INDIA

Part II

Frederick L. Coolidge, PhD

Psychology Department

University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

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S outh of India's fourth largest city, Madras, sits Mahabalipuram, a small eastern coastal town on the Bay of Bengal. Mahabalipuram is famous for its 1,200 year old carvings in the local granite rocks. This is a picture of a life-sized statue of an e lephant. The carvings are numerous, varied, and scattered about this rather quiet and mellow town. Some of the modern descendants of these ancient stone carvers still ply their trade here, and a plethora of stone souvenirs are available.

R ajasthan is like visiting a completely new country in India. Rajasthan is located in western India and borders Pakistan. Rajasthan is vast, arid, and ancient. Evidence of a sophisticated (agricultural) civilization dates back to about 2,500 BC. Ev en visiting Rajasthan now is like going back in time a thousand years. Many of its cities were built as forts along the legendary silk trail from Persia to China, and most date back to the year 1,000 or earlier. I took this picture in the city of Jaipur, also known as the Pink City because of the pink-colored sandstone facades of its city buildings. This is a picture of the Palace of the Winds (Hawa Mahal) in downtown Jaipur. It was built by the local maharaja in 1799. Many women in the Indian culture wer e (some still are) confined to purdah which means they were rarely allowed to leave the home or to see another male other than their husbands or sons. This maharaja confined his wives, girlfriends, and other ladies of his court to this palace where they c ould look out the many windows and observe street life without being seen. The top three stories of the five story palace are actually a single room.
There is a fabulous maharaja's palace in Jodhpur that has been converted to an outrageously expensive hotel (Umaid Bhawan palace). Only Paul and Linda McCartney could afford one of the rooms (well over $1,000 per night). Even trying to look in the lob by is impossible without paying some ridiculous looking fee (like 300 rupees). It was built as the Maharaja of Rajasthan's private residence in the 1930's. It contains Belgian crystal, tons of art deco, magnificent gardens, and a ballroom to seat 300 peop le (I saw all of this in Architectural Digest). The outside of this home-hotel is replete with well-tended lawns, gardens, and terraces.
In 1947, when India became a whole nation for the first time (north and south together), all of India's maharajas lost their land holdings and thus, their tax base. The Maharaja of Rajasthan lost 26,000,000 acres. His son is still very pissed. I met h im at the Ajit Bhawan Palace Hotel. In 1992 his hotel was semi-expensive (about 1,000 rupees or about $30) but a true bargain compared to American hotels. The Ajit Bhawan hotel used to be the maharaja's little house. The main hotel part is absolutely fabu lous: it's the most classic British Raj era house I've ever seen, full of stuffed animals from hunts, pictures of tiger and elephants hunts, guns, knives, old cars, etc. The actual hotel rooms (there are a few in the main building) are in stone cottages s cattered about the walled compound. There are fountains and pools, hammocks, and swings throughout. It is a great place to relax and feel the luxury of early 1900 India. It's not new and snotty like the typical modern four star hotels of India. The mahara ja mingles and offers a great buffet lunch and dinner along with live Rajasthani music. Although he mingles, one feels his regalness. After all, millions of villagers considered his father and grandfather to be god-like. He has not forgotten.

I ndia's hotels, forts, and museums, or anything with imposing front doors, usually has an impressive guard. Many of these guards have long, waxed mustaches and fancy uniforms. They are photographed willingly and continually (and expect a tip just as frequently). This is a picture of a guard I photographed in front of a hotel in Jaipur.

