Just a quick note to let everyone in blog land know that I have been up in the state Rajistan the last week or so, about as far away from the coastline and the areas of India hit by the recent tsunamis as possible. So far away that I haven't been close enough to a computer to make a post.
The news came as a bit of a shock, especially so because we had no idea until I got back to the hotel in the evening and happened to switch on CNN. We had spent the day wandering the forts and city of Jodphur and hadn't seen any groups of people gathered around televisions or any of the other behaviour you would expect to see in a country in the midst of a natural disaster of this scale. A little disturbing actually. Since the earthquake, the topic hasn't come up at all when I've been talking to Indians, only other travellers.
So all in all, all is well.
Friday, December 31, 2004
Monday, December 20, 2004
The India Diaries: To hell with numbering and order... I'm spending New Year's at the Taj!
I've found a nice friendly Canadian (aren't they all?) who wants to spend New Year's eve in Agra so I have someone to brave the crowds with. I wasn't too keen to go it alone. So... yay!
The India Diaries - Part 9: An Indian resturant in India and how to dress like an Indian woman without even trying
Okay, so I just had dinner here in Pune at the Resturant Hydrabad. The food was absolutely awesome, the service wonderfully attentive, but thats been my experience since I've arrived. What struck me was that we were eating in a themed resturant. Hydrabad is a city in the east, and from what I could tell from the incredibly opulant and Hollywood-like decor of the resturant, it is a city renowed for very good lamb marsalas, tiny mirrors everywhere, massive coloured glass chandeliers, and tassels, lots of tassels, even on the menus. So this was an Indian themed resturant, in India. Huh.
One thing that has struck me, particularly in Pune, is the variation in the way the women dress. Pune (pronounced Poona) is a very modern (by Indian standards), medium-sized city (around 4 million people) with an awful lot of universities and therefore an awful lot of students. For the most part and with only a few exceptions, the men wear western-style trousers or jeans, and untucked buttoned shirts or t-shirts. The women vary far more drastically. There seem to be three distinct styles and classes that go with them.
About half the women are in sarees and within this group, there are two sub-groups: Those that drape their saree in the traditional Majherasta style that kinda makes the skirt of the saree look a bit like a very long diaper are usually the peasants and construction workers (yes, there are an awful lot of woman working on road crews). Not terribly graceful, but a bit more practical. The other group wears saree in the style of southern India with the skirt pleated and left long. It is a very graceful way to drape saree and it seems to be the middle and upper class more traditional/conservative women who dress this way.
Then there are the women who wear chorta. Chorta is a set made up of loose trousers, a long tunic slit up the sides, and a scarf or stole. Very graceful, and also very comfortable. The women who wear chorta seem to be the professionals. Doctors, accountants and politicians all wear chorta. I bought one last week and have worn it out a few times. After a bit of confusion over seeing a western woman in traditional dress, I find I get very good service and am respected and generally treated well.
Then there are the young women, mostly students, who wear typical wester-style clothes. Jeans, t-shirts, sneakers, but nothing very low-cut and nothing shorter than mid-calf.
In some parts of the city, I felt very conspicuous in my whiteness and jeans and t-shirt. I'm starting to get used to the constant stares and groups of teenagers asking to have their photo taken with me but it does feel a little strange. I do like that my culture is as fascinating to them as theirs is to me. I felt like if I could dress like they do, I would blend in a little. So I am sitting in an internet cafe right now in the very young and trendy Koregan Park district wearing chorta, and feeling a bit out of place amongst all the girls in jeans and t-shirts. Contrast and contradictions, that's what I will take away from this place most clearly.
One thing that has struck me, particularly in Pune, is the variation in the way the women dress. Pune (pronounced Poona) is a very modern (by Indian standards), medium-sized city (around 4 million people) with an awful lot of universities and therefore an awful lot of students. For the most part and with only a few exceptions, the men wear western-style trousers or jeans, and untucked buttoned shirts or t-shirts. The women vary far more drastically. There seem to be three distinct styles and classes that go with them.
