Udaipur - Day One

“Family Trip-once a year” could not take off in 2008 due to various factors, prime factor being repeated terror attacks. Mumbai was also on our list but the plan was abandoned and again Rajasthan, owing to its proximity, became our destination. We had missed udaipur in 2006 and so udaipur it was this time. Bala consulted the tourist bible “Lonely Planet” and framed a suitable and flexible itinerary from 19th to 22 february.

However, owing to folks getting sick, we were never sure as to whether tour would take off and no official word came from my doctor aunt approving the tour. Bala and I presumed that silence is acceptance. The official word came on the 17th, a day before we were to board the train, that we were indeed going. Grandma was entrusted to the care of my Uncles. The mewar express connected delhi and udaipur. I descended at the station from my office and others came in batches.

The train was shunted in at platform no. 7 and I and my mom first boarded the compartment and pushed the luggage comfortably. The rest trudged in and my doctor aunt heaved a sign of relief and said, “finally we have made it”. Some chit-chat continued regarding my job offer at mumbai which certainly put my mind off. I postponed the issue and me and bala sat down, armed with lonely planet, to finalize the itinerary as mewar express rolled out 15 minutes late. My mom also a had a book which listed many other places near udaipur and emerged lord Srinath of nathdwara and suddenly the tour became a temple tour. Me and bala debated chittorgarh versus jaisamand and left the issue undecided. Meanwhile another issue cropped up; bala had arranged for car at Rs. 1100/- per day using some jugaad and my doctor aunt debated on the merits of availing the car on all the days. Rs. 1100/- was very cheap and it was decided to avail the car. Things finally settled and temples were earmarked for the day one. One obstacle remained to be met; the ticket checker. Not that we were ticket-less but bala, to get lower berth, had made up my dad’s age 60 instead of 58. And my dad was in full mood to blurt out the truth and pay the difference amount. One thing that worked to our advantage was that our seats were split, three at one end of the coach and three at the other end. However, the tt did not even went into the details and contended himself by checking the id of bala.

Folks went on tea-drinking spree and I learnt that dinner would be served. My mom had made pooris, chapattis and tomato chutney and my aunt had packed curd rice. And I received a dose from my mom for informing her earlier that there was no pantry car. Anyways, we gobbled down the food. Mathura peda was served for sweet and then the prasadam followed in the form of various medicines for cold and cough. Seat allotment followed; I am sure the political parties do it quicker.

Bala and me settled at his upper berth for some chit-chat. And it was a long chit-chat till 1 am. We went down our memory lane; 2008 trips, 2006 trip of rajasthan and 2007 trip of maharashtra. And then we touched upon the topic of marriage, arranged marriage vis-à-vis love, scarcity of iyengar girls, how and where to find them in delhi, how to decide whether she is the one, time frame required to find out. Apparently bala is at number three, listed behind aswin and myself. But given aswin’s struggle, bala is a confused lot. Both aswin and bala want to spend some time to assess as to whether the girl being selected is the right one which time is not given in typical iyengarish encounter; once you are comfortable with education, family background, horrors matching and of course the appearance (which comes first in the list), then follows brief chit-chat and then the doom’s day. We debated objective and subjective criteria. A lot more was discussed…about his dream girl qualities-elegant like ‘Rock On’ heroine prachi desai, yet simple again like prachi…and yet be a trophy wife and intelligent as well.

The train arrived at udaipur almost 1 hour late. We hopped down and gunned for the kapi (coffee). Folks caw cawing for coffee was going to be a highlight. The marshall jeep was waiting for us with its driver roshan. Cutting across small by-lanes, we arrived at our hotel dreams heaven (courtesy lonely planet). Narrow and maze of stairs and arrows greeted us and we slowly trekked up to the roof-top to have our breakfast and another round of coffee. The roof-top offered us a great view of the lake or rather the dirty water and row of buildings. We were the only Indian population at the roof-top as I gazed at cigarette smoking firangs. My mon soon found out that the kitchen was not total vegetarian and the elders had the paranthas with some reservation and decided not to have breakfast at the roof-top. The rooms were allotted and we had our bath and trudged out.

