A normal weekend...You know, we went to a camel fair

Just another weekend, except that we explored India's own famous camel festival, which takes place every year at the end of November in Pushkar, Rajasthan. We really had the opportunity to do and see some new things on this trip. For example...

We got to play with swords.

We got to try sugar cane like our Indian brothers and sisters.

Well, feeding camels I guess doesn't exactly make the list of new things. But I still am not quite an expert with these animals, which are the closest things to dinasoars I have ever seen that still exist on Planet Earth.

Ruth kissed one. I'm not really down with that, NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH IT!

And then we got to see what was maybe the last thing I expected to see. But then again, in India you kind of start expecting the unexpected. What could those three be in such awe of?

Stunts straight out of a traveling circus. It was awesome.

Well, at least half the giant group fit in this farewell-to-Pushkar-oh crap-we-only-have-beds-for-half-of-us photo.

If your name is "A" or "T" you may want to be cautious in what you read or see below. I don't want to spoil the surprise that awaits us in Rajasthan when you come for Christmas. However, maybe you should go on and see because it will make you even MORE excited than you already are! Ahh, the choices in life.

Well, the plan was to take a nice 13 hour train to Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, a small, dusty, brown tourist town about 60 kms from the Pakistan border where we would embark on an amazing Indian Jones-like camel safari. Of course, things are never that easy.

After we missed our first train (due to small error made by the travel agent where he told us the wrong train station - no biggie), we improvised and took three consecutive sleeper buses. To say the least, we were simply excited to be on our way to meet our camels.


We finally settled down though and the 21 hour trip to Jaisalmer actually ended up being quite fun.

Greeting us in Jaisalmer was the amazing Jaisalmer fort. Everything is the color of sand...

...and greeting us in the desert:

What you can't see below is the giant cooler my camel (the youngest and presumably the strongest...or simply lowest on the camel food chain) that got stuck carrying a big cooler with food and ice.

On our first day, we were accompanied by four people, two men and two boys, 7 km to the camp where we would sleep that night. Parbu, pictured below, goes to school from 10-1 p.m. every day. Then at 4 p.m., he walks tourists like us 7 km to a desert camp, sleeps overnight in the desert, wakes up at sunrise and walks back (at least 7 km, although I don't know exactly where his school is) to town in time to go to school at 10 a.m., then he does it all over again.

Sunset.

Sunrise.

There's not enough times in our lives where we get to see an amazing sunset and sunrise back to back.

Here, we were spying out on the enemy camp.

All of our guides made us a nice lunch on the second day to cap off an unforgettable weekend. Nearly as unforgettable was the strawberry the camel left me in a place to be named in private.

The most militarized what?

So a couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go to Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) [courtesy of the J&K government who was holding an expo for Kashmiri handicrafts and handilooms], India’s northern most state, which borders Pakistan to the west and China to the east. According to a documentary I watched about a month ago on the partition of India, J&K is the most militarized region in the world with over 700,000 Indian troops stationed up there (Remember there are roughly 150,000 American troops in Iraq, a much larger geographical area). Despite the minor presence of soldiers every 50 meters along the road and others standing aimlessly, gun clutched across their chest, in farm fields outside the capitol of Srinagar, Emily and I decided to take the approach that it is never as bad as people say it is.

“Some days, no. Some days, yes. I make no guarantees.”

This was the response by Bashir, our taxi driver, to Emily’s inquiry if he felt safe in Srinagar despite the violence of the 1990’s. We laughed and sarcastically said, “thanks”, quickly agreeing that we would keep that comment to ourselves and not share it with our mothers. It was just too memorable not to share though. Sorry, Mom.
Golmarg (a mountain village two hours outside of Srinagar) is home to the world’s only genetically modified cows.

Now I can’t back up this statement with any fact other than the above picture. But you tell me, someone had to of messed with that cow.

(Emily was clearly not impressed with the asking price for these Kashmiri shawls.)

While walking back across the beautiful Golmarg valley an man in his 50s drove by in front of us in a pick-up with three kids in the bench seat beside him. The truck suddenly braked and backed up so that he was eye to eye with us and then he said:

“Would you like to play golf?”

