The Comedy of Airs (In Four Farts)

>>> Environmental Sanitation Institute
>>> Sughad, Gujarat
>>> September 12, 3:45 PM

John gives the IndiCorps fellows our standard disclaimer that we have been battling one or an other sickness for weeks and aren't normally so singularly skeletal in appearance. He then launches into a heartfelt explanation of the connection between spirituality and service. The stark honesty and vulnerability of his presentation creates a reverent silence at its conclusion.

An ascending, rusted-muffler fart rends the quietude. One of the IndiCorps fellows is a compact, nervous Britisher bearing an uncanny resemblance to Michael Myer's fictional Austin Powers character. In complete sincerity he takes full responsibility for the eruption. "All right, then. That was me and I'm quite sorry for it. Quite loud, really." Everyone is seized by wild laughter with the exception of the perpetrator who darts questioning looks about the room and is slightly befuddled by the sudden frivolity.

>>> Humayun Road
>>> Pandara Park, Delhi
>>> October 2, 3:45 PM

Migrant workers have set up a temporary encampment along the road a stone's throw from Khan market. I make eye contact and exchange smiles with a button-nosed tiny tot. Emboldened by her mother's prodding she approaches me for begging.

"Tumhara naam kyaa hai?"

"Preeti," she says shyly lifting her hand for alms. I foment to distract Preeti from her mission with my patented hand variety show and swing my computer bag behind me in preparation. I dramatically line my thumb up for removal. "Dekho, dekho," I command her. I am overcome by an irrepressible and sudden surge of gas through my colon and my sphincter resonates in absolute tandem with the thumb slide.

"Chee, chee, chee," Preeti scolds in retreat with nose wrinkled. I sulk away feeling badly that she probably thinks the fart was intended as part of my short-lived routine. I look back a single time to see Preeti relating my foul play to her mother, but at least she is smiling. Later when meditating the scene comes to mind and my tranquility is shattered by a sudden sharp guffaw and waves of mirth.

>>> Green Guest House
>>> Pahar Ganj, Delhi
>>> November 6, 10:45 AM

Mama is feeling particularly affectionate toward me after I administered an impromptu arm massage earlier in the morning and calls me over to sit next to her. The Nigerian brothers, still buzzing from the previous night's intoxicants, are in their room laughing off their highs. The larger of the brothers had been pacing the courtyard for an hour at dawn, and, interspersed with privately enjoyed chuckles, wishing all comers and the walls a very good morning.

"Jitay raho," Mama blesses me with a hand placed atop my head. She tells me to pull up a chair, but I decline explaining the floor is more comfortable due to the chronic pain engendered by my sciatica. "Mark you really like good son," she proclaims, "I feel as like your mother." Then ever so slowly Mama shifts her weight away from me and issues forth a sonorous fart of over five seconds duration. The poisoned wind breaks directly across my face. The cackling Nigerians crescendo with wild hooting as if privy to the comic opera playing outside their room. Mama offers no commentary on the indecorous assault. I stare gravely at the opposite wall marshaling all my resources not to lose it.

>>> Nav Jeevan Home for the Aged and Orphaned Children
>>> Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu
>>> February 26, 10:17 AM

Shakar, the driver, explains in broken English that my octogenarian roomie isn't able to understand Hindi.

"He speak only Telugu. If you want speak Hindi, then other old man speak Hindi. Full Hindi." Shakar points to the neighboring room. A nearly subsonic rumble reverberates from behind the closed door. The sound is akin to that produced by the subwoofers on a tricked-out low rider. It culminates in a pizzicato whine and terminates, inexplicably, with a pop.

"Did you say full Hindi, or full windy?" I ask. Gales of laughter buffet the plastered walls of our hostel.