Delhi at Dawn

Slightly more than seven months ago, I awoke before dawn and could not fall back to sleep for the excitement I felt exploding inside me as Jenna and I prepared to embark on our trip to India.

Likewise, Monday morning in Delhi, I awoke in the pre-dawn darkness and could not fall back to sleep. For on this day, Jenna and I were set to leave India--first traveling through Paris and then back to the US.

Instead of attempting to fall back asleep, I made my way to the rooftop terrace of our hotel and watched the sun rise over Delhi, this smoldering cauldron of humanity. (The paper today said ground-level ozone readings would be at dangerously high levels.) A haze certainly hung over the skyline, but the sun peaked out of the gray patina and lit up the muted darkness. Along the street below me, rickshaws buzzed by and a cow mooed. Smartly dressed students--looking so similar to the ones Jenna and I had taught in Kerala--stepped around the piles of cow shit on their way to school. A chaiwallah barked out pleas for passers-by to stop at his stall.

I could barely fathom the life I had led for the past seven months. And I could hardly look forward and contemplate the life Jenna and I would have in the coming days and weeks. But on this rooftop in Delhi, watching the sunrise, I knew our decision to come to India had been a good one. And I could, then, fall back to sleep.

A Foreign Land

Jenna and I arrived back in Delhi near midnight on Monday after a slothful eight-hour train ride from Amritsar. With less than three days left in our 'India adventure', a certain reflectiveness has entered our thoughts. To counteract this, we went out to Delhi's Connaught Place and shopped till we (or, at least I) dropped.

We both have feared our fashion habits have fallen into ill repute over the past eight months. Living hand-to-mouth in India does not inspire in one a great since or care for fashion. But the mindset is understandably different in Paris. Therefore, Jenna and I today bought some items we thought would make us appear if not totally sartorial at least presentable--jeans, some branded T-shirts, a nice button-up, and a frilly-trimmed blouse for Jenna.

This type of consumer therapy helped me momentarily forget any pangs of anxiety I was feeling for leaving this once-in-a-lifetime experience, but some reading I did later made me think about it again.

I have been on top of Edward Said's critical study Orientalism, an illuminating if rather dry academic text. A quote stuck out for me. Said was actually quoting Victor Hugo, when he wrote: "The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land."

It made me reflect that, indeed, when Jenna and I travel home, the US will feel like a 'foreign land'--the differences between American and Indian culture, in some ways, so stark and drastic to be beyond the scope of this short entry. In Said's analysis, this is an advantage for the open-minded traveler (something I hope I have been). He says in response to Hugo's words, "The more one is able to leave one's cultural home, the more easily is one able to judge it, and the whole world as well, with the spiritual detachment and generosity necessary for true vision."

Like any visitor, I have judged India by my own context and history, my own experiences and opinions. I have loved this country at many times, and hated it frequently as well. I have been caught up in its grandeur and suffered through its chaos. I would never claim to 'know' India--or a version of India I hold inside my heart--but I hope that I have observed this land as calmly and with as much 'spiritual detachment and generosity' as I could.

Likewise, when I return to the US (and also briefly pass through France) I hope I carry the same generous spirit with me. For I will still be a traveler, an explorer, and in my own way, an adventurer. My 'native land' can still teach me and show me so much, in the same way that India did in a brief, frenzied bit of tutelage this past year.

I like Hugo's assertion that to the 'perfect' person, the 'entire world' is a 'foreign land'. It infers a bit of humility and liberal open-mindedness that, I think, is lacking all over the world (not just in America). But, at the same time, I also feel the necessary pang of native association. The US is my home and always will be. I am proudly American. What I can learn from it and give back to it is a new 'adventure' upon my return.

Time Stands Nearly Still

It felt especially appropriate to be in Amritsar today. For on this day (April 6), 92 years ago, Gandhi officially launched his first national satyagraha (or nonviolence) movement. And it was a tragedy in Amritsar one week after this official launch that propelled Gandhi's movement into full nationwide momentum.

On April 13, 1919, a squadron of 150 British soldiers led by Col. Dyer opened fire on a crowd of nearly 20,000 unarmed Indians in Amritsar's Jallianwala Bagh. The soldiers methodically pounded out more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition in a five-minute barrage. 379 Indians--including several children--were killed and another 1500 were injured. The incident set a spark to the young satyagraha movement, and Gandhi said the massacre was only more evidence that British rule had to end.

