In the middle of our week in Leh the wedding took place. It was an unconventional event: neither legal nor religious and was very carefully planned. It took place under a multi-coloured, patterned marquee set up on a completely flat piece of ground surrounded on all sides by streams of the Indus, one of India’s three holiest rivers. We reached the island by clambering across a series of small, flat, and rickety plank and pole bridges that lay across the gurgling water. The ceremony and lunch that followed it lasted about two hours while the mid-day sun blazed down on the marquee and we the guests lolled on fat pillows and soft mattress laid out to form three sides of a square under the canopy. After lunch the thirty strong party piled into a veritable fleet of big 4x4s and set off back to Leh.
But the wedding was not the only event we celebrated in Leh. On the Thursday it was Dani’s birthday and we were determined to mark the occasion with pizza and beer; so that’s what we set out to do in the evening. The first ‘garden restaurant’ that we decided to stop at was the Flambe (these restaurants lined the winding road into town from our hotel and ranged from blatant tourist watering holes serving ‘Chinese, Maxican, Israelian and Continental’ food, to more serious and reassuring eateries with narrower culinary tastes). We were after beer, not food, and the attentive waiter didn’t fail us despite the restaurant not having a license. He poured a large Kingfisher into two cups in order to hide the contents and we sat outside under a tree decked with fairy lights, almost the only people there; the muted roar of a fast running stream behind the back wall of the garden providing the background ambience. We moved on from the Flambé after that one beer and next stopped at a rooftop restaurant in the town centre. Here we ordered more Kingfishers (thinking: to hell with the inflated price tag) and gorged ourselves on thick based pizzas heavy with tomato sauce, onion, herby melted cheese and scorched peppers. It was heavenly. In between mouthfuls we reminisced and swapped stories, laughed about old jokes and embarrassments, and occasionally looking up at the open, inky night sky and the bright dots of stars.
The day before we left Leh we had the opportunity to visit another Gompa, this time accompanied by another of the wedding guests, a Christian Delhiite who was studying for his PhD in the US, and one of the other guests at the Oriental Guest House, who taught ‘band’ at the American School in Bombay. This man was in his forties and from the US. He lived a life apparently largely cut off from the reality of Indian existence around him, traveling from the culturally American school to his hugely expensive accommodation every day.
We hired a taxi and set off for Thiksey Gompa late in the morning. The monastery at Thiksey tops a small hill of grey rock and scree, and sprawls down its sides with squat, square buildings that have white painted walls and dark, square windows. These look out onto a valley floor of flat green pasture dotted with white boulders and the odd thin tree, at the edges of which are rocky ridges that rise up to the high mountains forming the valley. The Gompa is the headquarters of the Gelugpa Tibetan Buddhist tradition in Ladakh and is about 600 years old. Entering the Gompa via a series of white washed steps, we stopped to admire a high-ceilinged prayer hall painted in intricate patterns of bright, rich reds, blues and yellows, in which a red robed monk sat silently by the door, before proceeding on up to the central courtyard, or Choera. This was a perfect rectangle, flat and dusty, and kept from view of the valley by a wall which on the courtyard side supported a slanting roof over a broad colonnade. On the hill side of the open space, used for dramatic ceremonies during Buddhist festivals, and to our right, were steep steps up to the second storey of a high-sided building. Climbing these stairs and stepping in through an open doorway, past carved wooden pillars, we were confronted by a huge head of Buddha; golden and serene looking, supported on a slender neck and broad shoulders. From the ground floor of the building the figure, perhaps 30 ft high, reared up to nearly touch the ceiling of the second floor. At shoulder level to the statue, we walked round a balustraded gallery, marveling at the figure. The Maitreya’s face gleamed dully, its eyes staring blankly out of the room’s open windows to the sun-baked valley beyond.
Returning to the hot courtyard by the steep stone steps, we turned this time to the left end of the space, where more steps lead up to an open platform from which we could access, through a roofed portico, the Gompa’s Assembly Hall, the Dukang. Inside the dimly lit hall the afternoon prayer service would shortly begin, so we slunk in, shoeless, and explored the room from the walls. Making our way slowly around the room, we reached a door at the back that intersected floor to ceiling cabinets of the kind we had seen at Spituk. Through this door and down a single step was an even darker room in which four or five almost man-size figures stood in a row. There was an orange hatted llama, smiling broadly, and a fierce, snarling manikin, the spear in its hand surmounted by two human heads and a grinning skull. The walls of this ante-chamber were a grimy orangey-brown and uneven. Behind the row of figures were wall paintings of flayed animals, the skins depicted dripping blood. In the half light we could also make out the occasional painting of a man’s skin, the features of the face frozen in terror. The room was heavy with pungent incense. As we stared at the walls in horrified fascination, a commotion began in the main hall that drew us back into the larger space. Near where we stood by the glass-fronted cabinets was a seat, reserved for high ranking Buddhist clergy and the Dalai Llama, that was raised to almost shoulder height. Opposite this small throne and sat behind a low bench was an elderly monk with a stubbly, round head, who had started to recite mantras into a battered microphone.
Leading from where the monk sat crosslegged and bent-backed opposite the throne were long straight benches, perhaps six in a row at 90 degrees to the bright upright triangle of the entrance doorway. At these benches sat more monks, the oldest nearer the door to the ante-chamber, the younger, and novice monks as young as 10 or 11 years old, closer to the entrance. We sat down to one side of this bright doorway as the prayer service began in earnest. Sitting there crosslegged on thick rugs we had a perfect vantage point from which to observe the ceremony. At first the youngest monks, just young boys with bright smiles and shaved heads, almost swamped in their dark red robes, took around large metal kettles and poured out tea for their elders. This was done with a hasty lack of reverence which aroused no complaint. Next an older monk wearing a yellow hat with a long, curved tip hurried into the room bearing a brazier from which incense poured in grey clouds. The monk swung the metal object this way and that as he rushed down the aisles, finally halting when every part of the hall had been covered. Now the elderly monk’s chanting, coming to us from crackling speakers fixed high on the narrow wooden pillars of the hall, increased in intensity and the rest of the monks became more focused.
On the two benches running down the centre of the hall were large flat drums, their skins a dark, leathery brown, suspended by rope that kept them from swinging when hit. On each bench there were two drums and in front of them sat monks with curved drum sticks. From the cushioned end of each stick the wood formed a question mark, the base of which the monks held tightly. As the chanting increased in volume still, each of the four monks suddenly poised and then in unison they stared to pound the flat faces of the drums in front of them. With their other hand, each also picked up a white conch shell and blew into it with long breathes. The cacophony from these instruments lasted for about a minute, the drums pounding and shells blasting eerily away, the sound bouncing off the walls and ringing in our ears. Then suddenly, with one or two muted last breathes from the shells, the chorus stopped and the hall returned to the crackling chanting of the elderly monk alone.
