Getting Stuck in Someone Else's Conflict - Chapter 3

It all began to seem more familiar than I had wanted it to - a proud nation on a historical crossroads got fucked over by several superpowers in 1948 and a conflict that was at first about freedom and self-definition, became one of intricate alliances, political backstabbing and religious devotion.  A nation in a continuous dilemma whether to fight or accept foreign rule, was met with a heavy-handed response and a lack of economical and political development. An economy that existed primarily on the fruit of their own labor, with a cultural center that attracted tourists, but a periphery that was poor, uneducated and mostly unemployed. A people so suspicious of any authority that it has become rife with mistrust and conspiracy theories about evil plotters trying to bring them to ruin.  It was their precious resource - water, that everyone was after, and their situation was everyone else's fault but their own.
They were mad. About their disbelief in the political process that had failed them repeatedly, about the alleged torture and rife human rights abuses, and religious leaders were supplementing their disenchantment with political mobilization and eternal promises of a fight that could be won, if only they believed in them. And it's not like they had anything better to believe in anyway.

The escalation seemed to reach a plateau by the third and fourth day, emanating to 30 something dead and thousands of injured amongst both the civilians and the army/police. "No new deaths today," I gave the daily morning report to Shagoo et al, "so at least we got that going for us. But protests are still going on in the center of Srinagar, and the curfew is still in place." We were searching for indicators of a calm in every possible venue - the 4 day funeral procession of Wani, the continous calls for a strike by religious leaders, the levels of supplies and resupplies in the stores, and the now famous Ashraf-chicken indicator, but there was no certainty to be found.  Plane tickets to Jammu and Delhi, the only way out of Srinagar at this point, had fluctuated wildly and every day prices rose to at least triple their usual price, but two days later were already at normal prices. At each new tomorrow prices rose again as people were hoping that the day after tomorrow would be calmer, only to postpone the prediction by one more day.
Nimrod and Almog's feet began to get itchy, as their blasé expressions were gradually displaced by agitation. It's not like it was their first time arriving at a new city only to see the guesthouse and nothing else, but this time it wasn't their choice. Flying out was not an option for them since they were relatively short on cash, but more importantly they were carrying a hefty amount of provisions that don't fly well. Once a day they would ask Shagoo whether he could find them a jeep to go to Manali, or Kasol - the Israeli Meccas of North India, since Almog had a birthday coming up and his trip was ending in a few weeks. But Shagoo had no good answers for them. Though he had only known Almog and Nimrod for a few short days, he knew of the typecaset they represented well.  He spent the last decade in the very scene Almog and Nimrod had come from - providing essential services for Israelis all over India who were self medicating their PTSD and exhaustion from a world rife with complexities they eagerly left behind. He wanted to help them reunite with their friends and allow them return to their natural habitat, where "sachi"s - an Israeli slang-term for sober people, were almost non-existant. But he couldn't. There was no one willing to make the drive. Yet.

"I Sachi 9 months now," Shagoo mentioned at some point while rolling yet another perfect joint for Ghunom. He had given away the personal value of this feet by the sheer preciseness of the number 9. He was counting. But while the ever optimistic, "what can I do", Shagoo, continued to display an unnerved veneer, his smile cracked into a complete facade of despair and lack of joie-de-vivre. He began half-jokingly playing with the idea of joining Almog and Nimrod for the long ride as well, "it's not like I have anything better to do here anyway."  His season was over and not coming back.  There would be no more tourists in Srinagar, and there would be nothing for him there for at least a few months. 10 long years of building networks of travelers, and travel agencies sending scores of adventurers his way. 10 years of trusting the people, his people, to finally let go of the old and allow his new to emerge in a peaceful, Indian, Kashmir. 10 years of demystifying a conflict and reassuring the hesitant that "all was good," had begun to crumble as the New York Times and Washington Post had finally dedicated headlines to the calamity unfolding on the footsteps of his home. He wasn't giving up yet, there would be time to rebuild again, but that time was not now. It was time for a quick round to his youthful days in Manali and Kasol as well.  Or at least to play with the idea.

I finally bought a plane ticket for the day after tomorrow, for the right price, and Michal, Nimrod and Almog rejoiced for me. "Well at least you're getting out of here" Michal said to me quietly. Shagoo came with good news for the first time in days, exclaiming hesitantly that there may be a public bus to Jammu today, but he wanted to see that they made it safely before sending us into open air once again, "we wait one more day, okay?" Our diet had been reduced to primarily snacking at this point, more out of apathy than the lack of food, and a handful of rice cooked by Ima would randomly arrive at some point in the day.  The TV was on intermittently, and Ze and Michal would spend long hours on the lake - where time was less stagnant and away from our watchful eyes.  To grow closer and further explore their reason for adjoining in Kashmir they needed space and time. The latter was abundant, but the former was severely lacking. They weren't working on a plan to get out yet as Ze was concerned to leave his family behind to go chasing potential rainbows, but Michal's three-week-India clock was ticking in a single direction.  "We'll wait to see whether Friday prayers are the watershed moment, and then we'll make a decision again. At least your clock is ticking in the right direction," she said to me, and she was right. My waiting had ceased to be aimless, for yet another tomorrow. It was about a real tomorrow that could not be denied, and had been paid for in full.

The day before leaving seemed like every other day before. The "play-house" congregants would come and go, and everyone mostly kept to themselves. Occasional conversations would flourish for a short while, only to be denied further development at the hands of a vibrating cellphone. Almog incessantly talked about the genius of the new Pokémon app and we finally came to recognize the extent of the hype when the Israeli president had caught a Pokémon in his official residence calling jokingly for security, or when the American Holocaust Museum posted an official request "to not catch Pokémons in the museum," as it disrupted the visitors' experience. I helped him find a way to download the app, not remembering that the app required the most mundane and taken-for-granted of freedoms we were being denied - the freedom of movement. Political conversations arose with Almog and Nimrod about their service and how to end our own little conflict but would end abruptly when Almog's exhausting argumentative tactic would subside my desire to hear his genuine opinions.
Hijaz had come to sit with us for the first time, and I only then realized that he too was a sibling of the Shagoo family. "I live in Finland for 16 years," he introduced himself reluctantly. I asked why he hadn't joined us earlier, but he said he liked to keep quiet. His regularly twitchy leg was raging nervously at the attempt to finally interact with us, as he explained the wonders of Lapland. "In summer, sun all day long. But in winter, no sun at all." He was proud of his adopted homeland of a decade and a half, and had worked as an assistant in a small hospital. "I make for you Finnish pancakes later" which turned out to be pretty much regular pancakes made by a 220 pound Kashmiri man while singing Finnish songs, under curfew, for Israelis. "Finnish pancakes?" Shagoo asked, to which I responded with "No. Just starting!", but only I laughed at the obvious pun that would work only in a preposition-less world.

Shagoo had finally found a driver willing to take me to the airport the next day. The taxi ride's price was double, and cost a third of the flight to New Delhi, but this was of no concern at this point.  The flight changed multiple times, as the booking company was unsure about the status of flights from Srinagar.  I ended up buying three different plane tickets, with only the last actually sticking, and I knew that if need be the charges would be canceled.  The first flight had been at 12:30, and the new flight was 15:30, but Shagoo asked me to go to the airport at the same time still.  I'd be safe there, and it would be better to be early anyway.

There was no more conversation. They had all been had. Nothing new to say anymore.
We, the ones who had somewhere else to go, were just waiting to get out.
The others were just waiting for it to end.
So I waited for the day to end.
And it did.
Silently.


The preparation for the drive to the airport the next day seemed tense, while everyone maintained an aura of "all-as-usual." It was the mundane that seemed so awkwardly familiar. Friending people on Facebook and packing my belongings appeared to resemble a return to my not so distant travel-time experiences. Only the decision to wear shoes instead of my usual flip-flop-to-the-airport attire signaled the indeterminate nature of the short ride ahead. Just in case I need to run.
I was still on the phone with the travel agency, trying to ensure that at least two of my three tickets would not be charged, when Shagoo politely asked me to get going.  I said my farewells to my non-elected companions to guest-house-arrest, and settled my still-standard bills with Shagoo. He refused, as everyone else had done, to accept a surcharge for the experience. We hopped onto his boat, and he took me silently to Gate 15 and ensured that the taxi would go straight to the airport.
I had my camera out expecting to see ravished streets and violent protests, only to be trodden through side-allies with armed guards at every turn. They stood tense, anticipating the calm to end abruptly as it had the days before. Few convenience stores were open, but with the shudders still half closed, as mostly elder women and children pounded the unpaved streets to resupply.  The few men wandering aimlessly were gazed at by the many men in uniform as another ambulance stormed by.  I continuously snapped pictures through the cracked windshield of our taxi - stray dogs, stone damaged military jeeps, and the occasional fruit vendor, trying to recoup another day of lost wages.
The entry to the airport was a three-fold escapade, involving multiple checks and endless verification that I was in fact an American as I had claimed, neglecting to mention for the first time on my trip that I identified first as an Israeli. The outer front lawn of the airport was inundated with hundreds of people, passing time leisurely in the safety of the countless armed guards. A constant stream of young men and old were paraded through the airport, all wearing a white buttoned shirt and black trousers - a precursor to the uniform they would adorn shortly. Weary faces of men who had come to suppress an uprising, reminding me of the faces of friends who got called to reserve duty in Israel. The uniformed officers were laughing, and displayed a convincing nonchalance that projected certainty and safety.

