I've come from the desert on a horse with no name

although it was actually an iron horse, the Jaisalmer-Delhi Express. "Express" it may have been called, but it took 18 hours, not counting the time to get to the train, and from the train through mid-day traffic, to the guesthouse--via auto-rickshaw (which in Delhi, I've learned, run on clean, compressed natural gas--unlike the belching buggies of Bangalore).
          I'm also back, after nine days, to the land of technology. [I've been too spoiled by access to a couple of clean computers to go back to the Internet cafes, where the keyboards look like bacterial support-systems.] The hotel in Agra had a tv (except for the hours when the power was off) with only one English channel (happily, BBC World News). The guesthouse in Jaisalmer, run by a 68-year-old New Zealand expat librarian married to an Indian Muslim (who has a village wife also: what a story there) had neither tv nor internet. In addition, of course, I can't speak or read Hindi or Marwari or Rajasthani: I had the sudden understanding of what it feels like to be illiterate, looking at signs or directions in a script that might as well have been Arabic or Chinese, for all the meaning it conveyed to me. This sort of isolation, though, can be restful and conducive to contemplation. Not that I've reached satori, alas: it was too hot for enlightenment . . .

Nizamuddin East

     I was so lucky to find a homestay in this quiet green enclave, protected, like the Bangalore Club was, from the chaos and cacophony outside. This neighborhood has a South-of France feel: the tiny balcony outside my room looks out on flat rooftops and blocky white buildings, but it has a flowering vine growing over it, trees in pots, and a miniature marble-topped table.  The room is high-ceilinged, with marble floor and dark wood trim, lovely textiles (the owner is a designer) and artwork. An efficient ceiling-fan is enough to cool the room for sleeping. There is a rooftop garden just a floor above, full of potted plants and even a square of grass.
     The neighborhood is graced by dozens of small  parks protected from development (if not from the dog-owners airing their pets just beneath the "NO DOGS" sign), from pocket-sized to basketball-court-sized, all beautifully planted and shaded by old trees. The houses' pierced stonework, arched window-recesses, decorative grilles, oriels, and spiral stairs redeem the Corbusier-like angles and cubes.
     There's almost no traffic, but cars are parked neatly, everywhere. They're not fancy---Hondas prevail---but many are being buffed assiduously by the driver (not the owner, but a servant). Horn-use is forbidden, and it's possible to cross a street leisurely. The cries of peddlers, on bicycles or cycle-rickshaws, echo atmospherically from the streets below, and the day is punctuated by the Sikh prayers sung (and amplified) at a nearby gurdwara. I'll be sorry to leave for bustling Agra tomorrow (before dawn), but happily will return in ten days. Since that time will include two overnight train journeys, I will need the R&R!

Lal Qila, Delhi

     Although Nizam-ud-din seems to have preserved a pocket of decrepitude and filth around his precincts (godliness and cleanliness having become uncoupled), the rest of Delhi is as leafy as Bangalore and with much less litter and better sidewalks. It is smellier (my nose is working just fine; I try not to gasp at the ammoniac reek), and the destitute are either more numerous or more visible, but the auto-rickshaw wallahs are less insistent than elsewhere. There are monkeys, but no cows.
     The highlight for me so far was Qila Lal, the Red Fort, built by Shah Jahan when he intended to move his capital from Agra (his son interfered and imprisoned him in Agra Fort where he died). It was a fortification that protected an elaborate palace complex. The British took a terrible revenge here for the 1847 "Uprising," razing many of the exquisite court buildings (as well as slaughtering thousands of Indians, including all ten of the last emperor's sons).  An idea of what was lost can be gleaned from what remains: the throne room's elaborate canopied stone platform (the Peacock Throne itself having been looted by the Afghans), and especially the open-air reception hall. Nine arches long (each arch with eight inward-facing points), just between King Hall and the Main Common Room in size, it's a fantasy in white marble, columns inlaid with pietra dura flowers and low-relief cartouches with gold fill. The silver-gilt ceiling tiles are mostly damaged, but the elegance and lightness remain: the Mughals were supreme at conspicuous consumption. A smaller, more delicate set of rooms to its south was roped off---but the rope was knee-high and there were no guards, so crowds of Indians (with a blithe disregard for crossing official lines evident elsewhere) just stepped over and in. Another half-dozen beautiful buildings (as well as functional administrative one built by the British) stand within the extensive red sandstone crenellated walls.
     Halfway around the site I sat in the shade at the edge of a dry water-course (broad channels once carried cool water to all parts of the complex and supplied its fountains). As I ate a handful of dates and read my guidebook, I noticed some moving fabric, out of the corner of my eye. Looking up, I understood: across the channel an entire extended family, in holiday apparel, stood, egging on the grandmother as she inched closer to me, while the family's one son, age eight or so, tried to get us together in his viewfinder. I put down my book, removed my sunglasses, leaned closer to the matriarch, and smiled.  It's not the first time: a half-dozen Indian family albums now have an inexplicable foreigner appearing randomly in them. The boy practiced his English and showed the photo to me and to his grandmother, whose only English word seemed to be "photo," but who clasped my hand with her henna- or mehndi-covered one, as she left.
     Waiting to catch the return bus I watched the traffic--the densest I've seen yet, with a Diwali carnival set-up adding to the confusion--and saw a procession of chanting men carrying overhead a litter with what appeared to be a sheet-wrapped corpse on it. I hoped somehow it was an effigy needed for a ritual . . . .   

