india: rickydoc is in the house

SUNDAY

well today has been one of the most interesting days in my life
all day folk been treating me like im some sort of guru

i mean its been deep, i mean really deep
started off i went to get a belt because mine broke, local haberdashery

salesman says all excited i saw you in the paper -  local hindu paper, picture of me w/hindu
text, i dont know what it says -  the english paper, another picture and a lot of

misquotes but such is life in the media lane,  i roll into the conference and all day folk coming up
to me tellilng me how powerful i was yesterday, folk bowing at me, kids sitting around me crosslegged

while i pontificate, a couple of grad students drag me off into a corner and ask me about the
nature of life, magic, prophecy and spiritual pursuits, folk inviting me to this and that

its been a real interesting experience, but just in case my head got too big behind it
this young sister, fairskinned by our standards, comes up to me and says she

was offended that everybody is lionizing me for performance work when what i had to say
was so spiritually on time but that there is the racial/color thing in play and they cant relate she say

dark skinned folk like me and her and folk from the south india except as performers and i told her i feel you,

told her about the tensions of being lauded for performance instead of my work, that sometime
it bother me  -   but what can you do, magical negroes is magical negroes - the respect was sincere

i dont question the power i just use it, and folk that respond to the power are folk that
vibrate on the same plane i do and it appear to be a lot of them in india

its a skill god seems to have given me and i use the power to work the human condition
like god intended me to and apparently the gods sent her to keep my feet on the ground

she was so young, so painfully sincere, so conscious, i told her we both
know thats real but this is all part of changing that, this and obama

i told her to send me some work, ima look out for her, she was so young, so
sincere, so solicitous of my well being on the black hand side - she was touching

i told her painful sincerity is a good thing in a young writer, we gon get some serious mileage out of that

my crew from the mayo girls college was back, my young writer had written 3 new pieces for me, had determined that she wants to be a writer, they surrounded me while i pontifcated and listened to her work and shamelessly o so shamelessly encouraged her some more, but by then she already hooked

thats my little crew, i asked the embassy if we could add their school to my schedule and they said we were booked up tight, maybe next year, i told my little poet to stay in touch, ima look out for her

o i was shamelessly encouraging young writers all over the place

every young writer that came up to me i somehow worked the conversation
around to encouraging them to go for it, to hang in there

brer johnny appleseed was on the case

all day literary folk coming up to me with project ideas, i really want to do something with that tara crew
all day im ducking folk proclaiming me the latest incarnation, o it was a very heady experiencei

kinda thought that indian spiritual thing was going to be receptive to my
hoodoo thing but i had no idea they would do the guru thing on me

but i couldnt get any downtime, everytime i turn around folk lined up to talk to me
at one point i determined to duck out, but i stalled, unwilling it seems to leave the glory line

the organizers were unhappy with me for ducking out on the big stage last night but i was just whipped
two full bore performers is one day is more than the old man can handle - i had already given them my

best shot and the iron rule of performance work is always leave them wanting more

then we went to this party at another palace, the jai niwas garden city palace
man this thing was about two or three city blocks, decked out elephants flanking the front gate,

rose petals falling as we walk through the entrance, a lawn big as a football field, done
up in lights and streamers like some kinda of fantasyland, and more food than the legal law allow

hundreds of slick, beautiful people in red and black (the theme), a sufi band, the nizami brothers, throwing down, cheh i sabbah, throwing down, and me and my fellow writers going wow, we have arrived

man these folk sure know how to treat writers w/some respect

i got to say it was a magical day

magical

on the bus ride back just now i bonded with tash aw, malaysian novelist - and now im back in the hotel and decompressing  -  i got a lot of pictures for you but i will have to wait till i get back to put them up

me and colin and another guy supposed to be in a car at 9 oclock in the morning heading for delhi

supposedly its a national holiday tomorrow and delhi is going to be blockaded off because of the terrorists so we dont know how we will get into the city - we will trust in the magic to see us thru

owner of the diggi palace, the something of diggi, said i can stay there anytime i come back to india - he seemed very sincere, the diggi palace got character, i had already planned to make that my home in india, so that was kinda magical too

he reallly shouldna told me that, everytime he look around ima
be knocking on the door - hello my brother, its me again

o i believe ive fallen in love with india, contradictions and all,
you know it embarrass mr cool to say such a thing but such is life

hopefully i will have calmed down by feb 3rd

so tomorrow i will be back in the grind, thats a good thing
cant stay on this magical plane forever - can i?

