My beautiful, sad Varanasi mandala

Some places are more than places; they're experiences.

Varanasi, India, a city on the Ganges where Hindus come to die so they can be cremated and cast into the holy river, thereby being released from endless reincarnation, is such a place. (Read a 2004 post about our dawn boat ride on Mother Ganga.)

India is sensory overload, and Varanasi is India in 3D and surround sound, a swirl of things competing for space in your brain, the juxtapositions fantastic and overwhelming.

Holy white cows lumbering down the street and horrid black cockroaches scurrying across your hotel floor; corpses burning at one ghat and families bathing in the fetid Ganges two ghats down; sadhus under thatch umbrellas praying with paying pilgrims seeking spiritual enlightenment and refugees from Bangladesh carrying sand in baskets on their heads uphill from the riverbank to a construction site, earning starvation wages of a penny a load.

To escape the intensity, Mike and I decided to go silk shopping. Varanasi silk is world-renowned, and I wanted to bring some home.

We followed the rough directions in our Lonely Planet guidebook and set off up an alley purported to have silk shops. We hadn't been in the street for a minute when a young man in white cotton kurta pajama topped by a vest the color of scarlet betel nut juice sprang before us and said "Hello, and welcome. You wish to buy silk? All hand-made." Like a heat-seeking missile, Ashoka locked onto his targets -- backpacking gringos who turn up the alley broadcast in Lonely Planet -- and went in for the kill. But we did want to buy silk, so we followed Ashoka to his "showroom." I consider that word a euphemism for "place to get ripped off" and prepared for the worst.

The showroom was, like Varanasi, an experience, not a place, and, like Varanasi, I will never forget it.

Ashoka led us up the alley and opened the door to a tiny, hexagonal-shaped storefront on a corner where our alley intersected another. To enter the space we climbed a half-dozen wooden steps set into the street and literally tumbled into a tiny, tower-like room piled high with silk wall hangings. Following Ashoka's lead, we scrambled up the pile and came to rest atop the inventory. We three sat, some 10 feet above street level, cross-legged in a triangle in a round room, ready to do business.

We were sitting on the wares, so, to view a silk, we'd reach behind us or to one side and inspect the ends of it that our body weight wasn't on. If something caught our interest, we'd all shift our weight and Ashoka would miraculously extricate the fabric from the pile and, with a flourish, unfurl it on top. I began to feel guilty about all the work Ashoka was putting in and hoped we'd find something we loved soon, and sort of near the top of the pile. We did.

We both gasped at a five-foot long wall hanging of cobalt blue silk patterned with four exquisite mandalas sewn in gold and copper-colored thread. We paid $50 for the piece, a lot, I thought at the time, but, years later now, I'm sure worth ten times that.

Ashoka wrapped the mandala in tissue paper, we paid him, and we all climbed down out of the hexagonal room onto the street. Mike and I were ready to shake Ashoka's hand and say goodbye when he asked if we'd like to see where our mandala was made.

But it was handmade, no? "Yes," said Ashoka. "I will show you our workshop. It is not far."

We followed Ashoka up the alley to a small, nondescript concrete building with no markings or signage. Ashoka led us around back into a dirt yard and opened a door to a basement. We followed him down the steps into a space so dark I had to give my eyeballs time to adjust.

When they did, I saw rows of women and girls -- there must have been 30 in that small space -- bent over black, cast iron sewing machines, making silk hangings like the one we'd just bought. They didn't look up when we walked in, but kept sewing, in a hot, dank, windowless space lit by naked bulbs attached by bare wires to the ceiling.

Since we bought it, our mandala's hung in whatever living room we've rented or owned. When I look at it I consider its beauty, then wonder which pair of slave hands, working in that dark, dismal underground room, made it.

www.LoriHein.com

Caste-ing calls

I've put some old books up for sale on Amazon and, in flipping through them to assess their condition for the product descriptions Amazon requires, have found some interesting things stuck between their pages: letters, newspaper clippings, church bulletins, ticket stubs, a 1960 Smokey Bear bookmark.

