Jaipur

Jaipur, Rajasthan is just gorgeous. It’s named for Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh, the founder and ruler. It’s called the Pink City and the royal family still resides here. Royalty and pink, how could I not go? It’s called the Pink City because the old part of the city was built with pink/red stucco in imitation of sandstone. While I was at the Amber Fort, before I reached the battlements to take pictures of the view I rode this camel.

Delhi

The India Gate, a memorial to all those Indians who perished in war. The spot Indira Gandhi fell when she was brutally murdered by her bodyguards, walking the 50 feet from her home to her office. The sari she was wearing at the time. Humayan’s Tomb, over a hundred Mughals are buried here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What if…

There’s a polo field to my left and a Methodist church to my right. I’m sitting on a courtyard having tea and cucumber sandwiches. It’s 45 degrees Celsius and I am in Jaipur, Rajasthan. As I wander India and immerse myself in its history, forts, and palaces I can’t help but wonder…what would India have been like had the British never come?

For over three hundred years India was yoked under British rule and the memories of that era has left bitterness in the hearts and minds of many Indians.

Bitterness and anger over the partition of India…over the theft of Indian wealth/jewels etc…the destruction of Indian princely estates…the overt racism…the degrading treatment who were not allowed to walk certain roads or live in certain areas in their own homeland…the forced religious conversions…changes of the names of towns/cities in India to be more Anglicized…executions of Indian royalty…

However. India has benefited from the British Raj. The railway system India has today was built by the British…our education system was based on theirs and today allows this young nation to compete on an international level…the practice of sati, while not abolished, was greatly reduced due to Lord Dalhousie’s tireless campaigning against it…the English language has become the unofficial language of business across this subcontinent of a hundred languages…

But what if those three hundred odd years had never occurred?

Unending Love…

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
- Rabindranath Tagore (Unending Love)

If it is not beyond the realm of hope, I sincerely wish for everyone to experience a love of this caliber.

A Mediocre Life

I’m in Bangalore right now (where all your tech support is now outsourced) and staying with my uncle. Around the corner, literally around the corner, a friend of mine from home is staying with her uncle. Incidentally, we discovered yesterday that her uncle and my uncle were best friends in high school but have since lost touch even though they now live less than two minutes away.

She’s getting married in three weeks, its arranged…very arranged. To be honest, every Indian girl especially those from Muslim/Sikh/Hindu families are raised knowing that an arranged marriage might be in their future. The first time she met him was at their engagement. Its all sorts of complicated. She was never the type of girl I could see having an arranged marriage, to a boy from the motherland, break up with the man she actually loves, put her grad school and own plans on hold…but that’s what she’s doing. She’s a brave girl in many ways, she’s making huge sacrifices for her parents and her family (who keep telling her to find a way to lighten her skin). She’s going through with this wedding and going to do her best to make this marriage work. He’s not a bad guy, he’s just not the kind of guy she would have chosen for herself.

Being that we are so close by and that we’ve been friends for years we see each other every available moment because its nice to have someone from home and, for her, she needs someone who knows her and gets what she’s going through right now. We spent yesterday at the spa getting facials, manicures and pedicures and figuring her life out. We came back to my uncle’s house and lounged on my bed, chatting, as comfortable as we would have been at our own homes continents away. We’ve had a long time to pretend this wedding wasn’t going to happen…now its only three weeks away.

She’s a great girl, did really well in school, has law school acceptances waiting for her, had two great job offers she’s had to turn down…instead she’s marrying a man she tells herself she will learn to love and preparing herself for, in her words, ‘a mediocre life.’

India

A couple days ago I went to a small little town that doesn’t get many (if any) tourists but produced the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had. It was a stark contrast to the India I am used to. I thought I’d share a few pictures with you but I do apologize for not having pictures of the wild boars I saw on the side of the road as I didn’t have my camera out…

The view from my hotel room.

This is my hotel room. It was the ‘deluxe’. Two twin beds..I’ll let you figure out how there’s a population of over a billion in this country if everyone sleeps alone in a twin.

Random Roadside:

  

Forgive Me For I Have Sinned

And after crossing yourself again you’d tell the priest at the confessional what you’d done. Mind you, I was around six the last time I went so really the extent of my sins…

Either way, I did learn that the sins requiring the greatest repentance are the ones that you know are wrong but go ahead with anyway.

So I’m confessing to you, oh Hallowed Readers, maybe you can help me figure out what my penance should be. Here goes.

I wore Crocs.

I’m sorry. I know it was wrong and I know I’ve been very anti-Croc before (still am) but I wore them. For five minutes. Under duress. I have committed a great fashion sin. I was at my uncle’s house and they wanted to show me the garden after a tour of the house, rather than having me go back to the other side of the house to wear my own shoes they offered me Crocs and insisted I wear them.

 Forgive me, Fashion, for I have sinned. I wore Crocs.