Yesterday was Salar Jung, Charminar, and Rajasthan day.
First stop, the Salar Jung museum.
Since I had no idea (and still have no idea) who the Salar Jung line was, I'm unsure of what they were lords of. Whatever the case, they were obviously extravagantly rich, and had a fondness for exotic furniture and art.
This was, essentialy, a museum. First we went through areas showing portraits of the various rulers of the line, and some treasured artifacts pertaining to each one, including an incredibly detailed (and slightly short) four-poster bed, with intricate wood carvings all over it.
Moving on, we saw exhibits of numerous statues and decoratively carved chairs (I have no idea how comfortable sitting in them would be... Having an exquisitely detailed monkey carrying a coconut pressing into your back doesn't seem too cushy to me) and tables, as well as several tea sets.
There was a weaponry exhibit as well, showcasing destructive implements from all over India (as well as a few from Europe and Persia) with strangely short hilts, as well as some laughably small shields.
This was my element, of course, and I became a sort of tour guide, pointing our and explaining the various weapon types and what their functions were. They had a few katars (including an assassin's weapon, which imitates a wild tiger attack with four curved claws) and bladed wristshields, a few arquebuses from the later eras (sporting the ridiculously long barrels common to inaccurate firearms), and even some early revolvers and close-range pistols. The real purpose of such firearms still bemuses me, as having a bullet less than half the width of a pencil shot at you by someone who basically has to shove the barrel into the skin in order for it to hit anything seems a little less effective than a good knife. Speaking of which, they had several good knives in one of the other windows.
Still, seeing a pistol with a bayonet is quite entertaining.
Later, we moved into the eastern block. No, not Slavic countries, the China and Japan exhibits.
I think whoever was filing this stuff got a bit mixed up, as there was a japanese miniature tower in the China exhibit, and an african fertility woodcarving in the Japan exhibit, which sported the obligatory male (very male) figure performing autofellatio.
Still, we got to see a few interesting items, including a few statues of what the Chinese apparently thought should be called "dogs", even though they looked more like giant mutant frogs with lion manes, skin problems, bulging eyes, large fangs, and brain damage.
Then, on to the western block, where everything got boring. French exhibit first in line, with the obligatory Napoleon-devoted pieces, including a table showing him and all his generals.
Elsewhere in the exhibit we had some more very French items. They're the kind of things which are tasteless, but look like they're supposed to be artistic. This allows any French person to ask you if you like the item, and have both answers screwed. If you say you like it, it's a hideous infected scar on the name of france. If you don't like it, you are scoffed at for lacking the inherent artistic affinity to truly absord the item for its staggeringly amazing mastery of design. Something only the French are proven, by the likes of you, to have.
And then we moved on to the European paintings gallery, which had all the posturing, mournful gazing, and people attempting to cover their entire bodies with one transparent bedsheet common in the works of classical artists. At least there were a couple paintings of naked women. As well as a replica of the Mona Lisa, in the original size.
Moving on to pottery exhibits, european-inspired sculpture exhibits, and a clock exhibit. That's all that comes to mind right now.
And so we exited the museum, passed the stray dog that had changed the position he was sleeping in only slightly since we entered, and got back into the chauffered truck to head on to the real attraction for the day;
CHARMINAR
Charminar was a giant place of worship built by someone with an unpronouncable name to commemorate god answering his pleas and curing a plague. He built it as a place of spiritual enlightenment for all worshipers of all faiths, such as Hindus and Muslims.
It was later turned into a liquor and opium storage facility by imperial british forces.
Charminar, like a few other popular spots in India, is "good from far, but far from good". The central building in that picture is charminar, and it really is kinda small.
But, the workmanship still looked nice, and we found that the main area was upstairs, so we started to climb the staircase. One of four staircases, two of which were blocked off, one of which was devoted to downwards traffic.
You'd better not have claustrophobia if you intend to see the top of Charminar. Climbing up several flight's worth of stairs in a circular ctairway, with headroom ranging anywhere from six and a half to five feet, and the individual stair height matching the odd fluctuation, with people (in the standard Indian fashion) standing on the step directly below the one you're standing on and wondering why you're not moving, even though you've got your face pressed into the back of the person in front of you (or the backside, if you're particularly unlucky with wildly changing stair height).
