More Jaisalmer - camels, trade, sexism, and forts (and also perhaps my last entry)

OK, I am back on my feet and healed in Jaisalmer. I have spent the past few days exploring the golden fortress, going to the Sahara-esque sand dunes, and then looking at the merchant havelis (mansions) in this very cool former trade route town.

Jaisalmer was a major link along the camel trade route for silk, spices, perfume, etc. right up until partition in 1948. Since the border with Pakistan was sealed then, the trade coming through the town has all but stopped. In it's place the new main source of income for the town is tourism. There is a beautiful "golden fort", that as I said before is still occupied, as well as a lake (well, a lake-ish kind of thing - we are in the desert), and miles and miles of open space around (the Great Thar Desert).

As in everywhere else I've been in India, the cows rule the street. But in this smaller town (less than 100,000), like also in Pushkar, they rule even the narrrow city streets. Cows eat much of the daily refuse (sometimes even plastic which makes me sad - apparently there is a guy in one of the big cities who goes around doing cow surgeries for these poor animals). I like here though that you can see the cows poking their heads into their master's houses as if to say "where's my dinner?". It's quite the sight. One I imagine is difficult to ignore if you're calmly watching cricket in your house or cooking as meal.

The old merchant havelis are very cool. Ornate carvings, intricate fanning and cooling systems, the ever-present security features to trick or slow marauders and hide their money.

The other thing to mention here is about Jaisalmer Fort in general. The fort is sinking back into the hilside. Restoration experst suspect that the heavy water use of the fort denizens (especially hoteliers) creates more than the sewer system can handle and thus causes erosion. I chose not to stay in the fort for this reason. But it seems that hotels there are alive and kicking. In general, the state of preservation seems strained a bit here. I can understand this, it's not like the government has enough money just to work on literacy or clean water or sewage. But still, it can be sad. Alot of the Havelis are privately owned and rely on leveraged "donations" on top of their admission fees or sales of trinkets, etc. to keep up their places (or in some cases perhaps lived on the donations and let the places fall apart). I had an interesting conversation at dinner last night with a man who was in town for the big Desert Festival that starts tomorrow (camel races, Mr. Desert contest - picture long twirling mustaches, horse races, etc.). He was an official with the Rajasthan Dept of Tourism and we talked about various festivals, his job, what has happened in tourism since he started in the early 70's. I think he was at my hotel to collect a little baksheesh. The servers brought him out wrapped bottles of whiskey that seemed to me to be "presents" for him (he shared with me). Also, he was very keen in me getting people to come to Rajasthan and told me if my mother wanted to come he could help her make arrangements. Also, he talked about his daughter and son who both wanted to study in the US at the "O-yo" university (it took me awhile to figure out he meant Ohio). He was nice, but sadly I've grown to be somewhat suspicious of nice people who just approach you. A result of all the factors that make India what it is: friendliness, chattiness, poverty, caste, thievery (there is supposedly a traditional Rajasthani dance to the theft deity Baba Ramdeo), curiosity, poverty, poverty (did I mention poverty), and in the case of tourists lots of competition for our relatively meager offerings. The amount of money we drop for a bottle of Pepsi could represent a significant chunk if not all of someone's average daily salary. Yikes. Anyways, I liked him and kept his card. I don't know if I'll refer Mom to him though...

Yesterday when I went out to the dunes I did a very short camel ride - about 1 km - out to the "sunset view" area of the dunes. See me here on my camel! It was fun, but a bit tricky, getting on and off. They actually lie down, then you climb on, then they stand up. But they stand up back feet first so you're at quite an angle for the first bit and have to hold on tight! They are also quite vociferous. When the camel tenders try to get them to stand or sit the camels turn their heads to look right at them and groan as if to say "what? again? leave me alone!" The dunes are a bit of a scene as usual for any place frequented by tourists. Little boys mob you and ask you for money, "pens for school", to buy very expensive drinks and snacks, etc. Little girls dressed in traditional garb go around with musicians and try to get you to pay for them to do a traditional dance or song. My sense - though I'm not an expert - is that these are gypsies. Maybe outside the caste system. So, in a manner very out of character for Indian women or girls, they can be very direct with you - making eye contact, etc - and very pushy. I've noticed this with some women all around Rajasthan, not only the girls. Smiling, chatting, making eye contact with men. This is not at all usualy behavior for women in most of India.

