Ann's Trip to India -- Part II

 Ann concludes her account of her amazing trip to India.  Be sure to read the first part here. 

Her words and photos bring the experience to life. 

We are on our way to Agra.  As always, the roads range from decent pavement to nonexistent.  Mostly, we are driving through dusty and filthy little hamlets/towns with a jostling of cars, motorbikes, livestock, trucks loaded with sacks of grain, vegetables and assorted bundles, buses with sixty people or more crammed inside and another twenty riding on top!  Along the garbage strewn streets are all manner of sidewalk shops, barbershops where men are getting spruced up for Diwali, and plenty of little pushcarts selling bunches and bunches of hanging decorations for the holiday and always, tire shops full of millions of spares stacked up everywhere. What do they do with all those tires?

Here, the ubiquitous cow saunters across the street at his leisure, often standing just in the middle with cars and buses and motorbikes whizzing past on all sides.  They are either the bravest or the dumbest animal I have ever seen.  But you should have seen our bus drivers! They were, without exception, the most instinctively nimble men behind a wheel I’ve ever seen, dodging and weaving, speeding up, passing, slowing down and amazingly avoiding head on crashes at every turn.  And believe it or not, I sat in the front seat on many of these long overland journeys and had a first-hand view of these brilliant manipulations!

The saying goes: “There are two kinds of people in this world, those who have seen the Taj Mahal and those who haven’t!”  Well the honest truth is that I barely saw it myself, the air pollution was as bad here as in Delhi, if not worse.  I worried about the damage of acid rain, dirty smog and age on the exquisite marble of the Taj and was told that the miracle of this particular white marble is that it is totally impervious to staining.  When the monsoons come, the Taj is washed clean and reemerges in all its stunning glory. The assortment of colorful precious and semi-precious jewels inlaid into the marble is breathtaking. http://www.taj-mahal.net/augEng/textMM/inlayengN.htm 

During that visit to Agra we visited a factory where only a handful of men belonging to the Muslim Community still have the skill, which has actually been handed down from one generation to the next from the days when the Taj was built, to painstakingly carve into the marble using special implements creating a groove to hold a single stone.  These jewels are often lapis lazuli, turquoise, carnelian or mother of pearl and are shaped by hand using an emery wheel.  These semi-precious pieces, even ones infinitesimally small, are glued in place to make the stunning inlay designs so admired at the Taj and today in tables and other decorative items.  I myself couldn’t resist purchasing a small table top with inlaid flowers sparkling against the white marble. It was shipped safely from India and now a beautiful reminder of this incredible trip.

Back at the Taj, we walked in the surrounding gardens and into the inner chambers to see the tombs of Shah Jahan and his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, for whom the Taj was built.  His Queen and third wife died delivering their 14^th child!  At her death, he was inconsolable and it was this monumental grief that led him to build this mausoleum to honor the woman he loved to his dying breath.

This is a stunning achievement considering it was build almost 500 years ago, the Mughal emperor Jahan’s great legacy to India.  As is the Palace itself, Agra Fort, which was built on the bank of the Yamuna River where the Shah and his family and all his many other wives and children lived. 

This immense fort was the seat of power for four generations but tragically where the great Jahan himself ended his last days as his son’s prisoner.  His only request: to be able to look upon the Taj Mahal where his beloved Mumtaz laid waiting for him to join her upon his own death.  A sad story that culminated in the creation of one of the most beautiful, visually stunning architectural masterpieces we admire today.

Later that evening, before dinner, Vineet said he had a surprise for us and requested all the women to join him in his room!  Well, this was an invitation no one could refuse.  And not surprisingly, all of the husbands decided to check this out as well. 

He asked a young artist to paint a design on each of our hands, called Mehndi.  This is done with a henna dye prepared by crushing the plant leaves producing a vibrant burgundy color.  Once this power is reconstituted, it is applied typically to the front and back of the hand, especially for brides before her wedding ceremony.  Once the henna paste dries and flakes off, the artful design that has been drawn is exposed in either a deep rich brown or mahogany color.  Some had vines and flowers, but when it was my turn, the young woman decided to do another type of design altogether, which lasted almost 5 or 6 days even washing my hands as often as I did.  I discovered that the dye penetrates the skin rather deeply!  I wanted it to last at least long enough to show Bob.

