Camel Alert!

So we have made it to the India of your imagination and THERE ARE CAMELS!!!

Camel Count
Ahmedabad: 3
Jodhpur: 8

I am in love with southern India, but it is different from the India that you see in most images and stories. The landscape, the food, the languages, the clothes... and the camels! We were only in Ahmedabad for a few hours: just long enough to book an overnight bus ticket, eat dinner, and then hop on the bus (and sit in traffic). When we arrived, the bus we took from Vadodara to Ahmedabad had just gotten off the expressway and was pulling in to the city when I nearly fell out the window and snapped my neck: Was that a camel pulling that cart!?!?! I didn't manage to snap a picture in time, but I sat at attention and peered out the window, even more attentively than usual (if that's possible, putting me on a bus in India is a bit like taking your dog for a car ride) and got the next one that went by.

While I'm on the subject on animals in the streets, I should mention the incredible amount of livestock roaming the roads and lanes of India. There are, of course, the ubiquitous holy cows that everyone talks about and plenty of stray cats and dogs, but I have also seen goats, horses, pigs, and donkeys wandering free, with no ropes or halters or any signs of ownership.

In Italy, the cats and dogs were all fed pasta. Here I see cows lying at the side of the road with a pile of rice or dal in front of them.

The contentment in the eyes of these animals is incredible. They seem perfectly calm and at ease, even as traffic whirls around them and music and horns blare. Whether it is a dog sleeping in the middle of a train platform or a goat knee-deep in a mountain of trash (oh wait, goats like garbage) or a cow walking a placid line as rickshaws weave around her, they don't hurry or get upset. (I don't like the anthropomorphic sound of that last sentence, but there doesn't seem to be another way to say it.) I think I get way more upset about it all. Dogs ripping open plastic bags to find food, cows eating newspaper (even with their four stomachs, it can't have much nutritional value), lame horses pulling carts on hard asphalt streets.

Hmm, I seemed to have wandered off from camel excitement into some pretty unhappy reflections (and that was just about animals living on the streets, I didn't even touch the subject of the people living alongside them). I should say that so far, the beautiful has outweighed the ugly.

Yesterday Martin and I hiked up to the Jodhpur fort and then spotted another hill that we decided to explore. On the way up, we were joined by an adorable pair of dogs who seemed so happy to see us, barking and wiggling and wagging their tails. We made it to the top and spent some time at the Durga temple we found there and watched the sunset from an old lookout in an outer wall of the fort. From there we could see a dirt track that led off to a part of the old city we hadn't explored yet, so we took that way home. Our doggy friends joined us again, until they found a smell that required investigating. In the meantime, we found ourselves in a residental area of teeny tiny lanes and the continuous rows of houses were painted entirely blue inside and out. Up and down stairs, around corners, a few dead ends. We knew the rough direction we needed to go and just kept wandering. Groups of old men were playing cards on platforms between the buildings. Uncountable gods were sheltered in little nooks tucked in the walls. A young man in his flannel pajamas sat on the steps of a simple Ganesh temple, elbows on his keens, chin in his hands, eyes faraway, clearly having a long chat with the Remover of Obstacles. We found an "open air" restaurant (not rooftop but still super cool) in a haveli-- the traditional style of home in Rajasthan. We were the only people eating there. It is a family home, but they have some extra space so they rent rooms and serve meals out of their kitchen.

Today we ate our breakfast at the Mangala Cafe, which was really more of a street stall with a few benches to sit on. Our puris (fried bread goodness!) came on squares of newspaper (standard dishware in India). Halfway through our meal, we realized that we got the personal ads! The ads seemed to be for arranged marriages (not love marriages) and were placed by families, not the individuals themselves. For men and women, the ads included their height, education, and birth month and year (astrological readings are an important part of finding a match). The ads for women seeking men also included the woman's father's occupation. The top priorities were definitely education/career and the family's reputation.

Heehee, I started out writing thinking that I'd just post something quick on animals in India... I think it is time to get going now. More exploring or maybe sari shopping!