Today was mostly driving.
We got up early and drove another five hours. We still did several things, though. They say the fun never stops on this
tour. I’m lucky I can squeeze in an
occasional hour to write.
First, we stopped the bus and took a photo of a camel
cart driver who looked pretty interesting.
Next, we stopped for a bathroom break at a small gas
station. To my amazement, a camel cart
pulled up to the pump, and I got a photo to prove it.
This looked ridiculous and I
told everyone, “Now you know that camels run on diesel, not petrol!” As I looked closer, the men were pumping
gasoline into a tank that was loaded onto the cart.
In
While we were driving, I listened to music on my minidisc
player. I listened to a lot of music,
but something strange happened. I was
listening to the CD “Leftoverture” by
Next, we stopped at a seemingly random village and
visited the people.
They showed us several aspects
of their daily lives: their homes, their fodder cutting machine (to make food
for the animals).
Unfortunately, these
villagers weren’t used to visitors from the West and so we had to follow some
rules. Kathy was allowed to take photos
of anyone and anything, and she got several good shots.
However, because I’m a man, I
was not permitted to take photos of the woman or girls unless I asked for
permission. I was uncomfortable asking,
so I didn’t take many.
We
even saw their equivalent of a refrigerator.
Actually, refrigeration is not needed since all meals are prepared the
same day they are eaten, and there are never any leftovers.
One of the girls was holding tightly onto a small child,
but the girl looked very young. Some of
us thought the girl was the baby’s mother, and others thought she was the
baby’s sister. So back on the bus, we
asked Sujay when women in
Our guide, Sujay, for one, bucked the system and eloped
with his wife against the wishes of their parents. This was twenty years ago when it was much
less accepted! As a result, he has been
ostracized by his family to this very day.
When he visits his parents, he is made to eat in a separate room and do
his own dishes like someone from the Untouchable caste. Still, he makes light of the subject and
maintains a mirthful heart. He is a good
man and I can’t believe that his mother would treat him so badly.
As we got on the bus, he said that while we were gone,
some of the village people stuck their hands inside the bus door, which was
left partly open by accident, and when they felt the unnatural coldness from
the air-conditioning, they got scared and ran away. They were afraid of the bus then. We had a good laugh over that one.
As we drove across the countryside, Sujay told us more
funny stories from being a tour guide.
One time, he said, he was leading a group of tourists and they visited a
village like we had done. This was many
years ago, and the villages had seen tour busses go by on the roads, but never
knew what was inside. So they were
surprised to see the strange people come out to visit them. Now ordinarily, we ask lots of questions of
Sujay, but also Sujay lets the village people ask questions about us because we
are even more strange to them than they are to
us.
So on this particular occasion, the villagers started
asking him questions. Their first
question was “How did the strangers get here?”
Sujay told them the tourists had flown there. Immediately, the villagers walked behind the
tourists and checked for the existence of wings! Having found none, they cast him a doubting
frown. He tried to explain to the
villagers that the strangers had gotten into huge metal machines and the
machines had wings, and the machines flew them here over seven different seas.
Understandably, the villagers were quite skeptical about
this answer too. It seemed even more
improbable than flying with your own wings.
They asked, “Can this be so?”
Sujay answered that the strangers had paid thousands of
rupees to use the machine to fly here.
They still didn’t believe him; they couldn’t imagine that much money
being spent on such a thing. So they
demanded an explanation.
Sujay made an analogy they could understand. He said, “How much do you villagers pay for
your naan bread? The answer, of course,
was “We don’t buy naan bread, we make it.”
Sujay said, “Okay, if you left the village and went into
the town and bought some naan bread, how much would you pay?” They said, “Twenty hundredths of one rupee.”
Sujay told them that “If you travel to
The villagers’ second pressing question was, “Do the
tourists play cricket?” That tells you
how important the game of cricket is to the people of
Sujay also told us about talking to a woman in one
village who he saw rolling miniature cigarettes. He asked the woman, “Does your village grow
the tobacco or does someone bring it here?”
She proceeded to tell him that there is a company that comes by every
day with tobacco and paper and she has to make one thousand
mini-cigarettes. If she doesn’t make a
thousand, her wages are cut in half for the lot she gives them. What does she get for making a thousand mini-cigarettes? Only thirty rupees, which
is less than one dollar. Closer to 75 cents.
Sujay was moved almost to tears, and he tried after that point to quit
smoking. But of course, that habit is
very hard to get rid of.
Next we stopped at a small shop where some of the people
had some tea or coffee. I didn’t have
tea or coffee because I was busy shopping.
I found a wonderful box, but they wanted 28 dollars, so I decided not to
get it. I also found a very nice statue
of Ganesha, the Elephant-faced god of the Hindus, but they wanted $165 for it
too. It was beautiful, perfectly carved
in white marble, but unfortunately, I wasn’t willing to pay that much. So in the end, I left with nothing. Well, it was kind of a “white elephant gift”
anyway!
Finally, after five hours of driving, we reached the
O.A.T. camp in rural Rajasthan. The bus
couldn’t go down the small village roads to the camp, so we left the tour bus
and took a jeep to the site.
This is like an oasis in the desert. The site is quiet and peaceful, a large patch
of grass in the semi-desert, only a short distance from a lake. The scenery is beautiful with green grass and
flowers.
