Oct 16-18-Udaipur-Garba Festival
We took a taxi for the day to see some sites out and
around the city (udaipur). First we went to another
palace which was a princess's palace and they had
quite beautiful gardens there. It was pleasant
walking around, but again very hot. We got ourselves
all dressed up in traditional Maharani and Maharaja
dress and had pics taken for fun. They came out quite
nice.
From there, we went to what is called a craft
village. It is basically a place where you can see
traditional modes of dress, building, houses, music,
dance and crafts from all over rajastan, all in one
place. I am sorry my camera had ceased to function at
this point, since there were some very interesting
things I would have liked to photograph here, and
Shlomo thought they were not worth his film, but
whatever…
Our guide turned out to be actually a retired
University Professor from Delhi university who taught
sociology or something and he REALLY knew his stuff.
Knew a lot about comparative religion as well and I
found our discussions quite stimulating. He
explained, aside from the songs and dance of each
region, the types of houses that are built in the
villages and how the families live, the place of
women, education, religion. Quite fascinating. Should
have had a tape recorder with me.
The thing that was
the strangest however, was to here this highly
educated and cultured man proclaim that the men of
Gujarat are being done in by their wives, since they
must do things like helping in the house, even
cooking, and their wives can actually go out of the
home compound, i.e., they are not in “purdah”, meaning
they don’t spend their lives hidden away from the
world from the day they get married. The men there
“even” carry water!!!. He was very proud of the fact
that HIS wife lived in “purdah” and he did NOTHING in
the way of “women’s” work.
We saw the interesting way in which these 1 room huts
are built and maintained and how it is possible to
have in one round room a kitchen, bedrooms, living
room, and even clothes closets, walls decorated with mirrors….
it was basically too much to actually absorb and I think it would be
fascinating to be able to live for awhile in these various types of villages
and experience the lives of these people.
Their lives are so completely
different from anything we could ever imagine or comprehend, that no
matter of talking about it, or trying to imagine it could really suffice. You
would have to experience it to begin to understand it I imagine.
There was one thing that really disturbed me there.
There was a group of entertainers doing traditional
dancing from one area in Rajastan and in the group
were a woman, her daughter and her granddaughter.
Now the grandmother played some instrument, the
daughter danced and the granddaughter, a baby had to
simply fend for herself while they were “working”.
That was OK since they did include her and pay
attention to her, and were quite disturbed when she
cried for example when someone tried to take her
picture, but at some point, it was time for her to go
to sleep and they had this cute fabric strung cradle
for her to sleep in, but of course when they put her
in, she began to cry as all babies do when they are
supposed to be going to sleep and they don’t want too,
and they began to rock her, but when she continued to
cry, I had assumed she would be picked up and
breastfed…what happened was, the grandmother came over
and shoved a bottle in her mouth!!.. So much for
traditional living.
From there, we were going up to (another) palace but
basically to see the sunset. It was a very long day,
and I was exhausted already, but our driver insisted.
Going up there we drove through beautiful
neighborhoods of Udaipur. There are still many many
beautiful old homes here and the town is beautifully
kept. Public gardens, (which are less than what they
might be since they have a terrible shortage of water
the last couple of years as seen by the lakes all
drying up, much like our Kinneret) and it was actually
quite pleasant driving around, not like most other
cities I saw so far in India.
The palace was totally in ruin, overrun by monkeys and
fleas!!, but the sunset was actually quite impressive
over the mountains. So all in all it was a full day
and basically pleasant, but very very tiring.
Thursday (18th)
Yesterday, we finished arranging the car (to Jodhpur) and then went
to walk in the local market. Not the one along the
main streets aimed at tourists, but the market where
all local shopping is done; It is arranged according
to commodities, shoes, housewares, metal objects,
clothing, toys, etc., etc.
We bought some little nonsense stuff in local stores
and found that the local prices are ridiculously low
but there are still those who see a tourist and
instead of 10 rupees-say 50 rupees. So they got us
once but then we got some nice stuff at REAL local
prices (and even the 50 rupees they quoted is for
items which the going price on the tourist market is
250 rupees!!!)
Then we rested, had some coffee and cake, and ate
dinner before going down to the beginning of 9 days of festivities
for the leap year. (I found out later that it is in honor of Mataji, the
goddess of fertility, which is why the concentric circles are supposed
to be made of inner circle girls and outer men, and the name of the dance
is Garba and originally comes from Gujarat but is danced all over Rajastan now)
If I was alone here I would probably stay for one more nite.
