Traveling to India Frances Loden (frako@well.com) Delhi to Jaipur via airports: I'd been warned about trying to get into town from Delhi Airport--there is a taxi horror story somewhere in this conference--but this time it would be unnecessary since we were only changing planes at Delhi. I'd also been warned that most traffic in and out of Delhi Airport occurred in the middle of the night for some reason--that the airport slept during daylight hours and became a madhouse around midnight. This was true in our case. After our long flight from Narita, with a multihour layover in Bangkok, we arrived to a midnight cacophony of horns honking at Delhi Arrivals and mobs of taxi touts and hotel people waving identifying signs. There was a long, cold 20-minute bus ride to the domestic terminal around 1 am (the shuttle left from the international terminal only once an hour, directly across the street from where Arrivals spill outside). I was shocked at how cold it was in late December, but rationalized that it was in the middle of the night. The Delhi international terminal was fairly funky but the domestic terminal much worse. It was horribly uncomfortable and drafty, with all services shut down. The "retiring rooms," or overnight accommodations found at airports and train stations, had filled up hours ago. Along with dozens of other, mostly Indian passengers, we tried to sleep in plastic chairs until 5:45 am. Unlike us, the Indians were prepared for such waits with cozy blankets that they draped over every family member. Everybody in Rajasthan, at least, seemed to have his or her own blanket or shawl. It was comforting to see whole families cuddled together or folded into every conceivable position, sometimes upside down, over creaky plastic chairs. Around 6 am, the Nescafe booth opened to sell oversweetened mud-colored coffee, which was nonetheless welcome to warm our bones. Indian airports have a practice I've seen nowhere else. After checkin and security check and sitting at the gate, you must walk out to the tarmac--one passenger at a time--to point to your checked bags, at which point they are loaded onto the cart for the aircraft. This makes the preboarding procedure drag, since few passengers know what the officials mean and neglect to do it until the last minute. We made half a dozen domestic flights, and they were all delayed by from one to four hours as a matter of routine. Usually no explanation was given for the delay. Indian (Alliance) Airlines planes are extremely old and have funky interiors, as if someone had smeared grease all over the tacky paisley-print walls. Most of our flights within Rajasthan were no longer than 45 minutes, so the flight attendants were harried even if all they served the passengers were literally bread and water. The bread consisted of anemic white bread with a thin layer of cream cheese, a greasy vegetable samosa, or pakora. Many of the seats were broken, and some overhead bins didn't latch properly. An extreme contrast to the Thai International plane we had left a few hours before.

Frances Loden: Jaipur: After a 20-minute taxi ride (variously costing us 200, 220 and 250 rupees [at 38 rupees to the US dollar, from $5 to $7]), we arrived at the Mansingh Hotel around 7 am and watched the sunrise from our 5th-floor room. It was actually the 6th floor, but Indians follow the British practice of calling the 2nd floor the 1st floor. We sank gratefully into bed, but we didn't count on the fact that, precisely at 7 am every morning, a wailing voice and harmonium (a kind of boxy accordion that sits on the floor as you open and close one wall of it) would start up from a nearby religious school and continue blaring through the PA system for about an hour. But we were too excited to sleep for more than a couple of hours. The view out our window was engrossing enough: rooftop life flourished! As the day began, we saw families lounging on blankets, young men taking sluice baths from buckets in their shorts, a woman combing out her long wet hair, a man banging away on an old typewriter, an old woman watering plants, a dachshund following his bearded old man around, chillies drying in the sun, construction workers taking a break on their precarious-looking bamboo scaffold, a young guy with two textbooks open in front of him, a boy flying a kite, a girl peering through an open window with her leg hitched up on the sill, a woman hanging laundry. Rooftop life is an odd blend of private and public. Most of the buildings presumably held many families, but I don't know how many of them had access to the rooftop. Nobody from the ground can see you, but whoever is higher than you--like us hotel dwellers--can. Throughout Rajasthan, as I guess in most places, there seemed to be a sensitivity to the status accorded people who were higher than others. A wealthy man built his house 2 stories higher than that of the Jaisalmer maharaja, just to insult him. The maharaja wouldn't stand for it and had the extra floors torn down. The Mansingh Hotel is a 5-star, one of only two we stay in on our trip. (We make a practice of staying in nice hotels on entry and exit, just to ease transitions.) It's pleasant but nondescript, with a very good restaurant, tolerable coffee shop, exercise facilities and a pool. There's a small arcade selling overpriced