Life in Lucknow...First Impressions
Trip Start
Aug 11, 2007
1
13
23
Trip End
Jul 30, 2008
Lucknow,
India
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Lucknow History:
Since I'll be living in Lucknow for 9 months, I thought it would be a good idea to give a sense of the city's history. Here's a bit of what I've found out...
Lucknow was once the royal city of the Nawabs of Avadh. The Nawabs were the Muslim rulers who controlled north Indian for almost 100 years after the decline of the Mughal Empire. There are many beautiful, old and now-crumbling examples of Mughal architecture in Lucknow dating back to the time of the Nawabs, including mosques, tombs, palaces, etc.
In 1856, the British took over Avadh and exiled the last Nawab ruler to Kolkata (Calcutta), and a year later Lucknow became a key site in the First Indian War of Independence against the British. In 1857, during an uprising against the British, Indian freedom fighters forced all the city's British inhabitants to take refuge in the Residency, a huge mansion owned by a British colonial leader, for almost 150 days.
Lucknow is famous for Mughlai food and Urdu literature and poetry. I've also been told that Lucknow is a city of high culture, dance and music, and refined manners, but I think that the cultural renaissance in Lucknow must have ended some time ago.
Today, Lucknow is best known as the capital city of Uttar Pradesh. It's a city of around 4 million (though probably many people are unaccounted for in this "official" number) and has not been as developed or "modernized" as other large cities in India, though, as I've described before, there ARE 3 big shopping malls that were all built and opened within the last 6 years.
Lucknow, It's A Bit Different Here:
So, what are my impressions of Lucknow so far? Well, despite all the historical sites, it is definitely NOT a tourist hot spot! In fact, I've only seen 4 people who "could" be foreigners, and then I only saw them for split seconds when passing them on the street (Next time, I should get up the courage to shout "Hey you, what are you doing here in Lucknow?"). It's also a pretty spread out city, and it will take me a while to visit the many different neighborhoods and get the lay of the land.
The traffic here, as in most Indian cities, is crazy! Unlike in the U.S., where there is a relatively limited number of types and sizes of vehicles on the road, Lucknow's roads (and most roads in India) are fair game for bicycles, cycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws, scooters, motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, and even the occasional oxen or horse-drawn cart (called a "Tonga" in Hindi). With so many different types of vehicles on the road, getting anywhere takes quite some time since the drivers have to navigate among all these different modes of transportation moving at different paces. Not to mention that there are basically no traffic laws, and it's perfectly fine to drive the wrong way down a street, as I've seen done many times here. The one rule of the road that most drivers DO obey is that the biggest vehicle with the loudest horn has the right of way, so if you take cycle rickshaws like I do to/from work, you should leave a little extra time to account for your lower vehicle status. Horns are essential here, for that's how cars communicate with each other...and this reminds me a lot of Bolivia, where the traffic wasn't AS chaotic, but where horns were definitely a key part of any moving vehicle. In the transit food chain, pedestrians are at the bottom, and since there aren't many street signals, it's often a trying task to just cross the street. I've spent many minutes standing on the side of the road, watching for a clearing, but luckily, I don't have that many big streets to cross to get to/from work every day.
Another fun and interesting fact about Lucknow is that there are lots of cows everywhere. Since cows are holy in Hinduism, I expected to see them on occasion, but I'm surprised that there are so many of them in the city! Most of the time, they're either standing on the roadsides eating the piles of garbage that are another pervasive reality of living in India. I think I've actually gotten kind of used to the cows, and don't find it strange anymore to see often-massive bulls plopped down on the side of the road, or to see mother cows and their calves wandering down the highway or standing in the middle of the road, completely unscathed/unhampered by the traffic swerving around them. There is also an assortment of other farm animals that also roam the streets and may or may not have owners. I've seen several herds of goats scrambling their way across the street or snacking on piles of garbage, and also many roving families of pigs. In fact, there's a gang of 10-15 pigs of all different sizes that like to hang out in the muddy grass in front of my NGO's office.
My Neighborhood:
Since I've done a bit more exploring of my neighborhood, I can give a few more details about the area. I live in a relatively-quiet residential area called Gomti Nagar. Most of the houses are white, concrete 2-3 story buildings, and some are enormous (though I've been told that more than one family often lives in the larger homes). There are several diplomats and government officials who live in my neighborhood. You can tell which houses are theirs by the guard sitting outside and the white Ambassador car with curtained windows parked in the driveway.
Every morning, vendors (or "wallas" as their called in Hindi) cycle their bikes and carts down my street, selling everything from vegetables, to services (carpenter, shoemaker, etc.), to balloons (I still can't figure out WHO the balloon walla's customers are). As the various wallas come down the street, they repeatedly shout something in Hindi, which I assume is the let people know what products they are selling or what services they are offering. I have a good view of the street from my kitchen window, so on some mornings I stand at the window and watch who comes down the road. I haven't made any purchases yet because the wallas roll by my house pretty fast and I can't understand what any of them are saying, but I think that after a couple more weeks of watching what each of them brings and listening to their calls, I'll begin to understand who is selling what.
There are 2 small stray dogs that live under the driveway of my house. My landlady told me that they're a brother and sister, and that their mom died when they were little puppies, so she started feeding them. I think that they now believe that my landlady is their mom! They're kind of cute (as far as stray dogs go), and are really affectionate, but they're also smelly and create quite a nuisance whenever I'm trying to come or go from the house. When I approach the gate, they'll both sramble right up to the gate and attempt to get into the yard, and they're so tame that they don't get scared away when I stomp or shout to try to shoo them away. So, I've devised a technique to open the gate without letting the dogs get in, consisting of some quick maneuvering on my part and, if necessary, some soft prodding with my shoe...I'll see how long this hold up.
My house is about a 20 minute cycle rickshaw ride to work, and to get there I have to cross over the railway tracks. Every morning as I cross the railway tracks, I've noticed a group of 5-6 huge black bulls wallowing in a muddy pool on the side of the tracks. They're always there in the morning, but then migrate somewhere else by the time I return home. It also seems that there's a train that comes every day right around the time when I'm heading back from the office, so I've spent several days sitting at the railway crossing waiting for the train to pass. When the barriers go up after the train has passed, there is a mad, chaotic rush of vehicles from both directions, since everyone is in quite a hurry to get where they're going, and no one seems to see the logic of allowing traffic to flow by staying on their designated side of the road. Luckily, my rickshaw driver seems to value his (and my) safety, so he hangs back a bit until the mad dash has subsided a bit.
Doing Laundry:
One part of living in India that I didn't at all anticipate before arriving is the enormous amount of time I spend doing laundry. I wasn't sure what the laundry situation would be here, but it looks like I'll be hand-washing my own laundry for the year, and I have to say that I never fully appreciated a washing machine and dryer as much as I will when I get back!! I guess I could, technically, try to locate a "dobi walla" (washerman) to do my laundry for me, but since the obis just hand-wash everything anyway, I might as well do it myself and avoid the risk of having my clothes damaged or lost by someone else. I use my trusty bucket to do a little bit of laundry each day (so I'm not totally exhausted by the end, and so I allow things time to dry). Depending on what I'm washing, I can spend between 45 minutes and 2 hours soaping, scrubbing and wringing my laundry. Towels and sheets are definitely the things I dread washing the most, since it takes forever to get the soap out and double that for these items to dry. So, for all of you back home...my advice is to be grateful for your washers and dryers, since laundry becomes its own extracurricular activity without them!
