India

I Could Be In India

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I was reading through some of my blog entries about India the other day and then I came upon this Slate.com article about India and laughed so hard I nearly cried. It’s really good to laugh.

Trying Really Hard To Like India

from: Seth Stevenson
Posted Friday, Oct. 1, 2004, at 2:27 PM ET

“In the mid-1970s, famed author V.S. Naipaul (of Indian descent but raised in Trinidad) came to India to survey the land and record his impressions. The result is a hilariously grouchy book titled India: A Wounded Civilization. Really, he should have just titled it India: Allow Me To Bitch at You for 161 Pages. I hear you, V.S. This place has its problems. As you point out, many of them result from the ravages of colonialism � and some are just India’s own damn fault. Still, I’ve found a lot to love about this place. For instance:

1) I love cricket. The passion for cricket is infectious. When I first got here, the sport was an utter mystery to me, but now I’ve hopped on the cricket bandwagon, big time. I’ve got the rules down, I’ve become a discerning spectator, and I’ve settled on a favorite player (spin bowler Harbhajan Singh, known as “The Turbanator”�because he wears a turban). I’ve even eaten twice at Tendulkar’s, a Mumbai restaurant owned by legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. Fun fact: Sachin Tendulkar’s nicknames include “The Master Blaster” (honoring his prowess as a batsman), “The Maestro of Mumbai” (he’s a native), and “The Little Champion” (he’s wicked short). His restaurant here looks exactly like a reverse-engineered Michael Jordan’s Steak House. Instead of a glass case with autographed Air Jordans, there is a glass case with an autographed cricket bat. And in what could turn out to be a dangerous habit, I’ve begun going to Mumbai sports bars to watch all-day cricket matches. These last like seven hours. That is a frightening amount of beer and chicken wings.

2) I love the Indian head waggle. It’s a fantastic bit of body language, and I’m trying to add it to my repertoire. The head waggle says, in a uniquely unenthusiastic way, “OK, that’s fine.” In terms of Western gestures, its meaning is somewhere between the nod (though less affirmative) and the shrug (though not quite as neutral).

To perform the head waggle, keep your shoulders perfectly still, hold your face completely expressionless, and tilt your head side-to-side, metronome style. Make it smooth�like you’re a bobble-head doll. It’s not easy. Believe me, I’ve been practicing.

3) I love how Indians are unflappable. Nothing, I mean nothing, seems to faze them in the least. If you live here, I suppose you’ve seen your fair share of crazy/horrid/miraculous/incomprehensible/mind-blowing stuff, and it’s impractical to get too worked up over anything, good or bad.

(This is a trait I admire in the Dutch, as well. They don’t blink when some college kid tripping on mushrooms decides to leap naked into an Amsterdam canal. Likewise, were there a dead, limbless child in the canal� an Indian person might not blink. Though he might offer a head waggle.)

4) I love how they dote on children here. (I’m not talking about dead, limbless children anymore, I’m being serious now.) At our beach resort in Goa, there were all these bourgeois Indian folks down from Mumbai on vacation. These parents spoiled their children rotten in a manner that was quite charming to see. In no other country have I seen kids so obviously cherished, indulged, and loved. It’s fantastic. Perhaps my favorite thing on television (other than cricket matches) has been a quiz show called India’s Smartest Child, because I can tell the entire country derives great joy from putting these terrifyingly erudite children on display.

5) I love that this is a billion-person democracy. That is insane. Somehow the Tibetan Buddhists of Ladakh, the IT workers of Bangalore, the downtrodden poor of Bihar, and the Bollywood stars of Mumbai all fit together under this single, ramshackle umbrella. It’s astonishing and commendable that anyone would even attempt to pull this off.

6) I love the chaos (when I don’t hate it). Mumbai is a city of 18 million people�all of whom appear to be on the same block of sidewalk as you. If you enjoy the stimulation overload of a Manhattan or a Tokyo but prefer much less wealth and infrastructure. this is your spot. (Our friend Rishi, who we’ve been traveling with, has a related but slightly different take: “It’s like New York, if everyone in New York was Indian! How great is that!”) And whatever else you may feel, Mumbai will force you to consider your tiny place within humanity and the universe. That’s healthy.

