Market Day

Monday, 18 January 2010

I faced death many times today. It smiled at me, and I smiled right back.

Don’t worry mom, I’m still alive. Just wanted to bend the truth a little for shock and awe.

Today, Atul and I went to Amber Fort in Jaipur, a palace built in 1599 by Moguls ruling India at the time. At least that’s what I think is the story, because the palace was a shockingly good specimen of Mogul architecture. Stunningly gorgeous, too, especially in the sunny weather. Contrary to most Western tourist traps, this one had no signs, no guided paths, no set tours that visitors are expected to follow. In fact, there were very few places in this ancient palace that were closed to visitors. It was generally open to exploration, something you would be hard-pressed to find in, say, Monticello or Buckingham Palace. The place is a veritable maze, with a plethora of corridors and hallways, crazy stairways and hidden passages. Were it not for Atul, I would have gotten very lost (see previous entry).

To get to and from any place in these big cities, one must take a tuk-tuk or rickshaw auto, small gas-powered contraptions designed to ferry a few people between places. Why not take a regular taxi? Because a tuk-tuk is small, light, quick, and able to navigate through traffic very easily. For Westerners, this is not a very good thing.

The near death of which I spoke is the traffic in Jaipur. It is only my third day in India, the third in a big city, and already I have become complete unfazed by the astounding way in which Indians drive. It’s not astounding to me anymore, surprisingly. I have come to this conclusion: if one were to drive like and Indian in the United States, they would be arrested and thrown in jail after five minutes, if they haven’t yet killed ten people in those five minutes. Yet if and American drove in Delhi, he would not get anywhere. Not anywhere at all. In fact, he would probably get hit by a bus pretty quickly.

It’s impossible to give specific recipe for this type of driving, but I’ll do my best. First, one must take streets designed for cars two abreast, and pack in five. Throw in an excessive use of horns, constantly jaywalking pedestrians, and a complete ignorance of traffic lights or lane lines. Add a pinch of adrenaline and a healthy dose of fearlessness, and you’ve got yourself a great serving on Indian traffic.

Seriously, on the first day, I fully expected that I was going to either die or kill somebody else every five minutes. Our tiny 200-kilo tuk-tuk is swerving around cars ten times its size and narrowly missing people who cross the street directly in front of it. All in all, it’s a complete shock, but very easy to get used to. Why? Nobody else seems to be fazed by it, so I shouldn’t be. Besides, Atul is telling me that the traffic in Himachal and Palampur is nowhere near as crazy.

One more very fun thing today is that I finally got to go to an Indian grocery store. True, there are many outdoor markets to buy food and other goods, and they are great in their own respect, but I love visiting commercialized stores in other countries. Here, I was introduced to bags of oil for cooking instead of solid containers, half-kilo bags of turmeric or chili powder, and a fascinating check-out process. What you do is bring your items to one counter, where they are scanned and a receipt is printed. Then the receipt is taken to a second counter, where cash is given as per the amount on the receipt. The receipt is stamped, and it is taken from you, along with your items for which you have just paid, by a store hand who brings them to a third counter, where another person compares the items on the receipt to the ones in your bag. Needless to say, items are rarely stolen from stores.

Seriously, a half-kilo of turmeric?

Oh, today I finally had my first Indian dessert, laddoo. It is a small ball of graham flour sweetened with melted sugar, which also serves to hold the ball together. There are many different flavors, and the one I ate was flavored with watermelon seeds. Who would’ve thought? Anyway, this and most other Indian desserts share a few characteristics: lots of sugar, and very small amount of fat, and no eggs. That is because being a vegetarian in India (as most Indians are) means that eggs are a no-no. It’s not vegan, because they use a lot of milk and butter (or ghee, which is clarified butter and their main cooking fat), it’s just that eggs are grouped as a type of meat. Also, most desserts are not baked or cooked, just held together by sugar and/or fat, but mostly just sugar. Fats are more expensive and harder to come by.

All in all, between risking life and limb on the streets and practically needing a background check to buy a bottle of water, it was quite a wonderful day in India. Atul and I are going to watch The Dark Night on my computer. How fortunate that I was paired with a Hollywood movie buff. Tomorrow, we are starting a very long day of traveling to get to Amritsar and will likely be heading to bed very early. Goodnight, all.