I was very curious to see the pornographic sculpture set in stone described as the Kama Sutra temples, and so I took a train out of Agra to the transit junction of Jhansi in order to catch a bus to Khajuraho. On the way from the train station to the bus station in Jhansi there were several 'travel agents' jumping from one tut-tut to another trying to convince the riders to take a shared taxi for the 5 hour ride to Khajuraho. One agent ran from my ride to a neighboring while they were moving and that's how I met Hsieh Mung-Jen, a Taiwanese woman traveling alone throughout Europe, India, and Southeast Asia... she peeked her head out from within the confines of the canopy and asked if I was going to take the share taxi. We both ended up deciding to take the bus, which turned out just fine, and hung out together in Khajuraho and then met up again in Varanasi.
Also on the bus to Khajuraho I met a marajuana-smoking non/anti-Hindi 25-year-old 'philosopher' slacker who has a 103 year-old guru named Baba. Well, actually all of Baba's desciples are named Baba. The guy I met called himself Baba and his friend who I later met was also named Baba and was the same type as this guy. Even the manager of my hotel knew who these guys were and warned me against being too friendly with them. With that in mind I kept my dinner arrangement with Baba and Baba. I followed them down some tiny pitch black ally and then across a deserted dark field to have dinner at some "local" restaurant. Actually, the night turned out fine but I was definitely on guard the whole time, ready to fight or flight. I made it home safely but I blew off the guy the next day. I told him maybe I would call him but I didn't. I was trying to be polite/unoffending by saying maybe, but when I ran into him later the next night in the street he made some comment about how saying maybe was like being a baby and why not just come out and say what you really mean. Hmm... not a bad thought really. Why not just say that? Obviously I'm still struggling with not worrying about offending people and trying to be/say what I think.
Khajuraho was relatively quiet and peaceful. It's a small town and the temples are mostly in a well kept park area. Actually, despite some beautiful carvings, I found them disappointing in terms of the eroticism. Ok, ok, I may have had really high pornographic expectations, and there were a few good ones, but it wasn't ALL over the temples like I expected. You really had to find them. Jen and I toured the temples together and we kept pointing and giggling. Probably not all that appropriate, but we also saw some Indians doing the same... trying to figure out how some postures were possible.
2 comments:
Tell us (if you have time to think about it) - when you visit these places, do you get any feeling for what they meant to the people who made them - any feeling for what their lives were like - or is it all swallowed up in the melting pot muddle of "modern" India? I haven't seen much of India at all, but the short time I was there the present seemed always, well, present. It's just such a sensory and emotional overload, so over-determined somehow, that I couldn't get any real feeling at all for those earlier lives, however much I read about them - but maybe at some of the sites you've visited you did? It's strange because in Egypt I felt as though the past was the actual reality and the present was somehow shadowy - but not in India. I just wasn't there long enough, I think - or may be not with the right mindset ...
who is jen?
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