"Study Abroad" Tours in Delhi

Delhi has a lot of interesting things to experience if you are coming on an educational tour. It's a great place for understanding Indian political history; and even more interesting if you want to understand the multiple cultures and faiths that co-exist in India. And of course, there are many museums, workshops, art and music shows, and interesting cuisine experiences as well.

Here's our lovely group of 25 students from Johannesskolen Denmark. They have been touring Delhi with us for the past 4 years. We enjoy their openness to new cultures and willingness to explore. In the foreground you can see the local college students from Delhi, who took them around. The interaction with local students provides very rich opportunities for mutual understanding.

On this visit we arranged multiple experiences for them in Delhi:

- A survey of living conditions in the Ram Nagar area. Ram Nagar in Shahdara is one of the oldest residential areas of Delhi. Students did a survey of residents, with a questionnaire. We taught them basic Hindi to prepare for this : - ) The people were very welcoming of the students, inviting them for tea and being so hospitable!

- An exploration of Old Delhi using the Metro, rickshaw and walking. Students visited and volunteered at the Sikh Gurudwara, learnt about different faiths and cultures of India, saw the Metro in operation, and explored the famous traditional bazaars.

- A look at recycling industry in Delhi, and understanding the education system and daily life in a low-income neighbourhood.

Through interactions with local college students of Delhi, the Johanneskolen students gained a deeper understanding of the realities of modern Delhi. Similarly, our college students learnt about the Danish people.

We look forward to Johanneskolen's visit again next year. 

Flame of the Forest

"Flame of the Forest" might be a romantic sounding name, but don't forget, it's also called Bastard Teak, lol.

The beauty of the dry deciduous forests of India reaches the peak when most trees have dropped their leaves, and the Flame of the Forest is in its full bloom.

Some of you might be interested to know that spoons made of this tree are used for ghee-oblations, and in the days before matchboxes, the bark of this tree was lit and used to start the daily agnihotram at sunrise and sunset.

Because the tree is indigenous to India, it finds mention in many literary sources, from vedas to love poetry.

If you've heard about the Battle of Plassey - where the English defeated the Nawab of Bengal - that comes from Palash, the Bengali word for this tree.

Tagore chose the Palash to celebrate the basanta ustsav at Santiniketan. See that little curved hook on the flower? Like Santhali women, you too can use the hook to tuck the flower behind your ear as you walk the lanes of Santiniketan.

Photo clicked by yours truly, in Ranthambhore. You can also spot these trees in Delhi, in the Central Ridge, or at Qutb Complex, or near the Kalkaji temple.

Kos Minar (distance markers)

We are on the old Delhi Agra highway. Here's the Kos Minar we photographed.

These were originally laid in the mid-1500's by the Pashtun ruler Sher Shah Suri along the Grand Trunk Road. Subsequently the Mughals also made a practice of erecting them.

Kos Minars served as important milestones to help measure distances in the Empire. Agra was the Mughal capital,  and from there the Kos Minars radiated outward, towards Ajmer, Lahore and Mandu (Madhya Pradesh).

All along these highways, there were forts (qilas), fortified towns (shehrs), resting places for travellers (caravanserais), stepwells (baolis), postal system (dak chowkis), and many shady trees.

The word Kos itself is confusing, because there exist in India different measures of what a Kos actually means. Kos comes from the Sanskrit krosha, and has many references in traditional Sanskrit texts. Alexander Cunningham, a British engineer, who went on to found the Archaeological Survey of India in the mid-1800s wrote about the kos measurement system in his book The Ancient Geography of India. He says that in North India, there were three widely accepted types of kos:
- the short kos, or the Padshahi kos, about 1.25 miles, used in north-west frontier and Punjab
- the kos of the Gangetic provinces, which is about 2.25 miles
- the long kos, which is used south of the Yamuna, in the Bundelkhand region, which is about 4 miles (and also used in Mysore)

Cunningham says the first two are actually part of the same system, that the Gangetic kos is just twice that of the Padshahi. Jahangir built his sarais (inns) every 8 kos, that is about 10 miles. The British, who also understood the importance of the Grand Trunk Road, chose to maintain it just like the empires before them. They  built dak-bungalows, resting houses used by officers and for postal communication, every 10 miles.

Gramin Seva - a good idea that needs stricter monitoring

If you live in a slum or village on the outskirts of Delhi, you will probably find yourself using one of these decrepit Gramin Seva vehicles for transport. 

The Gramin Seva (Village Service) vans were introduced in 2010. Licenses were granted to 6000 vehicles, mostly 3-wheelers, to ferry people from the villages and slums in the peripheral areas of Delhi. It was a great idea, to meet the needs of an expanding city. The vans offered poor people cheap connectivity to the major city junctions, from where they could further connect via metro, bus and train.

