sydney: august 7, 2006

for some reason, i'm resisting the urge to post something as remarkably pedestrian as this post. it must be because it's what everyone seems to do. i have a natural resistance to crowds of any kind. i don't mind being on the fringe looking in, but panic sets in when i feel too much a part of it. i can't decide whether this attitude will be helpful or beneficial in the coming months. i'm moving to countries where population density renders the notion of "bystander" virtually meaningless.

it seems like i've been in sydney forever, though not in an unpleasant way. despite the more or less benign trauma of the indian consulate, life is pretty effortless here for me. james and mary have been spectacularly good hosts, as they always have been. james in particular has put aside his initial anxiety about seeing me for the first time in 9 years, as have i, and we've grown quite comfortable with each other. he's actually going to cook for me tonight. this will be a first.

we had a rather big saturday night. the dinner at Slide was very tasty. our table for 8 was set up on one end of the raised, saturday night fever dance floor (!). i was able to sit with my back to the rest of the venue; neither kal, james' friend, nor i could cope with facing the small crowd. we had a drink upstairs once the place began to morph into a dance club, but the attitude was what i'd call pushy-poseur-bland and none of us found it very comfortable. i did, however, have the opportunity to share perspectives on india with two of my dinner companions, one of whom is a partner with louise hay in hay house australia. among many others, hay house publishes deepak chopra. leon's perspective was comforting, though superficially at odds with what i would have said was my expectation of india. i wasn't even aware that i had an expectation until he pointed out, very gently, that india has become the subject of a fairly elaborate fantasy about spirituality and mysticism. his wisdom grounded me in the immanent (and imminent) reality that india is a a country very much at war with itself, with most of its population mired in poverty and prejudice, both of which are largely perpetuated, or at least supported, by the national religion of hinduism. i found myself surprisingly at peace with leon's view, i think because at some level i've been aware that whatever spirituality is involved in this journey, it is entirely my own and has nothing whatsoever to do with someone else's fantasy. the challenge of all this is to face my self-imposed limitations and step beyond them. nobody is going to give me answers.

although i've never read any of chopra's works, i confess to being a bit starstruck meeting someone who's socialized many times with the guru. however, leon's candidness established for me that chopra is rather an ordinary human being. he may find himself in extraordinary circumstances, but sometimes things just turn out that way. we move as we will.

the other compelling perspective was offered by a woman who was managing the oxford hotel when james worked upstairs at gilligans. he was working there in 1996 when i met him. sandra is a self-proclaimed--or maybe self-created would be kinder and more accurate--outsider. she's a 59-year-old superfreak who prefers to observe, and absolutely loves the chaos and stickiness of india. in addition to her direct and cutting views on indian culture, she had some very practical suggestions for navigating my way through its soupy thickness as a privileged, white, male westerner.

it's strange how these revelations unfold in the manner, by the routes, and at the times they do. everything arrives wrapped in an eerily translucent perfection.

kal and i hit it off rather too well. he's a complete sweetheart. we adopted each other as club buddies for the night....and a good chunk of sunday morning....and hopped from the midnight shift (locally and affectionately, "the shift")--which is where i met james 10 years ago--to ARQ (new to me), and DCM (my first sydney bar back in '96 with its mindblowing drag show) and back to the shift and then back to ARQ, where we'd left our coats. i was able to dance (in which venue i'm not quite sure) to a completely new remix of "cry india" by umboza, which was THE song to be dancing to in 1996 in sydney and was the first piece of music i bought here that long ago. i still have the CD, which james had helped me to find with very little to go on but my poor rendition of the basic tune and how it made me feel. go team synchronicity. so weird. so wonderful.

everyone else had gone home long before james, kal and i piled into a cab at about 6:30am sunday. sydney does have a way of pulling the party boy out of me and throwing me up against the wall and spattering me on the dancefloor. it was lovely, ribald, exhausting, and completely peaceful.

i slept until 4:30pm, bludged about for the rest of the day watching television, including the initial search edition of the latest "australian idol"--sweet lord.

oh, yes, my favourite australian tv commercial is for bigpond broadband internet access and involves a young schoolboy being driven by his (shockingly old) father [read with your best version of a thick aussie accent...]:

son: dad, why did they build the great wall of china?

dad: (searching the databanks....) well....that was....uh....during the time of nasi goreng. (searching databanks....) to keep all the rabbits out. (searching databanks....) there were too many rabbits. (searching databanks.....) in china.

[cut to son in front of his class]

teacher's voice: now, we're going to hear all about china from...[whatever his name is]

*snort*

*giggle*

i can't stand it. it's so beautiful and wrong. it gets funnier every time i see it.

maybe that's why i'm sleeping better. or maybe it's just because my worries, such as they are, have been reduced to a manageable level. they aren't really worries anymore.

which brings me, finally, to where i intended to start this pedestrian post: my australian sub-itinerary is finally final.

after my last encounter with the indian consulate, i was afraid i'd agonize about the visa thing. but a good night out on sydney-town does wonders for the spirit, and by this morning, i knew that i'd apply for the tourist visa and worry about more time in india when that visa expires in mid-february. i may take that time to spend in sri lanka or wherever and come back...or come back to canada. who knows? the consulate was full of waiting applicants; i watched many of them turn red with disbelief and frustration as whatever information (or lack of it) there were faced with acidified their initially hopeful moods. i tried not to despair and formulated a strategy of absolute good humour.

whether it played any role in my case is unanswerable, though i don't think anyone else who approached the wicket received a smile as i did. everything was fine, everything was acceptable. though it will be issued august 14, i can retrieve my passport and the visa on august 21, the first working day after i've returned to sydney from my northern junket.

so, officially, this is where i'll be for the next 10 days:

aug 8-12: noosa, queensland

aug 12-14: darwin, northern territory

aug 14-17: my "top end" tour

aug 17-18: darwin

aug 18-23: sydney

aug 23-31: perth, western australia (perhaps traveling with linda south to margaret river)

while i have the chance in noosa, with nothing but beaches and a hotel room to play with, i plan to do very little but read about nepal and try to learn some nepali phrases. i've done very little reading since i left calgary. i feel poorly prepared to step into nepali culture in the not-quite-a-few-weeks i have left. (since james' bathroom is absolutely frigid, i do feel somewhat prepared for the cold bucket showers, but that's about it so far.)

i could go on, couldn't i? i'm just that way.

but i've a train to catch, back to summer hill and stir-fry a la james barker, and packing and all that.

thank you for staying with me all through this and all through that.

it helps.