This explosion of sound happened again and again, until we felt we had seen and heard enough. But before we roused ourselves from the floor and stepped out into the sunlight, a monk came round with a metal vessel. In it was water, earthy and oily, which we were to first sip and then smooth over our heads. For this we each received a small amount in our outstretched cupped hands. This done, we eased ourselves up and moved back out to the portico. I felt that we had witnessed something mysterious and archaic, and I wondered how many times those blaring shells had sounded across the valley in front of us. Perhaps on the plain far out on the valley floor the sound could be heard by animal herders and other local inhabitants, who hearing the familiar sound might glance up at the angular shape of the distant monastery and know it to be a certain time of the day. With the wonder of the service still in our heads we made our way down through the complex and negotiated the flights of stairs to the exit.
Sunday, 28 December 2008
Sunday, 23 November 2008
Fear and loathing...on campus in Delhi
I was lucky recently to have an opportunity to gain a real, albeit small-scale, insight into what young Indians think about the state of their country and its society. This opportunity presented itself while I was interviewing final year students in the grounds of a college at one of India’s most prestigious universities. What these informal discussions revealed about what some Indians in their early twenties think was largely negative to my mind. I admit that ‘fear and loathing’ is an exaggeration; ignorance and condescension would be a better way to describe the opinions that were expressed.
We were talking about rural India and about conditions in the slums that are a part of every city in the subcontinent. Knowing that very few well-off urban Indians know much about the realities of village life or even those of slum life, I was not expecting much insight. But I was surprised at how little insight there was. People living in slums were described to me by two different sources as being “criminal”, while the rural existence of 70% of India’s population was seen as “simple” by another. Associating poverty with crime is of course something that a great many people do. There is everywhere, in any country, a gut reaction that the majority amongst the middle-class experience when faced with poverty. It’s a feeling not far from disgust. This is brought out clearly in a recent documentary made for Channel Four in the UK, where an upper middle class girl and a working class girl spend a day together. Before they meet, the girl who goes on skiing holidays declares that the other is going to be a ‘chav’. Chavs; travelers; the underclass in Britain; they have long been seen as a primary source of criminal activity. In India, slum dwellers may well occupy the same space in many better-off people’s minds. Equally, spinning a utopian idyll out of rural life is a well worn activity. M.K. Gandhi was a great fan of the uncomplicated and harmonious existence that, supposedly, is village life in India.
I was surprised partly because several of the students I spoke to had spent time in villages or were from semi-rural areas themselves (although not from agricultural families). One had even been into a slum for a day, which is saying a lot for a university educated Delhiite. Revealingly though, this visit had been organised by a college environmental group with the aim of educating slum dwellers about how bad the use of plastic bags was for the environment. I had to stop myself from suggesting that going to the wealthiest enclave of the city with the same message would have made more sense (though been less rewarding for the soul). Perhaps this ignorance is borne of the particular way many middle-class lives are lived in India. Living in something of a bubble, effectively cut off from the deprivation around them, many people, young as much as old, seem unable to fully comprehend that reality even when they look closely.
But these young people were actually telling me they wanted to do something about inequality; they wanted to devote themselves to social service. Despite their ignorance they were aware that something wasn’t working in society and there was value in being part of the fixing. This puts them well ahead of the morally lost campaign launched by the Times of India newspaper, ‘India Poised’. By describing half of India as a “leash” holding back the progress of the rest (this ‘half’ cannot be other than those who don’t read the English Times, live in the booming metro cities or consume conspicuously), this campaign not only effectively acknowledges the bubble of middle class urban existence but denigrates all those excluded from it. This belief in a bright future for India, if only the poor would get up off their backs, can even be expressed in terms that deny the very existence of India’s 300 million or so citizens who are officially poor. For example there is a Facebook group entitled ‘India is not a third world country’. If not ‘developing’, what is India? Almost developed, as some have told me confidently? Riding on the Delhi Metro, sitting in a multiplex, shopping in a gleaming mall, one might well think that. But it would mean being duped by aspiration and blind to the reality of life outside the enclaves of progress.
We were talking about rural India and about conditions in the slums that are a part of every city in the subcontinent. Knowing that very few well-off urban Indians know much about the realities of village life or even those of slum life, I was not expecting much insight. But I was surprised at how little insight there was. People living in slums were described to me by two different sources as being “criminal”, while the rural existence of 70% of India’s population was seen as “simple” by another. Associating poverty with crime is of course something that a great many people do. There is everywhere, in any country, a gut reaction that the majority amongst the middle-class experience when faced with poverty. It’s a feeling not far from disgust. This is brought out clearly in a recent documentary made for Channel Four in the UK, where an upper middle class girl and a working class girl spend a day together. Before they meet, the girl who goes on skiing holidays declares that the other is going to be a ‘chav’. Chavs; travelers; the underclass in Britain; they have long been seen as a primary source of criminal activity. In India, slum dwellers may well occupy the same space in many better-off people’s minds. Equally, spinning a utopian idyll out of rural life is a well worn activity. M.K. Gandhi was a great fan of the uncomplicated and harmonious existence that, supposedly, is village life in India.
I was surprised partly because several of the students I spoke to had spent time in villages or were from semi-rural areas themselves (although not from agricultural families). One had even been into a slum for a day, which is saying a lot for a university educated Delhiite. Revealingly though, this visit had been organised by a college environmental group with the aim of educating slum dwellers about how bad the use of plastic bags was for the environment. I had to stop myself from suggesting that going to the wealthiest enclave of the city with the same message would have made more sense (though been less rewarding for the soul). Perhaps this ignorance is borne of the particular way many middle-class lives are lived in India. Living in something of a bubble, effectively cut off from the deprivation around them, many people, young as much as old, seem unable to fully comprehend that reality even when they look closely.
But these young people were actually telling me they wanted to do something about inequality; they wanted to devote themselves to social service. Despite their ignorance they were aware that something wasn’t working in society and there was value in being part of the fixing. This puts them well ahead of the morally lost campaign launched by the Times of India newspaper, ‘India Poised’. By describing half of India as a “leash” holding back the progress of the rest (this ‘half’ cannot be other than those who don’t read the English Times, live in the booming metro cities or consume conspicuously), this campaign not only effectively acknowledges the bubble of middle class urban existence but denigrates all those excluded from it. This belief in a bright future for India, if only the poor would get up off their backs, can even be expressed in terms that deny the very existence of India’s 300 million or so citizens who are officially poor. For example there is a Facebook group entitled ‘India is not a third world country’. If not ‘developing’, what is India? Almost developed, as some have told me confidently? Riding on the Delhi Metro, sitting in a multiplex, shopping in a gleaming mall, one might well think that. But it would mean being duped by aspiration and blind to the reality of life outside the enclaves of progress.
Monday, 3 November 2008
Into the Mountains - Part II
It was with a certain amount of relief that we left the hotel in Pahaganj for the domestic airport and our flight to Leh. The room was not very clean and had just one small window that looked out onto a cement wall. Had we stayed there any longer the surroundings would have become quite depressing.
After the heat and grime of Delhi, the air-conditioned relative luxury of the plane was extremely welcome. And the flight to Leh was spectacular. Although there was little to see for the first hour or so, after that we were into the mountains and soon the snow peaked ranges were all around us. Cloud drifted beneath the tips of the peaks and as we slowly lost altitude the lower slopes could be seen clearly, their jagged outcrops of rock casting shadows in the morning sun. There were a few audible gasps in the cabin as the plane banked and the sun glinted off snow fields higher up. The sky was a perfect blue: it was one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. I stared long and hard out of the small window, trying to imprint the view on my memory. As we started the final descent to Leh’s tiny airport we flew across a parched valley floor, a river coursing through it with the sun reflecting off it too.
