Final Thoughts and Reflections from/of India

The alternative title for this entry is “Three Months in India in One Pair of Shoes.” That’s right, I dislike shoe shopping so much that I have walked the only pair of shoes (sandals) that I bought with me to India into pieces.

So three months have quickly gone by and tomorrow I leave India for the States. Below is a jumble of random thoughts that I want to share. I’ve sort of organized them into categories for your convenience.

FINAL DAYS TRAVELING

-         I enjoyed the many audio tours that I took in the palaces and forts of Rajasthan. Coming to India has exposed to me to so much history (among other things) that I had no or very little previous exposure to. One story from the audio tour in Jodhpur that I liked was about a visit by the king of Jodhpur’s mother to London in the late 1800s. One of the ways the Mughals influenced Rajasthan was the introduction of purdah, women being concealed from men by clothing, separate parts of the house, etc. When the king’s mother visited London, she kept completely veiled provoking fierce curiosity among the people of London and leading for the tabloids to try really hard to try to get a photo of her. One photographer succeeded in getting a photo of her ankle and the paper printed it, but before the paper could reach India, the royal family bought up all the copies in disgust.

THINGS THAT ARE ODD

-         I don’t know if this is an example of the sometimes archaic English spoken in India, but when asking your name, Indians will frequently ask for your “good name” and I’ve even been asked for my “sweet name” before.

-         I also don’t know if my bargaining skills have gotten any better, but one of my favorite bargaining experiences was in Calcutta when I was looking for a backpack for Nikita. The man quoted some outrageously high price and I told him it was outrageous. In an attempt to justify the high price the man said, “but it’s foreign quality!” And I said what, “made in China.” And he said yes and eventually we got the synthetic backpack down to a reasonable price.

-         While shopping, there’s an expression that I hear a lot from the shopkeepers that I don’t really understand. When looking at fabrics, for example, I might be looking at two that look the same to me and the shopkeeper will say, “same same, but different.”

BEST ADVICE I GOT BEFORE COMING

- When I was watching Om Shanti Om (Bollywood movie) with Sally and there was a scene of a street in Mumbai, Sally said, “if that were really India there’d be about a hundred stray dogs on that street.” India’s a beautiful country, but I think when she said that it made me realize that I probably had a romanticized view of India. Also, there ARE a lot of stray dogs here whereas the other animals that wander the streets, chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, camels, etc. all belong to someone.

IF YOU COME TO INDIA

-         You’ll hear sentences starting with “madam, rickshaw” or “madam, take a look at my shop, just look, no buy” too many times to count

-         I think my knowledge of Bollywood films and Hindi music really helped me. It gave me something to talk about with a lot Indians besides my name, country, occupation and whether I like India (one can only have so many of those conversations).

BIGGEST LESSON I’VE LEARNED : Patience. If you get too worked up or expect too much, you’ll probably dislike India. 

OTHER THOUGHTS

-         Don’t take sanitation and waste management for granted! One of the most striking things in India is the lack of proper sanitation facilities (and people going to the bathroom all over the streets) and the amount of litter everywhere. I think if someone really wanted to do something productive in India, they would address these issues, but obviously it’s hard because they’re on such a wide scale and terribly unglamorous. On a related note, I saw an interview with Shahrukh Khan the other day in which he said that if he became President of India, the first thing he would do was to provide toilets for women, especially in rural areas. SRK put your money where your mouth is and start building!

-         There are a lot of people here and I think about population issues with some frequency. Many children here seem to go to school either in the morning or the afternoon and during the part of the day they’re not at school, they’re helping in their family shop, restaurant, etc. I wonder, in a country where unemployment is over 20% (I realize this might not mean much because of the numbers of people who work informally) and where half the population is under 16 years old, where the jobs will come from for all these people. Also! It’s good that so many people own scooters instead of cars, I can’t even imagine what the impact of increased car ownership will be.

-         Most of the Indians who I’ve talked to consider themselves black and, for whatever it’s worth, are really excited about President Obama.

