It was 11pm and the conductor of the BIAS 5 was surprised to see the two Australians from JP Nagar clamber back onto the bus they had hoped off less than 15 minutes ago. This time, however, they were accompanied by two further Australians – the presence of whom will feed the Nagarjuna rumour mill for the next six months.
Mum and Dad arrived in Bangalore
Dad was set and ready to see “the real India” the one beyond the tour busses and Taj Mahal – as long as there was three-ply toilet paper, spring mattresses and black tea (preferably vanilla). All of which are hard to come-by in India. He was liberal with his tipping (unlike us tight-fisted Stars) so waiters, porters and door-men were tripping over each other in an attempt to help him out. Mum was ready to India by storm: a human tornado of anti-bacterial hand gel, a dispensary to cure any ailment (that fitted into her handbag Mary Poppins style!) and a blue dupatta (it has taken me months to learn how to balance a dupatta across my shoulders without it falling off every second step – Mum threw hers on and was gliding down the street within minutes of arriving on the sub-continent. Oh the injustice!)
Their experience of Bangalore went as far as drinking tea in our kitchen, meeting the landlord, eating a club sandwich at UB City and visiting Jayanagar market. Sleep was minimal as a result of hotel Star’s cheap cotton mattresses, traffic noise and a dog that barks all night.
DELHI - The inconvenience caused is deeply regretted
Delhi is a chaotic environment, made all the more ruthless by the aching cold. The streets are littered with mounds of blankets, under which bodies, deep in the throes of slumber, lie. The faces of men, aged from the elements, peered out at us from between the folds of their scarf, secured tightly over their head and ears.
Our introduction to this place went something along the lines of:
Dad: “What’s that?”
Driver: “Metro Sir”
Dad: “Is it finished?”
“No”
“When will it be finished?”
“Commonwealth game over. Never finish. Sorry Sir”
And there you have Delhi. Never quite finished, always apologizing, but making no attempts to fix it.
Shaun’s one and only wish was to see the Lotus Temple a structure resembling the Sydney Opera house built to Bahai faith. We drove the 23kms to the temple through the mad traffic of Delhi, only to be thwarted at the gate. Contrary to the advice in the Guide-books, the temple was closed the third Monday of every month (I suppose God needs a rest every now and then?).
The inconvenience caused was deeply regretted.
Tired from a day of sight-seeing: The Red Fort, Jama Masjid, India Gateway and Caughnout Place with only a short stop for tea at the Shangri La; we arrived at the station at 9.30pm, ready for out ten o clock train. We didn’t believe the first announcement: “Train number **** has been delayed by five hours. The inconvenience caused is deeply regretted”
We bunked down on the cold metal seats in the second class waiting room for our 3am departure, cringing as each announcement tore over the loudspeaker above our head with a fanfare of trumpets. At 2.20am, another announcement tore over the loudspeaker “Train number ****has been delayed by eight hours. The inconvenience caused is deeply regretted”.
…An hour later it was cancelled. We returned to the hotel via overpriced rickshaw and were thawing in bed at 4am.
The inconvenience caused was deeply regretted.
LUCKNOW: The Buffalo Milk Swap
A few years ago, being the caring girlfriend I was, I bought Shaun a sponsor child for Christmas. I picked the child for the specific reason he sported a grumpy frown – and I didn’t think anyone else would want to sponsor him. And so, for the next two years, Sushil, framed in a vibrant orange World Vision folder, has scowled down from our mantelpiece. His pre-schooler artworks and annual health reports land in our letterbox every couple of months.
And so, we found ourselves zooming through the sparse yellow mustard and wheat fields of Uttar Pradesh, the horizon blighted by brick kiln towers; in a World Vision Jeep with a driver who would not be out of place in a James Bond car chase.
It is in this environment that Sushil and his four siblings live. His father is somewhere is Punjab, working as an agricultural day labourer, and his mother holds the family together on this meager income. Shaun’s $43 per month, amongst other things, pays for Sushil’s health-care and eventually, an education.
