Reminiscing the trip after a year

I had lost steam since a year and got busy in the mundane life all over again. Recently visited a presentation by the artist Tushar Joag who had taken up a motorcycle journey from Mumbai to Shanghai via the Sardar Sarovar dam in Gujarat and Three Gorges dam in China. The presentation has fired both of us up to do an exhibition/presentation in the near future. Until then I want to continue reminiscing the journey through this blog.

Lucknow - the veiled city

I was looking forward to visiting Lucknow through out the trip. I had an image of Lucknow in my mind - almost a collage, through the stories and hindi cinema, of a certain romantic cultured grandness, rich language, dance, music, minakari, colored glass.

Walls of 'The Residency'

We reached Lucknow after a long interesting journey through small villages, almost by nightfall. Just at the outskirts the snarls of a modern day Indian city hit us - congestion, honking, crowd, traffic jams, filth, dust and above all the exhaustion of an entire day journey. The romantic image was shattered for the time being.After 3 hours of looking for a place to stay we finally crashed in a UP tourism hotel. The next day felt better and so did the city though it was still congested, dusty and faceless but not unlike any other city of this scale.

The rich grandeur of Lucknow was not visible on the streets and in the daily life but was locked up behind the walls of protected monuments. We first went to The Residency. It was the site of the first mutiny of freedom in 1857. Around 10,000 British were held inside the 33 acre campus. Even today in its ruins it looked grand. Completely made of thin bricks about 5.5”x3.5”x1” the structures like villas, banquet halls, treasury etc. with its 5’ high plinths looked extremely grand. I hadn’t seen such exquisite brick masonry in the country with perfect flat arches, semi circular arches, columns, 2’ thick walls, high plinths with servant quarters in the basement and huge gardens. It was like mini Savannah (Georgia) but in ruins. The brick masonry reminded me of Roman ruins. Cluster of bricks together were dressed as stones on some walls and I think in its full glory it would be made to look like stone construction.The entire campus was filled with couples making out in each and every corner. 

After spending 3 hours there we tore ourselves away and headed towards Bada and Chota Imambra. The approach to the monuments was classical and its grandness could be felt from miles away.  Being a weekend the monuments were infested with tourists, school children and touts. We entered Bada Imambra after warding off the touts – even from inside the structure was grand. Except for the central hall the rest of the structure was closed off for renovation. The courtyard outside was enough to transport you into Lucknow’s golden era. Through out our exploration the touts kept bothering us saying that a couple is not allowed to roam alone and finally we were officially stopped from going into the labyrinth and were asked to be accompanied by a guide. This was the last straw – by now we were fuming mad. That sanctity of architecture was snatched away by the guides/touts. After futile argument for some time we stormed out and demanded for a refund of our tickets which surprisingly we got.

Entrance of Bada Imambra

We vowed to come back to Lucknow on a week day. The rest of the monuments we saw from our bike – no more getting off in a pool of school children and touts. The city had its grandness veiled in the form of gated monuments while the rest of the city de-evolved into a faceless 2^nd tiered Indian city with congested, dilapidated old city and  a misfit counterpart of a concrete, aluminum and glass clad new city. 

At the end of the day we headed towards Ambedkar Smarak couple of km outside the main city. It was a humongous campus of pink stone with its own dedicated entrance bridge over River Gomti. The entrance had a huge 80feet tall statue of Ambedkar on one side and of Mayawati and Kanshiram on the other. The 100 acre campus looked like a huge narcissist belch. The amount of money spent on this monstrosity could have helped in protecting and maintaining the veiled city – but such a logic does not work in urban planning!!

Mosque at Bada Imambra

We went back and ended the day in an urban respite of a movie, dinner and ice cream and hoped to come back to explore the city once again.

St. Mark's Residency School

Beautiful Kachch

We entered kachch via Jamnagar and Bhachau by late October. Not the ideal season for Kachch though, as the days were still pretty hot. By the time we had gone around Saurashtra and reached Jamnagar the landscape had changed. Trees were sparse, lesser water bodies and as soon as we reached Bhachau there were just the thorny bushes for miles.

Mosquito graveyard

The journey entering Kachch was eventful. At 2:30 pm in the afternoon somewhere around Bhachau we were melting in the heat, 3 lts of chaas down, tempers and temperature through the roof we realised that our elastic ropes holding our luggage secured had burnt off somewhere along the way. We were missing a sleeping bag and a small haversack with almost anything that was of value in it. Panicking we took the torturous journey back... after almost 20 odd kms @ 10 km/hr .. we were ready to give up but we pushed ourselves for the last 5 km and to our surprise found them exactly where they would have fallen off the bike. The sleeping bag was burnt (due to the exhaust pipe we believe) beyond use but the shoes inside were intact and so was our haversack with absolutely nothing missing. We estimated that it should have been lying that way for more than an hour.

concrete replicas

A week to ten days in Kachch is also not enough. It is a country of its own. Fishing and merchant towns in the south along the coast, the fortified cities of kot lakhpat on the western most tip of the country, narayan sarovar - a sea of sweet water in south west and the beautiful Banni region in the north with its colourful tribes.

