A Very Happy Diwali, Indeed: My Report on the Status of Magic in India and Nepal

My brother and I were seated high off the ground in a howdah. Directly in front of us, our mahout was

straddling the neck of our elephant for the morning, Kanti Kali (fierce goddess of the dawn). The sweet

girl had just carried us out of the thick, liana draped Nepalese jungle and had begun to meander through

some of the pristine marshland bordering the Nariyana River. She stopped and scooped up huge wads of

grass with her trunk to snack on. We were puzzled, though, about what the low, rumbling sound we

heard behind us was. Finally, Mr. Prasad, our naturalist who was seated right behind us, volunteered an

explanation in his formal, British-Indian English stating, “Elephant fart, Sir!” We smiled.

Our mahout resumed kicking Kanti Kali behind the ears to get her moving again. She obliged, but after

just another few minutes stopped again, shuffled her huge feet and lifted her trunk into the air letting

out a soft trumpeting sound. Mr. Prasad reached over my shoulder pointing at some low trees bordering

the marsh, stating, “Rhino! Over there, Sir!”

Yes, on our second morning in Chitwan National Park we were a mere 75 feet from an immense female

and her equally immense baby feeding under the trees. Their attention was riveted on us as they made

their own shuffling and snorting noises to let our elephant know we had intruded into her personal

space. The communication was clear, we had better not move any closer or there would be trouble.

Instead, we took a good look at our quarry, snapped a few pictures, and let our mahout know that it was

OK to move on.

Our mahout seated on Kanti Kali just before we climbed aboard for a fine stroll through the Nepalese

jungle.

Chitwan could easily have been used as the location for Jurassic Park. It’s an exotic wilderness replete

with 20 foot tall, pink topped elephant grass, large wading birds, wild peacocks, needle nosed crocodiles

called Gharials, rhinos, and Bengal Tigers. It evidences very few traces of man although just outside its

borders there was a small village neighboring our accommodations at Temple Tiger Resort.

Mama Rhino ‘smiling’ at us. We were seated safely atop our elephant about75 feet away from this cutie.

Our naturalist, Mr. Prasad, informed me that quite a few people are seriously hurt each year by these

aggressively territorial animals.

Mankind’s footprint, however, is never very far away, no matter how far afield you’ve traveled. And

while over the course of 3 days at Chitwan I didn’t see or hear a single plane overhead, our mahout did

take a few calls on his CELL phone, putting the lie to the sense we had of having travelled back in time as

well as through space. Even though our immediate surroundings looked like a scene out of King Kong,

the planet-wide digital connection remained in place, although in this part of remote Nepal it was surely

a weak one.

We had come to Nepal as the second half of a 2 week tour, the first part of which was India. 29 years

ago, on an Air India jet returning to New York from my first trip there I made a firm promise to myself

that someday I would return. So this trip, now with my brother, an enthused traveler himself, but one

who had never seen this amazing country, was, at least in part, a fulfilling of that promise. It was also a

gift to myself of travels beyond where I had left off the first time around.

I had made that first India journey as a winner of the New York City based Asia Society’s Portraits of

India Contest, the winners of which were me and 2 other NYC public school teachers, each of us

accompanied by a student. That was back in 1986 and the story of that 2 week trip and how I happened

to win it and all that I saw and experienced and learned from it is far too complex to tell here. The short

of it though, was that this extraordinary experience hit me like a ton of bricks. I was a young man of 38

at the time, very naïve and sparsely educated, coming from a humble background. But I was hungry for

adventure and excitement and above all, magic and proof that magic did exist in the world. In many

ways the course of my career and my life were altered by that first trip and the effect of having my eyes

opened to a world far from my home and experience. In so many ways, too, that first India Trip was a

special one featuring things that a commercial tour never could. It featured a home stay with an Indian

family and getting to know and be part of a local school’s community – working and learning and forging

friendships with many of the teachers and students there (the school was Sardar Patel Vidyalaya). Our

small group was received by the US Ambassador (and his teenage daughter), given special access to

cultural institutions, and we were followed and covered by the Indian and International Press. It was a

whirlwind, mind expanding, roller coaster ride of an experience! (See my article and blog post:

