Sunday, 28 May 2011
We have come full circle since last Tuesday. We now have two nights on the train under our belt, and in between Varanasi.
It is fortunate for traveling logistics that we are a group of twelve. India train sleeper berths handily accommodate six. Arranged in our cars, prior to sleeping, we sit on benches, three in a row, knees touching three companions facing us, feet resting on our luggage. Each side of this space, the size of an average American walk- in closet, converts to bunks, three beds high. By the time of our second trip, we were seasoned train travelers and knew little things like: be ready, as soon as the train arrives at your stop other passengers are boarding to enter your car and you best be out of the way. Our first trip arrival into Varanasi ended 30 minutes earlier than expected and we were jolted from sleep at 5 am with three minutes to scramble out of our bunks and off the train, rushing headlong into newly boarding passengers. Talk about an abrupt wake up call . .
I realize that an inordinate amount of my writing has focused on the logistics of getting from place to place. Mobility is one of life's basic complications and in India it is a complication of infinite degree. The greatest factor is the sheer density of population. Delhi is the most populated city of India with 9,340 persons per square kilometer. Never was this more pronounced than the day we visited Old Delhi. What was once the old walled city of Delhi originating with the Mughal empire in the early 1600s, now dilapidated and crowded, Old Delhi is still the symbolic heart of the city. Traversing Old Delhi is like a journey into a post-apocalyptic scene that my imagination could not begin to create. At any point I could stand at a given spot and touch at least six people, three rickshaws, a goat, a motorcycle, a cart of mangoes, and a cow. Squeezing through the cacophony of noise and clutter presents a new view with every step. Lining the disarray of the streets are buildings in various states of crumbling demise, still in full employ despite missing walls or roofs, much like the many people with missing limbs still making their way through the chaos Draping the structures is an unfathomable amount of worn and tangled electrical wire. The air is as thick with smoke and particulate matter as the ground is with every form of refuse.
We have carried with us the weight of that afternoon in Old Delhi. It is baggage that has made heavy our hearts and confounded our minds with helplessness in the face of such enormous need.
On the same day, we visited the Gandhi museum, the man whose simple, beautiful, and courageous life is memorialized on the face of India's currency and more significantly by his example that despair and injustice should not be the final word.
When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love, have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it - always,
- Mahatma Gandhi
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Traveling to Varanasi
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Sitting in a train station in Tundla. Ben, sitting next to me has just exclaimed, "I feel sweat dripping down my legs...". We are in the Upper Class waiting room having arrived at 4:00 pm for a train we were told would arrive at 5:30. We were brought to the waiting room after thirty minutes on the platform and the assistance of several 'Porters' with minimal English deciphered we had arrived far too early.
"How do they do it?" Ben has now exclaimed rhetorically, referring again to the truly impressive heat. As we wallow, red-faced and sweaty, Indians perch serenely around us. In the middle of the room, a woman of middle age draped in a brilliant blue sari is perched on a backless stool. Her warm greeting ushered us into this space, " I am the boss" she proudly declared, with a twinkle in her eye. She is the first fluent English speaker we have met since arriving at the station. She confidently assures us that our train does indeed arrive at eight. A mere four hours to wait here with the heat and flies and patient fellow travelers sitting mutely in metal chairs which ring this 20' by 40' room.
"I feel like my butt is literally cooking" Ben mutters.
David wagers it is well past one hundred outside. So this space is judged to be in the balmy nineties.
We arrived in Tundla after an hour van ride from Agra, our location for the past twenty - four hours. In Agra we basked in India's most famous site . . the Taj Mahal. It is a marvelous thing to arrive at a site so excessively praised, and have it exceed your expectations. No more I can say about that...
"I think I would kill a cow in the middle of Delhi in order to take my shirt off in here " David wistfully states, having joined Ben's heat induced conversation.
A young boy scoots into the waiting room through the screen door and bee lines to us with an outstretched hand. Boss jumps up with her arm raised to give him a swat, and he scoots back out. The constant attention of beggers is one of India's most daunting realities. We have struggled with the appropriate response. Mostly we train our eyes to stay steely and straight ahead. Jonathan,however, is the worst at this. Jonathan is Dr. Jonathan Kramer, an NCSU music department faculty member and world music specialist. Jonathan's multiple prior trips to India, his tremendous knowledge, and infectious enthusiasm and generosity of spirit made him the perfect person to bring on this trip. It is that final quality that makes ignoring the beggars, particularly the children, an impossibility for Jonathan. Consequently, they swarm about him like small flies.
"Hell is surely a lot hotter," someone jests, and Bassil hangs his head contritely, "then it is time for me to start living a more righteous life."
The wit, adaptability and smart irony of this group of travelers is what makes them the perfect company for traveling. That, and the fact that they are serious about the business of making meaning of this complicated experience. The Religions of India is what we identified months ago as the theme of this trip, so as we go we are attuning ourselves to the multitude of religious structures and practices which abound in this country, as much as in any place in the world.
