Night in a tuk tuk

This was one of my first tuk tuk rides. The drivers didn't have to let us ride with four people, but they would be more likely to at night. The way to fit 4 Americans in a tuk tuk depends on gender: (1) a guy can ride up front with an arm wrapped around the driver or (2) a girl can perch on lap in the back and try not to fly out the side.

Untitled from Laura Joost on Vimeo.

Fares increase by 50% after dark and in tourist attractions. We always had to negotiate to get to GK II where we were staying. The wallas wouldn't be inclined to go by the meter because traffic and road blocks were so unpredictable. Whenever that was an issue, they just drove on the sidewalk. No problem.

The nighttime price increase is worth it. It's sort of like an amusement park ride with none of the safety features and its for true thrill seekers. At night, a tuk tuk ride is more scary, more loud (more honking to compensate for the loss in visibility), and more cold.

However, it is WAY more fun to whir past all the lights and see how many things are happening in Dehli at night. This contrasts directly with Austria, where there is NOTHING going on outside past 6 pm for the most part.

The best nighttime tuk tuk walla of all time stopped to let his passengers take a ride on an elephant (that was also walking down the street). Regrettably, I was not in that tuk tuk. Worst decision of my life.

The Streets of Old Dehli

This is a video I took from the tuk tuk leaving the Jama Masid Mosque...

Notice all the street commerce and how there are NO women anywhere to be seen.

This is the oldest part of Dehli, and it's how I imagined India would look...All the street market vendors and customers and kids. It really differed from other parts of the city that had a greater tinge of modernity.

There is a market here that sells only stolen goods.

What I loved about India was its chaos and how somehow all the chaos could be harmonious and work together.

Bye bye Dehli

We left Saturday night at 1:45 AM. It's weird leaving a country in the middle of the night. I felt like we were sneaking out of Dehli while the rest of the country slept, as if we had stolen all the gin, samosas and silk sarees.

The last day in Dehli was perfect. Here is why:

1- Riley’s laptop reappeared after 3 weeks in the Air France locker room. They reunited them as we checked in.

2 - We had  free tea & chocolate cake with cognac espresso sorbet at the Oberoi Hotel whilst dressed like dirty ragamuffins who didn't want to take a cold shower. (Only the first part of this sentence was perfect)

3 – Hot oil head massage one last time at Plum Salon (wanted to maximize time that I would be clean on the plane)

4 – The DJ finally played Come on Eileen at Spinns (a new favorite place in the world) 

5 – Dori finally informed me that India has an 11 ½ time zone difference, not 12. All the clocks in India are NOT wrong. I thought that "India Stretchable Time (IST)" occured because no one knew what time it was. 

6 – Ashutosh (our favorite hotel clerk) is on facebook and has added us as a friend

7 – Water in the Dehli Airport costs 10 rupees (less than a $0.20)

Juicy Tomato Ketchup

In previous trips, I've tried to capture culture by examining one commonality of all mankind: the love of potato chips. Every country seems to eat them, but every country flavors them differently.

So for your gastronomique pleasure: here is every bag of chips I could photograph before getting stopped by security (in India, every business has a doorman and security guard no matter how small).

Uh oh, those sneaky tomatoes are hiding in the chips again! 

 Mmm juicy tomato ketchup flavor

Peppy make you strong cowboy

These chips have flair

These chips need no elaboration

 

And these are my FAVORITE!!!

Last Day of School!

Yesterday, we wrapped up our classes at JNU. Our final two lectures were more useful for humor than for content.

Although the first lecture was billed as "India & Bollywood" (something exciting), it ended up being about the Indian Mentality and why Indians are the way they are. She used the word cosmology 3 times and talked about all the contradictory forces in the universe joining together to be the world that Indian society supports.

The next professor told us about how all the incomes in the world were heading toward convergence, so by 2050 we would be able to form a democratic system of world governance. I can't even discuss this. The depth of this man's distance from reality stunned me to the core. What's even worse is that he had been in a policy-making position of power at the World Bank. 

Anyway, after that, we visited two sites with an NGO called Jamgpant that houses and educates street kids in Dehli. We saw both a girls home and one for boys. The kids were so beautiful!

And here is the alphabet poster in Hindi. 

