Twelve cups of tea for Republic Day

Flashback to Rajasthan – here’s a post I forgot to press:

Families wander into Punam Stadium for Republic Day events in Jaisalmer

Before the sun rose over the desert city of Jaisalmer, a lone trumpet and some keen nationalists jostled me from slumber early a few weeks back.  The world’s largest democracy was ready to celebrate the sixty-first anniversary of its constitution.   India’s Republic Day was January 26th.  A nation of over one billion Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Christians, and Buddhists, India was the first non-Western nation to chose a democratic constitution. Rajasthanis got an early start to a day of ceremonies, traditional dancing, army demonstrations, and reckoning.  They beat the dogs and the clanging pots to the cruel interruption of my sleep!

The year 1947 marks Indian independence.  But what I didn’t realize was that for three years after independence, India continued to operate under a colonial act from the British parliament.  In 1950, Indians adopted a constitution written by its own people.  “When India got its constitution, it started its destiny for itself,” explained our hostel manager Bhupesh Bissa.

Bleary eyed, I wandered into the street to witness the national holiday.  In the tourist haven around Sonarkila Fort there was little indicating the significance of the day in Indian history.  The fort streets were packed and preoccupied with the Desert Festival that starts at the end of the month.  I followed Bhupesh’s directions beyond the fort area and joined the nationalist procession headed to Punam Stadium.

Children waved colourful balloons among the womens’ vibrant, swishing saris.  Families rode three or four to a motorcycle, toddlers sitting in the laps of mothers riding side-saddle.  The traffic is not unusual.  But for once, the congestion is uniform in its direction.  So was the mood of the people.  “Today I am proud to be Indian.  Today, we celebrate our rules and our government.”  These phrases were repeated countless times throughout the day.

I converged with a group of schoolgirls who invited me to walk with them as I crossed the Mahatma Gandhi roundabout.  “Come enjoy with us, I will guide you,” Geeta offered.  Like most celebrations I’ve encountered in the last few months traveling through India, inclusion is the spirit of the event.  Whether it’s an important Hindu pooja ritual, Diwali, or a wedding, everyone is welcome.  After centuries of warring, foreign occupation, and the carnage at independence and the 1992-1993 riots, India is slowly becoming a champion of plurality and diversity.

Indians rallied around slogans of unity in 2009.  At the December anniversary of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the media and its celebrities promoted an “I am Indian” diversity campaign.  At the new year, they celebrated a terrorism-free year of social and economic recovery.  The populace largely rejected the divisive remarks of notoriously sectarian politician Bal Thackeray.  In November, the Shiv Sena party leader lost considerable political capital when he criticized national cricket hero Sachin Tendulkar for identifying first as Indian and only secondarily as Marathi, his regional identity.  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demonstrated Indian democracy by defending national interests at Copenhagen in December.  And earlier in the fall, Prime Minister Harper acknowledged the growing importance of the Republic by paying a visit to the nation late last year.

I got all kinds of different answers when I inquired about the meaning of Republic Day on the 26th.  The answers varied but usual constituted of a some glowing nationalism and an offer to join someone for chai.  I must have marked the day with a dozen odd cups of chai.  Over steaming cups of sweet heat, a group of young Indians commented on the imperfect expression of their constitution.

Government is half good, half bad.  Politicians are eating money.  Government forbids it, but politicians take baksheesh [bribes], they eat our money.”

This is what Mather Khan explained when he invited me and my curiosity to tea.  News of corruption in the state apparatus is ubiquitous in the Indian media.  These youth are worried that Indian subdivision into more states diverts needed money and energy destructively.  Since 1950, the number of Indian states rose from seventeen to twenty-eight, enlarging the bureaucracy.  “More politicians, more bribes, more division.  Not good,” finished Khan.

Interpreting from a local hindi paper, an entrepreneur named Omprakash shared another sobering view.

More than half of Indians are still uneducated.  Mostly they are in villages.  The villagers are seeing children as gifts from God.  So they take as many as possible and then don’t send them to school.

Khan countered that on Republic Day, teachers and students go to these same villages in order to entice the rural population into school attendance.

After my seventh conversational, milky chai of the day, we proceeded into the sprawling stadium for the day’s ceremonies.  School children wearing coordinated uniforms sit in neat bands of saffron, white, then green.  They paint the Indian flag across the sandy field.  In the stands, a burst of fuchsia, gold, and magenta erupts to identify the womens ‘ side.  Standing contrast opposite to them are the men dressed in muted browns, whites, and blues.  As a western woman, the division seems ironic on a day that marks the nation’s progress; including the progress in the rights for its women.

