Incredible India

Incredible India

by Metty

Visiting India was near the bottom of my travel destination, but my dream to see the world will not be complete without setting foot on this subcontinent where one-third of the human race lived. All I knew about India, was Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, the Nehru jacket, its jewel-bedecked dark-eyed women wearing elegant and exquisite silk saris and  who encrusted their foreheads with a ruby, and the celluloid portrayal of the lavish Maharajah lifestyle of the British during its two centuries of colonial rule, and yeah, the blockbuster “Slum-dog Millionaire”. I had many Indian colleagues in my medical profession but I did not have any personal friend. My aversion was shaped during my internship, and further cemented into prejudice from conflicted  encounters with various forms of one-upmanship. Looking back, my experiences were with Indian men in the context of a very competitive professional milieu. I thought it was time to open my eyes, maybe I was missing something.

I arrived in Delhi on a Sunday. The city greeted me with a cacophony of car horns blaring, motor and pedal rickshaws careening with bells tinkling, street vendors screaming beyond the din, masses rushing to pick bargains, touts urging a sale at the best price. The smell of gasoline, dust, garbage, and  animal excrement started a nauseous wave but then coriander, cumin, and samosas from the curbside food stalls quickly calmed the avalanche. The chaotic scene was contradicted by the brilliance of jewel-colored saris on the women, the setting, bustling, purposeful, so full of life!

Deja vu. The road trip to Jaipur was a symphony of contrapuntal tunes of trumpeting vehicles, urging speed in a grid-locked highway ridden with diversions and potholes, and stalled by cows, dogs and goats, lumbering along with motor traffic. The detour road was narrowed by makeshift truck stops and rest areas in shanty villages that catered to the needs of drivers who slept and rested during the day and drove at night. The major highway under construction since 2009 did not show any signs of completion anytime soon but was getting its five minutes of fame with the upcoming national elections. In the rural villages scattered along the way, women in bright saris harvested the jatropha and rapeseed mustard fields, and the men eked a living from scraps. They lived in unfinished dwellings that were being built as funds became available, and where town halls failed to provide services, so that thrash were everywhere and men relieved themselves by merely turning their backs to the road. In wealthy Haryana, just outside Delhi, gleaming mirror and steel office skyscrapers and posh gated residential developments with names like Princess Park, Nirvana and Park Grandeura had sprouted like mushrooms, to house the skilled workers in booming industries erected in planned industrial parks. In these gated enclaves, the rapidly growing middle class protects its fragile status. There are new millionaires and moneyed developers. They influence the dynastic political rulers. Nobody represents the poor but the poor overwhelms.

I barely walked three blocks on the street where the legend of the Taj Mahal lives, when I was forced to turn and take refuge in the sanctuary of my hotel. In that brief excursion on my own I was accosted by hordes of grimy children begging for food or a few rupees or offering touts of snow globes of the Taj Mahal, at the best price. When I withheld eye contact to ignore their supplication, I was taunted by chants of their imagined Chinese tongue and by their laughter, but then they left me alone. I was still shaking my head in mild disbelief, when I was jolted to attention by the screech of rubber meeting gravel and cement and then I felt a burning gash on my left ankle. A rickshaw just missed running over me but still made a side swept contact, inflicting a slight bruise on my ankle. I was crossing the street and was looking in the wrong direction, as India drives on the left the way the British do. I barely collected myself when I had to give way to a herd of water buffaloes on their way to their spa in the River Yamuna, on which banks the city of Agra was built. I then watched where I stepped to avoid the piles of trash that collected everywhere, and the varied deposits of animal excrement lining my path. Cows lumbered along impassive, and crossed the street with impunity, confident that humans will give way. I was told that there was hardly any cows hit by a vehicle or rickshaw. Rickshaws, the ubiquitous motorized tricycles, crowd the street and criss-cross out of lane without rhyme or reason. A juvenile goat herder was chasing and waving a stick at two run-away charges. And there were donkeys and dogs and a prancing white horse decorated to the hilt with gold tassels and bells on its way to a wedding. A tusked boar was foraging in a garbage pile. Engaged in the same task was an old man in faded red turban and matted grey-white beard grown down to where his clavicles joined at his throat. A woman in bright jewel-toned sari threw her leftover vegetarian meal to a cow. Vendors displayed their goods, from toys to vegetables and flowers, on makeshift stalls robbing the street further of precious space. The air held the scents of the agora and reached one’s nose depending on how the wind blew. One moment you held your breath as the smell of cow dung wafted by and the next breath you took might be the delicious aroma of cinnamon, cumin or cardamon, or the sweet perfume of roses and lilies. But you couldn’t linger in reverie of some of these inviting fragrances as there was always someone insisting on your attention, to purchase something you already declined or ignored. I was looking for a square tablecloth, and the vendor persisted on showing me rectangles. And I felt threatened by the invasion of my physical space. Vendors thrust their wares at my face and followed me closely and sustained their offers longer than what was comfortable. 

