Wedding Pictures: June 2010

2 WEEKS IN INDIA

NEW DELHI 4 hrs

"mini bus" 10hrs (stopped for 5 hrs)

JAIPUR 4 DAYS

BUS 8 hrs

AGRA 1 DAY

TRAIN 27 hrs

MUMBAI 4 DAYS

TRAIN 19 hrs

NEW DELHI 3 DAYS

Stats:

*2nd: population: 1,180,000,000 People

*12th: Largest economy by GDP

*Offical languagues: Hindi, English

*2nd largest number of English speakers in one country, behind the US

*30 or so major languages

*world's largest democracy

*Indian Railways is the world's 3rd largest employer (depending on your definition of "employer") with 1.6 million employees,
behind the Chinese Army and Walmart.

Books I read in preparation:

Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie
The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy

In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India Edward Luce

Books I did not read in preparation but absolutely should have:

Any sort of guidebook or blog.

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Several times when I told people I was going to spend my winter vac time in India they yelled "Why?"

Many reasons: fascinating culture and great independence/decolonization story. Also, I wanted to see the country that is always talked about as a kind of third wheel in the battle between China and the USA over who gets to be the world hegemon .

I'm really interested in transitioning cultures and I wanted to see it happening in India.

I didn't tell anyone one about the other reason I was going.

Food Tourism.

India has world's best cuisine, in my humble opinion, followed by Thailand, Vietnam, Korea and Mexico.

I hear Indian food and "curry night" is becoming ubiquitous in the UK. Probably for good reason.

I didn't take any pictures of food I ate at restaurants, but I had some great meals averaging around $1-2 each.

Here are some street food shots.

Fruit salad made various mixes of bananas, mango, papaya, watermelon, apples, oranges and dragon fruit. Around 10-20 cents. Amazing.

I ate a lot of tropical fruits that I don't know the names of.

I know this one though. I paid 5 cents for the pomegranate.

Street markets were everywhere, selling mainly produce.

The produce seems insanly cheap to me, but probably not that cheap if you make $1.50 a day

Walking around these markets I found myself thinking about the absurdity of the US's agriculture policies.

Fresh squeezed juice stand were everywhere. Great.

Like the majority of westerners who go to the subcontinent I got a mean case of traveler's sickness.

I didn't intentionally drink any tap water but I think one of the many fruit juices I bought might have been cut with tap water. That's my theory. Many potential culprits though.

I was surprised by how many fat Indians I saw. For the most part, Indian food is definitely healthy.

A friend of mine told me India has very low stats for most diseases caused by diet.

Still, a lot of fried street food.

This somosa was amazing, but probably not very healthy.

Speaking of fatness, I went into a Micky D's because I was curious about what they would have on the menu.

Beef is banned is some parts of Indian, and even if it wasn't it would really piss off Hindus if it was sold at Mcdonalds.

Any pig meat would piss off Muslims.

So Mcdonalds in India sells only fish, chicken and veg patties.

Very sureal.

India has more vegetarians than the rest of the world combined.

Restaurant signs either say "veg/non-veg" "veg" or "pure veg" which means no eggs.

Avoiding dairy was difficult though.

Paan

The spice of life.

India has chipmunks in lieu of squirrels .

The majority of India is very very poor.

Though it's a small percentage of the population, there is a middle class that is growing rapidly.
People in poverty are not the demographic that advertisements target.

Stark contrasts are everywhere.

People in rags next to adverts for teeth whitening products.

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On the airplane the guy who sits down next to me is a 28 year old engineer from New Delhi

who has type 2 diabetes and really enjoys red whine.

Although it's really for Hindi women who are getting married, I get some henna on my right arm.

When I come home the first thing my girlfriend says is "your arm looks disgusting."

I thought it looked cool.

Two weeks without shaving is a good reminder that I can't grow a proper beard.

Like many countries in Asia, the bills are different colors, sizes and they all have the same person on them.

Unlike many countries in Asia, the person on India's bills is really great.

Two rupees.

Garland stalls are everywhere. Used for weddings and other celebrations.