Well worth celebrating: since 1950, the minimum age for marriage has been boosted from fifteen to eighteen.  However, just last week a friend in the countryside shared photos from a traditionalRajasthani marriage.  In one photo the bride was fast asleep at her own wedding.  She was only two.  She was napping.  Also illegal but still practiced is the custom of giving dowry to the grooms family at the time of marriage.  “Why Indians follow some rules and not others is some mystery I have tried to understand but cannot,” my friend confessed.

Imperfect though it may be, India was once a country that asked its widows to throw themselves into the flames of their husband’s funeral pyres.  Now the country is a rising global power.  I’m  curious about whether the Indian constitution can honour its citizens equally – young and old, men and women, urban and rural peoples – especially in the face of the challenges and opportunities provided by the country’s increasing status in the world.  This motorcycle trip is making me aware of the real resource disparity between the country and the hubs.  Urbanites call the villagers “backwards” to describe their traditional belief system and simple lifestyle.  India ranks among the lowest on United Nations Development indices but politically and economically it is hurling forward  – I am curious to see Will the villagers and the women catch up to the cosmopolitan men and women or will the Republic strengthen on their backs?

If the nation could rally for rural development the way it does for chai, then I would see no reason for concern…

And check this photo link Scott just sent:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/02/colorful_india.html

Particularly 2- Kathakali in Kerala… 8- the Baha’i Lotus temple I visited yesterday… and 30- the longest corridored temple, in Rameshwaram that was less peaceful in real life!

Madam, this your bike?

Sukrit was right.
Meg’s uncle was right.
Mom was right (but to her credit, she bit her tongue).
The mechanic’s skeptical looks were not far off.

But it was worth it anyway.

I have no business riding a motorcycle. And the sand that spilled us reminded me of this. Nevertheless, we both got off easy and Meg lies generously that it would have happened to her if she were driving. I’ve got some scratches and Meg is unscathed. So while the bikes made a few trips to the mechanic along the way, we never saw a hospital.* I reckon this ratio vindicates our somewhat reckless decision to take off days after learning to ride our rented Honda Unicorn under Rajasthan’s kite-strewn sky. A bike tour of Rajasthan was a dream that Shantaram’s protagonist inspired (racing through Goa after his lover on an old Enfield Bullet) and that Tev nurtured with a willingness to teach us to ride. And it concludes with three satisfied siblings.

I set out wanting to see the “real India” that the urbanites recall nostalgically, that they claim has died in India’s cities but survives in the villages. Bangalore bursting with American chains, modern buildings, and Hindi-rock fusion bands at mega mall complexes; Bombay bustling with vendors and buyers and hurtling trains; Pondicherry buzzing with espresso and yogis – these things we did not see. A few weeks on the road gave us a taste of the lifestyle and customs that still thrive in the villages, but that are absent in India’s big, modern cities.

We wound past women balancing babies and precarious loads of firewood or water on their heads. When Tev’s bike rattled troublesomely, women squatting in the highway median took us home to their dairy farm and gave us chai and a number 12 wrench. Their daughters demonstrated how to dance in the proper Rajasthani style and Depeeka showed me the photo of the boy she loves but can’t marry unless her parents choose him for her (he was a Bollywood star, so arranged-marriage isn’t the only thing dooming this romance). We cruised past tractors swallowed in their loads of hay, army tanks returning from the Pakistani border, herds of sheep and goats crossing the highway, and processions of women in saris moving slowly towards an unseen destination on the horizon. We came across Brahmin women who couldn’t read, ten year old boys managing shops, and two year old brides fast asleep at their own wedding.

We cycled until chai-shops called from the roadside, inviting us for milky tea, dahl bhatti, and Parle-G biscuits. Sometimes we slept there too, when the wallahs were kind and keen to improve our Hindi. Other times we slept in temple dorms, hostels, or with couchsurfers. We followed the roads into the vast, quiet expanse of the desert where India is not bustling but arid and often vacant. We chose secondary roads when we could, but even the two-lane national highways were quiet. Tourist buses sometimes careened by, with belligerent disregard for lanes. The occasional eastbound motorcycle shared our westbound lane. A rickshaw puttering slowly, determinedly across the desert provided comedic relief. A few times we witnessed buses burdened with a hundred men; every surface writhing with bodies clinging to the lumbering vehicle. Ten wheeler Goods Carriers, vibrantly adorned with tassels and rainbow paint jobs, made the best company. They stayed in their lanes and changed velocity predictably. But for the most part in the country, we were alone. The cities are a different story; but once you’re in the mess of vehicles, you get a sense for the rhythm of the traffic. It has a life of its own that you can learn to anticipate.

