Jaipur || Neerja Modi School

Quite a bit has happened since my last post about India.  I went from having no job, to three, from homeless to an Uptown girl, got published online on National Geographic.com, and many happenings in-between (Homecoming, Thanksgiving, Gleeful Mexican Tuesdays, etc.).

So where did I leave off…

Jaipur & the Neerja Modi School Experience:

Three months ago I would have never imagined that I would be wishing to go back to Jaipur, or even India for that matter.  It was dirty; here is what was right outside of the school’s walls:

How the heck do I miss it?!  But now, I realize that it might just be the bout of food poisoning and the food-borne illnesses I contracted for the last couple of weeks that made me dislike the country… or at least it’s sanitary problems.

What I have caught myself missing is the constant hustle and bustle of India.  Flagging down a rickshaw and bartering your ride to the city center down to a dollar.  Trying to understand just what they mean when they do the ‘head bob’ – yes? no? what?!  I miss the food – palak paneer, naan, dal marahni, aaloo dum.  And I miss the students, but not so much the teaching…

The Neerja Modi School (NMS) was a great school, filled to the brim with students motivated to learn.  Albeit, learn math and science.  Not so much the arts, which is what I was assigned to teach.  Having graduated from schools that pride themselves in the arts, it was sad to see what I believe to be a great foundation to many disciplines, brushed to the side as it was at NMS.

I was supposed to have full control of how my 11^th grade art class would be taught.  That was not the case as soon as my first assignment was issued: write a paragraph about your favorite piece of art, using both subjective and objective reasoning.  My fellow art teachers told me there should be no writing involved in art and immediately took control of the reigns – apparently I am not cut out to be a teacher.

So what was supposed to be an exciting experiment to bring art to a higher standard at Neerja Modi, actually turned into me giving feedback to student work.  I did get a little leeway when it came to the students wanting to learn how to use photoshop, the only problem was that they had one computer to share between 10 students.  I brought my Macbook to class only to realize that everything I was teaching them wasn’t relevant to the their software, circa 1997.

Apart from the teaching, NMS was fun.  We played games and sports with the students,

shared insights on our respective cultures ( – the school was very strict and the students were not allowed to have much in their possessions, and not allowed to have candy… they had to sneak in this birthday cake…),

and I got to teach one pretty smart 7 year old how to use my camera, when it wasn’t monsooning:

Which seemed to be most of the time.  =)

More to come now that I’m finally getting into a schedule!  Up next will be Ms. Molly (aminnesotalife.wordpress.com) and Tanya’s visit to Jaipur, pictures from around Jaipur and the Pink City, the markets and our 3 day adventure to Jaisalmer.

 

 

Inside the Amber Fort

Welcome to the Amber Fort’s ‘Hall of Mirrors.’

Every doorway had a new area to explore.  A new sight to see.  A different style of design: carvings, paintings, stonework, stained glass and more mirrors.

Of course, what fun would a fort be if you couldn’t climb it?  Note – I’m pretty sure this wasn’t allowed:

There were also some more legit viewing areas though, too!

And don’t forget about the snake charmers!  Little known fact: the snakes don’t actually move to the sound of the music, but the charmer’s sway of his instrument.

There are about a thousand pictures I took of the Amber Fort, but I’m afraid I’d bore you.  So I’ll leave you with this final image encompassing all that is great about Indian transportation; rickshaws, tour buses, motorcycles, cars, pedestrians and elephants.

Jaipur || Amber Fort

With my hours with the group dwindling down before the group dumped us at the Neerja Modi School, we headed up to the Amber Fort, just outside of Jaipur.

I love this Fort.  And will show my love for it in pictures.

This post is really just about my secret love for painted elephants…

I promise no more elephants, since it was only a 20 minute journey up to the fort.  We undocked and climbed the stairs to the entrance of the first open courtyard.

This fort was massive and very well preserved.  No other fort has retained the original details the way that the Amber Fort has.  More to come on the Amber Fort, the rest of my stay in Jaipur, a weekend trip to Jaisalmer to ride camels in the desert, and my return to the Minny (including my first ever engagement photo session with Abby + David)!  Stay tuned!

Agra, Part ‘do’ (2)

After our great tour of the Agra Fort the day before, we woke up bright and early (6:30 a.m.) to beat the crowds to one of the world’s most recognizable monuments: The Taj Mahal.

Again, India likes grandeur.  Everything is massive.  Including the Taj complex.  So many people only pay attention to just the Taj Mahal and disregard the rest of the complex, which is equally as beautiful.  You first enter a large, walled courtyard with just a glimpse of the monument showing .

As soon as you turn down the central lane, you get this view:

Had we gotten there any earlier, this had the potential to be a pretty cool picture (thanks for ruining it, Patrick =).  And finally, you reach the inner courtyard and proceed to take thousands of pictures of the same thing in a variety of ways, enjoy:

Interesting tidbit: the four towers lean slightly outward to adjust for the imperfections of the human eye to make everything appear completely symmetrical.

Jumping pictures are always appropriate.  And close-ups of all the details; I love, love, love Islamic calligraphy – so beautiful!  And the religion is as fascinating as it is misunderstood by the West – if you ever get a chance to take a course in Islam (esp. at CSB/SJU with Armajani), I highly recommend it!

Some people in our group didn’t even wander into the other buildings surrounding the Taj.  They missed out on some incredible Indo-Islamic design in the right-side mosque:

When you are on the actual white granite part of the Taj Mahal, you leave your shoes at the staircase; when it has rained, it is extremely slipper!