I did some shopping at a women's cooperative and paid more than I would have for a nice hand-decorated wall tapestry. The woman at the store was telling me how she got about doing this. She went to university, studied art and history, learned to speak english very well, etc. Now she is 28, still not married, and feels that when her parents bring suitable prospects around she has the economic viability, maturity, and strength to say "yes" or "no" (she says "mom, dad, I have to live with this person my whole life!"). She told me just last week she had a good prospect - very handsome, intelligent, said he didn't drink at all. Then, that night by mistake she ran into him drinking with his friends and she went and got her parents right away and brought them to where he was partying with his friends and said "this is what you want for me?" Anyways, it was fun to talk with her and I hoped that the money I paid was in fact going to support women's lives (my new theory about India is that while you can't really control whether or not you are going to get ripped off - unless you want to really have a miserable time and make everybody exasperated with you - you can control WHO rips you off, or who you give your money to). Interestingly, she also told me - and I have noticed this - that there are almost no women merchants. The merchants in the town in fact despise her, because she is "doing men's work" by running a shop that is not beauty or henna-painting oriented. All the palaces/forts/havelis I've seen have had entirely separate wings for the women, with usually sneaky passages or doors for the man's "nightime visits" (as the guides like to say). So this is part of a long-standing tradition.
A funny story. Valentine's Day was this week. A friend of mine was at a store when the shopkeeper asked her if she'd like to take part in their anti-valentine's day protest. She thought "sure, I'm single, i'll burn a valentine..." and went outside to find cameras, newspaper reporters, etc, and a bunch of men in orange scarves around a burning trash can with their valentine's day cards. But what she didn't know is that Indians have a different reason for despising this holiday than her. It's a Hindu thing. Valentine's Day, according to the more traditional elements in the society (perhaps the BJP sympathetic), represents an opportunity for young couples to fool around with out getting married. It also represents the growing trend of "love matches" vs "arranged matches" (virtually every non big-city person I've met who is married has had arranged marrianges). The paper stated that there were gangs of the faithful roaming the parks and rocky coastal areas of Mumbai where young couples normally go to tryst. They would find a couple, demand to see their wedding rings, and if the couple weren't married they threatened to marry them right there on the spot. The newspaper even had a quote from a leader of one of these groups saying that "most people who celebrate valentine's day don't eventually get married". Also in the paper a cautionary tale about a young couple on the rocks by the sea who were so distracted by each other that they were swept out to sea by the incoming tide and drowned (that's what making out will get you). So, anyways, there my friend is, the leader of the protest urging her to tell the cameras that she hates valentine's day, the reporter asking her "do you really hate valentine's day?" and her having a hard time keeping a straight face... oops.

Tangent. In one part of Jaipur there are women shoe-shiners who are really prostitutes, or so says my shady rickshaw driver. Men come to have them sit at their feet and look down their saris. Ew! He says that if they're not at their post than they are off for some real business (he called it tikki-tikki). Definitely there is a culture of peeping. A woman I met down in the south told me a story about seeing peepholes in the place she was getting massage. I think that in this culture, at least the traditional part of the culture, men are expected to marry quite late and be celibate til marriage. But this collides with puberty, western advertising, etc. and causes all this built up sexual tension. Men can be absolutely awful to women here, especially western women, but not exclusively. I can see more now my friend's market for her book for solo women travelers. Sadly much of her advice - and it is the practical advice - is covering up, avoiding eye contact, etc. This can be very hard for western women to do and seem like taking a step backwards, but...

Ok, I think things are winding down. I'm almost done. In a few hours I hope on a train for 19 hour ride to Delhi. There I have a day to shop and fly out that night. I am capable of no great thoughts at this juncture. The thoughts I do have...-glad I brought toilet paper-did not need to bring shorts (can't wear them anywhere)-needed more warm clothes for the north-should have bought a warm shawl earlier- favorite books read here in this order: The Namesake, Inheritance of Loss, The Kite Runner, Holy Cow, Traveller's History of India, Lonely Planet Guide, Amma's biography (still haven't finished this one yet - it doesn't really grab you).

I guess that's the best I can do right now. I've processed as I've gone along. I want to come back here someday. I feel like I've just touched a tiny bit of the country and had it touch me. It's a noisy, dirty, smelly, sneaky place. But it's also full of life for the same reasons. There are so many different types of culture, religion, language, caste. It's such a mish-mosh of everything. I can really understand why Ghandi wanted it all to stay together and not divide. Together it symbolizes all the ways that people can live together even with vast cultural differences. Apart it focuses on those differences. Even India itself, after partition, is to me a monument of the struggles of various groups to get along, in a most unusual and (hopefully) succesful way.

I'll be back mid-week. Perhaps I'll write again if I have time in Delhi. Otherwise thanks for tuning in. It's been nice to stay connected to people while I've been here.

Love,
John
PS and I'm feeling healthy again!

Jaisalmer - limping through my first day here

Hi All,

I had a rough 24 hours or so. I took an ayurvedic
massage in Pushkar that was really interesting, but
alas also really cold. I started getting sick
yesterday, and continued to get more sick in my
overnight busride to Jaisalmer today. Whew it was
cold in that bus! I was in a sleeper, but there was
still a weird breeze coming into my little compartment
every once in awhile. Note to self - no more long
sleeper buses without bathrooms.

But I got in to Jaisalmer at about 8, slept til 1 or
so in the afternoon still cold, baked out in the sun
by the pool (yes, I have a pool here) for awhile, and
finally mustered the energy to walk up the fort for
the first time, where I took the tour of the Fort
Palace.

