14 Hours In A Plane

Afterthoughts

 Tomorrow it will be one month since I left for India.

 When I flash back on my experience now, this is what I think about and see in my mind:

 The white airplane on the monitor at my plane seat, flying over Nova Scotia, then below Greenland, then over Russia, and feeling both panic and excitement

 How terrified I felt to leave the Tour bus and walk through the streets of Old Delhi to Jama Masjid

 The smell of Delhi: smoke and piss and raw sewage and exhaust

 The little girl who held my hand and walked along with me in part of the way to the Orcha Palace.  Her hand so soft and cool in mine…

 The dogs.  Everywhere the sad dogs….

 The temples at Khajuraho that I could have sat in and next to for days

 Landing in Khajuraho and watching 8 men drag the airplane stairs to the plane

 Drinking orange juice and eating scrambled eggs in view of the Taj Mahal

 Mr. Singh and how he could pronounce the “V” sound in Diwali, but always called “Villas”  “Willas.”

 Gagging in Agra

 Paneer.  Every meal—Paneer of some kind

 Walking among the Diwali lights at the Taj Chandela in Khajuraho

 When I first got home, I thought, “Okay, enough of Third World countries.  Been there.  Seen it.  I GET it. Don’t have to do that again.”

 And while I don’t have any interest in going back to India, (at least not at this moment) I am glad I went.  I now know things about the world that I didn’t before.  I know that there are other ways of operating in this life, that there are other ways you can play. 

 I now understand more about a deeply religious culture, and that what we have here is not that.  We are a deeply secular culture, even at our most religious.  There is no judgment in saying that.  It’s just a fact. 

 And I learned that “poor” has many definitions and that what looks like poor, often isn’t, and what looks like rich, often isn’t either.

 I learned that I am easily made uncomfortable, and that I find things sad and disturbing and frightening more than I wish they did.  And that in order to feel okay, I have to pretend I don’t see what’s right in front of my face.    (That too isn’t a judgment, it’s just a fact.)

 As time passes I think I will learn even more about myself as a result of going to India. 

 Maybe someday I will go back. 

 But probably, I won’t.

India Day 9.5 to 10

 After lunch at the Samode Palace our group (30 of us) convened in the Palace’s courtyard to bid goodbye to our beloved Mr. Singh.  He would not be returning to Delhi with us because 1) he lives in Jaipur and 2) the tour ended in Delhi. 

 He said all the proper things about enjoying being our guide through India and how much he enjoyed our company.  And we all responded with predictable but sincere appreciation for how he made our trip the fabulous and interesting adventure it was.  Mr. Singh, ever the reserved and eloquent Brahmin, bowed to us, got into his SUV and made his way back to the Pink City.

 We lumbered back on board our red “Tourist” bus and headed back to Delhi.  The trip took about 6 hours and most of us slept or read or listened to Ipods or just stared out the window.  Because of Mr. Singh, we now knew that the green fields had just been planted with millet, that the men in turbans were Sikhs and the ones in caps were Muslims.  Tales of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata floated in and out as we passed shrines to Shiva, shrines to Vishnu, and the ever present statutes of Ganesha over the doorway to every shop and restaurant. 

 The closer we got to Delhi, the heavier and slower the traffic became, and the heavier and smokier the air became.  We passed the Delhi at dusk and could barely make out the landing strip even though it was lined with lights, due to the now familiar smog that hung not just in the air, but seemed to swallow it.

 Of the 30 in our group, a few had flights that were leaving at 8 PM, but most of us were on the midnight flight.  The kind people at the Oberoi let us have our rooms until it was time to head to the airport.  This allowed us to shower, eat a nice dinner, and then leave.

 The scene at the Delhi airport was pure madness.  Lines and shoving and people trying to budge up in the queue and irate queue standers shoving them back where they belonged.

 Security was tight due to the Mushareff mess in neighboring Pakistan, so we had to go through the same security check three times in the space of 20 yards.  Despite being at the airport 3 hours before our flight time, we barely made it.

 The plane was packed, as usual, but I simply put on my headphones, eye mask and cuddled up in my blanket and made the best of it.

 I remember feeling intensely tired, intensely uncomfortable and intensely happy that we were headed home.  I would wake up periodically from some sort of semi-unconscious state, look at the monitor, notice that the white  plane that represented us, and our progress through space and time, was now flying north of Greece, then through Russia, then south of Greenland, then….