We went to get a kebob roll at Nizam's, which we ate lukewarm one day on the bus... Getting them hot and in the restaurant made them taste 8000 times better. They were in fried naan that was luscious. There is not another word to describe how tender and tasty and delicious these were. It's the BEST thing I've eaten in Dehli.

Let's talk about food. We eat potatoes three times a day, and I cannot wait to never eat potatoes again. I'm going crazy and cannot wait to eat something that's not a carbohydrate. There will have to be a post-Dehli detox.

And we picked up our suits, and today we're packing and getting ready for home! 

Common Sights on the Streets of New Dehli

Dogs sleeping with sweaters

 People selling food on sheets

Women riding sidesaddle on two wheelers

Assorted Garbage: Uncle Chipps Packets

Tomes & Talismans

All the cars, tuk tuks (auto rickshaws) and buses have charms on them to ward off evil eyes and evil spirits.

 

You can see the Hindu gods above the steering wheel. This particular driver definitely needed them because he stopped on the side of a busy street for a smoke break (bringing us gum on the way back). 

Another tuk tuk walla drove the wrong way down a one-way street for awhile. On purpose. He got us where we were going.

 

Green chilies and lemon? It sounds like a flavor for potato chips. 

Not sure what the license plate is about. 

And this is inside our bus! There are 2 shrines and a peacock feather.

Stand Like an Elephant

Check out Riley and I's blog post from yesterday on India's security challenges...

Click here.

More Mughal Ruins

Yesterday we went to the Qutr Minar... it's one of the oldest sites in Dehli and was the original seat of power of the Mughals. I'm embarrassingly tired of these buildings, so I didn't get all the details. It was built in the 13th century... That's all I've got.

Mostly, I just looked at the architecture. One could say I'm ruin-ed.

Also, I'm sorry if these posts are getting shorter... we're having less time to ourselves! And there's an increasing amount to do. 

Let's Roast a Goat

We went to Karim's, a Dehli institution, and ate a whole goat. It was gross looking, definitely.  But it tasted ok. I actually ordered Chicken Tikka because looking at a goat's spinal column kind of turns my stomach. Tikka means "okay." People here say tikka tikka tikka all the time and then they head bob to the right. 

Karim used to be the cook for the Emperors. Their slogan is "Secret of Good Mood Is Karim's Food"

Funny Ads

 

Comment with captions!!! Best one wins a prize from India.

The Taj Mahal!

This post was delayed this morning when our hotel had a minor fire which made it necessary for us to leave sooner than predicted. But let's start with the news from yesterday. 

Yesterday we left the hotel at 6 AM to trek to the Taj... It was a five hour drive through five hundred layers of fog (or smog).. It's amazing the driver was even able to make it though because it was practically impossible to see the stripes on the road. We had a new bus for the day, one of the classic 50-person tourist kind. (It actually has TOURIST emblazoned in large letters across the front windshield. Not kidding.)

When we arrived in Agra, we saw so many Westerners. It was crazy. There were TOURISTS everywhere and street peddlers everywhere and street dancers everywhere. It was so much more chaotic than Dehli... the whole city of Agra is a UNESCO World Heritage City.

The Taj Mahal was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his wife... Men today should learn from this. Flowers and chocolates? This man built a wonder of the world. He had planned to build a black version directly behind it, but his son arrested and imprisoned him, and construction stopped. His prison was the Agra Fort, a site we visited after the Taj. Using a mirror in his prison cell, he could still look out and see it. Both of them are buried inside.

The Taj was built in white Indian marble and inlaid with precious stones. The surface feels really smooth even over the different stones. Begun in 1632, the mausoleum took 20,000 laborers 22 years to finish. Most of the artisans were from Iran. The West has been looking for something to do about Iran... finishing the other half of the Taj Mahal might not be a bad idea for them.

On one side there is a guest house, on the other a mosque. They look identical. The building is perfectly symmetrical and looks the same from all four sides.

My mom told me all she wanted from India was a picture of me in front of the Taj, like Princess Diana's. So here is my shot...