Jaisalmer is a pretty cool place. It's right on the
border with Pakistan. Harsh desert climate. Like all
of Rajasthan it would seem (except for Pushkar which
is centered around a lake, a lake which formed when
Vishnu dropped a lotus blossom to the earth), it is
centered around a hill fort. This one is unique,
however, in that it is actually inhabited. So it's a
piece of living history. It reminds me of this place
my mother went in Morocco a few years ago, I can't
remember the name. A piece of history, but in a way
caught between the present and past. Up the narrow
cobblestone streets, through old wooden gates, most of
the vehicles that come and go are motorcycles (like
most of India). But alongside that, in the town
squares or walking in almost any direction you go,
there will also be cows. Traipsing around like they
own the place! And in many ways they do.

Anyways, this fort and town were started around the
12th century by the Maharaja (not sure if they called
him that back then) Jaisal. Jaisal (him) - Mer (hill
or mountain). It's been a hindu stronghold more or
less all these years. Interesting thing about
Rajasthani history - they were lead by a warrior
caste, the Rajputs, and these warriors were famously
fierce. So they weren't conquered very often. Except
for by one another. In the end, these guys tended to
"contract out" military services to the powers of the
day (Mughals, British) and in return retain dominion
over their tough-to-conquer desert strongholds.

So I'm gonna hang out here for a few days, catch an
overnight TRAIN back to Delhi on Monday, and then I
fly out on Tuesday night. My adventures are
fading fast. If I had more energy I might ponder the
significance at this point, but I'm still feeling
fluish so I'm instead going to go back to my hotel
room, eat my first meal of the day, watch some cable
tv (I really splurged this time), and go to bed early
so I can look around more tomorrow. I want to get out
to the sand dunes if possible, I want to go to the
Jain temples inside the fort, as well as some of the
mansions (havelis) that have been preserved as
museums.

That's it.

I have to admit I'm getting ready to be home. It's no
fun being sick on the road. Usually in the post-sick
period you get this strange realization though, one of
survival. I survived being sick away from home - what
else is possible??

OK, I digress. No pictures today, internet is slow
and I don't want to hassle.

Adios,

John

camels, scamels, desert forts - welcome to Rajasthan!

OK, my first entry from Rajasthan! I am sitting in an internet cafe in Pushkar. I just spent a harrowing but fun two days in Jaipur, but I'm happy to be past that place I must admit.

The train ride was long, and a bit uncomfortable. I gave my juicy side bunk so a father could be with his son, and was regretting it a bit in the wee hours b/c i had no place to stretch my legs. But, he took this nice photo of me so that is a good second prize. They were a german father and son importing business on a business trip.

Feeling a bit weathered by all the heavy attention from cheats and touts, I jumped right back in the fray in Jaipur and regretted it pretty shortly thereafter. I met a smooth-talking cab driver who won me over with his sense of irony. I initially told him no go, but then ran into him later in another part of town and he agreed to give me the "tour" at the rate the bus tour was giving the next day. This I should have realized was my first mistake, way too cheap a price, so he must have an angle. The next day, his "friend" shows up, says that Om (the guy I met) is going to be late, and that we should start without him. Also, his friend immediately starts being over-nice, and also a bit threatening like "you treat me like friend, I treat you like friend, you treat me like cab driver I treat you like tourist." It all seemed plausible at the time. That. The stopping to talk to a shady guy to pick up a new laminated, slightly forged looking, copy of his and his buddy's driver's licenses, the learing at women (especially western ones) in a creepy kind of way, constant hindi conversations with others, sometimes them glancing my way never translated, the constant having to pay "parking fees", the place he took me for lunch where I told him I'd buy since he paid the "parking fees" and it was 5-6 times the going rate (his commission), the deciding to take the scenic route home without mentioning to me, the trip to see his silk paintings, and the coup de gras, the visit to the aura reader and gem healer who tells me that only he can fix me (unblock my third eye chokra) by saying the right words over the right gem, having it set in a pendant, and me wearing it for 5 months but not telling anyone about it (because the energies could be bad). And, as luck would have it, he is a gem dealer himself (on the side of his true spiritual calling, aura reading, which he never charges money for...), and shows me a gem which will unblock my third eye shockra for a mere 36000 rupee (plus 500 for special ceremonial materials at the market)- yes that's about $940. Then he said he could do it with a smaller gem of the same kind for about $120. Then I left, feeling a bit stormy. Mad for letting it play out for so long, and for being open to the gem guy a bit at first. But I guess that's not a bad thing, to think with possibility about such situations. I did, however, happen to be residing in a gem dealer's section of town, and asked one of the guys theoretically what the maximum possible price could be for a gem of that size and type and set in a pendant that way, and he said - if the gem was of the utmost quality - the most it could be would be about $90 or so.

Anyways, amidst all this hyjinx I did get some of my most amazing photos of the entire trip, around the Amber Fort, did some amazing shopping which was quite lively and fun (lots of haggling in the bazaar), and got to see urban, high density area, street tree planting and get some photos. Shopping here was really fun, and there were also lots of craftsmen/women doing stuff not supposedly of interest to us foreigners (key repair, tailoring, broom-making, bangle making), etc. So that was fun.

and today I snuck out of my hostel, trying to avoid the guy from yesterday who said he'd made me "a reservation" on the bus to Pushkar (a bus the guidebook says doesn't exist, that you have to get off at another town on the way). But I persevered, escaped, and now in another world. A touristy one no doubt, but one that has considerable charms as well.

