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Dino's Travel Blog

India - Colour of India

Tue September 1, 1998

Camels, Cows and Automobiles…I could also call it the “ Colours of India”, in fact I debated both titles for quite a while.

So far I’ve been to the south beach of Goa, which is an old Portuguese colony with a European and Bohemian atmosphere at the same time. I’ve been to the best places of Rajasthan such as the “golden desert city” of Jaselmire with all the buildings carved like lace in yellow stone. There I rode towards the sunset on a camel safari in the sand dunes. I went to Udaipur and the Lake Palace which is now a hotel situated in the middle of a lake where the James Bond film Octopussy was filmed and to Johdpur with a fabulous fort, fabulous palace, blue houses and rich culture of music and dance. I’ve been to the amazing and Holy place Pushkar with it’s holy lake where the cremated dust is sprinkled and no meat or alcohol are allowed and finally Delhi where organized Chaos is what prevails.

India is the only place in the world that has cows roaming around the streets so freely; I mean everywhere, when you’re driving here it’s not other cars that one has to worry about. There doesn’t seem to be many road rules. At times it feels like being a part of a video game with the fear and excitement of a wild roller coaster ride all at the same time!

What side of the road!?

Watch out for the car passing another and heading right for you and at the same time you have a cow leisurely strolling across the street and an old woman casually walking along the side of the road with a bushel of sticks perfectly balanced on her head, not to mention bicycles, motorbikes, dogs, children, camels, bullocks and pot holes.

Back home we learned to look before you cross the street, but here they only stop or slow down when the motor vehicle warns you by the use of the horn. You can imagine how noisy it can be not to mention they lean on it so much that it’s freaking irritating. Yet there are basic stupid people who for some reason blindly and ignorantly walk across the street as though they’re the only ones around; I mean they’ll look in the opposite direction then the one they should really be focusing on! I can’t understand it and I find myself always shaking my head in amazement that they haven’t got run over as of yet.

They drive with their high beams on at night and sometimes are courteous, but generally the mentality is “everybody else does it so why shouldn’t I” and that mentality also exists in regards to littering. It’s not uncommon to see them litter by throwing large plastic empty water bottles out the window while driving down the highway.

Nobody wears seat belts here and yet they are quite risky drivers and are hoping that it will all sort itself out, which it surprisingly does for the most part, but as another traveler said today “ it’s one big game of chicken”.

India still operates on the traditional caste system from the ruling of the kings and Maharaja’s and in some areas like Rajasthan it’s ever so present and respected in every day life. In the past the ‘Brahman’ cast were the educated, intellects and King’s advisors, the ‘Rajputs’ where the warriors, then there was the ‘Merchants’ and finally the ‘Sweepers’ or more like ‘grunge’ workers.

This caste system is extremely complex and I will attempt to touch on what little I know about it. Today their roles in society have been modified to suit the times; the Brahman’s are the Doctors and Lawyers, the Rajputs are the military, police department and government inspectors, the merchants are the shop keepers and retailers and the sweepers are the ‘blue collar’ workers and still street sweepers in some instances.

Most marriages are ‘arranged’ by the parents of the bride and groom and generally they will never have met before the wedding day and in many instances would have never even seen a photo of their partner to be, go figure!

I was honoured to have been invited to my first Indian wedding by my good Indian friends and business associates Bhanu and Shanu , who are from the Rajput cast and indirect descendants of the Maharaja of Jodhpur.

Their cousin and groom whom I affectionately call ‘The Prince’ was the lucky lottery winner and was now about to be married to a women he’s never seen before, not even a photo. Actually he was offered a look at a photo of her but he refused stating that it made no difference to him since he had faith in the decision made by his parents and at this point he would rather have it be a total surprise.

One must not marry for Love or from a different caste. For some reason it is generally not from a direct related caste but rather one of equal importance in another city or town.

My friend Shanu’s brother Rhanu ( starting to see a theme going on with the name thing?) was telling me in a restaurant the other day that he was secretly dating someone for 7 years and although they truly loved each other, the parents didn’t sanction the union and eventually she was married off to someone else who she didn’t even know.

Although my Indian friends taunt with the idea of marrying for Love, they will never do it because of the tradition and the highly respected wishes of the parents. The best they can hope for at this point is maybe to spend a little time with their future wife before tying the knot. Bahnu’s brother was able to choose between 5 different potential brides and spent a generous 4 hours privately talking to his wife-to-be before choosing her, so now Bahnu will attempt to use that as a precedent. He is hoping to convince his parents into allowing him 4 months to get to know his potential wife before they agree and if they ever have sex during this they must marry.

My friend Bahnu explained to me that “in India every bride is supposed to be a virgin yet how could they be if ½ the men aren’t? and that there’s a lot that secretly happens behind closed doors…”

The tradition with the weddings here is that the groom dresses up in Royal wedding attire wearing an elaborate turban and carrying a symbolic sword . He parades on a white horse towards the bride’s home surrounded with his friends and family dancing to the excitement of the live marching band and fireworks. The bride and her women friends and family dressed in colourful sarees patiently await the arrival and meeting of her fiancé; this procession can sometimes take hours.

Finally the groom enters the bride’s home to engage in the wedding ceremony and after 3 hours of ritualistic ceremony they are considered married. This ceremony is restricted to only the bride’s parents, female friends and family. Since I was not considered ‘family’, an honored exception was made for me to attend the Prince’s ceremony; apparently when the bride’s father was approached with the idea the groom insisted that I attend or he wouldn’t marry.

Of course I filmed the whole story and at one point during the Ceremony, the Prince asked me to sit next to him, this was the most honored highlight for me!

During this long and drawn out ceremony, both the bride, who’s face still remains concealed, and the groom’s hands are joined and tied symbolically representing their union.

Once the wedding ceremony is complete, then the groom leaves and gives time for the wife to say her leave-taking goodbyes to her family, friends and community for the next few hours. The groom then returns to the bride’s home to take her away from her weeping family. The Bride still in veil and weeping is then introduced to the in-laws and is welcomed to her new family. It isn’t really until the wedding is over and he arrives to their new home that he able to see who he’s going to spend the rest of his life with.

GO FIGURE!!!

The Indians are quite resourceful and use everything including the dung. Sorry about this subject, but I’ve found this to be extremely fascinating! It doesn’t take me much to be amused sometimes…but before I talk of these valuable droppings I should talk about the cows themselves; they don’t eat these sacred animals here and that’s one of the reasons they roam free seemingly un-owned throughout the town and cities all over India. I found out that these animals can be smarter than I thought; each cow in fact belong to someone and the cows systematically come home to get milked at precise times each and every day. Their dung is used in many ways over here; it’s used to plaster walls, floors and believe it or not it lasts for many years and works really well. They use it to harden the bricks when mixed with mud and best of all it is used to make fire; it’s the best fire I’ve ever seen. It lights easily and burns amazingly for hours! They cook their chapattis (flat bread) with it and use it in ceremonies. I also learned that their cousins, the Bullock are also a smart animal; I’ve seen them walk into position when the harness is raised up by it’s master and that the speed and direction is controlled by the position and tension of the tail. The bullock speeds up when the driver’s hand gets closer and tighter to the rectum.

I could go on but I think this is a good note to finish. I’m still working on my Indonesian/Bali story and want to finish it before I get home because as soon as I get back I know I won’t have the time in my day to day life to re-create my journey’s adventures.

Until the next story, stay tuned.

Dino