And, in an old guidebook, a two-page spread I tore from an October 1983 edition of The Times of India. When you travel, reading the local paper is a great way to get a glimpse into everyday life. I've often found articles or ads that make better souvenirs of a place than any trinket from a gift shop.

The two pages of "Matrimonials" contain hundreds of listings placed by parents advertising for a bride for their boy or groom for their girl and by the hopeful singles themselves. Attributes advertised and advertised for include physical specs, domestic tendencies ("homely" was the word used in 1983 Delhi to describe a girl who could stay put and tend to hearth and home), religion, ethnic community, economic status, employment situation, country of residence, astrological considerations, education, caste and, in bride-seeking ads, dowry requirements. ("No dowry" was a selling point: no worries, prospective future wife, about possibly being doused in kerosene and set afire in your kitchen because I or my family are dissatisfied with what you've paid for the privilege of joining our clan. I remember reading, in this same Sunday, October 23, 1983 edition of the Times of India, several articles about women found dead in their homes, apparent victims of bride-burning, which continues today.)

Sample listings:

"A Bombay Based Handsome Kerala Catholic athletic sincere boy of 27 years drawing Rupees 8,000, in Gulf, coming to Bombay shortly, invite alliance from parents of well-employed young beautiful Christian girls with good character. Final year student nurses preferred. No dowry demands..."

"Highly Qualified Brahmin Match for engineer boy, 27, 165 centimeters. Correspond with horoscope or exact date time and place of birth at first instance to Box 82445..."

"Wanted, Beautiful, Slim, Tall, smart Bengali Kayastha girl, for smart, handsome bank officer, 30, 174 centimeters, earning 28,000 Rupees/annum. Father gazetted officer. Correspondence open for beautiful girls only..."

"Talented, Accomplished Graduate bride for respectable, educated Arya Samajist, handsome, green card holder, 26, 178 cms, senior associate engineer IBM. No dowry, early marriage..."

"Jain/Agarwal Match For Homely extremely beautiful Goyal graduate, 29, 157 cms, purely vegetarian, legally divorced, innocent girl, belonging to respectable industrialist family. Widower also invited..."

"Wanted, Suitable Match For A Business Communication graduate girl, employed as stenographer in Delhi Administration, drawing good salary, wheatish color, aged 26 years, 152 cms, intelligent, knowing all household work. Caste Hindu Brahmin..."

These and hundreds of other Matrimonials, placed in the classifieds just ahead of Motor Vehicles, Plywood & Timber and Precision Tuned Components.

www.LoriHein.com

Minaret: Stone poetry

Shame on Switzerland. The Swiss finished up 2009 by banning the construction of new minarets. Switzerland is arguably the world's purest democracy -- every person's individual vote counts, and it's those votes that effectively determine policy. So the people really do rule, which makes this sad decision all the sadder: it is truly the Swiss people who have spoken.

I'm glad I've been to Switzerland several times and have taken in its astounding physical beauty, as I'd be hard pressed to book a trip to that Alpine land now. I'd feel I was supporting or at least turning a blind eye to intolerance -- not just random acts of intolerance that exist wherever there are humans, but mass, premeditated intolerance that will be written into the Swiss constitution. (France, please don't ban the burka or I will have to put you on my bad list, too.)

I've gazed at hundreds of minarets around the world -- in cities of all sizes, in dusty villages, desert outposts, mountaintop hamlets and seaside towns, in diverse countries on four continents. Many have been small and simple, some towering and ornate, and their age has ranged from just-built with funds collected by the citizens of a village to a thousand years old. They are invariably elegant.

I feel a quiet rush of peace when I see a minaret, and, when I've been lucky enough to hear the call to prayer that is a minaret's reason for standing tall and pointing heavenward, I feel doubly blessed.

I'll never forget the morning in Izmir, Turkey when Adam and I were awakened in a purple pre-dawn by multiple, simultaneous calls to prayer emanating from the dozen minarets we could see from our hotel room balcony. We stood on the balcony and tried to connect each call to the minaret that owned it. Izmir, site of ancient, biblical Smyrna, is built across broad hills, and the muezzins' calls bounced off the hillsides and reverberated through the city. It was a sublime moment, alone worth traveling halfway across the world.

