Monkey Pain

A couple days ago in Buddhist Philosophy class we learned that there were three kinds of suffering. Of these, “suffering of change” is the hardest to understand, because it doesn’t involve any sensation of pain. Rather, it’s quite the opposite of pain. "Suffering of change" is actually those pleasurable acts that we engage in everyday. A delicious piece of cake,a dark chocolate truffle, a new pair of jeans, fitting into an old pair of jeans; all of these little joys of life are supposedly not pleasurable, but rather, forms of suffering. The argument goes that though we feel pleasure after engaging in each of these acts, this pleasure is limited because it is not a lasting pleasure. If eating chocolate was truly pleasurable, the more you engage in the act the more pleasure you would derive. This is not the case, because eventually, you’d become sick and start to experience pain from eating too much chocolate -or so the argument, goes; personally, I think I could eat chocolate for the rest of my life and continue to derive pleasure from each bite. Nevertheless, I was happy to begin today's philosophy class with a little suffering of change in the form of German chocolate.

That chocolate definitely was the highlight of my day. As a result of the permanent cold and the foreign food, members of the group have taken turns feeling like crap, and today my turn has come. Symptoms include no energy, nausea, and an overlying desire to be home, lying underneath the covers, watching cheesy movies while family members brings me soup. The good news: since I am the second-last to contract welcome-to-India illness, I know for a fact that two or three days from now I will feel bright as sunshine. Right now, I am looking forward to finishing this so I can crash in the lounge and sleep while pretending to practice my Tibetan pronunciation.

Before I go collapse, I will finish this post with a monkey update. Yesterday, my friends were sitting in the lounge outside the campus canteen, and a monkey crawled down a tree and straight out stole my friend Michelle’s popcorn. Meanwhile, another monkey peed on her newly washed shirt that was lying next to the popcorn. This morning, I was calling home from the roof of one of the buildings on campus -reception is terrible inside the classrooms- and, all of a sudden, a monkey crawls down in front of me and starts eating both of the bananas I was planning to have before lunch. Because I am a coward and have the excuse that I didn’t get the rabies shot before coming here, I ran the other direction, screamed a little bit, and mourned the loss of my two bananas. So far, the general conclusion is that the monkeys are vicious and far from cute. They’re also everywhere, and have taken to raiding people’s rooms looking for food.

We have, however, scored one victory against the monkeys. Just this morning, a monkey was crawling into Kylie’s room. In a very primal fashion, she screamed at it and stomped her feet and the monkey turned around and left.

Until next time, the score remains: monkeys 4 (bananas, popcorn, peed-on shirt, eaten underwear) study-abroad-students: 1 (go Kylie!)

Monkeys ate my Underwear

Well, not exactly.

So they didn’t eat my underwear, but just after we had finished doing our first load of bucket-washed laundry, one of my friends knocked on my door with this announcement. She found out when she was folding what remained of her laundry and realized that two of her favorite quick dry undies were missing the crotch. The monkeys had left the rest intact. I know; it made wrinkle my face too when I heard.

But in all seriousness, who would have thought when packing for this trip to account for monkeys with, let’s call it “refined,” palates?

My stay in Sarah has been like that –not the underwear-eating monkey part, but rather the constant surprise. Who would have thought that there’d be no mattresses on the beds? Who would have thought it would be so cold in India? By cold, I don’t mean bellow freezing temperatures or daily blizzards or anything along those lines. Rather, it’s a cold that I had never experienced before: the cold of not having heating anywhere you go, of never actually becoming warm. So far, this has been the biggest challenge. As I write this I have my three layers of socks and long underwear on, as well as gloves so that my hands don’t freeze as they reach out of my yak-wool blanket in the direction of this laptop.

At the same time, all of these constant surprises just tune me into how privileged my existence has been. Though I was aware that the vast majorities of humanity don’t have access to the same facilities I have enjoyed my entire life, this last week has forced me to really conceptualize what this means by forcing me to embrace a life without washing machines and massage shower heads. I don’t think I could ask more from an education than this.

I realize my privilege even now, because, though I have no control over the temperature of my hot water, this experience for me is timed and controlled. The study-abroad program ensures that we are well fed by making available to us separate food cooked especially for us. It also ensures that this cultural immersion of ours is long enough to be significant but short enough to be bearable. In a way, such experiences could be likened to petting zoos, where you believe you are participating in another’s life when they are there only to serve a purpose in yours.