At Agra Fort, I saw a monkey steal an orange soda drink from a little boy (who then began to wail). The fort was cool because 75% of it is still reserved for use by the Indian Army. At closing time, soldiers shooed us out using whistles. It held huge significance for the country... it's where the British finally defeated the Indians. It's where the 1857 Revolt, the first gasp for independence happened.  

The Agra Fort was built by another Mughal Emperor, the father of the builder of the Taj. We have seen lots of examples of Mughal civilization for the past several days, and I mistake it for "muggle" from Harry Potter.

On the Road to Agra

We're going to the Taj Mahal today!!!! It's a five hour bus ride through agrarian India to get there.

US - India Relations

Today we had an amazing lecture on US - India relations! Riley said it best: if this was the only lecture we heard the whole trip, the plane ride would have been worth it. The professor was the chair of the American Studies Department and specializes in teaching on US Foreign Policy and US history and politics.

Four of us couldn't stop asking her questions (myself included), so we arranged a meeting with her in the afternoon. This was so cool. In the US, that would have been impossible. She's very well connected and influential in policy making circles, and she still made time to talk with us at the end of a busy week for an hour and a half!

Anyway, while we were waiting, we talked with several students, drank chai tea, and observed the political signs up on campus. It has a leftist movemement called AISA and a rightist movement called ASDA. I'm posting the posters here because I thought they were so interesting. In the U.S. competing groups probably would have pulled the other's posters down (we always had this problem), but here they were undisturbed.

We also saw a notice posted about students who were punished for being too disruptive on a hunger strike! This really is the land of Gandhi.

And this is the inside of a graduate classroom at the best school in the country for social sciences.

Wow. This is a scene most Americans never get to see. According to our second lecture, Indian graduate schools are so competitive for Indian students (15 admitted out of 8,000 at one), they are unable to admit many foreign students. This explains why so many Indian graduate students earn their degrees in the U.S.

Slums and Settlements

One thing that never stops surprising me is seeing the slums of Dehli. The population of desperately poor people in India = the population of people in the United States (around 300 million).

Slums even crop up right next to expensive attractions. Acres and acres of poor housing were across the street from the Askhardham Temple that cost around 100 million dollars.

This was inside the fort where we found monkeys yesterday. People just set up temporary dwellings.

They don't have running water or electricity and must be so cold! It's not legal, but it's hard to see what option people have.

Even outside our hotel, there are tents set up a short distance away. It took me a few days to realize what they were.

What's even more surprising is that one of the speakers we heard talked about how living in an urban slum is really the poor Indian's dream because at least here they have access to some services and job opportunities.

Tuqhlaqabad Fort

Today was another amazing day. How is it possible for every day to be better than the last?

After class we visited the Tuqlahqabad Fort. While I wasn't too enthralled with the idea initally, within 2 minutes I rescinded every objection. This place was so perfect and picturesque. Built in the 1300s, it was the 3rd capital of Dehli.

There were cows and donkeys wandering around with shepherds... and the best part... there were monkeys!

We walked around the corner, passed 5 empty banana peels and then found another monkey! They were hanging out on parapets and in doorways. Unfortunately, this was the moment that my camera battery died.

Halfway

I think today is our halfway point... and we will be home all too soon!

Today has been great.. our lecturer this morning discussed India's failure to develop in a way that really helped the poor. The number of workers in the organized, formal sector is 23 million. This has remained constant for the past 20 years. Informal laborers have born the harsh hours that enabled the brunt of growth.

Then we had an intro to India's ancient history and art. One thing that struck me is that India doesn't have much of an artistic tradition that's not grounded in religion. Dutch painters broke religion's monopoly on art beginning in the 1600s as the merchant class grew. The middle class and paintings of everyday life went hand in hand. It's interesting to think about how India doesn't have much of a middle class.


Lectures are punctuated by breaks for chai tea and samosas, which is good because the classroom is FREEZING! It's even colder than outside because of the marble surfaces.

After lunch, we visited the National Museum and had an art historian guide us through the exhibits.

Then, we went to visit a Kashimiri shopkeeper who some of the group met last week. We talked about the conflict in Kashmir. It was amazing to hear the progression of the problem from his personal perspective as a respected member of the community. The sad truth is that the problem could be resolved if pressure was applied... but it's not important enough right now for the U.S. to apply pressure. So the people are frozen in the conflict.

