Leavings...(or, yet another poop-centered post.)

About three minutes ago we passed a dog bowing its back in mid-poop. It was kind of walking along with that half-embarrassed look dogs get when they’re going.  We’re on the train from Jaipur to Delhi, and were both looking out the window as we passed through the small farming towns between the two.

                “He has to go…but can’t take the time to simply enjoy his magical moment,” I said.  Rebecca considered, then dropped this bomb:

                “I’ve seen probably two dozen people pooping this morning.”  Huh?  There’s a couple of little things that need to be explained here.  First, the typical response I’d get from my comment on the dog in mid-poop would be something along the lines of, “You’re sitting too close and you talk too much.”  After which she might turn back to her book.  Second, I mean, two dozen?  C’mon.  No one gets that lucky.  And no sane person lets something like that go. 

                “Wait a minute.  You’ve seen twenty four people squatting outside…in full view of the train?”

                “Yes.  And it all looked the same…and there was a lot of it.”  I’m not going to dwell on particulars here, but will divulge more than I should when I share that I was just a tad jealous (of her sightings…not of their prodigious production.) 

                “There’s one now,” she said, indicating the window on the other side of the train.  My head whip-sawed around, but I missed it.  Damn! 

                “I was thinking,” she continued.  “There’s over a billion people in this country.  So, at any given time you’re going to have probably a million who have to go.  And if you factor in the morning hour…”  The two of us speculated on the probable number of people relieving themselves at that very instant in India.  We rambled a bit around the number of people who go outside, the fact of how going inside is a bit of a pain, in terms of using resources and/or labor—and, really, just how many people at any given point on the clock’s face are enjoying their magical moment relative to the whole of the population.   (And just now I’m wondering whether Rebecca has a sort of professional interest going here, thereby sharpening this particular power of observation.  I might have seen these people in this very private act, but didn’t register the fact.  Ha! She just shared with me her nickname at work: the poop nurse.  True!) 

                All of this to highlight what I think is the greatest joy and challenge  of travel:  the places between destinations where, probably due to boredom and over-intimacy regarding one’s travelling companion, the conversation gets a bit low brow—if it happens at all.  The sad truth is that it’s possible to get prickly with one’s companion while enduring the interstices between adventures.  And the truth is, there’s a lot of down time. Riding on buses and trains.  Waiting for buses.  Filling an afternoon when it’s 94 degrees and the world seems wobbly. Rebecca’s good about highlighting the fun stuff.  Pictures of the exotic and grand, accounts of accomplishments and sightings (last night, while sitting on the balcony of our guesthouse, we saw a six foot long lizard swimming along in the canal.  Tongue lashing out from its snout…that bad boy ruled the water.  Very cool.)    But these are mere flickers.  Like a shot of bourbon.  Or an Oreo cookie.  Good stuff, but it won’t sustain you. Indeed, the myth of adventure round every bend can turn the sane, sober traveler into a tattooed, dread knotted (locked?) bangle-wearing pseudo-philosopher.  A dirty hippie who’s read entirely too much Tom Robbins.    

                Which brings me back to the train window.  I alluded to Rebecca’s potential response: a circling of wagons, if you will, to ward off the ramblings of a mad man.  A curt leave me alone. In the world of life as we know it, these places of solace and sanity are found in routine.  Morning coffee while gathering in the comfort of Facebook.  Puttering in the garage.  Staring into the open refrigerator.  But here, in this quasi-gypsy world of moving along, one needs confront things. Boredom, stomach cramps, a gassy spouse.  We look out the window at what amounts to our own faces (unless, of course, we have developed the super-power-like ability to spot people squatting over their morning leavings.) And unless we put some work into it, our faces can take on a flat, morning after the big wedding kind of look in which the blushing bride now needs to do the dishes.  Unless.

     Here is something I know:  the mundane is a state of mind.  And state of mind is a willful act.  A choice.  Our burdensome brains paint some amazing pictures, the more so when they are met with a sense of possibility.  I’m not sure, but I think it’s possible that I would not have ever considered the question of poop ratios were it not for Rebecca’s willingness to share and explore. (And really, where would we be without consideration of such vital matters?)  Interestingly—which is to say, invariably, ironically—when in the presence of the stupendous we are less apt to be open.  It’s hard to look at something like the Reclining Buddha with an open mind.  Its very immensity bum-rushes random thoughts out the door.  Does it need periodic polishing?  Would it be an act of contrition or of pride?  And what would the original Buddha think of all this grandeur?  Hmmm…

Heaven forbid I raise these questions while in the presence of a holy Idol.  But on the train?  The train is fair game for all things grand and mundane alike.  At some point, the Buddha poops.  But probably not in full view of the passengers in coach C-6.