Incredible India
Trip Start
Sep 26, 2010
1
32
44
Trip End
Jun 10, 2011
Amritsar, Punjab, India
Monday, March 21, 2011
-Instead of the occasional litter in the street you would have trash everywhere you looked. Piles and mountains of trash. We could not find trash cans and stopped being surprised when Indians would throw full bags of trash out of train, bus, or house windows.
-Instead of a man or two urinating in a corner, you had open public urinals where you could watch many relieving themselves at once. This made the air on either side for 100' smell strongly of urine.
-Instead of a little traffic, you would have streets clogged with congestion with inches between cars, rickshaws, and pedestrians. Take crowded and multiply by fifty.
-Instead of the occasional horn blast, every car, every other second would blast its horn such that the air was filled with a cacophonous roar almost every hour of the day.
-Instead of a beggar on every other street, you would have one or two on every block, all very aggressively insisting that you give them money.
-Instead of tap water that you could purify, you had water than after purification was still undrinkable.
-Instead of normal touts that would like to earn a fare by doing you a service, you had persistent touts that would lie, extort, and act more than we had ever experienced. They would triple the price of every commodity or service and then act insulted when you offered the actual price. There were not just a couple of touts, there were hundreds. Ask us about the Delhi train station when you see us.
-Instead of the normal annoying crowds you had a self absorbed people that completely disregarded their surroundings and how their actions might be taken by others. Their attitude was: the world is mine, get out of my way. While we do not know this to be true, this was our
interpretation of their actions towards us and their fellow Indians. Given what we saw of India, this end behavior was a possible final outcome of the over crowding and limited resources: in essence, every man for himself.
On a whole we were confused how we could find so much bad in one country because we usually can see around it. We kept trying to convince ourselves to like India, but in the end we just couldn't do it. After much contemplation, we finally figured out that we rate our experiences with a few criteria: natural beauty, good food, and interactions with the people. Even after several days, India was scoring at the bottom of each category. The natural beauty was crowded out by the number of people, the best Indian food we had was in Nepal, and only about 1 in 5 interactions we had with people were positive. They were few and far between but did occur and only happened during interactions that did not involve the possible transfer of money.
The above was a vent and summarizes that we did not like India and were glad to be gone. That might sound harsh and southern India may be nicer, but our experience in the north was overall bad. Most people either fall into either the love or hate India category and we were clearly in the latter. Strangely, we did meet several people who raved about India but we were not ever able to get from them exactly what they liked. If India is anything, it is cheap. Perhaps these people liked how far their money would stretch. We could go on and on about the negative experiences, the numerous extortion attempts, and how they wore us down to the point that we did not want to walk around and explore, but we don't want to dwell any longer on the negatives of incredible India. The following details our positive or humorous experiences that made India an interesting destination.
India is incredibly diverse with 1.2 billion people and is the origin to four of the world's major religions. Each and every city we visited was entirely different from the others in almost every way. While there were a few commonalities, we were surprised by the diversity between regions. Jaipur in Rajastan had camel carts and colorful saris, Amritsar in Punjab had egalitarian Sikhs, Agra had the grand Taj Mahal as its focus, Varanasi had the river Ganges which dominated life and ritual, and Calcutta had old Ambassador taxis from a forgotten era.
Amritsar
Following a tip from friends we met in Africa, we visited the northern town of Amritsar near the Pakistan border. After a long train ride from Delhi through farmland and countryside we arrived in Amritsar in the state of Punjab.