You inevitably have conversations in India with Indians that surprise you and they often ask you questions that take you by surprise, “How much do you make?” “How much do you pay for your rent?”, however this guy could have posed a thousand different questions to us before I would have guessed he’d invite us to play golf.



“Allah’s Pizza”

Who knew Allah made pizza or set up a shop in Srinagar? And it made me think why have I never seen a “Jesus Christ’s Pizza” place? If there is not, there should be. Terry T, if you are reading, there is my idea to build up your youth group in West Seattle.

Speaking of Allah, Emily and I went to Jammiah Mashid, Kashmir's largest mosque in the heart of old Srinagar. It was completely empty when we visited it and had this amazing light streaming through some of the windows.

My favorite quote of the weekend though was when my hotel doorbell rang at 7 a.m. (before my scheduled wake-up call). At first, I wasn't sure if I had heard it correctly and so I waited to see if there would be a second knock. Sure enough, about 30 seconds later, it came. I threw on the minimum amount of cloths and walked drearily to the door and opened it. Standing in front of me was a nice looking Indian man, wearing normal everyday-type clothes, so it appeared he didn't work at the hotel. He paused for a moment and then asked, "Are you Sandeep?"

After 10 months in India I know I have picked up some Indian mannerisms, but physically speaking, I still look no different than the white bread American boy I've always been. I restrained from bursting out in laughter because I thought the question was so funny, however I kept myself together and told the man I was not, in fact, "Sandeep".

Indifference to Compassion

Well, I'm home sick today and trying to recover from a cold that I have had for two weeks now. It's been one of those colds I thought would just go away by taking some tylenol, but here I sit two weeks later with four medicines from the local "chemist", which include cough syrup, eye drops and a couple of pills for what is some type of conjunctivitis.

The following pictures are from my trip to Bangalore and Mysore in August. I never had an opportunity to show them to you, but this post is not really about this trip.

(These young boys were nice enough to accompany me up the 1,000 step, 45-minute hike up to the top of Mysore's highest nearby peak, Chamundi Hill. Three of them did it in sandles, the fourth barefoot.)

Other than that though, it's amazing to believe that it is nearing the end of my first year here in India. I am planning on staying into the coming year. Not sure if I'll be here for the entire year of 2008 or only for part of it, but I just have this feeling inside of me that I'm not done with India yet. I have a ton more to learn from the people and cultures of India and I think I have much more to give to these people.

(At the top, the boys took me to this nearby manmade pool. This man (who you can only see his big toe) was using the latest in fishing technology.)

Below are a couple of articles I thought you might find interesting. The first one talks about Delhi's "rag pickers" who are basically our garbage collectors. It's sad and disturbing, but it is a reality check. Many Delhites never consider what happens to the garbage once the woman collects it outside their door each morning or after they throw their garbage into the roadside bin each day. The fact is that there are thousands of people who go through the garbage each day who are not paid, but ask for donations from their neighborhoods. This is their manner of survival.

(Sri Chamundeswari Temple was at the top of Chamundi Hill)

Delhi Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/world/asia/27ragpickers.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin


The second article details the madness of Mumbai. I think the most glaring difference between Mumbai and other major cities in developed countries (and mind you, I have yet to visit there) is that the horrible poverty of the city is not hidden, but often times sits adjacent to some of the nicest hotels, resorts, cinemas and restaurants.

(I think I caught this cow right as it was being blessed from up above or about to be zapped into space.)

(And I did do some work while in Bangalore. I met with many of my colleagues at CII's first Centre of Excellence, the Institute of Quality.)

Josh's editorial: This is possible because many Indians still do not see a problem with the poverty of the country. It's a concept that difficult to understand for most Westerners and even more difficult when you are here and see it right in front of you. However, the reality is that this society has not evolved to a point yet where there is great concern for one's community or for others outside your tight, communal circle.

I will forever remember what one Indian CEO of a well-respected, international foundation told me early on in my time here. He said approximately, "Josh, the fact is that nothing is going to change in India until your average Indian sees the impoverished family, with malnourished, naked children begging on the sidewalk in the middle of the city, and thinks this is wrong and should not be happening in my country. Instead, most Indians think, 'at least my children are better off than theirs.' "

Of course, this is changing - slowly - throughout India. As the country becomes more interconnected with the world, as India compares itself more with other world powers, as pressure from the next generation of Indians demands more from its country, as the hierarchy and entrenched caste system of India lessens, hopefully this indifference to the suffering of their own neighbors will transform to compassion.

