A temple, a step-well, and a sitar-player: a stereotypical Indian weekend?

Monday 14^th April 2014

Despite my best efforts at procrastination, I submitted my interim report this morning. Also, I wrote an article about India's new middle class. Last week was, again, relatively routine, with most of my time spent either in the office, or in the café near my house. I did, however, have a couple of evening ice cream excursions, which were of course excellent. My latest favourite flavour: fig.

    I spent Saturday finishing up the report, and later on met up with a friend and his latest Couchsurfers, a charming couple from Iceland. Somehow, the subject of Eurovision came up (apparently it’s pretty big in Iceland), and so we spent the evening watching videos of past entries, laughing and reminiscing. It was great to be able to indulge in a lengthy discussion about one of my favourite things, that I rarely get to talk about, and in India of all places…rather surreal.

    Sundays are apparently becoming my local tourist days. Originally, a visit to Sarkhej Roza had been planned for this week, but upon discovering that there was to be a collective wedding of 254 couples there, we decided to postpone for the time being. Instead, we went to Hutheesingh Jain Temple and Dada Hari ni Vav (another step-well). Located just north of the old city, Hutheesingh (or Hatheesingh, Hathi Singh, Hutheesing, etc.) Temple was built in 1848 of white marble and is dedicated to Dharmanath - the 15th Jain Tirthankar (a sort of teacher/apostle). Like most Jain temples, it is richly decorated with intricate carvings. The main edifice is beautiful from almost every angle (I managed to take a few sneaky snaps, although photography was prohibited), and glowed marvellously in the balmy early evening sun.

Hutheesingh Temple.

    Dada Hari ni Vav is a step-well, similar in design and function to the one in Adalaj, but a couple of storeys deeper, slightly more narrow, and with less decoration. It was completely devoid of visitors apart from several bats, and us, giving it a rather eerie atmosphere – very different from the cheerful calm of Adalaj.

    Although it's a Muslim structure, the craftsmen were Hindu, and their influence can be seen in the sumptuous carvings. All levels of the step-well were accessible, including its two magnificent shafts, one octagonal, galleried, and connected by (very dark and quite scary-looking) spiral staircases, and the other circular with daintily carved rings of decoration.

    Constructed in the late fifteenth century by Bai Harir Sultani, locally known as Dada Hari, the step-well is another of Gujarat’s finest. Sadly, its relatively hard-to-find location and lack of visitors mean that it receives little attention in the way of conservation and care, evident in the graffiti on its columns and the poor state of many of the carvings. If you 

want to learn more about this step-well, don't rely on its Wikipedia page, which is littered with errors (due to the fact that most of the information looks like it is simply copied from Adalaj Vav's page).  

    We had dinner at a vegan restaurant, The Philosophy Club, which serves a fantastic soy spaghetti Bolognese. I’d been missing pasta, so it was a real taste of home. Our meal was accompanied by music from Sukumar, a local sitar player, who turned out to not only be an excellent musician, but also a former professor of economics, journalist, and all-round fascinatingly wise man.

Music at The Philosophy Club.

    A few recent observations:
1. I’ve noticed that at least once a day, someone will ask me how I’m coping with the spicy food and the heat. Whilst I appreciate their concern, I can’t help but wonder what sort of reaction I’d get if I were to approach an Indian in northern Europe and ask them how they’re coping with the bland food and miserable weather.

2. “What’s up?” appears to be a very popular (or at least frequently used) greeting here. Maybe it’s just me being a bit stupid, but I never know how to respond. I usually just end up mumbling something incomprehensible in order to move the conversation along.

3. Auto rickshaw drivers will be shocked when you give them directions, and probably won’t believe you and stop to ask anyway. This morning my driver actually congratulated me on knowing the way to my office.
4. I could work in a call centre: I've been offered jobs by two people so far. 

    One final thought, on skin-lightening. Ok, this is nothing new, and most of you reading this have probably heard at least something about this trend in India (amongst other places). It's made international news, been the subject of plenty of debate, and has been playing on my mind for a while. So why mention it now? I've suddenly noticed huge billboards across the city advertising a product for this purpose. The advertisement features a woman's face divided in half, the left side dark ('Before') and the right side pale ('After'). It never fails to send a shiver down my spine. 
    When I asked someone about their opinion about this trend, they told me about how pale skin is beautiful, being dark is ugly, and that it's just like westerners wanting to be tanned. Yes, some people take the desire for that sun-kissed glow a little far, spending too much time sunbathing on holiday, using tanning beds to excess, or plastering themselves in superfluous amounts of carrot-coloured fake tan, but we (generally) don't consider pale people to be 'ugly'. You'll find plenty of people of all shades in western media. If and when I see an Indian hoarding featuring someone with dark skin I'll happily eat my words. Until then, I remain at odds with this truly unpleasant trend. 

    Next up on my itinerary: Easter weekend in Diu.