TRAVELS OF THE HEART

In keeping with our theme of tributes, two readers have offered their reminiscenses of returning home to India. We hope you enjoy Doreen Jonas's fond recollections DOWN MEMORY LANE and John Brush's GOING HOME TO INDIA, a pilgrimage of sorts to find his boyhood "home."

Down Memory Lane
by Doreen Jonas

If I were a poet, I might do justice in describing what a truly beautiful country India is; the country that evokes so many fond memories and which, like a Mother with outstretched arms, welcomes me back with old familiar sights, sounds and smells till I feel I'm returning HOME. Here, as youngsters, we felt not a care in the world, and we thought our parents too, had no problems. It mattered little if a purse was empty, when our hearts were overflowing with warmth and love engendered by Mother India.

It had been 16 years, since we last returned, so there was much to see and do. Our daughter suggested we should join the Intrepid Golden Triangle Tour, taking in Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra. I highly recommend this well organised tour, as one gets to feel part of a small family which did things together and cared for the safety, needs and comfort of its members.

We visited many palaces, forts and temples, but the truly outstanding experience was our visit to the Taj Mahal. The marble construction was cold to the touch, but as I entered I felt a sublime peace, an almost spiritual experience. My only gripe is that as overseas tourists we paid an entrance fee of Rs 750 compared with Rs 20 for indigenous visitors. This high imbalance applied also to other tourist spots.

Now, if you are a first time visitor to India, a whisper in your ear: "Ignore all street vendors." If you show the SLIGHTEST recognition they will pester you everywhere, day and night. And if you can close one nostril, see from half opened eyes, and shut one ear - you will enhance your holiday. Don't forget to drink only Bisleri bottled water, though they say this is just purified Ganges water...(smile)

At Chennai (or Madras) we went to Fort St. George and the Museum, a MUST for all Anglo-Indians. Here, for many of us, our ancestors first came to India [associated with] the East India Company or the British Army. Madras is where I lived, worked, married, and gave birth to our first child, Charmaine. This time round...it was where I put on "excess baggage" eating like a starving peasant - Oh, for that tender coconut again!!

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In Hyderabad we went to the "Sight & Sound Show" at the Golconda Fort. It was brilliant and eerie at the same time. If you want pearls, this is the place to shop; and another tip - members of the Defense Forces get a discount of 50%! We took a peek at the Nizams jewels...Fabulous emeralds, rubies and diamonds, and superb craftsmanship! If I should decide to settle again in India, Hyderabad would be my choice. I just loved the open spaces and greenery, but also the fine buildings. They say it will be the next "Singapore."

Bangalore was enchanting and the weather just right. We mainly did our shopping here and visited Lal Bagh and Cubbon Park. At the Railway Station we stood for over an hour to make a booking, only to find it was the wrong queue; apparently a head shake from side to side might mean "Yes" or "No."

Would love to say more but time and space do not permit. Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our holiday in dear old India, even though some things did not please. But just as one would never criticize Mother, we kept silent and paid our respects.

INDIA, to me you will always be my "other" home.

Readers may email Doreen at:
dinkum_dj@yahoo.com

• Adventurers interested in the "Golden Triangle Tour" for intimate groups of 12 travellers maximum: http://www.intrepidtravel.com
• Looking for Taj Mahal Greeting Cards or Bookmarks? Visit our secure on-line store for our selection.
• The East India Company has been romanticized through marketing to Indiaphiles. One of our readers submitted a brief, revealing article on its powerful, ruthless policies and political influence during the era of the British Raj.
• Diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies afire in exquisite gold settings...do the Nizams jewels' sumptuous finery & astonishing craftsmanship fire your imagination? 173 rare works of the jewelers' art fabricated in the 18th through the early 20th century. You may wish to indulge in a lavish book devoted to the subject.
• Curious about Bangalore - the Garden City's famous Lal Bagh gardens and Cubbon Park? See this article on Bangalore's garden heritage with photos.

Next are excerpts from two letters written by my sweet Uncle John describing his personal pilgrimage to revisit his boyhood home in India. John discusses his observations after almost three decades away, his experiences, and the feelings he had to integrate as he formed a new relationship with this amazing country.

Going Home to India - 1966
by John E. Brush

I landed in New Delhi early on a cold morning in January 1966, returning to India after 28 years. Travel from America half way around the earth by airliner had been an abrupt change, complicated by jet-lag. Memories of growing up as a child of missionaries in India mixed with new impressions. India was now much different than it had been when I had left at age 18.

Independence, partition of Pakistan, riots and Gandhi's assassination had followed withdrawal of the British Raj. India had become a "new" country, promoting indigenous interests and pursuing its own policies.

I wanted to go back to the house and city [where I had been raised] from the age of four--Kharagpur in Bengal. Over the course of the next month I learned that while I could not 'go home,' as I remembered it, I could find myself 'at home' in India.

* * *

Return to Kharagpur, West Bengal

2/14/66:
I went to bed early last night with one of my sick headaches and feeling discouraged about my project as well as my health. I had developed some bowel looseness in the last day or two of my stay in Calcutta and I'm hoping that the medicine from [the New Jersey doctor] will bring it under control. The Roadarmels [a missionary couple I had known 30 years earlier; now my hosts]...have been very nice to me and their house is an oasis of quiet and cleanliness after Calcutta.

