I left Varanasi by train about 8 in the morning of December 5th for a tour of some of the less visited cities of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state with something like 200 million people. In fact, only four nations have greater populations: China, India itself, the United States and Indonesia. Eight of India's fourteen prime ministers have come from Uttar Pradesh. The morning was chilly and hazy and the train crowded, at least for the first hour and a half or so until the first stop. But it was a relatively fast train as we traveled through the flat countryside, with some rice stubble, sugar cane, mustard and lots of just plowed or just sprouting fields, probably of newly-planted wheat. Bound for Gorakpur, the train crossed the wide Ghaghara River, one of the great rivers flowing down from the Nepalese Himalayas to the Ganges, about halfway on our trip and arrived about 12:30. I had a simple, but not too bad, lunch of potatoes, spinach and chapattis in a discouraging looking roadside restaurant and caught a shared jeep heading east to Kushinagar, arriving about 3.
Kushinagar is one of the four great Buddhist pilgrimage sites, the one where Buddha is believed to have died. I had hoped to stay in one of the temples but they were all filled with pilgrims, so I had to get an expensive hotel -- about $25, by far the most I have spent in India. I walked to the park with a temple and stupa in the center, the spot where Buddha is believed to have died. They are both much restored, by Burmese Buddhists in the 1920's. This site, like Bodhgaya and Sarnath, was abandoned after being destroyed by Muslims about 1200 and only rediscovered by the British in the 19th century. Apparently, the British relied on the accounts of Chinese pilgrims from a thousand and more years earlier to find the sites. Inside the temple is a twenty foot long reclining Buddha, much restored and now with gold leaf, with his hands under his head. Pilgrims were kneeling all around and praying. At dusk the temple closed after the Buddha, covered by an orange cloak, was covered by priests and pilgrims with additional red cloaks. Afterwards I talked with a Burmese guy who told me most of the pilgrims were Burmese, and a Thai monk, who walked out with me through the ruined brick foundations of monasteries that surround the temple and stupa. Somewhat surprisingly, there were no other western tourists in Kushinagar, a small town, just a few thousand people, I think. I talked to a Bengali man who moved here 17 years ago and he told me when he arrived there wasn't much here, just three shops. Now there are dozens catering to the pilgrims.
I got up and out before 7 the next morning into a very thick fog. You could see only about 100-150 feet. I walked to a stupa where Buddha is supposed to have drunk his last water and then to the main temple and stupa, which I had visited the night before. It was all very nice in the fog, though chilly. I had switched from shorts to long trousers that morning. There were many bands of pilgrims in the temple and around the stupa, led by monks with microphones and portable speakers. The Buddha was again being wrapped in robes of different colors. Walking around the stupa, I took a photo of a monk and pilgrims kneeling before the stupa and he called me over, gave me his camera and asked me to take photos of them praying.
I had breakfast and then walked about a half mile out of town, a nice walk under trees in the fog, to a ruined stupa, really just an irregular pile of bricks, where Buddha is supposed to have been cremated. A band of pilgrims was kneeling and praying on one side. I took a cycle rickshaw back to town as the fog began to lift and headed back to Gorakhpur soon after 10 in a packed jeep -- 15 of us. We arrived about noon and I immediately got on a bus headed further west to Faizabad. I would have liked to have gone to the fourth major Buddhist site in the area, Lumbini, where Buddha was born, about 50 miles to the north, but it is just over the Nepal border and with my visa if I leave India I have to wait two months before returning. The afternoon was overcast and foggy, much like the Central Valley of California can be in the winter, and I suspect for much the same reason, with cold air coming down from the Himalayas (rather than the Sierra Nevada) and condensing when it hits the warmer and moister valley air. We again crossed the wide Ghaghara just being reaching Faizabad. It took me a while to find a hotel, but it was a good one. On the way into town there were Shi'ites celebrating, if that is the right word, Muharram, when Hussein was killed. They build these colorful paper replicas, called tazias, of his tomb at Karbala in Iraq.
It was foggy again the next morning. The newspaper reported 50 meters (about 165 feet) visibility the day before. Temperatures had dropped, too. Highs were in the low 80's in Varanasi, but had dropped to about 70 with the fog. Lows were in the high 40's. About 9 I took a tempo, a shared, large version of an autorickshaw, to Ayodhya, only eight miles or so away. Ayodhya is considered the birthplace of Rama and has become a place of great controversy over the past two decades. In 1992 Hindus destroyed the Babri Mosque, built by the Mughal Emperor Babur in the early 1500's after first destroying the Hindu temple on the spot. They claim the site is the birthplace of Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu and the hero of the epic Ramayana. Arriving in town, I first climbed the stairs to the Hanuman (the monkey god and an ally of Rama in his war against the evil Ravana) temple in a walled, fortress-like enclosure. The pilgrims there were friendly and there was lots of activity. Two soldiers guarded the entrance and I had to run a gauntlet of beggars on the steps.