 Fifteen and a half hours later, we landed in Newark.  It was 4 AM.  We found coffee and marveled at everything: auto-flush toilets, fresh fruit that we could eat, no one begging or trying to sell us Kama Sutra playing cards for “Only 500 rupees!!!! Pleeese Madam!”  The floors of the airport were shiny.  Men walked around in suits with those adorable little Bluetooth things in their ears talking to themselves. 

 I bought a USA Today, but didn’t read it.  I sat at the gate and stared at everything as if I had never been in an airport before.  It was a miracle.  But I still smelled like Delhi.

 Our little puddle-jumper flight to Rochester was filled with freshly shaven and sweet smelling businessmen fumbling with paperwork.  The chirpy flight attendant gave us a dirty look when we put on our headphones and eye masks and tried to sleep.  I thought to myself, “Go to hell, bitch, “ and smiled.  Ahh, it was good to be back in America….

India Day 9

 Samode is a small town south of Jaipur, in the mountains.  I like it here.  The air is cleaner and just being in sight of the mountains makes me feel calm.  There is no traffic to speak of, and as we travel the rutted roads, all we see are little parcels of land with huts on them, and people working the fields.

What is amazing to me is how the women are able to keep their saris so clean in all this rural dust and mud.  But they do.  This is the place that John Deere has not heard of.  All the farming is done by hand or with a camel. 

 Today we got off the bus and boarded a little fleet of jeeps for a more “backroads” and “up close” look at what we’ve been seeing from the antiseptic remove of the red “Tourist” bus.

 We pass a camel cart

And a cow looking for a snack

We stop and visit a homestead, and from nowhere, all these little kids appear.  We were told that we should bring pens to give to the kids.  They like them for school.  So we gave some pens to Mr. Singh and here he is talking to the kids in Hindi and telling them who we are and that if they are nice and polite he will hand them each a pen, but no grabbing!

We then re-board the jeeps and climb up a steep mountain to a school.  “The Excellent Public School” to be precise

Inside, there is a central courtyard with photos of Gandhi, Saraswati (goddess of knowledge) and Nehru.  The children are divided into grades.  The sit on the floor and stand and greet us as we pass, singing out in unison, “Good Morning Madam.”

A teacher

We give the majority of our pens to the principal of the school.  Here I am giving her the supplies

:

After our visit, we jeep to the Samode Palace for lunch.  Once again, I am jolted between 2 worlds: medieval and posh-modern. 

This is the dining room of the Samode palace

And this is our table.  That’s me in the yellow shirt:

After our day in Samode I am feeling full.  I am full of India.  Full of poverty and palaces.  Full of bougainvilla and dung factories.  Full of camels and holy cows, monkeys and homeless dogs.  I am over-stimulated, tired and in dire need of solitude and rest and order and my own bed and reliably clean water and clean air. 

I am ready to leave India.

India Day 8

 I’m getting shrined out.  And templed out.  And bazaared out.  There’s just so many things a body can SEE, ya know?  I need to be blindfolded for a few days just so I can process all this, but, alas there is still more to “see” and at, of all places, the Palace Observatory.

 Here is where the ingenious Maharaja of Rajasthan devised elaborate structures to tell time and read the stars.  Talk about “pinpoint accuracy”!  He built these massive structures that allowed him to tell, by how the shadows fell on them, what time it was and how all the constellations lined up.

 Mr. Singh told us that the stars and how the constellations lined up the moment you were born (i.e. your horoscope) was really important in determining who you could marry.  And this is still the case in India.  If a couple had  incompatible signs, no wedding.  No Capricorns were allowed to marry Leos.  No Tauruses for  Libras, for instance.  Now I finally understand  why there was a “house astrologer” in all our hotels. 

 Here is yet another pic of Mr. Singh, in his ubiquitous jodhpurs, ascot, and his groovy little hat:

And here is me in the Capricorn alcove:

And, as we were leaving the Observatory, we passed this:

 Really, what trip to India would be complete without a Snake Charmer?  That was a real cobra too.

 Gotta love Rajasthan.  And especially saying the word “Rajasthan.”  But even though Rajasthan is a very cool word to say, my new favorite word is “Maharaja”.  Raja means king and Maha means Great. So “Maharaja” means The Great King.  The Great Queen is a “Maharani.”  And they still exist.   I love to say the word “Maharaja”.  It’s so Arabian Nights (even though that’s Persian.)