There’s more good stuff I’m forgetting, but enough love for now. Let’s not go overboard. As they say in really lame travel writing: India is a land of contradictions. A lot of things to like and a lot of things (perhaps two to three times as many things) to hate.

It’s the spinach of travel destinations, you may not always (or ever) enjoy it, but it’s probably good for you. In the final reckoning, am I glad that I came here? Oh, absolutely. It’s been humbling. It’s been edifying. It’s been, on several occasions, quite wondrous. It’s even been fun, when it hasn’t been miserable.

That said, am I ready to leave. Sweet mercy, yes.”

Extremes In India

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Back in Delhi the next day Bob and I are walking in the middle of the street as usual to a shopping area from the hotel when I noticed that one of the men lying on the sidewalk was dead…large open white emaciated eyes with flies in them…still body…like the dead sheep I used to see on my father’s farm growing up…none of the sellers or other pedestrians seemed to notice…just the western tourist…

The next day on the way to the airport we see miles of male walkers in orange and maroon carrying large triangular forms decorated in shiny fringe on their shoulders. They are making a 270 mile pilgrimage from Hardiwar, through Delhi to a Hindu temple on the border of Rajasthan. They started July 26 and they will reach the temple on August 12. Along the way charities have set up rest and food stations for the pilgrims many of whom are limping with bandaged feet.

For an hour I look through the taxi window and feel tremendous affection for these sincere, earnest and well-meaning people that don’t have a cynical bone in their bodies but probably have every reason to…If we had not visited India we would not have known a land like no other.

Shimla India

Posted on by Laughingnomad

July 31-August 4 2002
The last few days I have been fighting some sort of strange malady…raging sore throat, red spots on the tops of my feet and the underside pads of my fingers red, sore and sensitive. Want to risk a diagnosis? But symptoms seem to be residing after a few doses of antibiotic. So feeling a bit lethargic I am contented to sit for the five hour train ride that will take us up most of the 300km to Shimla on the Himalayan Express.

We change to a toy train (narrow gauge) in Kalka and jump out to buy a dahl and rice meal in a tin foil tray and some bananas before another five hours climbing switchbacks the last 60 km into the mountains. I look out the window and see a huge sign hanging above the train platform: “World’s Number one. The Times of India.” Reminds me of the presumptuous title of those annual baseball games played in the US only by US teams called the World Series.

From the train we watch India fly by…people in tattered clothing lying asleep by the side of the tracks…naked babies sprawled out flat on their backs…a sign says “Do Not Pluck Flowers.” Another sign: “The Allah of Islam is the same as the God of Christianity and the Iswar of the Hindu.” Children with white nylon sacks pick through the garbage selecting plastic-India’s system of recycling…ads for Bob Cards-the Indian credit card…men with hair dyed a bright henna color.

I smile to myself at the young Indian across the aisle reading “Autobiography of a Yogi” (many of us were inspired by it in the 60’s). The leak in the roof of the toy train above my head stops once the train gets up some speed…the German girl across from me and her male Indian companion share their feelings of culture shock…she has been volunteering in a school for blind children for six months in a small village in the south of India…quiet…clean…traditional customs…no touts…she and her companion have never been in the north…now I wish we had gone south instead. A few seats back a group of 20 something Indian guys finds hilariously funny a Lonely Planet given them by the Swedish couple in the seat across-but I notice they are taking notes. We have noticed people everywhere throwing garbage on the ground…Bob feels guilty throwing the banana peels out the train window.

As the train pulls into Shimla about 20 Muslim touts in long red shirts crowd against the windows yelling at us to let them carry our luggage the two kilometers up the hill to the hotel in the center of town. (Shimla is a lovely 8,000 feet above sea level.) Bob takes to one lively man, Bob guesses rightly 34 years old, and he takes my small daypack. (We left the large packs in Delhi.) Bob carries his own pack…”macho” I say…”yes, yes”, he laughs…and then a large monkey threatens to take off my leg as he grabs the banana in a plastic bag I am carrying in my hand.

The Town
Shimla is at an altitude of 7000 feet-a quiet pleasant town of 120,000 sprawled across the U-shaped valley of the steep Himalayan foothills with narrow winding terrace-like streets connected at intervals by stairs. The town feels authentic; virtually all of the tourists this time of year are Indians escaping the heat of Delhi and the lowlands. It is a luxury to stroll through the streets unhindered by hordes of touts and beggars.