Amid quips about the heats, folks are enjoying time with their books. Next to me Bassil's reading is consistent with our travel theme and his own personal passion- interfaith understanding. A quote he shares with me speaks to our shared longing on this journey,
My heart has grown capable of taking on all forms
It is a pasture for gazelles
A table for the Torah
A convent for Christians
Ka'bah for the Pilgrim
Whichever the way love's caravan shall lead
That shall be the way of my faith.
IBN ARABI
Sitting in a train station in Tundla. Ben, sitting next to me has just exclaimed, "I feel sweat dripping down my legs...". We are in the Upper Class waiting room having arrived at 4:00 pm for a train we were told would arrive at 5:30. We were brought to the waiting room after thirty minutes on the platform and the assistance of several 'Porters' with minimal English deciphered we had arrived far too early.
"How do they do it?" Ben has now exclaimed rhetorically, referring again to the truly impressive heat. As we wallow, red-faced and sweaty, Indians perch serenely around us. In the middle of the room, a woman of middle age draped in a brilliant blue sari is perched on a backless stool. Her warm greeting ushered us into this space, " I am the boss" she proudly declared, with a twinkle in her eye. She is the first fluent English speaker we have met since arriving at the station. She confidently assures us that our train does indeed arrive at eight. A mere four hours to wait here with the heat and flies and patient fellow travelers sitting mutely in metal chairs which ring this 20' by 40' room.
"I feel like my butt is literally cooking" Ben mutters.
David wagers it is well past one hundred outside. So this space is judged to be in the balmy nineties.
We arrived in Tundla after an hour van ride from Agra, our location for the past twenty - four hours. In Agra we basked in India's most famous site . . the Taj Mahal. It is a marvelous thing to arrive at a site so excessively praised, and have it exceed your expectations. No more I can say about that...
"I think I would kill a cow in the middle of Delhi in order to take my shirt off in here " David wistfully states, having joined Ben's heat induced conversation.
A young boy scoots into the waiting room through the screen door and bee lines to us with an outstretched hand. Boss jumps up with her arm raised to give him a swat, and he scoots back out. The constant attention of beggers is one of India's most daunting realities. We have struggled with the appropriate response. Mostly we train our eyes to stay steely and straight ahead. Jonathan,however, is the worst at this. Jonathan is Dr. Jonathan Kramer, an NCSU music department faculty member and world music specialist. Jonathan's multiple prior trips to India, his tremendous knowledge, and infectious enthusiasm and generosity of spirit made him the perfect person to bring on this trip. It is that final quality that makes ignoring the beggars, particularly the children, an impossibility for Jonathan. Consequently, they swarm about him like small flies.
"Hell is surely a lot hotter," someone jests, and Bassil hangs his head contritely, "then it is time for me to start living a more righteous life."
The wit, adaptability and smart irony of this group of travelers is what makes them the perfect company for traveling. That, and the fact that they are serious about the business of making meaning of this complicated experience. The Religions of India is what we identified months ago as the theme of this trip, so as we go we are attuning ourselves to the multitude of religious structures and practices which abound in this country, as much as in any place in the world.
Amid quips about the heats, folks are enjoying time with their books. Next to me Bassil's reading is consistent with our travel theme and his own personal passion- interfaith understanding. A quote he shares with me speaks to our shared longing on this journey,
My heart has grown capable of taking on all forms
It is a pasture for gazelles
A table for the Torah
A convent for Christians
Ka'bah for the Pilgrim
Whichever the way love's caravan shall lead
That shall be the way of my faith.
IBN ARABI
Saturday, May 21, 2011
A Caldwell India Summer
May 22, 2011
Sunday morning
Cup of tea and the Times of India. Half a world away from my usual coffee and Raleigh News and Observer.
It is my third morning in Delhi, and there is now some familiarity to this place. Twelve of us are finally all here, our arrivals spread over several days and with four days in Delhi we have some time to adjust to this very different world before we begin an intense traveling agenda. The safe girl part of me is relishing this little chapter as I write from the air conditioned comfort of my room at the Kingston Park Hotel in New Delhi. Outside it is sunny and it seems that yesterday's sweet rain and break in the heat will be only a memory today. Day before yesterday it was 114 F.
