Meditations on the color green

I heard that critical mass yesterday was one with a high turnout, and that the family was very moved to see so many people come out to West Seattle to honor Susanne.

Also, I heard some distressing news forwarded from my friends in Oaxaca. They have friends who are seeing military helicoptors flying over their city and are fearful of violent military disruption of the teachers' strike and associated protests. The city has lost a lot of money because of the disrupted tourism, but sending the military against protesters is not the way to deal with that. The forwarded email said:

"there are helicopters flying over oaxaca tonight, 2 from the marines, 2 from the army. thousands of oaxaquenos are sweeping into the city to guard their zocalo and the radio stations. we are asking friends to immediately call amnesty intl 888 368 9356, and the tony garza, us embassador in mexico, the mexican consulates in their states, email amy goodman of democracy now, and contact local papers and radio stations. make it know that we want no bloodshed/ni una gota de sangre, and we want a peaceful resolution our hope is to prevent bloodshed."

I wrote a few emails this morning...

In less depressing news, yesterday I joined some folks on a hike (or trek, as they say here in these parts). We went up to the lookout fort at Manekhat. I woke up at 3:15 and walked out to meet the others in the just beginning rain. After a few minutes everyone else is there. We were: Girish, Antiaji (the -ji suffix is an honorific, similar to calling someone 'sir'), Sam, Niruj, Anupam, Kevin and myself.



Travel ran through the spectrum. We took a taxi to CST (which is odd to see empty, even at 4 in the am) and got on a local train for an hour or so. From the terminus, we walked through the heavy predawn rain to the bus station. The bus was scheduled to head out in ten minutes, so we went to a stand and had some chai. Eventually it shows up and we get on the bus. It fills up with people as we bounce along and the dawn breaks. Villagers are waking up and engaging in their morning routines as we pass.



We arrive at the village at the end of the bus line and head from there up to the smaller group of houses further out. Our objective, a sizeable chunk of rock jutting up from the green of thick forest and rice paddy. Walking through the fields, I was reminded me of a hike that I took at the Cycles conference in Mexico, though that one was a lot easier to get to. I pointed out a waterfall coming down from the nearby ridge. Kevin remarked, "actually, that might be a trail."



Soon enough we turned onto another path, one headed through the brush up the hill. The plants here grow so vigorously, and there are so many paths criss crossing the hill that the trails are quickly swallowed by the all covering greenery. Having lived in the Pacific Northwest, it is moderately difficult to be impressed by the amount of greenery in a place. The rain forests of the Olympic coast are as lush and full of life as most any place in the world. Even so, the sheer volume and vibrantness of the green in this place immersed me in a world where the distribution of hues followed rules unlike those I was accustomed to.



We continued up this trail for a while, stopping at times to take pictures of the flowers or watch the little white freshwater crabs scuttle through the underbrush. The reddish earth on the trail was damp and would slip easily and the rocks were slippery with moss, so the footing was a little tricky at points, but nothing too significant. About half an hour into our hike, a local called out to us - he wanted us to take a route different from the one we were taking. This seemed fine by me, as Antiaji was taking us pretty much straight up the hill, and our new guide's trail wound around to the north, around to a wide trail leading up along the ridge. (The picture with the village and the mountain is taken looking south-west.) In a large open meadow we stopped for a breakfast of white rolls with butter and jam, chapati, and bananas. Looking up, our objective was close, but we obviously were not going to get there by the direct route without the ability to climb straight up wet mossy stone.



Instead, the trail brought us around the the west of the peak, through some more forest and past a small farm. Near the farm, another impromptu guide appeared and called us up to a different trail; the one we were on probably went around rather than up the hill. After a short time we came to a small shrine to Hanuman, which are apparently common on paths through the hills. Soon after this, the trail started up with more conviction and we reached the pass just south of the large chunk of rock which we were soon climbing.