Standing on the tarmac in Leh we took our first breath of really fresh, unpolluted air in India. It was crisp and delicious and I recognised the familiar smell of the Himalayas; a smell that I can’t describe. As we had just climbed 10,000ft in under two hours we spent our first day in Leh relaxing. I quickly found that even the smallest exertion could give me a head-rush and send dark spots dancing in front of my eyes. We spent most of that first day sitting on a small terrace at the Oriental Guest House, our chairs shadowed by tall shrubs and our hands clutching books. I would occasionally order small china cups of sweet chai. The terrace was separated from another, bigger, one by a neatly ordered vegetable garden with tidy irrigation channels, which an old woman in a headscarf tended carefully. Surrounding the terraces and garden were the three large Ladakhi houses comprising the Guest House. On the larger terrace we ate our breakfast and sometimes lunch. Breakfast in particular was excellent: banana and honey pancakes for Dani and omelet with soft, exquisite, freshly-made Ladhaki bread (an extravagant cousin of the pitta bread) for me. With butter and homemade apricot jam or stuffed with ketchup laden omelet these were heaven. From both terraces there was a stunning view of the distant snowcapped mountains.
We were only able to get out and explore Leh on our second day, after an eagerly-looked-forward-to sleep in a bed with an actual duvet and comfortable mattress. Leh is a small town with dusty lanes leading away from a busy centre with heavily laden trinket and carpet shops, rooftop pizza restaurants, internet cafes and backpacker tour shops. There are also lots of Indian Army personnel: in regulation-green jeeps, piled into trucks and out on the street in matching running gear. Leh is of course near India’s contested borders with China and Pakistani Kashmir, both of which have been fought over in the last fifty years.
The centre is overlooked by the square, flat-roofed shape of the Palace, built in 1553; its sheer walls rising up from a rocky promontory that juts out of the tangled lanes of the old town. Seen from different parts of the centre the Palace forms an impressive backdrop to less regal but equally old shops and houses. It was built when Leh and the Tibetan capital Lhasa maintained regular trade connections and as a result the Palace bares a strong resemblance to the Potola Palace of the Dali Llama. Although we were put off actually entering the place by the exorbitant entrance fee, we did walk up to get a closer look at the outside.
It was almost midday when we headed past the town’s principal mosque and into the narrow lanes of the old town on our way to the Palace entrance. It was very hot in the sun, but once we were well into the old town we were able to keep in the shade of the almost featureless light brown brick houses on either side of us. Down the centre of the lane ran a waste water channel and in the cool patches by the base of the walls lay silently slumbering dogs, their thick coats designed for Leh’s harsh winters and not the summer’s fierce sun. As the lane narrowed further and the incline increased appreciably, there were twists to the left that gave us glimpses of the steep stone walls of the Palace ahead. After only ten minutes of walking we found ourselves within twenty feet of the base of the walls and looked back to see the town stretched out in front of us, bleak, craggy hills in the middle distance and beyond them the empty air above the valley floor where the Indus River snaked below the tall mountains rearing up with their white slopes to the clouds above.
Beyond the Palace and on an even higher mound was a Gompa, a Buddhist monastery. We managed the steeper climb up to this point later in the week, but even after several days of acclimatization the uphill stretch on a dusty, tightly zigzagging path was painful and made us lightheaded. The Gompa was closed when we visited it, but the view from that height was spectacular: the mountains looked even more beautiful from high ground and those nearest to us were a canvas for the shifting patterns of the shadows thrown by the slowly moving clouds above. The Gompa was interesting to see from outside: its 500 year old exterior was rough and weathered, its small wooden doors and window-shutters locked shut and uninviting. We learnt in the middle of our week in Leh that the plain exteriors of Gompas hide enchanting interiors.
The first Gompa we actually entered was Spituk, a short bus journey from the town and past a large Indian Air Force base. We took something of a leap of faith to get there. The most common method of getting anywhere outside Leh seemed to be by big jeep, but balking at the cost of hiring one, we decided to try local transport instead. And so we spent half an hour standing in the sun in an exposed minibus park, our noses and throats assaulted by acrid diesel fumes and the sharp stench of urine, before we managed to find and board a bus that would pass the monastery. We paid Rs.7 each for the twenty minute ride. But we were not entirely sure we had gotten on the right bus until the ticket collector motioned at us to get down at a dusty corner of the main road, where an untarmacced road led off over a bridge and up to where we could see the Gompa nestled against the top of a small hill. We walked the 400 metres from where the bus dropped us to the monastery’s steep entrance steps in the blazing sun of 2:00 in the afternoon and were relieved to find a small shop outside the main gate where we could buy water. Opposite the shop stood a huge prayer wheel, perhaps a metre and a half high and three quarters of a metre in diameter, which one set in clockwise motion by pulling on a metal handrail at the bottom of the drum. As the drum-like wheel turned a piece of metal at the top hit a small bell, making it clang in a dully melodious way.
Inside the Gompa it was cool and silent. Lying in the corridor that the entrance doorway opened onto was a scruffy dog that had been asleep, but which looked up with reproachful eyes as we stepped in out of the sun. The monk that appeared after we called “hello” showed us up a flight of stairs to the wood-paneled prayer room, where golden statues of sitting Bodhisattvas were positioned behind glass in a floor-to-ceiling cabinet covering one wall. It was dark in the small, low-ceilinged room and the smell of smoky Ladakhi incense permeated everything. We took our time inspecting the small figures behind their glass panes, offerings of rupee notes stacked on the ledges in front of them, and taking in the peace of the still room, in no way hurried by the expressionless monk who lingered outside with the key to lock up the room. When we were done we walked further up the hill, still within the monastery’s walls, and ducked under a mass of fluttering prayer flags in red, white, blue, green and yellow to enter an older part of the site. Here there was a grotto-like room: small but with a high ceiling, no natural light and lumpen, misshapen walls. Occupying most of the floor space bar a small area to stand in were massive figures, sooty-looking in the gloom and one much larger than the others. The face of this figure was obscured by material, no doubt to protect us from the horror of its features. In its brawny, upraised arms were various weapons and from its groin protruded an obvious symbol of fertility. The gloomy room with its eerie statues and flickering electric bulbs was fascinating and spooky in equal measure. On our way out we paused to blink in the sunlight. From a doorway we had not noticed on our way in, a voice called out goodbye and was followed by the silent emergence from the shadows of the head and red robes of a monk who waved a hand at us in farewell.
After the heat and grime of Delhi, the air-conditioned relative luxury of the plane was extremely welcome. And the flight to Leh was spectacular. Although there was little to see for the first hour or so, after that we were into the mountains and soon the snow peaked ranges were all around us. Cloud drifted beneath the tips of the peaks and as we slowly lost altitude the lower slopes could be seen clearly, their jagged outcrops of rock casting shadows in the morning sun. There were a few audible gasps in the cabin as the plane banked and the sun glinted off snow fields higher up. The sky was a perfect blue: it was one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. I stared long and hard out of the small window, trying to imprint the view on my memory. As we started the final descent to Leh’s tiny airport we flew across a parched valley floor, a river coursing through it with the sun reflecting off it too.