The next morning, we awoke to face a day that I never thought would end.  But my little group and our leader, Vineet, approached it with a solid sense of adventure and purpose.  We were up extremely early and were bused to the Agra train station which was teeming with cars and buses and people selling every kind of object imaginable. Again, there were beggars everywhere, many disfigured, missing limbs, or incredibly crippled. Vineet was emphatic about our not giving any money to these poor souls but especially the children.  He said if we do, we turn them into professional beggars!  It was a sad human condition to witness, but we took his advice and moved on.  We were kept on the bus as long as possible, but eventually had to alight and face the mobs and push our way to the platform.  There we huddled in a tight little group, looking around us in amazement as people sat everywhere on the filthy train platform itself, eating and talking, looking at us with as much curiosity as we looked at them. Huge bundles of packages that contained shoes believe it or not were piled up so high all around us it was a wonder the stacks didn’t topple over, little children begging at our legs, and everywhere, humanity crowded and moved all around us.  When the train thankfully arrived, we rushed to our assigned seats in a first class car and sat down with relief! This was a 2 hour train ride to Jhansi, whereupon we transferred to our coach and continued overland on very bumpy, rough roads for another 2-3 hour bus ride. 

 

We finally made a stop for lunch, but then continued on our way for the next 3 or more hours on jarring, jerky, deeply potholed roads into Khajuraho. Often these roads were no more than dust covered one lane tracks shared with all manner of moving objects including cows, herds of water buffalo, children & other pedestrians, bikers & goats all traveling somewhere on this tiny bit of  road crisscrossing or zigzagging at the same time, everyone furiously blowing their horns simultaneously!  It is a scene and when you're finally deposited safely to your next hotel, you cannot believe your amazing good luck to still be alive!

Now a remote city, Khajuraho was once the seat of the Chandelas civilization which flourished in the 10^th century where unbelievably magnificent temples were built there between the 9^th and 10^th centuries. Due to flight changes in our schedule, we were fortunate to stay an extra night here and take the time to see these temples at our leisure the next day.

If it had not been for some British archeologists in the 19^th century excavating these amazing stone temples with their erotic carvings, they might still be covered by thick jungle overgrowth that camouflaged them for centuries.  At the time these very sexually explicit carvings created a tremendous scandal and even today, our guide described how embarrassed any Indian man would be to bring his own wife to see these.  Indians are quite prudish about such displays of “prana energy” as it is known in Hindi.  Vineet revealed that shortly after his marriage his young bride was appalled and horrified to discover a copy of the Kama Sutra tucked away in his belongings and threw it at his head when he returned home!  He had some “splainin’ to do, Lucy!”

The next day we took a flight to Varanasi, which was one of the most fascinating experiences of the entire trip. Varanasi, with a written history dating back more than 4,000 years is known as “older than history itself”, and as one of the oldest cities in the world, yields an atmosphere of other worldliness. The horrible smog, the unrelenting mobs of people walking, riding, shopping, selling, biking, driving, with the myriad of cacophonous noises all add up to a tumultuous riot of sight and sound overwhelming to the senses.  At dusk that evening, Lisa and I rode in a cycle rickshaw with our faces covered like “bandits” to ward off sand/debris flying into our noses and mouths to our spiritual destination, the Ganga as it is lovingly called in India.

This is where the holiest of waters in all of India can be found, the Ganges River, considered sacred by all Indians. To quote: “This river is life, purity, and a goddess to the people of India.  The river is Ganga Ma, “Mother Ganges”.”  That evening we witnessed the “aarti” ceremony from a boat on the Ganges as dusk turned to nightfall.  This is performed by chanting Hindu Priests one to five times daily on the ghats of the River waving plates containing open flames while they sing devotional songs before the deities in the spirit of gratitude. 

Thousands of pilgrims and ordinary Indians crowd the ghats to hear and witness this moving ceremony, not to mention the thousands of prayerful worshipers and tourists floating quietly in boats nearby. Simultaneously along an entire designated route, Indians come day and night to cremate their recently departed loved ones. Only the men are allowed to carry the bodies of their relatives, briefly lower the pallets to let the holy water of the Ganges wet the deceased body and then wait their turn for a pyre upon which to burn the body. 

Death is often viewed in a positive light; it is considered an escape from this life to a better one, or nirvana. Afterwards, some of the ashes are consigned back into the river, insuring eternal life for the departed. It is an eerie sight to say the least to see so many flames still leaping from these funeral sites or just the smoldering smoke where the last embers have yet to die.  In the morning, when we returned before dawn, we saw these leftover piles of ash everywhere, many with poorly fed dogs lying as close as possible to soak up the leftover warmth of the fire.

That night, while floating silently in our own boat, watching all of this and attempting to absorb the meaning of these deeply religious ceremonies, we were each handed a small container with a lighted flame from a bit of oil and the tradition is to gently lower these prayer lamps into the Ganges and let them float away, onto the darkened waters.  Each of us made this offering with our own meditative thoughts, although I could see how deeply moving it was for a few of my fellow travelers and even for me, sharing such a spirit-filled moment at that place and in that time.

