At the Pakistan Border

Indian Border Guards - Part Performer, Mostly Security Guard

We traveled by car to the city of Amristar, which is the home of the Golden Temple, but also a city that is close to the India/ Pakistan border. It turns out that the changing of the border guards is a well-known and popular event each afternoon that culminates with the joint lowering of the Indian and Paikistani flags.

It quickly became clear to us that this is no typical changing of the guards like you see at Buckingham Palace. There, and in most places, you just show up and press your face against a fence and watch some colorfully costumed guards march across a courtyard to change places.

This is a much bigger show. At the end, it felt like we had attended some sort of sporting competition, rife with the penant hawkers, food vendors, and the requisiste black market CD and

Ray Ban sunglass sellers. It was great fun and entertaining, too

Picture a stadium bisected by a wall and two gates which  would be the actual border gates of these two countries. India has its security guards and Pakistan its guards dressed in blue.We sat in the foreigners, VIPs section closest to the gates.

The first activity is flag running to the border. Indians stand in a line for  the priviledge of running the Indian flag to the border and back. It actually touched my heart to see citizens smiling and laughing, and obviously cherishing the priviledge of showing national pride in front of fellow neighbors, friends and family. About 20 children, single women, older men and women run the flag.

The ceremony ends with the lowering of the flag and the slamming
of the respective gates. 

After the flag running, women, primarily, break out into the street, singing and dancing.
There seems to be no issue of modesty in this crowd!

Then the ceremony to end the day begins in earnest with the
ultimate goal to be the lowering of the flags.

The whole event is light hearted,but make no mistake that the security is tight.
They checked our documentation, of which we had none, really at that moment,and
they patted us down twice- women and men in separate lines.

The Indians let the VIPs and foreigners leave first, so we quickly went back to our driver,
but not before sampling Indian snacks and buying a bootlegged CD for 100 rupees!
Great day to be alive in India!

They Paved Paradise

Haryana Dancers at the Park Visiting

So we have been working for hours picking, sorting, clipping and laying tiles for our mosaic project in the park. We layed out our designs for columns near the land fill of tiles especially because no one came through the area, and it was essentially in Nek Chand's front yard.

The locals wondering why we are assembling mosaic designs in tonight's parking lot -
of course no one says anything.

Our daily Chai tea with the locals (L-R)  Local worker, Sue, park supervisor, Ram Rod and yours truly.
Sue is holding the book about the garden which includes pics of Ram Rod,
who wouldn't let anyone see it if they weren't in it..

Our plan was to move our tiles Monday to the columns and begin cementing them on the structure.Of course, the universe and India has other plans. While at work today, they started erecting stanchions nearby, and we started to get concerned that something was up. We found out there is a wedding tonight at the garden, and that where we had our tiles all piled up is where they park cars. Of course they do! What were we thinking.

Sue's design

Adam, the professional mosaic artist's design

How we had to move our tiles/ designs.....

So, at lunch time, we packed up all our work and called it a day.  Three full days of work went bye bye. In addition, there is still no cement. We aren't sure if they are telling us the truth, or if they really don't want us messing around in the park. However, to their credit, no one else is cementing either on the figures or anywhere else in the park. 

So we decided that we are going to the Pakistan border this weekend to see the Golden Temple at Amritsar. It is a four hour drive by SUV, which we are splitting four ways, and then we can go to see the change of the   guards between Pakistan and India, which is supposed to be interesting. If it is like the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, I will stay in the car and take my afternoon nap!

Golden Temple at Amritsar

Our new friend and oil painter who is one of the first
young locals volunteering at the park

So, we all went to the Chandigarh Art School this afternoon, at the invitation of one of the students who we met last week. Very interesting, especially since there was alot of nudity in the work, which is unacceptable on the streets. The women only show their faces, hair and hands.

  

Student working with wood sander next
to resin cast of older woman

More when we return from Amritsar. May the cement god take pity on us and deliver a package by Monday!
j  

Enjoying The Park

There are hundreds of sculptures in the park, all made of cement. The red faced ones
have brick dust added to the cement mixture. The white ones have chalk dust added. They are
embellished with bits and pieces of tiles, bracelets and whatever other bits of discarded items are found around.

An example of a sculptue made with other found objects: discarded tea cups, plates, etc.

The frames of these sculptures are discarded bicycle frames. 

This is just one of hundreds of animals in one part of the park- notice the teeth!

Love the monkeys - the inside starts with construction rebar that is bent and then covered
with rags sometimes, and sometimes cement directly.
Notice the different color of the faces and the bodies.
The eyes
are shells.

This is a large amphitheater with a pool that is totally adorned with tile mosaic. It sits behind our house
and is unfortunately, closed to the public and not used. 

These are my favorite sculptures - they used fragments of thin glass bracelets and notice they are
designed as sarees.

