Indian Cities

Indian Cities:

Biking obviously allows you to pass not only through the large cities, but also through many lesser cities, towns, and innumerable villages. I’ll talk here about some of the more interesting towns and cities that we spent time in.

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Agra, Home of the Taj Mahal:

Agra was our first stop after Delhi. Though the city has 1.3 million inhabitants, it feels like a village or small town. Its streets are narrow and windy and lined with tiny, one-room shops or restaurants. Though not as crowded as Delhi, its pollution seems just as bad or worse. A hazy blanket seems to constantly hover over the city, and the sky is always a foggy white – never blue. Visibility is severely limited. There were frequent power outages, as power in the north is reliant on hydroelectric plants, and the monsoon season didn’t bring enough rain this year.

As we were beginning to discover, many cities of the North were very similar – polluted, dirty, crowded, and lively. Buffalo, camels, cows, wild pigs, and donkeys walked the streets here, as in other northern towns. Many people slept on the streets. The roads were littered with trash, the intersections were garbage heaps, and skinny goats and cows searched for something to eat in the rubbish and often resorted to chewing on plastic. Ditches that ran along both sides of Agra’s streets contained stagnant, contaminated, trash-filled water. Whether it was sewage or drinking water, I know not. Sick dogs drank the water and pigs ate the trash that ran its course. Children urinated and defecated on their own front doorsteps. It all sent up a stench that made you want to move on quickly.

I got caught one time in a holy mess. A young girl had just finished defecating in the middle of the street, and a man came along with a bucket of water and washed it under the sandwich stall where we were standing and waiting for our sandwiches to finish cooking. I stepped aside to avoid the feces, which were coming towards me, only to find myself covered in an even bigger mess! A nearby cow let loose at that very moment and her very much larger crap splattered on the street, bouncing up and covering my pants with brown stains! I could only content myself that at least it was holy poop!!

Bicycle rickshaws crammed the winding streets of Agra, and buffalo and humped bulls pulled wooden wagons behind them. The bazaar was dirty and smelly and crowded with men and women sitting in the center of their piles of fruit and vegetables, their metal weights next to them. Tiny rooms were filled with an unbelievable number of people, sitting shoulder to shoulder. One man invited me into his workshop: “Please sit down, please sit down.” I didn’t know where he wanted me to sit – there were already four men squatting in the shop, working, and I didn’t see how they planned to squeeze another body in. Only in India can they always make room for one more person!

In the late afternoon, just before the monster mosquitoes come out, the monkeys make their appearance, jumping from roof to roof, climbing telephone poles and buildings, swinging from tree branches and electrical wires, walking along railings and stairways in hotels, stealing food from kitchens and Hindu gods and goddesses, peeping at you over the rooftops and from around corners. In the evening, singing and religious chanting emanates from loud speakers all over town, conflicting with each other and so loud that you can’t hear yourself think. Then the Muslim chant calls the faithful to prayer. The city is deserted at nighttime, except for a couple of cows and few dark shadows in the eery fog.

It was in this dirty and polluted city that the world-famous Taj Mahal and the celebrated Red Fort are located, and we visited both monuments. Both are World Heritage sites, and to read more about them, please click on the Indian flag and choose the option entitled “UNESCO sites.”

The Taj was celebrating 350 years, and there was music every day, all day long. A man was almost constantly screaming (singing?) into a microphone, which we could hear even from inside our hotel room. To our Western ears, it sounded shrill, offensive, and terribly off-key.

We were in Agra during the 5-day festival of Diwali, the most joyous of Hindu festivals, which is traditionally marked by the lighting of oil lamps, the setting off of fireworks, and the distribution of candy. The houses are cleaned and decorated, and three of the five days are dedicated to different gods. Some stores and hotels also put up strings of colored lights. The nighttime was very noisy during this period, and loud sounds could be heard all night long, until 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning, making it nearly impossible to sleep. As you lay in bed, many sounds come out of the night, some of them recognizable, some of them not. Aside from the howling of dogs and the incessant buzzing of mosquitoes in your ears, there are also eery, otherworldly sounds, completely unrecognizable.

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Fatehpur Sikri, Celebrating the end of Ramadan:

We arrived in the ghost town of Fatehpur Sikri during the town’s largest festival of the year, celebrating the end of Ramadan. It was the farthest thing from a ghost town that anyone could imagine. The town was in the middle of a five-day fest, during which time the town of about 20,000 swells to 100,000, and its usual still calm is transformed into a deafening roar.

