For my birthday we go to Trivandrum's zoo which is well known. First I must confess, that considering how unpleasant I've made Trivandrum sound, that surrounding the zoo is a large beautiful park, green and filled with gazebos and packs of children and young men and women.
The zoo is still closed so we sit down on a bench and are swarmed by one group of people after another, all wanting photographs. "Hello! Hello! Where are you from?" When they sit next to you they hold your hand. After an hour of this we make our escape.
The zoo is a zoo. Though he is very sad, I adore an old vulture sitting in a too-small cage. He is as tall and large as a trash can and has a white mane like a lion. There is a giant squirrel with a golden tail running back and forth back and forth on his wire. We stare at the leopard cage for minutes until slowly, suddenly they appear right before our eyes, in the crook of a branch, on top of a rock.
For dinner we go to a pizza chain. "The perfect place for a birthday bash!" Okay then. I get a cone-izza, which is a pizza wrapped up like an ice-cream cone and filled with cheese and hot Indian spices.
Friday, March 5, 2010
STITCHING
So much of the wonder of India is discovering the odd ways in which things work. We are in an awful mood, sweaty, dirty, lost. A dozen tuk-tuks honk at us asking to drive us when we want to walk. When we need a a ride there are none to be found. Anyhow, we decide to send our Hampi tapestries and some postcards back to the U.S. so after finally finding the central post office (of the capital city of Kerala, mind you) we ask how we can wrap our package. "Stitching! Stitching!" the man shouts making the usual vague wave out into the street.
Finally we head out and wander down an alley. After a few zigs and zags we see a shop the size of a closet with a hand-painted sign says "stitching." Inside a half-naked man sleeps on a wooden plank. We wake him up. He takes our tapestries, wheels out an old foot-pedaled sewing machine, and begins to sew us two perfect little pillowcases. "Please, sit," he says, and we sit on the wooden plank. It's cool inside. We have no choice but to wait and watch. For the first time all day we feel relaxed. When he is done he seals the hem with melted red wax.
Finally we head out and wander down an alley. After a few zigs and zags we see a shop the size of a closet with a hand-painted sign says "stitching." Inside a half-naked man sleeps on a wooden plank. We wake him up. He takes our tapestries, wheels out an old foot-pedaled sewing machine, and begins to sew us two perfect little pillowcases. "Please, sit," he says, and we sit on the wooden plank. It's cool inside. We have no choice but to wait and watch. For the first time all day we feel relaxed. When he is done he seals the hem with melted red wax.
ECONOMICS & THE ENVIRONMENT
It is to notice the ways that India is eco-friendly and the ways that it is eco-evil. Basically, it's all based on rupees. Since electricity costs money, every power outlet has its own on/off switch so you can turn off every appliance completely AND similarly an entire room/house will have an on/off switch so you can make sure there is no excess electricity being used. On a similar principle, anything that can be recycled will be recycled. Of course, since it costs you nothing to throw some trash into the park, go right ahead, and I'm sure no one would ever consider using a cleaner engine if it cost a rupee more. So it just goes to show, I suppose, that IF you can link the capitalist system (in poor countries) to good deeds, people will do the right thing. But if you fail to, you can turn your whole gorgeous country into a trash heap.
TRIVANDRUM
Officially Thiruvananthapuram, but no one wants to say all that. Most cities have two or three names, each with a handful of different spellings. We fly in on a tiny propeller jet and B is green by the time we land. We don't like this city much at all. We stay at a YMCA that is large and spacious and very nice, but once outside the city is a filthy sauna. We take a rickshaw to the temple mentioned in the book, but it is small and unremarkable and covered in dirt and not worth a second look. The main road, named Mahatma Gandhi (like all the main roads) is a nightmare, a free-for-all of traffic and honking and potholes and shimmering heat. At the edges of the road there are no sidewalks, only crumbled and cracked ditches and pits, so anyone walking is forced out into the road. But what makes it all so incongruous is that in-between the usual shack-like shops and wallahs rise gleaming glass buildings, banks and businesses. A glass showroom of new Tata cars but there's a fetid ditch filled with trash that you must cross to reach the front door.
