A Cycle Rickshaw in Agra

This was just an anecdote of an interesting event in Agra in the evening. Feeling like exploring the city a little, I decided to walk around.

However, coming out of a reasonably posh hotel meant that I was not going to be in for a quiet walk. Immediately people started hawking things. Also people kept offering to show me around Agra in their cycle rickshaws. Initially I kept refusing all requests - but then one man spoke in English, and promised to show me around for Rs 10 ($0.30 Aus). I finally agreed and he took me around.

After some general banter, the rickshaw wallah asked where I came from. I replied that I was from Chennai. He then asked me if I had studied overseas. I told him that I had only ever lived in Chennai. (I didn't want to be known as a foreigner, otherwise people will try the hard sell on me and I had only about Rs 180 with me at the time). I thought I was well disguised by wearing typical Indian clothes, and trying to speak in my strongest Indian accent!

Anyway, he then asked if I wanted to go to any shops. I said no. However, with a bit of persuasion I relented and agreed to go to a marble shop. Agra is famous for marble carvings (after all it was these people's forefathers who built the Taj)!

The rickshaw wallah then took me to a small shop. I was shown inside, then the shop keeper promptly closed the door and his assistant started bringing out marble carvings. The carvings were beautiful, but I was conscious of only having Rs 170 or so to spend. Anyway, I chose a beautiful statue of Vignesh (the Elephant headed God) which cost Rs 150. I could have bargained, but decided against it since I didn't want to spend too much time.

After paying I went back to the rickshaw and asked him to take me to the hotel. While doing so I enquired about his business. He mentioned that as it was the off season, there were hardly any tourists, and that he had earned only Rs 20 the whole day (it was about 7 pm). He then asked me if I had seen the Taj. I replied in the affirmative and then asked him how many times he had seen it. He told me that he had seen it many times in the past when entry used to be free on Fridays for local people. However, since they stopped that he could no longer afford to see it.
(I felt really bad - here was a person who had lived all his life in Agra, but could no longer afford to see the main attraction that people from all over the world came to see!)

I then asked about his family - he mentioned that he had 7 children! (Again I felt pity for him and wondered how he supported them!)

Finally near the hotel he told me that because I was such a friendly person, he would be honest with me and confessed that he got a commission of Rs 10 for my buying at the Marble Shop. He then mentioned that because I had arrived in a cycle rickshaw the Deity only cost Rs 150. Had I gone in an auto, it would have been more expensive. If I had gone by car, it would have been even more so! It was an interesting insight into how the tourism industry works!

Since he was being so honest I too confessed to being from overseas (Australia) and asked him how he suspected it even though I thought I was well disguised! He mentioned that my accent and standard of English was too good (really? even my Indian accent??), and that I just looked like a foreigner! Damn - my trying to blend in obviously did not work too well!!!

I felt very guilty giving him just the Rs 10 he had asked for, so gave him Rs 30 (which was all I had at hand) . I don't know whether that was sufficient or not - but it made me feel happy that atleast he had earnt Rs 40 from me that day (compared to the Rs 20 he had earned the rest of the day).

It made me feel pretty guilty that he would probably earn Rs 100 on a good day, compared to the Rs 2600 I earn a day (that too as a poor student!)

Agra

After spending a day in Delhi - we headed off to Agra. Agra was the capital of India under Mughal rule. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire

Driving from Delhi to Agra was quite interesting! My understanding of the road rules in North India is that there is only one rule -look after yourself!!! Apart from that everything else is just advisory. I saw people (including our own driver) clearly running red lights; others were driving on the wrong side of the road (it seems that the emergency lane is for driving up the other way!); lane markings were clearly ignored - you basically drive where ever you find space! In Australia we are quite used to finding slogans such as "Speed Kills", or "Because enough is enough" - but in Delhi it was funny to see signs like "Night or Light stop on Red Light" and "Lane Driving is Safe Driving"!

Although I'm quite used to seeing these traffic violations in Chennai (my home city) - they usually happen when the cars are moving at 40 kmh. But on this Highway to Agra, the speeds were approaching 100 kmh!!! It is no wonder that along the way we saw two overturned lorries along the way!