I then walked to the Rama Janam Bhumi, the site of Rama's birth in the precincts of the former Babri Mosque. The security was amazing. I had to deposit my bag and camera and even my pen. I was led by a man throughout, passing the Indian worshipers at checkpoints. I had three or four thorough pat-downs, although the soldiers were all very friendly. There weren't many pilgrims that day. Finally, I was led through a caged walkway, enclosed on both sides and above, for hundreds of feet in what seemed a sort of labyrinth until we reached the garish little shrine in a white canvas tent that commemorates Rama's birthplace. I had a short look and then made another long walk through wire enclosures back to near where I had begun, passing a very large army base on the way, with steel fences and guard towers. Nearby videos, which you could buy, were playing in the little shops showing the destruction of the mosque in 1992 set to martial music. Young men are using hammers and sledgehammers on the dome of the mosque after they had overwhelmed the guards. This caused all sorts of Hindu-Muslim rioting in India, with thousands of lives lost.
I walked around the town some more. People were very friendly and I saw no other westerners. One temple had a courtyard full of cows and saddhus, until the saddhus chased out the cows. There were lots of monkeys all over town. I walked to the palace of the former raja, and to some temples behind it. Some painters were repainting one of the palace rooms and showed me around. I had a good thali lunch for 35 rupees, about 70 cents. A thali is a metal plate with sections in which they put various kinds of food, mostly cooked vegetables, along with rice and chapattis. The sun came out about 1 and I walked around town a bit more before taking a tempo back to Faizabad.
In Faizabad I took a cycle rickshaw to the enormous, white-domed Mausoleum of Bahu Begum, a wife of a Nawab of Avadh (or Oudh, as the British spelled it). I think it was about 150 feet high. Both going and returning we got stuck in an enormous traffic jam at a railroad crossing. I've now seen this several times in India. When the guard rails go down, traffic on each side of the tracks does not stay in the left lane. Instead, the cars and motorcycles and rickshaws and bicycles and everything else crowds into both lanes, jockeying for position. Needless to say, after the train passes and the guard rails go up, there is a complete morass, which takes ages to untangle. I suppose this says something about India.
It was foggy again the next morning and I left by bus about 9 heading west to Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh's capital, with more than two million people. We traveled on a four lane divided highway, though there were mounds of cow manure patties drying on the median, something you rarely see on four lane divided highways in the United States. The fog cleared about 11and there was sugar cane and other crops, and lots of trees, to be seen on the way. Coming into town, we passed a huge new plaza with a statue of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the dalit, or untouchable, who was independent India's first Law Minister and principal author of its constitution. Uttar Pradesh is now governed by a predominately dalit party, although it is also supported by what are called OBCs ("other backward castes"), Muslims (also often poor) and others. The Chief Minister is a woman named Mayawati, often called the Queen of the Dalits, known for building monuments, often with elephants, her party symbol, and for corruption. There are billboards and posters of her all over Lucknow.
We passed through the old British cantonment on the city outskirts, with the Indian military now in their place, and reached the bus station about noon. It took me an hour to find a hotel, across from the huge train station, and then I headed downtown after lunch. I walked by several British era buildings, the huge early 20th century legislative building, the GPO, Christchurch (closed and crumbling) and the yellow buildings on the city's main street, Hazratganj, with newly installed Victorian style street lamps. I walked and then took a rickshaw to the Shah Najaf Imambara, where that Nawab of Avadh is buried. Later I visited a bookshop run by a 91 year old man named Ram Advani and spoke with that very friendly and interesting man for about an hour. He was born in Lahore, educated at Cambridge, taught in Simla during World War II, and opened a bookstore in Lahore after the war. He moved to Lucknow after partition and his bookstore has been in the same location since 1950. His children and grandchildren all live in Britain. We were talking about the traffic and he told me that in 1950 you could park your car right in the middle of what is now the hopelessly clogged street in front of his store. Further down the street I stopped at a place and had one of Lucknow's most famous foods, called a basket chat. The basket is a web of fried potatoes, with aloo tiki (a fried potato patty) inside with other chunks of potato. This is all covered with sugar sweetened yoghurt, a chutney made from green mangos and lots of other tasty treats, including pomegranate seeds. It was delicious. While eating it on a bench on the street, I talked to two medical students, one of whom warned me against speaking to "shabbily dressed" people on the street.
I had a fairly good hotel in Lucknow, the only real problem a Hindu temple nearby which about 5 each morning went into a frenzy of bell ringing for about 20 minutes. A few minutes after that ended, the Muslim call to prayer would begin. It was foggy again the next morning and I headed to the Residency. This is where the British endured a difficult siege during the 1857 Indian Mutiny, as they called it, or the First War of Independence, as the Indians call it. It is an extensive area, something squarish, about a thousand feet by a thousand feet. During British rule, a good part of India, maybe 40%, was not ruled directly by Britain, but by native princes with a British Resident in each principality as a sort of power behind the throne. The siege lasted about four and a half months and the many buildings of the Residency area were much damaged or destroyed by cannon fire. The British left it as was as a memorial and it is quite interesting to wander around the ruin buildings and memorials. One memorial honors the "Devoted Native Officers and Sepoys" (sepoys are soldiers) who fought on the British side. It seems that about half of the 3000 people under siege were Indians and about half the 3000 were non-combatants, including women and children. When a relief column reached Lucknow after three months, only about 1000 had survived, and then it took another two and a half months before another relief column finally ended the siege. Again, I was the only westerner wandering around. Lots of Indians, mostly couples enjoying the park, were there.
