We Interrupt Your Regularly-Scheduled Programming

A message to all of our readers (all three of you, assuming an extremely generous counting of persons related to us). Sorry for the delay with the text (ahem, Vik).

After returning to Delhi from our Himalayan escapades, and imposing on the Mejos’ hospitality for a third time, we quite literally shifted into a lower gear. The long hours on dusty roads in Rajasthan and Uttaranchal caught up to Vik, resulting in a 24-hour head cold from which he recuperated horizontally (primarily in the throes of March Madness analysis). In between repeated forays for orange juice and facial tissue, Kaberi successfully procured lightweight clothing for the hot days ahead.

With some down time in Delhi, we finally managed to overcome some deep-seated procrastination by updating the blog with our complete India adventures. Please scroll back to Older Posts to read about the last month of our travels (beginning with the February 21st post, Not A Kerala In The World).

In order to maximize our endurance for another seven months of traveling, we decided to forego a trip to the northeastern Indian cities of Khajuraho (known for its shockily-erotic Hindu temples portraying the Kama Sutra) and Varanasi (one of India’s oldest – and dirtiest -- cities best known as a site for religious rituals on the banks of the Ganges). Instead, we rerouted ourselves to Hyderabad, the capital of India’s southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh and a burgeoning tech hub, to spend two days with Vik’s Ragunandan Uncle.

After our time in relatively-temperate Delhi, the unrelenting heat from an arid and sun-baked Hyderabad was somewhat shocking. As a result, we were only mildly surprised to discover that our collective energy level was significantly eclipsed by Vik’s 77-year-old uncle. In the midst of some modest sightseeing and nice dinners out, we managed to coax from Ragunandan Uncle some of his exploits as a 17-year-old Indian freedom fighter in 1947 Hyderabad, the most notable of which included an escape to Bangalore to avert an arrest ordered by Hyderabad’s then-Muslim leader, the Nizam.

After leaving Hyderabad glad to have spent some time with Ragunandan Uncle, we returned to Delhi to catch a flight to Bangkok to begin the Southeast Asia leg of our journeys.

The Long Road Back

The front gate of the Binsar Sanctuary was a mere 7 kilometers (4 miles) from our hotel and marked the beginning of a treacherous, 13-kilometer (8-mile) dirt-and-gravel climb to an isolated lookout point. Near the top, our driver made a rash turn at a speed inappropriate for the underlying conditions, and we felt the entire undercarriage of the car scrape the assortment of rocks serving as a de facto road. Our vehicle sustained some damage, and immediately began to emit loud, unnatural sounds similar to the ones made by Vik most mornings while he brushes his teeth.

Temporarily putting the car out of our minds, we took a moment to appreciate the solitude of our surroundings. Sweeping views of the imposing landscape were framed by vividly-red, flowering rhododendron trees. We then hiked 2 kilometers to a panoramic lookout point and even mustered the courage to climb half-way up a narrow, rickety and rusty sentry tower. Briefly pausing to savor the view before climbing back down, we had another 2 kilometer walk back to the car and an unnerving descent ahead of us.

Three hours later (it would have been two if not for a missed turn by our well-meaning but thoroughly-lacking-in-common-sense driver) found us in the valley resort town of Kausani. After checking into a nearby hotel, we headed to Gandhi’s ashram to pay homage to the ascendant figure in all of Indian history. The ashram was simple, but inspirational, and we caught ourselves wondering what Gandhi would think of the present-day condition of his homeland (we suspected that disenchantment was the most likely response). Before leaving, Vik made a point of highlighting Gandhi’s painstaking financial record-keeping during his days in England, and Kaberi made a modest effort to feign interest.

As seemingly the only two tourists (peak season begins in the warmer months of April and May) in the entire town, we found the only open restaurant in town for an early dinner before heading back to the hotel. Back there, we lulled ourselves to sleep by watching the single worst example of American filmed entertainment ever produced (the absolutely execrable David Duchovny/Julianne Moore vehicle Evolution).

