My Year of Living Draftily

Goodbye India. For now.

With only a few days left in India, I find myself a muddled mass of mixed emotions. On the one hand, my excitement has been slowly building over the last three weeks or so about the prospect of being home. Seeing friends and family is the big attraction, of course: while email, Facebook, Skype and even cellphone have all been fabulous tools to keep the traveler in touch with home base, the electronic world can't yet replace the energy and joy generated in a face-to-face gabfest. Especially if you add wine.

Reconnecting with my lovely little house also gives me butterflies. I've bought it lots of gifts that I can't wait to retreive from boxes that have floated halfway across the planet and await me at home. Not to mention all those I'm carrying with me. I foresee some strained conversations with airline staff in my near future.

My garden! I'm really really hoping something is blooming, though will settle for cherry blossoms on boulevard trees. I think digging my hands into the soil will be very satisfying. Unless it's a big mudbath right now - will have to check conditions before ticking this box.

As much as I'm looking forward to some key comfort foods of home - spinach salad with my own homemade dressing, brunch at Demitasse, Arlene's famous BBQ chicken, butter tarts - I think I'm looking forward even more to cooking. Not because I'm such an avid or even a good cook. I think it's more about regaining some control over what I'm putting in my body. Everything from portion size to intensity of spices to just knowing the standard of hygiene in the kitchen - none of that has been in my control for a year. I've fared remarkably, some say miraculously, well health-wise despite this (thank you, Ducoral - don't leave home without it!), but having access to a refrigerator and knowing the provenance of most everything in it will be a luxury.

But there's lots I will miss of India. To start with, the rock star treatment I get in India. I know it's not for the right reasons - skin colour, assumptions about wealth and status, men's obsession with sex and their assumptions about Western women, etc. - but it still feels damn good to know my mere passing is a screech-worthy event for children throughout the subcontinent, outside of major urban areas. By contrast I head home to a society where, as a short, forty-something female I'm virtually invisible; I sometimes think I'm at greater risk of being hit in traffic in Victoria than I am in India.

I'm going to miss the newspapers. I read the paper almost obsessively in India, and while yes, that obsession was partly about the crossword puzzle it was also a hugely enlightening window into Indian politics and culture. I love that spiritual matters are given daily space in the editorial pages, and even sometimes reported as news. A 20-word "news" blurb on a talk given by a local south Indian guru informed readers that while desires in themselves weren't necessarily a bad thing, if we don't keep them in control they will eventually lead to misery. So true. The language of the English dailies was also much fun. Indian English is its own breed: a flowery, old-fashioned British with variable grammar and a sprinkling of malapropisms and euphemisms, with the odd Hindi word thrown in, and all that in a paper that wins awards for "clear English"."It so happened that Mangi Kuldi was misbehaved and manhandled by some villagers in one morning when she was coming after responding nature's call." Even the weather: I'm told there will be "thundery developments" and to expect an "uneasy and sultry afternoon". There was a period of about 4 months where the Times of India decided that using "intimate" as a verb meant the same as "inform", and they'd use it multiple times in an issue: senior police officers "intimated" to the  accused's lawyers the charges against him. I expect it was accompanied by a nudge and a wink.

I'll miss India's juxtaposition of the ancient and the cutting edge, the traditional and the contemporary. In the Kutch region of Gujarat, I asked my rickshaw driver to pick up people that were trying to flag a ride. A woman in ornately embroidered tribal dress and heavy jewelery got in with her young son. She smiled her thanks to me, then from the folds of her elaborate skirts whipped out a cellphone and proceeded to make three calls and receive two in the 20 minute run back into Bhuj.

I'm going to miss the Indian railways, the greatest democratizing force in travel ever. I'm going to miss random bits of music - devotional and filmy - emanating from somewhere, always, everywhere. I'm going to miss sandals and flip flops - my feet haven't seen the inside of a closed-toe shoe since July. I'm going to miss mango season, just getting underway as I depart. I think I may even miss the cows, or at least the way in which cows can become just so much street furniture, nothing strange here.

