Mark's Blog

Music

For just over a week, I went to Thranesh every morning at 11pm for a music class. I got a nice enough bamboo flute in D, which was a thrill to get in itself, making for many enjoyable times in the hut blowing the dust off my flute playing by belting out a few tunes.

This is a family of those ubiquitous spider monkeys that decided to surround the music school one day.

Thranesh was so laid back. There was chai and breakfast there most days besides the navigation through those tricky Indian modal scales. Lots of half-holing on the flute for some of the Raags that I learned.

We went through about three Raags altogether. Raag Marcos and Raag Bopali were the best, as I got to play them along with the harmonium or Tablas after I'd learned how to play them. Thranesh was gas. Sometimes he'd be really into it, other times he'd be reading the paper and muttering at me. One morning he just got up and took off on his scooter without saying anything and came back half and hour later, well after the chai that his brother had made, was finished.

It was a good way to start the day though and by the end of it Thranesh was talking about more lessons and my starting to play in concerts locally. 'Tis not to be though as I'll be moving on to other parts of Rajasthan very soon.

Listen to Thranesh and Myself playing Raag Bopali (kinda badly)

Rajathani Ravantha Music

Over at the sunset place, where westerners sip their chai and watch the sun go down, there are groups of musicians who approach and play for you whether you want them to or not. It beats the girls who want to paint your hands or the guys who relentlessly persue you in the attempt to sell drugs. Not the best end of town. Fantastic sunsets though.

I got the chance to play the Saranga though, which is a traditional folk instrument of Rajasthan. It sounds like a gypsy violin played through an effects box (reverb, distortion). It's played with a bow on one string, which you can tighten to get the key you want. Then you just play scales up and down this string Most of the players have these hawk-like fingernails which they use to strike the string in order to get a clean note. There's no fretboard, your fingers are the fretboard. There are also, like the Sitar, lots of extra strings running down the centre of the instrument whose only purpose is to resonate, providing that reverb effect. I love the sound of this. It sounds of the desert and faraway places, colourful and mysterious.

I'll be heading off to meet this man again to learn a few Rajathani folk songs from him. The songs are altogether livlier simpler and less formal than the Raags of Hindi classical music. I got a CD from this man too, which I'll play for those interested on my return.

There was also a concert the other night of Rajasthani folk music and dance. It was great and even featured the Scottish bagpipes, adapted for Rajasthani music, playing along with the harmonium and tablas, making a big racket. There were dances where the women carry flaming jars on their heads and shimmy all over the place while keeping them in balance. Quite a lot of the women's dances involved them balancing things on their heads making it halfway between dance and feats of balance.

Music listening has been a pleasure on the speakers and MP3 jukebox that I brought with me. There's nothing like having all your music with you in a little box and it's kept its charge and given no trouble. I'm going to "rent" some records here on the main bazaar and turn them into MP3's as a way of getting new music. There's a singer called Trilok Gurtu who's recently recorded with Annie Lennox, who fuses Indian devotional singing with Jazz. Very nice.

I've been listening to a lot of Trad, and playing along with Martin Hayes and Denis Cahill. There's an album called "simple things" by a band called "Zero 7" which I can't stop listening to at the moment. It's exquisite and I recommend everyone to treat themselves with this record.

Shiva Ratri in Pushkar

Shiva's night was celebrated with gusto in Pushkar. One of the traditional ways of celebrating the most venerated god in India throughout his feast day is by the taking of Bhang.

I started off the day as usual, being woken by the birds who have a nest in the roof of my hut. This day, I went to the restaurant where I'd normally have breakfast. Today they were serving Bhang lassis for free.

Bhang, by the way is the male grass plant, the neglected one without the buds. The babas grind it down into a green paste and then either filter it into drinks like tea or lassis, or roll it into balls with pepper and herbs which you eat. In holy places like Pushkar and Varanasi, it's legal and you can have special lassis in many juice bars and restaurants. In Puskar this day there was bhang available in a lemon and ginger tea, bhang ice creams and cake, all over the place.

