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Published: January 14th 2011
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‘The only thing we Indians can blame you English for, is … leaving too quickly … you should have stayed on for longer’ wasn’t a sentiment we expected to hear during our time in India. Singh, our energetic, humorous, affectionate and very knowledgeable tour guide of 83 was certainly old enough to have experienced India pre- and post-Independence and it was clear which he preferred. We expected to have to apologise for all of our countrymen’s wrongdoings (I didn’t think I’d bother trying to explain Wales as being a different country) and became almost embarrassed by his praise for ‘our’ ability to organise, to engineer, to promote justice and harmony, to learn languages (surely not a national strength?) and to play cricket …
His glittering eyes, his gentle teasing and his deep, warm voice soon disarmed William and Emily who seemed a bit taken aback initially by his turban and beard-net. Within minutes he had managed to cut through our English coolness and Diana and I started to fire questions at him about all topics; history, politics, economics, cricket, the role of women and caste (and cows!) in modern society. He tackled these issues and gave us a deeply insightful perspective
from which to view the rest of our itinerary in India as we made our way around several historical monuments. Although William and Emily struggled to keep up at least they had the thousands of chipmunks, monkeys, eaglehawks and parrots to distract them … and yes, we did also see sacred cows, elephants and camels blending with the traffic.
As a Sikh (2% of the population, all named Singh) he had his firmly-held opinions about the contributions made and the conflagrations caused during India’s history by both Hindu and Muslims (roughly 4:1) now and in the past. He expressed his real concerns about over-population (caused largely by multiple marriages in Muslims, brides being as young as 9 until last year, 13 now!), religious fundamentalism in both creeds and the lowly status afforded to women (including some isolated cases of self-immolation by widows still occurring). On the day when the World Bank predicted faster growth for India than China in the years ahead, Singh expressed his doubts of India’s ability to really succeed as a global economic power unless it could harmonise the different religions (after a millennium of conflict!), urbanise (80% of the population still live in squalor in villages)
and diminish its democracy (elections every 5 years making reform very difficult to achieve). It was quite ironic then that due to recent unrest due to the demolition of a mosque last week, and subsequent agitation at Friday prayers by ‘nutty’ clerics, that Singh had to remove our visit to the Jumma Mosque from our tour. For all of his negative comments though, he gave us at least three positives, and gave us a real taste of what we will see on our way across Rajastan and onwards to Kolkata.
First stop on our tour was Lutyens’ planned administrative centre for British rule, which has become the seat of government and the civil service since Independence. Broad, clean streets (with the discipline of roundabouts and clear crossings) passed between long avenues of indigineous trees and separated the huge facades of various ministries, courts and the truly huge Presidential Palace. Kingsway and Queensway, two of the broadest avenues were being made ready for a huge parade on 26th January to celebrate Independence Day. Regiments from the various states practised their drills; their colourful and ornate headdresses giving them their identity and we couldn’t help notice that the Rajastan regiment were on
India Gate
... war memorial to the many Sikhs that died in WWI and WWII camelback. The early morning mists and the drumming and bands in the background all added to the atmosphere, but I think that W and E were most taken with the monkeys at play in the presidential gardens.
Next stop, and 300 years older, was the Red Fort – one of a series of seven cities each larger and more powerful than the last built by successive Mughals, Muslim rulers. With its beautifully laid-out gardens, intricately-carved sandstone walls, gold and silver ceilings and jewel-inlaid marble surfaces and use of fountains and internal running water channels to air condition the palaces this must have been a staggering place to come to petition the ruler, the famous Shah-Jahan. Although the riches have been plundered in subsequent centuries, including the Koh-i-Noor diamond and the Peacock Throne, some of the majesty of the place still remains. William was fascinated by the story of a son killing all his siblings and locking his father away for the rest of his days, to assume power – I’m not sure how this made Emily feel ...
A brief stop next, to visit the shrine to Mahatma Gandhi, although again Singh was at pains to downplay Gandhi’s real role
in gaining Independence and to promote the work of many British politicians and activists in founding and sustaining the Congress Party. The simple flame and garden setting echoed Gandhi’s own somewhat meagre approach to life and, given the huge coach park next door, there must be many who do not share Singh’s opinion.
I suspect that the next two stops were potential commission-earners for Singh; although we managed to hold our ground in the Kashmir Cooperative shop and didn’t buy a rug, we did have (quite) an expensive meal for lunch at Singh’s suggested restaurant. The rugs really were beautiful and of the highest quality and partly through politeness and also through admiration, Diana and I gave ‘Al Pacino’ (another look-a-like, the shop manager, an elderly Kashmiri) too much encouragement perhaps. It all became a little embarrassing as we were enticed by smaller and smaller rugs at lower and lower prices before having to make it clear that we weren’t going to buy 0ne … didn’t he understand that Diana would have had to visit at least another five rug shops, before returning to buy in his shop?
Slightly drowsy after a lovely lunch, we were somewhat grateful that the
afternoon programme held just one stop – back in time 800 years to the site of the first Muslim settlement in Delhi, at Qutb Minar. The invaders destroyed all of the Hindu temples in the north of India and used the stone to erect their mosques just as they did here. In addition they built the remarkable tower (220-feet high, something of an engineering feat at that time) and installed a totemic iron pillar from the 5th century which remains un-rusted to this day (something to do with its high-phosphorus content I tried to explain to Diana but strangely she and W and E had wandered off…)
As the traffic started to build up and the children’s stamina started to wear down we headed back to the hotel with our heads reeling from all of the ideas, facts and stories we had heard. Singh’s promise at the beginning of the day that there would be a test didn’t hold true, much to our relief, and we thanked him profusely as we headed upstairs for a bit of a lie-down and he headed off for ‘some jogging and exercises’ which he suggested was the cause of his good health and sprightliness
– that and talking too much!
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