The Taj Mahal: A Diamond Wrapped in a Filthy Rag

Let me ask you this: would you wrap the Hope Diamond in a filthy rag? Would you dress a beautiful woman in a burlap sack? Would you hang a Picasso in a broken, plastic frame? Okay, so that last one would be kind of a statement, but nonetheless....if you take a beautiful thing and encase it in filth, it remains beautiful but it displays a great lack of respect for said thing. So is Agra, the filthy, corrupt packaging that holds the Taj Mahal. The streets  overflow with garbage and cow dung resulting in a city that consistently smells of a toilet; the tourist industry is so corrupt they have gone so far as to poison tourists in restaurants only to guide them to a "reputable" doctor who feeds them "medicine" keeping them sick for days and then presenting them with an outrageous bill, and the government isn't known as a place desperate tourists can turn for help.

That said, the Taj Mahal truly is exquisite, as cliche as that may sound. Just like the Grand Canyon, no photos or descriptions can prepare you for the emotional blow to the senses that this wonder delivers. Were I an architect I could tell you measure by measure the exact ratio of perfection. I am not, so I can only describe how the building holds no real color but rather reflects the changing colors of the day: gray in early morning, bluish-violet at dawn, orange at sunset. Floral inlay and Koranic scripture graze the inside and outside of the entire building and are neither overworked or inconsistent. The symmetry of the entire structure is obvious even to an untrained eye, except for the tomb of Shah Jahan laid next to that of Mumtaz Mahal, his beloved and the alleged inspiration for the mausoleum.

Set against the Indian sky, which is never truly blue due to a heavy layer of smog, and rising up above the Yamuna River, like the Giant Buddha in Bodhgaya, the tomb floats, no foundation firm enough to hold it down, no earth pure enough to maintain it. The motivation in building the Taj Mahal is, of course, suspect (Said to be a tribute to eternal love for Mumtaz, his  "favorite," but one of many wives who died giving birth to his thirteenth child, later research has discovered that the design of the building is identical to that of an ancient Muslim ideal of the righteous seat of god, set in the gardens of heaven. It appears that the Shah had grandiose ideas about his own power and where he should be laid to rest.) but it isn't the impetus that moved me but only the product. Something  so perfect given, not without cost, to the world exists specifically to whomever beholds it. Like a Mont Blanc upon which to project your dreams. Like the Grand Canyon, a scale with which to measure your ambition. My memories will not be kind to Agra the city, but I will reflect on the Taj Mahal as though I witnessed it in a vacuum, at no particular time and in no particular place. It can and does exist in the light on a city sidewalk, anywhere I happen to be making my way.

Varanasi/Benares/Kashi: City of Light, City of Temples

Varanasi, the city known as Benares during the British Raj, and referred to as Kashi by many locals, is one of the oldest cities in the world, and probably the oldest city in India. It holds significance for Buddhists and Jains, but is definitely the most important Hindu city in the world. The city is made up of clusters of stucco buildings seemingly dropped haphazardly amidst winding alleys and streets crowded with shrines, cows and heaps of garbage. But where the balcony of gutters and rooftops that serve as playgrounds for monkeys open up, the marvelous Ganges and stone ghats provide evidence of something holy at work. Across the river a white sandy plain faces the city, offering up a door to the space the buzzing city desperately needs.

In the evening the ghats that are vacated during the oppressively hot day cloud with boys playing cricket, orange-robed sadhus seeking donations and pilgrim bathers, both human and bovine. All taking advantage of the relatively cool evening air and preparing for the evening arati, the Ganga Puja, which the city is famous for. The riverfront and our airy, balconied room in Vishnu Rest House (painted blue, of course) evoke a villa on the Riviera.