Jenna and I toured Jallianwala Bagh today and got a first-hand glimpse at the tragedy. It is an enclosed square, surrounded by stone walls on all four sides. In 1919, it was a field of scrub grass and a few dying trees. Only one entrance--a narrow stone lane--leads in and out. On that day in 1919, the British soldiers blocked that one entrance. They stood on a ledge five feet above the rest of the square and fired down on the crowd as they tried to scale the walls. The crumbling brick of the square is till pockmarked with bullet holes. Several dozen people even flung themselves into a well that was more than 30 feet deep to try and avoid the hail of bullets. That well still stands and is now named the Martyrs' Well.

India gives you glimpses of history every day--some of it positively ancient. But today, I do not think I had felt so close to it, especially considering our fortuitous timing.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Jenna and I have been 'on the road' in Northern India for nearly a month now and are eagerly anticipating a measure of relaxation. That will come next week, when we officially leave India on Tuesday. We first fly to Paris, where we will be hosted by my Uncle Kent and Aunt Antha, who are teaching in Europe for a semester. We will also get to hang out with my cousin Leah, who is already a freshman in high school!

After ten days in Paris, we will return to the US on Good Friday. We thought we might be sad to leave India but frankly, we have both been noticing cracks in our traveler's armor these past few weeks--a general tiredness of Indian food, a wariness of touts and auto-rickshaw drivers, exhaustion over the stares of the locals. Not to say that our seven-month adventure has not been life-altering (in so many untold ways), but if 'home is where the heart is' then ours is still firmly in the US.

My last update put us in Jodphur, in the state of Rajasthan. A lot has happened since that time. We spent five days in beautiful Udaipur (still in Rajasthan), and witnessed the country erupt over India's win in the Cricket World cup. Sheer madness.

After that, we took an overnight bus back to Delhi, which was surprisingly comfortable and private. We had our own sleek cabin with beds and tinted windows. The ride was rough but we slept much better than we had on any trains, planes, or cars we have rode in in the past year.

We stayed in Delhi one night and then took a lengthy eight-hour train ride north to the Sikh holy city of Amritsar, twenty miles from the Pakistan border in the province of Punjab. Sikhs are immediately identifiable for their regal turbans and well-manicured beards. Often, they are mistaken for Muslims in the West (to their detriment in a post-9/11 world). Sikhism developed in the 1500s in Punjab as a response to Islam and Hinduism. It combines elements of both religions and propounds a remarkably universal and tolerant philosophy. Jenna and I visited the Sikh holy shine--the Golden Temple. It's dome is encased in more than a half ton of solid gold.

We plan to return to Delhi in two days and then fly to Paris. Then, its home.

This quick post lacks pictures because the Internet cafes I have encountered in the north have very strict regulations about using USB drives. (I don't know if being so close to the border with Pakistan has anything to do with that.) Either way, I have not been able to download pictures. Apologies. I will as soon as I get a chance.

In the Blue City

The cities of Rajasthan all have similar names. Luckily, they are color-coded, like the pieces of a Sorry game board, to help novices tell them apart. Jaipur is the Pink City. Jaisalmer is the Golden City. Udaipur is the White City. And Jodhpur—to which Jenna and I alighted after our camel safari in Jaisalmer—is the Blue City.

Standing atop Jodhpur’s imposing Meherangarh Fort, looking out over the city’s old town, it is easy to see why. The squat, chop-a-block buildings of the district are painted a bright robin’s egg blue, as pale as the midday desert sky. Hindu custom centuries ago had it, that Brahmins—the top class in the still-functioning caste system—painted their abodes this color in order to identify themselves. The buildings remain this distinct color, though it is said that now anyone, regardless of their caste, can live in these places.

For Jenna and I, Jodphur was a brief stop on our continuing road through Rajasthan. We were here less than 24 hours, surviving a lugubrious six-hour drive from Jaisalmer with a bit of nausea and a touch of heat stroke. We counteracted our malaise the following morning in our own separate ways: I eagerly proceeded to Jodphur’s Meherengarh Fort; meanwhile, Jenna got a full-body massage.

Jodhpur’s fort was memorable in its own way, though to be frank, the Rajasthani forts were all starting to meld into one image in my memory. It has been like trying to distinguish between all the cathedrals one passes through in England or the duomos in Italy. After a while, despite your most studious efforts, they all start to look the same.

An anecdote, though, set it apart in my mind: when Meherengarh Fort was founded more than 500 years ago, the maharajah had to evict a hermit from the hill on which the fort was to be built (ancient eminent domain, I guess). The hermit cursed the fort, saying it would never have enough water. To counteract this curse, the Hindu priests of the time concluded that a human sacrifice had to be made to consecrate the fort. A brave warrior offered himself for the task and was summarily executed on the fort’s foundation blocks. He was buried underneath the fort, and that warrior’s modern-day relatives still come to the fort to pay homage to their ancestor and pray over the stone that marks his sacrifice.