This evening, once back in our hotel, showered and changed, we all met to have our farewell dinner.  Vineet was our gracious host having chosen a wonderful restaurant in our hotel where we were all charmed by the flower centerpiece, candles and elaborate table setting.  The food was delicious and just kept coming from the kitchen, one serving after another.  We all sat enjoying our last formal gathering as the next day, we would be up and running back to the river, a couple more stops and then saying our final goodbyes.

The Ganges is the longest river in India, and for centuries all along her entire course Hindus have come to bathe in her waters sometimes totally submerging themselves, the women fully clothed and the men with often only a cloth about their waist wash themselves thoroughly with soap or simply cup their hands with the water, lift it and let it fall over them or back into the river. They are saying prayers and paying homage and respect to their ancestors and to their gods in this simple and symbolic way.

And so, up at 5 AM, before dawn the next morning, we again boarded our bus which left us off a little closer than the previous night because we were walking the distance now back to the river and this time in a multitudinous flow of worshipers, pilgrims, tourists, locals, bathers and hawkers.

It was quite a walk and we had to watch where we were stepping to avoid all manner of street debris, but once arriving at the ghats again in the half light before the sun was up and seeing the mob of people everywhere, women half dressed, drying themselves after their morning ablutions, men half naked sitting on the steps gossiping with one another, hundreds in the water, some just standing and chatting with a neighbor or others taking a good dunk, we also noticed barbers giving mostly men a shave down to the scalp, again people selling all manner of things, roaming dogs, goats, piles of ashes and there I stood, transfixed by the entire scene.  Vineet came over and took my arm to escort me down the steep steps and into our boat again.  We were going to have an escort this morning, a young Hindu Priest who was preparing lotus leaf packages for each of us containing incense atop a sort of flour with marigolds surrounding the mound. 

 

As we floated along the River’s edge, we were agog at the thousands of people crowding the steps, all either just coming up from the water or making their way down to it.  This was the time of day when ordinary Varanasians, whose shops are still closed in the early morning, come down to meet and chat with their friends and neighbors.  Some were performing yoga asanas (or postures) and many, like us, were offering flowers and incense to the river. There were others who may have traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles, finally completing the pilgrimage to the holy Ganga, to touch the water and be transformed.  There were dozens of dhobi wallahs (laundry men and a few women) on the ghats whose livelihood is collecting and washing clothes, beating them on huge stone slabs in the Ganges, wringing them out by hand the old fashioned way and hanging everything on makeshift clotheslines, later to be pressed and returned to the owners.

As we spoke to one another in hushed tones in the early morning light, we were each handed our lotus leaf and asked to silently let our hands turn the leaf over the water and as the grains of flour and marigolds drifted away to remember our own ancestors and say whatever prayer we wished to honor their memory.  This as the sun was slowing rising in a brilliant hue of orange and gold, lighting the cerulean sky.  Each of us was touched by this elegant ceremony.

Unfortunately, the Ganges has been ranked among the five most polluted bodies of water in the world, particularly near Varanasi.  This pollution threatens not only the millions who live along the shores and depend on this water for their everyday living needs, but more than 140 fish species, 90 amphibian species and the Ganges river dolphin which is an endangered species as well. Thanks to enormous government corruption, lack of technical expertise and environmental planning, all measures have failed so far to clean up this holy body of water.

Shortly afterward, we were climbing our way up the steep ghats once again for the last time and soberly walked around many of the ash-laden pyres toward our bus.  It was back to the hotel for a bite of breakfast and off for more sightseeing.  This was our last day to visit two other worthwhile sites before flying back to Delhi early that afternoon. 

Our first stop was the Bharat Mata (Mother India) Temple.  However this was not like any of the other traditional Temples we have seen previously, but rather contained an intricate bas relief map of the entire Indian subcontinent, carved out of white marble.  A very impressive look at mountain peaks, river’s meandering flows and the major cities in India, all in one incredible landscape.

We were off now to the ancient Buddhist learning center of Sarnath.  It was here that Buddha preached his first sermon to his disciples.  In the Sarnath Museum, we enjoyed seeing the National Emblem of India, Ashoka’s Lion Capital and another treasure of Indian Buddhist art, the Teaching Buddha, a breathtaking piece of sculpture.

A plane ride back to Delhi, a quick shower and change of clothes in my hotel room, a leisurely dinner with Estela, my friend from Spain, and then the ride to the airport for my 15 hour flight back to NY.  So surreal, especially since we’re not boarding until 1:30 in the morning and we were up at 5:00 AM for our dawn boat ride.  Who am I?  Where am I?  It was exponential exhaustion!

What will always remain, once the jet lag ended and the fuzzy memories cleared, is the incredible sights of India, the Indian women in particular in their brilliant hued saris, every beautiful color imaginable, and each one so unique and in perfect condition whether she was working in a field, squatting alongside the road selling vegetables, carrying jugs of water on her head, cooking chapatis for the family or tending her children on the dirt laden street outside her hut.  I always had to catch my breath at the sight of them and often we would exchange a tender smile, woman to woman, mother to mother.