I'm going to miss how India makes me reconsider assumptions and examine my own reactions on an almost daily basis. A small example: throughout my time in India, I've been struck by how, well, rude it seems everyone is when it comes to how they deal with each other (not just me) in public. No one apologizes when they bump into each other, they don't even acknowledge the other person is there. People play music on their cellphones, loudly, in restaurants, trains and buses, no headphones involved. People will answer their cellphones during a movie, and proceed to talk while still sitting in their seat. I try not to judge but for a Canadian, where the second or third word we learn is "sorry", this widespread behaviour seems utterly inexplicable to me. I assumed there was something I just wasn't getting, but couldn't figure out what it was. It was only in January, after 10 months in India, that I was passing time reading a long list of do's and don'ts posted in the waiting room of one of dozens of train stations I've passed hours in, and came across the last one in the list: "Be tolerant of those around you." If this was Canada, or the US or anywhere in Europe, I'm sure, that last one would have read "Be considerate of those around you," that is, think about the impact of your behaviour on others. I suddenly realized that I'd been using the wrong yardstick for "polite" behaviour, and in fact my scowl when someone blows smoke at me or telling the man in the train berth below me to stop playing music on his cellphone at 5:30am may actually be the rude behaviour, not the other way around. Don't get me wrong, I think a little consideration could go a long way to making India a much more pleasant place to be in many ways, and even make driving much safer. But I hadn't really considered the value of tolerance as the overriding social norm when you live in a populous society that has absorbed so many foreign cultures and traditions over thousands of years. I love those lightbulb moments India graces me with on a regular basis.

I'm going to miss my blog. In fact, I've decided I'm not going to give it up, at least not yet. I'm sooo far behind - notice the last one was from Udaipur which I visited in November! - and I'd like to make the record a little more complete. So I will continue posting both blogs and photos once I get home. I still have so much in my head, and on my camera, and the blog has been a wonderful way for me to sort my thoughts and reactions as well as share my photos. And who knows, maybe it even inspires me to do that book I thought about during Vipassana?

I'm going to miss the decadent luxury of just being a traveler. Or maybe that should be the luxury of being just a traveler. Of waking up each morning and being able to choose if I stay, if I go, will it be an active tourist day or a hole-up-in-a-cafe-with-a-book day.

And last but not least, I'm going to miss the new, the stimulating, the beautiful or just unexpected that arises at least once every day in India. My challenge to myself as I go home is to be open to seeing the new, the stimulating, the beautiful in the often overlooked nuances of the everyday. I may have to be more purposeful about actually looking for it, but the reward is keeping alive the sense of renewal and thrill of discovery I get from travel without having to cross an ocean. At least, not for a while.

Udaipur Photo Tour

[October 31-November 4] Arriving in Udaipur, in southern Rajasthan, one morning early off an overnight train it felt like I'd woken up in a different India. It wasn't just that the streets were teeming with tourists - this was my first foray into Rajasthan and while I'd known there'd be more tourists, I hadn't quite realized the degree of contrast with much less touristy Gujarat, where I'd just come from.

And it wasn't just the profusion of onion domes and  scalloped archways and white and ocher washes that crowded into the skyline view from atop my guesthouse ("Highest rooftop restaurant in Udaipur!"), becoming almost a caricature of an 'exotic' Indian city, a caricature of itself. A city doesn't get to be a James Bond movie locale ("Octopussy") without being a little over the top.

As I wandered through the grand City Palace complex, comprising several different palaces now museums and restaurants and guesthouses and, yes, even a residential palace for the current Raja's family, I got this strange feeling that "I don't belong here." It was the first time I had felt this in India. It's not a feeling I get in many places, I'm a pretty comfortable tourist most everywhere I go. The one other place that produced this feeling in me, and so strongly, was many years ago in Monaco. It's ostentatious display of wealth - rows of designer boutiques, yachts in the harbour, fast sports cars careening around the twisty roads, and the beautiful people to go with it all - made me the Euro-backpacker feel distinctly out of place, tatty, unkempt, low-budget and unwanted for it.