Pushkar is a very holy town. A big lake, surrounded by bathing ghats on all sides, a temple to Brahma, and about 500 other temples. It is pretty strictly vegetarian, not even eggs, but on the other hand "special" lhassis are legal here. Cows roam back and forth on the narrow crowded streets. Lots of pilgrims. There is a "holy man" scam everyone has warned me about where these "holy men" perform "ceremonies" for you without asking your permission and then want exorbitant amounts of money. So I've been on my guard (especially since all the crooked cabbies I've come across recently). But, aside from the scammers and the market callers, the throng of European tourists and the types of stalls that inevitably pop up all around us, there is great beauty here. A 5 minute walk in any direction and you're out of town, walking up a dusty road with only a few cows for company. Today I walked about 700' up to a Shivatri temple on a stunning hilltop above town. It was beautiful. Shivatri is Brahma's wife. There is sign in the temple requesting silence, but just below there is a cafe where they carry all the drinks up by hand and play Indian-themed techno-lounge music. I had a very relaxing post-temple interlude there before walking back to town.

Plus, I had a tailor mend a pair of my pants. And I'm staying in the "Pink Floyd" guest house. Rooms named after Floyd songs, hot water, and a stunning 5th floor rooftop restaurant overlooking the lake (all the other buildings are 4 floors or less).I sense that my guest house pink floyd thing has something to do with the draw of the "special" lhassi to the western tourist, but for that price, that view, and hot water (not to mention a room with a window and nice stained glass windows), count me in!

So, that's about it for here. I'll probably write more once I go the Brahma temple. I almost went today but wanted to save it.

Cheers,

John

PS I regret no pictures. Especially now because my pictures have been spectacular recently, but upload speeds here are prohibitively slow...

More Mumbai- a gentler side of town (and wealthier)

OK, another day, another entry. I have about two hours til my train takes off for Jaipur, located in a state called Rajasthan, in western India between Delhi and the Pakistani border. This is supposed to be an amazing, and for many iconic (camels, deserts, castles) place, and also is supposed to be heavy on the tourist trail. So I am steeling myself, and also getting excited.
Today I saw another side of Mumbai. I was over on the West side of town, Banganga Tank, Malabar Hill (where most of the old wealth Parsi families live - and still feed their dead to the vultures in high towers), a temple to Lakshmi, and a beautiful mosque on an island off the coast reached by a causeway that sinks during low tide.

Banganga tank is in a very quiet part of town. I don't know if I've talked about tanks or not. Basically religious bathing tanks with steps coming up from a big pool in the center. Most of them I've seen are too dirty to actually bathe in, but for one in Varkala. But there are still lots of things that happen around them. This one had laundry, cricket, marbles, kids playing with tops, and was ringed by about thirteen small temples. All the streets were very quiet from vehicle traffic, though they were loaded with people: pilgrims, kids, etc. In myth it is significant because it is where lord Ram shot an arrow into the earth (the pole in the center is this arrow). And, oh yeah, the arrow marks it as the center of the earth too (sometimes I forget these details).

Then from there I went up to the Lakshmi Temple (called Mahalaxmi here). Lakshmi is the consort of Vishnu I believe, and is the goddess of wealth. Often she is depicted with a stream of coins or gold coming out of one of her hands. Fittingly for Mumbai, she has a very nice and fancy coastal temple here. This one had tons of people, giving puja baskets (see here a "puja store") after waiting in long lines to get inside (it looked like the line for the matterhorn at disneyland, turning back and forth, but everyone had baskets of flowers). Then you can walk down a set of stairs to a little courtyard with two more shrines and a wrought iron fence that has waves crashing on rocks a few feet below it. The amount of people visiting it was staggering. Until I went to the place next door.

The Haji Ali Mosque is built about 200 meters out from the shore on an island. This place was packed! At high tide it sits out there, floating, as if completely isolated. Then, at low tide, a causeway appears and you can walk out to it. And boy do people do so. It's packed. The whole causeway, the mosque, the shrine inside to Haji Ali. Apparently Haji Ali is a muslim saint who died during the Haj and his coffin was put out to sea. It floated to this spot. So a Mosque was built. The tradition is to walk out the causeway and give to beggars lining the way. Alot of beggars. Or, if you are wily like me, you can go to the yummy food stall inside the mosque courtyard (I had yummy snacks in both the Lakshmi temple and the Haji Ali mosque, but the picture is from the mosque) and buy a few meal tickets to give to people on the way out. So I did that, looking for the ones that had kids to take care of. It was quite the gauntlet. One little girl wanted me to give her money and I had already given a bunch out and was out. She followed me for awhile and finally slapped my arm in frustration before walking off to try someone else. Oh well. But inside it was quite a lively place. Musicians (I love the music I've heard in Muslim places - beautiful call and response with percussion and other instruments). Security was more evident than at the temple, but not much more. To get into both you need to pass a metal detector and a bag check. But the mosque has two such stops. Mumbai has seen it's share of anti-muslim violence and retribution in the past, though in general it seems that the two cultures (like most everywhere else in India) are pretty enmeshed and difficult to tangle out.

