Category: Fulbright – Lucknow India

Hindi is a phonetic language that has 11 vowels and 35 consonants (or 13 vowels and 33 consonants, depending on what you call vowels). Reads left to right, like English, but has this line across the top. In handwriting you would use a line to level out the tops of your text, much as we do with a line at the bottom, but here they keep the line as part of the text. The second photo show, I think, a pharmacy. Even the graffiti has this feature.

And no presentation on roadside businesses by me would be complete without the neighborhood tailor. Yes, that is a real charcoal iron, in use. Prior to a Fulbright in which I was speaking, I had her iron my shirt. Price is 6 rupees – 5 cents; I gave her a 100-note and made her day (I try to pick up small notes to pass around).

Yes, there are fast-food joints.  Take a look at the Indian Colonel Sanders!

As I leave the Metro, here is the taxi stand.  Notice how they obstruct the traffic.  There are a lot of various people in the transportation business, from human-powered rickshaws to Ubers-on-motorcycles.

Here is a human-powered rickshaw. My colleague Arindam and I rode this out of the old-town area. Took a long time and he was huffing, this for 50 rupees (about 60 cents).

This is the first “auto” that I flagged down myself, enroute to my Fulbright meeting. Basically a motorized tri-wheeler. Amusement parks in the US should have these to scare people, or perhaps they could use these for videogames. At one point the driver drove one-way against a lot of traffic – my blurry pictures shows FEAR. He also had to stop for directions.

Finally, we should say a word about advertising.  It essentially covers every flat surface, everywhere.

Some general observations on India. To begin, we need to remind ourselves that India is the world’s largest democracy (the US is #2). And I hate to say this, but theirs is probably thriving better than ours. These are some signs from the last election.

India may also be the world’s biggest purveyor of small-business capitalism. Small businesses of every description, everywhere. This little cooker of meats is I understand “famous” (though I have to say that Indians may use the word “famous” too often). Some of these little businesses go back 100 years, not so hard to believe when you appreciate that the country’s interior has not been disrupted by war in more than 100 years.

Some of the roadside displays are quite fancy. I unfortunately am not allowed (warned by my doctor and Fulbright) to not buy any roadside food as this could have me worshiping the ivory throne for quite some time. That goes for dairy products as well, so this little ice cream stand is verboten. Note that this sticks out into the roadway, and buyers would literally stand in the road, and we have already talked about the traffic.

Many of the roadside displays are much less formal, little carts that are moved about – in amongst the traffic. These are some displays near my Metro station.

Here is a guy who has a small display outside the entrance to The Institute (more on that later). He sets up all these limes at the beginning of each day. Behind this is a little grinder for shaving ice to make what we would call “snow cones”. It is starting to get hot and I would love to have one of these, but of course I do not know where the ice came from, and so can’t.

Let’s see some of the little carts that are pushed down the small street in front of my apartment. This guy comes around in the morning at about the time I leave for work (0830). He has a variety of vegetables, which he can weigh out on a small hard-held scale. The second picture is of a cart with some carpets, the guy riding this dismounted and hustled out of field of view as I took the picture.

And here is the garbage man – there are no garbage trucks as we know them. What a neighborhood might do – and my neighborhood is a bit upscale – is hire a guy to come around and pick up the trash left by the roadside. Poorer neighborhoods do not do this and the garbage piles up to create a real mess.

Off the major roads, every alleyway is literally lined with displays of every kind. The second picture here shows clothing, and the third shows me at a little outdoor leather shop, where I am having a couple of additional holes put into my belt (I am losing weight!). These displays are everywhere. There are stores, I understand, but there are many of these small entrepreneurs … everywhere. There is no social net, so people raise money however they can.

This is a sign at the Metro station, in English and Hindi.  Elsewhere the signs are mostly in Hindi.

 

My third weekend here is “Color” Festival. I think some background is needed. Most jobs in India are 6-days a week; off only on Sunday. Maybe to recompense for some of this, there are many festivals, which vary from region to region. These can provide days off. Lucknow is fortunate in that there population is essentially split between Hindu and Moslem, which means more holidays.

The “Color” Festival is a three-day holiday, Friday to Sunday. Everything is closed, including the institute where I can usually even on Sundays. The holiday is a lot of Halloween and a bit of Thanksgiving. One the Friday, the kids come out and can douse anybody they can catch will colored powder, although there are also heavy-duty squirt guns and water balloons. I have seen some of the people in the street absolutely covered in “color” many of these perhaps against their will.