Shimla was once part of the Nepalese kingdom called Shyamala. The British discovered the area in 1819; many of the buildings were erected by them and is reflected in some of the architecture. In 1864 it became the summer capital of India and after the railway line was constructed in 1903 Shimla became first the capital of Punjab and then of Himachal Pradesh in 1966.

Eating in Shimla
I take back our assessment of where we are in the culture shock process…we (or I should say I) are (am) desperate for an alternative to the spicy Indian food we have been eating for a month. It takes two hours walking the winding streets to find a restaurant that just might have something without curry spices…in the meantime to stave off my dizzying hunger I stop at a fast food stall and buy an order of tooth-breaking french fries that are sprinkled with masala powder…then to get the taste out of my mouth I buy six cookies…finally we find a rather upscale restaurant that claims continental food on a sign above the door. Chicken Hawaiian Salad was described by the waiter as chicken, capsicum (green peppers) and white sauce…turns out white sauce is mayonaise. Bob’s thin French onion soup sports a raw egg yolk floating in the middle which he carefully extracts from the bowl. If the waiters in India don’t understand you they pretend you haven’t ordered anything. The lifesaving Chinese eggroll is delicious but I leave unconsumed the vanilla milkshake made with what I don’t know.

The next day we find a Chinese restaurant, Chung Fa, with a real live chinese cook and we founder on chow mein, spring rolls and the best won ton noodle soup ever. The owner was born in Canton, lived in Athens Greece 20 years, in Arabia 8 years and now Shimla for the past 12-and speaks many languages. When we told him we were from the US he said “San Francisco-best Chinese food. But New York the Chinese food terrible!” Bob concurs-having eaten in wonderful restaurants in SF while in college in the SF area and also having had a horrible experience in a Chinese restaurant in Manhattan where he mortified son Josh by leaving without tipping.

Town Plaza
As evening approaches we walk around the town plaza and appear to be the curiosity of the Indians…we sit down on a concrete “bench” ringing the large plaza and Bob takes a picture of two Sikh men and a woman…they smile and move over to sit closer by us. The older one has just retired as a banker and is now a consultant for multi-national organizations-he says his daughter is a well-known pediatric heart surgeon in New Orleans. He is very proud of his shy nephew who is an accomplished traditional tabla player and the girl, who is a traditional devotional singer. The older one had noticed us walking the plaza and had been explaining to his companions, he said, that as Americans we had probably worked very hard and were now enjoying our lives. “People don’t realize that Americans work very hard for what they have, “he  said as he went on to describe his daughter�s lifestyle in Louisiana. Thinking of the people we had seen in the Sikh temple in Udaipur, I told him that I had noticed that many Sikhs seemed to be very successful people. “Oh, yes,” he said, “we are very industrious and make a very big effort…instead of like many people in India.”

You can tell which Indians are Sikhs because they never cut their hair and they wear turbans. They practise tolerance and love of others and their belief in hospitality extends to offering food and shelter to anyone who comes to their spiritual centers.

Then we had a brief exchange of words about the Eastern and Western approaches to religion. “As Sikhs we are very practical and take a very simple approach to spirituality,” he said. “Sikhs don’t believe in caste distinctions or idol worship,” he continued, “and we believe in one God that is the same in you as is in me.” As he talked I thought to myself that I have heard Catholic mystics like Thomas Merton use almost his same words to describe their contemplative experiences. We talk about meditation; we understand each other. I get goose bumps and feel blessed by this man as I float back to the hotel in the cool evening air.

Rickshaw Driving Lesson

Posted on by Laughingnomad

After dinner, Bob entertains the nearby date sellers by dickering with another rickshaw driver who makes the mistake of saying to Bob “You are rich man-why can’t you give me few extra rupees?” Bob shot back that “I have traveled all the way to India and now you guys have all my rupees!” He laughs. They think you are stupid if you don’t bargain hard.