We are surrounded by farmland,
and we saw little kids walking their water buffalos in the pasture, and farmers
tending the fields. It was serene
compared to the hectic pace of the cities.
Although you can say we are camping, this is not
primitive at all. These “tents” are more
permanent and modern than the tents we used in
So it is not as fancy as the
hotels, but it’s still fun to be out in the country. After exploring the place, Kathy and I went
for a short walk outside the gates. We
met with some more village children who were out walking their herd of water
buffalos too.
Their English, although
broken, was not too bad considering how far we are out in the countryside.
Next, we had a group camel ride.
It took a while to hoist all
thirteen of us onto our respective camels, but then we were off. Immediately, the camel carrying Sujay started
making noise and complaining verbally.
It was very funny. It was as if
this camel didn’t like Sujay and didn’t want to carry him. The camel complained most of the way.
We walked the camels into
another nearby village that looked pretty primitive.
Then we got off and visited
with the people. Again, we saw more
children holding children.
They invited us in to see
their homes, and it was quite different from American homes.
These people live simply,
easily and happily. Afterward, we
returned back to the camp on our respective camels. This time, Sujay was relegated to the back of
a camel cart.
Back at the OAT camp, we sat on the lawn which they
cultivated and watched some more musicians.
There were dancing girls, a dancing boy who also did fire breathing, and
a girl who balanced seven pots on her head this time. However, one of the pots was not quite right
so after doing a very good job and impressing us all with her skills, the pots
finally came crashing to the ground and everyone felt bad. She was so embarrassed that she refused to
even face the group from then on.
Next, we got a quick cooking lesson, where we learned how
to make mint chutney. Kathy learned how
to cook a different kind of Indian bread.
Dinner followed the lesson, and after dinner, we asked
Sujay all the questions Kathy and I had been saving up during the day: Here are all the questions we asked:
Question one: Since Hindus treat cows as special or even
holy, we wanted to know this: when a cow
dies, what happens to the body? Hindu
people are always cremated, so are the cows treated specially? We had heard earlier that camels are buried
when they die. Sujay answered that cows
are taken to a field and left to rot because they are thereby fed to the
animals: the dogs of the area, jackals, crows and other scavengers are
fed. There is no special ceremony
because they are already gone from their body once death occurs.
Question two: At every Indian dinner, there is always
lots of rice, but we have only seen very dry desert-like conditions in India,
and rice requires a lot of water to grow.
So where does all the rice come from?
Sujay said that they have huge areas from rice-growing in other parts of
the country, especially to the South.
They grow so much rice that they export it to other countries.
Question three: Kathy wanted to know if the color of the scarves worn by the women have some special
significance. She was especially
interested in the black scarfs, because wearing black in the United States is
sometimes done after a funeral. Sujay
said it really didn’t signify anything special; it was just up to whatever they
want to wear.
Question four: Kathy wanted to know why so many homes had
walls. We can understand walls around
the fields that we saw, in order to keep animals out and preserve the
crops. But why around
the houses? Sujay basically said
it was for the same reasons we did: mainly in towns, walls are built for
privacy, and perhaps to protect the family from burglars.
Question five: Do
the farmers share farm equipment? Sujay
said yes, that farmers can get together and use one tractor, for example, to
plow the fields of many farmers. The people
cooperate very well with each other.
Question six: Why do the biggest trees on the side of the
highway have red and white paint around them?
Does it signify that the beautiful tree is protected by the government
or something? Sujay said that this was
just their version of “reflectors” for night driving so that people don’t crash
their cars into the trees.
Question seven: When do the Hindus believe that life
begins? At conception,
at birth, somewhere in between, or perhaps even sometime after birth. We told Sujay this was a big controversy in
the United States. Sujay said that they
consider it to be “life” as soon as the woman finds out she is pregnant. It’s not a big issue for them.
Question eight: Yesterday, when we were returning to the
hotel from the wildlife refuge, we saw a small group of people going to the
temple in a strange way. They had
coconuts, and they would lie on the ground on their bellies, stretch out their
arms and place the coconut in front of them.
Some of the men had wives who would bend over and help them place the
coconuts. We asked Sujay to talk about
this. He called this “Sash Dam Pernam,”
and he said it was a kind of thanks and homage to the god or gods who answered
a very special prayer. The people
sometimes barter with the God (He always says The God) saying, “Please, God, if
you grant me this one wish, I will do (something specific) for you.” Some people promise to do the Sash Dam
Pernam. So they are basically crawling
on their belly the entire distance from their home to the temple to pay homage
and thanks to God.
After our questions were answered, we talked a bit about
the role of women in Hindu society. In a
way, it seems like the women are not treated fairly. For example, if a wife dies, the husband may get
married again and life is good. But if a
husband dies, she incurs the wrath of the whole village. Since the wife comes to live in the husband’s
village, the village views the man’s death as being significant. Surely, it must be that the new woman to
enter the village has brought some kind of curse which killed the husband. Therefore, she cannot remarry. Also, she is banished from the village and
has to take her children and return to her father’s village, the place she grew
up. Sounds pretty cruel to me.
In the past, there was an even more cruel outcome. When a man died, the wife was sometimes
burned alive so he wouldn’t be without a wife in the afterlife. That practice was also banned by the federal
government a long time ago, but even today a case of it still reaches the
newspapers now and again.