"Here I am, rock you like a Hurricane"

I used to get that song stuck in my head during really crazy days at work, or at least those lyrics, convinced that I just didn't know the rest of the song. Turns out, as I was to learn in a Jeep driven by a Tribal man from Shillong to Cherripunjee, that's all there is. Just "Here I am, rock you like a hurricane!" over and over again. All the songs on the album (is it Poison? I don't even know) are like that, which isn't really the strange part. The strange part is hearing that piece of United States Hard Rock Glory in the middle of the most remote part of India we could possibly find. Or another classic moment- learning "very tasty" and "how much do you love me" in Khasi, sitting on the steps outside of our guest house while our hosts (the nicest people on the face of the planet) listen to Billy Ray Cyrus- yeah, that's right, I know his name- ask his lover not to break his heart, his acky breaky heart." Good old India, never short of surprises.

When we were actually in civilization in Megalaya, we somehow manage to get in with the 18 year old emo scene. We didn't find them, they found us. These were the kind of boys both of us would have had huge crushes on five years ago. Skinny legs, black allstairs, messy (albeit deliberately) hair. With them, we got to do the things we (actually, just me, Leigh was a different kind of delinquent) hadn't done since 18, like drink in the back of parked cars. They showed us how to chew betelnut, the chewing tobacco of India. You put a banana leaf smeared with lime paste in your mouth, add the betelnut and chew until it breaks into bits. Leigh liked it, sort of. I on the other had, couldn't seem to figure out the nut/saliva/tiny size of my mouth ratio that kept me from having to spit every 15 seconds. After all, when we asked "do you swallow it" their "no. no, no, no" made it clearly a bad choice.

The best part was we arrived in Shillong the day before Shivatri, a Hindu festival to celebrate Shiva by imbibing in, what else, Marijuana. When we were in Varanasi, all of the travelers we met were staying in the Holy City for it, with claims of "it's gonna be crazy." Sadly, we had to move on. Not so sadly, we found ourselves in a city celebrating it with new punks for friends who were ecstatic to take us with them.

The festival was held in a large park that shelters a temple built over a small cave. When we first arrived, we descended a long line a stairs to get down into the valley. The stairs were so lined with the homeless, the destitute and the desperate that it felt like we were descending into Hell in the middle of the day. We passed a man whose skin was rotting from his leg and had a gauze bag over his face, crying. It made my heart feel like it could loose the energy to beat.

The crowd had already gotten pretty massive, and the boys surrounded us like a group of skinny security guards. By the time we went into the park after checking out the river, it was packed. The boys go into "gonna be a man, protect the woman" mode once again, which for the first time in my life I am thankful for. It is clear we don't belong. We are the only white people in the crowd, and most certainly the only white women. We pass stalls selling hot, sticky, yellow and red jelebes, little balls of goo with green bits mixed in and glasses full of green, greenish white and red liquid, which I am told by Reggie are pot infused water, pot infused milk and something else, respectively. We are getting stared at by everyone like we're some sort of three eyed freaks, and the crowd is so full it can't help but push itself around in the organic sway of any mob. The boys tell us to just look at the ground to keep from drawing attention, and Reggie steps behind me telling me he has to watch out for men who might try and fall down on me. I know what he means.

They get us to the temple, a white tile multi-roomed building with red lining that I imagine is pristinely clean most of time and is soaking in humanity now. We take our shoes off as we enter, stepping into the pool of mud, water, stray offerings of marigolds and the left overs of incense sticks that the mass has drug in on their feet. I'm a little freaked out, we are not exactly Hindu, but the boys reassure us that is it fine. Keep in mind only one of them is Hindu, the other Buddhist and the last is half of each.

So we venture in, alone as the boys watched our shoes. Some rooms are almost empty, in some the crowd is so tightly packed you can't see the idol they are making offerings to or get the to the door on the other side. When we can see them, they look like wax figurines the size of collectors dolls about to melt under the heat. People pray in mesmerizing drone as they touch lit incense to their foreheads, light candles and leave wreaths of marigolds. In the cave is an idol of Shiva, who is being showered in the flower heads as if someone is dumping water as his side, a cool and hunting blue glow coming from his dungeon.

When we leave we are on the other side of the courtyard from our shoes and have to cross a sea of devotees, beggars and gurus. The gurus try and give you flowers, bracelets and demand money. I loose Leigh in the crowd, and as I traverse the crowd, the gurus and the beggars latch on to my arms, pulling me back. This often happens as a white person, they hold on. It feels like being pulled back by thousands of tiny hands, the way I imagine one of Dante's hells to be like. I find the guys and our shoes and in a overwhelmed stupor, we make it out of there, through the massive crowd, up the stairs and back to normal life. Well, it's India, so not entirely normal life.