This is where I first start to think about what the modernization of India means. Because India is capitalism run amok, a laissez-faire capitalist's wet dream. Everyone is free to do as he pleases. A man on a carpet is selling what seemed to be his only ware, a bathroom scale. Well, everyone is selling something: the man up at dawn making chains of flowers for the truck drivers to hang from their fenders, the boy selling the maps you can have for free from the tourist office, the ragpicker with his towering cart, the people who refill bottled water and try to pass it off as pure, the man who tries to charge you to watch your shoes outside the temple, the ancient man and his ancient cycle rickshaw, hoping someone will pay his old legs for another spin. And we admire all this pluck and patience and hope--there's more "American spirit" here than America.
But no sidewalks. No lines. Whoever can shove his way on the bus get the seat. Piles of feces and trash as high as cars. Open sewers. Build where you like. Sell what you can. It's a dog-eat-dog world literally. We hear them fighting in the street at night. We see their bodies in the street.
This is where I first start to think about what the modernization of India means. Because India is capitalism run amok, a laissez-faire capitalist's wet dream. Everyone is free to do as he pleases. A man on a carpet is selling what seemed to be his only ware, a bathroom scale. Well, everyone is selling something: the man up at dawn making chains of flowers for the truck drivers to hang from their fenders, the boy selling the maps you can have for free from the tourist office, the ragpicker with his towering cart, the people who refill bottled water and try to pass it off as pure, the man who tries to charge you to watch your shoes outside the temple, the ancient man and his ancient cycle rickshaw, hoping someone will pay his old legs for another spin. And we admire all this pluck and patience and hope--there's more "American spirit" here than America.
But no sidewalks. No lines. Whoever can shove his way on the bus get the seat. Piles of feces and trash as high as cars. Open sewers. Build where you like. Sell what you can. It's a dog-eat-dog world literally. We hear them fighting in the street at night. We see their bodies in the street.
CONSTRUCTION
India seems perpetually under construction. Everything is torn up, scaffolded, gutted, unfinished. Hulking cement frames of buildings seem abandoned. Are they going up or coming down? And it all seems done by hand. A freeway wall is being painted so men squat with stick brooms brushing away the caked dirt while others with small pails and brushes dab on the paint. A ditch is being dug along a major road and husbands and wives dig with small spades or even sticks while their children play in the nearby piles. A major bridge is being built across a river that divides two cities, a river wider than New York's East River, and I cannot see a single machine or generator or person in uniform. I see a man carrying a single length of rebar. Another stacking bricks. One entire massive unfinished section of concrete seems to be supported (I pass this bridge 4 times and I look very closely) on a stack of wooden three-by-fours. Who is in charge? Who are these laborers? Why is such an important bridge being built in such a casual fashion? Once again, how does it work?
HAMPI
A wild tuk-tuk ride from Hospet, a bustling town, to Hampi. I know I go on and on about these rides, but they're such whirlwind experiences, driving through Indian towns. Think of 20 human and animal activities, anything you like, then imagine seeing them all at once. Then imagine that ten seconds later you are witnessing 20 NEW activities. A man selling spices on a blanket. A monkey walking alongside the road. A family on a motorcycle. A man stooped beneath a load of twined together paper. A man with no legs pushing himself on a board with wheels. Crows fighting dogs for food.
We are extremely fond of Hampi. It is a town built on the ruins of a Hindu empire that was sacked 400 years ago by neighboring Muslim sultans. The terrain is otherworldly, high desert, big sky, thousands of boulders scattered haphazardly about, some as large as cars, some as large as houses, some the size of hills. Joshua Tree is the only place that might compare. And then temples everywhere. The major ones that we visit with our guide but also tiny crumbled ones scattered about, unattended, unnamed, forgotten but still beautiful.
