Politics, Hey... (pt. 2)

Let's talk politics again. We both enjoyed it last time. To be fair last time the politics extended to about seven words before I apologised and changed the subject. This time though, I'm going to risk saying something misinformed (/ obvious / trite / regrettable or looking like a sixth former who has just read his first broadsheet or sounding like an over-privileged member of the middle-class elite), and talk about actual politics. Because this affects all of us. By which I mean all of us in this room. By which I mean me (and 1.2 billion others)

And no, I'm not talking about THAT politics:
a. I've been expecting that since June. Go on, admit it, you have to. Once you saw that people could be completely self-destructive just to make a point, you knew that sense and fact and competence and experience didn't stand a chance. We've all had enough of experts.
b. There's enough bureaucracy in the US to stop any really stupid ideas growing legs (I think - there must be some halfway sane Republicans in the Senate, right?).
c. It's pretty much a footnote to the news here. One of those kitten stories to amuse you away from the real issues at hand. "Look at what those funny Americans have done now."

I suspect that the news here has been somewhat overshadowed by the news elsewhere (that news involved English speaking, white people after all), but they have demonetised some of the banknotes.

You've read that sentence and you haven't understood it. You've maybe got distracted by the "demon" and assumed some voodoo ritual. Or else you have completely understood it but ruled it out as ridiculous. But no, you're right. And no it doesn't make sense. The logic behind it is sort of sound, but the implications...

India is largely cash-based. Two thirds of the population are rural and don't have access to a bank (that's approximately the population of Europe). To say that the cash is worthless without giving any real provision for people to prepare is ridiculous. Seven o'clock Tuesday night you could go to a cash machine and get cash out, the cash would be given to you in either 500 or 1000 notes. At 8pm it was announced that in four hours time 500 and 1000 notes would be "worthless bits of paper".

Obviously you can change old notes up at banks over the next month or so. But all banks were closed yesterday and were understandably bonkers today.

What's that? Go to the cash machine and get more cash out. No problem, except cash machines have been closed since the announcement too. Presumably because the current largest note in circulation is worth £1.20 which even here doesn't buy you that much - stocking cash machines is going to be a big old job.

And the cash machine thing is fine for us over-privileged idiots. I can gad about bouncing between shopping malls and putting everything on a card (maybe they are using the fees for expats using foreign bank cards to fund the gap in the economy). Not so good if you are any of the working class service industry - tuktuk drivers for example - relying on other people being able to access cash. Days without cash for a cash based society are going to be hitting the bottom end of society pretty hard.

And I understand the aim and intentions. I applaud the Prime Minister for taking drastic action to fight terrorism and corruption. I understand the need for the surprise tactic to try and make black money worthless. I just can't help but think there must have been a way of doing it without pulling the bottom out of the economy.

So yeah, that shinyhaired game show host with the new job, not really that important.

Follow the Monkeys

So a lot of people had told me how nice Jaipur is and how it doesn't feel like one of the big Indian cities. I can confirm that this is largely nonsense. The hustle and bustle are still there. And added to that the people come across as slightly less helpful. It seems that everything is designed just to make it that little bit more difficult for you.

Lassiwala is a case in point. It's possibly the most famous lassi stand in India. It's surrounded by four other shops all also called Lassiwala. For reference you can tell the original by the catchphrase "Kishan Lal Govind Narian Agarwal" written just above the awning so you can't see it from the street. Easy.

So yeah, Jaipur. The Pink City. I figured that's the most famous bit so I started there. Some bits of it are pink, more than you'd like are a murky orange colour. And it is a bit of a smelly city. And not in a good way. Didn't add to the charm. The Jantar Mantar is a big thing in Jaipur, rather than the minor curiosity that it is in Delhi. And don't get me started on Hawa Mahal. The most overrated Major Tourist Attraction (TM) I've seen since Manneken Pis [Insert your own joke about the previously mentioned smell].

Sightseeing highlight of Day 1 was probably the Pigeon Watching Area. Yes it was marked on the map.