On the Bhopal Shtabdi express train from Agra on my way to Jhansi, I engaged a baggage handler. By the time I boarded the train two persons were handling my luggage. I gave the main guy his tip, indicating that the two should share it, but the other guy won’t have it. I could argue and I know how to have my way but I was getting weary at this point of this tipping and I let it go. I felt like an ATM machine. The tourist was treated like a cash cow. I was told while shopping, “ You are rich, you can pay this price.” It seemed a tip was expected every time anybody did anything for you, requested or not. The doorman at a restaurant greeted me with a flower. He wanted a tip. Public toilets didn’t provide soap and tissues. You had to tip the nice lady in sari with her toddler who handed those to you. I was at a monument site and a guy standing next to me started to tell me about the edifice, he expected a tip for his unsolicited commentary. These in addition to bellhops and waiters and tour guides and drivers, and tour office representatives. I was beginning to feel abused. But reading the daily papers, I realized this is a way of life.  Everybody is treated this way, not just the tourist. To get any service done, you must tip. The practice is institutionalized, it is part of the culture. To get a sought after government job, you must give the right staff a tip; to submit an application, to get an interview, and a bigger tip to land the job. Once you land the job, you may have to continue tipping in order to keep it. A Public Works Department timekeeper amassed millions this way, just on tips. Same goes for any business you want to conduct with any official agency. To get the building inspector to approve your plans to build, you must tip. To get the police to file a report of crime that was committed against you, you must tip. Trucks must tip the highway patrols so they can drive through. Then when you want the rules or law to be bent in your direction, you must tip. A guy cut off the finger of a police officer who was about to give him a violation ticket, which ordinarily could be forgiven with a tip. To make the government work for you you must tip. A farmer drank poison, when the farm bureau officer delayed inordinately to survey his loss for hailstorm damage to his tomato crop, because he failed to tip. And unable to tip, a vigilante women's gang had formed to get the officials in their rural village to file reports of domestic violence and rape, and to turn on electricity. The big politician does this, the littlest guy does this.  The politicians insert cash in the newspapers delivered to a voter’s door, a tip. My waiter was trying to convince me to pay cash without receipt for my meal, instead of charging it to my room, enticing me with discount of taxes and hotel service fees. Everyone is a perpetrator, and everyone is a victim, on the pecking order. A bridge over the Chambal River that had been approved for construction twenty-four years ago remains on the drawing board. This would alleviate transportation for rural villagers in three states, but the Public Works Department and Ministries of Environment have not found the time to complete their clearance. Perhaps the right tip has not been offered yet? The courts are busy ordering government agencies to do their mandates. 

The country has a very ancient and rich heritage, but it is a very young democracy. Tourism also is still very young, just a little over two decades in development. One could understand how everyone would try to make money off the tourist. Tips are a quick source of cash. The rural poor economy had changed with agrarian reform. It supplanted subsistence farming with cash crop planting. Many small farms succumbed to  speculative real estate development  and industrialization. The caste system, though abolished legally, still controls village mores. Reforms are disruptive of this society, and change is blocked that will threaten its way of life. In rural areas children are needed to help in the farm so they are not sent to school. Parents are enticed by free breakfast and lunch for the children, reducing their burden of feeding them. And girls especially are encouraged by the promise of a personal bike. In urban areas, children are trained to beg, and often are main earners. Everyone on the street that the tourist encounters is just trying to make a living, the best way they can. The sheer numbers of the poor make getting the basic necessities very competitive. So it’s part of the M.O. to flatter, to be servile, to undercut, trick, or manipulate. It’s about gamesmanship. Why, CEO’s and governments do it all the time. On the street everyone watches out for himself, man, cows, buffaloes, goats, rickshaws, cars. Anything goes, so it’s up to everyone to know. The street is where life is lived and everyone is street-wise.  Live and let live. Respect all living things.

And so life goes on, and nobody minds. The street markets are bustling, colorful, so alive, and weddings are celebrated in grand style, as vibrant and merry and full of hope as ever.

