Jaipur to Agra

January 18, 2010

Lions, tigers and bears, oh my.

Animals we haven’t spoken of very much. For a reason. It is “horrifying” to those who love animals. The venerated cows are often in the streets, on the sides of the streets, always eating garbage on the ground, especially plastic bags. It is difficult to understand how a sacred cow could be left in such straits. We are told that the people are too poor to feed them, but I would think that if they took them and fed them, they could use the milk for their family and sell the milk they don’t need, a la Heifer International. A cow just crossed the two lanes of our major highway so they wander about all over.
The word “cur” accurately describes the dogs we have seen, wild, mangy, about 45-50 pounds, greyish-brown, short-haired dogs, also roaming around looking for garbage. But we don’t normally see dogs and cows in the same garbage ane if so, the dog is on the very outer portion of the;garbage pile. Cows rule there too.
Monkeys are abundant too, but farily elusive, running along rooftops, but as we left Amber Fort yesterdqy, we passed through a small grove of trees and the trees were full of monkeys. they are small, maybe 2 feet in height, about 20 pounds and brown.

Rubble

I have tried to think how I can describe the scenes in the villages and cities, what it looks like as we drive through inhabited areas, and in one word, it is rubble. It is everywhere, broken up cement, mud, broken bricks, rocks, garbage, just thrown all together in front of the shops,homes, along the streets, just everywhere except when you turn into our hotel, where you are behind a wall, you have manicured lawns, beautiful bougainvillea, and uniformed doorman in a turban greeting us with a “Namaste”. So you compare that with what we have just come through, and you add in honking, drivers swearing at each other, cows crossing busy streets, dogs running along the side of the road or lapping up filthy garbage, monkeys jumping from rooftop to rooftop, dust everywhere and a layer of grime on the buildings, vehicles, the smell of exhaust from thousands of buses, cars and motorcycles, the colorful stands of fruits, the colorful shops, the smoke rising from the street side sellers of breakfast or lunch or snacks, men weaving along the side of the roads, groups of men standing and talking over the days news, smoking cigarettes or eating betel nuts that discolor their teeth and turns their spit red, the thousands of dirty motorcycles parked in front of and perpendicular to the shops, it is an incredible (and usually welcome) contrast. I can just hear Toby say, “But, Dad, can’t you just feel the energy.” Yes, Toby, I can and I am blessed to be a part of it.
By the way, if somehow this computer is found a 1000 feet away from a tourist bus that got blown up by gas truck explosion caused by a gas tanker that just passed us doing 50 mph in visibility of about 5 feet, know that I love you all. Namaste from Bay and me. We are en route to Agra, the City of Love.

Harry
Harry and Estelle are from Montreal, and they had told us that they were extending the trip for at least a week to visit other parts of India, and that they had recently been in Thailand. Well, it turns out that they are doing so because Harry is going blind. When the bus empties, Harry grabs Estelle’s elbow and off they go. I noticed something was amiss when he was looking for Saul and Saul was just a few feet away from him. Apparently they have been doing a lot of traveling after they discovered he was going blind. They are both very nice, and when Estelle wasn’t with him this afternoon, Bay helped him out.

Castes

There are 4 castes. First is the Brahmin or priest caste, those wiith brains, such as doctors, priests, professors, scientists, etc. Second is the caste of those who are good with fighting, strong, the warriors. Third is the commercial caste, shopkeepers, industrialists, etc The fourth caste is the caste of those who do not fit in the other three castes, called Untouchables. That is until Gandhi renamed them “hari jan”, or “ God’s people.” And jobs would be determined by what caste you were in, so in the warrior caste, you would go into the armed forces, etc. However, now with the paucity of jobs and the huge number of people, a member of the Brahmin caste can go into the military as Shankar’s father did. And a low caste person can be Prime Minister. Probably the only job that cannot go to one of God’s people is that of a priest in a mixed area, only in an area where there are only low caste people, no commercial, warrior or priest caste people. And it used to be that if you had food, you would take an offering to the temple in the evening, make an offering to God, and then, after the service, you would go home and make an offering to the low caste people, distributing food to them outside the home. However, in Shankar’s father’s home, it was a liberal home and his father would allow the low caste people into the sitting room and distribute the food to them there. Your caste is determined at birth and you can’t change it by doing another job or any other wayl And you can often tell a person’s caste and his area of residence by his last name. The one area where caste is still very important is marriage. More on that later. As Shankar says, if a person is a good person, it doesn’t matter what caste he is in, “he is my friend.”

Bay’s forte

Is finding wildlife and seeing men peeing by the side of the road, against buildings, just about anywhere. And she saw some antelope in a field so we had to stop the bus so everyone could get some pictures (of the animals not the men peeing by the side of the road).

U.P.

We passed from Rajahstan (home of the royals) to Uttar Pradesh (Pradesh meaning “state”), paying a tax to enter and various tolls along the way (one toll about $8 and the other about $3. We stopped at Fatehpur Sikri, a city built by the Great Mughal Emperor Akbar (remember him?) in the late 16th century. It is a National Heritage Site. But before we entered the grounds of the park, we had to run through the Great Mughal Army, i.e. vendors and hawkers of the most vicious kind (although none with babies). Luckily when we arrived, the bus to take us to the site was right there and we evaded the Army with ease. Shankar explained that Akbar was a great leader who led by treaty and negotiation, fighting only three wars in his reign, and winning all three. He was very tolerant, marrying three women, one a Hindu, a second a Christian and the third a Moslem. The Mughals were Moslem. He held a great conference of Moslems, Christians and Hindus because he was upset at the differences between the three religions and he came up with a new religion, a religion for all people, but of course it didn’t last because the priests did not support it. He was given counsel be a fakir and after that had three sons, so in honor of the advice he got, he built this city at the site where he received the advice. When the wells ran dry, he left and it was never occupied again. It is a large complex, with three palaces, one for each wife. The Hindu wife got the largest, next the Christian and the Moslem wife got the smallest. Akbar ended up moving to Afghanistan where he ruled his large empire.

Shah Jahan’s love story

The fifth Mughal king Shah Jahan fell in love with and married Mumtaz Mahal (“Chosen One of the Palace”) and when she was dying during childbirth of her fourteenth child, she made Shah Jahan promise her three things, one that he would never remarry; second, that he would take care of the children and third, that he would build a monument so grand that people could visit it and see what love was. The building of the Taj Mahal took 20,000 men over 20 years to build this testament to man’s love of his wife. Deposed by his son, Shah Jahan spent his last years in a prison in Agra Fort overlooking Taj Mahal. Upon his death, his body was taken to Taj Mahal to be buried alongside his beloved wife.

Your quiz for today

If you have a sandalwood tree growing in your yard, the Government will come and register the tree, and they will require you to keep the tree healthy as the wood is so valuable, and the Government reserves title to the tree. Why is sandalwood so valuable in India? What is it used for?

We’re having a night off so I can get to bed early tonight. Tomorrow, Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, high tea and who knows what else. Good night, love, Nat, Dad, Matt, DB, etc.