I sat in the corner of the outer area, waiting patiently for the coming five long hours to pass. I smiled at people who glanced at the only white person around, and offered a smoke to those sitting next to me. Mohmmad came and sat nearby, waiting for an opening to begin the conversation. "Where from?" he asked, emphatically smiling at me, "What you tell people about this when you go back to America?" He didn't wait for the pleasantries of my experiences from Srinagar, as others had done before.  He seemed agitated and wanted me to know the truth. His truth.
I paused hesitantly, searching for the correct words to use - terrorist or freedom fighter, legitimate protests or riots, curfew or strike? What was he looking for so I could give him the answer he was searching for to get him to talk more? But it didn't matter. He was willing to correct my story anyway. "I will say that there was some bad times in Srinagar, and I hope for peace," I told him diplomatically.  I had learned once before that hoping for peace was almost always the most ambiguous answer you could give in these situations.
"There will be no peace until there is freedom for Kashmir," Mohmmad said to me passionately. "The Indian want to take it from us, but we will never allow it. Life is not worth living without freedom." I looked at him momentarily and knew there could be only one response - "Inshalla," I said to him, mustering my best Arabic accent I could find. He smiled warmly. "The only weapon I have against the Indian invader is a stone, and so I use it. But they, cowards, come at us with their guns and shoot.  You know how many times I tortured?? Yes Yes, I been tortured by Indian Army three, four times, since I kid." The scholar in me was searching for definitions of torture and to question his claim, but I calmed the stupid scholar down and allowed the stream of verbiage to continue apace. He counted the abuses he had incurred and the friends he had lost.  He accredited the Indian oppression to the water and resources Kashmir was endowed with, and then simplistically reduced the conflict to intrusive American foreign policy.
"Who you think did 9-11" he asked me, as I stumbled to find a pleasing answer. "It's America who did it, so they could invade Afghanistan, and then take Iraq's oil" he responded before I could even think of a reply. Though I asked why the US would want to simply conquer Afghanistan, since his rationale for Iraq while wrong was still plausible, he could only muster that Americans had an innate desire to take over Asia. "But not me," I told him reassuringly, "I just want peace. And you know many people in America don't like these wars and think they were a big mistake," I attempted a slight push-back to see if he would bite, but it just flew by him. He expanded into a brief history of their conflict, marching me through the dates as I had done with Ayu only just a few days before. 1947 - independence, and the acquiescence to temporary Indian rule and the promised plebiscite that never happened, 1957 - formal incorporation of Kashmir into India, a slew of wars in the middle, and 1989 with what he claimed were rigged election, and the first rise of Hizbul-Mujaheedin, 2010 and the suppression of riots. His spin was the one I had seen on twitter from the Islamists, praising the Mujaheedin and the separatist political leaders for their brave fight against the occupation.
It was easier to experience their strife through twitter, in the calm of Shagoo's guest-house.  Though stormy and emotional, it lacked a face that anguished and hurt like Mohmmad's.  He was sitting in front of me, being careful to lower his voice when a soldier walked by.  The conversation was gaining attention by the Hindi passers-by who wanted to interject, but knew not to. He needed to vent, they thought to themselves, a few smiling sympathetically, maybe thinking that he might be bearing even a shred of truth. He wasn't wrong, he had experienced wrong-doing first hand and he was angry. Viciously angry and despair had taken over.
He would fly to Delhi in an hour to support his flailing building supply business.
The bodies on the street would be collected, the injured would be treated and the buildings would be rebuilt.  He would sell his supplies to both Kashmiris and the Indian military, and capitalize on the changed reality just like everyone else. He got up to finally to catch his flight after pleading with me to share his story as he ambiguously grinned with rage at the Indian officer nearby. He had already pelted his anger at the Indian forces in Srinagar, and now was the time to begin to rebuild. "Next time you come to Srinagar, you come stay with me, and I'll show you the most beautiful places in Pahalgham, Tral, Anantag and Shopian," names I had become intimately familiar with over the last few days as the center of the militant forces, "here is my phone number and facebook.  Call me when you come again."
I was tempted I have to admit.

And maybe I will come back.
After all, I still haven't seen what Kashmir really has to offer.

Getting Stuck in Someone Else's Conflict - Chapter 2

We woke up slowly.
Meandering with the early morning chores as the Turkish coffee made its way out of everyone's backpacks. Not everyone was as keen as I was to hear the news and get an update on the situation, so I took to twitter privately.
There was still a gap between what we were being told and the story I was beginning to see. "No No, just a little balagan," Shagoo said reassuringly, "some people want protest not feeling safe in India, so go throw rock at streets for attention of India for more security." People don't go and randomly throw rocks at cars because they want more security, I thought to myself, but it wasn't my conflict, so maybe they do things differently here.
"10 Dead in Aftermath of Wani Killing," the headlines from local news agencies roared, "Ambulances pelted by stones with dozens of injured en route to hospital. Twenty thousand people and counting at militant's funeral." This morning I was beginning to wonder whether the Ismail Haniyeh analogy - the current political chief of Hamas, may have actually been downplaying it. While international news were slow to respond to the beginning of a mass casualty event, the local news continued to display outrage.
I found myself opening multiple wikipedia pages from distant history to current affairs: Hizbul Mujahideen, India-Pakistan Conflict, The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) - which "legitimizes the presence and acts of armed forces in emergency situations."  I scoured through local news, Pakistani and Indian news, piecing together the narratives.  The problem was that I wasn't even sure who was the one making me unsafe.  Pro-Pakistani news were calling Wani a freedom-fighter avenging the death of his brother, and the protests being an act of legitimate outrage over his killing, while pro-India news outlets were pleased with the outcome of another dead terrorist. The event had occurred 80 km from Srinagar, and I figured the distant valley where the base of separatist support had been would provide ample buffer.
I updated our status to being in the middle of the tourist district in Jerusalem, since Haniyeh was based out of Gaza, and there are very few touristy areas nearby.

We were told to stay put for the day, and were complacent about the verdict. Almog and Nimrod had taken the situation with a stride, while Michal was beginning to come to terms with it as well.  She had come to India to escape the balagan she was used to in Israel - an ailing grandmother, a tuberculosis scare and a slew of tests. She recently got a relatively easy new job as an accountant, which was a recent lifestyle change from the long hours and low compensation of the previous entry-level grind.  She had met Ze a few months ago in Israel, and confided in me that he was indeed part of the reason and highlight of coming to Srinagar.  "Everything about this flight was up in the air until the last minute," Michal explained the irony of the situation. "I rushed to the first plane, only to have it delayed on the tarmac, only to run to just barely catch the second flight to Srinagar. I never run to planes, but this time I did." "And then you arrived straight into this" I added, stupidly re-acknowledging the already stated. The other two people who were supposed to arrive at Shagoo's house that day, Israelis as well, had decided to cancel and another two friends who were supposed to arrive by motorcycle, were told to postpone their trip. "Tomorrow, Tomorrow" Shagoo returned to the mantra he had begun chanting yesterday melodically, "tomorrow we see.  Today, have fun and go ride a Shikara around lake."
Ze seemed concerned and afflicted by our "situation", and struggled more than Shagoo to put on the pretty face of what-to-do and "sometimes bad shit happens".  He was a Kashmiri by nationality, but had been living most of his life in London, Vienna, Goa and Israel most recently.  He would visit every year, but was gradually becoming a tourist in his own home, and was pondering the gravity of the situation, mostly concerned for Michal.  It was not exactly what he had planned for them, he mentioned in passing while sneaking a drag from his cigarette so his mother wouldn't see him.  "My Ima Sheli..." he referred to his momma in half English and Hebrew as he smiled gently and raised his shoulders to a mid-halt, but never completed the sentence. The main problem with living in his Ima's house for a longer period than he had anticipated was not only the sneaking of a cigarette puffs. He had also brought Michal to Srinagar and it what not Ima's first round with an Israeli girl.  Shagoo, the youngest of the three brothers, had also found an Israeli lady-friend several years ago and they had a child together. His baby-momma had been from an Orthodox family, and her and Shagoo could not settle on where to raise their child, so she was doing it by herself in Jerusalem. And while Michal was a 33 year old Tel-Avivian and a "salt of the earth" type of Israeli, Ima was still reticent to allow her fully in. Michal, still trying to figure out what she had got herself into, gravitated towards whatever felt comfortable in the increasingly closed confines of Shagoo's front porch. "I probably should start eating with the family more," she said to me, beginning to foresee that she would be spending more time around a potential mother-in-law on her trip than she had anticipated.  But it is what it is, we agreed pliantly, laughing half heartedly once again.