Here are photos of a few of the minarets I've met: At top are the slender fingers of Istanbul's Blue Mosque and the Koutoubia in Marrakesh, Morocco.


At left, an Ottoman-era mosque sits in central Sofia, Bulgaria, and below, a richly-tiled prayer tower rises from the floor of a valley in Morocco's Atlas Mountains.

And here, the Qutb Minar, built in 1199. Rising 238 feet above the streets of old Delhi, it is the world's tallest brick minaret and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

www.LoriHein.com

Happy Birthday to Gandhi and me

I was happy to discover that Gandhi and I share the same birthday, October 2. Happy birthday to us.



www.LoriHein.com

Times Square Yoga Fest

Tomorrow, June 21, legions of yogis and yoginis will descend (calmly and mindfully) on New York City to celebrate the summer solstice by participating in the Mind Over Madness Yoga fest.

From 7 AM until sunset, on the concrete island that sits in Times Square at the intersection of Broadway and 7th Avenue between 43rd and 44th streets, practioners of all levels will bend, balance and twist in an effort to transcend urban chaos and commercialism and find tranquility. Good luck with that, but it should be fun, for both Spandex-clad seekers and spectators. Mind Over Madness Yoga is being brought to you by the Times Square Alliance, the same folks that host the great New Year's Eve ball-drop.

I've seen yogis in the middle of cities before: Indian cities, like Delhi and Varanasi, where the teacher in the photo above used a life-sized wall painting of himself to advertise his sidewalk studio. For a few rupees, you could assume the lotus position and have the round gentleman guide you through an exercise in flexibility right there on the dusty street as sacred white cows trundled through the gutter beside you.

Back then I didn't know my asana from my pranayama, but I recently took up yoga in an effort to rid myself of the annoying sciatica that's been radiating down my left leg since my last marathon. A consistent regimen of yoga/pilates, gym machines that work the back, hips and glutes, and intermittent deep tissue massage (to quote my friend Liz, "Bring a leather belt to chew on...") has worked wonders, and I'm running relatively pain free again.

Good thing, because my number just came up in the New York City Marathon lottery. With luck, on November 4 I'll toe the start line on Staten Island and stumble, many hours later, over the finish line in Central Park.

To pull it off, I'll have to keep faithful to my yoga practice. Perhaps, to seal and celebrate my yoga-New York City connection, I should join some of the Mind Over Madness sessions. When it comes to marathon training, I'm mildly superstitious -- I'll tell you about my rituals sometime -- and doing yoga in Times Square might just keep my karma, dharma, chakra and all that jazz in healthy alignment until race day.

It can't hurt.

www.LoriHein.com

India: "Ears clean, madam?"

A version of this story appeared in October 2005.

After I did my laps in the pool this morning I headed for the steam room, my post-workout reward.

A sign hung on the door’s fogged glass: “Per Order of the Board of Health Shaving is Not Permitted in Public Steam Rooms. Thank You For Your Cooperation.”

“People shave in here?” I asked Kateri, the lifeguard. (Kateri, a petite girl from a large family, is named for a Native American Catholic saint. “My parents named us all after saints.”)

“Yes.” She wrinkled up her nose. “We found a disposable razor in there.” I muttered a “gross” and headed for the shower where I’d look for alien stubble stuck to my skin. Shaving in public. Yuck.

If I find out who the secret shaver is, I’ll recommend he or she try India, where public grooming is part of the landscape. You can groom, be groomed, or watch others being groomed -- on dusty streets, outside tiny wooden shops, in parks, on riverbanks. Like China, India is a very public place, and that publicness takes some getting used to.

If you’re set down into the midst of it immediately after a draining global circumnavigation, it can knock you for a loop.