India is unbelievably colorful. Women wear sarees that are bright and very clean. I'm amazed at how bright and clean they are. I guess handwashing is better.

Cricket is the most popular sport. This park literally has at least 1000 people playing.

Some kids who were playing next to a cemetery call me over to have a go at it.

I whiff big. They laugh hard.

It's quite the culture shock seeing animals in the streets that I would never associate with an urban setting.

I knew about holy cows roaming the streets, but it was still very strange to have them walking next to you. Cows, monkeys, goats, chickens and trash eating pigs. Also dogs, cats and massive rats like the ones from movies showing grimy parts of NYC in the 80s (in Mumbai and Delhi)

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Some of the photos got mixed up and they were loaded in reverse order.
It would take me at least an hour to fix so I'm going to give up on having a chronological narrative.

To hell with chronology anyways.

I roll into Mumbai from Agra after a very very long 3rd class train ride. It's 4 in the morning and I don't have a room booked. I'm exhausted but happy to be on solid ground.

I go to the cheapest room in Mumbai. The Salvation Army Hostel, 5 bucks a night.

Wait outside until the door opens at 9am.

Passing the hours talking to two travelers from Israel and a recent divorcée from Canada who wants to study Yoga and photograph elephants.

The great thing about the Salvation Army House, aside from being the cheapest room in Mumbai, is that it's literally catty-corner from the most expensive room in India.

The Taj Mahal Hotel, which made international headlines after being bombed by terrorist in 2008.

Rooms start at $400 a night.

The hotel's name is deceptive. I just came over 20 hours on a train from the real Taj Mahal .

I go in the Taj Hotel to use the bathroom. I look like an unshaven bum, but I'm white, so no one questions me after I pass through security.

I walk by a display advertising a special Gandhi edition Mont Blac pen.

There is something terribly disgusting about using Gandhi's name to sell a pen the cost thousands of dollars when there are people across the street in desolate poverty.

The pen is no doubt made for rich tourist and businessmen, but it has come to symbolize 21st century India in my mind.

There is a growing middle class, but it's tiny percentage of the population.

India, like Mexico and possibly the US in a few decades if we're really unlucky, has a huge gulf between the few super rich and the rest of the population who, with a few middle class exceptions, live in poverty.

India is the world's largest democracy and it's a real one too, not just in name.

Opposition parties can and have won in the past, and power changes hands without conflict.

The Emergency being one famous exception.

But it's also a government marred at all levels with terrible corruption and bureaucratic mazes.

The government's corruption and having a huge percentage of the population living in griding poverty--

these two serious problems will be the biggest hurdles in India's attempt to become a sustained world power.

Very different from China's hurdle, the authoritarian and often paranoid nature of it's government.

The taxis in Mumbai look really cool. Straight out of the 1950s. Cabbies are everywhere.

Many of them have their own custom logos on the back which reminds me of the art on Mexican lowriders.

This picture is a good representation of the heart of Mumbai. Name brand shops for foreigners and rich Indians, under decrepit apartments.

It's strange to see the churches left over from the Brits. They seem very out of place.

An art deco movie theater.

A lot of the Victorian architecture is stunningly beautiful,
while also being totally anachronistic to the street life surrounding the buildings.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formally know as Victoria Terminus, is the best example
.

They kept the British double-deckers.

Throughout Mumbai hawkers are selling these giant balloons. It really doesn't make sense to me.

The Gateway of India, which the Britsh built and later used as their final point of departure.

Built to welcome a visit from King George V

You can't tell but this guy is peddaling a stationary bicycle jerryrigged to sharpen knifes with.
The yellowish-orange is from sparks.

The Mumbai Metro

Like all the trains in India, you can hang out the doors while the train is moving.

A little dangerous but this guy is having a good time.

Familiar?

Dhobi Ghat. This is pretty amazing. Most of the laundry in Mumbai that's not hand-washed at home is taken to this place. Workers beat the hell out of the linens in troughs. I guess this works pretty well.

Like I said earlier, most people's clothes are hella clean.

Dharavi, The world's largest slum made famous by Slumdog Millionaire, is on the outskirts of Mumbai.

