Today was my last day of work. That means it's officially summer! :)
So what's next? Sri Lanka for 16 days. I leave for the airport in 5 hours and am still not packed, in typical Emily style. In less-than-typical Emily style, I still have yet to figure out where I'm going, what I'm doing, and when. Well, I guess I'll just have to wing it!
I return to Delhi for two days after my Lankan adventure. Then I'll be Stateside June 9! So friends in the US of A, get ready for an epic reunion.
I love summer.
PS: I'm taking a break from the blog over the summer. I might post one more time when I return to Delhi, but don't expect anything while I'm in Sri Lanka. The blog will be revived when I return to India for my next job. Details to come when that is finalized. For now, फिर मिलेंगे (phir milenge / see you later, or literally "we will meet soon")!
Warning: this is a long one. Like, really long. Mostly because I was on the train for seven hours with nothing to do. Just skip ahead to the photos and videos (I apologize for the shoddy cinematography; I'm no Jhanvi!) if you don't want to read it all.
Another note: Blogspot has been weird about uploading pictures again lately. Even though I chose pictures for this post, I have not been able to upload them. I've tried for a few days now, but I realized I would never post this if I didn't do it now. So here ya go!
I’m on my way back to Thiruvananthapuram from Thrissur right now. I had brought my laptop with me because the hotel promised WiFi. Well, the WiFi wasn’t working, but at least I can do something productive during these seven hours: write a blog post! [Well, ok, I didn’t finish it, obviously, since I’m posting this several weeks late.]
I went to Thrissur with Manju thisweekend [actually who knows how many weekends ago it was? April 23-25] for the Thrissur Pooram. I have to be honest, I still do not know the significance of this festival. No one could explain it to me, so I think perhaps people just like elephants. (I sure do!) Maybe Wikipedia can explain this festival to you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrissur_Pooram
People in Thrissur love to say that the Pooram is not a Hindu festival (seemed pretty Hindu to me… I mean, it took place at a Hindu temple and the elephants were carrying Hindu gods) because Muslims and Christians participate in the preparations for the event (someone told me that Christians make the gold caparisons and Muslims make the silk umbrellas, but I don’t know if this is true or not) and people of all religions come to watch the spectacle unfold.
Yesterday [Saturday April 24] morning we arrived at the Vadakkunnathan Temple to find three caparisoned elephants lined up outside. I went picture-crazy, obviously unaware of the many more elephants to come. We then went inside the temple to find three more elephants, accompanied by a band. Someone told us the real action was on the west side of the temple—and they were right. There was a line of elephants in front of the temple entrance and another line of elephants approaching from the western gate. We didn’t know which line to watch first! We soon discovered that several more lines of elephants, accompanied by great fanfare, would come to the temple. Four lines (if not more that we had already missed??), in fact. We watched these elephant processions and the dancing crowd for a few hours. A video can explain this better than words:
elephant procession (if you have a short attention span, stop watching at 1:10; the video pretty much repeats itself after that)
Later in the afternoon, we decided to go inside the temple to see the famed 300-drummer band. Well, everyone else wanted to go inside too, so the line was ridiculously long. We didn’t particularly want to wait in this line, so we snuck around to the backdoor entrance—to find an “Elephant-Related Emergencies” vehicle, an ambulance, and a bunch of Western tourists taking pictures of these vehicles and generally getting in the way of emergency personnel. As Manju and I quickly backed away from the scene, I said a little too loudly “what the hell is wrong with these tourists that they want to take pictures of emergency vehicles? Don’t they know they’re getting in the way during a serious situation?” and received several Stares of Death from those very tourists. (Since we escaped the situation as fast as we could, we didn’t find out until later what happened. Apparently one “tusker,” as the newspaper called the elephant, collapsed from heat exhaustion, and then the elephants on either side of him got spooked. The three elephants were immediately replaced [several elephants are held in reserve] and no human was injured.)
We decided it was probably a bad idea to enter the temple, because we didn’t know what this “elephant-related emergency” was, and if an elephant freaked out, it could be an ugly situation with so many people in a small enclosed area. We wanted to see a band though, and someone told us there was another big band on the south side of the temple. So we rounded the corner and saw a band—in front of yet another elephant procession (seriously, I lost count). We joined the crowd to watch.
As the crowd became increasingly condensed (as the line of elephants approaches the temple, there becomes less and less space between the temple and the elephants for the crowd to stand), people started getting pretty rowdy. Manju and I wanted to get out of this crowd, and fast. We tried to head toward the west gate via an empty field below the elevated walkway on which the crowd was standing, but someone told us fireworks were being set up. Then we tried to go toward the elephants and around them, to exit via the north gate. There were too many people—a tall person next to us counted the heads in front of him and said the crowd ahead was 16-people deep—and we couldn’t manage to get through. The only other direction was toward the temple, but there was a huge queue to enter and we couldn’t even figure out how to get to the queue from where we stood (er, line. I’ve started using Indian English sometimes). Finally we found a policeman and asked him for help, pulling the “we’re women and need protection” line (actually, it was true that the vast majority of people in this crowd were men, and someone had grabbed my ass). Instead of escorting us or creating a corridor for us to pass through or doing anything else policeman-like, he told us to jump down to the empty field to get to the west gate. “But someone told us they are setting up fireworks there,” I protested. “No, no, fireworks later. Safe now.” So, we fought our way through the crowd and jumped.
…into a field of exploding fireworks.
Mid-air I realized that someone was lighting the fireworks. When my feet hit the ground, three fireworks rockets went off about a meter away from me. I don’t know what scared me more, the deafening BOOM!s or the tails of fire in the rockets’ wakes. We quickly realized that more than just this set of fireworks would be lit, and we were now in this field. As we ran out, fireworks went off right behind our heels—it almost felt like being in a movie or something. [Ok, fine, I’m dramatizing a bit. We were running along the edge of the field and the fireworks were going off about a meter to our left—but milliseconds after we passed them—and this entire episode probably lasted less than 10 seconds.] When we reached the end of the field and entered the watching crowd, I was shaking. And everyone around me was laughing at the stupid foreigner and her Indian friend who ran through [er, actually, next to] the fireworks. I blame the policeman. (They really need to do a better job cordoning off unsafe areas, especially with a crowd like this. Why was there no rope or other barrier? Oh wait... this is India.) (As a side note, we would later find out that these rockets were actually more similar to dynamite than fireworks, and were meant only to create really loud noises. How does this not scare the elephants?)
After barely escaping the crowd and fireworks, we headed to what we didn’t realize was an even bigger crowd. We wanted to get a good position for kudamattam, the main event of Thrissur Pooram, so we decided to head there about an hour and a half early. Apparently a lot of other people had this idea too. Manju then came up with the brilliant idea: head to the “Welcome Foreign Guests to Thrissur Pooram!” section. This foreigners’ section was on an elevated platform pretty close to the temple and, more importantly, above the crazy crowd. Normally I despise special treatment for foreigners, but in this case I was grateful. Unfortunately, the foreigners’ section was on the opposite side of this crowd. We burrowed our way through the crowd like prairie dogs (or some other animal that burrows) and emerged, miraculously unscathed, at the stairwell to the foreigners’ platform. When we walked up, a policeman wanted to see our pass. We didn’t even know we needed a pass! I just pointed at my white skin. We got a laugh out of the policeman but no permission to enter; we should have picked up a pass at a Kerala Tourism office days ago, he explained. (As a side note, the Chief Minister of Kerala and his posse sat in the front row of the foreigners’ section. So I guess it was more like a VIP section?)
We went back down and stood in front of the platform, because that area was roped off and other people weren’t permitted to enter. We had plenty of room and a good view. But alas, the crowd was big, real big, and there was limited space. Soon enough the uncontrollable crowd kept growing and had extended to this area. A policeman who was supposedly ensuring this area remained roped off and free of insane numbers of people got scared and squeezed between the bars holding up the platform to hide underneath the platform. Coward. (And Manju couldn’t stop laughing. She thought this was the most hilarious part of our entire insane day.)
As the crowd got, well, more crowded, we were pressed up against the platform bars. We knew we wouldn’t be able to see anything, besides the fact that it was really sweaty and slightly painful. That’s when we realized the scaredy-cat policeman’s move wasn’t a bad one. I looked back under the platform and saw that we could climb onto the stairwell from underneath. So we squeezed through the bars, stopped for a second underneath the platform to breathe and enjoy not touching any other sweaty bodies, and climbed onto the stairs from behind. No one stopped us from standing in the stairwell, as long as we didn’t enter the platform. The stairs actually gave us an amazing unobstructed view of both the elephants and the crowd! (I found the crowd just as interesting as, if not more interesting than, the elephants. There were even crowd surfers!)
This is what 500,000 people look like.
So what was this crowd so excited to see? Priests on elephants holding umbrellas. Yes, umbrellas. Two lines of caparisoned elephants, each line from a rival temple in Thrissur, faced each other in an epic Umbrella Off (to use Zoolander terminology). Basically, each temple’s priests alternated switching umbrellas. Every time new umbrellas were hoisted on the elephants, the crowd went wild. Putting their hands in the air and yelling at the top of their lungs, people cheered like their favorite cricket player just scored a 6 to win the match in the last over (or to use a more American analogy, like their favorite football player just scored a touchdown when the team was down by 6 with only a few seconds left to win the game). …but for pretty silk umbrellas. I found this hilarious. This “exchanging of umbrellas,” as people called it, went on for almost 2 hours. A bit long for just umbrellas, in my opinion.
Umbrella exchange
The Umbrella Off
That night, or really morning (at 3am), a massive number of fireworks were scheduled to go off. Seats on rooftops were sold out days in advance to witness this spectacle. The other option would be to watch from the street, with another huge crowd. We decided that, since we’d seen fireworks before, it wasn’t worth getting up at a ridiculous hour just to stand in a huge crowd. I don’t know if the fireworks started late or just weren’t that loud yet, but at 4:45am the ridiculously loud fireworks woke me up. And continued until 6am. It sounded like the city was under siege, like hundreds of bombs were going off.
When we woke up for the morning (only about an hour and a half later), we decided to go to the temple to see what it’s like on a quieter day. Well, actually, the pooram was still going on. When we arrived at the temple, we saw a line of elephants approaching again. As awesome as elephant processions are, we had had enough of big crowds. So we entered the temple via the backdoor, and it was surprisingly empty. Afterwards, we headed to the Thrissur Pooram Exhibition. Silly me, I can never throw away my American expectations. I thought “exhibition” would mean an exhibit, perhaps about the history of Thrissur Pooram, how the elephants are trained, how the temple and priests prepare, etc. Well, I was totally off the mark. Instead of learning more about the festival, I found dozens of booths selling everything from clothes to kitchenware to solar water heaters, rides (ferris wheel, swinging pirate ship, spinning tea cups, etc), and random exhibits/propaganda by government agencies such as the space agency and the military. My favorite “ride” was a tiny tank with a small motor boat driving in circles. Manju was quick to point out that we’re in the state of backwaters—don’t a lot of these people ply the waters every day? Aren’t there plentiful opportunities to ride in a boat? Very silly.
When we finished laughing our way through the exhibition, we headed to Paramekkavu Temple, one of the two rival temples. Manju went inside to pray, but I wasn’t allowed to go with her. Instead, I took a picture of this funny sign:
so, what am I allowed to wear? (by the way, the Hindi says the same thing, though I can't speak for the Malayalam and Tamil)
We left the temple to find the elephants returning from the day’s events. It was time, finally, to remove all the ornaments (but not all the chains. sad), take a bath, and eat some food! Here are some pictures of the newly-naked, and probably relieved, elephants:
Er, image upload fail.
After watching the elephants enjoy their relative freedom, we headed for lunch at the Indian Coffee House, a chain that is unfortunately not as good in Kerala as in Madhya Pradesh (Mom and Dad: we went there in Bhopal, the restaurant with the guys in funny white hats, remember?). At the end of our lunch, we heard what sounded like bombs (again). The pooram ends with one last pyrotechnic display, but because it’s during the day, it is more a sound than light show. And boy, did this sound actually show! The windows were rattling like mad with each BOOM. We went outside to see the spectacle (Indian Coffee House is across the street from the temple)—and we could feel the sound waves hitting us. The sound waves almost hurt, actually, especially in my chest. They were quite forceful! This of course totally freaked me out, so we went back inside the restaurant. But the windows were shaking so much I thought they were going to pop out!
After the first round of sound bombs, we ran to a line of autorickshaws to go back to our hotel, as it was almost time for our train. But no one wanted to go because a second round was about to start—unclear if they didn’t think it was safe (the visibility was pretty poor, as the pyrotechnics had turned the air into smoke) or if they wanted to watch the show. So we walked halfway back before finding an auto willing to take us, took showers, and headed to the train station.
And now here I am, sitting on the train, typing away.
One last note on the elephants: I felt really bad for these creatures. It’s already sweat-your-balls-off hot and humid (mid- to high-90s F and 90% humidity), then you throw really heavy gold caparisons and other ornaments on them. Plus the umbrellas are huge and putting a lot of pressure in one small spot where the pole rests on their head. On top of all this, three people are standing and dancing on top of them. Meanwhile, a band with loud drums and horns is playing right in front of them and a crowd of 500,000 people is screaming and cheering. All this noise not scary enough for them yet? Let’s add the physical sound wave-inducing bomb fireworks. It’s a miracle only one elephant collapsed and zero elephants freaked out. Seriously, these elephants are damn well trained. I have a lot of respect for these animals and their mahouts.
Oh yeah, and it was also Vishu on Thursday, April 15. Vishu is Malayali New Year. I was in a meeting that entire day, so I don't really know what people do. But on the way to my meeting, we drove past some celebrations. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of women were lining every street with makeshift stoves, made of three bricks standing on their sides at 90-degree angles from each other (with the space for the fourth brick used to insert the burning twigs for fuel; apparently pots can balance just fine on only three bricks), so that they could cook Vishu feasts. The fire for these stoves comes from a fire in the main temple of the city. The fire is passed from one woman's bunch-of-twigs to another woman's bunch-of-twigs, etc etc, so that every woman's stove fire originated in the temple. Must have taken hours for that fire to go around, because I swear every street in the city was lined with these women and their stoves; I didn't see a single free spot on any street! By the time we left the all-day meeting, the feasts were over, and all that was left were humongous piles of bricks every several meters. (Unfortunately I have no pictures of this because I did not take my camera with me to the meeting, and I didn't know I should expect anything awesome.)
I should probably post something about Thiruvananthapuram. Since I'm pretty busy here--and more importantly, lazy--I'll just copy and paste some paragraphs I already wrote in emails. Sorry if you were a recipient of any or all of these emails. [Editor's notes are in italics and brackets, like this sentence.]
Thiruvananthapuram is a funny place. Yesterday [Tuesday April 13] I saw 3 fake lifesize elephants, dressed Thrissur Pooram-style, complete with fake lifesize mahouts and umbrellas. Even the trunk was moving around. It was actually very realistic and a bit creepy. Why were these fake elephants in the middle of a market? To advertise a jewelry store, of course. Amazing. Also, there are advertisements for Qatar Airways, Emirates, and Kuwait Airways [Hi Nadeen!] everywhere. As should be expected. As well as red hammer-and-sickle Communist flags. As should be expected.
The city is very green, with tons of palm trees. It feels like a city growing in a forest; it seems like they didn't cut down any trees in between buildings and roads. Many buildings have red-tiled roofs, similar in style to Spanish missionary architecture in California. But in many cases, the tiles have turned brown or black with age.
Yesterday [Sunday] I went to Poovar, an island where the backwaters meet the sea. There was a big sandbar, which would've been a really nice beach, if all the trash from the villages of the backwaters didn't land there. (Well, the ocean side of the sandbar was nice, but the backwaters side was nasty.) But it was a good day because we spent most of it hanging out in the swimming pool of a resort. I haven't been in a swimming pool in over 2 years I think (I've been swimming in the sea, though, of course) so I was pretty excited. And I tried to teach Manju [coworker/roommate] how to swim, but I couldn't convince her to let go of the wall. Now I'm bright pink and sunburned from 8 hours in the sun, despite 3 applications of sunscreen, and my coworkers are calling me Gulabi Emily [gulabi = pink in Hindi]. My coworkers are talking about checking out Kovalam one evening this week (it's only 25 minutes from the guest house/office), but they don't like the "international food" there [we never ended up going].
I have never felt more American/different in my entire life--even more so than in a Bhutanese village, which is weird. Well, ok, that's an exaggeration, but somewhat near that level. It's weird that whenever I say something, everyone responds "you just think that because you're American" but then they often say things that suggest they think the ways of America are better than the ways of India (example: individualism vs. do whatever your family wants) (though I feel a lot of family pressure from my family too! Maybe because I'm Jewish and Jews and Indians are the same).
One specific example would be when we were discussing Bhutan during dinner. The PI of the project brought up Gross National Happiness (I forget the context). you know that any conversation about Bhutan gets me going. so at one point I started saying that while I support the government's efforts to preserve culture, I think that people are entitled to choice--if someone wants to wear Nepali clothes (the Nepalese minority is forced to wear Bhutanese dress at work), watch Hindi TV, or listen to Western music, let them; it doesn't necessarily dilute the culture, as cultures are inherently dynamic and it is ridiculous to think Bhutanese culture has been static for centuries (besides even young Bhutanese are very proud of their culture, and I really don't think it's in danger of dying out). This led to "you only think that because you're American, and Americans are all about individualism and their own notions of 'liberty.' Of course you think choice should prevail over government-mandated cultural preservation [not exactly what I said--I do think cultural preservation matters]." Most of the "you're so American" comments are due to my individualism, apparently.
The food here is INCREDIBLE, as I've said a million times [but not on this blog, apparently]. Nothing is better than Alleppey fish curry and appam. Yummm. [I've had an epiphany about South Indian food since this was written. I am now ridiculously sick of our daily rice-and-sambar lunch, and today I couldn't even bring myself to eat it. In reality, I like a higher number of North Indian food items than South Indian food items, but the South Indian food items I do like I like better than North Indian food items. ...if that makes any sense.]
Late last night [Tuesday night] a decorated elephant carrying a local goddess walked down my street, with blaring music that probably woke up everyone in the neighborhood. Apparently this happens once a year. Here's how this was described to me: "all year, every person goes to the temple. Today, the temple goes to every person." So basically these men with fiery torches and a giant tusked male elephant were "bringing the temple home," going around to each house collecting offerings, such as coconuts. I have to admit that the elephant scared the shit out of me because it was dark outside and at first all I saw were the men carrying torches. Then all of a sudden this humongous creature appeared out of the darkness. I was quite startled.
...and those are all the emails I sent about Thiruvananthapuram. I am going to Thrissur for Thrissur Pooram this evening, so you can look forward to pictures of heavily-decorated elephants with giant umbrellas upon my return.
I just bought some plane tickets: I will be going back to The Motherland June 9-21! Stanford graduation, then a roadtrip south to LA, then Nicole's wedding. One word: epic.
This past weekend I visited my friend Prashanth, who I know from Pondicherry University. He works for Samaj Pragati Sahayog (SPS) in the Narmada Valley, a few hours south of Indore past the Vindhya Range in Madhya Pradesh. SPS carries out several types of development projects (see the link), and Prashanth works on watershed development projects.
farmland managed by SPS and Bhikupura villagers
The Narmada Valley is not as remote as it feels. It's not far from Indore--only a 2-hour bus ride to Bagli followed by a 30-minute motorcycle drive over a ghat (hill)--but it seems like the middle of nowhere. When Prashanth picked me up in Bagli, we saw a procession of uniformed policemen playing instruments followed by a group of traditionally-dressed Muslims. We still don't really know what was going on.
procession of policemen (I think?) and Muslim men through the streets of Bagli
When we reached the SPS campus in the village of भिकुपुरा (Bhikupura), Prashanth gave me a quick tour: farmland, cows, biogasifier, etc. After dinner, we went stargazing. I haven't seen so many stars since... I don't even remember when. It was amazing. I could spot the Big Dipper! (Usually I can only find Orion. Or, in Delhi, zero stars.) It was unbelievably quiet, which is a very strange feeling in India. I could even hear crickets!! Prashanth found it a bit odd when I said the sound of crickets reminded me of home, of Maryland.
The next day we explored various tribal villages via motorcycle. Don't worry, Mom, I was wearing a helmet! We drove through recently-harvested fields and dry forest. The Narmada Valley gets very little rain, so when it is not monsoon season, everything is brown. Crops that grow here include wheat, cotton, chilli, and some others. Wheat, the biggest crop, was recently harvested, only a week or so before I arrived. Therefore most of the fields I saw were devoid of crops.
The people in this area are adivasi (tribal) and belong to the Bhilala, Bhil, Korku, and Barela tribes. Traditionally these tribes were hunter-gatherers who lived in the forest, but after independence the Government of India pushed them to enter mainstream agriculture. However, they did not have any land--except the forest they lived in. So the adivasis cut down forest to make room for their crops.
Agriculture finally took off in this region only about ten years ago, in the 1990s, when a Naxalite/Maoist leader came to Narmada Valley to bring reform and, of course, recruit people to the Naxalite/Maoist cause. However, the Madhya Pradesh police killed the top 5 Maoist leaders, either in a shootout or by firing squad (sorry, I don't remember which Prashanth said! But they were definitely shot). After their executions, the Maoist movement lost its momentum, though a memorial for these men was built. Today the Narmada Valley is one of the few tribal regions not under Naxalite control.
(Note: all of this information is from Prashanth. So if anything is wrong, blame him! Haha.)
Even though there are four tribes in the area, everyone I met was a member of the Bhilala tribe. The women had several tattoos: a pyramid made of 10 dots (4-3-2-1) on the chin, 2 exaggerated crow's feet on each eye, siblings' names on the wrists, and other geometric designs on the wrists and ankles. Some women wore giant bangle-like anklets, and for special occasions they wear big necklaces made of coins. They drape their saris a little differently than I'm used to, and many women cover their hair and even faces with their saris. Many men had earrings, and male members of the Korku tribe wear turbans, similar to the dotted, twirled Rajasthani ones.
Some of these tribes speak a language called Nimadi, which Prashanth says is similar to Hindi, and everyone understands and speaks Hindi as a second language. I couldn't understand anything they were saying, even when they were speaking Hindi, because their accent is very different from Delhi Hindi. But that's ok, because they couldn't understand my accent either. They told Prashanth, "we think she's speaking Hindi, but we can't understand her!"
Most of the houses were kachcha houses, which means they are made of natural materials and not as permanent as, say, concrete or bricks. A kachcha house is held up by a bamboo frame, stuffed with straw, and covered in a plaster made of a mud-and-cow dung mix. So one could say that their houses are literally made of sh*t. Or at least partially.
Prashanth told me that I was going "where no white has gone before," that no white person had ever visited these villages. I don't know if I really believe this--what about the British?--but I could easily believe that not many white people visit the area. I found it odd that almost nobody asked me the usual "which country, madam?" (Or the Hindi or Nimadi equivalent.) Since they weren't asking questions about my being a foreigner, I asked Prashanth where they thought I was from, if perhaps they thought I was Indian but from a place where people are more fair-skinned, like from Punjab or Kashmir. Prashanth responded that anybody beyond the Narmada Valley was considered a foreigner, that a Punjabi or Kashmiri would be just as foreign to these adivasis as an American. In fact, when he first came to the villages, they asked him which country he was from! And he's from Bangalore! I thought it was pretty interesting that I wasn't necessarily thought of as more foreign than Prashanth.
I wanted to post more pictures here, but alas Blogspot's image uploader hasn't been working for me recently. To see photos of the tribal villages, click here. (Note: you do not need a Facebook account to view these pictures. This is the public link.)
I am finally going to തിരുവനന്തപുരം / Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), the capital of Kerala. I leave Tuesday, April 13. (Yes, I was told this only 3 work days in advance. Typical.) I don't know how long I'll be there, but I've been told a minimum of 4 to 6 weeks. I'm ready for some change--and some excellent dosas--so I'm very excited!
What will I be doing in Trivandrum? Well, I have sort of been told, but things always change, so I'll post about what I'm doing later when I've actually started doing it. ...if that makes any sense.
I was going through all my blog entries today because (1) I'm bored and (2) I wanted to see what I forgot to write about. Well, I found a lost post! Apparently I wrote an entire blog post about Christmas in Shillong with Ben and Joel but forgot to click "Publish Post." So, I'm clicking "Publish Post":
As part of our Northeast adventure, Ben, Joel, and I went to Meghalaya, which means "Abode of the Clouds." We went to Shillong and Cherrapunjee, called Sohra in Khasi. Cherrapunjee is where we went hiking to the living root bridges (see my previous post about this incredible hike).
Getting to Shillong, which Ben and Joel affectionately called "shlong," took longer than anticipated. Our flight from Delhi to Guwahati, the biggest city in Assam and the gateway to Northeast India, was delayed two hours. Then our shared sumo (jeep--called sumo after the original Tata Sumo; kind of like how we might call tissues "kleenex" or in-line skates "rollerblades") took 5.5 hours instead of 3 hours to get to Shillong. This delay was caused by a "खराबगाड़ी"/"kharaab gari," or broken-down car, that had blocked the highway. By the time we reached Shillong, it was pretty late at night and we had missed the Christmas Eve celebrations, which are supposed to be awesome (and which were the reason we were going to Shillong at this time in the first place).
Police Bazaar, the commercial center of Shillong, is lit up for Christmas.
The next day, because it was Christmas and Meghalaya is a Christian state, everything was closed. Actually, Shillong is supposed to have amazing Christmas celebrations--everyone told me it's the best place to be in India for Christmas--but this year due to the economic crisis the Christmas Day celebrations were cancelled. Unfortunately, I was unaware of this. So we didn't have that much to do. We decided to check out the view from Shillong Peak, but it was totally cloudy and we couldn't see anything. Well, I suppose this is the clouds' abode, so perhaps we should have expected that.
This sign at Shillong Peak says "Don't urinate around the place." But it says nothing about pooping.
We went to a Khasi market called Iew Duh. Most of the stalls were closed for Christmas, but there were still some people selling live chickens. Hens cost Rs 100-200 (US$2-4), but roosters could cost up to Rs 400 (US$8). I'm fairly certain these chickens were meant for eating, not egg-producing.
A Khasi woman shows us a delicious rooster. Those baskets are holding live chickens.
There you have it, my lost post. At some point I should probably write about the Khasis' killer Michael Jackson moves. After all, Shillong is the rock capital of India. (Though they actually performed their MJ dances to traditional Khasi folk music, and this was in Cherrapunjee, not Shillong.) Or better yet, I should post the video. Stay tuned.
Before you read this post, please read the previous post, if you haven't already.
A few questions have come up regarding my "arrest":
Q:Why did the police seek you out, and why did they want to hotel-arrest you?
A: There are two possibilities.
1. They were looking for a bribe. They probably thought I would offer them money to be freed. And yes, this thought crossed my mind at the time. However, I did not have any money on me--any cash surely would have been rendered unusable in the water-and-colors-throwing. In any case, I had no way to replenish my supply of cash, since my wallet and thus my ATM cards had been lost the week earlier, and I was down to Rs 200 ($4). (Mom, don't worry, this was more than enough to get me home--I only spent 60 of those rupees--and I have since gone to the bank in Delhi to get more cash.)
2. They wanted to exert their power over someone.And I was an easy target, being a foreigner and all.
But to be totally honest, I really have absolutely no idea. I didn't do anything wrong!
Q:How did the police find you?
A: Many people in Bikaner knew I was headed to Lakshminathji Mandir, because I had asked around where the best place for women to celebrate Holi was, and everyone gave this same answer. Once I decided this was the place to go, I asked several people for directions. And everyone within earshot eavesdrops when a foreigner speaks, especially when she's speaking in Hindi (even if it's nothing more than "Where is Lakshminathji Mandir?" and "Is it this way or that way?"). So probably a few dozen people knew I was headed to this temple. I'm assuming someone "reported" me, or something.
Q: Weren't you scared? You seem deceptively calm in your description of events.
A: No, I wasn't scared.What was there to be afraid of? That they were going to put me in jail? Nope, they had no grounds for that. That the male police officers offering me bhang in the back of a jeep would molest me or worse? No way, because they would be afraid of me reporting that to the media. They just wanted to have a little fun with a foreigner, but they weren't going to actually do anything to me. Besides, the whole situation was so ridiculous I couldn't stop laughing in my head (even though I was pissed).
Q: Show us the turban-helmet picture!
A: Ok. Here it is:
that kurta (and my skin) used to be white. and that turban is, apparently, a helmet.
More Bikaner and Holi pictures to come, in a later post.
Today is Holi, the Hindu festival of throwing colors (colors = colorful powders) and water on everyone and everything. It is a very fun holiday and I'll talk more about it in the next post.
Right now I'm in my hotel in Bikaner, Rajasthan under hotel arrest. Or at least that's what I call it, since I'm not allowed to leave the hotel, police orders. While I'm stuck here for several hours anyway, I figured I would blog (and stain the keyboard with my colorful Holi fingers in the process).
I was in Lakshminathji Mandir, a Hindu temple in Bikaner's old city, watching the Holi puja and partaking in the colors-throwing, singing (ok I was only clapping along), dancing, and Indian sweets-eating. It was a lot of fun (more to come about this celebration in the next post) when all of a sudden police storm the temple and two female officers grab me by the wrists and drag me out of the temple.
Police woman #1: आप क्या कर रही हैं? (What are you doing?) Me: मैं होली मना रही हूँ! (I am celebrating Holi!) Police woman #2, look of shock on her face: आप हिन्दी बोलती हैं! (you speak Hindi!) Me, rolling my eyes because if they didn't think I knew Hindi, they shouldn't have talked to me in Hindi in the first place: मैं हिन्दी सीख रही हूँ | (I am learning Hindi.) Police woman #2: क्या आप के पास हिन्दी में Ph.D. है?! (Do you have a Ph.D. in Hindi?!) Me, trying to hold in the laughter because I've said only 2 very basic sentences: नहीं | आप मुझे क्यों ले रही हैं? (No. Why are you taking me?) Police woman #1: मंदिर एक बजे बांध होगा | हमारे साथ आइये | चलो | (The temple will close at 1 o'clock. Come with us. Let's go.) Me: लेकिन सिर्फ 12:45 हैं। मैं रहना चाहती हूँ | पूजा नहीं ख़त्म करता है | (But it's only 12:45. I want to stay. The puja is not finished.) Police woman #1: पूजा आप के लिए ख़त्म करता है | चलो चलो | (The puja is finished for you. Let's go, lets go.)
Police woman #1 grabs me by the wrist again and pulls me to a motorcycle. Police woman #2 sits down on the motorcycle and pats the seat behind her.