From our room you can hear the slapping of clothes on the Dhobi Ghat. In the distance a prayer call blasts through a fuzzy loudspeaker. From the river, from the boat slowly rowed upstream, the colors from the ghats bleed into the dark green water. The sarees, scarves, orange blossoms, candles, even the incense seep into the stench and cover the reality of the sacrifices. Groups of pilgrims with shaved heads and bare feet tramp from ghat  to shrine to ghat bathing, praying, chanting, finally visiting the burning ghat to pay last respects to the body that brought them here. In the early morning hours small wooden row boats cross to the empty desert facing the city. Other boats row languidly up and down the bank, making way for funeral processions, swimmers and fish that flick their tails at foreign passengers.

You feel like you are being led somewhere that you didn't ask to go, or that you did ask but had no preparation for. You are surrounded by those who know, or maybe their faith is so strong they have convinced you they do. The shit, trash and screaming hawkers do not bother them like they bother you. Perhaps they know that these are trials you must endure to end at that stillness we have all come here seeking. Perhaps they wear no shoes so as to be closer to the suffering, for if they suffer more now, if they die more here, they will rise higher there, where their feet touch only clouds and rose petals. Perhaps that is why they stand before shrines built into corners of shit-strewn alleys and touch the feet of Lord Ganesh. Perhaps that is why, when they think they see God, they lead their family to the river to drink. Perhaps I see the same thing, but offer my devotion like a blind, mute servant sitting with closed eyes to better absorb that aroma of conviction in the wind.

Scenes of Bodhgaya

*******For those of you who don't know the importance of the town Bodhgaya, it is the place where the historical Buddha is said to have reached enlightenment. The famous peepal, or "bodhi," tree that now grows in the spot actually grew from a trimming from the original tree which now grows in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, having been salvaged and shipped there after King Ashoka uprooted it before his own conversion to Buddhism. The tree grows next to the seat where the Buddha sat and realized his great truth. The tree and seat live within the Mahabodhi Temple complex in the center of town, now surrounded by temples from over fifteen countries, and vendors selling everything from pressed bodhi tree leaves, mala beads and CDs of Buddhist and Vedic chants.***************

Scenes of Bodhgaya

Mahabodhi Temple

AN exquisite, tranquil harbor amidst a corrupt capitalistic tourist market. The ancient temple like a stone, riveted pyramid acts like a paternal hush over the touts and hawkers. Stupas, palms and the ubiquitous orange flower trees surround the simple shrine and the tree itself, with its many trunks and even more branches and leaves the shape of fat raindrops. Everywhere else in India you will find crows and unruly lines but here there is order and patience and rest. The grass around the lotus pool where the Buddha is said to have bathed is full of young boys taking pictures with their cell phones. The temple and tree half of the complex is for the meditators and scholars. During evening prayers a recording of a Tibetan prayer plays over the loud speakers, monks and laypeople surround the tree at its base and on platforms amidst the stupas and groups of devotees circle the sacred ground in a kora counting mantras on their mala beads.

Life
Walking back from the Mahabodhi Temple through the fruit market, we heard the jingling of bells and quickly got out of the way for a bearded man swaddled in orange robes riding a great brown stallion against the traffic of rickshaws and horse-drawn carriages.

Orange clad sadhus seeking alms who repay in mudra.

Bristly pigs rifling through an open air trash dump near the exquisite Japanese temple. Big mama pig nearly attacking her baby for infringing on her stash.

Wiry cycle rickshaw drivers with sunken cheeks pedalling through the heat and dust in plaid sarongs and cotton headwraps.

Pretty lady lamas with shaved heads in white robes. The one, in particular, who meditated next to me at the bodhi tree who wore a washcloth over her face to keep the flies away.

Two goats resting back to back by the CD and mala vendors under a bit of shade.

Three young men riding a camel down Bodhgaya Road. Old men with scarf headwraps driving horse buggies of wrapped parcels. A city buss full inside and bearing thirty men on top.

A stray dog taking a bath in the black, dirty gutter alongside the road.

Little vendor boy throwing water on an old beggar man and laughing.