all my love

rdoc

SATURDAY I THINK

barack, man dont be waddilng in the mud with the likes of rush limbaugh
thats beneath you brother,

my daddy used to say never wrestle with pigs, you just get dirty
and the pig enjoys it

oxford american seems to have balked because so much of
what i wrote for them is on my website in varous riffs

thats a bummer, the perils of the web i guess
hope that doesnt turn out to have been a waste of time

blew them away at the conference yesterday, it was nice being the
man of the hour but ive been the man of the hour before

the conf folk have this mainstage thing happening every night and were insisting that i do it last night
but after having done an hour that day i was in no mood to do it again that night, even though

it was a measure of respect and a much much larger audience, i ducked it, if they want me to i will

consider it tonight but not yesterday, old boy was whipped out, being lauded can get tiresome kinda quickly, all that smiling and being gracious, the loss of privacy the low profile give,

once youve done your thing you feel like now i can relax, at one point i took off and wandered around jaipur some, just to kinda get away form all the sudden attention, im actually more comfortable low profiling, being the observer, love the spotlight, love being the man, but it wears thin quickly

lot of folk interested in my other indian presentations, i told them i would put the schedule on rootsblog

so let me do that right qick, laying this out i see they working me kinda hard here, this like a book tour w/o books  - the cost of building an indian constituency has gotten kinda high here

Tuesday Jan 27     new dehli

11:00    reading  Vasant Valley School

2:30    presentation/reading  Nehru University on “The African Roots of (African) American Music”  talk/reading

Wednesday Jan 28    gurgaron india

10:00     presentation/reading  Manava Bharati School on "The African Roots of (African) American Music." 

12:30    presentation/reading  “Blues in American/African American Culture” Performers Collective

6:00     presentation/reading   “How the Blues Changed America” at a Blues Session at American Center

Thursday Jan 29    guwahati assam

1500 hrs.     presentation/reading  “Oral Tradition in African-American Literature and Culture”  Anwesha literary group

1830 hrs.                      Roundtable discussion North-East Writers’ Forum

Friday, January 30

1115 hrs.    reading/presentation “Oral Tradition in African-American Literature and Culture”
Department of English, Gauhati University for postgraduate students and faculty members

1430 hrs.   (something is here, i dont know what)

1515 hrs.    presentation/reading  “Oral Tradition in African-American Literature and Culture”
department of History, Gauhati University (40 teachers from different north-east Indian universities

saturday the 31st   kolkata book fair

1400 hrs.—1500 hrs.   reading -  main auditorium  at the Kolkata Book Fair - American center pavilion

Monday, February 2     American Center black history month seminar

1040 hrs.     Inaugural address: Literature and the Global Narrative”  Speaker: Arthur Flowers, Writer

1120 hrs.     Talk: “Race and Class in America”   Speaker: Michael Patrick MacDonald, Writer
12 noon             Panel discussion: Teaching African-American Literature in the Indian Classroom
1) Topic: “The Early African-American Slave Narratives”
2) Topic: “Beyond Black and White: A Comparative Study of African  American Fiction and Dalit Literature”
3) Topic: “An Overview of African-American Poetry
Speaker: Dr. Sobha Chattopadhyay, Dept. of English, Jadavpur University

