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.