 And then it was back on the bus and to lunch at the Jaipur Polo Club.  As we drove through the gates, we saw these babies all lined up to greet us.

 And this bagpipe band struck up a wheezy little number.

And then we were escorted up to the viewing stands where we were served drinks and hors d’oeuvres while the elephants prepared for the match.  But the best part was: we got to play polo on them!  There was an announcer on a P.A. system doing play-by-play and everything.  Once again, I ask: “Who are we?? 

 This is G on the front elephant, wearing a yellow shirt as she gets ready to score.  And she did!  Yay G!

 And here I am on my elephant, just loving it!

And then loving it more!

 
After the match, we ate lunch and then returned to the Palace to rest for dinner.

 And truthfully, I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

India Day 7

 We are on the bus a lot.  It takes a long time to get from one place to the next because the roads are narrow and rutted and cluttered with people and animals that must be honked at and swerved around.  As we drive, Mr. Singh tells us what we are seeing.  Sometimes his commentary is enlightening.  Sometimes he says, “Notice how many men are hanging onto this truck.  They will drive many hours this way.”

Then we pass this:

 and Mr. Singh says, “On the right please notice a dung factory.  Dung is a very large industry here in Uttar Pradesh.  The women and the children make the dung into patties, oftentimes making decorative patterns in the dung before it dries, and then piling it up in large mounds to sell for heating fuel during the monsoon season.  Also notice the boys playing cricket behind them."

Then there is quiet on the bus as we ride and look out the window and listen to our own thoughts as we pass this:

 
And  this:

And this:

And oh my god, getta load of this!

When we arrive at Fatehpur Sikri, we stop and tour it.  It was the Palace of Akbar the Great, but after he built it, he noticed that, "Oops, there's no water here!"  So he moved to the Agra Fort.

This is Fatehpur Sikri.

But the thing I will most remember about Fatehpur Sikri is that it was here that I used my very first, squat-and-pee-into-a-hole-in-the-ground toilet.   I go into the stall in the public restroom, expecting a toilet, and see, much to my consternation, that someone has obviously removed the toilet and just left the plumbing.  I call out into the ladies room:

 “Uh, hello?  How, uh, do I do this?” 

A voice outside answers: 

“Which way are you facing?” 

Me: “In.” 

She: “Turn around and face the door.” 

Me: “Okay.” 

She:  Now, you see that hole in the floor?” 

Me: Uh, yeah?” 

She:  “And you see those 2 porcelain slabs alongside it?” 

Me: “Yeaaahhh…” 

She:  “Well, put your feet on those, straddle the hole and, well, aim.”

 This is what I will always remember about Fatehpur Sikri.

 At long last we arrive in Jaipur, The Pink City.  This is Mr. Singh’s hometown and he is stoked to show it off.  The Diwali decorations are still up and even though they are pretty pathetic, he thinks they are spectacular and keeps pointing them out to us.   We all want to kidnap Mr. Singh and take him to NY City at Xmas time, but we are polite and "ooh and ahhh" appropriately at the pitiful Diwali lights.

 In Jaipur we are staying at the Jai Mahal Palace.  This is what it looks like:

These are the gardens and the grounds:

I’m slowly beginning to adjust to Palace living.

India Day 6

 We were told to have our suitcases outside our rooms by 5:45 AM this morning.  In the  darkness we boarded our bus and drove back to the Taj. 

 Close to the Taj, we got off the big red bus and made our way by foot along the putrid and stinking street leading to the gate.  At one point I physically wretched as we crossed a river that smelled so foul I felt my breakfast in my throat.  Even the elegant, above-it-all Mr. Singh covered his mouth and nose and sprinted in his pointy red shoes until he was far enough away from the stench that he too could breathe.

 Once inside the palace gate, we were overcome with… quiet.  There was virtually no one there.  We had the  Taj Mahal to ourselves!  Ahhh….

 I walked along the long path leading up to it and imagined Shah Jahan walking here alone, in the early morning, coming to visit her, here, at her “grave,” his final tribute to his beloved, fulfilling her deathbed vision of a beautiful castle. 

 For 21 years over 20,000 people worked every day to build this. 