My hosts at the hotel/apartments that I stay at have offered to take me to what is essentially a family party. Whenever you meet someone you dab some of the colored powders on their face and so forth, which should explain the first picture. Fortunately, Ajay stopped on the way there to get me a disposable hat, otherwise I would have ruined one of my caps.

Here is a picture of some of the people in the street, very well colored.

As you can see, my hosts are already well colored before I get there. Everybody is happy to see an American and there are some questions; they are quite happy to be talking to a scientists. This is a middle class extended family, which has a small sewing shop in the rear. Everybody speaks English pretty well.

There is a lot of dancing, the music is a sort of Electric Rap in Hindi, many of the people seem to know the words for each piece. Probably not much different from a party in the States.

Some neighborhood kids show up with a double ended drum. They make a racket and eventually get some money and move on. A guy shows up with two monkeys and one is allowed to climb on me.

And there is food. I will try to talk about the food once I am bettered versed on the subject. The food is good, and is generally only lightly spiced (I get warned not to eat this or that, I usually taste a bit but make sure that I have a drink in hand). I have to be careful, as dairy products and uncooked food can have me worshiping the ceramic throne in pretty quick order. The rule on fruits is for me to eat anything that is covered (bananas or oranges) but not something where I eat the skin, as that may have been washed in water that can have the same effect. The party also has something that is seldom seen in India: ICE. This drink is alcoholic but no one is drinking too much (I have a couple of beers but avoid the whiskey).

This is my first opportunity to see the Indians “letting their hair down” (having a good time. This is a joyous people, and the festivals are an opportunity to play. I hear there are about 12 fairly major festivals during the year, and many lesser ones. “Color” is one of the big ones; the “Light” Festival occurs after I leave.

I find when I get home that the colors are not easily water-soluble. Two showers after I get back to my apartment and much is still on my face.

I am here of course for scientific research and do not plan any trips in these covid times but one: the Taj Mahal. I mention this during my first week and my hosts immediately book me a three-day weekend to Agra. I must go now, they say, as it will get too hot too quickly. I take a six-hour train ride to Agra, then a 20 minute cab to the motel. Here is dashboard for the cab. Cab-driver honked the horn almost constantly.

Turns out that the cab is powered by compressed natural gas, which is the first CNG vehicle I have seen since our student trip to Iceland some years ago. This is for my ENERGY class.

Once we have dropped our stuff off at the motel, we are ready to explore. Upon our exit we are immediately hounded by aggressive people who want to drive us around. We push past this – obnoxious salespeople we do not want – and after a short walk find an older and more professional driver – Netaji.

With me is a student from the Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleosciences who is fascilitating my trip. This is Rout. I am fairly adverturous, but frankly, trying to make this trip by myself would be foolhardy, and I much appreciate these two.

First, yet another bit of traffic – cows (and bulls). I have not seen these in Lucknow, but are all over the place in Agra. They always walk like they know where they are going, and no one seems to get in their way.

Our first stop is the “Red” Fort, from the early 1600s. There is a big crowd, and we are literally unable to get through the –again – aggressive people who want to sell us “discount” tickets and take their 1-hour guided tour (me being an obvious foreign makes me something of a target). We retreat back to Netaji, who knows – Nataji knows everyone- a tourist agent who gets us tickets online. We then return, show these to a security guard and just like that, we are inside. No one-hour guided tour for us, we stroll about for a couple of hours.

Inside is one large structure after another. This is the private of a Mughul Emporor. Some maintenance and restoration has not doubt happened, but I am amazed that all this has survived with little damage.

These pictures some of the detail associated with one structure. The Mughuls were moslem, so fancy ornamentation without human figures.

Here is another view, and looking out one of the windows – hey! That is the Taj!

Leaving the fort, Netaji takes us along some back roads to a location where we can see the Taj from the back, across the river. We work our way through an orchard and here is the view. Rout takes this picture – he has a good eye.

Getting closer here is the south bank of the Yamuna River, with the Taj on the other side (and more cows on our side).

Through that is a large courtyard and another larger gate, and as we approach that we see the Taj. This building and gate are quite large, here is my view of this gate from the other side.

