Mysore

OK, I have substantial amounts of work to do but this has to be written or I’m going to be forgetting it. Two weekends ago CIEE organized another trip, this time to Mysore and Bangalore. Although I waited for the trip with anticipation, many CIEE students didn’t share my excitement; the manner in which we have to travel (in a large group) can really rub the students the wrong way. I mentioned that about our last trip to Chennai. I guess most students in CIEE have traveled much before and have their opinions about how traveling should proceed, and that doesn’t include giant motorcoaches, stops to take pictures for only brief amounts of time, excessive provisions including endless bottled water and non-budget hotel rooms, and lack of choice in travel destinations. I guess basically we don’t like to be tourists. With a group our size of 22 students though, few traveling method options remain. It’s just the way it is. You can’t have a choice if you’re in a huge group like that, otherwise it’d be chaos. You can’t spend lots of time at only one place because we only have a short amount of time, and CIEE isn’t allowed to take students away from their classes during the week, so one weekend is all you have. Budget accommodations and no supplied food or water means that at least someone is going to complain (in a group that size, it’s inevitable). I find that people love to have something to complain about. It gives them something to do, something to share an opinion with others about. And it can be really annoying. In fact, there was one student in our group who specifically complained that we didn’t have a flight to Bangalore on the justification that if our program director was flying late to meet us, we should be granted the same privilege. Even though we had an A/C train reserved, it wasn’t enough because there was something more that could have been done. In this way, CIEE has the responsibility to make the most people happy as possible, and obviously plenary satisfaction is an impossibility. With all that CIEE does for us, it’s a pity that even still everyone loves to complain.

Arriving in Bangalore station on Saturday morning, we all walked to a nearby hotel to freshen up and have breakfast. Our tour guide from Chennai, Annapurna, met us there and I was eager to have more discussions with her. Despite how knowledgeable and fun she is to talk to, most students share a dislike for her, probably because they feel like they’re treated like children when she delivers her tour-guide lectures for which any other tourist would be paying.

We boarded our bus and were on our way to Mysore, another city about 4 hours away. CIEE had purchased crates of oranges, apples, and bananas that accompanied us on the bus and throughout the weekend served as tasty treats. The oranges had green rind and were really tart, absolutely delicious. The way to Mysore was incredibly beautiful; nature everywhere, palm trees, farmlands, small houses…Mysore is known for that and is home to some of the wealthiest farmers; the land is perfect for farming. We made one stop along the way at a jaggery producer (jaggery is an unrefined sugar that is used a lot in India). It was made by crushing sugar cane to extract the juice; the juice was boiled (burning the old sugar cane wood for heat) to remove water and allowed to set and solidify. The result is jaggery, better for you than refined white sugar and tastier too.

Also on our way we stopped at a famous temple with some of the most intricate carvings I’ve seen. The architecture was different from most temples in south India, the main part at its base is shaped like a star instead of a square to provide more sides for carvings. Pillars of the temple also were carved using rope and water which made them look like they had been ground on a spinner, being completely symmetrical and smooth the whole way around.

Arriving in Mysore, we stopped at a hotel to eat. Outside was a curious billboard: writing in English had been scratched out and over it Kannada (the local language) was written. Annapurna said that locals feared the change in Mysore that was happening as a result of English influence. It didn’t seem as if those in Mysore didn’t like foreigners, just that they were fearful of the change that was happening.

While we were eating, a monsoon started outside. Hyderabad had been dry for a while before we left for Mysore (the monsoon season was over), but in the more southern states, the rainy season continues longer as there’s more bordering ocean in the vicinity to supply the monsoon ingredients.

After, we went to Tina’s house. Tina is a Mysore local who daily supplies outdoor breakfast to those who have come to Mysore to do yoga (Mysore is also known for its yoga practices), at her house we had the opportunity to learn how straw mats were weaved (kindof like how a sari is weaved actually) and make clay pottery or idols while being fed delicious homemade samosas, chai, and gulab jamun.