After touring the fort, I returned to the hotel, where Jenna was happily sprawled out on our bed, having just completed her massage. We would remember Jodphur for our own different reasons.

A ground-level view of the walls of Meherengarh Fort in Jodhpur. I arrived early in the morning, before the sun had reached its ascent and the air was still relatively fresh and cool.

A man demonstrates the relaxing art of smoking the hookah, or water pipe. The hookah was used in olden times to smoke scented tobacco and opium. Again, this was just a demonstration.

The Blue City stretches out below the battlements of Meherengarh Fort in Jodhpur.

A man beginning the arduous process of tying a Rajasthani turban. See how long the fabric is, stretching out to more than twenty feet from his head. Turbans have been fashionable in Rajasthan for centuries, still worn regularly by many men. The bright colors and patterns tell the wearers' caste, religion and even their jobs. Though I am still too ignorant of the complex system to know what they all mean.

A scene from a sun-dappled courtyard on the palace grounds. A water jug sits in the foreground. Meherengarh Fort in Jodphur was one of the most well-preserved forts we have toured in Rajasthan.

A man wearing a Rajasthani turban and playing a flute. Note his well-manicured mustache. Facial hair is still very much an art in Rajasthan.

A colorful room where the maharajah's harem resided within the fort. The stained glass served as a way for the women to observe purdah, or separation from society.

Jaisalmer Jaunt

Jaisalmer’s Old Town, like Venice or Bath, gives the tourist the impression of having stepped into an impressive and gigantic museum diorama. Nearly 1000 years ago, this city—set along the cusp of the Thar Desert—was an important stop along camel trading routes between the Subcontinent and Central Asia. Its distance from Delhi (and its formidable hilltop fort) helped preserve it from military incursions during the Mughal era. Today, Jaisalmer is known as the Golden City—sun-kissed and steamy, raked by desert winds, and caught in a Medieval time warp.

The city’s nickname is apt: Jaisalmer retains a golden hue, the color of perfectly baked crème brulee. This is due to the yellowish sandstone used to build much of the Old Town’s buildings, coupled with the ever-present sunlight that burns down on the city. The foreboding fort stands atop Trikuta Hill, outlined by 99 circular bastions (some of which have been converted into balconies for a boutique hotel). Jaisalmer Fort is unique for Rajasthani forts in that people still live and work inside its walls. Therefore, tourists passing through the fort see school children walking to class along the fort’s narrow stone lanes, observe women hanging laundry from crumbling rooftop eaves, and get hassled by vendors and rickshaw touts who own shops in the shadow of the maharjah’s palace.

Jenna and I spent a day walking around Jaisalmer’s Old Town and taking an audio tour of the palace. Marching to the top of the palace’s battlements, we could easily understand why Jaisalmer likes to brag that its fort was never captured (though most Rajasthani towns make the same claim about their own forts). Jaisalmer sits on a precipitous rise that would have given ancient lookouts unobstructed views across the desert plains, east and north towards Delhi and west towards Persia. Advancing armies could not have ambushed Jaisalmer. The audio tour told us as we stood on the palace’s highest point, “On a clear day, you can see all the way to Pakistan.” Jaisalmer Fort was about as close as I wanted to get, at the moment.

The circuitous lanes around the fort have an inconvenient asymmetry, typical of towns built hundreds of years ago. It is easy to get lost in the tributaries and criss-crossing interstices of these streets. It is equally as easy to step in cow dung, too. Rajasthan is a proudly Hindu state, and cows are a common sight on roads, sidewalks, and highways. Jaisalmer’s cloistered nature makes the cows appear extra large and more numerous than normal. Their droppings dot the streets like digital pins on a GPS display. No coincidence, then, that Jaisalmer smells like you would imagine it smelled like 1000 years ago.

Open sewage is actually a pressing problem in Jaislamer. The fort and Old Town, as originally conceived, was not built to handle the amount of waste that is now produced in its environs. UNESCO reports that the fort is actually sinking on its foundations as its pipes and sewers decay from overuse and lack of maintenance. Open drains line the streets of the Old Town and liquid black sludge gurgles by unappealingly.

It appears as if I am not being kind to Jaisalmer, but we actually enjoyed it immensely. The atmosphere was clear and the air (once you got away from the open sewers) was cleaner than Delhi or Calcutta. Once the sun set, the temperature dropped to a pleasantly mild level that made eating on our hotel’s rooftop terrace enjoyable.