Standing on the tarmac in Leh we took our first breath of really fresh, unpolluted air in India. It was crisp and delicious and I recognised the familiar smell of the Himalayas; a smell that I can’t describe. As we had just climbed 10,000ft in under two hours we spent our first day in Leh relaxing. I quickly found that even the smallest exertion could give me a head-rush and send dark spots dancing in front of my eyes. We spent most of that first day sitting on a small terrace at the Oriental Guest House, our chairs shadowed by tall shrubs and our hands clutching books. I would occasionally order small china cups of sweet chai. The terrace was separated from another, bigger, one by a neatly ordered vegetable garden with tidy irrigation channels, which an old woman in a headscarf tended carefully. Surrounding the terraces and garden were the three large Ladakhi houses comprising the Guest House. On the larger terrace we ate our breakfast and sometimes lunch. Breakfast in particular was excellent: banana and honey pancakes for Dani and omelet with soft, exquisite, freshly-made Ladhaki bread (an extravagant cousin of the pitta bread) for me. With butter and homemade apricot jam or stuffed with ketchup laden omelet these were heaven. From both terraces there was a stunning view of the distant snowcapped mountains.
We were only able to get out and explore Leh on our second day, after an eagerly-looked-forward-to sleep in a bed with an actual duvet and comfortable mattress. Leh is a small town with dusty lanes leading away from a busy centre with heavily laden trinket and carpet shops, rooftop pizza restaurants, internet cafes and backpacker tour shops. There are also lots of Indian Army personnel: in regulation-green jeeps, piled into trucks and out on the street in matching running gear. Leh is of course near India’s contested borders with China and Pakistani Kashmir, both of which have been fought over in the last fifty years.
The centre is overlooked by the square, flat-roofed shape of the Palace, built in 1553; its sheer walls rising up from a rocky promontory that juts out of the tangled lanes of the old town. Seen from different parts of the centre the Palace forms an impressive backdrop to less regal but equally old shops and houses. It was built when Leh and the Tibetan capital Lhasa maintained regular trade connections and as a result the Palace bares a strong resemblance to the Potola Palace of the Dali Llama. Although we were put off actually entering the place by the exorbitant entrance fee, we did walk up to get a closer look at the outside.
It was almost midday when we headed past the town’s principal mosque and into the narrow lanes of the old town on our way to the Palace entrance. It was very hot in the sun, but once we were well into the old town we were able to keep in the shade of the almost featureless light brown brick houses on either side of us. Down the centre of the lane ran a waste water channel and in the cool patches by the base of the walls lay silently slumbering dogs, their thick coats designed for Leh’s harsh winters and not the summer’s fierce sun. As the lane narrowed further and the incline increased appreciably, there were twists to the left that gave us glimpses of the steep stone walls of the Palace ahead. After only ten minutes of walking we found ourselves within twenty feet of the base of the walls and looked back to see the town stretched out in front of us, bleak, craggy hills in the middle distance and beyond them the empty air above the valley floor where the Indus River snaked below the tall mountains rearing up with their white slopes to the clouds above.
Beyond the Palace and on an even higher mound was a Gompa, a Buddhist monastery. We managed the steeper climb up to this point later in the week, but even after several days of acclimatization the uphill stretch on a dusty, tightly zigzagging path was painful and made us lightheaded. The Gompa was closed when we visited it, but the view from that height was spectacular: the mountains looked even more beautiful from high ground and those nearest to us were a canvas for the shifting patterns of the shadows thrown by the slowly moving clouds above. The Gompa was interesting to see from outside: its 500 year old exterior was rough and weathered, its small wooden doors and window-shutters locked shut and uninviting. We learnt in the middle of our week in Leh that the plain exteriors of Gompas hide enchanting interiors.
The first Gompa we actually entered was Spituk, a short bus journey from the town and past a large Indian Air Force base. We took something of a leap of faith to get there. The most common method of getting anywhere outside Leh seemed to be by big jeep, but balking at the cost of hiring one, we decided to try local transport instead. And so we spent half an hour standing in the sun in an exposed minibus park, our noses and throats assaulted by acrid diesel fumes and the sharp stench of urine, before we managed to find and board a bus that would pass the monastery. We paid Rs.7 each for the twenty minute ride. But we were not entirely sure we had gotten on the right bus until the ticket collector motioned at us to get down at a dusty corner of the main road, where an untarmacced road led off over a bridge and up to where we could see the Gompa nestled against the top of a small hill. We walked the 400 metres from where the bus dropped us to the monastery’s steep entrance steps in the blazing sun of 2:00 in the afternoon and were relieved to find a small shop outside the main gate where we could buy water. Opposite the shop stood a huge prayer wheel, perhaps a metre and a half high and three quarters of a metre in diameter, which one set in clockwise motion by pulling on a metal handrail at the bottom of the drum. As the drum-like wheel turned a piece of metal at the top hit a small bell, making it clang in a dully melodious way.
Inside the Gompa it was cool and silent. Lying in the corridor that the entrance doorway opened onto was a scruffy dog that had been asleep, but which looked up with reproachful eyes as we stepped in out of the sun. The monk that appeared after we called “hello” showed us up a flight of stairs to the wood-paneled prayer room, where golden statues of sitting Bodhisattvas were positioned behind glass in a floor-to-ceiling cabinet covering one wall. It was dark in the small, low-ceilinged room and the smell of smoky Ladakhi incense permeated everything. We took our time inspecting the small figures behind their glass panes, offerings of rupee notes stacked on the ledges in front of them, and taking in the peace of the still room, in no way hurried by the expressionless monk who lingered outside with the key to lock up the room. When we were done we walked further up the hill, still within the monastery’s walls, and ducked under a mass of fluttering prayer flags in red, white, blue, green and yellow to enter an older part of the site. Here there was a grotto-like room: small but with a high ceiling, no natural light and lumpen, misshapen walls. Occupying most of the floor space bar a small area to stand in were massive figures, sooty-looking in the gloom and one much larger than the others. The face of this figure was obscured by material, no doubt to protect us from the horror of its features. In its brawny, upraised arms were various weapons and from its groin protruded an obvious symbol of fertility. The gloomy room with its eerie statues and flickering electric bulbs was fascinating and spooky in equal measure. On our way out we paused to blink in the sunlight. From a doorway we had not noticed on our way in, a voice called out goodbye and was followed by the silent emergence from the shadows of the head and red robes of a monk who waved a hand at us in farewell.
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Into the Mountains - Part I
In early June, Dani and I had our first opportunity to travel in India together and to take a well-earned holiday. We had been invited to the wedding of one of my colleagues in Ladakh, a region in Jammu and Kashmir, and had also to leave the country in order to apply for new tourist visas. For this reason we made arrangements to spend a week in Kathmandu after leaving Ladakh.