We went to the lake for a quick swim and came back. The lake had come to a standstill compared to the days before.  The few tourists who hadn't hastily escaped on the quadruple-priced airfares to Jammu and Delhi, were also passing time and waiting for a calm. We asked Ashraf to come again, only to be informed that he only had chicken left. "Good business day?" I asked him as he waited for us to finish eating, and he grinned slightly in response, then quickly withdrew the smirk. He knew he was capitalizing on a bad situation and was reluctant to indulge in it too much. Ghunom came by early and convinced me that I must come see his jewelry store, which was on the same platform as ours.  He reveled in the powers of his ornaments - "This is Shiva, The Destroyer. And look look, the wheel of life," extending every syllable as if there was hidden meaning in the very words themselves. Mixing elegantly Buddhist and Hindu traditions, morphing each drawing and jewel to have a mystic or erotic meaning, he promised me that the very act of bringing these artifacts into my home would ensure health, prosperity, and apparently great erections. I ended up buying a drawing of the wheel of life in the hands of some god whose name I can't remember.
When the evening arrived and the neighbors began arriving it seemed like a natural occurrence. The guests, their stories and lives had all been revealed in the previous nights, and our dynamic had fully become a casual hangout. There was Bashir, the houseboat owner from across the "street" whose son, Suhil, had come for a swim with us earlier. They were both snickering intermittently at Ghunom's English.  Hijaz, Shagoo and Ze's older brother, sat silently in the corner, smoking, swallowing with each inhalation in search of breath, only to ignite another a second later. And of course Ghunom, who was justifiably concerned for his mother-in-law and family, who were in the contentious Gulmar district without contact for two days. "Why people fight? Why fight?" he would raise the question rhetorically every time the silence became overbearing,"We are all people. I give you everything I can.  Here, you want this. Take. I don't care."  His eyes would light up with every joint that began its round, yearning for his flotation device to take him off the wretched lake he was stuck on. But not to his wife, but to Goa, or Manali, or wherever the fuck he could go that wasn't his here and now.
Our here and now.

And time began to take a different pace than before. It ceased to be a resource to be used sparingly on a short adventure. But instead hours came and went. Then days did the same.

The situation had been deteriorating gradually, and the escalating cycle seemed eerily familiar. First the events begin with a trickle - protests, followed by extra-judicial killings and more protests. And then people try to capitalize on the escalation, calling on officials to respond to the events. Twitter was at first inundated only with local activists pushing hastag campaigns of #Pray.With.Kashmir and #Azadi - the Kashmiri call for freedom. But by the end of the second day, it attracted bigger voices like the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, and local security forces calling for a calm. The instigators on each side were digging in their heels, with Indian nationalists insisting on calling Kashmir "an integral part of India," or the Pakistanis who cleverly called "simply for the well-deserved plebiscite" while hoping to play a larger role in the future independent Kashmir.
The news began to flow more freely, as reporters and newspapers reeled in to the scene. Pictures of masked teenagers pelting stones at police officers, paramilitaries and the CPRF - an arm of the federal government given emergency powers through the AFSPA to restrain civilian unrest. 8 more CPRF companies were announced to be arriving in the next few days to assist the exhausted forces. Then there were pictures of bodies being lunged into ambulances, eyes and backs bloodshot by hundreds of pellets - the standard non-lethal crowd control weapon used by the authorities.  A policeman had had his car tossed into the river by an angry mob, while he was in it, and drowned.  A 16 year old girl, an innocent by-stander, was severely wounded while walking to help her grandma who had run out of groceries. Several police stations had been ransacked, at least one in a coordinated attack, and over 70 assault rifles had been stolen.
By the third day the op-ed pieces had begun to pour in, bringing analysis to the events and indicating that it had shifted gears. Higher level Pakistani officials were continuing the instigations, while Lashkar-e-Taibe, a group with links to Al-Queda and ISIS, announced that it would send support to the area as well. Activists were accusing India of a complete blunder in their handling of the situation, and Human Rights Watch was in the process of issuing a report.  The local and federal politicians were sending condolences to the families of the fallen police officers, vowing to "eradicate the terrorist threat of radical Islam from India."
Everyone was beginning to tie the events to their more expansive agenda, ensuring that no detail would go unregistered, while it was becoming clear that the next global event, some terrorist attack or coup in a more strategic location for the west, would distract globally and leave only the strife and tragedy of the well documented events in the scarred hearts and minds of the people who would remain. The Shagoo's  and Bashir's of Srinagar who worked tirelessly to bring back tourists to the "Switzerland of India" had seen their peak season go down the drain.  Cancellations had become standard and even the airlines had ensured full reimbursement for all travel plans to and from Srinagar. Thousands of Hindi pilgrims of the Amaranath had been stuck in their hotels for days longing to escape. The bustling lake and restaurants had come to a complete standstill, while people from afar were pouring into the tourist area for supplies.
And Ashraf didn't even have any chicken left for dinner.

Shagoo's melodic mantra about the promise of tomorrow had blurred itself with a yesterday and today that were still the same. We didn't even ask about the news anymore each morning, and instead Shagoo, Ze and even Ima had begun to look to me for more recent updates. We had already cooked shakshuka once and several other meals, but the lethargy and boredom of the situation were starting to take its toll.  Cracked smiles and empty words of encouragement would accompany yet another trip to the store's dwindling supplies. We fluctuated wildly from satisfying cravings for cookies and chips, to appeasing our hibernating sense of buckling down by over-consuming basic commodities - like buying 5 kg of flour. And so we made chapati, and pancakes, and even suggested blinches but never got to it.  We un-ironically watched This is The End, a movie about a stoner crew who was facing the apocalypse and managed to survive through the healing and sometimes magical power of ganga.  Almog stated casually that the movie cheered him up a little, and was very appropriate for the situation. It really was, sans the whole demonic parts.
Ima even offered to cook for us, since she saw we were not cooking with the same passion as before, and Michal volunteered to enter the kitchen with her, only to be ridiculed for cutting the paneer, an Indian chesse, too small.  Like she was supposed to know. But it had brought the first genuine smile to Ima and all our faces in a while, so we all continued the joke at Michal's expense. "Michal no cook paneer, she make shishlik size, ha ha" we would all joke with Ima as she crossed the front porch.  She would crack up once again at just the thought of paneer cut so small.  Ima rectified the situation by cooking us some real paneer the next day.

And as the congregants of Shagoo's "play-room" convened once again, it became evidently clear that we needed to start thinking of a plan to move on.  We would not get a chance to see the Mughal gardens or the ganga fields, and we wouldn't get to see Aru or the famous mosques. We couldn't just wait this one out. We needed to get out.

Getting Stuck in Someone Else's Conflict - Chapter 1

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a conflict student from Israel in the middle of someone else's conflict while traveling casually through India, listening in on a conversation of the guesthouse owner and his buddies with two stoner Israeli twenty something-year-olds, one flying out that night and the other planning on going to see the ganga fields in the area, while another, Michal, just landed from Israel after rushing to catch her flight to meet friends she had met in Israel, Kashmiri friends from Israel, that is? And then there was Almog, who just told me he plans on running to a village with no cellphone reception to get wasted for three weeks because he’s so pissed, about nothing in particular except for being stuck in this odd situation.

7-8
I had just finished adventuring in Ladakh, allowing the peak of Stok Kangri to be the peak of Ladakh for me. I had organized a shared jeep through some agency, and happened to end up with Almog, and his two friends Nimrod and Gilad. They were exactly what you would think three tall, male, post-army, Israelis would look like -  a neglected beard and unkempt hair, droopy, red-shot eyes and an attitude that permanently exists within the thin red line between haggling in good faith and mild aggression.

I only had a cab ride to share with them, and embraced the idea of bringing out the stoner side I had neglected in my more recent play-like-an-adult bout, even if that side would only come and play for a quick 16 hour drive down the winding roads leaving the Himalayan Plateau. But while Almog begged the driver to stop multiple times to vomit, and Gilad seemed consistently pissy, I kinda slept through the whole endeavor.  I listened to a podcast or two and the recent Grateful Dead reunion show accompanied some thoughts when I awoke from yet another “bump” that connected my head to the ceiling, violently.

We all awoke for the last hour or so of the ride, as the sun began to shine, with only the dramatic change from a rustic desert to lush greenery indicating the length of our travails. The dusty sideways of a bustling city’s road at dusk, awaiting the roar of the people to raise it once again into the wind was juxtaposed with a serene and expansive lake. Mountains opened up in plain sight as the street wound down as we arrived in Srinagar, Kashmir.  At the empty dock we were to be picked up by Shagoo, our Kashmiri guest house owner, arranged by the vast network of Israelis in India.  I tagged along, not desiring to begin searching for adequate housing, knowing I would do my own thing the next day anyway. For now, I was a free rider.

Shagoo immediately began acting out the regularities of guest-house-owner-greets-Israeli group of four.  “Sababa-Kababa, I show, I show, you come, look look. Here can Mastul.” There was a front lawn on the non-boathouse guesthouse on the lake, with shade covering the tables displaying premium real estate for future lounging, and we all came to the conclusion that we would stay here. “But first rest”, Shagoo told us, “ today Eid anyway, city very busy.  Tomorrow better.” Shagoo was referring to Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim festivities at the end of Ramadan that tends to bring out crowds of predominantly male teenagers into the restaurants and streets. We went into town for a quick breakfast at a local joint and encountered the exact stereotype Shagoo had implied - a group of restless adolescent boys who had just finished breakfast and glanced at us simultaneously maliciously and curiously. It was not dissimilar to the feeling of wandering through The Old City of Jerusalem on the border between quarters, on a relatively tense day - alert but calm; but just as at home, I also acknowledged to myself that I’m more likely to be over-interpreting the situation.