And once I turn around at the same location, here is the view. And here is the picture that everyone seems to be taking.

Flanking the Taj Mahal are two large red buildings. To the right is the guesthouse. On the other side is the dining hall.Both are exact mirror images of one another.

Here is the entrance. Everything here is exactly symmetrical, and without flaw (I am told this by a quilter, and quilters seek out any flaw in another’s work). I have here pictures of the corners to the right and left of the entrance.

No pictures allowed within, this is after all a burial site. Shah Johan built all this for his wife, who died in childbirth after bearing her 13th child. Her sarcophagus is in the exact center of the area within the Taj. The Shah, 5th in the line of Moghul Emperors, is in a sarcophagus next to her, and is the only violation of the perfect symmetry that surrounds her. And here is Rout and myself on the other side.

A picture from the Taj directed back at the previous gate. Where I stand, the tiles remind me of … silicoflagellates.

Later, in a busy day, we visit a local market, this is the sort of shoe-district, with many shoe stalls down the alley. Oops, somewhat wants to come through…

Since this blog is both for people in Maine and India, here is what it was like in Maine the day that I left. Kate and I had lunch at a local restaurant in the city of Caribou Maine (population 8.500). In front of the restaurant (near my car, which his in the picture) were 28 snowmobiles, these belonging to other people eating in the restaurant.

Quick change to India. I usually start these blogs with a picture me and me enroute at the start of the trip. But there was no real opportunity in the airplane: Crowded, for 13 hours, took about five days for me to get my sleep cycle back on track. On the Saturday of my first weekend in India, my colleague Arindam took me to the old center city of Lucknow. The main street has an enormous farmers market, with much else as well. The buildings here are quite old – often 1800s – quite large and many are not in good condition. The narrow allies behind these buildings are quite narrow, lined with some pretty fancy shops that sell jewelry, perfume and clothing.

First experience in Lucknow (population 3.5 million) could not be more in contrast to Maine … the traffic. My pictures do not – cannot – capture this adequately. The main roads are an equivalent to our two lanes going each way, but the traffic is helter-skelter, seems like 4 vehicles abreast, traveling at break-neck speeds, horns blaring. There are no lanes, everyone is jostling for position to get into the gap between two vehicles in front, ever-ready to avoid pedestrians and other obstructions.

The traffic contains cars, motorcycles, bicycles, the 3-wheeled rickshaws (gasoline, electric or human-powered),some horse-drawn carts and people pushing (or here pulling by bicycle) their wares. It is NUTS. To be a pedestrian trying to cross the street is … #@&%$, there are no traffic lights, crosswalks, or pedestrian bridges / tunnels.

And you must walk along the side of and often within the street, because the flanks – what we would call an “emergency lane” is pretty much holes and rubble, full of tripping hazards. There are also many obstructions: the ubiquitous rickshaws waiting for business, or the cart here in the roadway selling vegetables, or people stopped in the roadway to buy stuff.

Pretty much the same at night, though there are fewer vehicles. I have now ridden in a human-powered rickshaw through this. Need I mention that the rickshaw had no lights?

There are everywhere along the roads people selling things. This person has a regular bathroom scale, and for 5 rupees (maybe 4 cents) I can weigh myself (97 kg, I think I have already lost some weight). Here is a picture also of someone shaving ice for drinks.

I have learned very quickly to avoid the roadways at all costs. Fortunately, there is a Metro line that connects where I live with where I work, with relatively short distances along the roadways. My ticket on the Metro is 9 rupees, about 7 cents.

Getting into the Metro requires that your bag and body get a pretty thorough search. Security is very much in evidence, everywhere. India has had its fair share of terrorism, including their “26/11” (Nov. 26th, our 9/11), a bloody four-day event in Mumbai, the Indian capital city. These are long remembered, there as in the U.S.

India has some 28 written languages, and others unwritten, which amounts to a lot of different cultures and cuisines. Here Arindam selects a chicken and a mutton dish – these meats are common in India, beef and pork are not for religious reasons, both Hindu and Moslem. You might note that this business is “established in 1897” – many businesses here go back a long ways.

Because my intestines are not well adjusted to all this, I must avoid anything that is uncooked. I also must be careful about bones – meats in India are cut differently than in the U.S., and sample gingerly. I like spicy food, but some dishes are well beyond my tolerance. The chicken was quite good, the mutton was quite spicy.