A Trip to the Taj

We’ve officially spent a month in India now. It feels like we have been here forever and yet it also has seemed to go by very quickly, if you can make sense of that paradox at all. Two weekends ago a group of five of us went on our first adventure without the watchful eye of MSID. We hired a driver to take us to Matura to see Krishna’s birthplace and to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. While seeing the Taj was absolutely everything it’s cracked up to be, the trip as a whole turned out to be my breaking point and first strong dislike of this country. We finally got a good solid dose of being treated like tourons, with guides and our driver perpetually lying and trying swindle money out of us. It’s a very tiring venture to attempt to keep your sanity whilst putting up with guides lying to your face and telling you that they are “honest”. After returning back to our host family my first feelings were that there is absolutely no way that I want to spend 10 days after the program traveling and continually dealing with being screwed over.

With all of the terrible that came with our first touristy trip, there was of course some good. By the time we got to the Taj is was Sunday and we had spent all of Saturday dealing with nonsense from our ‘guide’, so needless to say we were all bitter. After our driver dropped us off we were instantly bombarded with all sorts of obnoxious people trying to sell us stupid things and men trying to be our guides and other nonsense. After much ado we purchased our 750 rupee ticket to enter the premises (the Indians only have to pay 20 rupees), made some friends with some British boys to share a guide with them, and then we finally entered. From the chaos that was outside, the inside grounds were instantly peaceful. It was pouring rain and yet we just did not care. We were finally seeing this awesome piece of architecture that we had spent our whole life hearing about its wonders. As beautiful as it was, I think that was the coolest part, being in the presence of a building that has transcended religion, turmoil, and continents, to be renowned as one of the wonders of the modern world. Some intense stuff.

Another anecdote that I took home with me from this trip was an anger, or moreover confusion, of how artifacts are preserved in this country. In short, one can say that they are not. On this trip we stopped at a museum where none of the pieces were behind protective covering, nor even properly cleaned. With this method of maintenance I can only imagine that the relics will not stand the test of time. This of course was not an isolated incident, as various monuments we have seen have had graffiti and it is a common practice for guides giving tours of ancient places to take their guests to the roped off areas and suggest that they touch the silver or whatnot from centuries before. At the Amber Fort our guide pointed out one the last remaining Kama Sutra paintings left on the fort; it was small and the casual observer would not have noticed it. In previous years, however, the fort had many Kama Sutra paintings that were large and dispersed all over the fort. These were whitewashed over, as they were considered unsavory for the family audience. For a country with such a rich and elaborate history it seems so unfortunate to me that they would not take the previsions to preserve it and are willing to discredit historic relics on the basis of them being unsavory.

After the Taj trip I spent the next week with a hate for India. Just entirely sick of being treated poorly for being white, sick of how inconvenient things are, just sick of everything. As we’ve gotten farther away from that trip my stamina for this place is growing again. One of the things that the pre-session kids had advised on how to deal in India is to remember not to get mad and pissed off. You gotta roll with the punches. As I’m starting to do that again things are looking brighter, and I remember that not all Indian people are out to screw me. Last Saturday we went out for a hike to a temple and ended up meeting a nice couple, getting a free meal, a free ride, and an invitation to their home in Mumbai if we are ever in the area. That’s the India I am going to have to focus on if I want to make it through these next three months with my sanity intact.

Last Friday our field trip took us to one of the slums of the city. This particular slum consisted of lots of little square minimalistic residences. They were ten by ten squares that housed a bed and negligible life possessions. On our tour of this slum Indian dancing, puppetering, and beadwork demonstrations entertained us. These are the crafts that theoretically earn the residents of the slums a living. Speaking with one my professors on the topic of the slums she contended that the problem of the slums is the same problem that plagues all of India, which is overpopulation. She likes to take these field trips as her time to be a personal advocate of family planning. There was indeed a plethora of children living in this particular slum, whether this is to lack of education or contraception or foresight I’m not entirely sure, but I would imagine that each factor plays a role. Apparently each of these things are available, that people do attempt to educate and offer conceptives. However, children are a source of free labor, the more children a person has the more labor they have at their disposal. I have recently just started reading a book entitled Slumming India: A Chronicle of Slums and Their Saviors so hopefully this book will leave me more educated on slums and how this problem is perpetuated.

On a completely unrelated note, the monkeys have begun to invade our homestay neighborhood. When we first arrived here all of the MSID students had the same feeling about monkeys that our Asian study abroad students have about squirrels on the University of Illinois’s campus; that they are cute, interesting, and exotic. Indeed, they are, I have taken my fair share of pictures of the little critters. However, they have another quality that is not quite so endearing, they are freaking scary. We’ve all been hearing horror stories of these monkeys going in to houses and destroying things, attacking people, and causing general mischief (ie monkey business). Apparently their moving to our neighborhood has something to do with the changing of seasons, but I am at this point much more concerned with the havoc they may wreck rather than their cute and cuddly appearance. Ideally I won’t come home with any personal stories with monkey destruction.

As the month now comes to a close we are welcoming October with the knowledge that it ushers in the beautiful season of winter. Hopefully this means that there will be a cease to the 95-degree days very soon. Along with the cooling off, this month we will also all be shipped off to various areas of Rajasthan for our internship. I, being the procrastinator that I am, have not yet found and internship, so hopefully I will happen upon one of those within the next few days. And for those generous souls out there, anyone who would like to send me some non-perishable American food I would love to be the grateful recipient.