A quick photo session with the marshall and we were on our way to nathdwara which is around 50 kms from udaipur. The first stop was the jain temple of shantinath (adbhutji mandir). A few steps and we had a quick darshan of the deity and did a quick photo shoot. The next stop was the saas bahu mandir, a five minutes drive from jain temple. This was supposed to be a vishnu temple, however, there were no deities in the sanctum and all that remained was the beautiful structure. The next stop was ekling ji-shiva temple. We had a very good darshan and the temple complex also has more than 100 deties. The next stop was nathdwara. We reached there around 3 pm and decided to have our lunch first. We chose lakshmi vilas, a small hotel and gunned for idlis and dosas. Then followed a round of coffee, chai for bala and I gladly skipped this session. Around 3:45 we were left in through the main gate and soon we were approached by touts for special darshan. We had to stand amidst unorganized mob and as soon as the doors opened, the crowd went berserk and we were swept into the main room where we had darshan of lord srinath. It was more of pushing and jostling inside amidst chants of srinath. We were keen to get away from the maddening crowd and we succeeded in getting away only after we received more incoming pushes. At another section, the priest dressed in parsee fashion administered a towel beatings to the devotees; a practice alien to hindu sect. I was not impressed with the crowd management and at a different level, I was not satisfied with the visit when I compare the ambience of the temple with srirangam. The temple structure in no way resembled a typical hindu structure; the color scheme, paintings, drawings depicting English soldiers etc. only suggests parsee/Iranian influence. Story goes that lord srinath was brought over to this place from mathura fearing persecution at the hands of aurangzeb. It seems sanctuary to the lord was given by some parsee/iranian so as to not to attract the moguls attention and thus practices from different culture have merged in daily worship scheme. I see no harm in this but in the end the crowd management put me off. A google search shows that pushthimarga sampradaya established by jagatguru vallabhacharya is followed. Subsequently my mom informed me that deity being kutti krishnar (Krishna as a child), the gates opened and closed every 15 minutes.


(At nathdwara)

(At saas bahu temple)

(At saas bahu temple)

(At jain temple)

With this, the temple section was over and we set out to haldighati where the battle between akbar’s force lead by man singh and rana pratap assisted by hakim khan took place. Chetak, the horse of maha rana emerged as the warrior since chetak, grievously injured, managed to save rana pratap by covering over 5 kms distance and jumping over a canal/river. Eventually the horse died and rana pratap moved by chetak’s courage resolved to lead simple life. The narrow road to haldighati is very picturesque, with ups and downs. Ours was the sole vehicle traveling on the road and even at the haldighati museum, there were few Indian tourists. Sound and light show and a small documentary on rana pratap was shown. Definitely a place to be. More about the war, click http://www.indhistory.com/haldighati.html


(At haldighati)
(At haldighati)



From haldighati, we dashed back to udaipur’s bagore ki haveli just in time for cultural dance named darohar (one hour program) showcasing different rajasthani dances like ghoomer etc. The best was the puppet show. The audience consisted of mainly foreigners. While showing the pics at home, my doctor aunt pulled our legs saying, “where are the dance pics? Both of you had gone to the front row to shoot the video. I know you had gone to sit besides the foreign female.” I answered back, “oh come on! She was an old lady. The best were on the opposite side.” Truly I saw some pretty faces in different attires. But the best was to come …

As far as dinner was concerned, combination of sickness, weariness, eating joints based at roof-tops catering non-veg too and use of mustard oil made us order rice and curd. Being a typical curd-rice case, I ought not to complain.

Patna – gandhi setu & dolphin

We wrapped up the arbitration proceeding within couple of hours and I was on my way to the gandhi setu linking patna and hajipur over river ganges. A shared auto dropped me at the site. The bridge, around 5.6 kms was considered as longest bridge in the world over a river. After ten minutes of gazing and clicking, I had the chance of spotting the fast disappearing gangetic dolphin (Platanista gangetica). Only last month the gangetic dolphin was declared as national aquatic animal in the first meeting of National Ganga River Basin Authority since a cleaner ganga will ensure return of the species. I had around seven to eight spotting of the dolphin, which I could not capture in my camera owing to battery failure. Folks in patna had told me that dolphins are myth and I was indeed lucky to spot them but luck deserted me when it came to capture them through the camera lens. Indeed we humans as a race are greedy, all the time seeking to capture but nature humbles us and I returned to my hotel with dolphins etched in my mind.

Domestic fights and mahabharata

Rajaji’s mahabharata happens to be mine favorite read. My first exposure to the mega story was through b.r. chopra’s efforts and the characters left an indelible impression upon me. Nitish bharadwaj as krishna and mukesh khanna as bhisma definitely stood out in terms of screen presence and acting.