We took pause when our bikes carried us somewhere curious. We stopped to ride camels through the Thar Desert. We breaked to learn about caste marriages from a new couchsurfing friend in Kekri. Ram is Rajasthan’s self-appointed cultural historian and he wrapped my head in one of the ubiquitous, traditional turbans that colour Rajasthan’s villages. We stayed an extra day in Bundi when I was forced into a “full beauty” makeover and donned a sari for a friend’s uncle’s cousin’s wedding. In “full beauty” (if beauty is a clown), Meg and I were part of a pedestrian caravan of trumpeters and dancers who led a horseback groom through midnight’s, winding alleyways. We stopped often to drink chai after chai after chai after… Sometimes we were a bit of a spectacle. In the big cities like Udaipur or Jaisalmer, foreigners are familiar. Our presence is unremarkable unless a vendor wants us in their shop, in which case they shout us down with style: “M’am you have big hair! I have small shop! You fill my shop with all your hair and all your rupees!” But in the less-visited country between the cities, three tall, white North Americans and their gear are a bit of a novelty. Men turned to gawk at the helmeted goras cruising in leather and jeans with bandanas pulled up to their sunglasses. Once we stupefied a mother braiding her daughter’s hair when we approached their mud hut for directions. Despite our Namastes and folded hands, they gaped at us, stunned, quiet, paralyzed. Other times, a village congregated around Tevon’s red, 1996 Enfield to ogle at the bike and its company. The attention we sometimes garner makes me claustrophobic; we never cease to be the novelty newcomers when we visit the places that aren’t marked on the map. But the inverse is true for us as traveling acquaints us increasingly with Indian society. I have to remember to be patient with the “intrusions” on personal space or privacy. I am grateful for the magic that happens on the bike: we can pass through people and routines as unnoticed observers, quiet witnesses to the life carrying on around us. But we can also stop, hop off the bike, and inquire about the yellow crops, the piles of bricks, the way to the next town…

A couple thousand kilometers (and as many cliché sunrises and sunsets) later, we’re home-free in Jaipur. The beloved Unicorn we became so fond of (and that Meg dubbed Tulsi) is back in the hands of the quiet, smiling mechanic who trusted us with it. I shelved the idea of buying the bike off Saleem – a dream for later perhaps. For now, it’s back to the trains and off to the rush of Delhi for a friend’s wedding.

Decaying Rajput opulence – still glorious!

low sun hanging over the palace at Bundi, Rajasthan

Introducing Tevon

We picked up an American from Seattle.  He’s about seven feet tall with a cowboy hat and a ready smile.  He rides an Enfield Bullet and has a ten year Indian visa.  He likes chocolate as much as Meg and I.  Now we’re a tripod for January in Rajasthan.  Circumstance dependent, we are siblings, friends, or young mormon lovers.  Together, we want to see the desert and rural India – it’s villages and farms.  We’re hoping to WWOOF (to work for room and board through Willing Workers on Organic Farms).

This morning we were in Pushkar, southwest of Jaipur.  We spent sunrise flipping six hundred chapatis over a massive fire at the Gurudwara.  Tomorrow we hit the road and continue southwest.

“We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with emphasis on ‘good’ rather than on ‘time’…”

Some catchup:

Nevermind, it only took a few hours

I said it would take me a day or two for me to find something better to write about than parasites. In the wakeful night that follows days of sleep, I found it.

Punjabi music is blaring across the moonlit sky.  Defeated kites hang limp across telephone poles.  Smoke hangs thick under the glow of street lights.

Tevon and I walk down to street level to wander, wondering at the source of the blaring late-night music.   Smouldering fires that stink of rubber dot the street.  We approach a family of Punjabis circling, dancing around the only lively flames in the street.

First:

– You know our festival?!  Lohrie!  For babies!
– No, for new husbands, new wives.
– No, no, for every new member of the family!

And then:

– What is your place?  You dance?  You dance to Punjabi music?  Maybe to English music?
– I’m from Canada.   Yes, sometimes I dance.   I prefer Punjabi.  You dance, I’ll follow.
– Oh thank you thank you!

My tired body sort of dances, Tevon follows suit with heart and duplicates an enthusiastic “pet the dog, screw in the lightbulb” move… until we are accosted with:

– You take whiskey?!
– You are feeling nice now?!
– Count out seven prasad and eat just seven for your wishes!
– You like dogs?!
– You must come back tomorrow!