Ialso went to the mahalaxmi dhoba (washing) ghats. Here most of the laundry on Mumbai comes that is washed by hand. It's a village in a city, devoted to hand washing clothes. Quite a sight.

So, tonight I get out of one big city and head off to another, Jaipur. I'm curious how it'll be up there. It will be cooler I know, but I'm quite ready for that. Mumbai has had record low temperatures which I have enjoyed immensely.

No movie last night, I went to my cell (see picture) and read the Namesake for three hours. I'm going to need to buy another book for my long train trip tonight. I have my eye on a copy of "The Kite Runner" at a shop outside the train station for 100 R. Maybe I can bargain him down a bit..

Just an interesting anecdote on Indian politics. Three days ago in Nagpur (I'm pretty sure that this is an industrial city in east Maharasthra), during a political rally, a member of congress was mobbed by the crowd and killed using sticks and stones. Can you imagine this happening in American politics? Now in all fairness I have to say that Indian politics is in a strange place right now. You have the fairly conservative BJP which is a bit weird in and of itself, but in poorer and more rural states lots of members of congress (BJP or no)actually are gangsters. Something like 25% of congress members at this time have criminal charges pending. The crowd in this case was linking this member of congress to some murders earlier in the year. Yikes. It's just a startling thing to be on the headlines of your morning paper.

Also, last night I went on a meat lover's paradise dinner outing. I went to Bidemaya Seekh Barbecue. Whew! This is street food, but very yummy, and so popular with the locals that they took over an across the street eating hall. Food comes really fast with lots of sauce and garnish, and is very heavily meat and roti oriented. Very yummy. I had two tikka rolls (chicken tikka wrapped in a roti like a burrito, and was so happy that I got more roti and a chicken murgha, which is a kind of thick dipping sauce. Mmmmm.

Mumbai again ... whew ... and more rambling thoughts...

Hi folks,

I'm back in Mumbai again after doing the overnight
train. I'm a bit tired today. I didn't sleep so
great on the overnight train, and my shoulder is
hurting.

I've been reading Jumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, which
is very moving (and so far better than the movie, a
movie I really liked). It's about the immigrant
experience for an Indian family in America,
specifically a Bengali family. Reading it has helped
crystalize some thoughts I've been having about my own
experience here in India, and I think also has put
into focus some other thoughts about my experience as
an American.

1) America can be isolating.

Ashima, the woman who emigrates in the 60's to be with
her husband, goes through a profound shock coming
here. America seems to her cold, lonely, and
isolating. When she gives birth to their child she
tries to get her husband to move back to India because
whe would never want to raise her child in such a
lonely place. I've noticed this here. Indian
families are, as a general rule, very tight. Old old
traditions bind families together. Plus, living
spaces are generally smaller (there are so many people
here), so families are used to being all in a room, or
sharing a small flat. Even Ashima's family, educated
and fairly well off, would all be together all the
time. So it's hard for her to understand this need
for space that Americans seem to have.

2) Isolation can be difficult to give up once you are
used to it.

One of my observations here as a foreign tourist is
that, especially when I am on the tourist trail, I get
very exhausted very quickly trying to "read" people.
I'm approached on the street all the time, literally,
every 5 minutes. It's exhausting. They want to know
my name, what country I'm from, etc, etc. Usually
it's a set up for a sale (taxi services, a shop, a
postcard, whatever...). Often there is an inherent
lie in their story... "oh that hotel is full, that
museum is closed today, that train is full" meant to
get me to choose something else. Sometimes people are
just genuinely curious. It's hard to tell the
difference. And as a Westerner I can find it
particularly difficult. I find myself wanting space.

3) There is a connection between wealth and the
ability to be isolated.

Then, it becomes clear how one gets space in India.
Money. The minute you step into that domestic airport
terminal, past the armed guard, or onto that luxury
tourist bus that no working class Indian can afford,
this sense of quiet comes. It's a totally different
experience. As tourists we get all this different
treatment. Special lines to buy train tickets and
quotas, special buses, and then on the flip side we
pay usually about 25 times more than the locals to see
museums, monuments, etc. It's like that Eddie Murphy
skit when he wears white make-up and becomes white for
a day, and finds that they serve cocktails on the
public buses and everything is free... So I've found
that I need to play with that line a bit. Sometimes
take that slow local train so I can meet the 5 cool
Tamil students, and sometimes I need to be in that
"2AC" train with air-conditioning, sheets on my bunk,
and foreign tourists and Indian businessmen and middle
class families riding with me. I've more or less come
to peace with it, but it is interesting to me how much
money dictates being able to make those choices. And
it makes me wonder what things would be like had I not
those choices, those options. I don't think it's
actually fathomable for me to know what that would be
like.

