OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2015
What is the
name of
this movie
we’re in?
T
he Mumbai Airport has the
longest baggage carrel I’ve seen.
Cowboys rope calves in a shorter
distance at rodeos.
Positioned in the
midst of Europe, the
Middle East, Russia
and the Paci¿c Rim,
the airport is bustling
in the middle of the
night. 2n our ¿rst
descent into Mumbai,
Steve
we could not see the
Forrester
slums that border its
runway. The sharp
juxtaposition of prosperity, world
commerce and poverty is a common
sight in India.
Armed soldiers with M16s were
positioned through the vast terminal.
Our small taxi stopped at the gate of our
airport hotel while sentries put mirrors
underneath the vehicle to check for
bombs. Certain Indian hotels are special
targets, said our son-in-law, because of
their American guests.
I
f you have seen movies such as
Monsoon Wedding or Slumdog
Millionaire you are familiar with the
Bollywood genre. After a few days in
India, you realize why it is such fertile
cinematic material. The nation’s vast
panoply of people is photogenic and
magnetic.
+aving Àown across 1 time zones,
we dressed for a party for our daughter
and son-in-law to which our hosts,
Noordin and Zarine Rana, had invited
150 friends, business associates and
school friends of their son. I was pretty
plain in a gray sports coat next to my
wife, who was wearing a sari loaned
by Zarine Rana. At a beauty salon a
Brenda Penner for The Daily Astorian
The Palace of the Winds contained spaces where women of the maharajah’s retinue could view festivals through latticework, without
being seen.
dresser had draped her in the sari, which
involved strategic placement of safety
pins.
Waiting for our transport to the party,
I realized my body clock was Àoating
somewhere over the Atlantic. Looking
at my wife in a sari, I asked my cousin’s
husband, “I’m wondering: What is the
name of this movie we’re in?”
cricket bat. It was much heavier than
a baseball bat. When the salesman
offered to show me other models, I was
flattered.
O
ur travels in India formed a
scalene triangle, with Jaipur and
Agra in the north, Goa at the south
point and Nagpur in the east.
After two days in Nagpur, the Ranas
ndia presents life on a
took us in three vehicles to
grand scale. One sees a One sees
the Pench nature preserve,
Hindu temple adjacent to
a national park. My son and
a mosque and a Buddhist a Hindu
son-in-law brieÀy observed
temple. Unlike America temple
two juvenile tigers chasing
where farm animals are
a wild boar. We saw a
adjacent
to
far away from urban
prehistoric looking creature
sensibilities, cows, goats, a mosque
called a nilgai, the largest
oxen and even camels and a
Asian antelope, known
are in the midst of urban
colloquially as a blue bull.
Buddhist
neighborhoods and traffic.
By a waterhole we watched
Walking down alleys temple.
a colony of monkeys noisily
behind our Nagpur hotel,
drop from a grove of trees as
my son and I watched a pick-up cricket they coexisted with spotted deer with
game in a park with players using huge antlers.
a tennis ball. The young men were
That night prior to dinner, our two
amused at the Americans watching families enjoyed a humorous discussion
them through the fence.
of the difference between driving
In other places we would see men in India and America. Traf¿c lanes
playing cricket on deep green lawns, are frequently occupied by bicycles,
wearing whites. I counted four cricket motor scooters carrying two to four
channels on Indian television. In a Goa passengers, auto rickshaws, trucks,
sporting good store, I asked to hold a cattle and people. Navigating this traf¿c
I
involves lots of honking. Everyone
miraculously passes without injury. As
Zarine Rana drove the wrong way up
a one-way street she told my wife that
India is all about breaking rules.
L
eaving the Ranas, we flew to
Delhi and motored to Agra to see
You-Know-What.
Speechless is what I was following
my ¿rst glimpse of the Taj Mahal. It
is a much larger compound than I had
realized. Our guide warned us about
all of the freelance hustlers we would
encounter between the parking lot and
the park’s entrance. If the Taj Mahal is
a gem of architecture, the city of Agra
which surrounds it presents a very rough
and ugly outer skin.
O
ur most exotic adventure was
seeing Jaipur, the heart of the
Rajasthan era. We saw the walled
city with the multiturreted Amber
Fort, which housed the maharajah, his
family including 1 wives and 100
concubines, his retinue and his army.
The visitor rides atop an elephant up a
steep path and through the gates into
the palace’s parade ground. It is an
architectural marvel of tiles, mosaics
and arcades of arches.
Within the walls of the Pink City
we saw the Jantar Mantar observatory
that was built in 1 and resembles
a collection of bizarre sculptures that
serve as sun dials giving the time of day,
or day of the year.
The most fantastical sight is the
Palace of the Winds — a seven-
story structure that only holds spaces
where women of the maharajah’s
domain could watch festivals through
latticework, remaining unobserved.
They reached this palace through a
tunnel from the main palace.
A
n American may travel in India
relatively inexpensively. A boon
to our travel was an Indian travel agent
— a boyhood chum of our son-in-law –
who worked through various logistical
arrangements. In Astoria, Roxanne
Fick of Sundial Travel helped my wife
arrange transcontinental air travel.
Security at Indian airports was heavy
and redundant. We would typically
show our passports three or four times
before boarding.
On one in-country Àight, there were
two other Americans. They were from
Portland. The man said to me he had
been to India in the 1990s. “It got into
my blood,” he said. I understand what
he meant.
Brenda Penner for The Daily Astorian
Elephants carry visitors up a steep path to the Amber Fort, where the maharajah lived with his family, retainers, wives and concubines.
T HE
D AILY A STORIAN
Founded in 1873
— S.A.F.
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher • LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
• CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
• DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
SAMANTHA MCLAREN, Circulation Manager