Winding Down & a Kashmiri Rug

My mom, Jenny and me at the Taj Mahal.

After visiting the Taj, we ate breakfast at the Oberoi Amarvilas - which recently ranked #6 on the Conde Nast list of best resorts in the world.

Mom had Dhosa, an Indian breakfast dish...

Jenny had French Toast, a luxury item that we haven't had for several months.

Mom (who has 11 grandchildren) petting a King Cobra at the City Palace in Jaipur.

Yesterday I talked with Sonal about how we’re going to set up the finances for the microcredit project. We decided that the best thing to do would be to set up a book within the Maitri account at their local bank, and then transfer the money in as women require loans. Every two or three months, the accumulated total would be transferred back into our SmithBarney or Zionsbank account. If women are making their payments, the loan disbursement will continue. Women must make on-time repayments before the other women in their group receive loans.

Winnie and the General took off last Thursday for the U.S. where they will be stopping at the U.N. and the Harvard School of Public Health. They will also swing by San Francisco and Washington D.C., and will be in Salt Lake for a few days. They have both done so much for all four of us, and we’re very appreciative. Before they left, Winnie gave us each a handmade blanket/shawl from Northeastern India – very exciting.

Over the weekend, my mom came into town. She, Jenny and I went on another spin around the Golden Triangle, where, along with the sites we had previously seen, we stopped at the City Palace in Jaipur, and at a number of emporiums.

Jenny and I decided to postpone any of our near-future vacation plans when we purchased a large Kashmiri rug. The rug set us back, but we figured it was substantially less than we would have paid anywhere in the U.S. My mom got two upgrades at The Claridges hotel in Delhi, so she has a pretty amazing suite for the price of a normal room. The Claridges is one of the nicer hotels in India, and Jenny and I have enjoyed the facilities so far. I’m going to hit up the plush spa tonight as Jenny and my mom go to a cooking class to learn Chicken Tikka Masala.

We’ve got one more week until we’re home. We’ve had such a blast out here, and we’re excited about the projects we’ve done and the impact they could have. It will be nice, however, to get a little piece of Salt Lake’s summer before we take off to Thailand.

The Presidential Estate, Dinner, and a Movie

This weekend, Jenny, Nancy, Kaitlyn and I talked politics, foreign affairs and green energy over tea at the President of India’s Estate. No big deal. In case you’re wondering, the answer is “no”, we were not discussing these topics with the President of India, Prathiba Patil. We were discussing them amongst ourselves…in the guest waiting room…prior to our guided tour of the estate…I had lemonade. It was still rad. We couldn't take our cameras with us, but here is a photo of the front. The dome is right above Durbar Hall (explained below).



When Jenny and I were in D.C., we went on the White House East Wing tour that shows the “Blue Room” and the “Red Room,” etc. that haven’t been used in decades. That tour requires a 3-6 month wait unless you know people. Today we took a tour of the Presidential Estate (or “abode” as they call it) in Delhi, and I think that we just happen to “know people” here. Winnie had her driver, Rajmal, take us directly to the front gate of the Estate this morning. When the guard said that we weren’t on the list for the day, Rajmal handed him the Executive Housekeeper’s business card, and we were on our way. Aside from being close to India’s president, Winnie is also good friends with the housekeeper (who actually has very legitimate duties).

Sheba, the housekeeper, previously trained the staff at the best hotels in India, and traveled all over the world to learn the best practices in the hospitality industry. She and her Presidential Estate staff treated us like gold. As I mentioned, we were treated to a tea service in a private guest room. We were the only 4 people walking around the estate, and our guide was remarkably laid back. From the guest room, we were led around the estate, which was first built by King George V in the 19th century. In the first wing, we saw an oversized replica of the British crown, the china and kitchen-ware used by the British viceroys, and old picnic baskets. That was pretty cool. Other, more notable stops on the tour included:

Durbar Hall, a large domed room, and the site where England handed “Power of Attorney” (as the guide called it) over to India on August 15, 1947.

Ashoka Hall, which I would describe as India’s Sistine Chapel. The entire ceiling is intricately painted with tigers, palm trees and elephants, with lots of bright blue, gold and red paint. Ashoka Hall is where many receptions are held for ambassadors, etc.

A massive banquet hall, decorated with old English rifles and revolvers, where international heads of state gather for dinners with the Indian President. Our guide lifted the covering off of the rug so that we could get a better look, and showed us where former U.S. Presidents have sat.
An art gallery with everything from romantic Rajasthani art to contemporary Buddhist art.

