Hustle-Bustle and the Big Hustle

a passage to india

India has been on her mind since childhood when she started learning Odissi dance in Oakland, California. Now in junior high, Hannah Kopp-Yates, along with her mother Tatjana, spent five weeks in India this summer, visiting the beloved Orissa, the spiritual Varanasi and Bodhgaya, the magnificent Taj and the touristy Delhi and Jaipur, and above all, the pristine Ladakh. Here she recounts her encounter with the real India.

I remember the first day of kindergarten, when I tugged eagerly at my mother’s dress and whispered, “Look, there’s an Indian girl here!” In the first few years of my life, I was exposed to a lot of Indian culture; I had a Bengali babysitter, attended many Ravi Shankar concerts with my mom, gazed admiringly at the Indian dancers at the Himalayan Fair (in Berkeley, California), and regularly ate Indian (vegetarian) food.

My spiritual attachment to Indian culture was nurtured, among other ways, by watching the Ramayana (animated), and making offerings to Lord Jagannath at a friend Kishoree’s home temple.

Given our myriad associations with Indian culture, most people assumed my mother and I had already spent a lot of time in India.

But we hadn’t. Well, this summer we finally made it to India after months of overstocking on mosquito repellents, numerous vaccines, and reading every India travel guide we could lay our hands on; we felt well prepared.

Missed by a Whisker

Our Lonely Planet guide told us about all the amazing sights, some of which we went to see, but one of the most awesome experiences that no book can prepare you for is the traffic. On our first morning in New Delhi, we emerged from our hotel, jetlagged, hot, into a sea of people and a symphony of honks. After ten minutes of wandering through the seeming chaos, we were exhausted. We had to go take refuge in a graveyard, the only quiet place in the neighborhood!

Later in the day we took our first rickshaw. I clung to our purses as Mom fumbled with the video camera. We yelped and gasped with every swerve and pothole; autorickshaws passed us at hair’s width and at one point a car was hurtling directly towards us, only turning at the last minute. Our rickshaw driver seemed completely unfazed by it, but for us it was harrowing.

After a few days, it became more fascinating than scary; we started getting used to it and, in fact, developed total trust in our drivers and awe of their skill.

The workings of India’s traffic never ceased to amaze us. Once, in Jaipur, we stood on the rooftops watching the roundabout in the city center. In a temple just above us, a group of sadhus sat chanting bhajans – “Jai Sita Ram, Jai Radhe Shyam” – while below us the traffic flowed by.

A cow stood in the middle of the road, contemplating the situation, immobile. Rickshaws, buses, Tata trucks parted and trickled around it, like a river around a rock. And we were most astonished to see people, children, weaving their way through the jumble.

On that first day in Delhi, we also tried the public bus. Don’t ask what got into us. I’m still not quite sure. But as the vehicle sped off, with only one of my feet on the step and clinging for dear life to the grimy handrail, I realized it was a mode of transportation that should be left to the more experienced and courageous. No one on the bus seemed to speak English, but Connaught Place, the city center, seemed an easy enough destination.

Or, maybe not. We tapped people on the shoulder several times, panicked that we might miss our stop (actually the bus did not seem to ever be stopping).

“Excuse me, is this Connaught Place?” Furrowed brow. We point out the window, “Connaught?” Head bob. But was that a ‘yes’ bob or a ‘no’ bob? Finally the fare collector indicated that this was it. What if Mom managed to get off and I didn’t? As the bus slowed a little (a full stop was not to be expected), we held our hands tight and jumped off – into the middle of furious traffic. “Run!” A Tata truck very nearly missed us. A taxi swerved, we stopped for a rickshaw and then leapt for the sidewalk and landed intact but rather shaken.

In America, we see accidents on the roadside fairly often. But astonishingly, in our five weeks in India, we did not witness a single one. Equally impressive was the physical strength of the rickshaw-wallahs. A while back, we were visiting an Indian friend in Germany who had imported a functioning cycle-rickshaw.

