The Adventures of Bindi Girl: (2012) (16 page)
Read The Adventures of Bindi Girl: (2012) Online
Authors: Erin Reese
9
th
of January, Konkan Coast
Two weeks ago, a wandering, saffron-robe wearing French baba approached me out of the blue and gave me a long bamboo staff—a real wand. He said I would need it—it would be useful to keep away pesky cows and bad businessmen.
I was so honored! Indeed, I needed a magic wand to protect me. Sadly, out of complete carelessness, I left the wand somewhere in the nearby jungle that very same day! For days after, every time I saw the French baba, I would have my tail between my legs, ashamed at my carelessness with the enchanted gift.
But, lucky, lucky me—the stars are on my side! Yesterday late afternoon, I came across my Flower Faeries on the beach. I bought a super-sized, special strand of vibrant orange marigolds, intending to bring these powerful Shiva blossoms home for protection and blessing. At my hut, I draped the flowers on a large stick leaned against my little door, to honor the staff that had disappeared over ten days ago. “I’m sorry I lost you,” I told the substitute wand. “I promise to look after my things better next time.”
Five minutes afterward, it was sunset, so I headed out to the beach where I bumped right into the French baba. We chatted a bit—Ça va? Ça va!—when a spark of recognition came into his twinkling blue eyes.
“Your staff! I am knowing where is it!” Baba says with a gentle French accent. “You DO?!” I respond. Before Baba can nod his head, he darts off into the jungle and disappears for about fifteen minutes. I wait and watch Surya the Sun make his way to the horizon, when Baba returns with my magic wand in tow.
Sure enough, it was the same sturdy staff—we recognized the markings at the bamboo base. I had carelessly left it leaning against a tree or hut somewhere during my ramblings, and two weeks later, this wandering wizard recovered my trusty tool.
I felt honored and validated—I am definitely on the right track in Wonderland. Now, my magic wand stands tall in a corner of my hut, and sleeps beside me, so we can keep a keen eye on each other.
Remember, somewhere in another galaxy—far, far away—wizards, wands, faeries, and wandering priests are alive and thriving.
26
th
of January, Konkan Coast
Roz, 24, from Canada, has been a mystical, spritely sister to me ever since I first arrived to the beach in December. With her dark hair and understated elegance, she is quick to laugh, revealing dimples and inner magic. We share so many characteristics—even a bit of the same Native American bloodline—that many locals refer to us as sisters.
Yes, Roz could be a younger version of myself. She is a brilliant source of light and intuition. It’s been a gift to have a playmate to read Tarot with and ponder the planets, marveling daily over the special “genie in a bottle” quality of India. We have cracked ourselves up with the ability to dream up something we would like to manifest, and then—“BOING!”—just like the old TV show,
I Dream of Jeannie
, our wishes are granted. It’s like Aladdin’s lamp, with a twist: sometimes our “spells” backfire—just enough to make things a little cockeyed and more than a little interesting.
Take, for example, the time we created a New Moon medicine wheel at the top of a nearby cliff, overlooking the Arabian Sea at sunset. After saluting the four directions, lighting our candles, and making offerings of coconuts and flower wreaths to the Goddess, we meditated inside the circle to receive guidance and insight for the next lunar cycle.
Simultaneously, we noticed a theme of the color white surrounding us in nature. A white mother dog known to us from our beach followed us all the way, and graced us with her presence. A flurry of white bird feathers lay just outside the circle. Our flowers were white, as were our candles. We came to the conclusion that our shared message was one of purity—love’s transparency—symbolized by the predominance of the color white.
At that instant, a “white out” came. Out of nowhere, we heard a slight humming. Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of tiny white moths swarmed around our head. It was completely out of control! They infiltrated our hair and our clothing, darted in and out of our faces. We looked around and outside the medicine wheel—the moths were nowhere else to be found, except within the four-foot space where we stood. Was our own white light emanating so bright, that all the moths were drawn to our flame? The onslaught was so fast and furious, we could not continue. Quickly, we blew out our candles, grabbed our bags and—half-laughing, half-panicked—we hightailed it off the hilltop as fast as we could. It reminded me of a children’s book I adored as a little girl,
Half Magic
, where the spells are working but are slightly skewed—until the novice magicians get the hang of it.