I want to see it. But as I'm thinking about it the image of a tourist in a Hawaiian t-shit walking around saying "this poverty is sooooo photogenic" pops into my head and I decide not to go.

I visit the house where Gandhi worked and lived while he was in Mumbai. You can't really tell, but this is a letter from Gandhi to Hitler saying "please don't do this."

A 19th century mosque, that is basically an island off the coast of Mumbai.

Thousands of Muslims and tourist visit it everyday.

These guys are playing great music.

People walking on the causeway that leads to the mosque.

This guy really wants me to take a picture of his baby so I do it.

Many Indians put some of eyeliner on their babies. I don't know why.

It makes them look cute.

A Parsi "members only" area.

The Parsi are Zoroastrians, which is a very old and almost dead religion. They fled from Iran in the 7th century and came to Mumbai. They have Towers of Silence, where dead bodies were traditionally put on top to be eaten by vultures.

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New Delhi

The massive Red Fort

One of the things Indians (and Koreans) are good at is using public space to hang out.
This is something I think we really lack in the US. Public spaces have become places that are either not used or rented out for private parties. We think the only people who go to parks are golfers and drug dealers. Hopefully this will change as the US shifts aways from the failed experiment of the suburbs.

The brand new New Delhi Metro is impressive, despite the worries of many Indians. Urbanizing is difficult for India's cities because a great deal of Indians think urban life is not natural and that it corrodes their culture.

Government cars.

The India Gate

Indira Gandhi's saree from her assassination. The darkness you can see at the top comes from old blood stains.

Indira's father, Jawaharlal Nehru, is a fascinating political figure that molded post-independence India and put it on the path to be a sort of buffer figure in between the two sides of the cold war.

Not the Taj Mahal.

Humayun's Tomb.

I see a Japanese guy holding a photo up to be in his pictures of the tomb. I really wonder why.
I try it myself.

Very Persian.

Coffins.

Children inside the tomb who are smiling before the picture.

I visit the spot of Gandhi's assassination.

His room and worldly remains.

The trajectory of non-violent civil disobedience.

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Agra

I take an overnight bus from Jaipur to Agra.

A street-side Hindu shrine.

As you can see in some of the photos above, there really are not any functioning sidewalks.

Everything spills into the streets.

Agra Fort.

Home of the Mugal leaders when Agra was the capital.

You can see the Taj Mahal, which is 2.5 kilometers away form the fort.

The only reason a few million tourist go to Agra each year.

To see one of the world's most famous mausoleum.

The Taj Mahal.

It took two decades to build.

Made to eternally house the body of a Mughal emperor's favorite wife.

Like everyone else I take a lot of obligatory photos.

I try to get there at sunrise and get some amazing shots but I sleep a few hours too late.

I follow a tour group of Koreans for half an hour.

It's comforting to hear Korean again and see adjumas dressed in hiking gear.

One of the entrance gates.

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Jaipur, Rajasthan

My first few hours in India are by far the worst.

I arrive in New Delhi at 11pm without a place to stay. The guidebook says there is one area where most of the cheap backpacker hotels are, so I think I'm good.

I take a taxi whose driver says he doesn't know where I'm trying to go (BS) and he takes me to a "travel center" which is actually a fly-by-night travel agent. The travel agent says all of the cheap to moderately priced hotels are booked. I don't believe him and use his phone to call 20 or so hotels. He's definitely a shyster but he's telling the truth about the hotels being booked. There is a trifecta of badness for unprepared travelers trying to get cheap rooms. Delhi's experiencing record fogs, and many airplanes can't leave (although mine got in without any problems). The guy shows me a front page headline to conform this. Also, it's the height of tourist session, because India is far too warm for comfort in the summer, but ideal in the winter. Finally, it's a few days away from Republic Day, a big Indian holiday.

So no rooms for me.

The travel agent tries to get me to do an elaborate package, and he can sense my distrust.

Rock and a hard place.

Delhi is not safe at night, and I have no idea what I'm doing.

So I take him up on the cheapest possibility I can get him to produce.

