Lucknow

Lucknow was an overnight train ride from Haridwar - a train that we only just managed to catch, time having escaped from us on our day trip to Rishikesh. We boarded the train with minues to spare, not knowing what carriage we were meant to be in. The travel agent had assured us of a birth, but it turned out that this was 'reserved against cancellation', meaning that we were promised at least a birth to share. After being passed form coach to coach by various carriage guards, we eventually found our spot. In sleeper class, the most basic class, for which we were unprepared with a lack of our own bedding and the chilly air that blew in through the windows that wouldn't shut!

Finally in Lucknow, and accomodation secured in a government run tourist hotel, that was cheerfully in the midst of wedding season (a party every night I was there) it was time for a rest and then some food. A short nap and stocked up on channa and puri (chickpeas and inflated fried roti/chapati) we went and visited the Residency, where the Brits set up home in the late 1700's. The residency is of historical importance as it is where an uprising took place, and could be considered as the first initial move towards independence for India. The 1874 (I must check this date) Siege of Lucknow was bloody and left the austere red brick building in ruins. The uprising failed, which is possible just as well, as at the time India had no post independance plan and could well have left the India people very vulnerable.

Also in Lucknow are a couple of Imambarra's, which are mosques and complexes (small cities almost), that were built and lived in by the Moghuls of the time (date??). The barra Imambarra is huge and beautiful, and the emporer of the time certainly had his finger on the pulse - with walls that can carry the slightest whisper (it's true, we tried it) and pools of water that were used like mirrors, the cominfgs and goings of the palace were very transparent and no plotting would have taken place with out him knowing!

At hotel Capoor there was some ghazals being played and sung - a little disppointing though. The devotional love songs are very strict in their format (having a couplet rhyme and a refrain) and are accompanied by the tabla and harmonium. Our musicians seemed to be using the seesion to practice rather than perform, with the tabla player stoppping midway through to answer his mobile phone!

Rishikesh

The view across the bridge to the main Hindu temple in Rishikesh
A hippy type figure

A day trip to Rishikesh was juct enough. It takes an hour or so by bus and then a short auto rickshaw ride to the main ghat temple. The temple here is like a multi story affair, with many of the deities on disply in their own little shrines - great for swotting up on the gids and goddesses. I think I can recognise the difference between a Vishnu and a Shiva now, or a Durga and a Kali.

Apart form westerner hippies and wanna-be spiritualist who are no doubt running away from something or other , or young gap year kids dressed in the apparently required baggy coullottes or trousers and kurtas, (all this makes me cringe) Rishikesh is quite pleasant. Being further north than Haridwar the river flows quickly and again looks clean. There are ashrams and yoga and meditation classes at every turn, but I found that the peace and quite on a riverside beach meditative enough....

Hari Ki Pairi Pundits

Our little friend
Haridwar and the Ganges from the cable-car

On the quieter side of Haridwars Ganga riverside

Haridwar is an attractive town, in that it has all the hustle and bustle that is expected of India, but full of gentle folk from the shop keeper to the subzi wallah to those that run the tin shack dhabbas. The only ones to be wary of are the pundits around the Hari Ki Pairi temple and ghat on the banks of the Ganges.

The Ganga is revered as a goddess in her own right, hence why puja and offering are made by way of pundits and aarti all along it's banks, prayers are said, tikki smudges dabbed on forheads, red yarn wrapped around wrists, prassad (a food offering) eaten, and flowers and candles placed in leaf baskets then dropped into the flowing river. If youmanage to find a sincere pundit then the experience can peaceful and up lifting. My pundit, however, needed a lesson in economics , raising the 'donation' for a 5 Braman prayer from 50Rs to 500Rs. Thanmkfully Ganesha or Durga gave me the strength not to succumb, and 50Rs was accepted. He must have felt short changed though, as I never got my flowers and candles to drop in the water!

While here my traveling companion and I made got chatting and made friends with a 12yr old boy called Sriprakash, who had left his village 2 years ago to earn a living. He works helping a small sweetshop and chai wallah stall, and hope that when he is married he will have is own stall and cook food. He had the broadest of smiles that is enough to shame anybody, including me, who thinks they are down on their uppers. While he might not be at school, he can read and write Hindi, write his own name in English and is learning skills on the job that may just earn him a living wage once 'grown up'. By all opbswervations, from the way styish way he wore his blanket to the way he dealt with customers and that fact that he apparently thinks nothing of hoping on a train for two days to see his family, Sriprakash is already grown up. Amazing and sad all at once.

all change!

At last I am out of Delhi! It's a peculiar thing, how my view of Delhi has changed over the last month or so.... I now see (and feel it) as a ferociously congested city carved up by flyovers and highways, thick with smog, coating my skin in a fine layer of grey dust, clogging my airways and stinging my eyes, all making my stay there ever less enjoyable as each day passed. Maybe my attitude was triggered as I knew I would be embarking on a(nother) new adventure - choosing to jack in my crappy job and finally get my thinking cap on as to how to achieve what I actually want.... sound like no small feat eh? And it wont be.

The next few weeks are about me getting a grasp of the things that I love about India, the small town idioms and visual delights that make my heart flutter. Armed with my camara and a notebook I am undertaking some visual research that will put me in good stead for future plans..."I love my India".... more on that much later.

So with my room finally let out, after kicking to the curb a bhaang smoking, viagra taking spaniard with designs of becoming the next Howard Marks (can you believe this guy works for the Spanish Emabssy?) and finding a sweet Australian girl who will fit right in with Penny and Sarah - Delhi's most notorious ozzi expats, I am off. Watch this space.