Dussehra in Nainital

Travel journal October 27, 2006:

Because of scheduling conflicts with one of our professors, Rajesh-ji, my study abroad program has class from Tuesday to Saturday, leaving Sunday and Monday as our weekend. Monday, October 2nd was our first weekend since classes had begun a week before. This day also happens to be Mahatma Gandhi's birthday and this year also the day of the Dussehra festival. Although we weren't exactly sure what to expect, all 18 students boarded a three hour public bus to Nainital for many people's first exposure to a foreign religious festival.

The public bus that runs between the end of the rail line in Haldwani and towns farther north of us stops at a point a half hour walk from the place we stay, Sonapani. Arriving at 7AM, wefound the bus already seemingly full with locals heading in our direction. However, I knew better than to think a bus in India is ever full and encouraged everyone to pile in and fit wherever they could. Many people got seats right away and a few female students were able to sit because local men impressively gave up their seats. However, like similar bus rides I took in the Kathmandu valley, I ended up standing the entire three hour ride.

I wouldn't really mind, and indeed I didn't really mind this time either, except that the roof of the bus was unusually low, even for other buses I've taken, and I was forced to lean and cock my head at a sharp angle while holding myself up with the bars running overhead while attempting, and not that successfully, to prevent my head from banging against those same bars as we traveled the bumpy mountain road.

The one benefit was that when the bus stopped for half an hour in one small village- I found out later that the driver had stopped for chai- I was able to get out and stretch out my neck and legs.

Upon arrival in Bhowali- the end of the line for the bus- we engineered a shared taxi for the remaining 10 km to Nainital. Because I much prefer traveling alone than in a group, when the group stopped for lunch soon after our arrival in Nainital, I waved goodbye and kept moving.

For a few hours I wandered the city alone, passing through the bazaar, sitting lakeside, and venturing up the hills away from the city. I stopped at a quiet restaurant and ate a few samosas- fried dough stuffed with potatoes and spices- and continued on.

Eventually I ended up sitting on concrete bleachers overlooking a large flat dirt field where earlier I'd seen a soccer math finishing and now I watched the set up for the nights festivities.

While I sat, I began to write and finished my entry on my time at Royal Chitwan in Nepal. As I wrote, a small boy, not more than five, kept eyeing me from his mother's side 10 feet away. Over time he summoned up the courage to approach me, and I shook his hand and asked him name in Hindi. Over the next hour he ran back and forth between his mother and me, sometimes speaking to me, sometimes just eyeing me briefly before his courage failed him and he hurriedly returned to the safety of his mother's arms.

When I finished my entry, I heard the unmistakeable sound of a parade behind me coming up on the raod and I left my seat to investigate. A marching band escorted a singer with a microphone on a long cord connected to a lead car clad with many large speakers. Behind followed more trucks with images of deities decorated ceremoniously and pushed by faithful devotees.

The procession continued with trucks containing people in lavish costumes of gods and mythological characters sometimes smiling and sometimes looking bored. Men with ceramic pots filled with burning incense danced in between cars and the streets were lined with Indian and foreign tourst onlookers.

I looked across the parade to see my roommate Nate with our friends Adam and Brittany looking back at me smiling. They crossed the road at a break in the procession and we agreed to walk down to the other side of the lake and maybe take a boat back up for the festival. As we walked, a man playing an instrument in the band motioned for me to join him in the parade and for a few minutes I walked in the middle of the band, near the singer with the long corded mic, while my friends took pictures and laughed at me.

After some time on the far side of the lake, and some more samosas, the four of us walked back to lakeside and negotiated a fair price for a lake crossing in a large rowboat complete with a rower. Nate and I got comfy in the loveseat on one end while Adam and Brittany sat across planks in the middle.

The driver was impressed with Nate's Hindi, and I took advantage of the opportunity to practice the few Hindi words and phrases he had taught me. It is always nice to surprise a local with your knowledge of, or at least effort to learn, their language and customs. It is also nice to shake up the stereotype of an American tourist.

It was getting dark by the time we reached the north side of the lake and after we purchased more fried food, we made our way to the concrete bandstand where I had sat earlier. The seats filled up quickly while we sat and waited and we passed the time telling jokes and spotting our other friends in the crowd and down on the field below.