We wrapped up breakfast and found a boat-taxi to take us back into our portion of the lake - Gate 15. The threesome had decided to go back to sleep, but I wanted to see more.  Taking longer than usual, drawing out each mundane task, I finally resisted my languid urge and got off my ass.  I was still on my Stok Kangri high, and wanted to climb another mountain, to get another look at something from up top. “Yes, yes.  Good idea. Hindu Temple on top. You can walk, you can tuk tuk”, Shagoo began saying, unknowingly emphasizing the Kashimiri accent’s Persian melody, “and come back and we go dinner.”

I climbed the 9 km up the hill to the Shankara Temple, where my pal from previous travels Jesus Christ was said to have visited a while ago, you know, when he was still around for the first time. But the real reason Hindus come to pray here was mostly to pass time during their holy pilgrimage to The Amarnath Yatra - where one of their holiest shrines was revealed for only one month a year inside a snow covered cave, located an hour Srinagar. The view from the top revealed the glamour and clamor of a city on the crossroads of empires, switching hands as regional capital for the Moghuls, the Sikhs, the British and now the Indians.  A slew of Hindi pilgrims lingered aimlessly on the side alleys, alternating between religious ecstasy and casual downtime.  It was Josh, the American sporting a “Teach for America” t-shirt and a cluelessness of a first-time traveler that caught my eye. “Where have you been teaching,” I asked, naturally re-embracing my American accent after its recent hiatus in favor of an Israeli one, “I had an ex who did the same thing” I opened up to conversation nonchalantly. “Oh yeah, we're in Memphis”, he said, slightly relieved by the unlikely encounter with another American, “yeah, me and my buddies are all TfA there, and decided to make a quick trip to the east before we began our second year.”

Josh began the introductions with “this is Matt, Trey…” and whatever other names Josh may have mentioned and I’m either making up or twisting not-so-ever-so-slightly. They had just finished a grand tour of Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Delhi, in a month, and now had a few days to burn before heading home, and wanted to escape the heat of Delhi. “Oh my brother went to Emory as well, but for law”, Trey said glaringly, half spitting and sputtering in my direction from excitement after our introductions, “and my brother just graduated from Emory Med”, Evan added stoically. I threw around my usual impress-the-americans-with-cool-life-story lines, casually mentioning wilderness therapy and waiting for a “wait, wait. What’s that exactly? Wilderness. Therapy?”, only for me to downplay the thrilling lifestyle of 8 days in the field with teenage addicts shifting from monsters to men. They asked if they could send a few students my way. Ha ha.
We played the what-we-share-in-common game of quasi-Yankees living in the South, and all got excited about the novelties of Southern hospitality and the fact that “everyone just smiles at you all the time.”
They were rushed away by their Kashmiri tour guide who was still hoping they would manage to make a stop at the Mughal Gardens before sunset. I caught a ride with them back to the lake and upon parting gave them my full name to find me on facebook, “I’m the Daniel Arnon with the snow in the background of my profile pic, not the Israeli teenage girl.  Some people get us confused, you know, same name.”

50 ruppees and 15 minutes poorer, I returned to the guest-house to find Almog, Gilad and Nimrod, all slowly awaking and getting ready for a nice Dhaba dinner on the main street. A short boat tour, a quick visit with Ashraf - the boat-kebab guy who sells grilled meats on the lake, and a tuktuk ride later, we found a nice place to eat. “Four Thali” Gilad bellowed at our server, still cranky from the long drive this morning, “and this come chapati, yes?” he added, softening his tone a little. It did.

Dinner ended with satisfied faces while the hubub of Eid and the Yarta overflowed onto the boulevard adjacent the lake, cramming the wide sidewalks and the streets.  The tuk-tuks easily maneuvering between stand-still traffic jams, while street vendors sold juices and necklaces of the Mughal dynasty. We hurried back to Gate 15, splitting up momentarily after an argument erupted about whether it would be quicker by taxi or by foot. Gilad and I walked, and arrived first. We found a boat guy for a reasonable price, and Nimrod reemerged after defiantly insisting on not-walking back to our gate, with a fresh pack of cigarettes, a bottle of coke and a carton of chocolate bars. “Just in case we get hungry,” Nimrod grinned at us widely, raising the box ever so slightly and displaying all 14 bars as his bargain of the day.
I had been placed with Almog in our shared room, and we pleasantly organized our belongings, preparing for some hard-earned sleep.  Or at least I had.  They still sat outside for a little while longer as the neighbors began to congregate in Shagoo's local "play-room" coming to entertain and be entertained by his usual slew of Israeli travelers.

7-9
We woke up the next day relatively late and the allure of maintaining stoner-Israeli-twenty-something-year-old status for another day seemed even more appealing.  After all, I had never had the 6-9 months to travel leisurely through India that most Israelis had entitled themselves to.  I was trying to cram in as many adventures my three weeks could afford, and the "Chai, Chillum, Chapati" scene in India was also on the list. So I went with it. Hesitantly.
I began piecing together what it was I even wanted to see in Srinagar, and how I could get a glimpse of this also-famous conflict of theirs over who Kashmir reaaally belonged to - India, Pakistan or neither. "No no, the border is far far away" Shagoo told me, introducing prepositions for the first time in a sentence and allowing his 12 years of living in London to bring out his non-Indian English, "here in Srinagar all is quiet.  We go out later and I'll show you around. You come with me and see no problems." It was hard to explain that I was kinda looking for the problems, mostly to have another point of reference to tourism in a conflict zone.
Shagoo and I talked about where I could go in a few days, and we settled on Aru - a small village in a close-by national park, and from there I would take another bus to Jammu and then to Amritsar, in Punjab, to see the holy Sikh temple. I had told to go see the Waga border ceremony between the Indian and Pakistani militaries in which an elaborate and mildly aggressive dance is performed by both sides, symbolizing the countries' "brotherhood and rivalry", as wikipedia put it, only to shake hands at the end only to be repeated the next day.  "Think about it," I told Almog, the more talkative and philosophically inclined of the three, "wouldn't it be cool if we could introduce a ceremony like that in Bil'in? Instead of shooting tear gas grenades and rubber bullets at people every week in response to protests, we would just be dancing in front of the Palestinian Police?" He grimaced at the thought, but allowed it to linger longer than I had expected.

And as the plan began to form, fully knowing that a travel plan in India is not a blueprint set in stone but rather a loose connection of dynamic proposals, I sank into the idea of just hanging out today.  I mapped out the tourist recommendations for Srinagar, and postponed my initial day of exploring a new city til tomorrow, allowing the serenity of lounging by the lake to settle in. By two O'clock I had finally succumbed to the concept of a "waisted day", and we asked Shagoo to have Ashraf come deliver lunch at the guest-house. "Good, good idea. A little bit of Balagan today in city" Shagoo said, adding the second part in almost a whisper while emphasizing the Hebrew word for a messy situation. He knew that we knew what it was like to have a little balagan every once in a while. "But tomorrow, we go out together, and I take you see all cool parts in Srinagar and we go together and see that everything is okay. And I find shared taxi for you Daniel to go Aru, still waiting to hear from friend."
The internet was working well at Shagoo's house, a delight for me after a week of Ladakhi internet - which meant you never knew if it was actually working.  So I looked up to see what kind of balagan the Kashmiri's were facing these days, and whether I could try to piece it together while I was here. "Kinda cool," I thought to myself, "to see how people dealt with these situations and to fully be a tourist in someone else's 'situation' as we call these in Israel."

A quick internet search began to reveal a slowly unraveling situation. Burhan Wani, 22, a blooming leader of the terrorist group Hizbul Mujahideen - an Islamic pro-Pakistani separatist movement, had been targeted and killed by the Indian military. And while Wani was not very "productive" in his insurgent capacities to launch successful military-style attacks, he had become the face of a rejuvenated vanguard of youth returning to take arms in support of separation after years of a gradual regression in violence.  It was Wani's public persona as the face of the popular resistance that the Indian army had "assassinated", as the separatist newspapers in Kashmir were calling the event, and this act would not go by silently. The funeral processions would be held that evening, and thousands had begun to pour into Tral, Wani's village on the highway between Srinagar and Jammu, to see his young body wrapped in the Pakistani flag. He would find his final resting stop next to his brother, who was also shot by Indian Security forces and possibly tortured  a year ago. A general strike had been called by a local political leader in response to the killing, and during the protests some people had been injured and a few had died. So they were imposing "curfew-like conditions", and we would be staying put tonight.

