Settled in and not wanting to leave

We are feeling very settled in here in Delhi, so it's with hesitation that we think about the end of our time here in six weeks and then our four weeks of travel in the Himalaya region. We're feeling so settled in that:

• we have our "regular" autorickshaw drivers to Green Park and back.
• the ironing man on our corner greets us with a happy smile each day.
• we know which of the 20 little local grocery shops carry certain brands of foods.
• we know where to go to buy bananas that are green and firm, not overripe.
• the ice cream vendor knows that we like chocolate chip.
• we have perfected the art of "walking away" from haggling in order to clinch the deal.
• we have seen plants go from bare branches to heavy with blooms.
• the boys in the neighborhood stand beneath our balcony and call out for Owen to come play.
• I felt entitled to chide a boy in the street who taunted me for being a stranger on his block, but then made the mistake of touching me on the arm.
• I recognize certain street families and their children, and wonder where they are when missing.
• I know how much to offer to pay for rickshaw rides without guessing.
• we know the channel lineup on our satellite tv service.
• we know not to expect people to move out of the way as we approach from the opposite way on the same sidewalk; sharing the sidewalk isn't a known practice here.
• when we travel and then return to Delhi, we say, "It's good to be home."

The Fulbright Conference in Aurangabad

The USEFI Foundation gathers all Fulbrighters in the region together every six months. This spring's locale was Aurangabad, a city slightly northwest of Mumbai. It's noted for two World Heritage sites--more on those in a minute. About 40 Fulbright scholars and students, some with spouses or families, gathered for three days a hotel in Aurangabad. They chose the location well--outstanding swimming pool, gym, grounds, tennis courts, and other sport activities were available for the family members.

The essence of the meeting was to allow each Fulbrighter to discuss the work that he or she was doing or was getting underway, and to discuss ideas for longterm collaborations that could grow out of the Fulbright experience. It was extremely inspiring to learn about others' projects: water management in the Himalayas, domestic violence education, traditional dance and music, caste and identity, fund-raising for the arts, translations from Sanskrit, and more. I did my part by describing the "pleasant time" I was having lecturing about and being lectured to about American foreign policy.

After two long days of discussion, the group loaded on buses and went to the Ajanta cave complex. Starting in 200 BCE, Buddhist monks began carving man-made caves out of a sheer rock face above a bend in a river. Then they began painting the interior of the caves with vivid, detailed frescoes describing scenes in the lives of the Buddha and other saints. After 800 years, Buddhism lost out to Hinduism and the religion of the land, and the caves were abandoned and forgotten!

In 1819, a British hunting party pursuing a wounded tiger stumbled upon the caves and their reclamation began. The paintings are remarkably preserved--despite some setbacks and fiascos. They are kept in dim light, flashlights and special illumination only, no camera flashes. It's essential to have a guide who can explain everything that's depicted. We toured them for about 2 hours before retreating to the buses for a picnic lunch. First we had to pass through the gauntlet of trinket stalls and parking lot vendors. I bought two (very nice) handcrafted items for $1.00 each just to quiet the vendor who was pestering me!

On the final day, several groups of us went to the Ellora Caves, Hindu successors to the Ajanta Caves. The most miraculous structure here is a temple, more than 30 meters high, carved out of solid rock from the top downwards! Imagine Michaelangelo carving the statue David from above, working from the part of his hair down to his toes. Now magnify that hundreds of times over--and that's what they accomplished in 800 C.E.!

Below are some photos of both sights, but with this disclaimer: I dropped my lovely digital camera and it's now in the shop for repairs. On this trip (and the Mahaballipuram trip) I had to use a regular camera with--gasp--film! Some fellow Fulbrighters will be sending me their superior digital photos to make up for my poor little Kodak efforts.

Enjoy, nevertheless! First are Ajanta shots (no interiors of the paintings, yet) including a Fulbright dance student posing artfully; then Ellora; then some folk dancers who entertained us in Aurangabad.

A Trip to the South Coast

I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at Pondicherry University for two days last week. I flew from Delhi to Chennai (formerly Madras) and then took a scenic three hour drive along the Indian Ocean coast to Pondicherry. I did my reading in advance and so had the driver stop in Chennai at the Kapeeleswarar Temple and the tomb of St. Thomas, then on to a fantastic world heritage site, the Shore Temples and 5 Rathas at Mahaballipuram.

The temple at Chennai is a large, multicolored tower covered with dancing, posing, warring, and meditating gods and goddesses. Like all of these sites, you must remove your shoes to enter. There were several shrine areas and some available volunteer guides to explain matters to the uninitiated. Non-Hindus were not allowed in one of the central worship room but the rest we could view fairly closely. There were many devotees filing past the priests asking for blessings and receiving a red smudge and a white ash smudge on the forehead. Two Hindu weddings were just concluding and a crowd of poor people were assembling for the free lunch. A Hindu temple is a busy place!