About half the women are in sarees and within this group, there are two sub-groups: Those that drape their saree in the traditional Majherasta style that kinda makes the skirt of the saree look a bit like a very long diaper are usually the peasants and construction workers (yes, there are an awful lot of woman working on road crews). Not terribly graceful, but a bit more practical. The other group wears saree in the style of southern India with the skirt pleated and left long. It is a very graceful way to drape saree and it seems to be the middle and upper class more traditional/conservative women who dress this way.
Then there are the women who wear chorta. Chorta is a set made up of loose trousers, a long tunic slit up the sides, and a scarf or stole. Very graceful, and also very comfortable. The women who wear chorta seem to be the professionals. Doctors, accountants and politicians all wear chorta. I bought one last week and have worn it out a few times. After a bit of confusion over seeing a western woman in traditional dress, I find I get very good service and am respected and generally treated well.
Then there are the young women, mostly students, who wear typical wester-style clothes. Jeans, t-shirts, sneakers, but nothing very low-cut and nothing shorter than mid-calf.
In some parts of the city, I felt very conspicuous in my whiteness and jeans and t-shirt. I'm starting to get used to the constant stares and groups of teenagers asking to have their photo taken with me but it does feel a little strange. I do like that my culture is as fascinating to them as theirs is to me. I felt like if I could dress like they do, I would blend in a little. So I am sitting in an internet cafe right now in the very young and trendy Koregan Park district wearing chorta, and feeling a bit out of place amongst all the girls in jeans and t-shirts. Contrast and contradictions, that's what I will take away from this place most clearly.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
The India Diaries - Part 8: Heading North
India is such a place of contrasts and contradictions. I am sitting in an internet cafe (finally!) in Pune, just east of Mumbai. I'm surrounded by young, western-looking university students who are chatting, working on assignments, and just bumming around on a Saturday night. Down the street are cafes, resturants, and the place has a typical young Saturday night feel, although a little tamer than in the west. But across the road, a mangy dog and an old woman in a pale green saree are rumaging through a dumpster and less than a block away, children sleep with their parents on the sidewalk next to the most filthy stretch of river I have ever seen. The contrast is simply amazing.
I wish I had more time to spend posting updates but voluteer work with Rotary has kept me very busy and moving around the state, nowhere near an internet-connected computer. I've been keeping a written journal though, and will transcribe it when I get the chance. Photos to come too, I hope.
For now, its up to Ragistan for some desert trekking and a week at a meditation centre in Jaipur before starting the journey home.
Namaste!
(Namaste means both hello and goodbye in Hindi - like I said, a land of contradictions.)
I wish I had more time to spend posting updates but voluteer work with Rotary has kept me very busy and moving around the state, nowhere near an internet-connected computer. I've been keeping a written journal though, and will transcribe it when I get the chance. Photos to come too, I hope.
For now, its up to Ragistan for some desert trekking and a week at a meditation centre in Jaipur before starting the journey home.
Namaste!
(Namaste means both hello and goodbye in Hindi - like I said, a land of contradictions.)
Monday, December 13, 2004
The India Diaries - Part 7: First Impressions
Sitting on a balcony in Pune listening to the neverending noise on the streets below and thinking what a truly magic place India is, in all its noise and smell and dust.
How do I even begin to describe this place? Seeing it as I am through my wealthy western eyes, India is a place of devastating poverty, disease, disfigurement, and filth. Looking closer, there are brilliant smiles, woman in sarees and churtas of every imaginable colour, and an order and grace to a place that at fist glance is the very epitamy of chaos.
When I arrived in Mubai on Thursday afternoon, exhausted from almost 36 hours in transit, the first thing that struck me was the uniquness of my whiteness. It is such an interesting sensation after a life as part of a majority to suddenly find myself painfully aware of my minority status. Somehow I had carried with me to India a mistaken assumption of multiculturalism.