Our journey to the small town of Leh, 10,000 ft up in the Himalayas and where the wedding was being held, involved a stop in Delhi. Having done the train trip from Ahmedabad to Delhi several times we had thought we could relax about it. But on the day we were due to leave, someone shook me out of my smugness at having arranged everything so perfectly by declaring that there was no way we would get through. To my disbelief I had failed to make a connection between our intended journey, which would take us through Rajasthan, with mass disturbances taking place in that state. An Other Backward Caste group (a designation near the bottom of the caste ‘heap’), the Gujjars, were agitating for their caste status to be downgraded. They were demanding to be recognised as Scheduled Caste (otherwise known as Dalits or untouchables) and to receive the reservation of jobs and privileges that go with such recognition. More importantly though, they were sitting on railway tracks in large numbers. Twenty-seven trains through Rajasthan were cancelled. Although I expected the worst, our luck held: our train, the Ashram Express, was running until Jaipur, from where we could hire a car to get us to Delhi.
Having boarded the train in Ahmedabad, we were in for another change of plan. We were fully prepared to get down at Jaipur and catch a taxi, but while we waited with bleary eyes in the darkness early in the morning, the train slowly drawing into the station, we by chance heard that this was not the last stop; that the train would go on to Delhi. There are no announcements on Indian trains but a steward had mentioned this piece of rather important news to someone who spoke English, who then told us. After calling the poor taxi driver to cancel, we crept back onto our bunks and tried to fall back into sleep, pleased at avoiding the extra expense of the car.
Several hours later we woke to views from the train’s tinted windows of Delhi’s crowded and ramshackle suburbs, multi-coloured litter liberally spilling down the railway cut at intervals. We got down at Old Delhi station feeling disheveled and stopped at Comesum restaurant for a quick and over-priced breakfast before taking a pre-paid auto to Pahaganj. This area behind New Delhi station was to be our base for a day, as the flight to Leh was early the next morning.
Pahaganj is, in a word, seedy. But also quintessentially Backpacker India. Its narrow streets teem with hawkers, hotel touts and package tour charmers. Autos and cycle rickshaws squeeze through the lanes, nudging past placid cows and baggy-clothed hippies. Restaurants and hotels vie for the attention of the strolling Europeans, Israelis and Japanese, whose cloth shoulder bags and dreadlocks swing as they move through the crowds, sunglasses firmly in place. The lanes feel close; signs jutting into the space above head-height, electricity wires strung in confused profusion across and between the buildings.
We largely ignored the trinket shops after a doze and shower in our room at Vivek Hotel and instead walked to the nearest Metro stop, R.K Marg. This was my first experience of the Dehli Metro and I was very impressed. The stations are justifiably spacious, allowing for crowds, and the trains are a pleasure to ride in for anyone familiar with the Tube. In only a few minutes we arrived at Rajiv Chowk station beneath Connaught Place. I had stayed briefly in CP on my way home after trekking in the Himalayas in 1999. This time I stared at the white-painted circular arcades, the shadowed shop fronts and Raj-era architecture to try to conjure up clearer memories than I immediately could. But to no avail. I wasn’t able to place where my group of trekkers had stayed or the restaurants we had eaten in. I was disappointed at not being able to find a corner or shop front I recognised and so reach back across the nine years that separated me from my 17-year-old self. Looking around me I had a feeling akin to deja vue: something told me I knew the place, that the surroundings were familiar, but on closer inspection nothing around me was familiar and I might just as well have been there for the first time.
Our journey to the small town of Leh, 10,000 ft up in the Himalayas and where the wedding was being held, involved a stop in Delhi. Having done the train trip from Ahmedabad to Delhi several times we had thought we could relax about it. But on the day we were due to leave, someone shook me out of my smugness at having arranged everything so perfectly by declaring that there was no way we would get through. To my disbelief I had failed to make a connection between our intended journey, which would take us through Rajasthan, with mass disturbances taking place in that state. An Other Backward Caste group (a designation near the bottom of the caste ‘heap’), the Gujjars, were agitating for their caste status to be downgraded. They were demanding to be recognised as Scheduled Caste (otherwise known as Dalits or untouchables) and to receive the reservation of jobs and privileges that go with such recognition. More importantly though, they were sitting on railway tracks in large numbers. Twenty-seven trains through Rajasthan were cancelled. Although I expected the worst, our luck held: our train, the Ashram Express, was running until Jaipur, from where we could hire a car to get us to Delhi.
Having boarded the train in Ahmedabad, we were in for another change of plan. We were fully prepared to get down at Jaipur and catch a taxi, but while we waited with bleary eyes in the darkness early in the morning, the train slowly drawing into the station, we by chance heard that this was not the last stop; that the train would go on to Delhi. There are no announcements on Indian trains but a steward had mentioned this piece of rather important news to someone who spoke English, who then told us. After calling the poor taxi driver to cancel, we crept back onto our bunks and tried to fall back into sleep, pleased at avoiding the extra expense of the car.
Several hours later we woke to views from the train’s tinted windows of Delhi’s crowded and ramshackle suburbs, multi-coloured litter liberally spilling down the railway cut at intervals. We got down at Old Delhi station feeling disheveled and stopped at Comesum restaurant for a quick and over-priced breakfast before taking a pre-paid auto to Pahaganj. This area behind New Delhi station was to be our base for a day, as the flight to Leh was early the next morning.
Pahaganj is, in a word, seedy. But also quintessentially Backpacker India. Its narrow streets teem with hawkers, hotel touts and package tour charmers. Autos and cycle rickshaws squeeze through the lanes, nudging past placid cows and baggy-clothed hippies. Restaurants and hotels vie for the attention of the strolling Europeans, Israelis and Japanese, whose cloth shoulder bags and dreadlocks swing as they move through the crowds, sunglasses firmly in place. The lanes feel close; signs jutting into the space above head-height, electricity wires strung in confused profusion across and between the buildings.
We largely ignored the trinket shops after a doze and shower in our room at Vivek Hotel and instead walked to the nearest Metro stop, R.K Marg. This was my first experience of the Dehli Metro and I was very impressed. The stations are justifiably spacious, allowing for crowds, and the trains are a pleasure to ride in for anyone familiar with the Tube. In only a few minutes we arrived at Rajiv Chowk station beneath Connaught Place. I had stayed briefly in CP on my way home after trekking in the Himalayas in 1999. This time I stared at the white-painted circular arcades, the shadowed shop fronts and Raj-era architecture to try to conjure up clearer memories than I immediately could. But to no avail. I wasn’t able to place where my group of trekkers had stayed or the restaurants we had eaten in. I was disappointed at not being able to find a corner or shop front I recognised and so reach back across the nine years that separated me from my 17-year-old self. Looking around me I had a feeling akin to deja vue: something told me I knew the place, that the surroundings were familiar, but on closer inspection nothing around me was familiar and I might just as well have been there for the first time.