Rajaji’s version was gifted to my mother by a friend of hers and since then I have devoured the book, wholly and selectively, many a times. In its 328 pages lies several unknown and untold stories overlapping the main story; all written in a neat and concise manner. The epic has everything to offer, from morality to lust and victory of good over bad, masala for successful cinema. I wonder if the film industry has adopted the story in parts. No wonder someone is thinking of taking the story to multiplexes – to be released in two parts. I can go endlessly…. about the characters, my favorites, the truelies, etc. But I refrain from doing so for I have a short tale to tell in which rajaji’s mahabharata plays a muted role.

Like every grandmother, my aunt was summoned for IAS duty by my cousin to amerigo. No prizes for guessing – I.A.S. stands for Indian Aaya Service. This was not her first stint. We camped at her house to help her pack things; my dad’s quite an expert in bundling things especially spices and other food items. Just before leaving she instructed me, “just send rajaji’s ramayana and mahabharata through another cousin. I would like to narrate the stories to the kids there” and I promised to do so and did so. The books also followed her and I assumed that the kids would be enjoying the story telling for my aunt is a great story teller, has a fertile brain to add mirch and masalas and expressions and gesticulations lend credibility to the story.

The six-month imprisonment ended and she flew back to India. In the monthly family head-rolling meeting, on enquiry, she revealed that the kids evinced no interest in mahabharta for they were only interested in trucks and other concrete things. “Oh!”, she lamented, “I have left the mahabharata there itself”. I asked, “so what? P may narrate the story”. She gave her infectious smiles and said, “I will tell you the main story now….”. A short and hilarious story followed.

Each family has its own idiosyncrasy, a kind of unwritten code; in mine, motor bikes are not allowed for my grandpa’s brother rebelled against him, bought a bike and sent him a picture posing next to the bike and he eventually perished while trying to jump over railway crossing rope. In D athimber’s family prevails a comic code; mere possession of rajaji’s mahabharata is seen as the reason for domestic quarrel between the spouses. Apparently they had one rajaji’s mahabharata earlier too at their home and like any couple, they fought hard. Then someone advised them to dispose off the book as it had the tendency to provoke fights between spouses. They tried hard, D athimber even tried to pass on the book to his elder brother, but he being aware of the ill-effect refused. And finally the book was handed over to his parents and it now lies amidst cobwebs and dust.

And some peace prevailed or perhaps a mirage until the books sent by me reached them. And my aunt bemoaned, “Oh! I have left the book there. I had promised them that I would bring the book with me…”. And I could sense guilt in her voice.

lal bahadur shastri

As I flipped the pages of times of india, tribute to gandhi repeatedly greeted me everywhere and in one corner of the page I saw tribute to lal bahadur shahtri and I came to know that 2nd october also happens to be the birthday of shastri. Even the politicians were shown visiting raj ghat and not vijay ghat; gandhi literally eclipsed shashtri. But I was glad to watch a documentray on shahstri in dd national.

Why shastri’s tenure as prime minister for about 20 months stands out? Shastri was able to bring about a sense of unity amongst the country men, face and lead successfully through the pakistan war and pave way for green and white revolution.

The syndicate led by kamaraj chose shastri over moraji sensing shastri to be rather timid and pliant; puppet government was the idea. However, the new incumbent amongst other initiatives dropped moraji form the cabinet and gave indira the useless information & broadcasting portfolio and the latter avenged by barring shastri entry into teen murti by having it declared as memorial to nehru. Indeed, delhi houses many such memorials!

The kutch conflict with pakistan served as an eye-opener to the shastri government and operation gibraltar and grand slam by pakistan to capture j&k and akhnur bridge were successfully thwarted. Here, shastri scored over nehru for sharsti was decisive and took full measures to see India emerge as victorious. Shashtri came out with the famous slogan, “jai jawan, jai kisan”, recognising the contributions of soldier and farmers.

Concerned about the food and drought situation, shastri appointed an able administrator, c.subramanium as minister for food and agriculture and thus came along high yielding varieties of seeds, application of fertilizers and attainment of self-sufficiency in food grains.

Many would have doubted shastri’s ability to run the country and the nehru’s long rule brought in the comparison factor. I am sure if shastri had continued for another term, india would have progressed leaps and bounds in each field for he was a statesman and not a run on the mill politician who is ever hungry for kursee. The resignation over the ariyalur rail accident by shastri speaks about the morality of the man and indeed, “only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life” – Einstein.

eid and kawar

This piece was written last year.