The tomb of St. Thomas who reported came to India in the first century AD and was martyred here is near the temple. It's a plain Catholic church with an attached musuem and a chapel near the tomb in the basement of the museum. The devotees here, some prostrating themselves on the floor, were similar in every regard to the devotees in the Hindu temple. The iconography and the stations of the cross inside the church were very reminiscent of the cast of characters and stories told of the lives of the gods at the temple. It certainly makes one think long and hard about all beliefs.

It was striking as we drove out of Chennai that Catholic and other Christian churches are common along the coastline. So, 2000 years later, it's clear that one disciple came along and left an imprint on this Hindu culture that still quite discernible.

The villages along the highway in the south are so scenic. The people live in simple hand crafted shacks as they do in the encampments in Delhi, but here the homes are made of palms leaves and palm wood. Their appearance has a tropical feeling that's more pleasing to the eye than their urban counterparts.











The Mahaballipuram site is a stunning sight. It's an elaborately carved structure jutting out into the ocean, surrounded by a sea wall, palm trees, and clear blue skies.

It was built between 600-700 AD. The architecture is clearly influenced by East Asian design motifs (like the lions shown here). The kings sent architects to the East (Cambodia, Thailand, and China) to bring back this new style of building.

The amazing part about the amazing shore temple and its surrounding 50 bull statues is that there were SIX other shore temples and 30 more bulls at the same site. All are now underwater because of shore erosion or washed out to sea, in the case of the bulls. Divers can see them, intact and standing, under 200 feet of ocean. Hard to believe!


The remaining shore temple would have been destroyed by the Asian tsunami of 2005 if the government hadn't built a seawall in 2000. The tsunami killed about 3,000 people, mostly fishermen and their families, right in this area of shoreline.

After the lovely drive along the coast we arrived at Pondicherry, a former French outpost and bustling commercial town. I gave two lectures at the university here and otherwise enjoyed a pleasant 3 day beach side stay. I found that everyone walks along the ocean front sidewalk in the early morning hours. I went in my running shorts and sleeveless t-shirt (knowing that the high would be 90 and the low 70 degrees) and almost caused a riot. Not really, but there wasn't a person who didn't stare. It takes great discipline on my part not to make eye contact and just ignore what I'm seeing with my peripheral vision. In Delhi I wouldn't think of wearing shorts, but at the beach I figured they've seen it all. Well, if they hadn't seen a woman in shorts before, they have now.

Along with my graduate student guide, I visited a nearby commune of sorts, called Aurobindo. It's a cult-like but benevolent society with a cosmology and religion all of its own. One has to watch a video (indoctrination video) before being allowed to walk to the giant gold sphere that is the concentration point of cosmic energy and site of much meditation. I was underwhelmed by the philosophy but completely pleased by the delicious vegetarian fare they served!

One last word about the trip to Pondicherry: I was hosted to dinner at the home of an Sri Lankan exile whose four children are now professionals in the U.S. (how this dinner came to be is a long story...). She and a friend of hers, Parmilla, offered to take me jewelry shopping in the evening. After we returned at 10:00pm, my driver and I took Parmilla around to her home. Nothing would do but that we would come in at that hour. The house consisted of a wide hallway, a bedroom, and roughly made kitchen with a cooking pit on the floor, and full room for the home altar. Ten people make up the household. The children scrambled up off their straw mats on the floor as we entered. We were offered hot, sweet milk, warmed up over the kitchen fire. They opened the door to the house prayer room. I'm so glad I knew not enough to enter, but to stand at the door and admire it. The centerpiece of it was a yellow painted rock with a face drawn on it, and a red rock as a topknot, surrounded by other Hindu statues and pictures. It was a colorful sight to behold, and obviously of great importance to the family. They devote at least 1/5 of their house space to it.

It was a very memorable three day trip to the South!

Our Three Day Safari

We have fallen a bit behind on our posts due to a series of short trips we've taken. As soon as John and Adelaide returned from Varanasi, we took off on a trip to Sariska National Park in Rajasthan State. This park has a bit of a sad recent history, but a good future ahead. Having started life as maharaja's hunting estate, it became a large national park and eventually a tiger preserve for the last twenty years. Unfortunately, a census two years ago revealed that the last 17 tigers in the park had all been poached within a short span of time. Efforts are now underway to move out a village in the midst of the park and re-route a road that cuts through the center. After this, tigers will be reintroduced.

The terrain is hilly and rocky with low scrub trees. In the valleys there are rivers,
palm trees, and greener vegetation. The climate is dry and pleasant in the winter, lush and green in the monsoon season, and scorching in the summer.

We went on an early morning jeep safari to have the best viewings of the wildlife. Visitors are not permitted out of the open-topped jeeps while in the park. This is an excellent rule for many reasons. Our driver was skilled and our driver most informative, to the point of knowing the Latin name, Indian name, and English name of all the plant and animal species that we saw. What we saw were warthogs, crocodiles, several varieties of deer and antelopes, jackals, monkeys, and a great variety of birds. The highlight for me were the kingfishers with such irridescent blue wings, a bright orange belly and a huge, fish-grabbing beak! It was a memorable safari even without the large cats. Several species such as leopards and "jungle wild cat" (a kind of bobcat) do still live in the park but are nocturnal.










