Hey
Daytripping...
As a kid, I could spend hours staring at those illustrated posters that show a city scene, a cross-section of life happening in one 'snap shot' view... the kind where walls of buildings were stripped away to show students in a classroom learing their ABCs while firemen in the fire house cook their lunch while a woman in her bedroom applies perfume while traffic cops deal with a traffic jam in the streets far below her window while mothers with babies shop for groceries and men get their hair cut in the barber shop, people in business attire sit as desks in an office building, a dog barks at a mail man, a repairman fixes the water fountain in the park, a bird feeds her young way up high in a treetop...
Moving through an Indian street has a similar effect -- a pastiche of everday activities so routine for the people who are going about their business, but so fascinating for people like me who normally move through their lives with blinders on, getting from home to work or from work to the grocery store without much notice of all the lives and things happening around them.
This morning, we left the 'old town' of Udaipur by auto en route to an ancient fort and Jain temple outside of town. Driving through the streets was a much different experience than walking through them. I was reminded of my fascination with those posters... as all the activities of the local residents were seen together, all happening at once as they do in reality, instead of happening one at time, as they do in our own personal experiences of the world.
Sadhus in weathered robes lit up a joint, a line of women in colorful saris sat on the ground with baskets full of fruit and vegetables for sale, a man struggled with a cart carrying silver urns of milk, marigolds and rose petals were strung together for temple offerings, a howler monkey let out a gruff cry and scampered across the street nearly tripping a woman carrying grass in a basket on her head, a chai vendor poured tiny glasses of tea while baby pigs snorted as they scurried along the wall behind him...
All of this in a setting of faded elegance, like a grandmother's china cabinet full of chipped dishes and an out-of-date pattern. All of this in a city that is old, with the stains of time like black smudges from carbon paper on its walls, the chalky color of SweetTarts. A city with narrow alleyways and open doorways where women and children call out "hello" to passersby. A town of crubmling walls and pristine palaces that rise above a tangle of buildings, tightly built on hills. A town with a jumble of buildings laid out centuries upon centuries ago, with decorative arches, minarets, and curly Q details. A single view delivers a scene of layered buildings, with hundreds of rooflines that form incongruous shapes that give the impression of structured chaos -- harmony in disorder.
And then, leaving the city limits, the view changed to a desert scene, barren but beautiful in the way only deserts can be: desolate but spell-binding, dry but full of life, rugged and delicate all at once. From the window, I saw spindly palms and leafy trees, all shades of green... trees that looked more like giant dead twigs poking up from the ground that, upon closer inspection, had tiny, verdant leaves at the end of each branch, delicate as the fillament in a lightbulb. Some trees had tufts of shocking orange flowers that screamed out against the sepia tones of the earth. There were winding walls of tightly packed stone, black rock protruding from the ground with a light raking of stringy grass, rolling hills and mountains that caputured the sun in their folds.
And the people, the rural people... their attire, sparked life into the desert. They ignite it with the fiery colors of their garb -- sizzling hues -- the pigments of passion, exuberance, energy, and life. The men wore dazzling turbans that look something like giant loaves of colorful knotted bread. Women wore huge hoop earrings in their nose, thick metal bracelets around their ankles, armfuls of bangles, vibrant red and orange saris, gold jewelry that spilled from the part in their hair and onto their forehead from underneath a scarf with sparkling trim.
Even in the dusty desert heat, the people dressed with pride, pizzazz. It may have been that there was a festival on this day.
We actually drove through it. As we slowly made our way through the crowds that, until our arrival, had ignored the road, we were consumed by a living rainbow that wrapped itself around the car. The girls, dressed in their best, peered into the car with black kohl rimmed eyes. The boys were interested, too. One of them reached into the window and touched my hair. I felt as if I were in a zoo exhibit, a 'safari ride' in reverse... where the exotic animals pass by the viewers in vehicles instead of the other way around. Later a group of children, high from the adrenaline of the festivities, formed a road block, asking for 5 rupess for passage through the human wall they'd constructed. Again, our car seemed buried under yards of colorful silk saris as the children stared at us through the windows and beat their hands on the glass.
Our foray out of town took us first to the Kumbhalgarh Fort, built in the 15th century, in the Aravalli Mountains. It's surrounded by a massive wall of rock that hugs the hillside, twisting and turning, and fading off into the horizon for its shear size -- second in length to the Great Wall of China, we were told. Inside the wall: a palace last occupied in the '40s, 360 temples, and gardens. The place is well preserved and the palace a steep climb but well worth the pain and heartache at seeing yet another set of stairs.
There was an old man inside the palace courtyard who carried a heavy ring of keys and gave us a tour in perfunctory English, unlocking each creaking door as we went. He even sang for us inside the bedroom chambers so we could hear how music once played there reverberated from the tall, domed celing... As we stood at the highest point, some 3,000 feet in altitude, the old man told us in the monsoon season, we'd be standing above the clouds. That is why it's also known as the 'Cloud Palace'... a name, I thought, that pefectly matched the mournful beauty of the place.
Our other destination, a Jain temple, the largest in India. The Jain religion is an off-shoot of Buddhism. Jains believe one can reach 'liberation' by purity of the soul, which can be obtained by shedding karma through fasting, meditation, and solitude -- the Jain temple was, seemingly, in the middle of nowhere. Non-violence is fundamental ro the religion and this is taken to the extreme by monks and devotees who go to any extent to avoid killing any living thing, such as sweeping their path with a broom as they walk or by wearing a piece of cloth over their mouth to prevent inhalation of insects.