The main street is lined with stalls selling street food, such as samosas, potatoes, beans, curries, and sweets. Children pee in the streets in the middle of huge crowds and wild hogs roam around, eating trash. Three Ferris wheels revolved and a few fair games and a magic show kept the crowd amused. Power outages every half hour or so put the town in complete darkness for some time. Loud – VERY LOUD – music is played through poor loudspeakers, producing a constant static that is grating. The small disco set up inside a tent plays shrill Indian music day and night – at top decibel. You can hear it early and late from inside your hotel room, and it breaks your eardrums if you venture outside.

We weren’t left alone for more than 5 seconds (I’m not exaggerating in the slightest!!!!!) any time that we left the hotel. Crowds gathered around us and stared as if we came from another planet. We spent 24 hours in Fatehpur Sikri, and during that time, hundreds of men asked to take a personal photo with me. Those that didn’t have their own camera paid a professional photographer with Polaroid film to take the photos. My mistake was saying yes to the first man. I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for. All of a sudden, there was a HUGE line of men, with another huge group gathering around just to watch the fun. It was embarrassing, and each time I would refuse, they would start begging again for “just one more photo.” I was happy to retreat to our hotel. And if we would come back out again, by chance, another group would surround us and start begging for more photos: “Just one. Just one? Please! Please!” We couldn’t walk even five feet peacefully down the street. It was terrible. Stephane thinks it’s because I’m blond and tall. Tall?! It’s the first time in my life someone told me that I was tall, but I guess I am here.

Stephane asked one man for 10 Rupees (25 cents) for the privilege of a photo with me, and the man actually got out his wallet to pay us! Stephane explained that it was just a joke…. Still, if every man had agreed to pay 10 Rupees for a photo, we would have had enough money to pay for a hotel room for several weeks! Aahhh…in hindsight….

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The Noise of a Northern Town:

The noise of an Indian town is unbelievable. It is enough to drive some people insane – and I’m one of those people. Two of the worst places were in Fatehpur Sikri – the “ghost town,” and Bharatpur, just next door to the wildlife reserve. I don’t mind the noise so much when I’m on the street, but when I can’t escape it in the hotel room, is drives me crazy. And I consider myself pretty tolerant. I mean, I’m not just talking about a bit of noise here – I’m talking about noise so loud that it hurts your eardrums – inside the hotel room! In Fatehpur Sikri, it was the crowds and the screeching of the speakers put up all over town; in Bharatpur it was the campaigning for an election. Men drove around in pick-up trucks, squashing as many people as possible into the trucks, poor-quality loudspeakers booming shouting voices and shouting music. It lasted almost continuously throughout the day, and when the trucks didn’t pass, marching bands with loud drums, trumpets, and cymbals marched down the streets, clanging away. The noise hurt my ears to the extent that I tried to cover my ears with my hands or a pillow – to no avail! It was hellish. The Indians seem to believe that the louder, the better. It wasn’t so extreme everywhere, but it was definitely loud everywhere. People played loud music or spoke loudly outside your room, no matter what time of day or night it was, regardless of whom they might be disturbing. India is definitely not the place to find a good night’s sleep. Although, to be fair, it got much better as we headed south. The earplugs that we were finally able to procure came out less and less often the farther south we traveled.

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Jaipur, “the Pink City”:

Jaipur is a fascinating city because every building in the old Rajasthani city is painted pink, or rather, a salmon color. The tradition was started in 1876, when the Maharaja Ram Singh painted the entire city pink – the color of hospitality – in order to welcome the future King Edward VII. The tradition has continued, though the paint on many of the buildings could use a touch-up. The Wind Palace is one of the most interesting buildings. 5-storeys high, this architectural fantasy, a simple façade, was built to allow the women of the harem observe street processions and spectacles. Monkeys climb in and out of the windows.

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Ajmer, the Muslim pilgrimage city:

The city of Ajmer in Rajasthan is an important Muslim pilgrimage site, and it was in this city that we saw the holy Muslim tomb, the Dargah Khwaja Sahib (the most important in India), and the Golden City of the Jain Temple. It was a great city because it housed these two fascinating religious buildings, works of art in and of themselves. But the city itself, especially near the train station, left a bit to be desired. The streets were lined with ditches that looked like they should have running water. Instead, they were filled with a congealed, thick, black, sticky substance – a sort of goo – whose smell made one sick to the stomach. Hairy black pigs poked their noses around, looking for trash to eat. We actually saw a man sleeping on a stone slab right over top of the sickly goo!! These same hairy pigs dig for trash on the shores of the Ajmer Lake, and they have their pick, because the Indians throw trash everywhere but in a trashcan – on the street, on their own front doorstep, in the lakes and rivers…. Men bathed in this very same lake.