Ticket prices for Gramin Seva have always been low; they range from 5 to 10 rupees in most cases, and for longer distances it is 15 rupees. However, passengers routinely have to deal with overloading of vehicles beyond the permitted capacity of 6 adults. Owners of the vehicles say they cannot run a sustainable service, if they only take 6 people. Sometimes the vans are crammed with double the allowed capacity! The van owners do not invest in vehicle repair, and although there are norms for the quality of the vehicles, most of them are now old and falling apart.

In addition, some vehicles do not ply on their designated rural/outer routes. Instead, they choose more commercially viable routes where they are not authorised to ply (by law, they can ply only up to the Inner Ring Road; and they cannot cross the Inner Ring Road into the city). Several errant vehicles have been issued challans (traffic violation notices) by the Delhi traffic police. 

 

But if you live in a slum or farflung peripheral village, Gramin Seva is still one of the cheapest options, given the shortage of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses in such areas. The big DTC buses cannot ply these unviable far-flung routes. In many areas, private enterprise has also stepped in to fill the gap. Many private vehicles operate as vans. In some places, there are even private bus services. 

Recently the AAP government has checked and renewed licenses for 4200 of the original 6000 Gramin Seva vehicles. Hopefully some of the really decrepit ones have been thrown out. They have made it mandatory for the vehicles to be fitted with a working GPS, so that it is easy to track whether a vehicle goes out of its assigned route. Will things improve? We can only hope!

Hast-Mudra (Hand-Symbols) at Delhi airport

If you fly into Delhi's Terminal 3, you'll see this: a big installation of hasta-mudras (hand-symbols) as you come down the escalator in the arrivals area.

Like all human gestures, these hastra-mudras are primarily meant for communication. Each one has a meaning and a way of usage. 

The language of mudras was once understood by all Indians; but unfortunately, it has now become an esoteric piece of knowledge, understood only by specialists. The typical visitor to the airport walks past these hands thinking, ah, ok, ummm, mudras, yes, very good, very good, great Indian traditions, yes, yes, very good indeed :) :)

But what do these mudras mean?

An explanation for these symbols can be found in the Natyashastra, a classical manual on the theory and practice of Indian aesthetics (theatre, music, dance, poetics, etc). Based on linguistic analysis and references, scholars date the Natyashastra anywhere from 2nd century BCE to 2nd century CE.

Chapter 9 of the Natyashastra explains 67 types of mudras, dividing them into those using a single hand, and those requiring two hands. It also explains general rules regarding their usage, how the arms are to be moved, the "quantity" or extent of gesturing to be done, etc.

For example, the symbol in the photo here is called "tripataka". Pataka = flag, and tripataka = flag with 3 fingers.

The tripataka mudra can be used for crowning a king; for example, with both hands in tripataka, you can depict the placement of a crown on someone's head.

This mudra is used for anointing someone's forehead with a tilaka. This mudra, with the finger pointing downwards and hand moving up and down is used to represent the flight of a small bird, or the movement of a stream or of a snake.

It is used for raising up something; for example, if you are giving blessings to someone who has fallen at your feet, you can raise the person using two hands in tripataka.

With two tripataka hands facing each other, you can represent a door. You can use it to wipe off tears.

It has more exotic uses as well - for example, if you want to depict an underwater fight between two monsters, you can use tripataka! The jumping of monkeys is also represented using tripataka.

As you can see, a single mudra is used in different ways and combinations, to create different meanings. Traditional classical dance performances in India usually use these gestures as part of their vocabulary.

One of the major reasons why classical dances lose out to 'modern'  dance is the loss of this vocabulary. Over the years, the audiences no longer understand the gestures, and a vital link between performer and audience has been lost. A painstaking re-education is the only way to revive it. It's either that, or resign ourselves to losing these traditions.

Rickshaw wallah woes

It's a fine art, the stacking of cases on a rickshaw: there are no ropes to hold it in place. Only gravity, and a fine sense of balance. It's a mild winter sun, making it easy for the rickshaw puller. In summer the same trip will be gruelling.

In this photo, you can see the license number of the rickshaw. I wrote earlier, about the rickshaw wallahs of Delhi, and their never-ending fight to earn a living, given the artificial restrictions on getting a license (confiscations of unlicensed rickshaws are a good source of income for officials).

In 2012, the courts ordered the Delhi Government to treat Non-Motorized Vehicles (NMVs) as an integral part of city traffic (instead of treating them as an unwanted nuisance). Rickshaws were to be legalized by providing a system of open registration. This has been happening now, and I hear from the Manushi website that random confiscations of rickshaws have reduced.