Two days after The White Moth Incident, Roz wanted to experience a little beach romance. She boldly declared to the Universe, “If it’s going to happen, it has to happen NOW, or I’m leaving this place!” Well, true to form, be careful what you ask for—you just might get it! Less than six hours later, Roz had herself a sweet paramour, a young Israeli man. He told her that he’d been eying her for some time, and that he saw great potential for their relationship, and perhaps she’d like to travel with him? It seems the spell was over the top. She wanted to have a suitor, but not a vigilante pursuer! Just like the flurry of white moths, the young knight in shining armor swarmed into Roz’s life faster than you can say, “A-la Peanut Butter Sandwiches!” Within 24 hours, her Insta-Romeo had moved himself into an adjoining hut next door to her own, and began inundating her space and belongings with little white notes. All through the next few days, Roz found romantic snippets of prose in her hammock, her beach bag, her blankets. Every time she turned around, a little Romeo reminder fell out of her stuff—just like the white moths. “Turn it off! Turn it off!” We laughed together at the love spell gone awry.
Roz and I decided we needed to submit a pilot to
Saturday Night Live
, the WB, or even ABC. Think
Baywatch
combined with
Charmed
. Add a huge helping of farce, the likes of
SNL
. Take two warm-hearted, well-meaning beach bimbos, who happen to have a little magic in their DNA. Spells with the best of intentions are just a little lacking in the accuracy department, and you’ve got the basis for something wonderfully wacky, terrifically tacky, and superbly successful cooked up in the cauldron. Throw in a little
Charlie’s Angels
and—voilà! You have
Beach Witch
!
30
th
of January, Konkan Coast
Sometimes two ships pass silently in the night. On some occasions, the ships sidle up next to each other, the sea captains share a tale or two and they hit it off to forge a new alliance. Perhaps, the intrepid mariners even decide to chart a new course altogether—in tandem. Indeed, in my own recent charting of the starry skies, it is this scenario that has come into play.
On Boxing Day, after those two horrible weeks in Darkala, I returned via bus and train back to my little beach retreat. At journey’s end, too pooped to schlep my stuff the final two kilometers, I hired a fisherman to take me by boat for the last leg of the trip. When the little wooden ship was near enough to shore, I threw myself over the side, walked in waist-high water to the sand, then practically fell on my knees, with this solemn vow:
O Mother India, I promise that I shall not leave this sacred beach home until something grabs me firmly by my heartstrings and pulls me, unmistakably, away to distant shores. Think Scarlett’s declaration at the finale of
Gone With the Wind
—“I shall never go hungry again!” Yes, a little Drama Queen-esque, but oh-so-true!
Now, five weeks later, it does indeed appear that something is pulling me—by my heartstrings—away from here. I’m being summoned, pulled, guided by a force greater than my own. Some call it love.
Feeling strong and fully recovered from December’s darker days, I had a plan nailed down as of the New Year: Yes, that’s it! I would hole up, secluded and solo, until Shivaratri—the most important Hindu religious festival in India, taking place on February 18 this year—and not move an inch from my beach.
And then one day, the archetypal mysterious stranger walks into my favorite café, altering completely the events of the day…
I’ve just settled down for a long, hot, India-winter’s nap in The Oasis, a family-run chai shop that’s just a skip and a hop from my hut. I’m reclining on the restaurant’s straw mats atop a cool concrete slab, drinking a lemon soda and writing in my journal. After fifteen minutes or so, I get groggy and feel a sultry siesta coming on, and so I prepare to head back to my hammock for some serious napping.
But a little voice tells me to stay put, right where I am. It’s one of those moments where an invisible hand pushes you back down in your seat.
That’s odd. Okay, I’ll stick around. It’s not like I’ve got a big to-do list or anything.
So I surrender to stay in the café, lean back in my perch, and proceed with daydreaming, staring aimlessly at the palm-frond makeshift roof.
With one ear, I listen happily to the husband-and-wife proprietors, Parvati and Ganesh, chatting back and forth in their native language of Kannada. Their days consist of preparing endless rounds of banana pancakes, fruit salad with curd, and chai after chai after chai for the Westerners. Their feisty toddler son, Somu, is the real center of attention, as he darts back and forth between the kitchen and the tourists’ tables, coaxing out games and playmates wherever he can. I’m the only Westerner there this lazy afternoon—everyone else is sleeping or sunning on the beach. Enjoying the twittering of the two-year-old, I realize how pleasantly peaceful and serenely satisfied I am to be a part of a family home, and begin to doze off in this cafe-
cum
-living room. And then I overhear five words of destiny:
“Do you have local cola?”