Jaisalmer, at night, makes you feel like the ancient traditions and customs of this region have a direct link to the past. The call to prayer from local mosques, the rhythmic chanting from a Sikh temple, the bells clanging from a Hindu shrine, the nasally whine of a satara flute, the clack of hooves on cobblestone—these sounds waft up to a listener as he surveys the glowing lights of Jaisalmer, surrounded comfortably in a soft blanket of desert darkness. For a moment, he has convinced himself it is 1155, and Jaislamer is brand new.

Jaisalmer Fort from below. If I had been taking this same view 1000 years ago, I most likely would be having boiling oil poured on me and flaming arrows shot at me.

Citizens of Jaisalmer's Old Town, attired in typical Rajasthani fashion. Elaborate (and painful-looking) nose rings are common for women in this region, as are the startlingly bright fabrics that contrast with the dun-colored desert. These women were selling anklets and jewelry outside the fort.

A view of Jaisalmer's Old Town from the uppermost battlement of the City Palace. The twin spires in the center are from a nearby Jain temple. Pakistan looms somewhere on the horizon.

Among the biggest surprises of old Jaisalmer was an Australian-owned restaurant with remarkably authentic apple pie, made from organic ingredients and served with homemade ice cream.

The streets of Jaisalmer's Old Town, with a stone elephant in the foreground. This elephant was a porch decoration in front of an old haveli, a traditional Rajasthani style home for the upper class with an open courtyard in the middle.

A view of Jaisalmer Fort from the rooftop of an old haveli, or mansion. Several havelis draw tourists in Jaisalmer--they are grand, decaying old places with an Old World charm tourists find irresistible.

Ships of the Desert

Jenna and I remain in Udaipur as this country recovers from the euphoria of India's victory over Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup semifinals. Fireworks were going off across the city for 45 minutes after the match ended on Wednesday night. I walked up to the rooftop of our guesthouse and had a perfect view of the cityscape: bursts of red, green, and blue popped up over the buildings and shimmered over Lake Pichola; loud explosions and crackles rent the air ceaselessly; cars honked; children gleefully wailed and screamed.

India now plays Sri Lanka in the final on Saturday night. I wonder how Udaipur's citizens will react if India wins it all.

In a continuing effort to update you on our trip across Rajasthan, I have posted some pictures of a wonderful night Jenna and I spent in the Thar Desert of western Rajasthan, near Jaisalmer.

We rode camels in the evening and had a picturesque view of the sunset over some small sand dunes, looking towards Pakistan (which was a good 40 miles away). We returned to a small hutment where we ate a traditional Rajasthani thali (or sampling of food) and were entertained by a local family of musicians. After that, we rode a camel cart back out to the sandy wilderness and set up cots in the middle of the desert and--quite literally--slept under the stars. I do not ever recall the constellations and Milky Way looking so distinct and multiudinous in America. It was a magical and somewhat uneasy night with the sound of stray dogs howling in the distance and our trusty camel farting and burping nearby.

We woke up the next morning before 5:30 to watch the sunrise. It was an unexplainably eerie feeling to toss aside the blanket, swing our legs over the side of the bed and place our feet directly in soft sand.

I cannot say we had a 'good night's sleep' but it was certainly a memorable experience.

Rise and shine: Jenna waking up after our night spent (trying to) sleep in the desert. It was literally nothing but a cot, a thick blanket, and the stars.

We prepare to mount our camels the previous afternoon. Jenna looks rather stylish. I, on the other hand, look about as conspicuously nerdy as I can get. Still, the floppy hat turned out to be a critical accoutrement to fight the desert sun.

Saya, my trusty camel. I think he was having digestive problems that day. His guttural moans sounded downright prehistoric, a sound from an epoch long past.

Yes, Jenna riding a camel. Handlers walked in front, guiding the camels.. All we had to do was sit on our saddles, grip the pommels, and suffer the bouncing.

Tracks of another camel caravan which passed us during our two-hour journey. It was a common sight to see other groups of tourists out in the scrubland of the Thar Desert. Camel tours are a very big draw for Jaisalmer. Touts offer the so-called safaris on nearly every block of the old town.

Tally-ho! Jenna took this rather romantic-looking shot of me standing on the ridge of a sand dune with the dying sun behind me.

The patriarch of the family of musicians who entertained us in the evening. He is playing a traditional Rajasthani flute, called a satara. It has a distinctive high-pitched whining sound many Westeners would associate with a snake-charmer.