I could barely get it to budge when it was empty! So I have quite an admiration for drivers pulling two or three adults through the streets. In fact, my mother and I began a contest trying to spot the most unlikely and biggest things being transported on cycle vehicles. In Varanasi, we saw 15 boxes of large televisions on a man’s cart.

No for an Answer? No Chance

Konark, the Taj Mahal, the river Ganga, Vrindavan, Bodh gaya – all sacred and imbued with power from centuries of worship, nevertheless attracted people on the ceaseless quest for rupees. We were constantly confronted with unsolicited guide services, merchants’ persistent solicitation, and beggars’ bowls. I would have liked to be able to make them happy, but when you give in to one request, they seem to multiply. We saw t-shirts being sold saying, “No rickshaw, no boat, no change money, no hashish, not one rupee, NO PROBLEM!”

Well, there was one problem: saying “no” was ineffective in deterring their efforts. Once, in Varanasi, we ventured into a bazaar down one of the tiny streets near the Main Ghat. A young man firmly attached himself to us, eager to show us around and explain what a sari was. Not that we needed to know.

We asked him at least three times to leave us; but he always stayed around us. We asked a friendly-looking vendor to explain to him we didn’t need his guidance, just in case he really hadn’t understood. We even fled into a shop for an extended look around hoping to shake him off; he sat down at the entrance and patiently waited for us. Then we asked a pair of men in uniforms, you know, the kind you might trust to help you out – and they just chuckled and told us to ignore him. So we did, to no avail. Finally, when we returned to the main street, he pulled out his last weapon: guilt – “a wife, three children – summertime and no business. Please, could we just come into his shop?”

Then there were those whose sole business was tourist items – postcards, pictures, snow globes. Like in Bodhgaya, when we emerged after an hour of just sitting peacefully under the Buddha’s bodhi tree and were attacked by a mob of merchants. Whoops! There goes my equanimity. I felt sorry for them sometimes; there were always many of them at each site, more than willing victims, anyway. The competition was extremely tough, which simply made them more determined.

In Varanasi we got up at 4 a.m. to take a dawn ride down the Ganga. We were drowsy and undefended, and enjoying the early morning peace. And it was so nice not having anyone trying to sell us things! But that was a short-lived luxury. Suddenly another boat is heading directly towards us. They come close. Too close. They grab hold of our boat, and the man begins to offer his merchandise: vials for Ganga water, mala beads, bangles, shiva lingams. A few minutes later, we were approached by another boat. This time they forced a burning offering into our hands, giving us no option to decline. They indicated to place them on the water, then demanded money.

The third one had a working TV screen on his boat and played New Age music through a pair of speakers (at 5 a.m.). We shook our heads violently as he approached, but he kept rowing. “Looking no charge, madam,” he called out, boasting CDs and DVDs. But eventually we managed to deter him. Our boatman tried to remain neutral, but couldn’t hide his amused grin.

Falling for the Con

Another time, in Jaipur, a surprisingly well-dressed rickshaw driver gave us a tour of the city. We saw the Central Museum and the tower with the city view. We were expecting to see a lot more, but the driver declared that there had been terrorist attacks in Ayodhya and all the tourist sites were closed. Was there anything else we wanted to see? My mom explained that she’s very interested in textiles and especially the use of natural dyes. She pretty much held the doors wide open for what happened next.

He assured us that he knew of a place using natural dyes and took us to a warehouse where a man briefly demonstrated the fabric-printing process. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our driver sit down in a back room and be served a cup of chai.

When my mom asked our demonstrator about the dyes, he assured us that they were all plant-derived colors. So, what exactly were they made of? “Plants, madam!” Of course they ended up luring Mom into their showroom upstairs, were she proceeded to blow a mighty sum of money. Later we went to the City Palace on our own; maybe, we thought, they had reopened. When we asked, they assured us that they had been open all day.

