Off the Well-Worn Tourist Trail for a Day

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." -Thoreau (props to Dad for the inspirational quote)

Enter through the Sanganeri Gate. Resist the urge to walk straight along the main road toward the Hawa Mahal and the touristy shops. Take an immediate right. Lose yourself for a moment in the unexpected and out-of-place crowd surging into a bazaar on a Sunday. Remember yourself again when you catch a number of locals staring, calling out "Hello! How are you?" Notice only locals' faces around you and deduce that videshis must not frequent this market. Look left and right. See everyday wares--the plastic buckets, bangles in clear cellophane wrappers, piles of men's button downs, packages of steel wool, striped underwear bound with rubber bands--instead of the usual Rajasthani themed souvenirs. Lose yourself again in the crowd...

In case you haven't picked up on this little detail yet, I like finding pockets of India (well, just Rajasthan for now) in which tourists haven't yet left their mark. It's in these places that I get the most stares, but it lets me feel less like a tourist and more like a traveler. I know I'm only here for two months, but unlike the majority of tourists, I am here with the sole purpose of learning the language and culture, which is difficult to do when I'm just another face in a flock of 35 Americans being shown the polished, upper class side of Jaipur. 

Today I set off for the Old City with one of my friends, Sara, and we found ourselves in the unpolished bazaars and side streets of Jaipur. It was wonderful, exhilarating, and actually a little nerve-wracking at times. We encountered so many characters:

A man wearing all purple who, to be sure we saw him, jumped in front of us with his hands out on either side of his head like moose antlers and said something along the lines of "Ah!"...A boy selling bangles who didn't know to give us the foreigner price (100 rupees, everything everywhere is 100 rupees if you are a foreigner), but instead gave us the Indian price without any bargaining on our part. Can you even imagine?!...A man who stopped us to ask us in accented English where we were from. Sara promptly replied, "Germany," to get him to leave us alone, and he immediately switched to a similarly accented German...Another man who came up to ask if Sara played basketball (bahut lambee! he says)...And of course, the hordes of kids that look up at us wide-eyed and wave or smile bashfully, tugging at their mothers' sarees...

It's tricky to negotiate how to respond to the characters we meet. So many people look, call out, somehow try to get our attention all the time. I could never respond to everyone, and it's often wise to not respond to certain people. But I spent the first few weeks shutting myself down to the people around me because that is what I was told to do. Today, as I have been in the practice of doing lately, I let myself be open. And it felt very good to actually meet eyes, hear the blend of Hindi and English, return the smiles of little children...

To my delight, Sara and I decided we had managed to find the Muslim section of the city. We kept passing men selling the hats Muslim men wear on the crowns of their heads and books in both Hindi and Urdu with Islamic themes. We stumbled upon three of the most beautiful masjids I've ever seen. I was under the impression that masjids in the city were few and far between...and mostly disguised. But that was just not the case at all. I had my touristy moment for the day and stopped to take a picture.

Here in Jaipur, instead of the lone minaret that towers above all surrounding buildings that I saw on each mosque in Morocco, the masjids have two rounded towers framing the building. I think I could lose myself studying the architecture of all the different religious buildings here. Whether Muslim, Hindu, Jain, or Sikh, people do not mess around when designing the intricacies of their houses of worship. 

Anyway, Sara and I did some shopping but mostly explored until we both reached our limit of heat, sweat, and crowds for the day. We actually used Hindi. Well, she successfully used her Hindi and I attempted...my accent is still not very good. And I feel like I saw the most honest picture of the culture here yet. I am going to make a point of getting out of my CLS and Raja Park bubbles because this new picture of Jaipur is much more the life I have imagined than the one on which I currently reside.