Travels: The Proverbial Elephant Ride Occurs

Four cities. Ten days. Twenty-one hours. A moment. Crossing my legs on the wooden chair by the dull ivory door of my small apartment, I am now pausing to write down what has transpired in the last three weeks. Illustrations will follow as soon as M posts pictures. 

As mentioned previously, it was a trip to Mumbai/Bombay that commenced my dive off the map. The seamless rush to see and do and experience as I traveled around the slopes and slums India’s energetic financial capital and then up to the hitherlands of Northern India has seared an intrepid collection of scenes in my mind. The mental branding has for the most part been shared with my older sister, M. Yesterday she and I finished cruising (literally, at one point on the back of a two wheeler), but mostly crashing through the golden triangle - Jaipur, Agra, Delhi- eventually dotting the journey’s regal shape with a final stop in Simla. The startling insights and humble epiphanies have been equally balanced with moments of intense groaning. I guess that’s the combo deal when you sign up for a fast-track experience. I was never worried that we wouldn’t get through it; equipped with a little over 2 months of Hindi I am able to ask where and what, even though I was more often that not missing the accompanying nouns that would make my questions more comprehensive. But somehow, even after three months in this country, I still don’t think there was anything that could have prepared my for the moment our driver, eager to demonstrate his knowledge of his country, definitively called the yak on the side of the road a shark. Even after 90 all-too-real days of dal and drums, I was still floored by the sight of  a baby monkey riding a pig past a five-legged cow. The 14-year-old boy whom we hired for 100 rupees to fend the primates off seemed nonchalant enough however. He had more pressing concerns regarding the other 2000 others stealing his dog, or was it the chapatti and the dog? It's hard to keep tails straight when the absurdities so delightfully synchronize.

To have had so many familiar personalities around the unfamiliar was very welcome. Meeting my sister-in-law and her warm and endearing family in Mumbai was lovely. I’m still not sure my nephew quite knows who I am, but someday I will be sure to tell him how excited he was to see me, how from our first encounter he knew how much I cared for him. I’ll be sure to note that he leap straight into my arms and was amused by my every gesture. There is really no need for him to know that he couldn’t wait to get out away from me and land back in his parent’s safe embrace. Let’s be honest, how many times have we been told we were impolite and frustrating as two-year-old children? Adorability trumps truth in those early years. And I really should return the favor: in India I am gracefully and frequently forgiven for my own missteps, both linguistical and logical.

The monuments we visited seemed unmoved by our exhaustive admiration. M and I ran around each city to view the Mughal tombs and forts, Hindu caves and temples, and British institutional structures that lounge around India’s landscape in plentiful numbers. We hopped from Hamayun’s and Lodhi’s tombs, to monkey infested Hanuman temples and the storied Elephanta caves, to a Scottish styled lodge in the Himalayas from which one-fifth of the world was ruled until’s India’s independence.  We rode elephants across Diwali infected Jaipur and up the stone pavements of Amber’s fort, ending at the adjacent Mira temple where we were blessed by a priest whose back was so arched he seemed to be ever searching the floor for some misplaced idea. Each architectural masterpiece lazily soaked in the weight of our travel-worn limbs as we paced their walkways, canvassed their embedded secrets with our eyes, and to a much smaller extent, M’s camera. The self-importance with which they observed us varied, however. The less lauded monuments seemed to gloat less, charm more, but without exception, the history of each place as explained by our guides was esoteric and intriguing. The scientific knowledge of the Jantra Mantra alone was enough to make my head spin in disbelief, a feeling that surely heightened by dehydration. But I must admit that the steady flow of white haired visitors and all too visibly and awkwardly protruding money wallets did tend to steal away from the moment. So that now that I think of the Taj Mahal I can remember it both an thoughtfully built and impressively stocked with a ever rising tide of bustling Indian families and starchy European middle-age tour groups.

Yet I think the characters M and I met were even more outstanding than the stones structures we so heavily documented. Dinesh, the small-framed rikshaw wallah from Jaipur who catered to our every whim and saved us from some otherwise unwise adventures, just texted me today to say he hopes I am doing well. Our guide at the Taj Mahal showed up clad in tweed, triggering the feelings a history professor might and adding a bewitching academic tone to our adventure to the world wonder. And the staff at a breathtaking former Raj’s home in Shimla, formerly a British summer escape constructed in 1835 named Chapslee, was simply outstanding. I cannot express how much we enjoyed having white-gloved Sebastian popped in his conical-hatted head as we arrived weary from a long day to offer us tea and sit and chat about his family. Our drivers, of which a whole one hundred percent did not know English, made India all the more exciting. Locking doors, using maps, and paying attention when asking for directions are all secondary, maybe even tertiary in India. And as long as we were moving and getting somewhere it was hard to get too overstressed about being lost. It’s only when the young men disappeared that we got irked. On their eventual return, our attempts to explain the discomforts of being two shockingly white women in a sea of strangers were comical. The transactions were sloppily laced with blank stares and intelligible comments from both ends.

There was that one rikshaw who did know English enough to tell us that Fab India was closed on a Sunday, a crafty ploy. But actually. He wanted to take us to the craft market instead, but we insisted on going to Fab anyways, figuring that he was bluffing. We were right.

All in all, the hopping and haggling across India has led me to have an ever stronger impression that it is more subcontinent that country, a land so diverse and expansive that it confuses even itself, stumbling and tripping over it's extended limbs on it was towards development. I feel very fortunate to have both family and friends in this strange land. And for the next month I hope I can continue to explore, perhaps on a more minute scale however.

Hopefully my next post will have some more details about Mumbai, a 5 day trip that truly really was a shining moment of the Alliance program. And perhaps a bit more about the food as well. Until I begin to think about writing more  however, I am going to snuggle up in the 30 dollar sleepingbag my sister left behind. It’s getting cold outside.