Boys of twelve and thirteen selling maps, postcards, CDs and, famously, the three young men who lavished us with compliments and smiles for over one hour only to lead us to their school and ask for a donation of three thousand rupees.

Walking back from meditation at the Root Institute for Wisdom Culture after dark. The dirt road crossed by frogs, lizards, and dogs. And then, a blackout and we must feel our way to the light.

Descent to the Gangetic Plain

We were welcomed to the state of West Bengal, in the town of Siliguri, by a barrage of auto-rickshaw (a three-wheeled motorized vehicle with a seat for the driver and two seats in back-looks like a three-wheeled motorcycle with a metal enclosure) drivers. We haggled the price down a bit and hit the road for New Jalpaiguri Railway Station (the closest to Darjeeling) where we arrived on time, but not after breaking down near a busy bazaar and waiting for the driver to finagle some magic with the engine. At the station we got our first taste of the crushing poverty that often proves too much for many a Western traveler; within minutes we were surrounded by skinny, barefoot children who looked like they may never have had a bath and some of whom didn't have any clothes on. A little girl of about six with no shoes, wearing a cheap brown dress with pink sequins followed us around for fifteen minutes after I, naively, gave money to a toddler with no pants or diaper. We learned our lesson that, however upsetting the situation, we cannot help them all and would have to choose our battles. This will be the last I write about the child beggars who you will find everywhere (though in smaller numbers up into the Western Himalayas), simply because it is heartbreaking to recall, but I will say that what is most upsetting, and upsetting to admit as well, is that these children don't seem like children (of course, my idea/image of children), but rather specters or shadows of children. There is  a blankness in their eyes and a realization that the only language they may speak, either in English or their own tongue, has to do with begging, simply because that is their only route to survival.  Of course, what we all want to do is scoop them up and whisk them away to a magical place to feed, clothe and bathe them, but that cannot be done in one day and I cannot be so arrogant to assume that a little money or one meal from me will change their life. What the real answer is is for wiser people than me to realize.

We were grateful to find our names on the reservation chart, meaning that we had made it up from "wait list" to "confirmed." The second class a/c car consists of open compartments of two sets of bunk bed style cots facing one another, and on the other side of the aisle rows of sets of bunk beds. We had our compartment to ourselves for the first few hours, save for a few cockroaches, a mouse and a healthy dusting of dirt on the floor, but after dark we were joined by two gentleman from Patna on their way home. Sleeping was aided by earplugs (one of the men was a snorer) and my scarf wrapped around my eyes as the men didn't turn the light off for several hours. We slept so soundly, in fact, that we awoke in a panic to find the men gone, thinking we had missed our stop, but realized it was the next station. On my way to the (squat, Indian style) toilet, I caught the front page of the Times of India  which reported the assassination of Osama bin Laden. I didn't know what to make of this, heading to a very Muslim city in a state known for kidnapping and murder, but was reassured by a phone call to my brother who reminded me that most Muslims hated bin Laden. And, true enough, the only trouble we had in Patna was the bothersome experience of buying a ticket to Gaya. Luckily, a gentleman pointed out the "ladies only" line which was shorter, and promised less groping than the all male general lines, however I still had to deal with a very pushy grandma in an orange sari.

Only realizing after the fact that our fifteen rupee tickets to Gaya were located in the unreserved sleeper class, we lined up to push our way through the mob to seats but to no avail. The seats were taken and we were left in the open area reserved for handicapped people. We found some newspaper to lay under our bags since the floor was filthy and I played with standing or squatting to decide which would be the most comfortable for the four hour journey. Some nice gentlemen noticed our predicament and made space on their bench for one of us and, the Bear, being an old-fashioned gent, allowed me to take the seat. I was amused to learn that one of those nice gentleman, Asif, sold Amway products and was on his way to Gaya to meet with some people in his scheme.