The guys who worked at the resaurant all chipped in to help make the lassis, which they served for free. This photo is of Raju mixing the Bhang in with the Lassi. All of the guys in the juice bar chanted Bom Bolenath Shankar over the mixture in praise of Shiva. The first lassi was presented to the wee Shiva shrine over the cash register and they assured us that since Shiva had had the first serving, he would get stoned for all of us on our behalf and we wouldn't feel a thing.

The other westerners in the juice bar smiled politely as they were handed their greenish lassis but eyed the concoction suspiciously. The guys beamed at me as I drank mine down and asked for more. (Since then, I'm always greeted warmly there when I come in for their fruit salad honey curd for breakfast, you can see it at the bottom of the photo with my chai. It has to be what Shiva has for breakfast, as it's the nectar of the gods). The lassi had an undertaste of wheatgrass juice but other than that, was just a mixed fruit lassi. I did feel very calm and contented all day after that though and had a particularly fine contemplatation of the sunset over the lake. See the photos below.

All along the bazaar, the shopkeepers all looked a little dreamy and were much less insistant than usual that you come into their shop. Pushkar filled up with Indian Tourists, all coming to make puja to Shiva by bathing in the holy lake and making offerings at the many temples in the town. Pushkar was filled, all day and all night, with the sound of bells and those endless Bajhans, or holy songs, amplified across the rooftops. (play the sound below) People greeted each other with Ram Ram instead of Namaste. Forheads were adorned with traces of Bhang and wrists with the red and white puja cord.

Trusty sandals by the lakeside.

One view of the sunset over the lake

The hill reflected in the lake. I was told by one baba once that Puskar lake is Deepak. I didn't know what he meant until I remembered that Deepak refers to a practice of meditation where the gaze is directed to the reflection of a candle in a bowl of water. The baba was saying that Pushkar lake itself was this bowl into whose depths we gaze in order to meditate.

The reflections in the lake

Have a listen to the sounds that surrounded these photos.

Some more sunset. This time as viewed from the smaller of the temple-topped hills overlooking Pushkar.

This is the arch over the entrance to the Shiva temple where I made puja on Shiva Ratri. I went inside when they were going through their chantings, gestures and ministrations of fire and water. They invited me in to take part, which was an enchanting experience, unlike any other ceremony I've witnessed. It seemed appropriate to have made proper Shiva Puja on his feast night.

More views from inside the Shiva temple. The main Effigy of Shankar (the human formed representation of Shiva) with the Om on it.

The head Shiva baba tends to the sacred fire in the temple.

My Hut is an ecosystem

Every morning when I wake up, two birds come flying into my hut through the windows to the nest they made in the roof before I even moved in. They arrive each day at the same time, just before I leave for flute class. .

Keeping them company are the gekos who camoflage themselves among the thatch in the roof, where the spiders drape their webs. All of them help to eat the mosquitos who come in off the fields at dusk. Then you have the little jumping, biting spiders, the very odd cockroach and a very persistent wasp who tries to get in every day. The other day I saw some kind of flying insect more than an inch thick making a buzzing sound like a small B52 bomber.

Outside, Pushkar is an ecosystem. Apart from plastic, everything which gets thrown out on the street gets eaten, if not by the roaming cows, then by monkeys, dogs, pigs, squirrels or insects. The cows eat puja flowers, cardboard, old chapatis, scraps and turn it all into dung which then gets uses as fuel or building material. The cities have worked this way for age, there is little waste.

Dogs, no matter how cute, are just one step above vermin here and are treated as such. They're wandering scavengers mostly who feed on things which you don't necessarily want to come in contact with. Puppies get run over on the main bazaar by motorbikes now and again, which is a bit grim to listen to and the odd cow will occasionally snap and start bucking and butting everyone around. A bit of a dilemma as to what to do when a holy animal goes berzerk. Most stallholders opt for the firm bonk on the nose with something blunt if a cheeky cow decides to start nibbling the produce. .