souvenirs, books, and saris. Just standing around in the lobby, I was whisked into the sari shop and found myself wrapped in lengths of luscious green silk by a fast-talking man who reassured me that a woman could do anything easily, especially work, in a sari. The bookstore sold camera film but had no camera batteries or 8mm videotape. You have to go to a film processing specialty shop for those things. On the landing wall of every floor of the service stairs, hotel workers were reminded in big red letters that "Guest Is Always Right." Jaipur Puppet Racket: Five minutes out of the hotel, on the road an intense young man strikes up a conversation with us, and before we know it we're in his shanty/tent to look at his puppets. He says he's a low-caste gypsy named Bangali--someone of his caste has only one name--and can't afford to live in a building, but someday he will buy the building next door. He clears a charpoy, or bed made of rag strips pulled taut across the frame, and orders us to sit down on the clean quilt spread there. He shows us photo albums full of clippings and photos of his performances in Scandinavia, his brother's performances in Japan, etc. I'm a little more interested in the kitchen made of clay and what his brother's wife, mother- in-law and children are doing over in the corner--but they're extremely shy. Soon they are hustled out and a cloth is draped across the interior for the puppet backdrop. I watch fascinated as Brother wraps a vivid turban around his head. The average Rajasthan turban is a colorful oblong scarf about 9 meters long, and it's fun to watch a man wind it rapidly around his head so that he can remove it like a hat. He shows us a naked puppet with visible ribs--a "drug addict" for the educational performances. I ask him if they do stories promoting condom use, and he says some stories are "too difficult" for the audience to understand. The performance begins with a sexy female dancer whose shimmy is controlled by strings. Every movement is signaled by a wheezing sound made by some whistle in the puppeteer's mouth. Brother plays a harmonium and sings. Another guy plays percussion. Attracted by the music, scruffy little kids wander into the tent and Brother yells at them to sit down and not block our view. I give them some Japanese candy which I fail to tell them is gum, and worry later that they've digested it. It seems wrong to see these little kids, ragged and dirty and looking like a "Save the Children" poster, munching on this awful candy I've given them. Often the puppets' heads fly up a foot in the air and come back down. One puppet is astride a horse, both of his arms in flames. Somehow the manipulator gets the puppet to fly under his horse and emerge from the other side without catching everything around it on fire. One puppet is introduced as "Michael Jackson." Later, after our privileged private command performance, we return to the hotel and find another troupe out by the pool also introducing their puppet as "Michael Jackson" and using the same music, dances and puppets. Things are winding up, and it's clear that now money is expected. He says he normally charges 2500 rupees (US$66) for a performance like this, and we're jolted. Joe says, "With a bigger audience, right?" but the guy is insistent that he does it for couples alone. Joe pays him 1200 rupees (US$32), which we think is a lot for just being pulled off the street, and then the percussionist asks if he and Brother can have "beer money." So I give a few hundred rupees to the musicians. As we walk out of the tent feeling a little wrung out, Bangali comes running out holding two of the puppets as gifts, and says if we don't feel good about what we've paid, he'll give it back to us. It's a routine that we'll hear incessantly: the push-and-pull of "I don't want your money" versus "Pay whatever you like, we are very poor family." He tries to escort us back to the hotel, but I want to be free of him and we shake him off. Still, we feel so taken and have spent so many hours in the puppet tent that it's almost dark and we want to return to the hotel for dinner anyway. I've been told that you have to identify your luggage before boarding the plane in Indonesia, but this policy is 20 years old and not done as of 5 months ago. One other thing about flying domestically in India--you don't get a seat assignment. So you have to scramble on and grab several seats if you're a group. I think, however, that tour packages have it taken care of for them. There was definitely better treatment of tour groups than of independent travelers in Rajasthan. Jaipur, continued: City of Jaipur: The next morning we start out afresh, cheerfully saying "no" to everybody who approaches us to visit their art school, jewelry store or leather shop. We stumble upon a street filled with camels, all resting or waiting for their load to arrive. I have never seen dozens of camels in one place. They look regally past you, heads above it all, munching meditatively on something. Some wear large beaded necklaces or macramed cord neckpieces doubling as bridles. Most have a sharp piece of bone or wood that has pierced the interval between their nostrils and is connected to reins. Pulling on the rein must be painful to them, as the camels groan and follow the tug. Their eyes are