We're off to Simla via the train to Chandigarh, followed by a four hour car ride up into the mountains. This is the beginning of my intiation into the real world of India's extremes in both culture and environment. I know that I will continue to be amazed and shocked and scared and thrilled and awestruck. But I really wasn't prepared for today.
Leaving the station in Delhi was just the beginning. The plastic tents and corrugated tin huts that serve as home to the destitute appear as clusters between industrial looking buildings. Small fires are lit in several areas, around which people are cooking or warming themselves. Just another type of pollutant to add to the Delhi blanket of fog, diesel fumes, smoke and dust. Delhi's pollutants are palpable. We'll be glad to breathe the mountain air. Men squat over the empty rails with pants about their knees. My window seat becomes the TV screen showing the PBS documentary on India's rural natives.
We arrive in Chandigarh to a loud and crazy station where we must find guide and driver. The noise and diesel fumes are worse than Delhi. So much for assumptions. Hundreds of motorcycles choke the parking lot and streets. It is the first time that I see a woman driving her own cycle...sidesaddle...in a sari and sweater. In fact, many of the residents are wearing winter coats and it is in the low 60s (fahrenheit). It is in our itinerary to be taken to the Taj Mahal Hotel for lunch. It is 11:45 and they are not prepared for the lunch buffet quite yet so we wander the hotel a bit. It was built in the 1960s and was a marvel at the time, I am sure, complete with manufactured concrete "waterfalls" in the garden. The hotel has had some refurbishing but looks like it needs a major overhaul. The water sculptures do not have water moving through them and the tables in the dining area have "mod" formica tops with plastic form chairs on stainless steel legs. The dinnerware and napkins are in loden green, oranges and yellow ochres with geometric patterns from the 60s. It would appear kitsch, except that these are the originals and well worn. A young gentleman brings us a diet Coke with two glasses, sets them down in the middle of the table and then leaves. We are astounded and shocked. We sit stock still, mouths agape and afraid to make a move. This is a major gaff. Only the fourth day into our trip and I realize that we have become accustomed to a level of service everywhere in India that we simply do not see at home.
COMMERCIAL BREAK: Some thoughts on the gentry. Tucker and I have discussed the weird, somewhat guilty feeling we first had at the royal treatment we're being given. One first feels that it's a mistake...must have the wrong people. If nothing else, India has learned and perfected the art of service with grace. They anticipate your needs and deliver the solution quietly and with pride and care. This is not done obsequiously. Indians who are fortunate, clever, hard-working and able to learn English can obtain a service job in a good hotel, restaurant, or any tourist-frequented facility. They see themselves as being in training for a good career that will reap them good rewards. The British have obviously left their mark. The thing is, we have paid for this service and are more than pleased with the level of service that we have been given. It feels good, makes one feel generous and helps make a permanent transition over to expecting reasonable service for the dollars spent. Imagine an American youngster thinking that they could make a good living by starting in a service job. Not.
Back to our story. The lunch was fine. The maitre'd noticed our predicament and immediately corrected the situation by bringing us napkins and pouring the beverage into the glass. She asked us if we needed ice and we received a token cube or two. (The Brits don't believe in alot of ice either. Another story) We begin to realize that this hotel is a training facility for hotel management staff. Chandigarh is the fastest growing city in Rahjastan because the computer service industry is employing thousands here. They must be expecting to build many new hotels here as well.
Off to Simla. Our guide, Sanjeev, is the nicest man in the world. He took very good care of us and was immensely proud of his career and his country. He has a cleft palate, we work a little harder to understand him and we gain a huge respect for this man who decides that working with the public in a fairly intimate way is something that he could master. And he did. And had a sense of humor. Our driver says not a word , but laying a finger aside of his nose....up the chimney he rose. I will feel the need to kiss the man later.
We now come to the Let's-scare-the-pants-off-Max part of the program. I'm acrophobic. I don't like looking over the edge of very high things, starting with a ten foot ladder. My husband guesses, correctly, that it best not to talk about this section of our journey ahead of time. There are NO guidelines for how many lanes are on a road, how fast you will drive that road, how many vehicles can travel in the same direction at one time, and how you should negotiate blind curves. The natives have only one prerequisite for use of a vehicle. A good, loud horn. The road we are taking appears to be almost two lanes, by our standards. The road hugs the face of very steep mountains. The road has many hairpin turns and no guardrails, but a few large rocks painted white are there for night driving (I refuse to ever drive here at night! Are you crazy!?) and a false sense of security. There are no roadsigns that prepare you for circumstances in the road ahead. There are quite a few signs, however, that admonish drivers to be vigilant. DRIVE CAREFULLY: ACCIDENTS ARE CERTAIN DEATH.
My hand is clenched to the bar above the door. I pray for a quick and sudden death. I try to appreciate the scenery, which is drop-dead gorgeous as long as I focus on big vistas. Do not look down! Look to the wall of the mountain, for there is nothing on the other side. The valleys are terraced, beautiful and I never saw the bottom after a couple hours. You see, you can't help but look. And I die a thousand tiny deaths as my bone marrow turns to mush.
This is how it works. When approaching a blind curve, the driver will purposely move over into the ONCOMING lane in order to get some view of approaching danger. He will then blow the horn in one long contiuous barrage in hopes that impending collisions can be avoided by the OTHER GUY HEARING THE HORN AND GIVING WAY to his vehicle. Sometimes we would stop suddenly, inches from a face of stone, in order to be obliging. If traffic coming at you was three cars abreast and occupying ALL of the road space, then several short bursts of horn fire would be given to prepare them to make a decision of some kind. When you're body is in a petrified state, your eyes and ears pay close attention to details. I will have to learn some kind of trust in order to survive the next four days. I do. But my body ached every night from the tension.
I manage decorum. I do not kiss the earth or the driver upon arrival. The hotel is magnificent. The view is of Shangrila. And I fall deeply in love with Simla.
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