They settle on a price and on the way home Bob is full of questions about the auto-rickshaw which is a three-wheeled device powered by a two-stroke motorcycle engine with a driver up front and seats for two or more behind. There are no doors and it has just a canvas top. They are generally about half the price of a taxi and because of their size they are often faster for short trips. And if you are a thrillseeker you will love it because their drivers are nutty–heading straight through the mass of cars and pedestrians wielding hair-raising near-misses! When stopped at traffic lights, the height you are sitting is the same as most bus and truck exhaust pipes so many riders wear kerchiefs over nose and mouth looking ridiculously like movie-western cowboys. Bob wheedles a chance to drive our rickshaw a short distance. Bob and the driver end up friends and the guy gets a tip for the driving lesson.

At 5am the next morning an auto-rickshaw driver offers to drive us 3 blocks to the train station for 20 rupees. After we are seated he says “20 rupees each!” Should have seen how fast Bob jumped out of the rickshaw! We don’t feel like cheapskates anymore as this style of bargaining is the norm in India and many other countries-the locals see you as ridiculous or naive if you do not bargain.

The internal struggle is over for me. The guilt is gone. I don’t even notice the beggar lady pulling on my arm. We are finally getting the hang of India and learning how to play their game. And I think we’re entering the last stages of culture shock. But haven’t had the courage to taste a “bhang lassi” yet! (A bhang lassi is a yogurt drink spiked with marijuana…)

Death of the Vice President

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Saturday morning the revered Vice President of India, Krishan Kant had had a massive heart attack and died so Sunday afternoon Bob and I watched the building of the funeral pyre on national television. “Tears trickled down the cheeks of Satyawati Devi, Kant’s shriveled 97 year old mother’s face as she watched her grandson light the pyre,” the next day’s paper reported.

Surface Culture

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India’s spirituality is strong and is seemingly integrated with it�s culture. So this is the first country we have been in that has resisted becoming westernized…at least on the surface…no big time make-up, no dark glasses, no T shirts, no baseball caps, no blue jeans hanging off the pubic bone of young girls (however we have seen a new sari style that is off the hip with a ring in the naval) and no Bobby Marley, rap music, baggy pants, western food or drip coffee-just the obsequious Nescafe. Our hotel offered the Continental or American Breakfast. Grilled chicken, grilled potatoes, juice and tea or coffee. No American fast food outlets in all of Delhi except for one McDonalds that only serves vege and chicken burgers.

Hardly any bookstores. Closest thing to the west we encountered listening to a DJ in a red turban play 70�s American music at the El Rodeo Restaurant where all the waiters were dressed up as cowboys and serving bad Mexican food.

Indians usually prefer to eat only Indian food, Mrs. Singh said when we stayed at her hotel in Jaipur. She described an Indian owned tour company she and her sister-in-law traveled with throughout Europe last spring. She was disappointed to find that the tour company had it’s own cook and every meal was taken on the bus-all Indian food!

News Media
In the English language Delhi Times newspaper there are 14 serious pages of “Matrimonials-for the better half of your life.” Typical Example: “Alliance from (with) tall fair slim convent educated girl for US settled Bengali Brahmin boy Feb 1967 5’11” nonsmoker tetotaler visiting India in Sept Caste State no bar” (in other words being the proper caste is not necessary). Another: “Bride from elite business house for graduate, son of top industrialist.” And another: “Wanted bride from only very big business/Industrialist Family from Son of National Fame very big rich industrialist family.” This apparently the conduit for meeting a marriage prospect for non-religious middle and upper classes.

I get a big kick out of the newswriting style, usually concerning controversial political issues, that go like this lead paragraph: “Despite all-out diplomatic efforts, India�s plans to get piped gas from Bangladesh may turn out to be a pipedream.” And this: Quacks have found a way out if their hospitals are shut down; change the name and keep the racket going. And another: “The government will soon crack the whip on driving schools in the Capital for the poor skills they are teaching Delhiiters.� And this headline concerning Prime Minister Advani’s oversight in not inviting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to a swearing-in ceremony of another minister: “Jaya pipes down after Advani says he’s sorry.”

And finally this… “US tries to stop (corporate) rot with new rules.”

Bargaining for a Rickshaw

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Our last night in Delhi before taking the train to a cooler Shimla in the mountains for a few days, we strike out in the worst part of the day for traffic to have dinner in Old Delhi. Bob is bargaining on the price-which is always about double or triple for the big westerners-when a policeman comes down the street whacking all the drivers across their backs with a big stick to get them to move on. I hate what I see but it works to our advantage-the driver is anxious to move on and takes Bob’s last offer.