John and I took a walk in the evening after the jeep safari. We came to a cluster of farmer's cottages near our lodge and approached the compound slowly. Our presence created quite a stir, much as a man in a dhoti and a woman in a saree might create if they walked down a street in our neighborhood! Children, men, women, babies, dogs, and goats all milled around us. We asked (sign language mostly) if it was ok for us to pass through and if we could find a walking path. One fellow turned out to speak reasonable English and "volunteered" to be our guide for the walk. It was good that we had him. He answered our questions about the flora and fauna and farming practices. He also helped us steer clear of the next cluster of homes in which there were biting dogs, according to him. We climbed a hill and had a nice panoramic view of this corner of Rajasthan.

In the end, he invited us to stop at his house for a cup of tea. Not wanting to offend, we agreed. His house, like all the others, was thatched-roofed mudwalled hut, plastered over with white paint. He gave out orders to everyone who was milling about, and soon two string cots (the main type of bed here) were brought out on to the front porch. We sat down with him on the cot and waited for tea to be brought. Meanwhile, a few steps below us, a herd of goats was prodded along, cows were milling, and one was being milked. Barefooted children circled around to stare and gawk at us. We were the subject of much amusement for them. Eventually, milky tea was brought to us in ceramic cups while everyone else had tea in the metal cups. By some miracle we didn't get ill from the water and the fresh milk in the tea we were served. Our host then invited us inside the house, which consisted of one room with a packed earthen floor, a tiny fireplace with no chimney set in the corner for cooking, and nothing else. The one piece of furniture had been brought outside for us to sit on. This is simple living at its barest.

The second day, our jeep safari guide took us on a hike up a fairly dry riverbed that rushes madly during the rainy season. There was enough water that we viewed interesting birds all up and down the riverbanks, caught frogs, and spotted some fish. The scenery was wild and lovely, and even included a rather remote temple crawling with monkeys. Owen thoroughly enjoyed exploring the riverbanks and lifting the rocks (we found a "nest" of 10 or more baby frogs!) until the guide warned him about big bad scorpions in the area!

Our meals were provided by our lodge, and being the only guests for the last 2 days of our trip, we received plenty of good attention. The dining hall was an open air structure with a 15 foot ceiling and splendid views on all sides. We could tell that the loss of the tigers in the park had weighed heavily on this area as a tourist destination. The return of the tigers will certainly be welcomed by everyone in the park's vicinity.

My next posting will talk about my three day trip to South India, complete with palm trees and rice fields.

Varanasi

John and Adelaide visited Varanasi, February 27 – March 2, while Fran and Owen attended to business in Delhi. Varanasi (or Benares) is as central to Hinduism as Jerusalem is to Judaism, due largely to its position on the Ganges River. It is one of the oldest cities of continuous habitation in the world. For millennia people have come to bathe in the river at its ghats and worship at its temples. Shiva is the preeminent aspect of God worshipped here. Pilgrims to Benares have included Gautama the Buddha and Mahavira, the founder of Jainism.

On the evening of our first day, we took a boat ride at sunset to see the celebration of the river. People put lighted candles with flowers in cups made of leaves and set them drifting with their prayers. We went again the next morning to watch the sun rise as people engaged in their devotions.

One of the most memorable of the ghats is Manikarneka, which is pictured here. It is one of the two used for cremations. To be cremated in Varanasi and to have one’s ashes scattered on the Ganges is an especially auspicious end to a Hindu’s life. We did not take pictures of a cremation out of respect, but the wood for the fires is clearly visible. Most Hindus are cremated but not all. Holy men, lepers, those who died of small pox, and children under the age of 10 among others, are weighted down with rocks and dropped in the middle of the river.

Holy men come to the cremation ghats to meditate on the impermanence of life, much as St. Jerome is portrayed in Christian iconography contemplating a skull. Some of the worshippers of Shiva, called Nagas, do not wear clothes and cover themselves with ash to indicate their renunciation of worldly concerns. Most do not go to this extreme, of course; but worship and meditation are the essence of life on the ghats. The follower of Shiva whose photograph is here had washed the stone lingam with water, yogurt, and honey before garlanding it with flowers. To the left of the lingam is Nandi, Shiva’s faithful bull.

On the third day, we visited Sarnath, where Buddha preached his first sermon after enlightenment, setting in motion the wheel of Dharma and outlining the eight-fold path by which suffering can be overcome. On the morning of our last day in Benares, we walked along the river and took the opportunity to visit the Shiva temple at Kedar ghat. Non-Hindus are not permitted in some temples, but we were graciously shown around Kedareshwar temple. We watched devotees worship and pray and the priests perform ceremonies honoring God.