Teaching’s Opportunities for High Adventure)

But it is also true that I have accomplished and grown and learned a great deal since landing in Delhi in

1986. For one thing, I’ve learned to travel, and by that I mean I’ve become aware of and somewhat

adept at navigating the ever threatening pitfall of imposing one’s preconceived notions about a place

one visits on the actual experience of being there. Avoiding this is a tough thing to pull off, but it’s

essential if one truly wants to understand a place instead of giving oneself a romanticized good time. For

another, over the years I’ve gone out of my way to learn more about places and their culture that

fascinate me. Besides India I’ve visited China, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and a handful of other Asian

countries, reflecting deeply on the challenge of understanding them and the perils of being surrounded

by them and totally missing their truths.

And so, I would be returning to India as an informed and seasoned traveler and learner. But above all,

STILL a spirit moved to find some excitement and especially some magic there.

Indian street decked out in its Diwali lights.

Well, at the very least, Abbey’s (my brother) and my landing at the modern and efficient Delhi Airport

was auspicious and charmed. We’d hadn’t realized it, but we landed on the first day of Diwali, the

premiere annual Hindu celebration, the Festival of Lights dedicated to Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity.

How’s that for a good start? Diwali is something in India like Christmas is in the West, a joyous break

from normal, day to day life in which everyone shares the spirit of celebration. Not a bad start for a

second dance with a country I had fallen in love with decades back, but one that, no doubt, had

changed profoundly since then.

Interestingly, the itinerary, at least for part of the India leg of our trip, was much the same. Over the

next couple of days our tour group, 21 travelers strong, was taken by our pleasant and ever so

competent guide, Alok, to many of the same sites: Hamayun’s Tomb, The Raj Ghat (Ghandi Memorial),

Jama Masjid, a cycle rickshaw spin along the narrow lanes of the Chandi Chowk area (how unabashedly,

but wonderfully touristy ), the Sikh Temple, the India Gate War Memorial, Parliament House and the

Presidential Palace. I absolutely did not mind visiting these places and seeing them decades down the

road through the eyes of my brother. They are interesting in their own right and it was interesting to

measure my own reaction to them as I experienced them with greater maturity. But, of course, there

had been many things that I experienced as a 38 year old that the logistics of transporting a bus full of

older folks just couldn’t accommodate.

OK, I won’t pretend that it came as a revelation that India is so fully technologized. Rather, this is

something I was expecting to see but very curious to see how it plays itself out. My ’86 visit was marked

by how The Old (or perhaps in the case of this country, The Ancient) existed in India side by side with

The Modern. I suppose this is true everywhere, but then it was particularly startling to see camel carts

out on the “the highway” along with the cars. Now, it was surprising to see that this is still very much the

case, that the “highways” move at 30 mph (when they are really moving well, that is) that camels and

elephants and horses, scooters and trucks all move together, making up their own rules as they go. BUT,

all of these drivers talk and text on their CELL phones while doing so. Apparently (and this is an

exaggeration, no doubt) EVERYONE in India has a CELL phone, all but those in the most dire poverty,

even those who are extremely poor by American standards. So, YES, we probably are being seriously

ripped off by the phone companies here if, after all, families who live in homemade, mud and thatch

houses, living on say, $1,000 a year, still manage to join the global hum by owning and using a CELL

phone. There’s also WIFI all over the place. You see long distance buses advertising WIFI and many

restaurants offering it; places like the various Indian knock-offs of Starbucks, as well as Indian

McDonald’s (nope, no beef, but veggie burgers masala along with fries and chicken dishes).

CELL Phone Photography at the Taj.

