Jaipur, Taj Mahal, Vanarasi

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Main Gate

Sumer Palace in the Lake

Jaipur is the chief city of Rajasthan (about the size of the Twin Cities). It is also the capital of marble-quarrying.
And outside is the Amber Fort, so called for its pink stone walls (go figure).
Here the queue is extremely long to ride the elephants, so I didn’t. Seeing them was enough. I sat an talked to a wonderfully interesting woman in our group, who had been on the Kent State student paper in 1970, survived the massacre, but not without a touch of PTSD.) Then she worked for a Catholic Worker house in Cleveland, knew Dorothy Day, and almost became a carmelite nun. Now she is in charge of Catholic Charities for the Achdiocese.

Then, on to Agra, The capital of Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal as a shrine to his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Words – even pictures – fail.

I ran the wheelchair scam and got pushed all over the very large compound by a pusher whom I paid very well. I was able to get some nice trinkets just outside our hotel. Agra is famous for its marble-inlay work (the kind that covers the entire interior of the Taj Mahal). Flakes of semi-precious stone are lnlaid into white marble in floral patterns of exquisite beauty.

Many of the Indian railway station, it seem, are not right in the city they serve, but out of town a way. We drove to Tundla Junction, outside Agra, but not at the appointed hour. The traian was teo, then three, then three hours late. I strewtched out on the big back seat of the bus for a snooze. I woke after a really vivid dream to see elecrtic pinwheels out the window and a brass band playing. It was one of the thousands of weddings that night – the last night of good astrological auspices.

Everyone was gaily dressed in their loudest colors. And ieryone danced as the procession moved slowly toward the hotel gate The bride was inside, and we never saw her. (Sometimes brides don’t even appear at their own weddings!) But the groom rode a horse. He wore fancy clothes and a pearl veil over his face. In froint of him rode a golden-clad, beturbaned boy, who I think was supposed to represent the mahout, for the steed is supposed to be an elephant (most don’t go to that extreme anymore). It was all like a Fellini movie.

The flavor of Eurpopean film continued at tundla Junction – this time morer like Night and Fog, though. Our group oleaders had bailed. The woman got terribly ill and her husband stayed with her. The treain got later. We climbed another mountainous pedestrian overpass to get to the middle quay. Then we waited. And waited. Night wore on. It got colder. The boys (really, they seemed to be about 18) who schlepped our luggage squatted patiently in their rag-tops and shawls. Train after train pulled in – and out – belching steam in the gloom. It got so cold that I put on one of my gift shawls.

The train finally arrived five hours late. The delay was due to fog, which is fairly common this time of year, I guess. The second-class couchette was a relief after the concrete benches. We checked into the hotel in Vanarasi, overlooking the Ganges, in time for some serious internet action. (Despite the extremely spotty server performance, I have managed to keep up with my classes pretty well.)

Ablutions at the Ghats (banks) of the Goddess-river, Ganges in Vanarasi

Since the rest of the program called for another train-ride (and the good chance of another two-story stair climb), I decided that I had reached my discomfort threshold. I flew back to Delhi the next day, having found a reliable travel agent right next to the hotel. The car sent by the hotel got lose. Had to stolp for directions.l But It finally delivered me to OLD Delhi. Owing to hotel crowding, I switched hotels a couple of times, and I write this from a comfortable, modern country villa very close to the airport, which I need because I have to be there by 6:00 am for the flight to Singapore. There I have booked another airport hotel, as I have at Narita, to break up the return flight, so that I might not be a complete zombie, when I get back to California.

Before I left, I accepted the offer to serve as “content expert” for the development of a course in World religion for Argosy. I really don’t feel qualified, but everyone else assures me that I am, and so – what the hell? – it pays well. I have a feeling it is going to be quite a lot of work (they said ten hours a week for twelve weeks) beginning as soon as I get back. We’ll see.

Mount Abu to Moinuddin Chishti

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Front seat in a Chevrolet Blazer is a frighteningly up-close way to see India. My colleague, (Jaird de Raismes, the other laggard from the group, who also preferred to stay on at the incomparable Palace Hotel in Mt. Abu) and I preferred hotel-door-to-hotel-door service to the train. The trip from Mt. Abu to Pushkar took about seven hours. In the United States it would have taken far less, but driving in India is something entirely different. First of all, the roads are two-lane highways. One uses both sides of the road equally – actually maybe more time on the right (the oncoming traffic side), trying to pass. Every such passing maneuver is heralded by a horn blast. Each truck has Blow Horn Please painted gaily on its rear. Oncoming vehicles also blow their horns and flash their lights. After a bit, the jittery American passenger riding shotgun in this suicidal operation grows inured to the close shaves and chicken-run contests with over-loaded trucks. Everyone knows the rules and pays close attention, so foreign sensibilities to the contrary, it’s all quite safe.


