Bad Bugs and Other Calamities

“Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. But imagine if a man each day should have to kill the sun? We were born lucky, he thought.”
-Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

First off, let me just say how amused/perplexed I am by the apparent need of ALL of my friends who chose to comment here to do so in relative anonymity under such magnificent pseudonyms as The Engine, Darth, and Nick Cage. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me that I have the strangest group of friends in the world and for confusing the hell out of everybody else.

Currently, I am holed up in a lovely little town called Orchha, where I’ve been fighting for 3 days now to regain my composure from catching what is here lovingly referred to as “Delhi Belly.” It’s certainly no picnic. But then it wouldn’t be, because picnics involve food, and at this point, the thought of a mere M&M sends waves of nausea rushing over me like the cool ocean mist on the warm tropical beaches of DEATH. I took the liberty of investing in some antibiotics yesterday which, thank you India, cost a whopping 2USD. Maybe that’s what Alanis was talking about.

But let’s back up. I did before falling ill have the great fortune of visiting Agra and seeing with my own eyes the Taj Mahal. It was a little like meeting a celebrity- someone who you’ve watched, seen pictures of, known private details about their life-to finally meet face to face, I was for lack of a better word, starstruck. It is not just the immensity of it, (which is considerable to the point that it seems a living entity all it’s own) but the real trick is that the impact is in no way lessened by the mystique that surrounds it from what one may have previously heard. The entire time I was in Agra, it remained shrouded in a fog, elusive to the last. And speaking of celebrities, who else was visiting the Taj Mahal at the same breakback early hour as I but DA Alex Cabbot herself, my SVU hero.

I hired a tuk-tuk to escort me around Agra to see some of the lesser known sights as well. I should at this time say that in Delhi I took the liberty of purchasing a few distinctly Indian salwar-kameezes in order to stick out less. It’s not a sari, rather it involves pants, so closer to what I’m used to wearing. I was on this day of sightseeing wearing said garb. When first I stepped into the tuk-tuk, however, I distinctly heard a rip. I quickly assessed the situation and decided that the placement of the tear…crotch…combined with the length of the kameez…sub-crotch…would be undetectable to anyone but myself and thus I struck out to see what I could see. Fastforward to an hour or so later, when I disembark a particularly jarring tuk-tuk ride to find that Swadeshi! the seams have opened down to my knees. It is panic time. As my driver has surely noticed, he suggests we shop. He takes me to a place where the cheapest price I am offered on a skirt is completely exorbitant, and obviously an exploitation of my predicament. Not to be outdone, I use my remaining pride to wrap my over sized shawl around my midsection and tell them no thank you, I’m just fine like this. Mentos, the freshmaker.

From Agra, I take a train to Orchha via Jansai, where I meet another lone lady from Mexico. We grab a shared tuk-tuk together and go barreling down the road, local music blasting in our ears. There’s a really magnificent looking fort here, as well as an old, old Hindu temple, but I haven’t had the energy to explore either, being mostly confined to my room or the terrace. Though this should be the makings of an incident-free few days, of course it is not. There are mosquitoes in my room. I bought mosquito coils which have proven efficient, but I can help but be concerned that I am fumigating myself with a substance meant to kill things. I use them as little as possible and otherwise depend on the pages of Mr. Keruac to snap out one life at a time, a skill I have honed nearly to perfection. Yesterday, I ventured a shower. I had just turned on the water when I spotted my enemy on the wall above my head. I reached for my killing device, jumped, destroyed him, and was immediately filled with a sense of triumph followed by panic and confusion. It appeared on my way down, I’d nudged the faucet in the wall, about hip-level. And by nudge, I mean knock off completely, unleashing a cold and furious jet of water that reached the other wall of the bathroom. Undoubtedly my attempts to fix it failed, as there was no way to turn the water off, and I needed to see what I was doing-an impossible feat because when I tried to put the nozzle back on, the water mercilessly bombarded my face. Finally I was forced to seek help from the management, who did not have the fortuity of tackling the problem au natural, as I had. Both men who tackled the bathroom emerged sopping wet from head to toe, all in their work clothes. India seems like a nice enough place, but I’m not sure I’m making a lot of friends here.

When I get my strength back, my next move is to head to the temples of Kujaraho, dubbed the Kama Sutra temples. Mama didn’t raise no fool, but she did raise a pervert. I’ll let you know how that goes.