Thursday, January 28, 2016

ON THE GANGA RIVER (GANGES) IN VARANASI   JAN. 27

Varanasi, or Benares, or Kashi, its oldest name (in Sanskrit it means "spiritual light", is over 5000+ years old continuously inhabited. Nearest oldest city is Damascus.  Buddha gave his 1st teachings here. It is sacred to Hindu, Buddhist and Jainist followers.  The river, consider "Mother Ganga",  is 1700 miles - 3rd longest after Nile and Amazon, flowing from the Himalayas down to the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh. There are 3 million people living here, the City of Learning and Burning! It is a honor to die and be cremated here. Many old people come here for that to happen. Sometimes, because they go to the river every day to bathe, up and down the steps, they end up not dying quite so soon! 

It is considered the abode of God Shiva - not just god of death, but also of rebirth or also reaching moksha, or nirvana. Mostly cremations take place between sunset and sunrise, but not in Varanasi - they go on 24/7. We saw last evening 8 or 9 going on at one site, the maha shimishan - or main crematorium, with two bodies wrapped on the steps waiting. it takes 2-3 hours each, on a wooden pyre. Only male family members attend, with one of the members in charge, having his head shaved. The body should be cremated almost immediately, in such a warm climate, so there is no time to bring a body here from very far away, if they don't die here. 
Little girls last night selling Daisy floating flowered lights for us!

I think this was the oldest, 500 years, building here.

All the fires are individual cremations going on. Sandalwood is poured on so no odor.

A happy Thanksgiving for the day celebration was going on nearby - not related at all to the cremations going on.

This was the evening aarti - ceremony. Very joyous!


Sunrise on Ganges!

Colorful, old city!

All the boats out at sunrise!

Holy men on the platforms to make offerings.

Landing our boat.


Some kind of ceremony that tourists could join in.

Rod, saw this and thought of you!! :) Penguin in India? 


Along the banks of Varanasi


Hindu women, training to be priests, unheard of!, chanting in Sanskrit in morning arti (greeting sunrise)

Hindu priests performing arti at sunrise


Man bathing, and women collecting holy water in vessels.

One of the hawkers came alongside to sell us stuff.


A "sadhu", or holy man, covered in ashes, on the steps (ghat) to the Ganges. Daisy taking a whiff of his MJ pipe! 

The crowds just after sunrise as we were leaving!

One of the many temples that provide free food (soup) to the pilgrims who come to this holy place.


Wednesday, January 27, 2016

AGRA VISIT  JAN. 26, REPUBLIC DAY

Today was a holiday for all India, when the Republic was declared. So there were big doings/ parades in most cities. I watched part of the parade in Delhi on TV where part of the French Army marched, lots of Indian troops, motorcycles in formation with a pyramid of people on top, all very colorful. Security was tight and I didn’t hear about anything untoward happening. 
Daisy and Lee entering one of the gates.




Interesting "star of David" star had nothing to do with Judaism but was a Hindu star sign.


Part of the water "air conditioning" system in the fort that ran through the floors.

An attempt at faking marble. Didn't work!

Samples of inlayed stones in marble - a dying art!


Part of the harem area in the fort. 

We left in heavy fog to go to the Red Fort first, built by Akbar, the third Mughal ruler crowned in 1556 at age 14. It was constructed between 1565 and 1571. It is massive, with double red sandstone walls, a moat around that used to have crocodiles. It covers a triangular area of one and a half miles. The magnificent towers, bastions and ramparts and majestic gateways symbolized the confidence and power of the third Mughal emperor. It was added to later on by Jahangir and Shahjahan (who built TM).  It was in really great condition but a lot of the decorated panels with inlayed stones had been removed. The Shah who built this, as well as the Taj Mahal in memory of his wife, was eventually imprisoned here for the last 7 years of his life, by his evil son (who had killed his brothers so he could be Shah). At least he respected the father’s wishes to be under house arrest there so he could view the mausoleum he had built to his evil son’s mother! He eventually was buried there beside her, which is the only unsymmetrical thing about the TM! 

The previous evening/late afternoon when we had arrived by bus in Agra, we had gone across the river to these gardens where you got a view looking across at the TM. It was foggy/smoggy so it wasn’t a great view but you take a chance at this time of year with weather. Daisy said the two things she really has no control over are whether we spot a tiger at Ranthambhore (we did!) or have a foggy view of the TM. So we got a look that afternoon and took some pictures in case it was worse in the morning when we were scheduled for an actual visit.
From across the river.