The best thing I saw (specifically for Martijn and Rebekka) were a few enterprising cyclists. As we drove along, we would periodically see farmers travelling along in their tractors (yes - on the same 100 kmh roads). So why trouble yourself cycling when you can 'grab' a lift? It was quite common to see cyclists holding onto the back of the tractor and easily coasting along! (I tried to take pictures, but we usually zoomed past and with the time lag on my camera, I usually missed it!)

At Agra of course the first thing we saw was the Taj Mahal. This was absolutely breathtaking! (Mehdi - credit for this goes to the Persian Architect who designed the Taj Mahal!) Supposedly it was initially even more beautiful with diamonds encrusted on the corners - however, these have long been looted by various invaders. (For the unaware - The Taj Mahal was built by the emperor Shah Jahan as a tomb for his most beloved wife Mumtaz. The story goes that he then wanted to make a similar one in Black Marble as a tomb for himself across the Yamuna river so that both the Taj Mahals could mirror each other. However, as he had almost bankrupted the state by building the first Taj Mahal, his son, Aurangzeb, imprisoned him in the Agra Fort, killed his own brothers and took over as Emperor! Shah Jahan then wanted to make sure no other building would surpass the beauty of the Taj, and hence had the architect blinded, and cut off the thumbs of all the stone masons so that they could never carve again!!)

After lunch we headed to the Agra Fort. Apart from being a military fort, it also has 16 palaces, state rooms, houses of parliament, public gallery for the emperor to meet the public, mosques etc. It also housed the jail that Shah Jahan spent the last days of his life in. After death, his daughter had him entombed in the Taj Mahal with Mumtaz. However, for giving her father that honour, she too was imprisoned by her brother Aurangzeb.

After visiting Agra I really wanted to watch "Jodha Akbar" again as it is set in this period!

Sightseeing

The first day in Delhi was spent looking around the city. This city has so much history that we simply could not do justice to it all. We drove past all the government buildings and ministries, had a look at the Parliament and Rajpati Bhavan (Presidential Palace) from outside, saw India Gate (a war memorial) and saw one of the most important Mosques for Muslims. We then drove to the Akshardham - the largest Hindu temple in the World! This was an absolutely beuatiful temple built very recently - and I think it was built completely by volunteers. There was very strict security (and I had the fun of being frisked, walking through the metal detector, setting it off, and having to be frisked a second time!) This was all repeated again when I had to got out to pick up my granny's wheelchair and enter again! Four friskings in 10 mins!!!

The temple was awesome and has a lot of exhibitions - even a boat ride which takes visitors through the history of India in 12 mins! Unfortunately we didn't go due to the queues and time constraints!

After lunch, we headed to the very sombre parts of Delhi - Birla house and Indira Gandhi Museum. Birla House is the very house that Mahatma Gandhi lived for the last 100 or so days of his life. Keeping with Gandhi's philophy, it was very simply furnished with his bed and spinning wheel. There were many displays, photos, quotes etc of his life. Behind the house was the most sombre / depressing area. It was the very garden where Gandhi was shot dead. The exact spot is marked with a pillar with the date and time of his assassination. No one can emerge from this museum without feeling extremely emotional. It was so sad to see how such a great man was killed - but as an Indian I was also so proud to see his achievements. Not only did he gain Independence for India - he also did a lot for India's social reformation with his philosophies (ahimsa) equality of men and women, the equality amongst castes, and kindness to all living things such as animals.

The Indira Gandhi museum was also sombre - it was the house which she (as Prime Minister of India) lived in when she was assassinated by her own bodyguards. The path which she walked up has been covered in crystal - with the spot where she died covered in plain glass with red flowers on it. Also on display were the very clothes she wore when shot dead.

Although she was a very controversial leader, it was still an emotional experience.

Delhi - the Capital of India's Bureacracy!

I was really excited to arrive in Delhi as I've never been here before and it has such a long and interesting history. For those who don't know, Delhi (and all of India for that matter) has had a lot of different rulers - Hindu kings, Mughal (a Mongolian/Persian/Muslim race) rulers, the British Raj, and finally the current Republic.

Arriving at the airport, I was interested to see that the efficiency of Indians had not improved by much at all!! While travellign with my grandmother, we always ask for wheelchair assistance for her as it makes things so much easier. Airports such as Singapore are SOOOOOO huge (the new terminal 3 is MASSIVE) that it just makes sense to push her around rather than troubling her to walk.