I t is at least a 10 hour train ride straight into the desert from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer but well worth the effort. Jaisalmer is the epitome of a classic Rajasthani city. It is in the middle of the desert near the Pakistan border. It is close to nothi ng. The rather small city (less than about 50,000 residents) is over looked by an amazing fort, Jaisalmer Fort, built in 1156. Most India's forts also served as palaces. The Jaisalmer Fort is bounded by huge, thick, crenelated walls. This picture is of m y brother and son outside the fort's gates. They were negotiating to buy Rajasthani violins. The violins were home-made of local materials and sounded great when the salesman played them and horrid when my brother and son played them. Inside the fort ther e are hotels, temples, and restaurants, and well as puppet and textiles sales people. While in Jaisalmer, we negotiated to go to Khuri by jeep to arrange a camel ride into the desert. It was an interesting intrigue. We were told that foreigners were not allowed to go, that permits were needed, and that no permits were available. We were told it was too dangerous and too close to the Pakistan border. Nonetheless, I had read of khuri camel trips two years earlier, and I was on a mission. With heavy ambival ence from my little group (and they were not previously known for their good judgment which is why they probably finally said they would go) we met furtively with a jeep driver who agreed to drive us to Khuri. Only by dark in the early morning (about 60 d egrees F) but we were bundled appropriately. Our driver wore a turban like many Rajasthani men, and a white scarf covered his face (except for his eyes). He drank hot steamy chai and drove the jeep with his spare hand. About an hour later we arrived at Kh uri. It was a very small collection of houses, no visible stores, no paved streets, off the main road, completely in the middle of a desert. We were driven right through the sands and pulled in front of a plain two story stone house. The jeep driver said nothing, volunteered nothing, and drove off after I paid him. Our anxieties did not abate.

W e looked about. The houses were surprisingly of Mexican pueblo style. The walls of the houses and compounds were earth-colored and sometimes painted in whites and blues. All of the houses were separated by sand. There were no electrical lines. Wit hin minutes, however, a man walked up and asked why we were there. I told him. He left. He returned with a white-shirted fellow who introduced himself as the manager of the camel tour. He handed me a book of hand-written accolades from people who had been pleased with their trips. I thought it slightly strange and ominous but read their comments which were, of course, universally positive if not slightly subdued. The manager then told me that there had been a price increase, to 175 rupees per day ($5) per person, all meals included. However, before I could say anything he said that he was quite prepared to honor the previously quoted price from Jaisalmer ($4). I told him we would pay the new price, not wishing to piss off anyone before we went into the de sert for three days.

H e left without further explanation (like wait here for 10 minutes or go over there for two hours). Again, we sat in the shade in front of the stone house. Within about an hour, three camels arrived ridden by three camel drivers. The camels were one -humpers. It was to be one customer in front of hump and the driver behind the hump. We were actually sitting on an elaborate blanket and saddle contraption that was fastened on top of the hump. From my earlier research, we had known to wear long pants to avoid chaffing. The camel was made to kneel, the driver loaded up our small backpacks, and then he gave the command for the camel to rise. The camel groaned and whined in seeming protest, and then began to stand up on its back legs first, thrusting me fo rward suddenly. Had I not realized what was happening quickly, I would have been cast over the camel's head. Next, the camel stood up on its front legs, and I was rocked back equally violently. At last, I was up in the air with commanding view. I watched my brother and son go through the same jerky loading procedure and then we followed one another through the sandy alleys of the little village.