Mike and I landed in India 24 hours after leaving Boston. We flew to London, then to Kuwait, then on to Delhi. Our exhaustion was complete. We’d arrived five hours too early for our hotel’s noon check-in, so we walked to a park near Connaught Circle to ooze ourselves into our surroundings and to catch some sorely needed rest.

The scene made rest impossible. The light, gray fog of an early Delhi morning hung heavy. On the streets abutting the park, people rode bicycles and three-wheeled yellow and black pedicabs, and the air pinged with the chinks of their handlebar bells. Bamboo scaffolding covered myriad cinderblock construction projects like yellow ivy, and thin workers hammered and pounded and climbed and carried and sweated. Near us, legs tucked beneath him in the lotus position, a holy man with a peaceful, beautiful face, shock of white hair and a long, cloud-wispy beard sat chanting, eyes closed, under a tree. A string of eight graceful, dark-eyed girls with jugs on their heads floated through the morning mist and disappeared down an embankment to collect water from a rust-colored stream.

Welcome to India. Whirling, swirling, pressing masses of humanity. Soldiers doing a drill with shouldered rifles. Beggars, nut sellers, street cleaners, cart haulers, firewood carriers, fortune tellers. Welcome to India! Bright saris and sandals and baggy white trousers and vests and foreheads with red dots and cows and pretty babies in party dresses with bows in their hair and stoop-shouldered grandmothers. Welcome to India! Laughing schoolgirls in maroon jumpers and crisp cotton shirts swinging bookbags through the air. Barbers cutting hair and shaving faces. People polishing other people’s shoes and cleaning their fingernails.

Wait! I need a slower introduction! My brain screamed. Overload! Overload! I need to rest, to get my bearings, to establish a mental and emotional toehold, to have this India seep into me more slowly!

But it isn’t possible. India doesn’t introduce itself slowly. It greets you with crushing intensity and doesn’t let go. You are pushed in whole. Experiencing India for the first time is like learning to swim by jumping into the Atlantic from the deck of an ocean liner.

You are swallowed. You gasp for air. You push and pull to find the surface and pockets where you can breathe.

Just when I felt my brain reach its limit and every fiber of me yearn for noon so I could escape to the sanctuary of a hotel room, the ear cleaners arrived: a group of ragged young men carrying pipe cleaners and forceps.

One approached us, sitting there shell-shocked and jet lagged, backs against our packs. He asked if he could clean our ears.

That is India: a thin, coffee-colored man appearing out of the mist wanting, needing to clean your ears.

Where would you like to go next? If I've been, I'll take you.

www.LoriHein.com

India: Pipe cleaners and public shaving

After I did my laps in the pool this morning I headed for the steam room, my post-workout reward. A sign hung on the door’s fogged glass: “Per Order of the Board of Health Shaving is Not Permitted in Public Steam Rooms. Thank You For Your Cooperation.”

“People shave in here?” I asked Kateri, the lifeguard. (Kateri, a petite girl from a large family, is named for a Native American Catholic saint. “My parents named us all after saints.”)

“Yes.” She wrinkled up her nose. “We found a disposable razor in there.” I muttered a “gross” and headed for the shower where I’d look for alien stubble stuck to my skin. Shaving in public. Yuck.

If I find out who the secret shaver is, I’ll recommend he or she try India, where you can do that sort of thing. In fact, you can have someone do it for you, along with other personal grooming tasks like ear cleaning. And, to satisfy your inner voyeur, you can watch other people being groomed – on dusty streets, in parks, on riverbanks or on the quiet grounds of centuries-old Moghul monuments like Delhi’s Purana Qila (above). Like China, India is a very public place, and that publicness takes some getting used to. If you’re set down into the midst of it immediately after a draining global circumnavigation, it can knock you for a loop. It did me.

Mike and I landed in India 24 hours after leaving Boston. We flew to London, then to Kuwait, then on to Delhi. Our exhaustion was complete. We’d arrived five hours too early for our hotel’s noon check-in, so we left our duffel bag behind the front desk and went to rest in a public park.