A side room with all of the gifts that Presidents of India have received, including recently discovered, ancient gold tablets from the President of Bahrain that indicate the historic relationship of Indians and Bahrainis; a sword from the King(?) of Saudi Arabia, and an Indian flag that Tenzing Norgay carried with him to the top of Mt. Everest.

A walk around the 12 acre Mughal Garden in back of the estate, and a peek into the President’s spotted deer park.

After the tour, and a brief stop at Khan market, our foursome parted ways – Nancy and Kaitlyn stuck around Kahn for some shopping, and Jenny and I headed for the Select Citywalk to catch dinner and the movie Hancock. Dinner was great, and the movie was alright as well. I was a little embarrassed by the violent image that the movie paints of the United States. I know everybody in the theater understood the fictional aspect of the movie, but I’ve never seen so many guns in one movie before. If that was all I’d seen of the U.S., I would just as soon vacation in Iraq. I wanted to tell the Indian family sitting next to us that the last time I heard a gun fired was when I was 12 at Steiner scout camp.

As I mentioned, Jenny and I had dinner prior to the movie. We ate at Geoffrey’s, a good bar/restaurant where we had eaten a few weeks earlier. Over cheese and spinach stuffed chicken, Jenny and I talked about how much fun we’ve had in our first two years of marriage: In the 2 and 1/3 years since our engagement, we’ve been to the four corners of the Continental United States (not UT,AR,NM, & CO, but CA,WA,ME,& FL) New York City (three times), Miami (twice), Boston (one and a half times), the San Juan Islands and Olympic Peninsula (thank you Mom and Dad!), and to a New Year’s Eve Gala in Catalina Island’s Grand Casino. We’ve been to South America (thank you Shelley and Dave!), numerous Caribbean Islands, and we had a three hour layover in Paris. We’ve lived in two national capitals and the Indian state of Andrha Pradesh (for two weeks). We’ve been on countless road trips, hikes, and dates. We’ve been to Jazz games, RSL games, U games, and the first ten minutes of an opera. We’ve played in soccer tournaments, ping pong matches and roller hockey games, and we just took up Yahtzee and our own version of the card game “War”. After all is said and done, though, there are few things we enjoy more than filling a bowl up with popcorn, making a batch of Orange Julius, and watching movies under a blanket, on the blue couch we got from my sister. The other day we lamented the fact that, once we get home, it will probably be a while before we get to spend every minute of two and a half months together again. We're so grateful to our family and friends, without whom, none of the things we’ve done would have been possible. The Hinckley Institute has sent us all over the world, our families have taken us in, and our friends have split gas money to California.

Miscellaneous

One of the more impressive series of archways in the Red Fort.

Retired Gen. Singh, our intern host. Who wouldn't want to work with this guy? I think I've said it several times before, but this guy was the leader of counter-terrorist forces throughout India. Pretty rad.

A member of the Haryana Police Academy in uniform.

Office yoga at Maitri (or perhaps East meets West)

The four of us in the back of a rickshaw, riding home from an event. It's a lot tighter fit than it looks.

Our driver, stopped in traffic. One side note - this guy had us piling on one side of his rickshaw as we went around turns, so that his rear wheel well didn't shred his tire. As we neared each turn, he would yell at us in a mix of Hindi and English.

Maitri's office, where we work.

Sorry for the slowdown in posts. Our internet has been down at our apartment, and we really haven’t done anything crazy over the past two weeks. We’ve done lots of smaller scale activities and trips, but nothing enormous, like the Taj Mahal or Varanasi. However, we did: go on a road-trip to police barracks; walk through the dethroned Shah Jahan’s Red Fort; shop at Delhi’s largest shopping center; and participate in a United Nations Development Program meeting on AIDS competence. We also finished a session of office yoga this morning.

First - an update on our work. Jenny has been working on a number of project outlines. She has compiled summaries of health education projects, and has created a Maitri summary, which concisely describes what Maitri does and how it benefits the community. She has also been creating Maitri’s first newsletter, which will go out to donors, Indian VIPs (the Indian President and Prime Minister perhaps), and others who sign up for it on Maitri’s website. Before she leaves India, she is excited to finish the creation of a 12 week health curriculum for women in Delhi’s slums. The curriculum includes information on safe food preparation, proper hygiene and good nutrition, among other topics.

