How To Make Scooter Metal Cores

1 - From New Delhi to Varanasi

New Delhi, July 23, 2006


First Contact The first impression I have of India is the sultry, humid late monsoon falls down on me out of the plane. And immediately after, the smell, sticky and heady, with a taste of mold. On the airport car park, as the sun hits and already sweating begins to stick my clothes to my skin, I am struck against the crush of taxis that compete for customers. An hour bottling later, I discovered the district Travellers Delhi, Paharganj, with its muddy streets noisy agitation, its whiff of sewage and fried mixed with incense, its crippled beggars exhibiting their stumps, cows wandering among the cars and rickshaws, its competition and its horns drifting insane son on which electric crackle sparks.



visit the zoo
When taking advantage of a lull between showers warm, I go around town, I feel strange to find myself in a zoo. Or, more precisely, in the monkey cage delivered food to kids armed with peanuts jokers. It is I who have come to see the Indians, but they are the ones who look at me. They stare at length, sticking to me to know what's in my bag or watch how I take money to the dealer for a while they feel for me to check the consistency of my skin so clear. A little annoyed, I plant my eyes in theirs to show my disapproval, but that does not interfere in the least. Some m'adressent also speak, I much prefer. The conversation always starts the same questions about my country and my first name, but usually that is enough and they move away, or they sit there watching me, smiling.

Yes or No-Yes-No?
As I keep getting lost in this city, I ask my way at every junction. This is an opportunity to discover the famous nodding of the head that belongs only to Indians and that in turn means "yes" and "no" if not "cause always, you interest me." But this I do not understand until later. For now, between their gestures and their language undecodable, they seem to me just like aliens.



New Delhi, July 25

Scam, Indian
In Delhi, there are a category of people whose main activity is to rip off tourists in their descent of the aircraft. Though I am wary, the fifties, allegedly a father and brave railroader, who guesses that I'm lost and that shows me the way before dinner with me without asking me anything, ended up inspiring me confidence. Then the circus began. It brings the conversation so innocuous on the local clothing, meant that I ask myself where I can find and, miraculously, has just one store. He leads me and told me that I will be immensely satisfied if I travel in white pajamas Gandhi ... In addition, thanks to him I can get a discount monumental. Fortunately I do not leave me totally bamboozled, children across northern India probably laughing for generations of French tourist disguised as Gandhi. The next day I will learn all the same beast that brown shirt purchased in place of pajamas cost me ten times its usual price.
But in the meantime, my friend does not let her juicy fish and directs the conversation to Krishna, who is well known as a heavy smoker of hashish. I asked, with caution of course not to the shock given its great age, he knows where find. In fact, it is very progressive on the issue and, again, it's really too much luck, he has a friend two blocks away that proposes to sell me. We find it gets a little plastic bag, and history of not being caught by the constabulary, moved to close the transaction right now, right away, quick quick the police are everywhere. As I still want to see what I buy, he broke a small piece he quietly introduce myself, throwing quick glances right and left with the air of startled owl. It's actually a very good charas. I am about to give him the money, but unexpectedly seized by a burst of lucidity, I ask to take the whole bag in hand to verify its contents. He refuses, insist alarmed, I am going to the heart-cons and of course it's clay ... Exasperated, I give him his merchandise, which moreover it also almost cost me ten times the local course, as I will report later. I can not even shouting at him, since he passed his accomplice to the scam artist and pretends to preach to me.
Obviously, after such an introduction, it is more difficult to rely to strangers. If one day an Indian invited me home, I have to scroll? On the train, should we accept tea as other passengers suggested with a smile? And my backpack, I really do cling to my bunk with my huge metal chain under the astonished eyes of the gentle family sharing my compartment?



New Delhi, July 26

Exit Delhi manual
Originally, my idea was to escape the monsoon from west to the desert of Rajasthan, before back to Ladakh in the Himalayas. I'm going to the bus station buy me a ticket for Djululu, a small town lost that I can start my journey off the beaten path because I am a wise guy. But the task is more difficult than expected. The station is huge, it's pouring rain, dozens of buses are parked in every sense of the panels in Hindi and the tellers a jabber pidgin English vaguely permanently rendered incomprehensible by their accent. Whoever sits in the cabin 14 still sends me to 27 which tells me that my faith is very simple to turn away the 17, where it asks me to go see the first floor of the gentleman 62. It is still raining, but now he night. I arrive on the first floor, of course no one at 62. I ask the 63, who inquires with peers and eventually send me to 54. There, a pleasant surprise: I am very pleasantly received by the turnkey, offering me to join him even in his box to better explain my case. I ended up behind the gate with him and two of his friends. It gives me a strange smell tea, I drink not without a little apprehension, but hey I'm here to meet people. For cons, I refuse to extend it with its local whiskey. It begins with the ritual questions about my country of origin my name, my age, my marital situation, my job ... When he learns I am a journalist, his face lights up and he immediately m'entreprend foreign policy of India, the atomic bomb, relations with United States ... Now that I know I'll get my ticket, I'm relaxed and I take this moment a little confused still when, after much reflects his friends my views on the imperialist aims of Bush, he removes his dentures and gums mass length with his thumb yellowed by cigarettes. We chain the Pakistan, the system caste, sexual freedom in the West ... Seeing the time pass, I take my tea late to ask him my ticket. He dodges, I return to the office and he replies that he is finally on sale on the ground floor ... By cons, he would be delighted to invite me to dinner to continue this fascinating conversation. Mercy! I thank him, tears me from my stool, took his address and promised to remind my return to Delhi - no, not tonight because I'm gone, but thank you is very nice. And I come home empty-handed to my guesthouse.