The scene made rest impossible. The light, gray fog of an early Delhi morning hung heavy in the air. On the streets abutting the park, people rode bicycles and three-wheeled yellow and black pedicabs, and the air pinged with the chinks of their handlebar bells. Bamboo scaffolding covered myriad cinderblock construction projects like yellow ivy, and thin workers hammered and pounded and climbed and carried and sweated. Near us, legs tucked beneath him in the lotus position, a holy man with a beautiful, brown, peaceful face, shock of white hair and a long white beard sat chanting, eyes closed, under a tree. A string of eight graceful, dark-eyed girls floated through the morning mist, jugs on their heads, down a riverbank to collect water.

Welcome to India. Whirling, swirling, pressing masses of humanity. Soldiers doing a drill with shouldered rifles. Beggars, nut sellers, street cleaners, cart haulers, firewood carriers. Welcome to India! Bright saris and sandals and baggy white trousers and vests and foreheads with red dots and babies and cows and pretty girls in party dresses with bows in their hair and stoop-shouldered grandmothers. And people polishing other people’s shoes and cleaning their fingernails and shaving their faces.

Wait! I need a slower introduction! My brain screamed. Overload! Overload! I need to rest, to get my bearings, to establish a mental and emotional toehold, to have this India seep into me more slowly!

But it isn’t possible. India doesn’t introduce itself slowly. It greets you with crushing intensity and doesn’t let go. You are pushed in whole. Experiencing India for the first time is like taking your first swimming lesson by jumping into the Atlantic from the deck of an ocean liner. You are swallowed. You gasp for air. You push and pull to find the surface and pockets where you can breathe.

Just when I felt my brain reach its limit and every fiber of me yearn for noon so I could escape to the sanctuary of a hotel room, the ear cleaners arrived. A group of ragged young men carrying pipe cleaners who clean people’s ears for a living. One approached us, sitting there shell-shocked and jet lagged, backs against our packs. He asked us if he could clean our ears.

That is India. A thin, coffee-colored man appearing out of the mist wanting, needing to clean your ears.


www.LoriHein.com

Taj Mahal: The tomb that swallowed my husband

Mike and I took a crowded public bus from Delhi to Agra, India and were deposited outside the high-walled entrance to the Taj Mahal. Before our feet hit the dirt parking lot, our faces were full of tiny Tajes – postcard images, plastic and metal die-cast trinkets, snowglobes – thrust into our faces by souvenir hawkers desperate to extract a few rupees before we disappeared to commune with the ghosts of Shah Jehan and Mumtaz Mahal. I have an impressive postcard collection, so I spread some joy and bought a few cards from each vendor.

We bought our tickets and passed through the site’s dark, ceilinged entrance gate. When the Taj appeared, framed by the gate’s red limestone arches, wonder coursed over and through me. I had never seen such ethereal beauty. The white marble colossus, conceived by Shah Jehan, the Mogul dynasty’s most ambitious builder as an everlasting testament to his love for Mumtaz, his favorite wife, who died shortly after bearing the emperor his fourteenth child, is floating stone.

One approaches the domed wonder slowly. Contemplating it is everything. Entering it is a sidebar. Indeed, we took what felt like hours to make our way from the entrance gate to the white walls of the fantasy tomb. We stood with groups of Indian sightseers at the base of the oblong reflecting pool that creates a second shimmery, liquid Taj. We sat on the the ground or grass beside the pool. We’d look, consider, sigh, then move a few feet and sit, look, consider and sigh again. We rested under trees, taking in the exquisite structure from different angles. When we changed position, the altered play of light would turn the facade from white to pearl, pink or purple. When we finally reached it, we marveled at and touched the intricate, lacy carvings and the brilliant patterns of inlaid stone that played like jewels on a fine lady’s porcelain neck. We circumnavigated the Taj, looking straight up at the delicate minarets that poked cool white holes in the blue-hot Indian sky. From the back of the Taj, we looked across the Yamuna River at Agra Fort, Shah Jehan’s home, which became his prison when his ambitious son, Aurangzeb, placed his ailing father under house arrest in the massive red stone bastion in 1658.

