Hello from Hampi...Southern India
Hello dear friends,
It's Sunday November 20 and Terence, Carol and I just rode a local taxi 26 k's into Aurangabad to get access to money exchange and to internet. The little taxi, a compact-car size in Canada had 5 grown men in the front seat, up to 10 of us in the small rear compartment and cost about 50 cents to travel 26 kilometers.
We have been here for several days looking at the caves here. From here we will travel two days to Hampi, in the middle of India - in the southern half. After this we plan on going to the west coast of India somewhere.
On November 6 we left Jaipur and drove for about 7 hours to Udaipur. Along the way we passed whole towns devoted to the mining and carving of marble. It was hard to take in just how much marble was being processed here. Later, I read in a paper, that the desert is growing at an alarming rate, due to the deforestation caused by all the mining of marble.
Udaipur is a beautiful city set in dry highlands. There are 3 significant lakes in the City and we were able to get a room in the back, in a hotel fronting one of the lakes. It was great because there was a rooftop area where you could sit and look out over the lake. In the lake itself was a Palace, now a $500 US per night resort only accessible by water taxi. The palace covers the whole of the island so that the walls go right down into the water.
I watched the sunset for several nights from the rooftop, looking at the Palace, while across the lake, not far away women cleaned clothes, from 4 in the morning until 6 or 7 at night. Within view was such a wide experience of life all set off by the sun setting and turning deep orange-red.
The next day I went up to the City Palace, a different palace, added onto by each succeeding ruler over several centuries. The descendants of this ruling line, which is said to be the longest current ruling lineage in the world, still occupy part of the palace grounds. There are several palaces, harems, pools, grand halls, mosques contained in the Palace. There is a collection of crystal ordered by one of the rulers from Birmingham England in 1854. They made and sent the only crystal bed in the world, a crystal throne, crystal tables and chairs, couches, hookahs, lamps, chandeliers, sets of playing games, dishes, decanters, incense holders and almost anything you can imagine. The crystal filled, about 9 rooms on the second floor of the palace. Before the crystal was delivered from Britain the ruler died and it was never used.
There was also a rug and a throne encrusted with precious stones, valued at over one million dollars in the 1970's and so several million today. After seeing all this I left the Palace to walk home. I had to find a wire to clean a pipe I use for ceremonies. I walked into a small bike shop. The proprietor took an old bicycle spoke, cut it to size, sharpened it by grinding it on a stone and refused any money when I offered to pay him.
In India, I find my orientation to time and place becomes very fluid. Sometimes, I have to stop and say "Oh, yes, I'm sitting in Udaipur, above Lake Pichola, looking down at the Lake Palace, in Western Rajasthan, in India, on the other side of the earth from Nelson, on the earth, a tiny ball sitting in the black night of the Universe, all the worlds growing and dying and being born again, all to be replaced to die again and all of this occurring outside time and place.
There are always claims for money from beggars, priests, sadhus (‘holy men’), children, old women or men, crippled people and there are always acts of simple pure generosity. I find I am living inside such a world of constant and immediate paradox that I am forced to evaluate and judge less and less and find a way to just remain present. This is a wonderful practice for me. I love the wildness, the unpredictability of it all, the immediacy of life, the presence of life, death, beauty, hardship and all of it so visible and close.
I returned to the hotel to watch the sun-setting once more, the light reflecting off different palace windows onto the water, silver and then gold, listening to the chanting, to the calls to prayer, to the sounds of birds, of women pounding clothes for washing, to the sights of elephants painted on their heads and trunks and I felt so grateful to be here.
Such paradox, within sight, 500 US$ rooms and people living under cardboard and plastic, ramshackle shelters, crows, pigeons hawks, parrots, my senses filled to overflowing, loving the smells, the sounds, the sights, watching everything, living, growing and dying. I love a world where people set off firecrackers for all reasons, where chanting is broadcast over loudspeakers, where people set offerings of flowers on statues, in waters and in every imaginable size and shape of temple, where people put a mark on their third eye and where all of this is visible.
The next night we did a ceremony with Duncan and Rosalyn in preparation for their leaving for Canada. Terence and I went out onto the street, heard bells and the sounds of chanting, and went down to a temple at lakeside. Through an open door we saw an old man ringing the bells, and another old man limp across the doorway, and the two of them bow to each other in simple, sincere acknowledgement: namaste
We stopped at a little family corner store and bought twenty chocolates, made sure we had some for the five of us, and then gave the rest to the family who operated the store, children, a man, a few women, an old women. Great fun to see their faces break into big smiles.
The next day we drove into the Rajasthan hills, through rolling hills, farms everywhere, fields being farmed, to a Jain temple site called Ranakpur. On the way we stopped to watch a man driving two oxen in a circle tied to a water wheel. The water wheel consisted of 25 cans tied to an old chain, revolving on a cog and wheel device which hauled water out of a pool and lifted it to a waiting irrigation channel. The man's daughter sat on the back of the harness as a ballast and so the fields were watered.
The temples at Ranakpur, like many of the places we go, belie description. Room after room after room of statues, carved animals, women dancing and singing, statues of the 24 Thitankars or way-showers in Jainism. We went and drank chai and watched tribal people weaving rugs.