Rather than go into the day by day details of what I have been doing, I want to record my impressions of this place. I spent the day yesterday assisting in a camp being run to perform corrective surgeries on children disfigured by muscular dystrophy, polio and conjenital defects. Attempting to write what is was I was able to witness is so difficult. These children came through the door on hands, feet, knees and whatever else they could use to allow them to get around. After the doctors spent a few minutes with each to establish what could be done, I helped the nurses soak and wash their gnarled legs to get through the layers of dust in preparation for surgery. They were so nervous and afraid but all I could do was smile at them in lieu of any shared language. The smiles on these kids were so amazing, even as scared as they were, they smiled right back at me.
Later in the day I was helping remove the plaster casts from kids who had been operated on a few weeks earlier. There was one beautiful little girl with polio who's father spoke a little English. He was able to tell me that when she came in for surgery, she was only able to crawl and shuffle about on her bottom (her father did a great imitation of this to get the point across!). After we took her cast off, she slipped off the gurney, grabbed her fathers hands, and walked out of the room. She had been calling me Aunty Katta.
The people here are so very beautiful.
How do I even begin to describe this place? Seeing it as I am through my wealthy western eyes, India is a place of devastating poverty, disease, disfigurement, and filth. Looking closer, there are brilliant smiles, woman in sarees and churtas of every imaginable colour, and an order and grace to a place that at fist glance is the very epitamy of chaos.
When I arrived in Mubai on Thursday afternoon, exhausted from almost 36 hours in transit, the first thing that struck me was the uniquness of my whiteness. It is such an interesting sensation after a life as part of a majority to suddenly find myself painfully aware of my minority status. Somehow I had carried with me to India a mistaken assumption of multiculturalism.
Rather than go into the day by day details of what I have been doing, I want to record my impressions of this place. I spent the day yesterday assisting in a camp being run to perform corrective surgeries on children disfigured by muscular dystrophy, polio and conjenital defects. Attempting to write what is was I was able to witness is so difficult. These children came through the door on hands, feet, knees and whatever else they could use to allow them to get around. After the doctors spent a few minutes with each to establish what could be done, I helped the nurses soak and wash their gnarled legs to get through the layers of dust in preparation for surgery. They were so nervous and afraid but all I could do was smile at them in lieu of any shared language. The smiles on these kids were so amazing, even as scared as they were, they smiled right back at me.
Later in the day I was helping remove the plaster casts from kids who had been operated on a few weeks earlier. There was one beautiful little girl with polio who's father spoke a little English. He was able to tell me that when she came in for surgery, she was only able to crawl and shuffle about on her bottom (her father did a great imitation of this to get the point across!). After we took her cast off, she slipped off the gurney, grabbed her fathers hands, and walked out of the room. She had been calling me Aunty Katta.
The people here are so very beautiful.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
The India Diaries - Part 6: The Singapore Chapter
Okay, so not even a full 24 hours into my adventure, and I've already had to talk myself out of having to spend the night wandering the streets of Singapore, had problems with my tickets (StudentFlights are really bad at issuing correct tickets, that actually take a person ALL the way home, not just leave them stuck in Sydney), and been woken up out of my 3am nap by a very friendly woman police officer flanked by three very friendly male police officers with very large semi-automatic weapons strapped to their chests. Just a routine passport check, but what a way to wake up!
You meet some very cool people in transit bars at 2am. It was fantastic to sit in the outside balcony bar surrounded by so many different languages and accents. Makes me realise how much I miss the whole multicultural tapestry that is so missing in dear old Brisbane. I really hope that nice Canadian girl who was on her way back home from teaching English in Jakarta made her flight. She asked me mid-beer what time it was and I told her 11:45. "Shit!" she said "My flight boarded at 11:30!" and promptly dashed off, although not before a last gulp of her beer. I didn't see her back at the bar, so I presume she made it.
All in all, Singapore seems like a great place. Next time I visit, I would like to make it out of the airport cause if the airport is this much fun, man, the city must be fantastic!
Next posting: Somewhere in India...
You meet some very cool people in transit bars at 2am. It was fantastic to sit in the outside balcony bar surrounded by so many different languages and accents. Makes me realise how much I miss the whole multicultural tapestry that is so missing in dear old Brisbane. I really hope that nice Canadian girl who was on her way back home from teaching English in Jakarta made her flight. She asked me mid-beer what time it was and I told her 11:45. "Shit!" she said "My flight boarded at 11:30!" and promptly dashed off, although not before a last gulp of her beer. I didn't see her back at the bar, so I presume she made it.