Shah Jehan spent the last years of his life gazing from his opulent prison to the Taj Mahal, just across the river but beyond reach. When Shah Jehan died in 1666, Aurangzeb installed him in the Taj next to Mumtaz. Shah Jehan had, historians say, planned to build a second Taj in black marble to house his own remains, but this dream was part of his undoing. The Taj Mahal, built from 1632 to 1648 by 20,000 laborers and craftsmen, had bankrupted the treasury, and Aurangzeb imprisoned his father partly to prevent such a financially insupportable ego-project from happening again. The white Taj had caused a hemorrhage of red ink. A second black Taj would, thought Aurangzeb, kill the dynasty. Better to lock dad up in the fort.

When we’d taken in as much sublime beauty as we could handle in a day and were fairly overdosing on artistic and architectural perfection, we turned to the more prosaic Taj-tourist activity – going into the burial chamber to view the imperial sarcophagi. I didn’t really want to go. I hate small, dark, crowded places, but in I went, Mike just ahead of me.

The press of humanity inside the hallway that became a shallow ramp sloping downward into the cavernous room where lay the sculpted, bejeweled marble coffins was more than I could bear. The temperature outside was near 90 degrees, the sun blinding and unrelenting. Here, in this thin passageway crammed with pilgrims and visitors in saris and silk, chiffon and cotton, the coolness of the structure’s marble was not enough to provide relief. We were sandwiched, hundreds strong, in this small space, padding slowly forward as a clammy, sweating, human unit. I lost Mike. His head of thick black hair was indistinguishable from the Indian heads in front me. I called out, “Mike! I can’t go down there. I’ll wait for you up here.”

I took up a position in a corner only a few yards from the point where viewers would walk up the burial chamber ramp and reenter the hallway. I couldn’t miss Mike. He’d have to walk right by me. After five minutes, I became annoyed. What was he doing down there? Was he playing with me, taking his time so I’d have to sit longer in this unpleasant, claustrophobic space? That would be unlike him, but everyone has weird moments, and India assuredly does interesting things to one’s brain. After ten minutes I became concerned. How long does it take to walk past a few coffins? He should be out by now.

I started to think about what to do. Should I go down after him? What if he came out just as I disappeared down the chute? He wouldn’t know where I was. I looked toward the door to the outside. Two Indian security guards were waving their arms at me, pointing out the door. I became indignant. They were trying to shoo me away! My husband was stuck somewhere in this dank maw of a tomb, and they wanted me to go sit somewhere else! I was hot, angry and unyielding. I shook my head at them and firmly sat my ground. For the next 10 minutes, they stared at me, cocked their heads toward the door and pointed the way out. I crossed my arms over my chest in the universal pose of defiance and continued to monitor the exit ramp. If they wanted me out, they’d have to drag me out.

After about an hour, I’d crossed from alarm to tears. Something had surely happened to Mike. I had to get help. I had to find the police. I imagined Mike had fallen and been trampled. Or robbed and left in a dark corner of the crypt. I picked myself up and made my way past the two pointing security guards. The second I stepped outside, I saw Mike sitting on a bench by the door. “Where have you been??!!” he shouted. “I’ve been sitting here waiting for you for over an hour! I thought you died in there!”

I turned to the security guards who were watching our reunion with lazy amusement. I shook my head at them. “You could see both of us from where you stand, yet you couldn’t walk a few feet to tell one of us where the other was! Shame on you.” My words made no impression. I like to cut people slack if there’s any hope of its being justified, so I walked away reasoning that perhaps their superior had commanded them not to leave their posts, and they were simply carrying out orders, to a ridiculous extreme.

We had tickets on an evening bus back to Delhi. If you’re a solo traveler in India, securing or confirming train, bus or plane tickets can be a day-long endurance event, and once you have your papers in hand, you don’t challenge the cosmic order by trying to change, return or otherwise mess with them. So, we had hours to kill. We spent the time in Shah Jehan’s quarters at Agra Fort, contemplating the view of the back side of the Taj from his perspective. It must have been heartbreaking to be him at the end of his life.