"Holy shit," I thought to myself "is this serious? what's the level of concern? and how do I calibrate this to Israeli levels?" I began to dig deeper into what was going on, when I suddenly realized that this all happened in the last few hours while I was still busy making plans. I just ran into someone else's conflict. "How cool is that", I thought to myself quietly, actively trying to hide the little twinkle that had sparked in my throat, leading the meeting point between my upper and lower lips to twitch ever so slightly.
Michal arrived only moments later with Ze, Shagoo's brother, and was promptly introduced to the family, bearing the best of gifts from Israel - Tehini. She was trying to get acquainted with the family of her friends, but both Ze and Michal were a little bit shaken. "Yeah, it was kinda tense out there, but it's all calm" she told us reassuringly, "lot's of police on the streets and most shops were closed." Michal had easily placed stoner-boys 1,2, 3 and me initially into the same type of India trip, and felt she had to take a more heartening tone.
"I invite Ashraf to come for dinner tonight again," Shagoo said assertively, and we collectively acquiesced.

"You see, I told you" Almog said in Hebrew with a self-satisfied side glance, " We're in Guest-House-Arrest!", a pun we only discovered when the conversation shifted to English to accommodate Ze. "You did say that," I conceded partially to Almog who had picked up on the bad juju earlier, "but we're not in 'guest-house-arrest', because no one is imposing it on you.  You can leave, but you can't really go anywhere, because there are no cars on the street." "If I can't go anywhere I like, then I'm under guest-house-arrest," Almog kept arguing sneakily, and I wasn't feeling like having another round of pointless discussion.  Twitter seemed to be the more productive choice.
Gilad woke up and came to join the front porch with us all, beginning to summarize his last 9 months in India for himself and his travel buddies of recent, before parting for Israel that night. "Yeah, man, Israel, okay, cool" he said to no one in particular. He had already come to terms with his imminent demise, but when the time really came he was still surprised that his India was actually coming to an end. "Oh, and there's a bit of a mess outside, so we're staying in for dinner again, with Ashraf" Nimrod said reluctantly, "but you'll be okay for your flight." The words lingered in the air for a few seconds when Gilad suddently shook his head and asked again what was going on. So I gave him the brief summary of what we knew - Wani, protests, curfew. We checked flights and they seemed to be in order.
They too were calibrating the levels of concern, and tried to understand the events in our own Israeli terms. "Imagine we had just assassinated Ismail Haniyeh," I said, pondering whether the analogy was accurate in terms of the level of escalation, with Michal saying that I may be pushing it too far. He was not the commander of an organization with such power, after all. "Ahh, okay," Almog said with an imaginary clicking sound going on in his head, "So, now we prepare the bomb shelters, cool." There was no physical or emotional reaction, not even a flinch. He was from Kiryat Gat - a town that's seen its fair share of rocket down-pouring, and he simply reached over and prepared another round. It was his turn anyway.
So we sat.
Together.
Nimrod, Gilad, Almog, Michal, Ze, Shagoo and myself, and neighbors once again began to congregate.

I was following the Kashmiri twitter feed and piecing together which newspapers were pro-Pakistan and which were pro-India, while an argument about whether it was even legitimate to have Shlomo Artzi, a local Israeli pop-singer on your playlist or not. Obviously not, he fucking sucks. Speckles of conversation floated leisurely in British-English, Kashmiri-English, Indian-English and Hebrew-English. Each dialect bending the rules of grammar in a different direction, while comprehension was always maintained, at least at some level.
"I love everyone here" Ghunom said excitedly as he arrived to meet again his friends from last night. Gilad and Nimrod had ever-so-slightly pushed his capacities for marijuana consumption the night before and they all got close. "I only wake up at 1 o'clock, but I sleep so goood" he exalted, as the conversation eased while it sought exclusively comedic relief. Ghumon, a light-hearted 50 something Kashimiri, provided the entertainment. Long silences followed by jokes, as long as the main issue would not be discussed. But the tension was there. Sitting beside us at all times.
And as the day came grindingly to a halt, and people began to go to bed, I entered my room to find Almog lying in bed wide awake glaring into the ceiling. I organized my things and prepared to glide into some Grateful Dead "space" to help me fall asleep, and hesitantly said "well I'm sure tomorrow we'll figure it out and it'll be cool." But Almog was unnerved, not by other's people balagan, but by his own internal shit. "If I want to get out of here I will. But mark my word, I will be spending my last three weeks in India, in Kasol. I don't need this bullshit."
I allowed the words to just linger, I had no response.
There would be plenty of time tomorrow for this kinda shit.
I gradually inserted my earphones and let Trey take over my thoughts.
Slipping in and out of sleep.
Songs beginning
and ending
timelessly.

"Truckin', got my chips cashed in,
Trucking', like a doo daa man...

Your typical city involved in a typical daydream
Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings...

Sometimes the lights all shinin' on me
other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
What a long strange trip it's been..."

On people you meet along the way

7-6 The day I talked to people

A few days ago, I was still recovering from Stok. My legs had residue of pain in my shins, and I wanted more than anything else to walk around in flipflops.  To not charge the streets, the stuppas or the markets, but just to wander aimlessly.  I sat and read for a few hours, re-configuring my understanding of ISIS and Al-Queda and their bouts of inner fighting.

I met Yaakov when he asked me to join a 7 day trip to Nubra valley to see the monasteries. He was a mid 60's National Geographic writer who had quit his job for Bezeq - the National communications company in Israel, 14 years ago to travel 8 months a year. He had been to Antarctica and Machu Pichu, to cannibalistic tribes in central China and spent time in monasteries in Papua New Guinea.  And despite 14 years of traveling, he was clueless about the world he was engaging with.  He had bathed elephants near the Gangas river, and had seen black rhinoceri on safaris in Southern Africa, but he couldn't make sense of the world of people.  "All Muslims hate us", he proclaimed several times during our conversation, "they blindly believe whatever they're told, and they're told to hate us." What was crazy was that this proclamation was based on several encounters he had had, in which he would "test them" by claiming to not believe in god (a claim he himself was not sure he actually believed in), and was surprised to find that God-fearing people were offended by his statement.
"But don't get me wrong, I'm a humanist and I love all people.  I'm all about love. So why can't other people just be open-minded like me?"
When the conversation drifted to Israeli politics, he asked me why I thought no leader from the center had arisen to take down Netanyahu, and I asked who he had voted for in the last few elections.  "I vote differently every time", he pompously stipulated his lack of political agenda.
"Don't you think that that may be a reason why no leader has arisen," I responded cautiously, "because you vote differently every time? How can a party build political support if the centrist 'liberal-humanist' constituency votes differently every time?"  But he didn't get it, and once again distracted the conversation with yet another tirade against "The Arabs" who cannot be trusted while being completely unaware of what "The Arabs" in the neighboring countries were fighting about, and how that may or may not be connected to our little conflict in the little Island in the Middle East that he resides in only 4 months a year.  Yaakov, who had traveled for 14 years around the world, was asking me to hindsightedly place his experiences in a geo-political context that would make sense, and then refused to hear my explanations.

Then there was Ayu, the Malaysian girl of Indian descent, and her newly acquainted Thai travel buddies, who had just arrived from the long bus from Manali a few hours ago.  The tables were crowded and they asked to join my table, and I jovially agreed.  "I'm Daniel, from Israel", I introduced myself, "Oh, you're from Malaysia, another country I won't get to visit anytime soon", I said jokingly to Ayu - imposing pressure on the situation and immediately alleviating it by smiling widely and saying that I obviously had no quarrel with her or her countries' politics. "Hey, my prime minister is an asshole too, if that makes you feel any better" I said to her with a wink-like gesture.  She smiled kindly in return, understanding that I don't take these things too seriously.  Thai girl number 1, was a teacher near Bangkok and Thai girl number 2 never even mentioned her profession.  They were all in their early thirties, and had finally found some disposable income to begin traveling in Asia - slowly expanding the radius from Bangkok to Cambodia, Hong Kong, Macau and now North India.  Ayu, a banker of seven years had decided to quit her job a year ago and move to Mumbai to study Indian dance and music.  After 8 months in Mumbai, she realized the she could also move around a bit more, and decided to boldly buy a backpack and begin to travel alone across India.

"You see, I never really got why you guys are fighting with Palestinians, to be honest, why not just give them a state?" Ayu raised the question quite frankly after I mentioned that I'm getting my PhD in Political Science and study that conflict a bit. "And I know that in Malaysia we do tend to get overly pro-Palestinian journalism, but still..." she let the question linger.  "I agree with you" I told her "we probably should do that, but it's also just a little bit more complicated than that"  I explained.  And I began to give my regular "why Israel and Palestine is a fucked up story" shpeil, again keeping it light-hearted but trying to get the main points across.  "Narratives, histories, stories, religion, land, water, these are things that people kinda care about", I explained, "and forgiving and forgetting, while a great idea in theory, is pretty hard in practice.  And coming to a 'fair' solution requires solving these things".  Ayu led the charge of questions - "but what about the settlements, and what about the occupation", while Thai girl number 2 would nod in agreement, Thai girl number 1 seemed more dumbfounded about our little kerfuffle in the Middle East.  So I drew a map, and gave a quick and dirty history lesson.  1948, 1967, Palestine, West Bank, Gaza, rockets and occupation.  Not hiding the brutality of Israel's daily enforced military regime over civilians, but not sparing the complexities of security in a world of fear and mistrust.  It was all there, on the table, on a napkin, lines in green ink.

