Tashi Delek

I read a quotation in some book... it said something to the effect that every Westerner, upon coming to India, thinks that she could write a book about the place. But by the time she leaves, finds that she can't write one sentence.

I assume that whomever said that meant something much more deeply philosophical than that said Westerner can't write a sentence because she has contracted leprosy and lost her fingers. See, there you are, one sentence and it already seems like I've made a terrible ungenerous judgment about India.

That's the thing though... India (what small part of it I saw) is more than I could hope to describe. If I had the eloquence of Nabokov I couldn't do it.

Of course, jumping right into India means I have to skip writing about Graduation (seems like something worth noting, eh?), how Tim and I got majorly robbed with my Mom in New Orleans, how my book arrived from the publisher (and the stupid error inside it), and how amazing the last week of school was. I think it will be ok. You can ask me about it.

I have nearly a thousand photos, and I'm trying to determine the most economical way to post them without spending 24 hours in front of my computer. Until then, I've painstakingly picked just one (ahem, or two or three) photo (s) from each city:

Our second day in Paharganj, a market section of Delhi, we woke up early and went to get a chai on the street. When we got there, the shopkeeper was still in his underwear. He made our tea and while we were drinking it, he put on a nice shirt and fixed his hair. He let me take a picture and for some reason, every time I look at it, it makes me happy. All of the packets hanging behind him are chewing tobacco. We didn't see many smokers in India...



This is the group, minus Dr. Otto and Neil (and the random tag-alongs we picked up--and, I suspect, paid for--along the way). From left to right: Karma, Kari, Caleb, Jeny, Yours Truly, Madison, Steen, Tessy, Lucy; and in front: tiny chilrens. This was our first day in Delhi. This was out first small temple, outside of Hotel Relax on the very first day, before we got to know each other and realized that our group was AWESOME. Also, before stomach illness.



The Golden Temple, in Amritsar, is the most holy place in the Sikh religion. It's also absolutely stunning, inside and out. Inside, the Sikh holy book, Guru Granth Sahib, "lives"-- it's treated like a living teacher, fed, bathed, put to bed and awakened every day. The Sikhs give free food and shelter to anyone who needs it, every single day of the year, in every Sikh temple we saw. I've never seen anything like it.




In Dharamsala, I spent the first five days in the room, sick, staring out the window and wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into. This is what I looked at for five days: not too bad, but not nearly as amazing as the stuff outside the hotel. Luckily, I got well in time to see the Dalai Lama, though, I think I would have fought any sickness for that.







Norbulingka is an art institute for Tibetan refugees to learn Tibetan traditional art, such as making appliqué thangkas like this one. Each tiny piece is cut and stitched by hand. It's a peaceful deity and his consort. They also make furniture, silk, carved and decorated wood, painted thangkas, and gifts. The art is so distinctive and it's amazing to see people working towards the preservation of their culture when it's been effectively wiped out in Tibet. Check the institute out here.



I think Bir was my favorite place in India. It's about the size of Crawford, surrounded by monasteries. I think the rest of the group started to go a little stir crazy, but I loved walking around in the rice fields, laying on the roof and looking at the stars, and the homemade fries at the Friends Tea Stall. We got to see monk debating and have a teaching on Om Mani Padme Hung from the Dalai Lama's highest teacher. I really didn't want to leave.



I'm also cheating, and putting up three pictures from Bir, because the whole place made a huge impression on me. There are people all over northern India who carve mantras on stones every day of their lives. Some are as tall as buildings, some are small enough to fit three or four in your hand. This monastery had thousands.







Tashi, one of our guides, told me that this glass is meant to keep drunks from jumping off the bridge. I'm glad to see that's a universal problem. Really though, I feel like this is India. It's both utilitarian and innovative, reusing the glass for something useful, the way their shopping bags are made of discarded Christmas paper, and the fruits and vegetables are wrapped in newsprint. But it's also kind of scary and somehow sad in its own jagged, dirty, violent sort of way. Part of being in India is being surrounded by what has been discarded: sometimes it finds a new use and sometimes the refuse--trash and filth, invisible people with leprosy, mangy unloved dogs--just gets swept back and forth.