Walk 3.0: Through Medieval India

     Delhi wasn't Humayun's capital city: when his relict built his tomb there in the mid-16c she chose the site because it was adjacent to the much-visited shrine of a late-13/early-14c Sufi saint. Nizam-ud-din's tomb would almost fit into one of the alcoves at the base of the emperor's tomb. Rebuilt several times, and gradually surrounded by various other small shrines and a mosque, Nizam-ud-din's entire complex could sit in Madeira Hall with room to spare.
     Around the sacred site in the medieval period a mini-city naturally grew, and to reach the shrine hidden in the center (the way Chartres, or Salisbury used to be buried by the town) one must negotiate a maze of alleys, averaging four feet wide and thronged with folk. Ramshackle stalls line the warren, selling starched white prayer-caps, flowers to offer the saint, beads and bangles, and a lot more.  Food is being cooked, and on the mounds of dough or raw meat flies (more numerous even than the humans) stroll unhindered. Below the vats and grills the pavement is indescribably dirty: on my way out (luckily after resuming shoes) I narrowly missed stepping on a dead rat lying in the middle of the path. Chickens (in cages) and tethered goats await their fate. Sitting in the filth are beggars, many limbless or deformed; the more agile beggar-children stick persistently to the visitor.  Motorcycles and the occasional car somehow force their way through the crowds.
     Even in China I haven't been in such a smothering press of people, a ceaseless flow through the chute-like gully, past even tinier, more fetid, alleys to the sides: haggling, eating, touting on the fringes, and pushing on to the holy center.  The faces are every shade of brown. Although I've drawn a scarf over my hair and half over my face, I feel irredeemably white and conspicuous. The human stream runs into a covered bazaar, claustrophobic, though actually cleaner and incense-scented. But then one must remove one's shoes. I try not to flinch each time my feel feel something beside the pavement, beneath them.
     Milling about, squatting, cradling babies, and praying, in front of the various shrines (Nizam-ud-din's the whitest and most-decorated) are Muslims in an infinite variety of dress. Men wear crocheted, lacey caps, velvety fezzes, casually wrapped turbans (unlike the Sikhs'), or kippah-like colorful skullcaps.  The women's scarves are white and deckle-edged (Indonesian?), thin, bright, gauzy chiffon, tightly-tucked black (but from one such sober veil a black braid descending the back is tied with a bright ornamental tassle), or face-covering (but these, too, might be embroidered in gold). The women's dress seems a display of regional costume from the whole sub-continent. Despite the piety of the adherents, there's no attempt at male-female segregation, and in these cramped quarters, no way to avoid brushing against those of the opposite sex.  In one corner men are performing ritual ablutions, and I wonder whether the hawking and spitting into a trough is an improvement over the usual street-hygiene.
     Before entering one shrine the pilgrims stroke its low, gilded and painted arch (already worn in accessible places) with fingertips, then touch fingers to mouth and eyes--the way medieval Christians might have venerated a relic or blessed themselves with holy water.  In fact, except for the amplified muezzin reciting prayers, there's nothing to identify this scene as the 21st, and not the 15th, century.

