January 2013
Looking out my airplane window, the clouds below suddenly gave way to reveal the sunlit peaks of the mountains of Afghanistan. The view below was breathtaking and I kept my face close to the window first following the gentle but rugged pattern of snow capped mountains – not dramatic like the Alps – but certainly desolate and beautiful in its own way. And my eyes followed the lone road that traversed this vast, uninhabited region. Of course the two references that came to mind were Osama bin Laden and the book by Rory Stewart, The Places in Between which I so enjoyed reading a few years ago. I wondered how anyone could live in this desolate looking landscape. Then we entered Pakistan airspace and the scene below was brown and flat- then finally, India where everything from the air looked green.
It was December and the man in the seat next to me was from Kashmir and had been working on a merchant ship in Brazil. He was now heading home as were most of the people on the plane. I noticed that his sense of personal space was very different – or maybe it was his sense of not easily being able to communicate – but he just reached over and took the coffee stirrer off my tray and then asked if he could use it, as if he already knew I would say “yes”. I had also been surprised in the London airport when a professorial looking older Indian gentleman said, “Excuse me” while I was standing in line and then just cut in front of me when I made room for him to pass. It was politely done but the result was the same, he just cut right in front of me in the line! I felt a rising anger and then decided not to give in to that. I was “the guest” or maybe the “trespasser” in this line of passengers boarding the plane to Delhi, and I recognized that the next few weeks would require of me to make some adjustments.
What’s interesting about India is that because one can use the language of English, things seem familiar but just slightly off. For instance, when I contacted the U.S. Consulate to get on their list of Americans, I received an e-mail back saying I was confirmed. But it wasn’t just one e-mail so I assumed the others were some kind of computer glitch. Then the next day I received an e-mail saying I was being dropped from the list because I hadn’t confirmed. I wrote back saying that I had received an e-mail from them telling me I was confirmed! And they replied that I needed to confirm the confirmation! Or, Vikash, the travel agent, telling me that he’d see me “tomorrow after the tour” but the tour wasn’t taking place until the day after tomorrow, so I wasn’t sure which day he was referring to! A rather funny incident took place 4 hours after I had checked into The Metropolitan hotel in Delhi. This hotel had a beautiful aesthetic-one that emphasized relaxation and peace. After checking in I ate at their restaurant which was superb and also very relaxing. But when I went to the front desk after the meal, to change money, they said to me, “Madam you are not in room 414. 414 is unoccupied.” Since all my belongings were strewn all over the room, I had to insist to them that indeed I was in Room 414!
My first day in India, before the group arrived I went to an outdoor market to buy Indian clothes which I thought I needed for the second part of my trip when I would be traveling alone. But to get to the market I first had to get through the gauntlet of “touts” who were waiting outside the hotel. Three different times I was told by three different men that I was going the wrong direction, and they’d be happy to accompany me and show me the right way! Finally to get away from these men, I got into an auto-rickshaw but the men yelled at him to stop and despite my telling him to keep going, he did stop and when I got out they told me he didn’t have the right license to go to the place I wanted to go to which was only five minutes away! Of course, they wanted me to take THEIR auto-rickshaw driver who they said would take me to a better market, because the one I wanted to go to was closed anyway! So, instead of doing that, I went back to the hotel, rechecked my directions and verified that the market was in fact open and fortified myself to get past these touts, jumping into an auto-rickshaw before they could reach me, and making it to the market where I bought some clothes. On the walk home I stopped near a Sikh temple, and bought a scarf, which amazingly once I put it on, no one made any attempt to talk to me! I realized that covering up blonde hair with a religious scarf was a major protection.
That first day was a bit of an ordeal, but what I will take away most from my trip to India are the wonderful images. There were women in alizarin colored saris working in the bright green fields – their saris were the same color as the round ball of the setting sun. Also, the dense fog that surrounded us as we left Delhi – it made me understand Genesis 2: “and a great mist came up from the ground!” – and the many fields of bright yellow mustard plants.There were also the painted trucks with images of animals and designs and the words, “Keep distance 30 feet,” or “Blow horn!” that we read from the windshield of our vehicle about one foot away.
Perhaps my scariest experience was when I decided I wanted a driver to take me by myself on a six hour drive through Rajasthan to get to my next destination in Gujarat. My good friend, Birje was beside himself, as he told me that I should not be driving but flying between states in India. But I wanted to see the landscape.
At one point the driver (who didn't speak English) turned off the main road into a village and then headed out on a lonely road on the other side of the village. He then stopped, turned around and drove back to the village and called someone on his cell phone and then headed out of town again and turned down a dirt road. I began to think, either this is the end (all the news had been full of the Delhi gang rape) or it will be wonderful. It turned out that this non-descript dirt road was the driveway to a large gate that was the entrance to an incredible villa (called the family’s “hunting lodge”). There I was served lunch on the sunny lawn in front of the pool. Someone ran to get me a parasol to shade my table and while the temperature outside was hot, when I walked into the rooms of the villa they were about 20 degrees colder. Just as I was just finishing lunch, a family arrived and one of the boys was wearing a Dartmouth sweat shirt, so I asked him if he went to Dartmouth. And as it turned out not only he but his father and brother too had gone there, so I sat and chatted with these fellow alums for a while thinking to myself – who would have thought this is what I would find in the middle of the countryside of India down a lone dirt road….