When a firework went off signaling the beginning of the fesitval, we couldn't see it in the sky above because we sat under a large tree. Quickly deciding to move down into the crowd on the field, we fought our way to the left of the stage and in fron ot the giant paper and wood effigies of the demon king Ravana, which are burned after some colorful acting out of parts of the Hindi holy book, the Ramayan.

Soon the theater begun, but we couldn't see it because we stood to teh side of the stage set up on the field, and the actors waiting their turns lined up on that side, blocking our view of the drama being played out in front of them.

Right before the re-enactment began I noticed a photographer on stage taking many photos of the white faces standing out above the crowd. I decided to wave to the camera to let him know I saw him photographing me so blatantly, and a group of local high school guys next to me began laughing along with me. I grabbed the nearest one, threw my arm around him and together we waved to the photographer. This caused the eruption of a great cheer from his eight or so buddies and my cheering section was formed.

For the next hour, I was their leader and on my cue, we would all shout loudly "yaaaheeeeey!" over the crowd. I demonstrated my power to Nate a few feet away and he was impressed. At one point I spotted a group of our friends sitting together in the stands, 50 yards and 1000 people away, and in response to their waves towards me, I pointed them out to my cheer section and we gave my friends an extra loud cheer while jumping and waving wildly. The students in the stands seemed surprised at my response and all laughed shaking their hands in disbelief of my power.

Soon the theater was over and the real show begun. The two huge effigies were lit one by one, and fire seemed to rise right up into the night sky, the flames tickling the moon. The fireworks began at the same time and the juxtaposition of two 50 foot tall burning images of demons with the grace and excitment of colorful fireworks painted a surreal scene on the black night canvas.

The fires lit up the field and for the first time I was aware that tens of thousands of people were present, on all sides of the inferno and lining the streets above the field opposite us. As the walls of orange and yellow slowly shrank, more fireworks were set off from nearby and burning shrapnel, either from the explosives or from the crumbling effigies, sprang into the air and hurled into the crowd as hundreds of people screamed and dodged out of the way. This was followed by more cheering from myself and my friendly cheer section because we were glad to be unharmed.

When the mammoth wooden structures were reduced to smoldering piles of charred demonic flesh, music floated up from somewhere nearby. Drums beat a catchy rhythm and in my euphoric state after witnessing such a spectacle, I wanted to dance. I yelled to my cheerleaders, "We dance?!" and they seemed enthusiastic about the idea. However, when I cleared some room and took the lead throwing my lanky boidy about uninhibited, my adolescent followers lost their boldness and looked uncomfortable with the prospect of letting loose.

I gave up on them after a few attmepts to get them moving, and after taking a few pictures with them doing what they do best- cheering loudly wiht arms stretched into the air, I said goodbye.

As a group we walked to dinner and were taken home afterward by prearranged taxis, since it was late and the last bus had long sice left on the winding mountain roads towards our home.

The next day, in the Kumoan daily newspaper, there was a picture of Peter, Lindsey and Lisa from our program. Underneath was the caption "Foreign tourists in Nainital for Dussehra." There were actually few other foreign tourists present that night- most of the crowd was Indian tourists- and I really enjoyed the atmosphere of being one of only a few white faces out of so many people gathered to celebrate and cheer on the symbolic destruction of evil and the celebration of life.

Nizam-ud-din's shrine and qawwali

Travel Journal written October 26, 2006:

After a couple days in Delhi spent arguing with hotel managers and developing my taste for haggling with rickshaw drivers, on September 22, I found myself avoiding the sights and fed up with the dirty chaotic city. I had met up with my group with whom I was studying abroad, and the 18 students from the University of Washington, and our program director, Keith, were staying in a hotel in New Friends Colony in south Delhi with one more night free before we were to head up to Uttaranchal and our remote mountainous site where we would begin classes and projects.

