India pics: The Ganges

My first view of the Ganges was at Allahabad, where the Yamuna/Jumna flows into it (along with a secret subterranean river, the Saraswati). As I've mentioned along the way, the sangam (coming together of two rivers) at Allahabad is a very holy site, and becomes a major pilgrimage site every twelve years. We heard conflicting accounts as to whether this was one of such 12-yearly year but it seems only to be a 6-yearly mela, with only 30 million people expected over the month in question. In the picture above you see over the Yamuna, past some of the many tent cities set up for pilgrims, towards the sangam. If you look closely (this one's worth clicking) you'll see some lighter colored water in the distance: that's the Ganges. And where the two waters meet, a beach and some people bathing. If you go much closer, you'll see something like the scene above, though by the time we got there late on 13 February there were only a couple hundred bathers.

Our first real view of the Ganga (the Ganges) was crossing it on our way to Varanasi (Benaras) the following day. Notice the steep banks, from whose heights temples and other building complexes unfurl long staircases down to the water called ghats. When the monsoon swells thee Ganga, the water might well rise to cover most of these ghats, an unthinkable mass of water...

Varanasi, too, lies on terrain like this, the city rising high above the river. To notice it you need to get lost in the old city's maze of little streets (every one with a view of some part of a temple) and suddenly find yourself looking down down down to the river below. This picture's taken from the top of a long staircase near Aurangzeb's mosque. But you don't really notice this on the ghats themselves, piled high with buildings as they are - the usual view is from the ghats or, even better, from a boat in the river. This was the view from a boat we took at dawn the first full day we spent in Varanasi, and I can't not give you a pic of that marvelous sunrise. Sunrises are always impressive (not that I've risen early enough to see that many of them over the years!) but Varanasi's particularly so, since Varanasi rises from the west bank of the Ganges, and on the east there's - nothing, the other world...

The next pictures are of the ghats seen at various times of the day and from various points of view - morning, afternoon, evening, and another morning. The stripes of color in the last one are sarees, stretched out over the massive steps of one of the ghats to dry.

I've dozens more pictures but none really captures the strange magic of that shore-city. (Pictures are not permitted, nor could I imagine wanting to take them, of the two burning ghats, where people are burned. I watched - didn't realize it was an hour and a half - one body reduced to ash, as half a dozen others were brought in, dipped in the Ganges, arranged on pyres, etc. No picture could but traduce the unutterable power of that process.) As a taste of the amazing and weird religious stuff that happens all Varanasi, here are some sadhus for you. In two rows, holding hands, these sadhus (many surprisingly young) are preparing for an early-morning parade to a temple known as the Golden Temple (and off limits to foreigners). If some of them appear to be wearing little more than ash and the occasional garland of marigolds, you're not wrong! The stars of the parade were their gurus, seen at right. Sadhus come from all walks of life; some perform tricks of meditation or contortion; some live in caves and forests, some chill out stoned on ganja weed in temples in Varanasi and let pilgrims feed them. Some have religious visions, some are escaping something, others have just opted out of normal social life (I suspect there are among their number ones who would understand themselves as gay in the US), but any one of them may have attained supernatural powers along the way. Better to get out of their way!

To close, a mystery picture. Any guesses what this is?

Riotous

Perhaps I'm a bit retrospectively traumatized by India because of what I'm reading. I'm just finishing Suketu Mehta's brilliant book about Mumbai, Maximum City: Bombay Lost & Found. Fearless Mehta hangs out with people who incited communal riots, asking them what it feels like to set someone on fire (but everyone seems to think more riots are coming, and bigger than last time) and then cozies up to gangster hit-men, while - with their enthusiastic support - relaying their stories to Bollywood directors, who need to make sure their country audiences are satisfied with every scene of a film lest that trash the cinema or have their friends set it on fire. Before that I read Amitav Ghosh's exquisite The Shadow Lines, which - SPOILER - describes with extraordinary layering of stories recalling earlier stories the consequences of a riot which nobody even remembers; what unites people on the subcontinent, Ghosh's narrator writes, is the knowledge that a riot might break out at any moment.