The main street is cordoned off and then there is a
combination Simchat Torah-since just like the circles
on simchat torah, only one dance is danced for hours
on end, but the decorated street with lights and
streamers and the music blasting on huge speakers at
full volume is more like Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli
Independence day).
The dance is done with 2
concentric circles going in opposite directions, and
each dancer has 2 sticks made of sugar cane about 40
cm. In length and the dance is quite simple and the
people just go round and round and as they meet each
new person, there is a sequence of hitting the sticks
in a certain way, and all the hundreds of dancers
hitting in the exact same rythem. Manificent and what
music! I have bought a tape to take home of a
recording of this traditional dance.
We sat for 3
hours and just enjoyed and many tourists danced also
(looking very funny…no grace in their movements…the
Indians dance beautifully). But you have to dance
barefoot since it is a religious ceremonial dance in
origin and no way was I going to dance barefoot in
those streets (or any streets for that matter).
At the end of the 3-4 hours (from about 8 to midnite)
prizes are given in all different age groups for best
dancer.
Now this is very much like Israeli folkdancing in that
all ages dance together and enjoy together…and you
have all the same types…there are REALLY small
children, maybe 5 or so who really try but just always
follow one step behind just like the little kids who
come sometimes to folkdancing in Israel with their
parents when they are on vacation, but everyone humors
them and let’s them try. There are the young dancers
who are all dressed up (guys in regular western dress
but girls in beautiful traditional dress…although
there are several girls in jeans and tight shirts and
several guys still in traditional, colorful dress),
and as you can tell, they WANT to be noticed…the
“showoffs” who dance so everyone sees them and those
who add extra turns and arm movements to be just a
little bit better than what tradition calls for…and
then there is always that one guy who can’t dance to
save his life, who doesn’t know one step even after 2
hours of dancing the same thing over and over, who
really really looks funny in the circle, but who just
LOVES every minute of it and doesn’t stop his
ridiculous jumping to his own beat for a minute.
For 9 days of this festival, people eat only once a
day (like Ramadan) at 6 in the evening, but a big
feast each day including wine and whiskey and lots of
meat and then they go out in the streets to dance…in
the bit cities it has become very commercialized and
you have to pay to get into the dance places where
food and drink are also served but we will now be
seeing it hopefully all over Rajastan..(in the end we
never saw it again since we were always too tired to
go out late at nite after all the traveling we were
doing and all the forts and palaces we were seeing
during the day).
around the city (udaipur). First we went to another
palace which was a princess's palace and they had
quite beautiful gardens there. It was pleasant
walking around, but again very hot. We got ourselves
all dressed up in traditional Maharani and Maharaja
dress and had pics taken for fun. They came out quite
nice.
From there, we went to what is called a craft
village. It is basically a place where you can see
traditional modes of dress, building, houses, music,
dance and crafts from all over rajastan, all in one
place. I am sorry my camera had ceased to function at
this point, since there were some very interesting
things I would have liked to photograph here, and
Shlomo thought they were not worth his film, but
whatever…
Our guide turned out to be actually a retired
University Professor from Delhi university who taught
sociology or something and he REALLY knew his stuff.
Knew a lot about comparative religion as well and I
found our discussions quite stimulating. He
explained, aside from the songs and dance of each
region, the types of houses that are built in the
villages and how the families live, the place of
women, education, religion. Quite fascinating. Should
have had a tape recorder with me.
The thing that was
the strangest however, was to here this highly
educated and cultured man proclaim that the men of
Gujarat are being done in by their wives, since they
must do things like helping in the house, even
cooking, and their wives can actually go out of the
home compound, i.e., they are not in “purdah”, meaning
they don’t spend their lives hidden away from the
world from the day they get married. The men there
“even” carry water!!!. He was very proud of the fact
that HIS wife lived in “purdah” and he did NOTHING in
the way of “women’s” work.
We saw the interesting way in which these 1 room huts
are built and maintained and how it is possible to
have in one round room a kitchen, bedrooms, living
room, and even clothes closets, walls decorated with mirrors….
it was basically too much to actually absorb and I think it would be
fascinating to be able to live for awhile in these various types of villages
and experience the lives of these people.
Their lives are so completely
different from anything we could ever imagine or comprehend, that no
matter of talking about it, or trying to imagine it could really suffice. You
would have to experience it to begin to understand it I imagine.
There was one thing that really disturbed me there.
There was a group of entertainers doing traditional
dancing from one area in Rajastan and in the group
were a woman, her daughter and her granddaughter.
Now the grandmother played some instrument, the
daughter danced and the granddaughter, a baby had to
simply fend for herself while they were “working”.
