There are just some I am having trouble dealing with.
Our driver tried to sell us his services as a guide, and wanted to show
us that he'd had good comments from other Canadians. By the way, we didn't
mention that when possible we are Canadians this trip. United States people
are pestered more than people from countries other than the United States.
So for kids on the street, taxi drivers, etc., we are from Toronto. So far
Mark's work is usually computers or mathematics, but he says he is
considering for part of the trip being a spy-novel writer doing research for
a spy novel set in India. Indians seem to like action and adventure from
the film posters, and this might get me a little more respect. Didn't my
film DARK WAYS TO DEATH play here? I know it played in Delhi.
The money exchange went quickly and easily, contrary to what the books
claim. At least this time the bills weren't stapled together; if they had
been we were going to ask the clerk to remove the staples for us.
Then we were off to the Central Museum of Jaipur in Albert Hall, built
in the 19th Century and patterned after the British style. Mark says, What
a strange museum! Not that it was a very good museum, but it was weird.
They don't have very much of anything or a good display of anything. And
the collections seem to be set up almost at random. You can be looking at
paintings, then walk three feet and be looking at a fiber glass reproduction
of the organs of a snail. The museum is somehow incoherent. Among the
collections we saw were:
- wall paintings from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana,
- a plectrum (it looks a bit like a big bass sitar),
- an exhibit of damascene (i.e., gold inlaid on other metals),
- huge shields with scenes from the Ramayana,
- stone carvings,
- a collection of bronzes,
- minerals sealed in glass,
- preserved worms in jars,
- big plastic models of cross-sections of flowers,
- fine art paintings,
- models of planes and battleships,
- dyed textiles and textile prints,
- bronze toys, some partially hidden behind their own label cards,
- two cases of ivory carvings,
- paintings mislabeled (Maharaja on His Horse has no horse, and
Maharaja Fighting Lioness actually had a tiger),
- fake antique Greek and Egyptian statues,
- stuffed fishes and carved snakes, and
- the skeleton of a body with the head on backwards.
Then there are plaster models showing 1) yoga positions, 2) dramatized
versions of vices (including a little model opium den), and 3) dramatized
versions of famous violent crimes. In the latter exhibit there are scenes
of torture and dismemberment rendered with six-inch-high figures.
A young woman in a bright yellow sari said hello to us. We said hello.
She pointed out one of the little scenes was of a woman killing three
thieves with a sword. Very brave woman, she said.
Yes, Mark responded.
You are husband and wife?
Yes, wife twenty-one years.
Oh. And you?
No, husband-wife twenty-one years, but Mark doesn't know if she
understood.
Actually, the exhibit that seemed to attract the most attention wasn't
really an exhibit, it was Thing. Some people saw Mark making notes on Thing
and said quietly, Computer. Several asked what Thing was and Mark said,
Chota computer. (Chota means little.) They wanted to know about us.
Canadian tourists now bring computers in their pocket to India. Wow!
Evelyn wrote in her log, This was not so much a museum of the objects
in it as a 'living museum' of what museums were like in Victorian times.
Dusty specimens in glass cases filled dim halls. Copies of artwork from
around the world decorated the walls: Egyptian tomb paintings, Japanese hunt
scenes, Assyrian inscriptions. One case was full of dusty mineral
specimens, another crammed with models of plants and flowers. There were a
lot of animal and human models that looked like something from an old
anatomy lecture. There was even one best described as 'the visible snail'
(a term meaningful, I suppose, only to those who remember the 'visible man'
and 'visible woman' educational toys). Many of the cases had business cards
people had slipped in around the doors (which didn't seal)--as advertising,
I guess--and some of these had almost as much dust as the exhibits. There
was an Egyptian mummy, a stuffed crocodile, and a model of a battleship
sharing one room with a whole bunch of other unrelated objects. It was a
visual cacophony. (It was also an aural cacophony, as Monday was free
admission and the place was crowded. I see a lot of children in the streets
in school uniforms, so it doesn't seem to be a school holiday, but I also
see children with their parents traveling or at museums.)
The Central Museum is not considered to be much of an attraction in
most of the books. Mark says, It is a lot like a little boy who carries
his most prized albeit tattered possessions in a little shoe box and they
find their own order in the box. Many of the exhibits are worth seeing, but
the oddness of the collection is the most lasting impression.
From there, we asked to be taken to a tailor shop to get one of the two
pair of pants Mark had brought shortened. They tended to hang low and with
a lot in his pockets, he often ended up walking on the cuffs. (Evelyn
noted, I knew people lost weight in India, but I didn't think they got
shorter!) He had turned up an inch or so inside and safety-pinned them,
but Evelyn suggested we could get it sewn here.
Even though we were near the Johari Bazaar at this time, where one
might assume there would be tailor shops, the driver took us a long way
through the city, further than we expected. We passed two different
political demonstrations. One group had white flags; one group had red.
Mark later asked the driver what they were demonstrating for. He laughed as
if Mark had made a joke and said nothing.
Eventually we got to our destination, a sari shop. They did not do
tailoring there, but could send the pants to their factory. It would take
two days. No, thanks.
