Blogs from Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India, Asia - page 77

Carolyn talked a lot about humiliation. These few entries have been a demonstration of that quality. Humiliation is essential if we are to grow a new purpose of living. We take such pride in ourselves as higher beings, as spiritual, as wonderful people, who are misunderstood by others and only occassionally mistreated. We will defend this false self image unto death. This has been a demonstration of humiliation, and it's not neccessary for anyone to go out of their way to do this too. There are deep humiliations just around the corner, everywhere. Can we learn from them? Can we see where we. This is the mystery of Humiliation. So I paid these guys $500 for two machine made carpets--said to be from Kashmir--after they slipped some dark goo in my tea. After awhile I ... read more

This entry has nothing to do with sex. It happened in a dusty town with bad food and with an unprounoucable name. This town has the temples with the erotic statues featured in the motion picture, "A Passage to India." These temples were buried in the jungles for 700 years and were discovered by an Englishman in 1847, I think. Jungles, then dust. We in America are going through our Sexual Carnival now. Author Tom Wolfe points out it was once our sexual revolution, now our sexual carnival. OK, India went through this trifling phase about a thousand years ago. You can tell by their Bollywood movies, which have about zero kisses in them, erotically speaking, but lots of love and action and passion and what can go wrong. On the Path, it can be ... read more

So Jaipur is called the pink city and Jodphur is known as the blue city because of the (bet you guessed it already) blue buildings. The buildings here are blue because Brahmins* used to paint their homes blue with Indigo dye because it cooled the house and kept bugs away. Now anyone can paint their house blue in Jodphur, but in the old city, the blue houses remain mostly Brahmins. Ooh quick break folks, I want to make dinner before Gila gets home… OK, I know that was no time to you folks, but it was about 20 minutes to me…no fancy meal here, just corn on the cob and curd rice with ginger and pomegranates. But at least it’s made and the dishes are done and water’s boiling (can’t drink the water plain so ... read more

Well, it has been a few days since had a chance to add entries. So this is a catch-up. On Monday, we got into Jaipur about 8 PM. We had a 2nd train air-conditioned sleeper from Amritsar (much better than I expected) to Delhi with a connection to a bus to Jaipur. The only problem encouter was with the men who carry the luggage in the train station in Delhi (believe it or not, they are called "coolies"). We asked for the luggage to have it taken to the foreign visitor information office. But the coolies insisted that we go to their "information office" about a block away (apparent scam worked out with a private party). We refused. Then asked for the luggage to be taken to a taxi. Again, they wouldn't do it! We argued ... read more

After an agonizing experience with the train from Agra to Jodhpur we decided to take it easy in Jodhpur for four days. We've been wandering around the old city, exploring the small alleys and bazaars, and experiencing the heat, the smells and the noises of the street life. It's a chaos of people, bikes, tuk-tuks, cars, cows, dogs and camels. The main streets of the city are noisy and crowded but in the bazaar area you can find many interesting places and shops, selling fabrics, clothes, shoes, spices, silvery and pretty much anything. Outside the city center there are many nice hotels and restaurants with their oasis like private gardens. It is nice to visit those places when in need of some peace and quiet. In the middle of the city rises the 550 years old ... read more