Humayun's Tomb at daybreak

   I asked for a later breakfast from the sweet homestay owner (whose marvelous cook has made a couple of GF meals for me; I still can't get used to the presence of servants everywhere) and headed off about 6:20---just after it became fully light---to the local sight, and apparently the highlight of Delhi's many Mughal monuments, Humayun's Tomb. [Humayun was the second Mughal emperor; he had a checkered career, losing the empire to an Afghan, spending 15 years in exile in Persia--his mother's home--then regaining the throne, only to die six months later, falling down the marble steps in his library.]  His senior wife, away on the Haj when he died, made the tomb for him (a bit of guilt there, perhaps?).
    The mornings are cool, and although I inadvertently walked a roundabout route, that gave me a chance to see more of the lovely, Mediterranean-type homes in this gated neighborhood (Nizamuddin East, the exact opposite of Nizamuddin West, a warren of medieval alleys around the shrine of the Sufi saint Nizam-ud-din), and it brought me to the tomb in its extensive grounds just as the ticket-seller arrived. [Tickets are 20 cents for Indians, $5 for everyone else, which I find entirely fair.] I was the only tourist for the entire two hours I spent there!
     Since I can't upload photos, you'll have to google "Humayun's Tomb" (a World Heritage site, so there'll be lots of images). The 2003 main-building restoration is being supplemented by ongoing work: in the ground-level platform the arched recesses, which may look like a colonnade but are each the individual entry to a small chamber, giving onto another interior chamber, are being whitewashed, with the lattice-groins picked out in thin double lines of ochre. The tiny pillared canopies on the very top used to be covered in blue tiles: that must have been lovely. The pierced-stone windows, looking so fragile, are actually six inches deep: they let in air and keep out sun, but they also have a religious reference: when Mohammed was hiding from his enemies, a spider wove a web across the cave entrance, so the cave was not searched, and these patterned stone webs recall that event. (World history changed by an arachnid.)  I doubt that the photos will show the bright-green parrots that add a grace note to the red sandstone and white ornamentation!  And nor can they provide the sound of chanting coming from a mosque nearby: the perfect sound track. 

Indian TV
     Granted, since I don't have a tv at home, my basis for comparison is nil.  Nevertheless, when I've caught some screen time in various hotel rooms, I've been fascinated.
     There are many ads for fast cars. Given the state of the roads, this is puzzling: where could real speed be possible, without destroying the suspension (if not a cow or pedestrian)?
     Ads for skin-whitening products attest to the preference for fairness that's still a feature of life (friends tell me to look at the matrimonial ads, where a similar prejudice is displayed). I just viewed an ad for a deodorant that promises also to whiten underarms . . . really. And a prejudice against body hair--under arms, or chest hair on men--has also been imported from the West.  
     Ads for slimming products (usually a tea): diabetes is a serious problem in India. I've seen many very skinny people here, but also many overweight ones (if not up to the worst of American excess in that department).
     Other Western imports: movie channels, Bloomberg, Discovery, BBC Entertainment, Nat Geo, TLC. The hybrid CNN/INS channel just scooped up a mass of awards, and they were deserved, from what I can see by comparison with the other news channels (some in Kannada, Telegu, Hindi, or another language).  Several all-sports channels, offering a lot of cricket, but occasionally boxing or even baseball.
     Home-produced channels appear to be mainly either soap operas or spiritual guidance (again, I'm judging by body language and costume, since I can't understand a word). The gurus are often notably "saffron" (the color of Hindu nationalism)--in orange robes (or, at least, below the waist: above, their hairy chests may be on display), with orange-smeared foreheads, caste marks, scarves--or sometimes all in white. In the soap operas, women are bedecked with jewels and wearing the glitziest saris imaginable, edged with sparkling crystals, or covered in sequinned patterns. Modesty prevails, however: little skin is on view.
     Despite the wealth of native IT engineering talent, synchronizing voice and image is a perennial problem.

