Almost 7000 miles!

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Sheep Trafficking

  

While shepherds watched their traffic lamb,

their bleating hot wool caravan

poured ‘tween vehicles like traffic jam

through thorn bordered lanes

with resistant strains

of motorbikes

that traffic ram

3 cheers for 2AC - Hip Hip…Horray!!

Indian Railways and its associated catering arm is the world’s biggest utilities employer.  In a country of apparent chaos, its smartly uniformed staff keeps the immense network relocating millions of people around the clock in varying degrees of comfort.  I arrived in Gujarat well rested, courtesy of a 21 hour journey from Bhopal executed in great comfort.  Some time ago I elected to only travel long distances on the train in the 1AC and 2AC classes.  There are often only eight beds per train in 1AC (the premium class) and as these are generally monopolised by the government, I mostly spend my rail time in the 2AC compartment.

2AC is a spacious air conditioned class where the carriages are split into about 10 curtained bays of 4 with individually curtained bunks running along the “corridor”.  All bunks convert into capacious seating during the day.  In addition to blankets and pillows, on joining the train, each passenger is presented with a large brown paper bag containing crispy white sheets, and often a small towel.  Once furnished with their essentials, new passengers are politely identity checked normally by a suited, stately gentleman of later years against the computerised booking system and required to show their ticket but naturally flashing an e-ticket on your blackberry is “no problem ma’am”.

Timely meal orders (Veg or Non-Veg being the choice) are taken along the way by the sprightly young carriage attendants who then deliver the packaged meals piping hot from the Railway Catering facilities at key stations.  This is catering for the masses, it is not the best restaurant food but it is tasty enough and, at 40-80 rupees per meal, staggeringly convenient.  I am astounded by the ease and efficiency of it all, and my joy in observing that alone sometimes prevents me from popping onto the platform or hailing a waller to buy snacks and goodies along the way.

...what buying an e-ticket saves you from!

When not engaged in eating, sleeping or washing, the ubiquitous Chai Waller is always on hand to serve passengers a caffeine and sugar hit whilst they avail themselves of the extensive appliance charging facilities.  Any need to queue for the loo post-chai is eliminated by the electronic “lavatory engagement” indicators and on many trains toilet paper is even provided in the clean western toilets!

I do not believe that travelling 2AC is selling-out on the budget travel experience because when the air conditioning gets a little chilly, which it does, you can still step out to the sink area, fling open the train door and sit on the step or hang out whilst filling your boots with hot, dusty and rustic Asian train travel.

By Indian standards, 2AC is an expensive way to travel and that has another great advantage for the likes of me; the fellow passengers generally speak great English, are very interesting and well educated and also use laptops so do not feel the need to gather round mine in excitement!  It all bodes very well for a safe, jolly, middle-class outing and I salute here and now all of the helpful, funny, clever, charming, sweet and hardworking students, families and business people that I have had the pleasure to meet in 2AC!!

Huggable Handicraft

Kutch is the fascinating area of Gujarat where I am currently and it also happens to mean cuddle in Welsh (cwtch).  If I could throw my arms around any region of India it would be this one.  It’s like the rest of Gujarat but there is a depth of sincerity to the people here which is indescribable.  People seem to rub along very happily with less segregation than I have seen elsewhere between religions, tribes and social status.  In 2002 this fragile dessert region was devastated by a massive earthquake, perhaps the aftermath gave everyone a sense of solidarity or maybe it’s just too hot for animosity.

The little red taxi had all of its windows open on the way out to the villages today but all it did was spread the heat, fan-oven style, cooking me evenly from the toes up. In between my turns on the spit, I spent money on beautiful things.  Although today was mostly embroidery, it was a real treat to sip homemade lemonade whilst I watched the pit-loom weaver create high quality artisan craft on his beautifully traditional piece of kit.

...sneak preview

Textiletastic

Now I am not my mother’s daughter when it comes to patience with a needle but you don’t grow up in a family that runs a needlecraft business or with such a textile talented mother without it having an influence upon you.  An influence which makes my latest destination one hell of a place to spend money!!  Western Gujarat and in particular the Kutch region is a handicraft hotbed.  There are hundreds of different tribal and family groups here producing distinct and wonderful textile art which is sold directly by the artisans, through cooperatives, or traded in the Bazaar.

I deliberately held back from buying gifts in the knowledge that I would be coming to Kutch, so since arriving I have been fastidious in contributing to the local economy.  In fact Dr Ishmail Katri and family were probably delighted at the fact there are so many Berkin women to buy for as I cleaned him out of exquisite block printed silk earlier today!  Dr Ishmail is the head of a family who for 10 generations have been printing natural fabrics from all over India which are then generally exported or made up for premium retailers like FabIndia.  In fact, unbeknown to me previously, I have been wearing a couple of his fabrics since the wardrobe renewal I had to execute in FabIndia Mumbai (see fat bottomed girl post!!).

On the way back from my fascinating morning of block printing, I stopped at a house where the front room was dominated by a huge hand loom.  This was no lowly village abode though, this was a modest palace, a master Ikat weaver’s home.  Haramshi Maheshwari’s sarees start at around £100, typically retail between £200 and £400 and can reach the thousands of pounds where weddings are the order of the day.  Ikat is an amazing technique which I do recall writing at length about at University, however for you guys: they tie-dye the weft (goes across the width) yarn with a predefined pattern which is then woven into plain warp (goes length ways) yarns creating distinctive “aztec” looking designs.  Double Ikat (the next step up) is mind-blowingly detailed: both woven directions are pre-dyed to the chosen pattern and then by magic incredible designs slowly emerge from the back of the loom.  An Ikat saree wasn’t really on my shopping list and I really couldn’t afford another scarf having just stocked the Berkin Boutique (the basic two-colour ones started at £30) so in the end I was relieved to come away with a piece that will make a lovely table cloth …for a little stool. 