Sushil, two years older than our orange framed photo, stood before us in his best little red button up (the same one he was wearing in our photo from 2008) and looked at us with a face of pure terror. At least he didn’t cry (I’ve had that effect on other small Indian village children in the past). No program was organized…apart from “sit in a room and watch the white people.” (I have been caught under a tree with a beach ball one time to many, so was able to captivate my audience with a calendar of Australian Animals). I closed by asking for questions from the village sardined into the school-house and one sari-clad lady asked how long it took us to travel from Australia. Upon our answer of “three days”, she nodded thoughtfully: “when are you coming back again?”
Visiting the cluster of mud-brick houses, each house-proud villager pointed out “World Vision donated the grain storage bin” or “World Vision provided this family with a pesticide backpack” right down to the light globe one family got as a result of sponsorship.
Of course, a visit to an Indian village is not complete without squatting on the swept dirt floor nursing a cup of buffalo milk whilst the entire village watches on. Dad’s lactose intolerance was no excuse for avoiding a cup and so we had to do what I call the “Buffalo Milk Swap” a maneuver which I am so practiced at I could put it on my resume!
Sushil’s house was the final destination of our hap-hazard village tour, and Shaun, the Star of the moment, handed out gifts like father Christmas. Sushil gaped at him, unsure what to do with the few small trinkets he had been given…but his fear soon evaporated when he realized that the plush Kangaroo was his…so when his Mother tried to take it for a photo, there was a lunge, grab and tears. The resulting photo is of Shaun, Sushil and the Kangaroo.
Shaun was also presented with a small gift, folded into a box which proclaimed “Safari Baby Body warmer” I was a little frightened by the implications of this gift (if it is not my extended family or the Bangalore rickshaw wallahs, it's World Vision), but it turned out to be a traditional Uttar-Pradeshi shawl.
Lucknow isn’t exactly known as a tourist spot as evidenced by the little man at the check-in desk at the airport (our cancelled train was replaced with a plane). He took in our small mountain of luggage, our white skin and our clueless wandering: “So, you are going to Goa today?”
When I corrected him with Lucknow, his brow furrowed “L…L…Lucknow?” he asked perplexed.
Our Hotel was also evidence of the scarcity of foreigners. The mattresses resembled a block of marble covered in a sheet, and our rooms were so close to the train station that we could hear the announcements, complete with fanfare. We learned to lock our doors, even when we were inside, otherwise the bell boy would just walk in without knocking …once, when he overheard us discussing his antics as he departed, he turned around, opened the door (without knocking) and apologized for walking in.
…at the end of the day, the rockhard beds, constant noise and lack of hot water that we had to bare for one-single day, is more than Sushil’s family have for life.
JAIPUR: Same, Same…but different.
The overnight Train from Lucknow was two hours late. By the time we awoke at 8am, the sparse Uttar Pradeshi landscape had made way to the desert hillocks and flat-topped roves of rural Rajashtan. Seven years ago – to the day - as a surly 17 year old dreaming of Africa, I arrived in the Rajasthani city of Jaipur as a World Vision Youth Ambassador.
My life has never been the same.
When I returned to Australia from my second sojourn in the Pink city as a 20 year old in 2006, a little piece of my heart was missing: I’d left it in a 100 house slum by Bias Goddam circle. As we walked around the neighborhood in 2011 I found it completely changed by the towering developments or five star hotels and chain malls. In amongst this modernity, little kernels of memory brewed – “around this corner was the barber with the Cheshire Cat grin.” Five years later, even though his aging green barber’s chair is slightly more weathered, but he is still snipping and shaving on the sidewalk (Shaun and Dad took up his services for a snip, shave and head massage).
Same-Same. But Different.
Up the road to “my” slum – a place which, like the barber, has functioned day-in, day out for the past six years, whilst I resumed a “normal” life in Australia –complete with the comforts of running water, fluffy pillows and peanut butter sandwiches.