huge and brown, with eyelashes that Maybelline would lust after. Their legs are folded amazingly beneath them, so they look formal and poised. Their rumps have been shaved to form floral or geometric patterns. Where the head joins the neck their hide is covered with rich, curly hair. When they walk, their feet widen and spread themselves like cushions over any hard surface. Nothing seems to perturb their easygoing, strangely elegant gait. There are plenty of other animals too. Dogs are everywhere, cuddling in the sunny dust or hanging hungrily around the cauldrons of milky liquid, or khoya, being boiled and reduced. (Was that the base for what I was to start ordering on a daily basis--the lovely saffron-flavored rice pudding called kheer?) The cows have floppy ears and creamy complexions, with the eyes of a Bambi. Sometimes the goats are wearing little T-shirts or vests. I watch an ox being fitted with new shoes--two men are holding it down, and it has shat all over itself in alarm. We walk through the different bazaars on the way to the City Palace and the marble district, hearing the marble workers clinking away at kitschy-looking Western-style statues and big images of Ganesh the elephant god. I'm struck by the street stalls selling colorful hair ornaments. Scrunchies are enormous here. Women wear them more than anything else, it seems. In South India women wore jasmine flowers, but not here. Coconut oil in the hair seems nationwide. I can't tell the difference here between police and military men, who wear berets or hard helmets and seem to cluster at large intersections. They are a drab, stern contrast to the women, who all seem to favor chartreuse, shocking pink or blindingly yellow saris if they aren't dressed completely in black--a kind of chador that leaves most of their face free. I saw far more women with heads uncovered in Jaipur, the capital and largest city of Rajasthan since 1956, than in other cities or the countryside. It seemed the more west we went, the less visible women's faces became. When I see lime green and go-go pink together, I will always think of Rajasthan now. The most common pattern found on shawls men wore was a pink- and-green check, seen everywhere. In the distance surrounding Jaipur, you can see the sandy-colored fortifications of nearby ancient strongholds. It is the color contrast--the sun-baked desert and sand-castle forts as a backdrop to the brilliant greens and pinks of the people's clothing--that makes Rajasthan so delicious to the eye. Then there was the pink and green against a man's dark face and even darker eyes and moustache. I would say maybe 98% of all men have rich moustaches. Jaipur itself is called the "Pink City" because in 1876 Maharaja Ram Singh ordered all buildings in the old city to be painted pink in honor of the Prince of Wales (Edward VII)'s visit, and thereafter all fa ades must be of a color that seems more brick-red than pink to me--a reddish sandstone, I think. The first thing we visited was the Jantar Mantar, an early 18th-century astronomical observatory spread out over a spacious grounds, built by Jai Singh II (1693-1743), the founder of Jaipur. It was fun to watch other Indian tourists wandering from one huge curious instrument to another, climbing stairs that led nowhere, peering into concave structures that measure something of a celestial nature. The site resembles an enormous deChirico painting. The current maharaja of Jaipur is now the ambassador to Brunei, but it was said he was home for the holidays. He would be staying in a section of the City Palace, which we visited next. The various different palaces contain exhibits of textiles, costumes, and weaponry. There were plenty of specimens of "the notorious Rajput scissor-action daggers--when the dagger enters the body, the handles are released, causing the blades to spread. The dagger is then withdrawn, virtually disembowelling the hapless victim" (Lonely Planet, _Rajasthan_). Just the first sign, among many others, that made me feel I wouldn't have had many Rajput friends back then. The historical rulers of Rajasthan did seem like a fierce, bloodthirsty, hardheaded and "honor"-obsessed lot. Yet their architecture, safely sheltered behind massive ramparts and imposing gates, could be delicate and fanciful, even psychedelic. I especially liked one pavilion decorated in a peacock (the state bird) motif, with shapes infinitely echoing a peacock's graceful neck and feathers. We were starving, so we bought samosas at a stall and dipped them in a honeylike sauce. But postcard and hat vendors and beggars would not leave us alone if we sat down, so we had to get up and move. We walked on to see the Hawa Mahal, or Palace of the Winds, an elaborate 5- story facade built in 1799 to allow court ladies to watch life and special occasions go by without being seen themselves. But we had little peace to look at this amazing building, since we were being invited by everybody and his uncle (literally!) to visit the roof of his shop to get a better view. It was awfully cold, even though the sun was shining. We knew it would get colder as we headed west into the desert, so I bought a heavy woven jacket for 300 rupees (US$8). Even this would be insufficient. We were beginning to realize that we had packed too much summer wear for this trip.

