RAJASTHANI women gather around a stall that exchanges damaged money.

POLINA OLSEN

Portlander enjoys paradoxes of India

Security tight after attack in Mumbai

By POLINA OLSEN

article created on: 2009-03-15T00:00:00

From her tour bus she saw trucks, cars, motorcycles, scooters, oxen and camel-driven carts. Elephants with painted faces lumbered past bicycle rickshaws, motorized rickshaws and sacred cows.

Portlander Leatrice Kaplan enjoyed her trip to India despite initial reservation. She left on Dec. 10, only two weeks after terrorists stormed Mumbai killing 179 people including Chabad emissaries Rivka and Gavriel Holtzberg.

“When Mumbai came up, I seriously considered not going,” Kaplan said. “We got a letter saying security was tighter—but security was unreal. It reminded me of going to Israel.”

Kaplan found armed police at every turn starting with body searches at the airport. Armed guards patrolled hotels.

“Buses went through but if a private car came they used mirrors underneath,” she said. “When you got to the hotel door, you were wanded and your bags were inspected.”

Inside, her Overseas Adventure Travel tour group often had the place to themselves with national hotel occupancy down 80 percent, according to her guide.

The group also found restaurants deserted, but that didn’t stop them from enjoying the delicious vegetarian food.

“I loved the Indian food and I had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Kaplan said. “That was one of the delights of the trip.”

As for sights, she found the Taj Mahal entrancing and gained insight into another culture in Varanasi.

According to Gina Douglas, author of “Rivers of the World,” Hindus believe that if they die in Varanasi they will free their souls of sin and end the cycle of reincarnation. Thousands of dying pilgrims flock to Varanasi. They want their cremation along the Ganges burning ghats and their ashes thrown into the river.

“We did witness a ceremony—it was at night and it was lit up,” Kaplan said. “We watched this from a boat, from the water. And, I saw the people dunking themselves. The women went in fully clothed. It’s not my religion, and it has no spiritual meaning but to see a different religion being upheld—that was meaningful.”

In Jaipur, also called the Pink City, her tour guide said, “The current population makes the desert bloom.”

Kaplan immediately thought of Israel’s success with irrigation although the guide was referring to displays of dried red chili peppers and women’s brilliantly colored saris.

In Jaipur, Kaplan enjoyed visiting the Jantar Mantar, an astronomical observatory built by Maharaja Jai Singh II.

“What’s important in astrology is not the day you were born but the hour you were born,” she said. “Indians still have arranged marriages, and they want to make sure the horoscopes fit. This was built in the 18th century, and it tells the correct time to the second.”

Six of the 16 people registered for Kaplan’s tour canceled; two weeks later the next OAT tour group reported full participation. And, even as Kaplan’s tour concluded, the destroyed Mumbai hotels began reopening. Kaplan was glad she ignored her initial apprehension.

“[India] is a country of contradictions and paradoxes,” she said. “You have large cities but they aren’t urban, and dirt roads all over. The traffic moves by horns—the backs of the trunks say HORN PLEASE. Even the cows don’t move unless you blast the horn. Either you wait for the cows to cross or the cows wait for you to cross.”

This story made possible by a grant from the Judith and Edwin Cohen Foundation.