The next morning we awoke to watch the sun begin its steady, tireless ascent over the steep Himalayas. Amazingly, we were able to view it all from the comfort of our bed. Vik opened half of one eye to sleepily take in the splendor while Kaberi labored to capture it on film from the balcony. With clear skies, we were afforded an unobstructed view of the peaks. We watched with rapt attention for more than an hour as the range slowly went from muted shades of blue and grey to brilliant hues of orange and gold.

Knowing that we wanted to get back to Delhi by nightfall (our mounting concerns over the mechanical condition of our car heightening the sense of urgency), we hit the road at 7:30 am. Our driver began our long journey home with Vik keeping an eagle eye out to ensure that we didn’t take yet another wrong turn. While Vik worried about the potential risk to life and limb as the driver screeched down the steep, winding roads, Kaberi assumed the fetal position in the backseat in a valiant effort to keep the prior night’s dinner down. She took solace in knowing that if the car went over a cliff, at least she would be in Vik’s arms. Little did she know that Vik was thinking that, in such a scenario, he’d be focused on pummeling the driver on the way down.

Vik vigilantly kept watch through the windy roads and conked out in utter exhaustion once we hit straight roads in the plains. At this point, Kaberi’s sense of motion sickness subsided and she began to take an interest in the route. Minutes later, her heart nearly gave out when our driver seemingly ignored traffic conditions to play high-speed chicken with a six-wheeler bearing down on us. Even a tightening, vise-like grip on Vik’s arm failed to wake him.

Several hours had passed since we navigated safely through the treacherous highland route, and now we were ostensibly home free on mundane paved roads. Nevetheless, in a fantastic bit of irony, we ended up getting front-ended by a backtracking horse-driven cart while being blocked in by a colorful semi-truck overflowing with sugarcane. We were no worse for wear, although our car’s front left headlight didn’t fare as well. As the driver jumped out of his seat to assess the damage and yell at the horse-cart driver, Kaberi watched in profound disbelief as Vik blissfully slept through it all. We ended up arriving in Delhi at 6:30 pm, safe and sound, and fully prepared not to set foot in a car for as long as humanly possible.

Stalking Divine Skyscrapers

After setting out on the road at 7:30 am, we headed southeast from Rishikesh to personally introduce ourselves to the Indian Himalayas. Our efforts were considerable as we made the excruciating, 10-hour journey in the Indian equivalent of a Honda Accord (a Tata Indigo hatchback).

Our route began by skirting the Himalayan foothills through the Rajaji National Park on the so-called National Highway 74 (in actuality, a dusty, congested two-lane road constipated by bullock carts, firewood-toting pedestrians and lackadaisical water buffalo). After what seemed like an eternity (but was actually the entire morning and part of the afternoon), we began to make our way east from the small town of Ramnagar, which sits just east of the Jim Corbett Wildlife Sanctuary. Within thirty minutes, we began our interminable climb to the heavens and terra firma became a distant memory.

As Kaberi slept on his shoulder, Vik grasped his seat with a vise-like grip in a futile attempt to ease his mounting apprehension. The 90-minute drive from Ramnagar to Nainital, the largest city in Uttaranchal’s Kumaon region, was fraught with hairpin curves curled on top of hairpin curves. Our driver coaxed a reluctant car up the accelerating inclines, marked by ever taller and taller pine trees. As we painstakingly tiptoed the pebble-strewn driving path bordered on one side by seemingly-bottomless dropoffs, the kilometer signs marking our progress crawled by. This drive made Maui’s Mt. Haleakala look like child’s play. The only saving grace of the stomach-churning journey (not stopping for lunch turned out to be a blessing in disguise) was the view of majestic brown peaks that stood at attention above us in the blue ether. They were to be a mere preview of the grandeur of the Himalayas.

After reaching Nainital, we barely had time to take inventory of the town’s attractive setting along a magnificent peanut-shaped lake (reminiscent of Lake Como) before bounding our way down into the valley leading to Almora. At the expense of our equilibria, our driver, now freed of gravity’s hindrance, invoked his Grand Prix aspirations and raced through the turns. Two hours and one more nerve-wracking climb later, we neared Almora.