Afterwards, I walked around some, visiting some huge, early 19th century mausoleums of the Nawabs of Avadh. They were pretty run down, with boys playing cricket on the dusty grass nearby. I passed another plaza with a statue of Ambedkar and them took a cycle rickshaw to a famous Lucknow restaurant called Tunday Kebab and ordered a plate of their famous mutton kebabs. These kebabs are not chunks of meat on skewers, but very mushy patties tenderized by papaya and cooked in oil. They are served with a sort of spongy round bread and are delicious. I watched them being cooked in a big wok-like pan in front of the restaurant. After lunch I walked through the streets and narrow alleys of the neighborhood, called Aminabad. A woman was ironing in one alley with a huge iron filled with charcoal. Eventually I took a cycle rickshaw to Lucknow's huge train station to look around. It is quite attractive, built by the British in that style called Indo-Saracenic.
The next morning the sun was trying to break through the fog soon after 8. I took a vikram, a shared, large autorickshaw, to the huge Bara Imambara, a tomb built by the Nawabs of Avadh about two hundred years ago. The main hall is 500 feet long and 50 feet high, with no columns. In front is a huge courtyard with a mosque on one side and a five story step well on the other. When I arrived, fog was swirling through the huge courtyard, but it dissipated about 9:30 as the sun came out. Above the great hall is a labyrinth of passages that take you to walkways that look down on the two halls and lead to the roof. It is a lot of fun to wander through the narrow passageways and the views from the roof are great. I finally met some other western tourists there. After about three hours I walked further west past other sites. It had warmed up a bit and I could take off my jacket. (I hadn't needed a jacket in Varanasi. I'm still wearing sandals rather than shoes, though, mainly because they are easier to take off at temples and mosques.) I passed a huge gate, a British built clocktower, and a museum with paintings of the Nawabs of Oudh, or Avadh. They were Persian, and therefore Shi'ites, and were able to establish their independence from the Mughals in the 1700's. They were quite cultured, devoted to poetry and the good life. In the paintings, as time goes by, the nawabs become increasingly corpulent and bejeweled. The last one, deposed by the British in 1856 for bad governance (one of the causes of the revolt the next year) is painted in a luxurious gown with one of his nipples exposed. Quite odd.
I continued to the Chotta Imambra, with black and white calligraphy on the exterior and two mini-Taj Mahal tombs in the courtyard. Black flags and banners were everywhere. The tenth day of Muharrum, the day Hussein, Mohammed's grandson, was slain at Karbala, had occurred a few days before and there were bloody photos of Shi'as parading in Lucknow and cutting themselves to show their solidarity with Hussein. Most Indian Muslims are Sunni, and Ram Advani told me most Muslims in Lucknow are Sunni, but the nawabs apparently converted many to their faith. I took a cycle rickshaw to a neighborhood of narrow streets and alleys called Chowk and wandered around. There was lots of activity and some women in black chadors. I took another cycle rickshaw to the Residency again, as I wanted to see the museum, which had been closed the day I had first visited. I sat on a bench as the sun set behind the trees and watched the boys flying kites on the wide lawn in front of the main residency building.
The sun was out soon after 8 the next morning. It had felt colder the night before. I took a vikram, then a cycle rickshaw to La Martiniere, a boys school in the palatial former home of Claude Martin, a Frenchmen who made a fortune working for the Nawabs and the British East India Company in the late 1700's and early 1800's. It is a huge Indo-Classical building with many classical statues on the roof. Lots of statues of lions, too. It was closed on that Sunday morning, but a guy let me in to see the library and the chapel. Three friendly boys, 13 years old or so, showed me around. They showed me their dormitory, above the library in a room with beautiful blue and white molding, with classical designs, but in need of conservation. The many beds in the rooms had mosquito netting. They told me there were 200 boarders and 3500 day students. Boys were playing cricket and two were playing ping pong on a cement bench with bricks serving as the net. One boy had on his school jacket, with the school crest. On the way, I had seen protestors at a Gandhi statue showing their solidarity with a man named Anna Hazare who was staging a one day hunger strike in Delhi that day to get the government to agree to his anti-corruption reforms.
I left Lucknow about 1 that afternoon on a train from its huge station. The train was about an hour late, but I spent the time talking to a medical student on his way back to medical school in Mangalore in southern India. The train was crowded, with five on a seat supposed to seat three. Lots of people buys unreserved tickets and then squeeze in among those with reserved seats. I was traveling second class sleeper, with berths that are made into seats in the daytime. There are also AC class seats, but the windows are smaller and can't be opened, so I prefer traveling second class, although it is dirty and dusty and often crowded. Beggars and sellers of food and drink and other things came through almost constantly. One guy was selling belts, another perfume. The sun was out, though it was hazy, as we passed mustard, some rice harvesting, lots of trees and lots of newly sprouting wheat. We crossed the very dry Ganges and reached Kanpur after about an hour and a half.
I found a good hotel and then took a cycle rickshaw to All Souls' Church in the Cantonment, surrounded by Indian Army buildings. The 150 year old church was closed, with barking dogs guarding it, but a guy let me in and showed me around. The were lots of plaques inside and memorials outside about the 1857 Siege of Cawnpore (as the British spelled it). The small party of besieged British were told by the insurgents that they could board boats and sail down the Ganges to Allahabad, but as they were boarding the boats the insurgents raked them with cannon fire and charged them with cavalry. Only one boat escaped and those that didn't escape were killed. Outside the church is a statue of an angel and a stone screen, apparently moved to the church from downtown Kanpur after independence. Posts nearby mark the site of trenches from the fighting. I walked along the wide streets of the cantonment and eventually made my way by rickshw to the spot on the Ganges where the massacre took place, but there wasn't anything to see but a small temple and the mostly dry bed of the Ganges.