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Udaipur, “the Venice of the Orient”:

Known as the “Venice of the Orient,” Udaipur is the most romantic of Rajasthan’s cities, with its abundance of temples and palaces, from the simplest to the most extravagant. It is also known as the Lake City because of its several lakes, where many of the temples and palaces are situated. It is known for its famous palace-cum-hotel in the middle of the lake. Unfortunately, because of a poor monsoon season (for the past 5 years!), most of the lake was dried up when we visited, and you have to imagine the splendor of the place with plenty of water and boats going to and fro. Now, there are trodden paths through the dry lakebed, where townsfolk walk with their animals.

We biked around the lake and the old city, and it really is a romantic city. It is probably my favorite town, along with the holy town of Pushkar (see the section entitled “Religion – Pilgrimage Sites and Temples”). Its windy, hilly streets are lined with fruit and vegetable stands, bakery shops, and temples. The Jagdish Temple, sitting atop a hill in the old city, was impressive for its Indo-Aryan architectural style. Built in 1651, its white surface is covered with statues of elephants, tigers, and horses. Some of the tigers attack the elephants. Inside the temple, flower garlands adorn pictures of saints and gods. Worshipers leave their offerings with a boy at the front, who later distributes some of it to the poor (I think).
The City Palace is the major attraction of the city. Overlooking the lake, it is the largest palatial complex in Rajasthan. Most of the palace has been turned into museums. The Mor Chowk was especially impressive with its superb peacock mosaics. Other halls were covered with glass and mirrors and many-colored ceramics. The marble balconies were beautiful, as were the marble windows cut into tiny star-shaped openings. The 19th-century toilet was certainly interesting.

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Chittor – the Chittorgarh Fort, where the Rajput honor rules:

Perched on top of a hillside, the citadel of Chittorgarh embodies the romantic ideal of Rajput chivalry and honor. Three times, Chittor was attacked by a stronger army, and three times, the Rajput code of honor dictated the fulfillment of the “jauhar.” The jauhar requires that in the case of impossible victory, the men attire themselves in robes the color of safran (the color of martyrs) and set out for certain death, while the women and children burn themselves alive on top of a gigantic funerary pyre. Honor was always more important than death.
Chittor’s first defeat was in 1303, when the noblewomen committed the jauhar. The second time was in 1535, when some 80,000 people perished, and the third time in 1568, when the Mogul Emperor Akbar conquered the city. The city was returned to the Rajputs in 1616, but no attempt was ever made at repopulating it.

I was delighted by the Fort. It was much more impressive than I had imagined. It was even, perhaps, the fort that I prefer of all the forts we’ve seen in India. It was not only a citadel with royal palaces and a military function (though those are the main buildings that survive today), it was an entire city enclosed within the fortress’ walls. The palaces were not as well-preserved as in Agra Fort, but I preferred the ensemble at Chittor, anyway.
We arrived by a steep, winding path up the hillside to the fortress. The city walls were beautiful and in remarkable condition. We passed several roadside temples on the way up, some larger ones, but also tiny shrines made only of a small rock with a dash of orange paint.

Today, the city of Chittor is spread out around the Fort, and the Fort itself is just an ensemble of deserted ruins. Within the fortress’ walls are temples, reservoirs, palaces, and towers dating from the 9th to 17th centuries. Green gardens and calmness brought us serenity. The temples were extremely decorative, and devotees still worship there. The “altar” of one had only the face of a god, huge – a bright orange oval with bulging, staring yellow eyes. One Jain temple was magnificent. Its white exterior was completely covered in statues of people and animals from top to bottom. Its several pyramid-shaped rooves looked like white icing plopped on a white cake. It looked like a falling cascade of statues.

The Jain temple and the Victory Tower were the most impressive. We climbed the eight floors of the Tower, which was built in the 1460’s, and which stands 37 m. (11 ft.) high. Sculptures representing Hindu gods and the seasons, among other things, decorate the inside and outside of the Tower. The sculptures, made in stone, are highly decorative and still in very good condition.

It was fabulous place! Fabulous visit! Fabulous day!