The cows here are smaller, more graceful and have a lot of character, walking around the streets like the stately queens that they are. They bring a slower pace with them to the bazaar, as people and bikes jostle around them in narrower parts of the street.

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Money, Business, Shopping.

Before you come to India, you know that it's going to be an inexpensive place to live for a few months. Only when you get here do you realise how inexpensive it can be. The way you relate to money definitely changes.

The Euro-Rupee exchange rate at the moment is hovering around 57 rupees to the Euro. 5500 rupees is just under 100 euro. You could easily live for a week on that. Food, chai, accommodation, transport everything, assuming that you are not shopping like a mad thing and are staying in a reasonably modest hostel. 5000 rupees is what a state schoolteacher (seen as a very good job) earns per month. A four-bedroom apartment to rent in Delhi costs about 6000 per month. A Thali (basic dinner) costs about 25 rupees. My wee hut in the Sai Baba garden costs 80 rupees per night.

Of course, then you’re seen as a walking goldmine by touts, some priests and traders who will do their utmost to try and separate you from your rupees. At train stations, bus stations, airports and tourist towns you will get pursued down the streets by a mix of touts and beggars. Shops and Restaurants will try to get away with outrageous margins, counting on your not knowing the true price of things. The Hindus have a saying here "He who does not know the price of something, knows very little"

You'll be told that your hotel has closed or burned down, be brought to a similarly named but rival hotel. Or even to the other part of town to a completely unrelated hotel by a cycle rickshaw driver who never understood where you wanted to go in the first place, but just kept nodding, desperate for the cash.

You often get hotels calling themselves after other successful hotels in the same town so that the touts can confuse the newcomers. Here in Pushkar there are two "Moon palace" hostels, called "Moon A" and "Moon B" by the locals.

Nevertheless, once you get a feel for the value of the Rupee you find yourself complaining when you are overcharged, even by ten or twenty Rupees. There are few worse feelings than that of having been fleeced because of your own lack of savvy. These traders know a mark when they see one.

Once you get through the "veil of overcharge" which surrounds you on arrival, you can start to get fair prices for things. This usually happens after you get a chance to play one trader off another at a market or from intelligence gathered from other travelers in restaurants. If you look like you mean business and have some Hindi, the prices go lower still.

It's difficult to explain that the money you have does not make you a wealthy person in Europe, since the rents etc. are all proportionately higher, not to mention the fact that you worked hard for it. Most Indians are just agog at how much you have and what it would mean for them to have that much. How much is your digi camera? 45,000 Rupees. A generous year's pay for many. It is a moral quandary at times whether you talk about money at all. Certainly it can bring a state of moral unease onto you at times and a very lucky feeling at others.

The saga of the parcel

In my first week here I was shopping like a mad thing. Partly to get to know the town, the real prices of things and partly as a pleasurable means of settling in. It's good to have a big parcel on the way back to Dublin as I write. It means I've done most of the shopping already, I won't have to lug all that stuff around with me and the recipients of the parcel get the buzz of their gifts before I get back.

I got lush Rajasthani wall hangings, multicoloured saris, handmade cushion covers, pashmina silk scarves, clothes, bags and hand-crafted diary books. Mala beads, ganesh design tee shirts. Every day I would bring another small bagful of stuff to the shop where I was buying most of the goods and finally, they sewed it up in a 12 kilo parcel to bring to the post office.

I went instead to a parcel service on the main street. They post it for you and if there's a problem, they'll follow through with the Indian postal service on your behalf. I chose "Sea and Air" which cost about 2200 rupees to send. Good job I sent it with them, as it turned out that Ireland does not participate in this "sea and air" type of freight, only Air. The parcel office were able to sort this out for me and it saved me from having to go to Delhi to get the parcel upgraded to Air mail. It cost more as a result but will arrive quicker; it should be home in about three weeks.

