There’s a cow on the tracks, elephant on the road, and fog in the air

My final 8 hours at the Delhi airport were spent reminiscing on our 3 week journey around India. I relished my chai and veggie biryani from Café Coffee Day (the Indian version of Starbucks).  Full of chai, I boarded my flight fully expecting to be in the air and on my merry way back home; instead, my stay in India has been prolonged indefinitely due to heavy fog.  This comes as no surprise as we’ve continuously battled logistical challenges around the country.  As I’m sitting on the tarmac waiting for the fog to lift, I thought, what better time to give a rundown of our transportation woes and triumphs. Fair warning: this is going to be a long post since fog has enveloped the plane and I'm going to let my creative juices flow.

Delhi: Getting in and around Delhi required us to use the metro.  As much as the security checks at the gates kept us safe and secure from dangerous weapons, physically getting onto the train itself posed danger.  A play-by-play perhaps captures the essence of the experience: Train arrives. Passengers eagerly crowd at the closest door.  The conductor releases the button to open the doors.  Pushing commences. Not just a simple nudge, but an aggressive shoving and jolting to vie for a highly coveted seat.

The great push on the Delhi metro to grab a seat.  Courtesy of Niamh Keoghan.

On the first day, not one of us bright-eyed and bushy-tailed foreigners was able to grab a seat; instead we were caught in a sea of people and prodded by the crowd this way and that.  As it turns out, folks seek every gap in the benches as an opportunity for a seat and wedge themselves in every nook.  

We learned our lesson.  On our second day, we did what the locals did.  We proactively sought out the doors and pushed our way to the front.  We quickly sussed out the train and sat ourselves in two benches across from one another.  Success! Or so we thought…a few seconds later an elderly Bhai sahab (uncle) pointed to the sign above us: “For old or physically challenged.”  The fellows in our group begrudgingly relinquished their seats one by one.  Only the ladies remained. 50% success rate.  Not too shabby.  I’d like to consider our hard-fought success, as fleeting as it was, a signal of our determination and adaptability to local settings.

Another unique aspect of the metro was a “women’s only” car.  Sexual harassment on Delhi’s metro has not been uncommon, and it seemed like the transportation authority has been making headway to advance women’s safety.  Our discovery of this car on our way back home from the bazaar felt like a haven, a quiet and peaceful space away from the jabbing crowds.  Women don’t make exceptions for tourists of the male species, as Cliff and Hugo found out.  “A rule is a rule, and everyone has to obey it,” an Auntie admonished.

Jaipur: Our journey from Delhi to Jaipur conjured a mix of feelings and sounds--excitement, music, and sadness. Excitement from the first train ride that we were about to embark on in India, away from New Delhi.  Western music playing from the speakers of the European tourists who sat in the same AC class cabin and had taken the liberty of putting their music on speaker.  Sadness from discovering that the train had hit a cow.  Yes, a cow.  The poor animal had wandered onto the tracks and met its inevitable fate that morning.  So the initial wave of excitement slowly waned as we waited to bypass the cow. I would not classify this moment’s combination of sentiments as typical to those who travel.  But we’re in India, and as this aptly demonstrates, anything can happen.

Traffic in Jaipur. Courtesy of Keren Su—The Image Bank/Getty Images.

Road crossings: Crossing the roads is, as my fellow travelers can attest to, a harrowing experience in and of itself.  Our adventures in Delhi, especially in the narrow alleyways of the grand bazaar Chadnhi Chowk (and loud honking (shout-out to Cliff)) had prepared us mentally for this challenge, but we soon discovered the intersections in Jaipur were even more so congested than what we have seen thus far. The rickshaws and motorbikes swerve in and out, alongside the cars, buses, vans, and animals (cows, elephants, camels, you name it).  Unlike drivers of the many other countries I’ve been to, in India, cars do not yield for pedestrians.  So as you can imagine, crossing the road as a group is an adventure.  Every time we try to advance, some type of vehicle approaches at top speed.  We engage in a dance, stepping in and out until we seize the opportunity to speed across.

