’s calisthenics class had commenced, and dogs and goats lapped at their feet. A father held his floating daughter, teaching her how to swim, only pausing to instruct her to wave at us.

The whole city was out to play.

Hours later, back on solid ground, shop keepers finally opened their gates. Chai stalls started brewing spicy milky tea and other than the buffalos taking a bath, the river and ghats were quiet and still.

On the way back to my guesthouse, remnants of a clay chai cup that had been smashed to pieces lay on the pavement that led the way home.

Varanasi may be broken, but it sure doesn’t need fixing.

holy cow

If you want new clothes, shopping in Banaras will make you feel like an emperor.

From stores with marbled floors and high ceilings to road side clothing shacks, customers always receive first class treatment.

We are sitting on a once-white mat in a dimly lit shop. The room is bare and concrete, save for a large steel locker. Once opened, we see that a rainbow of fabric has been concealed inside.

Cotton, silk, baroque. In fiery oranges, reds, cooling blues and turquoises. Anything and everything the heart desires.

There isn't a lot of ready-to-wear clothing to choose from. Instead, we are instructed to select fabric, then a tailor will take our measurements for a custom-sewn suit.

We are offered chai, back cushions, and so much individual attention that we feel guilty for browsing, then leaving.

In another store, the shopkeeper shows us the superiority of his fabric by running the corner of a piece of cloth through a gold ring, yanked off his hairy knuckle, for the purpose of the elaborate demonstration.

The selection is overwhelming everywhere, the sales people are convincing, the prices are tourist-designated, and the guilt is overriding.

It's a confusing maze of material and sales pitches, and I'm not always sure where to shop, sometimes wishing I had help in deciding.

And so it came. I walked into a store one day to find it endorsed by the Hindu gods.

holy cow.

teachers and role models

Out of tiny brick huts coupled with towers of cow manure, the women of the village emerge. Dressed in vibrant coloured saris, they wear their family fortunes in the form of gold and silver: lining their wrists, dripping from their ears. Their babies sit hip top and wear heavy eyeliner -- serving as a third eye to ward off jinxes, exaggerating their already wide-eyed stares.

There are visitors in town.

We came from the big city -- only an hour's rickshaw ride away, but it is the difference between harvesting wheat for roti in the morning, and buying it in the market.

Vandanaji, a veteran social worker, and our leader for the day is dressed in a starched sari in Halloween-orange. She has a chipped front tooth, a wide smile and you can tell she doesn't take shit from anyone.

"The Teacher Role Model project is starting in this village. Are you going to attend?" she asks the women. As they hesitate, she turns her attention to the shoeless children who have wandered over to look at us foreigners.

"Are you in school? You should be in school."

We're in villages today, checking out locations for World Literacy Canada's Teacher Role Model (TRM) pilot project. The idea is to start a cycle of female empowerment -- by training women from rural communities in leadership, literacy and anti-oppressive theory, then hiring them to teach what they learn to less educated community women.

The potential venues for these women's meetings are bare; sometimes lacking fans and adequate bathrooms. But the trainees are eager and inspired.

“Women often do not go to school because they have to work at home or in the field. I want to become a role model so younger girls can look up to me," Pushpa Devi says in her village Aura.

Later, in a neighbouring village, I interview another young woman who is eager to become a TRM. But a group of young men hover and snicker nearby, and we can tell she is feeling uncomfortable as I probe her on her thoughts about gender inequity in her town.

Vanadanaji marches over. Women confronting men is unheard of, but she is unapologetic and unabashed. She lectures them loudly about being disruptive of our interview.

In a village where women are only starting to gain a voice, the men were for once, silent.

matiae

With a heavy box of matiae (Indian sweets) in hand, we wait in anticipation for what will be our first real Indian treat--dinner at the home of one of our favourite colleagues.It doesn't get more authentic than this.

Uttamji soon arrives in a private black auto rickshaw and greets us with his signature mischievous grin. His laugh, like a car horn during rush hour in the Main Ghat, is infectious.

We swerve past goats and cattle on rocky alleys and finally reach the destination. A palace-like apartment complex, with wrought iron gates and white balconies.

The interior is dim and concrete, but filled with the warmth of family. Once seated, we are immediately indulged with never ending cold drinks, and salty and sweet snacks. Uttamji proudly plays his daughter's wedding DVD for us. Like a Bollywood movie, it is long, full of loud music, has colourful graphics, and the characters sometimes break out in what seems like spontaneous dance. Brimming with pride Uttamji points out each and every member of his immediate and extended family, and even calling his long-distance daughter so we can meet her via telephone.

The food is exactly what we have been craving for since arriving in Baranas weeks ago -- home cooking. Uttamji's wife prepared paneer, three kinds of subjis, rice and chipatti, and his son, an avid cricket fan, is the night's server. And despite feeling stuffed, we request second helpings--the biggest compliment to the chef, if only just to see Uttamji's face light up with delight.

Later, while standing around the driveway in the cool nighttime air, Uttamji's wife puts her hand on my shoulder and says in Hindi:"You all should feel like my home is your home. You are welcome back any time."

Sweet nothings before a dark ride home.

the beginning

Thursday marks three weeks in Varanasi.

Our senses are slowly getting acquainted to the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the city: the communal bathing of the buffalo, the prayers and songs that start at dawn and continue late into the night, the smell of manure, the tooth-achingly sweet chai.

We are starting to get to know our neighbours: that one black and white cow, the prissy fluffy white dog--a sore thumb in a sea of mutts, the monkey that broke our rooftop planter, the endless hippies that come in and out of Ashish's Cafe.

It feels like the rickshaw driver knows our rate and now haggles for the formality, the children who beg along the ghats remember our faces and what country we're from, and the dusty streets are starting to recognize the sounds of our footsteps.

And every morning, I wake up to this: