We'll I've run out of time to sort through all of my India material. I may have to finish writing about India from Thailand. The sheer number of pictures I took in India (963), combined with only hand-written notes and the lingering jet lag I experienced for more than a week made keeping on top of this journal tricky. I'm taking a small laptop with me to Thailand so my posts will hopefully be more timely.
Wish me luck. I'm off to sit at LAX for three hours before flying for another 19 hours via Hong Kong to Bangkok.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Returning Home
10-11-2008 Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Dehli, India
I am more eager to get home from a trip than I can ever recall. I've cancelled my last night in the hotel and changed my airline tickets so that I can arrive home a day early. Now I'm waiting here in the airport for about three hours after travelling for 12 hours by sleeper train from Varanasi and taking a long taxi ride to the airport. Then it's just 20 hours of flying and I'm home. I'm going to be painfully tired seeing as how I'm already weary.
International airports are bizzare and amazing places. They strike me as the closest thing we have to the energy and excitement that a railway station like Grand Central must have engendered in the heyday of train travel. People come and go from seemingly all ends of the earth. The destinations are scrolling off on a large digital screen above my head. Direct flights depart soon for Dubai, Mumbai, Munich, London, Shanghai, Kathmandu, Abu Dhabi, Lahore, Sharjah, Beijing, Hong Kong, Dhaka, Bangkok, Kabul, Karachi, and Muscat. I teach geography for a living and I don't even recognize all of these places.
What's more, I sit now only a kilometer or two from real poverty and desperate need. Air travel reinforces class distinctions more than any other common activity. First, it's only the rich, by global standards, who ever board an airplane. Next, the airports and airlines, even the layout of the planes themselves are all designed to encourage class separation and conciousness. After travelling in India, I can't help but see this as a kind of global caste system. Of course the difference is that no one is condemned to a lifetime or generations in coach caste, at least not in theory.
Finally, though I hate to dwell on the seemingly negative, I have to relate a story that explains well how different India is from home and, for that matter, why travel here is so disconcerting. Last night I purchased and enjoyed a thali, a box dinner, while waiting for the train to leave the station. After finishing, I collected up a small bag of the remaining garbage (a cardboard box, plastic utensils, two small plastic cups, assorted napkins and cardboard plates). I exited the train with this mess hoping, against my better judgement, to find a rubbish bin, knowing all too well that one wasn't likely to exist. I approached an officious and well-dressed security officer standing guard on the platform and proceeded to tell him, using gestures and facial expressions, that I was looking for somewhere to dispose of the rubbish. At first he couldn't even conceive of my need (of course, I'm the one who'se confused; I'm in India, after all). Then, with a shock of understanding, he walked me over to the side of the tracks and indicated, as I'd suspected, that I should throw the garbage on the ground, next to his carefully polished patent leather shoes. I tossed the mess aside, nodding to him sideways as Indians do, and walked back on the train.
I am more eager to get home from a trip than I can ever recall. I've cancelled my last night in the hotel and changed my airline tickets so that I can arrive home a day early. Now I'm waiting here in the airport for about three hours after travelling for 12 hours by sleeper train from Varanasi and taking a long taxi ride to the airport. Then it's just 20 hours of flying and I'm home. I'm going to be painfully tired seeing as how I'm already weary.
International airports are bizzare and amazing places. They strike me as the closest thing we have to the energy and excitement that a railway station like Grand Central must have engendered in the heyday of train travel. People come and go from seemingly all ends of the earth. The destinations are scrolling off on a large digital screen above my head. Direct flights depart soon for Dubai, Mumbai, Munich, London, Shanghai, Kathmandu, Abu Dhabi, Lahore, Sharjah, Beijing, Hong Kong, Dhaka, Bangkok, Kabul, Karachi, and Muscat. I teach geography for a living and I don't even recognize all of these places.
What's more, I sit now only a kilometer or two from real poverty and desperate need. Air travel reinforces class distinctions more than any other common activity. First, it's only the rich, by global standards, who ever board an airplane. Next, the airports and airlines, even the layout of the planes themselves are all designed to encourage class separation and conciousness. After travelling in India, I can't help but see this as a kind of global caste system. Of course the difference is that no one is condemned to a lifetime or generations in coach caste, at least not in theory.
Finally, though I hate to dwell on the seemingly negative, I have to relate a story that explains well how different India is from home and, for that matter, why travel here is so disconcerting. Last night I purchased and enjoyed a thali, a box dinner, while waiting for the train to leave the station. After finishing, I collected up a small bag of the remaining garbage (a cardboard box, plastic utensils, two small plastic cups, assorted napkins and cardboard plates). I exited the train with this mess hoping, against my better judgement, to find a rubbish bin, knowing all too well that one wasn't likely to exist. I approached an officious and well-dressed security officer standing guard on the platform and proceeded to tell him, using gestures and facial expressions, that I was looking for somewhere to dispose of the rubbish. At first he couldn't even conceive of my need (of course, I'm the one who'se confused; I'm in India, after all). Then, with a shock of understanding, he walked me over to the side of the tracks and indicated, as I'd suspected, that I should throw the garbage on the ground, next to his carefully polished patent leather shoes. I tossed the mess aside, nodding to him sideways as Indians do, and walked back on the train.
Varanasi
10-9-2008 Varanasi
India is the most culturally colorful and photogenic place I've seen on earth yet. It matters not at all which direction you direct your camera. All is interesting. Every scene and image requires interpretation, triggers fascination. In no place in India was this more true than Varanasi, an ancient city on the Ganges river - a city so old that it's known by its Sanskrit as often as by its Hindi name, Benares. The noise and chaos and color of India are strikingly, shockingly ever-present here.
To get a sense of its engergy imagine New York City during rush hour. Now take away 90% of the cars and taxis and add instead large cows, goats, dirty old dogs, emaciated children, rusting steel rickshaws, hundreds of bicycles, thousands of pilgrims, blaring loudspeakers, families of four and five sharing a single motorcycles, cow shit underfoot, human shit in the alleys. Don't forget to add a hundred happy, smiling children in the cleanest, brightest clothing imaginable. Now, make one half of everyone march east in the street and the rest should run west. If you throw in a medeival market and a small circus, you'll get a sense of what Varanasi is at sunset during festival season.
As I rolled from city to city and gazed upon the Indian lanscape outside the window, I couldn't help but lament the fate of India's urban and suburban rivers and streams. They are sewers, full of garbage, pigs, cattle, and human beings evacuating. I pray the future of the world's rivers doesn't look like this. Obviously in the waterways look better, but they're hardly pristine. The EPA reports that in the United States 60% of surface waters are not fit to swim in, let alone drink. I can only imagine in horror what the figures must be here.
The results of this kind of abuse are obvious, especially in communities where the majority depend daily on these rivers. The ecologist E.O. Wilson suggests in his writings that humans have an innate love of nature. Karl Marx too argued that humans normally love nature. He thought that the greed inherent in capitalism was the root cause of environmental abuse. He wrote that in a communistic state the natural world would inevitably thrive, but after 70 years of planned economies the Soviet Union was perhaps the most polluted country on earth. Here in India, where rivers are celebrated and sacred, it becomes obvious that we humans are casual abusers of the land when we crowd together. Capitalism can h
ardly be the cause of the problem in the rural areas I visited. It's barely taken hold in these agrarian areas. I suspect that only careful, deliberate efforts and action will protect the world's natural resources. Neither the 'free' market, communism, nor human nature will solve this fundamental problem.
Levels of pollutants in the Gang
es by the time it reaches Varanasi are infamous. One report I read stated that fecal choliform bacteria levels are 17,000 times U.S. EPA standards for safe drinking. And yet, thousands of pilgrims come to the ghats of Varanasi to cleanse away their sins in its holy water. It's a beautiful and moving spectacle, maybe more so because of what I know about the scientific status of the river. I was amazed to learn that pilgrims collect the water and take it home to store and savor for months.
India is the most culturally colorful and photogenic place I've seen on earth yet. It matters not at all which direction you direct your camera. All is interesting. Every scene and image requires interpretation, triggers fascination. In no place in India was this more true than Varanasi, an ancient city on the Ganges river - a city so old that it's known by its Sanskrit as often as by its Hindi name, Benares. The noise and chaos and color of India are strikingly, shockingly ever-present here.
To get a sense of its engergy imagine New York City during rush hour. Now take away 90% of the cars and taxis and add instead large cows, goats, dirty old dogs, emaciated children, rusting steel rickshaws, hundreds of bicycles, thousands of pilgrims, blaring loudspeakers, families of four and five sharing a single motorcycles, cow shit underfoot, human shit in the alleys. Don't forget to add a hundred happy, smiling children in the cleanest, brightest clothing imaginable. Now, make one half of everyone march east in the street and the rest should run west. If you throw in a medeival market and a small circus, you'll get a sense of what Varanasi is at sunset during festival season.
As I rolled from city to city and gazed upon the Indian lanscape outside the window, I couldn't help but lament the fate of India's urban and suburban rivers and streams. They are sewers, full of garbage, pigs, cattle, and human beings evacuating. I pray the future of the world's rivers doesn't look like this. Obviously in the waterways look better, but they're hardly pristine. The EPA reports that in the United States 60% of surface waters are not fit to swim in, let alone drink. I can only imagine in horror what the figures must be here.
The results of this kind of abuse are obvious, especially in communities where the majority depend daily on these rivers. The ecologist E.O. Wilson suggests in his writings that humans have an innate love of nature. Karl Marx too argued that humans normally love nature. He thought that the greed inherent in capitalism was the root cause of environmental abuse. He wrote that in a communistic state the natural world would inevitably thrive, but after 70 years of planned economies the Soviet Union was perhaps the most polluted country on earth. Here in India, where rivers are celebrated and sacred, it becomes obvious that we humans are casual abusers of the land when we crowd together. Capitalism can h
ardly be the cause of the problem in the rural areas I visited. It's barely taken hold in these agrarian areas. I suspect that only careful, deliberate efforts and action will protect the world's natural resources. Neither the 'free' market, communism, nor human nature will solve this fundamental problem.Levels of pollutants in the Gang
es by the time it reaches Varanasi are infamous. One report I read stated that fecal choliform bacteria levels are 17,000 times U.S. EPA standards for safe drinking. And yet, thousands of pilgrims come to the ghats of Varanasi to cleanse away their sins in its holy water. It's a beautiful and moving spectacle, maybe more so because of what I know about the scientific status of the river. I was amazed to learn that pilgrims collect the water and take it home to store and savor for months.
Rural India, Riding Elephants, and Wild Tigers
While taking a guided tour obviously limits your freedom, there are great advantages too. In Costa Rica I spent inordinate amounts of time planning and making reservations. This involved constant frustration with phone cards, hotel fax machines, and highly varied Costa Rican reservation requirements. Here in India I spend zero time worrying about these kinds of concerns and instead find that there is a planned journey or activity at all times. The downside of this is that serendipity becomes rare and moments of real discovery are uncommon
. In fact, at times I felt like I was flying over India, separate and protected in our air-conditioned bus. Much of what I witnessed here was see through the window of a bus, taxi, or train. There is no doubt in mind, however, that I travelled much more widely in India than I would have if I was acting independently. This was particularly true regarding rural India.
. In fact, at times I felt like I was flying over India, separate and protected in our air-conditioned bus. Much of what I witnessed here was see through the window of a bus, taxi, or train. There is no doubt in mind, however, that I travelled much more widely in India than I would have if I was acting independently. This was particularly true regarding rural India. We managed to visit small towns like Orcha and Mandu. We visited remote Bandavgarh National Park to search for Tigers. We spent an afternoon at Sanchi, one of the world's oldes
t Buddhist shrines. All of these places required lengthy journeys into the countryside and I'm so glad that my travels were not limited to urban India.
t Buddhist shrines. All of these places required lengthy journeys into the countryside and I'm so glad that my travels were not limited to urban India.In Orcha, a small town on the banks of the Betwa River that is littered with Hindu temples, I saw men and women who'd come to the temple in the center of town for the Navratri festival to worship the Shakti (mother)/Devi (Goddess) for nine days. Navratri actually means nine days in Sanskrit. Holy men in orange robes and imposing beards sat in the shade for hours. One of these, bugle in hand, loudly announced our arrival with a loud bleat from the instrument. Chanting and drummin
g went on from early morning until late in the evening. Loudspeakers blasted highly rhythmic music so loudly that it was distorted at numerous gaily-lighted shrines. These seemed to be constructed for the festival in every town and along every roadside at regular intervals. They reminded me greatly of the gaudy Christmas decorations one sees throughout America during Christmas.
g went on from early morning until late in the evening. Loudspeakers blasted highly rhythmic music so loudly that it was distorted at numerous gaily-lighted shrines. These seemed to be constructed for the festival in every town and along every roadside at regular intervals. They reminded me greatly of the gaudy Christmas decorations one sees throughout America during Christmas.
The Betwa was the only relatively clean waterway I saw in India. It's a beautiful river that carves its way across low rolling hills of tropical deciduous forest, exposing the bedrock below as bulbous white mounds of rock along the river course. On the banks of this river stand numerous ancient temples, many of them essentially abandoned today. I kep
t wondering at the neglect of historical architecture only to remind myself each time that care of such monuments is an incr
edible luxury afforded to the rich and often neglected even by them.
t wondering at the neglect of historical architecture only to remind myself each time that care of such monuments is an incr
edible luxury afforded to the rich and often neglected even by them.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Gwalior and Orcha
9-31-2008 Orcha, India
In almost every country I visit, including my own, I relax as I pull away from a large city. It's ironic that I live in such a dense urban area as Glendale. I often think I'd be happier in the countryside, despite the lack of cultural options. The same was true in India. Smaller cities like Gwalior and small towns such as Orcha are easier to digest, though foreign tourists definitely draw more attention in these places.
In Gwalior we visited an ancient hilltop fort, sometimes referred to as the Gibraltar of India. On the road up to the fort there are ancient Jain carvings, suggesting that Gwalior was one of the first centers of Jain worship. The are remarkably similar to Buddhist scultures of the same time period and later eras. Later, we saw a first-class hotel in the former home of the last Maharaja of Gwalior during the British Raj period. All were fascinating. Gwalior occupies a strategic location in the low hills in northern India and has been taken by many empires. The fort its
elf sits on a rock outcropping well above the city and drainages below and is so old that it was built by Hindus but later occupied and expanded by Muslim invaders, including Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal and Agra's Red Fort. The great Mughal emperor Babur reportedly thought of Gwalior Fort as the jewel of all Hindu forts. The audacity of the massive fort and the expansiveness of it's grand stone rooms and underground halls call to mind the palaces depicted in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I didn't realize that such a place really existed, with its multiple levels of underground chambers, secret passages, stone carvings, complex water channels, and seemingly miles of solid stone fortifications. Remnants of colorful paintings and decorative detail are peeling away. The stonework can only be described as monumental. Architectural references are a mix of Hindu elephants, Islamic arches, and Greco-Roman insipired columns. The subterranean women's room, a place of safe-keeping for the queen and harem during battles, used stone shafts carved to the surface and then focused by diamonds for illumination. This room was turned into a very effective dungeoun by the Mughal invaders.
On the train from Jhansi to Bhopal I had a nice talk with a man from Bhopal. He works for a subsidiary of Tata, India's dominant automobile manufacturer. His branch does telecom infrastructure. Like many middle class and wealthy Indians, he is well-educated, with degrees in engineering and an MBA. His wife is a math teacher in the Indian equivalent of high school and together they have a five-year old son. Obviously proud of his country, he suggested all the places our tour guide should take us that we are not scheduled to see. Having no power to change the itinerary of my tour, I forgot all of his suggestions straight away. Still it was very nice to meet him and chat about his country. Bhopal was described as booming economically and "very developed" by our guide. While we only spent a night there, it didn't look developed by Western standards. This is in stark contrast to the economic expansion I saw first hand in China in 2003. Neither Delhi nor Bhopal appeared to have a single office tower or skyscraper, whereas China has so many and is building so many more than I predict a massive economic retreat, even a collapse, in China when they realize they've overbuilt. Nothing like that in India. No rooftop, rotating restaurants here.
Out the bus window today I saw small girls in traditional saris doing homework on wet ground outside of mud huts as a fiery sun set the puddles to glimmering. I saw men with long, wiry physiques and fantastically thick black hair walking and sitting everywhere. All were shiny clean in their western-style dress shirts and carefully combed hair. They must shave every day.
Every bus, every truck honks as they pass on the right. The noise is insane. The back end of trucks is often painted with "Honk Horn Please." There's seemingly no need to ask.
In almost every country I visit, including my own, I relax as I pull away from a large city. It's ironic that I live in such a dense urban area as Glendale. I often think I'd be happier in the countryside, despite the lack of cultural options. The same was true in India. Smaller cities like Gwalior and small towns such as Orcha are easier to digest, though foreign tourists definitely draw more attention in these places.
In Gwalior we visited an ancient hilltop fort, sometimes referred to as the Gibraltar of India. On the road up to the fort there are ancient Jain carvings, suggesting that Gwalior was one of the first centers of Jain worship. The are remarkably similar to Buddhist scultures of the same time period and later eras. Later, we saw a first-class hotel in the former home of the last Maharaja of Gwalior during the British Raj period. All were fascinating. Gwalior occupies a strategic location in the low hills in northern India and has been taken by many empires. The fort its
elf sits on a rock outcropping well above the city and drainages below and is so old that it was built by Hindus but later occupied and expanded by Muslim invaders, including Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal and Agra's Red Fort. The great Mughal emperor Babur reportedly thought of Gwalior Fort as the jewel of all Hindu forts. The audacity of the massive fort and the expansiveness of it's grand stone rooms and underground halls call to mind the palaces depicted in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I didn't realize that such a place really existed, with its multiple levels of underground chambers, secret passages, stone carvings, complex water channels, and seemingly miles of solid stone fortifications. Remnants of colorful paintings and decorative detail are peeling away. The stonework can only be described as monumental. Architectural references are a mix of Hindu elephants, Islamic arches, and Greco-Roman insipired columns. The subterranean women's room, a place of safe-keeping for the queen and harem during battles, used stone shafts carved to the surface and then focused by diamonds for illumination. This room was turned into a very effective dungeoun by the Mughal invaders.On the train from Jhansi to Bhopal I had a nice talk with a man from Bhopal. He works for a subsidiary of Tata, India's dominant automobile manufacturer. His branch does telecom infrastructure. Like many middle class and wealthy Indians, he is well-educated, with degrees in engineering and an MBA. His wife is a math teacher in the Indian equivalent of high school and together they have a five-year old son. Obviously proud of his country, he suggested all the places our tour guide should take us that we are not scheduled to see. Having no power to change the itinerary of my tour, I forgot all of his suggestions straight away. Still it was very nice to meet him and chat about his country. Bhopal was described as booming economically and "very developed" by our guide. While we only spent a night there, it didn't look developed by Western standards. This is in stark contrast to the economic expansion I saw first hand in China in 2003. Neither Delhi nor Bhopal appeared to have a single office tower or skyscraper, whereas China has so many and is building so many more than I predict a massive economic retreat, even a collapse, in China when they realize they've overbuilt. Nothing like that in India. No rooftop, rotating restaurants here.
Out the bus window today I saw small girls in traditional saris doing homework on wet ground outside of mud huts as a fiery sun set the puddles to glimmering. I saw men with long, wiry physiques and fantastically thick black hair walking and sitting everywhere. All were shiny clean in their western-style dress shirts and carefully combed hair. They must shave every day.
Every bus, every truck honks as they pass on the right. The noise is insane. The back end of trucks is often painted with "Honk Horn Please." There's seemingly no need to ask.
In Orcha yesterday we saw the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh arrive at the temple for a visit. His strutting entrance with his entourage was grand in a way that U.S. politicians can only envy since they are carefully locked in automobiles whenever they arrive anywhere. See if you can find any women in this video.
This is typical of many Indian street scenes and public places. I have not seen a single woman waiting tables, driving a car, or staffing a shop. Women are hard to find unless you are wandering near homes. Before visiting India I had no idea how limited the role of women is in the average household. I knew that India had elected women such as Indira Gandhi to the highest political offices so I assumed a kind of elightened attitude about feminism. This is a terrible mistake. It can be dangerous to be a daughter-in-law in India. According to news reports and the testimony of our female Indian tour guide, dowry-related killings continue to be reported in the thousands each year. Many other mother-in-laws simply torment and harrass their daughters-in-law. Of course most women are not so badly abused (or abused at all) but dowries are still common, despite being technically illegal, and the role of women is incredibly limited in public. Our guide, for example, can only hope that the man her father and mother choose for her will let her continue to work.
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