STREETS OF INDIA
As another trip comes up soon, I want to return to the amazing journey to India before I fall further behind in my posting. The photos are both mine and Scott’s. It’s always interesting to see how two people see the same place and choose what to photograph. Sometimes it’s difficult to remember who took which photo!
I’ll share a few here but then make a gallery Page for those who want to find more.
(Coming soon~ PARIS!)
We passed what seems to be a goat fair.
A favorite scene everywhere we traveled were barbers practicing their trade.
This is a tattered and weathered poster on a wall in the most interesting little town of Pushkar in Western Rajasthan.
Scott’s photos were some of the best of the trip. He is always willing to take two to every photo I take and thus captures far more.
MORE PORTRAITS OF INDIA
Since there were two of us taking photographs in India we often were capturing the same places and people, but of course each of us found different “small moments” to shoot. Here are some of our favorite “portraits” taken of the people we met on our journey. All are from various locations in Rajasthan, from Delhi to Chambal to Jaipur.
Scott took this beautiful portrait while I happened upon another wonderful opportunity.
And here is the elegant woman I met in the same place~
Some of my favorite photos are of the children we met.
And more along the road~
There couldn’t have been a more perfect color composition in this photo Scott took. The man happened to stand with his gorgeous orange turban in the midst of a beautiful and perfectly complementary setting!
Scott snapped this “Balloon Seller”.
From the train station in New Delhi~
Unfortunately I couldn’t get a sharp photo since this interesting man was crossing the street in the midst of the crazy Delhi traffic. Again, a “color opportunity”. I loved his turban against the startling green.
Looking at the photo I realize that the pollution is so heavy you can see it in the air here.
PEACOCKS AND ELEPHANTS-The Gates, Doors, and Windows of India
Doors, windows, gates. Without them we have only walls. With them we enter rooms, dimensions, states of mind. Doors, gates, and windows hold enormous meaning for cultures of the world for millenia. The creation and control of these openings provided man’s earliest method of protecting the citizens, whether living in a mud-walled settlement or thick walled cities. Beyond the need for the physical element of doors, gates, and windows lies the opportunity to find great symbolic meaning from the most ancient of times in human existence. Over thousands of years in India these portals for coming and going have been a canvas for great artistic expression. The complexities of the practical and the spiritual are combined in some of the world’s most beautiful works of art as architectural adornment. Though most visitors will never know more than the most superficial meaning of these portals, we can still appreciate the great level of aesthetic beauty that has survived to our time.
This amazing gate was surrounded by the most non-descript setting as we drove along a highway. As modern life has encroached on this beautiful gate the visitor speeding past in the 21st Century’s mode of transportation could easily miss this quite special “small moment”.
Jaipur’s City Palace is famous for The Peacock Gate, one of four gates depicting the four seasons in the huge complex of pavilions and palace buildings.
“
The gate leading to Pushkar’s 14th Century Brahma temple, one of the most famous Hindu temples in the world.
In keeping with the charitable philosphy of Pushkar’s Hindu population, this kitchen is open to anyone who needs a meal.
A doorway in Pushkar looked into a timeless interior view that, for me, echoed back to the paintings of Dutch interiors of Rembrandt’s time.
Doors and archways can frame many of those “small moments”.
And the pierced screen can give a private view out.
An ancient doorway bears witness to man and time.
Scott captured yet another door in this roadside shelter one afternoon.
Not all the doors, gates, and windows are complex. This simple gate led to our cottage at The Chambal River Safari Lodge, set in a pristine and lush setting on the Chambal River.
GORGEOUS COLORS OF UDAIPUR
I’ve been away from blogging for a week or so, with a busy schedule but it’s time to share a bit more of the wonderful adventure in India from last fall. I wrote earlier about my visit to wonderful Udaipur but there remains more to tell about this wonderful town in Rajasthan.
The last days of the trip were spent visiting friends and the time was very limited. I did have the chance to see some of the sights for which beautiful Udaipur is known but some of my favorites were the “small moments” of which I am so fond!
On my very last day, before my late afternoon flight back to Delhi, Prem and I tried to see a bit of the town since I had been staying with her family away from the actual town center. Foremost of course was to try to see the beautiful and and famed Lake Palace, now a deluxe hotel, situated in the middle of Udaipur’s beautiful Lake Pichola. My fears that the lake would be dry due to inadequate monsoon rains were unfounded.
This view of the famed Lake Palace on Udaipur’s Lake Pichola revealed that although the monsoons have not been as adequate in providing water as needed, there still was enough to provide this beautiful setting.
Looking to the right of the Lake Palace from the top of one of Udaipur’s oldest hotels which seemed to be heavily occupied by student travelers. Below, a local women steps out onto the terrace where these photos were taken.
Journal-writing seemed the occupation of these young travelers enjoying the view from the top of the hotel.