Tso Pema, called Rewalsar by Indians, also had way too many amazing things to choose just one picture... so I chose this one and the next one. These children from the Tibetan Children's Garden (get it? Kindergarten?) sang and danced for us , traditional Tibetan songs and English ones that I forgot I knew the words to. We gave them each two pencils to thank them for singing to us. Of course, the pencils immediately became drumsticks. The boys in red are micro-monks. The little girl in bright blue lived across the street with her family in their restaurant. I saw her every day that we were in Tso Pema.

Tso Pema is sacred to Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs because it is built around a sacred lake (with more sacred lakes surrounding it). Each religion has its own legend about why the lake is sacred and they all live together around the lake amazingly well. I think they all see the significance of each other's traditions. One way or another, these fish ended up in the lake artificially and they became sacred too. So there are probably millions of these black carp in the lake, and they come out of the water to eat balls of dough and other things that people give them to eat. I get kind of gleeful when I see things like this.

This is not the best picture of the finery we acquired in Mandi. However, the picture does have the king of Mandi, who dined with us while we were there. We really only went to Mandi to stay in a nice hotel, eat nice food, buy nice clothes, and relax away from the generally filthy places we'd been for the first part of the trip. Granted, there are plenty of really old, impressive stupas in Mandi... but come on. We stayed in a former colonial palace. And it was wonderful.



This part of India was decidedly not wonderful. I really had a hard time dealing with the horribly diseased feral dogs. One of the women we met in Bir spent, the owner of Friends, spent a lot of her time and money trying to help the local dogs. But there's not a lot that can be done across the whole country. Everywhere we went there were dogs like this. I can't imagine how my veterinarian grandfather would have reacted.




Back in Dharamsala... the Himalayas are definitely as amazing as you might think they would be. Imagine this is every direction. The weird thing about Dharamasala is how much is resembles Boulder. The same kinds of shops (Buddhist stuff, cafés, hiking and camping gear, weird bookstores), the same kinds of people (lots of westerners with dredlocks, except more monks) and talking about buddhist philosophy over a nice chai on the rooftop, mountains (though, even though I'm biased to love the Rockies, I'll admit that these were truly something to behold). Except there were also lots of cows, lots of filth, one-lane roads, no chain stores, and--of course--the Dalai Lama. Just as many "save tibet" bumper stickers though.

This is us, sick, hot and cranky in the train station in Pathankot which is a literal stone's throw from Pakistan. It was extremely dirty, militaristic-feeling, and hot. Jeny got some very disturbing stares from this man who kept lifting up his shirt and rubbing his chest. The sleeper train had cockroaches and one of the scariest bathrooms I've ever seen. Half of us were having stomach problems and we were tired of carrying everything. As you can see, we acquired a lot of stuff. Still, the train was kind of fun for its own sake. I gave it an A- as a life experience, and a solid C as far as quality of sleep.

Ha! Ha! Jeny's holding the Taj Mahal! That's silly!
What can I say? We drove ten hours to see a big empty tomb? It was cool. Cross that one off the list. I'm glad we went to the Taj. I'm not as glad that we went to McDonald's afterwards... but it was an educational experience to order a McChicken Burger instead of Paneer Veg Pizza Puff. Oh McDonalds, how I hate you. I think it's interesting that a country where it's illegal to kill cows would allow McDonalds to do business there at all, just because of the sheer volume of beef they slaughter elsewhere... hmmmmm.

Understandably, we weren't able to take pictures at Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying and Destitute. Instead, here's a chipmunk. I do wish, however that we had been able to take pictures of the children at Mother Teresa's, because these kids broke everyone's heart. I can't really describe what it's like to have a little girl in your lap who has only one finger out of ten, and only part of one leg and who still laughs when you find her belly button. It really is easier to tell yourself that all these kids will be adopted someday.


In order not to end on that note, our last hotel was in a Tibetan settlement. Out front were tiny alleys, a million people and Tibetan shops. Out back was the Yamuna river, a tributary of the Ganges. Our last day I woke up at about six-thirty and took pictures of the day starting down by the river. It was probably one the prettiest things I saw in all of India. Everything is more photogenic in the morning, I think.





After India, (and eating at the Chili's in the Bahrain airport) we spent about 26 hours in Dublin. Clearly, there was only one logical way to spend the day. 'Nough said.

As soon as I find photo hosting that will allow me to publish 1000 pictures, I'll get back to you with more photos and stories. There really aren't enough words for it.