   

Walking, village mode

     Hampi is a World Heritage site, eight or nine grueling hours by train [2nd class non-AC sleeper] or by "luxury coach: super-deluxe executive class" bus [so many adjectives, so little in them], but after a night's recovery-sleep it is completely worth it. For over 200 years the site of a thriving Hindu empire, it was razed by a league of sultans in 1565. Pillage and time have much reduced its splendor, but it's still an awe-inspiring ruin--perhaps the topic for another post.
     This afternoon, though, I set out through the village at the very southern fringe of the vast historic site, where one paved temple-complex spreads out over the area of four football fields or more. It's on a side-road of the village of Kamalapuram, which seems a relatively prosperous place, with a couple of public water-pumps, and electricity laid on. [Of course the sight of overhead wires isn't exactly congruent with the majestic temple ruins, but a country where people still starve can't really bury its wires.]  Some of the concrete-block houses are large, even multi-story, and the thatch-covered mud buildings are freshly whitewashed. A lovely sky blue is the favored color for doors and trim (and bullock-carts), while on the bare swept earth before some doorways intricate geometric patterns have been chalked. The village shops--one-room stalls open onto the street--are heaped with coconuts, papayas, bananas, water in plastic bottles, and jars of Indian fried sweets.
     The usual animals are much in evidence: dogs (either tan or black, all with their tails curling forward over their backs) and puppies, roosters (one perched on a parked motorbike seat) and young chickens, black pigs and piglets. Cats, presumably, after dark (there are a couple of tame ones at the government hotel where I'm staying). A big herd of home-going goats occupied the street for a bit; other goats curl up in their yards like family pets. Of course there's cattle everywhere. Horns come in varied shapes: spread flat like water-buffalo, upright and lyre-like, forward-pointing, Ferdinand-style, etc. Some are painted red or blue, others are tipped with brass caps hung with tiny tinkling bells. There are necklaces of bells, and bright yarn bobbles on foreheads. No sheep---and certainly no elephants.
     The usual human inhabitants, too: naked babies, old men and women sitting on doorsteps or the ground (but just resting after a full day's work: no retirement here), a man bathing in the wide, fast-running canal. But above all, children---hordes of them (school is over for the day), who all (above the age of three or so) call out, "Hi, English," and run up smiling. They ask for "school pen?" (next time I'll bring a bag of pens) then "two rupees?" (four cents), but in a ritual sort of way, not expecting any pens or rupees to appear. Then conversational gambits: "Where from?" and "Your name?" They're happy to give their names in return, and laugh as I try to repeat them properly. The expert speakers venture further: "How old are you?" and "Your husband name?" When I reply that he died, their expressions become sad and they take my hand and say, "Sorry, sorry."
     Given all the pigs, and the sacred nature of Hampi, I'm surprised to see many Muslim girls (identifiable because their uniform includes a head-covering, even at age eight or so); other girls seem, from their bodice-and-flounced-skirt costume, to be adivasi [tribals]. The boys, of course, are unclassifiably dressed in shirts and shorts, and also like small boys everywhere, are more forward, and rowdy, and try to show me how they can "box." It seems that most of this village's children are in schools, which would make it quite unusual, I believe.
     People commonly walk with their backs to the traffic (even at night, on unlighted streets), giving drivers additional incentive to use their horns. Trucks (some brightly painted with floral designs) all have "Sound Horn" encouragingly printed on their rear bumpers. The horns seem especially shrill and loud--unless my hearing has grown more sensitive, as my sense of smell has diminished.  For I don't find the streets odorous--even though there are plenty of cowpats (and the fields around are the public toilet). Despite all the loose dogs there are no dog piles, and I don't really want to connect that fact with the roaming pigs.
   Compared to the city walk, there's less noise, less litter, more dust (though the street is paved) and more charm.  And there's a LOT more interaction. By the time I walk to the end of the street, both to the temple, and returning, I've acquired a tail of kids, some on bikes, all wanting to chat. I came here to see the sights, and have unwittingly become one myself.