Indians accept their lot in life. I didn’t see depression or anger or malice.  The faces of the children were full of warm smiles, always waving at us as we sped past in our buses or in our rickshaws.  They appear hopeful and resigned, accustomed to their way of life. It was sad to learn that many of the girls are not being pressed routinely to attend school as yet as often as their big brothers, but hopefully that will soon change.

The Indian men I saw squatting along the roadside in every town we entered seemed to have no purpose or employment except to sit and gossip with one another, occasionally smoke a beedie, a hand rolled cigarette made using a tendu leaf, or just sit and contemplate the world passing by.  Obviously in the large cities of Mumbai or Delhi, the educated Indian men hold important jobs and support their families.  But out in the small hamlets where we frequently traveled it seemed that most of the men were totally idle.

I ate Indian food every single day, lunch and dinner, and found to my amazement that I enjoyed it.  It was always well made and fresh and plentiful.  I brushed my teeth using only bottled water and remembered to keep my mouth shut every day when I showered.  The water is totally polluted, even in some of the more upscale hotels where we stayed.  Fortunately, I never got “Delhi Belly”, a ubiquitous happenstance for many tourists in India. I never did see that elusive Bengal Tiger and how my back held up on all those hundreds of miles of dirt packed, rutted, potholed, almost impassable roads is a miracle too great to contemplate.

I thought our Trip Leader, Vineet, did an exemplary job in the face of a disappointing beginning, losing five people in his group right at the start and then having eight more show up four days late.  He kept his sense of humor, entertained us with his personal history, and filled our minds with more information on his country than anyone could ever possibly absorb.

It was a great experience, one I will always be grateful for and if not for my husband, Bob, and his fast thinking and generous heart, I too would have missed out on seeing with my own eyes hundreds upon hundreds of people being fed for free at the Sikh Temple that morning in Delhi. Thanks honey.

A Delicate Balance -- Vanishing the Impossible

 By now we have all been exposed to the famous first line of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina,  "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."  If that is the case, great American drama is built on the unhappy family with Eugene O'Neill perhaps being the master and following in his footsteps  Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, and others.  And when one looks over the offerings of Dramaworks over the years, some of their finest productions are such family dramas, most recently All My Sons, The Effect of GammaRays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, and the forthcoming, A Raisin in the Sun.  I suppose writing a drama about a happy family, would be drama-less, so what's the sense?

This might be Albee's most enigmatic work, with long sometimes disjointed monologues, perhaps less explosive than Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but with a deep, deep undertow of modern-day family angst. Tobias and Agnes, living their upper class existence in 1960's suburban Connecticut, along with Agnes' alcoholic sister, Claire, suddenly have visitors, their old and close friends, Harry and Edna. Their friends are in an existential plight, fleeing some unexpected terror in their own home. They have come to move in -- permanently.  And into the pot let's stir the arrival of Julia, Tobias' and Agnes' thirty six year old infantile daughter who is returning home after her fourth divorce. (They had a son who died in childhood, just another element in the family's dark past.)  It is the perfect mix for the kind of edgy drama that distinguishes the work of one of our greatest playwrights.

And it is from these damaged characters that the drama springs, so dependent on the performances of the actors. In that regard, as we learned at the "Knowledge and Nibbles luncheon" before last night's preview performance, Albee, even at the age of 84, has not relinquished much control over his plays.  He has final say over the selection of actors, the design of the set, and the venue of course, wanting the most professional environment possible. At that same luncheon it was pointed out that Albee said "When you’re writing a play, you’re attempting the impossible. When you’re directing it, you must do only what is possible, and the impossible must vanish."

So, did Dramaworks vanish the impossible? It is a "delicate balance" between the playwright and the performing team to make a theatrical masterpiece, and Albee and Dramaworks have all the right stuff.  Albee's dark view of the human condition emerges with absurdest clarity.

And a word about the set by Michael Amico, an anesthetically perfectly proportioned living room/library in a staid Connecticut home, the bar being a focal point, downstage right. It is of course the first thing the audience takes in as it is being seated, setting a mental marker for what unfolds.

Albee throws down the gauntlet with Agnes saying "I find most astonishing the belief that I may, very easily, as they say, lose my mind one day."  Tobias replies while mixing a drink (there are countless drinks mixed and consumed during the production): "We will all go mad before you."  One gets the sense as the first act unfolds that the entire family is mad at the starting gate.  In fact, the play ends the following morning with Agnes making reference to those opening lines, noting that it is a new day.  It might be on the calendar, but their lives go on as before.