Amritsar had two draws, both of which we enjoyed: The Golden Temple of the Sikhs and the flag ceremony at the Pakistan/India border. Both were incredible. The Sikh religion is amazing in that it welcomes anyone from any race, creed, ethnicity, or sex to join, worship, watch, learn, share, eat, bathe and participate. The Golden Temple is the Sikh's most holy place and thousands pilgrimage from all of over the world to eat, bathe, sleep, and worship here. It is an enormous square complex with four gates symbolizing the four cardinal directions. The square complex of white marble surrounds a very large square pool. In the middle of the pool, connected by a covered walkway, is a small two story temple ornately decorated and completely covered in gold leaf. In both the day and the night it beams yellow gold and the reflections from every corner of the inner square were exquisite. Outside the central square is a kitchen that serves free meals 18 hours a day to upto 100,000 people daily. We dined for lunch on the floor with approximately 500 other people in a huge room. Lunch of chapati, dal, potato curry, and sweet rice was very good considering the volume that they were making. Stepping outside after handing our dirty dishes to the army of volunteers we saw another army sitting on the ground cutting a 4' mountain of red onions, peeling the skin off of a huge basket of garlic cloves, and peeling a small cart load of potatoes. Everywhere around us, hundreds of volunteers were working, prepping, cooking, serving, or cleaning. It was a scale of duty we have rarely experienced and it was beautiful to behold.
We came back in the evening to see the magical nighttime reflections and walked to the temple in the middle of the lake. Each night another army of volunteers would descend on the temple and clean every interior inch. Standing outside watching, a man invited us into the main room where their holy book is held and explained what they were doing. It was very intimate to be in the inner chambers while worshipers sang the melodic story-songs that we had heard on the television and radio all day long. The Golden Temple was the only place in India where we felt truly welcome and were treated as equals. It was not surprising to learn that one of the first Sikh acts was to abolish the caste system in their region.
The flag ceremony at the Wagah border between India and Pakistan was both interesting and entertaining. Apparently the border guards started doing a oneupsmanship display in 1959 that escalated to the point that they brought in grandstands on both sides and the show draws over 5000 spectators a night. We were lucky and got to sit near the front because we were foriegners which provided us with a good view of the Indian side and a decent view of the Pakistani side. The guards on both sides of the border were enormous, far taller and well built than any of the Indians we had seen previously. They wore colorful uniforms with red fan shaped hats. In short, they looked ridiculous and covered for it by acting very serious and not smiling. The pre show had already started when we arrived with music blasting from loud speakers permanently mounted for the purpose of blaring. In the middle of the street groups of girls were dancing to the latest dance tune and people would run with pride to the border gate and back wielding huge Indian flags. When both sides were ready and the guards had stretched, the yelling and foot stamping began. After an excessively long bout of yelling "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..." (that went on for an uninterrupted 30+ seconds) by a single man into the microphone, one of the guards would high kick and foot stamp and then march/dance/speed walk to the gate demarking the border where they would repeat the kicking and stamping display. This repeated for all 10 plus guards and you could see the same thing happening on the Pakistani side. This was followed by more high kicking and stamping. The kicking and prancing is supposed to be an imitation of the pride and anger of the cockerel. The gates were then opened and the flags were simultaneously lowered and then speed folded and marched back. The gates were then slammed shut and each of the guards marched back to their starting position. The entire time this was occurring the crowds were cheering and chanting in Hindi and we did not ever fully understand what they were saying. We think it was "Long live Hindustan". Adar had read that the kicking and stamping used to be more ferocious but that some of the guards were complaining of joint pain and so it was toned down a bit. Whatever the purpose, it was entertaining.
Agra
The sole reason for visiting Agra was to see the Taj Mahal. The Taj, for short, is a white marble tomb larger and more intricately ornate than you can possibly imagine. Built for the lost love of an Indian king for his beloved wife, the Taj Mahal is an edifice to love, symbolizing one man's eternal love for a woman.
We visited the Taj Mahal at sunrise before the majority of the crowds arrived and shared the place with only a couple hundred other people instead of the afternoon's couple of thousand people. It was larger and more impressive than we had thought although strangely it was not as white as it appears in the many photos. Next to the Taj are a red mosque on one side and a guest house on the other, both of which were impressive in their own right. Of course there were monkeys causing trouble and the ones we saw were busy upending trash cans to search through the garbage.
