Delhi, India

The days we spent in Delhi were at the end of the hot/dry season, shortly before the rainy season. Record-breaking temperatures were above 110F. As students touring on a budget, we stayed in modest rooms at the YWCA, walked for transportation, and covered our noses to prevent inhalation of the dust and smog. Delhi shocked me with the smells, the filth, the extreme disparities. Poverty and wealth, starvation and fashion, architecture and tin. I avoided taking photos of the filth and poverty, knowing that I could not 'do it justice'.

These were my first impressions:

A meal from the Indian region of Rajistan.

Workers at a busstop. The public health announcement at the busstop urges drivers to hang up their mobile phones!

"Connaught Place", the fancy shopping zone in the center of Delhi.

Purses and pillow cases, music and jewelry from Connaught Place.

A diesel-burning auto-rickshaw juxtapositioned against the government eco-car.

Overall, I cannot say that I enjoyed or even liked Delhi. I appreciated the lesson of hospitality at the Sikh temple, and I needed the jarring reminders about poverty and excess. But the filth of the city, especially in the sweltering heat, was immense. On our last day in Delhi, some of us cooled off in the luxury of a fancy hotel for high tea. It provided acculturation for our travels back to our extraordinarily wealthy lifestyle in the USA.

Children in Dharamsala

At the Tibetan Children's Village, the orphans' shoes line up at the doorway to the home. Each home hosts about thirty children. The arrangement is similar to Omaha's Boys and Girls Town, with one host family in each home.

At TCV, the young monks and lay children live and go to school together. The current Dalai Lama has changed the education system for monks and nuns, so that they now get an equal education as lay people. It used to be that the monks were only taught religious texts. If they later chose to leave the religous life they were unable to find work. Now they have options. This Dalai Lama actively encourages Tibetans to pursue higher education; this focus is helping the Tibetans in exile to succeed in their host countries.

The Tibetan Children's Village is a frequent stop for visitors to Dharamsala. Our group brought several suitcases of medical supplies as a donation. The kids at the TCV were very accustomed to western visitors, so it was a little hard to get them engaged. However, my hat was a good prop to initiate games of "it".

The children of the TCV prepared for a theatrical performance in anticipation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's visit the next week.

At another Tibetan school, the students performed traditional dances for our visiting group.

Here is a pic of some traditional Tibetan musical instruments. Most of the children at this particular school are not orphans. Their impoverished parents live in rural areas of the Himalayas, and send their children to Dharamsala to get a better education.

Walking on the mountain path to class, a family scraped together breakfast. This playful child pulled the green scarf over her head so that she couldn't see, in a sort of hide-and-seek. Just as I passed she pulled the scarf off and jumped in surprise to see a white woman looking bemusedly down. The child then posed for the photo 'just so'; her parents are beggars and each photo earns them a rupee.

The Tibetan exiles in India take care of one another. Adults touch the heads of children passing on the street, whether or not they know one another. I was captured by this moment as a man, walking down the road, paused to wipe the hands of this child. Respect. Care. They didn't speak much, but the boy looked at him with total trust. There is something about travel that reminds me about the importance of human connection, drawing me back home.

Agra, India

On our second day in India most of our group took vans from Delhi to Agra. Along the picturesqe ride I tried to take snapshots of the gorgeous grass huts and farmland.

The trucks were hand-painted brilliantly with driving advice, flowers, religious symbols, and nationalist flags. The painted trucks asked for other drivers to 'blow horn' to indicate when the truck should move. Indians use their horns constantly. The roads were chaos. No one kept in lanes, and driving headlong into oncoming traffic was normal. It seemed there were no traffic rules except the use of the horn.

At a pit stop, there were monkeys in the manicured lawn!

The monkeys crawled all around the building facade.

The Taj Mahal is flanked by three gorgeous large red sandstone buildings. One is the entrance gate, one a guesthouse (seriously huge) and one mosque.

The Taj Mahal was built in the 1600's (so not that old, for India) as a mausoleum for Mughal emperor Shah Jahan's favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. She died in childbirth to their fourteenth child. The Taj Mahal is said to be a "testament to love" and the story is quite romantic. It's certainly a testament to the fantastic craftsmen who built it.

We visited the Taj at noon on one of the hottest days of the decade. It was 117F. These landscapers rested in the shade.

The big deal about the Taj Mahal (other than the romantic story of true love) is that the white marble is inlaid - not painted - with precious and semi-precious stones in fantastic designs.

Near the Taj Mahal, but across the holy Yamuna river, is the Agra Fort. This was also built by Mughals, but much earlier in the 900's.

This is the view of the Taj Mahal from the Agra Fort, India. The famous story about the Agra Fort is that, after the Moghul Shah Jahan had the Taj Mahal built, his power was usurped by his younger son (or he went a little crazy). He was locked up by his son in the Fort for the remainder of his life, and as a prisoner could only look upon his beloved creation from a distance. He lived the remainder of his pitiful life longing to be at the Taj Mahal and honor his deceased wife. (Or, in another story, he was perfectly content as a prisoner, had lots of female companionship, and died of syphillus).

Indian clothing is colorful and beautiful.

The mother in red came over to me and wanted me to play with her baby, which I happily did for some time before the whole family wanted a photo.

It's really true! Cows wonder among the traffic of India's crazy streets! A bewildering country.

Delhi Sikh Temple: another lesson on gratitude

For my first blog post about my recent trip to India, I'll take you on a journey to the Sikh temple in Delhi. We take off shoes to enter into holy places.

The Gurudwara Bangla Sahib was built in 1783. Sikhism is a religion founded in the 15thC in India and is influenced by both Hinduism and Islam. It's the fifth-largest religion in the world and holds a non-anthropomorphic, monotheistic understanding of God.

A main principle of Sikhism is equality of all people regardless of class, caste, or gender. Salvation is pursued through personal meditation on the name and message of God.

Before entering the temple we wash our feet and bow at the entry doorway as a sign of respect. Both men and women cover our hair with cloths in the temple.

Temple visitors receive holy water for ritualistic cleansing, and can bring some home for blessing a space or giving to ill family members.

All people, regardless of race, religion, gender, or caste may eat in the Gurudwara kitchen, called a "Langar" hall. Langar is the Sikh word referring to the vegetarian-only free food served daily to anyone who visits. The Sikhs are not strictly vegetarian but in order to be hospitable, only vegetarian food is served to ensure that all people, regardless of their dietary restrictions, can eat as equals.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are served. The lentils and bread flour are purchased with money donated to the temple. Any vegetables served at the meals are donated by farmers. Volunteers prepare the food in enormous quantities; 10,000 people are served at this one temple, each day!

What I find most remarkable about these meals is the ethos around preparation and consumption. It is another lesson in gratitude for me. Those who volunteer to pay for or prepare the food earn blessings and merits for their effort for the benefit of others. Those who come to eat the food similarly earn blessings and merits for their consumption of the food. It's viewed as a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship. The diners are grateful to the cooks for the generous gift of nutritious food. The cooks are grateful for the opportunity to meditatively prepare the meals for the benefit of others.

Here's a beautiful blog post from someone else studying food systems, who went to the same temple.