The streets are full of people, animals and various mechanical transporters and the auto-rickshaw comes to a stop in traffic for half an hour. It has cooled off a few degrees and there is a slight breeze. No problem! We surprise ourselves by just watching the show go on around us despite being enveloped in exhaust fumes.

The restaurant was interesting-several venues surrounded a central open air “kitchen” where one area was devoted to tandoori, in another small area three men were sitting on a raised floor making chapatis and puris and baking them in an oven in a hole in the floor and another area displayed half a dozen huge round metal jars sitting at an angle with small openings into which the waiter dipped out servings of stewed vegetables, chicken, and mutton. The mutton stew was superb.

Traveling India Bob-Style

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The Indians have a wonderful sense of humor so Bob takes advantage of it and manages to turn everything upside down wherever we go.

In addition to an auto-rickshaw, India has bicycle rickshaws-a three-wheeler bicycle with a seat for two behind the rider-and is the basic means of transport especially in small towns and villages. We take a bicycle rickshaw ride in New Delhi from an old man and entertain the entire street of people when Bob insists on doing the pedaling with the old white haired guy Indian sitting beside me in the back…”slowly, slowly,” the rickshaw owner keeps repeating nervously as we weave through traffic……..

Later, when the umpteenth little girl comes begging from Bob as we are sitting in an auto-rickshaw he turns the begging routine on it’s head and asks her for a rupee…she obliges and gives him a coin…then he rewards her for her good-natured response by giving her several rupees to finish off the joke. When the sellers ask Bob what he is looking for and Bob answers that he wants rupees or nirvana or something just as ridiculously nebulous (silly) they just stop and look at him funny and then laugh—successfully diverted from their begging. “Yes everyone has their own way of getting money,” one says. It’s Bob’s turn to stop and think.

Suffering cabin fever Bob takes off on another afternoon to explore and get lost again. While walking, his attention is diverted by a beggar woman and her scantily clothed children but as he gets away from them a boy insists on shining Bob’s shoes. “Look” the shoeshine boy says, “you need shine!” Bob looks down and there is a huge glob of what was probably human shit on his sandle…he kicks his shoe and the shit toward the boy growling his sentiments… realizing he has been had by an accomplice. This is not so funny. The boy–startled and taken aback–retreats. This scam is described in several guidebooks as a maneuver to generate business for the shoeshine mafia. On the way back to the hotel Bob snarls at every Indian tout that approaches him and they immediately back off…I think this is called the disintegration stage of culture shock.

On a better note, in the mountain town of Shimla, people are sitting around the edges of a town plaza watching people watching people and Bob takes a picture of four local hip 20-something young men and then asks them for dollars in
exchange for their photo. They laughed heartily and Bob sensed they appreciated both the irony and the joke.

But if Bob doesn’t stop telling everyone we are from Iceland (“Where you come from?”) I am going to kill him…makes me feel like a complete fraud!

New Delhi

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July 27-30
The hotel arranged to have us taken to the railway station in their car for the 6am train to Delhi, so at 5am the streets are full already and workers are queued up at the tea stalls for breakfast. In Africa the pace was slow and men sat around doing nothing. Here, sure, some are lying on just a small dirty piece of cloth on the sidewalks asleep but most men are up and about-energetic and eager for the day’s work-meager as it will be. Interestingly you seldom see women on the sidewalks. As the train pulled into the station I looked at it dubiously, but it turned out to be ok. It was not the cleanest train ever but had air conditioning-the most important thing in this heat.

On the outskirts of Delhi I sleepily watch the plastic and cloth shacks and the naked children whiz by but come alert when I catch a glimpse of a young man seemingly out of place in his nice new yellow shirt and new-looking grey slacks sitting on a stool and leaning on his arms high on a bank above the railroad tracks…maybe he is dreaming…maybe he’ll be going to school…or to work in the new hotel in New Delhi this new day…

Four hours later we stumble out of the train station behind the only two other young but tired looking white tourists who keep glancing back at us…I guessed French or Italian…and probably wondering who else from the west besides them is nuts enough to be in India in the summer. It is 106 degrees on this day. We have not seen one American in India.

