Taj to Tigers Minicourse

This past week I indulged in the international school rite of spring, co-leading my first minicourse. Minicourses take students out into the world for cultural, challenge or service experiences. My group, Taj to Tigers, visited two icons of India: the Taj Mahal in Agra and the tiger preserve in Ranthambore, with a two-day expedition looking at birds and forts in Bharatapur. This area of India is a major migratory stopover and wintering ground for birds from all over the Asian continent, including Russia. I am going to let my photos tell the story.

The Taj Mahal:

Bharatapur Bird Sanctuary:

 Black-throated kingfisher. 

When he turns around, he goes from black and

white to brilliant electric blue.

 Cormorants have no oil on their feathers,

unlike other water birds, so when they

get wet, they have to dry off in the sun.

 Great gray heron and friend resting.

 Spotted baby owlet, sitting in nest in crotch of dead tree. 

 Two bee-eaters. Look calm now, but were fighting seconds

before.

I don't remember this little guy's name but he is my 

favorite picture. Impressive camera work, huh? 

Ranthambore Tiger Preserve

 Mongoose

Me: Scarves are so useful, including keeping on

your hat during an open cantor ride.  

Meet Krishna, a 7-year-old tigress with baby cubs 

in a nearby den and a kill on the hill. 

Krishna, from behind. 

Krishna, as we first found her, relaxing.

She was in no hurry, taking a break from the kids.

Notice the full breasts. 

 This is an unnamed 18-month-old cub, one of 

two whose mother was killed by another tigress in a 

boundary war.

Peacock on a dead branch.

They're everywhere.

I wish every school could do this. Kids learned about India in a far more interesting way than reading a text and they learned about themselves and each other. I think it's safe to say we all hated to say good bye.

Next, Cambodia. Head there tonight on a red-eye.

A More Humane Finals Week

This marks the end of our first semester in New Delhi and I am struck by both the expanse of time and the humane nature of our finals. Tomorrow is the last official day of class. Wednesday and Thursday are dedicated to review. No new work will be assigned during that time and none can be collected. Finals begin on Friday, with most students having one final a day for two hours. There are three-hour breaks between morning finals and afternoon finals, allowing students time to study, decompress and get lunch. The final day of the semester is a time we come together again as a class (all eight classes in one day), to return finals for students to review and to have the chance to say goodbye for the next three weeks.

And me? Well, after I give my finals on Friday, I have a week to grade them with no other responsibilities. Think about the thoughtfulness such a schedule allows for instead of having to grade over a three-day weekend where I am expected to use all of my private time to grade while also planning for the next semester. Sorry, my St. Paul teachers. But this is my new reality.

Lighting the darkness

I am sitting here listening to the repeat from all over the city of fireworks. As I look out my patio window, I see candles burning on the rooftops and balconies all around me. No evil demons will plague Delhi tonight. The city has faithfully adhered to the practice of Diwali. Light has filled the skies. The doorbell rang just as I sat down to write this note. Cousins of my landlord came with sweet cakes and a diya candle. Outside, below the terrace where my neighbor and I sat the last hour, the guards have lit and stationed candles along the walls of our house. At Christmas we light candles to stave off darkness and here, too, for centuries, Hindis have used light to force back the dark as the days get shorter. May you all have a year of light and peace (if the fireworks don't catch your house on fire).

Good night.

Diwali and torn tendons

Monday night of last week, I was happily sauntering out of school and stepping into my driver's car when my ankle rolled on uneven pavement and tore my tendon from the bone. One friend bound my foot as it was ballooning with a silk scarf out of her bag and another called our school nurse, who directed us to go to a hospital that, in heavy traffic, was 40 minutes away. We arrived and my neighbor and friend went in with me as they wheeled me to the emergency triage doctor while Sapan waited outside. Three hours, five X-rays and the equivalent of $60 US, I was headed home where I have spent the last week largely sitting up in bed to keep my foot elevated. On Friday, a man came to my apartment to fit me with an air cast that is made in the US and it cost two and a half times what all the other doctor expenses were. Good thing I had planned a quiet Diwali at home.

Diwali, the festival of lights, marks the return of the legendary Hindu ruler Rama from 14 years of exile following an epic battle to reclaim his wife, Sita. Rama, the avatar of Vishnu, is the subject of an Indian epic beyond the bounds of the Iliad or Aeneid in its size and scope. The holiday is celebrated like Christmas in the US with lights strung along buildings and festivals. Booths are open and brightly lit late into the evening so that everyone can buy the sweets that are customary to share. One of my favorite markets had a column three feet high and as wide and 12 feet long yesterday of boxes of candies and nuts. The fruit vendors stalls are brilliant with oranges, pomegranates and fruits I cannot name. I will post more pictures in this week leading up to the holiday,  on Sunday, November 3. Firecrackers are already exploding and we are stringing lights and putting up candle pots to ward off evil in the hopes that the goddess Lakshmi will honor us with her presence.