Next, we went to the shopping district of Mysore where for a few hours we walked around to investigate. There were lots of wood carvings on display and also many fruits and dyed powders that lent vibrant colors to the area. Mysore is also known for its sandalwood, and I picked up some sandalwood lip balm and sandalwood extract oil. One kid who was eager to meet me also showed me how he rolled incense at his shop and gave me an sandalwood-scented one as a gift.

That evening we stayed in comfortable accommodations that reminded me of a ski lodge. It was also Thy’s birthday and many of us got together at midnight to celebrate with cake and dancing. Most of us were entirely exhausted though and turned in soon after.

The next morning we went back to Tina’s house for breakfast consisting of teas, chai, coffee, omelets, potato, papad, curd, leavened whole grain bread and homemade peanut butter. The bread and peanut butter was my favorite part; you can’t find many whole grain products here, most rice and bread is refined and bleached. And I could have just eaten spoonfuls of that peanut butter all day.

Next we stopped at the palace at Mysore; Mysore had been the administrative center of Karnataka before the British moved it to Bangalore, and the palace (although having burned down and been rebuilt) was quite a sight. My favorite rooms at the palace were the wedding room and this one room that the raja (king) I think used for social gatherings. The octagonal wedding room, although only used for weddings, was as high as a cathedral and had a stained-glass ceiling supported by many pillars. The gathering room was plated in gold and had silver doors and many paintings. A throne sat at the back where the raja would sit. It was funny to see a curtain spanning the room at the back that would conceal the raja before and after the gathering; his presence in a way was like a performance.

That afternoon we headed back to Bangalore on our bus; most everyone slept, but I remained awake to talk with Annapurna and Caitlin and also eat tons of fruit. In Bangalore we had packed lunches and listened to a professional story teller. By that time we were already due to be back to the train station soon.

Most of us gave away the dinners we were provided on the train to anyone who would take them, including beggars, since we had just eaten. We also had lots of fruit left over, and I made sure to give that away too. On the train many of us talked for some time before going to bed; I remember one conversation I had with Rachel about how difficult it was going to be to go home. Not in the sense you’re probably thinking of. When December rolls around, we’ll be ready to leave India. The hard part is going to be readjusting to the States. Not only are there blatant cultural differences that we’ll have to get reacquainted to in the States or longingly miss in India, but the whole social context as well will be completely incongruent. I’ve loved living with other exchange students, developing our friendships, and sharing our stories about India. Here everyone has some kind of common ground on which to stand when we’re sharing experiences, telling jokes, complaining, admiring, etc. in the sense that we’ve all been through many of the same things here and know what each other is talking about when we say something in the context of India. At home, no one will have that common knowledge/understanding and it will be much more difficult to communicate. Additionally I’m fearful to have to simplify my experience to tell and retell it back home or at college. After making an experience a narrative, you learn what to include and what not to include based on time constraints and in what a listener is going to be interested. After a while, your experience in a sense becomes that narrative and loses its initial quality of uniqueness and novelty. Although curiosity in what India’s like or what my experience was is a fine and well-founded notion, actually communicating it will always fall short of what it I would like to convey. That will not only be tiring but disappointing. One way I’m trying to alleviate that is by keeping this blog to have some sort of record for myself and for others. “What was India like?” is too substantial a question to answer unless there’s some sort of common ground that can be used for communication. I guess the best way to answer a question like that is to explain every event I encountered, only then can an idea of India follow. Such ideas can’t just be told, they can really only be understood by working from the ground up as a sum of every rickshaw ride taken, every dish eaten, every gift haggled for, every conversation had, every sight seen, every monsoon and power outage lived through (the power actually went out exactly as I was typing that), every stare received, every smell cringed at, every digestive problem had, and every bit of exciting unexpectedness lived. Really only after that does someone know in general what India was like. But who has time for that? And there’s part of the problem. I know Tori anticipates such issues as well; she’s told me many times that a few days after she gets home and can rest, she’s having her entire family, all of her friends, and anyone who would ever want to know about India over to her house for a powerpoint presentation and an in-depth account of her experience. After that, she wants to talk about India no more. I know where she’s coming from.