The current political commercial slogan for India that one reads everywhere is "Incredible India" and that's exactly what it is Incredible! Just came back from spending five weeks travelling through Rajasthan, the area known as the Golden Triangle, Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. My daughter Gabrielle and I were privileged to experience India as guests of very dear Indian friends whose hospitality had no bounds. We were welcomed most warmly into the bosom of the families and made to feel as one of them, without any reservations. We embraced them and India immediately and felt so comfortable that we emerged into the exotic Indian way of life with body, mind and soul.
We soon realized just how lucky we were to have this unique opportunity. Instead of being stuck in hotel rooms, in hotel lobbies, in a bus with a group of tourists and a tourist guide, ushered from one monument to another, we were met by family, in private cars, chauffeurs and guides for our private made to measure tours.
We did everything according to our own taste and pace. We spent almost every single day sightseeing or discovering different facets of India, and we spent long nights in bed recovering in deep sleep with the visions of India still running like a movie in our minds. We took over 2000 fotos and short video clips of fantastic scenes to share and enjoy again at home with family and friends.
How was India? A pile of books cannot describe enough and all the books and pictures give only a small glimpse of the reality. If I try to put it in a few paragraphs I would say, India is the most multi faceted, multi dimensional, most colourful and most populated country that I have ever seen. And I?ve seen Brazil, Mexico and China. The contrasts of life, of beauty, of colour and the opposite ugly reality for the majority of the poor, are so exaggerated here it left me stunned. I was mesmerized by the variety of beautiful and iridescent colours all around me used by both the wealthy and the poor. The fabulous loud beautiful colours of the saris worn by most women walking the village streets, the mesmerizing art work covering all walls of public and private buildings as well as the variety of jewellery and shiny precious and semi precious stones of Jaipur. The whole city of Jaipur, the pink city, was one giant painting. The artwork, the marble, pottery, hand crafts, furniture, sculptures, the classical traditional paintings of the thousands of Gods and Goddesses, the maharajas, the elephants, camels and horses, all of it, just out of this world. The exclusive hotels with all the turbaned uniformed guards and service staff, the many solid centuries old forts, the palaces with exquisite decors, just left us amazed and speechless again and again.
The oasis in the vast people jungle of India I loved the best was the Lake Palace Hotel in Udaipur, an exquisite hotel on a small island in the middle of a lake. The only way to get there, if you are not a guest at the hotel, at the one of the most exclusive suites costing an arm and a leg, is to reserve beforehand for lunch or dinner. There is a high minimal charge though for both lunch and dinner. In comparison any lunch or dinner at any posh hotel restaurant in Geneva or Zurich would cost the same, so it's worth it. We arrived excited and looking forward to this unique experience to be welcomed at the gate on the mainland shore, by colourful turbaned men staff with gold buttoned elaborate uniforms, and the women staff in beautiful shiny saris, a fabulous carpeted entrance, like an open air hotel lobby, with paintings and sofas and elephant statues, to wait for our ride across the lake to take us to the main thousand and one night building. The colourful decorated boat soon arrived, to float us gently over to the island with the castle like building with many domes. Here again the same plush welcome, with the turbaned heavy moustashed attendant, holding up a frilly umbrella protecting us from the sun, as if we were maharanis, to lead us into the hotel lobby. Inside the lobby, a classic beauty, an Indian female attendant welcomed us. Speaking with the famous lilting soft Indian accent, she showed us into the coffee shop. Believe me this socalled coffee shop here was more like am exclusive six star restaurant in any western city with its plush décor and superb service.
We ate in a beautiful alcove corner of the restaurants directly on the lakeside and were served the most exquisite meal on beautiful table décor and china. After that we chose to have our coffee in the bar. No mortal words can give you even an idea of how dreamy this was. Only fotos perhaps, so you would have to log in to their website to see for yourself. Marble over marble, domes, arches and pillars, fountains and flowers and tropical plants, water surrounding the hotel. The three-hour lunch experience in the lap of pure unadulterated shameless luxury was unforgettable. I could not find a website for them, believe it or not, but if you google it, enter "Taj Lake Hotel Udaipur" you can see some pictures on this site. If you remember seeing an old James Bond movie called Octopussy, this is exactly where the movie was filmed.