My photos are really quick snaps as the crowd passed by but this procession of people celebrating displayed the gorgeous, gorgeous colors that make India such a special place for lovers of textiles.
Prem and I visited many shops and galleries owned by people she knew as we walked the narrow, winding streets of Udaipur. The sign for “Art and Craft” caught my eye though we didn’t have time to stop in.
Prem knew of a fabulous toy shop where we did take some time to shop for gifts that I hoped to find for my two grandchildren. I was not disappointed. Among the puppets and other items, I found hand-made wooden toys, ornaments, and even wonderful pencils featuring carved and brilliantly-painted birds and animals including the national bird, the peacock.
A hand-made wooden ornament of Durga, Goddess of Woman Power- a great gift for little Makayla Lee, the two-year old granddaughter who exhibits a lot of “woman power” already! And the elephant god, Ganesh, one of India’s best-known deities.
COLORS OF DELHI
Some of the most memorable images of a trip to a new country are often the unexpected “small moments” that I mentioned earlier. When two people travel together they often have the opportunity to see the same places with different points of view or to spot photo opportunities missed by the other. Scott’s great “small moments” capture the incredible colors of Delhi~
Our first day brought us right into the brilliant colors and intense energy of this huge, densely-populated city. Somehow, life seems to move along as it should, but the last photo shows the air quality of Delhi, the result of the huge number of humans inhabiting this centuries-old city.
SMALL MOMENTS
“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see”.- G.K Chesterton, British-born essayist, novelist, and poet. (1874-1936)
Among the numerous famous quotations about travel this is one by a man whose name is not as familiar as some of his contemporary authors but who certainly had something to say about nearly every facet of life and wrote an astonishing amount of work in his lifetime. There is, in fact, “The Chesterton Society” which describes Chesterton’s accomplishments and goes on to describe him as “… the man who wrote an essay in the Illustrated London News that inspired Mohandas Gandhi to lead a movement to end British colonial rule in India.”
Researching the man who wrote this quotation led, surprisingly to this link to my travels in ways unexpected. I was thinking of how people travel, and ways of experiencing the journey. This quotation pointed out the difference between the traveler and the tourist, which more often than not, is a distinction often mired in stereotypes that are mostly unflattering to the tourist.
Coincidentally, when finding Mr. Chesterton, I also discovered a man whose intelligence and accomplishments bloomed during the time of British Colonial rule in India and whose words helped inspire the eventual end of this. So this was an appropriate connection to my new blog as I write about my own travels to India at a time far removed from the days of the The Raj and Colonial rule.
While it seems the long-standing debate about the merits of being known as either “a traveler” or “a tourist” is still unsettled, I like to think we are each a bit of both. What matters is at the heart of Chesterton’s statement that it is important to “see” things in a new place. It is more than expectation or assumption that is vital. It is about finding those “small moments” in every place, perhaps unique to that time as well as the place, and really taking notice.
“Seeing” is not dependent on budget or wardrobe or means of transportation. It is a remarkably democratic attribute and gift. To venture out of the familiar as a “traveler” or” tourist”, the best thing to take along is the ability to “see” the unexpected, the “small moment”, as I like to think of it.
One of those moments was captured outside a temple in Rajasthan where one is obliged to remove shoes before entering.
This is a quiet still-life, to borrow from the artist’s vocabulary, a small moment worth noting.
BORN TO TRAVEL
“WEBS AND THREADS TRAVELS”
When I was born, my Mother once told me, I looked quietly and intently at the surroundings from her arms, observing my new world with eyes that seemed far more aware than the usual newborn’s.
And she told me, “There must have been a suitcase next to your crib then too.”
It seems the urge to travel, to see the world, was something I came into the world possessing. The other thing that seems to have been imprinted since birth is the urge to draw, to create.
As I was going through old family papers I found this memento from my childhood. I made this drawing for my Father on the occasion of my first “Really Big Adventure”, a train trip from Wisconsin to California, complete with “suitcases” and my first travel description.
“Webs And Threads Travels” continues the journey begun in my other blog, Webs And Threads, which is about art and textiles. As that blog was just beginning, I took an amazing trip to India and decided to include posts describing that wonderful experience. Finally, I could see that it was necessary to have a place just for the travel, and so finally, I am beginning with this new blog.
Though I have had wonderful travel experiences for much of my adult life, the past several years have been particularly rich in seeing farther corners of the world. 2009 was an exciting year, with trips to Morocco, France, and India. I hope to share these marvelous times as well as those of the more distant past that have been special.
I will add a few Pages that have the first posts from the old blog so there is some continuity and links to them as well.
Enjoy the journeys~
Nancy
“The real voyage of discovery consists of not seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”~Marcel Proust, French novelist and author (1871-1922)
webs and threads travels 