1415 hrs.       reading/performance  Arthur  Flowers

Tuesday, February 3  Mumbai

left off all the receptions, the dinners, the teas and  media interviews since thats all closed

i fly out of mumbai, they asked me to stay longer but i told them i had to get back to my classes,

ive been invited to many more literary activities all over india since i did that reading yesterday but i had to tell them all i had to go, grueling as the schedule is im sorry i cant stay

im going to enjoy all this getting around india but laying this out i see they working me kinda hard here,

you accept these goodwill tour things cause it gives you a chance to experience a different culture, then you see those schedules and you think damn they squeezed every bit of juice they could get out of me,

but ida still said yes, ive really really enjoyed india so far, and i do love blowing minds

after yesterday they all tickled because they realize how strong i am with the readings
but my academic presentations just as good, been working them the last couple of days

im going to blow some more minds

but i dont think im going to post my presentations as ive done in the past
this situation with oxford american was kinda sobering - folk dont want to pay me

when i give it to you for free, im kinda depressed about that

feel like i might have just wasted all that writing time dong that piece

its a damn good piece too, be unfortunate if they balk - live and learn

it always gets back to focusing on the novel, anything else is a distraction

what with the exhausting festival schedule what little writing time i got i spent on these presentations
now ive got tons of schoolhouse work i got to catch up on to justify ducking out on 1st 3 weeks of classes

where my noveltime in all this activity, dont think ive done any since ive been here, that wont do

i got to get ruthless, being at this conference just reinforces how tired i am of being 2nd string  -  just how tired i am of being treated like im not a contender by the literary world

nobodys fault by my own, wasting my time on everything but my novel

oxford, india, schoolhouse, this blog, just burning up my noveltime, when you gon learn flowers

when you gon learn

palf not going back to ghana this year, that means i can do my summer woodshed this year

by god and all thats holy its showtime, im tired of this, im real tired of this

okay its 7am now, if i squeeze 3 hours it will be 10, cant dis the conference, this is the last day, cant not go to your new literary buddies panels, thats considered disrespectful when they came to yours,

cant miss these free communal indian meals either, thats not gon happen, and not going to miss wandering around the city either, whats the point of being here if all i do is take car from hotel to conference site and back again, and dont get to experience jaipur, mumbai, etc, thats not gon happen either, i always take off and wander about on my own a little bit when im in somebodys else country

lets say i work till 10, breakfast 1030, wander jaipur, lets say i get to the conference at 1, in time for lunch, check out some panels till 4 or 5, try to maintain low profile so i dont get waylaid by new fans, take instrument in case i do the big stage, which i would like to do, suppose to be a formal party tonight

i tell you its just too much happening, ima squeeze my 3 in though cause being at these things just reinforces how much i want to be 1st string

another new buddy i met, alice albinia from britain, there about 8 of us who have become a crew, wrote book on indus that has become #1 best seller here, real down to earth person, apparently she did book tour of india but her publisher said it was too dangerous to go to pakistan so she went on her own, she a tougher man than i am

met this guy last night roland thats trying to figure out how to bend piano keys like you do a bluesharp, fascinating concept

ive met so many interesting folk, its been an incredible experience, but i got to get some work done

ima desperate man, im out

rdoc

FRIDAY

well, so far the only mind thats been blown has been mine
thats not the way its suppose to work

was concerned about what i was supposed to learn from this
might be some damn humility, i hate humility lessons

man, today was an experience, ive met so many extraordinary writers

i had to cool my jets, turn off my afterburners, picked up colins silk road
not only good narrative but i see inside that hes written about 8 novels too

and im like whoa, said he writes them between travelworks to keep from getting bored
hes a classic crusty englishman, hes about 10 years older than i am and abut to climb

some sacred mountain in tibet and im like you the man, ive been telling everybody that i

trekked with colin thurbon (not quite up tibets sacred mountain but it was good enuf)

then all day i was meeting all these powerful indian writers, and folk treating
like im a treasured guest up in here, the american center folk all soliticious

met the assistant director of conference who invited me, apparently she found me on the web

the director treating me all nice, everybody looking forward to my reading, they
got me feeling all humble up in here, all warm and toasty

o im still going to blow their minds but it will be with a different attitude, a thanks for
inviting me gift, thanks for treating me like one of the family, ima give them their moneys worth

okay some reportage, man i dont know where to start, the diggi palace for one, really intersting place
w/interesting history, no, let me start wth the people, whats so fascinating is the respect for literature these

crowds are showing, its packed with folk taking literature seriously, a couple of writers
got seroiusly mobbed, i met many writers this morning before we got on the bus to the palace

by midday we were all good buddies, 1st theres colin, weve become conference cut buddies
after trekking up from delhi, met arupa kalita this morning from assam, her panel is writing