More Business Ideas

True to form, I came up with an idea for "ShopInPushkar.com". An ecommerce site which would sell directly to online customers from the shops here in the Bazaar, via the private parcel service. Anil, the bloke who runs the parcel service here thought this was a great idea and we spent about 20 minutes over chai drafting one of those "on the napkin" business plans. The costs involved would be very little, comparatively speaking -- per month about Rs. 4k for staff, Rs. 4k for broadband, Rs. 3.5k for a small office in Pushkar and Rs. 2k for utilities. The potential would be huge but it would take at least a year to do it properly and the logistics and legalities could get convoluted. Since I'm on holiday, I'm not going near it for the moment but I reckon it could fly in a big way.

The other one was to open a "green" hostel, family friendly, using organic veggies in the food, using bio-filtration for waste management, collecting the abundant energy from the sun for hot water and lights. Catering also for those traveling with their children, which seems to be an increasing trend here. Many of the travelers I've met have brought their kids. I reckon with that spin and practice present at the guesthouse you'd get exactly that niche of traveler. Germans and Scandinavians particularly. Here in Pushkar at the moment the most numerous nationalities seem to be the French and the ubiquitous Israelis.

I've already mentioned the solar hot water heating panels to Fatou and he's been interested in them for a while. I'll try to get some plans to give to him. It could save the whole village tons of money in the somewhat erratic and expensive electricity supply, not to mention all those fossil fuels not burnt. More about sustainability in a later blog, after I visit the Barefoot College.

Pushkar Raj (with photos)

It's been a week since I set out from Ireland. It's been pretty frenetic up till now but things are shifting down a gear. Slower pace, no rush, four months. Own place by the lake

I've just finished a bout of shopping over the past three days. Luxurious Rajasthani wall hangings, silk and pashmina scarves, saris, crochet tops, mala beads, ethnic cushion covers, bags, tee shirts. Hopping from one trader to the next, haggling for the best prices. It's better to get this done now so that I can relax and have the shopping behind me. Also a good way of settling in. In about a month, ten kilos of goodies will arrive to Ailish's library in the Department of Finance, all neatly parceled up. I'll ask her to send a few pressies around before I get back.

I took the camera for a walk today, here's some photos to show you. Again, this may take a while to download.

We'll start in my new little cottage, out on the western part of towm, being rented for a pittance. This will be my base for travelling around the area over the next month. Also, the festival of Shiva Ratri is coming up in about a week, that's when all the sadhu's in the area will descend on Pushkar and fill the place with their shenanigans.

Here's a photo of the other side of my cottage. There's a French baba staying there. A long time India traveller, he has all the setup of a sadhu. He makes dal and subji by the fire and excellent lemon and ginger tea. We were up last night till all hours listening to music & chatting. French and Israelis there, some of them had english. This is Fatou's little enclosure and only his friends get to stay here. It's guarded against anyone else except residents and freinds staying.

This is the view as I stoop to step out the door of my little hut. It's the Brahma temple at Pushkar. The only Brahma temple in india. Apparantly the god Brahma annoyed his goddess of a wife, so she put a curse on him that he would only ever be worshipped in one place -- you're looking at it.

There are plenty of Hindu tourists up at that end of town, as well as westerners. With the little Hindi I've learned since getting here, I've been watching the natives haggle to get a sense of the real prices of things, rather than the tourist prices. A little Hindi goes a long way when your'e haggling. The traders assume that if you know some Hindi, then you've probably got an idea of how much things really are and all of a sudden, twenty percent has come off the opening price.

This is Nina, from Reunion Island (a French protectorate off the coast of Madagascar.) She's a neighbour who's working for her keep at the Sai Baba Restaurant at the other end of town.

You could just sit and look all day.

The bustling main bazaar, mammon's den. Just try walking down here without being 200 rupees lighter at the other end.