Once we got to the top, it was actually quite nice. There was a cool breeze that negated the strong heat, and the views were very extensive. Even if you could only see a row of shops extending into the distance, like some weird vanishing point line drawn entirely using bangles merchants.
There was a beehive that was apparently built on the side of the building, as a massive swarm of bees was buzzing around angrily outside one of the windows. We, of course, had to take a picture. Screw India, we're taking pictures of bees.
So, we wandered around, looking out of the various archways, wondering if anyone had fallen over the two-foot-high wall around the walking area, and looking out at the "100% Pure Buffalo Milk!" billboard, which sported the highly unintended Engrish version of "cow". This was not a novelty drink, this was a mistranslation. In letters much taller than the protective barricade that was supposed to keep us safe from falling out.
We, of course, ended up as photo opportunities again, as people either outright asked us to join them in a group photo, or simply took out their cameras and took pictures of us. We took pictures of the ones taking pictures of us, just to even the score a little bit.
Once we left Charminar (after going down the staircase, bent almost double to prevent banging my head into the ceiling), we headed off to do some glorious shopping. Whee, shopping.
On the way, a beggarwoman came up and started her routine on me. I had been entrusted with carrying some cash (because I happened to have pockets), so I reached in and grabbed a coin (didn't look at it to see if it was a 1, 2, or 5 rupee piece), and handed it to her.
Standard begger reaction: Takes the coin, whatever it might be, and then starts to sing your praises, bowing enthusiastically.
This woman's reaction: Looks at the coin in her hand for a moment, and then grabs at my arm again! Bloody ungrateful...
I ignored her for a bit, and she eventually got distracted by something else. We started off towards the shops, when a kid came over and said hi to us. He asked where we were from, and then from which part of the U.S. we were from. Apparently, he knew California, but not Nevada. So, we ended up being from California.
He then asked, of all things, if we spoke Spanish. Something incomprehensible was mumbled as a reply to him, but it was recieved as a positive. He then greeted us and asked how we were doing in quite passable Spanish.
He also spoke some French, a bit of German, and an actually understandable level of English. Quite impressive, to say the least.
At some point, the beggarwoman appeared and started asking my dad for money. So, he gave her a coin. She complained about that, too! And she was really, really persistent, too. She followed us around, constantly repeating "ten rupees, ten rupees, that's all I need for *<unintelligible>*, just ten rupees...", and then another one came up and started saying exactly the same thing.
Now, they both could've been asking other people for fresh money in that time, but they insisted on following us around, asking for just that little bit extra.
We finally managed to shake them off after popping into one of the innumerable bangle stores (they really are lined up. I have no idea how they can manage to pack so many in with the inevitable competition of having them so close together). The kid (who now had his little brother (possibly) beside him), was still following us around, asking us questions from time to time, but mainly just being entertained by looking at us.
The remainder of this thrilling expedition was essentially my mom having a heyday, stopping at every damned cloth store on the street, and us menfolk trailing behind and waiting outside so we can look at the interesting people. My back hurt, my feet were sore, and the mystery of how women gain strength from shopping was still obscured to me. The kids still followed us around, occasionally making comments or asking questions. For instance, they asked if they could have one of my hairs. I obliged.
At one point, I was utterly befuddled as the older kid came up beside me, pointed at me, and then said "faggy".
I'm walking along, trying to figure out how the hell this fits in, and he points again and repeats himself. "Faggy".
I see that he's pointing at my shirt, and I look down to find out on earth he's talking about. He points again, repeats again, and finally I get it.
I'm wearing a shirt a couple of my relatives picked up after/during a vacation, and decided to give to me. It's a green shirt, with a flaming Ying-Yang symbol on it that has the name of the tropical island nation they went to for their vacation underneath it.
Fiji.
Now how's that for a language barrier?
After a few attempts at correcting him, I think he's got the pronounciation down alright. Although it's a slim chance another westerner wearing a shirt that says "Fiji" will come walking through his area, I figured it would probably be best if he didn't call any more westerners 'homosexuals' than he intended to. His brother offered up the Telugu name for Fiji, which I have completely and utterly forgotten.
We continue onwards, stopping and shopping, until it starts to get dark. As we're leaving, we feel it would be nice to give these guys something, since they could have been hawking their necklaces in the time they spent following us around, and they were even trying to sell us some.