On the street in Rajasthan, pretty young ladies dancing to a live band, in brilliant saris of emerald, ruby, sapphire, gold, and amethyst, followed newly-weds riding on decorated white horses. In another, the couple were on a silver horse-drawn chariot, and one at night had huge column lights illuminating the gathering. Arranged marriages are still the norm. Though there are reports of bride kidnapping and abuse of women, the society is very protective and nurturing of women. They are respected as the guardian of the home and manager of the husband’s income. The husband provides and upholds tradition and saves money so he can marry off his daughters well. Thus the cycle repeats and the fabric of life is woven.

Incredible India; vast, complex, a land of contrasts, with desert, plains, snow-capped mountains, and the sea, traditional and modern, friendly and intrusive, secular and democratic, yet for the majority life is governed by religion and tribal law, where women are pampered or violated, the seat of the oldest continuous civilization, spiritual, the origin of four world religions, the center of ayurvedic healing and yoga, corrupt, rich in history and heritage sites, rich in potential, home to 1.2 B people, and also home to the world’s poorest of the poor, amazing, frustrating, numbing, confusing, overwhelming, satisfying, inspirational. Incredible India. 

March 2014

Delhi Jaipur Pushkar Agra Orccha Khajuraho Varanasi Sarnath Kolkata Mumbai

The Last Shangri-La

The Last Shangri-La

Bhutan, March 2014

by Metty Pellicer

As my Drukair flight took off from Paro, Bhutan, one of the most dangerous airport in the world, I made sure I was seated for the best view of the Himalayas en route. The take-off was the most exciting ever. I leaned with all the pitch and turn that the plane took to avoid the mountains that hemmed the narrow and short but deep runway. It barely avoided the sloping rooftops of the traditionally built houses with their intricately carved wooden eaves and rafters, small arched windows, and colorfully painted frontages of auspicious Buddhist symbols; dragons, elephants, monkeys, beribboned and hairy phalluses and swastika images.  It tilted severely left then as we seemed headed to strike the side of the mountain it tilted right then left again like we're sashaying, then as it advanced to a solid wall of pine and fir-covered forest the plane lifted and cleared the top of the ridge into the clouds and open sky. The ice-peaked Himalayas glistened above the clouds and flying over Kathmandu, the familiar silhouette of Mt.Everest came into view. The vast Himalayan range provided the scenery until we crossed into India. Breathtaking! 

I arrived in the capital Thimpu, a day after the whole world celebrated International Day of Happiness on March 20. The UN General Assembly established the event in 2012, inspired by Bhutan’s philosophy of measuring the nation’s development progress in terms of GNH, gross national happiness, instead of GDP, gross domestic product. I was intrigued to see for myself if this tiny Buddhist Himalayan kingdom, the Land of the Thunder Dragon, sandwiched between China and India, was for real. I became curious after accidentally coming across articles about the country during my 2011 research of Southeast Asia, in preparation for traveling in the region. Its crown prince, Jigme Wangchuck, charmed the whole county during his visit to Thailand in 2006, to celebrate King Bhumibol’s 60th anniversary on the throne. The youngest among twenty-five royal guests, he was dubbed Prince Charming and all the young women swooned and fantasized meeting him. After the visit travel to Bhutan from Thailand became very popular. He had the same effect when he went to Japan in 2011, in spite of being accompanied by his new bride. Tourism from Japan surged. From there on each article I came across became more delicious than the last. In 2007, he sold his BMW at auction to raise funds to start a radio station for youth, Kuzoo FM. He was educated in Massachusetts and England. He got married to a Bhutanese commoner in 2011 in an elaborate ceremony that went on for days. They were in love and lived together before tying the knot and he proclaimed, unlike his father  who has four wives,  all sisters, that he will only have this one wife. Polygamy is legal in Bhutan, as polyandry, though it’s becoming rare due to the expense of supporting each spouse equally. Women and men in many ways are equal in this medieval feudal society which began modernizing only in the mid-fifties. Men and women work together in the fields, in road work, in construction. Both can receive education. In the fifties during the construction of Bhutan’s first road, foreign labor was prohibited. Each household was required to provide a worker, regardless of sex to build the nation’s highway. Nowadays labor is contracted from Nepal or India and governed by strictly enforced temporary work permits.

The story of Bhutan is the story of the Wangchuck dynasty, which consolidated power in the first king in 1907. The landlocked kingdom was isolated to the world until the reign of the third king in the fifties. He was educated abroad and started the change from a feudal society to a modern one. He got rid of serfdom and slavery, built roads, hospitals and schools. He died of a heart attack and the fourth king took over at a tender age of seventeen. The fourth king moved towards democratization, introduced the philosophy of GNH to guide the country’s development and promoted tourism. He allowed TV in 1999 and the internet and telephones. He did not want a repeat of his experience of suddenly having to rule without preparation, and so he abdicated in favor of his son in 2008, which stunned the nation. The fifth king, the former Prince Charming, will preside over the transition from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy, and oversee the democratization transformation.