All in all, Singapore seems like a great place. Next time I visit, I would like to make it out of the airport cause if the airport is this much fun, man, the city must be fantastic!
Next posting: Somewhere in India...
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
The India Diaries - Part 5 1/2
Okay, so I managed to make it as far as the Brisbane international airport before finding myself in front of a computer again. Yay Qantas club! And to those of you who doubt that I could pass as a 50 year old Australian woman, hah! I say to you... hah! For that is exactly what I have done. Thanks mom, for letting me use your old membership card : )
So going through customs was frighteningly easy until I heard, "Excuse me ma'am. Could you step this way please?" Hmmm... I thought, do I look like the kind of person who would be carrying a bomb? Apparently so. So this guy showed me a laminated card that explained (in several languages) that I had been randomly selected to be screen by a chemical detection machine (it had a TLA but I have forgotten it already... damn acronyms). To this I responded "Cool!". Said man looked slightly taken aback, and replied that I was the first person to have responded to him with said exclamation. He then proceeded to touch my pockets with a small plastic wand with a bit of sticky-tape on the end of it. The sticky-tape was removed and put in a machine that "Heats up as hot as, well, probably as hot as the sun." according to Sticky-Tape and Wand Technician. A few beeps, and the machine told me I was clear to go. Now, not that Sticky-Tape and Wand Technician wasn't a nice enough guy, but I still reckon sniffer dogs are cuter.
Tasty Qantas club snacks beckon, so my next post will be from Singapore Airport, land of free internet access.
So going through customs was frighteningly easy until I heard, "Excuse me ma'am. Could you step this way please?" Hmmm... I thought, do I look like the kind of person who would be carrying a bomb? Apparently so. So this guy showed me a laminated card that explained (in several languages) that I had been randomly selected to be screen by a chemical detection machine (it had a TLA but I have forgotten it already... damn acronyms). To this I responded "Cool!". Said man looked slightly taken aback, and replied that I was the first person to have responded to him with said exclamation. He then proceeded to touch my pockets with a small plastic wand with a bit of sticky-tape on the end of it. The sticky-tape was removed and put in a machine that "Heats up as hot as, well, probably as hot as the sun." according to Sticky-Tape and Wand Technician. A few beeps, and the machine told me I was clear to go. Now, not that Sticky-Tape and Wand Technician wasn't a nice enough guy, but I still reckon sniffer dogs are cuter.
Tasty Qantas club snacks beckon, so my next post will be from Singapore Airport, land of free internet access.
The India Diaries - Part 5
Only 6 hours to go before I wing my way off to the great unknown. While I have promised a few people that i will try to make regular posts, complete with photos, I don't know how available free internet access will be. The TCP/IP (Transfer by Cow Protocol/ India Protocol) connection could be busy holding up rush hour traffic in the middle of Delhi. However, I will be spending the night tonight at Singapore airport, voted best airport to sleep in 8 years running by Lonely Planet - what I want to know is, who has been sleeping there for 8 years running? (bud-um ching!) - and the free internet access there is world-renown.
Had Christmas drinkies with work folk yesterday afternoon... What a wonderful way to spend my last work day for 5 weeks, having tasty, disease-free food, safe water, and overdosing on that unique blend of humor and punnage that I have grown to love in my collegues.
And now, after months of researching, reading, planning, and getting stabbed by needles, I am almost on my way... yay! Next post will be from.... somewhere that is not here.
And for some cool insight into Indian culture, check out http://www.indax.com/trculture.html
Had Christmas drinkies with work folk yesterday afternoon... What a wonderful way to spend my last work day for 5 weeks, having tasty, disease-free food, safe water, and overdosing on that unique blend of humor and punnage that I have grown to love in my collegues.
And now, after months of researching, reading, planning, and getting stabbed by needles, I am almost on my way... yay! Next post will be from.... somewhere that is not here.
And for some cool insight into Indian culture, check out http://www.indax.com/trculture.html
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