 Here is the quiet morning Taj:

We toured inside too, but no cameras were allowed.  Inside, our tour had hired a man to sing inside the rotunda for us so that we could hear the resonance which was haunting and thrilling and gave us chills.

 Entering the Taj:

To the same degree as I was disappointed yesterday to see the Taj with thousands of other people, to that same degree I was deeply satisfied today.  I basked  in its glory as the sun rose.

 After hundreds of pictures were taken, we walked out through the gate and then up a small street which looked like this:

 
Mr. Singh led us up a grassy embankment to the place where we were to have breakfast. 

 This is what greeted us:

 
Silver chafing dishes, obeisant waiters, linen table cloths and the most stunning view of the Taj.  We ate breakfast here, as the sun rose.

Now, this.  This was unbelievable.  All I could say, over and over was: “This is CRAZY!”  and

“Who ARE we???”

 After breakfast we re-boarded the bus and headed for Jaipur.

India Interlude

 Life got hectic on the tour after Day 5.  The schedule ramped up and internet access ramped down so I stopped posting—but not writing.  I took notes in my journal and tons of pictures and now I am ready to resume my chronicle.

 But now that I’ve been home and have had a chance to process the experience a bit more, my brain is now making order where there really wasn’t any.  It’s like telling someone your dream: in the telling you make it sound rational, but it wasn’t.  Same here.  So it doesn’t feel as “raw” as I write here now, as it did “on the road.”

 India was chaos.  Sheer and utter chaos—for the most part.  I have to say right here though, that my trip to India was in no way a “Lonely Planet” tour, or “India on a Dime, “ or “Backpacking through India.”

 Oh no.  The tour I took was luxurious. No dirty little hostels for me.  Oh no.  I’m talking 5 star hotels (renovated palaces, most of them, with lawns and gardens and fountains), wonderful and beautifully served meals and one of the top tour guides in all of India who told wonderful stories and educated us on the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as we drove along in our bus. 

This is our bus:

He explained what we were seeing out the window: the crops, the trees, the likely lifestyles of the people.  He was amazing, our Mr. Singh (people actually bowed to him in the streets of Jaipur.)

 But all this luxury led to a schizophrenia everyday when I would leave the confines of my hotel Palace, and enter the turbulent waters of India  with its honking horns and putrid smells and smog and filth and chaos.

 And I am what is called a “screener” in modern psychology.  I don’t let things get to me.  I’m good at screening out chaos.  But I could not screen out India. 

 Which was good, don’t get me wrong.  It just had me reeling at the end of the day.  So I was glad to have my Palace to return to.  I needed my doorman, my daily lei of marigolds. I needed to have my over-stimulated head anointed with tikla paste.  India was brutal.

 And beautiful!

 As soon as I got out of smelly Delhi, I was so much happier.  I mentioned that Khajuraho was one of my favorite places, but that was the day I had to post from the hotel lobby and couldn’t post any pictures.  So I really want to show you these temples.  They looked from a distance like they were made of mud, but then when you got close, the engravings!  Oh my god!  Such seductive goddesses on all of them.  Holy tantra!  It was pretty “X” rated.  And no mortar was used in these.  They are stacked without binder of any kind.

Temple façade detail

I was so happy I just spontaneously broke into Natarajasana

I have spent all my free time since I’ve been home organizing photos.  I finally finished today, so now the rest of the chronicle can be written. 

India Day 5.

 I am not a fort person.  My uncle used to drag my sister and I to every fort and historical site in the United States, much to our extreme boredom and annoyance.

But today we visited the Agra Fort and I was mightily impressed.  Here is a shot.

But Agra itself?  Oh my god, what a piss hole.  Worse than Delhi.  Filth and squalor everywhere.  I gagged whenever we had to leave the bus.

 After the Agra Fort we went to Kohinoor Jewelers which is world famous for its precious gems.  The owner of this place has a private collection the rarest and largest emeralds in the world.  In addition, he has the jewelry of the Empress Jihan herself.  He also has a collection of some of the most fantastic embroidery I have ever seen.    All these jewels and these embroideries were brought out especially for us to see.  Only a few people in the world have ever been shown these jewels. We were even allowed to try them on.  We all gasped at the beauty of these things.

And       then       we       shopped. 

 (Oh my.) 

 But here is what made this shopping different from any jewelry shopping I have ever done.  Before we bought a precious gem, we were shown how to select one.  We were taught the difference between a Columbian and a Sri Lankan sapphire, for instance.  Or the difference in the quality of one emerald and the next.  No one was allowed to buy anything without completely understanding what she was buying.