In Sep 2014, the Union Urban Development Ministry has ordered the Delhi Government to create lanes for NMV vehicles on all arterial roads without delay. Let's see how long that takes! 

How to visit the Hill forts of Rajasthan, now on UNESCO World Heritage List

Last week, a set of 6 Hill Forts of Rajasthan were declared UNESCO World Heritage sites.

The forts range from the 7th century to the 16th century. Taken together, these rugged hill forts tell us about the political, cultural, social and architectural evolution of the ruling Rajput caste in the history of India.  Many are scenes of valour, and exemplify the Rajput belief in "death before dishonour".

These forts are built strategically on the Aravalli range, which is the oldest mountain range in India. According to UNESCO, they constitute "the most authentic, best conserved and most representative sites of Rajput military architecture".

Since there will likely be renewed interest in these forts, I thought I'd write something practical about where these forts are located, and how to get to them.

The forts on the list are:

(1) Chittorgarh (Chittaurgah) - this fort is 2hrs to the north-east of Udaipur. If you are driving between Jaipur and Udaipur, you can visit this fort on the way, although it will make for a long day. The ideal way to visit it is as a day excursion from Udaipur. See more details here: http://udaipurmagic.net/excursion-chittorgarh.html

Chittorgarh Fort, where the poetess Meera and the famous Rani Padmini lived

(2) Kumbhalgarh - it is 2.5hrs to the north of Udaipur. If you are driving between Udaipur and Jodhpur, you can visit this fort. Also, you can combine it with a visit to the temples at Ranakpur. You can do a day excursion from Udaipur, see details here: http://udaipurmagic.net/ranakpur-and-kumbhalgarh.html. You can also choose to spend the night at Kumbhalgarh, the Aodhi hotel is a very nice option. There's a sound and light show in the evenings.

Kumbhalgarh Fort, said to have the longest wall after the Great Wall of China

(3) Gagron Fort - this fort is in Jhalawar, in the south eastern part of Rajasthan. Surrounded by the waters of the Ahu and Kali Sindh rivers on three sides, it is one of the finest examples of water forts. If you are driving between Udaipur and Jaipur, you can take a break at Bundi and visit Gagron as a day trip from Bundi. It is about 2.5hrs drive from Bundi.

Gagron Fort, Jhalawar. Rajasthan's only strategic water fort.

(4) Ranthambhore Fort - located uniquely inside a tiger sanctuary, this fort is home to a popular Ganesha temple. It is accessible all days of the week and makes for a good visit combined with jungle safaris. Ranthambhore is 6hrs drive from Agra, and 4hrs from Jaipur (the nearest airport). More about my tiger sighting at Ranthambhore here. It is very popular with tourists, so expect crowds. 

Ranthambhore Fort, as seen from entrance to Zone 2 jungle safari

(5) Amber Fort - Most tours to India include a visit to Amber in Jaipur. In fact, Amber (also called Amer) is probably the most visited fort in Rajasthan, because it is part of the popular Golden Triangle circuit. There are elephant rides to the top of the fort. For how to visit Amer Fort, see this link: http://delhimagic.com/golden_tri.html

(6) Jaisalmer Fort - Jaisalmer Fort, or Sonar Qila, the Golden Fort - Its massive yellow sandstone walls are a tawny lion color during the day, fading to honey-gold as the sun sets. Jaisalmer is 6hrs drive from Jodhpur. At the moment there are no flights to Jaisalmer.

Sonar Qila, Jaisalmer

I created a map, showing where these forts are located. I'm sure you'll find it useful.

Map of HILL FORTS OF RAJASTHAN

Each of the hill forts selected in this list is of "Outstanding Universal Value" with "advanced construction techniques exploiting natural terrain and contours for defense". They also have "unique social associations with Rajput courtly life". Many are the sites of ritual suicides, the Rajput mass-immolations called jauhar. The temples and palaces inside them are extraordinarily beautiful. These hill forts represent the most sophisticated and evolved examples of secular Hindu Rajput architecture, utilizing the wealth of natural resources and located in an extraordinary geographical setting.  .

