| Pakistan Excerpt
Naïve & Abroad: Pakistan
Travel in a Land of Mullahs
The bus station in Old Delhi - far in both time and space from New Delhi - is an enormous concrete building crowded with small, brown people. I found no English-speakers, but all understood Agra and pointed the way, first to the ticket window - called booking - and then to the bus.
The bus can most kindly be described as veteran and Spartan. The driver is a kamikaze. We drove at top speed on a two-lane road with no center stripe, used by buses, trucks, automobiles, and lots of bicycles and farm carts. No one gives an inch. I do not understand the system.
Before getting on the bus, I checked the sides of the bus to see if Indians spit out bus windows like Chinese do. Indians spit on the floor. It was safe to take a rear seat with the window open. On a Chinese bus, one always wants a front seat. You have been warned.
The bus had two seats on one side and three on the other. I was one of the first on the bus because I soon saw the system was to push as close to the booking as possible. I was biggest. I pushed best. The Indian ticket agent reached over the heads of several Indians to sell me a ticket. I could have been a man from Mars and not drawn more stares.
A little Indian girl of about ten sat next to me on the bus. She must have gotten a sore neck from the way she kept her head turned to stare at me. Her family got on late. They were scattered about the bus. Her grandfather sat up front with all the tickets. The conductor harassed the child about her ticket. She kept pointing to the front of the bus and explaining. I flicked my finger at the conductor to indicate he should go back to the front of the bus. He went.
At a stop, I gave the child a Polaroid of herself. When I asked her to pose for my Nikon, her family must have thought I was making another Polaroid. They scrambled into the scene and primped and preened for the Nikon. I was so busy framing the shot I forgot focus. Shots must be made quickly. There is always at least one person walking into the viewfinder. The waist-level viewfinder on the Nikon is too slow for Asia.
The child had a jewel in her nose. What happens when she sneezes?
When we got back on the bus, the child gave me a banana and rode for several miles with an arm on my shoulder. A man sitting behind us told her to move her arm.
Some Indian women wear rouge on their heels. Some put rouge in their hair. Some wear rings on their toes. I do not know why more of our women do not wear rings on their toes.
Animal dung is gathered by hand in pans by young girls, patted into thin cakes, and slapped onto walls to dry. In villages, dried dung cakes are stacked on edge in a three-foot spiral about five feet high. A thatch roof is added. Dung plaster seals the sides. Stored dung patties. Stored energy.
On Delhi streets, pitiful looking individuals gather human stools in buckets. They pick up human stools with bare hands. There are always human stools to collect because there are no toilet facilities. Where there are no toilet facilities, people do what they have to do wherever they are when they have to do it.
People who live on the streets bathe at sidewalk faucets by pouring water over themselves from a small can. I have seen only one man without suds. Maybe he was rinsing. People cleaning their teeth make white suds. I saw only one old woman cleaning her teeth without suds.
Each street person - each family - has a sleeping spot on the sidewalk acknowledged by all to be the sleeping spot of that individual or family. The lucky ones find spots under arcades. Imagine doing everything you will ever do for the rest of your life on the sidewalk or in the gutter, everything.
The most pitiful skeleton has a package of cigarettes stuck into the waist of his diaper/dhoti.
India is not pleased with the national cricket team. In an editorial cartoon one Indian says, "India beaten by eight wickets." Another says, "Not enough, they should have been beaten by more." Cricket is serious business in India.
 Afghan Rag Picker Child in Peshawar
On the train back to Delhi from Agra, Marcus almost had a real adventure. Somewhere between the booking and the train, a pickpocket picked my ticket from my pocket.
One of the passengers in my compartment spoke a little English. Crowded into the compartment with the six of us were two conductors, a rail policeman, and another official. There was much shouting and waving of arms by my fellow passengers , Good Ole Ourside - if you remember your Lil Abner - and the rail officials, Mean Ole Theirside. Finally, the English-speaker said, "They want to put you off."
"I don't want to be put off." More loud palaver emphasized with vigorous waving of arms.
"They want you to buy another ticket and pay a fine."
"I understand buying another ticket, but I do not want to pay a fine." More loud palaver ...more enthusiastic waving of arms.
"It will only be a small fine." I paid 111 rupees. The original ticket had been 98 rupees. It was only a small fine.
The sun is setting. The evening is cool. Dung fires in the quiet villages we pass give the night a not unpleasant smell. My grandmother fired her cast iron wash pot with cow chips. A cover of smoke lies over the villages. Life here is as it has always been.
One stop was at was at the town of Mathura where the Hindu god Krishna was born. There is a temple to Krishna. Beside it stands a mosque. Many Hindus believe Krishna was a reincarnation of Jesus. Many Muslims believe Jesus did not die on the Cross. These Muslims believe Jesus immigrated to India. They can show you his grave in Shrinagar in Kashmir.
 The Gabby Afghan with Hashish
The roof of the heavily decorated bus was packed with gaily-dressed little girls. Men fired AKs into the air. The Gabby Afghan hissed, "No pictures, no pictures, this people very dangerous if take pictures of women. The bus sped away - unphotographed - with small girls clinging to the roof.
 Shoppers in Peshawar
Tea on the verandah of Tirish Mir Hotel was interrupted. The hotel sits on the edge of a bluff. At the base of the bluff is a farmhouse. The farmer is yelling and shaking his fist at the verandah. One of the Arabs took photographs of the mountain, Tirich Mir. The farmer thought the Arab was photographing his women. He is hysterical.
Within moments, the man is on the hotel verandah. He screams insanely. He dashes around the hotel looking for the Arabs. He shouts and waves his fists. The fearless Arab jihadists have disappeared. The hysterical man ignores Hasheem and me, drinking our tea.
Hasheem tells me the farmer is Pathan. He yells insults in Persian and Pushtu. He married the woman who owns the farm.
The farmer is back down below. He begins slapping a woman. She takes off a sandal and swats him across the face with it. Two other women appear with large rocks in their hands. The three women chase the man into the field where the dogs slept.
 Buz Kashi
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