Police woman #2: बैठो | (Sit.) Me: नहीं! हम कहाँ जा रही हैं? (No! Where are we going?) Police woman #2: आपका होटल | (Your hotel.) Me: मैं helmet के बिना motorbike पर नहीं जाउंगी! (I will not go on a motorbike without a helmet!) Police woman #1, yelling: हम पुलिस हैं!! बैठो!! (We are the police!! Sit!!) Me, yelling back: नहीं!! safe नहीं है!! (No!! It's not safe!!) [I don't know the Hindi word for "safe.") Both police women look really confused. Me: Danger! They seemed to understand now. Police woman #2, switching into broken English: Helmet not allowed on today. Today Holi, no helmet.
During this entire exchange, a huge group of painted people, mostly men, was standing in a circle around us and watching. One purple and pink man approached the police women and gave them his turban (many Rajasthani men wear colorful turbans).
Police woman #1, handing me the turban: यह आपका helmet है | (This is your helmet.)
At this point I couldn't control myself and burst into laughter. All I could think was "helmet fail." But no one else was laughing. They seemed 100% serious.
Police woman #1, yelling in English: Put on the helmet!!
So I put on the turban--er, "helmet." Then a police man, who had been standing in the crowd until now, took my phone. He wanted to take a picture of me in the turban, apparently (that picture will be posted in my next blog entry).
Police woman #2: Now you have helmet. बैठो | (Sit.) Me: यह turban helmet नहीं है | (This turban is not a helmet.) Police woman #1: हाँ! यह helmet है! [grabs my wrist again, this time more tightly, and pulls me towards the motorcyle] बैठो!! (Yes! This is a helmet! Sit!!) Me, pulling my wrist free and yelling: नहीं!! (No!!) Police woman #2: We are helping you. Me: मुझे आपकी मदद नहीं चाहिए! (I don't want your help!) Police woman #2: लेकिन आप अकेली हें | (But you are alone।) Me: तो? मैं हमेशा अकेली घूमती हूँ | (So? I always travel alone.) Police woman #1: People drunk. Men will flirt you.
[If flirting is all I have to worry about, then I'm pretty safe.]
At this point a police jeep pulled up to the temple. The back of the jeep had about a dozen police officers, all male. The police women shoved me into the back of this jeep and instructed the driver to take me to my hotel. I told the driver where my hotel is, because at this point I'm obviously not going to be freed. All the policemen just stared at me. And continued to stare at me. Then one police officer seized my phone. He started calling random contacts and blabbering in Hindi. "ROAMING! ROAMING!" I yelled at him, because he was going to quickly spend all my money (my SIM card is pre-paid) and he was bothering my friends. Then he passed around my phone to the other officers so they could look through my pictures, delete my call history, and mess around with the features on my phone (when I finally got it back upon reaching the hotel, my phone was on flight mode and had a new background).
These policemen also offered me bhang lassi. Bhang is basically ground marijuana mixed in milk, and you drink it rather than smoke it. Everyone consumes bhang on Holi, but I thought it was odd that policemen were offering me drugs--especially when they were supposedly protecting me from the drunk people.
(By the way, I knew exactly where in the city male-only drunk Holi was taking place, and I was purposely avoiding it. The Lakshminathji Mandir's Holi celebration is meant for families, and I was surrounded by women and children there. It was definitely safe.)
The hotel employees looked super nervous when they saw the police jeep pull into their driveway. The police instructed them not to let me leave the hotel. They asked what happened, and the police said "we found her celebrating Holi at Lakshminathji Mandir." The hotel guys looked totally dumbfounded, as if there was absolutely nothing wrong with this and they could not understand why the police took me away (I don't understand it myself). As soon as the policemen left, they laughed and told me how stupid the police are. I responded, "हाँ, यह बकवास है!" ("Yes, this is bullshit!") and they laughed in agreement.
Then I spent 2 hours talking to the hotel employees in Hindi (or rather, trying to). When I became mentally exhausted from all the Hindi, I went to their Internet cafe. And here I am. My train leaves at 8pm and then I will be free from this hotel arrest!
Since some people (ok, by some people, I really mean Jhanvi) have been bugging me to update my blog more often, I thought I should give an explanation for my bad blogging habits.
There are not enough hours in the day. I work for 8 hours a day, and then I have a Hindi lesson three evenings a week. If I don't have Hindi lessons, I have Hindi homework. And if I'm not doing Hindi homework, I'm running errands, hanging out with coworkers/friends, planning travel, reading books (that's new! haha), or looking up opportunities for next year. I don't ever sleep.
Blogging is hard. Have you ever tried to select approximately 10 pictures from 400? It's difficult, and extremely time-consuming. This is much harder than actually writing the text of a blog entry. Selecting pictures for my blog can sometimes take up to 5 hours.
Jhanvi suggested that I write brief tidbits rather than long posts like I've been doing, so here it goes:
The number of foreigners at TERI has doubled; we went from 3 to 6. Joel, my hero, left (so many tears), but Michael from the US, Sas (short for Sasanka) from Australia, and Mirjam (pronounced Miriam) from Germany joined us. Michael and Sas live in Jangpura, so I have new neighbors!
Katrina and her fiance Kris are leaving in three weeks. Katrina, don't leave me!! I honestly don't know what I'm going to do without her. I switched Hindi tutors. My new tutor is able to meet me in the evenings, so no more early morning classes! Yay!
I went to my friend's wedding in Hyderabad. Angela, who is a friend from Pondicherry University, was a gorgeous bride. A few friends from Pondy Uni were there, and I hadn't seen them since leaving over two years ago. It was a nice little reunion. And I wore a sari! Hyderabad was a cool city, and as always, it was nice to be back in South India.
Alice's mom and aunt are in town, as are Sam's parents. Both sets of relatives brought bagels, so I'm pretty happy right now. I even found Philadelphia cream cheese (at The Cheese Ball) and Norwegian lox (in Khan Market)! Yummm. :)
On Saturday night, Alice's mom and aunt took a bunch of Alice's friends out for dinner at Chilli Seasons, a Southeast Asian restaurant in Defense Colony. I ate fish in Thai red curry. My first Southeast Asian meal since... Stanford?? Double Yummm.
For Sam's birthday this past Sunday, her parents took a bunch of her friends out for lunch at a restaurant called Gunpowder in Hauz Khas Village. It was impossible to find, but the food was soooo gooood. If you've never had pumpkin curry, you have to go here. Pumpkin curry is incredible. Triple Yummm.
After Sam's birthday party, I went to Safdarjung's Tomb and Lodi Gardens with Will. We lost my wallet in Lodi Gardens, and that was deeply upsetting. Good bye credit cards, ATM cards, driver's license, keys to my apartment, Stanford student ID, Buddha gift from the Bhutanese monks, and Rs 2000 ($43)! Ugh. Still unclear how this happened. I thought I gave my wallet to Will to hold while I took my camera out of my bag, but he claimed he never had it. I think there was some confusion in the exchange, and the wallet went missing. Then Will and I went to the Lodi Colony police station, but they told us to go to a different, farther station. Will and I wandered around Central Delhi for a really long time in search of this mysterious second station and eventually I filed a missing wallet report. I doubt I'll ever see it again. The only good thing to come out of this was that I learned some Hindi. The Hindi word for wallet is बटुआ/batuaa, which Will mispronounces as बटवा/batvaa (as an English/Konkani/Portuguese-speaking Goan, Hindi is not his native tongue, and I love to give him shit about his Hindi, even though it's infinitely better than mine). Also, I noticed that Will kept using the verb घूमना/ghoomna to mean "lost." This word actually means "to travel" or "to wander" (of course I know this word, haha), so I thought it was interesting that Will was literally saying "the wallet wandered." I asked my Hindi tutor about this the next day, and apparently this is a common way to say that something got lost.
Upcoming travel plans: This coming weekend is Holi and I have Monday off, so I'm going to Bikaner, Rajasthan. My parents are coming in March so I'm going to take two long weekends, one to Bhopal and the surrounding area (Bhimbetka, Sanchi, etc) and one to Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj (I know, I know, it's shameful that I haven't been there yet). I'm also considering going to Jaipur in March, mostly because I feel like I should explore more of Rajasthan before it gets too hot, but I haven't decided yet.
