The well of Abaneri - World Heritage site

Previous Jaipur trip post is here.

We drove a good two plus hours from Jaipur City to see Abhaneri (an old well in the city of Abha) which was built in 800 AD and is a world heritage site! This place is amazing! To think that they built something like this 1200 years ago and things were a lot better for that local population than it is now was disturbing. 

Here are a few pictures of this magnificent well in HDR

After seeing the well, we visited an ancient temple that was close to the well.

The main statue was long gone but in its place is a more recent version. 

Every statue in this temple wall had its face disfigured and broken off by Mughal invaders. I can understand the Muslim invaders not being happy with the religion of the local populace they invaded, but this was Art! Someone didn't teach them that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever!"

These were such intricate carvings and it made me mad to see that someone could so callously do this to great art. My FIL did his best to calm me down by saying "most of this stuff doesn't suvive the test of time. So you should be happy to see at least these remains! if not by invaders, it is natural causes or erosion. there are so many burried places or civilizations that have come and gone.." etc. etc. 

Went around the entire thing trying to find one intact statue, but the folks who were responsible for the damage were very thorough! There was one piece on display outside the well.

Later remembered the piece at the Albert hall museum that had an almost intact face. There were a few pieces, that survived the onslaught!

A large goat was following me everywhere and even posed for me! It was so weird. Maybe it was someone I knew in a previous birth.. or at least that is what I was thinking while wandering through the place. 

We came out of the temple and were greeted by a bunch of vegetable vendors. The veggies there were sooo fresh. Felt like buying some home to cook. 

It was very pleasant outside, when we visited this place. That made the trip thoroughly enjoyable. Later that evening, it turned into clammy weather that was unbearable for a few hours. That still did not stop us from seeing a few sites..

Will post that tomorrow night.

If you visit Jaipur, this place is a bit out of the way, but is a must see!

Albert Hall Museum in Jaipur

The previous post on the Jaipur trip is linked here!

On the last day and a half we managed to see many more places.

We visited Albert hall, which was touted as the local museum. It was a gloomy looking place with not enough lighting, but it did have a lot of interesting pieces in it ranging from 800 AD to the early 1900's, from all over the world. Things that were originally collected by Kings and later curated by "Abert"! 

Going through a museum that is not air conditioned, is dark and dingy on a hot summer day, is not a good idea. The kids refused to move past the first two rooms and sat down on the floor to strike! They said "we will pass on this one appa! please see what you want, and pick us up from this room!"

Here are a few things that I thought were either interesting or unique to this museum.. 

The kids stayed put in that room with the mummy while my FIL and me wandered on..Tons of laquerware, other utensils and decorative vases that occupied a few rooms. If you are into Vases, this might be your place to visit!

Then there were the statues from the late 700's to 1300's. If you are into anything "Tantric"... this might also be the place for you to visit!

This door jamb thingy in the picture below the sign was massive and intricate. Would have loved to see the entire temple though.

I put two and two together after seeing this panel and visiting Abaneri later on. Could not comprehend what the size of the real structures have to be till the next day..

These statues with gold plating were tiny but exquisite. If you have all the money at your disposal, you can patronize such arts!

Talk of beheadings! I could not get the full story from this miniature figurine but the godess seems to be very happy to have slain the buffallo which apparently is symbolic of the bufallo demon king. Good thing the kids stayed in the room with the mummies. I would have had to explain a lot of things without any "konaar notes"!

Finally, there was a display of musical instruments from 1700-1800 and this thing was called a Guitar! Thought that was funny. The guitar surely evolved in the last few hundred years.

The biggest draw though, was the pigeons outside. Thousands of them! We watched a man feed them and a kid chase them around every 2 minutes. Took a slow-motion video of this on the iPhone 5S and had lost the slo-mo effect. Thanks to some edits on iMovie have gotten it to look close to the original.. 

 We went on to see the Abaneri wells. That has to be a post in itself! 

Designated bag

On our recent India trip, there were 14 people in a Tempo traveller! Needless to say, there was a lot of eating, sneezing, wiping hands, cleaning up spilled water, juice etc. going on.

Jr. drank a juice in a carton shortly after the Van trip started and asked grandma 

"Paati, where is the designated garbage bag?"

My mom understood what she wanted, because when we go on road trips in the US, we used to take a plastic bag and hang it on one of the hooks in the van. It would be our "designated garbage bag" till it got full and we would dump it at the rest area or at the fast food joint garbage containers where we stopped for a break. 

Sometimes, on the long weekend trips, one can see a pile of such "designated garbage bags" outside of the large garbage bin in the fast food places at Coalinga, given that everyone is trying to get their cars and vans smelling okay again as they get back on the freeway. 

Getting back on topic... my mom replied "there is no bag here. Use this small plastic cover". So that cover held for all of 30 minutes before it was full. 

When it was clear that there was not going to be a rest stop soon, Jr. got a recommendation to simply throw the bag outside the window on the side of the road, on top of an existing pile of garbage we were passing. She was not a happy camper because she thought all that effort went to waste. 

Recently Indian social media is abuzz with the "clean India" campaign and every alternate FB post on my timeline is about some politician, movie star or cricket player, showing how they are contributing to the campaign. Some just talk, some actually clean. Then there are the posts that say "we are like that only!" and just like any other issue which has folks torn on all sides, there are posts about "how Indians will never change", "why this is yet another fad and this too shall pass", "why this time it is going to be different" etc. etc.

One thing that did catch my eye, was a bunch of articles on why this attempt won't work because the concept of garbage bins and their regular clean up was not possible, given the poor security for the bins themselves.  

"A garbage bin needs security?" is what I asked myself! Why would anyone steal a garbage container? I have seen folks steal shopping carts here in the US but never garbage containers.

Wanted to find out what was so appealing about the garbage containers in India that was worth stealing and the answer was "they are made of metal" and "they are very large" and as irony would have it, "they have great recycle value"! Maybe the solution is to make them with the right material that has less resale value?! was the next thought...

The latest news feed items suggest that the campaign is trickling down, as are the posts about the campaign. Somehow this is not going like the ALS challenge as one looks at it from the other side of the world through social media. 

On a side note, we now have no plastic bags in Cupertino. I am wandering around the local Target, Trader Jo's, Safeway grocery stores etc. with a big cloth bag that says "Hari Agencies", Mylapore! 

Talk is that SFO is going to ban bottled water soon, as the plastic bottles pose a cleaning problem. 

We live in interesting times. . . Cupertino is forcing folks towards reusable cloth bags and stores in India are using plastic bags for everything from Mutka Dahi to Malli poo! Just 20 years ago, the opposite was true. I was amazed at how many plastic bags we used to come home with after a trip to the grocery store in the US and how we used the same Venkateshwara Coffee bag for grocery shopping for years at home. Even remember talking to my mom about this ten years ago. 

The times, they are a changing?!