Wake The Fuck Up!

Something was calling me to India. I had to see the lowest, those who had nothing but the clothing on their backs and flip-flops held together with prayers. But here's the thing that fucked with my head—I've been embraced by people who literally owned nothing besides what they were wearing, and I've never felt more seen in my life.Toto, we ain't in NYC anymore. Where I come from, people with designer everything can look right through you like you're invisible. Here, some guy with three teeth and a smile that could power Mumbai would grab my hands and look into my eyes like he was seeing my actual soul. Hello, Dorothy—turns out the yellow brick road leads through slums where kindness costs nothing and feels like everything.India had to show me abject poverty of the lowest cast members and the ritual of death.It was 103 degrees in Varanasi, the air so thick you could chew it and still be hungry.I'd been there three weeks, wandering through alleys that smelled like incense and piss, trying to understand why I kept gravitating toward places where death was on full display. This was one of many holy places I'd visit in my life—later, Istanbul would become crucial to my story—but Varanasi was where the universe first showed me death as theater, as art, as something sacred instead of shameful.This was 2023. I was still years away from understanding what those impossible voices on a cassette tape would teach me about love reaching across time. But something was already stirring in Varanasi, some awareness I couldn't name yet.My tuk-tuk driver was this character called Papa Jii who was assigned to me for the week I was there. I'm pretty sure he was drunk most of the time, but somehow could weave through billions of people like he had GPS installed in his liver. This wasn't your typical tourist guide

experience—Papa Jii had appointed himself my spiritual advisor, which mainly involved himchain-smoking and dispensing wisdom between near-death traffic encounters.

One morning he gets this serious look and hands me a bag of bananas. Not like "hey, try somefruit." This was a full intervention. "FOR YOUR KARMA," he said, stressing each word likehe was delivering a court verdict. "You carry. You give to anyone, any animal in need. FORYOUR KARMA."

The way he said it—not casual, not some throwaway namaste-and-go-have-kombuchabullshit. This felt like spiritual homework with consequences. Like if I didn't carry thosebananas, my soul might get a failing grade.

The scale of death here was Game of Thrones level, but ritualized, sanctified. People lined theGanges in hospice houses that looked like ancient apartments, waiting to die so they could bepurified by the holy river. Not hiding from death, not fighting it—just waiting for it like you'dwait for a bus you knew was coming.

I walked the ghats near the crematoriums, literally kicking wooden coffins on the stone stepsbecause there were so many you couldn't avoid them. The smell hit you first—raw, metallic,undeniably human. Bodies wrapped in white silk and marigolds, lined up like a sacredconveyor belt feeding the giant funeral pyres that burned 24/7. The smoke mixed with incensein the wind. Flesh and prayers rising together.

This was industrial-scale death, but treated as holy communion. Families camping out fordays, tending fires, singing prayers, celebrating the release of souls. Old people, frail as ricepaper, sat in those riverside houses with the kind of patience that comes from accepting what'sinevitable. Death here wasn't tragedy—it was graduation.

Every night, the Aarti ceremonies drew thousands to the riverbank—150,000 people on busynights, 60,000 on a slow Tuesday, but who's counting when you're witnessing something thismassive? Hindu priests in orange robes performing ancient rituals with fire and bells andchanting that seemed to rise from the earth itself. I got blessed by one of them—holy water

flicked on my fore

Transcript

Something was calling me to India. I had to see the lowest, those who had nothing but the clothing on their backs and flip-flops held together with prayers. But here's the thing that fucked with my head—I've been embraced by people who literally owned nothing besides what they were wearing, and I've never felt more seen in my life.Toto, we ain't in NYC anymore. Where I come from, people with designer everything can look right through you like you're invisible. Here, some guy with three teeth and a smile that could power Mumbai would grab my hands and look into my eyes like he was seeing my actual soul. Hello, Dorothy—turns out the yellow brick road leads through slums where kindness costs nothing and feels like everything.India had to show me abject poverty of the lowest cast members and the ritual of death.It was 103 degrees in Varanasi, the air so thick you could chew it and still be hungry.I'd been there three weeks, wandering through alleys that smelled like incense and piss, trying to understand why I kept gravitating toward places where death was on full display. This was one of many holy places I'd visit in my life—later, Istanbul would become crucial to my story—but Varanasi was where the universe first showed me death as theater, as art, as something sacred instead of shameful.This was 2023. I was still years away from understanding what those impossible voices on a cassette tape would teach me about love reaching across time. But something was already stirring in Varanasi, some awareness I couldn't name yet.My tuk-tuk driver was this character called Papa Jii who was assigned to me for the week I was there. I'm pretty sure he was drunk most of the time, but somehow could weave through billions of people like he had GPS installed in his liver. This wasn't your typical tourist guide experience—Papa Jii had appointed himself my spiritual advisor, which mainly involved himchain-smoking and dispensing wisdom between near-death traffic encounters.