I hope you will visit at least some of these forts this year. If you need help with planning the trip, please email me at deepa@delhimagic.com

Photo sources:
Chittorgarh, Kumbhalgarh, Jaisalmer - Wikimedia Commons
Gagron Fort, Jhalawar - http://www.liveindia.com/rajasthan/jhalawar12.jpg
Amber Fort: Stephen Mullis sent this photo to me, he travelled with Delhi Magic to Jaipur
Ranthambhore Fort - my own camera

Signboards in Delhi - and the language debates in India

-by Aishwarya Pramod

If you drive through the streets of central Delhi, you'll come across road signs like this one:

Dr. Zakir Hussain Marg is an arterial road leading south-east from India Gate

The name of the road is written in the four main languages of Delhi - from top to bottom, these are:
- Hindi (in the Devnagri script)
- English (in the Roman alphabet)
- Punjabi (in the Gurmukhi script) and
- Urdu (in a modified form of the Persian nastaliq script).

Under Mughal rule in Old Delhi, the official court language was Persian, the formal and elaborate language of scholars.

A section of an official firman from the Mughal Emperor 
Aurangzeb's rule, late 17th century

Although Persian was used for official purposes, the real lingua franca was Hindustani - a language which pre-dated the Mughals. Hindustani arose in the 11th century AD, through contact between the local Indian population, and various Muslim invaders, traders and religious men who settled in Hindustan from the north-west. It was a hotch-potch language which allowed speakers of Turkic, Arabic and Persian to communicate with native Indian speakers. In Delhi, the popular local language was Khadi Boli. Hindustani retained the grammar and structure of Khadi Boli but also absorbed a large number of Persian, Arabic and Turkic words for better cross-cultural communication. Typically, Hindus wrote Hindustani in the native Devnagri script, while Muslims wrote Hindustani in a modified version of the Persian script. 

When the East India Company came to power after the Mughals, they continued to use Persian for administrative purposes. Only in the 1830's did the Company replace Persian by introducing English as the official language at higher levels of administration. At the lower levels, government business was conducted in Indian vernacular languages. In much of north India, this language was Hindustani. 

When the British declared Hindustani with Persian script to be a co-official language in much of north India, Hindus cried foul. They wanted the native Devnagiri script to be used.

The terms 'Hindi' and 'Urdu' came to be used for two versions of Hindustani. Both started out very similar, but slowly,  'Hindi' became the Devnagri script based, increasingly Sanskritized version, and 'Urdu' became the Persian script based version. Hindi became a Hindu language and Urdu became a Muslim language (see this article for a more detailed explanation). 

Signboard for a Unani medicine shop in Old Delhi. The Devnagri script is on the right

After the British left, the issue of official language came up again. Adopting a Constitution written in English, the colonizers' language, was offensive to many members of the Constituent Assembly. An Indian language had to be chosen.

But India had more than 400 living languages. Even apart from the growing communal divide between Hindi and Urdu, the south Indian states spoke Dravidian languages, which were entirely different. So, in which language should the affairs of government be run? And of course, which language (and which script?!) should be designated India's rashtra-bhasha, the national language?

The Constituent Assembly of India with Jawaharlal Nehru at the rostrum.
The Assembly saw many heated arguments regarding the language issue.

Nehru and Gandhi both felt that Hindustani could be used as an all-India language of communication, using both the Urdu and Devnagri scripts. Gandhi especially tried to promote Hindustani as the perfect language to bridge the gap between Hindus and Muslims.

The Partition of India effectively killed all talk of Hindustani. It significantly reduced the number of Urdu speakers in India, as many Muslims went to Pakistan (although Old Delhi still has many Urdu speakers). Partition also brought in a large number of Hindu and Sikh Punjabi-speaking refugees to Delhi.

A Sikh family on the move. Post Partition, nearly 500,000 refugees poured
 into Delhi from western Punjab, Sindh and the Northwest Frontier. 

The refugees spread out through the city, squatting wherever they could. Eventually they were allocated land to the south and west of Lutyens' Delhi, where today we can see the large number of colonies dominated by Punjabis. Displaying thrift and business skills, the Punjabis eventually came to play an important role in Delhi's trade and commerce. Thus Delhi has made multiple transformations, from a Mughal, to a British, to a Punjabi city.

The refugees moved into camps, gurudwaras, temples, 
schools, military barracks, pavements as well as parks in Delhi.

After Partition, Hindi became further Sanskritized. But Hindi was even less acceptable to the Dravidian states than Hindustani (as this photo from a South Indian newspaper shows!).

Front page of Periyar E. V. Ramasamy's Tamil 
periodical Kudi-arasu (3 September 1939). 
The headline reads "Veezhga Indhi"
 (Down with Hindi)

Finally, in spite of protests, the Assembly decided that Hindi in Devnagiri script would be the government's official language. To give the non-Hindi speaking states time to learn Hindi, the Assembly decided that English would continue for the next 15 years for Centre-State communication. Also, each State and Union Territory could have their own official language for official communication within the state.