The next day, in Udaipur, I went to the JagDish temple. JagDish is one of the 24 incarnations of Vishnu, the Hindu god, the Preserver. A group of beautiful, colorful, tribal women sat on the floor of the temple singing, praising.
On November 14 we drove to Omkareshwar. It is a town of several thousand with a centuries old temple to Shiva set on an island in the middle of a river. We three, Duncan and Rosalyn, now back in Canada, got on a boat to take us around the island. The water was strong-currented and the boatman and his helper had to struggle at times to get us where they wanted. As we came to the end of the island 1 by 2 kilometers, we could see thousands of people coming out of the hills down to the river bank. It was early morning about 6 am. and there were at least a few thousand more people at the river on the island, doing pujas or just washing up to start the day. Later, we learned that the next day on the full moon there was going to be about 100,000 pilgrims descend on this little place, all coming to make offerings and to go to the Shiva temple.
As the boatman rounded the island the current was so strong that we had to get out of the boat and Terence and I had to help them pull it up the part where the current was strongest. At the far end of the island we came upon the second largest dam project in the world. When completed many up-water tribal peoples will be displaced and have to leave their homes.
After we got off the boat I decided to join the pilgrimage walk around the island, 3 or 4 kilometers. For the whole distance I was never out of sight of a hundred or so other people as we all walked. Every 20 feet someone, often children or older women, had set out paintings, or statues, or altars, to Shiva, Ganesha, Lakshmi, Hannuman, Kali and many more. All the pilgrims carried bags containing popcorn, seeds, peanuts and would toss them on the blankets in front of the gods and goddesses. At one point, there was a whole line of monkeys, those that Hannuman is modeled after, sitting in a row. Pilgrims were handing them peanuts which they were cracking open and opening. There were several hundred sadhus, spread throughout the route, offering prayers, doing puja's, talking to people. On the top of the island were old ruins of temples, new large temples to Hannuman and Shiva, and ruins speaking of a much older origination of what is occurring there. I was told that about 1 lakh of peoples, 100,000, turn up on every full moon. Meanwhile in the town, on the mainland, there was a whole fair type atmosphere, people showing Bollywood films, vendors selling food, brightly colored piles of powdered dyes, and almost anything plastic you might want.
We wished to stay longer but couldn’t get a room for the next night. It felt like I experienced a huge world here and we were there less than 24 hours.
Well, my dear friends, I'll say goodbye for now. We are well, happy and grateful.
Love , Jim
It's Sunday November 20 and Terence, Carol and I just rode a local taxi 26 k's into Aurangabad to get access to money exchange and to internet. The little taxi, a compact-car size in Canada had 5 grown men in the front seat, up to 10 of us in the small rear compartment and cost about 50 cents to travel 26 kilometers.
We have been here for several days looking at the caves here. From here we will travel two days to Hampi, in the middle of India - in the southern half. After this we plan on going to the west coast of India somewhere.
On November 6 we left Jaipur and drove for about 7 hours to Udaipur. Along the way we passed whole towns devoted to the mining and carving of marble. It was hard to take in just how much marble was being processed here. Later, I read in a paper, that the desert is growing at an alarming rate, due to the deforestation caused by all the mining of marble.
Udaipur is a beautiful city set in dry highlands. There are 3 significant lakes in the City and we were able to get a room in the back, in a hotel fronting one of the lakes. It was great because there was a rooftop area where you could sit and look out over the lake. In the lake itself was a Palace, now a $500 US per night resort only accessible by water taxi. The palace covers the whole of the island so that the walls go right down into the water.
I watched the sunset for several nights from the rooftop, looking at the Palace, while across the lake, not far away women cleaned clothes, from 4 in the morning until 6 or 7 at night. Within view was such a wide experience of life all set off by the sun setting and turning deep orange-red.
The next day I went up to the City Palace, a different palace, added onto by each succeeding ruler over several centuries. The descendants of this ruling line, which is said to be the longest current ruling lineage in the world, still occupy part of the palace grounds. There are several palaces, harems, pools, grand halls, mosques contained in the Palace. There is a collection of crystal ordered by one of the rulers from Birmingham England in 1854. They made and sent the only crystal bed in the world, a crystal throne, crystal tables and chairs, couches, hookahs, lamps, chandeliers, sets of playing games, dishes, decanters, incense holders and almost anything you can imagine. The crystal filled, about 9 rooms on the second floor of the palace. Before the crystal was delivered from Britain the ruler died and it was never used.
There was also a rug and a throne encrusted with precious stones, valued at over one million dollars in the 1970's and so several million today. After seeing all this I left the Palace to walk home. I had to find a wire to clean a pipe I use for ceremonies. I walked into a small bike shop. The proprietor took an old bicycle spoke, cut it to size, sharpened it by grinding it on a stone and refused any money when I offered to pay him.