I guess I felt that danger on my way back to Delhi when my driver, incensed at being cut off in some particularly unpardonable way by the driver of a bus, blocked all the traffic on this main highway between Jaipur and Delhi and jumped out of the car, ready for a fistfight, as the bus driver and several conductors spilled out of the bus trapped behind us rolling up their sleeves (and I sat very quiet in the back of the car trying not to be noticed). I guess road rage is a worldwide phenomenon from which I'm shielded by living without a car, but the violent anger which suddenly erupted in a man who had seemed gentle and mild-mannered until that moment (and which kept simmering for another twenty minutes, as he hurled abuse at every other driver on the road before finally pulling over at a rest stop and disappearing into the bathroom for half an hour to cool off) was unlike anything I've ever seen. But perhaps the point is that rage, while seemingly unbounded and out of control, was expressed in a setting in which it could not actually spiral into real violence? It seems to me now - after my friend in Gurgaon told me "this sort of thing happens one journey out of three" - that the outburst was well staged, happening by design at a place where police were instantly on hand to force my driver back into the car before anyone actually came to blows, letting him vent his anger but avoid an actual brawl. This insight came much later; at the time I felt the driver'd nearly gotten me killed.

Or maybe India seems retrospectively seething with potential violence because of the way one of my gifts for my sister has backfired. I was so pleased with myself for having found picture books in English of just the length preferred by my 4-year-old nephew, Tales from Panchatantra - the source of perhaps half of all the children's books I saw, and one of the world's oldest collections of stories to boot. But, while intended for little children, these collections of animal stories turn out to be stories I'd not want any little child to hear, most involving the killing of foolish animals by shrewd ones, prey by predators, predators by prey. One story, "The ass has no brains," tells of a fox who persuades a foolish donkey that the lion wants to appoint him his minister, then, when the lion has killed the donkey, persuades him kings should bathe before eating, and eats the donkey's brains, a delicacy; when the king comes back and notices, the wily fox says "the ass has no brains, otherwise he wouldn't have come here!" In another, "The crab and the stork," a stork convinces the animals in a small pond shrinking with drought that he will take them to a bigger pond he knows, but of course simple flies somewhere and eats them - until the crab's his passenger, figures out what's going on, and bites the stork's head off.

I know, the Disneyfied view of a "circle of life" in which nobody actually ever gets harmed is a fantasy, and European fairy tales are full of horrors of their own, though wolves seem the only natural predators to warn children of. Besides, when the Panchatantra tales were first told 2500+ years ago - as political philosophy, statecraft for the sons of princes - predators were real dangers, and the fact of animals killing others was a part of life - as, indeed it still is, though citified people like me only see animals as pets and in the meat section of the supermarket. But still, tell these stories to children? If may be a fiction that different kinds of animals should be friends (and speak English), a representation of an ideally integrated diverse society. But I'd prefer that - even as a political philosophy! - to these machiavellian stories which depict a world of natural enemies who will kill you while pretending to be your friends if you don't kill them first or at least trick them into killing each other. Isn't this how to sow the seeds for communal riots from the youngest age?

Or am I just thinking like a 10-year old, as Americans supposedly do. Perhaps the achievement of Indian democracy is that riots don't break out more often than they do, even though there's every reason to fear them in a society of limited resources. Perhaps it's wiser to see social peace as an improbable achievement which will inevitably produce rumblings of dissent and threat (and requires encouragement and realistic expectations), rather than a natural state of affairs prevented only by exceptionally selfish and divisive people? Perhaps the latter is no less likely to generate riots, or internment camps?

Back in Oz, nearly

Not that you'd know it from the blog, but I have in fact been back in Melbourne for four days now. In the time I was away, the Gippsland fires were extinguished and the Qantas buyout approved, but David Hicks is still rotting in Guantanamo. Melbourne's been through the heat of high summer and settled back into school - universities started their academic year on Monday. Big blocks of dorms catering to foreign students which were still construction sites a month ago are now finished and inhabited. Bananas are affordable again, but lettuce seems more expensive. The food court at Southern Cross Station has opened, including a big open bar called, appropriately enough, Loco. Australian cricket has turned bottom up, losing five matches in a row to every comer, right after having won five of five glorious matches against England in "The Ashes" in December. And my nephews are heavier.

But India hasn't let me go. Each of the last three nights (my first night back I slept like a log for eleven hours) I've been waking every half hour into the wee hours, convinced that I am staying in some not-quite-secure place in India. In the half light my half-unpacked bags on Lygon Street, or the brick wall and dried plants outside my sister's guest room window (I came out to Shepparton yesterday) take on the shape of inscrutable nocturnal landscapes of indeterminate depth, from which someone might come in through the open door or window... Not that I had any experiences like that in India itself! "Sounds like post-traumatic stress," says my sister. It rather does, doesn't it!