Typical doorway through the park that is about 4.5' high. You have to bend down each doorway
in a sign of humility to get through. Notice the metal doors that are sometimes locked and
sometimes open, making gettting home a maze or worse, a nightmare.

Namaste,
j

Getting to Work and Scaling Walls

Now I understand why nothing gets done in this county. It is because it is so hard to do the basics. We came home last night and again, gates were closed so this time I actually had to scale a 12-ft wall to get back in. This time we took the souvenir stand's stool to use as a ladder to scale a smaller wall and then my roomate had to push me up until I could get a foothold. Then, I didn't have the strength on my own to get over the top, so she just kept pushing my butt and hips until I finally and clumsily climbed over. Who knew I would need rock climbing skills on this trip?

Afterwards, we served dinner at our house for 12 with about 5 dishes, 12 utensils and one pot. People had to eat food out of their hands almost since we didn't have enough service. We also served a little beer and whisky so no one noticed that they had lentil soup (DAAL) dripping down their shirts.

Today we actually started doing what we came here to do - collecting, sorting and nipping tiles and designing what we are going to place. We decided we are going to do a series of columns on a building that is just missing designs on its column and exterior face and then it will be finished. So today we started testing our theories. None of us has done mosaics on rounded columns before.

There is a landfill of tiles - mostly household bathroom and kitchen tile shards, that seem to be dumped by trucks in piles over more than an acre of the park. We just go there to find what we want, but it involves going through piles, bagging them and then sorting and nipping them. 

Best Laid Plans Go Astray.....

This is Adam, sitting on our thrones nipping tiles. We each found a toilet as a seat. The security guards think we are crazy.

As usual, my best laid plans are foiled here in India. It is a land of ultimate compromise. I went to download photos today at the internet cafe in town, and in the middle, the electricity went out and I lost everything. So I came home and started to download and the internet connection dropped. So, it is much later and I am just sending what I have...an assortment of pics from today. Enjoy!

Market owner who sold us fabric at $3 a meter. They have fabulous wood blocked patterns
that women buy for punjabis and sarees. I went with Sarah, my roomate who speaks Hindi so it made it much easier.

Young Sikh working a stall in the market. The hair dress is what the boys wears as youths until
 they reach maturity at which time they don a turban.

First A Nap - Puppies At the Market. I have only seen one pet dog on a leash since
I have been here. Most dogs are wild and run free, which of course creates
problems at night when they hunt in packs.

Picking tiles at the tile landfill - will take 2 hrs a day picking to get what we need. I spent several
hours today picking tiles and nipping them so we can use them in our mosaic. Unfortunately, they
have run out of cement so I am not sure what will happen....

sorting piles of colors of tiles. Bright colors are difficult to find since most of the tiles are white. Construction
companies just back up their trucks and use the site as a umping ground for tiles, toilets, sinks
 or anything else made of porcelain. 

Assortment of really special tiles we found.

Indian Politics and Artists

The Press Conference

Our spokesperson Sue!

We had a press conference yesterday and the NCF (Nek Chand Foundation) chastised local officials for witholding funds from ticket sales that should be used to expand the park. This is an old story. Nothing happens anywhere without local community leadership and generally savvy marketing. The park has neither the moment.

Yesterday, a community leader stepped forward and offered to spearhead an effort to build local community support, and I agreed to help them begin to form some savvy marketing. As of yesterday, it is all words.

However, the lifestyle reporter from the major daily newspaper and other reporters/ photographers, were present and I started up a conversation with the reporter about following our progress as the International Volunteer group at the park, which seems to be a big deal for the park and the community,

My take is that it is unusual to have a group of westerners in this community, cause the local population literally stares at us in amazement as we walk down the street. Young teenage boys stop us on the sidewalk to shake our hands, and women want us to hold their babies while they take pictures of us with their families. Sometimes in the park, we will have a crowd of 30 or so visitors crowd around us, especially if red-hair Sue is with us.

Anyway, I agreed to help one of the regular, local volunteers who is highly educated, to create at least a media plan and some strategy for the next year. In addition, there is an art college in the city and we are going to try to create some sort of program with its students.

That's all for now.

Daily Life Pictures

(L-R) Adam, Sarah, Sue, Jody, Anita - after dinner

Handsome street vendor

This is where we got our cell phone service - no wonder it doesn't work!

view from inside the tuk tuk rickshaw cab back seat

Two-step squat toilet

We are celebrities in India because of the light skin and how we dress

Early morning view of the great falls before the park is opened

Another view of the great falls area

Our "chai walla" who makes us chai tea every morning, midday and afternoon using
 the most high tech methods of tea brewery

The one and only statue in the park of a construction worker

(L-R) Adam, park sculptor and Sue observe the mosaic sculptor applying mortar to the pieces - see the pile of mosaic tiles already cut on the ground ready to be applied. We will work with him first.