Dog snaps at my hand
Father fills two cups with whiskey
Young bride chases after and smacks drunken husband
Dog snaps again (“He is like my baby! this puppy!”)
Whiskey and prasad are thrust into our hands
“She’s sick! She’s sick, no whiskey!” countered by “Yes! YES! Just one!”
Massive firecracker explodes
My heart explodes
“No terrorists!  Why are you so worried!  No terrorists here”
They laugh together
Song changes, louder, faster
I dump my glass into Tevon’s
We throw our heads back, he swallows, I feign
New bottle comes out
Shukriyah!  Thank you, goodnight!
Namaskar, namaskar!
We back away before the next round

We turn and run, back through the constellation of smoldering fires, past the dogs, up the stairs to Sanjay’s.  Going to bed tonight will be like trying to fall asleep while your parents count down the New Year downstairs.

Taking stock, four months in

I have been pretty oblivious to the days of the week for the past four months.  If a lot of shops are closed, it’s probably a Monday.  If it feels like a while since I last took a chloroquine tablet to stave off malaria, it’s probably a Thursday or Friday.  Mostly, we are liberated from the calendar.  There’s just this massive expanse of eight or nine months to fill with learning, wandering, and exploring.  I am as free as I have ever been.  But still, I am very aware of the passing of time.  We negotiate with Indian Railways’ timetables and are bound by the seasons of the monsoons.  We’re restricted by ice in Ladakh and by visas that threaten to expire before we’ve seen all we came for.  I notice the passing of time through the filling of notebooks, the erosion of my stash of Ciproflaxin antibiotics, and the burning through of camera memory cards.  I have washed my four pairs of underwear in soapy buckets more times than I can count (but probably fewer times than my Mom and Uncle Dave would approve of).  Books newly filled with my scribbles and notes exceed a dozen and are scattered across two continents.  They get left in the homes of our ever-growing family of couch-surfing friends, mothers, and aunties.   The hair on my legs shows the passage of time and so do the loosening seams on my pack.

More or less, we’re bound by our own deadlines.  Meg wakes up anxious to get moving; I dawdle until I urgently have to pee; we eat when we’re hungry.  It’s a simple and selfish existence.  With time, the routine of travel has become increasingly effortless.  Whereas I used to be preoccupied with where we were going next, how we would get there, and where we would stay, now I don’t worry about it.  Fate will sort it out – or a stranger will open their home before sunset.  I think this faith comes after you’ve fallen asleep in thirty-seven different beds across seventeen states and provinces in just four months.  We’ve couchsurfed with a medical student, a Parks Canada biologist, a raiser of horses and Olympians, young lovers in the early weeks of shared space, a professor of chemistry, a mother with mantras of kindness and a textile business, a young and edgy IT professional, urban designers, a family of language teachers, and a gem jeweler.  We’ve slept on floors, by the side of the highway, in our tent through snowstorms, and in gorgeous rustic cabins.  We’ve stayed on the roofs of buildings, in Rocky Mountain staff accommodations, shared beds with best friends, and curled up in the pink Barbie sheets of a young girl who gave up her room to accommodate us.  Once we ended up in a luxurious condo, another time someone passed us the keys to their place for two weeks, and many times we’ve stayed in ant or mosquito-infested hostels.  Often, we’ve been lulled to sleep by a rocking train, hurtling through darkness.  We’ve been mothered, befriended, hit-on, groped, comforted, starred at, and nurtured from every angle.  We have found a new equilibrium in our constant migration. 

Usually I am happy, peaceful, curious.  For weeks on end I wake up excited, eager to get out of bed.  Other times, when I am tired or sick, I am quick to miss home or feel anxious about the future and the indefinite plans I have for it.  Usually I am grateful to be traveling with a friend like Meg; she is forgiving, patient, and kind.  Sometimes I am frustrated with her for no good reason – except to recognize that she is the scapegoat for my frustration that privacy and “alone-time” don’t exist in a country populated by over a billion people.  Admittedly, sometimes I resent the fact that she can eat anything and never fall sick.  I mean come on, we eat the same thing and she’s still standing when I’ve keeled over thrice.  Show off!  So while I recover with jars of peanut butter and jam, she’s happily munching the “slum peoples’ food” from roadside vendors who our host families keep warning us against – evidently for good reason too, if my immune system is any indicator.