One morning he gets this serious look and hands me a bag of bananas. Not like "hey, try somefruit." This was a full intervention. "FOR YOUR KARMA," he said, stressing each word likehe was delivering a court verdict. "You carry. You give to anyone, any animal in need. FORYOUR KARMA."

The way he said it—not casual, not some throwaway namaste-and-go-have-kombuchabullshit. This felt like spiritual homework with consequences. Like if I didn't carry thosebananas, my soul might get a failing grade.

The scale of death here was Game of Thrones level, but ritualized, sanctified. People lined theGanges in hospice houses that looked like ancient apartments, waiting to die so they could bepurified by the holy river. Not hiding from death, not fighting it—just waiting for it like you'dwait for a bus you knew was coming.

I walked the ghats near the crematoriums, literally kicking wooden coffins on the stone stepsbecause there were so many you couldn't avoid them. The smell hit you first—raw, metallic,undeniably human. Bodies wrapped in white silk and marigolds, lined up like a sacredconveyor belt feeding the giant funeral pyres that burned 24/7. The smoke mixed with incensein the wind. Flesh and prayers rising together.

This was industrial-scale death, but treated as holy communion. Families camping out fordays, tending fires, singing prayers, celebrating the release of souls. Old people, frail as ricepaper, sat in those riverside houses with the kind of patience that comes from accepting what'sinevitable. Death here wasn't tragedy—it was graduation.

Every night, the Aarti ceremonies drew thousands to the riverbank—150,000 people on busynights, 60,000 on a slow Tuesday, but who's counting when you're witnessing something thismassive? Hindu priests in orange robes performing ancient rituals with fire and bells andchanting that seemed to rise from the earth itself. I got blessed by one of them—holy water flicked on my forehead while he muttered prayers in Sanskrit I couldn't understand but somehow felt in my chest.One morning, against my better judgment, I let myself get talked into a beginner meditation session. Total tourist trap, right? But there I was, sitting cross-legged on a rooftop overlooking the Ganges, learning to breathe "ohm" with a group of Western seekers who probably had kombucha in their backpacks.The instructor, another one of these impossibly wise-seeming locals, had us focus on the vibration. "Feel the ohm in your chest," he said. "Let it move through your body. This sound connects you to the cosmos, to all life."I felt ridiculous. Check that off the India bucket list, I guess.Then someone mentioned shirodhara treatments. For those who don't know, it's an Ayurvedic therapy where they drip warm herbal oil onto your forehead—specifically onto your "third eye"—in a continuous stream for like thirty minutes. Supposed to calm your nervous system, quiet your mind, all that spiritual shit.I tried it once and holy fuck. I'd never felt so blissfully unaware of the world. My brain just... stopped. I reached this peaceful level where I could see the blackest black behind my eyelids. Pure void. Pure silence. No thoughts, no pain, no dead people, no trauma. Just nothing.And of course, being a recovering addict, I got hooked immediately. I was chasing that treatment like a junkie looking for a fix, booking sessions at least once a day. For a minute, Bruce's warning about opium dens flickered through my mind, but this was au naturel, right?Herbal oils and ancient wisdom. Totally safe. Totally spiritual.So I became that spiritually starved tourist throwing money at anyone who'd drip oils and herbs on my forehead. Looking back now, after seeing all those hustle videos about tourist scams in India, I realize that shit dripping onto my face could have been waste water from the local nursing home.