The monkeys just hang out by the lake along with the Babas, they're quite tame, and even polite.

This baba is one of many that ply their trade in "pushkar puja". If you're not already wearing a coloured peice of string on your left wrist (which I am) the will inveigle you down to the lakeside where you'll go through ablutions and anointings and intonings by the holy water. You'll then get relieved of cash for the pleasure, despite them saying that money wasn't important at all to them on the way down. Fair enough, I see it as a kind of rent for my space on the lake while I'm here. I love that chilled out cow in the background.

More monkey business.

These two were grooming each other, then had a bit of a tiff. I think the monkeys must be in heat since one photo I took earlier on had them "playing" with each other. This is a family blog, though, so I didn't post it.

A small Shiva shrine by the lake, complete with statue of Nag, the great serpent.

Two pandits take a read of the paper in the shade in their shop.

Efforts to contact Bunker from The Barefoot college came to naught today, but I got his own number, rather than the general number of the college, So I'll try again tomorrow. I hope to start music lessons soon with a teacher based very close to the guesthouse garden.

I'm off to freshen up before heading out for more illicit beer tonight (alcohol is prohibited in Pushkar's holy city, as are eggs and meat) with the first paddy who I've met here. Paul, from the people's republic of Cork, has been travelling through south east asia and is blogging it too. I'll post a link to his blog when I get it. There's a good scene in the rooftop restaurant of the "Pink Floyd" hostel, where all the rooms are called after Pink Floyd's songs.

A plus tard ..

Two more images of Pushkar

Two More images ..

Some Images of Pushkar

You could spend all day looking through a camera in this place. Luckily the chip on my camera was full, so I had to come in here to clear it. Here are some of the images which I took around the lake yesterday.

Since then there have been innumerable "photo opportunities". A street procession for a wedding in full sound and colour. Monkeys, cows pigs and dogs, not to metion the sumptuousness of the bazaar. I've been shopping like a mad thing today, picking out the wall hangings and scarves before sending them back via freight.

This page may take a while to download....

Arriving Pushkar

Got here this afternoon in the blazing heat. Cycle rickshaw from the hotel in Jaipur to the bus station for the Pushkar express. It took three hours in a rattly bus on another one of those endless modern highways, like the one from Delhi. In one pit stop town in the middle of the scrub desert. the bus nearly drove off on me in the middle of a badly needed piss. Sufficient waving and whistling got one smiling indian guy with a white beard to keep the driver at bay. It was worth the risk, believe me.

The sun is really hot here in Pushkar, despite nights in Jaipur being darnright cold. Got into Pushkar at around one, the main bazzar teaming with colour and trade. I could easily carry away a ton of stuff from here and my trip is just beginning. I'll post photos presently. Westerners wandering around, not wanting their experience disturbed by any complications, and enough hoteliers making sure that this gets arranged for them. Pushkar is bordering on the theme-park side, but there's enough "shanti" here to make it popular still with the old india heads. Those guys who come back every year. I met one this afternon, a santa-bearded chillum-smoking German part-time baba talking the India trail talk: "very shanti place, Shiva place". Turns out he's from Bremen.

I headed straight for the Sai-Baba hostel where I had stayed nine years ago. The proprieter, Fatou, is a good guy and is married now to a french woman and they have two kids. Fatou remembered me fairly quickly after a couple of memory nudges ("Ireland baba"), remembered the people I hung out with at the time and the trip we took on camels out into the desert. I was in the "counting room"

I'm sorted out with a huge ensuite room by the courtyard in the new guesthouse for the next two days, there's flamenco dancing on there tonight. I moved into my room this afternoon with Cameron de la Isla singing in the background. Then I'll have a simple cob, thatched cottage for 80 Rs. per day (that's about 1.30 yoyo's). They heat up by day and stay warm at night, made with clay, straw and cowshit -- sustainable tourism!. I can use this as a base from which to explore nearby Udaipur and Jaisalmir, after a little chilling out, of course. I'll re-contact Bunker from the Barefoot College and see what the story is with visiting or helping them out.

