From Jaipur to Agra

Today has been a long day and it isn’t over yet.  I am sitting on the bus at 8 pm while some of our group go shopping.  We have not yet checked into the hotel or had dinner.  Shopping just isn’t that important to me.  Besides which, my suitcase is already overweight, and I am only a week into a month long trip.

I keep looking for what would seem to be normal middle-class housing to indicate that there is a middle class here.  I am told there is, but I haven’t seen much indication.  There are very wealthy people, and there are the terribly poor.  I am grieved by the hovels in which people live.  The shops are little hole-in-the-wall places that can’t possibly generate much income.  At every tourist attraction there are hawkers and beggars and some are very aggressive and children.

Then there is the trash…there is litter everywhere.  Apparently, Indians see no reason to put drink containers and other debris into a receptacle.  It just lands wherever they finish with it.  The streets are strewn with junk of every description.  I want to shout “Let me off this bus and give me a rake and some trash bags!  Someone needs to start to clean this place up!”  I don’t know what animals could possibly find that is nourishing in all of this clutter, but I have seen dogs, goats, pigs and even cows rooting around in it.

Today we visited the palace of the third king in the Mughul dynasty, Akbar.  He had three wives:  a Muslim, a Hindu and a Christian.  They each had their own palace within his compound.  It was an interesting place, but the hawkers were unbelievably aggressive.  They pushed their way into our group.  Children begged for chocolate.  Sellers put their wares in our faces, and there were scores of them.  Even in the area of the mosque that is part of the complex.  They followed us to the bus and tried to open the windows.  As we left without buying from her, a little girl stuck out her tongue at us.

 

Bill wasn’t interested in the mosque itself, so he stayed outside the wall that surrounded it.  I guess it didn’t occur to us that me being alone would make me even more vulnerable.  A young man repeatedly approached me and said that he worked there and would guide me.  I tried to ignore him.  As I approached the entrance of the mosque, he commented that I was in luck that I was wearing a hat…my head was covered, and I could go in.  As I got up to the door, he said, “this way, this way” and directed me to the left…most of the people entering were going to the right.  I assumed that he was directing me that way because I was a woman.  After we got around the first corner of the corridor, I realized he and I were the only people in the corridor and it was a dead end.  I immediately said that I was turning around and finding my group.  “Don’t be afraid,” he said.  “I will be your guide.”  Huh?  I don’t think he meant to do me harm, but I think he was going to pressure me to pay him for being my guide. 

I caught up with some in my group.  As we left the mosque, a “holy man” was sitting there asking for donations.  He had a small broom-like thing in his hand with which he was tapping the donation box to draw attention to it.  When I walked past without putting any money in his box, he hit me on the top of the head with the broom.  I was glad to get out of there!  Later someone told me that the rap on the head may have been a blessing.  I have no idea if he tried to bless or curse me.

On the positive side, during the long bus ride today, I did see more fertile well-watered farmland than I had previously seen.  I also noticed numerous bee hives.  We passed through an area with many places selling carved stone….some interesting pieces.  Also, many places where bricks were being manufactured.  The kilns were like towers in the middle of fields, and there were bricks stacked everywhere.  Most of the small dwellings in that area were made of brick, but they were just stacked and didn’t appear to be mortared together.

Another positive I have noticed, in the midst of the squalor, is that Indians seem to have friends.  I have seen groups of women working together or just enjoying each others company and the same for groups of men.  I suspect some people in palaces don’t have that!