Traveling to India has taught me so much, but after three months, I’m ready to come home, celebrate the holidays with my family and friends, and spend more than one or two nights in the same bed. Thanks for reading and thank you to everyone who posted comments; I really enjoyed reading them.

New Experiences and Lessons

I’ve been spending the past few days in Rajasthan and since I will largely be spending the remainder of my trip in this state, I decided that it’s time for another map so you sort of have an idea of what I’m talking about.

So far, I’ve been to Udaipur (in the south), Jaisalmer (in the west), I’m currently north in Bikaner and tonight I take a bus to the middle, Jodhpur. My last two stops will be Pushkar and Jaipur.

In Udaipur, after having spent almost 21 straight hours on a bus, I decided to treat myself to a full body Ayurvedic massage (this is a type of massage from the southern state of Kerala and the focus is on “holistic healing” which I think is key for involving an almost excessive quantity of oil). Nonetheless, it was quite enjoyable. Later that day, I took a three hour one-on-one cooking lesson in a woman’s home kitchen. It was definitely worth while and I’m just hoping that I’ll be able to recreate the dishes with the same success as during the lesson.

One of the highlights from Jaisalmer was looking out at the smallish city from the impressive sandstone fort and seeing windmills spinning in the distance. Wind seems like a good power source for that region since it’s very dry.

Finally, today in Bikaner, I did a day long camel ride/visit to a couple rural Rajasthani villages. In the morning, a nice Italian couple and I were driven several miles outside of Bikaner where our guide explained some things about the ecology in the region and pointed out various plants, birds and antelope. Afterward, we went to a small village where a local guide who spoke their language (not Hindi, Marwari…I think) took us around to a couple houses. The village was primarily agricultural with lots of sheep, goats and camels. In the afternoon, I took a bumpy, but fun, three hour ride on a camel named Moti. Although the ride has left me a little sore, it was fascinating to observe many of the things that I’ve read about in my rural development classes; for example, the use of cow dung for construction and fuel, kitchens in mud/dung huts with poor ventilation, schools where the children are all fed lunch to encourage attendance and government subsidized irrigation schemes (in the desert…I’m not sure how I feel about that). All in all it was a good day.

Potholes, Camels and Octopussy

Potholes, camels and Octopussy sum up the past few days that I’ve spent in India.

After leaving Mumbai, I spent three days in the city of Aurangabad (in Maharashtra state) visiting some historic sites including some thousand year old human-made caves, many of which were used as Buddhist monastries. 

From Aurangabad, I had to take a 15 hour bus ride to the city of Ahmedabad (capital of Gujarat state) and based on my informal survey of Indian roads, I feel confident in saying that Maharashtra has the worst roads. I believe that if I had a rupee for every pothole we hit, I’d be a millionaire.

Upon arriving Ahmedabad, I immediately hopped on a bus for Udaipur, a historic royal city in Rajasthan. During the ride, we passed a lot of people (probably farmers) riding camel drawn carts (opposed to the multitude of ox drawn carts I saw in Maharashtra). It was pretty neat. Gujarat and Rajasthan are primarily desert states.

Last night, I saw the James Bond film, Octopussy, which was partially set in Udaipur. The movie was ridiculous and I don’t know whether it would be considered more offensive for its portrayal of women, Indians or Germans.