Kerala: Kerala is a beautiful region—with hills upon hills of tea gardens and spice plantations in the backdrop, lakes full of houseboats, and the silhouette of coconut trees in the horizon. Transportation in and around Kerala, however, proved frustrating.  As Jeff mentioned in an earlier post, we traveled through roads covered in red hammer and sickle flags.  Driving up winding roads to the hill stations not only caused motion sickness but also a fear of Indian drivers overtaking each other at blind spots.  Rules are non-existent on the road.  In a narrow two-lane road, a driver often times overtakes the vehicle in front and indicates his/her intent by honking the horn and momentarily swerving to the opposite side of the road to make the move.  There were too many moments where we narrowly missed oncoming traffic to count.  I gradually surrendered my fear by telling myself that the driver knows what he’s doing and the fact that he himself doesn’t want to die so he wouldn’t do anything too crazy.  That being said, I was highly impressed by some drivers who can expertly squeeze through narrow roads or in between cars with barely an inch to spare.  

Houseboats and coconut trees along Ashtamudi Lake, Kerala

Winding roads in Munnar, Kerala

Goa: The Saturday night bazaar was a bizarre night. We made our way to Goa’s largest night market via the one and only road that leads us there. Traffic was so backed up that we hopped off the taxi to walk to the bazaar, and unknowingly walked into a harrowing pedestrian experience.  Walking in a single file on the side of the road was the safest bet, but when the narrow dirt path was covered in bushes or the scooters blocked the path as they sat bumper to bumper, we weaved our way through the middle of the road. We were walking along with the cars, but the vehicles were relentless, ignoring pedestrians and continuing to advance. Concerned that side mirrors would ram into us or wheels would run over our toes, I was on high alert.  The night sky provided little light, and we relied heavily on headlights and our own line of vision. We eventually made it safely to the bazaar, but had to undergo the same experience on the way back to hail a taxi.  While I’ve backpacked through quite a few countries, I’d categorize this particular experience as one of my top 3 wildest ones. I had never seen so many people and vehicles on the same road with the same objective but such limited and confined space to navigate through.  Luckily, we all made it back alive with all of our appendages intact.

Goa's Saturday night market.  I was too engrossed in getting out of the road alive to capture a photo of the experience.

So now an extra couple of hours on a plane? No sweat.  I’ve come to terms that logistics and transportation are difficult to predict in India.  All this waiting and navigating have increased my patience levels, and I’ve come to expect the unexpected. It certainly keeps things interesting and spices things up (pun intended!).

Kerala - A Catholic Communist Paradise

The first thing that struck me about Kerala was the hammer and sickle flag plastered all over the state. Local politics were dominated by the Communist Party until fairly recently and it’s clear that the Communists still have strong political sway. I can’t help think this is related to the following things I learned/observed:

• Kerala is one of the poorest states in India.
• The people seem to be better attired there than in Rajasthan. They carry themselves with a greater air of prosperity.
• This state has the highest literacy rate in India.
• The state has a very strong Catholic presence.
• Environmentalism is alive and well. Forest reserves protect vast swaths of tiger territory and litter – although still a major eyesore – is not nearly as bad as in other parts of the country.

The place is really beautiful, if somewhat (very) lacking in the comforts of modern life. Getting wifi, a beer, or even a working elevator can be a challenge. Walking around Kerala feels like traveling back in time to an era before we were born. The state is highly regarded among academic circles for its unique development model and it will be interesting to watch its evolution during our lifetimes.

Meet the Mughals

The awe inspiring Taj Mahal - built by Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14th child.

No trip to India would be complete without a visit to the Taj Mahal. Yet the Taj is just one, albeit the most impressive, of a spate of palaces constructed by the rulers of the Mughal Empire. Hailing from Mongolia by way of Afghanistan, they rode into Northern India and defeated the ruling Muslim Sultans and Hindu Maharajas. At a time when European powers were establishing their first settlements in the Americas, the Mughals ruled over the Southern Asia from Afghanistan in the west to present day Bangladesh in the east.

Royal family gate at Fatephur Sikri, home to the Sufi priest who predicted the birth of Akbar's only son - Jehangir.

While visiting the Mughal seats of power in Delhi and Agra, I was awestruck at the sheer grandeur and volume of wealth, building, and art concentrated by the empire in a relatively short amount of time. When one visits the grand fort palaces of Agra and Delhi, the serene tomb of the second Mughal emporer Humayun, or the Taj Mahal, arguably the greatest building ever built, one is basically witnessing the vision of two men - Akbar, the third Mughal emperor, and his grandson Shah Jahan. 

Tomb of Itimad-Ud-Daula, also known as the "Baby Taj Mahal", resting place of her father who served in Akbar's court.

What was it about these men (and in many cases their wives and daughters) and this time in history that fostered such an explosion of architectural beauty? I think of similar periods - the rule of Herod in ancient Israel or Mehmet the Conqueror in Istanbul, and wonder what sets them apart. Were there exceptional men, exceptional times, or a combination of the two?

