The Ten Biggest Surprises - Part Two

Maybe I misnamed these blog posts. Some of these things weren't really surprises, because I'd seen pictures. So let's think of it as "The Ten Most Take-Your-Breath-Away Things."

6.            Artisanship

Whether we were in Kathmandu's Durbar Square (occupied since the 3rd Century, CE) or Jaipur's Birla Mandir (1988), the quality of the artisanship across the centuries was inspiring. You may be looking at an inanimate object, but if you listen some craftsperson is speaking of beauty or truth. John Keats felt it when he gazed on that Grecian Urn, and I think a lot of us felt it on this trip.

Take this house in Kathmandu's Durbar Square. To my knowledge, it's not a special building; our Nepalese guide didn't point it out, and I saw no sign explaining its significance. It was just one of many we passed as we were walking to the points the guide particularly wanted to explain.

I enlarged the image of one carved post to show a detail. I also uploaded the photo at full resolution, so download it, make it as big as your monitor allows, and look at all those details. (Caution: Not safe for work!)

Isn't our species amazing, that we have this sort of drive to create and express ourselves? Do you suppose the long-dead Nepalese craftsman, if he could see across the centuries, would be surprised that we're looking at those bawdy images and smiling the same way he did? I love this sort of human-to-human connection across space, time, and cultures!

Emperor Qutbuddin Aibak, from central Asia, conquered the area around Delhi in 1192. He wanted to communicate power and authority with a tall minaret, but would he have been satisfied with a plain pole? Did the artisans have nothing more to say than "TALL" ? Of course not. So we have these fabulous details on the five-level tower that is the Qutb Minar.

Aibak also wanted to thank Allah for his success, so he had a mosque built in 1193. This archway leaves no doubt he and his artisans felt the same awe, peace, gratitude, and humility that we feel we we turn our attention to the Divine.

An architectural expression of peace and eternal rest at Humayun's tomb (1565)

An expression of how we feel about our daughters, in the Agra Fort rooms Shah Jahan built for his daughters (late 1500s).

Shah Man Jai Singh and his successors held private audience in this room where the walls and ceiling have so many mirrors, it is said a single candle transforms the room into a starry sky. Amber Fort, 1600s.

View from the Shah's residence area toward his private mosque inside the Red Fort in Delhi. Begun in 1639, the Red Fort was a royal residence up to 1857, when it was taken over as British military barracks.

And these are not lost arts! We visited a handcraft shop in Agra where these marble arts are still practiced. The craftsman coats a slab of white marble with red ochre; scratches in the design; grinds small pieces of semi-precious stone (jade, carnelian, lapis lazuli, etc) to the shapes and sizes needed; chisels out pockets in the surface of the marble in which to seat the colored stones, then polishes the surface.

A serving platter in progress. The technique, known as parchinkari in India, originated in Italy, where it's called pietra dura.
I splurged and bought a platter for my Christmas present.

The center of a newly finished table top.

7.            Building construction

In woods anywhere in the world, you see all stages of the life cycle. Saplings are side-by-side with mature trees, declining trees, and long-dead trees that have already returned most of their molecules to the soil.

Buildings in India are like that. New buildings, large and humble, seem to be made from recycled building materials, and partially complete structures have used bricks stacked on and around them. Several of us agreed it was often hard to tell, driving by, whether a structure was being built or dismantled.

Is the second floor being dismantled or rebuilt?

The use of wooden poles instead of steel for ladders and scaffolding was common. These handmade wooden ladders used by maintenance workers at the Hanuman Dhoka Palace in Kathmandu didn't seem out of place.

More puzzling was this use of wooden poles in the construction of concrete buildings, which we saw many times.

 Downright alarming: this hand-lashed wood-pole scaffolding on even tall urban buildings.

Finally, the unregulated free-market wiring was a wonder to behold. Our guides said these hornets' nests were a result of every cable, telephone, and electric company installing and maintaining its own wiring and freely competing for business.