I plan to sit out on my terrace and watch the festivities with a nice glass of wine.

Lights outside my terrace.

Udaipur

Udaipur has been called the Venice of India, due to its watery landscape and ancient white buildings. While there are no canals, we did see a gondola last weekend as we cruised around Lake Pichola in a tourist boat. The lake also washes at the foundations of the old buildings that line the shore and the Lake Palace Hotel, which occupies a full little island out in the middle of the lake.

We stayed at the beautiful Jagat Niwas, which was so graciously designed and decorated that every time we talked about going out, I thought twice. There was this beautiful window seat begging me to just sit quietly and read a good book. Spacious enough to hold five people, it was appointed with a bounty of cushions and had pigeons that liked to huddle right outside our windows. A small table was perched on the seat cushion where we could sit tea or our evening cocktail. It would have been cheaper if I had sat tight, but the silver shop and kashmir shop and the little alleys full of gold and spangly textiles awaited me. As well as temples, a fort and monkeys, so many monkeys.

 I asked my friend to take this picture so that I would remember

sitting here and eating breakfast in the fresh morning breeze.

This window seat, in the restaurant at the top of our hotel, was open.

The Lake Palace hotel is visible outside the window.

 This is a window looking out of the courtyard of a second island that

sits in the middle of Lake Pichola.

 One of many turrets that distinguish the landscape of Udaipur.

 Elephant sculptures are everywhere.

 Udaipur pavilions.

 A cow alongside the road, decorated for Dusshera.

 The window seat of the room I shared with a friend.

 The central courtyard of our hotel.

 The Jagdish Hindu Temple in Udaipur.We actually

went in this 17th Century temple and walked around its 

center, viewing the gods who were adorned for 

the Dusshera holiday. Inside the temple is a shrine to Vishnu, the supreme god of Hindus.

The ornate carvings on the temple signify the ascent of karma, from demons 

at the bottom to the gods at the top.

 A common view all over India. Women in bright saris

carrying, working, reaping.

 Kumbhalgarh Fort Palace, seen from a knoll before

our driver took us in.

 Inside the walls of the fort, looking out. The walls

embrace a village and 17 specific temples, some of which 

have the form of later temples and some of which look like

they could be at the Acropolis.

 The Central turret of Kumbhalgarh. The tower to the right is where

Maharana Pratap was born,son of the founder of Udaipur. This fort fought

off many invasions. Built in the 15th Century, it is protected, along with its village, 

by a still-sturdy wall that encompasses 32 square miles, a refuge for Mewarian rulers.

 It was only taken once, and then for only two days.

 Hunting pictures, and pictures of elephants actually painted on the walls, adorn

Kumbhalgarh and the City Palace built in Udaipur by Pratap.

 The lush (in October) hills of Rajasthan, from the fort's battlements.

 The characteristically scalloped doors of Indian architecture.

The monkeys of Ranakpur animal sanctuary, in the hills between Kumbhalgarh

and the Jain Temple in Ranakpur, dedicated in 1496. I couldn't take pictures

inside the temple because my camera was in my phone. But the temple is supported by 1444

marble pillars, each carved with different designs and stories.

Shopping in Delhi

Oh the shopping! The range and beauty of the textiles and jewelry here dazzles me. The art, with painstaking hand-drawn details and filigrees, is sold from little stalls where barefoot men sit behind the pictures and urge you to buy two or three. There are bazaars and melas (like craft fairs) and Dilli Haat and markets and modern malls that make the Mall of American look measly.

First, Hauz Khas. A former teacher last spring told me that this was the Georgetown of Delhi, so in  my first week, when a friend and I visited, I was kind of shocked. Its muddy paths and tangles of power lines looked nothing like the tony DC neighborhood I frequented during my years living there. But, after two months, I see Hauz Khas for the funky mix of shops and great restaurants that she did. This is a picture from our first week, my first experience in my neighborhood shopping district, Hauz Khas:

City Walk Mall is on the west side of Delhi where all the new development is occurring with industries from around Asia and the West building soaring office towers outside of the city limits' height restrictions. Here, you can buy Parisian pastries and macaroons, household goods and get a killer Thai foot massage for 45 minutes for 17 dollars.

