Sunday, January 30th 2005, 2:30pm

Well, I arrived in Patara pind (village) on January 18th, and departed on January 27th. There were different elements to my stay there... many were enjoyable, and some were not.

During that time I was staying with a family who took care of me as one of their own. The food I ate was all vegetarian, and much of it came from the family farm where, if I understood correctly, no pesticides or chemical fertilizers are used. Carrots, peas, spinach, the wheat the rotis were made of, the milk, yoghurt, and butter. Everything prepared fresh, hot and delicious. One element that struck me as pretty funny: The routine I experienced in the morning was to get up, brush your teeth (manditory), and head upstairs for cha (milk tea with plenty of sugar), and some combination of ladoo, jelibie, barfi, and a few other sweets I can't remember the name of. So basically, you get up, brush your teeth, and immediately pump yourself up with all kinds of crazy sugar!! Hahahahahaha... ahhhh... If only the kids in Canada could see me now. A breakfast of fresh roti, dahl & yoghurt would come about an hour later.

When I first arrived in Jalandhar I got a pedal rickshaw from the train station to the 'Model Town' Gurudwara - that is, the Gurudwara near to the Model Town section of Jalandhar. I paid the wallah, and as I began to cross the street to the Gurudwara where I was hoping to stay for a couple days while setting up to get to Patara, and a fellow working at stand outside the gates hailed to me to come over and talk to him... he began by telling me that I had just arrived from Delhi - a pretty good trick, and then guessed that I'm Kimmy's friend! So this fellow turned out to be the uncle of my friend Kim who's in Delhi, and she'd called and told her family about my arrival just hours before. Needless to say I was pretty surprised. Having only stepped off the rickshaw I was immediately in the care of a family. They set about to arrange for my stay at the Gurudwara, but it never quite got to that. Instead the one contact that I did have in Jalandhar, who was expecting me, soon whisked me off to meet the family that I would stay with in Patara.

It turned out that they were in another nearby village attending a wedding party - what turned out for me to be the first of ...I think four solid days of wedding parties. By the end of that I was finished... there was yet another wedding party two days after the end of the first, but I declined to attend. The parties were ...fun, and there were many friendly people there, but they took a toll on me for sure. I was constantly declining drinks, as the family I was staying with don't drink and were very clearly in favour of my following suit. Same went for meats... then there were the requests for me to dance, which I didn't really feel up to.

I've never felt so much like an oddity and an outsider as I have here in Punjab. Sometimes when people are staring at me, and I say something - Namaste, or Sat Sri Akal Ji, they'll reply in kind and the stare will soften... and other times they simply continue to stare with no response at all. That sort of response would lead to me walking down the street intentionally not looking at anyone... it was hard, and as the days went on, it grew more difficult.

Another phenomenon is that of the talking monkey - I'm a bit like a parrot, a bit like a monkey, but I won't tear out your hair, or bite off your fingers, and unlike any other 'talking monkey' to be found over here, I'm white - so I'm like the ultimate entertainment piece. Usually that experience was limited to the wedding parties I went to, and only very mildly to when meeting the family's friends. However, again that began to mount its weight, day after day. One day a neighbour had asked me to visit his college where he's studying CAD & CNC (basically computer controlled lathes). I agreed after he indicated that it would take only some two hours to go from Patara to his college and back again. In fact, we arrived back nine hours later. We spent the first part of the day visiting two Gurudwaras, his old school and professors, family member after family member in different towns, driving all over on his scooter, going to Wonderland despite my protests, and so forth. Everywhere I felt that I was the monkey to be stared at but not spoken to. At one point when he asked what was on my mind, I told him that I was cold and tired, after all we'd spoken of two hours, and this was a pretty long two hours. He apologized, and pointed out though that he didn't know he'd have to go to Wonderland. Riiiight. Finally we went to his college which turned out to be about the most enjoyable part of the day. My mood was pretty sour by then though... and the antics went on. None of the stops felt as though they were for my enjoyment or benefit, despite any ostensible outward appearance that they were. Nine hours. Needless to say I will not be going on any other adventures with him.

Then the family's guru came to town and to stay the night at their place. I won't go into the details, but I was thoroughly unimpressed, and was quite ready to depart the next morning to my next destination, Langeri pind, near the town of Mahilpur, where I am now. Yeah... it's hard for me to decide what to express and what not to express.

All of my entries are seem to me to be fairly focused. I talk about very specific, limited things, and completely leave out the rest of the world that I'm living in. When I talk of bad, there was so much good, but... I can only talk of one thing at a time. I look forward to my next visit to Patara. The family members there are wonderful, and very kind to me. I feel almost at home...

I guess that's it for now. I've spent two days doing "english classes" at a local highschool... and I'll be renting a flat soon. I'll have plenty more to tell you.

ps. Internet here in Mahilpur is particularly difficult... it may take me some time.

l8r!

dharma