I'm going to take a "mini bus" to Jaipur, about 4 hours away, and stay for 2 nights at a moderately priced hotel. I'm embarrassed about how much I pay to do this, but at this point I feel the impending rock and hard place closing in.

The "mini bus" ended up being a tiny car, with no other passengers, driven by a chain-smoking vegetarian named Jaypal Singh. The car was Geo Metro sized.

Jaypal ends up being a pretty nice guy who schools me about India during our 4 hour trip that took 11 hours.

We drive for about an hour through pea soup fog. I have no idea how he can see anything.
It's scary as hell.

Finally he admits defeat and we pull over, recline our tiny seats in the tiny car and sleep for 5 hours until morning.

Jaypal lives 4 months out of the year in his small village, about 10 hours outside Delhi. He's a farmer.

For the other 8 months he leaves his family, puts on his driving hat, and drives suckers like me around.

Most of India believes that the village is the "real India."

The village is pure and the city is toxic.

However, it's almost impossible to make any money living in the village so people living bisected lives,
like Jaypal, are becoming increasingly common.

Jaipur is named the Pink City.

All the buildings that form a grid around the city center are uniformly pink--like the slapped thigh of a pasty white person.

The traffic in each city is different depending on what is allowed on the roads.

Everything was allowed in Jaipur. Car, work truck, rickshaw, auto-rickshaw, bike, motorcycle, cow and pedestrian.

I stop by an India dog show, which is similar to any other dog show except it's in India.

The dogs look the same.

third world construction style.

I stumble onto a cemetery.

meet some kids

and meet this guy.

He's a Bhrmin Sadu, or holy man of this highest caste.

He lives in this tiny room in the cemetery.

He doesn't actually work at the cemetery, Sadus don't work, they just pray and consul people.

As far as I can tell he just found the cemetery and took over this room that was there.

The sadu is actually really muscular for a 60 year old man who doesn't really do any physical activity.

He says it's from yoga.

He lives with his puppy, Jagi, which is Hindi for "son."

The closet sized room doesn't have much, but it has a janky electrical hook up for hotplate and a radio.

The sadu constantly jams a screw driver in the hot plate to get it to work, while he's in the process of making curry. He sings along to old Hindi songs on the radio until a newer song comes on and he says

"new music is rubbish" and turns it off.

I hangout with the Sadu for two evenings. I can only understand about half of what he's saying but he's an interesting guy and I like him. He really hates living in the city but, like many urban Indians he feels that he has little choice. He thinks India is disintegrating as it propels past modernity into being one of the top players in the globalization game.

He says he feels times were better under the British, which surprises me.

Of course he wasn't around to know.

Sadus used to get a great deal of respect. Now the caste system, to some extent, is being eroded, and he feel India's culture was going with it.

The sadu really wants me to smoke hashish with him, but I respectfully decline.

Those are pots for clollecting rain water.

One of the gates on the perimeter of the old city wall.

Cow sifting through garbage for edibles.

I ate the brack fast but not the deenar.

These kids really want me to take their picture, even though they look sullen as hell posing for it.

They were all smiles before.

A park overtaken by monkeys.

This photo is named "breastfeeding on a old man."

A Mughal courtyard on the city's perimeter.

A temple dedicated to Ganesha. Why does he have an elephant's head?

One of the stories goes something like this:

Father decapitates teenage son who he never met--then father discovers it's his kid--father desperately searches to find a replacement head--elephant happens to walk by.

"Like a bird on the wire, Like a drunk in a midnight choir..."

Auto-rickshaw.

Even has a meter, which absolutely no one uses.

A campain sign. Some of the most powerful people in India are on top.

Second from left is Prime minister Manmohan Singh.

Far left is Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia is second from right.

Sonia doesn't quite look India because she's not.

She's Italian.

The story of the dynastic Nehru–Gandhi family is fascinating. Most of post-independent India has been led by one of the members. Like countless other people I knew there was more than one imporant Gandhi in Indian politics when I was young, and I assumed they were all related to the skinny bald one but this is not Mohandas Gandhi's family.