A tall, attractive, blue-eyed young man has just blown into the cafe, like a whirlwind. He’s got a buzz about him, as if he hasn’t fully settled into the dreamy cocoon that the long-term beach residents seem to be wrapped up in. He’s moving quickly, talking swiftly, and, by my lightning-flash estimation, traveling quickly. The fact that he has asked the proprietors for a “local cola” instead of Coke or Pepsi means that he’s not a typical tourist: he’s a hardcore traveler, recently arrived from “real India” where Thums Up, Limca and Mazza are the soft drink standards.
What is “real India”? It’s India-on-the-move. It’s India-in-your-face. It’s rickshaw wallahs, shysters and grinning vendors, and prolific pungent odors that make your stomach do somersaults. And, it’s far removed from the gentle jewel of gestation, laziness, and easy-living that is this very south Indian beach.
Something in my gut tells me to strike up a conversation with this good-looking fellow. Perhaps it is my curiosity, since I’ve gotten comfortable over the past month:
How is it “out there” in the trenches?
Perhaps I want to chat with another practical, frugal-minded backpacker (local cola is about half the price of western brands).
But, let’s be honest here, Bindi dear.
A tall, attractive, blue-eyed stranger on his own. Is there, perchance, another motivation at work?
Hmmm, let me think.
I rouse myself from my chaise repose, turn toward his nearby table, and break the proverbial ice.
“Did you just get to the beach?” I ask.
And he answers: Yes, indeed, he has. In fact, he has bicycled here.
All the way from Prague, Czech Republic.
That’s over 12,000 kilometers, folks, on two manual-powered wheels. Through Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, the far reaches of the Himalayas in northern India, Rishikesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra. Down, down, down... all the way to south India, through Goa, to this very spot.
Whoa. It takes a lot to impress me. But this guy may very well be one of the most bad-ass travelers I’ve yet to come across. And, I tell him just that—how impressed I am with his ambition, strength, and guts. And, I secretly think, his insanity. Anyone who rides his bicycle overland through Asia for upwards of one year is definitely crazy. In the very best way.
Just my type.
Fast forward two weeks later, Bindi is having a whole new kind of adventure. As a “we” instead of a “me”!
Jan (pronounce the ‘J’ as a ‘Y’), 27, is a graphic designer and cartoonist from Prague—and just about as creatively cockeyed as yours truly. But we are as different as we are similar. It’s “the mystic meets the pragmatist.” Erin is a whole lotta San Francisco woo-woo and Jan is Central European “let’s-do.”
Surprisingly, with such an odd combo, Jan has become a magical mate of sorts. Jan had originally planned on staying on the beach for about three days, before cycling off to the holy village of Hampi, in the rocky, hot, high plains region of central India. But three weeks later, he’s still here with me, and we have been up to all kinds of mischief. Amongst wide swaths of sunbathing, campfire cooking, boulder-hopping and beachcombing, we’ve had ample opportunity to fiddle with the guitar, contemplate the cards and stars, and mock up a new, revised travel itinerary.
Jan is ultimately hell-bent on heading to the Andamans, a remote group of islands off the coast of Myanmar (Burma) that belongs more culturally and ecologically to the tribes of Southeast Asia than the Indian subcontinent. It’s a long journey to the Andamans—a week-long trip from here to the east coast port of Chennai (formerly Madras, and capital of the southeast state of Tamil Nadu) by road and rail, followed by a “slow-boat-to-China,” three-day sea voyage across a massive stretch of the Bay of Bengal.
Jan’s asked me to jump my solo ship, and climb aboard for a collaborative cruise. Having already met his goal of bicycling to the south of India, he’s happy to carry his bike aboard bus and train for the ground stretch of the journey. In turn, I’ve ruminated, analyzed, and pondered this daring decision inside and out. I’ve examined my own star charts, contemplated my course, and come to a carefully considered conclusion: I’ve nothing to lose, and so much to gain. It’s a golden key, a summons back to “real India,” out of the proverbial womb of this beach cocoon, and a return to the fast track of rugged travel.