Sunday, 19 October 2008
Delhi for the first time (since '99) - Part II
There is surely no better way to get to know a new city than to stay with a friend or a friend of a friend who knows the place well. On my first trip to Delhi since I passed through on the way to the Himalayas in 1999, I stayed with friends of Nishant, one of my colleagues. These two bachelors, who had studied with Nishant at prestigious Delhi University, rented a flat on the top floor of a featureless housing block somewhere South of Central Delhi. The block was reached from the busy road through a series of narrow and overshadowed lanes, lined with parked bikes and cars, and uneven underfoot. Out on the road smoke hung in the air, the morning sun shone down on omelet stalls and chai stands, and a noisy crush of people at an alcohol shop spilled into the street. But in the lanes it was quiet and shaded, and we saw only a few people on the way to the flat. Ascending a steep flight of stairs that spiraled up anti-clockwise we passed three doorways before reaching the top of the building.
Now, whether this flat was indicative of bachelor flats across India, I don’t know. But it was certainly an atypical bachelor’s flat in one regard: extremely low levels of cleanliness. It was seriously grimy. All the light-switches were covered in the black grime of ages of unclean hands, the bathroom walls had a veneer of slick soapy grease and the many books piled tightly into bookshelves were caked in grey dust. It was a nice place though. There was a recluse-like feel to the flat; it was an intellectual’s hide-out in an otherwise unremarkable residential colony. The books gathering dust reflected the opposing politics of the two residents: one was keeping the Marxist credo alive; the other was a fan of free-markets. Both were Biharis like my colleague and all three came from the same small area in Bihar. They had studied History together and remained in close touch still.
We had dinner that evening in the flat with only one of Nishant’s friends. He ordered in dal, subji and rotis, which we ate sitting on the tiled floor of the room that doubled as the bedroom of the other occupant. To accompany these staples was a homemade Bihari pickle. This was very hot and came in an old and not very clean plastic jar. It had been made by someone’s mother and matured for years in that jar. When it was hot, I was told, the jar was placed out in the sun to further preserve the contents. I decided not to overindulge.
On our second day in Delhi my colleague and I were to be part of a field visit to several primary schools in slum areas. We were helping with a recruitment process and part of the two day event involved a ‘live’ group exercise, where information on school needs had to be collected by each team of potential new staff members. We left for the meeting place by auto. During the 30 minute drive we were passed on a busy main road by a newly cleaned Mercedes sporting UN plates. Further down the same road a brand new Toyota saloon also overtook our auto and it too had the distinctive UN plates. This seemed a surprising coincidence until we passed the large offices of the World Health Organisation, into the entrance of which several large cars were turning.
The field visit was extremely interesting: I was seeing Delhi slums for the first time and witnessing young middle class urbanites encountering an environment largely alien to them too. Some were obviously ill at ease, though more with the schoolchildren than the (not actually extreme) poverty evident around them. Others were happier in the school environment and confident interacting with teachers, the headmaster and the often rowdy kids. I had a rather embarrassing episode within the first five minutes of entering the school, when I stepped into one of the classrooms and was mobbed by a mass of blue-clothed children who had dashed forward from their seats to touch my feet. There were too many of them pressed together for me to restrain them, but I felt extremely awkward at this traditional sign of submissive respect and did what I could to at least stop any of them falling over in the crush around my legs. In other classes this scene was thankfully avoided and the kids just stood and saluted when I entered the classroom. My response was to clasp my hands together formally and say ‘namaste’. In one class each child in term left the safety of their desk to come up to me at the front of the class and introduce themselves. They were not very confident in English and said their names so quickly and quietly I struggled to hear them, though I picked up the names I was familiar with and they had fun: most prepared to approach me by nudging their neighbours and giggling.
We spent about two hours on the field visits and then caught autos back to the office we were using as a base. I sat in the front of one, next to the driver, and was pressed up near the glass windshield. The side mirror a few inches to the left of my head was printed with the words ‘objects in the mirror may appear closer than they are’.
We left Delhi the next day, catching a different train back to Ahmedabad from Nizamuddin Station. Nishant helpfully accompanied me to the station in the cycle rickshaw he flagged down near his friend’s flat. It was a sunny day and the rickshaw wallah worked up a sweat leaning down onto the pedals to keep the tricycle going. It was a slow journey but we had plenty of time and rolled up to the station entrance eventually. I had thoroughly enjoyed my second experience of Delhi, a city I much preferred now I had visited it again.
Now, whether this flat was indicative of bachelor flats across India, I don’t know. But it was certainly an atypical bachelor’s flat in one regard: extremely low levels of cleanliness. It was seriously grimy. All the light-switches were covered in the black grime of ages of unclean hands, the bathroom walls had a veneer of slick soapy grease and the many books piled tightly into bookshelves were caked in grey dust. It was a nice place though. There was a recluse-like feel to the flat; it was an intellectual’s hide-out in an otherwise unremarkable residential colony. The books gathering dust reflected the opposing politics of the two residents: one was keeping the Marxist credo alive; the other was a fan of free-markets. Both were Biharis like my colleague and all three came from the same small area in Bihar. They had studied History together and remained in close touch still.
We had dinner that evening in the flat with only one of Nishant’s friends. He ordered in dal, subji and rotis, which we ate sitting on the tiled floor of the room that doubled as the bedroom of the other occupant. To accompany these staples was a homemade Bihari pickle. This was very hot and came in an old and not very clean plastic jar. It had been made by someone’s mother and matured for years in that jar. When it was hot, I was told, the jar was placed out in the sun to further preserve the contents. I decided not to overindulge.
On our second day in Delhi my colleague and I were to be part of a field visit to several primary schools in slum areas. We were helping with a recruitment process and part of the two day event involved a ‘live’ group exercise, where information on school needs had to be collected by each team of potential new staff members. We left for the meeting place by auto. During the 30 minute drive we were passed on a busy main road by a newly cleaned Mercedes sporting UN plates. Further down the same road a brand new Toyota saloon also overtook our auto and it too had the distinctive UN plates. This seemed a surprising coincidence until we passed the large offices of the World Health Organisation, into the entrance of which several large cars were turning.
The field visit was extremely interesting: I was seeing Delhi slums for the first time and witnessing young middle class urbanites encountering an environment largely alien to them too. Some were obviously ill at ease, though more with the schoolchildren than the (not actually extreme) poverty evident around them. Others were happier in the school environment and confident interacting with teachers, the headmaster and the often rowdy kids. I had a rather embarrassing episode within the first five minutes of entering the school, when I stepped into one of the classrooms and was mobbed by a mass of blue-clothed children who had dashed forward from their seats to touch my feet. There were too many of them pressed together for me to restrain them, but I felt extremely awkward at this traditional sign of submissive respect and did what I could to at least stop any of them falling over in the crush around my legs. In other classes this scene was thankfully avoided and the kids just stood and saluted when I entered the classroom. My response was to clasp my hands together formally and say ‘namaste’. In one class each child in term left the safety of their desk to come up to me at the front of the class and introduce themselves. They were not very confident in English and said their names so quickly and quietly I struggled to hear them, though I picked up the names I was familiar with and they had fun: most prepared to approach me by nudging their neighbours and giggling.
We spent about two hours on the field visits and then caught autos back to the office we were using as a base. I sat in the front of one, next to the driver, and was pressed up near the glass windshield. The side mirror a few inches to the left of my head was printed with the words ‘objects in the mirror may appear closer than they are’.