Our guide Sado takes us to a mountain temple for a good view of the valley at sunset. The small snaking path up seem treacherous to walk, broken full of holes, and so I am shocked that he intends to drive. Suddenly another car comes chugging down. Impossible. There is no way they can pass! And then, as if placed there by some comic God, a days-old puppy wriggling in the middle of the road. But then we pass, the puppy lives. We laugh. In the U.S. we live with a much larger margin of safety than we know. So much of India exists in this margin where we never go.
In front of the mountain temple there is an empty tuk-tuk and two monkeys have climbed inside. I swear to God, one pushes on the gas pedal while the other one tries to turn the wheel. After awhile they content themselves with pulling out stuffing and wires. Sado seems particularly alarmed. He knows an auto-rickhaw is its driver's entire livelihood.
The main temple is very nice. Men chanting in the inner sanctum but boys playing soccer in the courtyard. More puppies. A monkey on a motorcycle. Near the back we find another door that opens onto a hill. There is a intriguing white temple perched on the top that we avoid because Sado warned us that the sadhus (holy ascetics) there would demand money. We jump from boulder to boulder until we look out over the misty valley, the endless boulders, the lazy river, the sinking evening sun. Ah, we are all alone with the view, we think, but when I look over the edge of a rock I notice an old man taking a crap. Oh well. It is very rare in India, we find, to ever be far from anyone.
Monkeys--we never tire of them! A monkey sees us waiting for the sun to set and joins us on a nearby rock. Then climbs higher to a better view. Back at the temple one dashes up to the highest spire and then jumps up and down on its narrow point. They are so nimble, so brave, so up for fun.
In Hampi meat and beer are illegal. One night at a rooftop cafe we ask for beer. It goes down like a drug deal: the man makes a call, we wait for twenty minutes for the return call, the man goes out into the night, returns with a paper sack, passes it to us beneath the table.
I step into a shop to buy a mirrored tapestry for mom. I see one I like. "How much for that?" "This very beautiful, very fine. Twelve hundred rupees," she says. Well I know I'm supposed to haggle, but I hate going super low and doing all the work of getting back to the middle ground, so I decide to name a reasonable price and just stick to it. "Nine hundred," I say. "Yes! Yes!" she cries. She is ecstatic with this price. "Thank you thank you. This is a very lucky day for me. A very lucky day. What good fortune for my shop. Nine hundred. I am very happy." Well, it looks like I overpaid a bit, but I wish she wouldn't rub it in my face like that.
There's a small river that winds along the edge of town and a ferry that takes you to the quiet restaurants on the other side. "What happened to the bridge?" we ask. We had seen "new bridge" labeled on a map. "They build bridge from both sides, build bridge, build bridge, when they reach the middle it falls down. Now there is only boat."
We are extremely fond of Hampi. It is a town built on the ruins of a Hindu empire that was sacked 400 years ago by neighboring Muslim sultans. The terrain is otherworldly, high desert, big sky, thousands of boulders scattered haphazardly about, some as large as cars, some as large as houses, some the size of hills. Joshua Tree is the only place that might compare. And then temples everywhere. The major ones that we visit with our guide but also tiny crumbled ones scattered about, unattended, unnamed, forgotten but still beautiful.
Our guide Sado takes us to a mountain temple for a good view of the valley at sunset. The small snaking path up seem treacherous to walk, broken full of holes, and so I am shocked that he intends to drive. Suddenly another car comes chugging down. Impossible. There is no way they can pass! And then, as if placed there by some comic God, a days-old puppy wriggling in the middle of the road. But then we pass, the puppy lives. We laugh. In the U.S. we live with a much larger margin of safety than we know. So much of India exists in this margin where we never go.
