Out of gas

Yesterday, Danae filled the pressure cooker with dhal, got it just nearly boiling, and the gas went out.

We have been discussing the situation with the gas cylinder—not very old but mysteriously unproductive—for weeks. There was the possibility of a leak. There was the question of whether or not the burners have been kept sufficiently clean.

The possibility that blackmarket gas cylinders might be sold somewhat less than full somehow never came up.

So, the dhal is waiting half-cooked on the counter, hopefully kept more or less refrigerated by the general icyness of our kitchen, and we are off searching for yet more black market fuel. You can't get legal fuel (sold by the government) most of the time—it's only delivered on certain days, infrequently enough that law-abiding housewives keep a spare cylinder on hand to avoid doing without. So that would be an impractical solution at this point.

But half of life in much of the world is at least slightly illegal, so a-fueling we will go. Hopefully we will end up with a more or less full canister this time.

(Once again, I'm pretty sure there's something about the way I use 'hopefully' that's wrong. But I cannot for the life of me remember what it is. Merry Christmas!)

The limitations of 'image search'

I'm currently attempting to Google the identity of some sort of four-legged critter I keep seeing from the train. So far, 'India animal looks like a cross between deer and camel,' 'Indian gazelle,' 'Indian deer,' and, least likely of all, 'Indian wild camel' have been completely useless.

Should I mention that they seem to have unusually large heads? They seem to have unusually large heads. Also, they primarily come out at dawn or dusk, in the fog. And only near trains that are moving exceptionally fast. Also, one time, a terrifyingly fast bus. But I'm pretty sure it looked a little like a deer, a little like a camel, and a little like a cow.

Somebody told me there's a deer called a blue cow. This wasn't remotely blue, but ...

...
...
...
...

... jackpot.

According to my search results, which I have not bothered to read, they come in blue and brown. Nilgai it is.

I don't see why my original search didn't work. How come no one else in the world has noticed that these things look like a cross between a deer and a camel?

Wish I'd seen a blue one.

. . .

I have nothing to say to you about writing, because I haven't been doing any. However, if you are planning to become fabulously wealthy writing a best-selling novel but can't quite seem to get started, read this old Dave Barry column on the Da Vinci Code.

If you are not hoping to publish a bestseller, read it anyway. 

If you can't read, get someone to read it to you.

Dust and cargo

                                                                                                                                                            Bihar

I changed my mind about Benares—it is now my second favorite place in India. My favorite is Bihar.

Tell Indians you're going to Bihar and you'll get a lot of strange looks. It's not exactly a major tourist destination. But I realized a long time ago that my dream of traveling has a lot less to do with beautiful historic places and cultures and a lot more to do with wanting to visit the outer planets on Firefly.

The border cities of Bihar seem a lot more like Badger's kind of town than Calcutta and and Benares. You can see beautiful sunsets over beautiful places in Benares, but here, you can see a beautiful sunset over massive oil refineries through the thick dust clouds kicked up by the constant stream of trucks heading into Nepal.

There is no comparison.

Admitting defeat

Benaras, India

I doubt you'll be surprised to learn that National Novel Writing Month was a bust.

Internet access has been rare on the road; time to write rarer. (Is rarer a word? Danae says it is, but that it sounds like fingernails on a blackboard.)

Benaras is far and away my favorite Indian city so far, in spite of the plague of vapidly spiritual tourists. Like the Kalighat temple in Calcutta, Benaras feels like it belongs in another time. But Kalighat is only one building, while Benaras is a whole city. I guess in my imagination both places are sort of lumped together in one big dawn-of-civilization experience: It's amazing to go to the Kalighat and stand in front of the altar, piled high in rotten flowers and old blood, and realize that on this spot, every day, people sacrifice a goat to an old school, blood-dripping, human-skull-wearing, scare-the-bejesus-out-of-you mother goddess.

But my favorite temple is right here in Benaras: the monkey temple. I think it has another name, but I'm too lazy to look it up.

Sadly, we managed to reach the monkey temple during Hanuman's nap time, and so were unable to see the idol. (He has an embroidered black curtain, to keep his worshipers from bothering him.) But it's still a beautiful place. Although it's in the city, it is surrounded by a tree-filled park (for the monkeys, natch), and it feels like you're in the heart of the jungle, at the headquarters of a very jungle-themed religion, which, in a way, you are.

While taking the requisite dawn boat ride on the Ganges, we saw two separate funerals at the burning ghats. The deceased had not quite made it to the pyre on either occasion, which is just as well. One of my great fears in life is that one day I will smell burning human flesh and it will remind me of something incredibly tasty.

This should tell you all you need to know about the number of things I'm afraid of.

But, through it all, there's been almost no writing. I've done just enough to see that the Awful SpaceOpera is indeed awful.

A good way to appreciate the finer qualities of my magnum opus is to read this article, sent to me by my cousin—my story is everything the author says it shouldn't be.

Ah well. Back to the drawing board. Perhaps I should work on the Hunchback some more. Have I told you about the Hunchback? No? Well, that's a story for another day.

Bad beyond belief

Benares, India

I had forgotten how bad this thing is; I really had.

Retyping the manuscript is not as inspiring as I had hoped. It would seem that nothing can make the Awful Space Opera less awful.

More explosions might help, but those might be hard to come by on a sparsely populated planet. More monsters? We already cut the dragons, and I think adding something similar would be a step backward.

The prison escape sequence is too long. It shows the weaknesses in my dialogue far to clearly. How can I make it shorter?

One thing that I intend on doing (I have a very strong feeling that this is truly execrable, grammar-wise. But I haven't had my coffee and I don't care.) is to write draft three in the form of a screenplay. That will, hopefully, help me cut out unnecessary text. Hopefully. (Drew, what was it you tried to teach me about why I use “hopefully” wrong? Is it something to do with it ending in “ly?”)

But draft two is turning out pretty much as bad as draft one.

The really awful thing is, it's also turning out longer.

By the way, I have lice. Well, actually, I don't, not yet, but considering how prevalent they were at the orphanage Danae dragged me to last week I'm sure I will have them soon.

Breakfast

Today I would like—

Let's not make this decision hastily.

Dutch baby? No. Apple dumplings? No. Quiche? No.

Scones! Homemade, creamy, buttery scones, with currants. And bacon and poached eggs, with avocado on the side.

(Would you believe that no one grows avocados here? The tropics are completely wasted on these people.)

I should probably go take my cold shower and have my processed cheese and cracker breakfast. With instant coffee.

Some of the scones should be oat scones.

More Adiga

Editor's note: This post was scribbled into a notebook during a painful period of separation from my laptop, then transcribed later.

Like the fool I am, I rushed through my long, depressing, Man-Booker prizewinning novel because I wanted it to be over. Now, I've got four more days in this village and nothing at all to read.

And no laptop, so no progress on the novel, either.

Leaving the computer behind in Calcutta was a very bad last-minute decision. I suspect this is the beginning of the end of my NaNoWriMo pretensions.