India: days 1-4

It was a gorgeous view looking out of the balcony of my room in Pushkar, a pilgrimage city where Hindus come to bathe in the ghats along the city's holy lake. However, when I peered down to the nearest ghat my eyes caught topless Hindu women splashing water onto their naked torsos. The sight was far from a Girls Gone Wild video as the women were old and quite overweight. I then quickly changed my glance to the surrounding hills with temples adorning the summits.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of die-hard Hindus cram into this sacred city to wash in the waters of the beloved lake, which legend associates the creation of it to Lord Brahma. Even Ghandi's ashes were spread onto this lake after he was assassinated in Delhi.

Because of the strong Hindu ties, Pushkar has a tame nightlife. I had to buy an overpriced bootleg beer, poured into a coffee pot, just to get my hops fix. Though Hindus don't drink or eat meat, I was still offered ganja on more than one occasion. I assume the wacky tobacky helps enlighten the pilgrims.

Before Pushkar I worked my way through the confusing New Delhi train station to take an uncomfortable ride to Agra, home to the Taj Mahal. It's impossible to sleep on trains, even at night, as groups of Indians talk loudly to each other without consideration to others. Indians, on the other hand, have mastered the art of sleeping under distractions, which can include dirty sidewalks on busy city streets with mice scurrying close by. Train rides can be very intriguing, though. Various food items and girts, such as keychains and snowglobes, are peddled in the aisles. Perhaps the most memorable people were these gypsy women who would clap their hands and say prayers to passengers for a few rupees. On closer inspection, the women were actually drag queens and I'm sure their prayers were not that genuine as well.

Once I got to Agra I shared an auto-rickshaw with an Aussie who informed me that we both came on the wrong day to see the Taj Mahal. It was a Friday and it was closed off to the public so Muslims could take part in their weekly services. We decided to head to Agra's massive fort instead. Afterward, our rickshaw driver, a young man who kept jamming a key into his ear to scratch a deep itch, drove us to a park on the north side of the Taj. From there I snapped some good shots from across the river, less than 100 feet from the Taj. I felt bitter about not being able to enter the historic site but I got over it when an impromptu ceremony passed us on the road. We followed the lively Hindu procession that stopped at the river's edge. I later discovered that the small parade, with a band and a Hindu statue being pulled on a cart, was for a child's baptism.

Later, while waiting for a late train out of Agra, an older Indian man who claimed to be a medical doctor came up and began to speak to me. We spoke of pleasantries for a few minutes until he switched topics and asked if I could help him land an American girl for sex. For the next awkward 15 minutes he pressed me for my contact details while he tried to commission me to be a pimp for his hunt for American girls. I told him that he'd have to visit the U.S. and find his own since I couldn't even get one myself. Finally, to get rid of him, I said that I would look around for him. Any takers out there?

This brings me to my initial assessment of Indian men stuck in a sex-deprived religious society. Often you will see Indian men rubbing the inner thighs as well as hugging and holding hands of their male friends. Since public affection among men and women is forbidden in India, especially in this part of the country, it seems that men use men as an outlet to satisfy sexual desires. I witnessed the same thing in Iraq where Muslim men had photos of male bodybuilders in their wallets and explained to me that women are for babies and boys are for pleasure.

Now, I don't know what truly occurs at home with husbands and wives in these types of societies but it appears that strict religious laws worldwide put males and females in an odd place, at least compared to Western cultures. In India, pre-martial sex is a big taboo for devout Hindus as well as pornography. There is also much male and female segregation in schools. And once married, many women stay at home to do chores and rear children, and are rarely considered equal to their husbands.

Whether I'm right or wrong about Indian men being sexually frustrated, who knows or cares. I'm just telling you how I see it. Yet, there has to be a good reason why an older Indian man has enough courage to ask a complete stranger to search for an American girl so he can have unrestricted sex.