Bhuj is like any other city but just few km outside the city limits, Kachch welcomes you with open arms. The earthquake was a boon for most of the people (post facto). Infrastructure in the form of electricity, houses, water supply(however limited), roads have flooded the region. The quake has put it on the tourist map too along with the Gujarat government initiatives no doubt. Along with the boon there is a downside. The new architecture flooding the region has wiped away the traditional earth 'bhungas' except for the banni region and has replaced them with cheap concrete blocks and mangalore tiled replicas. Few people still prefer to build a small earth-thatch roof home next to this concrete 'gift' where they retreat during monsoons(as the concrete homes leak and mangalore tiles make too much noise) and extreme winter or summers.

Migratory birds

The Rann of Kachch is actually Arabian sea for 5 months of the year, from June to October, and becomes a white salty stretch from November on. We caught the sloshy phase of the desert with millions of migratory birds. The road to Dholavira in the northern Banni region is literally a bridge on ocean for 12 -16 km that connects the dholavira 'island' to the mainland. Post November 4x4s can actually go from Khavda to Dholavira through the rann but we had to make a painful journey around for about 200 kms. Further from Dholavira are four other islands with India bridge being the last one on this side of the boundary (of the movie 'Refugee' fame) then lies about 80 km of no man's land. Military officials actually travel all the way to Jaisalmer from the Rann of Kachch via their 4x4s. The archeological findings in dholavira are any historian's dream site but much more remain to be excavated. The architectural perfection achieved 5000 years back still remains unparalleled in today's world.
 

Mud work in banni

Metal work at Nani Reha

Meghwals of Banni region

Kachch is a land of crafts. The traditional mud art is now a skill possessed by 80+ old ladies but it is being modernised by few artists from the Banni region. Ajrakhpur is a new town established by the uprooted Ajrakh print workers close to Bhuj. Ajrakh printing is a beautiful art where a cloth is block printed by vegetable dyes into a 'negative' and finally converted into a 'positive' by dipping it into Indigo. Depending on the kinds of colours required, various dyes are used, and the actual colors are revealed only at the end by the blue dye. The famous Kachchi embroidery is the forte of few distinct tribes. The ahirs, rabaris, harijans (meghwals) all have their distinct style and stitch. All of these are nomadic tribes and embroidery is closely linked to their culture. The quality of embroidery and its density was the currency of the past. The more delicate, colourful and detailed one's embroidered clothes, the richer they are. Slowly the craft is detached from its original context and has become a product for the urban fashionistas. For the tribes, cheaper polyesters have taken over at most places. Copper bells of Nirona are exported all over Europe. Nani reha which is still a complete stone and earth village, supplies knives, daggers to a large indian market. Wood work, leather work and many other textile crafts are seen in abundance in tiny hamlets.




By all means Banni region is the heart of Kachch - still untouched by the homogeneity of today's world and still virgin of the commercial tourism - though the desert festival that started this year had a great response. The journey from Kot Lakhpat to Hodko through the desert was one of the best journeys of the trip. Guided purely by the tyre marks in sand and few verbal directions of a nomadic shepherd along the way - you submit yourself completely to the landscape. A distance of two hours would take you almost six hours if guided well so a stock of petrol, water and a compass is a must. Further from hodko to dholavira via khavda would also be a similarly thrilling journey that we hope to make some day in future in a season when the sea dries up to give way to the white desert.

Mundra

 
 

bhunga under construction

Kot Lakhpat - western tip of the country

Mandvi and Mundra in south are mainly fishing, port and boat building towns. Mandvi has a beautiful beach front with the prominent Marwadi architecture in the form of Jai Vilas Palace (of Hum dil de chuke fame). Mundra on the other hand is literally a town on a cross street within fort walls. Mundra is recently being modernised with huge SEZ coming up in the vicinity. Kot Lakhpat on the western tip of the country is a ghost town within a robust fort... Beautiful architecture lies derelict in this ghost town with a few handful people surviving purely on tourism. The fort (kot) marks the boundary between 'civilisation' and barren desert beyond into the no man's land and further beyond into Pakistan. Narayan Sarovar is a pilgrimage stop for many devotees and a good dip for the tired travellers. The local temple provides accomodation and food for free for lakhs of people travelling through. Here we met a group of 60+ retired men from Ahmedabad travelling on motorcycles through Gujarat.

