India Journal: Here Comes the Sun?

From the first early morning rays peaking over the horizon until the shadows of the evening, the sun here in Rajasthan is now brutal. The current weather is marked by a cloudless sky, a bit of a breeze, and temperatures pushing between 105 and 110 F. I could say a lot about this, but one item strikes me especially today: where’s the use of all of this solar energy? 

I see and hear persons touting solar energy as an alternative and renewable source of energy, and I know of others who pooh-pooh the idea. But if the practice of gathering and using solar energy has any value, it certainly should in this land of unremitting sunshine. The Indian electrical grid is shaky, as we know from occasional and (thankfully) relatively brief outages. We also know about last year’s system-wide outage that shut down service for a couple of days to an area including about 700 million persons. Of course, a huge number of persons have little or no access to electricity, so the blackout was an inconsequential event, but to millions of others working in offices contained in glass and concrete towers or in modern shopping malls, no electricity would have an impact similar to an outage in the U.S. Given the diversity of users in India, and the fact that a large number of users have their own generators and other sources of power, it strikes me that India provides a perfect proving ground for solar energy. Is it not economically viable? Must India continue to build and use terribly polluting coal-fired plants to produce electricity? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I’d love to hear from anyone who does have some answers.

India Journal: Umaid Bhawan to Shen and Back

We were sitting at a refreshment stand at Umaid Bhawan palace in Jodhpur. We’d done the tour of the palace museum, and the hoi poloi aren’t allowed in the main section, which is a now a Taj hotel that hosts  jet-setters and the very rich. So, being around mid-day and hot, C and I found some shade and had a seat. C enjoyed an ice cream cone, and I sipped on a box of cold apple drink (pure juice not available). I saw a small girl run free from her mother along the dusty path into the sitting area, and I observed the sense of exhilaration in the child’s face as she ran from mom for a short way. In a sort-of Proustian moment, perhaps triggered by a headline in the NYT earlier in the day about the 100^th anniversary of the publication of Swann’s Way, and having  earlierobserved the two well to-to-do kids at the guest house where we stayed, I thought back on my childhood. 

I quickly brought C into my reverie as I sat there. In the 1950s and early 1960s in small town Shenandoah, Iowa, we had a pretty idyllic time. Compared to  the packs of unattended youngsters we sometimes see here and the well-to-do and very sheltered (and isolated) kids we see here, or the hyper-programmed kids in the U.S., I think that we had it pretty good. We both recalled kid-organized games of kick-the-can, halted temporarily by calls of “car!” to clear the street, and then back at it until it was completely dark. Kids of most ages (grade school) played. In the park behind our house, endless baseball games were ongoing. I was a horrible baseball player, but I played. The creek running between the park and the highway was more alluring (and forbidden), but exploring the creek was a continuing adventure. Standing under the wooden plank bridge when a car passed over provided quite the audio entertainment.

After moving to 6^th Avenue before third grade, I was now within easy biking distance of the baseball park (mornings) and the swimming pool (afternoons). My friends and I were almost amphibious during the summers. Swimming lessons; endless hours playing tag; jumping and diving off the raft; shooting headfirst down the big slide; and, eventually, after having swam the width of our very large pool, going to the deep end to use the boards: hour upon hour of fun and freedom. C reported the same experiences: mornings with her brother to the baseball field by bike and afternoons by bike to the pool. Parents were absent, unless we enjoyed the treat of an evening swim with the parents and siblings under the lights. I think that both of us have these distinct images of our respective fathers in swimming trunks, pale, skinny legs revealed. 

Of course, riding our bikes to Sportsman Park, which contained both the baseball fields and the swimming pool, provided its own adventures. The most exotic, both C and I agreed, was the Henry Fields building and the exotic shop inside. For a long time neither of us realized the hidden treasures inside. (By the way, this occurred quite independently of one another; we knew of the other’s existence, but neither was of any consequence to the other. Interest comes in junior high, but that’s a separate story.) The exterior of the building gave some clue to its exotic contents, as it consisted of a series of archways that one could walk or ride one’s bike under (provided some welcome shade). The arches and yellowish color of the building gave it a vaguely Spanish look, which, other than some seasonal Mexican migrant workers in the summer, seemed quite apart from the rest of the town. However, the unique façade also signaled a treasure inside a small store with a soda fountain and some exotic looking items, including live birds. Alas, other than the birds, I have no recollection of the particulars that created the exotic ambiance, only the certain feeling that this was indeed a hidden treasure. C’s recollection comported with mine. She remembers that she and her younger brother, having no spending money, ordered water from the fountain until told to scram. They too, had discovered the hidden cove. 