8.            Small-business economy

Shortly before we'd left for India, I saw the film The Economics of Happiness. Among other things, the film followed an anthropologist to an isolated village in the Andes. When she first arrived, she asked villagers to identify the poorest among them and was told everyone had everything he or she needed. No one was poor. Nor could they identify unhappy people. The anthropologist visited again ten years later, after the global economy had reached the village, shipped in cheap manufactured goods that put local craftsman out of work, and made everyone feel ashamed of their homespun possessions. Upon arrival, she was asked, "Please help. Everyone in this village is so poor."

So I've been taking a fresh look at the question of whether our economies should be judged exclusively on their production of material goods and financial wealth, or whether our ideas of economic value need to be expanded to include other measures such as human satisfaction. A lot of what we saw was very inefficient, speaking only in terms of material value-added for the effort. But I didn't reflexively dismiss that as undesirable, as some others in the group did.

Obviously, the global economy has permeated India, and I wasn't buttonholing the natives to ask "But are you happy?" I can tell you they didn't look anywhere near as glum or stressed out as the commuters in Chicago or New York.

From everything we could see, the global retail giants that sustain India's manufacture-for-export industry haven't  yet taken over domestic distribution. India’s retail economy is still in the hands of small businesses and entrepreneurs. We didn't see any large chain stores, either in the city centers or the outskirts. Groceries and milk are supplied by small shops and street vendors.

Mini-mall, Delhi style

Double-decker small shops in downtown Jaipur. A vendor on the second level is selling orange grooms' turbans for the upcoming wedding season.

If the Taj Mahal was in the US, it would have a single visitor’s center with prerecorded information, a single cafeteria, and a single gift shop contracted to a single concessionaire. No other vendors would be allowed even in the parking lot. One or two owners or a group of stockholders would make all the profit, and everyone else would be employees.

In India, however, independent guides are available for hire to provide the explanation of each site, and food and souvenirs are provided by dozens of independent vendors who hang out at the entrances to the historic sites.

The arrangement has its drawbacks—the vendors swarmed like locusts around the entrance to each site. But we learned to deal with it. The Indian arrangement clearly offers more in the way of entrepreneurial opportunities, but I don’t know which arrangement offers the community more in the way of opportunities for steady-income employment. 

Vendors' stalls in the gateway to Delhi's Red Fort. 
Imagine this bazaar in the early 19th century!

Milk is brought in each morning from the countryside. It's not pasteurized, but will be cooked before use.

This is only a little of  fabulous produce we saw for sale.

Independent, small-scale healthcare providers. If this storefront can afford to own an MRI and CT, the healthcare industry really is structured differently!

Even transportation of cargo seems often to be handled by the micro-business economy.

 

Next: The Ten Biggest Surprises - Part Three

The Ten Biggest Surprises - Part Three

9.            India is not a poor country and never has been.

Since around 1000 AD until its independence, India’s political and economic history was dominated by “traders and raiders” from the Near East and British Empires. These traders and raiders didn’t come for the scenery. Great Britain had a lot of colonies but christened only one "the jewel in the crown."
 

Widespread poverty in India has always been and still is a result of concentrated control of those resources, starting in the Middle Ages and continued by colonialism and the caste system. That concentration led to dysfunctional distribution and use of the nation's wealth.

The first critical element in any nation's economy is always food. India sits on a subcontinent with fertile soil and a climate that supports three harvests a year, as evidenced by the relentless greenery in the cities.

Keith or I probably snapped this photo to capture the picture of an elephant in city traffic, 
but it serves here to illustrate Delhi's status as the greenest capital city on earth. 
Roughly a quarter of the city is tree-shaded.

I snapped this photo while we were walking in Jaipur 
to show the fecundity of the land and climate. 
As far as I could tell, no one planted this. Stuff just grows.

 

We visited just after one harvest was completed, while the dry-season crops were just beginning. As a result, the air was filled with fine dust pretty much the entire time we were there. But as we drove through the countryside between Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra, the country's agricultural assets were apparent nonetheless.

The dry-season crop getting started, between Jaipur and Agra.

Another one of the many overflowing vegetable stands we saw, this one in Shahpura.