Back in the city center, I watched some friendly boys and young men playing cricket in the dusk in the dusty yard of the former King Emperor Memorial Hall. In the dark near my hotel I found a big new mall, very clean and modern inside with four levels inside a big atrium. There was a Christmas tree maybe 40 feet high, with presents nearby and snowflakes above. There was a food court on the top level, with McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC and Indian and Chinese food places. I had a not very good Chicken Maharajah, India's version of the Big Mac with two chicken patties, and some not very good Baskin Robbins ice cream. There were lots and lots of people inside and I seemed to be the only westerner. I had my photo taken. In fact, I've had my photo taken everywhere. Many people have cell phones with cameras.
It was sunny the next morning and I walked around Kanpur unsuccessfully looking for some other 1857 sites. I did find the colonial Christchurch and some other colonial buildings. I left Kanpur about 11:30 on a three hour train trip east to Allahabad. The train wasn't too crowded and we passed lots of mustard, trees and newly planted wheat. I also some some tall red-headed Sarus cranes from the train at small pools of water. They are the tallest of the cranes. In Allahabad I got a room with 20 foot ceilings in a dirty hotel near the train station that apparently originally was a stable. Actually, it turned out to be fairly comfortable except for a hard bed, and I think it is cleaner now than it was when it was a stable. In the late afternoon I walked over the walkways crossing the tracks and platforms of the train station and walked to Khusru Bagh, with four Mogul tombs. One is that of Khusru, who rebelled against his father Jahangir and as punishment was blinded and imprisoned in Allahabad. Later his brother, who became Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal, had him killed to ensure his own succession as Emperor. Another tomb is that of his mother who is said to have committed suicide with an overdose of opium as she was so distraught with the feuding between her husband and son. The garden surrounding the tombs was filled with friendly people. One man from Indore took a photo of me and his two very friendly little children.
There was thick fog again the next morning. And it was cold. The newspaper said the low was about 44, the high 68. I had a good breakfast, with good coffee, at the Indian Coffee House, similar to the one in Simla. I went back to the hotel waiting for the fog to lift some, and then walked to All Saints' Cathedral nearby. It was closed, but the Presbyter-in-Charge, the Reverend Gabriel Daud, offered me tea and then let me in and showed me around. He told me it the largest church in Asia and it is very big. It's not in the best condition, with broken windows, including some of the stained glass ones. It was decorated for Christmas inside, by his wife, he told me. He told me on the 24th they set up a creche and thousands come to see it. His congregation numbers 268. I also walked to the High Court and talked to some of the black robed, white collared lawyers. I had down the same at the High Court in Lucknow, and noticed many of the motorcycles were marked "Advocate."
I walked a bit, then took a cycle rickshaw to Anand Bhavan, the Nehru family home. Actually, there are two homes, one purchased by Motilal Nehru in 1899, a huge place with 52 rooms. In 1930 he gave it to Congress and it was renamed Swaraj (for "self-government") Bhavan. In 1927 he built next door a very elegant new Anand Bhavan. Motilal died in 1931 and his son Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, lived in both. Indira, his daughter, was born in 1917 in Swaraj Bhavan. They are both now museums, with many rooms left as they were and many very good photos. My favorites, I think, were those of both Motilal and Jawaharlal as young lawyers, each sporting white wigs. I spent about three hours there. There were lots of visitors, including a very big group in white gowns. I was the only westerner. A bookstore had some of the books written by Nehru and they looked very interesting. Afterwards, I walked to the British built Muir College, a beautiful building with a 200 foot tower, now part of Allahabad University. A kid was practicing bowling cricket balls to his father. The ball is quite hard and he was bowling with both arms. I then walked to a British era library, another very nice building, and the Queen Victoria Memorial, now lacking any plaque whatsoever. I sat in the park and watched the sun go down through the trees. Back at my hotel there was a Tibetan Market until 9. Tibetans come every November and stay until January, selling warm clothing. I guess people figure Tibetans must know about warm clothing. One Tibetan woman told me she lives in Delhi.
It was sunny the next morning and I took a vikram to the Sangam, the point at the eastern end of Allahabad where the Yamuna and the Ganges meet. Actually, Hindus believe that another, underground river, the mythical Saraswati, also meets at this point. It is very auspicious to bathe here, and in January 2013 it will be particularly auspicious to bathe here, and tens of millions are expected to arrive at what is the world's biggest religious event. I walked along the dusty shoreline. Lots of poles and electrical wires run through the area, in preparation for when tents are set up for the big gatherings. People were engaging in puja (religious ceremonies) on the shoreline and getting rowed out to the meeting of the waters. I joined a group of about twelve in a boat. Went out to a line of boats where the somewhat greenish Yamuna meets the brown Ganges. We tied up to a boat that was attached to another boat with a submerged platform between them. All the members of our party except me, and people from other boats, took turns submerging in the waters standing on the platform.. Men undressed to their shorts while women went in fully clothed. A priest on the boat conducts pujas, with coconuts. I saw one guy pouring what looked like milk into the water. It took over an hour for our group to finish, but it was all interesting. On the way back, they threw some sort of food to the many birds, hundreds of them, on the water.