Day 2 was outside of the city proper, box ticking forts Amber, Tiger, Jal Mahal. Ticked. And then the tuktuk driver casually mentioned The Monkey Temple. To say it was an assault on the senses would be an understatement.

It started innocuously enough. I say innocuously, I saw a monkey riding a pig. If that's not a good omen, nothing is. So there was a temple and some monkeys and that might have been it, but there seemed to be a steady stream of people heading into the mountains. And there were more monkeys that way.

And then it all got weird. I saw some freak cows. And I think a man put a curse on me for not giving his freak cow any money. And there were more monkeys. And people. And colours. And firecrackers. And a snake charmer. And more monkeys. And then I was in a festival where a queue of people were prostrating themselves before bathing whilst an MC was commentating and I really didn't know what was going on but it was brilliant.

That kind of nonsense is the reason I travel.

Foke

I know I mentioned that the sky was ridiculous when I posted yesterday. I suspect that you didn't believe me. I suspect you thought I was being deliberately hyperbolic, just to make it funnier.

It's not been all that funny today. It's about the worst sky I've ever seen. Corroborative evidence? Here's the Beeb.

Rangolis

I had been really excited about Diwali. I was accidentally in Kathmandu for Diwali five years back and it was a ridiculously fun atmosphere, slightly scary, but ridiculously fun. And I figured if tiny, tiny Kathmandu was that good then Delhi would be immense.

Now when I was in Kathmandu I was staying in the middle of a tourist area, so everything was a. Accessible and b. Open. Turns out when you live with nothing in walking distance it's a bit less exciting.

That said the sky was kinda different. So many fireworks. And when I say fireworks I don't mean an orchestrated firework display. Nor do I mean the kind of fireworks you get at home for the garden. These were fireworks whose main aim was to make noise. Consequently all the nights this weekend have had a bit of a warzone vibe. Bangs. Flashes. Smoke.

I say smoke, it's pollution. The sky is ridiculous. And that's from a baseline where the sky is too thick for the sun to set.

So yeah, turns out just about everyone leaves the NCR for Diwali so that they can breathe marginally fresher air. Consequently, not as exciting a weekend as I had hoped.

On the plus side I did tick off a few more of the Delhi sites. Humayun's tomb was ace, for my money the wow factor was better than the Taj. But that was probably just because I wasn't expecting it. So forget I said it was good. Ditto Jama Masjid. Massive. Less impressed by the National Museum - it always irks me when museums charge full price when they are under renovation. Still did create the nice juxtaposition of a "Silence Please" sign and a pneumatic drill being anything but silent.

I went into hibernation for the main Diwali day. I read The Call by Peadar O'Guilin in one sitting. You should too (not necessarily in one sitting). But don't read the blurb first, it will make you cringe a bit, or maybe just not read it. You're just gonna have to trust me.

Golden Wonder

I'm in Amritsar and I have a new favourite place of worship. Given the location (and the title) you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was that there Golden Temple that had lit my fire. You're wrong though. That's number three on my Fave Amritsar Place of Worship list. Sri Durgiana, the Golden Temple's scruffy cousin takes second spot - way more peaceful and with bigger koi. And I felt a bit sorry for it.

Number one is Mandir Mata Lal Devi temple. It was bloomin marvellous. A temple for the limited attention span generation. I say Temple, it was more like something you would find at a funfair. Like an anti-ghost house. If all places of worship were like that...

Anyway Amritsar, the Golden Temple hey? That's a thing. Well technically it's not a thing, technically Sri Harmandir Sahib is a thing and that there pretty temple is a part of a thing. And Sri Harmandir is a thing with rules. I had to cover my head, which is fair enough, but wasn't allowed to use a hat. Which is odd; if there's one thing I think hats are good at it's head covering. I had to use a dayglo orange bandana, which is nowhere near as good at head covering as a hat is.

There are also a lot of people which makes the whole thing a bit more like a queue than an experience and this being an Indian queue there is a heap of jostling. And once you've been jostled you get the opportunity to drink holy water. Which is from the pool that people are dipping in. The pool that is so murky you can't see the fish.