Varanasi, August 4

Change My Plans
mishap finally good because the same evening, I change all my plans. On the roof of my guesthouse, I meet a French person posing as a vagabond filmmaker and musician, and a Belgian fully lit, which lead me to leave rather due east to the holy city of Benares, renamed Varanassi by the Indians for twenty years. The first has been there five times and shot, it seems, incredible images of sadhus for a film arthouse release at Cannes, while returning from a Belgian and a half months in an ashram the sigh of envy to French ... They tell me both of Varanassi as the Indian city par excellence, the one where I absolutely have to go on pain of missing out on my journey. So I ship the next night in a night train - after buying my ticket at the counter reserved for tourists, which is still good practice.



Welcome to the fourth dimension
Indeed, Varanassi is a mystical city. When the old Indian had a shot so well, unlike ours they are not rushing to the hospital to scratch a little rab, but come here to wait for death quietly, with a few hundred rupees in the hollow hand to pay for their stake. Their plan is to be incinerated on site and to scatter their ashes in the Ganges, to escape the painful cycle of reincarnation and go straight to Nirvana. Suddenly, the winding streets of the old city are continuously plowed by guys in orange, the color of Hinduism, which carry on the run and singing stretchers with bodies wrapped in gold fabric, which must be burned less than three hours after death. But how do you know if they are dead in a short period of time? When the doctor does not arrive in time, The mortician puts a mirror in front of their mouth, and if no condensation is formed, is that the case is settled. With such a system, although they had to make some move to the door by mistake ...



short, the ride takes them into bearers of the two main ghats (platforms) Homes located on the river bank. The one I visit has five stakes. The first four are devolved to the four main castes, the fifth is used to relight the others in case of failure. According to my informant, a pseudo guide so stoned that he must regularly remind him of what he speaks, the last outbreak burns continuously for 2500 years. All the surrounding houses, including a hospice run by the sisters of Mother Teresa, is covered with a thick layer of soot, which adds to the drama of the site. After a while, so I'm trying to get rid of the boy's breath encannabissée now drooling on my shoulder where he was almost asleep, I realize that once the cremation is complete, shirtless men give great blows of bamboo in the fire ended. Their job is to break the skulls, which the devils, too often refuse to burst with the heat thus preventing the soul of their owner to fly to Nirvana.

Pilgrims and sadhus
In addition to the dead, there is also Varanassi to do with the living. The entire city exudes faith, the rhythm of worship. Ghats on the Ganges, in the streets, in the ashrams and temples, processions of pilgrims in orange sing from morning till night the glory of Krishna, the god of the city. Even the slightest potter or seller of donuts flies the red dot of the third eye or white lines on the forehead. And of course there are the sadhus. They go around half naked, often with scant scare in dreadlocks, their gaze belies lost in limbo. At dawn, they mingle with the people to wash their stains by making their ablutions in the murky waters of the Ganges but sacred.




A French who lived in India for many years assures me that they retrieve the ashes at the stake to cover his body and they cook their sometimes downright chapati (crepe ) sizzling on the fat ... A smoldering corpses of those small pleasures of the palate, some yogis and Naga prefer those of asceticism sport. They spend their lives or even standing on one leg, constantly waving a clenched fist above their heads, suspended huge stones sex or I do not know what else as foolish thing, they have really good imagination. According to what I said, we can see more au gratin pilgrimage of Kumba Mella, where all sadhus meets every twelve years for a large ritual bath in the Ganges in the company of some thirty million people. It absolutely must go see this thing here.




Massage sticky
Obviously, here too the crooks are legion. It does not take me more than a few hours for me to land claimed by a Brahmin, a member therefore of the priestly caste, who offers me a massage. Reassured by the reputation of his white uniform and happy to relax from the fatigue of travel, I agree. A few minutes later, here I am lying in a hut infested with cockroaches. This is actually one of his friends, a big hairy dripping with grime, taking care of me. Fort evil elsewhere, as this disrupts the gross me back before I tear the skin with an oil-impregnated sand stinking, while his chief baratine me on the money that I'll have to pay. Idiot that I am, I cash a half-hour of this regime in order not to offend my hosts, while trying desperately to keep my visual field in the bag placed at the end of the mattress with all my papers and my money. When the ordeal is over, I'm still wise enough to reject the proposal of my Brahmin share it with a bang lassi, a sort of yoghurt drinks heavily loaded with THC.