With our bikes, my friends and I could discover exotic locales at our whim. A large pile of sand by the railroad tracks served as a location of interest for several days when we found that we could grade roads and dig caves with our hands and then watch them disappear as the sand collapsed. Another time, my friend persuaded me to explore and picnic at Rose Hill, the local cemetery. Sure enough, on the edge of town, overlooking the broad river valley, with the graves of generations, including those of my grandparents and other ancestors, proved a fertile world for exploration—and a very pleasant picnic spot (two or three decades before I learned about the rural cemetery movement and that this wasn’t as bizarre an ideas as I’d thought at the time). Further, the cemetery lies east of Center Street, and it serves as a dividing line of sorts in the town. Having lived on the west side all my life, this was an unexplored area, and thus a completely new area in which to wander and explore. 

Now, watching the little girl back at the refreshment, having been corralled by her mother, C and I decided that we’d had it pretty good. Perfect? No. A nostalgic view? Of course, to some extent. But when she’s a little older, I hope that little girl enjoys some similar adventures.

"They Got Me, Sarge, They Got Me!"

The patrol, er, walk, began normally enough. The route was familiar and so was the time of day. Despite the familiarity, I was alert. Phone but no ID, so if I get hit, someone can use my phone to notify somebody on my contacts list. Good enough, I think, a routine march. Approaching a gate, I glance to the left to make sure no one is emerging. At intersections in India, drivers don’t stop and look, or necessarily slow. They merge. Looking at what’s oncoming always seems an afterthought to these drivers. At any rate, nothing emerges and I walk on. The traffic is busy but not especially heavy. I reach the circle where I’ll cross to the median. There’s a painted crosswalk there, although for the life of me (literally), I don’t know why. As far as affecting on rushing vehicles (even camel and cow carts, although “on rushing”, is a stretch), they might as well have sprinkled pixie dust on the road. Eying the oncoming traffic as I step off the curb, I see the usual assortment of motorcycles and cars. No busses. Good, because with their funny-car style, obnoxiously loud horns, they’re reverse kamikazes: drivers act if they’re intent on taking someone out, only they won’t be the losers. I give them the widest possible berth. 

The trick is to gauge the flow, find the breach, and move across it quickly, waiving the hand down if anyone approaches because that’s what I see natives do. It’s probably a nervous tick, but you don’t waste a tip. I see my chance and—wham!—I’m knocked back on my butt. Fortunately, the sidewalk is about 15 inches high at that point so that my butt doesn’t have far to travel before it hits the concrete. Fazed but not feeling any serious injury, I look at the cyclist, who was traveling the wrong way up the one-way street. 

“You f%$@*!^ idiot! Watch where you’re going!” 

The motorcyclist gives me a dumb look and drives on, reaches the gate, and turns in. I repeat my mantra to myself. It felt cathartic, and because the “wham!” was more of just a “ugh”, I could afford to dwell on my choice words. 

I continue my journey and successfully cross. 

“They only winged me, sarge”, I think to myself. 

Once I’ve safely traversed the roadway, I reproach myself. 

“A rookie mistake”, I say to myself. 

“Listen kid, in India, looking both ways before crossing a one-way street ain’t just a sayin’, it’s a rule of survival”. My super ego in the voice of a battle-tested veteran starts piping in. 

I nod in agreement to my wiser self. 

“I should’ve known better”. 

“You were lucky, kid.” (The voice is Bogey’s. It fits.) 

I was lucky. Usually I have my buddy with me, but not this time. I should’ve known that I needed eyes in the back of my head, like my friend Clydie Maxwell’s mom. (She caught me doing something naughty when I didn’t think she was looking. She explained that she had “eyes in the back of her head”.) 

“You gotta’ be like a kindergartner making his first walk to school”, the veteran reminds me. (I’m beginning to feel like a little kid.) 

Yeah, only I never saw this many cars and motorcycles in five or six years on Pioneer Avenue, or even on our bustling (by Shen standards) Nishna Road. (Perhaps on Highway 2, but I never graduated into crossing it solo until after moving away; plus, it has speed limits, lanes, directional traffic: all child’s play by comparison.) 

Oh, well, a lesson learned. 

“It’s a jungle out here, kid”. 

On the streets, yes it is.  

Living the Vida 5-Star

For our visit to Trivandrum (the actual name is a real mouth full of syllables, so if you want to try it, officially it's Thiruvananthapuram), and in the spirit of a continuing birthday present, Iowa Guru booked us a couple of nights in a 5-star hotel. It is an interesting experience. 