And more from the same source: Jaipur Movie Palaces: To be honest, I was almost more interested in Indian movie palaces than maharajas' palaces. After all, it's a novelty for an American to see a country that still has only 1000-plus-seat houses. The Premprakash Theatre, "Rajasthan's First 70mm Theatre," seemed to have come down in status. Now it was showing the "Lady Fighter," or Caucasian martial arts star Cynthia Rothrock, in "Undefeatable," rated "A"--Only For Adults. Tickets were available for Noble Circle (25R or 66 cents--901 seats), Dress Circle (20R--334 seats), Upper Circle (16R--77 seats), and Lower Circle (14R--38 seats), with separate ladies' and gents' ticket windows. I was pissed not to make it into the Raj Mandir, "Show Place of the Nation," a most beautiful pink restored movie theatre where a current hit, "Dil To Pagal Hai" starring the great favorite Shah Rukh Khan, was playing. Diamond Box (40R or $1.16--40 seats), Emerald Noble Circle (30R--909 seats), Ruby Dress Circle (26R--201 seats), and Pearl Lower Circle (17R--36 seats)--all seats were booked for the rest of the evening. I really wanted to see the latest hit of this No. 1 box office star of India--posters of him in a black leather jacket sold next to posters of Krishna and Radha running through the wilderness. We were taken to a much grubbier theatre by auto rickshaw. The ticket taker gave each of us Halls cough drops as we entered the vast auditorium, and the most expensive balcony seats were as tattered and broken-down as the seats on the main floor. The movie was "Shapath," with a cast of about 50 men, all unshaven and pointing and punching at each other. I only recognized the star, Jackie Schroff, and that was easy because he was tallest and the only guy who was nice to his mother. After two hours and no hint of the movie's ending we had had enough, but we couldn't get out of the theatre. We had to ask the manager to unlock the door and cage and let us out. Amber Fort: Throughout Asia, we are very careful not to drink tap water and brush our teeth with bottled water. Luckily I hadn't experienced significant diarrhea for 6 years. But the next morning at 4:30 the deadly traveler's syndrome hit me, and by 7 am I was completely wrung out, familiar with every crack in the tile, and questioning my ability to be driven even the 20 minutes it took to get to Amber Fort. But with a dose of loperamide hydrochloride we made it there, although I spent most of the day at the fort finding sunny, comfortable places to sit and laughing weakly at the antics of the Hanuman langurs, lanky black-faced primates with incredibly long tails, who scrambled along the parapets and played leapfrog with each other. Tourists were being given elephant rides in and out of the fort. It looked too much like a slow Disneyland ride, and I wasn't interested. I was impressed by the mazelike structure and all the different levels of a 12th-century fortification. In retrospect, I think it was one of the more magnificent ones we had seen. It was too crowded, though, and I got tired of backing up on narrow staircases for oncoming traffic or dodging other people's viewfinders. Whenever I could escape the crowd I'd sit and look at the fancy, intricate stone carvings of flowers and butterflies and marvel that they were still here after all these centuries. Always at the entrance of any fort or temple complex, several men will offer to be your guide for a price (usually not agreed upon beforehand, but a tip ranging from 100 to 200 rupees depending on the number of hours and special errands). Even if they sport official-looking badges, their English language ability and level of knowledge are very hit-and-miss. Most of the time we refused guides because of this and because we don't like repeatedly having to say "Really!" or even "Hmmmm" when we could enjoy all this grandeur in silence.