And as I finished, they just said, "wow, that is kinda complicated". "Yeah, it kinda is," I said, grinning with satisfaction of receptive listening, "so just be sure that whenever anyone makes bold statements about this issue being 'simply' anything, just remember that any solution is gonna fuck with a bunch of people's lives, and sadly it is complicated." They left to organize their luggage before leaving for Pangong lake early in the morning, and thanked me for the history lesson.  I, in response, apologized for having them had to endure it, and tried to recollect why I had begun this endeavor of explaining to Ayu and Thai girls number 1 and 2 the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at a German Bakery in Northern India, eating French-ish croissants, while three large Kashimiri men and a South Indian women in a veil spoke Hindi when not eavesdropping onto our conversation.
It's India, I guess, that's why.

Then there was Nicole. The Londoner come-Australian 34 year old who had hopped off her moped with Johaness - the towering, man-bunned German twenty-something year old, after touring the Buddhist monasteries of the area.  I had been sitting at the coffee shop on Changspa road for a while now, staring at the people crossing my path. The diversity of tourism in Leh is stunning: the middle class Indians who had come to see the exotic Ladakh; the India grannies - 60-something-year-old Europeans who came for a touch of reinvigorated enlightenment, usually adorning full India attire and the necessary socks and sandals; the dominating Israeli alpha males, usually from some kibbutz in the south, fidgeting with the motorbike they were eager to sell after two months; the Central European families of four with teenagers, all adorning matching The North Face down jackets except dad who was wearing an Arcteryx hard-shell; the biker crew from The Netherlands, England and Australia who spend their lives in the triangle of Holland, Nepal and Ladakh "buying and selling stuff like gems, garments and whatever other shit people want to buy."
But Nicole seemed eager to share her story, instead of letting me invent it. "I know you from somewhere", she turned her shoulder over to me at some point, "could it be that we ran into each other when you were living in London as a kid?" she asked after the obligatory where-are-you-froms. She was from West Hampstead, and I had lived in Hampstead Garden Suburb - not too far but also a world apart. While Nicole was shopping for jewelery at the adjacent Belgian girl's jewelry stand, Johaness had told me about their trip to the monasteries and how Nicole was in the process of converting to Buddhism.  So when she returned, and Johaness had left, I asked her about her recent conversion.
"I've been on quite a journey these last few weeks", and I smiled because everyone in India seemed to be on a journey, but her's was a Journey - Capital J.

She came to India wanting to learn some more about Buddhism, after quiting her NGO job of 14 years in Melbourne.  A Jew by birth, but a Buddhist by philosophy, she came to see what India could offer her in return. She had traveled to Rishikesh and Dharamsala and Dharamkot - the usual hippie seeker trail, only to find herself drawn to a small town named Beet, a spec on the map as far as everyone was concerned.  But as it happened, a rising Lama who had just emerged from his 7 years of studying, and had reasonable English began to teach at a seminar that same week.  People had been waiting for years for this specific Lama to emerge and begin teaching, and she finagled her way into the course.  While I had no clue as to the name or the stream of Buddhism to which this Lama belonged, her gaping eyes exclaiming excitement at the opportunity to become part of this endeavor meant that this was a big deal. To her at least.

Nicole was a skeptic, but she wanted to believe.  She wanted to interpret events as signs, but then challenged the signs she received and wanted more of them.

The Lama was to see her on the first day, and she was to ask him questions about her practice. "What practice?" she asked, "I don't have a practice. Yet." So instead she asked about the fairness of Karma imposing the life time of another man onto a child.  The esteemed Lama smiled, she told me, and looked her in the eye and said that karma is what you make of it, and that she should focus on creating new good karma instead of dwelling on the old.  Her Dharma sisters, more experienced and well-versed Buddhists, who at first looked down at her for her know-nothingness but  were becoming increasingly appreciative of her, told her that the Lama gave her a "soft answer."  But Nicole preferred the soft answer anyway.
And as she sat through the teachings the practice throughout the week, she still wanted more.  She spoke of feeling things, elongating the first syllable,  like most yoga teachers do, really feeeeling things deep down inside, but when they asked her to declare her faith in front of the three hundred people and fully commit, she hesitated.  She wanted to make sure that this Lama, who would be her mentor and her teacher, would really be there.  She wanted to see him one more time. "No, no no, it's impossible," they told her, "you only get to see the Lama once, sorry".  But then it changed, and the opportunity arose for her to be in the last session available of the week.  She sat down in front of him, knees crossed, his glaring eyes staring into hers "and my soul vibrated a bit," she said doubtingly, "I'm not even really sure what that means, but that's how it feeels." She asked if he would be her teacher, so she could commit to Buddhism and to him, and he in kind simply agreed and asked her to open a center in Melbourne to spread his teachings.  "I guess that's kinda committing, right?" she asked me, still trying to figure out with herself whether she was crazy to be thinking about it.  But she took the leap, at least a first one, and converted.  She was on a new path.
Maybe.

"So are you really gonna do it" I asked her, "are you going to open the center?" But she responded with a shrug.  She still had her skeptic and her believer selves fighting it out. She would wait to get home tomorrow, and see if it still fealt real, or whether it was just the illusion of travel-time that had made her succumb. I said there's nothing quite like being at a junction like that, where you life can diverge fully and you can see two separate and distinct trajectories of life in front of you.
"But the best part is, that no matter which one you choose, they're both good" I told her reassuringly.
She went to pay the bill and pick up the piece of jewelry she had set her heart on earlier across the street.
As we parted she said she was reaally happy to have met me, and I replied in kind.
"Enjoy your choices", I told her, myself enjoying her journey and story percetibly, "whichever one you make".

She got on her moped and drove away, and I sat and continued to watch the people crossing by - English, German, Urdu, Hindi, Nepalese, Ladakhi, Tibeti, Hebrew and Dutch all converging simultaneously on Changspa road.

Stok Kangri

When I asked around about Stok Kangri, the towering peak that can be seen to the south of Leh, the responses were mixed.  "A non-technical feet", one person had told me, while another actively checked me out - lingering a quick but additional second on my waistline physique, and said - "you can probably do it."  Others were less confident about my capacities, or just more cautiously inclined travelers, they opted for "why don't you get acclimatized first, go on a quick trek to Markah valley, or spend a night at 5000 meters before you charge for a big mountain. You just got here."  And they were right. There was no reason to charge.  There was no reason to jump into something big so quickly.  But I kept walking around town asking each agency whether they had a coming trip to the Kangri - a mountain in Ladakhi, by the village of Stok.  "Nope, sorry".
Then, one had one going.  So I signed up, and away we went.

Day 1:
Carlos, the Spanish guy, talked enthusiastically about nothing of any import.  He would silently light his joint every hour or so, offer it to others, and then a flutter of words would begin to attack everyone around.  Jovially, he would share about his ambitious plan to get sponsored in his home town for having paid a guide to lead him to a summit, he would later not even reach.  Hila, on her second visit to India, had signed up for the trip under the assumption that this was "just another trek", after the agent had told her that climbing to 6137 meters would be easy, and that anyone could do it.
It seemed like no one had a real clue as to what exactly they were getting themselves into, and I actively had to disengage my instructor-responsibility mode, and would only activate it during the trip when something extremely stupid was about to happen.  Which came close once or twice.

But the guide, Pangsang, was a veteran Nepalese guide who had summited Everest twice, and regularly does the Annapurna, so when the hiking began and we chatted for a while, I knew that we were in good hands.  Sonom, the helper sherpa, seemed relatively new, and his English was not bad, so when I asked him what trips he had led in Nepal, he nodded vigorously to the few names I knew and threw at him, but in hindsight his "yes yes" was one of complacency and not of acknowledgment. The cook, whom I shall call simply "cook", because his name refused to stick with me, also seemed young and inexperienced, and the constant bossiness of Pangsang tended to give away his lack of knowledge in his newfound occupation for the summer.

So with this eclectically assorted team, away we went.

The walk began gracefully on a slowly rising path through Stok Valley.  With every turn the mountains themselves seemed to take a twist.  Dusty sand dunes transitioned elegantly into jagged, saw-toothed rocks expressing the tectonic shifts that occurred eons ago. The constant flow of glacier water accompanying the trail gave life sporadically to green brush. When the first pass required us to exert more effort than the previous gentle flow of a gradual rise, we were greeted at the end by yet another Stupa. Pangsang and Santosh, another guide who would join another group later, gave tribute to the effigy by raising a stone and placing it, with intention, amongst the others adorning its sides.

By the first night we had risen 700 meters to 4200 meters, and the shortness of breath, and the effort each single act required intensified the experience.  Though we had paid the guide and sherpas to do the work for us, I wouldn't allow them to do it all and I assertively grabbed the tents and went to work.  Ten minutes later, with two tents lifted, I was exhausted and searching for air. But I couldn't rest, exhalted by the snow filled mountains and their illustrious peaks, I wanted to keep moving, to ensure that when the time would come to summit, I would not be debilitated by the altitude. Carlos, eagerly rolled yet another joint, only to bounce into yet another fit of exasperating senseless verbiage. Hila, who had struggled a bit more than both of us sat down to appreciate the feet she had accomplished, and gazed hesitantly at the horizon where the Kangri awaited.