Grudgingly I left for my office on 9th December for it ought to have been a holiday since it was Eid. It is high time that holidays for festivals and jayanthis be brought under the purview of fundamental rights. Reduction in human and vehicular traffic could be noticed but Gurgaon, being infested by mnc’s, was as usual. Lap one of my journey was as usual spent listening to chants and dozing off. In the lap 2, which is in the rickety dtc, I again tried to sleep for speeding qualis, sedan’s carrying air-hostess’s and planes touching the tarmac no longer motivate me to gaze outside the window. Lap 3 is where I encountered the rush and jam. From the jam-packed auto I could see vehicles being shooed away from the NH into the service lane. “Wow! The NH is being cleared for some poli-tic-ian and his cavalcade”, I thought and started cursing the whole breed; the breed which barges in uninvited and whines when shooed away. The autowallah asked us to disembark midway. A few paces took me to a constable and on enquiry I came to know that traffic had been stopped for Eid celebration. Nonplussed, I carried on further and I could see a slice of the truth. Soon beggars greeted me and kids pressed into me, few more paces I could see the side-lane near to the local mosque being fully occupied by men wearing white kufie caps, settled on mats, row after row. I soon reached the end of the fly-over and a peep revealed that the gradient (both sides) was occupied by battalion of men in their kufie; all set to offer special prayers.

Why, when, where and many question about this festival can be found out using google. This link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_ul-Fitr also provides some information as to how Eid is celebrated worldwide. I had always wanted to visit jama masjid and capture the praying shot. And here I was before a much larger gathering, filling 2 service lanes and the rajeev chowk flyover. I missed my digital camera but nevertheless the phone came handy. A voice crackled through the loudspeaker foisted over the lamp post and went on lecturing about Islam, its meaning, worldwide status of muslims, education and dereliction to offer namaz as kids with begging bowls played on the NH and beggars lay revealing doctored wounds.

Traffic had been completely stopped, from which point, I do not know. But there would have been a huge pile up for the whole affair lasted from 8:30 to 11 am. And no attempt was being made to hasten up the process. Police stood by doing what they do the best chatting and yielding their sticks. The sermon dragged on and the actual namaz lasted only for 10 minutes; a visual treat, how the men bend and raise in unison calling allahu akbar. The assembling, lecture and dispersal took more time than the prayer.

I was waiting anxiously with couple of bhelpuri wallas for the finale. I wanted to see men hugging and wishing eid mubarak which is called musafa (I think) just as in bollywood films. However to my disappointment, I could only see couple of hugs and the men started walking back to their homes as the preacher repeatedly pleaded for musafas. And I too slowly walked back to the auto stand and reached office at 11:30.

This year too traffic was stopped on the national highway for atleast 3 hours and one can imagine the pile up of traffic. Luckily, I reached only an hour late. And this time the times of india carried an amazing pic of namazis occupying the entire rajiv chowk flyover with comments on resulting traffic jams.

Yet another kind of fanaticism is seen when kawarias throng on the road and the state governments make special arrangements for them, reserving a part of the lane for their smooth travel and also closing the highway leading to haridwar and offices. Often, these kawarias indulge in wanton destruction of vehicles and sorrounding fields if per chance a kawarian is killed or water carried by him is spilled. A new variant is also seen these days, the relay kawari, kawaris in bikes and trucks, each runing with ganga for certain distance with loud music. More hooliganism and traffic is seen. It has become more of a show business rather than professing of faith.

Unfortunately, vote politics and appeasement policy has lead to pampering of such practices. Decades ago, when gandhi supported the khilafat agitation, jinnah had warned, "that it was crime to mix up politics and religion..". Wise words...anybody listening?

To Patna

“abey bihari” – happen to be the starters for the ensuing tantrums for most delhites if a cyclewallah or rickshawallay or autowallah whimsically changes lane or refuses to budge on delhi roads. The “me mumbaikar” campaign targeted biharis working in mumbai – the doodhwallah and taxiwallah and there was huge hue and cry in media. This spite against non-mumbaikars runs deep in the sena family. Back in lack 60’s the cartoonist’s party had raised tirade against the madrasis, again on the same ground that madrasis were usurping jobs in then bombay. Quite an insecure lots these senas! I have always found folks hailing from bihar to be honest and hardworking (interactions with delhi autowallahs). Most of them have lands in bihar and family cultivates the land while they are busy here. In two to three cases, son or brother was in software company or was preparing for ias exam. Each was of the opinion that politicians had ruined the state. Indeed an austere looking man had swallowed crores of simple fodder and more austere looking wife ran the show. The man (jayaprakash narayan) who had started the bihar movement to fight corruption and mis-governance would have hung himself out of shame seeing bihar’s condition.

