Alright let's just step back and see where we are. First of all, the little white dog in the park called Barney was with the girl with the yellow high tops and yellow bandana. That’s where it all started. Barney told me that Cici had something that she was going to tell me. Chichi told me about six weeks later I had to go to the base of the CN Tower. My first key was there. Turns out the keys are dogs - why didn’t you just say so. I wouldn’t have gone through the garbage. Another little dog told me that I had to go to Taiwan and gave me four of the seven winning numbers for the draw that evening’s lotto draw. I won $10,000 and bought tickets for me and my family to Taiwan for Christmas Day. On Christmas Day I'm meet the next little dog (dog number four - he had a Chinese accent which I thought was quite interesting and unusual). He told me about India I thought I should do a quick review because of what Kurt Vonnegut said, “you should you should start the story is near to the end as possible. This may also be a good time to mention what Jim Morrison famously sang, “the futures uncertain and the end is aways near.
I'm traveling in India. The year is 1986. We're still going forward but we are also going back. I have news for you. It really exists - time travel. Two words That's what the little Taiwanese dog with the Chinese accent told me to do and that is exactly what I did. I was at the assigned spot at the assigned time and then… I’m wearing a pair of wool socks and lying in a ray of sunshine. Listening to John Coltrane and having a cup of tea. I’m in the courtyard of a guest house. I’m in India, the sub-continent and at first i’m a little overwhelmed by the madness of it all. I’m overwhelmed by the year and the heat and the travel as well. I feel jet lagged, although I wasn’t on a jet. The traffic. Cows walking down the centre of the roads making traffic slow and go around, the bicycle rickshaws, black and yellow tuktuks, the funny looking old style British design cars and vespas and the buffalo pulled carts heaped with baskets or luggage or steel or oil cans... The people. Bare chested men and boys washing themselves in the open hydrants, reaching under their sarongs and grabbing their willy's and peeing down and into the sewers, the thin women surrounded with several children, all thin, of various heights, a little girl squatting in front of a pile of cow dung making patties and them sticking them on a wall to dry, the knock down gorgeous Indian babe gliding down the sidewalk in a light lilac sarong. The smells. Cow dung and exhaust and curry and dust... It’s my first day in India. The sheer madness going on all round me… I strangely feel at home with India and lying here in wool socks, the ones that my mother knit in 2013 I feel content, totally out of control. The little Taiwanese dog said that life is random. He also said that I had to agree to find the key. I sip my tea and think about this. If life is random, then we have no choice, or it doesn’t matter what we choose. It is what it is. I got a room in Calcutta, staying on the roof of this guest house, sleeping under the stars with the sounds of the city, life going on all around me, in every direction, 24 hours a day. I was travelling with just the clothes on my back, the money in my pocket. I went out and bought a t-shirt, and a toothbrush. Life is random, eh? I’m strangely philosophical about all this.
In India, cows are sacred. They roam freely, shit in the street, disrupt commerce and traffic. It is actually quite funny when a cow wanders into a marketplace. He will help himself to whatever vegetables the seller has displayed (when the seller's back is turned). When the seller discovers the cow eating away his profits, he will gently shoo the cow away with a dirty old rag or newspaper. Cows are everywhere, another colourful part of the scenery. Indians paint the cows' horns, the right red and the left green. Little girls make patties from the cow dung and stick them on walls to dry (to be burned later). You see cows in groups by the side of the road, some laying down, one or two standing in the shade. You see an old lady giving cows bread early in the morning. You notice cows everywhere and then they simply become part of the landscape and you don't notice them anymore. I’m looking for the key. I’m traveling slowly through India, randomly and agreeably. One night I’m in a small town in Rajasthan, in the middle of the desert, a walled city. As the sun went down I sat on top of a wall, smoking a cigarette, (a four square), looking out into the desert, watching the desert sunset as hundreds of birds flocked over the city and disappeared. Weird. I was making my way back to the guest house when it suddenly occurred to me... NO COWS I know there are cows in this town, but now they are nowhere to be found. I walked up and down the streets looking for cows. I saw many signs of cows, but no cows. Weird. I looked for an hour. This was just a village and I didn't find one cow. Strange. I gave up and headed back toward the guest house. Just another bit of strangeness to be pondered. And then I turned down one alley and there were all the cows from the village, all crammed into this little alley, some laying down, some sleeping, some standing. I meet up with a guy at the guest house. Peter. He’s from England. He finds India to be very hot and humid. I hadn’t really noticed. But then I see that Peter always ahas a glean of sweat, or is it a sheen of sweat? That was my first thought right after he said that he was going to the lake tomorrow. He asked me if I wanted to go to. I agreed. Life is random. I am agreeable. It’s 1986 and I’m in India. I’m waiting for the next key to appear. I’m thinking it’s probably a little dog.
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