A big congratulations goes out to Gar and Kolleen Kellom, who welcomed into the world two twin grandchildren while we were at the Taj.  Gar – “someday I’ll bring them to the Taj and tell them, ‘while you were being born, I was sitting right here”:

After the few hours (to little in my opinion..), we took off for our final destination in the tour of the Golden Triangle and drop off point for Patrick, Ryan and myself, the desert city of Jaipur.  It was a long drive, made longer by traffic jams on the highway, backed up for hours…

Agra, Part ‘Ek’ (1)

The biggest challenge to writing a blog post about Agra and the Taj Mahal is deciding which pictures are the pièces de résistance, the Porterhouse cut of my collection, the best possible few to represent the thousand others.  It is an intimidating task when so many people (grandma, mom, possibly a sister or two) are counting on living vicariously through those images, as if they were there with me.

Agra was a quick 23 hour stop.  We came, we saw, we ‘awed’.  We started our journey in the late afternoon from Delhi, with a involuntary tea brake along the way (our driver asked us if we wanted to stop, we declined, but this is India folks: you never turn down an opportunitiy for tea. Never.).  Before going to our hotel, we stopped at the famous Agra Fort.  If it wasn’t for the elephants at the Amber Fort (next post), I’d say this was my favorite fort…

… it was a massive complex.  Since I have to run, here is a sneak peak at Agra: Part ‘do’ (2)… =)

We don’t dilly-dally in Delhi

Drinking water out of a faucet.  Eating an uncooked vegetable.  Toilet paper.  High speed internet.  Clean air.  Western toilets a *clean bathroom.  Heck, a clean anything.

* Western toilets were available in some locations, but most were missing the seat – temporarily, indefinite ‘squatters’ that you prayed you kept your balance over – same with the actual squatters – just downright gross.

These are just a few of thousands of things I realized I am so grateful for upon arriving back in Minnesota, things I did not really appreciate until, say, I went into a bathroom not fearing for my life.  So with Labor day weekend on the horizon, I would like to thank all American workers for your social and economic achievements, for things that are so often taken for granted on a daily basis.

One such thing is antibacterial hand sanitizers.  I wish that whoever made my food a few weeks ago in India had a bottle, then I wouldn’t have to be taking 9 antibacterial meds a day.   Our trekking guide in Nepal explained it best when he held up his left hand and counted his fingers off with “p-a-p-e-r.”  If you care, I’m feeling much better.

Along with feeling better, how about I start posting my adventures from India, eh?

Along time ago (July 2010), in a far away land (India), there was a group of cultured Johnnies and Bennies (www.csbsju.edu) who were winding up the last leg of their journey through South Asia.  They said their goodbyes to all the wonderful people they had befriended in Kathmandu, Nepal, and landed in a completely new city:

Delhi

In the initial planning stages of our trip, we were going to spend more time as a group in India than just 4 days.  Since we received the grant to do research in Nepal, our time was cut very short in India, which left us with an evening and a day in Delhi, one day in Agra, one day in Jaipur.

We saw only a fraction of Delhi, but it didn’t disappoint.  First up, the Qutb Minar.  Built in 1193, it is the world’s tallest brick minaret.  After climbing so many types of towers in Europe, I was severely disappointed when I was told I couldn’t climb this one.

The lack of entrance to the top was made up for in the beautiful details of the complex’s Indo-Islamic architecture.

The Qutb complex is also home to a scientific wonder, the Iron Pillar.  Dating back to 300 C.E., this pillar has withstood erosion and weathering for 1600 years.

The Islamic complex was built upon an ancient place of worship for a number of Indian dieties; sadly, the temples were destroyed and the building materials were used to build the Qutb Minar.

We then visited the Jama Masjid, the most prominent mosque in Old Delhi.  We were all dressed inappropriately for the visit and had to don colorful sheets.

The Jama mosque had relatively simple decor compared to the only other mosque I’ve been to, the Mosque of Muhammad Ali in Cairo.  It was only a quick visit, and then we were off to the great Red Fort.  It’s hard to describe anything about this fort, mainly because I have a two minute listening span when it comes to tour guides; I’d much rather go explore the places, take pictures at my own pace and read the signs if I happen to come across something interesting.  Here I am taking a picture of the start of our group tour (right-hand side), I believe they stood there for 10 minutes as I went people watching in the area before heading through the gates. =)

Good thing I learned all about Indian art and architecture in an Eastern Art History course back in my art major days and reread my notes before traveling to these places.  The Red Fort, along with the Jama Mosque, were built by the same Mughal Emperor who created the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan, in the 16th century.  Luckily, we did most of our touring in the early morning and there were hardly any crowds.

I should specify that I was referring to crowds of women.  Megan, Jess, Liz and I went straight through since all across India there are separate security queues for men and women.  The guys had to wait in line (see: above).

There are many different areas to the fort, each with it’s own style and purpose.  Again, I was too interested in getting up close and personal with the intricate details of the buildings than baking in the Indian summer sun with the tour guide.  The building above had beautiful granite work with inlaid stonework.  Amazing craftsmanship, which we saw repeated in our next destination:  Agra and the Taj Mahal.

Patience, my friends =)

Now I know I said that I would post about Delhi next, but lets be honest – Delhi isn’t that much fun to read about.  And neither is the Taj Mahal, Amber Fort or anything else I’ve seen without pictures.  So I have decided that I am just going to wait until next weekend when I have wi-fi, high speed internet and a whole freezer filled with my favorite cookies (little hint for you mom)!

Here is what my last week here in India looks like: Jaisalmer until Tuesday, back at the Neerja Modi School until Friday and then I catch a flight from Jaipur to Delhi that evening, fly out of Delhi in the middle of the night and land in London (for I believe 5 hrs… Erin – possibly go for breakfast if you’re not out traveling Europe? =) and then I’ll be State-side by mid-afternoon!  =)