India pics: Khajuraho

There's not much old Hindu architecture left in north India - the Mughals destroyed most - so Khajuraho was the place for me to discover the surging fountain- or mountain-like shikara roofs, the art nouveau-like ornament, and the wonderful harmony of the carved figures which undulate around them like a dance. Nobody quite knows what these temples (10th-12th century) are about. (Actually the one at right above is 19th century, an ecumenical gesture with spires supposed to look Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim.) Khajuraho's temples are most famous for the fact that some of their many carvings are erotic, but pictures of these carvings out of context decisively lose their meaning, whatever it is. This is not eros masquerading as numen, or trampling on it, and as the balanced busyness of lines of dancers and elephants coiling around the the temples while gods, divine beings, couples and sacred dragons arch and twist in bands above them show, it's something more profound than the numen masquerading as eros.

We saw the finest of Khujuraho's surviving temples (the Mughals destroyed many then seem to have forgotten about the rest) on a rainy day. This turned out to be a good thing, as crowds were limited (this is a big tourist destination, and for more kinds of tourists than one may wish to ponder). Also it seems the sculptures are more beautiful in the rain - you can see them better with the stone darkened by moisture, the fugures not seared by sun and shadow.

I'll leave you to stroll among the temples as we did. Notice that in most cases the columns of carved human and divine figures are separated by recessed carvings of various kinds of dragons. (One picture is a bit salacious, though I find it's rather more funny than titillating.) Remember that you can expand each picture by clicking on it.

India pics: Orchha

And now it's Orchha's turn. (I need to get these out of my system before I forget, or they take over my life!) Orchha was the place where the Bundela kings, after getting booted out of one capital after another, went on a building spree in the 18th century, churning out palaces and temples in amazing profusion. Who actually built them, I wonder? There's nobody left: it's a little town, just a few thousand. And just discovered by tourism ... after we went on to crassly touristified Khajuraho we saw in retrospect that Orchha's on the brink: like untouched Chanderi five years ago, it may teem with predatory touts like Khajuraho in another five.

In order you see:

• the cenotaphs of the Bundela kings (across the Betwa)

• the inside of the Jahangir Mahal (built by the Hindu Bundela king for the Mughal emperor and used for exactly one day)

• the view up toward the deliciously forlorn Lakshmi temple and three scenes of frescoes there (the latter two of battle formations from 17th and, er, 19th centuries)

• the cenotaphs again (we were staying just beneath them)

• a view from the Jahangir Mahal in the other direction, showing a landscape littered with temples

• objects for pilgrims

• another view from the Jahangir Mahal, this one showing a huge monastery-like temple in whose niches brahmins used to sit and chant "om" every morning - surroundsound avant la lettre

• and, finally, one of the frescoes - restored - inside the Jahangir Mahal, the colors somewhat distorted for lack of natural light.

Orchha was, in the end, perhaps my favorite place we went - not that one could possibly top the Taj, or the ghats in Varanasi, etc., and the whole point is to have been many places. But as a place where you could be left on your own to explore, full of impressive and as yet unspoiled wonders, it was lovely.

India pics: A turn in the country

I spent way too much time yesterday fiddling with the formatting of my post, trying to frame pictures in exactly two lines of text, etc., which is entirely pointless: unless you're using a Mac and Mozilla Firefox, the formatting will turn out differently anyway! So here, all in one go, are some pictures from the area around Chanderi, the charming forgotten town we went to recuperate from Agra, and some scenes from along the Ken River, too (punctuated with grey and red granite at left). You'll find a potter and his family - prehistoric rock paintings - a family of fishermen on a lake surrounded by the green-yellow fields of mustard-dusted wheat we saw shining in irrigated areas everywhere - two crocodiles (not at that same lake as the fishermen) - a trio of birds, including a kingfisher - a stork - a treeful of plum-headed parrots - some 13th century Jain cliff carvings - a langur (a kind of monkey) - a view of Chanderi from the ruins of its fortress - the weird welcome gate of 16th century Chanderi - a scene of one of Chanderi's Friday mosque - a woodland scene (notice that the greenest part has legs) - and a view of one of the many weddings we passed (February being particularly auspicious for weddings)...

