How do I adequately cover this day? There was just too much. We started with a tour of a solid marble Hindu Temple that was dedicated in 1985. It is huge and the expense is unfathomable, yet it is only of 6 or 8 that the benefactor has built in India. I spoke with one of the master marble carvers still working on it. He’s been working there for 18 years! The craftsmanship is fabulous and stunning.
Then it was on to see one of Asha’s silver jewellery producers. After all of us cleaned out our wallets and packed the remaining corners of our suitcases with product, we spent some time with a couple of the artisans working just above the jewellery store. It is beautiful high quality work. They employ approximately 50 artisans through this one shop. I had to wonder if fair trade was really fair enough in this case, I purchased a number of pieces of solid silver jewellery that only added up to $85 USD total (I won’t say what – that’s a surprise for my wife and girls). Although, typically products end up about 400% to 500% marked up by the time they hit the shelf in a Villages store (I think – by the end of this trip I might be able to run a Villages store!) so, maybe I did pay a fair price from a wholesale perspective.
Then we spent the rest of the day doing what apparently thousands of other North Americans, Europeans and Japanese do here on a regular basis – site seeing. Jaipur is a beautiful city with many incredible sites, but is marred by tourism. We visited the City Palace and the Amber (Amer – locally) Palace and finished the day with a meal, camel ride and elephant ride at a Resort in the city. All very kitschy, touristy stuff, but the sites were amazing, our hosts Ivan, Mahinder and Neena (sp?) were gracious and caring and it was a great day.
Although all the sites were terrific, it was a group of Muslim kids living on the street that I will remember from this day. We arrived in Jaipur before 8:00 am and the places we wanted to visit were not yet open, so we stopped at a Hotel for some tea and breakfast. Luke and I weren’t really hungry and needed to stretch our cramped and aching bodies from the marathon (worst ache for me is my nipples – I think I now understand Noreen’s breastfeeding trauma 20 years ago – do not buy MEC running jerseys…). So we walked around the area of the hotel. Just down the street was several families living under the canopy of a commercial warehouse. There were quite a few kids of various ages. They were waving at me and incredibly cute. I asked if they wanted to come across the street for a picture under the tree. In no time I had a cluster of a dozen and pretty soon the parents, brothers, sisters, in-laws and grandparents showed up as well. They were so happy just to pose and see their picture on the viewing screen of the camera. The thought occurred to me that a meaningful social program in India would be to set-up a portable photo studio and offer affordable simple photography for these homeless families. Many of them have never seen a picture of themselves and the parents have no family picture records.
They were just old lapel pins, but it would have taken a fistful of i-Pods to create a similar reaction in Canada. Before we left on the trip I went through the box on my dresser where I had been tossing lapel pins collected over the last 15 or 20 years. It was like a lapel pin history of our lives. Pins from Winnipeg, Steinbach, Winkler, Mennonite Church Canada, Garden Valley School Division, Steinbach Credit Union, Steinbach Bible College, South Eastman Health, Winnipeg Goldeyes, Government of Manitoba, Hoeppner Reunion (I get a special kick out of thinking about that Muslim kid running around Jaipur with “Hoeppner Reunion” proudly stuck to his shirt…), etc, etc. The kid’s went crazy for them, along with the adults. The women were asking for more and pointing to their ears, meaning that they intended to use them as earrings! The 40 or 50 pins were gone in seconds.
And I walked away in tears again. Just bloody lapel pins. Damn it! Has the world gone so freak’n mad that people have to live with such blessed little pleasures in their lives? Deep breath Ron, got to get through this trip in one piece. It’s o.k., you’re just a Mennonite prairie boy and this is an ancient civilization, what do you know.
This is what India does to a person. It absorbs all of your past experiences and collection of life events within seconds and then overwhelms them with the power of it’s everyday presence. If I stayed here much longer I don’t think I’d remember who I am.
2 comments:
Congratulations Ron and Luke on your Half Marathon completion. Awesome accomplishment in a short time of training. I could/should have given you the all important advise about the nipple chafing ... wear bandaids. Looks like a laugh but saves the day and days afterward. Keep the MEC shirt as most will end up doing thatover the course of a 2+hour run in heat.
Your experiences in India I'm sure will have us listening, caring, and crying on many rides to come. Good luck with the rest of your trip and prayers for safe travel home. R-man
Weird, I was looking for some, um, pictures on the internet. When I searched under "nipples", your blog came up. But still, it's cool, way cool, India must be a cool place!
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