Another thing that did surprise me was the number of tourists about, both Indians and foreigners. I

suppose that the crushing presence of Indian tourists in places like the Taj Mahal and Hamayun’s tomb

(a Mogul ruler and forebear of Shah Jahan, the creator of the Taj) was due not only to our visit taking

place during Diwali, when many were off from work, but also to the fact that India has experienced

prosperity and the number of folks one might describe as middle class (or close to it) has grown

exponentially. As for the foreigners, well, back in ’86 it was still very unusual for an American to visit

India and now it is far, far more common: more affordable, logistically more do-able in many respects,

and a far more popular idea. Needless to say we rubbed elbows at the hotel buffets and ‘sights’ with

French, Russians, Germans, Spanish, and British along with Japanese, Chinese, and Americans in great

numbers.

Arriving just as Diwali began was very special, indeed. The entire universe of Delhi was deeply immersed

in the spirit of celebration; an infectious spirit that cuts through jetlag and bathes whatever one

observes and experiences in the glow of one of humanity’s highest states. Many locals wished us,

sincerely, a very “Happy Diwali” and after a while we returned the sentiment. The one down-side to this

was offset by a very special benefit. As everything, restaurants included, was closed for the day, our

guide, Alok, invited the entire group to a Diwali night party at his place. I had been to a few Indian

homes on my previous trip. I had stayed for a week as the fortunate guest of Additi and Jyanti in their

elegant home in the well-heeled Delhi suburb of Chitarangan Park. And we, the small group of travelers

on that trip, had attended a cocktail party at the home of one of the teachers at the school we were

visiting, too. Alok’s digs, though, were especially interesting as he and his family were living (what I

suppose is) a classically middle class, comfortable lifestyle of contemporary urban India. They are in a

high-rise in a new housing complex in Gurgaon, a relatively new suburb of Delhi that appears to have

been so hastily cobbled together in order to get a small city’s worth of folks comfortably housed, that I

found the area largely to be without character, simply dozens and dozens of huge housing blocks tucked

into formerly vacant land on the outskirts of somewhere.

The interior of our host’s apartment was nice, but simple – certainly a place I’d be happy to live in

myself. A nice entry way off the open-to-the-outside-air stairwell/elevator landing, a small but

comfortable and practical living, dinning, kitchen area – 3 adequate bedrooms – and bath room. The one

out-of-the-box feature (by American standards) was that the apartment has 2 balconies: the typical

luxury apartment 5 X 10 space in the open air off the living area, an extra nicety enabling occupants to

get a bit of private outside without having to descend to street level. But also, there was, as Alok’s

fashionable and hospitable wife described it, a laundry balcony on the other side of the apartment.

On arriving, each of us received a welcome red tikka in the middle of the forehead placed there in

vermillion paste on the fingertip of our host’s daughter. Shortly, our host performed a quick Diwali

ceremony and we were all invited to light small candles placed on the floor throughout the living area,

this was the Festival of Lights, an important as well as joyous Hindu holiday, after all. After we had been

made comfortable and part of this warm Hindu household, our host got down to the serious business of

distributing glasses of Old Monk Rum (local) and coke, beer, wine… whatever. Platters of Diwali snacks:

Indian sweets and British style finger sandwiches covered the tables. Yum!

I stepped out onto the balcony to observe the entire Delhi sky lit up with fireworks. July 4th has nothing

on Diwali in Delhi. One had a sense that the fireworks driven celebration was going on for a billion folks

across the breadth of the subcontinent, which in fact, it was… literally! Our couple of hours luxuriating in

the warmth of our host’s home, enjoying modern rituals based on thousands of years of Hindu culture,

were over far too soon.

On our way back to the bus to our hotel, our host and bus driver set off fireworks, fountains of sparks

and colored orbs climbing into the brightly lit sky. Up and down the driveways and lanes surrounding us

we observed the same scene repeated over and over: sensual indulgence, joy, enchantment – Diwali!

Diwali fireworks!

During the very contented bus ride back to our beds we clutched the Diwali gift bags given us as we

exited the apartment. We were told to be packed, breakfasted, and up early the next morning for the

ride to Jaipur.