Right next to the Sangam (which means "confluence") is a huge, but not particularly photogenic, fort built by Akbar. The military still uses it and you can go into just a small part of it, with an underground temple and a banyan tree. I did so and then walked along the walls of the fort along the Yamuna until I reached a garbage filled park with a pillar marking the spot where authority was transferred from the East India Company to the British Crown in 1858. After that, I headed back to the city center for a late lunch and an internet cafe.
Kushinagar is one of the four great Buddhist pilgrimage sites, the one where Buddha is believed to have died. I had hoped to stay in one of the temples but they were all filled with pilgrims, so I had to get an expensive hotel -- about $25, by far the most I have spent in India. I walked to the park with a temple and stupa in the center, the spot where Buddha is believed to have died. They are both much restored, by Burmese Buddhists in the 1920's. This site, like Bodhgaya and Sarnath, was abandoned after being destroyed by Muslims about 1200 and only rediscovered by the British in the 19th century. Apparently, the British relied on the accounts of Chinese pilgrims from a thousand and more years earlier to find the sites. Inside the temple is a twenty foot long reclining Buddha, much restored and now with gold leaf, with his hands under his head. Pilgrims were kneeling all around and praying. At dusk the temple closed after the Buddha, covered by an orange cloak, was covered by priests and pilgrims with additional red cloaks. Afterwards I talked with a Burmese guy who told me most of the pilgrims were Burmese, and a Thai monk, who walked out with me through the ruined brick foundations of monasteries that surround the temple and stupa. Somewhat surprisingly, there were no other western tourists in Kushinagar, a small town, just a few thousand people, I think. I talked to a Bengali man who moved here 17 years ago and he told me when he arrived there wasn't much here, just three shops. Now there are dozens catering to the pilgrims.
I got up and out before 7 the next morning into a very thick fog. You could see only about 100-150 feet. I walked to a stupa where Buddha is supposed to have drunk his last water and then to the main temple and stupa, which I had visited the night before. It was all very nice in the fog, though chilly. I had switched from shorts to long trousers that morning. There were many bands of pilgrims in the temple and around the stupa, led by monks with microphones and portable speakers. The Buddha was again being wrapped in robes of different colors. Walking around the stupa, I took a photo of a monk and pilgrims kneeling before the stupa and he called me over, gave me his camera and asked me to take photos of them praying.
I had breakfast and then walked about a half mile out of town, a nice walk under trees in the fog, to a ruined stupa, really just an irregular pile of bricks, where Buddha is supposed to have been cremated. A band of pilgrims was kneeling and praying on one side. I took a cycle rickshaw back to town as the fog began to lift and headed back to Gorakhpur soon after 10 in a packed jeep -- 15 of us. We arrived about noon and I immediately got on a bus headed further west to Faizabad. I would have liked to have gone to the fourth major Buddhist site in the area, Lumbini, where Buddha was born, about 50 miles to the north, but it is just over the Nepal border and with my visa if I leave India I have to wait two months before returning. The afternoon was overcast and foggy, much like the Central Valley of California can be in the winter, and I suspect for much the same reason, with cold air coming down from the Himalayas (rather than the Sierra Nevada) and condensing when it hits the warmer and moister valley air. We again crossed the wide Ghaghara just being reaching Faizabad. It took me a while to find a hotel, but it was a good one. On the way into town there were Shi'ites celebrating, if that is the right word, Muharram, when Hussein was killed. They build these colorful paper replicas, called tazias, of his tomb at Karbala in Iraq.
It was foggy again the next morning. The newspaper reported 50 meters (about 165 feet) visibility the day before. Temperatures had dropped, too. Highs were in the low 80's in Varanasi, but had dropped to about 70 with the fog. Lows were in the high 40's. About 9 I took a tempo, a shared, large version of an autorickshaw, to Ayodhya, only eight miles or so away. Ayodhya is considered the birthplace of Rama and has become a place of great controversy over the past two decades. In 1992 Hindus destroyed the Babri Mosque, built by the Mughal Emperor Babur in the early 1500's after first destroying the Hindu temple on the spot. They claim the site is the birthplace of Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu and the hero of the epic Ramayana. Arriving in town, I first climbed the stairs to the Hanuman (the monkey god and an ally of Rama in his war against the evil Ravana) temple in a walled, fortress-like enclosure. The pilgrims there were friendly and there was lots of activity. Two soldiers guarded the entrance and I had to run a gauntlet of beggars on the steps.
I then walked to the Rama Janam Bhumi, the site of Rama's birth in the precincts of the former Babri Mosque. The security was amazing. I had to deposit my bag and camera and even my pen. I was led by a man throughout, passing the Indian worshipers at checkpoints. I had three or four thorough pat-downs, although the soldiers were all very friendly. There weren't many pilgrims that day. Finally, I was led through a caged walkway, enclosed on both sides and above, for hundreds of feet in what seemed a sort of labyrinth until we reached the garish little shrine in a white canvas tent that commemorates Rama's birthplace. I had a short look and then made another long walk through wire enclosures back to near where I had begun, passing a very large army base on the way, with steel fences and guard towers. Nearby videos, which you could buy, were playing in the little shops showing the destruction of the mosque in 1992 set to martial music. Young men are using hammers and sledgehammers on the dome of the mosque after they had overwhelmed the guards. This caused all sorts of Hindu-Muslim rioting in India, with thousands of lives lost.
