Movie Moghuls

What, exactly, is a Moghul? Read on, and you certainly won't find the answer, but you might find some nice pictures of their architecture. We like Babur, but not just because he is a children's book character. Read more, and find out a little bit more, but not too much more.

Some readers have been carefully researching, mapping, and digesting our titles. Perhaps we have erred. Perhaps they have. Nobody knows. We apologize to any of you with broken hearts out there. We'll find a tiger. Somewhere. Maybe. Alex is a good artist. Maybe he can draw one. Maybe we can find a picture on the internet. So many possibilities. Perhaps we can find one in India. Maybe.

Those keeping close tabs on our progress will remember us attempting to reach the northern parts of India, from the southern ones, via an unconventional, for tourists, series of stops and modalities through central India. A Passage Through India. No direct rail route -- which makes me remember reading, that Walt Whitman wrote his poem after learning that the trans-continental railroad in the United States had been successfully linked up in Utah. He was a clerk in a government office. Our travelogue continues where we stopped last, Madurai -- going exactly where other travel writers don't dare to tickle, tread, or type.



We ride unreserved 2nd sitting, because we're hard core. This basically means that Indian Railways issue as many tickets as they have paper for, and put as many people on train cars as can fit, which turns out to be a lot more than you'd expect. Above, but a mild taste of what happens. People are sitting above these people -- you can see their legs. Above -- that's where luggage and more people go. We sit up there next time. It's more comfortable, in a way. People sit on the floor in the aisles, and in between the bathroom doors, at times. It's a great place to really meet people, in these conditions. People aren't used to seeing foreigners, and you spend a lot of time under intimate circumstances with a lot of strangers. We learn much about one another.

I love climbing around the train. As you step over between, around, and through people to get down the aisles, you can grab onto all kinds of surfaces to manuever around. It can take quite a while to make it through a train car. All my climbing skills are exercised here. Nice.

Pondicherry

First stop is Pondi. It's on the coast, a former French colony, and is interesting. It's like India*.8 + France*.2.



Auroville, which is nearby, but remains untainted by our traveller's feet, is populated by Aurovillians. It's most remarkable achievement, perhaps, is that it hasn't collapsed. This is remarkable as it is a 60's era new age commune, and most of those have collapsed.

We stay in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram's guest house, entitled the Park Guest House. It's on the seafront, and we get a double for like 250 Rs. At night we can hear the ocean in our room. Sri Aurobindo's partner, an unusual state of affairs for an Indian holy man, was called Mother, and she set up this utopian Auroville community. It's slightly inappropriate, but I am reminded of Walt Disney's original vision of Epcot as a utopian community, perhaps more in the Bucky Fuller sense than in the spiritual sense, though.



An interesting thing about this guest house. No drugs, alcohol, smoking, and a 10pm curfew. As in, they lock the front gate. It's right on the beach, and very peaceful. It's very simple. The rooms are just two beds, mosquito nets, and a bathroom. But, it's also the cleanest, and most pleasant place we've stayed. Masala Dosa is available in the sea-side cafeteria room, with tons of sunlight, and there's a lovely garden. An institutional architecture with lots of love, like some Kibbutzes. It makes me think about all the places we stay that have televisions, AC, and a host of other features that are luxurious, but unecessary. But, those places often fail at the fundamentals that this guest house takes care of so well -- like clean sheets. You can be bitten at night by mosquitos, but you have a tv, in other guest houses. I find this rather obvious observation slightly profound. Take care of the necessities really well, and that's all that really matters.



The town, Pondi, is quite interesting. Above, a picture from a French park. At the center of the park, a totally out of place greco-roman looking thing surrounded by cannons facing outwards. This, then, is surrounded by bits of Hindu temple looking sculpture. It's the French defending this kernel of Europe with cannons, facing India from inside out. But they are gone now. Kind of.

Their architecture remains, which is very interesting. Every morning and evening, many people walk up and down the giant sea-front promenade. It's interesting to see how people react to and use this architectural context. No Indian city we've see has this kind of architecture, yet everybody knows what to do with this architecture, since walking up and down it just feels right. Very Christopher Alexander.

Many French tourists are here. Many expensive (for India) restaurants are here with very good food.



Above: a curvaceous anatomical detail of one of our escape vehicles, a rick (auto rickshaw). Choo Choo. Next stop, by awesome long distance bus: Bangalore.

Bangalore

The Lonely Planet says that if you find yourself in Bangalore, it isn't a total dead loss. This is true. Bangalore and Hyderabad, which we'll visit next, are the hubs of the new Indian information economy. Most of the software and high tech work in India is done here.

One of the nice things about coming to a town like this, is that nobody expects you. There are no cute guest houses, and an army of touts trying to separate you from your money by every conceivable manipulation. No. The foreigners here are mosty from developed countries, and working here, taking part in this brave new IT world.



This means food. We sit down to an Japanese meal. The food: exquisite. It's only appropriate that Naomi took me to one of the best Indian means I've had in my life in Shibuya, Tokyo, and I've had one of my best Japanese meals in Bangalore. The restaurant, once we're inside, could be anywhere in the world. The Indian staff are as polite as any staff in a Japanese restaruant. Japanese salary-men smoke and eat, Japanese news is on tv, Manga abounds. So good.



Our room, with balcony, affords some nice views of the bazaar buzzing outside. It's kind of seedy at night, but this is all strength training, and enjoyable in its own right.