Indian roads have very serious speed bumps, though, high and sharp, which require all vehicles to traverse them at a creep. In addition, there were roadblocks at the edge of the towns, because this Friday of our journey was the beginning not only of a weekend, but of a major religious festival in honor of the destroyer/fertility god, Shiva. The police wanted to be able to take a good look at everyone entering, so the two-lane road became one-lane. (Our driver cheated and passed about twenty trucks that stood waiting in line).
Everyone was out in the best party gear: unbelievably decorated saris for the women, and young guys in well-pressed, western casual clothing. The streets are lined, mile after mile, with street vendors selling everything imaginable. There was even a ride or two: four-car miniature, wooden ferris-wheels, vividly painted and human-powered. (Two operators give each car a big push up as it passes.)


Pushkar is the site of the world’s only, place dedicated to the creator-god, Brahma. It seems he was philandering with a local girl in Pushkar, when his wife, Saraswati discovered them. Her revenge was to arrange for this place to be the only place where he would be worshipped. It is also a resort town and an attraction popular with young Europeans. For us, it was a quieter alternative to nearby Ajmer, the site of the Dargha of Moinuddin Chishti.


Our hotel was another in the “heritage” class, which means not necessarily that it is an old npoalace like the ohne at Mt. Abu. The one in Pushkar ws brand new (still bening built) but builkt to look old – crammed fullo of beautiful antique reproductions to give it a really Victorian feeling. Everything was period, down to the brass padlocks on the doors.

Sultan-ul-Hind, Hazrat Shaikh Khwaja Syed Muhammad Mu'īnuddīn Chishtī was the first sufi teacher in this part of the world. Also known as Gharīb Nawāz , Benefactor of the Poor, this contemporary of St. Francis of Assisi came from Persia at the beginning of the 12th Century, long before the Mughals. In Ajmer, he set up a soup-kitchen for the destitute. The enormous cauldrons are still visible on either side of his tomb in Ajmer.
In his solicitude for (and identification with) the poorest of the poor, he is remarkably similar to Il Poverello:
The central principles that became characteristics of the Chishtī order in India are based on his teachings and practices. They lay stress on renunciation of material goods; strict regime of self-discipline and personal prayer; participation in Sama [long meetings of prayer, singing and dancing]as a legitimate means to spiritual transformation; reliance on either cultivation or unsolicited offerings as means of basic subsistence; independence from rulers and the state, including rejection of monetary and land grants; generosity to others, particularly, through sharing of food and wealth, and tolerance and respect for religious differences.
He, in other words, interpreted religion in terms of human service and exhorted his disciples “to develop river-like generosity, sun-like affection and earth-like hospitality.” The highest form of devotion, according to him, was “to redress the misery of those in distress – to fulfill the needs of the helpless and to feed the hungry.” (Wikipedia)

His teaching of mystical Islam now has millions of followers, in several silsilas, or lines of spiritual teachers, including the Sufi Order of Hazrat Inayat Khan, and his son, Pir Vilayat. Many of our group are mureeds of Pir Vilayat. Moinuddin Chishti’s Dargha is one of the most visited shrines in India.

It sits in a large compound at the top of a low hill, reached by a broad avenue about a kilometer in length (think Hennepin Avenue from Washington to the Orpheum), from which motorized traffic is excluded. Rahul arranged a rickshaw, so I got there pretty fast. The street and the compound were incredibly crowded. Teeming India. Although Chishti was a Muslim, hordes of Hindus visit him, too. (A holy man is a holy man!). Big security at the huge, pink gate, where shoes are left behind.


The place is a warren of marigold-vendors and shaded alcoves for instruction and study, where guys sit talking quietly. In the center is a fine mosque built by Shah Jahan (3rd Great Mogul, Taj Mahal). It stands next to the tomb, which is a square building, opened from time to time to allow pilgrims to enter and walk around the cenotaph.