For me revisiting sites I had seen long before and experiencing 2015’s version of Delhi, both the orderly

and dignified upscale neighborhoods and government buildings of New Delhi, as well as the humble but

civil poverty of Old Delhi, had been a sensually overloaded delight. Too many details to fully relay here,

but our excursions to Maharajah’s palaces, the elephant-back climb up to Amber Fort on the steep

hillside, Jaipur, the pink city, Jantar Mantar (a vast park containing past ruler’s obsession in the form of

immense sundials, some as tall as high buildings), The Taj Mahal, and on and on…

But then, it was on to fields that lie further than India; the hippie legend of Kathmandu and beyond. Our

tour group in India had been comprised of 21 travelers, only 7 of which would do the 2nd leg. With week

1 down, Abbey and I looked forward to moving on to Nepal. Onward!

I kept hearing that Nepal was much like the India of the early 20th Century. True, perhaps, but we found

it choked with motorbikes and motorcycle rickshaws careening in every direction as oppressively thick

traffic sorted itself out, not by following any traffic rules, but through simple human negotiation “You go

here, now and I’ll go there, next… whaddaya say?” One popular riff they tell is that to travel in India and

Nepal drivers need 3 things: good brakes, good tires, and good luck! It appeared to me that for most, the

lion’s share of hope for getting through rush hour intact had wisely been invested in the last of these

Deep cracks in post-earthquake Nepalese buildings are a common sight.

By the way, YES, we did see plenty of evidence of the not too long ago earthquake in Kathmandu. There

were many partially destroyed buildings (and a fair number of fully destroyed buildings, too); plenty of

cracks to be seen throughout the city. But even without earthquake damage, Kathmandu, in addition to

being historic, exotic, and charming, is a place that’s just plain difficult to wrap one’s head around.

Cruising around in our safe, tourist van at night on the way to one of those “extra” dinner festivities sold

to us by our tour company, I got the impression of a town where significant sections were simply dark

after business hours. It appeared to be a “we’d roll up the sidewalks if we had ‘em” sort of town. It was

NOT inviting and it was good to be ensconced in our rather luxurious, self contained hotel complex.

Nepalese are friendly and polite, but this is life teetering on the edge. Life dominated by survival

oriented practicality. I kept wondering “Is this town ugly or attractive” and then it hit me. At close up,

street level range, it’s pretty hideous. The facades of buildings are coated in a layer of dust and grime

and neglect. In front of the street level storefronts that dominate every block is a strip of unpaved dust,

replete with dog waste, trash, and decades of the flotsam and jetsam of human existence. Seen from a

distance though, the thousands of 3 story buildings nestled in the Kathmandu valley create a very

attractive pattern. If you don’t pay too much attention to the filthy rivers and stream s running under

the town’s bridges, the piles of garbage here and there, and the clusters of shanties many call home, it

can be quite engaging. There was evidence of civil unrest, though; long lines to buy gas and fuel due to a

shortage created by a protesters’ blockade at the border for instance. In its own way, rural Nepal was

more inviting and comforting.

Shifting format now, I’ll simply comment on a handful of aspects of visiting India and Nepal and the

things I discovered for myself there. These, out of thousands of other possible things to write about…

Burning Ghats – I had always been curious about the public cremation ceremonies of Hindus. Yes, I

understood the practice and some of its logistics, but the affect, that’s something different. What would

it seem like to witness a family burning the body of a passed loved one and placing the remaining ashes

in the nearby river to flow downstream out of their lives? During our visit to Pashupatinath, the ancient

temple and religious community along the banks of the Kathmandu Valley’s Bagmati River, we found

out, close up and personal. Troops of monkeys storm over the rooftops of the beautiful traditional

buildings there and while they project a magnificence borne of long and fine tradition, there is also a

thin layer of neglect that clings to this world heritage site that clearly receives little care and

maintenance. People go on about their business in Pashupatinath visiting the temple and performing

funeral ceremonies on their own among the ghats, small stepped platforms that extend down into the

river. These ceremonies are private, yet they are performed in public just paces away from strangers

doing whatever it is they are doing at the moment.

Observing a few families, one preparing a loved one for his final ceremony, another placing ashes in the

river, I got the impression of reverence and acceptance of the inevitable. Life goes on and part of that is

the cessation of a life, although familial duty and sincere respect for a passing are important facets of it.