We left Delhi the next day, catching a different train back to Ahmedabad from Nizamuddin Station. Nishant helpfully accompanied me to the station in the cycle rickshaw he flagged down near his friend’s flat. It was a sunny day and the rickshaw wallah worked up a sweat leaning down onto the pedals to keep the tricycle going. It was a slow journey but we had plenty of time and rolled up to the station entrance eventually. I had thoroughly enjoyed my second experience of Delhi, a city I much preferred now I had visited it again.
Sunday, 21 September 2008
Delhi for the first time (since '99) - Part I
The Rajdhani Express is really the best way to travel by train to Delhi. The ticket is more expensive than those of other trains on the same route, but with your Rajdhani ticket you get food. And it is much better food than what is offered for sale on the average over-nighter, where dinner is usually a pretty unappetizing and spiceless subji and dal that needs the addition of lime pickle to be vaguely interesting.
The first time I visited Delhi during this, my second sojourn in the sub-continent, my colleagues and I took the Rajdhani, having reserved berths in the 3AC carriages. We monopolized the compartment in which most of us had berths, seven of us squeezing onto the bottom bunks that serve as seats during the day. The elderly couple sitting opposite each other by the window and small table didn’t seem to mind us taking up so much room in a space meant for six people and they even took an interest in the conversation in Hindi my colleagues were carrying on and laughed at their jokes.
My experience of the Rajdhani’s catering started with a late afternoon snack (we boarded at 5:30), which arrived at our compartment in the arms of a white-jacketed steward, who distributed small boxes to each of us in turn. In the box was a sandwich with an invisible filling (possibly mayonnaise), a small vegetable samosa wrapped in waxed paper, a cartoon of mango juice and a bottle of water, and a ladoo-type sweet for dessert. We each also received a mini-flask of hot water for tea or coffee, so the snack became something of a picnic, each of us sipping a drink and balancing our trays of food on our knees.
Dinner three hours later managed to go one better than this afternoon picnic. To my delight the steward taking orders was asking for a preference between veg and non-veg. Of course, I opted for non-veg and so enjoyed a chicken curry accompanied by the ubiquitous dal, rice and roti, which was followed by individual tubs of vanilla ice cream. Soon after we had finished eating, the train pulled into a station that I was told was famous for its chai. Two of my colleagues hopped out onto the platform and quickly went in search of a chai stand. I got down too but stayed within a few feet of the door, not confident enough to stray further away from safety. I had an inkling that once the train got moving it was not going to stop for anything. I got back on with at least another minute to spare and waited in our berth for the tea to arrive. Once it did, my colleagues pleased to have got the small cups and plastic bag of hot tea onto the train in time, we sat back and sipped the chai and I talked with Nishant and Monal about Paul Robb’s A history of India, which I had brought with me. At about 9.30 the elderly husband and wife at the window indicated that they wanted to go to bed, so our group broke up and we each set about unfolding the sheets for our narrow beds. I had a top bunk; my ankles and feet stick out into the aisle and mean the middle and lower bunks are best avoided.
The next morning we arrived at New Delhi station and Nishant and I split off from the rest of the group to make our way to the flat of a friend of his. I rarely sleep well on the train, the bunks are too narrow, too short and either you end up surrounded by snorers or the light at the end of the bed wont turn off. So it was with slightly gritty eyes that I looked out at Delhi from the auto for the first time in nine years. It looked different. I had a vague memory of lusher vegetation, more chaos and greater noise. Although this was early in the morning, the feel of the city was not the same as I remembered it to be. I mentioned this to Nishant and he agreed, the city had changed, especially in the last five years. It struck me that the buildings had been cleaned up; the plethora of old hoardings had been replaced with state of the art advertising displays with ads for Tata Indicom, Airtel and Vodafone.
After ten minutes or so we were into the broad, well-maintained avenues of central New Delhi. Traffic here was orderly, regulated and well accommodated by the wide roads. A car ahead of us at a light had a ‘Press’ sign in the rear window. As we turned off a cross roads onto one of these identical looking streets, we were flagged down by a policeman in standard khaki uniform, brown beret and polished black shoes. I assumed this was a routine check, but instead of asking the driver for his papers the policeman stepped forward to climb in and perch on the driver’s seat. The driver protested and waved the officer back in with us, where there was just enough room for him to squeeze in next to Nishant. On his shoulders were big dull silver stars. Nishant adopted an expressionless face and asked our passenger how far he was going. It turned out not to be far, just 500 meters down the road, where the policeman got down without paying anything and looked at least a little sheepish. Nishant looked at me and said ‘this is Delhi’.
The first time I visited Delhi during this, my second sojourn in the sub-continent, my colleagues and I took the Rajdhani, having reserved berths in the 3AC carriages. We monopolized the compartment in which most of us had berths, seven of us squeezing onto the bottom bunks that serve as seats during the day. The elderly couple sitting opposite each other by the window and small table didn’t seem to mind us taking up so much room in a space meant for six people and they even took an interest in the conversation in Hindi my colleagues were carrying on and laughed at their jokes.
My experience of the Rajdhani’s catering started with a late afternoon snack (we boarded at 5:30), which arrived at our compartment in the arms of a white-jacketed steward, who distributed small boxes to each of us in turn. In the box was a sandwich with an invisible filling (possibly mayonnaise), a small vegetable samosa wrapped in waxed paper, a cartoon of mango juice and a bottle of water, and a ladoo-type sweet for dessert. We each also received a mini-flask of hot water for tea or coffee, so the snack became something of a picnic, each of us sipping a drink and balancing our trays of food on our knees.
Dinner three hours later managed to go one better than this afternoon picnic. To my delight the steward taking orders was asking for a preference between veg and non-veg. Of course, I opted for non-veg and so enjoyed a chicken curry accompanied by the ubiquitous dal, rice and roti, which was followed by individual tubs of vanilla ice cream. Soon after we had finished eating, the train pulled into a station that I was told was famous for its chai. Two of my colleagues hopped out onto the platform and quickly went in search of a chai stand. I got down too but stayed within a few feet of the door, not confident enough to stray further away from safety. I had an inkling that once the train got moving it was not going to stop for anything. I got back on with at least another minute to spare and waited in our berth for the tea to arrive. Once it did, my colleagues pleased to have got the small cups and plastic bag of hot tea onto the train in time, we sat back and sipped the chai and I talked with Nishant and Monal about Paul Robb’s A history of India, which I had brought with me. At about 9.30 the elderly husband and wife at the window indicated that they wanted to go to bed, so our group broke up and we each set about unfolding the sheets for our narrow beds. I had a top bunk; my ankles and feet stick out into the aisle and mean the middle and lower bunks are best avoided.
The next morning we arrived at New Delhi station and Nishant and I split off from the rest of the group to make our way to the flat of a friend of his. I rarely sleep well on the train, the bunks are too narrow, too short and either you end up surrounded by snorers or the light at the end of the bed wont turn off. So it was with slightly gritty eyes that I looked out at Delhi from the auto for the first time in nine years. It looked different. I had a vague memory of lusher vegetation, more chaos and greater noise. Although this was early in the morning, the feel of the city was not the same as I remembered it to be. I mentioned this to Nishant and he agreed, the city had changed, especially in the last five years. It struck me that the buildings had been cleaned up; the plethora of old hoardings had been replaced with state of the art advertising displays with ads for Tata Indicom, Airtel and Vodafone.