And for good measure, a view of the next rice crop getting started in Nepal.

 

In addition, India's most widely practiced religion has never removed women from the productive workforce, so Indians have always been able to use the contributions from all, not just half, their adult population. 

 

Finally, the land is rich in mineral resources.

10.          The historic and continuing influence of maharajas

Say the word 'maharaja,' and what comes to mind? Chances are, wealth beyond belief. Before this trip, my whole idea of maharajas was shaped by caricatures. I didn't really know what they were--other than wealthy beyond belief--why they existed, what they did, or where they went.

Here's the story: During the first millennium, regional kingdoms dominated India's economic and political life, just as they did in Europe. It was at the end of the first millennium that India experienced its first imperial invaders, the Turks. 

 

Two of these solid silver urns
were created for a maharaja in 1902,
to allow him to drink and bathe
in Ganges River water during an
extended trip to London.

For whatever reason, conflict between the imperial invaders and the local kings was short-lived (as these things go), and they reached a long-lasting accommodation. The native kings accepted the sovereignty of the invading emperors, and the emperors accepted the local kings--the maharajas--as allied local chieftains. This pattern continued through India's Sultanate period (12th through 15th centuries); was repeated when the Moghuls from Persia and Afghanistan replaced the sultans (16th through 19th centuries), and repeated again under the British (mid-19th through mid-20th centuries).

Working with whatever emperor, shah, or king was in charge, maharajas governed the locals while extracting tribute (taxes) and serving the emperor/king. They could pretty much take whatever they wanted with little limit or accountability. 

 

Our Indian guide told a story of a maharaja who went to London in the early 20th century and was disrespected at a Rolls Royce dealership. To soothe his pique, he purchased six limos, used them as garbage trucks, and then made the Rolls representatives repair them.

The maharajas' fiefdoms were known as India's princely states. At the time of independence in 1947, there were 565 such states in India and Pakistan.

The maharani in 1940 at home
in one of her husband's palaces

As we traveled through India, Keith and I were reading A Princess Remembers, the autobiography of Gayatri Devi (1919-2009), the granddaughter and daughter of the maharajas of Baroda and Cooch Behar and wife of the maharaja of Jaipur. Our Indian tour guide spoke very lovingly of the Maharani, who died in 2009. Her step-great-grandson, 16-year-old Padmanabh Singh, is still recognized as the Maharaja of Jaipur and is the recipient of much deference, respect, and good wishes, if our Indian guide is any indication.

A good writer and a decent human being, the Maharani provides a clear window in her autobiography into the lives of the ultra-wealthy who dominated Indian politics and economics before independence. Of her 1920s childhood, she wrote:

“Our palace staff numbered about four or five hundred. For the palace parks and grounds, there were twenty gardeners, twenty to manage the polo ponies’ stables, twelve in the garages, almost a hundred in the elephant stables, a tennis coach and his assistant, twelve ball boys, two staff to look after the guns, ten sweepers to keep the drives and walkways immaculate, and finally the guards. Indoors, there were three head chefs, one for English, one for Bengali, and one for Maratha cuisine. Each had his separate kitchen with his own scullery and his own staff. Six women helped to prepare the vegetables and three bicycle sowars fetched provisions from the market each day. Each of us girls had a maid in addition to our governess and tutors. (Our younger brother) had an additional person servant and (our oldest brother) had four. Mother’s entourage included a two secretaries and a typist, ladies-in-waiting, and a number of personal maids. Five or six men from good families and in no way to be considered servants had the responsibility of managing different departments of the household. Finally, there was a band of about forty musicians who played every night before dinner and on ceremonial occasions.”