It is all intiricately-carved marble and silver. (I’m pretty sure the saint would have objected. His counterpart’s tomb in Assisi is much more ascetic, even though the surrounding basilica isn’t.)
The poor love Chishti now as he loved them in his earthly life. They are everywhere, in depressing profusion. I thought I had seen misery in Mexico and Russia, but nothing can compare with this. The walk back down the avenue was a kind of journey through hell. There are hundreds of beggars, who constantly poke at prospects (and foreigners are definitely prospects). Little barefoot children poking and






pointing at their mouths, young women carrying babies, old men hobbling along beside you. And worst of all, apparent cripples and amputees rolling around on the pavement to get in front of you. (I say apparent, because some of the young cripples could also have been contortionists.) I was reminded of Slum Dog Millionaire and the horrible, deliberate mutilation of orphans to make them more pitiful beggars.

But one cannot give to all of them. And if one gives to any, all the rest come over. What is one to do, who comes to revere another who gave everything to serve the poor? They begin to seem annoying – like flies. These poor human beings, every one the image of Almighty God. It is an intolerable contradiction: open your heart to the saint, but harden it toward the beggars? This was an unforgettable lesson.


While we were still n the cool and (relatively) serene sanctuary of the Dargha complex itself we sat down in the corner of a big court outside the mosque, facing the tomb. There Sharif began the group dhikr (remembrance). All of our group chanted the word Allah. I was standing away a bit, so that I could sit on a wall and not the floor. I saw the men who had been sitting in the shade of the mosque get up and walk quickly over to see what was going on. I though they might object, but hey were just curious. Our group of Americans drew quite a crowd as we sang and danced (one at a time whirling). The Indians may been amazed, but they were not shocked.

Tomb of Moinuddin Chishti

One of them was an old man with a white beard and a broad, toothless smile. He never stopped smiling. He was either crazy or a genuine sufi. I fantasized that he is what Shams-i-Tabriz would have looked like when he first appeared to Rumi. This old guy then accompanied our group until we finally left the compound.

Sahibs and Coolies

The Maharajah’s palace (one of at least four he had) is definitely the way to go. Monkeys cavorting on the roof and terrace out the window, coolies doing your every whim . I actually heard a senior servant address a younger one as coolie. I looked it up and it turns out that the Kuli are an aboriginal tribe of Western India (I am IN Western India, who – among others – were employed to work In the tropics at wages former African slaves shunned, after the abolition of slavery in the Empre in 1833. The name became current all over the world for cheap, Asian labor, such as the Chinese, who built the western part of our railroads.

Well, one quickly gets used to living in Jewel in the Crown luxury. It is remarkable how one can come to regard all the pampering as an entitlement, even though no one has called me Sahib, as yet. I see that the fresh hibiscus blossom on my foyer table is looking aa bit wilted. I shall have to give that lazy Doansingh a good caning!

Here are some sacred cows (bulls,actually):

No Walk: BEAR!

The overnight train to Mt. Abu was festive and exotic, with old-fashioned Pullman berths that accommodated a rocking, though intermittent sleep. 6:20 found us at our stop, for the short bus ride up into the ancient mountains, which Rahul, our guide, assures us are the oldest in the world. Anyway, they produce a rain shadow, so that on the east, it is relatively fertile, but the west is arid and actual desert.

They also provide a relief from the summer hear, so the rich built villas and palaces up near the top of the range. One of these is now a heritage hotel. Originally the summer house of the Maharaja of Birkaner, who was also known as “the people’s maharaja” because of hus many good works, the Palace Hotel is really a taste of the Raj. To step into it as a guest is like stepping into a Merchant-Ivory film. Liveried servants are never far, eager to fulfill one’s slightest wish. The only problem is that their English vocabulary is severely limited, mostly to words directly associated with the hotel services (toast, jam, tea, coffee, laundry, &c.) If the conversation (or request) strays beyond these limits, the One of them, Doansingh, seems to be in charge of my room and well-being.

My room is a luxury suite in a separate building, adjacent to the main palace. Porch in front, enormous terrace in back, entrance hall, big sitting-room/bedroom with 20’ celings , from which circulating fans are depended, fireplace, sofas, desks, many electrical plugs (thank God for my Japanese adapter), high windows with shutters, inner and outer curtains that billow reassuringly in the breeze, dressing alcove next to the marble bathroom – and all at a price well below a motel beside the interstate in the USA!

There is a nature preserve with crocodiles and leopards. Becasue it is a sanctuary and nto a zoo, the animals are free to go. Sharif related that as he started out for a stroll before bed, a turbanned figure loomed out of the shadows.

"Where go?"

"I'm going for a walk."

"No walk. BEAR!"

I hadn't heard of gbears, but perhaps it was as close as the servant could get to leopard.