India The Indian Tourism Development Corporation has launched a new train package tour traveling to Buddhist pilgrimage sites in Northern India. The six day tour departs from Calcutta and travels to Varanasi, Rajgir and Gaya before returning to Calcutta. The cost per person (including food and accommodation) is US$379 for the ordinary traveler to US$799 for the luxury traveler. Tickets can be obtained from the India Tourism Development Corporation in New Delhi.

(whiteherne) Tue Jan 5 '99 (12:24) 164 lines Here are some of my impressions of life in Bangalore: Bangalore was once known as the Garden City of India, although it does not feel like one these days. Unrestricted growth, although in �clean� industries, has led to a large increase in the number of motorized vehicles, which include cycles, autorickshaws, cars, scooters, motorcycles, lorries and buses. The odd bullock cart can be seen now and then, as also hand carts bearing miscellaneous cargo. (The autorickshaw is a three-wheeled, motorized vehicle. It is sheltered but open on the sides. It can carry two or three passengers, and has become the cab of the middle-class, regular taxis having vanished almost entirely from the streets here.) Unleaded petrol (gasoline) is still not a requirement in most parts of India, and the higher powered vehicles use diesel fuel here, resulting in black, noxious emissions. The roads haven�t been upgraded to deal with all this new traffic and the main city arteries are always snarled. Frustrated traffic constables in their ancient uniforms of wide khaki shorts (and now wearing gas masks) cut a sorry but comical figure on the islands of five and six-point intersections from where they try to cope with the mess. For the Western visitor, the traffic can seem utterly chaotic and maddening. This is true for me as well, having lived away from India. There is a sort of law of the jungle at work here: the larger the vehicle, the more aggressive the driving. (A new Indian SUV with the appropriate name of �TATA SUMO� has recently made its appearance. Why someone who lives in the city and drives in crowded, slow-moving streets needs a gas-guzzling, polluting, road-hogging SUMO beats the hell out of me.) In general traffic moves slowly, and although drivers engage in a game of brinkmanship to try to get ahead, there aren�t as many accidents as one would expect. Lane markers are strictly academic, and whenever traffic stops at a light, the two-wheelers seem to fill any available spaces around cars so as to position themselves favourably for the impending green light. Since my parents live here, I stay with them. Indian hotels, with the exception of the best ones, which are outrageously expensive for Indians, aren�t as good as their American counterparts. The equivalent of a clean, comfortable, no-frills �Motel 6� that is much cheaper than a luxury hotel is generally not to be found. One must either fork out the money for a Hyatt or equivalent, or be terribly disappointed with the results. Which is why most middle-class Indians, when they travel on their own nickel to another city end up staying with relations, friends, or even friends of friends. The way it generally works is that you make your house available to a wide circle of people, and the gesture will be reciprocated when you are on the road. But remember to carry your own soap and towel! My parents have been retired for some time and with the attendant infirmities of age, getting through each day can be an adventure. There are part-time helpers at home for cooking, cleaning and gardening. In India help is very specialised, and one person will not do another�s job. There is a maid who washes the pots and pans, sweeps and mops the floors daily (a necessity here), and washes the clothes by hand (my mother refuses to buy a washer or let me buy one for her and I have given up trying to convince her). The other is a part-time cook who has now been with her for four years. She is known as the "Cook Maami". They speak to each other in Tamil. Each one calls the other "Maami". This is a respectful mode of address to an older lady -- the universal aunt, if you will -- and their conversation to each other is always in the exceedingly respectful second person formal, whether they are joking, arguing or discussing some culinary fine points. On days that the maid or the cook go AWOL, chaos ensues, as my parents scramble to make do. It is a very interesting relationship to observe. The "Cook Maami" is extremely talented and makes the most delectable South Indian dishes I have eaten, even tastier than my mother 's cooking, and my mother is a published author of three cookbooks and a lifelong aficionado of Indian �haute cuisine�. But the cook is very shrewd and knows this, for she endeavours (in my mother�s opinion) to take advantage of the situation by extracting various concessions, knowing that it will be difficult for my mother to find a replacement. Domestic help is harder to come by these days in India, and although it is frustrating for my folks, from an economist's point of view, it illustrates progress. I watch a little television to get a feel for contemporary Indian culture. Cable TV has found its way here, and there is something called Star Plus that beams CNN, BBC and other