I was living in India, a year abroad. Some time in Benares, some time in Punjabi, mostly. Working on writing, I think, and trying to enjoy the country while it's still there and not a network of radioactive glass craters.
However, towards the end of my stay, I hopped over into China for a while, and stayed a few weeks in the remote mountain town where Mao Tse Tung was born. I found this out because Mao had finally passed away, and instead of having a huge funeral in Beijing his body was being brought back for a small private ceremony in the place of his birth. I felt honored as the only outsider-- in fact, the only person not of his home town-- to be in attendance.
The ceremony, it turned out, was to have everyone file past his body and toss a small amount of foodstuff-- vegetables, mostly, shredded carrot and water chestnut and the like-- on him. After which, of course, he was slow-grilled on a bed of coals for a full day and served as filet. I was offered a truly juicy slice of his heart. Though there were a variety of sauces and curries to eat it with, I made sure to try the first few bites straight-up. This was my first opportunity to eat human flesh, after all, and I wanted to enjoy the experience as unadulterated as possible to begin with. The fact that it was Chairman Mao was just that much cooler.
Unfortunately, it wasn't actually very good. I needed to add some A-1 sauce before it was truly palatable.
Then I headed back to India for a last couple of weeks before returning to the States. However, upon my arrival, I was approached by a unit of police from Delhi, who escorted me to the nearest police station for questioning. Apparently, I was under suspicion of stealing and smuggling ancient Indian artifacts. I wasn't actually being arrested, but it was clear from their attitudes that I was expected to stay handy in case they needed to question me further. The whole thing struck me as beyond ludicrous.
So I decided to hasten my return to the States, and headed to the airport immediately. While going through the security checkpoint, the beeper went off, and it turned out to have detected a large bronze sacrificial dagger which was in my pocket. I had to either leave it behind or not get on my plane; I sure as hell wasn't going to let the security guy confiscate it. "This isn't some keychain Swiss Army knife, you know," I told him, "This is over 1200 years old."
So I left the terminal and went back out to the parking lot where my car was parked. It was a black Jeep Cherokee, not at all something I'd actually buy, and I dunno what it was doing there as I didn't think I was planning to come back to India... but anyway, I tossed the knife in the back under some blankets and headed back in to catch my plane.
It was only after I was buckled in and the plane was pulling away from the gate that I began to wonder what the hell I'd been doing with a 1200 year old Indian artifact in my pocket as I was leaving the country. Maybe the cops were right about me all along.