* Begun by Akbar and completed by Jehanghir
** Built by his wife, Nur Jahan
*** Built by his daughter, Jahanara

Food is a signpost, maybe not a driver of culture

Between snacking, reading, and wrapping up finals, Disha and I had a train ride discussion about Indian values. We read an article by Chetan Bhagat of the Times of India about “Adding Values to Life”. He argued that India is a collection of princely states which were stitched together by the British and that the resulting society is in a state of confusion about what the values of Indian society are.

We had somewhat of a meandering discussion about the article related to values and culture: what is 

really at the core of any society’s culture. Is culture something as superficial as the food we eat and the clothes we wear? Or is it more about our values that drive how interact with one another? I couldn’t help but wonder whether the physical things were really so superficial.

The day before, we visited a re-enactment of old Rajasthani village. There were traditional dance performances, Rajasthani food served next to bonfires, puppet shows, and elephant rides. I was compelled to think these physical elements of culture went deeper than just the surface.

We talked about the importance of food in society. Why are foods so different from one place to another? One argument I’ve heard before is that the food of a culture represents the natural resources of that region. You eat what grows in that place and your culture is bound to it. Food stands at the base of our hierarchy of needs. Without it, there are very few other things we can accomplish. Societies were largely organized out of our need to grow, harvest, and cook food. How we relate to one another is largely driven by how we are organized. Farming develops villages and customs and religion. This is a large part of where culture comes from.

That begs the question: once our connection to the land is broken, can diverse cultures be sustained in an increasingly global and interdependent world?

Despite the emphasis on eating local foods in the United States, the table setting at dinner rarely represents your local culture. The corn you eat was grown in the Midwest, the oranges grown in Florida, your wine grapes from California – and this was all purchased using money you earned staring into a computer monitor.

I thought about the drive back from the village back to our hostel. We had passed some highly modern glass office towers and I was struck by the obvious dichotomy between these worlds.

How could such poverty exist so close to such displays of wealth? Disha made a point about a boy playing a drum in the village. He could easily be in school, getting an MBA, and traveling on the trip with us in a few years but there he was, playing the drum, living in that neighborhood.

It’s really only a matter of time before people in the village are brought out of poverty through global economic growth. The culture and lifestyle they are living to preserve are likely remain just that – culture to be preserved. As global economic expansion separates the dinner table from the land, the pressures that bound cultures and societies together will fade away.

Then again, I thought about the animals that roamed the streets in India – particularly the cows. They are a clear reminder of India’s strain of vegetarianism. Large segments of Indian society has chosen not to eat animals – a choice that happens by sheer moral force not through necessity or because of the land. For many wealthy Indians and diaspora, this continues even after they have left the land for cities and modern life.

It is an element of Indian culture and values which are truly distinct – and it happens by choice. In that regard, I think there is a chance for India and for the rest of the world to choose their behavior, their values, and their culture, through moral force. The economic pressures that we faced bear on us very heavily, but the choices that we make in societies are our own.

A tale of two capitals – New Delhi and Jaipur

For the majority of our group, this is our first visit to the Indian sub-continent. Fittingly, we have spent our first few days here gaining some much needed context on the history, culture, and people of India. New Delhi – the current capital and seat of power of the Mughal Empire – and Jaipur – the capital of the state of Rajasthan and home to the Kachwaha Rajput clan – offer an excellent blend of ancient Hindu and Muslim architecture, sites significant to the founding of the Indian republic, and daily examples of India's rapid modernization.

Physically and spiritually preparing ourselves in transit in the Moscow Airport.

Delicious first meal in India – puri baji in the New Delhi airport.

2,500 year old art from the Harappan Kingdom – one of the first in Northern India – in the Indian National Museum, New Delhi.

Hugo getting a fresh shave for a fresh start to our trip.

Haggling for fruits in Chandi Chowk – one of the oldest markets in Delhi.

Qutab Minar – impressive structure built and rebuilt by Muslim rulers after the first conquest of Northern India. Site of the first mosque in India.

Tomb of the Mughal ruler Humanyun. This tomb would serve as the model for the Taj Mahal.

First day in Jaipur. Visit to the Hawa Majal – palace built for royal ladies to overlook processions on the street without being seen by the locals. 

View of Jaipur from the Nahargarh Fort. Along with Amber Fort and Jaigarh Fort, it formed a defense ring around the city.