India
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| Fruit market, Bombay |
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| Bombay |
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| Rajasthan |
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| Charade's new pet |
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| Tumble stacking |
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| Teaching in Pune |
Continued from Europe 2007
This trip was a culmination of 7 years of working for the Auckland Studio Potters as its’ Co-Director and taking very few holidays. I saved up and realised that what I needed was a complete break, a year of exploring, recovery and getting to know my new girlfriend, Charade. So here’s my year off.
India
January 2008
We arrived into the cacophony that is Bombay, luckily my good friend Paulomi had jacked us up with some accommodation in a Hari Krishna temple. The daily commute into downtown Bombay via the second-class train carriage was worth the 8 rupees for entertainment value alone. The mad scrummaging to board was followed by the most dignified adjustments during travel and then a brief struggle as exiting people got near the exits before the cycle started over again. We spent a week trying to adjust to the climate, people, noise, everything. We were also jacking up a teaching gig for later in February and I had an eye lasering operation.
The first experience Charade had with Indian trains was the 2nd class AC sleeper from Bombay to Ahmedabad in Gujarat, a lovely train that brought us rested to the largest of this wealthy state’s cities. It was a melange of stuff; the architecture treasures ranged from tin shacks of the squatters camp down by the river, to Le Corbusier concrete bunkers, to ancient mosques, to even older step wells penetrating the dusty earth. We criss-crossed the river to find the museum, another bunker edifice housing a dilapidated dusty collection of relics. Diu was an ex-Portuguese delight with none of the hype of Goa. An enormous fort dominates the harbour and the guesthouses are full of westerners recovering from ‘normal’ India.
Then up to Rajasthan, the camel kingdom, a place full of amazing textiles, appalling tourist souvenirs and majestic moustaches. We started the tour of this state in Udaipur where the serenity of the lake contrasted with bustle of the old town. Jodhpur followed and amazed us with its’ fort, a monolithic structure emerging out of solid rock and surrounded by a sea of blue houses. The crap hotel room meant we didn’t stay long so Jaisalmer followed and its’ fort had the appearance of a fantasy castle sitting of a sand pile, just waiting for some bully to come and kick it over, or for the tide to come in an`d drown it. We spent a few days there poking around in the fort or the old quarter of town, buying textiles and generally enjoying ourselves. Watching the sweet makers at work first thing in the morning, or watching the wedding parties parade through the city with their unearthly din and chandelier wielding entourage were highlights. The weather was mostly cool and we did get one day of rain, just enough to wash all the dust off, make all the trees look green again. Pushkar was next via an overnight sleeper bus – a misnomer if there ever was one, no sleeping was possible on the bouncing, heaving, jerking bus – the journey seemed interminable. But the Westerner’s haven of Pushkar awaited, a one street town surrounding a rapidly shrinking holy lake, it’s full of Israelis in pack mode hunting down hummus and the cheapest deal.
February
By now it was early February and we were needed down in Pune to teach the pottery workshop. So one overnight bus later and Bombay was back. We hooked up with Paulomi and were driven via a magnificent highway to Pune. The following day our workshop began, an introductory hands on for beginners lasting 8 days. Ably assisted by other potters it gave me a chance to meet a different slice of India, make new friends and hopefully impart to the participants some skills and a love of clay. We discussed theory, practical tips and glaze recipes; the results out of the glaze kiln were a testament to their perseverance and dedication. We left there on a high, and with an address book full of new numbers.
Off to Aurangabad and a visit to the Ellora caves, via the only package tour we took in all our year away. The caves were awe inspiring, hard to describe as their scale had to be related to your own footsteps. The impenetrable fort of Daulatabad had the most complex entry of any castle I’ve ever visited, pity that it was taken by the simple expedience of bribing the guards.
We had a lovely time in Pachmarhi, a hill town in off-season, which meant emptiness and mad monkeys. Then onto the maelstrom of Varanasi. We arrived at 6am and staggered through the network of tiny, sewage loaded lanes to find a hotel that rose above the street level muck. Seeing the sunrise from the river, picturesquely obscured by the smoke from burning bodies as our oarsman competed for position amongst the flotilla of tourist craft was a delight. The general mass of humanity using that river for every conceivable purpose still left enough life in it for us to see fish feeding off an out-flow pipe. Daily entreaties by a Sadhu to come and test the waters with a swim were declined however.
March
Our doglegged route now headed for Agra via the erotic wet spot of Khujuraho. A temple based town that was popular for all the erotically carved temples. Most of the carving was of beautifully proportioned, clothed figures dancing in praise of various gods. However it was fun watching the Indian men giggling at the completely impossible sexual positions (like a man balancing on his head satisfying three women – what a legend!) We also bumped into some local country potters on the way to yet another erotic temple. They were making the common water pot. So we explained that we were potters tooRajasthan and so they invited to have a go. The wheel turned out to be a clay wok sitting on a small metal wok sitting on a marble slab. To throw a pot involved using this device as a turntable and making as much of the pot with the wheel spinning slowly. Only at the end did a damp rag help you to form the rim (the only finished bit on the whole pot). It was then set aside to dry a bit before being paddles out to the final shape. It was bloody hard!! Both Charade and I had a go - the clay was some local dirt really - sticky and short. The locals had a laugh at our expense. But it was good fun. Then they asked for money – we should have seen it coming. We also managed to find ourselves a brick clamp kiln that was partially demolished so we could see how they worked; we've seen hundreds of them from the bus windows.
The biggest drama of the week was Charade getting attached by monkeys. We'd gone down to the river at Orchha to watch the sunset past old tombs and realised that we'd accidentally bought 2 bananas along. I fished them out of Charade's bag and hurled them at the fast approaching monkeys, but too late! they'd seen where I got them, and so one cheeky bugger made a grab for Charade and clawed a handful of material. She screamed. I grabbed a handful of river sand and threw it into the monkeys face - no way was I going near that vicious evil creature! I kept on biffing sand until it backed off screeching then we bolted for the bridge to get the hell away.
Then it was Agra and the Taj Mahal at dawn, a lovely site that still marvels no matter how many times you visit it. What also marvels is the price that India authorities are charging for all monuments these days. The massive price differential between Westerners and Indians is ridiculous – whilst waiting for tickets we often felt that we were unofficial bankers for the Indian state. Often the Indian tourist next to us, when questioned, was making more money from the burgeoning economy than we made back home as potters.
Jaipur was memorable for the flu we both caught, which gave us amble time to study the horrid small hotel room we found ourselves in. So onto Delhi, shopping and even worse rooms. Our bags were now seriously heavy and a bugger to lug in and out of rickshaws. Manali via a long, tortuous bus trip that truly left the biggest impression on my bum was a Himalayan delight. Cool, quiet, beautiful. A perfect place to dose up on antibiotics and recover from the dregs of flu and Giardia. We walked in the hills, had sumptuous meals, slept late, read the paper and had a lovely time of it. In the midst of all this relaxation came the madness that is Holi. We got ourselves prepared with paint powders, old clothes, water pistols and launched a pre-emptive attack on the town. They were waiting for us and the confusion of colour and the drenchings came thick and fast. We bolted after an hour of mayhem to recover back at the hotel and I had to change my contact lens as the old one had become stained orange from the paint water.
One last long bus and train ride brought us to Bombay and to the very welcome home of Vandana and Maneesh. We spent a couple of days there recovering and sorting our baggage out before flying home (seriously overweight in the luggage but we got away with it).
This trip has been an amazing experience. A year of new sights, smells, sounds and it will be a source of inspiration for years to come in my work.