Keith had mentioned qawwali- a devotional singing that happened every week in a muslim neighborhood of central Delhi, and two guys, Nate and Pat, and I decided to try and find it. Stuffing ourselves into an autorickshaw, Nate, who had taken a year of Hindi previously, tried to find the words to explain to the driver te neighborhood we wanted to go to. We got dropped off at the outskirts of the right area and began searching the streets, asking people for the restaurant that Keith told us was across the street from where we wanted to be. We probably looked lost, but it was my firset exposure to an all-muslim community and I was naively intrigued. I reflecte dall of the stares the passing people sent my way with a silly grin of an adventurous youth searching for life.

Eventually, and without too much difficulty, we found the restaurant we were lookig for, or at least the back of it, in a narrow, long, winding alley. Next to it we could see through a narrow gate what we thought might be our goal- the shrine of the muslim Sufi saint Nizam-ud-din Chisti who died in 1325. We found a way around to what we had seen, but realized when we got there taht the monument was devoted to someone else. We were still in the wrong place.

At this moment of realization, we apparently looked lost again, and a short man with a big smile introduced himself and asked where we came from and what we were doing here. He spoke a few words of English, but mostly Nate attempted to communicate with our new friend, who I will call Hassan, in his limited, but grammatically correct, Hindi.

After he realized where we wanted to go, Hassan led us through the neighborhood and down streets that seemed to get more and more narrow, dark and teeming with life. As we squeezed through the tight streets of a bustling bazaar selling CDs in arabic and flower petals, we were stopped by Hassan at a seemingly random spot and told to take off our shoes before proceeding. This made us a little worried and we all looked at each other carefully questioning the situation. Nate and I were the first to concede and remove our shoes but Pat was more apprehensive because his expensive shoes were more likely to be stolen than my 10 year old sandals held together by layers of duct tape. Eventually he was conviced and soon we were again following Hassan passed stalls selling the same scarlet-purple flower petals in small baskets. At one stall, Nate as conviced by Hassan to take one, knowing he had to pay for it later and still unaware of its purpose. Around a couple more corners, we stepped onto th marble tiles of an ornate court with a mosque to our left and two shrines set in the middle of the court in front of us.

Hassan moved us towards the shrines which were in small buildings with low doors and were surrounded by white gates. Men standing inside the gate saw us and waved us inside and motioned for us to continue through the small door. Inside was what looked like a coffin, only very wide, covered by a cloth with hundreds of the purple flower petals strewn on top and around. As instructed by another man in the shrine, Nate tossed his petals onto the coffin and we moved around the tiny room clockwise- as with all Buddhist and Hindu holy areas. There was barely enough room between the walls and the coffin in the center for two people to stand so we walked single file with the line of men in there with us.

All the other men in the shrine stopped at one point or more to face the coffin, close their eyes, raise their spread hands to within six inches from their chests, palms facing them, and pray. At one point our precession around the room was stopped because we stood awkwardly waiting for the men to finish their prayers and continue. While we all felt uncomfortable not knowing what to do, continue waiting or squeeze past them, Nate took the lead. He faced inward, raised his hands and closed his eyes in an imitation prayer. Seeing him, Pat and I quickly followed suit, assumed the position and faked it. After thirty seconds or so I looked up and noticed many eyes set on my face, questioning who I was and why I was praying like them. When the line was moving we all non chalantly finished our prayers and kept moving.

Exiting the first shrine, we were asked for a donation and were given a bag of small white candies in return. After following the same routine of fake prayer in order to fit in at the second shrine, Hassan brought us inside the mosque a few steps away. We sat on the floor and spoke with him and Nate produced paper and a pen to write on for easier communication in Hindi and English. This is when I learned to write my name, count to five, say "My name is Evan" and "What is your name" in Hindi. This last phrase I practiced on the growing group of boys and young men surrounding us. We opened up the circle and attempted to talk to them either in their broken English, with body language or through Nate's Hindi.

I produced my postcards and showed them around. I motioned for Hassan to choose and keep one, and he chose and kept one of each picture, five or six total, to which I was annoyed but too shy to protest against. We all interacted some more but soon the call to prayer was played loudly over speakers from the mosque and we were quickly ushered out while hordes of men filed in from the bathing sinks outside.