The Union Church in Kharagpur

My trip here...began with a jeep ride from Calcutta across [the Hooghly River Bridge] to Howrah Station and a three-hour [train] ride in 1st class to Kharagpur. It was slower than I remember express trains in the 30's...Kharagpur is more congested with people, bicycles and cycle-rickshaws and the maintenance of housing, gardens, etc. seems poorer than it was...The Union Church building [where my father ministered 1923-1946 to Anglo-Indians] is definitely in a run down condition and the Parsonage [is] too. Of course it is always sad to see things remembered brightly to be less perfect in reality. The [Anglo-Indian] pastor and his wife teach in the elementary school which is conducted on the ground floor [of the Parsonage]. They live upstairs....I went to the evening service at the church....There were a few people who remembered my folks, but most are a new generation of strangers...The experience raised a lump in my throat because I couldn't help seeing my father in the pulpit and old friends in the choir and in the pews. I think this weekend is enough of looking back for me.

* * *

Visit to Gaya, Bihar State

2/24/66:
I seem to have passed the first crisis in my travels in India. My health is much improved [since the last letter]...The Sandoz-brand tablets, a wide-spectrum intestinal antiseptic, have been effective...I concentrate my diet on toast, soup, boiled eggs, chicken and rice and eliminate roughage and spices...You see I'm trying to act intelligently and not be panicked!

When I arrived in Gaya I was entirely on my own. For the first time I had no one's name and address, Indian or American, to contact and get advice...I found I could eat in the [railway] station restaurant without having to take spices...[and]...I was able to reserve one of the 'retiring rooms' and sleep in a fairly clean bed, although the location was noisy, being right above the platforms where numerous trains were stopping all through the night.

...I saw the Vishnu Temple, which enshrines a 'foot print' of the god on the slope of a granite hill...The adjacent urban area is full of other temples and pilgrim rest houses where 200,000 - 300,000 Hindus come each fall for the big Vishnu festival...[The city] streets are crooked and narrow, just right for pedestrians, oxcarts and rickshaws, but sometimes hardly passable for an automobile...Despite the noise, smells and crowds of people in the bazars, I found myself enjoying the experience and of necessity my Hindi came more easily. I think Gaya marks the turning point in my readjustment to India again.

Bodh Gaya Temple in the evening.

The best experience was the long cycle-rickshaw ride to Bodh Gaya seven miles through pleasant countyside with green fields of grain, palms and mango trees sheltering the road and numerous small villages. My rickshaw man cheerfully ran the vehicle at a speed between 5 and 7 mph, telling me about various points of interest. He even passed up most of the pony-drawn tongas [two-wheeled carriages]...I reached the sacred Buddhist shrine about one and a half hours before sunset [this is the place where Gautama, the Buddha, meditated about 2500 years ago.]...and had time for photography and sight-seeing...[with] a government-paid guide whose services are free. He could tell me a good deal not in my guide book and understand most of my questions. Such a happy change from Delhi where everything is so commercial!...[There] are Tibetan pilgrims circumambulating the temple built some 1400 years ago by Hindu kings [because the Buddha is also considered the last reincarnation of Vishnu.] The Indian government controls the building and its surroundings and undertook restoration of the [platform] railing of carved stone, some of which is at least 2,000 years old. Outside to the rear of the temple is the sacred Bo Tree...said to be the fourth successive one sprouted from the original Bo under which Gautama sat when he achieved Enlightenment. The Hindu priests, who had possession of the precincts ...were dispossessed, which I think was a good move, because one can appreciate the beauty and serenity of the place.

* * *
I realized after my visit to Bodh Gaya that I had experienced my own kind of "enlightenment" there. Kharagpur was no longer "home" but in a larger sense India now became home. Thereafter, during the next five months work on the project I had undertaken went well. My health improved as intestinal microbes were brought under control. I relished many varieties of Indian cuisine. I saw more of the Indian subcontinent than ever before and made hundreds of contacts with officials and scholars. English is widely spoken and used in government administration and business, so language was no problem as I moved across different parts of the country.

In India, people are very sensitive to expressions of one's eyes and body language and they respond accordingly. Communication is aided by patience and natural relaxed manner. I learned the protocol of interviews with government officials, who held court like minor rajas, giving hearings in the presence of an audience of as many as five or more supplicants, waiting in turn to be heard. Sometimes the officials went to great lengths to satisfy my requests for maps and census data. As a consequence, I was able to collect information needed to study the process of growth in more than 20 cities, large and small, and to analyze the patterns of population change and urban development through several decades under varied historical circumstances. Contacts with Indian town planners, geographers and social scientists were fruitful.

During the next 15 years I made three more professional trips to India--each time with good results.

©Copyright 2003, John Brush

Readers may email John at: jebrush@k2nesoft.com

• You may also read more about Bodh Gaya's sacredness and significance to Buddhist pilgrims from around the world.
  http://www.sacredsites.com/1st30/buddhist.html
  
• To learn more about Bihar State we've got some interesting site recommendations.
  http://www.india-tourism.net/Bihar.htm

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