I have a 3-day weekend in April for Good Friday. This is my last 3-day weekend of the year. Where do you guys think I should go? I'm open to all suggestions.
I might write longer blog entries about some of the things listed in the previous entry, and I definitely intend to write about Angela's wedding. Sorry for neglecting my blog, but at least now you understand my negligence.
This past weekend, I went to Orissa. We had off of work on Tuesday for Republic Day, which is the anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of India, so I took casual leave on Monday to create a 4-day weekend. Orissa was incredible, despite a few frustrating moments.
Now you know where Orissa is.
We boarded our plane as if it was on time. But it wasn’t--we sat on the tarmac for three hours, waiting for the fog to lift. I don’t understand why they boarded the plane in the first place; it’s not like they didn’t know it was foggy! Obviously they should have boarded only when the visibility was far enough to take off, because it is much more comfortable to be waiting in an airport than on an airplane. But alas, this is India, and as Gandhi says, this is “a country of nonsense.”
When my plane finally arrived in Orissa, my first impression was positive: it’s warm and I can breathe and see blue sky!!
On the bus from Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa, to Puri, a beachside town, I sat down next to a middle-aged man and his shy 6-year-old son who tried to hide his face from the scary white foreigner. Before I could slip on my headphones (all that waiting on the tarmac had exhausted me and I wasn’t in the mood to talk), the man started talking to me. He spoke in broken English, and I responded in broken Hindi. So languages were being butchered all around. The man and his son were extremely friendly, in a non-sketchy way, and they invited me to stay in their home in their village. The man, who is the principal of his village’s school, said that his wife would cook traditional Oriya food and his students would give me a tour of “a real Oriya village” (whatever that means). And he wasn’t just saying this—he wouldn’t let me get off the bus without giving me his phone number first, in case I ever venture near his village! This man’s hospitality is a perfect example of why I fell in love with India in the first place. A visit to his village would have been awesome, but unfortunately the village was kind of far, and as you’ll read in a later blog post, there was a bandh* threat.
*If you don’t know what a bandh is by now, you have not been reading my blog and/or have never heard my “escape from Sikkim” story. In any case, here is a definition, one last time: a bandh is a “general strike.” Everything—and I mean EVERYTHING, from shops to restaurants to roads—is closed.
When I arrived in Puri, I went straight to the beach. I hadn’t seen a major body of water since July, so I was in desperate need of breathing in the salty sea breeze and staring off to the horizon. After satisfying these needs, I headed to Jagannath Temple in town.
Bay of Bengal
On my way to the temple, I passed by a wedding procession, and I saw something I've never seen before: a cycle-train of men playing instruments in cages. It very much reminded me of a traveling circus.
cycle-train of musicians in a wedding procession
caged man playing a drum
caged man playing a keyboard
Jagannath Temple, built in the 11th century, is a Hindu pilgrimage site and represents the east in the Char Dham (4 abodes of God, one in each direction). Lord Jagannath is “a part of Vishnu,” according to one Brahmin (priest). I asked if he meant one of Vishnu's many manifestations or forms, but he said no, "a part." But then when I looked up Jagannath online, I found that he is a form of Krishna, who himself is an avatar of Vishnu (at least according to Vaishnavism). So I don't really know who Jagannath is, other than Orissa's deity of choice. Also, he is often represented with huge eyes (at least in Orissa). Non-Hindus are not allowed inside Jagannath Temple, so I went to the roof of Raghunandan Library, across the street, to steal a view.
entrance to Jagannath Temple
view through the entrance (thank you camera zoom!)
mustachioed lions, this one crushing an elephant, protect the entrances of many temples in Orissa (this one is not Jagannath Temple but is nearby)
view of Jagannath Temple from the roof of Raghunandan Library
view of Puri's busy streets from Raghunandan Library
The English word “juggernaut” comes from Jagannath. I think the origins are a British misunderstanding of the Rath Yatra festival. During Rath Yatra, three humongous chariots carrying three deities (Jagannath and his siblings Balarama and Subhadra) are pushed through the streets of Puri. The British believed that these chariots crushed everything and everyone in their paths—they were unstoppable. And so the word “juggernaut” came to mean something that is unstoppable. I was sort of hoping someone would yell “He's the Juggernaut, bitch!” but given the probably nonexistent popularity of X-Men 3 in Puri outside of CT Road (where all the foreign backpackers hang out), that did not happen.
My brother Ben and his roommate Joel came to visit me (actually they are still in India but traveling without me), and last week we went to Meghalaya, Assam, Sikkim, and Calcutta. The highlight for me was hiking to living root bridges (yes, these bridges are alive!) in the Khasi Hills of Meghalaya.
Now you know where Meghalaya is.
The people in this region of Meghalaya belong to the Khasi tribe. The ancestors of the Khasi tribe, the war-Khasi, grew bridges; they trained the trees to cross the river! These bridges don't exist anywhere else in the world. I don't understand how the hell someone can train a tree, but check out these websites for more information: http://rootbridges.blogspot.com/ http://www.cherrapunjee.com/index.php?mid=66&pid=66
To get to these bridges, we hiked through Khasi villages and forest. The hike was about 18 km roundtrip I think, and probably 8 of those kilometers were entirely stairs. We started at 9am and returned at 5pm. So it was quite exhausting, but worth it! The villages, scenery, and bridges were all spectacular. The amazingness can only be expressed in pictures:
view of the Khasi Hills and an escarpment at the beginning of the hike
entering Tyrna village
the trail officially starts behind this church
Ben and Joel enjoy descending several kilometers of stairs
did I mention the stairs?! definitely did some damage to our knees. and yeah, we'll have to ascend those later.
Humongous boulders in the river (which I assume is full during the monsoon)
Ben and Joel couldn't resist taking a break from the hiking to go bouldering
our first root bridge!
at over 100 ft, this is the longest bridge
Ben crosses the bridge. I think it's awesome that the war-Khasis trained the trees to make handrails!
another root bridge
root bridges in series
look at the color of the water. awesome.
mini waterfall and a shadow of the steel rope bridge
The steel rope bridges were less sturdy than the living root bridges.
crazy scenery
the end of the hike (halfway point? we had to walk the entire trail back) was the incredible double decker bridge
Khasi villagers on the lower deck
the upper deck
crossing the upper deck
both decks
Khasi girl crossing the lower deck
we ate lunch on a giant boulder in the middle of the river by the double decker bridge
on our way back, Joel and Ben conquer a big boulder in Nongriat village
I don't understand how this rock is balancing.
in a Khasi village
Ben climbing back up way too many stairs
our hike ended with a nice sunset over the hills. Bangladesh is on the other side of that hill.
Ben and Joel return to Delhi tomorrow, and they will be here for two days. After they leave I'll write about the rest of our trip.
Two weeks ago, I went to the Himalayas, and I could actually BREATHE. I took so many deep breaths, just because I could without inhaling death.
I flew into the airport at Bhuntar, Kullu Valley, and the views of the mountains made me unbelievably happy and excited. Even before touchdown I thought, "why again am I stuck in Delhi?" Then I took the bus up the Kullu Valley to Manali, which is famous for Israeli backpackers getting high on charas. This weekend, though, Manali was crawling with Punjabi tourists, because it was a long weekend for Guru Nanak's birthday (Guru Nanak is the founder of Sikhism, and most Sikhs are Punjabi).