Night as an Extra in a Bollywood Film

Hello all and greetings from Mumbai (Bombay) where I’ve officially accomplished one of my goals by becoming an extra in a Bollywood movie. The first day that I arrived here (Sunday, Nov 29), I went to check into a budget hotel and a woman who coordinates extras for movies asked if I wanted to be an extra. Of course I said yes and met up with about 30 other Westerns that evening at 7 for our bus to the filming location. It took an hour to get to the filming location, which turned out to be a mall. We were dressed up in goofy costumes (we weren’t sure whether that’s what the people thought Europeans wear or whether this was secret revenge or not) I was wearing a plaid dress with chunky jewelry (blue bangles to compliment the red plaid?) and silver heels. and the women got their hair and make up done. We were fed and there was a lot of waiting around. Around 11pm, we were finally signaled to enter the mall (we had been waiting around in like a parking garage before) and did some more waiting inside of the mall. After maybe an hour, we finally began to be put to work. The scene took place at a movie theater and there was some sort of gun battle so we spent the next six hours running in different directions and having people yell at us (all the extras, there were a group of Indians and a group of Nigerians, as well) that we weren’t allowed to laugh because we were suppose to be terrified. The entire process definitely made movies seem less glamorous because there’s just a lot of waiting around and during this entire scene no one had an dialogue. The only famous actor in the movie, which we found out is called ‘No Problem’ and will probably be released around March, is Anil Kapoor who you all probably know because he played the quiz show host in Slumdog Millionaire. Yes, I saw him and he looked grumpy and tired like the rest of us. At the end of the night, we all got paid 500 rupees (about $10) for our work and were driven back to collapse and sleep. Or, in my case, to nap for an hour and get up to go to a theater that’s been playing Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge since it was released in 1995. Unfortunately, this has been my only encounter with Shahrukh Khan in Mumbai and I’ll probably have to settle for that.

Temple Festival in Kerala

*This post was originally posted under a different title that I realized that factual incorrect so I’ve changed it.

Greetings from Kochi (Cochin) in Kerala! I’ve been in Kochi for the past 5 days. It’s one of the largest cities in the state of Kerala and is an interesting destination because it was a port for European and Middle Eastern explorers and traders and because it borders the Keralan backwaters region. The most interesting experience that I’ve had while in Kochi has been attending a festival at a nearby temple. Like many temple festivals, it was characterized by days of classical music and dance and parades of the temple elephants. The first day that I attended the festival, Maria (a European girl I met) and I took a local bus out to the temple. Someone pointed us the way, but we confused when we got to a street and just saw rows of street vendors selling sweets and deep fried peppers/bananas/potatoes (it kinda reminded me of state fairs) and strings of lights on trees and on the stalls. When we got to the end of the street, we saw this building lit up with multi-color lights. The building turned out to be the temple.

The Sree Poornathrayesa Temple

We watched as the temple’s elephants were paraded around the courtyard area and drummers made music. Since this temple had some wealthy patrons, they have 13 elephants.

The elephants all lined up

As the festival went on for 8 days, Maria and I returned two nights later to see part of an all night Kathakali dance performance. Kathakali is a old Keralan theatrical dance style that focuses on gestures and expressions to act out stories, mainly from Hindu texts. The Kathakali started a little after midnight and we only stayed for two hours not for the full six hour performance. It was definitely a unique experience.

It turns out that the temple that I went to has a Wikipedia page. Also for those of you who have requested something to look up on Wikipedia in order to procrastinate, I’ll also link to the Wikipedia page for Kathakali.

Photo Highlights

Scene from one of my bus rides in Tamil Nadu

 

One of the entrances to the famous Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple in Madurai

While in Cochin, I went to an elephant festival. Part of an eight celebration hosted by a nearby temple.

The southern state of Kerala is famous for it's backwaters region, a network of connected lakes along the coast. I went on a boat trip of part of the backwater region on Sunday.

View from the boulders where we went climbing in Hampi.

Flooded street in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu

Two Months In India (and other brief notes)

This post is in honor of having spent two months (a little long actually) in India. While I have greatly enjoyed my time here, so far, there are some things that I miss about the US. Here is my list of five things that I miss (in no particular order):

- Breakfast cereal – Wouldn’t have thought that I’d tire of Indian food after a month. I definitely feel the need to try to satisfy some cravings for Western food items from time to time. In general, I still eat Indian food and I enjoy trying new things and have had some delicious meals, snacks and desserts, but I’ve realized that I particularly miss cereal.

- Restraint in Honking One’s Automobile Horn – Too much honking, enough said.

- Vehicle Emissions Inspections – I don’t think I will ever complain about this again as it is a very valuable regulatory measure.