4) Americans, kind of left on our own in some ways to
find meaning in our lives, sometimes can't really
understand why it's so hard for immigrants to do the
same. WE did it, didn't we?

I think when I was taught and/or learned about India,
we always leaned towards judgement. We heard about
violations of civil rights, we heard about abuses
against women (suttee, wife burning - a separate thing
where a woman is burned by her husband's family
"accidentally" so that they can either get rid of her
or get her to leave usually for financial reasons),
poverty,etc. These things all happen, and life can be
very difficult for Indians, and Indian women in
particular. But I think we also judged things because
they seemed foreign or different. More importantly
I'm realizing the level of ignorance I've been
carrying around when dealing with Indians I come
across in the US. It's not like it's one country,
there are 30-some languages, more ethnic groups, etc.
There are fierce rivalries (as I wrote about earlier).
And I think we have a tendency not to see the
complexity behind the people we meet. In the book
Ashima is talking to her neighbor about how sad she is
to be going back to India 6 weeks after Divali, trying
to get some support. She tells her neighbor "It's
like going 6 weeks after your Christmas." The
neighbor replies, "oh, well Alan and I are Buddhists,
so...".

5) The grass is always greener... or Americans have
lots of choices, perhaps more choices than we are
ready to handle.

This is another thing I've been thinking about. This
idea here for us that we can completely jump out of
our cultural identity, that somehow we can choose it.
It just doesn't ring true for me. And I think,
because of the prevalence of this idea, we think that
other people who come here (to the US) should be able
to do that as well. Apparently the Dalai Lama has
said that he thinks it's OK for westerners to take up
Buddhism, but he thinks also that it is a more
complicated path for us, and that it might be easier
and more beneficial if we were able to find the truth
inherent in our own cultural traditions (given that he
thinks there is truth in all religions, and that they
are basically talking about the same thing). Or,
another example, I would chat alot with a friend from
Israel at the Ashram about religion. She came to
India to search in a way, but part of what she was
finding was that she had what she wanted right there
in Israel, right in front of her nose. For her it
wasn't necessarily strict Judaism, but it was a
community of spiritual minded people coming from the
Jewish tradition.

OK, OK, I'll stop now. And don't get me wrong. I
love Americans, I miss my country, my country is GOOD,
Americans are good. I mean, who else could have come
up with Sesame Street? But for me this has been an
eye-opener. Or a re-eye-opener. And food for
thought.

I also was a tourist today. I took the hour long
ferry out to Elephanta island. This is yet another
rock-cut temple complex, from the early first
millenium. Again lots of cool Shiva stuff. Three
lingams, a nataraj Shiva, a cool half male/half female
Shiva (to show the unity in everything, or the union
between worshipper and god depending on your
interpretation). And of course, my other favorite
Ganesha, Shiva's son. One thing I should mention
about the lingam. It's not just a phallus. It's a
phallus set into a yoni, which is a female symbol.
People often just mention the lingam, but in fact it
is almost always portrayed as a phallus set in a yoni.
Thus the creation. Just wanted to make sure that you
didn't think it was all phallus all the time.

Also, I had another nice dinner in Aurangabad last
night with this guy Jerry and his daughter (she lives
in NYC). He was interesting because he is an old
hippy who has lived on one of the oldest communes
since the 60's in Tennessee, called the Farm. I was
asking him alot about it, and his daughter about what
it was like to grow up on the Farm. They were both
really nice. The farm, it seems, moved slightly away
from communality (one bank account, 25 people in a
house) towards something more privatized (many bank
accounts, one family per house). But they still do
lots of interesting stuff. A press, a mail-order
business, etc. And it was nice to see a father and
daughter travelling together and getting along so
nicely, and to have HER be the one who had commitments
to get back to (he was travelling for 6 months, she
had to leave in April).

Ok, that's it. I may try to see a movie tonight,
Mumbai, as I said, is a bit overwhelming... Tomorrow
I want to see some temples in a quieter part of town
before I head up for my last week or so to be spent in
Rajasthan. Very exciting!

Love,

John

Hello Everyone,

I'm writing from the same internet cafe as two nights ago.

Yesterday I went to the world famous caves of Ajanta - picture of outside here. These caves were very interesting. Much older, and still with some paintings in them. Some of these are 2-3oo BC, while another batch are later, maybe 4th or 5th century AD. All Buddhist. Interestingly, the story goes that all these caves were lost to humanity for over a thousand years until an indian scout working for a British hunting party spotted one. I don't believe this story. But I believe that it may have been advantageous to hide the caves existence during more strict Muslim reigns. Anyways, the caves are very dark, much darker than Ellora, and generally a bit smaller, and built on a steeper slope. The biggest difference is that many of the paintings still exist. This is pretty cool, and why I think these caves seem to get more attention from the Indian government. Anyways, the paintings tell scenes of every day life, and also scenes from the Buddha's life, and also, interestingly to me, they have Jatakas (scenes from previous incarnations of the Buddha). I didn't even know that Buddha had previous incarnations. It seems like the more I learn the more confusing things get. Plus, especially confusing since in Hinduism Buddha is a previous avatar of Vishnu, and both Buddha's previous lives and Vishnu's previous lives they take the form of animals, including a bull. So I'm trying to sort out if these two stories accomodate one another.