The trail emerged from the forest and wound up the side of the rock. Humidity made the air thick, and the fields of the valley below were somewhat vague. After a brief scramble when the trail vanished into the grass near the top, we found ourselves on the broad mesa-like peak. In the time of Shivaji, the great Marathi leader whose name has replaced many of the colonial British ones in Mumbai, this was used as a watch tower. Three large rectangular tanks had been quarried from the basalt, one just below the peak and two up top. The stones were used to build fortifications for the watchers. In one of them, there sat a very content looking buffalo. As we approached, dozens of frogs sprang from the buffalo's head.





We explored a bit, and then sat about and napped on the rocks before a lunch of various sorts of flat-breads, some spiced and seasoned, some sweet. There were pickled chiles and dates and cucumbers. The dragonflies were buzzing about and the vultures were circling overhead. Indian vultures are endangered, their numbers having plummeted recently as a result of kidney failure after eating livestock treated with the drug diclofenac, which is administered as a pain killer and anti-inflamitory.

One result of this collapse is the possible demise of the Zoroastrian practice of leaving the dead in their Towers of Silence to be consumed by vultures. Their religion considers the destruction of a body using the elements of earth and fire to contaminate those elements with the unclean dead. I hadn't heard about this practice before coming to India, though I was familiar with the Tibetan practice of feeding a body to vultures, and it is possible that both practices have the same cultural origins. On the other hand, it seems also possible that this was once a more common practice. Any society must figure out how to hygenically dispose of its dead Most common today are practices that evolved out of honoring the person by honoring the body - taking elaborate measures to ensure that a dead body is not eaten by scavengers, such as burial or burning. it is possible that this idea merely won out memetically over the just as valid practice of making it easier for the scavengers to collect the bodies. My personal preference would be for the latter - that my body become food, but I understand that that idea might be repulsive to some.

In any case, the group of us were all quite far from death there on the mountaintop, and thankfully, so were the vultures. We lay about watching them ride the thermals, their long wing feathers splayed like fingers, wheeling and braking and gliding, framed between grey clouds and green earth.

After a couple hours, it was time to head back down. At the pass, Antia insisted that he had been down the trail leading east, and that it would be a shortcut to go back this way. There was certainly a trail there, or at least a watercourse. Kevin was hesitant. "I've been on your 'shortcuts' before Antiaji," he said. I understood that it would be faster to go back the way we came, but I was also fairly certain that we wouldn't die, so I was game to head down after this grey bearded Indian astrophysicist. After not long, it was clear that this was far more watercourse than trail. But we continued, and soon the effort that would have been involved in climbing up and out meant that we were committed.



We actually only had to turn around and find a way around a cliff once. While the advance party was scouting the cliff itself, the rest of us watched some monkeys climbing around on the ridge above. The way we eventually found wasn't terribly difficult, and brought us past a strange meter square tunnel that someone had burrowed into the side of a cliff. After one more steep stretch, we were back in the forest, bushwhacking our way back to the trail.



Soon after regaining the trail, we crossed a stream, which was a great place for a break. We rested there for 20 minutes or so before heading on. As we began walking, I felt a couple of large drops hit my arm, and quickly stowed my camera wrapped inside my jacket in my pack. Within five minutes, we were drenched, and the trail was a flowing stream. The shower I had been anticipating in my apartment showed up a few hours unexpected. Thankfully, it was not a cold rain, and there really wasn't much unpleasant about being caught out.

It stopped after about half an hour, and the rest of the walk out was spent stepping through the mud. I was one of the lucky ones who neither lost a shoe or sank in to my knees, but not all of us can say that.

Back in the village, we stopped for tea, and those with dry clothes changed. I'll certainly bring this next time, at least a pair of sandals. Of course, by the time we made it back to Mumbai, I was mostly dry, since the bus that was "scheduled" at five came at ten to six, and then there was the hour and change train ride.



Anupam, Kevin and I finished up at the apparently traditional post hike spot, Gokul Restaurant and Bar. Kingfisher beer is not bad, and with some tandoori chicken it tastes excellent after such an adventure.

More pictures here.