However, they won't take the rupees offered to them as tourguide fees, and insist on selling us some of their wares. Since we don't actually need/want anything they have, we decide to just buy something so they get their money. And then they inform us of the prices.
These lads will go far in the business. Very far indeed.
Not only were they able to tell us with straight faces that a single stone (plastic) neckalace costed five hundred rupees, they were very hard bargainers and were exceptionally quick on their feet to come up with various stories that either enhanced the value of the trinkets, or explained away why they were lowering their prices (even lowering them below what they said they were getting them for, as was the effect of a slight math-related brain fart).
This charade continued all the way back towards the central area (containing Charminar), where we were to hop back into the truck and drive to dinner, them passing off their ridiculously exorbitant prices as excellent deals, and my dad haggling with them and pointing out their slight pricing inconsistencies (such as, one of them giving the price for two necklaces as 250 rupees. However, the other one didn't hear this, and promptly offered the price for two necklaces as 400 rupees).
We eventually paid them the still-ridiculous fee of two hundred rupees for a pack of bangles, which they grudgingly accepted. These guys were really, really good. We figured the entertainment garnered from these two scamps was worth the five bucks we paid for the necklaces, which were probably bought for a few fractions of a penny.
They disappeared for a few moments, and then started showing their things to my mom. My dad, amused by this turn of events, told them that they said they'd leave us alone if he bought something from him.
They replied that he had indeed purchased some things from them, and so they were leaving him alone. She, on the other hand, was a new customer who hadn't bought anything!
We told them to clear off, and the grinning imps obliged. Kids these days, I tell ya...
It was only later that we found out that they don't actually get the money. They're hired by one distributor who gives them the goods to sell, and then pays them twenty rupees a day, regardless of how well they did in selling the things. I hope that they played another act for the distributor, and got to keep some of the money we had paid them for their antics.
And then, on to dinner.
We had been told that we would be having the food they eat in the desert-dominated province of Rajasthan. Camel dung was the only thing that came to mind.
Turns out, it wasn't a restaurant, it was a theme park. Mini-Rajasthan. There was a guy in front of the entrance who popped a kumkum (head dot) on each of us, and then we bought tickets in order to enter the delightful kingdom of Mini-Rajasthan. At least the meal was included.
So we start wading through an endless tide of schoolchildren who are in the process of leaving the park, and head on in. We come across a drummer sitting on the table upon which his drums are placed, and take it as a photo opportunity. My dad sits on the table, is handed the sticks, has the drummer's turban placed upon his head (the automatic response of any employee of Mini-Rajasthan), and then strikes his best "I'm an insane psycopath, warn your children about me" look. A couple pictures are taken, and the drummer gets his headcloth back.
First we head over to a little sandy area (for a desert-themed park, there's a surprisingly small amount of sand) and sit down on the magnificently comfortable concrete-made-to-look-like-wood benches, which were first designed by chiropractors in order to judge how messed up a person's spine can be before finally crippling them.
It was here that a few employees clambered up onto the roofs of a few concrete huts, and picked up their assigned prop. One guy got a rifle, the next guy got a stick, third one got a stick and an empty beer bottle.
Apparently, there was to be a demonstration of a very popular Indian movie, as performed by a few actors (and one actress). The players moved onto their stage (sand), and the soundtrack started to play.
The actors were just supposed to go through the motions, and maybe try to lip-synch to the soundtrack of the movie when they got some free time. So, we got to see a guy dressed in a military outfit doing his best brooding-and-important look and pacing back and forth in front of the woman, who looked utterly out of place in traditionally colorful clothes.
We watched things a little half-heartedly, partly because we don't speak the language the film was in, but also because Indian films are... Well... A genre unto themselves, shall we say. "Feature-length soaps" comes pretty close.
But then, things got interesting.
Electronics are not known for their stability here, and audio players are not exception. At some point during the performance, the sound hitched, stuttered, and finally went dead. Some of the actors stopped where they were, waiting to resume the flow, some stared up at the building that hosted the soundtrack, and some just stretched their legs a bit.
After a short while, the sound came back on again, and the actors moved back to where they had left off. But then the sound cut off again. Then it stuttered a bit more, tried to give a coherent stretch of sound, and then failed again, stopping completely.
This called for drastic measures, and so someone was sent to clean the damn thing. Well, you obviously can't get the floor wet, so somebody opened up a window, leaned out, and started to clean some object with a damp rag. Then he dropped it.