We wrapped up the evening with cocktails at the Imperial Hotel, a five-star colonial relic. It's one of the nicest buildings I've ever been in. Palm Trees line the avenue. Every surface is covered in antique prints, marble, fleur de lis, glass or gilt.

And then we drove home from the palace past people sleeping outside under tents or just huddled under blankets on the street. Passed a motorcycle carrying a dad, five children under 8 and 25 balloons. Passed a man just trying to take a shower with a towel and bucket.

And that's the incredible contrast and complexity of New Dehli. There is so much money here. But it's like there are two countries. In one, people sleep in a marble palace. In the other, people sleep in a blue tarp tent.

Jawaharlal Nehru (repeat his first really fast)

As part of our class project, each student has to contribute 2 blog posts.. so below is the post Diane and I wrote about our day. 

Today we had classes at the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Museum and Library where we learned about Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru’s backgrounds and their nfluence on Indian nationalism. Nehru was India’s first prime minster and was responsible for the ‘Nehruvian’ consensus: that India would be a sovereign democracy moving toward capitalism. 

Our first lecture of the morning was given by Aditya Mukherjee, the Director of JNIAS and coordinator of our program. He spoke on India’s development strategy since independence, focusing on India’s political economy and leaders who enabled both democratic and economic reforms. For example, Gandhi saw democracy as the best protector of the well-being of the poor and as the best way to improve India’s prosperity. Gandhi believed in their innate political savvy and their dignity as human beings, adopting a very atypical respect for the poor and uneducated masses. We found Gandhi unusual because in many ways because he was a groundbreaking intellectual, but he was also extremely in touch with people- two characteristics that do not often coincide. 

Gandhi and Nehru exhibited great self-awareness in their contributions to Indian democracy. In particular, they recognized the maxim that there is ‘no room for individual heroes’ in democracy. The two leaders purposely empowered the masses as much as they could, which was important and rare in a budding democracy. So often, when colonial regimes transition, whoever grabs power first spends most of their time trying preserve their power. In contrast, Gandhi and Nehru constantly spoke and acted in ways to curb their own power and welcome alternate ideas. Gandhi’s principles sunk into the populace so much that service and freedom became values. One mechanism of Indian democratization was students who voluntarily moved out into villages to serve and remained there the rest of their lives. 

India is remarkable among post-colonial societies because it adopted the best parts of British democracy. In other parts of the world, the colonizing power became so demonized during the transition process, little hope was left for democracy. The Indians were able to simultaneously harbor two very opposite desires: one to end colonial domination and the other to recognize the imperative for independence. India’s success lies in the fact that these leaders chose economic arguments instead of inciting racial, religious or partisan fervor. 

We were also impressed by the attitudes Nehru and Gandhi adopted after spending so much time in prison. Nehru was imprisoned nine times for a total of 3,262 days, and Gandhi for even longer. We’ve read many stories about how prison time radicalized Muslim intellectuals across the Middle East. It is striking how Nehru and Gandhi’s prison time made them staunchly advocate peaceful dissent. Perhaps this is because as Dr. Goswami puts it, “The British were civil in their evil.” We think the emergence of civil disobedience as a social movement tool and political mechanism could also springs from India’s culture, especially the peaceful Hindu traditions. 

In the second lecture on building a democratic and secular society, Mridula Mukherjee gave multiple examples of how Gandhi and Nehru educated Indians on how democracy works. Gandhi led by example, even defending his political opponents within the Indian National Congress. He realized the importance of free debate, saying “unless this simple rule is observed, we will never evolve democracy.” Mukherjee also stressed the importance of arriving at democracy by democratic means. India’s democratization represented the will of the masses. This speaks to the idea that democratization cannot be imposed because to do so would be to corrupt democracy with autocracy. Rather, as in India, it must be supported from the local level up. It seems to us that a leader with the skill and vision of a Nehru or a Gandhi would really help in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The day ended with a tour of the library and archives. There, we got to handle photos of Prime Minister Nehru with U.S. presidents and see microfilm of British newspapers the day after India’s independence. We also viewed a film on how Gandhi’s teachings on civil disobedience inspired peaceful civil liberty revolutions throughout the 21^st century.  

And we saw a peacock!