After finding a hotel in Manali, I hopped in a taxi to tackle the first leg of the Manali-Leh road to Rohtang La, a mountain pass at about 4000 meters that separates Kullu Valley from Lahaul and Spiti Valleys. Indian tourists from the plains visit the pass to touch snow for the first time. In fact, when I got there, some Tibetan guy offered me a horse ride to "touch the snow" for Rs 1000 (the snow was about a half kilometer higher). I laughed, because I'm not paying US$20 to touch snow!! Then I explained that I grew up with snow, so no thanks.
road to Rohtang La
view from the road to Rohtang La
view from the road to Rohtang La
Rohtang La certainly delivered the spectacular views I was promised. See my previous post, "This is where I am." for two pictures. Here are some more:
chorten under construction
road back from Rohtang La
road back from Rohtang La
On my second day, I went on an all-day hike (about 6 or 7 hours, I think). I was supposed to go to Lama Dugh meadow, but there was a slight change of plans. Twice.
1) After climbing up for about an hour and a half, we found that the trail was blocked by a pile of big rocks, probably a landslide. So we walked back down, and the guide said we would go to a village instead.
2) We went back up again, this time in a different direction. Eventually we heard really strange rumbling noises, and then we saw that some villagers were cutting down trees and rolling the logs down the hill--right on the trail. Probably not a safe place to be. Luckily the guide knew an alternate route to the village.
this isn't even the steepest part
Despite the route changes, the hike was really peaceful and beautiful. We spent most of the time in pine forest, saw snowcapped mountains, and walked through apple orchards and villages. The orange, yellow, and red leaves on the deciduous trees made me especially happy, because I haven't really seen leaves turning since I started Stanford and they reminded me of autumn at home. We passed a lot of villagers on the way, and I instinctively said "kuzuzangpo la," which is "hello" in various Bhutanese languages. Even though Kullu Valley does not look particularly like Bhutan, I guess I subconsciously associated hiking to a village in the mountains with Bhutan. Of course no one knew what "kuzuzangpo la" meant and gave me strange looks. And that happened more than once. Oops.
deciduous trees!!
villagers
I got some beautiful views during the hike
the village we hiked to
with my guide in the village
After my hike, I rewarded my exhausted self with chai, a nap, and some shopping. I bought a few Kashmiri salwar kameezes (it's impossible to resist a Kashmiri salesman) and a traditional Kullu shawl. My salwar kameez wardrobe now totals 10--but none are stitched (you buy sets of fabric). I really need to find a good tailor!
On my last day in Manali, I visited a Hindu temple, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, and a Tibetan Buddhist temple. The Hindu temple, Hadimba Mandir, was very different from the temples I've seen on the northern plains and Deccan plateau. The temple was wooden and set in a very nice park setting with huge pine trees and boulders. There were some basic wooden carvings and hanging yak horns, but overall it was pretty simple (whereas temples in Tamil Nadu are quite elaborate). Inside the temple, there was a mini cave that you had to bend down to go into (really just a rock with an overhang that you could squat under) and the idol was very small. The temple was crawling with Punjabi school children in uniforms; I guess the school was taking advantage of the long weekend for an extended field trip.
Hadimba Mandir
I saw some signs pointing to another temple, so I decided to go check it out. To get to this temple, one has to walk through a mini-amusement park, complete with a small ferris wheel, a few bungee-trampoline contraptions, yak rides, and an area where people can dress up in traditional Kullu clothing and take a picture. A surprising number of Indian tourists actually did put on the Kullu clothing and take pictures, but the yaks were less popular.
mini-amusement park immediately outside Hadimba Mandir. notice the yaks and the girl in the air
girl dressing up in traditional Kullu clothing for a photo op
After passing through the mini-amusement park, I could not find the temple. I asked someone in Hindi where the temple was, and they pointed at a decorated tree. Well, I had seen the tree! The "temple," apparently, was this tree.
a "temple"
I expected the Tibetan Buddhist monastery to be pretty much the same as the monasteries in Bhutan. Most of the imagery and architecture were the same or very similar, but there was a helluva lot of political stuff that is, of course, completely absent from Bhutanese monasteries.
At the entrance to the monastery, there is a huge billboard with the Dalai Lama's smiling face on it that says in Hindi and English: "Thank you India! 50 years of Tibet in Exile." When you walk in, you see a big sign by the prayer wheels that explains in English how the Chinese are carrying out cultural genocide and all these horrible human rights atrocities. After the prayer wheels, you pass another sign with a painted version of the photo of the Panchen Lama (you know, the one of the kid in the orange sweater) and a long explanation in English and Tibetan about how the Chinese captured him and he hasn't been seen since. Inside the lhakhang (or at least that's what it's called in Bhutan; is it the same word in Tibetan? basically the temple room) there were several pictures of the Dalai Lama, including one mounted on the same type of fabric thing as a thangka (painting) with his autograph on it (very sports star-style) and another huge one that was framed and placed in the throne-like chair in front of the Buddha statue that the head lama usually sits in.
looking inside the lhakhang
But my favorite thing in the whole monastery was a picture of the Panchen Lama's face superimposed onto the body of an actual lama, obviously photoshopped. I thought it was hilarious--I mean, a child's face superimposed onto an adult body! I actually giggled aloud. ...but then a monk gave me a dirty look and I realized it is actually kinda sad and I'm the most disrespectful person ever. Because this photo was inside the lhakhang, I wasn't allowed to take a picture of it. Otherwise I totally would have so I could show you.
Tibetan women take part in a puja with prayer wheels
Despite the dirty look I got from the monk, a nun invited me to drink butter tea with her on the roof. I actually managed to drink the entire cup of butter tea, and I do not like butter tea (it's like drinking liquid butter). The mugs of course had a political message on it: "Peace can only exist where human rights are respected." The most exciting part of this spontaneous tea-on-the-roof get-together was that my conversation with the nun was entirely in Hindi. My first-ever conversation (excluding those with autowallahs) in which I didn't switch into English at some point! I am very proud of myself.
The nun who gave me butter tea watches the puja below.
Tibetan Buddhist temple. I love prayer flags.
chorten - you circumambulate this a minimum of 3 times in order to acquire merit for your karma
Then I ate delicious momos. Yum.
My supposed-to-be-14-but-ended-up-being-16-hour bus ride was awful. The first two hours were fine because no one was sitting next to me. However, when we reached Kullu, a 50-something French hippie boarded and sat next to me. And she smelled like she hadn't showered in weeks. She came on the bus with this super sketchy Indian man, who looked sort of like a sadhu but fully clothed (possibly due to the cold). About an hour later, as I was falling asleep, I felt her fingering my jacket, looking for the pockets. Luckily nothing was in my pockets, but then I stayed awake the entire night thinking she was going to steal from me. Damn smelly French hippie! Because my bus arrived in Delhi two hours late, by the time I got home I literally less than 5 minutes to change into work clothes before I had to leave for work. I really hope I didn't smell like that hippie.
And now for "your moment of Zen":
if you want to pay full-price, this is the shop for you!
Sareeta and I ride a camel at the Pushkar Camel Fair
Three weeks ago Sareeta, Sophie (PiA bridge year girl--she's between high school and college), and I went to Agra and Pushkar. We went to Agra for the Taj Mahal (duh) and Pushkar for the annual Pushkar Camel Fair, where 50,000 camels plus thousands of horses and cattle are traded. Because Sareeta and I were taking Sophie, PiA completely paid for the trip!
This was my second time to the Taj, and it was MUCH more successful than my first time. This is best demonstrated with pictures:
First visit, December 2007
This visit, October 2009, soon after sunrise
This visit, October 2009, 9:30ish with Sareeta
After visiting the Taj, we had planned to go to Agra Fort. Unfortunately, Sophie got sick and we had to cancel those plans (I've been there before and Sareeta is going back to Agra when her parents visit, so neither of us were particularly disappointed).
Due to some circumstances I still don't really understand, we ended up going to a marble shop (though we were told we were going to this guy's house). I was really annoyed because I thought the driver was doing that whole commission thing. Well, it turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. The most amazing thing happened!
