Happy 64th, India!

Happy Independence Day to India and Indians the world over!

If you feel the same way I do as I listen to this - goosebumps and tears in your eyes, every single time - then this is your song, too. It's our song.

It's beautiful and timeless.

Rich like the Maharaja

Quick! Let's storm the palace!

I'm kidding, of course! The poor man was asleep in the heat of the day inside the City Palace of Jaipur, the capital city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. Rajasthan is India's largest state and most of it is desert. As it is in the desert, days are hot and nights are cool. In winter, days are hot—even if the local folks wear their woolen finery during the day—and nights are cooler, with temperatures dropping below freezing in parts of the state.

We tried to announce our arrival but who can reach those door knockers?

Sawai Jai Singh II, the Maharaja of Jaipur, built the City Palace in the mid-1700s using Rajput, Mughal and European styles of architecture.

If you're wondering which architectural style places door knockers that high up, I would hazard a guess and say it would be Rajput or Mughal. Visitors usually arrived on elephants and their mahouts used long sticks to beat those door knockers. Or maybe they had monkeys who were trained to...I jest!

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Palaces of Stone But Only After Breakfast

Breakfast was never my favorite meal and it has become less so since we moved to the US. Sweet cereals, sweet breads, sweet pastries—everything is sweet. I'd rather have leftovers from dinner for breakfast. Or brunch.

Breakfast in India spoiled me, especially when we traveled, as there was always an enormous spread: idlis, dosas, upma, and the desi omelet. There was a whole bunch of other stuff, too: Chinese pot stickers, cheeses, parfaits, and even cereal but none of us ventured close to those buffets. Why would we? The dosas were made to order as were the omelets!

You could say that the desi omelet is like a frittata that has been folded over. The chef usually has an array of finely diced veggies, meats and herbs you could add to your custom omelet: onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, bell peppers, green chiles, cilantro, bell peppers, ham, chicken, and cheese. It's very tempting to say I'll have everything!

We usually made an early brunch of the breakfast spread and only then, ventured out to see palaces made from red sandstone.

Ornate columns and passageways

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Fatehpur Sikri beckons, as does Kadhai Jhinga

Before we left Delhi, Anita thrust a beautifully written and researched paper on Fatehpur Sikri into my hands. It had a grade of A+ and was written in 18951995 as part of her course work in Dorothy-land. It was also the only copy that existed of that paper. I knew I should have asked for a photocopy, especially since I had just burned her sheets.

You know what's coming next, don't you? And you're right.

I couldn't find it once we settled into our hotel room in Agra.
We turned the car inside out. No paper.
We turned the room inside out. No paper.

My husband, The Finder of Anything Lost or Put Away Safely, discovered all sorts of forgotten knick-knacks, like a long wooden shoe horn, hair brushes, pens, one of a pair of earrings, but no folder with continuous stationery paper that had been fed into a dot-matrix printer. Tell me, do you remember those? In that case, you are as ancient as her (and me.) But that's besides the point! We asked room service to do detailed reconnaissance to no avail.

The Finder and I looked at each other; he, flummoxed; me, worried. I chewed through all my fingernails and wondered if I should attack my toenails next. My heart sank further as I realized I would never ever get to eat authentic haak. Or taste that one mutschgand that was sitting in her freezer.

If she heard a strain in my voice or undue stress when I spoke to her from Agra, she made no mention of it. Luckily for her, me and the paper, it appeared magically under one of our heaviest suitcases. The Finder obviously had not done as thorough a job as he is wont to do, leading to his demotion and change of title to The Finder of Most Things Lost or Put Away Safely. With a spring in my step, haak in my near future and a mutschgand with my name on it, I had no qualms about leaving Agra for Fatehpur Sikri, the seat of the Mughal Empire for a brief period during Akbar's reign.

The Tomb of Salim Chisti

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Sunday Snapshot: Inside a Crumbling Temple

Where: Jagat Shiromani Temple, Amer Fort, also known as Amber Fort, Jaipur, India
What: The Jagat Shrimoni Temple is said to have been built by the Maharani of Maharaja Mansingh I in 1601 to honor her deceased son Maharaja Kumar Jagat Singhji.

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Agra Fort and Kebab Secrets

Everyone is usually blown away by the Taj Mahal and its love story, even though it's more morbid than romantic since it's a mausoleum where the Emperor and his beautiful Empress are buried. Shah Jahan is remembered more for this legacy than the terror he inflicted as a Mughal Emperor, transforming the empire into a military machine and demanding more revenue from the peasantry. However, the arts — music, crafts, architecture — did flourish under his rule.

I was more awed by the Agra Fort for its sheer history: it was the seat of the Mughal Empire for over two hundred years from the mid-1500s. Six Mughal Emperors ruled from there — Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb — with each one adding his distinctive mark to the architecture of the fort.

Formidable entrance

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Friday Feature: Faces of India

Who: A Rajasthani folk musician
Where: At Amer Fort, also known as Amber Fort, Jaipur, India
What: This folk musician entertains visitors to the Amer Fort. He is playing a simplified version of the Ravanhatta, a type of fiddle popular with the Bhopa community of Rajasthan.

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Dal Matters: Dal Makhani and the Taj Mahal

I had last seen it over three decades ago, as a little girl who was on a train from Bombay to Jammu. There are some images that are burned into my memory, and then there are others that seem more like hazy dreams in black and white. Strange.