I walked around the town some more. People were very friendly and I saw no other westerners. One temple had a courtyard full of cows and saddhus, until the saddhus chased out the cows. There were lots of monkeys all over town. I walked to the palace of the former raja, and to some temples behind it. Some painters were repainting one of the palace rooms and showed me around. I had a good thali lunch for 35 rupees, about 70 cents. A thali is a metal plate with sections in which they put various kinds of food, mostly cooked vegetables, along with rice and chapattis. The sun came out about 1 and I walked around town a bit more before taking a tempo back to Faizabad.
In Faizabad I took a cycle rickshaw to the enormous, white-domed Mausoleum of Bahu Begum, a wife of a Nawab of Avadh (or Oudh, as the British spelled it). I think it was about 150 feet high. Both going and returning we got stuck in an enormous traffic jam at a railroad crossing. I've now seen this several times in India. When the guard rails go down, traffic on each side of the tracks does not stay in the left lane. Instead, the cars and motorcycles and rickshaws and bicycles and everything else crowds into both lanes, jockeying for position. Needless to say, after the train passes and the guard rails go up, there is a complete morass, which takes ages to untangle. I suppose this says something about India.
It was foggy again the next morning and I left by bus about 9 heading west to Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh's capital, with more than two million people. We traveled on a four lane divided highway, though there were mounds of cow manure patties drying on the median, something you rarely see on four lane divided highways in the United States. The fog cleared about 11and there was sugar cane and other crops, and lots of trees, to be seen on the way. Coming into town, we passed a huge new plaza with a statue of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the dalit, or untouchable, who was independent India's first Law Minister and principal author of its constitution. Uttar Pradesh is now governed by a predominately dalit party, although it is also supported by what are called OBCs ("other backward castes"), Muslims (also often poor) and others. The Chief Minister is a woman named Mayawati, often called the Queen of the Dalits, known for building monuments, often with elephants, her party symbol, and for corruption. There are billboards and posters of her all over Lucknow.
We passed through the old British cantonment on the city outskirts, with the Indian military now in their place, and reached the bus station about noon. It took me an hour to find a hotel, across from the huge train station, and then I headed downtown after lunch. I walked by several British era buildings, the huge early 20th century legislative building, the GPO, Christchurch (closed and crumbling) and the yellow buildings on the city's main street, Hazratganj, with newly installed Victorian style street lamps. I walked and then took a rickshaw to the Shah Najaf Imambara, where that Nawab of Avadh is buried. Later I visited a bookshop run by a 91 year old man named Ram Advani and spoke with that very friendly and interesting man for about an hour. He was born in Lahore, educated at Cambridge, taught in Simla during World War II, and opened a bookstore in Lahore after the war. He moved to Lucknow after partition and his bookstore has been in the same location since 1950. His children and grandchildren all live in Britain. We were talking about the traffic and he told me that in 1950 you could park your car right in the middle of what is now the hopelessly clogged street in front of his store. Further down the street I stopped at a place and had one of Lucknow's most famous foods, called a basket chat. The basket is a web of fried potatoes, with aloo tiki (a fried potato patty) inside with other chunks of potato. This is all covered with sugar sweetened yoghurt, a chutney made from green mangos and lots of other tasty treats, including pomegranate seeds. It was delicious. While eating it on a bench on the street, I talked to two medical students, one of whom warned me against speaking to "shabbily dressed" people on the street.
I had a fairly good hotel in Lucknow, the only real problem a Hindu temple nearby which about 5 each morning went into a frenzy of bell ringing for about 20 minutes. A few minutes after that ended, the Muslim call to prayer would begin. It was foggy again the next morning and I headed to the Residency. This is where the British endured a difficult siege during the 1857 Indian Mutiny, as they called it, or the First War of Independence, as the Indians call it. It is an extensive area, something squarish, about a thousand feet by a thousand feet. During British rule, a good part of India, maybe 40%, was not ruled directly by Britain, but by native princes with a British Resident in each principality as a sort of power behind the throne. The siege lasted about four and a half months and the many buildings of the Residency area were much damaged or destroyed by cannon fire. The British left it as was as a memorial and it is quite interesting to wander around the ruin buildings and memorials. One memorial honors the "Devoted Native Officers and Sepoys" (sepoys are soldiers) who fought on the British side. It seems that about half of the 3000 people under siege were Indians and about half the 3000 were non-combatants, including women and children. When a relief column reached Lucknow after three months, only about 1000 had survived, and then it took another two and a half months before another relief column finally ended the siege. Again, I was the only westerner wandering around. Lots of Indians, mostly couples enjoying the park, were there.
Afterwards, I walked around some, visiting some huge, early 19th century mausoleums of the Nawabs of Avadh. They were pretty run down, with boys playing cricket on the dusty grass nearby. I passed another plaza with a statue of Ambedkar and them took a cycle rickshaw to a famous Lucknow restaurant called Tunday Kebab and ordered a plate of their famous mutton kebabs. These kebabs are not chunks of meat on skewers, but very mushy patties tenderized by papaya and cooked in oil. They are served with a sort of spongy round bread and are delicious. I watched them being cooked in a big wok-like pan in front of the restaurant. After lunch I walked through the streets and narrow alleys of the neighborhood, called Aminabad. A woman was ironing in one alley with a huge iron filled with charcoal. Eventually I took a cycle rickshaw to Lucknow's huge train station to look around. It is quite attractive, built by the British in that style called Indo-Saracenic.
