Memorable
Moments in Udaipur
August 10, 2013:
·
The Drive to Udaipur:
We were fortunate to have the same driver
with us from Delhi all the way through Udaipur.
Our driver’s name was Mr. Singh.
While Mr. Singh did not speak much English, it was clear that he was a
friendly, warm man and rather competent behind the wheel, which is of utmost
necessity in India.
Typical Indian
roads are thick with bicycles, oxen and carts, dinky rickshaws, cows, stray
dogs, and elaborately decorated trucks hauling everything from piles of hay to
people. The traffic whizzes by while pedestrians calmly stroll among the chaos
often carrying enormous bundles on their heads.
At
each traffic light, families of beggars will twist and weave their way around the
cars to knock on your vehicle’s windows with displays of open wounds, damaged
limbs, and starving babies –their hollow eyes imploring you for a few
life-saving rupees. It is incredibly
heart wrenching to see. But it’s not
just what you see on the roads that is a shock to one’s senses; it is also what
you hear.
The sound of
Indian roads is also something to behold.
The noise is deafening as an unnerving cacophony of horns penetrates the
air.
Some horns simply beep loudly, while others seem to play perky
tunes. Some trucks even implore other
drivers to sound their horn with signs stating, “Sound horn please”. Moreover, it appears that a ‘good’ Indian driver honks his
horn while attempting any risky maneuver on the road. However, as it turns out, when driving in
India, almost every maneuver is risky – so there is a constant raucous blaring
of horns from all sides.
That said, the most
frightening aspect of Indian roads are not the fast and congested traffic or
the unending hymn of horns, but rather the image of the random vehicle
traveling head-on in the opposite direction.
This is especially common in a small towns or rural
villages where roads tend to be too narrow for two lanes of traffic. Therefore, traffic coming
in the other direction will have to travel on the same path as you. That’s
right, traffic, including large trucks travel head-on at high speeds. After spending several hours in a vehicle on
the Indian roads, you definitely need a drink to calm down your nerves!
·
Government issued rest stops:
The
day before, we
learned from Singh (our tour guide in Jaipur) that India’s constantly shifting
map is of no accident. Nation-building
can be a messy process (as we know from our own turbulent history in the
U.S.). In fact, politicians, activists
and militants are still grappling with a score of unsettled issues left by
India’s transition from the British Raj to an Indian.
Prior to its independence, India was divided into
hundreds of distinct geographic areas, complete with their own unique
ethnicities, religious sects and linguistics preferences. One such area was the princely state of
Kashmir, which lies on the border of India and Pakistan. Lying as it does on the border, Kashmir was
claimed by both Pakistan and India, which continues to fuel conflict between
the two countries today as both sides war over this region.
As you travel
throughout the country, you will discover that unlike the Kashmiri region, most
of India’s separate states have managed to function quite well as a uniform
country. However, rules still exist when
you cross from one of the former states into another. For example, while driving in a registered
taxi or tourist vehicle, the driver must stop at a government controlled and
monitored rest stop to pay taxes when entering a new state.
The rest stops are
interesting. We got to make several
different stops. At each stop, our
driver Mr. Singh would disappear for about 20 minutes – we assume to drink a
glass of chai, eat some lunch, and pay the requisite travel fees. However, we do not know this for certain. All that we do know, is that at each rest
stop, we were “expected” to entertain ourselves. Entertainment came in the form of paying to
use icky, public toilets, purchasing
cheesy souvenirs, and ordering shady,
potentially illness-causing food from the local vendors. And honestly, there was really no way around
participation in the ‘entertainment’ offerings because at each stop, we were under
the looming and curious eyes of myriad sales persons and an armed police
officer. Ah, good times….
·
Car Games
Given that we had several lengthy and
unsettling drives, we invented car games to keep us busy. The most memorable of which were: “Guess what
Mr. Singh is saying” (a game inspired by James as we could never really
understand what Mr. Singh was trying to tell us) and a second game referred to
as “ABC”.
In India, you see a lot of things you do
not necessarily want to see. For
instance, the world is truly a man’s urinal in India. Men pee everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Moreover, people bathe whenever and wherever
it is convenient. In the U.S., we are
not sued to such public displays – thus, we decided to create a game to kill
time: (1) 1 point for everyman peeing, recognized by saying the letter “A”; (2)
3 points for every bather, acknowledged by stating the letter “B”; and (3)
(sorry this one’s gross) but 5 points for anyone seen crapping, by stating “C”. Thankfully, while we saw many, many, many A’s & B’s, we never saw a “C”. And quite frankly, in all of my travels in
India, I have never seen a “C”.
It should be noted that while we never saw a “C” in
India, Tom saw a “C” on 14th
street the day we returned to NYC. Ah,
home sweet home….
Udaipur Taj
Lake Palace:
We pulled up to the dock and boarded the boat to
the hotel. Upon arrival, we were
greeted with a shower of rose petals, a tilak, and a drink.
Tilak is the ritual, red mark that is placed on
the forehead. It can be used as a blessing, a greeting or auspiciousness. The tilak
is applied on the spot between the brows, which is considered the seat of
latent wisdom and mental concentration, and is very important for worship. Tom, Emily, James and I all received a Tilak
from the hotel staff as an offering of good health and prosperity.
Emily and James were given chocolate milkshakes
and Tom and I were given the Taj’s signature alcoholic drink. After we enjoyed our beverages, we were escorted to our rooms,
which were just past the courtyard flautist.
**This fact with appeal to Paul Calabro -- the
palace’s decadent reputation was cemented when the James Bond film Octopussy
was filmed on the premises. Taj Lake Palace was the secluded lair of the film’s
eponymous Bond girl.
·
Bhavai Dance
The most
thrilling traditional dance performance we witnessed on our trip was in
Udaipur. Bhavai dance is performed by a single dancer. Historically bhavai
dance originates from the desert area of Rajasthan where women often needed to
walk miles from their home to get water from wells. To gather and transport the
water, the women carried large water vessels on their head. The dance mimics this tradition as the
performer balances a large vessel atop her head while she gracefully spins and
moves about the dance floor. The most thrilling
part of the dance is when the dancer places her feet precariously on the edge
of drinking glasses with the vessel still atop her head. Even more incredibly than simply balancing
atop the glasses, the performer continued to move and turn.
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