India pics: Filled up

Back in Melbourne a day and I still don't know what hit me. In my head catchy Bollywood melodies jangle with memories of temples and towns and rickshaws and rivers and deserts and children and holy men and animals and food and books and flowers and birds ... I feel so saturated with experiences I'm put in mind of the old method of packing as many stones as you can into a container: fill it with big ones first, shaking well; then add smaller ones, which will fill the spaces between the big ones, shaking well; then add smaller still, and so on, and so on. You'll end up close to solid rock.

Maybe I feel so thoroughly filled because, unlike any other place I've been, India has pushed, blurred and in general called in question my bodily boundaries. I'm not referring to getting "Delhi belly" - though having to be constantly vigilant about what's been touched by water, not a friend but an enemy, is certainly part of it - but to things like people grabbing your hands, or coming up to you with red paste on their thumbs making a blessed billboard of your forehead (which seemed to me a terrible violation)...

In any case, here are some more pics. I briefly considered doing thematic postings - animals, temples, calligraphy, etc. - but that would require surveying and sorting the 1100+ photos all at once, which is more than I can imagine doing right now, and probably would make things seem falsely coherent. Instead, I'll follow the route of my travels and try to include big things and small. Today's selection leads to and through Agra, our first stop after Delhi and home of the greatest monuments of Mughal India. The three clustered here are still from Delhi. The first is a picture of an alley in the Old City of Delhi - relatively people-free since it's Sunday. Notice the happy man carrying his tiffin box. The next is of the Jama Masjid in Delhi, largest mosque in India, and the work of the same Moghul emperor responsible for the Taj Mahal. The third shows the platform from which our early morning train to Agra departed.

These two pictures show details from Agra Fort: sandstone carvings on the wall of the palace built for a Hindu princess, on whose gorgeously carved wall (click the picture to see details!) intricate geometrical Muslim patterns try to contain the aesthetic traditions of India. While they are only pretend windows, the charms of the figural seem to be welling up from inside them anyway - and ... overflowing! The floral's accepted as a compromise inside a pavilion for the queen, whose exquisite stonework makes that of the Taj seems crude by comparison (feel free to click this one too!). And then we come to the Taj Mahal, which really truly is not just in a category of its own but beyond category. It seems simply perverse to try to discover a new angle on it. Here it is as seen from the Fort, across the Yamuna (or Jumna) river - the sacred river which meets the Ganges at Allahabad, site of India's biggest pilgrimage. During and after the monsoon I imagine the river would have filled up the whole scrubby riverbed you see here.

Now three pictures of the Taj Mahal from up close. The first is a view across the back side of the high marble platform on which the tomb itself sits, with one of the four minarets and the side-dome of one of the two red and white mosques which flank the tomb. These two little sandstone and marble mosques (actually only one is a mosque and neither is little) are wonders in their own right. Each has a white marble dome like the central tomb's. You can see one of them in the foreground of the picture of the Taj from Agra Fort above. Below is the façade of the other one - the three friends in the doorway show just what grand edifices these are, too! The picture below it is of the tomb itself - notice that the inlaywork flowers are similar to those on the mosque next door, and the Quranic verses which - besides the repeated dome shapes, concave and convex and outlined and the chevron patterns with sometimes inconsistent coloration - form the only ornament of the building. The text, incidentally, is a whole sura describing the throne of God, which suggests to some that with this building the emperor was doing more than just memorializing the mother of his heir; its unprecedented placement off the center of the garden also suggests that his deeper intention was to suggest an analogy of imperial and divine power.

And now I simply must show you the Taj the way you've seen it a thousand times, but it's the way it means to be seen. (You can just make out the domes of the mosque and its twin behind the trees.) Even in the fading light of dusk it draws in the sky above, the world below, and through the stunning symmetry gathers together everything on earth all around. Imperious indeed!

To close, let me explain the picture I started with. It's from the day after we left Agra's troubling mix of architectural purity and urban squalor - the exhilarating view across the vast lake created by the damming of the river Betwa in Madhya Pradesh. The almost ten-mile dam inundated eight-four villages. Look very closely and you'll see some black dots in the distance on the right. They are the tips of the towers of a fortress above one of these towns, visible only in winter. When the monsoon raises the water level back to the red/white line they disappear again.