By far, the best part of the journey was the approach into Almora. Working our way up to the town allowed us a new vantage point, and one that unsheathed the divine snowy peaks of the Inner Himalayas. Words do not do the view justice. Suffice it to say that the white mountaintops are so tall that they appear surreal, as if clouds have been pasted permanently above the horizon. It took us a few minutes to grasp the scale of these mountains – we were already more than a mile above sea level and the peaks still towered in the background.

In the next hour, we limped through Almora’s cramped cobblestone streets and stopped at a few hotels located along the town’s main thoroughfare. Unimpressed by the quality of the rooms we were shown, we decided to venture further up in altitude toward Binsar. After another 10 kilometers of inclines and sheer dropoffs, we found a jungle resort promoting mountainview rooms. As a reward for navigating a long, arduous dirt driveway, we were offered a smart, new cottage with spectacular vistas from its balcony. Vik put his negotiating cap on, and managed to get us a 35% discount (it was off-season after all) on the published rate. With our journey temporarily concluded after 12 hours in a car, we had finally earned some well-deserved R&R before exploring Binsar the next day.

While My Sitar Gently Weeps

After a brief, comfortable respite in Delhi with the Mejo’s, we prepared to catch a puddle-jumper flight to Pantnagar in southeastern Uttaranchal, which became the newest of India’s 29th states when it was carved out of neighboring Uttar Pradesh earlier in the millennium.

Uttaranchal is ensconced in India’s mountaineous northeast on the Nepal border, making it an excellent entry point for seeing the Himalayas. Our best-laid plans were quickly dismantled, however, when our inbound flight was cancelled due to inclement weather. After spending a day with Mejomama in his office, we hatched a new gambit: rent a car and driver in Delhi to take us on an ambitious sweep, starting in southwestern Uttaranchal where the Ganges rushes out of the Himalayan foothills to make its inexorable eastern march to the Bay of Bengal and ending in the elevated southeast where the stark, white peaks demand immediate reverence.

The extra day also afforded us the opportunity to grapple with India’s infamous bureaucracy. The ever-fairminded Indian Customs, Delhi Bureau had levied a $400 import duty on the repaired camera sent to Kaberi from her cousin Shanku in Chicago on the grounds that the camera would be resold in India. Incredibly, Indian Customs refused to review the original bill of sale or the shipping manifest documentation with which Kaberi had originally sent her camera home for repair. And FedEx, citing its policy of seeking to cause maximum end-customer exasperation whenever possible, paid the duty unilaterally, leaving us with the unenviable task of prying money from the cold, dead fingers of the Indian government.

We drafted an obsequious letter of appeal, but resigned ourselves to having paid a $400 tuition fee in the School of Hard Knocks. This left Kaberi to watch ruefully as all of the money originally saved on her camera purchase flew out the window in the direction of Indira Gandhi International Airport. The only saving grace was her having the Nikon back in advance of our visiting the Himalayas.

Upon venturing out the next morning, we advanced on our eventual destination of Rishikkesh at a snail’s pace. Traffic congestion and road conditions conspired against us, and it took nearly five hours to reach Haridwar (which literally means “The Gates of God”), still one hour south of Rishikesh. We stopped briefly to observe the holy Ganges River (the view was underwhelming) and take some completely-superfluous high-resolution pictures of the mediocre scenery. Upon reaching Rishikesh at 4:30 pm, we scoured the left and right banks of a city bisected by the Ganges for reasonable overnight accommodation. We settled on a clean, 600 rupee ($14) room in the heart of the Left Bank, near a variety of ashrams.