It was dark when the bus pulled out of Agra. I was still a bit keyed up by the inexplicable behavior of two grown men who’d watched Mike and me for an hour, yet had chosen to stand fixed in a doorway and do nothing more than point, but as soon as the bus turned the corner onto the trunk road to Delhi, I was soothed. By lights. A world of little, flickering lights.

It was Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights which, historically, welcomes King Rama home after his battle with the demon king of Lanka, but which, in modern times, has also become a celebration of happiness, prosperity and wishes for a good future. People shop, eat, give sweets, sport new clothes and jewelry and ask the gods to send good stuff their way in the coming year. Diwali is one of the longest festivals of the Hindu year, and it celebrates new ventures and good things ahead.

The most arresting and poignant symbol of Diwali is the diya, a small oil lamp, symbol of an illuminated mind. When the sun goes down, every household lights the dozens of diyas arrayed on and in doorsteps, windowsills, rooftops, garden walls, verandas, yards, driveways, walkways and courtyards. These are not the brash, artificial lights of an American Christmas. These are individual licks of live flame, held in tiny pots that spread across the countryside and turn India into a land of magic. The day’s chaos, dust, poverty and frustration evaporate in the yellow glow of millions of points of light.

(Know someone who celebrates Diwali? Check out this site, your one-stop shop for Diwali gifts. Some tempting sweets...)

Putting your summer reading pile together? Add Ribbons of Highway: A Mother-Child Journey Across America

Srinagar, India: Houseboats, wedding barges and beer

(Postscript right up front: Travel today, while bountifully rich in rewards, carries risks, and it’s wise to assess a destination’s security situation before visiting. This post describes a sojourn in an area of India considered by some governments to be, as of this date, unsafe for travel. Please see the end of this post for links to sources of information on travel safety, security and the threat of terrorism.)


We’d rented a houseboat, Mother India, which sat in Dal Lake in Srinagar, the contested and still strife-torn summer capital of northwest India's Himalayan department of Jammu and Kashmir. With a large Muslim population and history and culture shaped by centuries of Mogul rule, Srinagar is one of the pieces of real estate over which predominantly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan continue to butt heads. Srinagar erupts periodically with clashes, many deadly, between Kashmir’s Muslim separatists and Indian government troops.

Things were peaceful when we visited, but we managed to create our own bit of intercultural friction.

It was chilly inside Mother India, but the furnishings were luxurious, and the whole place was finished in deep, patrician tones of gold and navy, rust and cinnamon, cream and hunter green. Brass fittings; mahogany paneling and furniture; lace and damask curtains; richly brocaded sofa and chairs; plush hand-loomed Asian carpets; elegant blood-orange flowers in a sparkling crystal vase.

And a houseboy.

I don’t do luxe very well – I have trouble getting past the waste and inequity of it – and Mother India’s interior – and certainly the young Muslim man assigned to cater to our whims – made me uncomfortable. But we’d spent other nights in India in seven-dollar hotel rooms that were little more than clammy concrete cells, so we rolled with it and decided to enjoy this floating mini-palace that looked like the Raj hadn’t ended and Queen Victoria was expected for tea.

We scoped out the kitchen. The refrigerator was empty, save for a big brown bottle of Indian beer. As our boat attendant was Muslim, we figured the beer was for us. A welcome present from the management, like chocolates on the pillow or chocolate chip cookies at the front desk. We grabbed the bottle and sat on the lime green and fuchsia upholstered banquette on Mother India’s front porch to watch life float by on Dal Lake, ringed by stark, snow-topped Himalayas and capped by a vivid blue snowglobe sky.

Only after the houseboy turned surly, stopped cleaning, and stopped hailing us shikara, the narrow, colorful, canopied water taxis that ply the lake, poled along by thin men with close-cropped beards, did we realize we’d drunk our Muslim friend’s beer. We should have asked rather than assumed.

Feeling badly, we knew we had to make amends, so we made our way down the gangway that connected Mother India to a string of other houseboats and waved our arms until a shikara made its way over and picked us up. Once deposited in Srinagar town, we roamed the warren of old streets lined with tall, ancient wooden houses, many with storefronts or workshops cut into their ground floors. We found a market and bought two big bottles of beer.

