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News from India 4 (shorter than the last one!)
The last monstrous email was sent over a month ago now, so I’ve gathered together my scraps of paper and notebooks and photos and things to try and piece together something of these last few weeks in Delhi. In a couple of days, Kaspalita is coming from England to join the project, and I will be leaving to go see some more of India. I’m hoping to get to Sanchi, Ajanta and maybe Allahbad before going to a retreat in Bodh Gaya, seeing a bit of Varanasi maybe, then heading up to McLeod Ganj to attend a talk by the Dalai Lama :) I don’t actually have anything booked yet, so this vague plan may turn out quite differently! After northern-India, I’m heading to Nepal, and then East: Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam look amazing, though I’m also drawn to the idea of sitting in a beach hut for a few weeks somewhere in Malaysia/Indonesia... I’ll see what happens. Of course I have nothing booked for this yet either. Flights I’ll get nearer the time, and visas I can apparently pick up as I go along. Ah, the possibilities! The big plan is to get to Australasia after this, get a job and save up to travel round there/return to Asia/keep heading east through to the Americas... I would welcome any travellers’ stories anyone has!
As the last one was crazy-long, I’m going to keep this newsletter short (it’s not even 2 pages!). Please email me if you’d like me to elaborate on anything!
The new classes I mentioned in the previous newsletter have worked out really well. The Buddhist side of the teaching has really flourished: we have done meditation, chanting, dharma talks, stories, colouring, drawing and acting. The last couple of weeks especially everyone has wanted to feed us all the time, which has resulted in some very full tummies!
I’ve done a bit more sightseeing (went back to the craft museum: wonderful place!), in Delhi and also in Agra. I took a couple of days to go see the Taj. It really is amazing. Dreamy. I went at dawn and was so glad I made the effort. If you’re short on cash I’d recommend grabbing a rikshaw and heading over the river where you can get a good close-up view for free (you can also do this at the full moon and avoid the even pricier tickets) as the ticket is 750 rs- which is about a tenner (quite a lot for here). I met lots of travellers in Agra and through their encouragement - and that of my wonderful parents - I made my plans to extend my fancy-free, England-less life for a while.
I went to a retreat in south-Delhi for five days at the end of January. It was run by TBMSG which I think is related to FWBO. Subhuti (main speaker) was very inspiring. We did a lot of meditation (got up at 5.30!), and I ate nothing but curry! I felt really welcomed by the other women there in particular, and learned a lot about Buddhism, about Buddhism in India, and about myself. I met a lovely girl at the retreat called Manisha, who I met up with again to go around the National Museum last week :-)
Random things I’ve gleaned from my scribbles:
“Yesterday [25th Jan] I saw a leggy black stallion at a traffic light in the midst of four lanes of packed traffic, a boy – bareback but for a blanket – whipped him into a gallop at the green light and kept up with cycles & motorbikes taking off round the bend. This is an odd city.”
“The dust floats & settles over everything, women in saris carrying building materials, the tar men, rickshaws, white shoes and jeans, smart trousers and fuzzy jumpers. The earth blows all around, clinging to your pores, your eyelashes, clogging your nose and throat. There is grit on my teeth and my bogeys are black.”
“The life of Loni road! The things I see almost every day. Temple, rich house and poor house, all are bathed in dust and blasted by horns. The fruit market stretches on through this madness, shiny ribbons in bows adorn baskets, mountains of oranges and the fresh flesh of pomegranates spill out. Cages of the most dejected and manky looking chickens are strapped to bicycles or piled up by the roadside. The stench of their resigned sadness mingles with the whipped buffalo, cows and horses dragging hefty carts along the poor potholed road. Musicians pushing a decorated cart of horns and speakers in full uniform, their white plumed hats less than dazzling. Camels sit or stand in their easy way, or wander determinedly out into the road from the camel-caravanserai. Women in groups cross the road and pile into roadtrains, pulling children along with them and holding the ends of their saris over their hair and faces against the dust. Always the dust, everywhere. Men stand outside their shops with hosepipes, watering the road to keep the dust down. Uniformity is observed, each cart of cement carefully smoothed into a trapezium piled high above the sides of the trailer, the shovel placed identically in each one - the magnificently decorated trucks following the same patterns. Eagles overhead are massive, the monkeys I saw today were long legged. Horses are shoed, dogs chase everything. Jams and breakdowns are a daily occurrence, and an eerie quietness falls when they’re not there, or when the horns pause for a moment. Shortcuts away from the hefty traffic take us into really poor areas, where the river hardly flows, though Simlal our rikshaw rider never gets lost. There is a collection of tent dwellings near gol cha kar where metalworkers are. Weddings and barats process and cars and bikes and autos and carts and rickshaws swerve everywhere and drive anywhere they can. This main trunk road from the UP is being repaired, so one side is often closed, or just too potholed or covered in rocks to be passable. The excavators work all day and into the night, tearing half the road up, their tracks at an impossible, terribly unsafe angle. There is tinsel on the diggers.”