I said something in Hindi, and then the salesman said that another white girl from California (I said I studied in California) visited his shop the previous week and was learning Hindi in Rishikesh, which is where he had lived. Sareeta then exclaimed that her family was from near Rishikesh, in Dehradun. This man said that he too was from Dehradun! After some name-dropping, it turned out that this man had grown up in the same housing compound as Sareeta's mother and was her uncle's best friend!! Sareeta recognized his name (she heard his name in a bunch of her mother's and uncle's childhood stories). This man had lost touch with Sareeta's family when they moved to the US, and he had been trying to reconnect with them for over 30 years. And now they are reconnected, because we walked into the right marble shop, one of dozens in Agra. Even in a country of over a billion people, it's a small world. Unbelievable.
After this astounding coincidence, we headed to Pushkar, where we met up with Katrina and Kris (Katrina also works at TERI, and Kris is her fiance). On the way we saw many camels on the road, presumably also going to the camel fair:
Camels take the highway to Pushkar, apparently. (blurry because I was in a moving car)
This was my first time to Rajasthan, which I had skipped during my backpacking trip two years ago. Even though I didn't go to any major sights (Rajasthan is famous for its forts and palaces), I can see why it is so firmly on the tourist track. Despite the desert backdrop, Rajasthan is insanely colorful. Women's saris, salwar kameezes, and traditional Rajasthani dresses are extremely vibrant, more than most other places in India, and the men wear vivid turbans--I swear I even saw highlighter yellow!
Rajasthani women in bright clothing
Pushkar has a lake that is considered sacred by Hindus, and on the last day of the camel fair hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims take a dip (we went on the first day of the fair, because we had heard that there is a huge increase in tourists toward the end and by then most of the camel traders and their livestock leave). Well, we didn't get to see this holy lake, because it was drained for a construction project only a few days earlier. They (not clear who "they" are) set up a swimming pool for daily bathing and the festival immersion. Why they didn't wait ten days until the festival was over is beyond my comprehension. ...Lots of things in India are beyond my comprehension.
drained Pushkar lake--notice the swimming pool in the lower left corner
We spent most our time walking around the fairgrounds, but we also rode in a camel-pulled cart and on camel humps (see first picture, above)! Here are pictures:
the fairgrounds with camels as far as the eye can see
butthead!
Camel traders chill under their camel carts. They all did this, and I thought it was a brilliant idea. Note the curious camel face on the left.
A lot of the camels had messages and Hindu symbols shaved into their fur. Many also had flowers on their noses.
A Rajasthani camel trader leads his proud camels. Check out his wicked 'stache.
Camel accessories
Did I mention there were 50,000 camels?
And now I will end this post with a WTF?! picture, or as John Stewart would call it, "your moment of Zen":
Two weeks ago I went to Bangalore to celebrate Diwali with Angela, a friend from Pondicherry University and hang out with Pema, a friend from Thimphu, Bhutan. The whole weekend was awesome, and Diwali was amazing. We lit fireworks on Angie's roof while watching a 360-degree show of fireworks, both in the air and on the streets. Photos and videos can express this spectacle better than my words:
special fireworks booth set up for Diwali in Angela's neighborhood
fireworks on the street and in the air, viewed from Angela's roof
Angela and I play with sparklers
Angela lighting "flowerpot" fireworks
[video unable to upload]
360-view of fireworks (note: this video does not do the scene justice! unfortunately I was not videotaping during the best parts)
(I will add more pictures to my Picasa page soon.)
And of course we ate lots and lots of sweets, which is what one does on Diwali.
The day after Diwali I hung out with Pema, who is studying and working in Bangalore. He works at a call center overnight and gets home from work at 5am. Painful. We went to Lal Bagh, a big park with botanical gardens, and hung out in a giant tree (Pema said it was the biggest tree he'd ever seen, if you discount banyan trees):
super awkward sitting-in-a-tree picture. I almost want to submit this awkwardness to awkwardfamilyphotos.com, even though we aren't family. I swear our day wasn't as awkward as this picture may suggest.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to Kullu and Manali in the Himalayas for the long weekend (we have Monday off for the birthday of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism). I am psyched for hiking, mountain vistas, cold temperatures (-5 degrees C at night) and, most importantly, CLEAN AIR!!
...I'm only getting more and more behind on my blog.
Oh, and I must end this post with the greatest picture of all:
the best masala dosa in all of India, in Hotel Janatha in Malleshwaram
Ok, this is going to be a short post because I'm feeling lazy and there isn't that much to say. I went to a fort and walked around Old Town. The fort was cool because it was on a big rocky hill above the town, so there are great views of the entire town from the fort. And, since it was above the town, I could breathe (almost) fresh air up there!! On the walk up to the fort, you pass some interesting Jain carvings. The palace inside the fort has yellow rubber duckies painted on the side, so that was pretty funny. Most of the buildings have a spooky abandoned-warehouse feel. There were even bats! A lot of local Gwalior residents utilize the fort as a park. I talked to a few high school students who say they go up there every weekend to hang out and climb all over the abandoned buildings.
Though there wasn't much to see in Old Town, I enjoyed walking around. For some reason it reminded me of all the reasons I love India, so that made me really happy.
I've been meaning to post about my three-day weekend (for Gandhi's birthday) trip to Orchha and Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh for a while now. So here is Part I: Orchha...
It rained almost my entire time in Orchha, so I didn't do much sightseeing. The streets turned into shin-high rivers and stairs into waterfalls. I visited one palace and that was about it (though there was another palace, a few temples, and chhaatris (cenotaphs)). Oh well. For pictures of the palace and other pictures of Orchha, visit my Picasa page: http://picasaweb.google.com/egorbaty/Orchha#
While walking around the village, a 10-year-old girl came up to me trying to sell me things. This is not unusual at all, but she wouldn't leave me alone. So I decided to change the subject away from her souvenirs. I asked her if she went to school, and she said yes. She got so excited by my interest in her schooling that she took me to her street and went inside her house to get her books and show me. She then asked me if I liked henna,* and I said of course! Well, this was a mistake. She ran around the corner and returned with eight more children, one of which was armed with a henna* cone. Without asking if I wanted any henna,* she and a few others grabbed my hand. I tried to protest, but there were so many kids and there was nothing I could do about it.
After the henna* attack, one of the girls invited everyone to her father's restaurant for chai (and by restaurant, I mean the grungy hole-in-the-wall type). On our walk over, a few other kids came up to me to try to sell me souvenirs. But the henna* warriors told them not to bother me, because "yeh humari dost hai!" (she is our friend). It was very cute. And then the chai was excellent. Unfortunately, however, the chai pit stop gave the henna* time to dry (I had intended to wash it off ASAP) so that I am now stuck with the world's worst henna on my skin.
Some of the children who attacked me with henna.* There were a few more not pictured.
Lesson learned: do not allow children to doodle on your skin with henna.* ...It doesn't wash off. (Regarding the frizz: your hair wouldn't look any better after an overnight train + bus ride + strong winds + endless rain)
Because it was raining too hard to sightsee, I decided to go hole-in-the-wall hopping. I went from one place to another, trying a samosa in one, poori in another, chai in another, talking to the cooks and waiters in Hindi (or, rather, attempting to). Until, to my surprise, I ran into this:
That is Korean. In an Indian village. Curious, I went inside and asked to see a menu. This too was in Korean, complete with cutesy Korean-style rainbow and clouds:
I tried to explain in Hindi that my friend was studying Korean and spent her summer in Korea, but the waiter seemed unexcited. So I changed my story and said my friend was from Korea--even though she is from Kuwait--and he was much more excited about this. (It apparently didn't matter that a Korean spending her summer learning Korean made no sense.) I asked him why he had Korean signs and a Korean menu (complete with "gimchee," which I assume is kimchi), and he said that Orchha sees a lot of Korean tourists. And alas, as I was leaving, a Korean woman walked in.
A post about Gwalior is up next, so stay tuned.
*I do not know the difference between henna and mehndi. I used the term henna here because that is what we tend to say in the West, but I actually do not know which term is correct.
view of Jagannath Temple from the roof of Raghunandan Library