There's a nice British colonial-era park in the city. We walk around there. Pictured above, a creatively designed trash can, asking park visitors to take advantage of it.

We hop on another overnight bus. Woohoo. The bus station in Bangalore is a force to be reckoned with. It is the biggest and busiest bus station I've ever seen in my life. Imagine walking through a life sized maze of huge moving walls, that just happen to be buses. Somehow, we find our bus, and get on.

Hyderabad



Hyderabad is like Bangalore, but with more fun tourist stuff to do. Like eating with your hands. Actually, you can do that anywhere in India, but this is the first time we get a real banana leaf Thali, and it's about time, since we're on the verge of leaving South India. You don't just smell, taste, and chew the food -- you enjoy its texture with your hands. The ribbed banana leaf feels nice, too. A tactile experience. What would Brillat-Savarin think? This should only be done by trained professionals, or amateurs, such as ourselves, who have thoroughly washed and hand sanitized before hand. The food here: Awesome. We return many times.

Thalis are fun. They bring you a set meal, different depending on the restaurant and the cook's fancy, and most items are infinitely refilled as you consume them.



One can't really know a country until you see it through the lens of its amusement parks. I think. Yotam and I found this out when we visited Singapore's Sentosa Island ("Island Life, Dig It!" -- though Singapore already is an Island...). Now Alex and I go to Ramoji Film City. This is motly skippable, especially because it takes a whole day.



It is really fun, though, to see Indian movie sets of anonymous dusty Indian urban areas. We'd already abstracted them into a kind of single modern urban architecture, and it seems they have done the same. The locals, naturally, find matching sets to familiar movies far more interesting than we do...



Far more interesting in Hyderabad is the Salar Jung Museum. Just the family's artifacts, their couches, and so on, are fun enough. It's a little like a Wes Andersen movie, but in museum form. A strange, wealthy, and prodigious family's intimate and absurd material details. The crazy art from around the world they collected is truly cool, too. Above, a picture of some Indian Miniature Painting, of which they have a great collection.



On our way out of Hyderabad, we do a crash tour of some of its architectural highlights. Above, this crazy Mughal tower, and a photograph, next to it, proving that owning a fancy camera does not correlate with knowing how to take pictures.



Above, the view from the tower, into some crazy autorickshaw traffic. These cars are not parked. Like a thousand crazed windup toys, they drive everywhere, anyhow they can. Everyone, tourists and old ladies alike, must regularly cross traffic like this on foot, without the aid of traffic cops or crosswalks. If you hesitate, you either miss your opening, or die. One must act decisively. I used to think my life would end, in my old age, either going up or down stairs, which I've always found trickier than necessary, or crossing the street, since I tend to daydream. If I survive Indian pedestrian life, then I think I can make it through any other traffic, so no problem there, and rock climbing has eliminated stairs as a substantial threat to my existence, so we'll have to look more closely at other threats. Maybe ninjas in shadows.

These sights turn out to be more spectacular than a crash tour can appreciate. Ok. This is where the Moghuls from the title comes in, since it is Moghul -- Islamic Indian -- architecture. (The Movie reference is to Ramoji film city. Ok, no more dangling pointers).



Fruits are an important part of our diet here. Above, an exceptional addition. For under one dollar the owner of this cart uses a highly developed form of Pomegranate-Fu to open, and de-internal-skin-ify, a Pomegranate. As a souveneir, you even get to keep the fruit, which is very delicious. Fortifying our diet with fruits, such as bananas and oranges, is essential. We are healthier, and digestion is better. I have yet to ascertain the correct price for oranges, since the spread of prices I've paid and bargained for has been quite wide. Bananas are 2 Rupees a piece, or less, in general, which feels correct. Oranges are often 30 Rs per kilo, which feels a bit expensive, since that's the price of a lunch. Once, we got a bunch of bananas and oranges for 32 Rs. One of the keys to proper bargaining is knowing the real value of a good, using healthy portions of experience and The Force, but I am still in a fog about oranges.



Nearby is a huge mosque, a big and peaceful space. Mosques are really relaxing after the chromatic riot of Hindu temples, since there is no representation, just geometric patterns, and the spaces are so simple. Large open courtyards, and shallow reflecting pools.



Above, Chowmahalla palace. It is something. Something like a really beautiful palace. You can catch a glimpse of a local fellow whom we became friends with after it became evident that he would follow us everywhere we went, invited or not. He was also on vacation, it turns out, and was probably both curious and lonely. That's the kind of guys we are, I guess.



Above, a picture of the cenral courtyard. At Chowmahalla Palace, even the guards, admission, and cleaning is super refined. If you put a toe on the lawn, the guards blow their whistles at you, making it feel a bit like a stealth game. Luckily we weren't kicked out, but we don't know what happens if you get whistled at out more than once. Unlike anywhere else we've been, when you pay for your camera ticket, they put a little ticket on a string around your camera. So they are actually serious about this business.



Above, inside the palace. This is clearly where the sultan, or whomever owned this pad, held court. I'm not sure, actually, since we rushed through -- late for our bus.

Our next destination, though not stop, is Khajuraho, which will put us back on the backpacker circuit, so we can expect our travel to be a bit more convenient, and conventional, with cookies, milk, plus all the associated harassment of travelling in the more touristic parts of India.