 I bought a Sri Lankan sapphire ring.  It was my big Indian splurge.  It is small, but perfect.  I love it and will always remember India when I look at it.

 And then it was time for the Taj.

 
On the way to the Taj Mahal for the  “Sunset at the Taj” part of our tour, we had to walk quite a way to get to the gate along with hundreds of thousands of other people, all who had to be security checked.   Separate queues for men and women were formed and at one point a large group of women wearing saris tried to come up from behind and butt in to the front of the line.  Our group managed to form a barricade and squeeze them out, but not without a lot of shoving and nudging and looks that transcended the language difference.

 Once inside the gate, I was both amazed at the Taj itself, and deeply depressed to see how many people there were.  Also, the air pollution was so thick you could hardly distinguish the white marble of the Taj from the milky smog surrounding it.  Here in India I am beginning to fear anew for the planet.  It is scary bad.    Many people in our group are now suffering from bronchitis, hacking and coughing and feeling miserable anytime we have to leave the hotel or the air conditioned bus.

 But even though we could not get near the monument itself because of the crowds, the sight of it had me choking back tears.  I couldn’t explain it, even to myself, but it hit me hard.  I stood there completely at a loss as to what to do with all these feelings that were coming on so strong, and so unexpectedly, in this place of pandemonium and chaos and cameras. 

India Day 4

 There was an optional yoga class at the hotel this morning.  About half of us got up at 6:30 and went out onto the lawn in the back of the hotel where we were led by “the guru.”  The guru’s name was not given, or else I don’t remember it, but he was a smiling, pleasant man who led a very out-of-shape group who had been sitting in buses and planes for 4 days (some longer) in vigorous warm ups, followed by some standing poses (forward bends and lateral angles), seated poses and twists.

 This was a very athletic and dynamic yoga with no holding at all, just a rapid going in and out, in and out, of the poses to the instruction of: “You must breeze veddy deeply!” And if you do dis yoga continuously, your boody vil become veddy open and dat is a good ting, a veddy good ting.”

 At one point he singled me out and said, “You can come to India.  Study yoga with me.  You be good at this.”

 Heh.

 He showed us how to do Nadi Shodana (alternate nostril breathing), then he had me come up and put my fingers under his nostrils so I could verify to the others that he could indeed perform  this breath without using his fingers.  (He could too, and I was impressed.) 

 That is what I am doing here:

Sadly, we left Khajuraho, which had relatively clean air and began our journey to Jhansi by bus.  The road to Jhansi was narrow and passed through villages where people were preparing their homes for the festival of Diwali (pronounced Dee-val-ee) by sweeping the dirt smooth in front of their huts and lining the entryways with white paint.

 
All the literature I read prior to this trip warned about the “crushing poverty” but the people we saw along the road to Jhansi did not seem “crushed.”  They were just living their lives.  No one was drunk along the side of the road.  No one was exhibiting addiction behaviors, the way the homeless and poor do in the US.   I figured that it probably was because there was not the stark contrast between the “haves” and the “have nots” here, as there is in the US.  Everyone here was “poor,” so poor was the norm.

 The road to Jhansi was narrow and our wicked big Volvo Tour Bus had to weave around rickshaws and cows and goats and dogs and other vehicles which you couldn’t even see because there were so many people hanging from them and riding atop them.

 I felt myself becoming nauseous from all the lurching and swerving and the slamming on of the brakes and the honking of the horn, so I was moved to the front seat.  There, my stomach settled and my skin lost its greenish pre-yuke tinge, and I has an up close and personal view of all the near misses with the rickshaws, the cows, the goats, the dogs and the people-infested vehicles.  If I was going to die in India (and this seemed a foregone conclusion) I would at least have a clear view of the cause of death.

 In Jhansi we boarded the train to Agra.  Rats roamed the tracks onto which men pissed openly, and all around us people sat squatting, waiting.  We were told we had only 4 minutes to board, so there was no time to allow passengers to get off.  The getting off and the getting on had to happen simultaneously.  This was not possible without a lot of shoving and shouting and chaos.  By the time we reached our seats we were all shaking and sweating and now everyone was nauseous. 

 
The trip to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, was uneventful but very long and by the time we got to our hotel we were all fried.