Some young men motioned for us to sit on the ground just outside the mosque and we did so. After a few minutes a man came by with a basket of the white candies mixed with the flower petals and handed them out to the waiting hands of those around us. We too extended our hands into the air and were rewarded. Watching those around us toss the entire handful into their mouths, we again emmulated our hosts and popped candies and petals together into our mouths. The flowers definitely added a distinct flavor to the snack and I found it was very sweet and and a satisfactory treat.

After a few more minutes prayers were over and Hassan again emerged from the mosque and gathered us on the ground in te marble courtyard. Nate sat spreading his legs out in front of him and was quickly admonished by Hassan for doing so. I had heard before that it was extremely rude and disrespectful to show the bottoms of one's feet to anyway and an elderly woman say in line with Nate's feet about 5 yards away. He was very embarrased but it quickly faded with what happened next.

We had been asking Hassan repeatedly if there was to be singing that night, and where and when but I was never fully aware of a direct answer to any of those questions. However, minutes later we heard music from the other side of t shrines and we moved our seats across the courtyard.

The music sprang from two sitting men dressed in conservative muslim garb, one playing a drum and the other a small boxed piano called a harmonium. The harmonium player also sang and his voice wailed loudly over the music in obvious anguish over the sadness of the death of the saints, while the drummer and another clapping man kept beat and sang more in the background.

We three Americans sat in a line, crosslegged on the marble floor surrounded by local muslim Indians and realized we had again come across something special. The rhythms and powerful emotions of the qawwali tickled our ears and mixed in our mides with the surreal setting.

After about ten minutes, Hassan asked if we wanted to leave but I was adament that I wanted to stay longer because I was thoroughly enjoying the pleasures to my senses. Finally, upon Hassan's second request we all stood up, dropped some rupees in the harmonium box and made our way back outside the courtyard, through the narrow streets, passed the stalls to where our shoes and sandals awaited our return.

All of us were hungry and Hassan led us to a local restaurant filled with people who looked like they hadn't seen a white person there for years. It was busy, dirty, and loud- exactly what I look for in a restaurant. Pat and Nate began to say something about going to the popular restaurant that we were looking for earlier, but I assured them that this is where we wanted to eat.

The waiter came by and Hassan asked us if would eat chicken for by saying, "Chicken?! Chicken?!" repeatedly until we agreed loudly. However, hhen the food came, we found chapati and mutton curry. We ate and talked with Hassan some more and he asked how much an airplane ticket to the U.S. costs. We told him about 50,000 Rs and he tried to ask Nate if he could get him a visa and a ticket if he gave Nate the money. It toko awhile but eventually we were able to convey our uselessness in this regard and Hassan gave up the issue.

After some rice pudding with silver flakes for dessert, we left the restaurant and I took a quick picture of Hassan, Nate and Pat- along with some local kids who wanted in- before we said our goodbyes, expressed our gratitude and again piled into an autorickshaw.

Back at the hotel, we told the story of our night to our new American friends who had spent the day sightseeing in a cab. After looking at pictures and video of the singing and hearing the details, they expressed their honest jealousy of our adventure. This is another example and more testimony to the kindness of strangers and the adventures that can be had if you keep your eyes open, and are willing to take te risk of confronting new and uncomfortable situations.

My Nepalese Nickname

Travel Journal September 19 2006:

I don't like being called "Sir." Especially by those much older and more successful than myself. But in Nepal, my skin promotes me from a poor college student with dirty, ratty, patched clothes, duct-taped sandals and a sparse, unshaven scragly face, to "Sir." It's a stratificaton game I don't wish to play. My name is Evan- prounounced any way you want: Eban, Ay-van, Evano, Eevan, whatever. "Sir" must be my Nepalese name. Hopefully not also my Indian name.



[It is stlil kind of my name at the resort place I am staying at, but I'm working on changing it. I am told that the locals young men who are employed here refer to me as Adam someone, because I look like the Australian cricket player. That'll do.]

Royal Chitwan National Park

Hello! I have spent the last few weeks studying Hindi, teaching English, and volunteering at an NGO in the Himalayan region of northern India. Needless to say, where I am staying, the internet is sparse. Please stay tuned to the blog if you want though, because I have many things to write about and I will find time such as today or after December while I travel, to post everything. Thanks for hanging with me!

