DO |
rickshaw run blogs jan 2014 North to south pan-india on a glorified lawnmower
for our second run April 2015 (west - east across the top 3000+ Km @ 40km/hr) go to DO blogspot
A good traveller is one who knows how to travel with the mind - Michael Bassey Johnson Day 6 dawned, the beach in Daman deceptive in her glory - Baldy discovered the sunset sand was sewage, ankle deep, and any thought of a swim evaporated into the mould of our hotel rooms. Well rested from their true boys- night clubbing, all women everywhere were safely at home. The engineers had chanted and swayed with Daman property barons to the call of Sai Baba with no big picture that our initiation - stage three of all natural learning was about to occur in the Land of Sai. Mahararashta before us we picked a short cut through the mountains to Nasik and the wine country, of course. Sula is India's Montana wines, we'd consumed enough of it already to think we certainly needed to see where it was made and a short jaunt over the hills seemed entirely luxurious as we envisaged lunch or an afternoon in the vines. A short stop in a village to tinkier in our tuks rear ; Heather and I admire local metalware thinking what great salad bowls they'd make back home. A man with shelves of "Clit" car wash almost throws me a small figurine to add to our auto altar - Sai baba, retrospectively he was probably offended that I had offered to pay or that I swopped him a kiwi key ring. Still no idea that this was just a taste of the wonder of my initiation to all that Nasik and Maharashtra had up her sleeve. We set off feeling chuffed, organised, globalised and relaxed, this was day 6 after all, surely we all knew where s&*t was at. The roads were as promised in all the Rickshaw run promotional blurbs, GHASTLY! Pot holes bigger than an auto rickshaw no road let alone surface on the unsurfaced roads, trucks, trucks and buses and unrelenting dust, dust and dust. This is rural India, vast, empty and organised in it's own way. Dead dogs on the road lie bloated and fly feasted, a man sleeping with his head down a bank maybe dead? Each building a work of road side advertising, modern wells, collective living. Peasant dress splashes of colour, our modesty not an issue as we were covered mouth to eye, head to toe just to breathe and have a barrier between ourselves and all of India's dust. It took us 10 hours to cover 186 kms. Infrastructure study tour professionals we were excited to see road gangs preparing to fix the roads then we realised what we had been on they had fixed. The preferred methodology is the slightest smallest women bearing largest heaviest aluminium salad bowls full of rubble on heads. Hand filling pot holes, while just out of stagger range drums of tar were cauldron boiling modern witchcraft to tie it together, tipped like chocolate ice cream shells over the top. The red dirt base just ejected the offering making hokey pokey lumps to navigate around and threaten tyres, tail bones and time. Deceptive curb and channel with no road in between. Great wide expanse or a smooth surface invites a frenzy of manic overtaking until 50 m around a corner it all vanishes again into a mars scape and we were no rovers. NO military here then, not much of anything really, pristine in white; Muslim overseers direct the gangs who have no smile or wave for runners just a days hard labour to complete. A chai stop at the top of a hill met with Edwards "are you pharking serious" it was the cage of small unidentified birds for lunch at the door that we could not get him beyond so a road side picnic with a few wild dogs was preferred. The last 5 kms to Sula seemed to mock us with the blue dot taking us through places Google maps throws in just for laughs. Kids chased us back up alleys knowing we were doomed by dead ends and fords and that our Aotea Souvenir pen collection was deep enough and rich enough for every child in the village to score. Sunset was again upon us. Everyday racing the light, we headed for Beyond Resort, not surprisingly way way beyond Sula and screamed up to the door, security puzzled, abandoned ship for the first world and ran in to skull a bottle each as we laughed hysterical at how short our day had been. The only westerners with a bar tab big enough to cover every other guest in the place. We know we stand out like dog gonads as quiet voices, decorum and tasting are not the order of our day. We awoke on day 7 checking everyone for injuries, one of our party who shall remain nameless had fallen into bed with a full glass of shiraz courtesy of Sula the Sungod and the 400 thread count linen had taken the full brunt of it. Relieved that none of us have bled to death we haemorrhage money at check out, nothing like having to purchase your duvet to send the 5 star accommodation budget screaming past 6 stars. Keen to hop along to another vineyard, we felt in complete control of this run, so far behind the main pack who were already partying in Goa our strategy became milking every last moment of experience on the premis that in life no one gets out alive so we may as well be here for a good time if not a long time. Initation into India seemed complete, we were ready for a "repeat day" surely we must be out of new experiences sights and smells by now. We'd had the highways, the crap roads. The local dogy lodgings with sheets more stained than the luxury duvet we had just bought. We'd eaten roadside, street side and fireside. Our set up routine at the start of each day now a ritual. We had a gloat of a trouble shooting aura about us. The Bose had lost a three pin in the power board and #sugru had come to the rescue. The engineer had hard wired the plug straight into our power board and remounted the Bose on the front dash of the tuk so sounds were pumping. The air cooling system of engine door removal is working well and top speed down hill had been clocked at 60kms. We picked our morning bougainvillea offering to sweetie pie and the pinky bar and set off with bravado to tackle a teenie 135kms to Chateau Indage, cause that's how we roll. 5 km's in we realise the sweetie is in need of serious help, all along the road hordes of people wearing orange or carrying orange flower bedecked vessels with boom boxes blasting all are walking faster than our tuk will travel. We are limping along and pull up to the local auto taxi cab rank to ask help from the experts. After much frantic head wobbling and cries of mechanical! mechanical! from them not us we are escorted a few kms to more head wobbles and mechanical questions. Same guy, same one word answer I think he was so excited yet terrified that he had no idea if we really wanted and he didn't want to lead us a stray . His head was wobbling so fast it was adrenalin paced and we were all matching it and pushing our hindi translate app for all it was worth on words such as oil, and clutch and bearings as oblivious as he was as to what we really should do next. The orange wearers were growing, what I had thought was a funeral procession was changing surely into an industrial dispute - so many with banners and chanting and marching it had to be a call to action of sorts. This led us to the village of Shirdi, the place of pilgrimage for Sai Baba, he who taught no discrimination of any religion a path for darsharn for many if not all in India for us it was a mechanic that was to be our guru. We hit pay dirt but the man with the key was not there. 