Mumbai Article: http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/travel/tmagazine/10well-mumbai-t.html?hp

2 Visiting Friends & a Hindi Wedding

The end of August saw two good friends of mine come and visit from Seattle! The first two! Now I know Courtney from when she used to work at the World Affairs Council and I served on the young professionals board. For the lovely couple, India served as their midway stop on an around the world trip.

They stopped in South Africa first to see family members of Sebastien's and then went on to Japan after India to see friends of Courtney's from when she lived there a few years ago. I got to see them before and after their one week trip through Rajasthan. Thanks for coming Court and Sebastien!

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Then came the Hindi wedding we'd all been waiting for. Back at the beginning of August, my friend Andrea and her boyfriend/fiance, Shivam, had a Christian wedding back in Colorado. Three weeks later, they came out to Jaipur, Rajasthan, India to have a Rajasthani wedding with all of Shiv's family and friends. You may think what does "all of Shiv's family and friends" mean? Well, it meant his family only sent out roughly 1,500 invitations.

The days before the wedding were pretty laid back. Every meal of the day together. Time in between meals were spent at the pool, in our rooms, or doing a little shopping sight seeing around Jaipur.

Along with Andrea's parents, her grandmother, aunt, friend, Rene, from Capetown, South Africa and Tesia, our friend from PLU, came out to be a part of the Hindi wedding experience. In all, Shiv and Dre had people attend the wedding from the USA, Greece, South Africa and Afghanistan. Below, Tesia got to try her first "lassi", a sweet, creamy milkshake-type drink minus the ice cream.

Some even got "henna-ed". I even let myself join in the henna party.

One of our free days took us to Amber palace where some elephants were nice enough to carry us up the hill to the palace entrance.

The white cloth wrapped around my leg below is actually not what it looks like, India's latest fashion statement, but instead a bandage that was protecting a pretty bad burn that I incured a week before on the exhaust pipe of Jose's motorcycle. People asked "what happened?" and I would launch into the story and with (seriously) every Indian person I told the story too, they replied by saying, "Oh, yeah, I did that once also." Even the two women in saris who I met the morning of the wedding.

The day of the wedding had multiple pre-wedding ceremonies, most of which only involved Shiv, because he's Hindi and Andrea is not. If Dre' would have been Hindi also, her family would have done many of the same rituals with her.

This is Shiv before the wedding: being smeared with talcum all over his body by his aunts.

This is Andrea before the wedding. Doesn't she look excited to get married in front of 1,500 people!

As Andrea got whisked away to get ready for the ceremony, since she enters separately from Shivam, I got to hang out with Shiv's huge family as the procession to the wedding venue began. He started by taking this horse to the local temple.

Then we all took a chartered bus to a huge traffic circle that is in downtown Jaipur and right outside the wedding venue. We spent the next hour in a procession around this traffic circle - Shiv in the back on his horse, while a band plays, many men hold these big lights on their shoulders forming two columns and in between these two columns of men are all of Shiv's friends and family. That is where all the dancing happened. And not dancing that you or I would probably know back in the USA. This was true Hindi dancing. So fun and unique to other types of dancing.

The dancing procession around the traffic circle will be one of my lasting memories of the wedding.

After Shiv arrived, about 10 minutes later, the bride arrived, accompanied by her mother and one of Shiv's family members.

The wedding itself consisted of Shiv and Dre sitting under a canopy performing a number of rituals, many of which Shiv doesn't even understand their exact meaning, however, they are tradition. They are officially considered "married" when they walk together around a small fire, which consists of cow dung being burnt, four times. Below, I actually got to step in and take the place of Andrea's brother, who couldn't attend. Very cool.

The happy couple with both sets of parents.

The happy couple before during the wedding.

The happy(ier) couple after the wedding.

And what would a true Rajasthani wedding be without Greek wedding dancing in our rooms later in the night?