Excerpt from my travel journal September 23, 2006

Taking an early morning train from Pokhara to Chitwan, I arrived in the afternoon at teh small village, Sahaura, outside the nearly 1000 square km park. I had no reservations for the night and was offered a ride to a hotel for free if I ended up staying for 100 Rs. A short motorbike ride later, I found myself at the Chilax House a short walk away from the Rapti river which acts as a border to the massive national park.

That night I ate in the small kitchen/dining groom which has one table and a candle which dimly illuminated my dinner of dhal and rice. Later that night a German man came to the hotel and he somehow knew the manager. The man makes documentaires in Nepal and is a little ecentric. I asked him questions about his trade and how he got started as I am thoroughly interested and considering the idea of making documentaries myself. I got his card for later reference.

The next morning I began my 3 day 4 night package at a larger resort-like hotel. Usually I would never buy a package deal from a travel agency, but when in Pokhara I calculated the money I would spend at Chitwan and the proposed package included everything and more and was the same price. If I could do it again, I'd come and pay everything separately for a few reasons.

First, the resorts are owned by wealthy businessmen from Kathmandu while the smaller hotels are locally run and money is funneled directly into the local economy. Next, the actual value wasn't that great. The price was so cheap because its the low season - I was the only person at the resort for half the time. The food was all provided and included in the price, but was of poor quality for the price and I often left the dining room still hungry for more.

Lastly, I was severely put ff by the atmosphere of the resort. My first night at the Chilax house, I spoke to the manager as nearly equals, but at the resort I was treated like a superior, a rich guest to please but not be friendly with. This makes it hard to relate or try to make friends. The sterile treatment made me uncomfortable my entire stay. This is where I got my Nepali nickname (see future post).

Th first full day in the park I went on a jungle walk inside the park boundaries. We rode a canoe downriver for about a half hour. The water was high, brown and moving fast since the monsoon was just tapering off in the last couple weeks and rains still pelted the ground in the late afternoons.

Unfortunately we didnt cross paths with any crocodiles- neither the long, narrow mouthed gharial nor the potentially man eating mugger- but saw a myriad of birds as we drifted quickly down the heavy current steered only by a young man with a long bamboo ple like a Venetian gondola driver.

Finding shore on the far bank, we entered the jungle on foot, prepared to walk back to even with our starting point- only a couple hours away. My first time in a tropical ocean of green waves bursting with life, I walked in awe staring at the canopies the ground and all that laid between.

Red insects the size and shape of clothespins scurried across the soil outnumbring mammals millions to one. We stopped to observe monkeys playing overhead in the tall trees and they in turn paused their games to sit and observe us. Green ive-covered clearings transformed to lush thickets of green and brown which then gave way to grasslands which at this time of year were 8 foot high, dense walls of brown grasses, obstructing view of any animals nearby.

Stopping at a lookout tower to peer out over the area, I met three young English and Swedish women who were in medical school in Europe and working in a hospital in Kathmandu for a month. The walk continued for a bit further before we once again emerged from the jungle at the river bank and awaited our canoe back across the water.

That night a few more guests were staying at the resort since it was a weekend and we a piled into the back of a jeep- which I helped push start- and headed to a cultural dance show. The Tharu people were the first to colonize the Terai region, the plains of southern Nepal. They have their own language, way of village life, and I’ve heard they have developed an immunity to malaria, although it’s almost non existent there now.

In a small theater with long benches stretching wall to wall broken only by a small aisle, tourists from all over were brought by their hotel, or came independently, to watch the show. A goofy four-eyed skinny Nepalese man with a large adam’s apple and oscillating voice introduced each song which were then performed by a small band of older men playing drums and singing while a group of young Tharu male dancers shuffled around in a circle, dancing their traditional dances using sticks t hit together in loud, fast violent movements that looked like the rural Nepalese representation of Stomp.

Every week or so, members of the audience are brought up on stage to dance in a circle with the dance team. When this was announced, I was really excited and decided immediately that I had t dance, and though I’d get the invitation because I was sitting on the aisle. When a man made his way down to me and said something like, “you dance?” I nonchalantly made a show of considering it a surprise and got up, although in my head I wanted to run up to the stage.