30 mins we were assured he would appear and fix our troubles. People were crowding, mobbing and more were arriving. We were given free water, chocolate, men were swooning , holding our hands, shaking our hands. babies were crying at our strange white faces . Out of the mass a beautiful princess appeared in a aquamarine sari, her English plum perfect she interprets and explains to the crowd what planet we have come from. She shares with us that some have never seen a European before, let alone touched one. And they all want to know how we got hold of our autos and why we have driven them on our pilgrimage to see Sai Baba. The penny drops, these have not been industrial hikois we have driven a chosen path. Half a million pilgrims on a holi day 25,000 when it's quiet. She is a teacher of English, though without the rupees required for her practising certificate she teaches in her home and in true British fashion she invites Heather and I to her house to take tea. We cross the street, the feminine crowd with us. Like a parting of the red sea the men stay with the autos but the female numbers swell to tidal. Every woman and her child in the village join us outside of her home. We are offered cups of water, as we deliberate whether to drink them a toddler at my knee sneezes full green directly into my face and cup taking away any doubt. Chai is served in the best china and question and answer time begins. We show I phone images of our children, while they ask us to take images of each of theirs. Fringes are brushed with fingers, mouths and noses are wiped on saris as each baby is presented for their image. We tell our ages, exchange our secrets, how long we have been married, how our child birth was and how homes in New Zealand are run. It is precious, each moment a jewel. The sisterhood and sharing the children and the caring. Heather and I are trying to inhale it as we did the dust yesterday. Aware of how very special this bridge across worlds is and how without initiation into the feminine of India you have not been welcomed at all. Our English teacher hostess asks if we would like to step inside and see photos of her brothers. We cross the threshold and slip into her cool parlour where she lives with two sisters and her mother. The proud glossy images of her brother in the police force, he's climbing ropes, holding big guns, buff, handsome, rose tinted cheeks in hand touched images. A portrait of her father hangs on the wall, her mother welcomes us to their spotless living room. This is a two room dwelling; one for living one for cooking. Her mother is my age her husband has been dead more than 10 years, she looks 70, we realise the burden she has carried for her 4 children is India's largest salad bowl. The other women cluster at the windows, staring in, the brave asking questions which are translated and answers hurled impatiently back by our host. The excitement of the family is palateable. A sister who is at work is rung to talk to us. Paper and pens are produced for addresses and future contacts. When our princess hostess feels enough is enough she abruptly pulls the curtains shutting out the other women and giggles and claims us for her self. After a while I return to the children, their faces and smiles making me miss mine I want to be with them and play. I head back to sweetie and a horde come with me. We put on music and have an auto rave. I have children beside me in front of me on top of me and next to me. Holding my hand, stroking my clothes or babies frowning and crying when I look their way. We are laughing together as only children can laugh. A little one Phoebes age and size with a pixie crop cut makes me homesick, I want to scoop her up and tickle her to hear her giggle again and again it is the same at age 6 in any language. A girl my Sophie's age dibs me Auntie, she is on the verge of puberty, about to loose the innocence of childhood. Already a baby on her hip and the voice of command with those younger, she senses freedom and asks if she can come with us, to help, to guide us South, to stay for ever in New Zealand. Older women offer me food, they chase away teen boys and tell the men who have gathered again on the fringe in no uncertain terms to move away and stay away. Heather has remained in the house they are applying henna to her hand, the marriage markings to stop all harm. They instruct us not to shake hands. the men they say have no good intention, they will not wash that hand and will put it to no good use! Every male I have held out my hand too flashes before me, I shudder. Heathers henna is glorious and once she wears this badge of honour stretching up the inside of her palm and inner arm, traditional and calming the men show us both more respect, and we keep our hands by our sides. If the third stage of learning is initiation, the introduction to the true content, where you get to know what it is that you are to learn then the land of Sai has been our initiation. We have begun our haji at last , the mechanical has been completed, the men have shown the guys their marriage hall as a badge of honour. We drive off with them certain we are off to see their Sai Baba, instead for us we are headed South still 100 or more kms to go until we find our Chateau. This day has touched our hearts, no repeat, just pure magic. We drive out of Shirdi knowing we have now found India. I cry more than once, the beauty swelling my heart. Thinking of the child who wanted to come South with me refusing to let go of my hand, the grandmother who had rushed across town as word spread of our presence bringing her boy to be photographed just before we left, and the drunken man who cried at our beauty and strangeness. Sai baba town - thank you... guru not required your people are the key to your eternal city.
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27/8/2021 06:13:14
Fashion is one of the world’s most important creative industries. It has provided economic thought with a canonical example in theorizing about consumption and conformity. Social thinkers have long treated fashion as a window upon social class and social change. Cultural theorists have focused on fashion to reflect on symbolic meaning and social ideals. Fashion has also been seen to embody representative characteristics of modernity, and even of culture itself.
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