under insurgency, just as cool as she can be, met aminata forna, sister from britain
and anita badami from canada, arupa and anita became hangout buddies, you know the ones

you hang out with so you not wandering thru the conference talking to yourself, i may not
get a literary following while im hear but ive made some damn good literary buddies

some folk you just comfortable with, aruna dasgupta from the embassy, took me under

her wing and introduced me to everybody, everybody was gracious, made me feel at home

im having a wonderful time, though by the end of the day the old crumudgeon was showing up
okay im ready to go back to the hotel now, tired of being sociable

there were some great sessions, tulsi badrinath is a writer/dancer, read from her work
and did a dance that was very illuminating about indian dance, i will never look at a bollywood

movie the same, even though she expressed nothing but contempt for them, i realized
how that commercialized form is a manifestation of their historical dance arts

i bought her book, really tried to convince myself not to but i liked her narrative style
same same colins silk road, so many folk came up to him talking about how wonderful he

was, i went over and looked it over and tried to convince myself to leave it but i took it

met vikas swarup who wrote q & a, the book that slum dog millionaire was extracted from
and we all went to the movie house downtown to see its premier in india, i enjoyed it

i specially enjoyed seeing it in an indian movie theatre, that was kinda cool

they take an intermission for popcorn half way thru, i thought that was cute
though i didnt go get any corn, i have eaten more indian dishes than i ever though existed

i thought i was knowledgable about indian dishes, my favorite ethnic food, but apparently i knew nothing
also apparently i know nothing about indian/asian literature, jesus d cristo, i dont know any of these writers

writers highly respected in indian/asian literary circles, i dont know the ones form europe and america even, its jsut erally really hard to keep up these days, a couple of anthologies i need to pick up for my class

ima check onlne for them though,, hopefully i can order them and wont have to try to pack them
had about 30 boarding school girls ask for my autograph when i realized they were on assignment

at one point, bunch asked if they could talk to me, more assignment, but we bonded, one was from nepal and she wrote poetry in nepalese and after much coaching recited and she had some licks, i encouraged

her most shamelessly, promised them i would see if the embassy would schedule me at their school

and there were these seriously political sessions,one pakistani guy wrote noel about killing zia with a handgrenade packed in a box of mangoes, o they loved him, and that session got all intense with indian pakistan tensions

then their was the one on kashmir, i thought that one was going to come to blows, they
take their regional politics real serious in this part of the world

i know this is weak, this just reportage and i got so much more to say about it, but i been rolling
damn near 24 hours now and im whipped, i will have to refine these later

my only real observation is that i have been humbled in the presence of so many accomplished and graceful writers, after awhile all i wanted to do was go back to hotel and work on my novel

charisma is good but its getting that novel done that will make my world

much as im enjoying this i can see after my presentation tomorrow im pretty much going into a low profile, work mode, gon do my disappearing act, who was that masked man, find me one of those out

of the way hammocks ive noticed and try to get real with that novel, catch up w/some of my new buddies

god i love being a writer

got invited to another conference in bali in october, we'll see

when you get a moment check out my nephews blog

old boy kicking it, im proud of him

all my love

rdoc

THURSDAY

okay, finally in jaipur, though not yet at festival, drove up
from delhi, a 5 hour drive, and an experience in itself

talk about security, dehli is loked down tight, bags had to go thru
the machine just to get into the hotel, had to give them pictures and sign

away my 1stborn to get a sim card for my cell phone

would have liked to hang but but eating lunch im watching accounts of the conference

on tv, its time to go, it was kinda nice seeing the countryside like that
we went from one extreme to the other, from spots of classic