The next morning the sun was trying to break through the fog soon after 8. I took a vikram, a shared, large autorickshaw, to the huge Bara Imambara, a tomb built by the Nawabs of Avadh about two hundred years ago. The main hall is 500 feet long and 50 feet high, with no columns. In front is a huge courtyard with a mosque on one side and a five story step well on the other. When I arrived, fog was swirling through the huge courtyard, but it dissipated about 9:30 as the sun came out. Above the great hall is a labyrinth of passages that take you to walkways that look down on the two halls and lead to the roof. It is a lot of fun to wander through the narrow passageways and the views from the roof are great. I finally met some other western tourists there. After about three hours I walked further west past other sites. It had warmed up a bit and I could take off my jacket. (I hadn't needed a jacket in Varanasi. I'm still wearing sandals rather than shoes, though, mainly because they are easier to take off at temples and mosques.) I passed a huge gate, a British built clocktower, and a museum with paintings of the Nawabs of Oudh, or Avadh. They were Persian, and therefore Shi'ites, and were able to establish their independence from the Mughals in the 1700's. They were quite cultured, devoted to poetry and the good life. In the paintings, as time goes by, the nawabs become increasingly corpulent and bejeweled. The last one, deposed by the British in 1856 for bad governance (one of the causes of the revolt the next year) is painted in a luxurious gown with one of his nipples exposed. Quite odd.
I continued to the Chotta Imambra, with black and white calligraphy on the exterior and two mini-Taj Mahal tombs in the courtyard. Black flags and banners were everywhere. The tenth day of Muharrum, the day Hussein, Mohammed's grandson, was slain at Karbala, had occurred a few days before and there were bloody photos of Shi'as parading in Lucknow and cutting themselves to show their solidarity with Hussein. Most Indian Muslims are Sunni, and Ram Advani told me most Muslims in Lucknow are Sunni, but the nawabs apparently converted many to their faith. I took a cycle rickshaw to a neighborhood of narrow streets and alleys called Chowk and wandered around. There was lots of activity and some women in black chadors. I took another cycle rickshaw to the Residency again, as I wanted to see the museum, which had been closed the day I had first visited. I sat on a bench as the sun set behind the trees and watched the boys flying kites on the wide lawn in front of the main residency building.
The sun was out soon after 8 the next morning. It had felt colder the night before. I took a vikram, then a cycle rickshaw to La Martiniere, a boys school in the palatial former home of Claude Martin, a Frenchmen who made a fortune working for the Nawabs and the British East India Company in the late 1700's and early 1800's. It is a huge Indo-Classical building with many classical statues on the roof. Lots of statues of lions, too. It was closed on that Sunday morning, but a guy let me in to see the library and the chapel. Three friendly boys, 13 years old or so, showed me around. They showed me their dormitory, above the library in a room with beautiful blue and white molding, with classical designs, but in need of conservation. The many beds in the rooms had mosquito netting. They told me there were 200 boarders and 3500 day students. Boys were playing cricket and two were playing ping pong on a cement bench with bricks serving as the net. One boy had on his school jacket, with the school crest. On the way, I had seen protestors at a Gandhi statue showing their solidarity with a man named Anna Hazare who was staging a one day hunger strike in Delhi that day to get the government to agree to his anti-corruption reforms.
I left Lucknow about 1 that afternoon on a train from its huge station. The train was about an hour late, but I spent the time talking to a medical student on his way back to medical school in Mangalore in southern India. The train was crowded, with five on a seat supposed to seat three. Lots of people buys unreserved tickets and then squeeze in among those with reserved seats. I was traveling second class sleeper, with berths that are made into seats in the daytime. There are also AC class seats, but the windows are smaller and can't be opened, so I prefer traveling second class, although it is dirty and dusty and often crowded. Beggars and sellers of food and drink and other things came through almost constantly. One guy was selling belts, another perfume. The sun was out, though it was hazy, as we passed mustard, some rice harvesting, lots of trees and lots of newly sprouting wheat. We crossed the very dry Ganges and reached Kanpur after about an hour and a half.
I found a good hotel and then took a cycle rickshaw to All Souls' Church in the Cantonment, surrounded by Indian Army buildings. The 150 year old church was closed, with barking dogs guarding it, but a guy let me in and showed me around. The were lots of plaques inside and memorials outside about the 1857 Siege of Cawnpore (as the British spelled it). The small party of besieged British were told by the insurgents that they could board boats and sail down the Ganges to Allahabad, but as they were boarding the boats the insurgents raked them with cannon fire and charged them with cavalry. Only one boat escaped and those that didn't escape were killed. Outside the church is a statue of an angel and a stone screen, apparently moved to the church from downtown Kanpur after independence. Posts nearby mark the site of trenches from the fighting. I walked along the wide streets of the cantonment and eventually made my way by rickshw to the spot on the Ganges where the massacre took place, but there wasn't anything to see but a small temple and the mostly dry bed of the Ganges.