Okay, we told the driver, take us to the bazaar. Instead, he took us
back near our hotel to a genuine tailor shop. It was a little place about
fifteen feet by twenty feet (five meters by six meters) with two sewing
machines. Yes, they could do it. How long? The guy showed thirty minutes
on his watch. How much? Rs5. (The last time Evelyn had a skirt hemmed
back home it was US$10, and that was several years ago.)
The driver said we could go to a nearby shop while we waited. What the
heck. He'd found what we wanted, let's get him a commission. Okay, we got
in his auto-rickshaw. He started it. It moved. It stopped. The shop was
about twenty feet from the tailor shop. Fine. We got out. Nothing we
wanted at the shop. We walked up and down the street. We got a few people
giving us hellos and requests for pens, but not too bad. We got some
water at the main street end of this side street. After about twenty
minutes we checked the shop. The stitching was done by hand with nice even
stitches. Very nice work.
We'd decided to give our driver at least Rs10 over the Rs30 we
bargained for since he found us a tailor shop. It didn't work out that way.
He'd bargained to take us to the bazaar, but suddenly he stopped his auto-
rickshaw about a block from our hotel, hailed another one, and said that
this was as far as he goes. We gave him Rs30 and no tip. The other driver
wanted Rs25. No way. We started walking off. A cycle-rickshaw driver
agreed to take us for Rs10. In general, if you're asked an exorbitant price
for a rickshaw and you start walking in the right direction, a passing
rickshaw driver will give you a better price. This is a bit less true of
auto-rickshaws than cycle-rickshaws, but it's worth trying.
We got to the Sanganeri Gate at one end of the Johari Bazaar (after
having a guy on a motor scooter ride along beside our cycle-rickshaw for a
while trying to convince us to go to his shop!), and started walking up the
street. The Johari Bazaar is about half for tourists and half for locals.
It is just a row of open-front stores, little more than stalls, like most
stores here. Since this part of Jaipur was a planned city, the streets
are all straight and perpendicular to each other, and the shops are all a
uniform size and shape. One shop had cassettes and we asked for classical
music. We got some sitar music and some film music. Classical music is
about Rs45 a cassette; film music is about Rs25. Oh, there is one odd
touch: when you buy music cassettes each side either starts or ends with an
ad for the cassette company. Maybe that is how they fill space to a
standard length, but it is irritating. Evelyn saw a cassette with music
from a garish gore film called WHEN A KILLER CALLS. She thought that would
be interesting for the cover of the cassette alone. Mark had seen posters
for that film. Ah, but did they have a cassette with music from KHAL-
NAAIKAA, our film of two days before? Evelyn said they would not have it,
but to our surprise the owner pulled it out. It shared a cassette with
another film and it was only the songs, not the nice credit sequence music,
but it was a nice souvenir. (They probably double up the films on a
cassette because with only the songs included, there isn't enough to film
two sides of a cassette from just one film.) We ended up buying five
cassettes.
Incidentally, Mark has found a solution to a common problem tourists
have in India, namely small bills. You end up with a lot of bills in small
denominations. Mark had been using a paper clip as a money clip, but the
clip gets bent and fails to work. You don't want to grab for your big
wallet every time you need a Rs5 note. You don't want to leave the bills in
your pocket. Mark took a cassette out of its case and is using the case as
a small-note wallet. Pickpockets are not likely to go for a music cassette,
so it hides the money well. If you fold the bills in half, it is just about
a perfect size. If you get too many bills, you may want to break off the
retaining pegs in the cassette box.
Next stop was a late lunch at LMB. This used to be a sweet shop and is
still known for its desserts, but it has expanded to a whole restaurant.
Outside it looks just like a stall, but go inside and it looks like a
nightclub. Evelyn had stuffed tomato (two small tomatoes stuffed with nuts
and vegetables in a masala sauce); Mark had mushroom paneer. We both had
cold sweet coffee which was delicious. The stuffed naan Mark got as an
eating utensil was almost a dish in itself. For dessert we shared an order
of gulab jaman and one of ras malai. Both were terrific. All this came to
only Rs240 (about US$8)--expensive by Indian standards, but still cheap by
American standards and definitely worth it.
Over lunch Evelyn suggested we go to a double feature playing at a
local theater, the Polo Victory. That sounded good. One film was DEAR
TARZAN; the other was THE WORM IN THE APPLE. (In some ads, Tarzan was
spelled Tarzen and Worm was Warm.) The idea of seeing an Indian
Tarzan did appeal to us. So that was the next item.
Most of the rickshaw drivers in the Pink City wanted only to give one-
hour tours, not provide transportation somewhere. The first driver wanted
Rs25 to take us to the theater and was insulted when we would not pay that.
He came down to Rs20 and we walked away. Outside the gate of the bazaar,
one cycle-rickshaw driver wanted Rs15. Mark asked a cycle-rickshaw if he'd
take us for Rs10 and he readily agreed. That was what we'd paid to get
there. We ended up giving him Rs11 because he got us there so fast. (He
was one of the most energetic cycle-rickshaw drivers we have had. Most just
sort of loaf along. |