Something told me to go dip myself into the Ganges. Now, let's be clear about what thismeans—the Ganges is basically an open sewer at this point. Industrial runoff, human waste,decomposing bodies, chemicals that would make a hazmat team weep. Shit, dead bodies,tampons, plastic bottles, all floating downstream in what's supposed to be the holiest water onearth. The pollution levels are so extreme that scientists have found antibiotic-resistantbacteria that could probably survive a nuclear winter.

But I was here in Varanasi and HAD to go into the river so that I could carry whatever I hadlearned with me. The Ganges was part of my ritual, part of whatever transformation washappening. Something was pulling me toward that water anyway.

I'm not completely insane—I checked my body for cuts first, any open wounds that mightinvite instant infection or death. Finding none, I waded in to my waist, the murky water warmagainst my skin, and splashed it over my arms and chest like I was performing some ritual Ididn't understand.

As I climbed back up the stone steps, three bodies floated past downstream. Wrapped in whitecloth, making their final journey to wherever the current takes them. Just another Tuesday onthe Ganges.

Standing there dripping with water that was probably more bacteria than H2O, watchingcorpses drift by like logs, I felt something I couldn't name. Not purification exactly—morelike participation. Like I'd just joined some ancient conversation between the living and thedead that's been going on for thousands of years.

Walking through this daily confrontation with mortality, I started to understand somethingabout karma that the West gets completely wrong. Here, karma isn't some cosmic ledgerkeeping track of your sins. It's immediate. It's breathing. It's the choice you make right nowabout how to treat the life in front of you.

My guide took me to a temple where monkeys run wild and you never look them in the eyebecause they'll interpret it as a challenge and tear your face off. From there we climbed to an old fort tucked between two hills, with a basin at the top where locals cooled off in the brutal heat.I was about to be shown what death really looked like up close and personal. THUDA bird hit the stone and dropped at my feet. Life leaving another creature in real time. I mean, I'd already been getting cosmic breadcrumbs all week—the death, the smoke, the priests—but here was the universe literally dropping dead birds at my feet. Like, wake the fuck up already.Death didn't hurry here—it lingered, took its time. My guide, without hesitation, scooped up the bird and rinsed it gently with water in the shade. Not because it would bring the bird back, but because every life deserved that respect.In the West, we see pigeons as flying rats. Here, that guide treated a dying bird like it was sacred. That's when something clicked: perception shapes everything. Karma isn't punishment—it's awareness. It's choosing to see the sacred in what others might call ordinary.Walking through one of Varanasi's slums later—another day, another slum—Papa Jii's bananas weighing heavy in my backpack, I was lost, overheated, and questioning every life choice that had brought me to this sweltering maze of corrugated metal and desperation. The alley was barely wide enough for two people, lined with shanties that defied physics and hope.That's when I saw it.An elephant. Just standing there at the end of the alley like it had been waiting for me specifically. Not some decorated temple elephant or tourist photo op—this was a working elephant, massive and real, with eyes like liquid amber that seemed to hold centuries of wisdom.We locked eyes.And then it started moving toward me. Not casually. Not slowly. It came at me with purpose, trunk swinging, massive body filling the entire narrow alley.

There was nowhere to go. The alley was too narrow, the shanties too close. I pressed myselfagainst the corrugated metal wall as this several-ton creature barreled toward me, and all Icould think was: if you're going to die, at least let it be headline-worthy. "Trampled byelephant in Indian slum" had a certain dramatic flair. Better than choking on a pretzel orslipping in the shower like most people.

The elephant closed the distance. I could smell it now—earth and sweat and somethingancient. Its trunk was already reaching, bypassing my face, my hands, going straight for mybackpack with the kind of certainty that made my skin prickle.

Straight to the bananas Papa Jii had insisted I carry "FOR YOUR KARMA."

The elephant knew. Somehow, this massive creature in the middle of nowhere knew exactlywhat I was carrying, what I was supposed to give.