Mind you, we'd had some experience in this realm, in India. (I can't fathom the prices of such accommodations in the U.S. or Europe). The Four-Points Sheraton that we stayed in initially in Jaipur may have been 5-star, but it was, for the most part, just a nice hotel. (The staff was very friendly.) No, if you want a real 5-star experience in Rajasthan, you need to stay in a "heritage hotel". We haven't done that, but we've visited these places. Indeed, one, the Rambaugh Palace, is about a 10-15 minute walk from our flat. It's not as close as the slum area, but you can get just about everything in a 15' walk in Jaipur, from 17th century to 21st century, filthy rich to frighteningly poor. When Abba, Amy and Tom were here, we entered the cloistered precincts of the Rambaugh, taking the "champagne tour"--it concludes with a complimentary glass of champagne and some finger-foods to conclude, of course. These edifices, like many around Rajasthan, were once the palaces of the mighty and wealthy maharajas. You definitely get the vibe. Even the peacocks at Rambaugh palace seem a little more upscale. The lawn is manicured. Everything is meticulously clean (this is Rajasthan remember, where dust and grit come home to live). The indoor pool, the outdoor pool, the railway car restaurant, and the gold-plated room (with gold-plated service), all make you think that people here have money. A great place to pass through. 

Another Rajasthan 5-star experience is Samood Palace, located next to a small village about an hour drive outside of Jaipur. Approaching via the single lane road through the sleepy village, with its pigs and goats and kids (human), you wonder what must lie at the end. And, Indian style, you find a gorgeous palace. To enter, you climb steps, entering a new level of intimacy with the building (and formerly, the maharaja), creating the sense of cloister than one finds in these heritage hotels. (Indeed, the women were cloistered.) The sense of ease, of space, of quiet, makes the whole experience seem almost otherworldly. (See photos by Iowa Guru for a sense of the splendor.) 

Now, to the south. This hotel, a Taj, was not a heritage hotel, so it looked like a modern hotel. A large, clean, spacious lobby, poorly lit (why do they do that?). The room is nice, but small. A phone in the bathroom and glass shower doors give away that this is a classy place. The food was okay, but nothing to shout about. It had a nice workout room, with one guy who seemed to have a personal attendant to push the buttons on the remote control for the TV while the client continued his concentration on the slowly moving treadmill. The attendant later helped hold down the client's feet during sit-ups and mopped the client's mildly sweating brow when a little bead of sweat appeared. It all seems a bit weird to our middle-class, Midwestern sensibilities. However, the best amenity, and one that I wouldn't mind having available, was the swimming pool. Long enough for lap-swimming, perfect water temperature, and unused except by IG and me, it was a treat. The sun was a bit intense even around 9 a.m., but even 5-stars can't control everything. 

The one experience that I haven't enjoyed at any of these hotels is a sighting of any beautiful people. Jackie O. used to visit the maharaja in Udaipur (and a sweet spot it was), and one reads about beautifuls visiting Jodhpur or Jaipur. (Jaipur, of course, gets writers, but how many writers might one consider "beautiful people"? Really, they type all day and are generally unseen.) So, I'd hoped to see some really rich people, but rich people just don't seem to do a good job anymore of setting standards. So many lumpy people dressed so unimaginatively (and this coming from the Tim Gunn-antipode). Frankly, the rich disappoint in these 5-stars. I'm already to go F. Scott Fitzgerald on them, and I always finish all Ernest Hemingway. 

Oh, well, it was fun. Now back to reality.

Deciphering the Code

When my sister and brother-in-law where here visiting, Tom tried to figure out the traffic rules. Riffing off of his callings as a clinician and an IT guy, he attempted to discern the hidden code that governs users of the streets in Jaipur. As any reader of this blog will know, the usual rules of the road that we know from the U.S. are non-existent here. He came up with some plausible hypotheses, such as smaller vehicles defer to larger vehicles, but I don't think that he completed the project, and I fear his observed rules would find too many exceptions. I, too, have pondered this question for some months now, and perhaps because of the seeds that he planted in my brain, I have new hypothesis, or at least an analogy to better understand the workings (such as they are) of Jaipur traffic. 

All traffic in Jaipur works in the same manner as pedestrian crowds in a confined space. 

In other words, think of a football stadium (think Kinnick, not Husky) emptying after a game. Smaller people weave in and out, while most people take turns allowing others to go, often in groups. Bigger people or those in a hurry receive deference, even if grudgingly granted. The slower walkers are passed by the faster ones. 

So in Jaipur, motorcyclists, who are small and almost always in a hurry, weave in and out quickly. The slower movers, like the camel and donkey carts or the guys hauling people or loads on bikes, move to the side and are passed by. Given the mulitple lanes (and there are always more lanes of traffic than any lane-lines would suggest), everyone can move at different speeds. In the city, nothing on the road moves very fast for very long.

Of course, this is not a program or an algorithm for pedestrian traffic or, according to my theory, Jaipur road traffic, but I think that it gives someone a better understanding of how it works. Not perfectly mind you--a high percentage of Jaipur vehicles have significant dents and dings in their bodies--but it does work. If someone has worked out the dynanics of crowd flows in an anarchic situation, like emptying a crowded pedestrian space, then they could probably model Jaipur road traffic, or as I think of it, anarchy in action. 

P.S. My sister offered no hypotheses about how it worked, but I did hear her gasp several times at what she thought were impending collisions. Thus she provided some interesting data about the system.