There are so many themes in the play, particularly the nature of love and friendship.  Is friendship love?  Does one have to love one's own blood?  What are the obligations of love? At one point, Claire says to Agnes,  "Tobias loves you, you love Julia, Julia loves me, and I love Tobias."  Maybe a Venn Diagram would reveal that there is some kind of "love" between the two sisters, Claire and Agnes, but Claire has already said she would like to see Agnes dead.  But perhaps that emotion can be construed as a loving gesture in the context of this play.  One only has to listen to Tobias' disturbing monologue about a cat that fell out of love with him and he had put to sleep.

The Broadway veteran Maureen Anderman plays the highly controlled, haughty, Agnes, delivering her acerbic wit with great ease.  Her relationship with her sister, Claire, vacillates from an uneasy truce on the one hand to her attacks on her alcoholism: "If you want to die, don't take your whole life doing it."  Claire is brilliantly played by the Dramaworks veteran, Angie Radosh, who in spite of her serious drinking is probably the sanest person in the play, somewhat inhabiting the role of a Greek Chorus.  Another Dramaworks old hand, Dennis Creaghan, plays Tobias, capturing a man in the middle of this family/friend crisis, bewildered by it all, expected, as the man of the house to resolve the issue, culminating in one of the most contradictory and demanding monologues in American theatre when confronting his friend, Harry.  Rounding out the cast are Anne Bates as the daughter, Julia, who always seems to prefer the "comfort" of her dysfunctional family to any of her spouses, and two other Dramaworks pros, Laura Turnbull as Edna and Rob Donohoe as Harry play their roles of lost, bewildered, anxiety infested (no, "plague contaminated" as accused by Agnes) "friends" to a tee, friends who insist they have "rights."

Searing and disturbing, but with rich, nonlinear language that really warrants reading the script to more fully understand it, this might not be a play for everyone, but in the annals of American theatre it doesn't get much better than a work by Edward Albee and a production of it by Dramaworks. You will never meet more disconnected characters on one stage, but the Director, Bill Hayes, pull them together in this haunting production. Perplexing at all times, A Delicate Balance taps the angst in us all. 

Ann's Trip to India -- Part I

Ever since reading Shantaram,  Ann's desire to tour India was heightened.  Did I want to go?  Well, yes, but mostly no.  The latter relates to health issues and, truth be told, in my advancing years, I like travel that is less stressful. (And having read Shantaram as well, I felt I had already experienced the real India!) But these factors would not detour my intrepid wife, and I respect and admire her determination and willingness to endure some of the frenetic aspects of the trip not to mention some disheartening sights. I was lucky enough to be the recipient of her fascinating, spontaneous emails along the way and I collected them for her and she in turn has edited and embellished them with more detail.  I'm delighted to be publishing her account here, along with some of the wonderful photographs she took along the way.  She is not a photographer, but her point and shoot digital, along with many hours she took to edit, crop, and title them, produced some impressive shots, making her account even more alive. So, we present the first part of her journey, the second part to be published when she catches her breath!

Half of the fun of travel is the planning and anticipation and for my trip to India at the end of October, I had been on the highest level of excitement you can imagine. For the prior six months, I had been collecting the appropriate clothing, receiving my vaccinations and inoculations, sending away my Passport for the requisite Visa stamp, making sure I had all possible contingency medications on hand, as well as purchasing other travel gear for safety and comfort during my stay in a third world country. No one could have been readier for this trip! That is until Hurricane Sandy began threatening first here in Florida and then more seriously, the northeast. So I had to ask myself, why was it hitting New York on the very day I was flying out of JFK to Delhi? The hassle of having to reconfigure all of my travel logistics just added to the overall anxiety, anticipation and nervousness I was already feeling about leaving Bob for 18 days and going off on such an exotic adventure.

Once it seemed certain that the airports would most likely close down,  at the very last moment I was able to book a direct flight on Air France out of Miami. With a big sigh of relief, I was now on my way!  An uneventful fourteen hour flight later, I was met at the airport by an Overseas Adventure Travel employee and driver and stepped out into the smoky, smog enshrouded streets of Delhi. Huh? Somehow I missed that part of the weather forecast about not being able to breathe, thinking November was a perfect time of the year to visit. Noxious fumes, air pollution and thick smog were an omnipresent problem throughout the trip, although we were lucky that we only had a few really hot days.  As it turned out, itchy eyes and a scratchy throat were a small price to pay for the sights and sounds to follow.