Being in the midst of all the above beauty and then to be faced with the contrast reality on the streets of the millions of the ordinary natives, the dirt and squalor, the poverty, the dirty shoeless children, the skinny desperate mothers with skinny babies on their arms, the dirty faces, eyes begging with outstretched little filthy hands, skinny cows roaming the streets freely eating from garbage heaps all around the people selling their merchandise from sandals to vegetables, while broken down cars, bicycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws and loaded carriages with donkeys, bulls, or camels pulling the heavy loads, go through this maze of traffic that now and again comes to a complete standstill, and then with horns loud enough to pierce a hole through the ears, the exclusive cars and the broken down "juggars" manage to continue on their journey, heedless to any kind of order or traffic rules. Everyone just blows their horn and carries on zigzagging through this mess, while pedestrians try to cross the streets, as if it was the most natural thing to do. In the whole five weeks I never saw an accident, although I saw vehicles whiz by just barely an inch between them and the next car, motorbike, camel, bull, carriage, man, woman or child. In all this incredible chaos, tempers are mellow, no one loses their temper because they are too busy focusing on finding their way inching through the mess. The worst populated and the filthiest place of all that I saw was the "Jawhari" bazaar where luxurious precious and semi precious stones and beautiful jewellery are sold. This scene here was a real nightmare, too much for us, after 5 minutes of entering this bazaar, we gave up and asked our hostess to lead us out of there again fast, she was most happy to oblige us.
During the whole five weeks, we were out of commission twice, each time had to stay in bed for two whole days fasting, but we recovered quickly and were ready to do more. Everything about the trip was memorable and special and I can't really say which experience was better than the other.
To list a few, the divine beauty of the Taj Mahal in Agra the pictures of which do not do it justice at all, and where you could actually feel the love and the despair of the Maharajah who built it for his beloved (I could anyway). The Pink City or City Palace in Jaipur, the Jain Temple in Ajmer, the holy lake or the only Brahman Temple or the second to Mecca important Mosque in Pushkar. The opulent Bahaii Temple in Delhi with its lotus shaped marble, the many large and small temples, the many forceful forts that were built by the Maharajas or the British, hundreds of years ago, the elephant rides, each and all were special. The Rajasthani New Year Eve celebration with drum music and Rajasthani dancers, the Kite Festival, people exercising yoga in the park early mornings with a swami guiding them in Hindi, while mantra music plays softly throughout the park with strategically placed loudspeakers, the many couples both young and old walking briskly hand in hand in the park with the most magnificent sculptures also strategically placed to emphasize the four directions. Another fascinating sight was the Astronomical Observatory of Jaipur built 400 years ago, but is pure modern art as if built today, showing time, sun and moon dials, horoscope and the twelve houses, the planets, and so much more of the universe. This was a university for astronomers and astrologers. Another very impressive complex was the Jawahar Kala Kendra, a multi art center in Jaipur built on nine square grid and represents the four seasons and the planets. A must to see if anyone goes to Jaipur.
India is moving forward fast, the locals are proud to tell us that India has changed in the past five years with a giant leap forward, more than it has in the previous fifty years out together. Amongst all the keeping up with the west modernisation, history and tradition prevails, the young still today touch the feet of their elders in respect, parents still find suitable husbands or wives for their daughters and sons, one still marries the whole family and not just the partner, marriage ceremonies still take anything between three to seven days and generations of families still live together under one roof. Women still wear bindis between their eyebrows, diamonds on their noses, rings on their toes and bangles on their wrists. And yet some elders complain, it is simply not the same any more, the younger generations have become too materialistic and divorce rates are rampant, they complain. Some youngsters even want to live alone now away from family, they are sad to tell us.
In metropolitan cities westernization is on the march. Bollywood is taking over, soap operas are plenty with commercial breaks selling anything and everything to the young who are business minded, career oriented and can afford to buy the goods to improve their life styles. The cover on the Indian Times magazine when we were there was about new laws for women matrimonial rights, something unheard of just a decade ago. We even had the experience of seeing a movie while in Delhi. We had to drive within the city for one hour through the congested traffic to reach the movie complex, which we did just in time. We saw Blood Diamond and to our surprise we learned that new Hollywood releases arrive in Indian cities long before they arrive here in our European cities. TV is a favourite pastime for most, with the most glamorous film stars, musical talent, dramatic and dynamic plots and stories and many with much laughter.
Multi cultural, multi faceted and multi dimensional India and that is what it is indeed. The spirit of the people is alive and vibrant, old and young, rich and poor, in spite of all the odds, the people smile, love life and laugh easily. They are mellow yet passionate, creative and entrepreneurial and are ready to make do in whatever way they can to move. And move they do in all directions. Their movies, TV ads and magazines are so vibrant and full of passion. India has a long way to go, as far as the poverty and the dirt, the roads, the over population and the illiteracy goes, but with the "juggaar" attitude, they will do it, I am convinced. Juggaar means anything goes, just put it together. They like to say, don't think too much about it, don't talk about it, just do it. It will work one way or another so just go ahead and do it.