With sunset approaching, we dropped off our bags and walked toward the riverbed. As we had arrived in Rishikesh before the monsoons, the mighty Ganges was a bit enervated; the ratio of rocky sediment to flowing water strongly favored the former category. We had hoped to see a parade of floating candles on the river from sunset aartis, but only managed to spot an occasional stray diya. As daylight faded from view and the mosquito presence intensified, we retreated east away from the river. Our evening stroll took us into the heart of the Left Bank and a surprising buzz of activity.

Unbeknownst to us, we had arrived in Rishikesh in the midst of the International Yoga Festival. Unwittingly, we managed to happen upon a huge riverside congregation boasting hundreds of saffron-robed devotees. Sitting before them on a stage parallel to the river were several simultaneously-chanting-and-clapping, cross-legged dignitaries, presumably from the international yoga community. We only recognized the most central figure, a man by the name of Sri Ravi Ravi Shankar (not to be confused with the sitar-playing father of Norah Jones by the same name).

Sri Ravi Ravi is to transcendental Hinduism as the Reverend Jerry Falwell is to evangelical Christianity, and engenders a similarly-consuming effect on his multinational (and often Western) devotees. There was something charming about the scene, and the rhythmic chanting of hundreds of voices in unison was nicely atmospheric. It wasn’t until about 20 minutes later (when we heard a group of American and French disciples -- with dirty blonde dreadlocks and Birkenstocks -- loudly evaluating each other’s auras and dirty energies) that we were reminded of the innate charlatanry of the moment. Auras aside, this was nothing more than a business-minded cult of personality preying on the naïve sensibilities of a group of foreigners all too willing to exotify India.

Well, live and let live. At least we got a couple of decent George Harrison tunes out of it all.

Royal Holi Crashers

It was only upon reaching Rajasthan that the full magnitude of Holi began to dawn on us. After returning to Jodhpur, our hotel manager told us that the renowned Mehrenger Fort was closed until 2:00 pm the next day in observation of Holi. He also strongly advised us to buy some cheap clothes to prepare for the festivities since the odds were high that we would be splashed by local color.

After finding a local department store, National Handloom Corporation, we were surprised by the ease of the buying experience. We simply uttered two words – Holi and cheap – and were immediately shown men’s and women’s white kurta-pyjamas that represented the de facto uniform for the event. For less than 200 rupees each ($4.50), we were both outfitted in style from head to toe. Vik splurged further by also picking up a pair of $0.95 rubber bath slippers.

That night, we headed to the Taj Tari Mahal hotel for a nice dinner out. While killing some time in the hotel lobby, the night manager (thinking that we were hotel guests) invited us to join the hotel’s Holi celebration the next day. We were pleased to learn there might be a way for us to participate in the fun in a relatively-safe and controlled manner (Kaberi’s Mejomaima had warned us that sometimes Indian men use Holi as an excuse to do a little groping, and Kaberi is very protective of Vik).

In the morning, cheerily decked out in our impeccable white Holi attire, we decided to visit the second and more majestic Taj property in Jodhpur, the Umaid Bhawan Palace. The colossal and opulent palace in the outskirts of the city took 16 years to construct and required the efforts of 3,000 laborers. Originally serving as the private residence of the Jodhpur royal family, it has been subsequently divided into thirds to accommodate a posh hotel and a museum in addition to the royal quarters.

Vik’s father had encouraged us to visit the Umaid Bhavan (primarily because it was here where Elizabeth Hurley was due to wed her semi-Indian fiancée, Arun “She Dropped Steve Nash For This Guy?” Nayar, in a few days). Before setting out, we had been forewarned that there was a steep cover charge just to enter the Palace (1,650 rupees per person, which translates into roughly $35 apiece), but hoped that our source was either misinformed or prone to exaggeration.

After being dropped off at the hotel in modest form (a particularly noisy auto rickshaw), we mentally prepared ourselves to be verbally accosted by the doorman. As it turned out, we serendipitously happened to be wearing the exact same costumes as those issued to all Umaid Bhavan hotel guests – pure white kurta-pyjamas. We capitalized on our luck by acting the part, and soon were welcomed to join the Umaid Bhavan’s Holi celebration, for free.