I have created a microfinance business plan and spreadsheet showing how much money Maitri will need to start small scale microfinance operations. I am also putting together a slide show for potential borrowers. As many of the women are illiterate, the slide show is completely made up of pictures and symbols. Trying to show 20 women, through pictures, the importance of re-investing in a tailoring business has been enjoyable. While Maitri isn’t aiming to become anything like SKS, which has nearly 2 million borrowers, it is fun to think that I may have helped implement a program that benefits the borrowers, and the non-profit organization.

(Back to our sightseeing) We’ve traveled just about every weekend since we’ve been in India, but so far, we haven’t seen too much of Delhi. Over the 4^th of July weekend we decided to stay in town, and our work has taken us to a number of places in and around Delhi over the past week.

Our roommate, Nancy, is dating a guy back home who is half Indian. His aunt and uncle, Piu and Gary, live in Delhi, and on July 4^th, they took us out for a night on the town. Until then, we had only seen the tourist sites and several markets and parks, but Gary and Piu took us to the Select Citywalk, a shopping center that would rival any of the best malls in the U.S. We talked with Gary about his job as the head of marketing for a weapon simulator company that sells to police units and the Indian military. Piu was endlessly energetic, and told us numerous times that we should call her anytime, even if we only needed a ride to a nearby market.

Gary and Piu bought the four of us dinner at Jeffries, an upscale restaurant/bar inside the mall. We ate Indian appetizers (some kind of grilled chicken kebab), Lebanese spicy chicken pitas with hummus, cashew chicken, and large coconut shrimp. As we ate, we talked about sports and culture in India, and heard about Gary’s travels to Paris and Dubai, among other places. Gary is fond of table tennis, and he accepted my challenge to play at a local rec center before we take off.

After dinner, we grabbed ice cream at a popular stand and chatted some more before catching a late movie at the mall’s movie theater. I couldn’t believe how late Gary and Piu were down to stay out. They were pretty determined to take us to the movie, even with two kids at home and a road trip planned for the next morning. We didn’t get home until 2:30 in the morning, and Jenny set a new personal record for staying up late.

While I won’t go into the details of the movie (it was an American movie about quintessential American material girls - not really mine and Jenny’s pick), I will say that this theater was amazing. The chairs all reclined to 45 degree angles and there was plenty of legroom.

We went back to the mall the next day (Saturday, July 5^th) and found an awesome, inexpensive vegetarian restaurant. Now, prior to coming to India, I thought that the word ‘vegetarian’ was just a good way to start a conversation. Ever since my bad experience with “chicken parmesan” at Wild Oats, I decided that vegetarianism wasn’t my cup of tea. However, India’s “veg” food has made me a believer. Our meal at this restaurant (the name escapes me) consisted of several outstanding dishes. One had cauliflower, peppers, green beans and ginger in a yellow curry sauce. Another dish was made of mashed lentils in tomato cream sauce. We poured the two dishes over a plate of fried rice, and pushed it onto our forks with cheese naan. It was AMAZING.

On Sunday afternoon (July 6^th) we went to Old Delhi to look through the silver bazaar and to visit the Red Fort. While the silver shops were closed, Sunday is apparently the day of the used book market, and we saw vendor after vendor with his or her piles of books for sale.

We wandered down Chandni Chowk (the main street in Old Delhi) to the Red Fort, and were impressed with the façade, but not equally impressed with the inside. To be honest, the fort was somewhat of a let-down. After all our sightseeing, the Red Fort just didn’t match up. The fort was constructed by Shah Jahan, the same guy who built the Taj Mahal. He didn’t rule from the Red Fort for very long because his son, Aurangzeb, imprisoned him and basically took over. There were actually several semi-interesting sites in the fort, including Aurangzeb’s personal mosque and bath house.

I’m just going to be honest, the best part of our afternoon in Old Delhi was a stop at McDonald’s for a wafflecone which was made in front of our eyes and which made our vanilla soft-serve melt quickly.

Last week was rather busy in terms of trips and events. Last Monday, we drove all morning, with Winnie and the General, to a police academy in the neighboring state of Haryana. The academy is basically a large enclosed town, where police recruits live with their families and are trained. We watched a recruiting video and our supervisors talked with two sets of recruits about HIV/AIDS, and the ways in which the virus can be prevented. As the meeting was conducted in Hindi, the four interns didn’t have too much to teach. I was assigned to take photos of the event:

On Wednesday we had a kick-off event for the OMAXE construction worker project that Maitri is working on. Maitri was contracted by one of the largest construction companies in India to teach thousands of employees about TB and HIV prevention. Oh, and on the way home from this event, our car stopped running no less than 6 times. 5 of those times we had to jump out of the car and push for about 100 feet, in 6:00 Delhi traffic, until the car started. It was a memorable expereince.