We journeyed through rice and wheat fields and the open car filled with men selling cucumbers with salt, a popular chickpea and vegetable snack wrapped in newspaper, lassi, chai, water, toothbrushes, children's toys and wallets. There was also an old man with an open wound and a blind man with a song. A little boy came through sweeping the floors with a broom, and looking for pay, until an older passenger grabbed him and yelled something in Hindi. I asked Asif to translate and he said the man told the boy he should be in school instead of begging. The temperature rose through the early morning hours to over 100 degrees and the air coming in through the open windows offered little reprieve.

Finally in Gaya we negotiated a fare with an auto rickshaw driver to Bodhgaya, eleven kilometers to the south, and endured the dusty, hot ride through the plains and over a dried up riverbed. Our first hotel choice was booked, and the second was overpriced, so we finally gave in to the driver's suggestion of a third hotel, despite the fact that we knew he would get a commission, but the rooms were cold and musty. We got out of that rickshaw as the driver became somewhat hostile when we didn't chose his hotel. Another rickshaw took us to the Deep Guesthouse where we were happily greeted by the friendly Ranjeet and his plain but clean and cheap rooms. And so began a day in another new city.

Babes in Tealand: How to Make Tea in Five Seconds

The following morning we tried, in vain, to take the Toy Train up to Ghoom Monastery from where we could walk to the Peace Pagoda. Honza battled with a group of Indian tourists about the formation of a line and I learned from the ticket seller that a) bureaucracy exists even at the "World's Most Tourist Friendly Train Station" and b)all trains to Ghoom that day were booked.

Instead we walked up the bustling and noisome Hill Cart Road to the Happy Valley Tea Estate, a welcome change from the meat-selling stalls and car exhaust. Another disappointment awaited us, however, as we realized it was Sunday, and the day before May Day, which meant the factory was closed and the tea pickers had the day off. We were still able to receive a free tour from a very knowledgeable third generation tea estate worker from Nepal.

The Meaning of Flush
First Flush: Tea picked in the months of March, April and May. The finest quality, usually shipped out to fine tea shops including Harrod's of London
Second Flush: Tea picked during the monsoon months, second best in quality.
Third Flush: Autumn picked tea, worst quality, probably the tea you find on your grocer's shelf, also the tea Indians mix with milk and spices and call chai.

Black, White, Green
A tea leaf contains a top, fine tip, plus two leaves, one higher up on the stem than the other. The tea that comes solely from the tip becomes white and green tea , which is not fermented. The tea that comes from the tip and is then fermented and heavily processed is black tea, first grade. Tea that comes from the second and third leaves and is also fermented is black tea, second and third grade. The finest tea, from the tip, and picked during first flush should be so high in quality that you can brew it in 5 seconds, and not have to add any sweetener or milk. Hard to believe, but a retired tea worker named Kurush brewed this right in front of us and we then enjoyed the finest cup of tea we'd ever had. We also bought 100 grams for 400 rupees, under the table, after being told that the money would go straight to the workers.

Brought back to reality by a wrong turn and a walk through a crowded slum where little boys played cricket in bare feet with a busted tennis ball and a PVC pipe and then the odors of Chowk Bazaar, we later learned that all trains to Patna, where we needed to go to connect to Gaya, and then Bodhgaya, were booked on the day that we wished to travel, but that we could book waitlist tickets for the following day, which we did. The next morning we skipped yet another trip to Tiger Hill to catch views of the Kanchenjunga and Singalila Ranges due to another bout of cloudy weather, and then trekked to Chowk Bazaar to jump on a circulating Jeep looking for passengers to Siliguri where we could catch our train. We bid farewell to Darjeeling, a city that surprised us in its unkempt streets and crowded slums, not knowing that the density and overwhelming sights and smells would only increase the further we ventured into the Ganges Plain.