For a long 10 minute song, I tried to emulate the quick-footed, experienced young man on my left whose grace was far greater than mine, and it didn’t help that I was a foot taller that he. But regardless of how much I stood out, I did my best t keep my body in motion, knees bent, arms flailing, smile fixed on my face. I let if flow and I was successfully keeping up with the dancers who made up most of the circle as I looked near the end. Most tourists had fallen out of the circle, and few were still dancing, and I was by far the tallest and the whitest.

Sweaty but exhilarated by my performance, I dropped off the stage as the evening was over and everyone was filing out to their hotel’s respective jeeps. A British woman who was staying the weekend at my resort congratulated me on my free dancing and all I could think to answer was, “How often do I get to dance with indigenous Nepalese villagers?”

The next morning I finally got to fulfill one of my deep desires for my trip to Nepal. I got to ride an elephant. By now I had seen elephants walking along he roads, tied up in privately owned stables and at the government sponsored breeding center.

Dropped off at the edge of the outlying forest next to the park, from where the private elephant safaris begin, I climbed up wooden stairs to a loading platform and awkwardly climbed onto the back of a female elephant. A nepalese tourist cuople from Kathmandu joined me in the wooden boxy saddle strapped to her back and we were off.

The driver sits on the elephant's neck and uses vocal commands- aparently trained elephants can understand and respond to over 50 commands- as well as his feet behind the massive ears to steer the giant. The ride on an elephants back is extremely bumy and my legs hung over the side so I could feel the animal's rough leathery skin on her left shoulder and side on my bare feet.

We barreled through the forest, keeping mostly to vague overgrown paths, as we on top were busy dodging branches, thorned vines, and spider webs and their large colorful residents. Along with 3 or 4 other elephants in the area, we circled deer and wild boars, but never sited a rhino or the incredibly elusive tiger. Aftr an hour in the forest, we crossed a pond, the water up to the animal's belly and took a long road all the way back to our resort hotel.

The whole experience was short, dirty, uncomfortable, but amazingly real. I was a dream to mount a giant beast and venture into a preserved jungle inhabited by rare, endangered animals living in the wild, even if I didn't get to set eyes on the rarest. Its a feeling that I can't put into words.

That afternoon I got the opportunity to go down to the river and bathe with a couple of elephants while crocs watched us from downriver. Their master would call out commands and the animals would kneel down in the water allowing climb on its back. Thn another shout would result in a rumbling blow me as the great beast stood again. Consecutive commands led the elephant to dip its trunk into the current below us, fill it with water, and spray it up over its head at me riding on its neck. This repeated a few times and the nthe elephant would lie on its side in the water, and I would scramble up onto its massive chest. Another command from its master standing nearby and I am thrown into the brown water as the elephant abrubtly righted itself again.

Even after only a half hour, I felt so privileged to be able to get so close and personal with a grand creature that is confined to zoos in America.

That evening I elected to ride a bike with a young man that works for the hotel into the forest to a large lake named Twenty Thousand Lake. The ride was 16 km one way, exactly 10 miles. Our one gear bikes didnt reach very high speeds, especially on the horrible roads inside the forest, and I tired quickly.

After only a short time a the lake my guide- whose name means "love" in Nepali- and I peddled back but stopped a couple times to watch large birds, a wild boar, and monkeys playing near the road. We stopped about 30 mins from the hotel because I was incredibly thirsty after biking 15 miles on rocky roads and needed some water from a store. After a half hour rest, we continued in the dark, dodging invisible groups of people in the road and trying to keep the huge mosquitos from flying into our eyes and mouths. For half the time the power went out- very common here- and not even the rare street light was available to light the pot hles and puddles that dotted the road.

I was exhausted after my busy last day in Chitwan and sleep found me quickly. The next day I boarded a bus to the border and I was gone. My time at Chitwan was as variable as ever, the pure adventure was unreal while me role as a tourist was sometimes very frustrating. But after the unique 5 days, I feel very alive and have loads of unforgetable moments to reminisce about for years.



[Up next... INDIA!!!]