On that first day's wander with Jez, a fellow-traveler from Britain I'd met in the train station that morning, I took in the well-maintained palaces, the manicured lawns, the tasteful terrace restaurants with uniformed waiters, the valets at the boat launch waiting to whisk the well-heeled tourists to their rooms in the Palace Hotel out in the middle of glistening Lake Pichola, and it felt like this wasn't a city that wanted to cater to a mere backpacker like me. I felt out of place.

But as we continued to poke about, Udaipur's multiple charms worked their magic on me, making itself irresistible. Each cityscape and intricate detail was more beautiful than the last, until it was all so sweetly pretty you thought your teeth were going to rot right out of your mouth. I was aided by the enthusiasm of Jez, who'd been struggling to like India in the short time he'd had to get to know it, and found in Udaipur a reason to like it and to want to come back to India.

I also did find Udaipur welcoming to the full range of travelers, once I got past the glossy sheen. My $5/night room in a lovely old building gave me dawn access to what really did seem to be the highest rooftop restaurant in the city.

And Octopussy showing every night, just for those of us who may have missed it in the James Bond pantheon (guilty!). What's not to love!

A short photo tour of Udaipur for a vicarious taste of the quintessential exotic India.

Fringe Fright

[January 9] It's not my fault (a favourite defense here in India, I've discovered). I was desperate. I hadn't had my hair cut since August in Bangkok, and my shaggy English sheepdog look had progressed (digressed?) from a somewhat endearing travelers' unkemptness to just plain embarrassing. I'd been advised to stay away from the scissor-wielders in Hampi (local advice, no less), so a haircut was top of my list when I got to Kochi, in Kerala.

Lo and behold, a Ladies' Beauty Saloon (no, no beer, that just seems to be the conventional spelling in India and Sri Lanka) beckoned me across the road from the hotel I'd found in Fort Cochin. A clean establishment in a nicely maintained house, it looked like a safe, professional bet. Couldn't do worse than a German woman who offered to cut my hair in Dharamsala who claimed she was a hairdresser at home yet gave me one of the most random - that's the only word I can think to describe it - haircuts I've ever had.

The Rs80 (C$2) quoted sent up a caution flag, but then I'd only paid $5 in Bangkok and that trim was...okay. Haircuts are generally a dodgy affair when traveling, and I only had 6 weeks to go in my trip anyways, so all I was really seeking was...okay. 

No washing was involved, just spritzing the ends before they were trimmed off. The back was 'shaped' with some care, and some layers snipped with less attention, but close enough. They're layers. She seemed less sure what to do about the bangs - they were long enough that it probably wasn't clear where they 'should' be.

Her English was minimal and my Malayalam non-existent so I used my fingers to demonstrate that they needed to be much shorter, up around my eyebrows. She grabbed another chunk at about the same place and I nodded yes, yes, thinking we were still just establishing the concept of "shorter". But she meant business. Snip! I was a little surprised - I hadn't assessed to see if that was exactly the right length and bangs need some precision. An attempt at getting her to graduate the sides into the longer part of my hair resulted in a slightly longer chunk...oh no...

I stopped the proceedings right around then. At least I could see now, even if I wasn't so keen on what I could see now in the mirror. I look like I cut my bangs myself. I look like I'm 8 and cut my bangs myself. But I maintained my equanimity - everything changes, hair grows, oneeche, oneeche (see my Vipassana post) - and paid the Rs80 with a smile and namaste.

And asked a friend to make an appointment with my hairdresser at home for the morning after I land. Just don't tell him I paid $2 for a haircut! Though I'm sure he'll be able to tell.

Happy New Year in Hampi

Okay, I'm way behind in getting my photos processed on the computer, and even moreso to get them uploaded on the blog. So clinging desperately to the "better late than never" theory, I offer for you here some photos of how New Year's is celebrated in much of small town India - rangoli art!

I was still in my 'homebase' of Hampi at New Year's, having got here for Christmas a week earlier. Was so lovely to be back in south India!