3rd world poverty to a gleaming city of aggressively modern highrises
gurama or something like that, which is a call center city, big aggressively modernist highrises

with the skeletons of a lot of building in process and cranes cutting the skyline
i should have taken pictures, it was kinda fascinating, then waterbuffaloes and camels

and tons of people doing 3rd world stuff, it was a kinda extraordinary ride actually

rode up with travel writer, colin thurbon, who did that silk road work
and he was telling me about his latest project, some sacred mountain in tibet

so finally we get to jaipur and its night now so we stop by the diggi palace where they

doing the festival, to see if anything still happening and and all the booths are closed but they are
doing a concert and its packed with folk, i mean packed and if all my bags and essentials werent still in the car i

would have stayed, there was a poet on stage doing quasi tagore w/a syrpy spiritual thing happening
that didnt feel sincere, felt like he was doing it because an indian writer should, probably turn out to be

a highly respected poet but i got to call it like i saw it, or heard it as the case may be
but the energy was kicking it, looking forward to full experience tomorrow

but i guess for now ima call it a day, 3 days posting and still nothing particularly literary to report
o i just knew i was going to be making all these grand literary observations but so far its just basic

travelogue, asked colin if he was going to write about it and he was very contemptuous of the idea
said i dont really know the place, i said well cant you write about that, he sneered, sure i could write

something naive and uninformed, i told him i understood, was thinking novelis have diff value system, if naive write about being naive, turns out hes written about 8 respected novels too

i been getting humilty lessons left and right since i been here, looked at his work
and its really informed, totally diff from these shoot from the hip blog reports im doing

this just something i do but this his thing and he got professional pride
i understand, without professional pride you got nothing

been trying to decide if im going to post my presentation, i threw down if i do say so myself
but now that oxford american giving me a nice check for the same stuff i do here, im inclined to hold onto

my presentations in the hopes of getting paid some more, i do solove getting paid, especially in hard times
i will probably post it, i dont feel like hustling my work, dont have the time for all that, gave that piece to

oxford because they asked me to do it, only time i get anything short published is when somebody ask me, otherwise ima spend my time strictly on what i want to do

i will probably post it but i notice i didnt post my bessie smith
piece, we shall see, ima consider just posting the outline of it

i guess thats it, i got to go see what happened that obama had to retake the oath, what kind of tricks are

the whitefolk playing now, trying to trip my boy up already, i can hear them now talking about he aint legit, i scanned enuf to see it wasnt his fault, which was a big relief cause you know the long knives are just waiting for him to trip up, so they can say i told you so -

justice roberts your nefarious plan did not work

one thing thats been really good while traveling is basking in the international glow of obamamania

whenever im traveling im very conscious of counteracting that thug perception so many folk in the world think of african americans, that thug narrative, thats all they see on tv and hear in the music

but obama puts the bootstrap narrative out front, achievement against the odds

obama make my work a lot easier

all my love

rdoc

WEDNESDAY

well im here, rolled in last night about 10 pm, car picked me up
and dropped me off at ambassador hotel, seems jaipur is about 4 hours drive

another car coming to get me at one, so i wont be there until about 5 pm
which means ive missed two days out of a 4 day conference - bummer

well at least i will be able to see some country during that 4 hour drive that i wouldnt have seen if we did it at night,

i figure i will get out early and wander around delhi for awhile, maybe get a phonecard and some minutes

flight over was pleasant, continental gives good indian veggie meals, i really enjoyed them
i plan to pig out while im here, indian is my favorite ethnic food you know

and so far all the indian folk ive met, flight over and since ive gotten here have been gracious
hate that im missing half the conference but life goes on, missed obamas speech but im not

into the euphoria any more about his election, that wore off quickly for me, now its
all about pulling for his challenges and his policies, may they be wise, efficient and effective

interesting that the big thing here is that he has apparently challenged pakistan to earn
the aid we give them, that seems to be the lead obama story here, reading the papers here you

would think thats all he said yesterday

they got a big obama glow going on, airport, plane, indian newscasts, its obama obama obama
the world really expects a lot from my boy and its kinda nice having the world so pleased about an

african american achievement, instead of being shaped by that thug narrative western media be pushing

i watched some bollywood films coming over, found them quite entertaining actually
intersting to see how they modernized traditional indian dance and made it commercially viable

keeping control of their cultural narrative

okay im gone, hopefully have something more substantive next post

all my love

rdoc

MONDAY

continental jammed me, missed my connection

will miss 1st day of the conference - damn

ohwell, what is is

also i notice some promotional pieces that the theme this year

is vernacular literature - the oral tradition

showtime, rickydoc is in the house

rdoc