Our driver was a man by the name of Mr. Salim. He kept a baseball bat in his battered old Ambassador car, knew everyone in Jaipur and stopped on every corner – or indeed in the middle of the road – to engage in animated discussions. He started every sentence with “Scuse me” and roared with laughter at his own jokes. A father of four children, the car went uncomfortably quiet when he mentioned his fifth daughter who died in infancy, and the plight of his second daughter who is deaf and dumb – he can’t afford the $1500 operation to have the problem rectified. The plight of a father who does not have enough money to meet his children’s needs struck a chord with Dad – but this is ruthless India. There are 1.2 billion stories of suffering and hardship just like Mr. Salim. It’s just not often that they sit beside you with a huge grin and infectious, rumbling laugh.
Mr. Salim asked Dad to teach him some more “Oujie” (Aussie). In all his wisdom, Dad came up with “She’ll be apples mate”. Mr. Salim roared with laughter. “She’ll be Bananas mate?” he tried hopefully. I pity the next Australian who happens to step into his Ambassador…
Jaipur is awash with tourist spots. We visited the 500 year old observatory of Maharaja Jai-Singh: Jantar Mantar (Dad climbed all over the aging astronomical instruments until a sleepy guard told him it was forbidden; he then proceeded to ask Dad for a photo?), and the Monumental Shrine to three of the Maharajas and their favourite wives; the Gaitore. Shaun, as a photographer, was in his element. Not because of the beautiful 400 year old white marble shrines, but because the place was full of monkeys and chip-monks.
Shaun is quite possibly the only person to apply for a place in the Prestigious BCL of Oxford University from a dodgy internet café in the backstreets of Jaipur. His application is missing a number of “e”s because the E-key was not working properly (If they were giving spots for dedication, he’d be in without a doubt!)
Dad is a proverbial tourist and the Emporium salesman’s dream. The Australia-India exchange rate and a recent promotion had him reaching for the plastic – a yak rug in Delhi, a leather briefcase in Bangalore (thankfully there are no emporiums in rural Uttar Pradesh) and paintings and textiles in Jaipur…if we’d had the time, I am sure a woolen suit would have been in there somewhere too. In each and every store, the man has whipped out the same lines – the most common being a reply to our inquiry as to why the price is more elevated in his shop as opposed to the market bazaars: “Same-Same…But different”. If I’d had a rupee every time a salesman said that to me, I’d be richer than a class-topping Jewish Lawyer.
The textiles man, who introduced himself as “Handsome” (he wasn’t), started his spiel asking if Shaun and I were brother and sister (with all this speculation floating round, I am starting to wonder myself…). When I pointed out that I was, in fact, MARRIED, he looked from Shaun to me and back again “But you look like you come from the same factory”.
Same-Same
But different.
AGRA: Romance
The Tourist Touts were literally fighting over us from the second we stepped off the train at the 150 year old Agra station. After taking refuge in the station, a weedy little man presented his license (it was a for a rickshaw rather than a car, but that’s beside the point) and his “recommendation book”, filled with the responses in French, English, Dutch and Hebrew - of happy tourists who had engaged his services.
“You find from your country?” he asked “You find only good recommendations?”
He then proceeded to pitch his full day driving tours.
And that is how we found ourselves romantically squashed into a tiny hatchback at 10:30am the following morning, on our way to see the world’s most photographed monument to eternal love. (Even if it wasn’t the world’s most photographed monument prior to our visit, Shaun ensured it was after our visit).
We were romantically hassled, rhorted, begged and pickpocketed every step of our journey: street children tried to take Shaun’s Camera, shop owners dragged us into their shops, and beggars with trailed us for kilometers.
Nevertheless; we had come to see the Taj Mahal, and see the Taj Mahal we did
from every possible angle…
…From the vantage point of Agra Fort; where Shah Jahan spent the last eight years of his life - imprisoned by his own son because his opulence in building the Taj had sent the country into bankruptcy.
…From the isolated foundations of the incomplete Black Taj Mahal directly across the River from the White Taj – a project Shah Jahan had intended for his own tomb, but never finished.
…From the rooftop of a café in somewhere in the twisted laneways of Agra; and finally, from inside the monument complex itself, as the sun fell below the horizon.
We sat in front of the Taj, romantically jostling for space with around 6000 people. Shaun was sulky: the love of his life had failed him (his camera battery died) and Mum and Dad were engaged in an animated argument as to whether Shah Jahan had Bi-polar.
It was so incredibly Romantic.
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