At around 8pm on New Years Eve the women started gathering in front of their homes in the small village, and setting out grids of tiny dots with rice flour poured from clenched fists. This was to be their pattern grid. The street had been painted earlier in the day with what looked, to some other tourists and I, to be a mixture of cow dung and water. We checked with a local, and yes, that's exactly what it was. It apparently provides a more uniform and opaque background against which the colours of the rangolis show up better.

Using the dots and generally a pattern sketched out on paper, the women and girls drew beautiful, complex designs and then filled them in with colourful sands. By 10pm the street was a veritable art gallery, with various barriers like bikes erected to try to keep the cows away from trampling them at least for a few hours. Most were getting blurred by foot and hoof traffic by morning. Like some of life's best art, so ephemeral and you have to make the most of the moment you come across it!

I've put together a small album of the best of the ones I came across - enjoy!

Indian trains: “Pardon me, boy, is that the Chhatrapathi choo-choo…”

It was one of those “Indian train” moments. I’d been waiting hours for this train, and it was to arrive in about 15 minutes. I retrieved my bag from the cloakroom – great for ditching your pack when you don’t want to lug it around for hours – and was heading over the footbridge to the platform when I noticed the distinctive colours of the Rajdhani high speed train already there. According to the electronic notice board in the main terminal it wasn’t supposed to leave for another 10 minutes, which would make it about 20 minutes late. As I was heading down the stairs, though, I heard the conductor’s whistle blow and the train began to move.

I ran down the last few steps and up to the edge of the platform, trying to focus on the part of the coaches where I knew the train’s number should be. Sure enough, 2951 (up)/2952 (down) Mumbai Rajdhani Express.

With no time to really think it through I reached up for the handrail beside the next open door passing me, got one foot, two feet on the bottom step, and managed to latch my left hand onto the other rail. As the train gathered speed I heaved myself up one more step but I’d have to let go of the handrails to step inside the coach, a dodgy proposition with 17kg dragging me backwards and another 7kg on my front. The train was now at a speed where aborting this operation was no longer an option.

Vipassana: All in my head

[July 3-14 and December 3-14]  "Work ardently. Work diligently. Work patiently and persistently. You are bound to be successful, bound to be successful."

Easy for him to say.

I'm at my second 10-day Vipassana course, this one in Jaipur, Rajasthan. S.N. Goenka, the Burmese Hindu Vipassana master is (on audio tape) encouraging the 80 or so meditators assembled in the dhamma hall to approach these 10 silent days as serious work.

Vipassana is the meditation technique discovered by Gautama the Buddha with which he achieved full enlightenment 2500 years ago, at the age of 35. He then spent the next 45 years teaching it to anyone who wanted to learn. His intention was not to establish a religion, but to instead show people the path to enlightenment that had worked for him, in the hopes that others would tread the path for themselves. Vipassana is disseminated today as a strictly secular practice, a technique, open to devotees of all or no religions, but unlike most religions no one's going to save you, absolve you of your sins, answer your prayers, open the gates of heaven or grant you enlightenment. You have to do the work yourself. Apparently this appeals to me.

Gujarat: a photo tour

[September 25 - October 30] I spent the month of October traveling around Gujarat. It's not nearly as well-touristed as its palace- and fort-strewn neighbour to the north, Rajasthan, and that may be one of the reasons I so liked it. There are enough fellow-travelers in the guesthouses for good conversation and the odd day-trip buddy, but not so many that tourists have become an intensely competed commodity.

I'm also still impressed by how different parts of India show up as so distinct from each other, and Gujarat is one of the more distinctive. From daily attire to handicrafts to room decor to the delicious cinnamon/cardamon-laced thalis (multi-dish set lunches), Gujarat more than many states has its own stamp.

As a tourist, I think I had a greater range of experiences in Gujarat than in any other state so far. Staying for five weeks helps, but still: I visited temples and pilgrimage sites, hung out at the beach to even out my tan, joined in some traditional dancing, visited remote tribal villages with mud huts, saw artisans at work, went on a bird-watching safari, and watched cricket and visited one of my favourite museums ever in big cities. Whew! Rajasthan has a hard act to follow.