A gain we passed earth-colored pueblo-styled houses, and I was amazed at the universality of desert architecture. And then we were off for three days into the heart of a Rajasthani desert. It was about 9 AM. We traveled only until about 11 AM passing only meager fields of wild watermelons (!) and gourds that looked like watermelons amidst sandy desert. At 11 AM, we stopped on top of a sand dune. The camels were tethered in the shade of a tree at the base of the dune. In the blazing sun (things had wa rmed up considerably), our drivers prepared our first desert meal. Sandy lentils, sandy unleavened bread, and a sweet sandy pudding-like dessert. And then we sat. Their English was poor and my Rajasthani was non-existent so it was difficult to ask or unde rstand what our schedule was going to be like. Finally at about 4 PM when the desert heat had abated, we climbed on our camels for two more hours, heading deeper into the desert. I was still glad that I had paid the extra dollar a day for better meals bec ause I could not imagine what the $4 a day food would have been like. Actually when I was wandering around on top of the sand dune in the blistering afternoon sun, I found a small group of rocks, and among them was a stone ax head. Was it 10,000 years old ? A 1,000 years? Our drivers looked at it, talked amongst themselves, and said, "old." <
At 6 PM we stopped for the day at an oasis, and this would be our routine for the following two days. The oasis consisted of broad but thorny tree. Near it was a rough rock-lined well about 8 meters deep. A low stone trough stood nearby. A hand-woven rope made from tough desert weeds was tied to part of an inner tube. The drivers filled the trough with water for the camels, and we eagerly took over because we were looking for something to do. We had come with the mistaken expectations that the trip w ould be full of activity but it largely consisted of mundane but life-supporting tasks. At night we slept on thick blankets. The air turned cool again, and the warmth of the desert sand was a distinct pleasure. And then came one of the highlights of the t rip. Stars! It has been said that over 2,500 stars are visible on a good night. With the absence of city light anywhere on the horizon, I'll bet there were 5,000 visible stars. The Milky Way was so clear and so bright that it looked like a fluorescent lig ht tube, and I had to sleep on my stomach to avoid its brightness. We counted four meteors and three quick moving satellites. Before I fell asleep, I heard the gentle tinkling of each camel's bell underneath their necks as they continued to feed late into the night. We were awakened well before dawn to a desert breakfast consisting of sandy lentils, sandy unleavened bread, and chai. This next day we came into a remote desert village where our drivers apparently asked the villageman for permission to enter . Ah, but that it another story.

N orthwest of Delhi, nestled against the Western Himalayan mountains lies the majestic Kulu valley. This picture shows an interesting juxtaposition of a tropical banana tree against the 16,000 ft peaks of the western Himalayas. My brother, son, and I had journeyed for over 24 hours by bus to visit the home of the exiled religious leader the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, in an adjacent valley to Kulu. Ironically while we wandered about his 7,000 ft high city, he was visiting Colorado that very same week. It was November and starting to get cold in the mountains. We rented a room with a small heater and even with it on, we awoke to the room temperature of 49 degrees F. My son had warned us about the cold by his prior readings so we bought fur trappers hats for about $10 in downtown Delhi. And this is how we looked:

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One frosty morning we went hiking. Even in late November, the day actually warmed up nicely. Today's mission was to find Arjun's Gufa or the holy cave of King Arjuna. According to the vague guideboo k, it was a holy pilgrimage site on the side of the mountain in the Kulu valley. We ambled about in the general direction, gaining altitude steadily. I found an elderly man who was hiking parallel to us along a similar mountain path. I hailed him and aske d directions for Arjun's Gufa. He apparently understood just those words and guided us along the path nearly the complete distance. We thanked him, and we came upon this holyman and two helpers:

W e asked him about Arjun's Gufa, and one of his helpers explained that people dynamiting tree stumps along the mountains terraces had collapsed the small cave, and he pointed to a heap of jumbled boulders. We walked up to them and crawled through sm all crevasses but clearly the main cave room was completely obstructed. We crawled out, and the holyman and his two assistants invited us to tea. They were in the middle of moving a large, heavy flat rock into place beside the holyman's outdoor temple. We joined in, and the five of us managed to wedge the rock where the priest wanted it. They thanked us, and we thanked them. And as we climbed down, I took this picture of the Kulu valley:

I ndia is hardly ever what one expects it to be. It is nearly always a surprise. Even mailing a package can be an adventure. From ocean to rivers to mountains to deserts, India never ceases to amaze and frustrate. Majestic and pathetic. Bargains and rip-offs. Jasmine and urine. It is as if India is concentrated experience of the vastness and variety of life. And yet it compels me like a magnet. Here's a final picture of me biking in southern India. I was heading down an unfamiliar trail toward an inv ariable adventure. Namaste!

CODA

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