After the expiry of the 15-year period, in 1963, attempts were made to end the use of English. But large scale protests from non-Hindi speaking states ensured the continued use of English as the official language of the government.

Delhi, as a Union Territory, originally adopted Hindi as its official language. It also continues to issue orders and circulars in English. In 2003, Urdu (in the Urdu script) and Punjabi (in the Gurmukhi script) were added as official languages. Since then, all government signs, roads, etc. bear names in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and English.

Raj Path (King's Way), with the President's House at the far end

Truck art in India - I love it :)

One of the pleasures of a driving holiday in India is the gaily painted trucks I get to see on the road.

Truck art interests me because it makes for great photography, but also because each truck "talks to me" about the owner and some of his thoughts. 

This truck above is a great example of typical Indian truck art

There are so many interesting things that this truck is telling me. For example, I know that the owner of the truck is called Choudhary. This tells me something about his ancestors. The word Choudhary originally referred to landholders who collected tax on behalf of the king, and were entitled to withhold 25% (Choudhary means "holder of a fourth"). So this particular Choudhary obviously has diversified from agriculture into the trucking business :)

Agriculture is still very much the major theme of the truck. Under the sacks of onions which the truck is carrying, you can see a scene of bucolic plenty. Buxom prosperous women with lots of jewellery, green fertile lands, plenty of water, lactating cows, fruits, vegetables, well-built village houses - each of these is a symbol for prosperity and plenty. This is Indian representational art at its folksy best.

Scenes of almost unreal rural prosperity are a common theme on Indian trucks

The Choudhary surname is widespread across North India, so just going by the name, I cannot tell where this particular guy comes from. This village scene gives me no specific clues, except that the costumes of the women are the North Indian ghagra-choli. Besides, the vehicle says it has a National Permit (NP), so it could literally be from anywhere. But the truck art gives me more clues: 

Under the title Choudhary the truck says "Veer Tejaji" in Devnagri script

Veer Teja is a folk hero from Rajasthan, so now I have my next little piece of info :) This is probably a Rajasthani Choudhary. Now I see the semi-hidden license plate, and find out it is a Goa license (GA = Goa). So maybe this Rajasthani Choudhary currently lives in Goa. Or, more likely, maybe he bought and registered the truck there for some tax break. There are two names, Vishal and Anurag, also written. Probably his sons. 

Apart from these "identifying marks", there are interesting homilies and sayings painted on the truck. 

• "Maa ka aashirvaad" (Mother's Blessings) is a very common feature of all Indian trucks, and refers to the almost divine status accorded to mothers in popular culture (many Bollywood movies have this theme too). 
• "Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram" (Truth, God, Beauty); this is a traditional philosophical statement that has entered the mainstream because it is also the title of a famous 70's Hindi movie. 
• "Soch kar socho saath kya jayega" translates to "Think! What can you take with you when you go (die)?". It's another philosophical statement which suggests that too much attachment to material possessions is meaningless.
• "Jai Hind" (Victory to India) - another popular theme, expressing national pride and patriotism

As you can see from the above, truck art is not just about painting a truck. It is a fairly complex expression of the cultural background, community, personality and belief systems of the person owning the truck.

Another common feature of Indian truck art is what I can only call "driving instructions". Horn, Please or Horn OK Please is the most ubiquitous one, asking those following the truck to honk while overtaking so that the truck driver is alert to their presence. Drivers use their hand - they stick it out of the window and wave - to signal to people behind them that they may now overtake the truck. At night this system doesn't work, hence the somewhat baffling "Use Dipper at Night". You are supposed to flash your dipper (high beam), and then "Wait for Side" (which the truck driver will signal using the blinking red light signal). Then you can overtake. For much of India's trucking years, we have had narrow highways and side-roads, often permitting only one vehicle in each direction. So this kind of signalling is essential.

Here is another gorgeously painted truck, that I photographed near Jaipur:

A charming find on the Jaipur Highway :) :)

You can tell by now, that there are lots of similar elements between the two trucks, right? This one has the same buxom woman, signs of prosperity and plenty and identification markings showing the trucker's community (Meena) and his favourite god (Hanuman). On the top of the truck it says "Dekh Saheli tera aashik aaya", which brought a smile to my face. "Look, says the heroine's friend to her, your lover has arrived". And it has the ever-popular warning "Buri nazar wale, tera muh kaala" (Oh you person with the evil-eye, may your face be blackened).

If you are travelling in India and come across beautifully painted trucks, do send me some photographs! I am creating a facebook album for them, and would love to add to my collection. You can email them to deepa at delhimagic dot com and I'll send you an invite to the rest of the album. Thanks in advance :) :)