Day 2-3:
As the sun rose on the mountains, I prepared myself for a long day.  We were to climb another meager 800 meters this morning to arrive at base camp, and await for nightfall.  At 01:00 am we would begin to charge the mountain, rising another 1243 meters to reach the peak.
Santosh, the second guide said I could walk with him to base campe since my pace was significantly faster than the others, and I over-zealously offered to carry some of his load in order to get my body prepared for the coming endurance test. He was from Assam, a northeastern Indian conflict-ridden state a friend of mine was studying, and so I asked about why they were fighting. "Many states in India, and in Assam many tribes" Santosh explained to me patiently, "and now each tribe want state, but India no agree because then Assam become too many state." I asked what tribe he was from, he said he was Nepalese-Indian, so he wasn't really part of a tribe in the same sense as the others.  He seemed troubled by the state of affairs in his state and spoke of it lovingly, appreciating my polite inquiry in broken English. We spoke sparingly as the gradual increase shifted more bluntly into yet another rising pass, but with each break we spoke of rock climbing adventures and peaks;  of how he could not go to lead trips in Nepal, since he was not of the Sherpa caste;  of his 108 summits of Stok Kangri and his summers in Ladakh.
Then we arrived at base camp, humbled by the grandeur of our surroundings, we lay down our packs and awaited nightfall.

We arose to a star-filled darkness, and organized our belongings.  Mountaineering boots, ice-ax and cramp-ons - check; down-jacket, wool socks, and a warm hat - check; inhaler, just in case - check. We were ready.
Hila was hesitant about whether she would actually summit, not fully caring about a peak she was duped into caring about, while Carlos, increasingly nervous, enthusiastically hedged against his success by announcing his good friend's advice "don't forget that whatever you climb up, you gotta climb down, and the most important thing is to come home safe." He was bracing himself, maybe getting sponsored may have been a tad overzealous. A tad.

The night climb began with a steady pace, crossing patches of snow occasionally.  Hila had decided early on to not continue, and Carlos who had no headlamp and used mine, suddenly realized that I had not put fresh batteries in "his" headlamp, and he grunted at me softly while Sonom shined the path for him with his headlamp.  Sonom's headlamp was actually Pangsang's, but he gave his to Sonom.  So yeah, not the best of starts.
We followed the group ahead of us closely due to the lack in light, and Pangsang and I would occasionally exchange glances of wtf. Carlos in the meantime, blissfully ignorant of the stupidity of our situation, continued to exclaim about the wonders of conquering mountains, still 1000 meters below the summit. The gradual incline, the tepid advancement, the cautious approach to the glacier which we would ascend alongside, all seemed to point in the direction of failure. If we would make it to the top it would be despite the initial conditions.

With crampons on, and ice-axes retrieved the real ascent began. It just seemed tall. And long. "One step in front of the other, one foot at a time", I sang to myself my hiking song, the one that pops up when I still have a long way to go. The sun's glimmering light began to envolve us, and with it the peak now fully revealed.  It was 5 am, and the first group was about to summit, while we were still far down. Pangsang had been walking behind, signaling from a distance that he wasn't feeling well. Sonom, continued with me and Carlos while I set the pace for us all. Carlos' mood would shift violently from exhaltation to pessimism, trying to recalibrate his expectations of whether he would make it or not. And I, I just wanted to keep walking.

And it hurt. The breathing was shallow, the crampons were heavy, and my legs refused to be commandeered to finish the tenth step I had promised myself I would make.  But I looked up, took a deep breath, and counted to ten. "keep going, and shut, the fuck, up!" So I did.

When we reached the ridgeline, "the secondary peak", as Carlos reassuringly called it, he sat down and couldn't get up.  It was just me and Sonom now, and he was asking for a break.  "This expedition, no trek" Sonom would repeat to me multiple times at every break, "hard hard work." I wasn't sure whether having the sherpa tell me that what I paid him to do was hard work, was supposed to make me feel better about myself or sketched out, and I settled for both.  We had climbed another 150 meters, before I was ready to call it quits.  I didn't like the situation, and having a completely inexperienced guide who had no ice-ax or experience in snow had finally activated my instructor-responsibility mode, and I hesitated to continue.
I was also exhausted.

I told Sonom I had had enough, and he once again nodded vigorously. "Yes Yes, "hard hard work" he grinned at me sheepishly, "rest now, okay okay." I was ready to go down, retreat in my defeat of a situation that got the best of me, and when we picked up our packs, he began to head up. Naturally.
I decided to trust in the sheepish instructor, while Glenda the 50 something year-old Austrian mother of two passed us on her way down with her two teenagers in toe, "you're right there" she said, "it seems a lot farther than it really is." If fucking Glenda could do it, sure as fuck I could do it to.

"One step in front of the other, one step at a time."

Even the last twenty steps couldn't be made in a single go.  It was 5 steps, then rest. 5 steps, then rest. Then one final push and we made it.
The stupa once again accompanied another small triumph, and Sonom found the closest rock and told me to give him a few minutes. He was going to pray.
And me, I just sat there. Proud. Twisting my neck in all directions to see every peak in the distance.  The clear blue skies allowed us to see for hundreds of miles in each direction, thousands of snow covered peaks in each direction with a glacier sitting heavily on our sides, now beneath us.
I sat solemnly for a while, only to realize that Carlos was actually right, and we still had to climb it down. But at this point it seemed effortless, gravity was on our side, while the crampons prevented too much of its pull. We traversed the ridge-line, slided down the side of the glacier, walked back the long path, always peeping every once in a while over our shoulders, to recall what it was we had accomplished.
We arrived back in camp, I took off my heavy mountaineering boots, and stretched. Then fell asleep shortly after.

Day 4:
Santosh once again, told me to come with him.  "Come come, no wait" he compelled me, and I promptly followed suit. We stopped along the way for a short bouldering session and arrived within 3 hours back at the bottom.
And so I waited for everyone else to arrive.
And waited.
And waited.

And as I waited I observed the scene around me quaintly.
The Himalayan mountains in the background, and the glacial water flowing to us.
The tiny shop that sells everything for cheaper here than in the touristy Leh.
The elder gentleman, who just sits and waits, until he stops and goes somewhere else.
The woman, who might be 14 and might be 30, doing daily chores around the house.  Today, she shovels dirt to filter for rocks and get sand. As her inexperienced hands settle to make a makeshift stand-up net, the dust expires straight into the front of the shop where the only three people in town are sitting outside.
The mud bricks surrounding each house, and behind it yet another makeshift field growing grain to be stored for the winter - exploiting every inch of free land to prepare, winter ever coming.
The Austrian family of four arriving as their taxi awaits. A Mom and Dad with their two teenage sons stealing the last moments of shared adventures before they go find their own ones.
The group of college age Indians, giving adventure their first go, with boyish backpacks they rented from the hostel, hoodies tied around their waists, not expecting the heat to rise while hiking, and trying to hike in their not-adidas and not-puma shoes.
The Swiss couple who summited at six am, tipping generously - the guide, the sherpas, the driver, still overwhelmed by their euphoria from achieving a life long goal, and doing it with a stride.
The little girl, running towards the school bus which had just passsed her, and stops 30 meters ahead at the shop to the sounds of joyous 7-9 year olds retreiving their end of day treats.  The girl, now at mid-panic, throws her backpack sideways, leaving it haphazardly on the side of the road, and darts towards the bus and joins the line to get her some goodies.  She buys two bags of potato chips, and begins to wander back to collect her pack.  And I expected her to rush back to the bus, but she just took her bag, kicking it first and walked home.

And I waited, and observed. And smiled.

It was never about conquering a mountain for me.  I don't think that climbing to a mountain's summit is conquering a mountain.  To conquer a mountain, would mean that it is subdued, but go subdue a fucking mountain.  Only we, humans and animals, recognize ownership and power.  But mountains don't recognize us.  They don't care if we plant a flag up their asses, or build a shrine on their tops.  They just are.
And we, we get to enjoy them, to be challenged by them, to impose on them our thoughts, our emotions, our desires, our challenges.
We conquer our challenges, and the mountains just provide an outlet for us. They can be a canvas for our thoughts and dreams, while making us earn - through the pain in every inch of our body, whatever it is we seek to find.

Day 1 - Arriving in Leh

Only when the plane had began my third descent in 15 hours, the excitement began to sink it.
I had finally arrived in Leh, Northern India.

The wide Himalayan plateau with its jagged, dramatic  features slowly carving through the stone. Snow capped mountains in a desert region that is strapped for water. The 9 months of constant snow at high elevations leave its mark on the rock, any rock.
What or who could survive in a snowy desert, I asked myself, as the large military complexes that sustain both life and conflict in this historic arena of Indian pride came into my view from the plane window? The two 80-seater civilian planes seemed like a gadfly alongside a military Hercules resting proudly besides them, Indian banners coloring it's wings, while fatigued armed guards were trying to take a guarded nap.

And I could not help but feel empathy.  The sleepy soldier clutching onto his Kalashnikov reminded me of the years of aimlessly carrying around an M-16, or sitting on the Jordanian border doing literally nothing, but waiting for time, oh wretched time, to pass.