Four pillars leaned slightly out, so if they fell in an earthquake, they wouldn't fall ON the mausoleum


Our chef, Nivya!

The Sikh bride leaving the hotel! Gorgeous!

Our hotel was lovely, HUGE with 450 rooms, with lots of other tour groups and a beautiful Sikh wedding going on. Dinner was on our own and Barbara and I went to the 24 hour cafe for two Kingfishers and nachos!! They were delicious! The cute young chef Nivya came out to our table to ask how we liked it. She had worked there for a year and a half. She went to get us some more toppings to finish off the chips. That was our dinner that night!! 

As we were at the Red Fort the weather started to clear so Daisy changed plans and we headed to the TM. Getting off the bus and getting inside was kind of a hassle, with all the hawkers trying to see you stuff, and it was very crowded. We had more expensive tickets that the huge lines of Indians so we got in a bit faster. Security again was very tight and Tom lost a keychain tiny knife that was confiscated. Once inside the crowds were thick and groups taking photos everywhere. OAT has a photographer that took a group photo of us (complimentary) with the TM in the background. Then you could pay extra (100 rupees) for additional photos. 


The fountains were working that day, it was pretty clear (Daisy was amazed for this time of year!) and we walked down to enter, donning white paper booties over our shoes to preserve the marble inside the tomb. Inside his wife, Me  j   was buried below the ground, but you can’t visit her tomb any more. A duplicate, copying the beautiful inlayed marble was built above that you can view. And then Shah Jihan was buried beside her in a beautiful decorated tomb. A screen was surrounding both but you could peek through if you could fight the crowds! When  the Shah had promised his wife, on her deathbed as she had just delivered their 14th child, that he would build a monument to their love (they were married for 19 years and never apart! She followed him to battlefields, wherever he traveled. 




Aerial view photo that I bought.

Beautiful inlayed marble.



Monday, January 25, 2016

STEPPING WELL/ TENT CAMP  JAN. 24

Yesterday we left after DHONK stop and drove to the Stepping Well site. There are 8 of them in India and this is the 2nd largest one, from I think the 8th century. Ancient scientists could tell where the rolling aquifer under the earth is closest to the surface and a well was dug there. Since it was on the aquifer, there was a constant flow of fresh water for a village. It soon became a local social gathering place, laundromat and water supply. It was huge and interesting. 

Nearby was a still active temple, in partial ruins from the same period, with very intricate sandstone carvings, but they are collecting the blocks from the surrounding area. They fit together like a puzzle so maybe some day a group will try to restore it. There was a flag on top which mean’t it is a practicing temple. 

Then on to our CAMP!!! We each had a tent with zippered doors (reminder of Botswana and that trip!) surrounding a grassy area. There was a space heater in each room for warmth, extra blankets and a surprise hot water bottle in our bed when we retired for the night!! It stayed warm until morning, at my feet. Too cold for the bathroom right off my room to shower so I’ll wait for the hotel tonight.

We gathered around a campfire, with the full moon up, Daisy took us back into the kitchen and gave us a cooking demonstration of a potato/spinach with spices dish and cooking two kinds of bread - one layered with oil, and the other the blow up kind (roti) that we had made at our hosted meal. Then back outside for a wonderful dancing demonstration by 6 or so men playing drums and bells and doing dances that they use to entertain themselves when they are out herding animals or working out on the farms. They pulled us each out to try our hand (or rather feet) for a bit. Fun!

There was dinner and we all went pretty quickly to bed with our hot bottle! Daisy had a morning surprise for us! The men were dressed in turbans (9 meters of brightly colored cotton) with a hanging “tail” and tuft on top, and the men’s pants called dhoti - that is 3.5 meters of white cotton, wrapped, pleated, tucked  in and drawn through the legs and tucked in the waist. Daisy said they wear underwear under them.

We ladies were draped in a vivid colored veil then tied on our shoulder. We all posed for pictures in our colorful outfits. Our last surprise was a ride in a jugar, a make-shift, put-together-from-all-kinds of parts, vehicle. There was a box radio tied on, steering wheel from a bus or big truck, no hood over the engine. Larry, of course, rode up front!! the rest of us stood in the back and rode down the lane and small road back to the Stepping Well, with the music blaring out of the box radio and us dancing in the back, as we held on for dear life! Our bus met us at the well after a 15 minute ride and off we headed to Agra!