Not questioning our good fortune, we wandered across the grounds in the direction of the event preparation. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as we nervously waited for the commencement of the festivities. Not wanting to draw any undue attention to our questionable presence, we went to great lengths to keep to ourselves – including murmuring quietly whenever hotel employees wandered by and avoiding eye contact with the friendly, roving hotel general manager. In the next half-hour, we noticed that more and more hotel guests were arriving in the same, standard issue white outfits. Our cover seemed to be solid. Unfortunately, the start of the party was taking forever. We weren’t exactly sure what was holding things up.

Around noon, an unimposing gentleman who looked to be in his late 50’s walked in and was immediately greeted heartily by a number of the Indians present. For the first time, the large, neat bowls of colored powder on the lawn were handled. We watched with rapt attention as several men patted each other with the powders on the head, face and chest and then warmly exchanged hugs. The entire process proved very effective in smearing a healthy amount of color on once-pristine shirts. All of the participants looked like they were having much more fun than the docile hotel guests (who Kaberi cattily suggested were bystanders in Jodhpur’s version of Waiting For Godot). Impatience got the better of us, and we eagerly ambled over to the crowd in the hopes of being absorbed into the pageantry.

We literally marched right up to the alpha male of the activity, the unimposing gentleman mentioned previously, who greeted us in turn with a slight bow. He had been standing off to the side and his casual manner and informal friendliness helped alleviate our nervousness. We ended up talking with him for the next 10 minutes about the significance of Holi, after which he patted us with brilliant red powder and wished us a Happy Holi. We responded in kind, embracing him slightly and lacing his face and shoulders with colored powder (Kaberi using pink and Vik using orange). Before stepping away to mingle with other guests, the gentleman asked us our names, which we happily supplied him. Kaberi asked the same of him, and he paused ever so slightly before simply replying, “Mr. Singh.”

Following our cue, the rest of the hotel guests joined in on the fun. A couple of the older American men (in a blatant and transparent ploy to chat up Kaberi) told us that we were their inspiration for joining in. In no time flat, we ended up completely covered in powder, much of it originating from the hands of well-heeled hotel guests. Quickly, and as Mr. Singh had predicted, the party escalated from the harmless throwing of colored powder to forcible dunkings of captive partygoers in tubs of colored water. Careful to stay far away from the folks dripping wet with pools of pink, red and orange in their wake, we decided to avail ourselves of the complimentary chaat buffet and open bar.

While Kaberi went to the restroom, Vik unwisely attempted to secure a third free drink for himself. By the time Kaberi returned, she found her husband dripping from head to toe, flushed in a very bright shade of fuchsia. Vik had been accosted from behind by a pail-toting ruffian and had a gallon of liquid poured down his back. With a large pink stripe running from his neck to his ankles, he would spend the next two weeks looking like a radioactive skunk.

Later in the day, after a shower back at our hotel (from which Kaberi emerged impeccably-clean while Vik emerged with a backside pink enough to earn him comparisons to a red-butted baboon), we caught a rickshaw to the Mehrenger Fort. The Fort was impressive in itself, with vast latticework covering its standstone walls, but even more so in its scale and perch. Jodhpur is known as the “Blue City” and our vantage point high atop the Fort allowed us to appreciate the cluster of indigo-blue-washed houses in the town center. We also learned that the Fort was once in a state of considerable disrepair before being fully restored by Jodhpur’s current Oxford-educated Maharajah.

The Maharajah was one of India’s Midnight Children (born at the exact moment of India’s independence from Great Britain) and took office at the age of 4. Today, the Maharajah enjoys a reputation as a great patron of local architecture and arts. As we finished the tour and perused the gift shop, an overenthusiastic art student showed us a photo of the Maharajah at the dedication of the art school. Our jaws dropped. It was Mr. Singh -- actually Mr. Gaj Singh II – the man whose face we had smeared with colored powder earlier in the day. To our amazement and embarassment, we had inadvertently crashed the Jodhpur Maharajah’s private Holi celebration.