Also, on my tour yesterday, and then at my dinner table, was a Polish woman and Vedic scholar/philosopher/university professor. I was speaking to her about the Vedic texts, her area of specialty, and why a pole might be interested in them. So what are these Vedas? The Vedas are ancient texts, many think coming from Central Europe in the first millenium before the birth of Christ. They are thought to form the basis of Hindu thought by many. They are written largely in Sanskrit I believe. The Vedas include the Upanishads, which are thought to be written later, as well as the Rig Veda, a very important text. It is later, after the Vedas, that the other three main pieces of literature the Mahabharata (more or less the story of Krishna but way more complicated and also including the Bhagavad Vita), the Ramayana (the story of Rama, Sita, and Hanuman and their battle agaist the demon king Ravana), and the Puranas (a series of treatises on many subjects including the now-famous Kama Sutra). In the Vedas you are dealing with older gods, gods like Varuna, Agni, etc. Most think that one of the early Vedic gods, Dyaus, is the same god as Zeus of the greeks (these Aryans got around!). These early gods either morphed to form other gods (somehow in here we got the trimurta of Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva) or fell out of popularity as the new gods rose (even Brahma, supposedly the creator of everything, the one without whom none of the others can supposedly exist, the big boss, is hardly worshipped at all in India these days). So, again, why would a Pole be interested? Well, maybe you can guess better now. Apparently there are alot of linguistic similarities to Polish and Sanskrit (most notably an alphabetic character for the sounds "s", "h", and "sh" whereas we simply have the "s" and the "h" and combine them to make the "sh". I was asking her what scholars know about pre-Christian Polish belief systems, and she said that sadly nobody really knows for sure because Christianity so ruthlessly destroyed any evidence of other religions. Another interesting thing about religion, languge and symbology: the Ramayana and Mahabharata did not get really popular until in the 2nd millenium when they were translated from Sanskrit to a language people could read (I think Hindi). Before that, it was all in the hands of the Brahmin priests, and this in essence released these ideas and allowed them to really get into the hearts and minds of Indians, making it more than ever a people's religion. We had an interesting discussion last night (me, the Pole, a German, and a Frenchmen - I know it sounds like the start of a joke), about Ajanta and other things, but a main thread being the way we interpret ancient texts and artifacts. The frenchmen was saying he felt at Ajanta that the message of alot of these drawings was completely unfathomable to him, and was arguing that by extension they were probably so for contemporaries, and on purpose (thus helping to consolidate the power and influence of the priests).

Further confusing things about the Vedas are newer ideas, mostly by Indian researchers, claiming that this idea that all the Vedas came from Europe is hooey. They claim, based on references in the Vedas, that they had to be in the area of India. For example, the Vedas reference the Saraswati river, which is one of the famous (many thought it mythical, or underground) rivers of Indian folklore. Now, however, using evidence of climate and elevation shifts, they are thinking the Saraswati actually simply ran dry, and using modeling techniques they have figured over 10,000 possible archaeological dig sites of which only a few apparently have been tested. Plus, there is now a school of thought that there was a large city called Meghar, or Meghara, or something like that, that predates what was thought to be the earliest Indian large civilization (the Harappans who were thought to start up around 3500 BC, around the time of the Egyptians and Mesopotamians). A guy told me some place Meghar at almost 6000 BC. I know nothing about this, but they also claim that Meghar may have some connection to the Vedas as well. So, I want to learn more about this.

Anyways, I digress. Also look at this yummy dhosa I had the other night. Mmmm.

Off to Mumbai tonight on the overnight train!

Love,

John

Greetings all! What a cool day. Sometimes I guess going on the package tour is worth it, because I got to see a ton of cool stuff today.

First, Daulatabad. A medieval hill fort, now abandoned. It was used on and off for about 6 or 700 years. Built by Hindus, used by whomever conquered. This place I wasn't really looking forward to, but it was really cool. They literally carved this fort out of a mountain (get used to this concept).

It has several different ramparts, secret passageways for night travelers to come in (where they have to stick their head up first so it gets bonked if they are the wrong person). Then, a moat! Then, a labrynth! In the dark, with stairs, and bats living in the caves a few feet above our heads. They have to bring us through with an oil torch, up the stairs, and tell us which are the wrong turns so we don't take them (wrong turns end up to either a dead end or a 150' drop to the moat). Also, the doors have spikes on them so that elephants can't knock them down (the guide said that they solved that problem by putting a camel between the elephant and the door - seems to me like something non-sentient would have done the job just as well, but I digress...). The picture of the cave and torch is from there, as is the sideways one of me (taken by the nice Korean couple).