After ten minutes or so we were into the broad, well-maintained avenues of central New Delhi. Traffic here was orderly, regulated and well accommodated by the wide roads. A car ahead of us at a light had a ‘Press’ sign in the rear window. As we turned off a cross roads onto one of these identical looking streets, we were flagged down by a policeman in standard khaki uniform, brown beret and polished black shoes. I assumed this was a routine check, but instead of asking the driver for his papers the policeman stepped forward to climb in and perch on the driver’s seat. The driver protested and waved the officer back in with us, where there was just enough room for him to squeeze in next to Nishant. On his shoulders were big dull silver stars. Nishant adopted an expressionless face and asked our passenger how far he was going. It turned out not to be far, just 500 meters down the road, where the policeman got down without paying anything and looked at least a little sheepish. Nishant looked at me and said ‘this is Delhi’.
Making the papers
The 15th August is Indian Independence Day and so both Dani and I worked from home on the morning of that Friday; my office and Dani’s school were closed. In the afternoon we took an auto to Law Garden, where the charity run by Dani’s Principal had organised a road closure and street fair. This was meant to be for all children, the well-off and those surviving on the streets, and it was good to see them queuing up to go on a swing, watching a magician and trying to keep up with a serious-looking dance instructor giving rapid instructions in Hindi. There was also a band and a DJ.
Unfortunately for us we drew a lot of attention from the crowds, admittedly mostly after we had had orange, white and green stripes daubed on our cheeks like many of the kids. We were hardly able to walk 20 feet without a press cameraman or amateur with a camera phone asking us to pose. After a while my grin became more of a rictus and even that I could barely keep up. We made it into the Ahmedabad editions of the Times of India and DNA newspaper though. The Times captioned our photo in front of the Indian flag, ‘Crossing over the spirit of India!’ In both montages we had almost as much space as Rahul Bose, the Bollywood actor drafted in to make the charity event extra news worthy.
The weekend feeling the street fair gave us had actually started the night before when we went out for dinner. I think we committed something of a sin doing this, as we ate in one of Ahmedabad’s seriously up-market Italian restaurants. This one, poorly situated behind a petrol station but on the SG highway that skirts the Western edge of the city and where the land prices for expensive ventures must be attractive, was actually rather fun. A huge neon sign-board blaring ‘TGB’s Little Italy Ristorante’ in bright white italic lettering identified the place from afar and we headed past the petrol pumps to approach the door down a walkway covered by white tenting adorned with the Italian flag. We were early for dinner at quarter to eight; the place was empty. But this suited us. We settled into deeply comfortable seats in the air-conditioned chill of the slate, wood and glass dining room, got carried away and spent Rs.850 on crostini, garlic bread, pizza and calzone. That’s four times the cost of an average meal for two in Ahmedabad and eight times the cost of dinner in a road-side dhabba. We were not, suffice to say, surrounded by a cross section of Gujarati society once other dinners began to arrive. The food was good, though the crostini were overly oily and the calzone immense. We were both defeated in the end, which rarely happens. The capers, olives and mushrooms I welcomed as if long lost friends though…and then ate with pleasure.
On Saturday, the day of a festival called Rakhi where sisters give their brothers a bracelet in imitation of a goddess, we both worked in the morning again, sitting either side of our plastic table in the living room. In the late afternoon we set out on a walk, a ‘power walk’ to use Dani’s term, with the aim of getting some exercise and ending up at Star Bazaar. It started to darken after half an hour of us starting out. After several twists and turns down seemingly identical residential streets, we began to think we had gone wrong somewhere, as no supermarket loomed at the end of any of them. At last we could make out the glaring spot lights of the building between two tower blocks. Making our approach through a part of Satellite we had not ventured into before, we followed a road that cut through two open and empty lots, overgrown with weeds and scattered with rubbish and building debris. In one, two peacocks screeched in the dark. As we walked, large bats flapped through the darkening sky above us, their total wing span perhaps a foot a half, their bodies moving lazily through the air. I counted more than fifteen of them. Within a short while we finally found ourselves opposite Star Bazaar, thankfully with our blood un-drained.
Unfortunately for us we drew a lot of attention from the crowds, admittedly mostly after we had had orange, white and green stripes daubed on our cheeks like many of the kids. We were hardly able to walk 20 feet without a press cameraman or amateur with a camera phone asking us to pose. After a while my grin became more of a rictus and even that I could barely keep up. We made it into the Ahmedabad editions of the Times of India and DNA newspaper though. The Times captioned our photo in front of the Indian flag, ‘Crossing over the spirit of India!’ In both montages we had almost as much space as Rahul Bose, the Bollywood actor drafted in to make the charity event extra news worthy.
The weekend feeling the street fair gave us had actually started the night before when we went out for dinner. I think we committed something of a sin doing this, as we ate in one of Ahmedabad’s seriously up-market Italian restaurants. This one, poorly situated behind a petrol station but on the SG highway that skirts the Western edge of the city and where the land prices for expensive ventures must be attractive, was actually rather fun. A huge neon sign-board blaring ‘TGB’s Little Italy Ristorante’ in bright white italic lettering identified the place from afar and we headed past the petrol pumps to approach the door down a walkway covered by white tenting adorned with the Italian flag. We were early for dinner at quarter to eight; the place was empty. But this suited us. We settled into deeply comfortable seats in the air-conditioned chill of the slate, wood and glass dining room, got carried away and spent Rs.850 on crostini, garlic bread, pizza and calzone. That’s four times the cost of an average meal for two in Ahmedabad and eight times the cost of dinner in a road-side dhabba. We were not, suffice to say, surrounded by a cross section of Gujarati society once other dinners began to arrive. The food was good, though the crostini were overly oily and the calzone immense. We were both defeated in the end, which rarely happens. The capers, olives and mushrooms I welcomed as if long lost friends though…and then ate with pleasure.
On Saturday, the day of a festival called Rakhi where sisters give their brothers a bracelet in imitation of a goddess, we both worked in the morning again, sitting either side of our plastic table in the living room. In the late afternoon we set out on a walk, a ‘power walk’ to use Dani’s term, with the aim of getting some exercise and ending up at Star Bazaar. It started to darken after half an hour of us starting out. After several twists and turns down seemingly identical residential streets, we began to think we had gone wrong somewhere, as no supermarket loomed at the end of any of them. At last we could make out the glaring spot lights of the building between two tower blocks. Making our approach through a part of Satellite we had not ventured into before, we followed a road that cut through two open and empty lots, overgrown with weeds and scattered with rubbish and building debris. In one, two peacocks screeched in the dark. As we walked, large bats flapped through the darkening sky above us, their total wing span perhaps a foot a half, their bodies moving lazily through the air. I counted more than fifteen of them. Within a short while we finally found ourselves opposite Star Bazaar, thankfully with our blood un-drained.
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