There is also one of the real wonders of the world: a Jain Temple built in the 11^th century. It is really a complex of five temples, in a big close. The most remarkable feature is the stone carving. All white marble, every square inch is covered in intricate sculpture, from miniature to fully life-sized. It is astounding and indescribable. Thousands of artists worked on it, over a period of fifteen years.

If the Jains are a diminishing sect, it may have something to do with the fact that they do not accept converts – you have to be born a Jain.) Their origins go back to the 5^th Century BC. They are best known for their custom, when going to a temple or shrine, to sweep the way before them with a peacock fan, and to wear a mask, so as to avoid harming any insects. They are very big on ahimsa (harmlessness), but it seems this sensibility does not extend to oneself.

For Jain monks not only go naked, as a sign of complete renunciation of possession, a few also starve themselves to feath, once they have attained all that can be expected in the way of spiritual progress i this life. The fast is gentle, ritualized, and well-monitored. Every day, the ascetic is asked whether s/he wishes to turn back. The Jains are vey much opposed to suicide, but this is not considered suicide. Far from it. It is the highest form of religious practice, leading directly into the realm of light. It is said that Mahatma Gandhi was influenced by Jainism, especially their exalted notion of ahimsa, which extends even to the thoughts.

Make India Proud of Herself

After landing without incident in Delhi, the fun began. The wheel-chair pushers wanted 200 rupees – apiece – for the service. Since the can-ride to the hotel, which I had just prepaid at the police-approved booth in order to avoid rip-offs, was only 269RP, I dug in my heels. I didn’t know at the time that one RP= $.025, so that 200RP is just over $4.00, or I would have given them what they asked. I figured if the cab cost that much, it must be something like $20-$30! So, I offered them 1000 yen. They didn’t want it, but when it became clear it was that or nothing, they accepted – a little more than $10.00!The Claridges, which is very luxurious, but not very expensive by American standard, and even less through our agent. This was wisely designed to give us India virgins a refuge from the intensities of culture-shock. Well, we’ve seen the movies, so it isn’t a surprise. I would compare it to Mexico. Lots of very poor people, but a rapidly-increasing population of very rich and middle-class. style="">The population is young, exuberant, and hopeful. They are friendly, happy people, even if they be miserably poor. And the way things are going, they may not be for many moiré generations. My Japanese friend, Takashi, thinks India will outstrip Japan before too long (a decade or two, mainly for demographic reasons. Accommodations aside, we attended the Urs of Hazrat Inayat Khan at his Dargha. Urs is the saint’s day – the day of death. It is the word meaning “leading a bride to the bridegroom”. The Dargha is his tomb. A very pleasant place. Sharif gave a magnificent lecture there, and we all paid our respects to the Pir-o-Murshid (master and teacher) by a kindof oracular divination or lectio divina. After asking a question silently, we each stood before the grave and opened a book of his aphorisms to and where our eye fell. Mine was:

We shall see who will persevere to the end:

My persevering Adversary, or

I, persevering in my cherished patience.

How’s that for a wonderful, opaque, ambiguous, beautiful koan?

We visited the Bahai Lotus Temple, the Qutub Minar (11^th Century pillar that was the tallest building in the world until Chartres’s towers); and in Old Delhi, the Red Fort (palace and compound of the Mughal emperors until the British massacred them in 1857), the grand mosque (the biggest in the world for many centuries); then we paid our respects to the Mahatma at the site of his cremation (The Raj Ghat, or royal bank), where notables are cremated.

Raj Ghat ~ smadhi of Mahatma Gandhi

This is India’s national shrine. There were endless busloads of uniformed school children, the future of this lucky country. How so? Well, I remembered the movie, the part where Gandhi has just returned home and he has a talk with the rich old professor, founder of the Congress Party. He says to G.: “When I saw you dressed in Indian clothes, I knew. You are the one. Make India proud of herself, my boy.” And, by God, he did! It is moving to remember this at his shrine, surrounded by young Indians. Perhaps one of the reasons they are so hopeful and energetic is that the founder of their country was a saint.

Then we got on an overnight train for Mt. Abu.

On time take off from Narita.

Easy passage through the checkpoints, thanks to the Japanese obsession with top-notch service and the wheelchair. This time, I was only twice as heavy as the attendant, who was, however, almost as old as me and who began to wheeze softly as he pushed me through the long STRAIGHTAWAYS DOWN PAST THE MOVING SIDEWALKS ALL THE WAY TO THE GATE. He locked me in the handicapped toilet room which was so high-tech that I may have peed in the wrong vessel. Oh well, there were plenty of little buttons explaining all the things you could get the water to do, so I just pressed them all and left. But you can’t just open the door: you have to press the green button. Japan is very high-tech. You can’t open your own door in the cab either; the driver opens it from his seat just like on a bus. That’s so you don’t nail a cyclist (of which there are some, but not as many as I would have thought – about like Mpls.)