It was great to see Fatou and get sorted out so quickly and so fairly. Pushkar has grown since I was here last and there's more of the stuff that you'd expect to see in a bigger place, both positive and negative. Touts at the station, motorbikes tearing down the Bazaar. Fatou mentioned that he bought a farmhouse 2km outside of pushkar (with pushbikes) which i could stay in, if I want. He's up for getting another camel trek together into the desert hills.

After having chai with himself I went to the restaurant that I used to frequent here. There are plastic tables instead of benches now but they still serve the same kicking Thali, with no chili and loads of chapatis and refills for only 30 roops (about 50 cent). The lake is still as beautiful and the town as picturesque. It looks like the monkeys have prospered along with the town. There are loads of them, hanging out by the water or hopping across the rooftops over the bazaar. They're the black-faced ones, very relaxed, no mischief in them, unlike the little red-arsed feckers. Now it's back to the hotel for ringside seats at the flamenco dance show, feeling like I landed well on my feet here. I couldn't have planned it better.

More presently...

Dublin to Jaipur in 16 Hours

All of a sudden, I'm in India. It's all happened so fast, from leaving Dublin Airport at 8am GMT to arriving this morning in Jaipur at 7am Indian Time (1am GMT).

The BA flight was painless. No stop over, just an 8 hour non-stop flight to Delhi with plenty of movies to entertain the flight time away. I met a German couple on the plane who were getting collected at the airport and driven to Jaipur, which is were I was headed. They agreed to give me a lift to Jaipur with the lift that they had arranged.

The comfortable people carrier made the 250km journey in about four hours, whizzing along through the thick fog, veering into the oncoming traffic on the other side of the motorway whenever there was a traffic jam. You could hear the sound of German hair standing on end in the back as my knuckles whitened on the armrests of the front seat.

My inner backpacker was very disapproving at all of this seamless comfort and convenience but that was all to change as soon as we arrived, knackered, at the German's posh hotel in Jaipur.

I was prepared to pay western prices just to get some kip. There was no room at the inn though, and so I wandered around the deserted streets of Jaipur in a turbo hair-dryer called an auto-rickshaw, looking for a hotel that wasn't going to overcharge me too much after the rickshaw wallah got his cut.

There it all was, the streets littered with blanketed parcels of humanity sleeping around fires, the cows munching the rubbish, the incessant beeping of the traffic. Then the mass intoning of the morning puja and the prayers of mullahs from the minarets, audible throughout the city blending into a pervasive, atonal drone of prayer

I ended up in the "Raj Palace Hotel" on the outskirts of Jaipur. 300rs per night (about €5.50) Adequate enough fare. I needed no encouragement to sleep.

Last Minute Nerves

Nervousness, excitement has been coming in waves ever since I finally got my visa from the Indian embassy last Friday. It's been down to the wire with work and getting those last classes and sites out the Door before I leave.

For the last week and a half I've been like a homeless person, wandering around town looking for a place to plug in my laptop and continue the last minute tweaks. The Village's new site is largely complete, apart from the content. Thanks to Conor for the clean and fresh design.

So is that of the HRB and Maryrose's landing page, marketingtoolbox.info done too.

Flight's booked for 7.50 tomorrow morning. I'm taking that 'ol green rucksack out now and packing lightly, taking as much empty space in it as I can. This will be filled with clothes and gifts that I'll buy over there. In 48 hours I'll be waking up in Delhi.

My initial plan is to head off to Jaipur on the train from Delhi, which is about a three hour journey. I'll stay in Jaipur for a few days and just "arrive", leaf through the lonely planet. Get in touch with some of the organisations I'd like to do some work for, or at least visit. Take it all in. There'll be four months of it, after all. Ah, there go the nerves again.