First there was the clattering of metal on concrete as the guy dropped it onto the secondary roof below him, and then there was the almost cartoonish way he looked down to see what had just happened, peering over the edge with a look of utter disbelief. He then nonchalantly popped back in and walked off to do something else. This was actually getting to be entertaining.
So, someone either found a replacement, or they picked the thing up from the ground below (or it was never related to the audio set at all, and he was just cleaning a cup, which is what it sounded like. All the cups here are made of stainless steel) because the guy was soon back at the window, cleaning something else. Soon after, the soundtrack continued, and the actors tried to carry on their show with a shred of dignity.
Which wasn't easy when the cowboy popped up above a far-off wall and shot down one of the guards sitting on a hut roof, for no apparent reason. He didn't shoot anybody else, and nobody seemed particularly fazed by the event. Not even the shot guard, who simply put down the gun he'd been holding and continued to sit on the roof.
Well, at least it was entertaining, if only unintentionally.
After this, food. We were ready for it. So, we set off towards our restaurant.
The place was set up to resemble a desert tent, with cushion strips for seating and small stool-like tables set up in rings. This was, of course, a concrete tent, but we didn't really care. So long as they had food and water (we had been given "welcome drinks" near the entrance, which were absolutely loaded with salt and also brought to mind the camel dung jokingly mentioned before).
First, a waiter came around with our plates, three bowls and a spoon on each. Then someone else came by, and gave us a handful each of three different dry thingies. I tried one type, and it was incredibly salty. I tried the second type, and it was incredibly salty. I tried the third type, and it was incredibly salty and dry.
Okay, I thought, this is weird food to have in a desert. You'd think they'd focus on a little less thirst-inducing stuff, considering the lack of water deserts generally have.
And then a guy came by to fill the three bowls with different types of... Things. I'm not entirely sure what to call them, but they were curry/dal/chutney/sauce things. Okay, things are starting to look a bit more familiar. I still haven't gotten a drink of water yet, but that's coming.
Then another waiter comes by, sniffling slightly, and scoops up a portion of what he simply refers to as "sweet". It's something that could be mistaken for rice if you're looking for rice, but upon closer inspection seems a bit more like some really large-grained sand. I tried some. It was dry and sweet.
So far, we've covered all the thirst-causing food types. Salty, dry, and sweet. I still haven't gotten any water yet.
Throughout the rest of the meal (thankfully, my water glass was filled soon after the sweetsand), we would try to figure out what (and how) to eat, when someone would come by and slap something more on top of the rest of the food. There was soon so much food on each individual plate, that a single plate could have covered lunch and dinner for the three of us, if not breakfast as well. And we each got one.
Everything was either A) Salty, B) Sweet, C) Dry, or D) pickled. At least now the water-waiter was coming by regularly, and far faster than a cup could be drained. I found myself guzzling water, and realized that this would prevent even more food on my laden plate from being eaten and so I gave up and decided that I might as well have a small taste of everything on my plate, even if I couldn't finish any of it. That's accomplishing something, at least.
So, between the chapathi-roti, the dal, the curry, the chutney, the pickled dishes, the sweetsand, the sweet patty, the sweet lump of something covered in curd (dessert, served along with everything else), the glass of buttermilk (ecch. At least I tried it), the salty-spicy soup served in its own bowl, the dry lumps they kept putting into my dal, the lentil-based green stew/paste they slapped in the middle of my plate, and then flavored with spoonfulls of ghee and sugar (ain't kidding. Little green mountain got covered in snow), I was defeated. I could hold no more. That didn't stop them trying to put more stuff on my plate, though. After we were through eating, photo-op time.
We asked one of the waiters to take our picture. We were supplied with obligatory turbans by the waiters, and then had our picture taken. Unfortunately, the kumkum (which had salt crystals put in it. Salt in the food, salt in the drink, salt on our foreheads. You cannot escape the salt) looked like a giant zit, which didn't exactly help out my own "I'm mentally unstable" smile, although it did draw some attention away from it.
All in all, it wasn't that great. The part of the meal I liked most was the water.
So we went back outside, put our shoes back on (had to take 'em off for the restaurant), and wandered off. There was a little dance area right outside the restaurant with a couple guys, one playing the drum and one singing (sometimes). We sat down in a grassy area nearby, on one of the cots laid out as benches (actually very comfortable), and watched.