The temple left us in awe as we wandered through 1444 pillars of intricately carved marble -- they say no 2 are alike. With massive domes that seem to hover in the air despite their size and construction and 29 halls for worship, the temple was an easy place to get lost. The glow of white marble, in shade and sun, created a world of solitude and peace that could have kept us there for days.
Moving through an Indian street has a similar effect -- a pastiche of everday activities so routine for the people who are going about their business, but so fascinating for people like me who normally move through their lives with blinders on, getting from home to work or from work to the grocery store without much notice of all the lives and things happening around them.
This morning, we left the 'old town' of Udaipur by auto en route to an ancient fort and Jain temple outside of town. Driving through the streets was a much different experience than walking through them. I was reminded of my fascination with those posters... as all the activities of the local residents were seen together, all happening at once as they do in reality, instead of happening one at time, as they do in our own personal experiences of the world.
Sadhus in weathered robes lit up a joint, a line of women in colorful saris sat on the ground with baskets full of fruit and vegetables for sale, a man struggled with a cart carrying silver urns of milk, marigolds and rose petals were strung together for temple offerings, a howler monkey let out a gruff cry and scampered across the street nearly tripping a woman carrying grass in a basket on her head, a chai vendor poured tiny glasses of tea while baby pigs snorted as they scurried along the wall behind him...
All of this in a setting of faded elegance, like a grandmother's china cabinet full of chipped dishes and an out-of-date pattern. All of this in a city that is old, with the stains of time like black smudges from carbon paper on its walls, the chalky color of SweetTarts. A city with narrow alleyways and open doorways where women and children call out "hello" to passersby. A town of crubmling walls and pristine palaces that rise above a tangle of buildings, tightly built on hills. A town with a jumble of buildings laid out centuries upon centuries ago, with decorative arches, minarets, and curly Q details. A single view delivers a scene of layered buildings, with hundreds of rooflines that form incongruous shapes that give the impression of structured chaos -- harmony in disorder.
And then, leaving the city limits, the view changed to a desert scene, barren but beautiful in the way only deserts can be: desolate but spell-binding, dry but full of life, rugged and delicate all at once. From the window, I saw spindly palms and leafy trees, all shades of green... trees that looked more like giant dead twigs poking up from the ground that, upon closer inspection, had tiny, verdant leaves at the end of each branch, delicate as the fillament in a lightbulb. Some trees had tufts of shocking orange flowers that screamed out against the sepia tones of the earth. There were winding walls of tightly packed stone, black rock protruding from the ground with a light raking of stringy grass, rolling hills and mountains that caputured the sun in their folds.
And the people, the rural people... their attire, sparked life into the desert. They ignite it with the fiery colors of their garb -- sizzling hues -- the pigments of passion, exuberance, energy, and life. The men wore dazzling turbans that look something like giant loaves of colorful knotted bread. Women wore huge hoop earrings in their nose, thick metal bracelets around their ankles, armfuls of bangles, vibrant red and orange saris, gold jewelry that spilled from the part in their hair and onto their forehead from underneath a scarf with sparkling trim.
Even in the dusty desert heat, the people dressed with pride, pizzazz. It may have been that there was a festival on this day.
We actually drove through it. As we slowly made our way through the crowds that, until our arrival, had ignored the road, we were consumed by a living rainbow that wrapped itself around the car. The girls, dressed in their best, peered into the car with black kohl rimmed eyes. The boys were interested, too. One of them reached into the window and touched my hair. I felt as if I were in a zoo exhibit, a 'safari ride' in reverse... where the exotic animals pass by the viewers in vehicles instead of the other way around. Later a group of children, high from the adrenaline of the festivities, formed a road block, asking for 5 rupess for passage through the human wall they'd constructed. Again, our car seemed buried under yards of colorful silk saris as the children stared at us through the windows and beat their hands on the glass.
Our foray out of town took us first to the Kumbhalgarh Fort, built in the 15th century, in the Aravalli Mountains. It's surrounded by a massive wall of rock that hugs the hillside, twisting and turning, and fading off into the horizon for its shear size -- second in length to the Great Wall of China, we were told. Inside the wall: a palace last occupied in the '40s, 360 temples, and gardens. The place is well preserved and the palace a steep climb but well worth the pain and heartache at seeing yet another set of stairs.
There was an old man inside the palace courtyard who carried a heavy ring of keys and gave us a tour in perfunctory English, unlocking each creaking door as we went. He even sang for us inside the bedroom chambers so we could hear how music once played there reverberated from the tall, domed celing... As we stood at the highest point, some 3,000 feet in altitude, the old man told us in the monsoon season, we'd be standing above the clouds. That is why it's also known as the 'Cloud Palace'... a name, I thought, that pefectly matched the mournful beauty of the place.
Our other destination, a Jain temple, the largest in India. The Jain religion is an off-shoot of Buddhism. Jains believe one can reach 'liberation' by purity of the soul, which can be obtained by shedding karma through fasting, meditation, and solitude -- the Jain temple was, seemingly, in the middle of nowhere. Non-violence is fundamental ro the religion and this is taken to the extreme by monks and devotees who go to any extent to avoid killing any living thing, such as sweeping their path with a broom as they walk or by wearing a piece of cloth over their mouth to prevent inhalation of insects.
The temple left us in awe as we wandered through 1444 pillars of intricately carved marble -- they say no 2 are alike. With massive domes that seem to hover in the air despite their size and construction and 29 halls for worship, the temple was an easy place to get lost. The glow of white marble, in shade and sun, created a world of solitude and peace that could have kept us there for days.
posted by Cheryn at 3:20 PM
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