I arrived a day early which helped me to acclimate a little to the 10 ½ hour time change, met my trip leader, Vineet Joshi, who gave me a huge bear hug at the hotel, and immediately let me use his phone to call Bob and lent me his computer to send a follow up email.  He was always accommodating and looked out for each of us like a Mother Hen, not to mention sharing some hilarious and often very touching personal stories about his family and the difficulty of finding a suitable marriage partner.  When Vineet was already well into his thirties, his father said that the time had come for him to marry. One of the popular ways to search is through the newspaper matrimonial ads.  So they placed one that said “A handsome Brahmin, from a good family, well educated, self employed as a Travel Guide, wishes to marry Brahmin girl, etc., etc.”   The responses: 3. Very disappointing.  The next ad read: “A handsome Brahmin, etc. owns 5 bedroom home, etc.”  The responses: 300!  From all the photos and letters, it finally happened that one girl was known by his family to come from a very good home and when everything else was compatible, they married. They now have a little boy and are united for life.  These arranged marriages work out very well in the end.

 

So far only Estela, my friend from Spain, and I made it to India and while waiting for Lisa from California who was arriving later in the day, we two had a crazy idea and decided to leave the hotel and go exploring on our own. The streets of Delhi were exactly as I had read about, cacophonous with sound and teeming with unimaginable traffic, cars, trucks, buses, tuk tuks (3 wheeled minicabs), rickshaws pedaled by underfed men, starving looking dogs, livestock, begging children, people everywhere, jostling, attempting to constantly stop us and sell us something or offer to take us somewhere and of course, people of every age and description with their hands out for money. And then there are the horns.  Blowing a horn in India is the only way to drive anything that moves even if there is absolutely no need whatsoever.….there are no traffic lights or stop signs or very few, certainly no road signs to tell you where you’re going, it is a free for all, a game of “chicken” every single moment every day and a miracle that more people are not maimed or killed either walking or riding, since entire families of five or six ride on the motorcycles or squeeze into the tuk tuks often piled to the roof with passengers or the buses offering all the extra riders the deluxe air-conditioned seats, atop the bus, holding on for dear life!

 

We actually took our lives in our hands and crossed one of the busiest thoroughfares in Delhi, not once but twice!  We saw children and families living on the sidewalks amid filth and trash, a never ending sight in India.  However, no cows!  What a surprise.  Vineet told us that Delhi has taken them all away since they pose too hazardous an obstacle to themselves and others on these insane streets. One can never forget that cows are considered sacred animals, but not so sacred that when their milking days are over, they are left to fend for themselves, digging through garbage, eating plastic and often just lying down and dying in the middle of the street. Life is tough in India for people and animals alike.

Once Lisa arrived, we three began our tour, minus the four other couples who were still stranded waiting for flights out of NY. Our first stop, totally unscheduled, was the Gurudwara Bangla Sahib kitchen, part of the Sikh Shrine which has been feeding approximately 180 Delhi residents every 15 minutes since 1935, free and open to everyone regardless of religion, caste or age.  All of the food preparation, cooking and serving is provided by an army of gursikhs who are paid workers and by volunteers every day from 5:30 AM to 11:30 PM. Here, we left our shoes and walked barefoot behind the scenes right into the kitchen where vast cauldrons of food, once it has been peeled, scrubbed and chopped was being cooked and readied for serving to the thousands of hungry people patiently waiting their turn to enter a vast room and take their place on a carpeted strip where metal plates are filled using enormous ladles of food, up and down each row.  Once a prayer is said, everyone eats, leaves and the next wave of young and old enter and it begins again.  Behind the scenes, volunteers were washing the metal plates and cooking cauldrons, two women were rolling out the chapatis for frying, traditionally made with fat free whole wheat flour, water and salt. These unleavened mounds are flattened with a rolling pin and slapped on an ungreased tawa or hot griddle.   Vats of hearty dal (lentils) were being stirred, rice and vegetables cooked.  No money is paid by anyone for this food; it is all provided by donations and contributions. It was an inspiring experience and a testament to the generosity of those more fortunate. 

While still barefoot, we proceeded to visit the rest of the Temple grounds, an architecturally stunning structure rebuilt many times since Raja Jai Singh originally constructed a bungalow on the site in 1664.  It is easily recognizable by the beautiful golden domes.  The surrounding compound includes a pond considered holy, a school, the Temple, a museum, the Kitchen or Langar and even a hospital.

Then we drove to the other side of Delhi to visit the Lotus Temple, Baha’i House of Worship where again we had to remove our shoes, but this time we were allowed to wear a covering for our feet and walked at least a 1/2 mile to the sanctuary with a million other people on a spiritual pilgrimage to enjoy meditating inside this peaceful place of worship. No one is allowed to speak, talk on the phone, or take photos.  This is simply a quiet place for prayer for people of all faiths.