After a time, the music picked up, and the singing guy got up and went over to a few of the cot-benches around the dance floor, and tried to get some people to join him on the dance floor. His hand then exerted a mysterious power over the people sitting on the benches, as he was able to push them back and away from him without even coming close to touching them. Then I realized they just didn't want to make fools out of themselves by getting up and dancing along feebly to the wild and impossible-to-copy movements of the professional dancer. Apparently, we did.
Now, by "we", I do not mean either my mother or Pradeep. I mean my father (who will do anything of the sort at any opportunity, as parents are known to do), and me. Why I do this, I am unsure. I think it is mainly because putting up with an audience watching me try and pass off stumbling and losing my balance as just an impromptu dance move is less of a pain than putting up with my parents commenting on my not getting up there and dancing, later on.
Whatever the case, I managed to miss every move the guy was shwoing us how to do, stumble a bit on just about every movement that involved a turn of some sort, and have some pictures taken by my eternally-sweet and caring mother while I was at it, thus preserving yet another happy memory for years to come.
Excuse me my ramblings.
Anyways, a word of advice: Never ever ever dance wildly after just consuming several glasses of water, a few sips of buttermilk and some spoonfulls of sour curd. Uck. I was burping for the rest of the night.
Then we went on to see some traditional dancing (thankfully, not performed by us). A young woman came out (how the hell these dancers manage to keep a roll of fat on their belly, I'll never know), and did her routine to the music, spinning and gyrating in the intricate dance.
Well, this didn't last as long as one might have expected. The soundset this was playing on was apparently the little brother of the one used in the performance earlier, and it soon conked out completely. The woman stopped, looked around, and then went backstage to see what was happening. End of dance one.
Once they got the system working again, she was sent back out to do the second dance. Dance two was set to a slightly more "hip" beat, and the woman reflected this by moving her hips suggestively. She even lip-synched (somewhat) to the music, and followed along with the obviously sex-related (aren't they all?) song with all the thrusts and gyrations required. Most of this ended up being directed towards four or five guys who wre seated to the right of us, who would whistle from time to time like the occasional flashes of.. absolutely nothing... were driving them wild. One guy even got signalled down by the girl, who danced at the edge of the stage with him for a bit, before he took out a bill, swung it around her head a few times, and then gave it to her. By putting it in her hand, of course. I mean, how else would you give a dancer money?
So, after that, the rest of the dance was directed solely at that part of the audience. Not so much as a glance at the other patrons.
After that was over, we headed over to see some other dancing-ish commotion, whereupon my dad got pulled into yet another public display, this time banging sticks together as part of the dance. Took him a few tries, but he eventually got the pattern the guy who pulled him in was doing. You see, you can't just smack your own sticks to the beat. No, that would be too easy. You've got to hit someone else's sticks as well, which is slightly more difficult since you can't always tell where they're going to swing that stick, or which stick it's going to be.
When the guy came back, he tried to get someone else to join in. Both my mother and I begged out, referencing our stomachs which were full of food (and mine, which had already gotten quite jostled earlier). He decided to start prodding my stomach to test the validity of this statement, and derided us for making up silly excuses for not dancing.
As we made our way back out of the park (it was now fully dark outside, and had been so for some time), we passed by a hookah lounge, and the one hookah had a coal in it that smelled overpoweringly like strawberry ice cream. We also saw some kids being paraded around on the back of a camel farther off. Now that actually looked halfways interesting, and we didn't have anything to do with it. Oh well. So ends our day at Mini-Rajasthan.
Today we find that a small black goat has been tied up to the fence down below the apartment building by the watchman's family (the purpose of this goat is most likely food-related, but we don't really know), and it has been bleating incessantly for most of the morning. Still though, goats are cool.
We also got an interesting image as toes proceeded across one of our windows. Aparently, something on one of the apartment windows needed to be repainted, so the painter was working off a rope tied to the roof. Still, very strange to be sitting at the table and see a foot suddenly appear on the outside of the window, considering the things are so dirty we can't usually see a foot beyond the glass (ha ha).
And, that's pretty much it. I've spent most of the time spent awake and not eating writing this, and I think the goat's still alive, even though it stopped bleating a while back. G'day, all.