Friday night after school, we climbed into the Ambassador and went to Pahar Ganj. The chaos is filled with pottery, cupboard knobs, scarves for 50 cents each, silver and emerald earrings for $40 (no, didn't buy them), a store that sells bath gels, perfume and sandlewood prayer beads (among many other things, earning the name "Everything Store" from a friend who took me), and street food that filled the air with the scent of spices and fresh bread and searing vegetables. I never cease to be amazed by the fact that the dirt, the motorcycles that never run over your toes but come darn close, the touts and hawkers don't phase me. Everywhere I turn is a feast for the senses. And I have learned how to say "ney-ney." No.

I realized I have no pictures of what is the favorite market of Westerners, Khan Market. When I go there, I am all about business. Anokhi has the most beautiful block prints, colors and designs I have ever seen. (Yes, I have bought these.) And Fabindia is, well, fab. Thanks to this store, begun by a Westerner as a channel for Indian craftsmen and women to sell their goods at a fair price, I have beautiful pillows and curtains. I have learned that if I want clothes, I go to Greater Kailish Block 1, a little shopping area set around a city park south of me. For cheap western clothes or tunics, as well as the best-looking vegetables (sold illegally off of carts), I go to Sarojini Market. INA is the market that has everything, including live chickens and spices. Dilly Haat is where craftspeople from around India go to show their goods. It changes every month, giving new crafts and artisans a chance to sell to the urban market.

I went to City Walk at the end of our second week and knew that if I need a Western fix, that is where I would go, but I have not been back since. If you want something here, you can find it. You just have to know where to go. I just discovered a nearby gourmet market that has Swiss chocolate for a third of the cost I paid in Switzerland. I bought lights for Diwali at a Christmas store in the same market.

A student in my journalism class, who had lived in Cuba for a few years, said her first thought upon hearing that her father was being relocated to Delhi was "Capitalism." Very true. 

"How much for this bracelet?"

"2500 rupees."

"What is your best price?"

"You buy more, we talk." 

Humayun's Tomb, New Delhi

Woman cleans leaves from bench in gardens of Humayun's Tomb

People all around the world have heard of the Taj Mahal and it is on the top list of sites for anyone coming to India, but what many do not know is that these type of majestic tombs are enduring architectural legacies to the time when the Mughuls ruled northern India, a reign that lasted until the British seized India in the 19th Century.

One of these tombs is Humayun's Tomb in Delhi, not far from the tomb that gives my neighborhood its name, Safdarjung. Humayun was the second Mughal emperor, son of the Mughal that ended the Afghan rule of northern India, and Safdarjung was prime minister to the last Mughal. That their tombs should stand so close together is somewhat poetic.

Humayun's Tomb has just been restored (in fact they are still working on one outer building) through collaboration of the Aga Khan Trust and the Archaelogical Survey of India. There is an interesting film on the restoration here, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal blog:

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/09/18/before-the-taj-mahal-there-was-this/

Unlike his father, according to information from the Archaelogical Survey of India in its brochure on Humayun's Tomb, Humayun liked to write poetry and party more than fight. He was also an astronomer in what would be a long line of rulers who cared as much for the arts and sciences as the art of warfare. He was actually deposed by another dynasty from 1539-1555, and reinstated just a year before his death.

Humayun's tomb was constructed under the supervision of his widow and actually set the template for what would become known as the Mughal Indian architectural style: a bulbous dome set on top of an inner dome, sandstone, white marble inlay, incorporation of the lotus flower motif and the use of jali screens, which are intricate carvings into stone that are seen throughout India even in modern architecture. So, in fact, Humayun's tomb set the stage for the Taj Mahal.

Here are some more pictures:

The top picture is a picture of the inside of the main tomb, looking upward from the cenotaph that marks the emperor's tomb. The picture to the left directly above is the tomb of Humayun's barber. Note the jali screen. These screens are beautiful and characteristic of Indian architecture. They keep animals out but not mosquitoes. The photograph to the right is the inside of the dome of his barber's tomb, which is its own building set within the gardens of the emperor's tomb. The barber was honored with his own tomb because of his loyalty as the person who regularly held a blade to the throat of the emperor.

Humayun died after falling down stairs in the palace fort he took from his conqueror. He kicked out the Afghan shah with the help of a borrowed Persian army and took over the fort the shah had built. The Afghans/Pakistanis and the descendants of Humayun continue to wrestle for control of the northernmost borders of India.