Back on Mother India, we put one bottle in the refrigerator as a gesture of international entente. Night was falling, and we took the other bottle out to the porch, settled into the lime-fuchsia banquette and put our feet up on the railing. We’d done what we could to assuage ill feelings, so there was nothing left but to kick back and enjoy the rest of our Srinagar stay. We clinked glasses and hoped the rest of the evening would be pleasant. There was still time for something nice to happen.

As we stared into the moonlit ripples playing in the water in front of us, we heard bagpipes. They grew louder, and suddenly an immense two-story barge appeared in the channel where our boat was moored. Crammed on both decks with loud revelers and lit with hundreds of rainbow-colored bulbs, the party barge was the venue for an Indian wedding, and the magnificent leviathan was ferrying the entire wedding complement to a lavish, oversized houseboat anchored not far from ours. The spectacular craft, which appeared like a vision, passed less than a hundred feet from where we sat. We could see detail on the women’s opulent silk saris and the broad, proud grin of the bride’s father, who stood at the bow on the top deck, shaking guests’ hands. People swayed to the stirring strains of the bagpipes, at once gorgeous and incongruent. Scottish Highlands sounds, vestiges of bygone colonialism, grace notes to a modern Indian marriage ceremony.

Just as the incredible wedding boat passed in front of Mother India, the celebrants shot fireworks into the Himalayan sky. The spent chutes of color and light floated downward. They created fleeting mirror images on Dal’s surface, then were joyously swallowed by the black lake.

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*Conflict continues in Jammu and Kashmir and in Srinagar itself. As of the date of this post, March 1, 2005, the governments of both the United Kingdom and Australia were “strongly advising against all travel to Jammu and Kashmir, with the exceptions of Ladakh via Manali or air to Leh.” The region does not appear on today’s US State Department travel warnings list.

Travelers should check several trusted travel warning sources before visiting contested regions or countries and comparing US, UK and Australian government advice provides a broad view. It’s also helpful – and enlightening – to read online editions of newspapers from a country or region to gauge the local mood and situation. Where freedom of the press exists, you should be able to access several news sources, including independent, non-government outlets. Find links to world newspapers at www.World-Newspapers.com and www.OnlineNewspapers.com.

Varanasi, India: Cleansing and Cremation

Untouchables work Varanasi, India's burning ghats, adding wood to the funeral pyres that blaze each dawn. They stack the thin corpses, wrapped in white shrouds. Hindus cremated along the Ganges in Varanasi (Banaras, Benares, Kashi, Kasi) are released from the endlessness of reincarnation. When a body has been reduced to a small pile of burnt black bone, the untouchables lift another corpse onto the pyre, add more wood, and stoke the flames, which flash and shimmer along the Ganges' bank. When the morning's burning is done, the ashes, along with bits of unburnt bone and flesh, are scattered into the river, Mother Ganga. The flames purify the dead, making them clean enough to be accepted by Mother Ganga's thick, brown waters. Only babies and holy men are pure enough not to need ritual cremation cleansing.

As the sun begins to rise, throwing golden shafts of light on Varanasi's sandstone buildings, the city becomes a kaleidoscope of purples and pinks, ochres and oranges. The city's other ghats start to hum with activity. Bathers, many fully-dressed, immerse themselves in the fetid water, palms together in prayer. Men, women and children wash clothes in the river and spread them to dry along the steps of the bathing ghats. Saddhus dispensing blessings and wisdom sit under umbrellas, waiting for customers. Contortionists in linen loincloths face into the rising sun, exercising, stretching, preening. Child peddlers paddle boats filled with votive candles in lotus blossom leaves. They approach you with hands outstretched. You buy a candle and send your offering floating down the Ganges.

Our boatman rows us back to shore. We pass another boat. It holds a family making its slow, sad way to the middle of the river. The father holds a tiny body wrapped in white. An infant, to be received by Mother Ganga.