That was OK since they did include her and pay
attention to her, and were quite disturbed when she
cried for example when someone tried to take her
picture, but at some point, it was time for her to go
to sleep and they had this cute fabric strung cradle
for her to sleep in, but of course when they put her
in, she began to cry as all babies do when they are
supposed to be going to sleep and they don’t want too,
and they began to rock her, but when she continued to
cry, I had assumed she would be picked up and
breastfed…what happened was, the grandmother came over
and shoved a bottle in her mouth!!.. So much for
traditional living.
From there, we were going up to (another) palace but
basically to see the sunset. It was a very long day,
and I was exhausted already, but our driver insisted.
Going up there we drove through beautiful
neighborhoods of Udaipur. There are still many many
beautiful old homes here and the town is beautifully
kept. Public gardens, (which are less than what they
might be since they have a terrible shortage of water
the last couple of years as seen by the lakes all
drying up, much like our Kinneret) and it was actually
quite pleasant driving around, not like most other
cities I saw so far in India.
The palace was totally in ruin, overrun by monkeys and
fleas!!, but the sunset was actually quite impressive
over the mountains. So all in all it was a full day
and basically pleasant, but very very tiring.
Thursday (18th)
Yesterday, we finished arranging the car (to Jodhpur) and then went
to walk in the local market. Not the one along the
main streets aimed at tourists, but the market where
all local shopping is done; It is arranged according
to commodities, shoes, housewares, metal objects,
clothing, toys, etc., etc.
We bought some little nonsense stuff in local stores
and found that the local prices are ridiculously low
but there are still those who see a tourist and
instead of 10 rupees-say 50 rupees. So they got us
once but then we got some nice stuff at REAL local
prices (and even the 50 rupees they quoted is for
items which the going price on the tourist market is
250 rupees!!!)
Then we rested, had some coffee and cake, and ate
dinner before going down to the beginning of 9 days of festivities
for the leap year. (I found out later that it is in honor of Mataji, the
goddess of fertility, which is why the concentric circles are supposed
to be made of inner circle girls and outer men, and the name of the dance
is Garba and originally comes from Gujarat but is danced all over Rajastan now)
If I was alone here I would probably stay for one more nite.
The main street is cordoned off and then there is a
combination Simchat Torah-since just like the circles
on simchat torah, only one dance is danced for hours
on end, but the decorated street with lights and
streamers and the music blasting on huge speakers at
full volume is more like Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli
Independence day).
The dance is done with 2
concentric circles going in opposite directions, and
each dancer has 2 sticks made of sugar cane about 40
cm. In length and the dance is quite simple and the
people just go round and round and as they meet each
new person, there is a sequence of hitting the sticks
in a certain way, and all the hundreds of dancers
hitting in the exact same rythem. Manificent and what
music! I have bought a tape to take home of a
recording of this traditional dance.
We sat for 3
hours and just enjoyed and many tourists danced also
(looking very funny…no grace in their movements…the
Indians dance beautifully). But you have to dance
barefoot since it is a religious ceremonial dance in
origin and no way was I going to dance barefoot in
those streets (or any streets for that matter).
At the end of the 3-4 hours (from about 8 to midnite)
prizes are given in all different age groups for best
dancer.
Now this is very much like Israeli folkdancing in that
all ages dance together and enjoy together…and you
have all the same types…there are REALLY small
children, maybe 5 or so who really try but just always
follow one step behind just like the little kids who
come sometimes to folkdancing in Israel with their
parents when they are on vacation, but everyone humors
them and let’s them try. There are the young dancers
who are all dressed up (guys in regular western dress
but girls in beautiful traditional dress…although
there are several girls in jeans and tight shirts and
several guys still in traditional, colorful dress),
and as you can tell, they WANT to be noticed…the
“showoffs” who dance so everyone sees them and those
who add extra turns and arm movements to be just a
little bit better than what tradition calls for…and
then there is always that one guy who can’t dance to
save his life, who doesn’t know one step even after 2
hours of dancing the same thing over and over, who
really really looks funny in the circle, but who just
LOVES every minute of it and doesn’t stop his
ridiculous jumping to his own beat for a minute.
For 9 days of this festival, people eat only once a
day (like Ramadan) at 6 in the evening, but a big
feast each day including wine and whiskey and lots of
meat and then they go out in the streets to dance…in
the bit cities it has become very commercialized and
you have to pay to get into the dance places where
food and drink are also served but we will now be
seeing it hopefully all over Rajastan..(in the end we
never saw it again since we were always too tired to
go out late at nite after all the traveling we were
doing and all the forts and palaces we were seeing
during the day).
posted by Jane @ 9:49 PM
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