Finally, on Friday we attended a conference hosted by the United Nations Development Programme. The mediator was a big, happy, teddy bear of a man, from Belgium. We talked about how to make progress in AIDS education, particularly in communities that may view people trying to help as “outsiders.” We also evaluated the current condition of HIV/AIDS prevention and de-stigmatization in India and talked about the ideal scenarios in a 10 categories including: access to treatment, inclusion, and risk patterns.

Jenny and I followed our enjoyable 4^th of July weekend up with an equally laid-back 11^th of July weekend. We hung out, watched about 6 movies, and discovered the most incredible chicken malai tikka at the restaurant in our complex – Colonel Kabobs. Chicken malai tikka is a set of skewers of spicy grilled chicken with a tangy sauce reminiscent of Café Rio’s tomatillo. So much for vegetarianism.

Maitri just started doing office yoga the other day. Vijay, a personal yogi, comes and has us breathing, chanting, and twisting in our chairs. Vijay claims that Gandhi only slept 3 hours per night, and could still function perfectly because he performed yoga several times a day. While Jenny and I still need more than 3 hours, the yoga was very soothing.

June 23 - 30, 2008. Anniversary & Golden Triangle

Jenny inside of the Amber Fort in Jaipur.
The Taj Mahal - almost as photogenic as Jenny.

Jenny and I at the Taj Mahal.

Jenny and I celebrated our 2-year wedding anniversary last week. We talked about what we remembered from our wedding day, and how we’re still enjoying the other’s company as much as we did (or more than) when we were first married. Anniversary gifts included an Indian pillow, soap made out of a berry unique to the Himalayas, incense, and a stone incense holder in the shape of a lotus – India’s national flower. Kaitlyn & Nancy bought us a fruit tart that was reminiscent of the one that keeps me going back to Gastronomy joints. It’s hard to believe that we’ve been married for over two years!

We left on Friday for the former Rajput stronghold, Jaipur. Jaipur is located on the western edge of the state of Rajasthan, which is famous for traditional Indian desert scenery. The pink coral paint that is used in Jaipur is a mix of calcium and the red sand found in the surrounding area. The Maharaja, in 1876(?) ordered that all of the buildings on the main streets be painted pink for a visit from the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). The buildings are still painted pink, and the current Maharaja regularly plays Polo with Prince Charles.
The influences of English colonialism, for better or worse, are some of my favorite things to think about in India. The Taj Mahal, for instance, is an example of Mughal architecture, but the surrounding gardens were constructed during the British reign and are modeled after the elaborate gardens in England. The fact that a Rajput Maharaja in the Indian desert and the heir to the throne of England regularly play Polo together is another interesting result of colonialism.

Jaipur is known for its shopping, and our first stop was Rajasthali, an emporium of clothes, pottery, jewelry, and random handicrafts. I bought an Indian shirt that looks more Hawaiian than anything else. Jenny bought bangles and a silver necklace. After a long car ride, and an hour of shopping, we were famished, and decided to refuel at the Om Tower, revolving restaurant. While the motor that moved our floor around was quite jerky, and the four of us all became nauseous at some point in the meal, we did enjoy the panoramic views of Jaipur and the paneer masala with garlic nan. Masala is one of the spicier sauces in India, and paneer is a kind of cheese that doesn’t melt when heated.

We stayed at the Krishna Palace in a residential neighborhood on the far end of Jaipur. Imagine if your neighbor remodeled his or her house to resemble a 6 story, yellow Hindu temple, and then threw spotlights up in the street to display the building at night. Add a rooftop restaurant, and that’s what the Krishna Palace is like.

In the morning we left at 8:30 to spend the morning at the Amber Fort, Jai Singh’s temporary residence, built in 1728. Jai Singh was the Maharaja at the time, and put a number of really cool features in the fort. One feature is the aqueduct system, which brings in rainwater from the surrounding mountains. The first rain of the monsoon season clears out the debris and flows into the “unclean water” reservoir. After that the rain flows into the “clean water” reservoir which has a capacity for 6 million gallons.

Another cool feature was the fort’s cannon. Here are its stats:
It is the largest wheeled cannon in the world
It requires 4 elephants to turn it
It weighs 250 tons
Each shot requires 100 Kg of gun powder
The ball weighs 50 Kg and is made of solid iron
In the lone firing of the cannon - a test run - the ball flew 22 miles. The man who lit the fuse blew out his eardrums, despite running 100 feet from the cannon. Because the Rajputs were such good diplomats with the Mughals the cannon was never needed.

