Dear family and friends,
Please permit me to begin with the disclaimer that mass emails are new to me and I find them slightly awkward... if my likely disjointed recollection of the past 9 days in India is not of sincere interest to you, please by no means feel obligated to continue reading.
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If you've reached this point, it means you're on board! I do apologize that you are not each receiving your own message, but typing is stressful and computers are overwhelming and it's just really freaking hot here. I'm writing you from Pushkar, which is a small city in the State of Rajasthan celebrated by Hindus as exceptionally holy and by backpacking Israelis as so common a destination that falafels are actually on all the menus here. There are 500 temples dotting the circumference of a lake that takes 45 minutes to walk around and is now virtually empty due to lack of rain. It is famous for its "special" lassis (a yogurt type smoothie). Traversing the void of a once-lake considered so holy you have to take off your shoes to cross its bridge, I am again reminded that I have never before been so in tune with the weather as on this trip. Not only because the smoldering heat (we're talking upwards of 45 degrees) forces you to take notice, but also because the entire state is desperately awaiting the monsoon's arrival. I can definitely understand why communities so dependent on nature for survival would tend towards worship of associated deities.
Wait! Let me start from the beginning
**Interruption** the man beside me is researching "Jaipur call girls"- Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan. Uncomfortable.
So Debbie and I met at the Delhi airport at roughly 5 AM on Thursday the 24th. After a long landing, I sprinted to the airport's bathrooms only to find a glorified hole in the ground which prepared me quickly for the weeks ahead. That morning foreshadowed a week of 5-6 AM jet lagged induced wakeups for me. Reunited and excited we began traipsing around Delhi like the naively confident tourists we were (are?). Within hours we fell victim to an elaborate, almost impressive scam. Although damaging to both our egos and our rupee supply, we were saved from much graver danger by a man named Naresh who may well have been our guardian angel. Please don't worry, we found a way out of the situation and are much more on guard (and I like to think wiser) for it. **details of scam available upon request** After the stresses of it all were relatively dealt with, we went out for drinks with him and another guy we met named Kumar (who showed us around Delhi's Hindu temples) and they showed us the beautiful India Gate lit up at night.
We stayed in Delhi until Sunday morning, and spent Shabbat at the local Chabad house. (Chabad houses are part of a Jewish outreach initiative that I find simultaneously alarming and enjoyable... but after realizing how vulnerable we were in the tourist trap area of our hostel, it was simply comforting. They fed us 3 meals and we met other travelers passing through Delhi)
3 days is far longer than many choose to stay in Delhi, largely because it is notorious for staggering pollution, a burgeoning population of the impoverished and homeless, and for scamming the shit out of India's new arrivals.
We have since been traveling through Rajasthan, which has been a wonderfully tumultuous experience. Though we have yet to head north and escape the heat, we have been fortunate enough to travel through much of this fascinating state. Memorable experiences (I hesitate to use the necessarily evaluative terms 'highlights and lowlights' since everything here is so irretrievably blurred) include an overnight camel safari in the sand dunes of a desert on the outskirts of a small village called Khuri. There we rode camels deep into the desert, passing on our way women traveling long distances in search of water, children leading their animals to drink from a small pool created by a recent rain, and peacocks-buffalo-cows-horses-goats-donkeys- and perhaps most memorably- beetles rolling camel dung along the sand. We slept amidst the dunes and watched the moon climb the rungs of the sky. I have never seen it so bright. We also visited a gorgeous little town called Mandawa where ppl live in havelis, immaculately painted mansions left behind by rich merchants who had profited immensely from the village's position on the silk route. They were mind-blowingly beautiful, and we stayed in a restored one that had been converted into a hotel for about 6 dollars each. A marriage procession passed by our hotel that night, and when I whistled to join in the excitement, the crowd literally went wild. The kids giggled and tugged at my shirt, urging me to do it again, while the men seemed to grant me nods of approval. Then the obviously beligerent brother of the groom literally dragged me into the center of the procession and I danced with them before peacing the scene for fear of the effects of an escalated drunken mob. We also went to a rat temple in Bikaner, which is a temple devoted to a Hindu God, which so happens to be inhabited by HUNDREDS...HUNDREDS of rats who never leave it. According to our guide book there has never been in incident of disease there in over 600 years. It was such a shock to our conventional notion of places of worship, and I found that surprise to be fabulously hilarious.
Pause- I know this is getting lengthly... I'm providing you with another exit point- Last chance to abandon ship.
There are many more anecdotes which I'd love to share, but I think I'll opt for some reflection now instead. I came into this trip with literally no concept of what I was getting myself into. I feared the heat (intense but bearable) and pooing in my pants (stomach turns out to be a huge team player so far). Really, I am being unabashedly honest when I tell you that my only reason for coming was for the experience, whatever it may be, and to hang with Deb... granted, depending on who was asking my response sometimes included an interest prompted by my religious studies major, but I think I fabricated its role in my motivation. For the first several days I periodically found myself asking Debbie what the hell I'm doing here. I still dont know, but I am doing a lot of laughing and am no longer consumed by the question. We are both working towards, in our own ways, letting go of our egos at least a bit (PLEASE) and just not taking ourselves, this trip, or its implicit spiritual quest too seriously. So far that strategy is working out great. :)
We are getting along very well, drinking lots of water, taking lots of pictures (posted an album on facebook, for those who are interested), covering our heads from the sun, meeting lots of people and really just doing lots of happy hanging. We have certainly encountered some obstacles in these short-but-incredibly-long 9 days, but we're working on letting go of their hold over us... wish us luck?
I sincerely hope this email finds you all well. I would really love to hear from each of you, even if only a quick message about where you're at. Thank you so much for taking the time to share this absurd journey with me... I'll write again after a reasonable length of time passes- I suppose when that might be is entirely unpredictable. :)
With love until then and always,
Amy
ps hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
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