Hope you enjoy this pictorial tour of Gujarat.

White girl on moped

[October 20-22] The Kutch region of western Gujarat encompasses a vast sandy desert that extends up to the border with Pakistan. It is home to a variety of tribal communities that have evolved a rich and complex textile handicrafts tradition, particularly colourful embroidery and handblock printing known as ajrakh. Their works identify communities, important events and even stages in life of the wearer. In communities where women are still largely confined to the home these textile arts are one of the few ways a woman can earn an income, increasingly through sales to a growing tourist trade.

There are numerous shops in Bhuj, the main city in Kutch, that sell these products, some linked to NGOs that work to conserve the handicraft tradition itself as well as to better empower the women who do it. But part of the fun in this region is to get out into the communities where people still live in fairly traditional ways to meet the makers of what you may buy. The logistics of traveling in such a remote area, heading west from Bhuj towards the Pakistan border, usually means tourists hire a car and driver to chauffeur them around the region, but it's a relatively expensive option. The other option is to rent a motorbike or scooter and drive yourself. Which is how I found myself joining the ranks of Indian drivers.

I've been on lots of Indian roads since I've been here, but other than a couple of short scooter rides in and around the small village of Hampi, I've not really been a driver myself. This was going to be a 200km (round trip) journey over two and a bit days, on my own. At 40km/hr - it was only a 100cc scooter - but still, I'd be on the highway. I was excited, and a bit nervous.

Safe and sound and NOT in Mumbai. But staying in India...

[November 27] A couple of months ago I awoke in Mumbai to newspaper headlines of bomb blasts in Delhi. Yesterday morning in Delhi I awoke to live TV news coverage of terrorist attacks and hostage takings in Mumbai.

The September Delhi blasts were followed by explicit threats against Mumbai, and I had a tense three-four days avoiding crowds and dustbins as I was stuck in the city awaiting replacement cards and cash. No such threat was issued against Delhi (yet), but I'd already booked a train out of the city to a small town in Rajasthan.

I had actually been enjoying my time in the big city, just hanging out. I could catch up on computer stuff (blog, photos), meet random travelers in every cafe in the Paharganj district, and spend afternoons reading the newspaper unhassled in a leafy green park. That last one was a particularly rare treat. Love Lodhi Gardens!

But I think I'll be limiting my time in big Indian cities for the remainder of my trip. There have been several bombings in cities around the country since I've been here, and many have been killed or injured. I'm not going to quote numbers or dates or places as that can make everywhere in India seem a lot more risky than it really is given the geography and timelines involved. But nonetheless, some places seem potentially more of a target than others.

Pushkar Camel Festival: Workin' it

     
[November 4-8] I was this close to skipping the Pushkar Camel festival, or mela, the "world's largest" (and yes, I've since discovered that there are others in India and elsewhere). An otherwise tranquil, small pilgrimage town is mobbed by tens of - there are some claims of hundreds of - thousands of pilgrims, foreign tourists, tribal people and as many livestock. Prices for everything skyrocket, narrow streets are jammed, and best advantage must be taken to make a killing or snap the trip-making photo in these frenzied eight days. Yet my guidebook acknowledges all this and still says that if you're in Rajasthan in November the Pushkar Camel Mela remains a 'do not miss' event.

Slave to the must-do list that I am, I went. And I liked it, despite all of the above which was all true. But I went early as most of the camel trading takes place in the first few days and many herders leave once business is done.

The last four days is when the pilgrims really arrive en masse. Hindus believe that bathing in Pushkar's sacred lake, or sagar, on the five days leading up to and including the full moon of the month of Kartika (usually November) will absolve them of all sins and release them from the bonds of endless re-birth. It's quite the prize, so thousands flock to take part in the group bath. But I've seen many pilgrimage sites, and whacks of pilgrims, so I left just as the town's seams were beginning to strain (and well before the real onslaught hit, apparently!). I was here for the camels!

And they didn't let me down. Camel, cattle and horse traders from all over western India gathered and groomed and strutted to put their best hooves forward.