In the three days we spent in Delhi, we saw many of the major sights, including Birla House, where Mahatma Gandhi spent his last months and was assassinated in 1948 while taking a quiet walk.  It is now a holy shrine in his honor. Earlier in the day, we rode on our first cycle rickshaw ride through the congested and filthy streets of the Chandni Chowk bazaar. Here there are famous sidewalk eateries and a bustling wholesale market selling electronics, clothing direct from the manufacturer, books, leather goods, you name it, but unfortunately we did not see many of the better shops.  Instead, we were pedaled past filthy, dusty streets where practically anything you could ever want was for sale in a stall or stacked on the sidewalk, or piled on a wall.  It was originally built in the 17^th century by the Muslin Emperor Shah Jahan (of Taj Mahal fame) but the streets we saw were anything but the once beautiful market lanes. Our ride took us through garbage laden streets with terrible smog-filled air.  How our very thin rickshaw cyclist navigated through the traffic without dumping or killing us was a miracle.

We spent time at the magnificent Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India, also built by Shah Jahan in 1650 AD, the courtyard can accommodate 25,000 worshippers!   Our guide and driver also took our little band of three ladies along beautiful tree lined boulevards where we could see from a distance many of the buildings of India’s Parliament and the residence of India’s President as well as Embassy buildings belonging to many countries. We saw the famous India Gate surrounded by a park and the 12^th century Qutab Minar with its 234 foot high tower.

Dinner with Vineet and Estela was an adventure too, with Vineet hailing a tuk tuk, our first ride in the 3 wheeled little minicab or motor rickshaw as it is often referred to, to take us off to dinner. We were up early the next morning for our first five hour road trip to Jaipur.  Good news….we were finally going to meet up with the rest of our group there.

We enjoyed a beautiful lunch on the way to Jaipur in a former Maharahja of Jaipur’s palace, now a splendid hotel and restaurant.  Once comfortably settled in our hotel, and now all eleven of us gathered together, we proceeded to see many of the wonderful sights including the Amber Fort-Palace, built in the 16^th century, including the Sheesh Mahal, a room whose ceiling is covered with small mirrors to represent the night sky sparkling with a million stars. Our visit to the City Palace Museum was fascinating as was the Jantar Mantar, an astrological observatory built in the 18^th century and still functioning perfectly today!  In fact, the giant sundials are still accurate to two-tenths of a second.

In Jaipur we had a very early wakeup call one morning (4:45 to be exact) as we were about to go on a hot air balloon ride before breakfast.  We all arrived just in time to see the balloons lying on the ground and being filled with fiery hot air until they began to lift off and eventually take us up, up and away.  Unfortunately, the air was quite foggy as usual and so visibility was fairly limited, but it didn’t dampen our enthusiasm as we all loved floating over hills and farmland and just being blown wherever the currents took us.  It was fun to watch the faces of children turned skyward and watching us with fascination.  

For me, the highlight in Jaipur was our Home Hosted dinner with a wonderful family, the Singh’s, who were extraordinarily gracious.  Five of us were welcomed so warmly into their home with a standing greeting at the gate, Mrs. Singh placing a bindi on our foreheads, a dot made with a pinch of vermilion powder, just in the center and a little above our eyebrows.  (We were often greeted entering our many hotels with a dot placed just so and a cool drink or a garland of marigolds or wet towels to cleanse our hands.) Here, we were served beer or cola and appetizers passed by one of the sons of the couple who live on their grounds and keep house for them. They were happy to show us their home and then served a traditional Indian meal, prepared entirely by Mrs. Singh. We all loved her dessert, which she called a fruit cream, exactly as it sounds, bits of cut up fruit in sweet creamy custard.  

She and her husband, who coincidentally is the grandson of the Maharajah whose palace we had stopped for lunch, have a 22 year old daughter in law school and a 13 year old foster daughter they are raising who was born into a lower caste.  Mrs. Singh founded and supports a home/school/hospital for children ages 3 to 15 orphaned by AIDS and themselves suffering from it.  It is her proud enterprise and she was so happy to discuss this with us realizing she had  sympathetic listeners.  She also shared more personal information about how she is already searching for a husband for her daughter.  It will be an arranged marriage, as was hers.  It was just an outstanding evening, one I will never forget, particularly as I was leaving, she and I gave one another such a warm embrace!

We are visiting India during Diwali.  This festival rivals our Christmas and New Year’s all rolled into one!  There is nothing like witnessing the frantic days beforehand of shopping, the frenzied cleaning of the huts and homes, the strings of lights and garlands of marigolds strung up everywhere you look.  It is the “festival of lights” and every home will have purchased small clay pots to be filled with oil and kept burning all night to welcome the goddess Lakshmi, who represents good over evil.  Everyone, from the poorest to the wealthiest will have purchased new clothes and something new for the house as well - even if just a spoon, new pots and pans or bed linens, food, especially sweets and snacks which are shared with family and friends since visiting one another is part of this happy celebration. Even presents are exchanged.  Firecrackers are a big part of Diwali as well, hearing them popping constantly for hours with the air overwhelmingly filled with the smoke. 