- Sidewalks – This kind of goes with the honking and the exhaust emissions, it’s often unpleasant to walk to places within cities and towns, which is probably my only real complaint about the country.

- Not having to explain that 21 is too young to be married – If I had 10 rupees for everytime someone either asked me where my husband was or if I was married, my trip would probably be financed for me.

 

Other Notes:

- I was confused/amused by a sign in Mamallapuram (at the hospital) that said this, ” If you catch AIDS, who will catch fish.”

- In Madurai, my celebrity went beyond handshakes and photos to endorsements. I was randomly stopped by a man with a camera and a microphone who asked me to say, “Krishna TV, viewer’s choice.” I hope that Krishna Tv (if they use my endorsement) provides a quality product that I won’t regret calling the ‘viewer’s choice.’

 

 

Quality Time on Buses in Tamil Nadu

For the past few days, I’ve been moving rather briskly through some towns and cities in Tamil Nadu. As these towns have been fairly close together (no more than 200km), I’ve been riding buses quite frequently. The countryside in Tamil Nadu is full of rice paddies (earning the area the title of the “rice bowl of India” (well this was according to one guidebook and I think the people in the Punjab might dispute this, but that’s ok)). The roads are one line each way and are shared by buses, tractors, ox drawn carts, cars, people on cycles, people walking, trucks, and the occasional auto-rickshaw. There’s an excessive amount of honking as that denotes wanting to pass someone, passing someone, alerting someone that you’re changing lanes, etc. When the bus stops at stations along the way, the stops are usually short (2-10 minutes) and during this time men carrying baskets of food (samosas, vada, cooked beans, chips, pineapple, etc.) climb onto the bus to sell things. They serve the food on newspaper and magazine cutouts. Lots of excitement.

 

Mini Post

Some random thoughts:

- Today, I witnessed my first legit Indian rain storm. Not surprisingly, the novelty ran out quickly. I left Tirupati at 7 this morning (side note: if you’re ever in India, or any country for that matter, and you think to yourself, ‘I’ll stay near the bus station that shuttles thousands of people to and from the city at all hours of the day because being near the bus station is convienent’ re-evaluate the situation immediately) for Kanchipurum in the state of Tamil Nadu. It started raining right before my bus arrived at the bus stand so when I got off the bus, after 10 minutes of rain, the bus area and most of the major streets were flooded at least an inch. I caught another bus to Mamallapuram, on the coast of Tamil Nadu, where I will stay for two nights. The forecast shows that it’s going to be raining a lot all over Tamil Nadu and the neighboring state of Kerala for at least the next week so I may be leaving the south sooner than expected.

- I experienced theft for the first time today. Someone stole my umbrella (actually my dad’s umbrella, sorry dad)! Why couldn’t they have taken something less useful like my passport?

- India oddity : In bus stations and train stations all over the country, there are scales for people to weigh themselves. They look a little like carnival attractions with flashing color lights. At first I thought that your weight would be flashed to everyone, but was informed that after feeding the machine a rupee, it gives you a slip of paper with your weight and a positive message about yourself.

Darshan with the Devout

I almost decided to title this post ‘Pummeled by the Pilgrims,’ but decided against it.

I am currently in Tirupati, in southern Andhra Pradesh. Tirupati is famous for being several kilometers away from the Venkateswara temple, a temple to Vishnu and the largest pilgrimage site in the world. I took the bus up the hill this morning and found myself in a little town with pilgrim guest houses and lots of shops and stalls selling religious and non-religious goods. I was immediately struck by how commercial it seemed and was trying to think if the Vatican was so commercial when I visited. Anyway, after checking my shoes and electric devices, I was herded into the special darshan (worship line) where, before I could enter, I had to fill out a form stating my name, address and religious beliefs (when I wrote ‘none’ in the blank, the man was confused and said, ‘madam, do you not believe even in biology?’) This special line (fast line for a price) cut the 10hr + wait into a manageable 2 hr wait. I spent about 2 minutes looking at the statue of Lord Vishnu and trying to avoid being stampeded. It was a fulfilling day.