The taxi ride to the hotel and subsequent auto-rickshaw rides in the insane traffic looking at alternative hotels all afternoon does me in. We finally choose the Ajante Hotel primarily because it has a restaurant and high speed internet downstairs. For two days I refuse to leave my air conditioned room except for brief forays into the internet cafe. Bob braves the heat, noise and traffic to explore the city by himself, getting lost of course and having to take a rickshaw back to the hotel.

Jaipur City Tour

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Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan and sits on a dry lake bed surrounded by barren hills at the top of which you can see fort-like edifices and the surrounding fort walls. The all day city tour bus with no A/C left from the railroad station and proceeded to take us to what seemed like every historical building possible in Jaipur!

The entry fees and camera fees for foreigners were many times over the fees for the locals and the soft drinks were four times the normal price which needless to say really pissed off Bob (he just wants to pay the fair and going price) which was ok with me because I am more interested in people than old empty buildings. (The two young college students on the tour from Bangladash were cheating by posing as Indians). An expensive elephant ride around a small courtyard was being utilized only by a few Japanese tourists. You had to pay an entrance fee to see the recently built white marble Hindu temple. Then you had to pay an offering inside the temple to see the inner temple. If you entered with a camera there was additional charge–quadruple for a video cam. Then you had to pay 5 rupees to go to the bathroom afterwards. You get nickel and dimed to death. Very frustrating.

For the remainder of the tour we stayed behind the rest when they toured the buildings and lingered in the streets to watch the kalaidoscope of passing shapes and colors…multi colored tribal women on the sidewalk selling soft green grass to passersby so they could gain graces by feeding the many cows that occupied the parking lot…15 little boys laughing and wanting to shake hands…one woman squatting in front of a wall to pee on a sidewalk…have a look in my shop…no charge for looking…barber shaving a patron in his pavement shop…men in white dhobis (like a sari that is pulled up between the legs) pushing handcarts and traditionally dressed Rajput men in bright colored turbans and handlebar moustaches. The newest and nicest building we saw in Jaipur is a three year old government building!

The tour guide makes his presentations in both Hindi and English (all the riders are Indian and Hindi-speaking except us) but only now and then do we catch a word and realize he is now speaking English! The two boys from Bangladash ask why we do not enter some of the palaces/temples. When I explain that we feel like human ATM machines, they sympathetically suggest that maybe the high prices for foreigners can be adjusted. I tell them we are more interested in the people anyway and they smile. The boys have completed two years of university study in Bangladash and have applied to study in the US. Moving to America seems to be every young Asian person’s dream but getting a visa these days, they say, is very difficult.

On the way to another ancient empty building we follow a rocking camel pulling a handcart piled high with 25 foot long metal pipe…the camel has only one speed and one direction…on this street we see many pavement dwellers-babies, naked toddlers, mothers…those not at home have their few belongings covered over with burlap or plastic..the driver lets us off several blocks from our hotel but instead of taking an auto-rickshaw or taxi we walk back to the hotel in the middle of the street along with the rest of the pedestrians thereby avoiding the urine soaked sidewalk…funny how quickly you can get used to this life if instead you are paying attention to the people…women beautiful with long shiny black oiled hair in colorful flowing saris that provide a foil to the grey dirty surroundings looking to see what is in their eyes… Never again, however, will I complain about the transportation taxes or the garbage, sewer and water bills at home unless at some future time I decide I like sewer water and garbage in my streets and a man carrying my new dishwasher up the hill on his back.

We drive through the famous “Pink City” which is the 250 year old part of the town. Doesn’t look pink to me…looks like a dirty rust color much like the mud huts in Africa or red clay kasbahs in Morocco…and don’t think it was repainted since the first time 250 years ago.

The bus transfers us into four wheel drives and up a winding road we go to the Amber Fort to view yet another palace and have lunch. I sit on a concrete wall alone for a few minutes to write in my journal and wait for the others to gather when I am quickly approached by about six laughing men in their 30’s or 40’s who shake my hand and want to know where I am from…then they traced a swooping convex shape in the air with their hands and arms and asked if I did this…what does that mean, I ask, and they all laugh and move away…not interested anymore. I tell Bob that I think I was just propositioned…