The fort also had an extensive collection of elephant saddles, and was inhabited by dozens of monkeys and a rather arrogant camel. We enjoyed walking around the maze of gardens, courtyards and hallways, and were even treated to a live puppet show. One of the more interesting rooms was the Maharaja’s bedroom, which contained one double-California king size bed, and was open to a courtyard where actors and musicians used to play. From the walls of the fort, we enjoyed spectacular vistas of the surrounding landscape, and watched mother monkeys run back and forth, their babies clinging to their chests.
From the Amber Fort, we went back into town and visited the Hawa Mahal, one of Jaipur’s signature buildings. The Hawa Mahal, which is five stories of honeycombed holes and shuttered windows, was built by a Maharaja so that women could observe the goings-on in the city without being seen.We sat in the air-conditioned LMB restaurant for Lunch and ate masala, cheese nan, and vegetable kofta, which are balls of mashed potato and vegetables. After lunch we walked up and down Johari Bazaar. We bought Jenny a sari, and a turquoise and silver necklace, as well as some elaborately decorated, rustic looking silver coasters. We stopped in for ice cream at the LMB one more time, and then Jenny and I walked to the top of a minaret that looked out over the entire city of Jaipur.

We left for Agra in the late afternoon. The sun was setting over endless fields, and it would occasionally highlight a woman walking slowly through the bright green, wearing a dark purple sari, or carrying a terra cotta pot on her head.

One of the roads had flooded, and traffic was backed up. I took the opportunity to grab a picture of the quirky semi trucks that carry coal or wheat, or linen all over India. Indian semis are decorated much differently than American semis. The Indian semi is a little more…playful than its American counterpart. The vast majority of Indian trucks are covered with bright drawings of country scenes or baby cows rubbing up against their mother. Many have symmetric decorations on the front, or stars painted on the sides. This weekend I saw a semi with something like Gerber daisies tied to its windshield wipers. I couldn’t help but wonder if any American truck drivers have Gerber daisies on their windshields. I know that my Mom has thrown the idea around of becoming a truck driver when she retires from her law practice someday (she swears she’s not kidding), and I could actually see her with Gerber daisies on her windshield wipers.

If the term “no frills” had a face, that face would be the $20-a-night Hotel Sheela in Agra. By “no frills,” I mean no soap, no shampoo, no toilet paper, and no blanket. The one thing that the Sheela has going for it is that it is located 100 feet from the gate to the Taj Mahal, and that was good enough for us. We rolled out of bed on Sunday, at 5:30, to catch the last bit of the sunrise over the Taj.

The Taj Mahal is, without a doubt, the most photogenic building I’ve ever seen. Every side offers spectacular views. We walked in and out of the buildings and parks on the side of the Taj, and around the Taj itself, and I kept thinking about how incredible the place was. Built between 1631 and 1653 (which is debated), the Taj was a memorial and gravesite for Shah Jahan’s favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14th child. Shah Jahan was overthrown by his son Aurangzeb, and spent the rest of his life imprisoned in Agra Fort, where he could see the Taj Mahal out of his window.

As we were travel weary, and had spent the last two nights in budget hotels, the four of us decided to dine at the Bellevue, inside of the Oberoi Amar Vila. The Oberoi is one of the nicest hotels in India, and its rooms range from $800 to $5000 a night. The hotel is one that you would probably find in the “Top 100 Hotels” edition of Conde Nast Traveler. The entrance to the grounds is all cobblestone, and is lined with palm trees. There is an entryway that leads to an enormous courtyard with symmetrical fountains, and a small meeting area with large wooden chairs covered by plush, starched-white cushions. Little marble basins, filled with water and floating pink flowers, are scattered around the premises, and the only sounds are soft classical music and the trickling fountains. Doormen and greeters welcome you at each turn. At the risk of sounding too American, I felt like saying, “Hey, I’ll get my own door, I’m just here for the buffet.”

The Oberoi’s brunch buffet is a little more affordable than its rooms. At $13 per person, it was a highly touted bargain in our travel books. We ate platefuls of European pastries and quiche, yogurt with mangoes, pineapple, plums and pomegranate, and several bowls of cold cereal. Afterwards, we looked around the hotel, asked to see one of the rooms (which all have views of the Taj Mahal), and shopped at the hotel’s boutiques. Jenny and I came away with a large, painted, rocking-elephant that I originally named Ernie. Jenny said that we needed to christen him with an Indian name, so we’re calling him Ravi for now. We’re still open to suggestions.