I am sat next to a big pile of carefully chosen gifts and exciting bits fabric and embroidery that I intend to play with when I get home.  The pile is already too big to carry to the post office but I am not going to think about that until I’m done!

Bhuj Bus

I don't take photos from buses because they always disappoint, as these did,

...but it was oh so photogenic

A few potholes …so what

…I had given up trying to read and my attention was trying to focus upon the rebounding horizon when suddenly I was driving Daisy (my car) with Julie ably following in Valerie the Volvo, Daisy is built for bumps, Valerie is not.  It was with this brief memory of navigating one of the UK’s worst public roads in search of a country inn, that I was transported to Lincolnshire and, hey presto, I had my metaphor for the landscape of Western Gujarat!

The patchwork of small manually-tended fields had given way to a level 360 of fen-like monocultures.  Either side of my dead-straight farm track (and its two-way cargo of trucks, camel carts, and mad-max bikes) blankets of corn and pinstriped vegetables faded into the distant haze dissected by orderly irrigation channels.  On crossing the Porbandar/Jamnagar district border, the horizon (which for tens of miles had been gyrating like a triple-bar-olympian) rocked itself into balanced poise and with that came peace and predominantly forward motion.  Loose windows settled into their tracks, squeaking only as they were pushed open to let the hot, dust-free wind circle our sweat soaked bodies.  The chassis silently licked its wounds and our knuckles returned from white to flesh.  We were on tarmac, tarmac so smooth that I remembered with disproportionate joy, Daisy and I heading for Lincolnshire along the M6 toll.  I made a note to thank God for the UK’s glorious roads.

I want to ride my bicycle (Fat bottomed girl)

It has been a lesson to observe in myself the inverse relationship between loving what is inside and loathing what is outside because nourishing my soul has been at the expense of my body.  After being ill for much of month one, my tiny jeans were too big even with a full money belt stuffed down them.  Although I loved the feeling of liking my thighs, I took the opportunity it presented and indulged in lemon tart, pizza and other treats …you may recall a post entitled “bring on the calories” which I wrote with gay-abandon!  By the time I reached Tamil Nadu and its heavenly wheat-free cuisine, I threw caution to the wind and just ate, discovering Indian sweets en route which probably have triple the calorific value of cup cakes which I wouldn’t dream of eating at home.  Then I squeezed into my bikini (rather ashamedly) and hit the beaches and their fabulous restaurants (Abba, Pande, Cierans mmm) throwing in a few G&Ts as I went.  Inland I was generally sick but regrettably not sick enough to achieve sitting position in those jeans!  At Brahmavidya Mandir things settled down, I regained control and found perfect harmony between body and mind.  Then glorious Diu burst upon the scene with its 1950s ice cream parlour, Josephine’s all you can eat and its cheap beer which has left me looking much like I did after my first year at University …where coincidentally I survived largely on samosa, curry and beer (albeit much more beer than I drank in Diu!). 

Surely we are allowed to find equilibrium between mind and body without being a nun or the wrong end of your healthy weight band?  This is a country where every delicious dish and drink (except for the illusive and risky salad) is fat or sugar based or worse still …both!  In mitigation I recently discovered that I can say “enough ghee” in Hindi when pointing out what I would like from a menu, this does result in slightly less oily veg dishes.  In addition; I never eat all of the rice, am not eating meat, obviously don’t touch chapatti and have elected that one meal per day must only consist of fruit.  It’s too hot to exercise here now and my control-measures don’t seem to shed a single pound perhaps because I often believe that they earn me a mid-afternoon ice cream.  Its six and a half weeks now until this fat bottomed girl can get on her bike and ride …and she truly hopes that when she does, she will only be losing from the outside!

Photos courtesy of Danny

Where Ghandi and Granny were born

Ghandi's Exact Birthplace

My lovely friend Sangeeta has never been to India and so, ever up for a project, I promised to snap some photos of her Granny’s village for her.  That is how I wound up with my head tipped back, in the pitch black, pondering space and time as part of a circle of women within a circle of men.

Navigating Marriage

Porbandar is ordinary, but what it lacks in beauty, it makes up for with gusto. Loud men with big grins sell fruit to busy ladies in bright bandhani¹ on the corners of streets with thick banks of parked bikes through which an auto river flows. Their incessant beeps perforate the dusty, dried fish mist which settles in the side streets casting a sepia tinge over its suitably antiquated scenes. On the border of town, thick mangroves and dessert meet by the river and just like in between the beach and the maidan², the poor live in temporary tents.

As I have now come to expect from Gujarat, the people of Porbandar excelled themselves.  My hotel was brightly staffed, my auto driver didn’t over-charge and on seeing my disappointment that the internet café was closed until 5pm, Jay from Jalaram Tours kindly invited me to use his wifi and even sent one of his staff to arrange my mobile top-up! (thanks again!).

The Lonely Planet may have dropped their coverage of Porbandar after edition 13 but it’s firmly on my map …particularly as the place whose sightseeing tour included twenty minutes in a segregated planetarium with Gujarati discourse!!

¹Intricate tye dye fabrics made with numerous tiny knots in fabulous patterns

²large outdoor area for public gatherings

Forecast 41

Watching you hide yourself

so conspicuously

melts the mind of the body you browned

which surrenders

for tomorrow there will be no breeze between us