Ugly Duckling & Beaver Dam Pants

March 24th, 2008

“They DRUNK like anything!” warned the gueshouse owner in his thick accented Hindi announcer voice. “They will rips off all your clothes’s and you will be naked!”

“So,” smirked mark arrogantly.

The shopkeeper smiled stupidly then said, “So… I will laugh at you!”

Mark quickly responded, “Then I will dance for you!”  Shaking his hips in a manner only Stephen Dolloff would approve.

The warning was concerning the rowdy Hindu holiday of Holli. A Hindu god approved festival of color, which translates to a city wide gathering of Indians with an excuse to start drinking at 7AM and throw toxic staining chemicals at each other. (The gods also say to celebrate their holiness by pissing, crapping, and throwing garbage in the streets.)

Even though I had been bed ridden for five days of — jockeying the porcelain pony, swabbing the poop deck, taking a deuce, fishing for brown trout, making mud pies, doing John Sheehan’s paperwork — caused by the dysentery received from contaminated left hand prepared Indian food, it would have been a big injustice to our readers if I didn’t attend. (Plus, I needed a story. Lying in bed for five days doesn’t produce many tales… unless you want to hear about record breaking for most greased lightning bowel movements in a 24 hour period.) luckily for us, Shiva descended from the heavens the next day and clogged my drain, allowing me to join in the Hindu celebration.

We searched for hours the night before to find some Holli booze. All the liquor stores were closed and it appeared illegal to sell booze the day before the holiday. All the searching wore me down. So, I gave up hope of drinking like a Hindu and trotted broken-heartedly back to the guesthouse. On the other hand, at great risk to himself, Mark searched on and walked up the dreary stretches of back alley society to find a dirty bottle dealer. He followed a tout offering “hash” into a dark crap filled corner.

“Dis is black market,” said the brown stained dealer.

Mark rolled his eyes, “Sure, whatever… Do you have whiskey?”

“Yeah man, no problem.”

The tout gathered his assistant and they all started bargaining over a large plastic bottle containing some sort of golden mixture, with the largest text belonging to the expiration date. Being the only white object within half a mile of this part of town, Mark was followed by two police men, who broke up the circle. Mark was forced to go his separate way but lucky for us, the transaction had already been completed and he caressed the bottle under his shirt.

I was arranging colored chemical dyes in order of toxicity when Mark burst through the door coveting his prize. The “crack” of the cap released an alcoholic odor making both our stomachs churn.(If we’re putting chemicals on us… might as well put chemicals in us…) Then we both took a mouth puckering, involuntary head shaking shot.

The next day we hoped for a large breakfast as we wondered into the guesthouse restaurant. CLOSED. So, I pilfered some eggs from the kitchen, Mark grabbed his previously ordered large beers and we returned down to our room to mix our paint. Dawning our war paint, we could think of no other way to celebrate an Indian holiday, than to dress up as Indians… the Native-American kind.

Mark “Ugly Duckling”Leonhart (named because of his full hobo black beard and ugly facial paint, adding to the fact he wouldn’t drunkenly turn into a beautiful swan this day) and Brad “Beaver Dam Pants”Bodenham (named for the quite obvious reason of the immediate self-conscious ability to fill pants with logs, to be used primarily for defensive purposes) left the guesthouse with color filled containers and disappeared into the smoke filled noisy city.

There were no tourists or women out this day because the stories were quite clear… white people and women were going to be attacked and preyed upon by the drunken mobs.

The previous night huge trash bonfires were burned signaling the start to the madness, leaving huge grey smoldering ash piles in the street and remanints of smoke in the air. Through the haze like wild dogs, packs of dark figures pranced about to the deafening rah-rah music played over the loud speakers. Their faces were unrecognizable because the silver facial paint and masks of color that signaled the ranks. Various colored splashes marked the road like splattered patches of blood. With whiskey filling our bodies, we walked confidently whooping and shouting like savage Native-Americans.

During our first encounter with a gang of drunken men we were greeted with hugs and “happy Holli” which is the common phrase used this day. The next wild pack appeared very calm at first, then attacked and pounced… we scared them with splashes of paint but they managed to rip my shirt and drop my pants completely to the ground. I stood there for an instant then shouted a war cry and did a few pelvic thrusts, shaking my family jewels about wildly. To which they replied “happy Holli” and then gave hugs all around. Truth be told… there was no danger to white tourists. Shirt ripping is customary. So, we got just as rowdy as them dumping paint and ripping shirts as well. Although, they were very obsessed with seeing our bait and tackle; It’s good thing we arn’t shy. At one point Ugly Duckling was surrounded by 20 Indians and forced to dance to the music… Naked. It wasn’t at all swan like.

After getting dowsed 50 or so times, and having your now blue penis eyeballed by over 100 Indians. We both headed back to the guesthouse and up to the restaurant… the entire staff was drunk and failing to make food for the 10 or so guests waiting. I didn’t have time to wait for food (plus they just screw it up anyway). So, I hopped into the kitchen and started making myself some food. The drunken staff started giving me the guests orders and I became unofficial highly praised chief for the day. You can call me Chief Beaver Dam Pants! (Yes, I was completely blue and dangerous in the kitchen… but a quote by a young Israeli girl pretty much sums it up –”This is the best Spanish omelette I’ve had since coming to this country!”)

Ugly duckling just watched and shook his head in the same manner as my mother… then passed out.

Entry Filed under: India