Bhutan is undergoing growing pains. It only debuted in the fifties. It seems to sincerely want to accomplish its lofty goals of democratization, of balancing development and the well-being of its citizens, of preserving its culture while pursuing modernization, and of preserving its environment while harnessing its natural resources. The ruling body has transmitted these ideals into a slick marketing of the Bhutan brand and the philosophy of GNH, but it had adopted contradictory autocratic and repressive methods. To preserve its culture, it purged the ethnic minority of Bhutanese residents of Nepalese origin, who had been in the country since its founding,  and which constituted ten percent of its 700,000 population. Initially granted naturalized citizenship in the first Nationality Act of 1958, the law was amended in 1985 and disqualified their status. Subsequently they were stripped of their property, positions in government, and expelled as illegal immigrants. It mandated that the national dress, the Kira for women, and Gho for men should be worn in public places, citizens cannot criticize the monarchy, and though theoretically there is freedom of religion and separation of religion and state, Buddhism is the state religion, and the monastery and government assembly are housed in the same building complex in every state. Buddhism informs the daily life of the people. The monks are consulted in every significant decision, and the religious hold a strong sway in how people think, act, or vote. The fourth king has four sisters for his wives because the monk’s prophesied it would be auspicious. The coronation of the fifth king was on a specific date that was also auspicious. And so on, with elections, travel, marriage, purchase, etc. There is so much superstition and magic and contradiction in the practice of religion. It frowns on killing but many eat meat, except they relegate the slaughtering of animals to Indian and Nepalese butchers. The simplicity and beauty and mysticism that the Buddha preached is lost in the hoi polloi. The remote villages are still difficult to access. There is one East-West artery and radiating roads are skimpy. Travel even on short distances can take up a long time because the mountain terrain is tortuous and often interrupted by landslides. Surplus produce cannot be transported to market except by walking several hours to reach the road. The government has built road-side covered sheds above these valleys so farmers can sell their goods to motorist. There is universal if inadequate health care, free education until the tenth grade, and competitive scholarships can be won for advanced study abroad. During the reign of the fourth king, the last absolute monarch, he distributed land. No one is homeless in Bhutan. Every farmer has a home, the traditional chalet style architecture with sloping hand pressed mud walls and intricate carved wood trims   and painted frontage. The villagers erect these homes for each other, a cooperative venture. No one goes hungry. The farmers are self-sufficient. The rare homeless or hungry, exclusively found in the cities, will find their way to the monasteries. There’s hardly any crime, or drug use. Marijuana grows wild, but it is used to feed pigs to increase their weight. Selling tobacco products is illegal and smoking in public is banned. In the cities the widening gap in income and culture is visible. The young generation change into T-shirts and jeans after school or work, and hang out in bars and shops, and watch English, American and Indian TV. They listen to foreign hit songs, surf the internet and use social media. Mobile phones are status symbols. They know about Sex and the City, wear brand apparel,  are learning English, and dream of one day going to America or England, and live the life they see on TV and pirated blockbuster movies. When they realize the constraints their government have on their freedom and opportunity, and the gap in their incomes with the developed world they yearn to visit and to be part of, let’s root for them to find the right path, and for the government to be enlightened. Tourism is tightly controlled and limits the numbers by imposing a $250/day tariff and by the limited seats on Drukair. Every tourist must be accompanied by a tour guide and booked by a tour company. Destination and tourist movement is checked at strategic posts. The antiquities are impressive, the legends of the lamas spell-binding, the mountain scenery is majestic, and in early spring the deciduous magnolias and mountain rhododendrons are profuse with bloom, trekking is challenging and perhaps could provide spiritual contemplation, while the terraced hills and farmhouses give a peaceful, settled vibe. The air is fresh and the streets are swept clean. Food is organic and trendy, locally sourced from farm to table, and ema datshi, a chili-cheese dish, which had accompanied my meals throughout had become a favorite. The women are beautiful in their elegant Kira,  a full length wrap-around held with jeweled pin at the shoulder and topped by a silk jacket. I did not become a fan of the gentlemen’s Gho, a knee-length woven kimono or bathrobe-like wrap worn with knee high black socks and dress shoes. There are no touts and hotel, restaurant and tour staff are still shy about accepting tips. In another generation there will be no more Shangri-La, but hopefully there will be a young and vibrant nation which truly can balance  the traditional with modernization and liberate GNH from artfulness.