But juxtaposed with the constant need to make a little money was people’s curiosity and friendliness. All those who were either not selling something or had already received money from us were incredibly friendly. A lady who worked at our hotel giving Ayurvedic massages addressed me as sister whenever she saw me. When I said goodbye to her and her family on our day of departure, she assured us that they would never forget us.

One of our favorite places in India was Pushkar, a small desert town in Rajasthan. It is clustered around a small lake that sprung up when Brahma dropped a lotus. Thus, it is home to one of the few temples in India dedicated to Brahma. There are no rickshaws or cars allowed in the city, so upon our arrival, we hired a little push-cart to transport our luggage. We were also allowed to sit on it. Just as we had climbed on to it, it began to rain. I fiddled with my broken umbrella for about a minute, but soon gave up. Monsoon is indeed inescapable – why even try?

As we rolled past, shriveled old ladies chuckled at us and boys burst into laughter. What an odd sight we must have been, two people with excessive luggage on a rickety little cart, soaking wet and seemingly enjoying it. We too were laughing. Though we only had a short time in Pushkar, it didn’t take us long to sense the special atmosphere in the little town. The city was very clean and inviting. Art was everywhere; in the arches of doorways, pretty balconies, the walls, and in the surrounding landscape itself. Because it is Brahma’s sacred site, there was no meat, eggs, alcohol or drugs allowed in town. People recognized it as a special place and treated it with reverence and respect. We were glad to have made the effort to go there.

Krishna Lila

We also very much enjoyed Vrindavan. It was mind boggling to think that this is where all the Krishna lilas had taken place – the butter-stealing, the scandalous flirtations, his enchanting flute play… His spirit certainly was tangible in this town! Temple after temple appeared as our rickshaw rattled through the streets.

Children beamed at us as we passed and cried out “Haribol,” and the old man who watched our shoes while we explored one temple smiled and shook his head in refusal when we offered him money. At the ISKCON temple, bhajans reached from the inner hall throughout the complex, joyful and sweet. On the walls were paintings depicting Krishna and Radha, swinging in a garden overflowing with trees bearing jewel-like mangoes, lush grass, and brightly colored birds. Women sat in a circle on the ground, stringing garlands of muticolored flowers with fragrances to match the garden, laughing and chatting. They smiled at us as we passed, warm and cheerful. “You can feel the love in the air there, it’s incredible,” Jyoti Apa told us one day after a dance class back in Berkeley. I think we may have experienced just that.

But best of all, I think, was the Taj Mahal. I must say that I’ve always been suspicious of what a symbol it has become – basically, for many who are not familiar, India equals the Taj. My wealthy friend traveled with her family to India and the Taj Mahal was pretty much all they saw. Isolated safely from Indian reality, they stayed at the Mughal Sheraton. To her the city of Agra looked crowded and poor, whereas to us it seemed very well-kept and pristine. The streets were spic and span, the traffic relatively organized; modern art structures graced irrigated roundabouts. It seemed that the constant influx of tourism had created the incentive to tidy up the city more than most.

The Taj Mahal itself was magnificent beyond my expectation. All the postcards and paintings and photographs just can’t do it justice; you must see it in person to truly understand its power. Its graceful arches, soft and luminous white marble, and intricate patterns, all complementing each other, were simply incredible. The perfect symmetry is so satisfying, and from every angle it is an enthralling sight. We spent hours there just staring at it in awe. We were truly and duly impressed. OK, I decided, I understand. It certainly is a symbol for India, India at its very best.

Before we left on our trip, we were sure we would melt right into the Indian way of life. But now I realize that perhaps the culture is more foreign to us than we thought. Or maybe we were more foreign to it than we expected it to be. Perhaps, despite our appreciation for the culture and beauty of the country, we can never truly be a part of it simply because we are “wealthy” Westerners, potential customers, assumed representatives of a very different lifestyle.

But even in our role as outsiders, our trip was a rich experience. We were surprised by the poverty most people lived in, and at the same time awed by the beauty and splendor they produced. We never failed to be amazed by their skill and creativity, resourcefulness and ingenuity.