Hazy in the morning light

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Friday Feature: Faces of India

Who: Bikas, a 12 year old aspiring guide
Where: Across the river from the Taj Mahal
What: He goes to school in the morning and by late afternoon, he sells t-shirts at the gardens across the river from the Taj Mahal, Agra. He was learning French and Spanish as language skills were essential to be a successful guide, he said. He asked us our names in English, French and Spanish; he also rattled off a few sentences in each language. It was heartening to look into Bikas's eyes and share some of his aspirations. The underbelly of India is made of these young people. He is India: young, ambitious and hopeful. Watch.



Changes are afoot at IFR: This is the last post that will come to you in full by email or in your reader, and I apologize for that. After this, you will have to click on a link to navigate to my blog to read the rest of my post. You see, I am tired of having my posts republished in full, along with my pictures, without my permission, on other web sites. Unfortunately, since I host with Blogger, I don't have much control over the nature of my RSS feeds. Also, since I host my pictures on Flickr, a photo sharing community that I enjoy, I cannot restrict my pictures from being displayed on other web sites. I've known eventually I will have to host it on one of my own servers. I probably should have done this a long time ago. I hope to publish the posts I've been holding back now that the last theft has been resolved.

Friday Feature: Faces of India

Who: Autorickshaw travelers
Where: Delhi-Agra Highway, NH 2, where the speed limit was between 20-80km/h
What: This three-wheeled auto-rickshaw is a popular mode of transport; it sometimes holds up to 16 people, more if there are children. It travels at between 20-40 km/h and can be seen on the National Highways of India transporting people from one city to another. The almost $200,000 Audi A8 may have 4500 buyers in India but most of India's 1.2 billion population doesn't earn that much in their lifetime. (Thanks, Kitt, for that last link!) You might call these travelers brave — I do — but most of them have little choice when it comes to transport between cities.

Always adorned, with people half-spilling out

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In The Kitchen With Anita & Kumari

To say that Anita's kitchen is bustling with activity would be the gross understatement of the year. If she's not cooking, she's whipping up a delicious snack or her cook, Kumari, is busy prepping for the next meal. Fresh vegetables from the market jostle with fruits from her mother's garden on Anita's counters. There's some kind of green everywhere. And if she were writing this, she would not hesitate to add that that includes her compost pit, as well!

Green

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Friday Feature: Faces of India

Who: A homemade ice cream vendor, Kulfiwala and his customers
Where: Amer Fort, Jaipur, India
What: A young man and his helper earn a living by selling kulfi, homemade ice cream.

The Kulfiwala

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Friday Feature: Faces of India

Who: Master Craftsmen or Paramparik Karigar
Where: Agra, India
What: Chiseling slivers of polished stones to make inlay work of floral patterns, in the style found on the Taj Mahal. These craftsmen work with very basic hand-driven tools and literally lose their fingertips in the process.

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Dancing Dolls, Jalebis and Masala Papad

It's very difficult to focus on writing when life pulls you in various different directions. It is worse when you sit transfixed, watching Mother Nature unleash her fury as it happens. The devastation and trauma becomes your very own through Twitter, Facebook, newspapers and even Al-Jazeera.

Like many of you, I sat glued to my computer late into the night on Thursday, switched to portable devices as it became evident that day-break was near and I needed to get some shut-eye. My dear friend in Tokyo would be safe, I knew. Until it dawned on me that he had moved to Mito, the capital of Ibaraki prefecture, to care for his aging parents. Ibaraki and Miyagi are two prefectures that were closest to the epicenter of the devastating earthquake and the hungry tsunami. Google Maps showed that he lived not too far away from the shore but hopefully far away enough to be unaffected by the tsunami. Pictures from the web showed damaged homes, crushed cars and roads with giant gaps in them. I knew better than to call so I sent an email and waited. And waited. And hoped for the best, refreshing my Inbox more often than it is scheduled to, until finally "I am fine" came through. Never have those words seemed sweeter than they did. I was very grateful. And then I cried for all the lives that were lost and are still missing in the aftermath of this deadly tsunami.

Those who want to help can go to www.redcross.org and donate to Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami. People can also text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation to help those affected by the earthquake in Japan and tsunami throughout the Pacific. (American Red Cross)

A little diversion and a little bit of cheering up would not be out of line, I think, and what better than these Giant Dancing Dolls we found at Dilli Haat! Was there anyone who didn't have a smaller version of these in their home when they were growing up in India? Ubiquitous. (Background music from Hemant Kumar's Bees Saal Baad, 1962 some nondescript Disco Unusual song that Youtube suggested after a user saregama took exception to my using less than 25s of a song they claim to own copyrights for. I used it under the fair use clause and not for commercial profit but they still wanted me to take it down even though there are hundreds of other videos with the same song and with views in the thousands. Whatever.)

Giant women, including Anita

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She made me wait

Seriously, she did.

She wasn't there with garlands. There was no Bollywood music playing. No-one was dancing. My life wasn't moving in slow motion. This was for real.

So I took pictures of this Indian Army soldier instead.

Army jawan at Delhi Airport

But, ha! I found out why Alice was late getting to the airport. She was busy chopping cabbage because she was afraid of the Rabbit with the Stopwatch (and the video camera.) How else could she continue to claim to decimate a large head of cabbage into angelhair slaw in less than 90 seconds?

spot the chopped cabbage

Not just that, she canceled the picnic in the park, too! What?! Did I end up with Dorothy in Kansas instead of The Mad Tea Party?

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