Standing there feeding bananas to an elephant in a slum while funeral smoke drifted overhead,my heart still pounding from the confrontation, I felt something shift. This wasn't coincidence.This was Papa Jii's drunken prophecy playing out in real time. This was the universe using adrunk tuk-tuk driver and a starving elephant to teach me something about trust, aboutfollowing instructions that make no sense until they suddenly make all the sense in the world.

The next day, my guide was showing me around one of the market areas when I saw an older,frail woman stumbling in front of me. She was going down—I could see it happening in slowmotion. Didn't think, just lunged forward and caught her before she hit the stone.

No big deal, right? Just basic human decency.

"What?" I asked my guide, who was staring at me with this knowing look.

"That is what life is all about," he said simply. "What you displayed was good for your karma.You'll see."

I mean, really, what the fuck? Enough already with the karma lectures. But then I thoughtmaybe they just say that to all the tourists. Some standard script to make us feel spiritually significant while we're taking selfies with sacred cows.Except something about the way he said it felt different. Like he wasn't reading from a guidebook. Like he actually saw something I couldn't see yet.Crossing the Ganges later that day, the universe decided to get my attention in a way I couldn't ignore. Out of nowhere, a Hare Krishna song started playing from some unseen source. Piercing, hypnotic, impossible to dismiss.I mean, yeah, I'd heard them on the subway in New York, so nothing that special. But this one song stopped me dead. These chants aren't background music—they're designed to wake something up, to crack open whatever shell you've built around your consciousness. Ancient mantras meant to dissolve the ego, to remind you that you're part of something infinite.I froze in the middle of that boat, surrounded by the smell of burning bodies and holy water, and started crying.I had no idea why. Maybe it was just the fact that I could be stopped, that something could cut through all my defenses and take me somewhere emotionally I hadn't planned to go. The song hit something in me that I didn't know existed. I stood there sobbing while my guide politely looked away, probably thinking all Westerners lose their shit on the Ganges eventually.Now I think I understand what I was being prepared for. All that death, all that devotion, all those bodies floating downstream while families sang prayers—it was training. The universe was showing me that death isn't the opposite of life, it's part of it. That waiting for death with dignity is its own kind of courage.The kind of courage Bruce never got to experience—dying alone in some hospital, reduced to a statistic in an epidemic nobody wanted to talk about. Here, death was honored, ritualized, surrounded by community and prayer. There was something beautiful about that ending, something Bruce deserved but never received.I was receiving love in forms I didn't recognize yet. The guide who blessed the dying bird. The priests who flicked holy water on my forehead. Papa Jii who stressed "FOR YOUR

KARMA" like my soul depended on it. The elephant who knew exactly what I was carrying. Even that song that found me when I was most open to hearing it.This wasn't the spiritual awakening that would come later, when impossible voices would teach me that love transcends time itself. This was preparation. Training in how to recognize signs, how to stay open to possibility, how to trust experiences that made no logical sense.The universe was teaching me to pay attention. To notice when life drops breadcrumbs that lead somewhere you weren't planning to go. To trust that the things that make you cry for no reason might be the most important things of all.Later, much later, I would understand that the ohm I breathed dismissively on that rooftop would become the first word I spoke when I was reborn. That Papa Jii's bananas were practice for receiving love in unexpected forms. That the elephant's knowing eyes were teaching me to trust what I couldn't explain.But that night in Varanasi, I sat on my guesthouse roof with the smell of funeral smoke still in my clothing. The city was finally quiet except for the distant sound of temple bells and someone's radio playing that same Hare Krishna song that had broken me open earlier.I reached into my bag and pulled out the jade elephants I'd bought from the old carver. Small, smooth, warm from the heat. I held them in my palm, thinking about the real elephant that had known exactly what I was carrying, about Papa Jii's insistence that bananas were spiritual homework, about the woman I'd caught before she fell.Maybe this was what being awake really meant. Not the Western bullshit version where people say "karma's a bitch, Cindy" when someone gets their comeuppance. This was something else entirely. Just paying attention. Staying present. Being ready to catch someone when they're falling, to feed something when it's hungry, to let yourself cry when a song reaches that place inside you that you didn't know existed.

The jade elephants went into my backpack next to my passport and the song I'd saved on myphone. Small things that would travel home with me, carrying Varanasi in their weight.