I feel privileged and humbled to have witnessed these timeless snapshots of a lives lead so differently

than my own.

Poverty? It’s there. Of course tour companies don’t present it to you, but it permeates the country and

you see it anyway. As one rides the tour bus from historical ‘sight’ to ‘picturesque place of interest’, it’s

there… on the margins, in undeveloped or unplanted plots of land seemingly owned by no one, along

the highways and under roadway overpasses… dozens if not hundreds of little homemade shanty hovels

cobbled together from bits of plywood and fiberglass sheeting.

But there’s more to understand. We Americans seem to think that there are simply 2 kinds of people,

those who are poor and those who are not. In places like India one sees numerous varieties. Yes, out in

the country side, and we were very fortunate to have been given half a day in Abhaneri, an ancient

village in rural, agricultural India, something I did NOT get to see on my first trip, there are poor people.

Those folks live in little houses made of mud and dung and wattle and thatch that are constructed

practically identically to those occupied by their forebears centuries back. But those people have enough

to eat, and their kids have access to education, and the government has provided a public water tap or

pump on the corner - they have access to medical care, the family owns a bicycle or two and perhaps a

motor bike… So while these families may be living on a thousand dollars a year, or perhaps 2 or 3, and

they are poor, they are OK. They are not suffering and, as India is on the ascendant, they probably

justifiably have hope that the upcoming generation of kids will do better for themselves and their own

children. No doubt there are a great many people in India in that other style of poverty, desperate

destitution, too. There seems to be no social safety net for them. But importantly, poverty, a powerful

and debilitating fact of Indian life, does not absolutely define India. It is something that is slowly being

addressed and hopefully, improving for many of those who live under its heel. But India is more than a

nation of poor people, much, much more. And it is also true that a huge portion of the population is

working class and in recent years the middle class and the upper class have grown, as well. And I

understand that the overall population is now a BILLION, two hundred million, making India an

economic force of nature!

Indian Tourism? It’s a little hard to fathom and explain. On the one hand, this is the real deal; NOT a

Disneyfied version of anything. And when what’s being visited is the real Taj Mahal, the Real Amber Fort,

the real Maharajah’s palace, there’s not much to do but stand back and let the overwhelming

enchantment of these places work their magic on their visitors. Still, our tour company sold us “extra”

experiences, like the ‘authentic Indian Dinner’ (trust me, the hotel buffet’s Muttar Paneer, Rogan Josh,

Yellow Dal, and Cauliflower Bhaji is as authentic as Indian food can be) and the Bollywood Dinner Show,

and so, there was plenty of hokum to go around. But it was sweet. Thanks, guys, for the authentic

turban to wear to the “authentic” dinner (one was given to each male tourist and a scarf to each

woman). And there was an authentic Rajastani puppet show after dinner out in the heavenly, torch lit

garden in Jaipur. Although blessedly the young puppeteer didn’t try to recreate Maharajahs’ court

puppet shows of eras past, but gave us his own version of authenticity replete with a character he

described as “The Indian Michael Jackson” . And OK, they all made a few bucks (that’s a few

thousand Rupees) from us, but hey, it’s a wonderful thing to spread it around a bit. At all four of those

dinners the entertainment included attractive, brightly costumed young women doing some sort of

‘traditional’ dance. And the punch line segment of those dance acts invariably was to scour the audience

for a guest to snag and bring up on stage to dance with them. I don’t know what came over me this trip,

but I’m happy to report that in all four instances I happily rose to the occasion to make a fool of myself

in front of dozens of fellow travelers and incredulous Indian onlookers. Damn good fun!

I guess the best standard I could apply to any and all of these tourists activities is that I trust most in

those that I shared with the throngs of Indian tourists who were out and about in their multitudes that

Diwali Week. So while the dinner garden party in Jaipur was attended only by us Americans and

Canadians and another 2 tables of French, places like The Taj and Raj Ghat and The Monkey Temple on

the Mountain in Kathmandu were very heavily attended by locals and natives, lending a sense that the

experience we had there was in no way contrived. As for a precise determination about “authentic”, I’ll

leave that to the ubiquitous monkeys who seem to be a highly discerning lot.