Then, the main event. Ellora. Three sets of caves, all of them carved in the second half of the first millenium, when we westerners were mired in the dark ages, one set Buddhist, one set Hindu, one set Jain. Arid cool hill country in the middle of India (Maharashtra). HUGE caves, and lots of them. I looked at one Buddhist cave (Buddhist caves are oldest) that has three floors, stairways, lots of buddhas, and even rock beds for the monks carved in with rock pillows.

Then, the Hindu caves. These are more ambitious and more lively (lots of gods). I attached a picture of the most famous one, the Kailash caves, which really are a whole temple (three stories again) carved out of a rock face. That's right. They started at the top, and worked their way down. If they forgot something? Oops, too bad. If they messed something up? Same. Our guide said that this was the biggest rock cut temple in the world, it's only peers being Petra (where I've always wanted to go), and a place I can't recall the name of in Ethiopia (Allatabad or something?). I have to admit my bias here. Rock-cut temples make me hot. I can't help it. Anyways, I picked the picture of Kailash that shows the greatest overall look, though I was actually more partial to the details. Inside there is a cool and actively worshipped Shiva Lingam (phallus) that has flowers and oils, etc placed on it and rubbed into it. See what I mean about getting me hot? Anyways, touching it gives great power. Shiva is the destroyer, but in that destruction, he creates. We didn't have time to go next door which is too bad because the next cave over apparently has a big Nataranja Shiva (do any of you remember your Shiva avatars, the cosmic dancer?) and also a Shiva bursting forth from a lingam. Very cool.

Then to the Jain temples. These aren't as large as the Hindu caves, but very interesting nonetheless. The Jain prophet mostly pictured (I think Maravi? but this is likely wrong) looks very much like a Buddha. The only way to really tell it's Jain is the details. He never has clothes on (there is a little bump between his legs), there are animals all around (Jain's respect all life, even refraining from eating veggies from under the ground out of respect to the underground insects), and there is a woman and man to either side of the image (Jains were progressive and felt men and women were spiritual equals according to our guide).

After that, we went to a pilgrim Shiva temple, one of the 12 temples any Shiva devotee must visit if he/she is to feel complete (important because they contain jyoti linga [sacred linga?]) and jump out of the cycle of death and rebirth. Again, a lingam, lots more active worship, more pilgrims, very cool. They let us into the sanctum. I like lots of details of Hindu adoration. Wafting your hands through the candles and incense to feel the warmth of life and the smell of the divine (also like that in Judaism). Prostration. Touch. Barefeet. The mark on the forehead (Amma has a little poster in the 'ram about the marks. She says that they are not only a mark of the spiritual, they also help aid the body's functioning because that point is an important part of the skin, and also they focus not only your energy but that of the person talking to you). Men had to be bare chested here as well, just inside the temple, like the temple I was in in Kanyakumari. I took a picture of a little puja basket (I think I am using this correctly - puja is a tribute made to the divine sometimes physical and sometimes an act). Pilgrims would buy these and then put the flowers on the lingam, etc. Two funny signs outside this temple: a) please do not pour milk on the lingam (don't ask me, I thought it was a kosher form of respect - in India milk is very important because it comes from cows and is used in lots of rituals), and b) please do not break coconuts in the shrine (again, beats me? Coconuts were a part of most puja baskets, but I guess they need to be whole).

Finally, to the mini Taj Mahal (built by one of Aurangzaeb's sons for his mother), more commonly called the Bibi-Qa-Maqbara. Very strangely reminiscent and inspired by the Taj (perhaps giving some credence to Shah Jahan's fears that it would be replicated?). But smaller and much more poorly maintained, and not made from all marble. Still kind of interesting. I could probably swap a picture into my Taj pics and none of you would know the diff. Interestingly here I've noticed a more traditional Muslim presence. Lots of women with their face hidden except for little eyeslits, and wearing all black. Check out this nice detailed metalwork on the old wooden doors. Mom, I may be outdone here. When you go, perhaps you would be satisfied if I built an addition to the house, or a sandcastle? I could set up my tent in the backyard?? I'll put some nice drawings on it?

Oh yes, and a medieval wonder of engineering, the Panchakki. A water wheel designed to grind flour, built in the 1400's I believe and powered by water coming downhill from a reservoir, underground, over 6 km away. Very cool. And a wonderful huge Boddhi tree, the biggest I've seen. Urban forestry dorks be alert, I am about to give a dbh... maybe 2.5 meters. Seriously.

Anyways, I'm beat. But I will attach one more pic, the pic from yesterday's trip to Mumbai. Chivatri Shivaya Station (formerly called Victoria station) is thought to see 2.5 million people passing through it per day. Per day!! This is a crazy, and huge, and wonderfully Victorian building (I still haven't got a pic of the exterior). But I hope that this picture gives you at least an idea.

Ok, that's it. I feel the Maharashtra tourism corporation should be paying me. I feel a bit like a cheerleader with this entry, but it was a really cool day. Oh, and by the way, I believe I've been misspelling ascetism as aesceticism. What can you do? I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg in my grammatical inaccuracies.

Love to all,

John