Thoughts on Contrasts from Jaipur, The Pink City

  Jaipur, India
Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Amer Fort

On the last non-stop train that I took from Delhi to Amritsar, I sat in an upholstered, reclining chair in an air-conditioned cabin while over the course of the next 4 hours the stewards served me a liter water, mango juice, a sandwich, two packages of cookies, candy, a carafe of tea, soup, lentils, curry, vegetables, rice, chapati, and ice cream.  They had to bring the food or clear my tray constantly during the four hour ride.   Meanwhile, three cars away, second class seating consists of unreserved wood benches in carriages with no glass, only bars covering the windows.  So many people pile into the second class cars that people will be sitting under the benches and hanging out the open doors as the train rolls by.

new metro, old street - Delhi

India's a country of contrasts.

The contrasts in colors and smells astound me.  A pack of women will pass me dressed in dazzling pink, yellow, orange or green saris while I trudge through a grey street littered in manure, stagnant water and trash.  Varanasi's brightly colored steps down to the river dazzle the eyes.  Meanwhile, grey smoke rises from 13 fires cremating bodies, fires that burn all day and all night.

Amer Fort

My nose fills with the delicisous aroma of fresh curry.  Then I turn the corner and become overwhelmed by the amonia stench of human urine.  Ten feet later the pleasant smell of chai comes to me from a street vendor on my right, then a water buffalo lets loose his bowels to my left.

Sikh monks chant continuous prayers at the Golden Temple, filling the massive, otherwise silent courtyard with holy reverence.  Then I exit to the street on the other side of the walls and I have to plug my from the constant honking of rickshaws, motorcylces and kamikaze taxi drivers.

Last night pulling into Jaipur I witnessed at least five weddings with a thousand or more attendees.  We ran into an American today who told me he's here partly to attend a wedding of a rich Indian family.  He said the wedding cost around half a million US dollars.  A half hour later two skinny, tear streaked, filthy 7 year old girls are hanging from our auto rickshaw begging for one rupee.  On the way back through the same intersection a few hours later I noticed that there were about twenty similar kids living on the boulevard median.

Amer Fort

In McLeod Ganj the hotel room had clean sheets, two blankets, down comforters, a brand new, tiled bathroom with piping hot water, a balcony, fresh paint and nothing broken.  The manager and his son never stopped smiling.  It cost 400 rupees ($10).  In Siliguri the hotel room walls were covered in skid marks.  Flies buzzed all night.  The hot water never came on and I had to argue with the manager when he insisted I was wrong.  The sheets hadn't been cleaned.  There was a plastic kiddie table, two patio chairs and an army surplus cabinet for furniture.  The top of the cabinet had never been dusted.  It cost 450 rupees.