During the whole time we were there, we watched the news and read some newspapers like the Times of India magazine and the Times daily newspaper, and there were two major stories of violence in the main news, one was about a killer in Bombay going about killing homeless people by bashing their heads (probably putting an end to their misery) and the other an affluent family man with his servant who had kidnapped and murdered over 30 children (probably organ traffic). Now considering that India has over a billion population this is nothing in comparison to the violence that we hear about in much smaller countries in the west. I am not saying that there is no violence there, but I do think in comparison to the west the percentage is much less. The reason is, my daughter thinks, is probably because they have a high diet of milk and milk products, mothernature cow's milk and she wonders if this keeps them pacified and gives them their mellow non aggressive pleasant characteristics. Hmmm..., she might have a point there, don't you think?
Amongst all the chaos and disorder, there is undeniable rigid bureaucracy and order in the heart of it all, which was both surprising and amusing. Especially when we see everyone breaking the rules and we are told corruption is rampant. So much still has to be taken care of, the airports, the many flights cancelled indefinitely, the parking, the public transport, the toilets, all without exception a total disaster, by our standards. India is not for the faint hearted, the narrow minded, the stingy or the critical fearful type. You need to have an overdose of a sense of humour, a big heart, natural healthy curiosity for all God's creatures, the ability to detach yourself, lots of change in your pocket ready to hand out as you tip everyone everywhere. Above all else you need to look way beyond the obvious.
And where is spirituality in all this you might ask? We did not visit any ashrams, nor meet any official swamis directly. But with all the above noise and activities that we experienced, spirituality was there everywhere all around us in the peoples? faces, attitude and behaviour. Our hosts in Delhi were Jains, and the head of the family was a Guru in disguise living a normal everyday life. We instinctively felt we were guests in a very special home with a very special family who prayed regularly, daily pujas as they refer to it, to the various Hindu Gods. Lord Genesha, the child with the elephant head, who brings good luck and happiness and removes all obstacles. Or the Goddess Lakshmi who brings wealth and prosperity to whomever remembers and honours her. Oh yes, we had spirituality all around us. In Jaipur our host gave us his fifty year old book collection of the Swami Vivekanande which we devoured every free moment we had. When I expressed interest in buying Vivekanande books, we were taken immediately to the Ashram of Vivekanande in Jaipur.. In this ashram they only train teachers in the Advaita teachings of Vivekanande. I bought a complete set of the nine volumes of his works for a fraction of the fee of what I would have had to pay here in Europe. We sent the heavy books by post which cost more than the books cost. Our hosts in Jaipur were also special calibre spiritual people. Lord Hanuman is revered here remover of obstacles and carer for things, and the mother fasts regularly every Tuesday in thankfulness to Lord Hanuman for taking care of her son. She has been doing this for his whole life over thirty years now.
I had gone with a wish to visit and to spend at least ten days in an ashram, but we could not find a suitable place near enough in Rajasthan. But during our travels in the first days, a mention of Swami Ramdevji caught my attention and I wondered how I could find out about this currently local popular young Swami. Next thing I know, I walk into a shop on our way back from Agra, and there sits a DVD of the every same Swami on the counter. A DVD teaching yoga Pranayam and Yoh Aasan by Swami Ramdevji, so I grabbed this only copy they had that seemed to be there waiting for me. Then the very next day I switch on the TV and who else but Swami Ramdevji fills the screen, speaking Hindi, giving a Yoga lesson! He's on TV every day at 6.30 preaching and teaching yoga live to thousands of people. In the next days, we see a program about "The Art of Living" and His Holiness Sri Sri Ravishankar, and we are proud to tell our hosts that we have actually met Sri Sri Ravishankar on one of his visits in Geneva and that we are familiar with his Ojay breathing techniques teachings. Oh yes, spirituality my friend is ever present everywhere in India, in everyday living and breathing, it is not reserved for Sundays, Saturdays or Fridays or for special days in the temples. It is alive in the very soul of the people of India.
We are back home with soul transforming incredible memories and fotos of our trip to incredible enrapturing India, a country of extremes and contrasts, nothing is mediocre here, it is either one extreme or the other everywhere on every level. I wonder if the dynamic smart younger generation will manage to take time off from enjoying their ride on the roller coaster of western modernity, to find real solutions for the giant tasks facing them, to solve the dire problems of their people to move their country forward to modern times. Both brainpower and manpower is available aplenty.
Margo Kirtikar PhD, spiritual coach/trainer/writer/artist/speaker, currently lives in vevey Switzerland. http://www.mindempowerment.net
margo@mindempowerment.net
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