Anyway, in Singapore we had 1 man who came and pushed my granny - efficiency at work! However, in Delhi, about 6 people came and brought the wheelchair. Then they proceeded to talk and discuss in Hindi (which I still don't understand despite my crash course in learning a bit!) and finally 1 person (the most junior) stepped forward to push my grandmother while the others each discussed and gave him instructions on how to best complete the job!!!

However, credit where it's due - this guy did an excellent job and pushed us past all the queues
;-) and drastically cut our waiting time. He then collected all our luggage (even mine, even though I was not the one in the wheelchair) and took as straight through customs with no questions! A little family discussion ensured on how much to tip him as it has been so long since we have been in India that we've lost idea of how much to tip. Too little and it looks cheap and embarrasing - too much and we'll run out of money pretty soon! We ended up giving him Rs 50 ($1.50) - which I'm sure I'll find out from my rellies was too much ;-)

However, another blight in the airport was the immigration official. He obviously felt that he was doing the entire human race a favour by being the immigration guy. He was extremely slow- ie, slowly checking each passport, then carefully tearing the bit off our immigration form we had to fill, then inking his rubber stamp - then stamping it onto a plain sheet of paper next to him to ensure that the stamp was clear, then finally stamping our passport. After each passport, he turned around had a good look at all the other officials, then barked at the next person in the queue to come up!

We then met our chauffer (such a posh word that I can't even spell it!!) who drove us to our accomodation. On arrivining in our room, we found that the aircon didn't work, so we were upgraded to an even better room! YAY! (actually I don't know if that means we'll end up paying more, or if it was a complimentary upgrade - we'll find out soon when we check out!!!)

New Trip HOORAY!!!

Well, it's certainly been a while, but I'm glad to say that I've finally gone on a new trip!!! I left Saturday morning from Brisbane to Singapore. The trip was quite good! After flying Virgin, Jetstar and Tiger Airlines to Melbourne, Singapore Airlines seemed really luxurious!!! There was more footspace than I remembered! (Maybe being in the aisle seat helped!)

I sat next to a Chinese Professor who was going back home from an agricultural conference in Brisbane. Her research ws aout Drought tolerant wheat which is quite topical in Aust as well as China (and probably the whole world!)

She had been to Delhi before, and we had a good discussion about Delhi and Beijing, and the problems plus opportunities for these two countries in the future. Apart from talking to her for a few hours (surprise surprise!) I also watched some TV. I was a bit annoyed that I didn't get video on demand - swhich meant that when the lady talked to me - I couldn't pause and hence missed some parts of the movie. I watched an M. Night Shymalan movie (but I've forgotten the name now!) which was quite weird but made you think. It was all about people committing mass suicides and the theory was that the plants and trees had evolved a toxin which they released which took over people's minds and made them kill themselves!! I think it was Shyamalan's take on the current environmental issues with the plants taking over! (Maybe there was a deeper meaning - but it got lost between toilet breaks and talking to Professor Jing!) Damn the lack of video on demand!

Another show which I watched was a comedy called 'The Big Bang Theory' which was quite good! The main characters were these 4 geeky guys who were research assistants in a university. They had the typical geeky conversations (reminded me of our conversations at uni!)! There was also an Indian character with a strong accent! I didn't see too much of him - but he could be the famous version of me!!!

I actually really liked it, and will see if I can get the DVDs somewhere - I don't think it is telecast in Australia!

It was really great to catch up with my mum and grandmother at Singapore Airport! The trip to Delhi was really good and there was video on demand this time! And to top it off, they had a couple of epsodes of "The Big Bang Theory" as well!!! The aeroplane we flew on was quite new, and really liked the toilets! On thing I hate about the toilets is the paper towel disposal. I always try to push it into the bin without touching the actual flap - but usually the spring is so strong that the paper towel ends up falling on the floor and I have to pick it off the floor and end up touching both the floor and the bin after all!! But this new plane actually had a foot pedal which opened the bin!!! YAY! No touching the bin or picking things off the floor!!!

Overall the flights were really good - I don't know why but I didn't feel as squashed and restless as before - I really have to thank Virgin, Jetstar and Tiger for lowering my expectations so that Singapore Air could easily surpass them!!!