For the most part though, we are healthy and well.  We haven’t spent a day in an ashram but we’ve done Tai Chi in the park and yoga on the beach.  I haven’t fulfilled my Bollywood dancing aspirations but we’ve salsa-ed on rooftops and sweat through Hindi beats.  We haven’t been able to make a single wedding invitation but we’ve heard infinite stories about courtship, marriage, and defiant love.  Along with a notebook of things we’ve done, I keep a list of things to come back for.  Inevitably, I will run out of time or energy to do everything I would like to on this trip.  I would love to ride the Manali-Leh highway and I would love to hang out in the villages of the small, forgotten North-Eastern states.  But the season is wrong and we’ve been lost in bazaars or too busy learning to ride motorbikes. 

I couldn’t even tell you whether this trip is what I expected it would be because I’m not sure what I anticipated.    Sometimes India feels worlds and lifetimes away from home; when there are dead bodies in the street, children doing back flips in busy intersections for pocket change, disfigured and dismembered beggars yanking at my arm, and people squatting to shit in full view downtown.  The colours and smells are more vivid and plentiful, the hygiene archaic, the wealth disparity more violent, and the infrastructure more strained.  But one on one, we are fundamentally not so different.  Sometimes India feels remarkably like home does – just a bunch of people looking out for what’s important to them.  Only there are more people but no toilet paper. 

Compared to most Indians, I think I’ve noticed just two real differences between them and me: how explicit and superstitious they are.  Indians push and shove when they need to and they’ll tell you about their dowries without being asked.  The topic of marriage makes them especially forthright about what’s important to them.  This morning, Anu was talking about her own wedding:

“My marriage is a love-marriage, not an arranged marriage.  At first my father did not like Sanjay.  But I told him if I couldn’t marry him then I would marry no one.  Later, Sanjay got his jewelry business.  Now my father likes Sanjay very much.  And we have had so much good fortune ever since we had our daughter.  Now my father is happy.”   

There is something comical and refreshing about Indians’ overt way of speaking- especially with the shameless way they talk about money (partially because you can tell as soon as they want to make you a client and you can dodge it!)  There is no false altruism or veiled agenda hiding their intention: “study hard to get a good job with lots of money; be a doctor, not a writer,” or “love marriage can be good too, just make sure he is rich and handsome,” or “getting admission to the right preparatory school is very important to get Danya (3 years old) ready for a very good career.” 

As for superstition – at any given moment there are one billion incantations being muttered, auspicious days being marked, poojas being held, tikkas being drawn, gurus being (literally) followed, deities being worshipped, bobble-head Shivas bobbling on the dashboard, astrological rings being polished, figurines being bathed in temples, incense being burned, and eunuchs gathering coin after a baby’s birth.  I am probably making a mockery of what a religious scholar would call a sacred tradition – but the range of different gestures made for the same ends (prosperity, wealth, good marriage, health, no terrorism) is so great, varied, and inconsistent that I can’t help but think it’s a little superstitious.  It’s also beautiful.  And admittedly, religion plays a far more central role in Indian society than it does in Canada.  I think it helps maintain order, or if I can borrow from my friend Nikhil, it helps to make India’s anarchy functional.  Regardless, I am happy to give the man who smears my forehead with turmeric a few coins and I’ll gladly sit through a three-hour pooja just because I think it’s fascinating.  I respect their traditions – they’re just not my own.

So here we are, four months in, on the eve of Jaipur’s kite festival.  Four months is a familiar measure, one semester of university learning.  It would be too easy to idealize experiential learning, to say that this is more fruitful and effortless than studying at McGill.  Sometimes it is.  The gratification is more personal and instantaneous.  Sometimes it isn’t.  Traveling is hard.  I would kill for a bath rather than a bucket shower.  I could go for some toilet paper.  I would dissolve at my family’s familiar touch.  I am sick of being sick.  And mostly, we’ve had it easy.  Maybe because we’ve been in the South until recently, maybe because we’ve been couchsurfing, which hugely reduces the number of hollow, wearying economic transactions that travelers face.  A fellow couch-surfer just walked in the room after a day on the streets, frustrated and tired: “I am so discouraged, everything feels motivated by money, there is no pure generosity, I can’t even ask for directions!”  So far, Meg and I have experienced the contrary, but I’m suspicious that Northern India might have something entirely different in store for us.  We’ll see.

Our last host-father has just called to tell me that Meg and I made it into the Bhopal local paper – some photographer caught us visiting a contemporary art museum.  He wants to know when we’re going back to Bhopal.  Our room is ready.  The generosity is overwhelming, I feel guilty.  And hungry.  But without appetite.  The imam is blaring through the walls, irritating and intimidating the infidels.  I’m layered with wool and fleece that we picked up the other day at a street bazaar.  My toes are cold, my forehead is hot, and my heart is feeling pretty lukewarm about doing anything today.  Give me a day though… maybe two, and I’ll have something good to write about.