We had some time to kill after we found the post office (read our Air Mail entry for an entertaining story) and decided to try and see a movie. To get there we took our first and last bicycle rickshaw pedaled by what must have been an 80+ year old man. He had a colorful blue towel wrapped around his head and had we realized how far it was across town we would not have bothered him. For 20-30+ minutes he pedaled painfully slowly across town in the midday heat at times obviously struggling with his American load. We were afraid he might collapse, but he really wanted the fare (I suspect that he doesn't get much business in his frail-looking state) and we thought he would be upset and offended if we asked him to stop and let us out. On arrival we gave him a liter of water as he had none and we easily downed the entire bottle. His face was beautiful with dark weathered akin, deep creases, and deep set glassy eyes. I asked to take his picture but he declined. The mall was barren and the three movies, while with English posters, were all in Hindi sans subtitles. Oh well, we did find the equivalent of a 99 cent store and pickup a small squirt bottle which came in handy more than once.
Varanasi
Built on a bend in the river Ganges, Varanasi is one of the oldest Indian cities and the spiritual center for Hinduism. They say if you die in Varanasi, you achieve moksha and are released from the reincarnation cycle not to be born again. We stayed on the river in the old part of the city to get a richer cultural experience and spent our afternoons walking along the banks and the main ghats where people bathe, laundered their clothes, mended and built boats, worshipped, were cremated in large pyres, and attempted to sell foreigners boat trips.
On one of the mornings, we took an early morning paddle out on the river to get a better view in the dawn light. People were selling floating candles and the water was dotted with little spots light as we glided along. Despite the water being toxic (fecal coliform count is 3,000x the safe limit and dead bodies are routinely wired to stones and sunk to the bottom) people drank, bathed, and fished in this most holy water. Burial in the water is reserved for only those who are pure (children and holy men), so most bodies are burned at one of the burning ghats. We went to one of the burning ghats and tried to rid ourselves of the "guides" walking in front of us, telling us about the ghats and then asking money for their services. At one point we couldn't get around them and ended up standing in the smoke from the burning bodies, which was more mentally than physically distressing. It is a testament to the weirdness of India that you can be standing next to a river, watching shroud-wrapped bodies being placed on pyres, and the thing that strikes you as most odd about the situation is that there isn't any trash on the ground.
Random notes
Cows
In Hinduism, cows are sacred and are allowed to be anywhere, anytime and are rarely if ever, prevented from going wherever they want. While this sounds simple, the consequences are that there are cows in the strangest places. We think of cows in grassy fields making milk. In India, cows could be found lying in the middle of the street, walking in the middle of the freeways, walking along the train platforms, in busy markets, ... We stopped being surprised and would simply smile when you were somewhere and a large cow would walk by or when you would turn a corner and be stopped by the large ungulate.
Bollywood body double
Very occasionally while in public, a group of Indians would walk up to us and ask for a picture with Jeremy. Sometimes they would take turns, others times it would be one group photo. After the tenth such photo shoot and on one of the many long train rides we asked why the group was laughing/wanted the picture. Apparently, Jeremy looks like a character the Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan played in one of his earlier movies. We had no idea who this was and they quickly pulled out their version of the latest trashmag and showed us the actor. 1) he was handsome; 2) he does bear some resemblance to Jeremy; and 3) we did know who he was as we suffered through one of his movies while on a long bus ride in Peru. The movie was called "Kites". It follows the long and twisted love trail of two outsiders as they infiltrate, betray, and then run from a Vegas mafia family. We remembered it well because we had spent a good deal of time making fun of it. We were not able to find a picture but google his name and remember that in India, Jeremy was lean and had a short beard/long stubble. From then on we were not surprised and would say "Yes, I know, ... Roshan" which would usually elicit smiles and head wobbles.
So I guess, India is incredible in some ways. We are very glad that we experienced this land of extremes and needless to say, India will be incredibly memorable. We have no intention, however, of going back.
Comments
I loved India, but other than Agra I went to different places. I'd love to compare notes whenever we're in the same place again. India is such a contrast from the very poor to the very rich. Overall it is a hard place to visit as your guard is always up. I still remember how hostile I was to a cab driver in Malaysia when I still had my India mind set.