This is the holiest place in the Sikh faith. This means that some people are having the most spiritual experience of their lives, drinking dubious liquids, surrounded by idiots in stupid headwear and with slightly stinky strangers so close they may as well be sharing pants. Thinking about it, I've pretty much described Super Furry Animals at Glastonbury '99.

This might be the most I've written about a building. There's still another paragraph to go though.

I can't not mention the canteen. It was immense. You got given a tray, sat on the floor and then a slick team walk the line dropping curry and rice on your tray. Not seen anything like it and all kinds of awesome.

I made it to the Wagah crossing to the Pakistan in time for the flag ceremony. It was weird. Some kind of patriotic war pantomime which the peeps both sides of the border were cheering like buffoons. Scary that a crowd could be frenzied up by some crotch-splitting marching and angry stamping.

Given how choreographed the whole shebang was, I can't help but think that the two sets of border guards must rehearse together. Bet there's a shared gym of happiness somewhere where they all practice there macho posturing together. Whilst holding hands.

Got my hit of post colonial guilt from the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial. They have hedges topiaried into British people killing peacefully protesting Indians. I always find that a point is best made with topiary. I've added a photo to prove it, the other photo? Well that's a tiny joke for my own benefit that not that many people who read this will get.

KLL LL HPPS

Go to Rishikesh, they said. Good for hiking, they said, maybe extreme sports if you fancy....

It's the self-styled yoga capital of the world. And where there's yoga there's hippies - the first person I spoke to said they were "here for the healing" without any level of irony. Now this makes for a bit of a weird mix, it's clearly a stop in the backpacker trail - there's heaps of places selling ethnic tat and cheap massages - but there's nowhere selling alcohol or meat. It confuses me. I'm not aware of big signs saying "fresh grains" ever being used to get people to go into a cafe.

I blame the Beatles. They started all this nonsense. I went to the ashram that they made famous. It's deserted now. Weird to see something that was brand new fifty years ago completely derelict with jungle growing through it.

Still heaps of other ashrams about. Although most of them do look like a cross between a cheap motel and a prison, and are more oppressive than either due to chants being played through a speaker system at an inhuman volume. They seem to like it loud here. There's a festival going on at the moment which I don't understand. It appears to be an old man (a sudha? Although I think that may just mean day-glo beggar) shouting into an amplifier ratcheted up to just above breaking point.

Rishikesh's main landmark is a suspension bridge across the Ganges. Do you know how annoying it is crossing the Millennium Bridge with all the people stopping for view selfies, so you can't get past. Take that as your starting point. Third the width, add a liberal dollop of motorbikes (full throttle, full horn, obviously) and maybe a cow, just because. Then you have some idea of what its like. Forgot to mention the monkeys that patrol the bridge ensuring that no food passes from one side to the other.

I went to Aarti, that's the Ganges fire festival. Not sure I understood it but it looked pretty amazing. Lots of people waving fire and sending burning boats full of sins and flowers down the river.

I did a yoga. I think it's fair to say I was rubbish at it. I knew I wasn't that flexible, it's been years since I could touch my toes, but I didn't think that there would be poses that I just wasn't strong enough to hold. I'd say I should practice some more but I didn't especially enjoy it.

And I did make it into the Himalayan foothills for a bit of a walk. Good waterfalls, good butterflies and a good break from the bustle and the horns and the hippies.

Jantar Mantar

How fun is that to say? Let's say it again. Jantar Mantar. It's a three hundred year old sundial for loss of a better description. Incidentally it's also the first "sight" I've ever been to that looks more impressive depicted on a fridge magnet than it does in real life.

So yeah, I've been exploring Delhi: Connaught Place, Lodi Gardens, Janpath markets all places that I felt I should have been by now. For what it's worth, Lodi Gardens was my fave of the bunch. I wasn't expecting it. I figured that it would be something, erm, how to explain? I was basically expecting Fletcher Moss and what I got was pretty far from Fletcher Moss.

________

Have you heard Let Them Eat Chaos yet? Why not? What's your excuse? It's massive in Delhi. All the kidz are listening to South London performance poetry.

They're not.

But you should.