Whose Your Idol?

Rain in Chandigarh

This time of year is supposed to be dry except for a rain or two. It is the end of the winter and the weather is supposed to get drier and hotter from here on out according to the pundits.

Then why has it been raining for two days non stop? And why are they still calling for rain again tomorrow, and why does it feel like we are in the middle of a monsoon? And why are there puddles all over our little guest house that are moving like snakes across the floor?

At first it was a welcome change. The air cooled off and it made being being in the park more pleasant because the sun wasn't shining on us directly. We carried umbrellas and rain hats. I only brought a yellow poncho from the dollar store since the rain was supposed to be minimal. And its not like you can even find an umbrella.

But then it grew harder and continued. It has rained continuously for almost 36 hours, non stop from light to mostly hard rain, today. If this was Atlanta, the news trucks would be covering the flooding of all the creeks and it would be overflowing the Chattahoochee River by now.

But here, everything turns to mud, and people just get wet. You don’t see umbrellas or rain coats. You see women with wet saris and men with wet turbans just being their usual patient selves, understanding that it stops when it stops. Some of the stores don’t open and people just stop doing what they do every day.

Of course, as westerners, we just can’t understand how we would let rain stop us from doing anything. We just plow ahead as usual.

A group of seven of us agreed to visit two Hindu temples on  the outskirts of town this morning, even though everything about the weather said stay in bed and putter around the house in your pajamas. The Indians are smarter than we are. They stayed in bed and puttered around the house in their pajamas.

Typical Hindu temple worship scene

We, crazy westerners, met at 9am in the monsoon and were among the ten people who visited the Mata Mansa Devi Mandir and Chandi Mandir temples today. They pre-date the city of Chandigarh to the 1800s, and in fact, the city is named after the deity Chandi, the deity worshipped in the second temple. She is the goddess of power evidently, but there are so many different interpretations, it is hard to really figure out what she does. She has 18 arms so she can kill you in lots of way. She was popular in Bengal in her earliest carnation.

The first temple worships Devi, the deity who is considered the essence of female energy. I prayed to her to stop any hot flashes I might be having during this trip, though truth be told, hormone therapy beats idol worship 10:1.

Hindu temple scene

You see, at a Hindu temple, you take your shoes and socks off before you enter into the temple out of respect for the deity and leave them outside the temple. Usually, this is not a problem, except that you walk from the first temple across an open esplanade to get to the second temple and it is monsooning. We already stand out because we are westerners, and now, I look like a condom in my dollar store yellow plastic poncho that is stuck to me.

But we soldier on. And for me, it was worth it. You never know when you will see something amazing, but today was not that day. Apparently, Hindu temples are updating their technology, cause the first one had a flat screen television in the walkway leading up to it in case you wanted a static video view of the decked out idol we were going in to view.

If you have never been to a Hindu temple, they are more or less the same. You walk through an initial vestibule where you ring a loud bell to become focused on praying to the gods. I think it is also to alert the priest that you are in the temple and that he should come get some rupees. In return, he will give you what looks like an Altoid, or maybe sprinkle some scented water into your hands. At the second temple, the priest actually gave me a garland of chrysanthemums. I think he thought they would look nice with my yellow condom poncho.

From a vestibule, you walk into an open sanctuary and somewhere, partially hidden, and usually behind  stanchions or some other restrictive device, there is a large idol of one of the gods (there are 330,000 at last count) who is draped in bright red and yellow colored fabrics with tinsel-type adornments applied to demonstrate what appears to be adoration and glory. (And of course for 300 rupees, you can buy them outside the temple) Then there are wall paintings or pictures of the deity or other ones around the sanctuary.

In these two temples, the priest, who looks after the deity and the temple, sits comfortably and dry (I might add) on a pillow, humbly accepting your rupees in exchange for the Altoid. Hindus make all kinds of offerings to the deity of their choice including garlands of flowers, Altoids, rice, cookies, other foods, etc. Once the deity is full, which of course the priest decides, they distribute the remaining offerings to the priests and others. You get blessed by the priest, and then you go home or wait around for leftovers.

Families have all kinds of deities. There are regional gods, family gods, personal favorites, in-law idols,  or basically, any god you feel most connected to. You can visit the temple or put them in a cabinet at home in your kitchen if you like, so you can do your worshiping with your morning Pop Tart.

I kind of like it. There is no building fund and services are short and to the point. And you get a breath mint as part of the deal. I think westerners might want to review this monotheism thing again.

I personally would choose Joni Mitchell as my deity. I could offer her some locally-grown produce and  dark chocolate, which would make me popular since I could distribute it to friends after she has had her fill. Maybe she would bless me with a better singing voice.

So much for reverence today. The water is inching its way across the floor and all we have are napkins to mop it up. I’ll ask Joni to make it stop raining.

j












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