From Jaipur, we drove overland through the countryside, over unpaved, uneven, potholed roads toward the Ranthambhore National Park and our Heritage hotel, the Nahargarh Ranthambhore, which in all its16th century Palatial style splendor, appears to rise out of the dusty road as in a mirage.  It is recently built, but strives for an authentic ambience from a by-gone era. It was from here that we enthusiastically started out on two game viewing experiences in an open four-wheeled canter.  Unfortunately, both were to be met with disappointment as we had hoped to catch just a glimpse of the elusive Royal Bengal Tiger, but saw only fresh tracks instead.  We were treated to sightings of other Indian species such as a cousin to the deer, the sambar, the Langur monkey, antelopes and the treepie bird and others.  These rides through the National Park system were the bumpiest, roughest, sandiest, and most jarringly uncomfortable of any I have ever experienced in my life. At one point, I was sure I had shaken out two or three fillings from my teeth!

This is also where we were treated to a climb up a mountain side to see the ruins of a once magnificent fortress built more than 1,000 years ago.  The Ranthambhore Fort, which lies in the heart of the Ranthambhore National Park and was once the hunting grounds of the Maharajahs of Jaipur, is now home to hundreds of wild Langur monkeys who are fairly aggressive.  I climbed the 700 steps to the top in a little more than a ½ hour, stopping to catch my breath along the way and with lots of encouragement from my fellow travelers whose climbing ability far outshone my own.  Once there, the views were breathtaking, although I couldn’t resist asking Vineet where the “down elevator” happened to be, since climbing back down was more tedious and dangerous than actually going up!

After breakfast the following day, we were off on another adventure, this to visit the school nearby that Overseas Adventure Travel supports through donations from the Grand Circle Foundation, a most worthy endeavor. We met the Principal, members of his family and a few of the teachers in the school.  The children were out of school for Diwali, but there were plenty of interested bystanders and actual students to enhance this experience. In the past, our own Vineet had volunteered his painting expertise along with other OAT Trip Leaders to make the school look as presentable as possible. 

We saw where funds had paid for separate bathroom facilities for boys and girls and also purchased a roomful of outdated computers.  Now the school is in dire need of a water pump.  From here, we walked through the nearby alleyways seeing how the local villagers live, meeting a few locals who were as interested in us as we were in them and were served tea in the yard of a local family. Here the mother, father and 1 adult son and 1 married son, with his wife and three little children, all live in one room, which was swept spotlessly clean and where we were invited to enter without our shoes. The water for our tea was heated in a large pot over an open pit fire in the yard with various spices having been ground and added to give it flavor.  It was hot and delicious.

Our next stop the same day was a Woman’s Cooperative which was the inspiration of a group of women who were eager for these local villagers to have a chance to learn a handicraft, sell them and earn their own money. The store itself contained garments to wear, handbags, tablecloths and napkins, and many other handmade items, all of which were very simply sewn, but with beautiful cotton fabric in a variety of designs. There was a backyard area with tables and we were treated to a most delicious buffet lunch.  Each table was covered in beautiful hand sewn linens and each group had one of the local women as a luncheon mate, dressed in a colorful sari and adorned with many bracelets.

Now we were on the move again, this time many, many hours driving on extremely bumpy roads again until we finally reached our village camp retreat quite late in the afternoon.  Here we were assigned a tent cabin where we all were able to freshen up for a minute before being ushered to a campsite and offered refreshing glasses of wine or beer and popcorn, of all things!  As the sun set, we were treated to a fireside group of dancers and musicians who performed for us, all male.  A wonderful Indian buffet was served in a large dining tent afterwards. We were all happy to retire to our tents for the night, although I had to sleep in my clothes with a pile of blankets on top since I was freezing cold, loose fillings chattering. We were asked to rise early and dress warmly as we were in store for a treat. 

We had a parade of camels and their handlers marching toward us after breakfast and each of us who were riding them were dressed with the appropriate headdress, the men in turbans and the women in colorful floral head and shoulder wraps artfully tied near our hearts. I thought I was so dainty throwing one leg over the camel’s back and hoisting myself comfortably onto the pillowed saddle.  We were all told how to hold on so the camel could rise up, bumping us way forward and then way back, and suddenly we were off - around and about, through village farms and fields, cantering lightly in the seat I was feeling like Ann of Arabia!  When it was time to alight, there was nothing dainty about having one leg on the ground and the other still thrown across my camel’s back when he suddenly decided to get up and with me still half attached!  I yelled “whoa there boy” and luckily others came running to my aid.  He settled down on the ground again and I hopped off with as much grace as it is possible to have with someone lifting your leg over a camel’s rear hump.

We’re off to Agra and the Taj Mahal in the next installment, but this brief video gives credence to the sights and sounds of a typical Indian street.....

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