In India, I find my orientation to time and place becomes very fluid. Sometimes, I have to stop and say "Oh, yes, I'm sitting in Udaipur, above Lake Pichola, looking down at the Lake Palace, in Western Rajasthan, in India, on the other side of the earth from Nelson, on the earth, a tiny ball sitting in the black night of the Universe, all the worlds growing and dying and being born again, all to be replaced to die again and all of this occurring outside time and place.
There are always claims for money from beggars, priests, sadhus (‘holy men’), children, old women or men, crippled people and there are always acts of simple pure generosity. I find I am living inside such a world of constant and immediate paradox that I am forced to evaluate and judge less and less and find a way to just remain present. This is a wonderful practice for me. I love the wildness, the unpredictability of it all, the immediacy of life, the presence of life, death, beauty, hardship and all of it so visible and close.
I returned to the hotel to watch the sun-setting once more, the light reflecting off different palace windows onto the water, silver and then gold, listening to the chanting, to the calls to prayer, to the sounds of birds, of women pounding clothes for washing, to the sights of elephants painted on their heads and trunks and I felt so grateful to be here.
Such paradox, within sight, 500 US$ rooms and people living under cardboard and plastic, ramshackle shelters, crows, pigeons hawks, parrots, my senses filled to overflowing, loving the smells, the sounds, the sights, watching everything, living, growing and dying. I love a world where people set off firecrackers for all reasons, where chanting is broadcast over loudspeakers, where people set offerings of flowers on statues, in waters and in every imaginable size and shape of temple, where people put a mark on their third eye and where all of this is visible.
The next night we did a ceremony with Duncan and Rosalyn in preparation for their leaving for Canada. Terence and I went out onto the street, heard bells and the sounds of chanting, and went down to a temple at lakeside. Through an open door we saw an old man ringing the bells, and another old man limp across the doorway, and the two of them bow to each other in simple, sincere acknowledgement: namaste
We stopped at a little family corner store and bought twenty chocolates, made sure we had some for the five of us, and then gave the rest to the family who operated the store, children, a man, a few women, an old women. Great fun to see their faces break into big smiles.
The next day we drove into the Rajasthan hills, through rolling hills, farms everywhere, fields being farmed, to a Jain temple site called Ranakpur. On the way we stopped to watch a man driving two oxen in a circle tied to a water wheel. The water wheel consisted of 25 cans tied to an old chain, revolving on a cog and wheel device which hauled water out of a pool and lifted it to a waiting irrigation channel. The man's daughter sat on the back of the harness as a ballast and so the fields were watered.
The temples at Ranakpur, like many of the places we go, belie description. Room after room after room of statues, carved animals, women dancing and singing, statues of the 24 Thitankars or way-showers in Jainism. We went and drank chai and watched tribal people weaving rugs.
The next day, in Udaipur, I went to the JagDish temple. JagDish is one of the 24 incarnations of Vishnu, the Hindu god, the Preserver. A group of beautiful, colorful, tribal women sat on the floor of the temple singing, praising.
On November 14 we drove to Omkareshwar. It is a town of several thousand with a centuries old temple to Shiva set on an island in the middle of a river. We three, Duncan and Rosalyn, now back in Canada, got on a boat to take us around the island. The water was strong-currented and the boatman and his helper had to struggle at times to get us where they wanted. As we came to the end of the island 1 by 2 kilometers, we could see thousands of people coming out of the hills down to the river bank. It was early morning about 6 am. and there were at least a few thousand more people at the river on the island, doing pujas or just washing up to start the day. Later, we learned that the next day on the full moon there was going to be about 100,000 pilgrims descend on this little place, all coming to make offerings and to go to the Shiva temple.
As the boatman rounded the island the current was so strong that we had to get out of the boat and Terence and I had to help them pull it up the part where the current was strongest. At the far end of the island we came upon the second largest dam project in the world. When completed many up-water tribal peoples will be displaced and have to leave their homes.
After we got off the boat I decided to join the pilgrimage walk around the island, 3 or 4 kilometers. For the whole distance I was never out of sight of a hundred or so other people as we all walked. Every 20 feet someone, often children or older women, had set out paintings, or statues, or altars, to Shiva, Ganesha, Lakshmi, Hannuman, Kali and many more. All the pilgrims carried bags containing popcorn, seeds, peanuts and would toss them on the blankets in front of the gods and goddesses. At one point, there was a whole line of monkeys, those that Hannuman is modeled after, sitting in a row. Pilgrims were handing them peanuts which they were cracking open and opening. There were several hundred sadhus, spread throughout the route, offering prayers, doing puja's, talking to people. On the top of the island were old ruins of temples, new large temples to Hannuman and Shiva, and ruins speaking of a much older origination of what is occurring there. I was told that about 1 lakh of peoples, 100,000, turn up on every full moon. Meanwhile in the town, on the mainland, there was a whole fair type atmosphere, people showing Bollywood films, vendors selling food, brightly colored piles of powdered dyes, and almost anything plastic you might want.
We wished to stay longer but couldn’t get a room for the next night. It felt like I experienced a huge world here and we were there less than 24 hours.
Well, my dear friends, I'll say goodbye for now. We are well, happy and grateful.
Love , Jim
posted by HeartoftheWorld | 9:39 PM
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