In front of the mountain temple there is an empty tuk-tuk and two monkeys have climbed inside. I swear to God, one pushes on the gas pedal while the other one tries to turn the wheel. After awhile they content themselves with pulling out stuffing and wires. Sado seems particularly alarmed. He knows an auto-rickhaw is its driver's entire livelihood.
The main temple is very nice. Men chanting in the inner sanctum but boys playing soccer in the courtyard. More puppies. A monkey on a motorcycle. Near the back we find another door that opens onto a hill. There is a intriguing white temple perched on the top that we avoid because Sado warned us that the sadhus (holy ascetics) there would demand money. We jump from boulder to boulder until we look out over the misty valley, the endless boulders, the lazy river, the sinking evening sun. Ah, we are all alone with the view, we think, but when I look over the edge of a rock I notice an old man taking a crap. Oh well. It is very rare in India, we find, to ever be far from anyone.
Monkeys--we never tire of them! A monkey sees us waiting for the sun to set and joins us on a nearby rock. Then climbs higher to a better view. Back at the temple one dashes up to the highest spire and then jumps up and down on its narrow point. They are so nimble, so brave, so up for fun.
In Hampi meat and beer are illegal. One night at a rooftop cafe we ask for beer. It goes down like a drug deal: the man makes a call, we wait for twenty minutes for the return call, the man goes out into the night, returns with a paper sack, passes it to us beneath the table.
I step into a shop to buy a mirrored tapestry for mom. I see one I like. "How much for that?" "This very beautiful, very fine. Twelve hundred rupees," she says. Well I know I'm supposed to haggle, but I hate going super low and doing all the work of getting back to the middle ground, so I decide to name a reasonable price and just stick to it. "Nine hundred," I say. "Yes! Yes!" she cries. She is ecstatic with this price. "Thank you thank you. This is a very lucky day for me. A very lucky day. What good fortune for my shop. Nine hundred. I am very happy." Well, it looks like I overpaid a bit, but I wish she wouldn't rub it in my face like that.
There's a small river that winds along the edge of town and a ferry that takes you to the quiet restaurants on the other side. "What happened to the bridge?" we ask. We had seen "new bridge" labeled on a map. "They build bridge from both sides, build bridge, build bridge, when they reach the middle it falls down. Now there is only boat."
GETTING LOST
A few words on being lost, a state that we are often in. First off, it's very rare for streets to have names, or, if they have names, signs. There's usually a main road, and then once off that you're plunged into a maze of alleys and looping lanes and roundabouts with many spokes. Monuments and points of reference are rare. The average Indian lane is a cluster of similar shacks and shos selling similar wares: cellphone cards, Fantas and snacks, perhaps some firewood, trinkets, kitchen faucets, etc, which makes it difficult to tell one road from another. Also: we have found few Indians who will tell us that they do NOT understand. So when we ask for directions, they always "help" even if it means waving us towards someplace that we do not want to go. At one point we asked for a hotel, and the man pointed towards the "beach, beach" assuming that was where we were going. "Left, left," people tell us pointing right. And every time we try to get specifics, we are greeted with the ubiquitous Indian head bobble. Yes yes.
There's one hand gesture in particular that drives us mad. Imagine you were wearing an oversized watch and, with your arm extended, tried to make the watch spin round and round on your wrist. That's an approximation of the wave we often get. We'll say, "THIS way?" pointing down a specific street, but we only get the same looping gesture as before. It has meant, so far, a million things. I believe it must translate best into "go on and find your way as best you can." Or perhaps, "It is quite easy if you have lived in this town as long as I."
There's one hand gesture in particular that drives us mad. Imagine you were wearing an oversized watch and, with your arm extended, tried to make the watch spin round and round on your wrist. That's an approximation of the wave we often get. We'll say, "THIS way?" pointing down a specific street, but we only get the same looping gesture as before. It has meant, so far, a million things. I believe it must translate best into "go on and find your way as best you can." Or perhaps, "It is quite easy if you have lived in this town as long as I."
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