Jain derasar at Tera

Mangalor tiled compound wall

earthern bhungas in hodko

The landscape, crafts, culture and above all the people is what makes this region so special. Hope its innocence and genuineness remains untouched for many generations to come.

IN and OUT

Disclaimer:  There is probability that you might find it offensive. Not for the weak hearted!

WHAT:

Two basic necessities of human existence after breathing are Eating (IN) and Crapping (OUT) Both a joyous occasion if the spices are right, which we painfully realized.

WHERE:

We rarely took national highways and stayed on smaller inner roads… hence when we would get hungry there would be no restaurant… Your choice of IN would be dhabas or village lunch homes… where you cannot order rather you ate what was cooked … and what is available depended on the region, the season, and the latest harvest….

The lack of choice though frustrating taught us the need to ‘give up control’…  Life felt great once we accepted that. Once in a while we would be served food by someone we would have befriended. These experiences were the best as it was served with a lot of love, affection and tons of questions.

Within the first week on the trip, out of necessity the OUT had to happen out in the open. Having experienced the pleasure of ‘doing it in the open’, we never sought European or Indian toilets again.

WHEN:  

There was more or less no routine to the IN. However OUT had a routine. It would happen around mid morning/early afternoon…. by then we would have had 2-3 cups of hot tea which would get our bowel movements kick started combined with about 4hrs of even vibration out of sitting on the bike (kinda would feel like workers mixing concrete with a vibrator to make sure no air gaps are left) a bunch of nice big potholes to give the extra push, jerk…. And presto!!! We are ready….

The OUT experience:

You are on your way… cruising comfortably between 80-100 kms/hr… somewhere with enough tea, vibration you know you are ready…. 

You down throttle to a scouting speed of about 50-45 km/hr. Observe and understand the topography, and isolate specifics (be it trees, bushes, open fields) and you are ready for selection.

You idle the engine to an immediate stopping speed of about 35-30 kms/hr and have to be alert to look for a specific spot.

Stop…. 

Hopefully you have done it in time and there are no emergencies… you untie the emergency bag with a snap and out pops the toilet paper. Initially a leaves were used instead of toilet paper but were discontinued due to the following reasons:

1.         Need not be available within arms reach. Resulting in squat-walk with pants down, not exactly desirable.

2.         Might not be locally available in all areas  i.e. rann of kutch

3.         You might run the risk of them being contaminated due to worms etc.

4.         Ones next to dusty roads in UP, Bihar had dust settlement and were dirty.

Sometimes its hurried sometimes not…. But before the release… if and when you get a ‘thanda hava ka jaukha’ the feeling is indescribable in words…. 

One of the greatest experiences that I miss coming back to urbania from this trip is the greatness of the feeling of crapping.

Factors affecting OUT: Mostly it was dependent on the IN, however it was also dependent on the following:

1.         Outside temperature: When it would be too cold/hot  it would ensure limited time exposure of sensitive skin. However, when the temperature is right and

2.         The wind: Mostly in the Saurastra and Kutch belt when it would be hot and a nice breeze would blow by

3.         Location based:

i.          Behind a tree: every once in a while the fields would have been harvested, the land flat and the only option one is left is to try and hide behind a tree… this would lead to an embarrassment based anxiety output lest someone would drive past or worst someone would ride by / walk by merrily singing a song.

ii.         Open field with a tall crop (i.e. sugarcane): This though being visually secure would lead to a squeezed output due to a constant trying to make space for yourself within a close grid of crops. It would be a pleasant surprise to find a small clearing amongst the tall sugarcanes.

iii.        Open field with a tall crop harvested (i.e. sugarcane, bajra etc): Beware! This situation is the most dangerous for the first timers. Make sure you look before you sit down… the freshly harvested stems are real sharp!

iv.        Behind a shrub: This is the most desirable especially if the shrub is more than 36”-48” high and covers you visually. Note: make sure the bush is not thorny (ref. point above)

Other things to keep in mind:

1.         Keep a stick handy. Lest a inquisitive dog / fox would pass by

2.         Be quick or be ready for flies. Especially the blue bottle flies. They love the smell and most of the times before you finish they are there.

3.         Be on your toes or be exposed: You never know who, when and from where might be passing by.

4.         Look around before you sit: You don’t want someone running after you with a sikle with your pants down.

5.         Look on the horizon before you sit: While you are chilling lost in thought you don’t want to wake up to find yourself next to a herd of cattle

6.         Lastly make sure you are squatting on a higher ground and the free fall is  on lower ground to avoid smears.