international programmes from Hongkong. I notice a new phenomenon. People speak in something called �Hinglish� here, a mixture of Hindi and English. Hindi and English sentences are intermingled liberally, and sometimes people switch tongues mid-sentence. For us it seems most natural, for we have grown up this way. The television people seem to recognise this and have tailored their programs accordingly, but this might well confound a foreign ear. My brother insists that I see a few films with him. We go to one called �Hyderabad Blues�, playing in a local cinema. This is an Indian-made English language film, another relatively new phenomenon. This was very rare in the past. The film is a romantic comedy about a person who leaves Hyderabad for the US. When he returns for a holiday, he finds that he cannot adjust to Indian culture, and finds fault with everything, except the Indian doctor he falls in love with. But I shan t say any more and spoil the film for you. Although the film was an amateur effort made by a youngster and his few friends on a shoestring budget, it has surpassed all box-office expectations, and everyone is talking about it. For my part I don�t find the film subtle in the least. My brother, who enjoys the film very much, argues that a film made for Indians cannot be subtle. There is another recent happening in Bombay that makes the front pages almost daily. It is the extortion racket. Normally placid Bombay seems to have changed, I am told. Well-heeled people get cold calls demanding lakhs or crores. (A lakh is 100,000 rupees, and a crore is 100 lakhs. A middle-level manager in a private company might earn 4-5 lakhs a year.) People who refuse to pay up are gunned down, some in broad daylight. This extortion has now trickled down to the professional classes. Ostentatious displays of wealth in the form of lavish banquets at hotels have, for the most part, stopped because nobody wants to get the dreaded �call�. I wonder why this is taking place and wonder if people have taken leave of their senses, so I start to make some enquiries. This is what I learn. For many years, the Bombay underworld was involved in the smuggling of gold and other prohibited substances. With the recent liberalization and the restrictions being removed, a lucrative business for the gangsters has dried up. So they have now taken to extortion. A new Hindi film, called �Satya� has been made, and I get the opportunity to watch it on late night television, where a special nationwide screening is being held. (Satya is one of those films that is exempt from entertainment tax, which means that it costs a third less than a regular film at the theatre. The government usually exempts a few films that are deemed to have �social value�, so that more people will see it on account of the reduced price.) Satya is the name of the anti-hero of this film, and it also means truth. The film is well-made and authentic, depicting the lives of real people as opposed to the usual fantasy world of Indian cinema. It shows how a newcomer to Bombay, the tough Satya, who goes there to make an honest living, falls into a gang, and later becomes one of the most feared gangsters. Gangsters are getting more efficient, carrying their cellular telephones everywhere. The papers say that the leaders have fled the country and are masterminding the operations from safe havens like Dubai, from where the hapless government is unable to extradite them. The newspapers are also full of the controversy regarding the film �FIRE�. The Shiv Sena (a right-wing Hindu party) wants the film banned on account of its un-Indian values. I decide I must see it, so we all troop to town. �FIRE� is another English-language Indian film, and it has been released abroad earlier. The film is about two brothers and their wives, living in a joint family arrangement along with their invalid mother. The elder brother has become celibate in pursuit of God, while the younger one, who is newly-married, is carrying on an open extra-marital affair with his old flame, whom he is not allowed to marry. The two frustrated sisters-in-law fall into a lesbian relationship, and although the love scenes are not explicit, many people are upset. This is new ground for Indian cinema, and I applaud Deepa Mehta, an Indo-Canadian for having the guts to make this film. We have come a long way, for thirty years ago, even kissing on the lips was not allowed by the censors in Indian films. I complete this account with a tale of a Christmas lunch for which we were invited. Bangalore has a sizeable Christian population (mostly Roman Catholics), and my parents have good friends among them. Our hostess has made a number of vegetarian dishes for us, but my brother, who is a confirmed carnivore, derives immense pleasure from something called 'Sorpotel'. This is made from a pig as follows: the blood of a pig is poured on a tray and allowed to dry. When fully congealed it is cut into squares, and then pickled in a mixture of oil, vinegar and whole peppers, among other things. I am told that this dish originated in Goa, originally a Portuguese colony. I wonder if Sorpotel is eaten anywhere else in the world.

I found this wonderful tour of India purely by an accidental click: http://www.gurlpages.com/obsess/xtiesue/