One stop was at a stone carving place. This families, from past history, had done this carving for the palaces. Now they carve smaller pieces for hotels, homes, etc. Hard work but some beautiful pieces!! 

Our lunch stop was at a renovated maharaja’s palace, now a hotel, where they were just cleaning up from a wedding (they last 5 days!). There was heavy fog this a.m. which is a boon for farmers but if we have it tomorrow, we won’t be seeing the Taj Mahal at sunrise!! Daisy is taking us this evening to the other side of the river for a view, just in case. I wore this morning my marigold lei they gave us on arrival at our hotel last night. 

CASTE SYSTEM IN INDIA:

Unlike what I thought, the caste system isn’t based on materialism with the wealthy at the top and the poorest at the bottom. No one is sure exactly when it started but in 6th century BC there was a revolt against it. This is when Jainism and Buddhism developed, that rejected ALL casting and categorizing people! It originally was a way to organize people and families. Once they had a skill or job, it was handed down from family to family over hundreds of years. 

The system finally came out as:

Brahmins - the priests, teachers, intellectuals
khatriyas or rajpoot - the maharajas or the military
vaishyas - the moneymakers, farmers, businessmen
shares - servants or assistants to any of the above
and finally Untouchables - people who were scavengers, did all the clean up of toilets, the dead, etc. that no one else wanted to do.

For several hundred years it became pretty fixed and discriminatory. People could marry only within the same caste, and couldn’t move from one caste to another. By the end of the 1100s with the first non-Hindu invasion of Islam, who ruled for 500 years, the system started to become diluted. 
By the mid 1700s when the British East india Company first unified most of India, they cared even less and just hired people who could do the job, so it got further diluted. Once Independence came in 1950, and the Constitution was adopted, discrimination or even referring to people into a certain class (especially the lower) became illegal. But she said out in the villages there still might be remnants of this system.

Sati - in the past, when a husband died, the wife would inherit his property. If she remarried, the previous husband’s family might not be happy that his land would go to the next husband and out of the family. Daisy said women were to blame for the practice, of the widow throwing herself on top of the burning corpse of her husband (probably others most likely had to throw her!!) so the land would stay in the family. She said it all had to do with money, not respect or anything for the husband. There has only been one case since Independence of sati.


Tomorrow is Republic Day - Jan. 26th. Places we passed through are getting set up for celebrations - everyone has off work. Hope nothing untoward happens anywhere! Especially New Delhi where the French president is visiting. 

Friday, January 22, 2016

DINNER WITH AN INDIAN FAMILY  JAN. 20

All of us went off this evening for a home hosted dinner with a local family. Barbara, Mark, Lee, Nina and I went to a 3rd floor apartment with a lovely family; Dad, mom - a kindergarten teacher, an 18 year old daughter studying commerce and a 13 year old girl. We were served masala tea (with milk, cardamon, cinnemon and black tea) in their living room with some little snack. We were each given a garland of marigolds and a special bindi for guests (women only). The dad said they had had an arranged marriage, seeming very happy for 19 years. About a year after their marriage, his father had a gangrenous leg removed so the father devoted the next 18 years to carrying for his father. They had owned the house next door and this was his father's property. After he died, they have the top floor for their home and he runs a hostel for male students who attend the school across the street. Next year, he said, he will have female students, as it's safer for them to walk home from school right across the street. The family was all very charming and spoke wonderful English. He said he also did some work for OAT and other travel agencies.

The wife invited us into her kitchen to watch her prepare the finishing touches of dinner. She was cooking a lentil soup/stew in a wok. She rolled out (and had us do it) the flat bread and puff it up on a burner. She showed us her drawers where spices were kept in large plastic cannisters. Dad said Indian food is usually better the next day while the flavors all have time to mingle.

Dad sat at the table with us and the 3 women served us. It mad us a little uncomfortable. But Daisy explained later that that was typical with gguests, not close family and friends. It's like you are inviting "God" to your table so you don't sit with him! But usually the family eats all together. We had a lively discussion and everyone enjoyed the food. (Daisy had called to inform our host that I had not been well and would not be eating much - so it was acceptable that I had only a bit of nan (the bread I had rolled).

All 3 groups who went out had a wonderful evening - not something you usually get on a regular tour.
Our host's father and grandfather

Having tea

My roti

Our host family

Our dishes

Wedding photo of our host and his wife

Living room of their apartment


View from my 7th floor room of Jaipur