India, Day 1 (plus 730)

2014-12-21-12-24-41-1Two years ago today, I set off on the trip that would become the one to which I compare most others. After a whirlwind stopover in London, I was officially en route to Delhi, which was start and end to an almost 3-week adventure in Rajasthan.

I didn’t climb K2 or bathe in the Ganges; nor did I do yoga or a meditative retreat in an ashram in Rishikesh. Instead, I did sun salutations on the marble floor of a renovated haveli in Jodhpur on Christmas morning, to the sounds of a goat bleating to be let into the hotel’s lobby. I drank hand-brewed chai from a terra cotta cup on a dirt road in a dusty village market in Jojawar. I drank Kingfishers and danced to Bollywood music wearing a kurta (and a bindi) on New Year’s Eve in Jaipur. I walked the market streets of Pushkar before the bustling day began, to be blessed by a Brahmin priest by the magical Pushkar Lake. I got lost coming home from a mind-bending trip the Swaminarayan Akshardam in Delhi. I rode a camel; haggled for deals in markets; visited forts built in the middle ages; saw new puppies and starving dogs; smiled and shared tea with strangers; travelled on an overnight train; inhaled the aromas of amazing street food as well as those of the human condition; saw Delhi’s famed smog as well as its blue skies; tasted the best jalebi and samosas and aubergine curry and lassi and dosas I’ve ever had…and, yes, I saw the Taj Mahal. The toilet story was the best of that day, tho.

India was an experience for every physical sense, plus some senses I didn’t know how to tap into until I came home and began reflecting.

As I think about the coming year and begin to plan the shells of future wanders and adventures I wanted to share India Day 1, my first blog post and in it, the words that fail to adequately depict the shell shock that is one’s first contact with the entity that is India. [I hope you enjoy reading that post as much as I did writing it.]

Here is a full list of the India blog posts:

India, Day 1

Street Walking in Delhi

Night Train to Jodhpur

Christmas Eve 7000 Miles from Home

The Hidden Fortress at Kumbhalgarh

Falling in Love…AKA I (heart) Udaipur

Travelling Back in Time: Jojawar

Pushkar: Holy City By The Lake

New Year’s in Jaipur: Now is What Matters

Outskirts of Agra: More Time Travel and Amber That Shines Like Gold

Agra, Part 1: Where Mughal Emperors Reign(ed)

Agra, Part II: The Taj, and a Word About Public Toilets in India

Solo in Delhi: Day 1

Solo in Delhi, Day 2: Wherein I Find My Temple and Learn the Gods’ Days

Delhi: Grand Hearts, Shining Brightly

Where do you stay: on Impermanence and making an impact…

 

New Year’s in Jaipur: Now is What Matters

Jaipur, in the waning light of 2014. Jaipur is an old walled-in city within a new, bustling metropolis. The charm and the chaos of the ancient Old City market, with its touts and hawkers and fabric/bangle/pocketbook/toy/knick-knack/clothing/shoe/tea/spice/pan stalls is an assault to the senses. You can smell the old city’s streets, hear the horns and bells and calls of the sellers….”meeess, meeess…buy theeess…” You can almost taste the roadside snacks and the grit of the commotion. The colors are explosive, almost fireworks and magic against the dark streets and gray skies. You can feel the frenetic energy vibrating throughout your body. Our contingent of international travellers haggles furiously and we’re pleased with the deals we’ve struck. Kurtis for the night’s festivities. Bags of presents for friends and family back home. We have learned to say no to the hawkers and dismiss the beggars without feeling the shame or heartbreak for not helping those in need.

Reminders of the days of purdah are in every city. The Great Façade that is Jaipur’s Hawa Mahal is essentially a tall viewing stand for the women of the city so they could watch festivals and goings-on in the street without being seen. Stories high, this structure looks like a dainty sandstone fortress rising from the chock-a-block street below. As with many of these centuries-old buildings here, it doesn’t even look real.

The new year’s festivities begin at a local family’s home, where the woman of the house gives cooking demonstrations and serves a magnificent feast for the travel-weary troops. From this and watching the chai wallahs, I’ve learned how to make authentic chai…the real masala tea that contains hand-mashed ginger and cardamom, boiled milk and spices and tea powder and sugar. Pure Indian love poured from a steaming pot. This is one certainty: I will miss this when I return to my western reality. Chai and hand-rolled chapatis, garlicky naan and homemade paneer… I know I’ve passed the Indian spice test when I embrace the mouth-tingling feeling the hand-crushed red chilis add to a masala curry.

     2014-12-31 18.46.50      photo: Marlen Buderus   Photo: Marlen Buderus

A Bollywood-ish New Year’s Eve party. We wore bindis and kurtas and Rajasthan-made shoes. We danced to Bollywood hits, drank local beer and laughed. One of my most carefree and light new year’s eves in ages, with balloons and party horns and those clicker things…. the music was loud and it somehow overpowered the horns and tuk tuks and general Jaipur din emanating from the street below. We were a kingfisher-infused motley crew, representing most of the 7 continents. New Year’s has no ethnicity.

Indian men hold hands here. It is for camaraderie and connection and maybe just that nice feeling of holding hands, as there are few women around and also this is a conservative part of the country where public displays of affection are still frowned upon. They also, unlike the States, dance together (Bollywood style)… they all know the moves and if they don’t, well, they make them up. It makes for a wildly entertaining spectacle. Women (en masse) are invited up to dance with the men – much like a summer camp social – and guarded by their male friends, cousins, brothers and (in our case) tour guides. This a horny and male-dominated culture, with Kama Sutra roots. Combine that with a conservative state of mind and there is bound to be trouble. Rapes, violence against women…the dark side of this always-smiling, dancing and singing mass of bodies.

India is loud and in your face. So maybe an even more unique experience than Times Square was this semi-Bollywood celebration of New Year’s Eve. This is India. So just before, or maybe a minute after midnight, as we westerners were checking our phones for the precisely correct time to start the countdown to midnight(ish), the lights and sound went out. The din evaporated. And in that 2 or 4 or 42 seconds that the lights and music were dark, with the smell of bonfires in the air, I realised that instead of counting down a year that was, or to a year that was to be, that a big reset button was pressed.

The night continued on, but it felt like we were in that limbo time between the realities of yesterday and the possibilities of tomorrow. There was no talk of resolutions or unachievable expectations for envisioned tomorrows…there was just that feeling in the air of weightless possibility and a celebration of that which is now… This is India. Regardless of the noise and the chaos and the cows and dogs and monkeys and tuk tuks and trash and bumpy roads and funny little Indian men singing Justin Bieber songs at midnight, there is now and there is light. And as ridiculous and absurd and amazing as this place is, there is this pervasive feeling that Now is what matters.