Babes in Tealand: A Day as Colonialists

We awoke the next morning to a rain shower and a giant spider friend who had crawled through the hole in the wall under the sink which a lot of low budget Indian places use as a drain, for shelter. After checking in at the miniature train station that runs the Toy Train to see if we could buy tickets from New Jalpaiguri station (we couldn't) we stopped in at the Dhirdham Temple, which was built as a replica of the great Shiva Temple of Pashupatinath near Kathmandu. We met a toddler running a toy race-car along the walls of the temple garden who coyly posed for pictures, and a father with his young daughter all dressed up in a lacy yellow dress, stopping in for late morning prayers.

We lunched at Glenarry's, very easily the nicest restaurant in Darjeeling, and enjoyed excellent service, white table-cloths and a silver tea-set. Later we realized that the middle-aged man seated at the table next to us is a well-known film director, Arjun Something, but I have yet to figure out who he is.

In the afternoon we visited the zoo, famous for its Red Panda and Snow Leopard Breeding Centers. What can you say about a zoo? A zoo is a zoo, good or bad, in Darjeeling or Washington, DC. But we did finally snap some shots (and some mojo) from that elusive beast, the Red Panda! (Photos to come)

Have I mentioned the phenomenon of many Asians taking photos of western tourists? Those of you who have traveled in Asia are familiar with this, and I got a taste of it myself while traveling for work two years ago, but India has taken this to a whole new level. In the best situation, the person asks politely to pose with you for a picture; in the worst, they just snap a shot of you on the street with their phone and act like nothing happened. Up until this point in the journey, I had had many unwilling shots taken and had posed with a young lady at Rabdantse, with a three year old girl and her mother at Hanuman Tok and now, with four biochemists from Bangladesh at the Darjeeling Zoo. I posed with some other, unknown men, later when the Bear forced me to pay 30 rupees to dress in the traditional Darjeeling teapicker costume and pose with a tea basket on my head.

In place of dinner we splurged on high tea at The Elgin Hotel. For 375 rupees each we enjoyed two pots of Darjeeling's finest, scones with butter and jam, cucumber sandwiches, vegetable pakora and shortbread.  The hotel is truly exquisite-potted palms, velvet brocade loveseats, mahogany armoires with Buddha statutes, and, all over, black and white photos of old Darjeeling and colonial life, as though the decor and service were not enough to remind you of the Raj that was. For those two hours, maybe for that entire day, maybe we had a taste of what the colonialists saw in that land that they bought and conquered, maybe, but probably not. As we left the hotel we asked how much a room for one night would cost and had to lift our jaws off the floor when met with the response of 6800 rupees per night.

Babes in Tealand: A Stopover in Darjeeling

The road to Darjeeling lead from Pelling to Jorethang, on the border of Sikkim and West Bengal, and then, in another shared and smushed Jeep, along the bumpiest, narrowest, and steepest road we had yet traveled. Luckily, the rough part of the journey was short and decorated with scenes of the steep and emerald tea estates on the outskirts of the hill station. The green hills were a brief respite between the rickety road and the smoggy gridlocked center of Chowk Bazaar. The Jeep emptied us in the middle of a traffic jam (or just regular traffic, depending on your cultural background) and we dodged motorbikes and Jeeps to get to the other side of the street only to met with a row of putrid stalls displaying sides of beef, chicken parts and stagnant fish, all covered in flies and laying on newspaper above their own guts on the grimy floor.

After asking directions we climbed the steep and winding road with our heavy packs to Andy's Guest House where Mr. Gurung, the owner seemed to be waiting for us on the balcony. We booked a double (as in two single beds) that featured clean, wood-panelled walls and a bucket that we could fill with hot water between 7 and 9 am for 400 rupees (about $9). The entire lodge is immaculate with an extraordinary rooftop viewing area that I think must be the highest point in the city.

The rest of that first day was spent eating Tibetan food at Dekevas in the Clubside area and checking out the vendors along Chowrasta, where I bought a purple scarf and played with our negotiating strategy.