I got off the plane with my new Australian friend Jono I had just met, who had recently quit his job to meet up with his lady and travel and travail through the windy paths of India. He would continue from there to find an intentionally mindless job in Chamonix - to ski bum and find some new inspiration and a path to something new.  He was looking for something he couldn't quite name, and India seemed like an apt place to begin.

We hopped into the cab after a heartfelt reunion with his lady, who had spent the last four months in India, and looked the part - a sari, a bindi crowning her forehead, and stories of an Israeli friend who had bought a van and with whom she had traveled. I was dropped off in the city center to start looking for my guest house.  As I wandered, only half looking for the guest house, I began to take in the India they all told me about.  The grandeur alongside the trash, and walled side alleys and the day laborers toiling over rebuilding a town that had just awakened from a long winter only to foresee the next one coming in a short while. Building seemed to be as much a constant feature of Leh as the landscape in which the town itself was engulfed.  Building for the hordes of Western and Indian tourists who will be bringing in the bacon for a town that until 30 years ago was consistently disconnected from the world and most of India year round.

"The desert is a place of wanderers and explorers, of those who tried to escape from the centers of power, and of outcasts and plotters who self exiled momentarily, only to regroup and return", I would tell the groups who would visit the museum I once was part of in the Dead Sea. "Those who come here have a purpose," I'd intentionally whisper, alluding to a hidden world I could help them discover. But while I wandered through the streets, still only half searching for my guest house, I couldn't help but be struck by the diversity of the locals.  They were Tibetan, and Indian from north and south, they were Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu.  They would haplessly yell Shalom to me, presuming correctly that I was Israeli, which would inevitably be followed by "come, come, sit with me, have tea". The mostly female Tibetan home-makers were traversing effortlessly between childcare and shoveling dirt and rebuilding the paths, while darker machismo Indian day laborers would stare me down while they sat in the streets awaiting to be called for some more heavy lifting in the streets and in-the-process-of-being-built guesthouses. Did they also have the same purpose as I had once proclaimed so broadly about the desert? The professional alpinist I had met the day before, the Stupa at the top of the hill I was slowly climbing, and the soldier gazing at me indicated that something of that may have remained.

After realizing I had passed the guesthouse not once but twice, I finally arrived, and promptly pursued to take my over-delayed nap.
After awakening, the day continued with wandering. Intentionally aimlessly. I wandered through the shops, at times being tempted by calls on the street to enter stores if only to practice my numbed-by-America haggling skills, and searching for groups to go on a trek with in a few days.  At times I engaged in conversations with people who approached and at times I disengaged due to lack of interest.  Calls would abruptly appear on the street of "Hey Rastaman, don't you need a scarf", and I, while still in motion, would holler a "Jah Rastafar-i, my good friend", and move on to the next store.

I found myself drawn to the bookstores, to see what I could read when my book would end, but mostly ended up opening maps to orient myself for what trek to choose.  Did I feel like enjoying a relatively leisurely and low-key stroll through the valley floors of Nubra or Markha Valleys, or was I up to summiting the Stok Kangra - also a 4-5 day endeavor, to a highly traveled destination, with a 6300 meters peak? The day came to no solid conclusion, but I presume one will arise in the next few days.  I want to find the right people first, and let that be the factor.  Though, as the tour guide I consulted with had mentioned, there is something tempting about seeing the world from over 6000 meters. Not quite the top of the world, but it's pretty damn close.

I returned for another nap , and then had to scrape myself off the bed for a late night stroll.  I passed the main bazaar once again, and was attracted by a little "Tibetan Refugee market" (though there are at least four of them that I've seen so far in Leh), which was selling vegetarian momo's - a Himalayan version of steemed or fried dumplings.  And to be completely honest, the attraction was more to the pretty girl who was sitting alone and eating her dumplings.  But she turned out to be less interesting than I had hoped for.

 Mave (or whatever her name was), and her boyfriend Dan who joined later, were two Americans who had been part of what I call the Asheville hippy circuit. You know, those who you when I mention I lived in Asheville, NC respond with "Oh, man, that's such a cool place, I WOOFED by there and my good friend just opened an innovative organic farm there too" and not with a "where's that, again?" They were unsatisfied with American consumerism and sought to live their lives differently.  They had hiked the Appalachian Trail, and saved up all there money to come to India and travel close to the land and experience only the "authentic".  They had been traveling for the last six months all over India, beginning in the South, with their latest stint hitch hiking from Manali to Leh, and trekking along the way.  While these were supposed to be my people, and they really are, I found myself uninspired by their stories. Not because they weren't inspiring, but because I had heard the tone of their own inspiration enough times to know that I just wasn't interested in that story at that moment.

Ankit, on the other hand, who was also chatting with them, had a different story. Currently residing in Bangalore, but from a small village near Kanpur, was raised in a traditional family from the highest caste in India (and I'm gonna get a bunch of details wrong about this, but this is how he explained it to me at least).  A level 22 Brahmin by birth, because apparently even within the Brahmin caste there are still sub-castes, he had turned his religion switch on and off as of lately.  He was from the highest sub-caste, which dictated a strict vegetarian diet - all animal products are considered impure, and for a mate he was to be married only to a 22 as well. He shared with me that as a kid, he would almost vomit from the mere sight of an egg in his vicinity, and though he went back and forth about the efficacy of religion for him, he knew he would not dissatisfy his parents and would up marrying a 22 as well. Over the course of a few hours, our conversation ranged from caste systems and the Kashmir conflict, to data science and statistical modeling. From Donald Trump and Narendra Modi, to the politics of fundamentalist religion in India, the US and Israel. He had attained a masters degree in computer science from a top Indian University, had worked for Amazon and now began his own start-up firm dealing with big data, but at heart he was attracted to puzzles. Human puzzles, that is, as in what makes us tick. And I like to encounter these puzzles from different perspectives, and try to bring a foreign framework and see if it works in new settings. I knew a thing or two about fundamentalist religion, but not in India and not in Hinduism.
So the conversation continued.

Our exchange dealt with the fundamentals of how societies operate at a political level, and how the system itself leads to certain outcomes. Why Modi provided a new choice for people to believe in, while ignoring or forgiving his past misgivings, and how this shared similarities with recent bouts of nationalist sentiments in America, Britain and Israel, but was fundamentally different in a developed world. We exchanged thoughts on the role of religion as both a conservative force in politics, but one that can lead to improved individual outcomes, and how the tension between the personal and the societal existed in Indian society as well as in Israel in the formation of identity.
As we left the restaurant, and Ankit and I exchanged emails, the man sitting at the table next to us, Sri, who was sitting with a group of friends, turned to thank us for conducting the conversation. "I hope it's okay, but we listened in on your conversation, and I enjoyed it very much.  I hope you have a great time in India, and God Speed".  The entire table nodded and bobbed their heads approvingly towards Ankit and I, and I thanked them kindly for their blessing.

I had made some friends, and I had wandered.
Today was a good day.
To many more to come.

On Surfing

While I sit past the waves, waiting for that one wave that will finally choose me as its master (as if I could actually ride it, let alone tame it), I find myself conjuring facebook statuses - something about the pacifistic nature of the Pacific, or maybe another comparison of my new sport to political institutions. I am reminded once again of the nature of my tedious mind, unwilling to relinquish control and to just let go.

My immediate friends often tease me about my inability to just sit still.  My left leg bent up against the chair, my left hand twisting my hair, and my right hand diminishing the battery of whatever electronic device which at that time is quenching my thirst for knowledge, or at least for a connection to the world.  I dread the possibility of not finding comfort in something that will distract me from myself.

But surfing just wouldn't let me have my way.  After the tiresome first few days I spent battling the waves, catching the leftover whitewater and attempting to just stand up, I found myself following my Swedish surf-bros out beyond the raging shoreline.  At first just sitting on the board felt more like learning how to rodeo than surfing, embarrassingly falling off constantly and exposing my true nature as a newby (like they didn't notice my ten foot board or my sheepish look). But while I gradually found my balance, and once again gave up on the seemingly perfect wave for the dude next to me who knew what the fuck he was doing, I finally began to accept the nature of this endeavor.

There is no control in the water. There is no comfort in endless distraction. It is a prison for thoughts and observations, outweighed by the necessity to ensure that if the wave comes for you, you are prepared.  And when that moment finally comes, and the waves align with your desires, you paddle as if your life depended on it in order to be thrust by Poseidon himself into the wave. I prepare myself for that magical moment to arrive, repeating my mantra that reminds me of the necessary sequence - feel it, stand up, flex your feet, stabilize your hands, breathe - a.k.a feet, flex, hands, breathe. The adrenalin pumps through my body in anticipation of the excitement of what would naturally follow.  You might expect me at this point to describe the sheer bliss of riding that wave, of overcoming nature and forcefully positioning yourself as its master, but sadly that usually didn't happen.  What did happen, most of the time, was I would get smashed. And I mean smashed.  Instead of being its master, the wave made me its bitch. I'd get thrown underneath a shit ton of water, not knowing where up and down was anymore, imagining a white light or whatever other bullshit visions they tell you that you'll see at the end.  Then finally, at what always seemed to be the last second, I would finally arise to the surface grasping for air, choking on some salt water, and vowing to never ever ever fucking do this crazy thing again.

Then I'd paddle out to try to catch another wave.