Step outside our hotel and India broadsides you with a hard kick upside the head. Delhi is a city of 10 million people and half of them are on the road at any given time, zipping about each other in a hodgepodge of red and yellow auto rickshaws, compact cards, bicycle rickshaws, motorcycles, trucks and the occasional horse or brahma bull. We arrived in the midst of a taxi strike and the first day we depended on whatever means we could find to get about. Day one I rode two auto rickshaws, one bicycle rickshaw, and a makeshift taxi/ van. Whatever the means we squeeze as many of our bodies in as we can get, plus one more (student groups travel low on money and high on willingness to sacrifice comfort.) The final rickshaw ride of the day about did me in. We were far from our hotel and finding a driver willing to go the distance with us took multiple attempts. With no taxis working (recall the strike) we finally found a reluctant but willing auto rickshaw driver who allowed four of us to fill his bench fit for two. Fitted onto the engine of a motorcycle, the rickshaw was straining with the four of us
plus driver. Still, that was the least of the drama. It was evening and the heaviest traffic time of the day. I dared not hang on with my hand clenching the side of the rickshaw frame, for fear of losing a hand.... yes, traffic cuts that close. There are traffic lane markers which seem
only to serve as guides for staying straight for the drivers who split lanes by driving on the line. Roundabouts abound in this city (a thank you
to former British occupation, I wager) and they seem to operate like a swarm of fish in a feeding frenzy, drivers charge in and somehow
(miraculous to me) come out in the other side. I, however, will need to up my next birthday count by one year, as I am sure I have lost a
year of life from the stress of it all.
Readers, relax. We aren't spending all of this trip dependent on such piecemeal mode of transportation. For months we have been working with a travel company on this end who have handled our hotel bookings and our transport from city to city. Yesterday from inside a mini bus that comfortably carried our group, we began an undertaking of the major sites of Delhi. Saved from the distraction of hanging-on-for-dear-life, we could take in the larger view as we moved about the city. What I cannot fathom is the endless amount of broken concrete and crumbling buildings. Combine poor materials and construction with a brutal weather system . . . this is apparently what you get. And amidst the rubble stretched along the roadside are the shanties which are the makeshift homes of countless persons. What bit of green that exists is well
worm by the traffic of those countless people.
So why have we come to this faraway and often wearying place? Because we know there is also so much more to India and so much we have to learn. We have come to open our minds and hearts. Stay tuned.
Sunday morning
Cup of tea and the Times of India. Half a world away from my usual coffee and Raleigh News and Observer.
It is my third morning in Delhi, and there is now some familiarity to this place. Twelve of us are finally all here, our arrivals spread over several days and with four days in Delhi we have some time to adjust to this very different world before we begin an intense traveling agenda. The safe girl part of me is relishing this little chapter as I write from the air conditioned comfort of my room at the Kingston Park Hotel in New Delhi. Outside it is sunny and it seems that yesterday's sweet rain and break in the heat will be only a memory today. Day before yesterday it was 114 F.
Step outside our hotel and India broadsides you with a hard kick upside the head. Delhi is a city of 10 million people and half of them are on the road at any given time, zipping about each other in a hodgepodge of red and yellow auto rickshaws, compact cards, bicycle rickshaws, motorcycles, trucks and the occasional horse or brahma bull. We arrived in the midst of a taxi strike and the first day we depended on whatever means we could find to get about. Day one I rode two auto rickshaws, one bicycle rickshaw, and a makeshift taxi/ van. Whatever the means we squeeze as many of our bodies in as we can get, plus one more (student groups travel low on money and high on willingness to sacrifice comfort.) The final rickshaw ride of the day about did me in. We were far from our hotel and finding a driver willing to go the distance with us took multiple attempts. With no taxis working (recall the strike) we finally found a reluctant but willing auto rickshaw driver who allowed four of us to fill his bench fit for two. Fitted onto the engine of a motorcycle, the rickshaw was straining with the four of us
plus driver. Still, that was the least of the drama. It was evening and the heaviest traffic time of the day. I dared not hang on with my hand clenching the side of the rickshaw frame, for fear of losing a hand.... yes, traffic cuts that close. There are traffic lane markers which seem
only to serve as guides for staying straight for the drivers who split lanes by driving on the line. Roundabouts abound in this city (a thank you
to former British occupation, I wager) and they seem to operate like a swarm of fish in a feeding frenzy, drivers charge in and somehow
(miraculous to me) come out in the other side. I, however, will need to up my next birthday count by one year, as I am sure I have lost a
year of life from the stress of it all.
Readers, relax. We aren't spending all of this trip dependent on such piecemeal mode of transportation. For months we have been working with a travel company on this end who have handled our hotel bookings and our transport from city to city. Yesterday from inside a mini bus that comfortably carried our group, we began an undertaking of the major sites of Delhi. Saved from the distraction of hanging-on-for-dear-life, we could take in the larger view as we moved about the city. What I cannot fathom is the endless amount of broken concrete and crumbling buildings. Combine poor materials and construction with a brutal weather system . . . this is apparently what you get. And amidst the rubble stretched along the roadside are the shanties which are the makeshift homes of countless persons. What bit of green that exists is well
worm by the traffic of those countless people.
So why have we come to this faraway and often wearying place? Because we know there is also so much more to India and so much we have to learn. We have come to open our minds and hearts. Stay tuned.
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