Students from bihar folk to delhi university dreaming to clear the ias examination. They do not stop at ias examination but also appear in bank po exam and various military exams. One of my batch mate at law fac, rahul mishra, had managed to clear crpf exam and was mighty pleased with his performance; for now he had a value in bihar marriage market which could off-set the dowry given in his sisters marriage. Unfortunately, while returning from drinks party late night, he got killed in a car accident.

It was a one day trip to patna – the land of lallu, the land of biharis. Although I had a very limited time on hand, I was all-eager to explore the place. I reached new delhi railway station well before time and I was glad for reaching early. It rained cats and dogs and I feared that train would be cancelled. Later on I came to know that the rain had severely damaged roofing work at delhi airport. I was on platform 16-newly added platform and just next to vip parking. Soon a strange thing caught my eye; folks were queuing up next to a thick rope stretching across 3 pillars under the supervision of delhi police and soon the line went long. Discipline and delhi are like banks of a river; I enquired from the policeman on duty and came to know that the line was for getting into the unreserved compartment. Indeed, some reforms introduced. I again saw a similar line further ahead, just around ac 2-tier compartment.

The sampoornakranti arrived and I boarded my compartment; the rainwater had seeped in and had formed tributary and distributaries. Just as I settled, came up a chap and informed me that the said seat had been allotted to him. I calmly said, “we’ll clear when the checker comes” but I was ruffled at the thought of being pushed to 3-tier. This usually happens to folks traveling in ac first, in order to accommodate some influential. But, being a patna bound train, I did not rule out “pulling out strings” for ac two seat. I rushed out to see the chart and my name was there. I saw the checker standing and enquired with him and he informed me that I had been upgraded to ac one compartment free of cost. I was elated; I always wanted to travel first class ac and here was I by sheer chance in a coupe and the second chap never showed up. I enjoyed the setting sun from the tinted glass along with lays chips. Throughout the journey, peculiar stations showed up prefixed with ‘halts’ like v.v.giri halt and google later showed me that these were illegal stations built by villagers and they also forced the trains to halt there.

The train was late by couple of hours and the minute I stepped out of the station, a panditji with holy water greeted me and asked for “shani ka daan”, it being Saturday and I was amused. Only steel cans decked with black cloth do the rounds in delhi on Saturday with the slogan, “shani ka daan, maha kalyan”. I checked in and had my lunch around 11’ish. I took rickshaw to reach my destination and around 1 I wrapped up the briefing session with the advocate. I had couple of hours before the meeting with judge and I had plans to visit the ghol ghar and ganga ghat. 15 minutes of rickshaw travel took me to the ghol ghar which used to be a granary. A series of small steep steps reveals river ganga, patna city and patna-hajipur gandhi setu. I, in my enthusiasm, climbed the steps too fast and when I reached the top, my head spinned and I went out of breath. Before I collapsed, I managed to click couple of shots of river ganga. It was only after five to seven minutes that I regained my form with my possessions intact. I had to shelve the visit to ganga visit for the while and went back to my hotel for a glass of fresh lime water.

I had couple of hours after the arbitration matter

(Patna Railway Station)

and roamed around the gandhi maidan area clicking the nalanda university building and various statues. Thankfully, the return journey was all smooth and rajdhani arrived almost on time. Although, dad had warned me not to venture to take photos standing besides the door, the approaching yamuna bridge provoked me to do so and I clicked some photos of river yamuna with humanyun’s tomb and the shanti stupa in the background.

bigamy

All these year I foolishly entertained the notion that muslim men indulged in bigamy for they have the backing of their personal law. The muslim personal law allows men to have more than one wife only during war time or women out-numbering men. I was taken aback when I read sunday toi that hindu men accounted for 5.8% of all bigamous marriage while muslim men accounted for only 5.6%. Now, it needs no explanation as to who is in majority. I received further shock when I read that this practice is higher in south india's hindu upper class.

The problem rises above religion and thus, need not be given religious shade but is of "male-dominance" and this underlying motive has moulded the interpretation of our scriptures and side-lined women by labelling her as 'naari' i.e. "do not try your hand at anything". Having said this, polyandry is also noticed in our social fabric and so is 'swinging'. Viewing from male and female perspective, the question is of morality versus individual freedom and add the concept of live-in relationship.

Eventually these things may work fine socially but when law steps in, the effect would be pinching.