Although the Taj Mahal is the most beautiful building I have ever seen, and it was quite an experience riding elephants up to Amer Fort in Jaipur, my favorite part of the trip was my stay in Udaipur where I stayed in a little Heritage hotel that was a villa (or Haveli) where the original family still lived. The rooms were situated around a kind of courtyard and I could hear the noises from the buildings next door, which seemed to be practically on top of us. My room had a window seat that looked out over the lake where two palaces were situated on islands and across the water on the other shore I could see palaces, villas and domes and finally a tall mountain with a palace at its top. I loved my stay in Udaipur. I felt at home immediately and enjoyed coming back to my hotel where the grandfather was always sitting in the lobby (or rather his livingroom) watching the television. He didn’t speak any English except the words “do you need the password?” (for the wifi) and probably a few other phrases.
Each morning I ate breakfast on the rooftop, watching the sunrise and hearing the noises of the town waking up. I also painted from that rooftop and sat there in the evening watching the sun set into the beautiful waters of the lake and behind the mountains. The town reminded me of a mixture of Venice, Cairo and Crete. The buildings were white like Crete but had the domes of Venice and Cairo and the density of winding streets like old Cairo while the colors reflected in the water came from the women washing their bright saris. I took boat rides out to the palace island and watched the king’s boat go for his jaunt around the lake at sunset. The king still lives in one of the palaces on the shore- his home is also partly a museum. Another part of that palace is a hotel where I went for tea on New Year’s Day.
India, or at least Udaipur, starts celebrating New Year’s the day before the 31st! I was surprised the night of the 30th when a disco appeared on the roof top next door to us and loud music blared as if it was inside my hotel room. So, on the evening of the 31st I thought, “oh, I won’t get any sleep tonight” as the music started up again at 6pm. But what I found out is that, countdown isn’t as important as it is in the States. The fireworks started at five minutes to midnight and then continued for the next half hour, going off all along the shore and reflecting in the water. But the most beautiful part of this celebration was the lit lanterns of fire that slowly and gently moved off from the shore and rose out over the lake. You could see their flames moving as they rose and they became living stars forming their own patterns of constellations with each other. It seemed so much more meaningful than the bang of color from the fireworks over the buildings. And then at 12:30 a.m. everything stopped! The streets became silent as everyone went to bed.
There were markings on the floor in front of the family’s part of the residence at my Haveli – a design in red using the swastika and dots (from a tradition much older than the connotations we associate with that symbol) which reminded me that I was in a Hindu home; and the cows wandering in the streets were something I had never experienced before. But other than the Hindu temples I visited, I wasn’t particularly aware of being in a Hindu country. There was the Muslim call to prayer I could hear every morning and evening coming across the water in Udaipur which reminded me of Cairo.
I didn’t think this was possible but the traffic in India is worse than Cairo’s. In Cairo I had learned how to cross a street while the traffic doesn’t stop and I thought I was a pro at this. But in India, I couldn’t get across a street without asking someone to take me across. Part of me chuckled to myself, that the only way to cross would be to hang onto a cow! They seem to meander wherever they want and no one bothers them one bit.
I was impressed with the carvings I saw in the temples and museums and the pieces of broken temples that were sometimes used by the Mughals as bricks which they then plastered over. It seemed to me that there was much more of a sense of living movement in these Hindu sculptures than in the early Western sculptures. It seemed clear that the emphasis, or motives of the artists came from a completely different philosophy and place.
My last part of the trip was to visit the M.S. University of Baroda’s School of Art. I enjoyed visiting the university as well as lunch at the home of the Head of the Department of Art whose house was designed by his father in law who was an architect who had worked with Le Corbusier! And I enjoyed a lovely dinner with university colleagues arranged by my former colleague and dear friend Birje, who now lives half the year in Baroda (where he was once head of the dept. of English) and half in Vermont where we worked together at Marlboro College.
Besides the cacophony of color, particularly noticeable in the dress and textiles that one finds everywhere in Rajasthan, what I will miss most about India, is the food. Everyone had warned me to be careful and I had worried that the food would be too spicy. But I loved everything I ate including the “Indian breakfast” which consisted of items we would consider more appropriate for dinner. My favorite was the Dosa which they translated as “an Indian pancake” which was a very thin crepe (thinner than a French one) with a spiced potato mixture inside and eaten with coconut chutney. And I so miss the masala tea! I really felt I could eat Indian food the rest of my life it was all so varied and delicious.
I’ve wanted to visit India for years, so I’m grateful I finally had the opportunity. Wishing you all the best for the New Year!
Warmly,
Marrin
1 The dresses in Rajasthan also have mirrors on them and we were told that is because in the desert the mirrors will reflect the light and so make the women easily seen from a distance as the colors do in the green fields!
2 Bijay Niwas Palace on the route from Jaipur to Udaipur in Rajasthan