The mindset that this sort of upbringing can create in even a good person was evident when she described her life while her husband served as a captain in the Indian Army during World War II:

Only then did I realize how burdensome I found the trappings and duties of rulership. It was bliss to live like any other army wife in a little bungalow, to run the house myself and be directly responsible for my husband's comforts--ordering menus, shopping for supplies, typing his letters. I got no special privileges or deference; I was just a captain's wife. Like the other officers' families, we had a small staff of servants: a cook, a butler, a man to clean the house, a maid for me, a valet for Jai, and his army orderly. Of course there were as well grooms for Jai's eight polo ponies and for his other two horses. "

Although the Indian Constitution was amended in 1970 to end all titles, privileges, and government-provided income to the maharajas, they were allowed to keep their substantial property. Those who managed the assets well are still wealthy and therefore politically powerful. Many have converted their palaces and estates into luxury hotels, resorts, and restaurants. Some they sold outright; others they own and manage themselves. We visited several and stayed in one.

While visiting Ranthambore, we stayed at the Sawai Madophur Lodge, built in the early 20th century by the maharaja of Jaipur, who stayed here when they took their guests on tiger hunts.

Our group on the veranda of the Maharaja of Jaipur's hunting lodge

Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth at the hunting lodge in 1961.

We visited another of the Maharaja of Jaipur's former palaces, this one converted into the Jaipur City Palace Museum. The royal family still owns it, I believe, and still uses it as one of their residences although large parts are open to the public.

Like most of the palaces we visited, the Jaipur palace consists of several buildings and courtyards. This one, I think, was where the maharaja would hold less formal meetings.

This is the durbar (big meeting) room, where the maharaja holds more formal meetings. We were not allowed to take photos, and we didn't, but not all bloggers follow the rules, so pictures are available.

The maharajas of Jaipur had yet another palace outside the city, the Amber Fort, on which construction began in the mid-16th century. From what I've seen of the world's palaces so far, I nominate this one as the most palatial. I would love to have seen it during its heyday.

I don't know how to convey the size of the complex. 
It covers acres and acres, more like what you think of as a small city rather than a palace.

The vegetable gardens, I presume. Flower gardens were closer in.

One of the interior courtyards

A wall in the Amber Fort palace

On the road between Delhi and Jaipur, we stopped for lunch at another maharaja's property, the Shahpura Haveli.  The current owner of the property is Maharaja Surendra Singh, who lives in Jaipur, we were told.

A view from a high balcony of the Shahpura Haveli, looking down at a lower balcony and the entrance. A 300-year-old maharaja's residence is up on the hill on the right; the current palace dates from the mid-1800s. 

Interior views at the Shahpura Haveli

I love these carved and studded doors. 
I don't understand why anyone ever thought to do that
 to a door, but I'm glad they did.

On another day, we stopped at the Hotel Narain Miwas for lunch. The smallest of the palaces we visited, the website says "The palace was built in 1928 by General Amar Singh Ji, the then Thakur of Kanota. Designed in the Anglo-Indian style popular in the Victorian era, the palace served as the country resort for the Kanota royalty."

Love  the doorknob! We actually saw some of these for sale, but it's one of those things...pretty heavy for checked baggage and what would you do with it when you got home anyway?

I would have loved to spend more than one lunchtime at the Laxmi Niwas Palace in Bharatpur, where we stopped to eat on the road between Jaipur and Agra. Built by the Maharaja of Bharatpur in 1857, this palace was converted to a hotel only in 1994.

This isn't even the main palace. This view looks from the first entrance gateway toward the older palace, which serves as an entrance way to the newer palace.

It was a pretty long walk through all those entrance gates, but the view was nice and there was live music. The restaurant was up those stairs behind the second pillar from the right.

Just a few more sumptuous tidbits from other royal buildings of India:

Over the years, almost all the jewels and precious metals were removed from the 
walls and ceilings of the buildings in  Fatephur Sikri, residence of Emperor Akbar. 
But some of the jade roof tiles remain. 
Yes, jade. 
For the roof. 

The Red Fort in Delhi was used by emperors, not maharajas.
Does this picture give you a sense of the expanse of intricate marble work?

Just one of the pillars.

I'm coming to the end of this blog and getting silly. Pools, fountains, and streams ran through and between the royal buildings at the Red Fort. They were all dry when we were there, either for maintenance or preserving water in the dry season. I wanted to see what it might have looked like with the water, so I photoshopped it in.