Well, goodbye for now- and goodbye to Delhi! Fir Milengi (see you later)!
Sophie
As the last one was crazy-long, I’m going to keep this newsletter short (it’s not even 2 pages!). Please email me if you’d like me to elaborate on anything!
The new classes I mentioned in the previous newsletter have worked out really well. The Buddhist side of the teaching has really flourished: we have done meditation, chanting, dharma talks, stories, colouring, drawing and acting. The last couple of weeks especially everyone has wanted to feed us all the time, which has resulted in some very full tummies!
I’ve done a bit more sightseeing (went back to the craft museum: wonderful place!), in Delhi and also in Agra. I took a couple of days to go see the Taj. It really is amazing. Dreamy. I went at dawn and was so glad I made the effort. If you’re short on cash I’d recommend grabbing a rikshaw and heading over the river where you can get a good close-up view for free (you can also do this at the full moon and avoid the even pricier tickets) as the ticket is 750 rs- which is about a tenner (quite a lot for here). I met lots of travellers in Agra and through their encouragement - and that of my wonderful parents - I made my plans to extend my fancy-free, England-less life for a while.
I went to a retreat in south-Delhi for five days at the end of January. It was run by TBMSG which I think is related to FWBO. Subhuti (main speaker) was very inspiring. We did a lot of meditation (got up at 5.30!), and I ate nothing but curry! I felt really welcomed by the other women there in particular, and learned a lot about Buddhism, about Buddhism in India, and about myself. I met a lovely girl at the retreat called Manisha, who I met up with again to go around the National Museum last week :-)
Random things I’ve gleaned from my scribbles:
“Yesterday [25th Jan] I saw a leggy black stallion at a traffic light in the midst of four lanes of packed traffic, a boy – bareback but for a blanket – whipped him into a gallop at the green light and kept up with cycles & motorbikes taking off round the bend. This is an odd city.”
“The dust floats & settles over everything, women in saris carrying building materials, the tar men, rickshaws, white shoes and jeans, smart trousers and fuzzy jumpers. The earth blows all around, clinging to your pores, your eyelashes, clogging your nose and throat. There is grit on my teeth and my bogeys are black.”
“The life of Loni road! The things I see almost every day. Temple, rich house and poor house, all are bathed in dust and blasted by horns. The fruit market stretches on through this madness, shiny ribbons in bows adorn baskets, mountains of oranges and the fresh flesh of pomegranates spill out. Cages of the most dejected and manky looking chickens are strapped to bicycles or piled up by the roadside. The stench of their resigned sadness mingles with the whipped buffalo, cows and horses dragging hefty carts along the poor potholed road. Musicians pushing a decorated cart of horns and speakers in full uniform, their white plumed hats less than dazzling. Camels sit or stand in their easy way, or wander determinedly out into the road from the camel-caravanserai. Women in groups cross the road and pile into roadtrains, pulling children along with them and holding the ends of their saris over their hair and faces against the dust. Always the dust, everywhere. Men stand outside their shops with hosepipes, watering the road to keep the dust down. Uniformity is observed, each cart of cement carefully smoothed into a trapezium piled high above the sides of the trailer, the shovel placed identically in each one - the magnificently decorated trucks following the same patterns. Eagles overhead are massive, the monkeys I saw today were long legged. Horses are shoed, dogs chase everything. Jams and breakdowns are a daily occurrence, and an eerie quietness falls when they’re not there, or when the horns pause for a moment. Shortcuts away from the hefty traffic take us into really poor areas, where the river hardly flows, though Simlal our rikshaw rider never gets lost. There is a collection of tent dwellings near gol cha kar where metalworkers are. Weddings and barats process and cars and bikes and autos and carts and rickshaws swerve everywhere and drive anywhere they can. This main trunk road from the UP is being repaired, so one side is often closed, or just too potholed or covered in rocks to be passable. The excavators work all day and into the night, tearing half the road up, their tracks at an impossible, terribly unsafe angle. There is tinsel on the diggers.”
Well, goodbye for now- and goodbye to Delhi! Fir Milengi (see you later)!
Sophie
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Comment by Kaspalita on February 17, 2009 at 11:38pm - See you soon!
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