Back in the city center, I watched some friendly boys and young men playing cricket in the dusk in the dusty yard of the former King Emperor Memorial Hall. In the dark near my hotel I found a big new mall, very clean and modern inside with four levels inside a big atrium. There was a Christmas tree maybe 40 feet high, with presents nearby and snowflakes above. There was a food court on the top level, with McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC and Indian and Chinese food places. I had a not very good Chicken Maharajah, India's version of the Big Mac with two chicken patties, and some not very good Baskin Robbins ice cream. There were lots and lots of people inside and I seemed to be the only westerner. I had my photo taken. In fact, I've had my photo taken everywhere. Many people have cell phones with cameras.
It was sunny the next morning and I walked around Kanpur unsuccessfully looking for some other 1857 sites. I did find the colonial Christchurch and some other colonial buildings. I left Kanpur about 11:30 on a three hour train trip east to Allahabad. The train wasn't too crowded and we passed lots of mustard, trees and newly planted wheat. I also some some tall red-headed Sarus cranes from the train at small pools of water. They are the tallest of the cranes. In Allahabad I got a room with 20 foot ceilings in a dirty hotel near the train station that apparently originally was a stable. Actually, it turned out to be fairly comfortable except for a hard bed, and I think it is cleaner now than it was when it was a stable. In the late afternoon I walked over the walkways crossing the tracks and platforms of the train station and walked to Khusru Bagh, with four Mogul tombs. One is that of Khusru, who rebelled against his father Jahangir and as punishment was blinded and imprisoned in Allahabad. Later his brother, who became Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal, had him killed to ensure his own succession as Emperor. Another tomb is that of his mother who is said to have committed suicide with an overdose of opium as she was so distraught with the feuding between her husband and son. The garden surrounding the tombs was filled with friendly people. One man from Indore took a photo of me and his two very friendly little children.
There was thick fog again the next morning. And it was cold. The newspaper said the low was about 44, the high 68. I had a good breakfast, with good coffee, at the Indian Coffee House, similar to the one in Simla. I went back to the hotel waiting for the fog to lift some, and then walked to All Saints' Cathedral nearby. It was closed, but the Presbyter-in-Charge, the Reverend Gabriel Daud, offered me tea and then let me in and showed me around. He told me it the largest church in Asia and it is very big. It's not in the best condition, with broken windows, including some of the stained glass ones. It was decorated for Christmas inside, by his wife, he told me. He told me on the 24th they set up a creche and thousands come to see it. His congregation numbers 268. I also walked to the High Court and talked to some of the black robed, white collared lawyers. I had down the same at the High Court in Lucknow, and noticed many of the motorcycles were marked "Advocate."
I walked a bit, then took a cycle rickshaw to Anand Bhavan, the Nehru family home. Actually, there are two homes, one purchased by Motilal Nehru in 1899, a huge place with 52 rooms. In 1930 he gave it to Congress and it was renamed Swaraj (for "self-government") Bhavan. In 1927 he built next door a very elegant new Anand Bhavan. Motilal died in 1931 and his son Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, lived in both. Indira, his daughter, was born in 1917 in Swaraj Bhavan. They are both now museums, with many rooms left as they were and many very good photos. My favorites, I think, were those of both Motilal and Jawaharlal as young lawyers, each sporting white wigs. I spent about three hours there. There were lots of visitors, including a very big group in white gowns. I was the only westerner. A bookstore had some of the books written by Nehru and they looked very interesting. Afterwards, I walked to the British built Muir College, a beautiful building with a 200 foot tower, now part of Allahabad University. A kid was practicing bowling cricket balls to his father. The ball is quite hard and he was bowling with both arms. I then walked to a British era library, another very nice building, and the Queen Victoria Memorial, now lacking any plaque whatsoever. I sat in the park and watched the sun go down through the trees. Back at my hotel there was a Tibetan Market until 9. Tibetans come every November and stay until January, selling warm clothing. I guess people figure Tibetans must know about warm clothing. One Tibetan woman told me she lives in Delhi.
It was sunny the next morning and I took a vikram to the Sangam, the point at the eastern end of Allahabad where the Yamuna and the Ganges meet. Actually, Hindus believe that another, underground river, the mythical Saraswati, also meets at this point. It is very auspicious to bathe here, and in January 2013 it will be particularly auspicious to bathe here, and tens of millions are expected to arrive at what is the world's biggest religious event. I walked along the dusty shoreline. Lots of poles and electrical wires run through the area, in preparation for when tents are set up for the big gatherings. People were engaging in puja (religious ceremonies) on the shoreline and getting rowed out to the meeting of the waters. I joined a group of about twelve in a boat. Went out to a line of boats where the somewhat greenish Yamuna meets the brown Ganges. We tied up to a boat that was attached to another boat with a submerged platform between them. All the members of our party except me, and people from other boats, took turns submerging in the waters standing on the platform.. Men undressed to their shorts while women went in fully clothed. A priest on the boat conducts pujas, with coconuts. I saw one guy pouring what looked like milk into the water. It took over an hour for our group to finish, but it was all interesting. On the way back, they threw some sort of food to the many birds, hundreds of them, on the water.
Right next to the Sangam (which means "confluence") is a huge, but not particularly photogenic, fort built by Akbar. The military still uses it and you can go into just a small part of it, with an underground temple and a banyan tree. I did so and then walked along the walls of the fort along the Yamuna until I reached a garbage filled park with a pillar marking the spot where authority was transferred from the East India Company to the British Crown in 1858. After that, I headed back to the city center for a late lunch and an internet cafe.
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