India Caprice, Part 3

11/29/09

I am sitting on a bus parked in the center of a country village near Ranthambore.  The others are out walking through the village and visiting a school there, although it is Saturday and school is closed, but (I found out later) the students had been assembled to sing their ABC’s in English for our group.  The bus driver has offered me some tea he picked up locally, and I'm sipping it slowly.  My nose is running, my cough is deep but loose, and I didn’t feel like walking with the others.  I can see enough of village life through the windows of the bus – the eager, shy children, the animals thronging the streets and gullies, foraging through plastic and other debris: the cows, goats, buffalos, peccaries (spiny-bristled pigs); the rocky, dusty, uneven dirt roads, faggots of wood and stacked rows of cow-patties lining the edges of tramped-dirt yards; a buffalo pissing in a yard then walking on; and motorcycles, bikes and jeeps plying the uneven “highway.” This is a one-lane paved road intended to accommodate two-lane traffic, where motorized vehicles move to the dirt shoulder when passing by vehicles coming in the other direction, and where cows meander singly or in groups down the center of the highway.  The women here wear skirts with large head shawls or else Punjabi dresses (pants with a tunic on top), or saris, and they pull the head scarf over their faces if a man is nearby.  Children carry baskets on their heads and sometimes have other children in their arms.

To continue the sequential narrative:  The second day in Delhi, we visited the now defunct mosque where the Qutb Minar is located.  This was a mosque and enormous tower built by Muslim invaders using building materials harvested from destroyed Hindu and Jain temples.  The tower, apparently the largest in India, was begun in 1209 by Qutbuddin Aibek, the first Muslim ruler of India, and was completed by his successor.  It is a spectacular, five-tiered structure constructed of different shades of red and pink sandstone.  Also in the courtyard of the complex was the famous Iron Pillar with Sanscrit inscriptions, produced during the 5^th or 6^th century AD and moved to Delhi after the Mosque was constructed.

Qutb Minar and mosque

Next, we stopped at the Bahai Temple in the outskirts of Delhi, but did not go into the sanctuary.  It is built like a lotus flower and reminds me of the Sydney Opera House.  After that, we went to a Sikh temple and did go into that sanctuary, covering our heads and removing our shoes.  (My feet were very dirty that night when I washed them.)

 Then we went to a place where they sell Kashmiri rugs (made in Kashmir but sold in Delhi because tourists don’t go to Kashmir anymore for fear of terrorism).  Several in the group bought rugs, although I didn’t even look.

We ate a late lunch at a Chinese restaurant near the hotel, then went browsing among the shops nearby.  Others wanted to find out where they could look for necessities, but I just wanted to go back to the hotel and rest.  I don’t exactly remember what we did next, nor even if the order of activities above is accurate.

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India Caprice - Part 1

“…so the word bamboozle was my one preparation for the rich, noisy, functioning madness of India.”  Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

Taj Mahal

11/27/09
In India more than four days, and this is the first chance I’ve had to sit still and write about the experience of India – the places we’ve visited and my impressions of the country and its people.  We’ve been on the move steadily since our arrival in the middle of the night (early AM) in New Delhi, jet-lagged, exhausted, confused, overwhelmed by the crowds.  Fortunately, there were three other OAT passengers seated near me on the plane and we helped each other to fill out forms in the airport.

Rathambore-Nahargarh Hotel

I’m writing in the spacious, elegant courtyard of the Ranthambore-Nahargarh Hotel, built like a Raja’s palace, white on the outside with pointed-bubble domes and elaborate wall fretwork (Indo-Islamic architecture).  Inside, the facades facing the courtyard are a deep cream color accented with white trim and yellow panels and pillars in a mauve-tan, lighter than the pink sandstone paving the courtyard and veranda steps.  Bougainvillea in brilliant red and purple grow lush in pots around the courtyard, and frangipani trees hang over its four corners.  A fountain drips softly into a shallow, eight-pointed star-shaped pool, and birds (pigeons and other smaller birds) fly down to drink, then fly away again.  It’s a peaceful idyll after the rush and chaos of the first few days of the trip. 

Impressions so far have been a jumble of images - crowded streets and ostentatious buildings - both Mughul and British Colonial - garish gods and temples, blurred by fatigue and overstimulation.  I haven’t taken very good notes, and I’ve lost half my pictures.  They were on a camera I let someone try to find a function on and when I got it back, all my pictures were gone!  I read through the instructions this afternoon and am afraid those photos are gone for good, but I learned how to protect the ones I’ve taken since.  Fortunately, I brought two cameras, each with a new memory card, so I should be able to take plenty of photos.  I have been alternating them, so I’ve lost photos of days one and three, but not of days two and four (I hope).  I’m still jet-lagged and feel like I may be coming down with something – cold sores, scratchy throat.

On the first day in India (Delhi), we woke up “late” (~9:30 AM), ate a quick breakfast, and went out to explore the hotel neighborhood.  The local market place was crowded and dirty, and we were thronged/hounded by beggars and curious, unkempt children.  This has been my experience throughout the trip so far:  being mobbed by the curious, the beggars and the hawkers.  Our leader, Ghopal Singh, has a very good way of handling the hawkers.  The bus is our refuge and, after we get into the bus, he brings in wares from the hawkers, one-by-one, gives us the fair price and, if we would like to buy something, we give him money to give to the hawkers.

11/28/09

And now I have developed a cold.  It started yesterday evening (or perhaps the night before with a scratchy throat) but last night, my head was stuffy and I felt exhausted and finally slept through the night for the first time on this trip.  I did awaken a couple of times, but was able to go back to sleep, which I wasn’t able to do previously.

This morning, we got up at 5:30 AM, had a quick breakfast, and went out to the Ranthambhore Park early in the morning.  We saw a lot of magnificent wildlife:  peacocks, monkeys, spotted deer, antelope, the “blue bull” (I didn’t realize that antelope don’t lose their horns each year whereas deer do), wild boars, several species of birds and a magnificent young female tiger, who just sauntered across the roadway behind us!  Perhaps we were scaring up game for her...

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