Magic? Could I find some? Now this is the kind of challenge I like. Did I re-discover magic in India? Of

course, I did; in abundance! Let me describe some:

- The beauty, dignity, poise, and style of Indian women. If you don’t find your eyes seduced and

bewitched by the ever present flow of female forms caressed by ecstatically colored saris, then

perhaps part of you is dead. Much more than mere ‘eye candy’, Indian women are the living

expression of the ideal of beauty. I saw little immodest flaunting, although they seemed to

exude great confidence in their beauty. Even women who aren’t especially good looking seem

flat out beautiful. There’s something much more to it than the simply physical.

- Temples and devotional structures and objects. The gods are everywhere! Ganesh the elephant

headed one; Durga, the mother of the Universe riding on her tiger; Shiva Nataraja dancing the

universe in and out of existence; Garuda the eagle headed one; Hanuman the monkey warrior;

Krishna the blue skinned, flute playing, eighth avatar of Vishnu, and so many other incarnations

of G-d The Creator, The Preserver, and The Destroyer. Yes, temples are everywhere but one rubs

elbows with these gods in the streets and shops and even on vehicles. Effigies, statuettes,

posters of them along with offerings of food, smoldering incense, and strung garlands of

marigolds are everywhere… everywhere! The lack of loud brouhaha about these gods and

humans communing with them adds to the sense one gets of the people’s certainty that the

gods are always present and doing their thing. They are given their due – shown proper respect

and homage – accepted as part of the environment and the reality of daily life. Tourists beware:

trying to evade the gods and avoid the reality that they benevolently permeate all existence is

futile!

- Chance juxtapositions. Bullock cart drivers with CELL phones; statuettes of Ganesh, the elephant

headed god, on our van’s dashboard; signage on public buses announcing free WiFi alongside

religious mottos; elephants on the highway alongside trucks; monkeys hopping over luxury cars -

the prosaic paired with the special, the ancient with the new, the traditional with the cutting

edge – things sit up against one another forming fleeting pairings that carry remarkable

meaning… and then the cosmic decks of cards is shuffled again, and then again and then again.

- Applied Art. Pattern on pattern. India is a visual cacophony of pattern, texture, color, text, and

image all mixed, overlapping, and competing and blending simultaneously in random and

wonderful combinations. Few surfaces are left unbroken visually. The painted patterns and

symbols of Rangoli decorate the floor at entryways – public buses and rickshaws are festooned

with symbols and messages in a never ending variety of hand crafted and stenciled fonts and

letter styles – women wear saris in an endless parade of color and pattern – buildings are

covered with relief sculpture – signage hangs on every shop front and building façade, draped

over lanes and alleys, all of it screaming for attention and then surrendering to its fate of

blending with competing visual elements to render India a visual landscape at once turbulent

and at rest.

- Dignity –Lives lived humbly, masses performing humble chores for a livelihood, countless

millions living a barebones lifestyle. Still, I found Indians to carry themselves, for the most part,

with great dignity. They simply don’t communicate a sense of feeling down trodden. I saw little

desperation, even among the aggressive hawkers and pathetic beggars that tend to congregate

around tourist attractions. Yes, I did see a few flare-ups of anger amongst the locals, and a few

shady looking characters sizing up the visitors. But still, compared to other groups I’ve seen in

places of equal need, the word that most prominently comes to mind is dignity, something I very

much appreciate.

- Elephants. Call them work animals if you must. Explain them away as temple ritual

accoutrements and tourist attractions. Still, one sees elephants in India and not as a rare

occurrence. They exist side by side with their human partners and worshippers. Elephants! (And

monkeys, too!)

Special Thanks to Kanti Kali and Champa Kali for the wonderful rides through the Nepalese jungle.

Mounted on your backs, the Nepalese jungle, an environment that is potentially dangerous, was made

safe enough for me to get a good look at the plants and creatures that live there. No maharajah would

have gotten a better ride at a more regal pace!

Mark Gura (on the right, below)