Takashi suggested we see a film on Saturday afternoon: Capitalism: a Love Story. My old friends from the Christic Institute, Carl Deal and Tia Lessin worked on it, as they did on some other Moore films. They also got an academy award nomination for best documentary for Trouble the Waters. I recommend everyone see it. Mainstream reviews are predictably supercilious and snotty. One review said , in effect, “this is 9old news”, which is what they say when they don’t want to talk about the substance. (Remember when Dan Rather asked Bush I about his involvement in the Iran-contra crimes? The VP got all petulant: “that’s old, we’ve been all through that”. Well, we hadn’t; he had just denied any knowledge, which everybody knew was a lie.) So the critics attack the style and a couple of minor flaws in the film-making, and avoid any commentary on the actual analysis.

Except for one scoop, which even these folks – the same ones who have always considered Noam Chomsky beyond the pale of reasonable discourse, because they have no answer to his criticisms – had to admit was a “bombshell. That was a secret but leaked memo that circulated around the upper echelons of Citibank management, in which the thesis, frankly set forth, was that the global economic system is a plutonomy, which is organized deliberately for the benefit of the very rich, and that is as it should be. A tiny minority must control all the world’s wealth and consume most of its benefits, while the majority labor to produce them. It is as if the author were a Marxist and wanted to confirm his theories! One hopes this memo will go viral. I will do my part (watch this space), and please do yours, too; SEND IT TO EVERYONE AND POST IT ON YOUR Facebook page, and then ask yourself why the hell Obummer is in bed with these creeps.
Moore’s film, is dated in a melancholy sort of way: it has stirring footage of the campaign, the enormous crows that responds to the promise of “change we can believe in.” Moore even went so far as to suggest that this might have been the beginning of a democratic movement to undo the plutonomy. The film was in the can before it became clear that this was a false hope.

A sadly more realistic appraisal was given by Co. Andrew Bacevich (USMCRet.) of Boston University. (Please watch Bill Moyers interview him here.) Filmed during the campaign, the historian said it didn’t make much difference to the imperial presidency who won – Obama or McCain. Neither one was going to change very much. How true.

It was good to see the interviews with Moore’s family priests in Michigan, and the local assistant Bishop, who were unanimous in their appraisal of capitalism as ungodly. The critic want us to think this is all so-o-o old fashioned. But the fact is, Moore makes it clear that Marx is more relevant now than ever, and he accompanies his attempt to rehabilitate the term socialism with a hilarious, Frank Sinatra-like crooning of The Internalionale. Then he shows FDR’s second to last State of the Union message – from the White House. He asked that the last part be filmed, and that was what brought me to tears: the great president’s appeal for a constitutional amendment to enlarge the Bill of Rights, to include economic rights. (A decent place to live, a good job, health care, and a good education.) Why is this so laughably “impractical” or “unrealistic”? Only because Citibank and the other plutonomists tell us so, I think.

So, never one to mind contradictions, after the film we went to the Tokyo headquarters of the French tea-purveyor, Mariage & Freres to pick up some very bourgeois treats. And now, I am enjoying the luxuries of Singapore Airlines economy class, where they serve free wine and beer m which I still appreciate, though it does not benefit me, and rally good food. (I switched from Halal to regular fare and chose the Japanese. This gave me the opportunity to practice my newfound skill of eating noodles with chopsticks. The secret, it turns out, is to hold the bowl right under your chin. That must be why Japanese restaurants don’ have napkins. This is the company based in the country that flays people for spitting on the sidewalk, fines them for chewing gum, and will not permit the International Herald Tribune to be sold (do they still exist?) because it had the impudence to criticize the policies of President (for life, effectively) Lee. No, I guess I don’t mind contradictions at all.

BTW, I finally got my sushi: a really fine assortment in one of the airport restaurants. Not all that expensive, considering it was the airport. My attendant wheeled me in, left me at the counter, and appeared at the appointed time to wheel me out. Then onto the plane (I was the first one – before business class, before first class, before super-high-mileage patrons. I informed the most gracious flight attendant how kind it would be of her to put me in business class for free. This she pleasantly declined: “I would if I could, but I can’t.” I’ll bet they have empty seats. Worth a try.
And now, my Acer is beginning to beep joyously as we pass over Taiwan, so I will sign off. And until next time, Don’t Forget to Smash the State.