I hope this is not the case here, for me, though I can't help feeling like I should be more critical at times. My roommate’s name is Tenzin Gaphel, and even in a week I have developed such respect for her. She has been kind beyond what I could have imagined; whenever I come home there is another treat waiting for me, be it gum or cake or tea. She has introduced me to her friends and helped bargain on my behalf in the markets and invited me to watch Hindi soap operas. I can become cynical about how catered this "immersion can feel at times," but as I turn to Gaphel, sitting just a couple feet from me studying, I can’t be anything but grateful.

Five Days In

The fact that I was coming to India first sunk in as I bit into one of the chilies on the vegetable curry we were served on the Jet Airways flight from Brussels to Delhi. My obsession with food combined with two years of exploring every kind of ethnic cuisine available in New York resulted in what I thought was an admirable tolerance for spice. I was proven instantly naïve, and for a couple minutes after I bit into the dark red dried chili I thought my throat was going to explode. There was no end to the coughing, the crying, the water drinking, and finally the downing of yogurt we had been given in one hurried gulp. None of it helped, and eventually I gave up the prospect of finishing my meal.

This one detail is one of the many humbling moments I have lived since I arrived five days ago. I agree with the saying that India is incapable of an understatement, and everything from the amount of beggars on the street to the majesty of temples is a reminder of the incredible worlds that I remain ignorant of.


So far, I’ve been lucky to see so much that defines the lives of others. For instance, the many temples I had the chance to visit in my couple days in Delhi have allowed me to glimpse religious existence to degrees highly uncommon –and often rejected– back home. In just a couple of days, we’ve been exposed to numerous practices and encountered individuals whose lives are defined by spirituality. Among the temples we visited are the Gurdwuara Baangla Saahib dedicated to the eighth Sikh Guru, Hanuman Mandir, a Hindu temple revolving around devotion to Hanuman (who incidentally happens to be god of students), Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India, and this Jain temple hidden at the end of an unexpected courtyard hidden amongst the bustling little alleyways of Old Delhi.

In addition, since my arrival in Pragpur (a tiny village in the Himalayan foothills), we’ve stumbled upon several small temples on our hikes. One of them, hidden behind a school, contained an underground passageway to a cave where a devotee lived when he renounced light for a year. It’s interesting how the expressions of spirituality encountered here seem almost opposite to the opulent temples I saw in the capital. No less breathtaking, they’ve led me to realize that, when claiming that India has no subtleties, it’s not just true that all the colors are vibrant and the tastes strong and the poverty intense. Rather, the peace of the countryside, the asceticism I witnessed today, is no less impacting than the thousand-year-old gold paintings I saw in the Jain temple in Old Delhi.

Tomorrow we leave Judge’s Court, this beautiful inn built in the early twentieth century in Himachal Pradesh. Despite the cold that seeps into everything and doesn’t leave when you go inside (in fact, quite the contrary), this is my last taste of comfort for a while. This place is amazing. The furniture and the buildings have been so well preserved, and though there is no heat, I am sitting by a well tended fire and a hot water bottle has been slipped underneath my covers. More importantly, hot water is available from the showers, and the toilets are all western style. Oh, and I almost forgot: perhaps to my misfortune, there is wifi. Tomorrow, when I arrive at the Sarah Campus of the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, it’s bucket showers and squat toilets from here on out (wish me luck).

As fearful as I am of making the adjustment (what if I have terrible aim?) I know that, if anything, my concerns over toilets and showers are silly; I shouldn’t let a little cold water get in the way of anything, as tempting as it is. Additionally, I hope that the five weeks in Sarah Campus will be the beginning of lots of beautiful challenges. I hope that what I learn will force me to think more critically about the life it’s so easy to live blindly in a city as busy as New York (though this is an easy excuse to make). What’s more, I am crossing my fingers that my Tibetan improves beyond Tshal Momos, one of the few phrases in my repertoire. Meaning vegetable dumplings, if my Tibetan doesn’t improve I risk eating this and only this until mid-June.

As I finish writing this I feel the guilt of someone sending a mass text. I feel that I owe every friend and family member a personalized account of my experiences abroad in India, but there are so many of you I might not get a chance to leave this fireside if I do commit myself to such a task. I hope you’ll forgive how general these accounts are, and enjoy knowing that you are in my thoughts half a world away.